E13: Being an Authority Without Losing Your Identity [Authority Building] with Leah Neaderthal

Erin Austin: 00:01:08

Hello, everyone.

Erin Austin: 00:01:10

Welcome to the hourly to exit podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:01:12

I am so excited for today's episode.

Erin Austin: 00:01:15

I have Leah Neaderthal with me from Smart Gets Paid and, there's so many

Erin Austin: 00:01:20

things we could talk about today.

Erin Austin: 00:01:22

And so I'm gonna let Leah, uh, introduce herself, but you know, it

Erin Austin: 00:01:26

was one of those happy problems going,

Erin Austin: 00:01:30

what am I gonna talk with Leah about?

Erin Austin: 00:01:31

Because there's so many things on the Hourly to Exit journey that we could talk

Erin Austin: 00:01:34

about, but first I wanna let Lee introduce herself and then I wanna dive in today.

Erin Austin: 00:01:38

Today's topic

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:40

Awesome.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:40

Thanks so much for having me today.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:42

So I'm Leah Neaderthal, I'm the founder of Smart Gets Paid, and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:45

I help women run profitable, predictable consulting businesses.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:50

And in my world, that means being able to attract more of the right kinds

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:54

of clients into your business and get paid dramatically more for your work so

Leah Neaderthal: 00:01:59

that you can run a profitable business and have more time for yourself,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:04

and you are running the business instead of the business running you.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:07

And I do that through some programs that I work with women on.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:10

I have a podcast called the Smart Gets Paid Podcast where I'm sharing strategies.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:15

But you know, you and I have a very similar goal.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:18

We go through it in different ways, which is how can we help women run the

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:21

businesses that make them money and make them happy and, uh, help them also

Leah Neaderthal: 00:02:26

grow as business owners and as people?

Erin Austin: 00:02:29

Yeah, absolutely.

Erin Austin: 00:02:30

And you know, I have followed you Leah for some time and I've also

Erin Austin: 00:02:34

worked with her in her programs.

Erin Austin: 00:02:37

Obviously there's the very practical stuff of, increasing our revenues.

Erin Austin: 00:02:41

But one of the things that I really connected with Leah about is kind

Erin Austin: 00:02:44

of this softer side and some of the softer skills of, running a business

Erin Austin: 00:02:49

and being a woman in business and so,

Erin Austin: 00:02:52

I absolutely wanted Leah to be one of the first guests on the podcast and I was

Erin Austin: 00:02:55

thinking about what we would talk about.

Erin Austin: 00:02:57

And then Leah wrote a newsletter at the end of March, uh, where she addressed

Erin Austin: 00:03:02

the expertise dash humanity scale.

Erin Austin: 00:03:06

And so basically that is, you know, how do we show up in the world,

Erin Austin: 00:03:10

like in public and social media, speaking in our writings, uh,

Erin Austin: 00:03:15

with our clients, you know, are.

Erin Austin: 00:03:17

More on the expertise scale, like, what we know, we're the expert versus

Erin Austin: 00:03:22

the humanity scale, like who we are, you know, outside of our expertise.

Erin Austin: 00:03:25

And then she confessed that she's, you know, had some trouble over there

Erin Austin: 00:03:29

hanging out on the expertise side.

Erin Austin: 00:03:31

And it really resonated with me cuz I have struggled with this mightily

Erin Austin: 00:03:36

and I was struggling with it,

Erin Austin: 00:03:37

absolutely, when I, when I met Leah and so, you know, for me, I

Erin Austin: 00:03:42

graduated from law school in 1992, which is yes, 30 years ago people.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:03:47

It was just yesterday.

Erin Austin: 00:03:50

yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:03:51

Well, I'll tell you how long ago it was, you know, it was back when name partners

Erin Austin: 00:03:55

were still alive you know, and so the firm I was at, old school, law firm in

Erin Austin: 00:04:01

San Francisco and yes, literally one of the name partners were still alive.

Erin Austin: 00:04:04

He was like 90 years old smoking a cigar and you know, you weren't

Erin Austin: 00:04:07

supposed to smoke inside anymore.

Erin Austin: 00:04:09

I had to wear a suit with a skirt and panty hose and the whole thing

Erin Austin: 00:04:13

and, casual Friday meant a pantsuit.

Erin Austin: 00:04:15

Did not mean, you know, GS and, you know, very frequently I

Erin Austin: 00:04:21

was the only woman in the room.

