Matt Ward 0:00
And welcome to Episode Two of the mass business podcast. I’m your host, Matt ward. And today our guest is Kali Patrick. She’s a sleep wellness coach, a therapeutic yoga and meditation teacher, and a corporate wellness speaker, who helps stressed-out busy professionals learn to sleep better, improve their energy and build their stress resilience. We’re going to be talking to Kali today about the growth of her business, about networking about referrals, and about educating yourself. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Intro 0:49
Welcome to the mass business podcast where small business owners, also known as risk-takers, share their stories about the growth of their business and themselves. Our interviews and our content is focused on growing a small business and understanding networking and referrals. I say it all the time. And I’ll say it again today. You never know where your next referral will come from.

M – 1:21
Hey, welcome to Episode Two of the small the mass business podcast. Can’t even get the name of the podcast right, it’s so new Kali. Well, welcome.

K – Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be on the new podcast.

M – Yeah, it’s so exciting to be doing one of these things. And an everyday podcast at that so if you’re just new to listening to the show, we are every business day of the month. Whoo. That’s a lot of work and a lot of content. But the good news is, they’re about 20 minutes long. So you can consume this while you’re walking, or running. I prefer the walk side of things. Kali, tell everybody what it is you do, who you are, and how you serve the world?

Kali Patrick – 2:00
Sure, well, again, I’m a sleep wellness coach, that is my primary business. So I work one on one with mostly stressed out busy professionals helping them to improve their sleep, prioritize their self care and their rest. So they can have the energy they need to put into their business to put it into their personal life and, and hopefully some leftover for their passions as well.

M – 2:19
. So 100% pun intended, you didn’t just wake up and do this, right? So tell me briefly 30 seconds about your journey to being in business for yourself?

K – 2:33
Sure. So I started out actually working in high tech, I was 20 years working in the software industry. And I suffered from burnout long before it was a clinical diagnosis, and started doing some trainings, learning how to take better care of myself in the context of my busy life, and discovered that I really enjoyed it. And I could potentially help people who were in similar situations, avoid that, you know, hitting that bottom. So that’s what I do today.

M – 3:02
And so something I’ve always felt is that small business owners leave those employed jobs, the corporate work space, to go off on their own. And they’re looking generally for three things. More money, more time, and more freedom. And they’re not getting those three things in the first, you know, three to five years of their business, which is why so many of these small businesses go out of business. And I wrote a new book pretty much about that, that comes out in the fall of 2021, called the “High five Effect…..” But I wondered for you, you know, as you’re growing your business, as you’re getting to the point where you are now, what what do you feel like is the biggest thing that’s helped you get there?

K – 3:47
Sure. And actually, it’s part of why I started this business, right is to prioritize my own self-care, especially when you’re a business owner, you are the business right? I don’t have employees, it is me. And only me and I do everything in my business. Of course, I have some, you know, people who helped me with specific things, but primarily I am my business. So if I am not well, if I’m not well-rested, if I don’t feel motivated and energized and creative to work with people, then there is no business right so. So what I have really done in terms of growing my businesses to make sure that I still have time for myself, I still have those, those windows of time, whether that’s five minutes or 15 minutes to downshift my energy if I need to, to pick it up if I need to, of course naturally in unhealthy ways with movement, you know, taking a walk on a day when the sun is finally out, and so forth. And so, in terms of growing my business, I always make sure that okay, what is my client load? And is it actually manageable for me, given the other things that I want to prioritize in my business?

M – 4:54
I think to your point, when you mentioned, you know, prioritizing self-care, right, so more time you like five minutes here and five minutes, there are 10 minutes there. I mean, I think, I think sometimes the more time piece that we’re looking for, is the time that we get to choose to do with that time. And so that, that your, what you’re saying is I’ll take that time that I’m looking for, and I’ll use it for self-care. And my self-care is riding an ATV through the woods in New England, which is perfectly fine. Or maybe chowing down on a pizza, which is perfectly fine, too. But nonetheless, I mean, I think the point is, is is that it’s conscious, it’s conscious decision making around the time that we spend with our business. Now, you’ve got that sort of figured out now, right? I mean, you’re compartmentalizing your time, to the point where you’re comfortable with how much time you have for self-care and things like that.

