Episode 97: How Email Marketing Elevates Women in Business — with Toni Coleman Brown

Toni Coleman Brown is an author, small business strategist and online marketing expert, with a focus on email lead generation and sales conversion. She is the founder of the Network for Women in Business, an online educational platform that teaches female entrepreneurs her signature small business success program, as well as the host and creator of two popular live events: The Small Business Boot Camp for Women and the Online Marketing Mastermind Live.

On this episode, you will hear Toni talk about:

• How she taught herself internet marketing with a hands-on approach, which included creating lead capture pages and running Google Ads
• The value of communicating with your customers regularly through email
• Why she created a business bootcamp focused on helping women succeed with their online marketing
• How she has found balance between her corporate job and her side businesses
• Her perspective as a solo entrepreneur

You can find Toni at thenetworkforwomeninbusiness.com and tonicolemanbrown.com. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest as well!

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The episode transcript is below:

 

Today on Beyond 6 Seconds:

I think that when you can learn how to put yourself in that state where you are being it before you even see it, then that’s going to keep you going more than anything. And that’s the hardest thing for people to accomplish. But that’s the biggest thing that will create transformation.

Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six seconds first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Toni Coleman Brown. Toni is an author, small business strategist, marketing expert and motivational speaker. In 2012 she founded the Network for Women in Business, an online educational platform that teaches female entrepreneurs her signature Small Business Success Program, focus, finish, promote and profit as well as provides group coaching and networking. The motto of the network is “We educate to elevate women in business.” Toni is also the host and creator of two popular live events, the Small Business Boot Camp for Women and the Online Marketing Mastermind Live. Toni, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Carolyn, thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

I’m so happy that you’re here. Toni and I first met at the Small Business Boot Camp for Women, which was just a couple months ago, and I got to see her sharing her expertise in action. And Toni, I know one of the things that you’re really well known for is this ability to generate and convert sales leads into actual sales. So how did you discover that you had a specific talent for that?

Well, actually, it was years ago, when I was a part of a network marketing company. One of the things I’ve always had a passion for was internet marketing. I mean, ever since the internet started, I could really say I’ve been interested. Most people are like, what? Ever since the internet started, I’ve just been fascinated by it. And one of the things that we did when I was with my network marketing business was I began to generate leads online, and it was a funny thing, because I was actually building websites, I learned a little bit of HTML code, which you needed back in the day, I was self taught. And what I would do is build these lead capture pages and then from the lead capture pages, I would run Google Ads. And I mean, at this particular time, the Google Ads weren’t that expensive, because I was targeting the name of my network marketing company. And the network marketing company wasn’t that popular at the time. So I could run these Google Ads and build these lead capture pages. It wasn’t very expensive because not everybody was doing it at that time. I actually was able to teach my team members how to do the exact same thing. If they couldn’t build the lead capture pages, I would build them for them. As a result of that, Carolyn, I was able to go to the top of my network marketing company’s compensation plan, meaning that I went from just being a regular rep, to a three diamond national vice president. And at that time, there were only seven worldwide. So it was really exciting. It was really fun. People kept wondering what I was doing, how I was doing it. And from that, I actually started teaching people how to do the exact same thing. But it was really just my fascination with it. I was passionate about it. I had taken a lot of online courses, and I really just taught myself, and so it was an interesting journey, but fun and it’s been working out like crazy ever since. I mean, now today is so much easier to generate leads with lead pages and all of these other tools that you have, you can just drag and drop and create leads and with, you know social media, you can run social media ads to your target market. You can begin to just generate a whole host of leads. And then the conversion part is where the magic comes in. Now, with my network marketing business, I converted people over the phone. And I still believe that the best way to convert people is over the phone. If you have a good sales script, you can really begin to just turn a lead into a customer relatively quickly. Now with email software providers and autoresponders you can convert people today with your copy and it’s about writing the right words that speak to your ideal customer, and really knowing what they’re thinking before they even think it. Being able to overcome their objections through your copy. And you can convert people today without even talking to them. If you throw a video on your lead capture pages and on your websites that just takes it through the roof, that takes it even higher, because video helps to build that know, like, and trust factor even faster. So I’ve been fascinated with this for years. I think that the fact that I’m self taught makes it a whole lot better because I believe that experience is your best teacher. And when you done something, it’s easier for you to teach it to other people because it’s not like I’ve taken what somebody else’s told me and trying to facilitate it, facilitating from experience and that makes it just so much better. And I’m sure you experienced that at the bootcamp.