Erin Austin: 00:04:23

I was almost always the only person of color in the room.

Erin Austin: 00:04:26

And I was absolutely always the only black woman in room.

Erin Austin: 00:04:29

And not any part of my humanity came with me.

Erin Austin: 00:04:34

Let's just say it was all on the expertise side.

Erin Austin: 00:04:37

And I have pretty much stayed on that side.

Erin Austin: 00:04:40

And it's been fine, you know, my decades is a lawyer.

Erin Austin: 00:04:43

But it's really became a problem when it carried over into this transition,

Erin Austin: 00:04:50

as I'm working with female founders of expertise based businesses is still

Erin Austin: 00:04:54

trying to hang out on that expertise side.

Erin Austin: 00:04:56

Which is why I really

Erin Austin: 00:04:58

wanted to talk about this, and I had a conversation about, exits and, you know,

Erin Austin: 00:05:02

I'm thinking, you know, multiples and, you know, valuation, blah, blah, blah.

Erin Austin: 00:05:05

And she's like, well, you gotta think about, you know, the way people feel

Erin Austin: 00:05:09

about I'm like, they care about that?

Erin Austin: 00:05:11

I'm like, yes, they do.

Erin Austin: 00:05:13

And so, it has, affected my voice, you know, kind of trolling vis and you

Erin Austin: 00:05:18

know, my love affair with MacKenzi.

Erin Austin: 00:05:21

And, um, but I'm still, it's still pretty scary for me.

Erin Austin: 00:05:24

I still self-edit a lot, like just this week or something,

Erin Austin: 00:05:26

I'm like, I ain't posting that.

Erin Austin: 00:05:29

So I really wanted to, dig into this today with Leah, cause I

Erin Austin: 00:05:32

know if I'm struggling with it.

Erin Austin: 00:05:34

I know other women are struggling with this as well.

Erin Austin: 00:05:37

So tell me about that, newsletter post.

Erin Austin: 00:05:41

What you were struggling with, how we got here.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:43

Yeah, totally well.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:45

And I have to credit, a coach that I worked with.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:48

So there's a woman named Jessica Zweig, who's a great, a

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:51

brilliant branding strategist.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:53

And she wrote a book and has an agency and all of that.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:05:56

She was a client of mine to learn how to sell and how to, you know, increase her

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:01

revenue, get better clients, et cetera.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:03

And when I wanted to focus on my brand, I knew exactly who to go to.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:06

So I went back to her and she's the one who introduced me to this concept

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:09

of the expertise, humanity scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:11

So, the newsletter that I wrote was about how I went to visit my parents.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:17

After two years of, you know, the pandemic not having visited them, I'd

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:22

seen them, but not, you know, flown with my son and my wife to see them.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:27

And now that I was back, as it always happens you are flooded with like

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:32

nostalgic memories and all of this stuff.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:34

And, uh, while I was there, we, you know, we went in the middle of the week.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:37

So I had planned to do a LinkedIn live on that Thursday, as I often

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:41

do on various topics related to.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:44

Selling.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:44

and I thought to myself, well, you know, these such cute

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:47

pictures of me from growing up, I mean, I was a pretty cute kid.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:50

and so what if I just like showed one on camera?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:53

Right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:53

Like little baby picture of Leah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:06:55

And so I did, and I, you know, I, I, I don't remember exactly what

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:00

I said on the live, but I was reflecting afterwards thinking, wow.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:04

I mean I was giving myself a little credit for coming further,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:09

along on the expertise, humanity scale towards the humanity side.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:14

So you're right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:14

The expertise in humanity scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:15

Imagine like a, you know, on one side of the scale is just pure

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:19

expertise being known for what you do.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:22

And What you do in your business, what you did in your career.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:25

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:26

And on the other side, the complete opposite side is humanity, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:30

Like who you are, how you feel about things, just who you

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:34

are outside of your business.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:35

And, like you Erin, like I had spent all my time on the expertise side.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:41

Right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:42

I felt super, super comfortable there because, I'm a total

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:45

like type a overachiever,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:47

right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:48

Think about starting in school, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:49

You do good work.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:50

You get good grades.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:52

That's how you unlock opportunities, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:54

And then in our careers, we put our heads down.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:57

We do great work.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:07:58

Unlike the way men are conditioned, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:01

We don't toot our own horns.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:02

We don't have to go out and shake a thousand hands to

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:04

like build our, prestige.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:06

We do great work and so that serves us really well.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:10

I mean, to some degree could be argued, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:12

But it serves us fairly well in a corporate world.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:15

But, when you start your own business and people are hiring you, not just

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:21

for your skillset, but they actually have to like, know you a little bit.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:25

And I had to really try hard to pull myself off of the pure expertise side,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:31

and so I sort of, vacillate between sides, but it's a journey, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:08:35

But it's absolutely critical if you are gonna run a business as a woman founder.

