In this episode of the Spark and Ignite Your Marketing podcast, host Beverly Cornell sits down with Dr. Charlynn Ruan, founder of Thrive Psychology Group, to explore how entrepreneurs can overcome the emotional and mental health challenges that come with building and growing a business. Dr. Ruan shares valuable mental health insights that not only reduce symptoms but help founders reach their peak performance. From overcoming trauma to managing stress, this conversation dives deep into how you can thrive, not just in business, but in life.
Three Key Takeaways:
- Entrepreneurial Traits Can Be Both Strengths and Weaknesses: Dr. Ruan highlights that the same traits that drive entrepreneurs—such as ambition, independence, and resilience—can also become detrimental if internal struggles, like trauma or burnout, are left unresolved.
- Mental Health is Essential for Long-Term Success: Prioritizing mental health is crucial for founders to avoid burnout, maintain peak performance, and truly thrive. Therapy isn’t just for crisis management; it’s a powerful tool to optimize your life and business.
- Trauma Can Fuel Post-Traumatic Growth: Many successful entrepreneurs channel past hardships into their drive for success. Dr. Ruan explains how addressing these deep-rooted issues through therapy can lead to personal growth, higher resilience, and a healthier relationship with your business.
Follow Charlynn Ruan:
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Watch on YouTube:
Transcript:
Beverly:
Did you know that women who receive specialized mental health care are 70 percent more likely to report improved overall wellbeing. Welcome to another insightful episode of the Spark and Ignite Your Marketing Podcast. And I’m your host, Beverly Cornell. And today I am so excited to introduce Dr. Charlynn Ruan, a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma. Women’s mental health and wellness. She has lots of support for founders and entrepreneurs as well. It’s kind of her thing. Dr. Ruan is the founder of Thrive Psychology Group, Incorporated, a pioneering therapy practice dedicated to transforming mental health and wellness for women in like over 45 states. Dr. Ruan, it’s wonderful to have you here. It’s wonderful to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I am excited to talk about this because we oftentimes talk to coaches and we kind of joke, not joke, cause it’s not really a joke, but we kind of say that any successful entrepreneur needs like a coach and they also need a therapist. Yeah. You need to look at what’s in the past. It’s like holding you back and look at the forward to make you accountable. Like you need to get all the things together and work together so that you Can have the best opportunity to be successful and to be happy.
Charlynn Ruan:
Yeah, absolutely.
Beverly:
Talk a little about like your origin. Like how did you, you’re, everybody’s a superhero. So talk about your origin story. Where, where did you start? Why psychology? Why women? Why entrepreneurs? Talk about like the sparks along the way. They got you to where you are today.
Charlynn Ruan:
Oh, I love that. You know, it’s funny as a psychologist, we talk so little about ourselves,
about everybody else that I always find people ask me, I’m like, Oh, where to start?
Charlynn Ruan:
Um, yeah, so I got into psychology. I’ve always had the goal of, um, And a passion of empowering specifically women, I do work with both men and women, but that was a goal of mine. And so, um, earlier in life, I’m like, okay, I’m going to do that through opening up financial opportunities. I’m going to do that through, you know, business opportunities. And then what I realized or kept hitting up against is like, wow, a lot of times our psychology, our work. Our own wellbeing gets in the way and you can’t really give someone the tools without also helping them to do the inside work. And so I was like, I kept getting frustrated against hitting up against that. So I’m like, you know what, I’m just going to go and I’m going to like, go back to school, become a psychologist. And, and then I specialized while I was in my. Doctoral program. I specialized in studying entrepreneurship, specifically in women. So I learned a lot about the research behind it, personality characteristics, things that build success. Why women do it. I mean, more women start businesses than men, but a lot of them don’t really grow to be very large. So there’s a lot of different factors that play in. That’s a different experience for women. And then when I started Thrive, I did that in part because I always knew I wanted to start a group practice. Most people start group practices because they’re like so and so and associates, right? They start a solo practice, they have overflow, they hire people. But my intention was always to start Thrive and, you know, the purpose is in the name, which is that, like, okay, people are surviving, but they’re not really thriving. And psychology has often been You know, symptom reduction, how do we just help you function at the bare minimum really doesn’t go into peak performance. You know, you mentioned like coaches doesn’t go into like, how do you live your best life now? It’s the, it’s more like an emergency room visit or, you know, we just are not given a lot of those tools in our basic education of how to help people to really thrive, to really be able to do what they’re passionate about and live like authentic, full, beautiful lives. So I’m like, well, nobody’s doing it, so I’m going to do it. And then. Started thrive, um, and grew rather rapidly. And as you said, we’re, we’re all over the country. Um, and as part of that, I ended up working with founders in part because I was a founder in part because, you know, my, um, just my knowledge is really deep on the subject and I think also, you know, once. Someone starts working with you, a founder starts working with you, then they tell their founder friends who tell their founder friends, and then you just end up, you know, working with them. And I love working with entrepreneurs and founders because they are, well, they’re there, they push themselves to be their best selves in every way. So they’re really not like leaving anything on the table when it comes to like working on their stuff, which makes them really fun and exciting and, you know, challenging, but in the ways that I love, um, to work with. So. That’s, that’s what I’ve been doing and specializing in and I love it and my favorite things to do.
