Building Communities and Thriving Through Podcasting with Jennifer Henczel

Beverly: 0:09Did you know that as of 2023, nearly 40 percent of podcast listeners in North America are women? And that number continues to grow as more and more women launch their own podcasts and build engaged communities. Welcome to another episode of the Spark and Ignite Your Marketing podcast I’m your host, Beverly Cornell, and joining us today is Jennifer Hensel. She is the founder of the Women in Podcasting Network, an award winning entrepreneur and a community builder. She has won the innovator of the year award from the quill awards, and she’s the voice behind two successful podcasts, the women in podcasting show and the inspiring innovators show. Jennifer has built her thriving business after facing and overcoming numerous personal and professional challenges. And today we’ll learn more about her entrepreneurial journey, how she helps women podcasters connect, collaborate, and grow in the key strategies behind building a sustainable. thriving community. Jennifer, I’m so excited to have you here. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s

Jennifer: 1:10a pleasure to be here.

Beverly: 1:11So as a woman in podcasting, I have followed you for a while now. And so I do know a little bit about your journey, but let’s talk about how you got to this place. How did you start? What were some of the sparks that got you here?

Jennifer: 1:26For a long time, I was working full time and had my business on the side as a side gig. And it always seemed like success was just around the corner. I was always trying to make it into my full time gig, and finally in 2012, I was able to break free and finally do it. And that was, Just thrilling to me because that was my whole life’s ambition was just to make my business full time and do that full time as my full time income. And a big part of that was learning how to create communities around my message. And so for me, the journey started when I was at work and I got the worst phone call that nobody wants to receive. And it was my husband’s boss. And he said, you need to come to the hospital right away because your husband was in a very bad accident. And I went to the hospital and it turned out it was a near death accident. He was crushed by 12, 000 pounds of wood. And they said he should have died. He is a miracle. It’s amazing that he survived. And from there, it really blew up our lives, of course. And it was a real struggle. He had a long recovery. He still has multiple injuries, but, even though it blew up our lives, it ignited something new in me. And I just decided I can’t keep living like this. That’s, that was the turning point for me. I had to start living my passion and my purpose in the world. I just couldn’t keep forcing this hustle for 12, 14, 16 hours a day. That was not working. It was destroying my health. It was destroying my men, myself mentally. And so for me, the whole thing really made me look at my life. And I realized I had been stuck and isolated. And one of the things that really stood out for me was the communities that my husband was involved in before his accident. For example, he was a volunteer football coach. Okay. And so football players and football coaches would come around and say, we’re here for you, coach Paul. And that just warmed our hearts. It really sustained us through that time. And I realized that I was missing camaraderie and community in the business world and with entrepreneurs. And so I put it out there into the universe. I put it out onto my socials. I wasn’t very organized with it then. Hey, who wants to join me for lunch? And I reserved this little room. And to my surprise, 50 business owners showed up. And so I realized I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only one who was feeling that way. And so from that, that one little meeting turned into a group and that group turned into a giant network. And I had lots of meetings going on in different cities throughout my region. And so I ended up with a large business network. That was my first community that I created. And, I was inspired by a little football community to start my community. And so I like to say, drop the hustle and join the huddle.

Beverly: 3:57It’s super cute. My dad was a football coach, so I know all about that community very well. Grew up on Friday Night Lights, I think, going to the football games with my dad and seeing, and now he’s in like the Michigan Hall of Fame for football coaches and all kinds of things. So I love that analogy and that story because it connects. I can feel it, being there. So why podcasting? What was it about podcasting, the community of podcasting? How did you get that to that place?

Jennifer: 4:22Yeah. So how it led us to podcasting is of course, listening to podcasts was really helping us a lot. I was learning through podcasting. It helped my husband’s recovery. We learned a lot of new modalities that helped us in his recovery and just in our life in general. But through that process, when I had the business network, I planned and promoted over 600 events. So I met lots of amazing people. And. I actually used my platform to help my husband go from an injured male worker to an international speaker. And he actually wrote a book about our story called Crushed Alive a story from tragedy to triumph. And he did a TED talk called Silencing Stigma Through Storytelling. So we both specialize in storytelling. The story, his story was a big part of his recovery. And so we really learned how to do storytelling. He specializes in mastering your story and I specialize in monetizing your story. And so Why that let us so of course it just was a natural progression towards podcasting and so we started my first podcast was with him and it was based out of his accident and all the modalities we learned that we wanted to share with other people.

