Biz Women Rock! With Katie Krimitsos

This episode will be soul food for you.  Cathy Heller and I are discussing the truth about the business journey not from the vantage point of strategy or how-to.  But from the heart. From the space of knowing that you are unique and have a purpose here in this world unlike anyone else’s and how to be on that journey of discovery in the most beautiful way.  Oh yeah...we’re going deep.   Cathy is the creator of the popular podcast Don’t Keep Your Day Job.  She interviews very well known people like Seth Godin, Martha Beck and Jenn Sincero (You Are a Badass) who discuss openly about their lives, their creativity and their journeys.  She is a musician and writes music for TV, ads and film, has an agency to help other musicians do the same and also has a course to help even more musicians it as well. She’s a mom of 3 and full of love.   Her 7 figure business was not created overnight, though.  And during this incredible conversation, you’ll hear all about her continuing journey and why it’s been a spiritually moti

There aren’t that many men that make it into the featured spotlight of the Biz Women Rock podcast interviews - not because I don’t think there are incredible men out there doing great work - but because I’m just so damn committed to spotlighting kick ass women entrepreneurs.   But I decided to make an exception for my good friend Patrick Moraites.  I’ve known Patrick since 2010, when he, my husband Chris, our friend Mark and I used to gather together in our own local mastermind every month and help each other build our businesses.  Those were the early years for all of us and the reason I’m having Patrick come on the show is because I have been immensely impressed by what I’ve witnessed him build over all these years.     Patrick is the co-owner of Axis Group, an agency for Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) who utilizes independent agents to provide businesses with a single resource for hard to place worker’s compensation coverage, risk management services, human resource solutions and payroll admini

Lily Nichols wrote her first book Real Food for Gestational Diabetes  in 2015 with no intention of making money.  As a Registered Dietitian and Nutritionist and someone who had built a practice helping women through gestational diabetes, she wrote it because she was so desperate to get her revolutionary and evidence based ideas out to a world of moms who needed it.  So, when the response to her book was so great and money was coming in and she was the first book that came up in Amazon when someone typed in those two words, she was happily surprised.   And a little savvier on how she could also generate revenue from her next book, Real Food For Pregnancy.   During this conversation, Lily and I are diving deep into not only how she makes a great income on her self-published books, but also how she’s constantly evolving her business, before and after her son was born.     She shares…   A great quick tip on how she “baby-proofed” her business, ideal for anyone doing 1 on 1 work with clients! Why she’s transitio

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Kim Garst for quite some time now and this time, the social media diva is having a conversation with me that has nothing to do with social media.     When she had her first son 27 years ago, she took one look at her newborn and decided in an instant that all her plans to go law school and have a big legal career were out the window.  A few months later, the realities of going from a dual income family to a single income family hit and Kim realized she needed to make something happen. So, she got “online,” which, back then, looked like message boards and chat rooms.  She taught herself tons of tech so she could build websites and pretty soon, she was taking phone calls from people she was chatting with over the message boards to secure her first clients. It took her 5 years to make her first $60.   Kim and I have a very real conversation about her journey as a mompreneur.  How she remembers taking phone calls while sitting on the floor playing legos with her kids.  How she wor

Arianna Taboada is a Maternal Health Consultant for Entrepreneurs and she had been working with moms for quite some time before she herself became pregnant.  She helps moms prep for maternity leave, because, let’s face it, there’s no perfect maternity leave formula for those of us who run our own businesses.   So when she became pregnant, Arianna wisely took all her wisdom and applied it to herself.  “I created a client slot for myself in my schedule.”   During this interview, Arianna talk about…   How her 4 month maternity leave plan got interrupted when her baby boy was 6 weeks old The biggest lesson she’s learned to make her mompreneur life work is to have dedicated time for work and dedicated time for her son...her schedule is a non-negotiable. Her thoughts about mommy groups and the kind of mommy play dates she had regularly in her son’s first year of life and how and why she chose to give that up as he got older. Why she doesn’t plan her business too far ahead!  As a matter of fact, she only make s