Beverly:
What has been some of the biggest challenges or transitions that your business has had over the last, well, it’s 2018 I think you started, right?
Charlynn Ruan:
Yeah. So when, it’s interesting when I started it, part of it, I like reverse engineered the whole thing, bring to our technology into it, do it in a different way. And so at the time it was very innovative. All the things we did, you know, having online therapy, doing online booking, um, just being very like forward in, in all of our, in our marketing, we were the first ones to really use like Google AdWords. We were really, and so we grew rather rapidly then COVID hit. And then I’m like, Oh no. What are we going to do? Because, you know, then revenues dropped and I had all these employees, but, you know, then the mental health field grew and we were really well poised because we were ahead of the game very much in technology to be able to switch all the online. It was the easiest thing for us when other psychologists just. Weren’t thinking about that client experience in the first place. So there was that whole boom during that. And once you do all online, we had offices that were sitting empty, basically furniture storage at the time. Like, so, and, and then. You know, and then post COVID and then people are spreading out all over the country. And one of the reasons we’re in multiple states is because one of the limits of being a psychologist that coaches don’t face is that we have, you know, these interstate rules, you know, so if you’re licensed in one state, you can only see residents of that state.
Beverly:
Right.
Charlynn Ruan:
So someone moves and they lose their therapist. So, because we were working with people that were often like bouncing back and forth between New York and Austin and California, their needs weren’t being met. And so, you know, that’s when I really decided like, okay, we need to meet the need there. And so, you know, um, Psychology also has like an interstate reciprocity agreement that California wasn’t a part of, but Texas was. So I moved to Austin, hired a lot of people to do that, and we expanded to all over the country. So it’s really like, my field’s growing and evolving so quickly, you gotta pivot fast. To be able to keep up and meet needs. It,
Beverly:
it sounds like too, like, like this idea of incorporating tech into this very personal space has been really powerful too. Like people hadn’t thought about how tech could make it a similar experience. I know from my own self, like my husband’s military, so we move a lot and Oh yeah, we like continuity of care is like a real issue for us. Oh, it is. And so having that a capability is huge. And then also like, we don’t necessarily have to leave the house because we have no support system. Typically when we move someplace, cause our families are another state. So like we have kids and to have to care for them, like there’s a lot of challenges in that. So I know like, like from my perspective, that, that has been huge from that tech side of things.
Charlynn Ruan:
Oh, absolutely. And there was just very little of that when we first started doing it. Now, I mean, again, like post COVID, many more therapists do that and are on the bandwagon of that. But at the time it was like quite the, quite the controversial thing, but I mean, all the research shows that doing online therapy is just as effective and sometimes more because well, one, it really reduces barriers to care. And. It’s a big deal. So
Beverly:
people are apt to do it because they don’t have to leave. Like they can do it in the safety of their home. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a very comfortable place for people to be too. So they can maybe even be more, more, more giving of what they say to, cause they feel comfortable. Yeah. Yeah,
Charlynn Ruan:
absolutely.
Beverly:
What do you, what, what really frustrates you about your industry and how do you fix it? Do you think?