K – 5:59
You know, I think it’s interesting. And we talk a lot about time, and I saw a post this morning about getting more time or saving time. And and it’s interesting, we all have the same amount of time, right. But I think you hit on an important point there. Because when we feel like we have freedom, when we can make a choice, that prioritizes us, we feel like there’s more time, even though the amount of time is the same. And actually, studies have shown that when we are stressed or feeling overwhelmed, the perception of time that we have is less. So there’s the same block of time, but when we just feel like we don’t have that freedom and time to make a choice to make time for ourselves. It feels like time speeds up, right? It feels like we’re there’s just never enough, never enough and that compounds on itself. So to be more productive, and to feel like you have more time, it’s often necessary to kind of take that time for you. But in our minds, it’s kind of backwards, right? We think, Oh, I have to push through, I have to work harder, I have to save time by doing more. And we actually save time and we improve our perception of the time we have by doing less.

M – 7:04
So and that’s so interesting that you talk about that, because one of the things I kind of believe in is this model, there’s a book out there called “who not how”, which is who can do that for you. Not how can you get it done? Hmm. And offloading. And outsourcing is a big piece of freeing up time. And I think most people don’t connect that to self-care. And that’s hugely powerful. You know, stress exists in a business, just trying to figure out what to do next. Hmm, that’s what I have Heather Grant, is why I have I that’s what I that’s what I do, right? And so I can’t do all these things and organize all these things I have to do unless I have somebody behind the scenes helping me out, you know, how do you as a business owner, how do you stay up to date? How do you educate yourself on a consistent basis?

K – 7:51
So in terms of business are my own study in terms of coaching and yoga?

M – 7:56
Yeah, I mean, like, so that’s part of the business. So I would think, you know, whether you have to learn about project management, or whether you have to learn about business growth, or whether you have to learn about your industry. Right?

K – 8:06
Right. So industry wise, it’s very easy. I actually just completed another health and wellness coaching certification. So every now and then, you know, I have to do continuing education to manage my certifications. And I do that anyway, because I just love learning. I think I mentioned, as we were organizing this, I’m an avid reader, I tend to read actual books, hard copy books, just

M – I was gonna ask you hardcopy or soft copy, right?

K – All the way I love like folding down, you know, folding down the pages, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and not having to worry about the light from the screens, if I’m reading late at night, right? I don’t have to deal with all that. So yeah, I’m a big fan of the library, the local library, I’ve just taken so much advantage of that. And I think it’s great. Of course, I do read blogs. I’m not I I do listen to podcasts when I go on my walk. So like you mentioned, you know, moving and listening and being productive on two fronts is really useful. In terms of the business, you know, I think I do participate in certain Facebook groups, especially around health and wellness coaching, because that’s the role I’m in there are not a lot of adult sleep coaches out there. Right now. Many of them are for children, but you know, adults need maybe, even more, help these days, then then children do so. You know, but I’m up to date on this sleep research. I listen to TED Talks. I read books that come out on sleep and insomnia. So yeah, a lot of reading, I tend to read versus watch and that’s just kind of my style. I like the written word. So if there’s a video on a page, but there’s text below it, I will always read versus listen or watch the video but that’s that’s my preference. I’m a writer by nature that that’s a way that I market my business. I write articles. And and I love reading. So that’s just my style.

M – 10:00
So I obviously having been in the world of web design years ago, when I owned an agency, I understand the value of the written blog, right? Because it’s hugely beneficial for the SEO and the inbound traffic. But we often don’t think about the people that actually like to read this stuff. Because that’s the way they comprehend things. And so I’ve seen people actually read with their finger on the screen.