Beverly: 5:24And I love the idea of podcasting and connecting and I’ve always done interviewing and I love that connection with the interviewer and sharing stories, like meeting people and learning their story. But we are a military family and we recently moved from Pennsylvania to Michigan or to North Carolina. We’re originally from Michigan to North Carolina. And my nine year old. I was going through some stuff, and so I suggested to him, we should start a podcast for you for military children and talk about all the challenges that come with being a military brat. And so we have named it the Brat Signal, and then we even said, there’s t shirts, he designed the logo, and it’s just a matter of us sitting down and planning some of his stuff. Like we’ve already planned some of the episodes, but talking about, and I think for me, it was to help him talk about his story and to in that. It’s like therapy in some way for the nine year old to talk about it. So using this to help talk about your experience and share. And I think also the idea of people hearing it resonating and connecting with that greater community and knowing like you’re not alone either. And that there is something good that’s coming from the struggle you have is incredibly empowering. And that a podcast can do that is pretty freaking amazing.

Jennifer: 6:39That’s so amazing. That warms my heart. And for anything to work, you need to build your circle of support around you. It’s not going to build itself and for, really being part of a community. Is what will make anything you’re doing. It’ll make it way better and grow faster. And, there’s the saying is you can go fast alone, but you can go far together. And so that’s, it’s really exciting to hear those kinds of stories when. He’s using podcasting really as a community builder.

Beverly: 7:08Yeah, and I think, as a marketer, his mom’s a marketer, I said to him that this is an opportunity for you to build something that’s your own community, your own, like mom’s here, dad is here. But this becomes yours. And he was really excited about that. And I think trying to encourage him to be a little entrepreneurial in the process, but also when you think about the benefits of writing a script and speaking in front of people and all these lovely skills he’s going to acquire in the process as a mom, I’m like, this is a win, win situation. Like I can’t, I don’t see anything bad about this in any way, shape or form.

Jennifer: 7:42People will help you if you show up to be helped. And that’s the cool thing. Your son is going to be learning that skill too, of showing up, taking that brave leap. When I turned 50 I went skydiving to turn 50 and for my 50th birthday, and we were going up in the plane. We’re going up up. And I was fine. I was fine. Cause it’s something I decided I wanted to do. And we got to the top and. I was okay until people, the door opened and people started rolling out and falling out and I don’t know if you’ve been skydiving, but it was my turn. I went to the edge and you have to stand on this little step on the outside of the plane. I could see the curve of the earth and that’s when the fear came in. I felt fear in that moment, standing on a step on the outside of a moving plane. And I was tethered to someone, of course, but it’s still me standing there. And I, it was whether it was up to me when we take the leap. And so we took the leap. And I don’t know if you know this about skydiving, but for the first few seconds, you feel like falling, but then after that, you take the position and you just feel like you’re floating. It doesn’t feel like falling anymore. So it just feels like you’re floating and flying. And then it was a beautiful view. So what was a scary view before became a beautiful scenic view. I could see all the landmarks in my town and it was just amazing, landed safely. But I always look at that now in my life for every, anything that creates fear. I’m, am I brave enough to do it? I think of that time. Oh, the fear is very temporary. Very small slice of time. And if you can just get over that fear, there is a beautiful view on the other side.

Beverly: 9:14We talk about comfort zones. In previous episodes and what that looks like in that if you go out of your comfort zone, the circle gets bigger and you’re never can go back to the middle if you keep pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, but it’s really hard to take those stops to push out. But anytime I’ve been really scared, it’s usually a mixture of scared and excitement. That’s when I know it’s the good stuff. That’s where I’m supposed to be because that’s what matters. That’s like when you feel alive, is in those moments of kind of a little bit of fear and a little bit of excitement together. I don’t know if this is a controversial question, but it’s more about is there something about podcasting or everybody can do a podcast now? Like when I first started in 2007, you had to have very special equipment. There was no cloud. There was no, like everything has become really super accessible in many ways. That’s fantastic. Like it’s leveled the playing field and anybody can do it, but is there anything about the podcasting industry or even community building that really frustrates you that maybe you do things a little bit different or try to overcome that?

