involves all of our ills of life those areas absolutely yeah so today yes this is really exciting i know we have a special guest suzanne off on cola from right click advantage and we're going to discuss you know journey there's certain times when we stop and start and i guess our rag that's what it's all about right right that's what it's all about yeah so tell us how you got to this point because i know you came from corporate and you know there were several events that happened and so absolutely give us a little summary of that thank you so i was a corporate employee for twenty years and in the year two thousand  husband became ill he was only forty three when he passed away and i we had two kids so that was one life events where all of a sudden i had to reach for my inner energy and the average reality to get to the to dido part of my life and i thought ok i got this i got this you know the grace of god and the support of my family i can do this and then just three short years later i got laid off my job oh wow thinking oh they would never throw a goodness but then the one how is that right you know how i want to x stopped because her story is sold so similar to my story because i also was downsize and i took that and richard lighter in his book  life imagine calls it a trigger point it's really when something hammond yeah that is you from things that is right all right at that point in your life you make the decision yet make that decision and that's what i did i think zack when i said i have to just the other day i had lunch with a with a former colleague of mine from corporate and i said without being ironic or but he says thank god that i was put out on the street because i'm living a life now that i love s right entrepreneurship you never really realize until you're in it how many skill sets you need to actually run a business oh yes and i know all the it lightly bad what's always amazing to me when i do workshops that people don't understand that their skills that they have on corporate concept of without and that so as i mentioned i was a widow and i i had a couple choices to make i could either get a standard job and try and do something on my own on the side which a lot of people do when it is theirs and there's nothing wrong with that right but having come from a place where the company just laid me off i started i was in a point where i was very mistrustful of corporate structure right so to me a company a corporation even it was a small company they had no they had there was no loyalty there they were not going to take care of me so i decided the only person was going to take care of me was a you right and so i made that decision to start a business it was a p c training company and even though it seemed to make sense to get another job on the side to make some money you know that's where the two kids comes right up and why i decided no because this is too much stress i'd rather rather just take take a full and i had some savings fall back while i was starting up so you know i had no husband or partner to bring in the paycheck i had no part time job i had to make it  know make it i was make it or break and i was either i got very good at tightrope walking yet and it was a long way down so i have to get very good at it right now tell me when you're going through that what is what are some of the tools that you drew on to really give you that confidence to take that next step on that tightrope that's an excellent question and i will tell you one of the first things i did was  get real with myself and realize that i have never run a business before i never took business courses in college so i recognized my own lack of information in my starting point so i decided i made the best business owners organizations ok and i learned they were my business right right so i learned as much as i could from them whether it was marketing or finance and war or what have you i learned as much as i when you approach someone to say you know i want to learn their flattered and i yes there's very much open show how eating helping you and you know giving you their opinion now you know the things that helped me the things that didn't work so well for me courage now how did your face play in this part of the titled why you know the big guy and i had a lot of congress i guess and it was around the time that i had recently joined a new church it was a very small ok you got to know everybody in the church and i and i also started volunteering for the church and i got on committees and things like that so i had a great family you know had wonderful kids and i needed that upper level was right or yeah and so you know spirituality and also being close to a community right along yeah how old are your kids at that point when my husband passed away they were ten and fourteen w nderstanding that higher power because for me you know i always talk about and it should rise your core beliefs false things that kind of are the things that guide you in your life that if you're that you make your decisions on and for me making that decision can in terms of you know what can i do yeah obviously there was a part of my life there were people in my life who needed my help in some way and i haven't met them yet i don't know how i was going to help them but i was put on this path so so i needed to hunker down and focus and follow the path so tell us that first that first stage of your business you know what you did and how did that how did you start generating revenue like what were some of those tips th you just start asking people or like what were some of those first things like if somebody is starting a business and they're out there in the same sort of scenario what are maybe one or two tips that you could say look do this do this  and wait for the business and then doesn't not have one and what you have to go out right i always say to them remember what your mother always told you you need to get out of the house i never know you might go out of the house and meet people and go oh networking absolutely one of the key points when you're going out networking you're just avello being your business and you're telling people that you meet what you do for a living one of the key points is you have to understand who your perfect customer  is and so you can instead of expending a lot of energy doing a lot of different things if you understand who exactly you want to serve you can focus all of your energy on that type of person and finding that type of entrepreneurs they feel ok what i can't just hold in on this one person this one segment because i'm leaving everybody else out everybody needs my service but like you said the more laser focused you are then people can really understand getting referred by someone who can speak highly of you and your business as opposed to you going out you know just trying to to willingly find people to talk about wrong your business doing it right and i'm smiling because you know i i now run  now following this journey so we're we're at a place now where you've got your met working you know you have to go out you're getting one or two clients now is there at some point where you think oh my god i can't do this i don't know you know blah blah blah you know like how how am i going to continue what are some of those things that you experienced and how did you get over those in the door so i would say the for the first couple of our first two or three years of your business you're so focused on you know making it work and you're laser focused