Jasmine Star (00:00:01) - It's. Welcome back to the Jasmine Star Show. I have to start this particular episode by telling you that I have been thinking about a phrase I heard a lot of the time when I started my business. And it goes something like People buy from people, not products or companies. And this is very similar to what Simon Sinek says. People don't buy what you sell. They buy why you sell it. And then if we add another layer to it, you know, we've come to realize that on social media that people follow other people or people join other people. They don't join products or companies we buy, follow, join people. But I think what often gets left out is how how do we become a person that people actually want to follow or join or buy from? And I truly believe that the answer to this question is relationship building. And here's the not so glamorous news building relationships take time, but I think we can make it a really enjoyable experience. So today I am sharing with you four building blocks to creating more meaningful relationships as an entrepreneur.

Jasmine Star (00:01:24) - Now, remember, I know that you have relationships with your very close friends or families or communities that you're building into. All of that is great, but if we want to build strategic relationships for a business, we need to ask ourselves, how might we find joy? How might we be ourselves and how might we grow in the process? So I'm going to break down four building blocks now. Each of these building blocks each have three points beneath them, right? So I want you, as you're listening to actually digest all of this, the big picture, there are four points and beneath each four points, you're going to have three sub points. Now, the three sub points are going to be building relationships with your community. Now, this includes anyone who's in your network or your audience, and maybe they're on your newsletter list. Maybe they come to free events or they seek free resources, but they haven't quite bought from you yet. They can also just be supporters and people who like you as a person but maybe aren't a qualified lead.

Jasmine Star (00:02:21) - Now, the second sub point to each of our four building blocks is going to be with your team. This includes full time employees, contractors, collaborators or people who work with you from time to time. And then the third sub point that we're going to see under each building block is going to be with your customers or clients. Now, this is anybody who is spending money with you. So just to make sure you're following this particular framework, there are four building blocks, and under each one, we have three relationships. All right. The first building block is intentional listening. Now, I should probably insert here a little bit of a backstory. Growing up, like I've mentioned before, I was homeschooled and the only thing we were really allowed to watch, the only kind of cartoons we're allowed to watch was Sesame Street. Now you might be saying, Jasmine, Sesame Street isn't a cartoon. I know, but every so often they would have like these little tiny, like breakaways that were cartoons. And there was this one particular cartoon where there's this gentleman who's sitting on a park bench and an elephant runs up to him and he says, Oh, good kind sir, how do I get to the zoo? And the gentleman puts down his newspaper and says, Well, we want to do is you're going to want to walk all the way down the block and then the elephant goes all the way down the block and the elephant reappears.

Jasmine Star (00:03:30) - And he's like kind of the zoo. Is it at the end of the block? And then the gentleman says, I know, but you need to let me finish. So you're going to go down the block and then you're going to make a left and then the elephant disappears. And then a little bit later he returns and he's getting visibly frustrated. And the elephant says, Well, I went down the block and then I turn left and the man says, Well, you have to finish the whole directions of what I am saying. And I kind of feel and it was much cuter the way that I'm telling the story. It's like womp, womp, whoa. Jasmine tell better stories. The whole idea here is when it comes to intentional listening, I was that elephant, y'all like, I would listen to partial details and then come up with a full thing because I like to think fast and talk fast. And so oftentimes I was like rushing people to the next thing. What I have really learned about relationships building specifically, is that intentional listening is consciously setting in intention to understand and gain insight from the person who's speaking it.

Jasmine Star (00:04:27) - Okay, so how do they simply it's listening with purpose, not just listening to respond. I was the kind of person who was thinking of my response and not listening with purpose. So let's talk about how we do this. Intentional listening with your community on social media, this can look like us using polls or question box now, not just for engagement, but actually to start conversations and to listen to audience's feedback by creating more of the content they want to see. Not listening to respond, but listening to learn. Now, in the conversations that you're starting, you're going to want to show a genuine interest in them. And here's the best part. If you can ask an open ended question, not like just thanks so much, but thanks so much. What was your favorite? Heart like that which elicits a response, man, that really just drives engagement. But it also shows that you care and it shows that there's a lot of concern about them and what they want to know more, get to know you better.

Jasmine Star (00:05:25) - And there was something that Theodore Roosevelt said, and I think it's so true. And he said that people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Like that's just it. And even if you feel like, Oh, I don't know enough, well, can you show that you care enough? So when you're engaging on social media, this can also look like leaving genuine comments, right? Like you can go even if you're not getting any comments, you can go and click on your followers and then randomly like the lottery pick three, four people go to their accounts and leave a comment. So what are genuine comments? Well, genuine comments are thoughtful and specific to the content they're sharing. Okay. I'm not talking about three flame emojis. Right? Like firefighter fire. That's fine. Hey, your girl. I've been known to do that too. But not with a new follower, not with somebody I'm choosing at random just to go and drop a little bit of care and concern.