Charlynn Ruan:
Oh, oh boy. I have a, I’m such a love, hate relationship with my field. Um, I mean, part of what he had said earlier that they’re really, um, It does tend to draw a personality type. Um, psychology tends to draw personality type that might be like just more rigid, traditional. It’s really at odds with entrepreneurship. And so there can be really like distrust. Um, Of new things, right? So distrust of technology, distrust of new ways of doing treatment. They just don’t want to branch out. And you can really get if you’re not someone who’s very like growth oriented, you can get really like, this is what I do. And I’ve been doing the same thing for 50 years. I’m like, yeah, but Like everything’s evolving so quickly that like there’s new technologies we can use in treatment even, you know, there’s new ways to treat people, you know, and and do like nervous system regulation or somatic treatments or like the technology is everything’s evolving so quickly that sometimes the field can be behind. So that’s frustrating. Um, You know, which is another reason why I think I prefer to like own my own company and then move, then I have control over what we’re able to do and can really follow what I think serves the client beyond what serves maybe my own ego or my own comfort level. Um, which is. Important. It’s, it’s a tough field too. Like there’s been in, in cope during COVID, there’s a lot of, um, venture capital that flowed into the field. There’s a lot of people. Yeah. We had so many offers to buy and I didn’t end up selling thrive, but so like just a land grab and psychology was kind of the last area where, you know, dentists had had that, you know, chiropractors had had that medical doctors had that, Where like they had been bought by these larger organizations and they hadn’t really done that with psychologists. And now I kind of feel sorry for the venture capitalist because it’s really, it’s a tough industry, um, in so many ways. And, but it’s changed, it’s rapidly changed that you’ve seen the pop up of a lot of, um, things like better help or these bigger organizations that it’s just, it’s just rapidly changed. Um, And I’m glad I didn’t sell because I didn’t want to lose the control over, you know, how I did my business. Um, but that was an intentional choice that a lot of people, you know, did not make at the time.
Beverly:
What do you think makes you and Thrive unique? I mean, it kind of leads into that, right? So you, you have. A different kind of background, a different approach to like new technologies and new things and the trends that are happening. You’re more open to other ways of doing business and also serving your, your patients. But what, what do you think really makes? I think Dr. Ruin, I think unique, which makes the business unique. Right. So what, what do you think is your secret recipe?
Charlynn Ruan:
Yeah. I mean, when we first started, we were the first, um, as a VC person pointed out to me when they were trying to buy me, um, or the company they’re saying, you know, you’re first to market for serving women. Um, now there’s a lot more companies that are that way, you know, and again, the technology being first to market, I think it’s, um, um, But again, like you said, and that’s the interesting thing about your business is that it really is, at least for the first few years, so based on the founder’s personality and passions. And so I think it’s my desire and commitment to keep wanting to make the change and to do the thing I need to do and not get too stuck on how I used to do things. So we’ve really, we’ve opened up quite a bit. We see a lot of men. Now we see couples. I thought about that. I’m like, is that with my original vision of doing that? I’m like, you know, it has. Because now there’s so much more of a need for men to be seen and to have good treatment and the stigma is going down around that. And so we’ve had just, we had so many requests for men, even though we were therapy for the modern woman, you know, and I’m like, well, I’m not going to limit that. We can serve them. And so now I also see, I see a lot of male founders too. So, and they have similar, a lot of similar issues and things. So, and seeing couples. So I think it’s just my, my willingness to innovate and my ability to just, I’m very, I committed to keeping it authentic and something from a place of integrity. And, and also, you know, not doing things I dislike. I think that there’s something where you
could, you know, it’s like, if you have, I have a big, like, I don’t hire people I don’t like. You know, if there’s
Charlynn Ruan:
something that I just don’t like or enjoy, I’m like, I think Warren Buffett talks about investing. Don’t invest in something you don’t understand. Like if it’s your company, I think sometimes people get their, a certain level of success and then they start to serve their company as the, in this unhealthy way and end up working harder than they ever would for somebody else’s.
Beverly:
So I, I, that totally resonates with me as an entrepreneur. I think for 10 years, I created that my clients created my company. I was very unintentional and not an accidental entrepreneur. And I did not have a plan and I wasn’t super clear and I wasn’t like focused. I was making good money. I was getting lots of referrals, but I started hating my business.
Charlynn Ruan:
That’s how, you know, when you start hating it, the money doesn’t matter. I
Beverly:
was starting to resent all the things like I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t any little like client requests was annoying. Like I just got to a point where I was like resentful
and
Beverly:
I had to. Fire a couple of clients. I, you know, like it was time, like I can only do so much as a, as a marketer. I can’t drag you across the finish line. Like you still have to, like, this is your business. There’s some vested interest on your side as well. And I just, I started to create some boundaries and then I got really intentional about the kind of business I wanted. The things that brought me joy that made me happy. Like you said, you don’t want to invest in things that don’t bring you the joy. That is the beauty of being an entrepreneur. We can create whatever we want and there’s lots of power in that but then it became really clear through some, some exercises I did for that I actually do with my clients.