Erin Austin: 00:08:41

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:08:41

And you do help women have visibility on LinkedIn and use

Erin Austin: 00:08:45

LinkedIn as a outreach tool.

Erin Austin: 00:08:46

So when we think about LinkedIn and I know.

Erin Austin: 00:08:49

certainly, you know, the changes in the word count in the last year, so people

Erin Austin: 00:08:54

are putting a lot more content on there.

Erin Austin: 00:08:56

Um, people understand the value of it and are doing more, this is definitely

Erin Austin: 00:09:00

my struggle is that balance between the expertise side and the humanity side.

Erin Austin: 00:09:05

Is there kind of a rule of thumb about like where we fall?

Erin Austin: 00:09:09

What's too much?

Erin Austin: 00:09:10

You know, if it's a professional network, what's too much?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:14

Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:15

That's a hard question to answer, let me sort of look at it in a different way.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:18

So a lot of us, especially when you first started at your business, you are

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:22

getting clients through referrals, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:24

Probably people that you knew in the past, or maybe you worked with, or

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:28

they've gone on to different companies, or, you know, what have you, people who

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:30

you have some type of relationship with.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:32

And that lasts for maybe 18 months to two years.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:35

You know, you can, with a lot of effort, you can keep that going.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:38

But if you think about it, when you start your business and when you're running

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:42

your business, you no longer work with a lot of people in an office who get to

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:49

know how good you are at what you do,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:51

right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:52

And, so there's just a limit to like the number of people we can have a

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:55

career with, especially when we're not having a career in a big company.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:09:59

And so you have to find a way to replicate that same, getting to know you.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:05

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:06

Some people really like to do that at events.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:09

Of course, we haven't had any events over the past few years, but like

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:12

doing that through networking or, what have you, but a lot of us don't either

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:16

like to do that or can't do that, or just are limited, in what's available

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:19

to us or we wanna take advantage of.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:22

So I think about LinkedIn as not just like a social network or a professional

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:26

network or whatever, but LinkedIn, if you have a strategy to get visible on LinkedIn

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:31

and know what to say and how to say it, LinkedIn essentially replicates that

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:36

process of we get to know each other,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:39

I know that you're good at what you do, we have some type of

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:41

like friendly relationship.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:43

It replicates that at scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:46

So you're having that with a lot more people who are reading

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:49

your posts and following along and understanding the value you

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:53

provide and who you provide it for.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:10:55

So if you look at it like that, then you have to have a mix

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:00

of that expertise in humanity.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:01

Imagine if you worked with somebody who never let you see any part of

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:05

themselves, like it was only about the numbers or it's only about the

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:09

strategy or the documents or whatever.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:11

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:12

And never mentioned anything about, well, you know, what did

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:14

you do this past weekend or.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:17

Anything personal, it would be really hard to have a relationship with that

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:20

person, even on a, cursory level.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:23

The same thing happens on LinkedIn.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:24

If you're only talking about the work or the strategies or the tips or

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:29

whatever, and you're not showing any part of yourself, then people will know

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:34

that you are very good at what you do, but they may not have that personal

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:39

connection, that personal affinity.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:41

So, back to your question, is there a rule of thumb?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:44

Not really, but, you have to make an effort to show a little bit,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:52

you know, start with, let's say if you're posting three times a week,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:55

start with one post every other week.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:11:59

Should be about the personal and really there are ways to drop

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:04

in personal hints throughout.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:06

So I always tell people start small, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:09

You don't have to talk about your biggest trauma in your first LinkedIn

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:13

post, but can you share a little bit.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:17

Within the ?Context of some expertise.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:19

How did you start to weave that in?

Erin Austin: 00:12:22

For me, it was mostly about wealth in the hands

Erin Austin: 00:12:24

of women can change the world.