Mary Kathryn Johnson has had an online business since 2003.  At that time, her sons were young - a toddler and a baby - and she just DID IT ALL.  The tech, the fulfillment, the marketing for her online maternity wear store and taking care of her kiddos full time.     Fast forward to 2018 and her sons are now 19 and 16 and Mary has two more businesses under her belt.  She is the creator of the Parent Entrepreneur Power podcast, where she talks to very successful entrepreneurs about the parenting and also acts as a private consultant to many of them.  And she also founded Messenger Funnels, a business that helps people leverage the online messenger platform to deepen relationships with their clients.   Mary’s journey as a mompreneur and her experience having worked with many parent entrepreneurs gives this conversation a unique twist, as she helps identify the phases of parenthood as they’re paralleled to business!  And, we get into an impassioned conversation about how we all go through seasons, both in busine

Jill Stanton and her husband Josh are the creators of the very popular podcast Screw the Nine to Five.  Over the past 5 years, they’ve successfully run Screw University, their membership community, put on live events and also provide online courses to help business start up and successfully get out of their 9-5 jobs.     At the time of this interview, Jill is the new mother of her 6 week old Kai.  So we spend our conversation talking candidly about the “before and after baby” plans.  She dives in deep to what she and Josh did to prepare their business for their baby and shares that they made a serious shift on how they organize and approach their business using a proven framework so they are actually running their business - instead of it running them.     She also shares about what life is really like now that she has Kai.  How she begged her mom to stay longer so she could have the support she needed during this time and how she’s totally cool with hiring out some of the things that she doesn’t want to do,

Grace for the Journey.  That’s the phrase that kept coming to me during today’s interview with Jaclyn Mellone.  She’s the co-host of the podcast All Up In Your Lady Business with Jessica Stansberry, a Marketing and Mindset expert and the creator of her new program, Go To Gal.     Jaclyn found out she was pregnant with her 2nd child just one week after she launched her podcast and her first paid program.  Which sent her into tons of fear. But she eventually saw it as a great opportunity to have a “due date” by which she needed to simplify her life.  “Simplifying helped me grow faster,” she said.   During this incredible conversation, we talk about the constant evolution business and babies are and how she gives herself a lot of grace as she moves through that evolution.  She says that a daily GRATITUDE PRACTICE is key - specifically being grateful for the messy stuff, the unexpected stuff, the stuff that didn’t turn out the way we wanted.   This interview with Jaclyn is such a great example of the journey of a

Video Marketing, creating schedules that work for you (and are ever evolving) and potty training...we’re talking about it all on today’s episode!  Jessica Stansberry is a rock solid “infopreneur” who helps people create video marketing that makes and impact and makes them money! She also has two boys, ages 7 and 5 and is heavy in the “soccer mom” phase!   During our conversation, Jessica and I talk about the process she went through to get her from chaos to clarity - the moment when she decided to take her business seriously and grow it intentionally.  Which led her to YouTube - initially just to house her videos so she could embed them on her blog. But when she stepped back and looked at her analytics and realized how much traffic was coming from those videos on YouTube, she decided to recalibrate and create a new strategy.   That was June 2017 and back then, she had 500 YouTube subscribers.  And since then, with an intentional strategy, she has grown her subscribers to 8,600!     Jessica gives us a snapshot

Everything we experienced in the past helps us in the now.  Getting fired from her job, working her business 24-7 with a little baby and experiencing Postnatal Depression (PND), these are the things that Nat Stewart says that helped guide her into a company that she knows to be her purpose.     Business Jump is an agency that provides strategic structure and support for mumpreneurs who are ready to get their businesses going.  Nat’s done such a great job of providing this support that her business brought in $1million in revenue in its first 2 years! During our conversation, you’ll hear Nat talk about…   How she stays focused on profit producing tasks How she’s scaled into an agency model (and why that’s perfectly in line with the kind of support her mums crave!) How self-awareness is a big deal to her and why it’s the foundation of her entire mompreneur experience! How she deals with “the pull” of being with her kiddos and hubby AND works in the business she LOVES!   Nat is a beautiful soul and I know y