I
Beverly:
did it for myself. And I was like, you know, the Calvary’s kids don’t have shoes, but like I can help everybody else build a business. So I did it for myself and I got very clear and very focused. And then all of a sudden. I was more excited about my, my, my work than I had been 10 years ago when I started the business. And I think when you are clear and focused and you have that vision and you have that purpose and you are doing the things that bring you joy, gosh, like anything is possible in that. Like, yeah, I almost feel like I don’t have enough. I want to do it all right. Like I’m almost like overwhelmed with the possibilities. And now I just love working with my clients and I just love, and I’m picky. I’m really picky. I’ve niched down quite considerably because I know who I really like to serve now. So it does. There’s a lot to it. That’s that’s that what you’re saying is, is important.
Charlynn Ruan:
Measuring your energy as much as you measure your time or your money. Like that’s, I think, you know, you’re saying like the people that are the energy drain or the, this, the things you don’t love doing, like we’ll say, Oh, this takes me this amount of time. I didn’t make this amount of money for it, but the cost of your energy. And, and so I’ve started measuring things in energy. Like, you know, like you said, it’s like, and I don’t work with people I don’t like either. And you know, and so, and i’m also very like super, super honest therapist. So it wouldn’t work well if I did. So I meet with people first and then, you know, and then I can refer them to someone on my team who’s passionate about something and is a good fit for them. But if i’m not just absolutely enraptured by their growth Then I can’t like throw myself into it. You know, it’s like they pay for my expertise, not my care, you know, so it’s that the care I have to feel it has to be like, you know, it just has to be there. And so, yeah, if you do that, and those are the ones you can really help someone else can help the other people. I think, too, like you said, there’s that feeling of like. Oh, if they ask, I have to say yes, or I have to serve all people or have to do all things. Part of it is like, just figure out the one or two things you’re incredible at and just double down, triple down, and then let everybody else do the other stuff. That’s so hard. They’re prioritizing. But I feel like you have to reach that point you reached. And I’ve reached that point too, to be like, I can’t, this is, you know, I can’t hate the thing I built. As an entrepreneur, there’s no one to blame but yourself either. My boss is terrible. Oh, wait, it’s me.
Beverly:
Yes. I think those are double down. I love that, that phrase. And it’s powerful in that, like, do what you do and do it really well and own it entirely that, I mean, just own it entirely. So who are your typical clients? And what problem do you actually solve for them, do you think, or help them solve?
Charlynn Ruan:
A lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs. I tend to work. I call them like, there’s sort of the think outside the box, a little bit, a little bit crazy, but also really dedicated, super smart. There are a lot of the ones that are like. You know, all my other therapists couldn’t keep up or understand, or I do whatever. Like one of my gifts is I have very fast processing speed. They’ll throw all this. I love working with them because they’re just firing on things. You’ll say something like, I’ll give them a term like polyvagal theory. And then the next week they’re like, so I read three books on polyvagal theory. And I’m like, you know, it’s, so it keeps you at the top of your game because they are, and they’re so smart and so curious. So, but yeah. I treat a lot of it’s interesting because it’s such an interesting balance, but goes together. So, well, a lot of it is what I would call like a peak performance way of looking at things. And I’ve had to learn sports psychology, positive psychology, because it’s stepping outside of just a symptom management, you know, basic psychology way of looking at things instead of like, how do you function at your optimal levels? And so that’s balancing really, I would say. I don’t even know what the word for that. Maybe some coaching, maybe some sports psychology way of looking at it. And at the same time, I deal with the hardest of the hard trauma because a lot of people get into entrepreneurship partially because they are people who didn’t have like trusted adults who ran them through a very specific way of doing things. And they got outcome. Like they’re like, at some point in their life, you’re like, you know what? I’m just gonna have to do it myself. And they’ve just been doing that ever since. So there’s a reason they think outside the box because the box wasn’t maybe where they want it to be. And it wasn’t a good place to be. So there’s a lot of, um, and they, and they, they have used the traumatic things of their childhood and of their early life for post traumatic growth, to do incredible things, to have incredible work ethic, to have incredible like ability to read other people, different ways of thinking about things. And so it’s interesting when you have that much trauma, you’ll be super developed, like superpowers in certain areas, but then you’ll be walking along basically and feel like you fell in a hole of an area that you’ve been neglecting. And a lot of times it comes up in relationships or it comes up in they’re driving themselves into the ground for their company or like the very things that made them successful. Will be the things that will tear down their company and tear down themselves and destroy themselves. If they do not resolve those things, I call it like taming the beast. It’s like you rode the beast to this level. But if you do not tame that beast, it will eat you and your company. And it happens all the time. So it’s an interesting dynamic to be able to work with both. How do you optimize performance? And at the same time, um, Dealing with the most intense traumatic stories that I think a lot of psychologists may shy away from, but that I, I don’t see that as a negative. It’s just how you use it.