Jennifer: 10:14When I want, I studied. Podcasting for 10 years before I started podcast because of exactly what you’re saying is the tech was over my head, and just I couldn’t do it and now it’s easier now more than ever. And so what people really need to focus on what I found I need to focus on is really look and see who your avatar is and really know who the audience is and know your niche. Because that’s the thing about it is. You can’t just be general in podcasting anymore. Generalized, right? You need to really niche down and speak to that niche and really aim for building a circle of support and a community around that. Otherwise, if you throw something just out into the universe. And just hope it’s going to stick somewhere. It just doesn’t work that way anymore. You really need to know who you’re speaking to and how you’re solving their problem. And then you’ll reach people. You’ll actually reach more people doing that and thinking that you need to cast your net everywhere. That is a marketer.

Beverly: 11:13I was like, you’re speaking marketing speak right now. I’m like, yes, but you don’t need to niche. It’s really hard. And so many people are scared to niche. They think that it’s going to limit the number of clients. But in reality, what you’re seeing is exactly true. Now you can craft your messaging and you can craft your content specifically for that niche. And even for myself, I’m a marketer. It’s a little hard for you to do for yourself. Even for myself, it’s been hard to find my niche over the last year. I’ve really gotten A lot more clear about who I serve and what we do really well for them. So looking at, there’s a lot of people you can serve. And that doesn’t mean that just because your niche doesn’t mean you can’t serve other people. It just means that you can serve those people really well. So by narrowing, you actually create a bigger opportunity for yourself. Yeah

Jennifer: 12:02totally. And when I created my first network and then I created several thriving and successful communities since then, is that what I found out I’ve seen 10, 10s of thousands of elevator pitches, what you call an elevator pitch or an introduction, right? I’ve seen thousands of them over the years now through all those experiences. And what I find is that, yeah, If people just address one problem with one solution, you’re going to get more people. I remember when I started, the reason, one of the reasons I wasn’t able to break through in addition to having a community mindset was because I would say, Oh, I can do all the marketing things, or I can do all the training things. I can do, Oh yes, I can do all of them. Which ones do you want? You just can’t do that, right? You have to go, what is one problem because it’s not that it’s going to limit. That’s because I remember feeling that well, if I don’t say all of it, then it’s going to exclude someone. No, if you do one thing with one solution, it gets, it’s not about telling everything to everyone. It’s about. Attracting the attention of those very specific people that you can help and just getting your foot in the door. It’s about making them want to ask more and find out more. It’s about, attracting them just for that one thing. And then you can introduce them to all the other things that you do.

Beverly: 13:16I think the idea of clarity and focus and simplicity is key because if you make it confusing, they’ll be confused. It’s just, you have to make it super clear. And for us, it is about clarity and focus. That’s where we start with every single client. And I think most entrepreneurs and most people who do anything that they love, that they’re really passionate about, aren’t good at everything. They’re not good at HR. They’re not good at operations and maybe the legal stuff or the bookkeeping or the marketing. They’re good at what they do. And so they need to bring in some people who Can help them stay focused in whatever area that they’re not the pro in. And it’s really hard as a business owner to trust people. So that’s a really challenging part of being an entrepreneur is finding balance in all those areas to be super successful. I think at the end of the day is really dialing in on your passion, what you do really well.

Jennifer: 14:09If you put your actual precise passion and purpose into the world, then opportunities for that are going to flow towards you.

Beverly: 14:18Okay, so I’m going to ask you a question based on this whole concept if women in podcasting were a movie. Who would be the hero? What would be the main conflict and how does your brand come to the rescue?

Jennifer: 14:31Oh my goodness. Ah the heroes I believe are the women doing the podcasting because they are so brave to be lifting their voices. And so I’m just there to facilitate any tools and templates and trainings that they need to be able to do that. And guess we would call it the power of podcasting because it goes beyond just, oh, I’ve got a mic and I’m going to make a noise. It’s because somebody has been brave enough to step out and share their message and their passion with the world to help others. That’s what, I haven’t met a podcaster yet who doesn’t want to help. Others and so it’s all about us all helping each other and holding hands and a rising tide lifts all boats And I really see that happening. It’s exciting like it gives me tingles and chills That we really are doing it, you know what I’m seeing women do, every single day I am just in awe of what women are doing with podcasting.