Jasmine Star (00:06:19) - Now, I remember there my very first Easter as a mom, and I wanted to buy Luna, my daughter, a special outfit. And I follow this company online. No, it's not an ad, it's not a plug. It's called Signet. And they do custom embroidering. And I have been I had been following them forever. I was like, oh, when there's a moment, I'm going to get her a custom outfit, custom embroidery. It's just I'm going to be ready for it. It was like a moment for me, and I bought that outfit she wore to church, wore it to her grandparents house. I took a couple photos and then I tagged Signet on social. And there's one thing for a company to like it, and then there's another thing for a company to repost it. And they did both of those things. But here's where I feel that business owner went the extra mile. That team reached out to me personally and they asked for feedback on what they could do for their future product lines.

Jasmine Star (00:07:18) - They weren't asking me business questions. They're like, Is there anything else that you would like to see in the future? And I thought to myself, This is interesting. This is how they are truly building relationships online, intentionally listening now when it comes to intentionally listening with your team, Ooh, I've had to learn this the hard way. Okay, so intentionally listening with your team starts with creating a safe space. When you foster an environment where people feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and ideas and their concerns, they have to be able to do that like openly. They are more likely to take ownership of their departments and roles. And there was a time on the team or the people who spoke the loudest or the fastest or the quickest got most of the meeting time and I had to take a big step back and really make the safe, intentionally space for people who were quieter, a little bit slower, a lot more thoughtful. They saw things from different perspectives and they needed to make sure that I was cultivating that space.

Jasmine Star (00:08:17) - Now, you can also set the tone to encourage honest and open communication without judgment or interruption. When you do this specifically as a leader, other people in the team, they're going to mimic this when they have their own conversations. So whenever I go into a conversation and I feel like people are going to have different opinions, I need to make sure that this is the space where we talk openly. This is not in disagreement with a person is probably a different perspective on how to see the same situation. And the reason why I'm really, really hard knows about it is because problems are most likely going to be solved when people feel inspired to speak up, when they feel safe to ask questions. So there's a, you know, a little bit of a story. I have shared this on the podcast before, so we were talking about delaying the upgraded platform launch. It was earlier this year, and when we went into this meeting, we all had varying degrees of opinions, but I needed to know that by the time we all left that meeting, everybody said what they meant and meant what they said.

Jasmine Star (00:09:25) - But that meant I had to start the meeting. On that note, I literally had to say we all want to win, but we need to see the entire picture now. We are doing nobody any favors if we're holding back and not speaking our truth. But in order for us to speak our truth, we must speak our truth without attachment. Just because I see something from my perspective doesn't make it the right perspective. It's just my perspective. And in this meeting, there were five people, all with our own perspectives, and it was only when we openly, safely and conclusively shared them that we were able to make a decision. And here's the best part. At the end of the meeting, everybody was on the same page and everybody felt like even if it didn't go exactly how they wanted, they understood why. Now, something we do during team meetings, we have a monthly. Hands meeting and we share a dock. It's in notion. And what we ask people to do is please write the meeting notes and action items in advance.

Jasmine Star (00:10:22) - So before meeting, I can pop into the dock and I could see what each person is planning to talk about. Now we have two sections. We have just updates. This is where projects are going, things that they want everybody else to know, and then active items that we are going to speak about. Now this improves our meeting productivity, but it really ensures that everybody has time slot in a chance to be heard. Now everyone has access to this document before the meetings and then they get to share anything that they need to share. But we also put action items on there to ensure that the action is taken after the meeting. Because when we act on suggestions or concerns raised during those conversations, we demonstrate that we value the input so we have action items. So the following week, when we go back to the meeting, we could always cite back to the previous week's notes and say what was the action that was taken. And in our team action, it's a love language. Like if we ask something to be done and it is done, we are walking integrity, integrity, meaning I do what I say and I say what I do.

Jasmine Star (00:11:26) - Okay, so we're still in building block number four and we're talking about intentionally listening when it comes to your customers and clients. Now, specifically intentional listening in meetings and whether it's like virtual in person group or one on one, you know, this can also apply to team meetings, too. But our main component of intentional listening is active listening. So active listening is paying attention to the both like verbal and non verbal cues. You can actively listen by maintaining eye contact, nodding to show that you're understanding and using appropriate facial expressions and body language to convey that you're still engaged. Now I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but I am going to be honest with you, RBF like resting, blessed face. You know, this is a family friendly show. There is another word like, listen, my face is just my face. People are like, why? Why is your face look like that? And I'm like, I don't know which does my face when I am intently listening, My face looks like I'm mean.

Jasmine Star (00:12:28) - My face looks like we're about to scrap. Like we were about to throw it down in a dark alley behind a bar at 2 a.m. in the morning. Like you don't want to mess with me, but I promise you, like it's just my face. But what I realized was that my facial expressions in my body language were conveying a very different message. I have become so aware there was a couple of times that team members would take screenshots of us on Zoom and then drop them in Slack. And it's funny to see the way that other people see you. But then it was also a major learning lesson. I was like, You can't sit like that, so what am I talking about? Okay, so I have chair. I kind of just sat back in the chair with my back resting against it. I have my hands clasped on top of my head and with my chin tilted up a little bit. Okay, that is legit. My maiden name is Juarez. That is the exact position my father takes when he is thinking I am talking about to the tee and I do the same thing when I am in.