Beverly:
I’m over here just, and my listeners, if you’re just listening, I’m over here just shaking my head like, Oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes, yes. And she’s talking because All of the clients I’ve worked with and including myself, some of those things that you’re talking about are so real in our lives and we overcome a lot of things, whether it’s an imposter syndrome, fear of failure, fear of success, um, having some sense of control in our destinies. Like there’s so many things. things and complexities that have made many entrepreneurs who they are and have been challenging, but are the very thing that makes us amazing entrepreneurs. So, can you share like a customer testimonial or, like an experience of like somebody who perfectly kind of captures the essence of your business of how their experience was with working with you?
Charlynn Ruan:
Founders in, we’ll say the tech field. So that’s one that I typically get. And that’s a tough one, especially for women. So I have men that are in that field as well. But that’s really hard because you’re very alone in a lot of ways. So I would end up seeing them Usually either they cannot handle the stress of what they’re going through currently, like they’ve built it up to a certain level and they can’t handle the stress or their personal life is falling apart and they’re going to go through a divorce or their health is falling apart or, you know, they’ve gotten to the point where they’re like, I can’t hold it all together. Like, and then they’re usually really hard on themselves about it. Like they’re like, okay, I’m to this level of success in my life. Why am I falling apart now? And I don’t know what to do. Like I can’t enjoy it. I have what I thought I wanted. I’m not happy. And what do I do? And so I love getting people at that point where they’re like, because I do think there’s a belief that if I build, and I mean, you were some of this earlier, if I build a certain level of success in my company, I’m going to be happy. What that buys you is space. And what happens with the space is all those things you’ve been shoving in the closets of your mind, yourself come out. Because there’s enough space and, and will, you know, a lot of people will hold it together and will themselves to a certain level. And then they’ll be like, what’s wrong with me? Things should be happy. I should be happy. Like, no, all this stuff you just shoved down is now coming out because there’s this space for it. So that’s usually when I see them. A lot of them start to have health problems by the way, too. Like your body starts to fall apart. If you put a very strong, dedicated brain and just a normal human body, things start to fall apart. And that can drive people a lot of times to therapy when they can’t, they can’t hold it together anymore. So it’s really about like walking them through the process. Like, okay, you have all these current stressors you’re keeping. It’s like you’re flying the plane and repairing it at the same time, which is also an interesting thing to do because I, it would be. The same ways to say this to a parent, I get so irritated when people will say to a parent, like, Oh, well, just take me time and the other day to whatever, like, why aren’t you sleeping? And it’s like, okay, there’s probably a reason, like, why don’t you like dial it back, figure out what’s going on. Don’t put more shame on top of it to say to a founder, you know, just take off. It’s fine. What if they can’t, what if they’re in the middle of trying to sell their company or they’re like, you know, getting investors, like, it’s about like realistic things that they can do. And then also resolving the things from their childhood that are finally starting to come out because, you know, now they’re to a place of safety where they can, they can actually look at it. And I’m a big believer in not like, let’s go forever into your childhood and dig up all the things for funsies. I mean, people have stuff to do. So a lot of it’s kind of this back and forth of working on the stuff, you know, from childhood, working on the stuff current. And then how do you want the rest of your life to look? And so, you know, so some of those clients, the things that change for them is one, like changing their relationship with their business
Beverly:
The idea of you can create the business that you want, that serves your life, your passion. That’s the whole reason why we do this. Like, why would you not want to craft it that way? That is a safe place that serves your life, not you serving it. Like there’s something that’s really powerful in that. Gosh. I mean, everybody has a story. Everybody has trauma. Everybody has loss. Everybody comes from a place of, of their own unique perspective and experience. And even when you’re working in a healthy space mentally. It’s always good to like, even be sit in your gratefulness of that. Like it’s always good to be talking through what’s actually happening in your life Entrepreneurs are often, and I say this all the time, we move the goalposts on us all the time. Never really sit in the success we have. And we do some amazing things. Entrepreneurs do some amazing things in their lives. Like the amount of impact they have in their community and on their employees and all kinds. I mean, there’s so much that we, we touch that we don’t often sit sometimes in that too. And I think there’s some power in that. Yeah. And a practice that needs to be learned in that as well. So even when things are going well, having I think a therapist to help you can be really, um, helpful in, in, in those times to, to really be able to appreciate the things you have accomplished. So good and bad weed and flower. Yeah, no, it’s true.
