Episode 95 - How To Get PR For Your Business in Less Than 15 Min a Day with Cara Harvey
Raise your hand if you’ve ever procrastinated on a huge goal?
As entrepreneurs, we’re ready to tackle the biggest challenges head on. So why is it that when it comes to productivity, we’re still falling short?
The truth is, no challenge is too big for us to take on. But mapping out when to do what we need to do in order to get where we want to go? So many of us are lost.
That’s where productivity enters the equation. It’s something that we all know is important, we have consumed millions of different hacks, yet still – we are unable to unlock peak levels of it.
And our lack of productivity can actually be costing us big in business.
It’s why important, business-propelling, credibility-boosting tasks like pitching yourself for PR, podcast interviews, and earned media often take the backseat.
We say, “I’ll get to it when I have time,” but when has that ever happened? (Let’s be honest!)
This is why I’m so excited to introduce you to my friend, Cara Harvey.
Aside from being a mom, wife, and superwoman – Cara is a productivity coach. In addition to all of that, she’s the author of the book, The 15 Minute Formula, and has also created a system that has booked her on 46 podcasts in a year.
In today’s episode, she’s going to share her productivity wisdom with you, including:
Why Cara wishes that she worked on PR and visibility way earlier in her entrepreneurial journey
Why systems is the solution to your challenges and problems
How to tackle your PR goals (and other huge wins) in 15 minutes
How to plan effectively for the week ahead
The #1 reason why busy entrepreneurs tend to procrastinate
Why it’s so difficult for entrepreneurs to systematize effectively
How to master the art of prioritizing
This episode is your answer to every single business problem you face, especially if it pertains to time. And Cara’s expert answer? 15 minutes is all it takes. So if you’re ready to boost your productivity so you can tackle more in less time, this episode is for you.
Tune in, take notes, and let’s get all your business goals accomplished before the end of 2023.
The CPR Pitching Method™ helped small business-owning entrepreneurs from PR Starter Pack members see themselves as a go-to expert with a point of view, instead of JUST a founder, seller, or consultant – a standout mindset that takes you far in the world of PR.
I hope you take notes throughout this episode and maybe even listen to it again so you can really nail down the three parts of the CPR Pitching Method™ and use it to your advantage!
So get ready to press send and get your message. And I can’t wait to see you featured in the headlines.
P.S. If you want your small business to go from invisible to visible, seen, and valued, register for my FREE PR Secrets Masterclass. Soon enough, your credibility and visibility will skyrocket. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
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00:00 - Introduction
Hey friends, I'm Gloria Chou, a small business PR expert, award-winning pitch writer, and your unofficial hype-woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional yet proven strategies for PR, marketing, and creating more opportunities in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR Podcast.
00:32 Gloria Chou: Yay. I'm so excited for this week's episode of the Small Business PR podcast. We're talking all things pr, podcasting, and how to make PR an actual system. I know that so many people struggle with this. I myself have as well, and that's why we have my personal friend Cara Harvey here. So she is just a superwoman really, to, to put it simply, she is a mom, she is a wife, she's a productivity coach, and she helps so many other busy women who is trying to juggle it all, make things so simple and streamlined. So welcome to the show.
01:02 Cara Harvey: Oh, thank you for having me. This is going to be really fun. All things systems and productivity and the PR angle up my alley. Let's do it.
01:11 Gloria Chou: You have so many of the traits I wish I had because organization, time blocking productivity, these are the things that, oh my God, if I had that, my business would be like 10 x what?
It's right now. But you've taught me a lot. You've taught me a lot because you know, you've ob obviously you've written a book called the 15 Minute Formula, and you teach this. But the reason why I wanted you to come onto our show is because you actually have a system. Of booking yourself onto over 46 podcasts per year, which is like free publicity. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
01:42 Cara Harvey: Yeah. And I wanna say that when people ask me, cause I work with newer entrepreneurs, they're like, what's one thing you wish you had done? PR invisibility. I wish I had started that from the beginning because you know, like paid adss are great. There's lead magnets, there's all these things you could do.
But if I had collaborated and done PR sooner, my business would've blown up because that's exactly how my business blew up. I people saying, I heard you on this summit. I saw you on this podcast, I read this thing, you were in this bundle, like 100%. And. When we were coming out with getting ready for the book, I knew that podcast guest interviews were going to be huge because my audience is on podcast, but we didn't wanna make it another thing that got, like slipped under the rug because we didn't have time for it.
And so we decided we need to come up with a system and so, One, I had someone on my team who helped manage it, but I created the system. I think as an entrepreneur it's important. Like you need to understand the system before you hand it off. Right? And you, and what I didn't wanna do, Gloria, was I didn't wanna lose the personal touching connection.