Jasmine Star (00:13:26) - It's like I'm like in repose. Like when I'm in deep thought. It's hands on top of my head. They're clasp, I'm leaning back, which is fine. But if I am doing that a lot on team meetings, it could appear like I'm bored or disengaged. Oh facts. So now I am always and sometimes JD will like we are sitting on Zoom meetings. He'll mute the Zoom meeting and he'll just say smile because I just realized I don't even do it. So this is me becoming aware of it and so much so that I become aware of it and really show intentional listening. On team meetings. I am now sending notes to our leadership team during our quarterly feedback around body language posture, even if it's something as simple as smiling or a yawn. I know a yacht like, listen, we all yawn. It's human. However, a subtle yawn or even going off camera because, listen, we're all tired. Everybody needs a little extra coffee. But the yawn could be perceived as somebody disengaged.

Jasmine Star (00:14:25) - Okay, so another thing, it's important not to multitask. This right here is a pet peeve of mine. When I'm on a Zoom call, if I see that other people are doing other things and everybody knows on Zoom like, who are we kidding? Everybody's eyes when they move around the screen, you know what I'm talking about. It's like you pretend like to be paying attention, but you can see that they're doing something else. Oh, just as a general rule of thumb, when I'm showing up, like when I'm hosting my mastermind calls or if I'm on group coaching on the inside of social curator. Like everything is off, my phone is on Do not disturb. I need to give my full attention because people genuinely feel that across the Internet, across online, and especially in person now, I think it's really important when it comes to intentional listening is that not all the feedback that people give you is going to be good. Not every feedback from friends, clients, teammates is going to feel all that great.

Jasmine Star (00:15:19) - But even if you agree or disagree, it's important that we validate that person's feelings. So let's talk about this from a customer client perspective. Even if I disagree, like even if factually so, there have been plenty of times where people say, I just can't get into social curator. It's so difficult to log in. And we actually have like data and analytics. When people log in, people will say, I haven't logged in in the last month and we're like, Oh, we actually have four logins slated in the last three weeks. No, that must be wrong. So I'm not going to dispute the fact that our back end monitors when people log in. So what we must do is validate a customer's feelings, concerns or challenges. Because if I dispute, let's just say, for example, how many logins there were, I've completely lost them. What I need to do is get into the underlying and not just me as the leader, but like me in the entire team. All of us need to say, what's the underlying issue here? What is the core thing of frustration? Because then I go from I need to respond to I actually just need to actively listen and get to the root of it.

Jasmine Star (00:16:24) - So we do this often. I would set these sprints of meetings talking to users of social curator. Now when they give me their time, here's the thing. These are paying customers, right? And then they are deciding to meet with me for 20 minutes so I could ask them questions around how we can make Social Security better. What are they using the most? What are they using the least? I'm asking them to share functionality of their screen so I could see how are they navigating and what is the easiest part of the site? What's the most difficult part of the site? What do they wish we had? So I'm asking all of these questions now. I'm asking and during these calls, every time I remind myself, do not respond. Engage. If I respond, it shows that I'm actually not listening. I need to say I hear exactly what it is you're saying. And then I let them know that if they see my eyes moving around or if they see me typing that I'm conveying to them, I am taking notes.

Jasmine Star (00:17:20) - If my eyes are moving, I'm looking at different parts of the screen. Now what I am trying to do most often is not respond but to ask questions with their questions. So I actually hear them and then I convey active listening. So let's move on to the next building block that was just building block number one, y'all. Are you with me? I mean, we're going to be diving deep. I know, I know. I hope that this episode really digs deep and you walk away with tangible things. Building block number two is being a connector. You know, here is a little disclaimer. Being a true connector sometimes means that you're not the answer to their problems. Ooh, okay. Like being a true connector, You're not always the answer. Now, an example of this would be if someone came to me for advice on building wealth and investments. Okay, well, that isn't exactly what I teach, but I have plenty of people who I could connect them to for guidance. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:18:20) - We don't always have to be the answer. In fact, we build trust with people when we are confident enough to send them to someone or something else that could serve them the best. So let's talk about being a connector with your community members. Being a connector with your community members can look like sending free resources, right? Like podcast articles, YouTube videos to help them with their specific needs and challenges. Now, this resource you can send them, it could be your own stuff or it could be someone else's. Remember, what we're doing is building connection, not building business relationships that will happen. But first connection. Now you can also create a piece of content that was made for their specific questions or challenges and then let them know that they inspired you to create that resource. I've done that plenty of times, y'all. I can't even tell you how many times people will send me a DM and be like, Have you done a podcast episode on this? And I'm like, No, but I love this idea.

Jasmine Star (00:19:17) - Like watching the next few weeks, this is going to be like in the queue. And so this is like a great way to revisit a conversation, right? Imagine that person tells me, Have you done about X on the podcast? And I'm like, I love this idea. And then I could follow up with them. Like, it's pretty dang amazing because when you follow up with these leads, like you're serving them and you're not saying like, Oh, did you download it yet? Did you do this? Did you buy my thing? No, no, no. It simply I loved your idea. I made you a piece of content on the back of it. Thank you. Now, being a connector with your community members can also look like connecting them with another person. Now, this can be a person who needs what they are selling or offering. You can easily do this with like a three way message. You know, it's just like on the inside of the Social Security community, we are often connecting other community members to go deeper.