Erin Austin: 00:12:26

And I had a lot of resistance even around declaring, you know, working

Erin Austin: 00:12:30

with women is that not just from a niche perspective, but from a, is that

Erin Austin: 00:12:35

antagonistic perspective.

Erin Austin: 00:12:37

Right.

Erin Austin: 00:12:37

And so, will I turn people off?

Erin Austin: 00:12:40

Will they be offended by it?

Erin Austin: 00:12:42

And so, that was kind of my first step.

Erin Austin: 00:12:45

And I will say, I'm trying to think if I've ever done anything that

Erin Austin: 00:12:49

was kind of borderline vulnerable.

Erin Austin: 00:12:52

I, I don't think I have actually.

Erin Austin: 00:12:54

That's still part of my, my journey there.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:12:57

Yeah, I think it's a part of everyone's journey.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:00

I think the biggest hurdle that I overcame, I think it was my newsletter

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:03

that became a LinkedIn post or whatever it was that was the biggest mental

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:07

hurdle for me to overcome was I posted something about, it was like when I

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:11

got married, but I got married to a woman, which is like you don't see that

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:16

every day in a professional context.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:18

And I was worried.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:19

I was like, I'm gonna get trolled.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:21

I'm gonna get doxxed, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:23

Everybody's gonna come for me or whatever.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:25

All my clients are gonna hate me.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:27

And so I put it out there and everyone was so excited, supportive, you know?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:35

I started hearing from people who had been getting my newsletters, who

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:39

either, were a member of the LGBTQ community, or they had family members or.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:45

Whatever right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:46

And it was a signal for me that not only should I do stuff like that, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:50

I should do more of it.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:51

And I just realized like, if people didn't spark to that or

Leah Neaderthal: 00:13:56

they had a problem with that, then they're gonna hate working with me.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:00

And it's just best that they unsubscribe,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:03

right.

Erin Austin: 00:14:04

Now you work with women.

Erin Austin: 00:14:06

I mean, you specifically focus on women.

Erin Austin: 00:14:08

Do the same kind of parameters apply when you're not focused on women?

Erin Austin: 00:14:13

Is this something that is specific to a female audience to wanna talk to them

Erin Austin: 00:14:17

in a more vulnerable, personal way?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:19

That's a good question.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:21

So I work with people who are primarily selling into companies, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:24

But even if you're selling into a company, you're selling

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:27

into a person at that company.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:30

And sure, if you provide a little bit more, you know, life color, right,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:35

a little bit more humanity, I don't think it's gonna hurt, you know, if

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:39

anything, people feel like they have some type of relationship with you, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:43

Even if they're watching from afar, what we call lurkers as you know,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:46

in pack your pipeline parlance, but people who are just in re only mode.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:52

But at worst, it'll make you more memorable.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:55

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:55

And no matter what you're in, there's somebody else who does it too.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:59

Right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:14:59

You're never the only person who does what you do.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:02

So if the only purpose of the humanity is to be more memorable as your

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:07

clients are evaluating you over other providers, that still contributes

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:13

to success in the sales process.

Erin Austin: 00:15:15

I like that.

Erin Austin: 00:15:16

Think of it being more memorable.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:18

And I just wanna offer that as you have been working

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:21

with me and following along and, you know, noticed more of the humanity

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:25

coming through, I would say that I practice controlled vulnerability.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:31

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:31

That's uh, how I'm sort of referring to it in with my team and, You

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:35

don't have to show everything just because you share something doesn't

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:39

mean you have to offer everything.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:41

And especially if it's more comfortable, like it is for me to take the humanity and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:46

wrap it in some expertise or vice versa,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:50

right,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:51

let there be a lesson there.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:52

How can you tie it back to the work?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:15:54

All of these things.

Erin Austin: 00:15:56

I like that.

Erin Austin: 00:15:57

So have you noticed any changes during the pandemic?

Erin Austin: 00:15:59

I mean, I know, you did your post about going gray during the pandemic.

Erin Austin: 00:16:02

And so like, has that resulted in a little bit more of people's

Erin Austin: 00:16:07

personality and humanity coming out?