Because as a podcast host myself, we get pitches every single day that you can tell their copy paste. You can tell that they did not listen. Look, I got one the other day and they sent me the same email twice in a row because I think they must have meant to send it to someone else and forgot to change the email.
And I was like, That, that we skipped those, right? And so as a podcaster, I know that you wanna have that connection, but you need to make it systematized or it's going to feel so overwhelming. And that's one of the things I like to teach. So when we came up with the system we had for pitching, the big question was, how do we streamline it without losing the personal touch?
But also I can't be the one doing it in my business because there's a lot of other high level activ that need to be doing. And so we use click up as our communication and our like project management software. And so what we did was we made one whole board that was like PR and we started with the vision.
What do we want this to look like? How many podcasts? We made goals around it. We decided, hey, if I wanna be on X amount of podcasts, how many pitches is that? Because we know it is also a numbers game, right? We can't get mad or upset because like, that one didn't work. Oh, I'm never, you know, it's never going to work.
No. It's proba, it's math, right? And so how many did we need to pitch? How many could I realistically fit into my schedule? Like all of those things, we had to put them all together. And so once we had our vision, we decided to make the system. And the system started with having someone else kind of look through podcasts that I could be on.
And the way we did this was we started with just using the search engine, the podcast search engine, right? Like. Who are in the top. We also looked at, now my podcast has been around we just hit four years, so I've made a lot of connections with other people. So we were like, who do we already know that we can talk to?
Who are our friends that have been on our podcast? And then we also look at the people who pitched us. So one of the things that we realized was if people are pitching my show, that means they believe that my audience is their audience. So if they've been on other shows, They're most likely pitching people who have similar audiences to me that I just don't know yet.
So we thought, why don't we search their names? So we would actually search maybe your name into the search engine and say what other podcasts were was Gloria on? because we have similar audiences. And so I had one team member that was the system where she would spend 30 minutes a week just searching and finding podcasts and she would put them in the list That was potential.
Podcast and we didn't have her pitch everyone, because I do like to do like a values match. I wanna make sure like this is someone I can hang with. I like their vibe. I'm very. Anti hustles and anti shame. And I think sometimes in the productivity space, it's not always that way. So I was like, if this isn't aligned, I don't wanna just pitch to beyond, like I don't, I want to find the right people.
05:16 Cara Harvey: And so the system would be, Hey, I'm going to spend, they're going to spend 30 minutes, they're going to do some research for me. And then it toggles back into my court and then I was spending 30 minutes. Looking at the podcast, listening to episodes, you know, checking out who they were and if I approved of it, this is where the personal touch came in.
So I went on Loom and I would just film them a loom. I would say, Hey, I really love your show. I've been following it for a little bit. We were checking it out. It was recommended, whatever the truth is, right? I wasn't lying like I've been listening for five years. Like, no, I just came across your podcast because we have similar audiences.
I love what you do. I would love to come and share with your audience this thing. And I led with how I could help them, right? Like I, and then I would say, You know, I do have a coming out. These are the topics. I would love you to let me know what you think your audience needs at this time, which of these five pillars.
And really saying like they know their people, which of my pillars could I help best with? And so I would take that loom, I put it into a clip card for one of my team members, and then it goes back into their court. So we use Google Streak, which has like snippets and things you can send, like canned responses and stuff like that.
So then they would be the ones to send the pitch. In the pitch though, it would be like, Cara made you this video. She wanted to talk to you about something and we would link the loom first. So I could get to know them, you know more intimately, make it real because it was, I wasn't just trying to get everywhere.
And then we would do our normal pitch about what we thought if we wanted to collaborate and if we wanted to talk more. And then we had kind of a follow-up system. So we had made all the canned responses first, and then once they pitched, they would move it to the next section, put a due date on, we would put a follow-up date.
We'd do about two follow-ups before we kind of put them in the. You know, didn't hear back column, and then we'd rinse and repeat. And so when the book came out, which was January of 2022, so a year and a half ago, we started this process for the book in October of 2021. We gave ourselves a good amount of time to get things kind of pitched out because we wanted to make sure we were accounting for the holidays, giving other people time, getting time to be on the interviews.
And yeah, last year we wound up booking 46. Speaking opportunities for me, and it was a sprint. I mean, it definitely like was a lot for me. And already this year I think I, you know, I've been on about, Maybe like 12 to 15 podcasts and we're not even in a sprint. And it's just using a similar system.
And I think what it has done is not only made it simple to pitch, allowed it to be personal, but now I have really good connections with other people. I've had them on my podcast, we've collaborated, they've been affiliates for me, and it helped kind of open up a network of people that maybe I didn't even know. So that's kind of the overview of the system that we've used.