Jasmine Star (00:20:09) - Maybe not to buy or invest, but to get them connected. They could start learning and scaling their businesses together. So an example might be like, Hey, Tina, I wanted to introduce you to Sara. Sara is a new mom who's ready to safely get back into exercise and is looking for a professional support while she's doing it. I told Sara that you're a health coach for new moms and have great content she can learn from. I wanted to give you two a chance to connect. Feel free to start your own chat without me. I hope you're both doing amazing now. How do you think Tina, the health coach, would feel knowing that you are supporting and referring her and her business to other people? Honored, Grateful. Now, Tina could also feel the need to reciprocate. Now, this isn't always why we connect, right? Like I've never ever make an introduction with the hope that it comes back to me. I never do. But if it does. Yeah, that's nice. Not needed, but nice.

Jasmine Star (00:21:01) - Know the law of reciprocity is when somebody feels compelled to repay for the gifts or actions they received. That's the law of reciprocity. They feel compelled it suggests that when somebody does something beneficial for another person, the recipient wants to reciprocate and repay the kindness like they want to. They want to create a mutual exchange of giving and receiving. Man. We see this happen so often in the social curator community. Rosie is our head of customer success and she's so great at connecting a lot of our users to each other. And Katie is president of social Curator and she does this flawlessly. We have Amanda and Rolin in the community and they're always looking at parallels and intersection points. But if we go back, right, so there's Tina, the health coach. And then how do you think Sarah Right. She's like a new mom. How do you think she would know? Feeling that you're taking the time to connect with her to like a perfect person to support her journey. Maybe she would feel special or significant or cared for.

Jasmine Star (00:22:03) - Now, Sarah would see you as somebody who truly cares for her, which builds long term trust and could lead to new relationships. The New York Times posted an article and they shared that the average person knows around 600 people in real life. Like that was a big moment. To be real. I read that number. I was like 600. Do I know 600 people in real life? But on average, if I were to look back at my life, I might say, yeah, 600. Now, Sarah might not be your ideal client and she might not be a qualified lead, but I guarantee that she knows somebody who is. Let's say Sarah might not need your business, but she knows maybe 600 people in real life who could potentially be somebody who would help and empower your business. Now, again, the law of reciprocity. We don't make connections with people in the community with the expectation that it comes back to us. But there is a law that states we as humans, we want to treat others the way we have been treated.

Jasmine Star (00:23:06) - So why not just give, give, give, give, knowing it's all going to come back to you in some way, shape or form. Now, let's talk about being a connector with your team or people that you collaborate with. So first and foremost, being a connector by connecting them with each other. So this looks like creating a culture that encourages collaboration, open communication and knowledge sharing amongst team members. Now I get sit here and say, Oh, I've done a great job at it. No, not at all. In fact, I am learning more from my team on how to do this. So a little bit of a backstory. I am not a technical founder. I don't know development. I've never created it an app before. I've never built a SaaS company. And so there's this whole new part of me that I'm learning how to flex as a CEO. Now we have a team member. He is a brilliant mind developer and kind of like the brains behind us creating Dotty for Social Curator.

Jasmine Star (00:24:02) - And as he's developing and as I'm having conversations with users of social curator and team members and customer success and team members and community and team members in marketing, he had said that what he wants to do is create ten minute meetings each week with people in each of these departments. He wants to knowledge share. He just doesn't want to build a product that's going to serve a customer. He is trying to get a holistic perspective of how can we set up what we know about each of our users, what they want and how can we create synergies amongst the things that we have, the things that we don't have and the things that people want. And so when we're creating this culture of collaboration and open communication and knowledge sharing, I saw it so played out so clearly that in these short, really focused meetings, he's hearing from different team members, consolidating them on a roadmap, on a feature request board, and we get to log in and we get to see what is he working on and when should it be deployed.

 Jasmine Star (00:25:00) - That kind of stuff works really well when you are connecting now. I've always found it pretty helpful to share external resources with my team or sometimes I'll send them inspiring people. Or podcast, and I really want them to go deep in a way that I have gone deep. Now, do I send every team member the same book or the same podcast? No. But when I think about how that resource could really help them step up, step into their role, I send it to them and I'm like, Hey, you should really listen to this. But if you're oppressed, listen to this minute, 15 to 22 or something. I'm giving them very specific things to listen to. And you know, when it comes to connecting outside of a book or podcast or outside of short sprints of meetings or even outside of quarterly reviews, I think it's important just to connect as a human. And so I have a recurring task to set up meetings with team members, even if they're not my direct reports. I actually want to get to know people on the team and yes, I want to know who they are as team members, but I want to know the name of their spouses, their kids, their pets.