Charlynn Ruan:
And then also, I mean, this is something too. There’s, I don’t really, I can’t think of a journey that’s probably lonelier or could be lonelier than being an entrepreneur and, and yeah, and misunderstood. And then, especially if you’re in the position where you have employees, I was just having something about this today. It’s like. There’s an assumption that entrepreneurs are rolling in money and they’ve got all the time and they’re all Jeff Bezos or something It’s like no like it’s it’s a thing that like you really got to be passionate about or don’t do it and so it’s being like, also being honest with yourself of like, do you want to do it? Do you love it? And, but the loneliness of it, like I’m, there’s so much that a lot of times, especially if they’re like funded, you know, if they have investors, they have employees, they have a reputation to keep up. They can’t talk about the really hard stuff, but they can talk to it about me and to me, and they know that I’m a vault. You know, so there’s things that they can’t tell anybody that they can tell me because they know I can’t tell anyone and so just I think the ability to talk through stuff where they can’t say those things to people or they’re afraid to show weakness because then, you know, people are going to doubt them or we still have a really messed up kind of social narrative around trauma where like if they admitted the things they had been through, someone would see that as a risk. That, Oh, maybe they’re unstable and not see that it actually is part of the fuel that makes them so capable and able to handle the amount of stressors that they’ve been through because they have perspective of the things that they’ve been through before. So it’s, there’s very few places that you can do that. I think that all founders should have a therapist, you know, and one who has some knowledge and experience of what, what it is like to. To do it so that they’re not getting pat advice. Like, Hey, why don’t you just relax, you know, or don’t worry what your investor thinks. And it’s like, no, there’s real world complications for that. You know, there are real stressors. So
Beverly:
What has been the biggest marketing tactic or a campaign that has helped you grow the most. Do you think?
Charlynn Ruan:
I mean, in the beginning it was, and it’s shifts so quickly, you know, with like AI, with always like changing algorithms. And I mean, I have seen companies pretty much like if they rely too heavily on one source, then they might tank, you know? Um, I’ve seen people who like relied way too much on like Instagram ads and then the algorithm shifted and they were screwed, you know, and really struggling. So it’s, I, you know, we relied really heavily on the beginning on AdWords and we did it all internally. So it was like, we just did a lot of work on it and a lot of groundwork. We never did. Um, No, we have some help here and there with like, we’ve done SEO building, but over time you also build momentum, you know, it’s that flywheel effect, you know, but at the beginning, I think it is a more expensive endeavor. Um, because, you know, for us, the AdWords were good. Now the AdWords are not as good as they used to be, I think, because they’ve adjusted so much because of AI, because of, you know, Google’s shifted. And it’s interesting because where we really benefited from being so tech savvy in the beginning, now I’m seeing that, like, the real big things are those connections, like the actual, like, personal connections. Because now people can like, you know, create, you know, some chat GPT email and spam you and like, you don’t, you know what I mean? It’s, but if you really like know people and connect with people, those are the things that have now turned into more strategies of like the relationship. I make content, you know, on social media, but I partially do it because I just love it. And I would do it for free. And I love sharing knowledge. And so I don’t know that that really bring, it brings us a little bit of people, but I think a lot of it now is word of mouth. And still, you know, again, that early growth is AdWords, but it was expensive. I mean, it’s an expensive way to do it. And it has to make sense for your type of business. Um, but that was a big part for us. Um, it worked because of our business model.
Beverly:
What’s been the biggest marketing mistake you guys have made?
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