Beverly: 15:23Women in general, I think that it’s an amazing time right now. Women as entrepreneurs, women in podcasting, women with voices, women with causes, purpose, passion, watch out world. So if you had to reflect back on your journey from that time when you were working in that corporate world and your husband was injured to now, what do you think has been the biggest challenge? Change or transformation in how you think about business, make decisions in business. What has been the biggest transformation that you think you’ve experienced?

Jennifer: 15:59I had all the marketing stuff in place. In fact, I was making the companies that I was working for money, through my strategies. The piece I was missing was that mindset piece was not only. Being community oriented, but also, when you’re not, when you’re in a corporate environment, you get a lot of professional development training. And so I thought I had my mindset nailed. No, there was a lot of missing pieces when you’re an entrepreneur, there’s other pieces that you don’t realize. So I had to confront a lot of limiting beliefs and I had to incorporate some new modalities. So my NLP trainers. Practitioners. And so we just took on more training and modalities that we didn’t have in our life before to help us with our health and our mindset. So my piece was the mindset piece. I’ve developed a model that’s actually a three is what we call the three apex model. There’s three mountains that we feel everybody needs to scale. If you want to be an entrepreneur, the first one is Mount mindset. The second one is mount message and the third one is mount monetize. For me, I had monetize and part of the message. Pretty well done the message part. I needed to focus on was because I was putting that huge net out and saying What do you want? What do you want me to do? And so I came up with the solutions for the different things that I was offering That mindset piece is where I was missing the most and a lot of people think they have that nail But it is something we have to keep revisiting. We need to keep revisiting the avatar. We need to keep revisiting our own Passion and purpose and, visiting those things often. And so that’s really served me is to put more time into my self care, my self development, and really getting clear on what, how I want to show up and what I want in life.

Beverly: 17:47Just like humans are organic, living, breathing, evolving creatures, so is our work. It doesn’t stop. It’s an, I always say that your website’s never really done. You can be done for now, but, it’s always a process. As you become clearer in your message, as you become clearer in your niche, as you become clearer on the products that you offer. That all evolves with that and that it should never just sit there on a shelf and gather dust, because that’s not what we do as humans. Typically, if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re building things like always growing and building.

Jennifer: 18:21So I see a lot of people who are struggling to put their one package together, or one course or whatever. And what people need to know is it, that might change in a year. And so you need to be stealthy. It’s don’t think what you’re creating is going to be forever necessarily. It might be a version of the next version you need to be stealthy too and be able to provide what your audience wants really quickly in this environment.

Beverly: 18:44Yes. Yes. Hold on to your hats. Here we go. Tell me a story because you talked about helping others. Tell me a story about, share a story about a time when you’ve helped someone and it made you really super proud of how you serve others.

Jennifer: 19:01Oh, that’s awesome. One of the things, one of my greatest values is collaboration because in the previous life it was more about competition and now I’m about collaboration over competition. And so the collaborations, that I’ve had are just life changing. And so when I, When the pandemic hit, I helped my sister go from, she didn’t, she had never done any of this before and I helped her start a business. And now she’s. Doing that as her income. And so that was such a thrill to me. And I’ve helped other people too, especially through the pandemic, people were coming to me. What are you, how are you doing this? How are you making money online? Can you help me? I need to do that now. And so I’ve helped several people. One of my students, he makes over 10 K a month now as a fitness trainer, for example. So I’ve worked with all a wide variety. My sister has the a club for content, a content club. And there’s lots and lots of different things out there. The things I love, though, are the ones that bring people together and collaborate on projects like giveaways or the awards. So that’s why I started the awards. Is because it’s a collaboration between me and all the nominees, because we all share it together everything I do has community and collaboration at the heart of it.

Beverly: 20:17I think so. Mostly people we serve are our wellness warriors in the service based industry. So there are people who serve and they serve unconditionally. I feel like they want you to be healthier. They want your mindset to be better. They want, they really do. And I come from that. If my mom was a nurse and my husband’s in the military and we live, always lived a life of service, like that is just inherently who we are. And I think this idea of collaboration and being in it together We need this. And I think even I understand people needed business, like business and opportunities during COVID, but we also needed each other. We really needed each other to get through it. And we still do. We have a serious mental crisis happening where people are living kind of it. I work from home. I don’t know about you. I work remotely at my home. Entire team works remotely. We don’t have the water cooler and the across the cube banter and all that. I’ve really tried to emulate that and other tools and things like that. But it’s not the same and we do need each other. And as business owners, we have very unique challenges and we need each other to stay sane cause it can get a little crazy, literally a little crazy. And to know that other people have the same challenges. Other people have overcome them. This is what they’ve done. Maybe not exactly what you need to do, but maybe some form of it, your version of it to overcome it. And so I just connecting, chatting. It’s one of the reasons why I love my podcast. Jennifer is meeting people and just hearing their stories and what makes them excited, gets me excited. It just makes me so happy. And I think if you live in a life of service, like so much good comes back to you. It’s like reaps and flows. And when you have that kind of intent the universe knows the universe. Yeah,