07:54 Gloria Chou: Ooh. I hope whoever's listening to this is taking notes, because you're going to have to come back to this. Rewind, rewind, rewind. So you've given us so much, but the first thing I wanna touch upon is what the last thing you said, which is you did 46 speaking spots for your book.
That's how people found you. You don't do ads. I can only imagine how much it would cost to get that same visibility if you were to pay for it. I'm thinking. 20,000, 50,000 even more. But here's the thing about getting onto podcasts, which you and I both know, unlike ads, which the moment you stop feeding the beast, the faucet runs dry.
You have, you have connected with them. It's, they're your friends. They're inviting you to speak on summits. They're inviting you to be in their master classes. That's how, like me and you met, right? We did a podcast swap, and I'm speaking in your thing, so. The people who, who see things with a long term view and not just like throwing money at the problem with ads.
They understand the value of, of, of podcasts. And I will say that it does work because you know, I actually had someone DM me. After I was on Stacy Tisha's podcast and they, they joined my PR starter pack and I was like, how did you find me? And they said, I heard you on Stacy Tisha's podcast two hours ago.
And so this stuff really works. And that's why I'm so happy that not only are you taking something that's so valuable, like a high value of your CEO time, but you've been able to put a system around it. Which brings me to my second point, which is, Everyone that I, that I that's listening, they understand that PR and organic visibility is probably the number one thing they should focus on, but they don't do it because they don't have a system for it.
Because they procrastinate, because they think it's going to take too much time. And I love how you just busted that objection by saying, You know, time doesn't get things done. I do. Which is something that I heard from our, our coach Neil Williams. And you're just like, I can do anything if I make a system for it.
So can you talk, can you just back up a little bit and talk about why we should think about problems or challenges or goals in terms of systems and not like this kind of, you know, thing on our to-do list that it's just, because I've definitely been there. Right. Procrastination. How do you switch your mindset to just be like, I'm going to solve this.
And the pro the solution for doing anything is a system.
10:01 Cara Harvey: Yeah, 100%. I think our brains become super drama filled because we get so overwhelmed when you look at a big project our brain is, is trying to keep us safe, right? And it's like, oh no, I can't handle this because if I do this I won't be able to do X, Y, Z.
And one of the things I want people to realize is, Everything you do is a system, and if you can break it down into smaller chunks, you can convince your brain and yourself to get started. A lot of times getting started on something really just takes that first step, and that's why everything I do teach is in 15 minute chunks and people laugh.
They're like, there's no way you do it. I'm like, Legit, in 15 minutes I will put on a timer. I will scan through these things and I will move them and I will get more done. Because I'm not stuck in this paralysis of it's so overwhelming and I can't do it. I'm like, even if I just get 15 minutes done, even if a kid is home sick or I'm exhausted or I don't feel like doing it, it's better than standing still.
And when you start to move forward in tiny steps in your business, you will start to change your belief system that you are a person who can't. Fill in the blank. I am a person who can work on my business even when I'm busy. I am a person who can show up as a c e o, even if it's hard. And that happens in small chunks.
So if you look at anything you have in your business and you just ask yourself and the system I used to create systems, so super like meta here, but like, Where's your vision? Like what do you want it to look like? And I always call it like a dream session where you sit and take a walk, type, whatever.
Like what do you want this to look like for you? So it is aligned and sustainable. Last year going on that book tour, it was a push, it was a sprint. That is not something sustainable for me right now. Now I'm going to start writing my next book soon I'm going to go do it again. That's my season. But what do you want it to look like for you?
And then ask yourself, what are all of my steps to getting there? And if you're unsure of your steps, cause this happens a lot, people are like, I don't even know. I just. I do it, or I don't even know what the next step is. Do a time inventory track how long it takes you to. Do your pitches to get anything done in your business and start writing it down.
The other thing that this helps you do is when you are ready to hire and onboard, you know, Gloria and I talk about this a lot, like it's step by step. I can just hand systems off and I think this is one thing that overwhelms business owners is, oh, I can't hire because it's easier to do it myself. But then we have all these tasks on our plate and then we're not doing anything right?
Like you're the only one who can get on the podcast. So you do sometimes need help to get, do the other things well, if you're creating a system as you go. And noticing your gaps and going step by step. When it is time to hand it off, you actually can do that, and it allows you to just move forward. You are going to have days where you struggle to get your work done. That is natural. None of us are like, there's a very small percentage of people that are actually naturally motivated. And I will say like, I'm a very driven person, but I love to read. I really like Netflix. I wanna go to bed at a certain time.
Like I'm not always motivated. So if I have a system and I can say, let me pull up my click up, for example, cause that's what I use, go to my homepage at the stuff that I've predetermined I'm going to do today. Maybe I don't have a lot of time, or maybe I have 15 minutes in between this call and that call, instead of saying, oh, I can't do anything.