K -Unknown Speaker 10:25
Yeah, yeah. And for me, actually, personally, when I go to a page, and there’s just a video of how to do something, or I get very frustrated because I just want to read it, I just want to skim it and see, is it worth, you know, is it worth my time to spend to spend on this? And with the video, I can’t do that, right, I have to, I have to commit the time to watching it, or commit the time to listening to it. And so yeah, I think it depends on, you know, your learning style and your preference and to have multiple channels. Right, I certainly have a YouTube channel with videos, I do a podcast, I do have a written blog so so that people can get access to that information in different in different ways.

M – 11:05
That’s so cool. You mentioned that way. I was recently on a podcast, what was it like a LinkedIn live right with Ramon Ray, a small business influencer, a NetSuite, a brand that is similar to QuickBooks, and I did this LinkedIn live. And then Ramon asked me to write a blog about referrals. And so I wrote an article for him as a guest, you know, contributor, and then he took it, put it on his website, and then interspersed all the video throughout the paragraphs. And it was a really unique way of like mixing the media. So what I love about that is that if you’re skimming it, and you’re the video watcher, you can watch it. And if you’re the reader, you can read it. And you might be more intrigued about, because the blog wasn’t about the NetSuite interview. So you might say, Oh, well, this blog was interesting. This article was interesting. I might watch that now. And so you might consume both pieces of content, which is rather interesting. I thought, and, and it’s attacking both angles. And I think that’s something we don’t think about. How long did it take you to figure out how you best learn?

K – 12:18
Oh, gosh, a long time. Oh, actually, well, how do I best learn? I I’ve known that for a while, I think what took me a long time was to align that with my business.

M – Sure.

K – So in terms of, you know, I enjoy doing podcasts like this, I enjoy giving webinars, right, so being on camera in this context is very enjoyable and comfortable for me, but I’m not one to hop on Facebook Lives and do these little like short things that a lot of people are doing. And so that required a lot of my energy to kind of get myself motivated to do it and feel disciplined. And then I realized, well, that’s just not my style. And, and it’s still important that people see me on camera, right? See me in video, because that’s how you build know, like, and trust. Right, right. So so it’s again, what are the choices that I’m making? Are they in line in alignment with where I feel most natural and comfortable in terms of building my business? Right, I always know that I’m, I’ve always enjoyed writing. That’s always been my thing. Reading has always been my thing. And you know, I grew up back before. Well, you know, the computers were massive. And you know, the internet was new. And you know, all those things. I’m dating myself for sure. But, you know, so I maybe have not, I remember the time before the internet, right? Yeah, right.

M – 13:40
I remember the time when we were paying by the minute on AOL chat.
K – Oh, yeah.

M – Bad news. $1,000 phone bills. I never forget that 11 $100 phone bill that one month, that was not good. So you mentioned business building and business growth. And one of the things we’d like to focus on with the podcast is sort of the growth of a business, you know, and the challenges that you’re faced with. We, I always hear as a referral coach, I always hear this idea that people don’t have enough sales, or the pipeline isn’t great enough, or, you know, they don’t know where the leads are coming from. And I hear people talking about even buying leads from lead sources and things like that. How do you solve that problem? How do you focus on lead gen in your business?