Jennifer: 21:56totally. Connecting and collaborating with others is really vital to our wellness. It’s vital to our business wellness and our personal mental wellness.

Beverly: 22:05Yes. Yeah. We can’t do it. I think doing it alone is not possible entirely alone. You can’t do it. Okay. So I’m a marketer. I’m going to talk marketing for a couple of minutes here. What has been the biggest marketing mistake you’ve ever made?

Jennifer: 22:19A lot of those mistakes that I made were. Around when I was, stuck in having my business as a side gig. And so any mistakes that I’ve made since then, I’ve, haven’t listened to my own advice and gone by the new things I’ve learned. It’s an old habit coming up or limiting belief popping up. And really just being aware. and revisiting all those things all the time. And I one of the thing is I’ve tried, I try all the tools when they come out, and so sometimes I’ve invested in the wrong ones or things like that, and it takes a lot to move all your stuff from one platform to another platform. And, that takes a lot of effort. So you really need to do your research when you’re, when you are looking at tools, because there’s so many tools now more than ever that make things easier. But make sure you pick the one that’s right for you. Not just that everybody else is doing or that’s seems popular or whatever, do the one that works for you and your business.

Beverly: 24:07Yes. Is there an unconventional marketing tactic besides podcasting, which has come becoming more conventional? I believe that you’ve tried, that you were surprised by its success or had some great success with.

Jennifer: 24:21My, I had always learned high ticket. Okay. Sales, but I, and so that’s mostly how I was operating in my business, but I love many memberships. So many memberships are a way it’s just the first thing in your funnel that you can offer. And it is a way I really am finding that a community building tool that help people to, and then people will move through my funnel to those high ticket and to the one on one and the group coaching and things like that. But I love entry level. Memberships. That’s my funnest, most wonderful thing that I just absolutely love. And it’s also, so I have some masterclasses on that and I teach about that as a community builder. So when you’re at that level at a low price and I’m talking like five or 10 a month, a low introductory mini membership.

Beverly: 25:10Okay.

Jennifer: 25:11You’re not giving everything away in that membership. And you’re not you’re focused on community at that level. And you’re promoting it as community, connect with other like minded people, connect with other, whatever your niche is, mention what the niche is. And that I love, love, love many memberships. And I was surprised because I had the same, and I hear this all the time, oh, but it doesn’t make too much money. No, it’s not meant to at the entry level. It’s just an entry level. But imagine if you’re a podcaster and you just want to cover the costs of your podcast and introduce really targeted people to your other higher ticket offers, a mini membership is awesome because it’s a no brainer for people to join. If you have people in your audience who are champions, who love your message, they love your podcast. They, it’ll be a no brainer for them to join for five or 10 a month. And then they’re right there, ready listening. And they’re even more committed. I guess people are even more committed to what else you have to say in the other offers that you have available.

Beverly: 26:06The next section is called the lightning round. I’m actually changing it to the magic hat round, probably the next episode. So just as a teaser to my listeners, I will have a magic hat and I will have questions and we’ll be pulling them out of the hat, but for today it’s still the lightning round. And it’s really just to understand a little bit more about how you think, like your process, who you are, and it’s a little bit of fun. The first thing is what is a fun fact about your business that even your most dedicated clients don’t, might not know about you? This could be like a think like a mantra or some fun thing you guys do behind the scenes or how you celebrate something. Is there a little quirky thing that people just don’t typically know about? Jennifer and the women in podcasting.

Jennifer: 26:56I don’t, most of my members don’t know that I do a lot of neurographics, which is a type of art. And so I do post my art pieces and things like that, but it is like a form of meditation. So we do meditation as well, but it gets, it gives my brain a break. And I used to say I don’t really have time for art. I don’t have time. I don’t have time not to do it now because it actually gives my brain a vacation and helps me to get to those points of clarity quicker. It’s actually fueling up my brain. It’s like it’s renewing my brain. It is amazing. So it’s a new thing that I’ve been doing in the last few months. I’d say the last six months or so.