Let me just open my TikTok and see what's going on there. I can say, oh, I need to like just now, I had to go approve something from someone from my team, or I need to download or follow these three podcasts to make sure that they're a good fit. I can do that. Instead of saying, it's too big, I can't do it.
13:18 Gloria Chou: Ooh. I love that so much. So obviously with anything, right, whether it's a task or system, there's that mindset part, and then there's the actual, like nitty gritty, like the tactical part. So you've, you've definitely touched upon the mindset part, which is if you see things in its entirety, there's no way you're going to get done.
But if you can break things up into 15 minutes, actually write down, like for example, Search five podcasts is better than get on 46 podcasts. Right, because you have to break it down, so that's really good. What are some of the other actionable steps that someone can take right now to start to basically put systems around everything in their life?
The way that you have to allow you to do so much in 15 minutes.
13:57 Cara Harvey: Yeah, I think when you are looking at your business and you wanna look at all of the departments, I always, I do batch days in my work and it, and it helps me a lot. Like Thursdays tend to be my podcast days. So what I recommend you do before the week starts, and if you could do it before the month, but sometimes that's too big for people, is to ask yourself, what are all the tasks you need to do to accomplish this?
We call 'em outcome goals, right? Get on the podcast versus the process goal. The steps to get there. And when you go through and you look at it that way, you've got all these micro steps. Then it just becomes math. So I teach a system of numerical goals that really helps get at you out of your head because again, it's, it's math.
So for example, I'm planning a summit right now. I went through all my summit tasks that I had to do. I chunked them into about 15 to 30 minutes. because you know, 15 minutes is great to get started, but you just sometimes need longer time to work. Right. I had about 15 tasks that I personally needed to do just this week for the summit based on my breakdown.
And it always starts like, what's your end date? And then you kind of backwards plan it. And all I did then was say, awesome, I have 15 tasks. How many work blocks this week do I have to work on it just for easy maths sake? I have five. Cool. I need to do three of these tasks a day to stay on track. And here's where the human part of it comes in.
Because a lot of people will make a schedule and feel like they have to follow it, right? But then you get there and you're, oh my gosh, I just don't feel like doing this right now. And so you procrastinate and you whine and you get in your head and you're like, I'm not doing it. And like, you know, example at like my house, I hate unloading my dishes.
I will complain about it for like 20 minutes, right? If I just gave myself permission to do something else and come back to it, it'd be fine. So what I say you do is you look at your task for the week, you know in your head. Okay, I need to do three tasks a day to stay on track for my 15 sub-tasks. And then when you sit down to work that morning, you check in with yourself.
How am I feeling? What am I in the mood to do right now? What tasks actually have to be done first versus which ones do I feel like doing? And then you can start on them. So I don't care which three tasks I do, but I know that three of them have got to get done by the end of the week or I'm going to start to fall behind on my plan.
And this, I think a lot of people, when they hear systems, they hear productivity, they hear this, they hear structure, they especially like right creatives and stuff like stuck in a box. I don't wanna do it because it's going to tell me I must do that. It's a mix of intentionality, but also grace that like sometimes I'm tired or I don't feel like recording the video, but I'm kind of in the mood to write the emails.
Lean into that as well, and that will help you create a system that you can follow that moves you forward, but also allow you to have flexibility to be a human being and lean into how you feel like working that day.
16:30 Gloria Chou: Ooh, it's so good. I, I love what you said about process and outcome goals and it, many of the times when I speak to people like you who just have this productivity system down, I think the common thread I'm hearing is you have to prepare for your week in advance.
It's not like I show up and then I kind of write my to-do lists at 9:00 AM. All the productivity experts that I talk to always say, plan your week ahead. I know this is what a lot of the online really, really like well-known coaches do as well. So take me back to like Saturday or Sunday, because to me Sunday is my self-care, Netflix and bath days.
The last thing I want to do is start planning my week, but you're saying that this will actually set me up for success. So can you walk me through what it looks like if I were to do this, let's say this Sunday, and start this once and for all, finally?
17:13 Cara Harvey: Sure. Well, here's what I'm going to tell you. I do mine on Fridays.
So I also don't do it on Saturdays and Sundays. I love it. Yeah. Well, but here's why, right? So Gloria had mentioned, I have three kids we're, I'm highly involved in their activities and you know, I have a lot to do. I don't work on the weekends. I just don't want to, so what I do is on Fridays I have a admin block.
I have two admin blocks in my day to kind of bookend my week, Mondays and Fridays. So inside my admin block when it comes to work, I take in about an hour and I follow these steps. The first thing I do is I look at all my appointments for next week, and I put them in the calendar because I can't miss them.
