S7|G8 From Plateau to Progress with Carol Tice

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I thank you very much for tuning into that. We'll never work podcast. What of the biggest barrier

in your business? Isn't the market? But it's a story that you've accepted about yourself.

See today's guest, Carol Tyson, shares how she overcame ageism,

fear of launching new ventures and stubborn revenue plateaus, and why breaking through

starts with breaking internal limits first. Let's talk about it right after this.

Educate and power. Enable. Impact. Thank you for tuning in to that will never work

an award-winning podcast where we share inspiring information and personal experiences

related to business and the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their

respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach Maurice.

I just want you know we're going to have some fun on this show. So, Carol, she changes or challenges

the belief that momentum belongs to the young, fearless, or already successful. Her story proves

that growth is available at every stage in life if you're willing to confront the roadblocks.

And so, Carol, I thank very much for coming on to the show. When you hit those moments of

ageism, fear or maybe even a stalled revenue, what belief about yourself had to change before

your business could? Well, I came out of journalism just to give you a background and I had never

sold anything to anyone. I was just writing my articles and filing them and you know when you're

a journalist on staff and a paper, like you kind of think of this sale department as the dark

side of the force. Like, you know, they are evil and we are doing good. And selling is so dirty.

And so, I had to first, you know, work through all of that and go, oh, I could sell things to people

and had to find a way to sell that I felt comfortable with because a lot of people in my space,

which my first community was for freelance writers. A lot of sort of the freelance writing coaches

out there came out of marketing writing, out of copywriting and so they were like natural sales

people. And also, yeah, I'm thinking I was like maybe 45, starting this first business.

And what happened was I started a blog. That's how safe enough of writing. I know how to do that.

And you know, then I started looking for ways to monetize it. And I joined a community for bloggers

to like, I want to be learned about more about blogging. And I loved it. Right away, I was like,

this is amazing. And there's nothing like this for kind of how to run your freelance writing

business. Right. And so I was lucky to be a business reporter. And I had that sort of business

discipline. You know, what are your costs? What are you? How are you doing marketing? And I learned

that most freelance writers were bottling their muse, writing for whoever asked them like there was

no business discipline at all. So there was this missing piece that I could bring to them of like,

let's get serious about you making a real living at this and not, you know, five dollars in

article off upwork or whatever. And so I did that for several years and you know, tried putting ads

on and this and that. But this idea that there should be a community was just sort of in the back

of my head. But the hurdle for me was tech, even more than selling because I'm not, I'm a completely

non-technical person. And I knew it was back then. This is like 2010. It was more to much more

technically difficult to create a community platform. You had to hand build it and make plugins

talk to each other. And it was very complex. And I knew I didn't have that skill. But I went to

a blogging, an online business conference and got all fired up of like, I got to just do this.

And I guess what helped me get over it was like, I just set a 90 day limit. I was like, we're putting

this up. We're just going to get this out there before I guess before I chicken out. Before I freak

out, before I decide it, I can't do it. You know, we're just going to throw this sucker up there.

I had maybe 700 blog subscribers or something. And I did a survey of them. Do you want a community?

What should be in it? And I just built what they told me they needed and priced it around what

they said they thought would they pay? And so this building in public of talking to people and

saying, Oh, do you want this? How would it be? What do you think of this name for it? You know,

just doing all of the thinking out loud with my audience means that then your sales pitch is

that thing we've been talking about. It's here now and you can join it. I made it. That thing

you told me to. So it's much less, you know, grinding people on two hour sales webinars. You know,

that was never going to be me. And maybe I would have made a lot more money if I was one of these

hardcore marketing people. But you know, I made enough. I'm living the life of one of it. It gave

my family a great life. We had a five bedroom house on like Washington and Seattle, you know.