I think it’s amazing that you’re self taught, because that really shows that you’re one, obviously really interested in the topic, and two, it’s a proactive process that you have for always looking out for what’s new, and what can I learn and how can I improve what I’m doing over a period of many years as technology changes, and I feel like technology changes faster and faster. So while it’s easier to create those lead capture documents, at the same time, Google Ads are now much more expensive, and it’s a much more crowded marketplace. So you have to continually adapt to that.

But I think that if you are constantly being yourself, and you are constantly putting out great content and good material, you will automatically attract those people that are looking for you. One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that two people can say the exact same thing, right? And people will receive it differently. People attract to the person that’s for them. We want everybody to be our people. But everybody is just not going to be your person. We have to learn how to be okay with that, and those that are for us, and those that can receive and hear and learn from us, then they’re going to be there and they’re going to show up and they’re going to show up all the time. That’s one of the things I’ve learned over the years. When I look at the people that are my customers, a lot of times they’ve been people that have been following me for a long time, and then they convert all of a sudden. I say something and, I’m like, wow, I’m surprised. And then some people have been on my list for a long time, but I just didn’t recognize it, and then all of a sudden they convert. It’s just an interesting phenomenon. And I mean, I’ve experienced it myself, I’m sure you have too Carolyn, when you’ve experienced different trainers or different facilitators or different thought leaders, and somebody can say the exact same thing, but you receive it differently from the person that resonates with your heart. And you just have to wait for those types of people to show up and they’re there. So that’s why, I believe that there’s just enough for all of us to be successful and grow and, even with a crowded marketplace, even with more expensive ads and all of that stuff out there, I still believe that the people that are for you will find you.

To that point, I think sometimes you have to say the same messages over and over again because the person may be following you for a long time and you have to get them after they’ve heard it a couple times, and they’re ready to convert. So I guess sometimes you feel like you’re repeating yourself, but I think that’s part of sales, at least through email marketing, it seems like.

You know what I think too, I think that it’s not really repeating yourself. It’s really getting to a place of mastery. That’s how I like to look at it. Because you’re right, as it relates to a person hearing the the message when they’re ready to make a purchase, because maybe a couple of years ago, they weren’t ready, but today, they’re ready. I also think, from my own personal perspective, I don’t know about anybody else, but, I know that, even though I may say the same things that I’ve said years ago, I know that I’m even saying it differently. Because I’m not the same person that I was years ago. I’ve grown and sometimes when you’re grown, you learn how to deliver the same message in a different way. You may have said it before, but it just wasn’t the right way to say it. I always look at how I can say that differently. How can I say that in a way that is crystal clear? And it makes sense. I tell people to do this. Sometimes even with their resume, rewrite that sentence. Rewrite that sentence. Is it clear? Is it clear? And so sometimes it’s because you’ve grown with your messaging, and you’ve gotten to a point of mastery. And you can say it in a way that’s just so simple, that people really get it and maybe before they weren’t getting it, because how you were saying it? I don’t know that. I mean, that’s just what I’ve experienced over the years. Yeah, I don’t know if that makes sense.

It does, it totally does make sense. And you really are building those relationships. It’s funny, even if you never have a conversation or you don’t have a conversation with someone who’s following you maybe for months or years, but at the same time, you’re still building that relationship with them by relating and working on your messaging and growing along with them. You talk a lot about these themes, or at least you did at the last Small Business Boot Camp for Women. A lot about lead generation and really encouraging women to build their businesses through email marketing, and building email lead list and mailing lists. What inspired you to start the Small Business Boot Camp for Women and focus on those particular themes?