Erin Austin: 00:16:09

Okay.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:10

if you're listening, what she's referring to is I did go gray.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:12

I stopped coloring my hair, which I had done for years.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:15

And not only did I go gray, I had to, in a process of, you know, taking all the color

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:20

out and replacing it with gray so that I didn't have this crazy transition of hair,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:26

I accidentally had a crazy transition of hair because I

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:28

was blonde for like four months.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:30

So, I can't hide all the time, so I just may as well talk about it.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:35

And actually I talk about so many things related to selling about referrals and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:38

lead gen and pricing and messaging.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:40

But to be honest, like the, the stuff about going gray was the stuff

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:44

that people really had a connection to, uh, more than anything else.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:48

So that was also a signal to me.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:50

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:51

Have I seen a change?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:52

Absolutely.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:53

A woman I used to work with said I guess we don't all have to pretend like

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:56

we don't have personal lives anymore.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:16:58

You know, so whether that meant dogs at home barking or children

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:02

who needed attention or whatever.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:06

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:06

And so I think a lot of people are finding it not only easier to, share

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:13

more of the humanity on that expertise, humanity scale, but it finding it

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:17

absolutely necessary, not for some strategic reason, but because we need.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:23

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:23

We need it for each other and we need to have that connection.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:28

at least reading about somebody or sharing about yourself when you

Leah Neaderthal: 00:17:31

can't have that connection in person.

Erin Austin: 00:17:33

Hmm.

Erin Austin: 00:17:33

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:17:34

For me, the pandemic has been a real game changer in terms

Erin Austin: 00:17:37

of how networking works for me.

Erin Austin: 00:17:39

And I live in a rural part of Northern Virginia, like the

Erin Austin: 00:17:43

ex-surbs of Washington DC.

Erin Austin: 00:17:45

And going into the city, which is like, you know, that was a day trip.

Erin Austin: 00:17:48

Like you can just go for lunch or go even getting into town just to go for

Erin Austin: 00:17:52

a drink, was like, forget about it.

Erin Austin: 00:17:54

And so I just didn't do that stuff.

Erin Austin: 00:17:56

And, and since the pandemic I've been able to participate in a lot more things

Erin Austin: 00:18:00

that have gone online and then also like get more involved with LinkedIn.

Erin Austin: 00:18:05

And so, yeah, I definitely feel that there's like getting personal online.

Erin Austin: 00:18:10

Well, whether it's in writing or via zoom or like has become normalized,

Erin Austin: 00:18:15

I guess, you know, like we're just much more comfortable going there,

Erin Austin: 00:18:19

um, than certainly I felt like I was, you know, a couple years ago.

Erin Austin: 00:18:23

So if there's any silver lining, I guess there's,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:26

Yeah,

Erin Austin: 00:18:27

we're more connected in that way.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:29

Well, and I've also noticed not only are people sharing more

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:33

humanity, but I think the type of humanity they're they're sharing has changed.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:38

You'll see a lot more people posting about, things like this is

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:42

really hard, or I am struggling.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:45

Or I am burned out or things are happening in my life that are difficult, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:53

Whether it's an aging parent or a child who's having trouble.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:18:56

And it's really nice in my view, to, especially as somebody who like puts

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:02

a ton of pressure on herself to do everything right and be perfect and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:05

overachieve, right, like I'm sure a lot of your listeners do, but we

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:09

know that that's not how real life actually is in our world, but we don't

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:13

see that in anybody else's world,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:15

right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:15

Seeing that now, seeing people talk about it, seeing that,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:20

other people struggle too.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:22

And, it's not just the highlight reel anymore, is what

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:26

we're seeing on social media.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:28

And, I think that that's been really nice.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:32

I mean, for me personally, and for a lot of the women I know to

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:34

say we don't have to be perfect.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:19:36

We don't have to pretend to be perfect and let's just show up as ourselves.

Erin Austin: 00:19:40

Yeah, I agree completely.

Erin Austin: 00:19:42

And, uh, yeah, I've been very, moved by the things that people have been

Erin Austin: 00:19:46

sharing on LinkedIn and in other places.

Erin Austin: 00:19:48

And, and it is, it really makes you feel more connected.

Erin Austin: 00:19:50

And, and I do, I appreciate that.

Erin Austin: 00:19:53

So I imagine women.

Erin Austin: 00:19:56

Don't self-identify as having this expertise, humanity scale imbalance.

Erin Austin: 00:20:01

So what is it like, but I'm sure there is a connection between the

Erin Austin: 00:20:05

work that you do with women and them having some of these mindset issues.