K – 14:31
Well, I’m not sure I’ve solved it yet. Let’s put tha,t let’s put that in there. And I mean, the wonderful thing about coaching, right, people come and they work with me for 12 weeks. That’s my, that’s my signature program, one on one coaching. And then you know, the goal of coaching is to make someone self sufficient, right to help them solve their problem to give them the tools in this and remind them the skills that they have to overcome the challenges. So ideally, somebody comes into my program, right? They might be a hardcore Insomniac, not slept for 20 years, they leave after 12 weeks and they’re feeling better. And they know what to do on those nights when they’re not sleeping, well write trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, whatever. And now I’m needing another client, right? Because after those 12 weeks, I mean, some people do continue, but it’s, it’s pretty rare, right? Most people do sort of move on. So it’s really important for me from a business perspective to continue to have people coming in. Right. So, you know, in terms of how I do that, the way I qualify people for coaching is to have a clarity call right to have a free consultation, essentially, and see whether they’re, they’re a good fit for coaching, right, because that’s the other challenge, I think in the health and wellness space, they have to be ready to address their problem, they have to be ready to do some deeper work, rather than just take the quick fix or the quick remedy. So there’s an alignment issue there. So the number of leads that come in for me that talk to me, you know, a number of those right off the bat, if they show up for the call, if we have the call, right, the the number diminishes as they come. There’s a very small subset of people who are really good coaching candidates, right? And then the question becomes, are they willing to invest the time and the money, and you know, their energy into solving their problem right now? Right? So so my pipeline starts, you know, could start pretty large, and then it gets smaller and smaller by the, the act of qualifying them, right. Um, so So, you know, I’ve done a lot of different things, right. I’ve had Google ads, I’ve done Facebook ads. For my purposes, I found Google to be much more in alignment because people are actively searching for how to read in the morning. And, and so

M – 16:49
do you actually, Daypart those ads? Did you do that?

K – 16:53
Um, no, I, I actually have stopped doing that. Because for a time, it was really good. And then it has slowed down. And so what I’m actually doing now is this later this week, I have a meeting with a marketing expert. And we are going to just take a look at what’s going on in my business, what’s working and what’s not. Because I’ve been feeling like, you know, I’m doing a lot of things, right. I’m on social, I blog, right. And there are things I enjoy things I don’t but they’re, as you mentioned, time is limited energy is limited. And so what I would like to get is some outside assistance in terms of having direction, these are the top three things you should focus on. And, you know, you

M – 17:37
If you ever go back to the Google Ads look into dayparting. So you can run the ads only from 11pm to 5am. Right? Maybe that might be find something of value there. Um, when we talk about business growth, we talk about business management as well. It’s not just sales, but it’s actually producing the work. It’s also managing all the people. I love that you mentioned outsourcing, right? You being an internet consultant to help you with that marketing piece. What one tool do you use in your business that you could share with the audience that might actually help them in their business.,

K – 18:17
So in the day to day management of just Yeah, absolutely. I think I commented on this in your, in your Facebook group, actually, the other day, so because I come from the technology world, you know, we were big on using Trello, right, a Kanban board, you know, back in the day, and I still use that I have boards for everything from, you know, my marketing to, you know, my blog schedule to coaching processes and things and things I want to do. And I also have several boards for you know, household projects, because we have a you know, we have a new old house, and there are lots of things to do. So I use that just to if I have an idea, I throw it on the on the Trello board, right? And every now and then I go through and I triage it and that is just I can’t imagine living without it actually the other day, it went down for a minute or so. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what would I do? If that would never come back? I would be so screwed.

M – 19:15
So that’s a good point. So if you’re watching or listening, please comment on the Facebook page or on the YouTube comments. Are you using Trello? And how, how nervous Are you that it’s gonna go down and you’re not gonna have a backup, I imagine there’s a backup option that you can just export some stuff every now and then which I might suggest. We use Trello as well in our business, and it’s not because I know anything about it, it’s because it’s Heather’s go to and she’s managing it all and all the tasks are in there and I’m just like, Okay, look, I just tell her, here’s the tasks we need to do and she she figures out where…… so this is another thing that I think is important, is I talk a lot about outsourcing your weaknesses right? And I’m not a very detail-oriented person. I just kind of go with the flow of Life, let’s This is who I am. And so I’m not a type “A” type person. And although some people that you talk to, you might actually say, but I’m not and, and so I’m not detail-oriented. And so because I feel like we’re going to get from A to B, even without all the details, right, we might be a little hungry, if we get, we might not have eaten or something. But we’re not going to run out of gas, so to speak. But that’s what you got to surround yourself with great people that do great things. And you know, you don’t have to, in the small business world, what we focus on is helping them people who have 10 or less people, right, you don’t have to always hire someone, as an employee to do this. They can be 1099,, they can be a contractor, or they can be outsourced business. There’s a lot of opportunity out there these days, with getting the help necessary. And if you don’t know Trello, but you think Trello might be for you, then find a Trello expert to help you. And post in the mass business connections, Facebook group, your questions about Trello. And Kali will certainly be on there to answer your questions because she’s an expert. I will not I’ll just tell Heather to answer them. Because I can see the board, I can view the board. But I’ve learned not to touch the board. Up in the wrong place. I don’t know how to do a recurring thing. It is what it is. But that Trello is a fantastic tool. And we’ve only been using it now for quite, you know, just a few months. And it’s it’s it’s optimized the business so drastically. In episode one we had Nicole Porter on. And she uses Asana. And I remember her showing me Asana a couple months ago. And it looks very much like Trello. It almost looks exactly the same. And so Nicole’s point was, whatever you use, just be comfortable with it.