Well, that’s interesting. Basically, when I first started the Network for Women in Business, I had the first Small Business Boot Camp for Women, about four months after I started the network. And that was because I knew I wanted to have an event and I knew I wanted to do something belly to belly. I wanted to be able to touch people and see people. And I knew that having a live event was going to be like a premier part of what I did with the network, right? And when I had that first event, I said, Okay, what am I going to talk about> In that first event I talked about social media marketing, and I went over all of the different platforms. And at the end of the day, the message was probably still the same, you know, like how to generate leads via social media and things like that. But I’ve always known that people have said in the past, oh your money is in your list, your money is in your list. And I’ve always been, like, really adamant about people having their list and people understanding that your list is probably one of the biggest assets you’ll ever have in your business. And let me tell you what I equate this to, right? Because you have Jeff Bezos from Amazon. And you have Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace, from Apple, right? And when you look at Amazon you think of, you know, the world’s biggest online shopping mall. Apple, you think of the world’s biggest cell phone, technology company, computer company. But at the end of the day, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs were not really into the phones, and just selling all of this stuff. You know what they were really into? Capturing credit card information. That’s the business they really were in. Understanding the buying behavior of their customers through their credit cards. Right? And so now you see this evolution, because you have Apple Pay, right? And the reason why these companies are into capturing credit card information, because they know that if they understand the buying behavior of their customers, then they can make more money. Because you can segment to them, you can sell differently to them because you understand what they want. You could get to a point where we will, we’re not there yet. While we might be a little bit there, where when you walk into a store and you walk down an aisle, your phone will be able to tell you where you can find your favorite item that you buy all the time.

Oh, yeah, we’re getting there.

Yeah, we’re getting there. We’re not quite there yet. I look at having your business and having a list pretty much the exact same way. Because when you have a list, and when you understand and you can tag the people on your list, and you can do lead scoring and understand who has opted in to multiple items, who from the list has purchased different items, then you can become a better seller, because now you have a better understanding of their buying behavior. Also too, now you own your asset. rather than relying on running a Google ad or running a Facebook ad. Now all you can do is send an email and you can pull money from your lists, like an ATM machine. I’ve always understood the value of that. And one of the things that I’ve always wanted to have my people in my tribe understand the value of that. And I wanted them to always understand that, that is an asset, and you need to own that asset. And it’s been one of the probably hardest shifts for people to get, because I don’t know why every time I talk to people, it’s like nobody’s building their list. And I’m like, What in the world? Like, how do you think that you’re going to be able to, one day if you decide you want to have an event? Where do you think you’re going to get the people from? How do you think you’re going to get butts in the seats? You know, if you decide you want to launch a new product, who are you going to promote it to? How are you going to generate sales? People still struggle with that whole concept of building a list and communicating with people on their list. Listen, that’s a message Carolyn I’m going to go out fighting with that one. Because I understand it, I get it. And I think that the more people understand that and get that, the better off they’ll be. I want everybody to win. I want every entrepreneur that’s out there to win and I believe that it’s just certain one degree mindset shifts that they need to make in order to make that happen. And that’s one of the things that I’m committed to, just helping them to make those little shifts.

Yeah, and that’s really powerful. It’s such practical and tangible advice to build your email list. And I think, I don’t know if people just get distracted with all the new technology and social media platforms that come out that email, it’s strange to say, email just seems very old school at this point, but it still works for a reason and it’s that richness of data that you can more easily collect. You don’t have some algorithm filtering out your ads or you don’t have to pay to get your message out necessarily. That’s a list that you quote unquote own. You can grow. And you can communicate, as you said, however many times you want, however you want to, directly to your audience and know more about them.

And it’s powerful. It really is.

So this is one of the many things that you talked about during the Small Business Boot Camp for Women. Why did you make the decision to focus on women and specifically help them with these kinds of tactics?