Erin Austin: 00:20:09

So what are they struggling with when they come to you and how do you work with

Erin Austin: 00:20:13

them on some of these mindset issues?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:16

Great question.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:16

So, a lot of women come to me because their consulting business is doing

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:21

what they would call okay, but they know that they wanted to do better.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:26

Up to this point, they've gotten clients through referrals but they're

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:29

worried that that's gonna go away, or they know that will go away,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:33

cuz it always does.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:34

And, they wanna finally learn how to actually get clients.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:37

Women come to me because they discover what I discovered when I first started

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:41

my consulting business, which is that it's about a thousand times harder

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:44

to sell your own stuff than it is to sell or promote somebody else's, maybe

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:48

what you did in your past career.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:50

And, this is just a skill gap that they know they need.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:54

So I teach them how to get in front of the right clients, track the right

Leah Neaderthal: 00:20:58

clients, fill their pipeline, lead a sales process, charge and get paid

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:03

way more for their work, write winning proposals, the entire sales process.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:08

Because unless you were in sales, you don't have

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:12

a sales background, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:13

So like I didn't, but you discover that, you know, even if you don't like

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:18

the selling part, you can actually learn how to do it, do it really

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:22

well, feel comfortable, and get paid very well for your consulting work.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:27

But in the context of that, I see this expertise, humanity scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:32

It's like, yeah, nobody's walking in the door being like, I have an

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:34

expertise, humanity scale problem.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:36

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:37

But.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:38

Once they become aware, then.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:40

You know, nearly everyone.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:41

I talk to acknowledges that they feel a lot more comfortable

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:45

on the expertise side.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:47

And in that respect, the expertise, humanity scale itself, isn't a problem.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:52

It's a symptom of a problem, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:54

It's a symptom of a problem, which is, I don't feel comfortable showing up.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:21:59

I don't know how to position my work for value.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:04

Um, I don't know how to lead a sales process and, you know, to sort of

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:09

take control and guide my clients.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:11

And I certainly don't know how to price my work for value and get

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:15

paid what I could be getting paid.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:17

So it's actually kind of a diagnostic tool, just as much

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:21

as a messaging framework.

Erin Austin: 00:22:24

That's great.

Erin Austin: 00:22:25

So one of the things about you, you have sold a business.

Erin Austin: 00:22:29

And so when I have a woman on the podcast who has sold a business,

Erin Austin: 00:22:33

I would be remiss if I did not ask her what that process was like.

Erin Austin: 00:22:38

And if you could share a little bit about tips and what you might

Erin Austin: 00:22:40

do differently the next time.

Erin Austin: 00:22:42

Good.

Erin Austin: 00:22:43

Good

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:43

Oh my gosh.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:43

Well, I'd say the first thing I would do differently is call you first.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:50

So I ran a few businesses with my former partner, who was also my

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:54

business partner and romantic partner.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:22:56

And, when we split, it was time for me to walk away.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:01

And like, walk all the way away.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:03

And the reason why I should have talked to you is because I probably

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:05

made every mistake in the book.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:07

Both of us did because what did we know?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:09

And I think also, you know, it was to just let let's acknowledge that

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:13

there was a lot of emotion wrapped up in this, you know, when you break

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:16

off an engagement and walk away from the business and all of that stuff,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:20

right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:21

So, you know, we didn't have the right iP protection.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:25

I learned a whole lot, and first thing I learned is I

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:30

need to call somebody like you.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:23:31

And now that I know you, that's the call.

Erin Austin: 00:23:34

Well, they do say that, I mean, to be prepared cause you really

Erin Austin: 00:23:37

don't know when the end will come.

Erin Austin: 00:23:39

I mean, they say, I mean the business will end eventually.

Erin Austin: 00:23:42

So with, or without you, whether you're ready or not, they say,

Erin Austin: 00:23:45

I think there's the four Ds.

Erin Austin: 00:23:47

There might be a fifth one that I'm not thinking of, but like death,

Erin Austin: 00:23:50

disability, divorce, and dissolution.

Erin Austin: 00:23:53

And so are you ready for what will happen under one of those circumstances to make

Erin Austin: 00:23:58

sure that you're best positioned to not be harmed at minimum, do no harm, right.

Erin Austin: 00:24:04

And hopefully be able to also take advantage of the value that you

Erin Austin: 00:24:07

built in the business to date.