Jasmine Star (00:26:02) - All of this can go a really long way in developing a good working relationship. And, you know, I want them to know that even though I'm the CEO, I'm absolutely a team member, we're all aiming towards the same goal. One of the ways that we make this happen is when somebody is hired on to the social curator team, we send them through onboarding and an information spreadsheet so they'll answer questions about who they are, where they like to spend their weekends, their spouses names, their favorite places to eat, or they like to shop. It's just like a list of random questions. And most of the time people will go through onboarding and then they forget about the questions they get into their work. And then whenever I'm thinking, Oh, I really want to do something special, then I can go back to that onboarding sheet. So case in point, we had just come off a launch and Rosie, she leads our customer success now. She had been working tirelessly, hours and hours and hours, making, threw away hundreds of tickets and questions and requests.

Jasmine Star (00:26:53) - And she was even working over the weekend. And her husband, Justin, he's really sweet guy and was just there to totally support her. So I wanted to send her just a small thank you gift for all of her hard work. And so what was able to do? Well, I went over to the spreadsheet and I found out that Justin's favorite place to eat, you know, was like, Hey, Rosie, you want to take Justin out for a night in the town? Where are you taking him? Ladies and gentlemen, Bubba Gump taking him to Bubba Gump. And, you know, nothing made me happier then for her to be his sugar momma for the night. There you go. There you go. It's a small things that really kind of create those personal relationships as we build those connections. Now, when you talk about being a connector with your customers and clients, connecting customers and clients with each other, man, I've done this by hosting an in-person event or even a virtual event.

Jasmine Star (00:27:42) - Now, if you're a service based entrepreneur, this could look like hosting a holiday party. It could look like hosting workshops or training sessions or group coaching or co-working sessions. I have either hosted these or gone to these and think it's so powerful, not just as a way to connect, but as a way to network as well. Now let's say you're a product based entrepreneur. You could host holiday parties, markets or trade shows, customer appreciation events, or even develop an affiliate or awards or, you know, one of those like ambassador programs. And then you could create a community for them and then they can collaborate in that community. You really want the people who are very outspoken about your products to be able to connect with each other. So they're finding ways that are the most effective to spread the word. Now, outside of hosting events, you could bring in like guest coaches or speakers to teach a topic that you might not be an expert in. Now you could also collaborate with another entrepreneur to create a joint offer or experience or a product.

Jasmine Star (00:28:37) - Basically, your customers and your clients can connect with this new expert, and then you're going to always be remembered by both parties as the person who connected them. Now we do this often on the inside of social curator. We bring in guest instructors, guest contributors, masterclass hosts. It's not just the Jasmine Show. This is about other people having far greater specialties and pouring back into the community. Now let's just create this as an example in a slightly different way. Here's an example. You're a health coach and you specialize in exercise and fitness. Now your clients have expressed they wanted to learn more about improving their quality sleep. Oh, cool. You could partner with the sleep expert and maybe you could hire or maybe you could trade with them to come in for guest coaching Q&A. Or you could create a joint offer together. Now, this could be mutually beneficial since you most likely have similar ideal clients and complementary programs. So what does this make your clients feel? Well, it makes them feel seen, heard and cared for, and you're fulfilling on other needs, but you're being the conduit of it.

Jasmine Star (00:29:41) - Okay, Now we just went through two building blocks, each with three sub points. Now we're on the third building block and this will also have three sub points. Now the third building block to creating more meaningful relationships is leading by example. When you lead by example, it builds trust, and trust is the fundamental component to a great relationship. Now, leading by example with your community, it can be shown by staying consistent. Now I know I. I often say like stay consistent, say consistent. And I remain very staunch in my belief that, yeah, posting daily is important, but this is also how you show up and the message you're sharing, which takes frequency and repetition. Now consistency is being a leader within your community because it's very hard for you to say something and then do something else. We need to lead by example. Now, another way to lead by example is demonstrating your core values. One of our core values at social curator is kindness. Now, wouldn't it be awful if I was saying like, unkind words to somebody in my community? Now, I know this is like, very obvious, but it's common.

Jasmine Star (00:30:53) - You know, I've been there two. It's easy to fall into a trap and let you let your emotions get the best. But when you're tethered by your values, that means that you're leading by example. This is why we set our core values in the first place. It's for when times are tough that we remember. What do we stand for as a company? Now you can also learn by example with your community by continuing to learn and invest in yourself, especially if you're in like the coaching or the course creation space. Like y'all, this is so important. Like, I think it's very important for me as CEO to really talk openly about the masterminds that I am investing in, the masterminds. I'm a part of the coaching, I invest in, the programs I invest in. I have to continuously show that I am making investments in myself and in the company to show other business owners that this is part of the course. This is always what we do. When you join personal or professional development programs, when you attend workshops or you're seeking mentorship, you're not just leading by example, but you're encouraging others to invest in their own growth and then embrace a growth mindset.