I think that because first and foremost, I’m a woman. And secondly, I believe that when I was in my network marketing business, it was a business that was kind of geared towards women. And so I’ve developed that affinity to working with women and that’s when I made my pivot, out of really building a network marketing business, I decided that you know what, I like working with women. And so I will, but I’m pivoting again. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m launching my Entrepreneur Success University. Because one of the things that I’ve discovered over the years is that, I’ve met a lot of men that want the content, right. And some men have joined the Network for Women in Business in the past, but they want the content too, and I think that I’m probably going to do even more pivots, like calling the group more like, you know, circle of champions or something like that, so that I can have more men involved. Because I’ve had a lot of men come to me and say, you know, what I want this information too. I’ve had some of them come to me and ask me, well, I want to create a network for men. Can you help me do that? But I have an affinity for women and I believe that women are making such huge strides. But we still have such a long way to go. And, I’m committed to working with that population to help them understand. But it’s funny because I do work with men and I’m finding that their struggles are very similar to women. But the way they deal with them are very different from women, which is very interesting, it’s very interesting. Do you remember that book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? I totally feel like that’s the truth these days. I really do. Because I believe like I said, we have the same struggles, but we deal with them very differently, very differently. It’s interesting.

What kind of differences do you notice?

Well, I think that women, we talk about our issues, and we don’t have a problem with sharing and opening up and you see a lot of women get together, we laugh, we cry, we are open with our feelings and emotions. Men are not. Men are not, men don’t open up like that too easily. They don’t, they don’t like to share. And I think that men compartmentalize very well. They put up these big, big, big walls around their emotions. And, you know, a lot of times I think that if you ask a man to tell you about himself, he’ll go over his resume in terms of accolades and awards and all of these great accomplishments. And I think if you ask a woman to tell you about herself, most women will talk about different things, more emotional things more, you know, personal things. So it’s interesting because one of the things that I found is that because men have such a strong need to provide for their families, that to them success is all about accomplishment. And for women it’s quite different. As a matter of fact, we don’t even see a lot of our accomplishments, because we’re so busy taking care and nurturing. So for men, it’s like providing, but for women, it’s like nurturing. So it’s interesting. It’s really interesting the things that I’ve seen.

That makes a lot of sense. When you think about the cultural expectations just very broadly around, you know, men’s roles and women’s roles. Yeah, very interesting. Wow. So you’ve had quite a varied career, you’ve worked in corporate, you’ve been a full time entrepreneur, worked in network marketing. Sometimes you’ve done one or more of those things at the same time. So I think what you’re working on now is that you currently do have a career working in corporate, but you also have these other businesses as side hustles. How did you make the decision right now to work in corporate and have all of these side hustles?

it’s an easy decision for me because my side hustles, I’m very passionate about them. And I haven’t gotten to the point where, I feel like oh, I just, it’s work. I hate it. You know what I mean? Like, some people, I find that’s what happens with a lot of people is that they want to have a side business. But the balance of working full time and doing this side business, it becomes so overwhelming that they get so tired and so exhausted until they just shut one thing down and focus on the other and most of the time the corporate job wins, right? For me, I’m so passionate about work and passion about my side businesses until, they’re almost like one in the same. And I’ll give you an example. Because of the fact that I run an internship program, I deal with young people, and you know, I get an opportunity to meet a lot of different people. I have a lot of external partners and internal partners. I run a mentorship program, even also at my job, I find that what I do at work is not that much different from what I do with my business. And basically, I’m doing the exact same thing. And a lot of times I facilitate workshops and the workshops are about professional development, personal growth and professional development is not that much different. And because they’re not that much different, it’s almost like I’m living my best life. You know what I mean? Because I get to do what I love both at work and at home. It’s not difficult to me, it actually comes easy. And also, I’ve gotten of the mindset where, I utilize my income from work to help fund my business. Now I’ve gotten to the point where my business is funding itself. Now I’m getting to the point where I can hire people to help me with my business and I see myself very soon, running my business full time, because of the fact that it’s just as certain shifts that I just recently made, that God has gotten me to the point where my business is now past break even. So we’re in profit. Now I can afford to hire help and I know that’s going to make all the difference in the world. It actually made a big difference with the boot camp, because I was able to hire help. That just gives you a higher sense of security, it makes it even easier for you because, it’s like you don’t have to worry about doing everything. And as a solopreneur, one of the hardest things that I had to learn how to do was delegate, and delegate with ease and confidence and understanding. And even though I know that everything won’t be exactly the way I want it to be, at least I didn’t have to do everything. So delegating and hiring someone else has been one of the biggest blessings for me and I know that, moving forward, that’s going to help me scale, and that’s going to help me get out of corporate. And what’s good about it, Carolyn, and I’m going to be totally honest and transparent. I’ll be getting out of corporate at a time when I will have a nice income from my pension.