I need to make sure I'm there. If I need an outline ready for something that someone needs to send, I need to prepare. I need to ask myself, am I speaking at something that I need to prepare for? Like, I don't wanna. There's nothing worse to me than that Monday feeling where I'm like, oh, I have to be somewhere at 10, and I was supposed to do something for that.
Like, I, I don't operate that way at, at all. That is not me. So I'm like, what do I need to get done? So I give myself time for that. Once I'm done with that, I then move in and I look at the tasks that I didn't accomplish this week because I will not do everything. Like I can make a great list on, you're never going to finish it.
18:18 Cara Harvey: Right? And then I ask myself, I use the Eisenhower Matrix to be like, what needs to get done? So it's things that are urgent. Important, and I ask myself, which of these are in quadrant one? These are the things that are on fire. They're going to be late. If there's any things that need to be done by the end of day Friday, now I know.
And then I say to myself, okay, which of these must be done and have a deadline for next week? And I kind of put those in first to make sure I'm not missing those deadlines. Then I go into my project list and I tend to plan for the month. So, The third week of every month, I go in and I look at all the batches of my business, my podcast, social media, admin team whatever else I do, emails, et cetera, affiliates, launches.
And I make my list for the whole month before the month starts. And I say, what are all my subtasks for the month? because then I'm just dividing. But if you, but if you don't have that, you can just ask yourself, okay, based on this pillar of my business, my podcast, for example, what are all the tasks I need to do next week for my podcast?
And I would write them all down. So, And then you're going to ask yourself, where does it fit into my week? So options include, like I said, I have a podcast time block where I do podcasting once a week. You don't have to do it that way, but that's just the way I do it. Wherever you're going to fit it, or it becomes math.
I know how many tasks I have to do, I know how much time it's going to take me, and I can allot it. So it always starts with like, I don't wanna miss appointments. So those go in first. Is there anything that's like House on Fire that has to happen And then it's the quadrant two in the matrix, which is things that are important but not super urgent.
So they're not like, must do, must dos, but if they, you do them, you can get ahead like you're doing, like preparing and you know, to be able to leave on your trip. It's stuff like these interviews, I then I put them in and again, numerically. Just do division, stop overthinking it and just say, these are the tasks I need to do.
These are all the processes that have to happen to get them done. These are how many I have to get done each day to get there. And then you've stepped out of your own way, like your drama brain can turn off and now you can move into the action brain, which is like, cool, I know what I have to do. And then I, so I do that Fridays because, I just don't wanna think about work.
I want to show up on Monday and show up. Right? And we always start our Mondays with a team meeting, so I wanna make sure anything I want I have prepared for them is, is done so we can talk about it. I already know what we, where we're going. And then we have our team meeting Monday, and then I kind of run through my list and then at the EV end of every day, which for me is I pick up my kids at three 15.
So I closed my laptop at three. So at 2 45, I tend to do the exact same process. What didn't get done today? What needs to move to tomorrow? What appointments do I have and what tasks can I fit in? And then, because I'm so big on like time inventories and knowing how long stuff takes, I just make sure I have enough time for it.
And so one of the things I do is if I have. I'm very fortunate. My kids all go to like traditional schools, so I have from nine to three, right. But I've grown my business with both my kids home, one of them home during a pandemic. Like I've, I've done it all where I'm, I know a lot of the moms I work with, like they're building their business with their kids home.
So I also like always acknowledge like the privilege of my kids being at school full-time. So I do have a full workday. So I just don't always plan everything out. If I have a four hour work block where I'm getting work, I will not put more than three hours of tasks on my list because I wanna buffer.
Because something's going to happen. It's going to take me longer. I need a break. So I set myself up for success each night. So I would say, if you're going into planning your week, follow the process. What do you have to get done for? Like what are your dates and appointments? What are the things that are like actually with a deadline?
Cause we think everything's important. Like what actually has a deadline? And then write your batch list, divide it up, and now you've got kind of a list for each day.
21:50 Gloria Chou: Oh, I love that so much. And I have to thank you actually, because a, you know, after our, our call I was like, I need to revamp the whole onboarding for our peer, our signature program, which honestly has been on my to-do list for probably, probably about six months.
But I have ADHD tendencies. I start procrastinating, I start vacuuming all the things. And it wasn't until you. You and I actually sat down and talked about, well, what does it actually take to revamp the onboarding? Because the program's amazing, but, but there's just so much in there. How do you actually have the right path for each person?
And I actually wrote down each thing that I was going to do from record, a welcome video script, a welcome video, and once I saw it all, It became so much more clear to me that I just needed to do it. And I think a lot of times the procrastination comes from this amorphous, like, we don't really know what it's going to take, so I don't wanna start it.