Beverly: 27:34Nice.

Jennifer: 27:35And it is making a huge difference in my productivity and my clarity. And so I would say that has really superpowered my efforts in the past few months.

Beverly: 27:45Love it. So how do you typically connect with new clients? It’s hard with being remote. How do you connect through email in the community? Like, how do you make it personable?

Jennifer: 27:57I use Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups a lot. I really like that there’s a lot of conversation that happens and I create threads where people can share in those threads so that people really engage with each other. We have where we share in the comments of the sharing posts and people really get to know each other. I’ve had thousands and thousands of connections made through those for interview swaps, for other kinds of collaborations that are going on, giveaways and things like that. And so that, yeah. Groups in Facebook and LinkedIn

Beverly: 28:28groups and threads like specific questions to get people to interact with each other. Intentional connections. Yeah,

Jennifer: 28:34being intentional with how you want people to connect is really important.

Beverly: 28:39So podcasts, what’s your favorite podcast?

Jennifer: 28:41I still like some of the classics, I’ve listened to a lot of the women’s podcasts in the group. I just, I’m amazed by all the different topics. One of my favorite celebrity podcasts is Smartless. Have you listened to that? Oh, it’s a really good one. Yeah, Smartless. Smartless is a good fun one. They have celebrities and things on there.

Beverly: 28:57Oh, cool. Is there a book or an entrepreneur that’s inspired you?

Jennifer: 29:04Yeah we like Amy Porterfield stuff. Oh

Beverly: 29:07gosh, I love her. Yes. Yeah.

Jennifer: 29:09Yeah. She’s amazing. She’s amazing.

Beverly: 29:11I love her. Is there an app or a tool? That is like your secret weapon that you have to have and use to help and I’ll streamline a process or make things easier or just fun that you use

Jennifer: 29:24system. I oh, I absolutely love it. Yeah, it’s saving me hours of time. It’s a full funnel system and email marketing. So it’s like some of the other ones you probably know of. Okay. HubSpot

Beverly: 29:38or

Jennifer: 29:39what used to be Infusionsoft. What is that now? Keep or whatever they call it now. And yeah, it’s like that. It’s full. It’s got everything from your lead magnets, full funnels, email marketing, course creation, everything in it.

Beverly: 29:52What are the three most important ingredients for your recipe for success?

Jennifer: 29:57Hmm. I think we mentioned them earlier. You’ve got your mindset message and monetization. That’s your framework, your systems, your strategies.

Beverly: 30:08If women in podcasting was an animal, what animal would it be and why?

Jennifer: 30:15Peacock because yeah, I Peacock has always been the inspiration to all of my branding and motifs and colors and the color scheme. It’s got a Royal aspect to it. The peacock it’s got, I love blues and turquoises and you can mix in the greens and the golds and the browns. So that’s behind anybody who has known me for any amount of time. That’s the colors of everything I do. And so the peacock is behind everything.

Beverly: 30:44I love that. So my bathroom is all peacock. I love the colors of the peacock. They’re really deep blue. So pretty. And this idea that they can like just be a bird, but if they went to watch my feathers fly I love this idea of just like strutting it and owning it. And it’s perfectly okay. It’s okay to be pretty. So my colors are all like unicorn mermaid. That’s the, this magical creature that are typically bring happiness and joy. That’s important. So yes, I love that. It’s, you knew right away. That’s so good.

Jennifer: 31:16It’s, I don’t know if you can see this, what I’m pointing out with my finger. It’s probably too small. It’s a little small, but it’s a Peacock that my sister made me. I have peacock stuff everywhere. And yeah, everything’s peacock.

Beverly: 31:29Yeah. I have and people can’t see, but I have like unicorns in my, I have unicorns everywhere. So yes. And sparkles. So I even have a little wand.

Jennifer: 31:38I knew you and I vibed for a reason.

Beverly: 31:40Yes, totally playful. Just have fun with it. I love that. Yes. Playful. So what area do you think that you either have to learn or had to learn the most finance, HR, leadership, operations, or marketing? What was the area that you needed the most work with or still do that you had to learn the most from about that you didn’t know?