Ah!

So it’s good. It’s all worked out really well. And I feel so grateful for that. Because I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs, and all of this stuff is true, you know, when people say, Oh, yes, you got to let the job go, you got to do this, you got to do that. You got to do all of these things. But at the end of the day, when you do a lot of those things, and you haven’t grown into the person that you’re supposed to be in order to run your business, then what ends up happening is, you end up back in the same circumstance that you were before you started your business and you end up back in corporate. So I’m thankful and blessed for the journey. And I fully understand who I need to be in order to get what it is I need to get.

That’s fantastic. Well, congratulations on growing your business to a point that you’ll eventually be able to have that as your main source of income, that is really incredible! And that you’ll be able to grow and hire help that you can delegate tasks and other activities to, and I know you were talking before about, you feel very fortunate because your, your work in corporate and your your side hustles seem like they’re integrated. They have common themes, and you’re still excited about your side hustles. I’d imagine that for a lot of solopreneurs, particularly when they’re starting out, and maybe they’re not really making a profit yet, so they don’t have money to hire people they can delegate to, but at the same time, they’re doing all the work. So I imagine those, you know, first couple years are really difficult in terms of how do you keep that energy up, especially if you’re also working a full time corporate job. And it sounds like you’ve been able to find that balance and master that, where you can kind of get through and focus on the right tasks that you need to do and be able to generate enough income to fund and delegate those tasks. So how did you do that? Because I just see that as such a challenge with even with myself in the podcast, like, as you know, you also have a podcast and there’s sometimes no limit to the things that you can do or need to do with it. And that’s just one project. So how did you find the way to work with your side hustles and either delegate early or prioritize the tasks so that you could get the income and then hire the people to delegate the work to? I don’t know if that made sense, it was kind of a long question.