If you wanted a step by step on HOW to go deeper into you niche so you can reap the massive benefits, then this is the episode to listen to!  Ramona Rice is the Founder of Spapreneur, a podcast, community and support for independent women spa owners who are growing their day spas purposefully.   She decided to serve this niche because her mom, Lynn Graves, went from owning a studio massage room in 1996 to a 4000 square foot day spa that generates over $1million in massage services each year.  And Ramona has spearheaded a lot of that growth through streamlining the systems, building an email list and creating quality experiences for their customers.   So, in 2016, she and her mom decided to start the Spapreneur podcast to help other independent day spa owners to do business well!  That podcast has turned into a thriving Facebook Group, a growing email list and a hungry community who is thankful for the support!   During this interview, Ramona dissects the step by step of how she got clear on her niche, what sh

Carol Cox has been an active member of the Biz Women Rock community for years and I couldn’t be more excited to share our conversation with you!  She’s the owner of Speaking Your Brand, a company that specializes in helping high performing women entrepreneurs create their signature talks and keynote presentations.     Now, you may already be out on the “speaking circuit,” as a way to enhance your visibility or you may know that speaking is a big part of what you want to do, so this interview with Carol is going to be incredibly helpful for you because we cover a TON of practical strategies including…   Understanding the difference between a signature talk - or keynote presentation - vs. an educational workshop Carol’s 3 C’s of visibility How to go about getting started creating your own signature talk How to ensure you are intentional with your presentations so they DO something for your business! How to go about acquiring KEYNOTE presentations - what will make you stand apart from everyone else! Some o

What is a Branding Archetype and why is knowing yours such a phenomenal, practical tool to help you in your business?   Those are the questions we’re answering on today’s episode.  I brought on the incredible Diane Diaz of The Brand Teacher.  She’s been a member of the Biz Women Rock community for a while, came to the 2017 Retreat and has since been a member of the Biz Women Rock Academy.  And through her involvement, I’ve seen just how passionate and talented she is at helping women entrepreneurs clarifying their BRANDS so they can better communicate their message to the world and thus, attract more clients to them.     So when Diane asked if I wanted to take the Brand Archetype assessment before our interview, I hopped right on it and told her we could use me as a mini case study to not just talk about archetypes, but show you.   During today’s conversation, we discover that my primary archetype is THE HERO (not surprised) ;) and my #2 and #3 are the Magician and the Explorer.  More importantly, however is

Process Improvement.  Productivity. Project management.  You would think with a company that offers these services to corporate clients, words like mindfulness and vision wouldn’t necessarily be a part of the conversation.  But, you would be wrong.   Adriana Girdler created the MVP approach (stands for Mindfulness, Vision and Productivity) because she noticed that in order to help her clients achieve their goals, she needed to incorporate these more “soft” concepts and practices.     But believe me, they are not soft at all.  As a matter of fact, Adriana and I have an impassioned conversation about how VITAL getting clear on our vision - who we are, what we’re here to do, who we serve, etc. - is to true business success!  And how QUICKLY things unfold when you do the work to answer these questions!   During this conversation, we talk about the idea of a visual vision and why it’s so powerful.  We also discuss the difference between your mission and your vision.  Adriana shares the habits she’s cultivated over

Becky Mollenkamp has been an active member of the Biz Women Rock community for quite some time.  And, I proudly watched as she started a Facebook Group, Own It! Crush It!, a community for women entrepreneurs and is crushing it herself as its leader of over 1700 women!  As I’ve gotten to know Becky better, it became clear that she had a ton of knowledge about LinkedIn.  And because I am always trying to inspire myself and you to up our game on LinkedIn (a social media platform that I not-so-secretly don’t enjoy), I invited her on to share her wisdom.   And let me tell you...she DELIVERS the goods!  Not even in the step by step (which she absolutely gets into), but the overall attitude with which to approach LinkedIn!   My favorite nugget is the fact that when people are on LinkedIn, they’re there to do BUSINESS.  Which is a GREAT thing for you! Because when they’re looking at your profile, commenting on your posts or messaging you, they are in the business mode!     In this interview, Becky walks us through a