But when you literally write down every single action, for example write a script for the welcome video, film the welcome video, upload the welcome, like every single step where it's like so digested and chewed up where it's like tiny little pieces, it becomes actionable. So, It's the same could work for the people listening who are looking at, you know, pitching for pr.
It could literally be on Friday or Sundays. I am going to focus on pitching to 35 podcasts. And by the way, in our PR starter pack, we have like a list of 80,000 journalists, including thousands of podcasts. So that's work's already done for you. So it could be literally like, Step one, go into the portal and pick out 50 podcasts.
Step two out of the 50, pick out your top 30. Step three start, you know, going into the modules and start writing the subject line for the pitch and the three bullet points you wanna talk about. So now that I'm saying it, it becomes so much more doable. For everyone to, to turn it into a system. So I, I love what you said about that.
23:38 Cara Harvey: And it, and it's a system now, right? Like this is the thing. Work smarter, not harder, do it once. because people are like, I don't wanna write all that out. Do it once. Put it on a doc. We do it in, click up however you want, and now every week you don't have to remake that you've created the system. And now you're like, cool.
If I'm spending X amount of time each week pitching, I've got all of my steps broken down for Monday. When I do my pitches, I know my steps. Cool. Copy the card on, click up or redo it in the doc. Now I have next Mondays, and our brain gets so stuck in decision fatigue. We waste so much time when it's time to work, deciding what to do if you do it when you're in the mood to plan.
You eliminate all the time wasted in decision and now you just get started because you have given yourself a beautiful gift last week when you planned it and now you're like, I made the system. And then I just know to follow it. It allows our brain to say, this isn't overwhelming and scary, it's just small steps at a time.
24:33 Gloria Chou: Ooh. I love that so much. I, I wanna put that on a mug. The reason why we procrastinate is not because we can't do it, it's because of decision fatigue. So if we can overcome that by every Friday or and Sunday writing out every little thing, it's just a matter of you coming in on Monday and doing it instead of being like, And maybe don't feel like doing it.
So I love how it just takes an emotion away from doing that. What else do you think trips people up? Because now that you know, because we're in the same mastermind, like just for clarity for everybody, that's how I met Cara. And we're always talking about the, the. Key to leveling up as a C E O to scaling is literally systems lit.
Like every entrepreneur will tell you this because you can't do everything all the time. You cannot be in the inbox and answering the dms and recording the, the modules and networking. Like there's no way. And if you look at the most amazing, successful CEOs, it's just becomes an emotionless process.
There's not this drama around it. So why do you think that? First of all, why do you think it's so unnatural for us as humans? Because it makes sense logically, right? Systematized? Sure. Why is it still so hard for people who are, have incredible businesses to get to that point where they can effectively systematize?
25:38 Cara Harvey: I think the biggest holdup is that people don't think they have the time to set the system. It's just faster. If I just do it right, we think I'm just going to sit down and do it. But the decision fatigue always comes in and we wind up wasting more time again, figuring out what to do. And I think we get so in our heads that I have so much to do.
The to-do list is never going to end. I can't quote waste any time making a system, when in reality if you take, literally put it on a 15 minute timer and just type your process out and do that every day for like, A month say you could get every system in your business completely written down, like you can get it done and then it's just creating it.
A lot of people don't wanna do it because it feels like there's too many other more important things. But I am going to tell you that the amount of things that I have on my plate that allow me to work 25 hours a week while growing my family and starting a new book and running like. It happens because I have systems I, if I didn't have them, I would still be trying to do like that one thing.
I'm able to be multi-passionate and, and do different things because I'm following a step-by-step process. Right. It's not the guesswork and, you know, going back to the team thing. You know, I have a lot of part-time contractors on my team. There's seven other people that work on my team now. And it was really scary for me to do that because my brain said, I can do it better, I can do it faster.
I don't have the time to teach anyone, et cetera. And I've gotten, I think a lot better at being a leader in my business and stopped micromanaging my team because we have systems, because everyone knows what they're doing. They know all their subtasks. So for example, like with our summit coming up, Every single team member is doing something right now so that I can just show up and do the summit interviews and make the decisions only I need to do.
Like there's some stuff that maybe I could hire out that's new this year, but my team's doing the majority. They're setting up the swag shop and the audio and the thing, like I'm just there. But we created literally systems where it says who's doing what when, because. It's very clear. I don't have to micromanage them.
They know what they're supposed to do. They know when they're supposed to do it, and we don't have to bother each other. Hey, I needed this thing. When are you doing it? You can just look at somebody else's scorecard, know that they're doing the image. You need to upload the thing next week, and then you can have the conversation.