So yeah, that balancing it all and getting to that point is all about really taking the time out to really look at your business like a business. A lot of us often times when we’re first getting started, we’re just doing doing doing doing doing. And we’re not stepping into the role of a real CEO. So we’re not really being the CEO of our company or the CEOs of our company. And we’re just doing all of these activities without taking the time out to analyze, and look at what you’ve done. And seeing, looking at your business analytics. I remember when I worked in budgeting, because I mean, I’m not doing that anymore. My background is finance. When I first started out, I was a budget analyst for the Port Authority. And one of the things that we used to do every month was we would look at all the revenues and look at all the expenses and see what the results were. And you know, did we go over, did we go under, and why? So we did variance analysis and, one of the things that I find is that a lot of solopreneurs don’t look at their business like a business, and they definitely don’t look at their numbers. Right? So one of the things that I would do is that every month, I would look back and say, Okay, well, what did I do? What did I do right? What did I do wrong? And I would try to learn from it. I would throw away the things that I did wrong and keep the things that I did right. One of the things that I also understood was that when I first started out in business, that there were tools that I needed, and even if the business wasn’t generating the income to get the tools, I would still make the sacrifice and get the tools that I needed to run my business. And I knew that at a certain point in time that I would earn the income to pay for those tools. I just knew it. And I was willing to make the sacrifice until the money showed up. A lot of people I have found are not willing to make the sacrifice until the money shows up. And that really has to go towards belief and believing in themselves, and believing that they will at some point generate the income that they need. Now I’ve made money and wasted money. And that’s another problem. Because a lot of times we’ll get things that we think we need, and we really don’t need it. And then we beat ourselves up and we say never again and then that prevents us from getting the real tools that we really need, that will help us get to the next level. But oftentimes what happens is, you get burned and you feel like, Oh, I tried that. I use that in the past. It didn’t work. This is something that Tony Robbins says. He says that if you think about these four things, and you think about them as being in quadrants At the top right, you have potential, and to the right of potential, you have actions. And right below your actions, you have results. And then to the left, you have belief or certainty. And he says that we all have potential and we go into business because we know, we have the potential to make money and be successful. And then we get into action and we do all of these things. And then when we look at our results, we don’t get the results that we want. And then we go over to believe and we don’t believe. So therefore, we end up having this potential that never gets realized, because we’ve taken the action and didn’t get the results and therefore we don’t believe anymore. What we really should be doing is, we should get into the belief and the certainty first, so that we know that the results are going to show up and then take that actions so we can live up to our potential. So we’re doing it in reverse. Therefore we’re creating these negative stories and these stories of disbelief, and therefore it’s causing us to not live the life that we want to. So therefore, a lot of times what happens in business, to get back to your story is that, when people are doing their side hustle, and they’re doing all of these things, and they’re not getting the results, they don’t believe that they’re going to be successful. So it really taps into their inner belief of what they can do and what they can’t do. And then what ends up happening is, it prevents them from making the initial investment that they need to make in the short term, so that they can have the long term success. Just because you don’t have it right now, that doesn’t mean you won’t have it in the future. Right? And so you have to remember why you’re in business first, right? Why are you doing it and your why has to be really strong, strong enough to keep you through the times of trial and error. And you have to think more like a scientist, you know, a scientist does trials, they know everything is not going to work. But that doesn’t stop them from doing the trials and the experiments until they find the things that work, and see we give up too soon. But when we have a strong why, and we have belief that one day it will happen for us, then you won’t stop. You won’t stop I mean, even in the book, Think and Grow Rich. I think it’s like in the first chapter of the book, Think and Grow Rich. One of the things that says is that, if you have a strong desire to do something you will not quit, right? You’re guaranteed success. Guaranteed, strong desire, coupled with a detailed plan of action and you just don’t give up, your guaranteed success. I don’t know if you’re a spiritual person, but it also says the same thing in the Bible, right? And the Bible says, you may have heard this before where people say write the vision and make it plain, right? Now, it’s funny because they stop right there, where it says, write the vision and make it plain. Now I know in that particular scripture it says write the vision and make it plain on tablets. So basically, it’s like, write it down. Right? And write it down in such a way that if somebody else comes along, and they read it, that they can run with it, right? So your plan has to be so detailed, that if somebody else picks it up, so if I come behind you, Carolyn, I could say Oh, yeah, Carolyn wanted to do this and this. Oh, Carolyn is not here, but I could do it. Right. So that’s how clear it has to be. And then it also says that whatever you want, your vision, it waits, it comes at an appointed time, right? And it says that it hastens to the end and it will not lie. So basically, it’s saying that it comes when it’s supposed to come. And that’s just facts, not fiction, right? But then it says, but if it seems like it’s taken a long time, wait for it. Because it’s going to come, and it won’t delay. That’s the whole scripture, right? And I’m paraphrasing it. But that’s the whole scripture. So basically, it’s saying is all of it says the same thing. It’s just like, you have to have a detailed plan. You have to know what you want. Right? And then you have to just make it really crystal clear. Go forward towards it, because it’s going to happen. But a lot of times what happens is because it’s not happening the way we want it to happen, and we think it’s not going to happen, and we get in this crazy loop. And then we get to the point where we’re like, we don’t believe anymore, and then we quit. And that’s just like they said, the guy who was digging for gold, that whole story, and he was three feet from gold, he quit, right? Right before he was about to hit the goal. That’s the story of most people. And I mean, that’s what gets people tired, to the point where they’re like, Oh, you know, I don’t want to invest in my business because I don’t know, I don’t know if this is gonna work, and then they get discouraged. And then it ends up getting tired because they’re doing all these things, and then get no results. So they might as well just stay at work, you know what I mean?