Erin Austin: 00:24:08

So

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:09

Oh, my gosh.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:10

Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:10

And one of the businesses that we co-founded is, uh, still around,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:14

still doing very, very well.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:16

Um, I don't see any of that because.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:19

Of the sort of poor way that we went about it.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:22

but yeah, no, mine was a mix of like, not divorce cause we were

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:24

three weeks from getting married and we broke off our engagement, but it

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:27

was certainly some disillusionment

Erin Austin: 00:24:29

Yes.

Erin Austin: 00:24:30

Yes.

Erin Austin: 00:24:31

For

Leah Neaderthal: 00:24:31

So I had one and a half of those of those items.

Erin Austin: 00:24:34

Well, thank you for sharing that.

Erin Austin: 00:24:36

Uh, so, you know, this is the hourly to exit podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:24:39

And so we, uh, talk about building a service based business that

Erin Austin: 00:24:44

can hopefully be sold someday.

Erin Austin: 00:24:46

And so part of the elements of that are one having exclusivity in our

Erin Austin: 00:24:50

businesses so that we have assets that we own, like our intellectual

Erin Austin: 00:24:53

property that we have protected or, and we have a unique market position.

Erin Austin: 00:24:57

And also that we have predictability in the business so that an acquirer

Erin Austin: 00:25:01

knows that the business can run independently of us and that they can

Erin Austin: 00:25:05

trust those financial projections.

Erin Austin: 00:25:07

And so when we think about kinda the smart gets paid process, like where

Erin Austin: 00:25:12

does that fit into creating a business that is scalable and hopefully saleable.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:17

Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:18

Oh, I love that question.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:19

So where I play in this world, I mean, there are a lot of like business coaches

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:24

out there, right, and they're doing all kinds of the businessy business stuff.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:28

Um, the part that I really focus on is helping women get paid

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:34

dramatically more for their work and running a profitable business.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:39

If you're not getting paid enough, if you're working yourself into

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:41

the ground, if you are at the mercy of your clients and their needs,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:45

and you have no boundaries and you're constantly overdelivering,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:49

then that's not a business that is sustainable, much less saleable, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:54

So teaching women how to do client acquisition

Leah Neaderthal: 00:25:59

so that your business, has revenue, You have income, you have predictability

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:06

on that front so that your business becomes sustainable and attractive.

Erin Austin: 00:26:12

Absolutely agree, 100%.

Erin Austin: 00:26:14

So this is a very meta podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:26:17

You know, I'm a female founder of an expertise based business

Erin Austin: 00:26:20

that I hope to sell someday.

Erin Austin: 00:26:22

And so you are a female founder of an expertise based business.

Erin Austin: 00:26:25

So.

Erin Austin: 00:26:26

Are you, are you gonna go again?

Erin Austin: 00:26:27

You gonna try this again?

Erin Austin: 00:26:29

Are you building to sell someday?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:31

I'd like to, yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:33

I think what I understand about my business now that I didn't in previous

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:37

businesses is the intellectual property that I'm creating.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:41

And I have a much greater appreciation for that.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:44

So yeah, protecting that, building a platform helping evangelize what I do.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:50

And probably a number of things that I'm not even thinking about

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:54

that you would have an eye towards.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:57

Absolutely.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:26:58

I mean, I'm building it to help as many people as possible

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:02

and then building it to sell.

Erin Austin: 00:27:03

I mean at the end of the day, what we can do with our businesses,

Erin Austin: 00:27:06

one, there's the income to take care of the people we care about now, and also

Erin Austin: 00:27:11

to support the causes that we care about.

Erin Austin: 00:27:13

Right.

Erin Austin: 00:27:13

There's more than one way to have an impact.

Erin Austin: 00:27:16

And, uh, and also someday, no matter how much we love our businesses,

Erin Austin: 00:27:20

we'll be ready for another chapter.

Erin Austin: 00:27:22

Just like when we raise a kid, we're ready for the kid to go and do something new

Erin Austin: 00:27:26

eventually, and same with our business.

Erin Austin: 00:27:28

So yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:27:28

Having a plan for our next chapter, cuz there will be one, you know,

Erin Austin: 00:27:32

so, so we wanna make sure that that we're are ready for it.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:35

Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:36

Having an eye towards that, you know, I think is really

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:39

a, a constant practice, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:40

Because I'm having fun in this

Erin Austin: 00:27:42

mm-hmm yes, yes.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:44

I am.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:44

And I'm, I feel, you know, when I see the women that I work with have, an

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:49

incredible win or they're increasing their prices, you know, five X and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:54

they're signing new clients and they're, or they're taking every Friday off, or

Leah Neaderthal: 00:27:58

they're taking a three week vacation and they come back to assign proposal

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:01

or, you know, all of these things.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:02

That's, that's really fun for me.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:04

And so if I can also, I guess let's make up a new scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:08

It's the running the business now scale and the running the

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:10

business for the future scale.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:12

So I have to bring myself from the, having fun now, a few steps closer on

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:18

the, um, preparing for the future scale.