Jasmine Star (00:31:56) - Now, do I think that everybody needs to do this? No. But if you want to be surrounded by people who really are like minded, then you must show what you want to attract. If you're a product based business owner, you could do this by using your own products on camera. You know, if you sell skincare, do like your nightly skin routine. You could share how and why you use these products and how you're continuing to learn and improve the products. Now, the last way I have for you to lead by example in your community is by demonstrating resilience and adaptability. I think it's important that, especially in social media, we're showing up in the truest versions of ourselves. Now, I don't think you should share 100% of what goes behind the scenes, but I do think it's important to share the peaks and the valleys. It humanizes us. It lets people know that everything on social media isn't glimmer and isn't glitter and private jets and good days and walks on the beach. It's a lot of hard work when you share stories of overcoming obstacles or what you learned from failures or pivoting your business strategy, you can inspire others to embrace change, learn from failures, and persevere in pursuing their goals, too.

Jasmine Star (00:33:04) - Now, I don't want you to underestimate that when you give people hope or when you teach them a mindset shift that you experienced, they think more fondly of you and your business As a result. This simply is a byproduct of leading by example. Now leading by example with your team. It could just these are pretty simple, but I do think it bears repeating acting with honesty and transparency as a team leader. Like that's important because it trickles down to every aspect of the team. It also means setting clear expectations while holding yourself to the same standard of the team. Like when you think about me asking the team to follow through and complete tasks when they're assigned on a particular timeline, Wouldn't it be awful if I was consistently late? If I wasn't consistently following through, it would be hard for somebody to take what I said and hold themselves to the same standard. Brené Brown says, to be clear, is to be kind. And that is what we truly believe at social curator. We don't mince words.

Jasmine Star (00:34:10) - We say what we mean and we mean what we say. Like your team wants to perform at a high level. I believe that really good teams want to be challenged and they want to constantly improve their work as leaders. It's our responsibility to continuously improve by showing them our willingness to learn and adapt and embrace new challenges. I invested in a mentor and I was working with her once a month and I loved what I was learning and I kept on feeling I was taking these like, intellectual, emotional business leaps, but I was doing it on my own. And so then I tried trickling it down to the team and it was good. But then I decided I actually wanted to go deeper with this coach, so wanted to start meeting with her once every two weeks, so twice a month. And I kept on developing and growing at such a fast pace that I wasn't all that great at disseminating the growth that I was experiencing with her. So what I decided to do was I meet with her. Once a month on my own, and then I bring two key team members to come in and sit in on the coaching as we grow different arms of the business.

Jasmine Star (00:35:20) - When I say I want to lead by example, if I am not the greatest at disseminating information in the quickest amount of time, the things that I'm learning, bringing them in and showing them, giving a front row seat to what I'm investing on, on a personal and professional level, well then it expands to the team. As leaders, we want to continuously show what our willingness to learn, our willingness to admit. We don't have all the answers, our willingness to get help and adapt and embrace new challenges. Now, leading by example with your customers and clients, this can be demonstrated by being consistent in your actions and following through on your commitments. If you promise certain benefits or features or to support them, then you got to ensure that you deliver on those promises. Because even the smallest undelivered promise can damage a relationship with your customers and clients. And I want to speak clearly here. I don't want to be duplicitous. There have been plenty of times in social Curator where we said, oh, well, we're going to have a fix for this bug by this date.

Jasmine Star (00:36:18) - Now, truth be told, we do have the fix, and the fix will address 99% of the people that were affected by that bug. But what happens to the one person who continuously has that issue? They lose their trust in what we had said as a team. Now, there's two ways that we can go about this. We could say, hey, we solved the problem for 99% of the people. So, you know, you win some, you lose some. Or you can say that 1% of people that it affected, we have to do right by them. If we don't do right by them, if we don't at least attempt to do right by them, it's going to really hurt and impact the business. So another example that's not related to the business. Let's say you're a health coach and you promise constant accountability and access. You know, and her clients, she gets back to their messages within 24 hours. And I went from you to her, Right. We're not talking about you.

Jasmine Star (00:37:10) - Look her. We'll say that she's hell in the health coach. Okay? So hell in the health coach. Well, she returns messages within 24 business hours. And her clients, you know, message her with a question on Thursday morning, but she doesn't get back to them until Monday. Now, I'm sure Helen has a lot of great reasons why she didn't respond, but the expectation was 24 business hours. So 48 business hours have passed and the client has not received further communication or answers. You're sure the unanswered question to the client is a problem? But what's the even bigger problem is the undelivered promise. The undelivered promise breaks the trust in the confidence in the coach they hired. Now it seems small, but these tiny little things are fractures at trust. And without all of that undiluted trust, it becomes harder to actually grow. It becomes harder for them to become evangelist. It becomes harder for them to really trust that you're going to follow through on any other of your subsequent promises. This could lead to customer dissatisfaction, frustration, a negative perception of Helen's reliability.

Jasmine Star (00:38:15) - You know, like it's not about the answer. It's not about the 24 hours or the 48 hours. It was about the promise. Now, this break in trust could be avoided by answering the question or simply replying to the message even to say, Hey, I have to take a day or two off for X, Y, or Z. Is it okay if I get back to you on Monday? Simple, but that then changes the terms of how somebody's perceiving their trust. All right. Drum roll. If you are still with me, like shout it out, y'all. We are in the fourth building block now. This episode has really been made from a place of love, and I want to go deeper by providing amazing and powerful insights for what you're doing as you build your business. So the fourth building block is showing gratitude and continuing to nurture the relationship. Now, you all know I am just a gratitude gangster. Like I start my day with gratitude. I end my day with gratitude.