I read and hear over and over again, the importance of basically what you just described is like having that overall vision and you know, whether you call that your why or your mission or strategy, and also as you said, it may not happen the way you think it’s going to happen, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen another way, you know, you’re always learning and growing along the way. So maybe you start out with some tactics and that doesn’t work, but you learn something else about your customer base or different products you can offer and then you make adjustments, but you’re always guided by the visualization of like, this is why I’m doing this, this is the value that I want to bring to other people. And you know, it’s everything from if you ever do coaching, where they have, some coaches will have you do like visualization exercises where they have you get detailed about what you want, whether it’s like a future job or a future business, what you want to look like feel like the whole experiences, make it real and really help you continue to focus on the end destination. And then it helps you prioritize and line up all of the tactics and the activities and the work because you have to do the work, but you have to kind of know what work will support your end vision, if you know where you’re going.

Yeah, and I totally believe all of that. But even above all of that, I think that you have to be that person. Like you have to be the person on the inside as well as on the outside. And I think that when you can learn how to put yourself in that state where you are being it before you even see it, then that’s going to keep you going more than anything, more than anything. And that’s the hardest thing for people to accomplish. But that’s the biggest thing that will create transformation, I believe Life is interesting. I just think that at the end of the day, we all should be going forward towards what we want. I feel sad when people get discouraged and, and they quit and they give up. You know, like sometimes people on my email list, they’ll unsubscribe and sometimes I read what they say. And sometimes they’ll say things like, oh, I’m not in business anymore. I’m not doing that anymore. And I mean, I just feel so sad when they say stuff like that. I’m like, oh that’s too bad. You know what I mean? But because people are, sometimes they give up sometimes they quit, I’m like, oh, that’s too bad. But I keep going! You know, I keep going.

Well, it sounds like it’s part of your why. So that makes sense that, you have that mission and you’re always driving towards accomplishing it.

Yes. Absolutely.

So you’ve done all kinds of things in your entrepreneurial career and in your corporate career and all your side hustles, and I’d love to know if you have one, I would call it a success story with a client or someone you’ve worked with, like anything that is particularly meaningful, that kind of sticks in your memory. I’d love to hear some of the ways that you’ve helped and made things better for the people that you work with.

There are a couple of them. I could think of this one lady who has like a greeting cards business. And one of the things that she did was she started up her Facebook business page. She didn’t have a business page before she met with me. And one of the things that she wanted to do was start generating leads, she wanted to generate leads on social media, and she came to one of my events and she, she was a skeptic. She was just like, Oh, I didn’t think that I was going to be able to do any of the things that Toni said, but, I listened to what she told me to do. And before you know it, I had like 150 people on my email list. And then I made the changes that she said on social media. And before you knew it, I had 3500 people following me, and even more people on my email list. So that’s one person. But then this other lady that I know, she’s not only a client, but a good friend of mine. I’ve worked with her over the years. I am just blown away at how she’s become this technology person. And she asked me recently to help her create some lead capture pages, and I did. And one of the things she was saying to me, “Oh, well, you know, we have this affiliate link, and people can sign up”. And she said, “But you can embed this code into the lead capture pages, right?” I said, “Yeah, I can do it.” And she said, “Yeah, let me show you where you can get the code”. And I mean, just to hear her speaking in that way, I was just like, wow, she really got it! You know what I mean? She’s just like, “Yeah, you could get the code right here.” And it was just like, yeah! And I mean, I think I even told her how impressed I was with just how far she had come from a technology perspective. So to see people growing like that, and really getting it and really understanding the possibilities, that’s just been huge.

Well, that’s great. And again, it goes back to you being largely self taught and learning all of the techniques. Anytime someone is interested enough to go and learn all of those techniques so that they can kind of become more technical, build those skills, and things like that. That’s really awesome.