And yeah, I kind of self, I learned to sell coming from a place of just, I have something I think

could be helpful to you. Do you think this is something you need? Just if you don't have this, you know,

will you not be able to make a life change that you want to make? You know, just I don't know,

almost like a conversation with people just about the realities I knew they were facing in

the marketplace. And like I was able to get really comfortable with that. And I just, you know,

I gave away a lot of free things. All the classes we held in this first community freelance writers

and like the first module would be free. Just come check it out. Oh, do you want to keep going in

this class? I'm kind of you know, just I'm kind of a soft so kind of a person. And I'm here to say

you don't have to be selling 24 seven. You don't have to be silly, silly, silly, silly. I just

rejected that. And I think that my audience loved that about me. Nice. And that I was giving them

something that it really wasn't out in the marketplace so much of like how do you actually get

a good client? How do you negotiate a raise? You know, how do you talk to them? How do you close

and get them to sign up with you? Just, you know, I had something of value. And sometimes we don't

believe that we do, you know, and because because some of the things that you have mentioned,

like you already had some people already lined up, they were already following you. And sometimes

we don't think that's also valuable. So, you know, even when we think about what we have our nine

to five or cushy house, you know, that's value, you know, because of what society put pressure on

that as well. And so there, I think there are some things that you're mentioning that sometimes

that are roadblocks in our barriers, you know, and you're saying, hey, let's hurry up. Like you,

even when you say something about technology, you know, hey, you know what? Marie, I'm not the best

tech person. I don't know tech that well. And especially in that particular time, like you said,

might be a little harder. You have to learn a little bit more, you know, dive in a little harder.

You know, so even that's a barrier as well, because we get

intimidated by technology, you know, and so there's a lot of different pieces that you're

referring to when it comes to this technology has so made so make me cry. Yeah, I'm so bad at it.

But you can hire people to do the parts of a business that you do not excel at and you should,

because it's not the best use of your time. You should be doing the things only you can do, you know.

But even with that, you know, sometimes again, we not, because it's a passion of hours,

right? You know, and we don't always want to let go in that situation. Like you said, you were

already a journalist. So you're doing blogging. That comes off as if that is your passion.

You're used to doing that. You know, would you even entrust someone to write for you? You know,

because it is yours. And sometimes we get so caught up in, I'm just using as an example,

but sometimes we just get so caught up that it's hours that we don't want to let go. Just a teeny

little bit. Yeah, initially all the content was me, but we ended up having a lot of guest posting.

Actually, yeah, well, and this ties into my sort of theme of life these days, which is building

a saleable asset. If it's all you, it's hard to sell it at the end of the rainbow. So it's,

and I know, Maurice, you said your people are just starting out, but I built a course called

built to sell, because I wished I had thought more about the saleability of what I was building

at the beginning. I ended up having to move a lot of things around the board at the end to

sell it. I had to change a lot of things. And I should have been doing, I should have been

thinking about it from the very beginning. But see, that's things that we're not taught. We don't

talk about very, very much, you know, we're not always taught about the exit quote unquote,

you know, that we need to be as hours again, ownership, that type of thing, but not what the

long term is. And even like over the weekend, I had just friends talking to a client. And I had

asked them, you know, when do you plan on coming out of your business, right? And once you come out,

do you really have the resources to maintain your lifestyle from 65 to 90? What is that cost?

What does that look like? So are you looking for right now? Are you looking for legacy? Are you

looking for exit? Like, you know, which way are you deciding trying to go? And I think those are

type of things as you're stated, we don't plan for that way that, you know, are we planning for our

business to run without us? We can still be the head, you know, but do we have, do we empowering those

other individuals? And, you know, maybe being not a 20 something entrepreneur and having covered

business and covered M&A, covered mergers and acquisitions, maybe I had a little more in the back

of my head of like, is this an asset that I'm building that, you know, someone else could find

valuable? Right. And this is the mission I'm on is that like every coach, we're in an era of

the lifestyle influencer person. Right. It's all about your personal brand. And, and yes, you

should have a strong personal brand. But are you your company, you know, every time I go to a coach's

website and it's named their name.com, I just sort of cry. You know, I'm just, this is not a

saleable business. You're, you are the business. You've just created a job for yourself. Right. You

can never, there is no exit. You just close the doors, you know, at the end, and you get nothing,

and your retirement account does not get a big, a nice chunk of change that goes in there to

enable that whole 60 to 90 kind of time frame you're talking about. And maybe starting older,

you know, put that a little bit more in my mind. But yeah, you know, my new community is on school,

my second community. And recently I came across a conversation and people were saying, is your

face on like the header of your, you know, are you the brand? And like everyone was saying,

yeah, absolutely. I'm putting my face on. I was like, my face on a, and on there.

Because yeah, especially when you're building a community business, this is the magic of

community is that you are not the business. The community, there's this element of the community

supporting each other, connecting with each other, suggesting things, you know,

I've already had someone present in my new community on a topic I didn't know about, you know,

about how to do best practices for like Instagram ads, you know, says something I didn't do.