K – Absolutely. Yeah.

M – So what one tip would you give our listeners today? In regards to growing their business, what one tip would that be?

K – 22:12
Well, I mean, it depends on the business, for sure. But I think one of the things that I often teach my clients about just in terms of managing all the day to day, things there are to do, right? Not enough time, is to really decide what is the one thing I don’t know. If you’ve read the book,” the one thing” I love that book, because it’s what is the one thing that if you did that today, or you focused on that for the month, or whatever it is, would make the most impact would have the most impact on your business, your health, your your relationships, whatever that is right and and really commit to that and focus on that because I think I am a Type” A“ I am in the details. Right? Those are the people I work with most often. And we’re so often trying to do so many things at one time. And I think it’s so helpful for myself to keep reminding myself, okay, this is the one thing that I’ve decided to do. Everything else that’s on the to-do list can wait, for now, right? But if it’s not in alignment with that one thing, then it has to wait. And and I think we we just make more progress that way we feel a little bit better about you know, what we’re doing, we can evaluate is this work, What is working? Right? When we’re more focused on that one thing? Because if we’re doing so many different things you don’t really know well, what what did help you the most, it’s very hard to track and then we get overwhelmed. So So I guess that would be my one piece of you know, generic advice.

M – 23:43
Well, I think it’s an important aspect of it isn’t tied directly to your business. So speaking of your business, as we wrap up this show, share with everybody where they can find you on the world wide web and reach out to you How can they get in touch?

K – 23:57
Sure. So KaliPatrick.com My name is right there. Also KaliSleepCoach.com works, and links to all my social media channels are there. My blog is there. If somebody wants to learn more about sleep wellness coaching and book a clarity call, it’s 30 minutes with me completely free, no-obligation. We talk about your sleep and hopefully get get people on a strategy to feeling better. And that’s regardless of where they’re coaching is a good option for them sometimes, you know, I’ll refer people to other programs or doctors or whatever they need. So happy to speak with anybody through that.

M – 24:30
Awesome. Well, thanks for being our second guest on the brand new mass business podcast. We appreciate you being a Massachusetts-based business and sharing the wealth and knowledge with other people who are listening right here in the great state of Massachusetts. Folks, don’t forget if you are struggling to grow your business, we’re here for you. We’ve got all the content, the information, the education, it’s all about learning and understanding season one is about educating yourself, and let us help you do that. If you need some resources are sleeping better reach out to Kali. And if you need some more resources for more referrals reach out to me. I’m happy to help. We’ll see you next time on the next episode. Thanks everyone.

Outro –
Thank you for listening to the Mass Business Podcast where we focus on growing a small business and understanding networking and referrals. Don’t forget to like on your favorite platform and share out this podcast. This show has been produced by Heather Grant. Music by Cailte Kelley, all rights reserved. I’m your host, professional speaker, author, and word of mouth referral consultant, Matt ward. Don’t forget to live happy smile a lot. And high-five everyone around you.