So the students that I’ve had in my online marketing in my live event, which I don’t do very often because it’s a two day event, and you’re literally locked up in a room for two days with me, but at the end of the day, it’s one of those types of events where I’m not standing in front of the classroom teaching. You have your own laptop and you are building your assets. I teach them how to build their own lead capture pages and connect their email service providers with their lead capture pages and start building up their autoresponder email. So I teach them how to do it. And, you know, the curriculum, and the way I have it laid out is just step by step by step and they’re in action. So they’re doing it for themselves. And then one of the things that I found is that there’s nothing like experiential learning. I could come and I could stand in front of the room and I could facilitate all day, but experiential learning where you’re actually doing it. It just helps you to grow in leaps and bounds. That’s what that two day live event is about, it’s about really letting you come in and actually getting into the action and getting into the groove, the groove of doing it for yourself. And that’s different. And I did some experiential learning in the boot camp. I said, “Okay, now let’s do it.” That makes a huge difference. And that was, believe it or not, that was the first time that I had done the boot camp in that way. Where people were actually getting up and doing the work. I knew that it was just going to be impactful. But I believe that, once I saw how it kind of played out, I was like, yeah that’s it. It’s experiential, and you’re in learning and development, so you know. Experience is your best teacher.

Absolutely. At the boot camp, we did that with the email list. And especially with that topic, because when I went to that boot camp in the morning, I did not have an email list. I honestly, probably like many people, hadn’t really thought about doing an email list for my podcast, but by the time I left, because you had done that exercise where we literally had to get up out of our chairs, and have that conversation with people and talk about basically asking them, Can I sign you up for my email list, even if it doesn’t exist yet, which is good, because that could potentially be kind of an awkward conversation, just asking people hey, sign up for my newsletter, but in that context it’s not, because it’s like, no, this is what we’re doing now. We’re building our list and we’re all here for the same reason. So one, it helps kind of break the ice, and two, it puts the wheels in motion so that literally by I think that night, I went and signed up for MailChimp and put together my lead capture page, and then by the next day, which was the end of the weekend, I had a list and a couple names on it already. So that’s really powerful to do it that way.

Yes! See? So now you’re another success story.

I can tell you I go to plenty of, I go to a lot of conferences and I’m in training so it happens a lot. Same with training classes. You go, and you have a good time, you learn a lot, but then a lot of times you kind of go back to your desk or your house or wherever you go, and then sometimes you just kind of forget about it, you don’t take action on it. So they say you have to take action within the next 24 to 48 hours or you’re not going to do anything. So I think exercises like the ones you did at the bootcamp were really powerful. So yeah, now I have an email list that’s growing. I’m still excited about it. That’s one of my big initiatives for 2020 is my list.

Awesome. Yeah, that’s great. Good stuff. I love hearing that.

Thank you so much for getting me kickstarted on that. That is so awesome. You know, Toni, you’ve got so many great things that are going on. You’ve got it sounds like some really great plans with your new network for 2020. So how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about all the great work that you’ve got going on?

Okay, so I’m going to give you two websites first. The first one is The network for Women in Business and I know it’s long but it’s thenetworkforwomeninbusiness.com. So you can find out all about what’s going on there. But also, you can visit me at my own personal website, Tonicolemanbrown.com. Those are the two places that you can find me and see what’s happening, see what’s going on and what kind of stuff that I’m getting into.

Fantastic. Great. I’ll put those links in the show notes too, so that people can refer to them there, as well. Cool. So well, Toni, thank you so much for being on my show today. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything else that they can help or support you with?

I would like to leave your listeners with a word of encouragement, basically. I mean, I would love for them to know that if you want to connect with me, definitely, you know, ToniColemanBrown.com and that connects with all of my social media. But I just want your listeners to know that life is about living, and that in life, you’re either learning or winning, but never losing. This is something that Nelson Mandela said, and this is something that I truly, truly believe. You know, just live life to your fullest and understand that life is not happening to you, life is happening for you. And that we’re either, we’re always winning. And if we’re not winning, we’re learning. We’re never losing. So with that, you know, I would love for them to carry over into 2020 and beyond the fact that they should live and live with a winner’s attitude, because at the end of the day, we’re all winners.

It’s a great perspective to have. Well, thank you again, Toni. This was really great conversation.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Carolyn. I’ve enjoyed it.

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