And so they're all adding value to it. And when you want to create a course, there's nothing you

ask them. Oh, I got three ideas for courses here, which is the one you want to both. You're just

building naturally guided by the community. What is needed? Right. And all of these things you're

building are products, our assets of the business. And so, you know, over a decade, we just

created this huge library of valuable information. And all of that is still out there helping people

and that's the other thing you talked a little bit about legacy is like, can this live on after

you get you're having an impact, you're showing up and you're having an impact. But could you keep

having an impact when you are no longer showing up? And that's what I used to get people on LinkedIn

today. I sold five years ago. And they're like, I'm so excited to be in the gen. And I'm so happy

that these courses are great. You know, and I'm like, I'm glad it's still helping you. And I don't

got to do nothing. You know, just that's a very powerful thing to know that that is just going

on helping people. I find that very gratifying, very uplifting. But I think there are some things

in that where we are we humble enough and to let that ego go, you know, because, you know, they're

feeling some type of pride. Hey, you know, this is my research. I'm coaching and all that type of

things. But as you're stating, are we having other coaches? Are we coaching other coaches? Are we

empowering these other people? But does that really help our ego? You know, because we want to be

the one that's on stage. We want to be, you know, doesn't have to spotlight on us all. How do we

continue to stay humble in that space? Or even for yourself, how do you stay humble to say, you know

what? I can let everybody else shine and still get the spotlight later on, because you just talk

about right now, hey, I could look five years later. I'm still getting a spotlight. It's just that

I don't need to have it on me 24 or seven. So how are you able to be a little bit more humble and

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perfected. Well, I don't know. It's like it wasn't an ego trip to me. It was more of like a

passion project on Mad. I didn't know how successful it would be. My dream originally, I think,

was 500 members. That would solve all my life problems financially. Of course, I didn't know what

it was going to cost to run the back end when I thought that. And I sold at 1,500 members.

It was more that I wanted all of my members to succeed. It was like I had 1,500 children.

And I just cared about what was happening to them. And that's the part for me that was hard

to walk away from of wanting to make them successful and wanting those success stories.

And to me, when I help someone else have the career they want, make the money they want,

it's like better than if I did it myself. Those of us who coach, helping others be their

best. It's like, it's so wonderful. It feels so good to feel like you're enabling that.

But when you're when you're a coach, you're a coach, when you run a community, you might do some

coaching, but you're really mostly a convener is your role. You are helping people find accountability

buddies. You are bringing in other experts on things you don't know because you don't know all the

things. Right. And that's more the role. So I guess you have to think about whether you

dig that role. When you like that sort of just being the catalyst for helping people rather than

I am personally going to say one on one with you and each of you and work with you and it's about

me working with you. It's a different dynamic, but it's the one that creates a lot of success.

And I did one on one coaching and then I did small group coaching, and I got some successes,

but it wasn't as repeatable and reliable as I wanted. And then I did small group and I thought

that was more effective. They, the 10 of them had each other to talk to. And that was what really

paved the way to me going, yeah, it's community. I'm in one for blogging. I see how I see where this

goes. Right. So much more effective and powerful. The more people you convene that can support each

other, you know, so I think it's a mindset shift. Right. And I guess I was never a big like, oh,

I need to be, you know, I don't know, a star. Because like I was already kind of an old lady with

three young kids and we were older parents and there was a lot going on in my life. I don't know.

I, it wasn't an ego trip to me really. It was more a mission. It was very like I just had such a,

I was like on a crusade against writer scams and for fair writer pay. And I wanted to really

change my whole industry. And you can't do that coaching people wonder one. You know, you'll

never reach enough people. You're not going to coach 1500 people in one-on-one. You know, I think we

had like 14,000 people or something come through the down. That was what I was looking for. Was that

a chance to have a broader impact? So it kind of depends on what what you're after in life.

And so I'm going to only speak about my own experiences, you know, that group or like you said,

larger group community space. For me, it's a lot more satisfying because like you said, you know,

yes, you, you could feel like you could be the smartest person in the room, but you really don't

want to be the smartest person in the room. You know, you may start off like you said, helping

to facilitate the conversation, but you don't know everyone else's background with their life

experiences have been, which can help and resonate with someone else. And so, yes, I am West

Philadelphia born and raised the whole first Prince vibe, right? You know, and so my space in Philadelphia

may not resonate with someone else who in my grandmother, I'm going to give you a comparison.