on everything that needs to happen and then the first three years go by you're like ok this is this is cool the school i'm still here right months of work and then you kind of sort of not complacent but you get a little bit more relaxed and if you relax too much the revenue starts going down because you don't have that you know the fire in your belly and then you start panicking and then you start getting stressed and that's where you start making mistakes so i think it's very important for people to keep focused on their mission their core values why did i start this type of business who is it that i want to help what is my my core bally what do i believe in that that's never going to be shaken so i think people have to recognize that they have to stay focused safe say true to their their original plan and their original mission and keep the passion going and when that happens then everybody sees that fire come out and and more more revenue comes in because more customers come in and more referrals come in  you know you are the one that produces that energy and if she relaxed everyone can kind of sense that there's not much going on here but if you're fired up and you're starting out the day who can i help today that is comes out and that and they want to work and you know coming from like a sales background it was always you know drilled into us and as a manager me saying to people who work for me you have to be enthusiastic about what you're selling so you have to be corporation when you are working in corporate we have people to tell us that we need to be enthusiastic now as a solo printed or what are some of those practices that help helps you or help you to help your clients stay off focus and really keep focusing on success like you said what was your main regional mission how you know obviously as the years go by you tune it and fine tune it and whatever but what are some of those practices that you feel is really critical to staying on success the focus of success and your marketing the first time that that kind of crystallized for me and it's all about the customer and the experience you give you customer and how they appreciate what you're doing for them the first time that happened to me i was in my first business the p c computer trainee and i was helping this i'm in and just doing simple things copy paste writing right on her printer things that i could probably do with one hand it was no good even for me right but at the end of it all and you know she paid me and she said thank you with and then she said you have no idea how much i want to help means to me and i can see the waterworks coming  gave me a bear hug and she was crying she was weeping of course you know i had to start crying and that's when the moment happens where i realized i'm actually affecting other human beings right right and positive that way and the reality of way dynamic  way an emotional way and that's not that i need to make all my customers cry bragging rights yeah come in and now that i'm in marketing and i do marketing strategy my customers are now a business owner right and i still get that and that's wh strive for that's my goal i want every single customer interaction to end with the customer saying oh thank god i write yeah right yeah you are you know you help me so much and it happened so that's my fuel i need to know that i'm helping i need to know that i'm affecting a change and and the minute they say all of their emotion all the yeah thank you can you write that down seriously right and you know all of my older two were had those big desktop computer they suddenly got i pads for christmas and my revenue went down oh wow so i can laugh about it now i'm like oh you're kidding the they didn't need me as much because the i pad was ok but honestly around that time i started to feel a little bit burned out and i started to feel like if i have to you know teach copy and paste yes right right and you know i is just not coming in the right and when you start to feel yourself your and you just can't get their energy back up again that's when somebody is trying to how you to go next you know yeah like yeah yeah right right erika right turn and i realize that the part of my business that i loved was the marketing part was the marketing strategy jewing email marketing social media marketing i love doing that part of my business so when it was time to recalculate i already had other entrepreneurs with their market right now that you're at right click that you started right click advantage and it's strictly you know a focusing on helping businesses market themselves what what's maybe three tips that you can give  users in terms of very effective today still today because it changes like every yes absolutely well three tips that will never changed i believe and again when now that i have a group coaching a group mentoring program for women entrepreneurs a tongue in cheek i say to them we have to embrace our p m s and he m s stands for pricing marketing and sales oh i love it so even if you're a  man you kind of have to embrace your p and i so that's well because if you don't there's you know people talk about marketing how do i market my beer right as though the promotional part of marketing is really only one piece think of it as an oreo cookie you've got the two cookie writing a crime in the i don't know you have to price your your business your products and your services appropriately and for value right you have to give the customer as much value as possible right and price it according right because people aren't necessarily looking for the cheapest thing though right it's we'd all be driving right right right right or exactly there's plenty of people who are driving b m w s and lexus so we're actually looking for value so pricing is so the pricing goes along with the marketing and then you have to promote yourself in the right the right avenues again who is my perfect customer where do they hang out and then market a specific message to that specific customer about mindset and sales is simply you being able to solve your customer's problem or it was arbus it exactly it's just a match you need help i'm here to help you let's get together  your job to try and change their mind it's your job to say i understand you're not ready right now right you know here's my card you know how to i'm always here if you need me and if it's two years now so in our last minute or so talk about community and talk about your new venture that you know it's something that entrepreneurs can benefit from absolutely community is absolutely critical no one can do it on their own or all trapped in their head negative self talk so when you are get out of our own heads and into a supportive community so i have two communities that i rely on one is the group mentoring program that i started for women it's called sisters in entrepreneurship and this is just for women who to embrace or p m s right there they are just too shy about their pricey marketing and skills so i it's a very educational program the other community i absolutely love and adore is  national association of women business owners and some people don't get the fact that why would you be associated with a national presence when you're basically do i believe i state it is you have this wealth of information there's a wealth of energy and community there's so many people you can meet throughout the night as i see right somebody who does what you do in texas or in the brasco wouldn't it be wonderful if you can trade