It allows you to elevate as a C E O when you create systems that free you up to grow and scale your business. Because if you want your business to grow, I'm not saying you have to have a big team. But it is going to be very hard to do it on your own when you're trying to do every aspect of your business.
Yeah. And you will, I struggle to hire in the beginning, so, I had a lot of team members come and go, and what I realized was I wasn't, I was the problem. I wasn't clear enough about what they needed to do, and I was getting frustrated and mad because they weren't reading my mind, because they are not me.
And so now it's like when you get a traditional job, you have to go through training. They give you a manual. We literally just have systems and a manual in a pdf, and we're like here. Read it, figure it out, and ask questions. It saves time. Yeah. So I think to go back to the resistance, I think it just feels like if I just, I'm just going to get started and do it.
28:53 Cara Harvey: But how many times have you had a goal or a project or something and sat down to work? That you actually just got started, right? Like we don't. So give yourself the gift. Give future ceo you the gift now to spend time creating these. And again, you don't have to pause your whole business and spend an entire month creating your systems.
I think people think that too. Well, I can't move forward until add it in. I add in, I have a 15 minute session during my admin block every other week where I review any systems I film, anything that needs to be filmed. I just put it in my schedule. I don't know what I'm going to do then, but we keep a list of things people need from me or things I need to make.
And then when it's that time, I know that it's a routine. Cool. Twice a month I'm refilming any, so p videos I need. Awesome. And it just kinda keeps up with it. So, you know, systemize the systems as you go, but set yourself up and your business up for success that way instead of just kind of scrambling to figure out what to do.
29:46 Gloria Chou: Yeah, I love that. I wanna operate at the level of Google where it's literally onboarding and training and systems for like three weeks before you start to do anything. And that's what we've been able to build in our business too. Not only for the PR Setter pack members, because now we have a whole new onboarding.
But also, like you said, for when I wanna step away from the business because what's the point of growing this business if we can't have a. Team of people who can also be involved in that vision, right? If you look at all of the most successful CEOs, like the CEO of LinkedIn, right, or the c e o of, of anyone, they're not in the day-to-day of their business.
They are motivating their team to do the best and giving them what they need, but they're not the ones actually doing it. Now, for a lot of people listening, they're not at the point where they're hiring people. That's fine. But what we're trying to say is set yourself up for success to think. Like a seven figure entrepreneur, even if you're at four or five figures, because that will allow you to get there so much quicker.
And that starts with, for example, like you said, loom. One of the things that we do is when I'm pitching for a podcast or speaking, I just turn on Loom and I start like typing in the email. I talk about why I type the email who I'm sending it to, maybe all the features on Google, such as scheduling send.
And then I just put that in a folder for whoever is going to be my assistant to take that on. And if you do that now, If you accumulate little videos and SOPs, even if you don't know who's going to delegate it to yet, you're going to have an entire manual when that person comes. So it's all about preparing for the future you.
That's how PR is, that's how anything in life is if you wanna be successful, think for the future you. So I love what you said about that. Is there anything else around like Time or any, anything that, anything else that trips people up you think that people need to be aware of?
31:29 Cara Harvey: I think it's the prioritization. So one of the things I notice with a lot of the entrepreneurs I work with is they wanna do everything at the same time. And many of them are new. They're like in, I would say like dream phase to like their first two years of their business. So they're still trying to like figure all their systems out and they feel like they have to be everywhere and then they're super scattered.
And so I would just suggest. If you look at the next 90 days of your business, pick themes and focus and pick them based on your life. So this is one of the things I think is interesting about entrepreneurial like gurus, is it's very much like, here's your life and here's your business. I encourage people to look at them together so it doesn't make sense for me when it's back to school season to have a heavy workload because we're trying to get rid of new systems.
My husband used to be a principal, like, my life is different then it doesn't make sense for me. If you know I'm a Girl Scout leader during cookie season. I was a competitive cheer coach like during January through March. Like why? I wouldn't do anything heavy, because I literally didn't have any extra time.
I'm doing my summit now because I have the time. So I would say,look at your life and ask yourself, what do I have going on? Because here's the thing, right? We. Are told, like, fit your life into your business. Like that's the subliminal message when in reality, like you need to be visiting your business into your life.
So look at your life, what do I have going on? And then ask yourself based on that season, and I teach a Four Seasons method, it's planning, push s fun and rest. When where is my push season? What do I wanna push for? And pick a focus, right? Like, where am I at then? Because otherwise we're going to be trying to, I going to be on every social media platform.