Jasmine Star (00:39:11) - Like I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for the breath I have. I grateful for the food I have in my fridge. I'm grateful for my car. I'm grateful that I get to call my mom, my dad. I'm grateful for the slobbery kisses that I get from my daughter. I'm grateful for my pillow. Now, here's the thing. Some people would look at my pillow and they would be like, Girl, what is wrong with you? That's not a pillow. That's like a bath towel. Okay, my pillow. I know somebody's going to DM me and say, Name is so terrible, it's so unhygienic. You need to change your pillow every four months. Okay. I know I have literally had this pillow probably since like the second Bush administration. It's so old, y'all. It's not even a pillow. It's like flat. And I love it. I don't like fluffy pillows. I know. I'm like, probably the only person, but a fluffy pillow. It bothers my neck. If I could lay almost flat without a pillow, we'll see that.

Jasmine Star (00:40:01) - That like second Bush administration pillow, it's about two inches thick. Or is it two inches thin? I don't know. But. Oh, we this pillow, it doesn't change my life. So how did we get here? How do we get talking about pillows? I promise you, I'm gonna bring gratitude. Gratitude? I told you, I'm gonna bring you back. I'm gratitude. Gangster. I will give thanks for my two inch pillow. I will give thanks. I have this electric toothbrush y'all like I brush my teeth and I just feel blessed. I was just like tartar no more. Listen, gratitude is my thing. And I also know that it is had a profound effect on how I am building a business and how I've built multiple businesses. So let's start about talking about gratitude with your community. It's really important to show gratitude in your community specifically to members. You know, if you can do this on a 1 to 1, then you're killing the game. Now there's a lot of others, other people doing similar things, other communities, you know, your people in your community, they're choosing to engage with your content.

Jasmine Star (00:41:02) - They're supporting your efforts. They're potentially becoming raving fans who were for other people to you. So when you express gratitude, you're encouraging continued engagement and loyalty. So how how do you show people gratitude? You could share their content when they tag or support you, or if it's something that your audience would find valuable. Share it be reciprocal. Whenever you can highlight people in the community, you could send personalized thank you messages expressing gratitude for their support and encouragement. It's important to really acknowledge their specific actions or their specific participation that has made a positive impact in the community. When you do this, they're more likely to keep it up. A couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with Katie and she's the president of social curator and I was in the community and I was really engaging. And I thought to myself, there are some really powerful, deep, amazing conversations that are happening here. I mean, really business stuff. I was like, This is some next level stuff. And I said, Katie, there was a few conversations that we should be sending in our weekly email.

Jasmine Star (00:42:03) - We should be appointing people because there are a lot of conversations that it could get lost. And I'm like, We should highlight 2 or 3 really amazing posts in the community by us highlighting that particular post by that particular community member. And then we get to email it to all of our users and highlight them for the powerful impact they're making. That's expressing gratitude, but we're expressing gratitude because they're in the community creating that content that creates like a community of gratitude. So it's like gratitude on gratitude. It's like ten x gratitude. Now this is great when we're doing it with our community, but I have to make sure that we're also doing it on our team so you can show gratitude to your team by finding out how they like to be praised. Now, a little bit ago I talked about this onboarding form that people will fill out with their preferences, and so they fill out a questionnaire. And one of the questions on this question here is how they prefer to be praised, whether it's publicly, privately written or verbal.

Jasmine Star (00:43:01) - When we know how somebody likes to be appreciated, we try to do that often. There are some people, and I am not one of those people, if somebody says thank you to me in public, like if anybody has ever given me a toast, I want to die. If somebody stands up and they say something nice about me, I am literally getting like a cloth napkin and like, waving them down like, no, no, no, no, no, please. Not here. Please, please, No, no. We're not doing this. We are not saying. And it's so odd, but when somebody writes me something, when they go out of their way to write a thank you or a. Accolade or a note of appreciation a lot to me, but we all don't receive that the same way. There are people on the team who really love during a team meeting to say thank you in front of their peers. It means that to them. So it's really important for me as a leader to find out how people like to be appreciated or how they like to be like noted for their work and then highlight it on that.

Jasmine Star (00:43:55) - And it's really important to recognize and celebrate individual but also team achievements. You know, oftentimes there's certain departments, we'll just be real. There's certain departments like if you have a sales department, even marketing, it's so much glossier, it's much sexier to be like, look at all these benchmarks and metrics, look at these numbers, look at these revenue. And then there's other quieter departments that it's harder to define the milestone, I think distinctly of a creative team. How do you put ROI on creative, Right? It's difficult. Like it looks beautiful, but how do you actually quantify whether or not the typography or the layout or the vision or the copy, Like how do you know the ROI on that? It's a little bit looser. So when you're able to create milestones, not just for a person like a creative director, but for the creative team to highlight what they did together that gets a project success or they hit a goal like that is going to continue collaborative efforts. It's going to say it's not just about one person, it's about the entire team.