Jennifer: 32:01Yeah. It was all those mindset. Modalities that I needed to learn that weren’t from the business, corporate type business world, but entrepreneurial type mindset stuff, it’s often stuff people skip, but it’s so important to be able to guard your time and to be able to build in margin in your time. Like I was saying before, I used to hustle until I was making myself sick. And now, because of the mindset stuff, I’m able to. Actually get more done with with less, with less time.

Beverly: 32:35Time is the one thing that we are finite, that we cannot get back. So I use a lot of chunk and stacking. Like I chunk and stack my time very strategically to make the most of my time. But yes, it’s important. Important. Okay. So we’re going to climb into my time machine and we are going to go back and we’re going to meet 18 year old Jennifer. We’re going to give her the advice that you wish you’d gotten when you were 18 to help you get to where you are faster, less expensively, less resources, less pain, heartache, whatever. What advice can we give Jennifer who’s 18?

Jennifer: 33:10Everything’s going to work out. Everything’s going to work out. Don’t spend your hours worrying because that is wasted time. Just do what you love. Do what you love. That’s what I’ve told my kids is life is going to be tough. And so you might as well do what you just want to do. Don’t be doing what somebody else wants you to do. Because that’s just going to exhaust you. You might as well just do what you want to do and enjoy life as much as you can, being in the space that you want to be in, not what anyone else wants you to do.

Beverly: 33:48Okay, so now we’re going to go forward and we’re going to go like 20 years. And into the future, what do you think is your most significant legacy or impact?

Jennifer: 34:00Oh, wow. I’m really, I really feel rewarded by the things that are coming through the women in podcasting and helping people to lift their voice just feels like the most rewarding thing to me. I want to do that. I think, and really until I retire, because it’s just so fulfilling.

Beverly: 34:17Is there a number of voices lifted in 20 years that like, Oh yeah, I’ve helped a million women. Is there a number?

Jennifer: 34:23That would be a great number.

Beverly: 34:24Okay. So the last thing we have is that real actionable advice that you have for someone who’s either just starting out or maybe a stuck feeling a little stuck. What is something that somebody could do today who runs a business and that you could say this is one thing that you could do today to help you feel unstuck or to get to the next level in their business.

Jennifer: 34:50The exercise I like to do if I’m ever feeling stuck is think of December 31st. What do you want to have done on December 31st? What is the goal? What is the product or the, whatever the tangible thing is you want complete on December 31st? What steps do you need to take to do that? Reverse engineer it. And what is the first number one thing you need to do to make that happen by December 31st? And do that right now. When this podcast is over, go and do that one thing right now. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. And you start on that first step. That’s going to lead you to the second step and the third step. And before you know it, you will have that goal completed on December 31st.

Beverly: 35:31And to my listeners too, I just released a podcast. I think it was last week or the week before about breaking those big goals down into baby stops with a download to so if you have a goal by December 31st, write it down and then. Like the little mini steps underneath to break it down. So it makes it way more manageable for you, but start there. And just like you said, persevere and get through it and do it. And yes, just, you gotta have goals to get you to the next place. So yes, like I love that kind of like the eulogy thing. What do you need to do before you get there? But a little bit more micro, which I like, okay, Jennifer. So as we wrap up, tell our listeners more about. Where they can find you, listen to podcasts learn about women in podcasting network, anything you want to share or talk about that and where they can find you.

Jennifer: 36:14Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. If you go to women in podcasting. net that’s dot N E T, and you can find it about the women in podcasting awards. So women podcasters can apply it’s a people’s choice type of awards. And then also we have a membership that people can join and get all kinds of tools, templates, and trainings to help you start or grow or monetize your podcast. And then we have different levels of membership as well, that you can check out there. You can also go to inspiring show. com to check out my other show with my husband and some of the tools we have over there.

Beverly: 36:46Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Jennifer. This has been so fun. I’m just glad to meet you. I’ve seen your emails and to just have more of a personal connection has been really lovely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. To our audience, I really hope that you found today’s episode as fun as I did. Remember to implement any of these ideas that were shared today. Take them, make them yours, make them bigger, make them unique, put them into your own business, and don’t hesitate to reach out to Jennifer or myself if you have any questions or need assistance. But stay tuned for more inspiring conversations and actionable tips to ignite your marketing journey on future episodes of the Sparking Night Your Marketing Podcast. Until next time, keep sparking and igniting.