I've going to do all these types of pitching, maybe. Pick one area. I wanna start with podcast pitching for these 30 days, and that's where I'm going to focus. And then I'm going to stack in adding pitching, PR for like magazines, et cetera. Like you can stack it. Don't feel like you have to do them all at once because what you do when you do things slowly over time is you start to remind and tell your brain, I am now a person capable of finding the time to do this instead of doing it all at once and then quitting.
because it's too overwhelming. I can't pitch anything because it's don't takes so many hours. Pick one focus, which focus makes sense for your life right now. Which is the one you wanna go into. And then slowly add the systems in, no matter what it is, because when you feel like you have to be everywhere, you're going to not make any progress because you're so incredibly scattered.
So look at your life, pick the focus and then say, where am I going to go? And then add it all in slowly.
33:54 Gloria Chou: Yeah, I, I love that. I mean, Michelle Obama famously said, you can have it all, but just not all at once. So I think as humans, and I, while, while you were talking, I kept nodding because I am like that visionary, like a D H D tendency wants to do everything, do my time, go, go, go, go, go.
And I actually feel like now that we do have the systems and. I have taken a, a, a cue from your book. I feel this sense of spaciousness, where before it made, it scared the shit outta me because I just, cause there was a lot of like things I had to work through. Like I didn't know how to sit still and that was like a symptom of some other unresolved inner issues.
But now that we have systems, now that we're hiring for success, we have an onboarding, I find myself having space in my day that I'm just like, What is this? And then I have to relax and be like, this is, oh, this is what it is. This is what it feels like to finally be in a place of business where you are delegating and you do have systems.
And I can go on the terrace and like eat a bag of chips and like, just like look out on at the window and like, Not have to feel like I'm so pressured all the time, and from that energy I'm able to create more meaningful relationships. My energy is different and people pick up on that. Right? I think Cara, you know, like my energy was so different when we met like two years ago during the Mastermind, so thank you so much for what you do.
I think if more people listen to this episode, if more people. Understood that it's not about them, it's just about having structure and framework and systems and breaking it down to tiny little digestible chunks. That's really all it takes. There's no mountain you can't climb if you know how to plan one step at a time.
Right. Rock climbers do this too. So I, I love what you said about that. One thing I wanna close on, because this is small Business PR podcast what have you learned about doing. Podcast versus, because you've done all the things right? You've done all the things for your visibility for your book, you still focus on podcasts and, and organic visibility.
Is there something that you want people to know who maybe are not sure that organic PR is, is for them, for them to just at least give it a try? Because I think so many people are like, I don't know what I'm going to say. I'd rather spend time on Instagram. You know, they're so afraid to that rejection that they just don't even start this journey of pitching themselves.
36:05 Cara Harvey: I, I, like I said, to start this. I wish I had started doing this sooner because we have a question like when you enter our free Facebook group and our programs, where did you find us? And more people have found me and my podcast like it's wild. Cause podcast stats, you know, like aren't great. So we have around 450,000 downloads this time and I don't do much to promote it.
It has been word of mouth and people find me because I was somewhere else. That is the biggest thing. I saw you on this podcast. I heard you on this podcast. I got connected through someone else, and so there's so many things I've learned, but I think if you're nervous just getting out there, well one, if your people are podcasters or wherever you're going, like that's where you wanna go find them, right?
My people will listen to podcasts, so I'm like, let me get on them. But I have become better. At what I do because I have done it more. Right? And it's scary. The first podcast interview, I'm sure I was terrible, like it was probably rambly and I didn't know what I was talking about. But the more I've done it, the more I grow confidence in my, my talents and my expertise and my abilities, the more I feel like I'm making a bigger impact because I, I, so many people get to listen to it.
It's such a great way to impact people and the more I just feel that. I can get better at how I teach and what I teach because everyone asks you like the same questions differently and you get to question it and then take the interviews. I mean, we do this all the time. If an interview's like knock it out the park, sometimes I'm like, oh Cara, that was great.
I'll be like, let me re-air that. Work smarter, not harder on my show. Good for them, good for me. And then we always follow up, you know, with thank yous. We continue to collaborate with people. It's just so great. I, I really recommend anyone who's scared or nervous. Give it a sprint, give it a try. And you will start to see that it will be bringing people into your network for free, you know, cost of your time for an interview.
But honestly, I feel like I benefit more most of the time, you know what I mean? To, to be on someone's show.
38:02 Gloria Chou: I mean, knowing how to advocate for yourself and tell your message, that is a absolute priceless skill. And that's what, that's what we're doing here. So how can people find you? Because there's so much wisdom that you dropped.
I know people are going to wanna know more. So how can people connect with you?
38:16 Cara Harvey: Yeah. My podcast is called The Purpose Driven Mom Show, so you can come wherever you're podcasting. And then my book's called The 15 Minute Formula, so you can go to the 15 minute formula.com/free. I have a free workbook even if you wanna get the book or not, but it's also linked out to the book, Amazon, Barnes Noble, all those places. Thank you.
38:30- Outro
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