Erin Austin: 00:28:20

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:28:21

Yeah, it is a balance, but you know, the things that help you create

Erin Austin: 00:28:25

a scalable business are the same things that make a saleable business.

Erin Austin: 00:28:27

So we can, we can work on both of them.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:30

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:28:31

So as we wrap up, I have a couple of final questions for you.

Erin Austin: 00:28:34

As you know, at think beyond IP, we believe in creating an

Erin Austin: 00:28:38

economy that works for more of us.

Erin Austin: 00:28:40

And I personally believe that wealth in the hands of women can change the world.

Erin Austin: 00:28:44

So I'm wondering if there is a personal organization who is

Erin Austin: 00:28:48

doing work that you admire to help build a more equitable society.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:52

You know, I love this question.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:55

I, a few years ago, Around.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:28:58

Well, this is like before George Floyd and you know, all of this, I

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:01

think this was around like Trayvon.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:04

Um,

Erin Austin: 00:29:04

Yeah, George Floyd was at the beginning of the

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:07

yeah.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:07

And Trayvon is like a lot earlier, but, um, I started reading this story

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:11

about national women's bailout, and it's a very simple concept coming from

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:17

a lot of complicated factors, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:19

And systemic factors, but, a lot of people are incarcerated for the

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:23

sheer reason that they can't afford bail, which to me seems like such

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:26

such an incredible injustice, right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:28

And sort of criminalizing poverty.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:30

And so, this organization pays bail.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:34

Right.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:35

It's simple enough.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:36

And so, it's always one that I keep coming back to because the promise

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:40

is so clear, the impact is so direct and it makes such a change, right?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:29:47

Like an immediate change in the lives of so many families.

Erin Austin: 00:29:51

I love that.

Erin Austin: 00:29:52

Thank you for sharing that.

Erin Austin: 00:29:53

We will absolutely have that in the show notes.

Erin Austin: 00:29:55

So is there something exciting happening in your business that you'd

Erin Austin: 00:29:59

like to share with the audience?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:01

So the thing that's the most exciting in my life, which

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:04

will absolutely impact my business is that my wife is expecting.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:08

She's pregnant with our second child, uh, and due this summer.

Erin Austin: 00:30:13

Congratulations.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:14

Thank you.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:15

Yeah, we have a toddler.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:17

Uh, my, our son, I carried him and now she it's her turn

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:21

to, to carry our, Next child.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:24

And it's funny because I'm reflecting on how I prepared my business last time and

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:29

how I'm preparing my business this time.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:31

And it's so different because I know so much more about how to have a baby, uh,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:35

and what life with the newborn is like.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:37

But yeah, that's definitely the thing that's the most exciting and, uh,

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:42

it's it's

Erin Austin: 00:30:42

Fantastic.

Erin Austin: 00:30:43

Fantastic.

Erin Austin: 00:30:44

Congratulations.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:45

Thank you.

Erin Austin: 00:30:46

And finally, where can people find you?

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:49

Yeah, so.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:51

you can always find me on LinkedIn as you know, Erin I'm, uh, posting all the time.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:55

You can find me, just look for Leah Neaderthal on LinkedIn.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:30:59

If you are a podcast person and I imagine you are, cuz you're listening to this

Leah Neaderthal: 00:31:03

podcast, uh, check out my podcast at the smart gets paid podcast on apple podcast

Leah Neaderthal: 00:31:08

or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:31:10

And of course my website at smartgetspaid.com.

Erin Austin: 00:31:13

All fantastic resources.

Erin Austin: 00:31:15

Thank you again, Leah.

Erin Austin: 00:31:17

This has been absolutely a joy.

Erin Austin: 00:31:18

I've enjoyed having you so much, so much wonderful information

Erin Austin: 00:31:21

you've shared with us today.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:31:23

Thank you so much for having me.

Leah Neaderthal: 00:31:24

It's been a pleasure.