My grandmother was born and raised in South Carolina. So with me being in West Philly and my grandmother

growing up in South Carolina, there's two totally different communities, two different ways of

how people have lived. And yes, we might be on the same trajectory or same idea. Hey, we want to

take care of our families, but the way we're going to do it is different. You know, and so I think

that space of group can really help each other to see the other side of the aisle, you know, pun intended.

You know, so, you know, so that way we can grow together and build a stronger community.

Yeah, and I mean, the thing is you, there are things that I am kind of the smartest person in the room

for in my communities, but I guess the lack of ego is recognizing when you don't know something.

You're saying, hey, I'm not an expert in this. Like, who knows someone that I should bring on about

this, right? You know, yeah, you know, so I think that's some of the things that we just,

because as you stated, I don't know everything. I know some things. I know a few things, you know,

and what I want to provide to my community or my group, yeah, I'm going to give you what I have.

But I think there are some things that I've also learned, because for me,

I'm going to be honest, I've had to learn how to listen, but a lot better.

You know, because, but again, that was just the environment that I grew up in, where, hey, you just

kind of listen to respond, not, you know, but not actively listening, you know, and so that's one

of the things I've learned over the years, and that's helped me to be such a good podcaster,

is just to be able to listen to what people have to say and understand how to continue to move

the conversation forward. So those are some things that I've had, I know I personally have to learn

just being in those groups and moving forward.

I, you know, what I loved about it was that I didn't have to figure out what to do next.

Like, people are always like asking me that. They're like, should I do this or this? And I'm like,

I don't know the answer. Your people know the answer. I've asked your people this question.

They're the ones who know the right answer. If you're here to serve your people, I mean,

some people are here to do what they feel like doing. And, you know, good luck selling that,

because you've created it in a vacuum, and it's all about you. And sometimes it works out,

but a lot of times it doesn't, because you have not tuned into, like you say, doing that deep

listening of like, what are people needing from me? What is it that I have that isn't commonly

out there? A million other people don't have it that I could help them with.

Right. And, you know, and so for myself, it was, I started this 14 years ago. And so this has been

a true journey. And I'm always learning something, always learning. Like you said,

whether or not it's technology, or even how people want to get to their desire outcome,

it's not always the same path 100% of time, similar, but not the same. You know, so there are some

things that I've had to learn myself. And I appreciate you sharing your story with that,

because again, those, those things are rare of just showing how, you know what,

transitioning from one place to another, understanding it. I mean, I know certain genres,

or business practices, or whatever it is. So let me find out what the feedback might be,

because that's the other thing too. Sometimes we don't like the feedback loop to hear, hey,

you don't know everything. You know, so sometimes that could be a shot as well. So I thank you

very much for sharing those things with us today. Yeah, so many people go off and build in a vacuum,

I'm doing online business. And then they're like, Carol, okay, do you tell me why I know when

it's joining my community? Did you, who did you ask about what you'd be in a,

do you know? And they're like, oh, I just knew I knew how to lose weight. So I built a site about

how to lose weight, you know, but yeah, they were just taking a stab in the dark. This,

your success odds are a lot better if you're, you're building in public, talking to people.

And that's another form of kind of soft selling marketing is you're like, what do you think of

this logo? Do you like the brand colors? These are all marketing. But they're very low key and

conversational. I call this the pre-marketing cycle. The like most comments I ever got,

because I have a writer community is, should it be freelance writers, Dan, with no apostrophe or

apostrophe S writers or S apostrophe writers? A hundred positive comments, because writers care

about this. Yeah, like you can't believe the correct answer is headlines do not have to be

grammatical and you are also have apostrophes. Therefore, no apostrophe. But that engaged so many

people and made them aware of the fact that, hey, I'm building this thing without me having to

like Sally, so I love doing that stuff. And actually, I'm just, I'm redoing my website for my

other business over on my other planet. I go straight books in my free time. And I'm redoing

my writer website. And I'm going to be like, hey, what do you think it is? What about that on there?

And of course, what I'm really just doing is signaling that I'm looking for a, a, an author to work

with. And getting that out there, the idea that that's something I do, you know,

nice, nice. Listen, you know, people are out there. They're wondering, Carol, how can I get in

contact with you? Because, you know, what I'm, I mean, I'm looking for a community, you know,

I'm looking for, especially in this place of writing and blogging and things like that.