Jasmine Star (00:44:53) - And then the rest of the organization gets to see that. All right. My favorite part, my favorite part, we're finally let's show gratitude to your customers and clients. I'm going to get a little bit I'm going to try to get a little deep. I'm bringing a little pipe here. I'm just going to be like, ladies and gentlemen, let's sit around. Uh, people aren't often appreciated enough in their everyday life. This is an unmet need that a lot of people have. Like, think about it, think about it. You engage and you meet and you talk. And you see with so many people who don't get anybody in their life to say, thank you, I appreciate you. I see you for all the hard work. They don't. And this lack of appreciation that they're facing, it makes them feel undervalued or taken for granted. That might not be the case. But how one feels is real and you have the opportunity to tend to this need simply by showing gratitude. I read an intensive study by Motta Motta Motta, and I'll put it in the show notes just because I probably said it wrong.

Jasmine Star (00:45:59) - But here is the study. It reported that customers who are emotionally connected to brands have a 306% higher lifetime value than customers that are just satisfied. Huh. Emotional connections. So follow me here for a second. Most people don't get told. Thank you. I appreciate you or I see the hard work you're doing. But you as a business owner, as a team lead, you can do that for somebody. And when you could do that for a client or customer, that means they're more emotionally connected by showing gratitude, you are strengthening that connection and ultimately your LTV, the lifetime value. And because I am such a believer and ardent supporter of showing gratitude, here are some ways that you can show gratitude to your customers or clients. You can send them a surprise gift or, you know, you could send them samples. If you're a product based company and your customers, you're like, Hey, I want to send you a token of appreciation. Send them a new line, send them samples, add a little something to their box.

Jasmine Star (00:47:01) - It could be a small branded item, it could be a useful resource, it could be a sample of a new product. Now, everybody loves getting surprise packages, So I mean, love it or hate it, some people are like so against it. I shop via Amazon. Okay? I just do. I just do I order my groceries, you know, just don't judge me. Just listen. I am just trying to keep my life afloat. And if I could just, like, repeat my order from Whole Foods, that is exactly what I do. And so just imagine my surprise and delight. I know it is absolutely ridiculous. I know the companies that are participating in this promotion are giving their products to Whole Foods. And I know I'm being marketed to. And guess what? I still don't care. Every so often I'll get my groceries from Whole Foods and I open a package and they're on the inside is like a small gift of appreciation, a token to say thanks. And they're just like a bunch of samples, like Raisinets, like organic Raisinets drizzled in gold, honey or something like that.

Jasmine Star (00:48:01) - You know, it's like a bath bomb, but it's like a fraction of a bath bomb. And it's like a sample of organic haircare. And, you know, chances are I would have never picked that up in the store. Chances are I never will pick it up in the store. But, oh, we I just love a little extra. We have that ability and I think that Amazon, Whole Foods, they did it right. Can you think in your business, are there any other tangential businesses that might want exposure to your audience? Perhaps if they do. Add it to some of your shipments. Boom. What you're doing is you are creating cross marketing surprise and delight and connection to your clients or customers. Now you can also create exclusive content for your clients or customers. We sometimes drop bonuses on the inside of social curator for our members as a surprise and delight. Hey, thank you. We appreciate you. Here's a little extra this month as part of your subscription. We love doing that.

Jasmine Star (00:48:54) - Now, you can also recognize your clients on social media and you could share their success stories. You can share testimonials or positive experiences. You know, when you publicly acknowledge their support and their achievements, it can make them feel really valued and appreciated. And hey, it's also great for your business, too. So here we are, ladies and gentlemen. We got through all four of these principles. Hot, dang, hot. Daniel That was a lot. But I firmly believe that relationships are the foundation to scaling a business. So when all four of these principles are combined, like, over time, again and again and again, consistently again, again and again, over time, your relationships will get deeper and more meaningful, making you someone that people want in their lives. People want to work with you. Building, nurturing and expanding your relationships will always be the backbone of your business success. And my hope for you is that you find joy deepening these relationships along with every other part of the journey.

Jasmine Star (00:49:58) - I know your time is valuable. If you were to be so kind and leave a review or tag me at Jasmine Star on stories when you listen so that when we connect, I can personally express to you how grateful I am. I know it seems small and you're probably tired of me saying it, but if you have listen to more than one episode on this podcast, it is a free 99. Okay? We don't run any ads right now. I'm creating this as a labor of love. I'm creating this as a division of my growth process and I'm sharing what I know. And so let's create a little bit of agreement. I'll share what I know, and then you share your goodness and magic sprinkle, sprinkle. Let's go add a little review. It would mean a lot. In all seriousness, it would mean a ton. I want to say thank you for listening to this podcast. I want to say thank you to the social curator team. Thank you to our users, thank you to my electric toothbrush and my two inch pillow.

Jasmine Star (00:50:57) - And thank you to my husband and business partner who continues late into the evenings, early into the mornings to support this thing I am so passionate about and I'm just simply passionate about you. I am so lit up by your success. I am so lit up by your journey. I am so lit up by you making the courageous decision to get back up again and again and again as you grow your business. I wish you all the best.