I was recently asked to give a Keynote presentation for the Tampa Bay Business Owners.  That name may sound familiar to you because, yes, it was the company I ran for 7 years alongside my hubs.  So, when he asked me to Keynote, I was actually more nervous than any other presentation I’ve given to date!  (You’d think it would be the opposite since it is a group I know so intimately).     Why?  Because I had seen SO MANY amazing people standing on that stage over all those years and knew what a powerful platform it is!  And, because I have never truly told my entrepreneurial story before. I mean, in pieces, yes. As a way to drive home points during strategic presentations, sure.  But the whole story? Nope. And that was a bit nerve-wracking for me.   I’m turning around and sharing the recording of that Keynote with you because, for as much as you hear me talk about the pieces of all those “ups and downs,” I want to make sure you really get that I’ve had them!  In so many ways that you wouldn’t guess!  Like, did

Julie Shopa has owned Clarity Financial for 10 years.  She provides bookkeeping services for her clients who are ready to hand over their books so they can focus on what they love doing.     During this LIVE COACHING SESSION, Julie initially asks for clarification around her packages - “I want to have packages that are easy for people to say yes to,” was her statement to me.  But after a bit of digging, it becomes obvious that her packages are just one piece of the larger puzzle...her sales process takes forever!  From start to finish, it can take weeks - and this is with people who reach out to her and are ready to do business with her!     So we spend this session dissecting her sales process and create efficiencies, automation, templates - and yes, we chat about her packages and some easy ways she can begin to organize them - so she can take something that takes 8 steps and turn it into 4.     I am a systems junkie, so I THRIVE when it comes to creating efficiencies!  So I believe that anyone - whether you

Andrea Owen is the awesome lady behind Your Kick Ass Life.  She’s a life coach, writer and self-proclaimed Hellraiser.  During our conversation, we’re diving deep into the topic of her most recent book, How to Stop Feeling Like Shit.  Self-doubt, negative self-talk and all the things we have swirling around in our heads that keeps us from living vibrantly.  Yup. We’re going there.   And, of course, I ask Andrea about the business behind her book, how she’s marketing it (she’s got some cool strategies for getting it out there!) and her purpose behind it!  Andrea is amazing and I know you’re going to LOVE her!   Check out Andrea’s website here → http://yourkickasslife.com/

Anna Dutko has a challenge.  For the past 2 years, she’s done an awesome job creating a fitness business (Round 2 Fitness) that has established her as an expert in her field.  She’s super active on Facebook and has built an audience who loves her!  But something new has emerged for her and it’s got her creative attention.   And it has nothing to do with fitness.   In early 2017, Anna went through a breakup and when she went back onto the dating scene, she found herself saying no to a lot of dates.  Upon diving why she was saying no, she realized she had no idea what she really enjoyed. So, she decided to take herself on “30 dates in 30 days,” started a blog about her experience and the idea has lit a fire inside of her (and caught the curiosity of a ton of people along the way!).   During this LIVE COACHING session, Anna’s asking for help clarifying how she should show up with this new brand in a way that doesn’t impede on her fitness business but optimizes the audience she’s built from it!   We talk about tw

Whaaaaat?!?!  I can’t believe it’s been FOUR YEARS since Biz Women Rock began.  In February 2014, I launched the first episode of the Biz Women Rock podcast...a podcast that would immediately attract the most incredible, ambitious women entrepreneurs I have ever had the privilege of knowing (that would be YOU), whom I get to connect with every day.  A podcast that would give birth to an entire BUSINESS MODEL for me that allows me to work from anywhere, build meaningful relationships with fellow biz women, lean into my gifts as a writer, communicator, leader and supporter of women, be home with my daughter a lot, spend quality time with my entrepreneurial hubs and provides prosperity for me and my family.  All in all...it’s provided me the opportunity to live my life by MY DESIGN.     And no...I had no idea this is where I would be when I put my first episode out into the world 4 years ago!   Have you ever heard the saying amongst parents that goes, “the years are short, but the days are long?”  That’s how I f