Where can they find you and talk to you about stuff like that?

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Code Comfort. Tommy John. Comfort. Perfected. Well, as I said, freelance writers didn't spill around,

but I'm not there. I am over teaching people how to build communities at community growth

academy on school. Nice. So, that is where you can look me up. You can get a free case study all

chapter in verse about how I built and sold freelance writers then and other other useful freebies.

And it actually has a free level. You can join for free and start filling out a worksheet I'll look

at about whether you you know, what are all your community ideas? What's the best one? Where does

it intersect with money and opportunity in the marketplace? What else is out there like that? How will

you be different? You know, we can go through all that together. Wow. And that's what I'm here for.

Nice. Nice. Well, I appreciate you coming on, but I have to ask you one question before we go,

especially for these individuals that don't know whether or not I want to build a community,

I want to be a solar panel, whatever the situation might be. And those of us, you know, who wonder,

like, would you rather choose three doors or a forking a road? Why have that type of idea? So,

which one would you rather choose a three doors or a forking a road? I got to go with forking the

road. You know, after I sold my business, we went full time in our RV and we're we did that so we

could be outside be, you know, we're from Seattle and it's like in the winter or you got to go

the gym or do exercise tapes. And I just don't dig that. So, I mean, I think of the fork of the

road is what happened in my life over and over. Like, should I just keep writing for public being

a freelance writer and running my little blog for fun? Or should I actually become a real

online business owner myself? And then should I do it again? Which was insane.

You know, I feel like I come to end up, we do a lot of hiking here out in the out out here on the

donkey tree up in the hills behind the lake I'm at. And we come to lots of forts and they're like,

oh, are we heading back now? What's that way? We don't even know.

And yeah, we're usually taking the one we haven't been on. Yeah, we haven't been over there.

Let's go check it out. That probably sums up my, my like, I don't know. I gather I'm missing kind of a

fear gene, putting themselves out there and trying things and stuff. And that's how my business

happened is that I was just like, I think of it more as a science experiment than, you know,

terrifying tight-rope walk up in the air. I'm going to fall and oh my god, you know, people will

think bad things about me. I don't know. I don't care. I don't care. That stuff. I'm curious.

I'm willing to try things and see what will happen, you know, and that to me is the fork in the

road. There could be anything behind that door. There could be like the Kraken. You know, I'm not

open in those doors. I don't know. And I like that answer because a lot of us are not, we don't

continue to explore our curiosity. We don't stay in a childlike state, you know, because in order

for you to grow your business, in order for you to grow your community, no matter what the situation

is, you know, you have to stay curious, you have to stay or keep your imagination open,

flowing, you know, whatever might be some type of artistic vibe, whatever it might be, you know,

so you can continue to grow. And I don't care what industry it is. So I think that's part of the

challenge that we've lost it in some cases. Because I know that I listen to give zero apps about what

people think about what you're doing. Let me give you a shortcut to having this. Who cares? You know,

well, well, unfortunately, you know, social media makes us care. Quote unquote.

You know, we really care about what people have to say. One of my mentors taught me is if you're not

pissing some people off, you're not doing it right. You could, you know, stand for something,

you know, be for something. And some people like it and some people won't. And that's how you

magnetize the audience that wants to follow you. And you send away the people who are not right

for you. That's all. Yeah. I mean, you can't do business online unless you're willing to have

some people not like you. Some people will not dig what you're into. And that's fine. You know,

so what? And that's because unfortunately, we build the business that we think in these end

copies, everybody, unfortunately, you know, we feel like, hey, you know, we're going to do this and

and it's that that we build it. They will come mentality. But again, like you said, that's not for

everybody. That's not how we find our audience. There is almost almost no businesses for everybody.

Maybe Walmart. And that was even the business model you're looking to attract unless you want

that kind of retail footprint and pay that kind of rent. Most business models are looking to attract

a particular type of person. And the people are not, this isn't your brand. You know, this isn't for

you. That's life. That's life and business. Well, Carol, I appreciate you coming on. I can't,

that's a mic drop for me. I thank you very much for sharing today.

My pleasure. And I want you all to understand that this information that you have learned today,

I just want you to go out and conquer the world with it. Like I said, Carol, she did a mic drop.

So I don't even need to leave you anything today. She said, give zero F's. And that's it.

And of course, y'all, I thank you very much for listening to that when they've worked podcast.

And I'll talk to you just a little bit later.

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