 Hi everyone, this is George Cao and today I have with me one of my clients so proud to work with Margaret Road of websitesforgood.com and she's going to be sharing with you some of the lessons she's learned in our work together in the hopes that it will encourage you and inspire you and educate and uplift you to do even better work than you're already doing. So let me start with her bio and then I'm going to ask her a couple questions. So Margaret Road equal parts coach, consultant, storyteller and geek, Margaret Road helps small businesses market themselves online with authenticity and with compassion so you can see why Margaret and I get along. She helps thoughtful entrepreneurs and avoid impersonal and shady tactics in favor of building real and lasting connections with the people who matter most to them. She offers coaching, evaluation, e-courses, guided programs and a variety of custom service packages at websitesforgood.com, websites, F-O-R, good.com. Margaret thanks for doing this interview with me. Thanks for having me George. Yeah, so maybe I'll just have you start off with what are a couple of the most valuable or maybe even surprising lessons you've learned as we've worked together in our coaching. You know, I think the first surprising lesson is going to sound terribly cliche but it was the concept that you embody in everything that you put out there for us. It was the concept that I could actually be myself cliche, right? But really my thought was if I was myself, if I spoke like myself, if I created content from my own voice, if I didn't stick to the tried and true stuff that everybody else is doing, that I wouldn't get business, my business wouldn't succeed and I would basically lose the game. And so just to have someone who not only told me, no, no, be yourself. You have so much to say and say it and say it like you. People want to hear you not only tell me that but also demonstrate that with all of the content that you share on your website. I mean I was so impressed. I think I went through every single video before I ever contacted you because I was so shocked that you could be yourself. You could be just a regular guy. You had your dog in your videos. You're out for a walk. I mean you were just like this. You were yourself but at the same time you were entirely the sort of a person that I wanted to have a coaching relationship with for exactly that reason because you're not trying to be somebody you're not and it took all the fear out of it. So that was the first thing. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I really, really appreciate it. I think there's the automatic assumption when people think about marketing that it means having to impress others, which means having to perform, which means doing things that are somehow emulate, well I guess we could say emulating a celebrity, right? And the glamour that's typically there and I'm really happy. I think in large part thanks to social media and sort of live videos, etc., there is a trend more and more towards, well even celebrities now want to be themselves instead of some cardboard cutout of what you're supposed to be, right? And I mean even like I think about even bigger companies like Dove, right? Like Dove Soap has been known in the past decade to kind of start highlighting, hey you don't have to have the model perfect body, that's not who we are. We are ourselves and the beauty is found with whatever body shape you are. There's beauty there and so yeah, the way I think about marketing is, well it's kind of like what Seth Godin says about when you're driving along the road and you see a bunch of different, you know, cows in the field and you see a purple cow, what's that? What did I just see there? And it gets people's attention, people go and study, people go and get fascinated by it and it's the same thing with ourselves. It's like when we can be ourselves that is the most unique and interesting thing for others to witness. So now that you have started to, I feel like you've always been this way. You've always had this value, right? But maybe you can share a little bit about what is it about maybe our industry or the sort of online marketing industry that kind of got you away from that for a little bit. I'm curious how you would talk about that. I think with our industry, we have our gurus. Every industry has its gurus. And I think that there's a couple of things at play and neither of them are bad things. One is that people want to follow patterns and people who are successful. They want to follow, they want to take whatever this guru has written in his book or whatever this guru is putting out in his podcast every week. And if it worked for him, it will work for you. And so they don't often think about whether it connects with their own ethics, with their own values. They just think, well, if they do it, then there must not be anything wrong with it. And I'm just going to do that. I'm going to get the same results, everything will be great. That's one part of it. The other part is that a lot of people are starting businesses and they have a problem up front, which is how do I make enough money to not have to go back to my corporate job? I mean, how do I come out of the box blazing and start making money, start getting clients, start making progress right away? And so they turn to people who have a formula or process or a program or even a coaching program, even an expensive coaching program, we've talked about that. And they think it's going to be the thing that benefits them the most. And at their core, you can't really argue with that because they have something really good inside of them. They have a gift, a product, a service, a skill set that they want to share with the world. And so there's really nothing wrong with any of that. But what I'm finding, as with you, I'm finding that the more authentic people are, the more approachable and human people are, that's where the client acquisition is going. Where clients will see a slick coach with a suit and a seven-figure this and that. And then they see somebody that walks his dog and gives away tons of beautiful, beautiful educational content. Who do you think they're going to choose on a human basis? Thank you. And you know how grown up I am about things like that. I think another interesting piece of this is that if we are following another person's formula or trying to emulate their style, and if it's not us, we have to keep that up. And when clients start to work with us because of the facade of the mask, and I say that because I had a facade in the mask in the first couple of years of my business, I feel like. I had to continue that to meet expectations or exceed expectations. And now that I, it's funny, like I don't, I think one of the keys I think with authenticities, I don't mind making mistakes in public. And I think that's something we're all learning is like, it's actually okay. Some of my most, and maybe you've discovered this too, some of my most popular social media posts have been when I've been willing to be vulnerable. And because being vulnerable is really what a human being is. We are so vulnerable in so many ways, and we're willing to share that. People go, my gosh, I'm not the only one. And then of course not just saying woe is me and I'm down, but it's like, okay, here's what I'm going through and kind of here's what I'm doing. Here's what I've discovered is helpful and I'm still human and I'm still making mistakes, you know, and it's like, if we're willing to make mistakes in public, we're going to filter in the people who I guess believe in humanity, believe in authenticity. And those people, well, like yourself and like all my clients are so much easier and more fun to work with, right? It is, and on the converse side of that, I said there are going to be some people who gravitate to that sort of person, the one with the great masks on, beautiful masks, and then this other thing. Do we really want clients who see vulnerability as something distasteful? Do we really want to work with those kinds of people? Maybe they belong where they go and the people who find us authentic and genuine and compassionate come to us and that's the best possible world Yeah. Yeah, it is and I mean, I see even in a coach consultant and client relationship, I think it's truly wonderful when it can be of mutual support. You know, the coaching consultant obviously maybe has some additional knowledge, advanced knowledge that the client is yearning to achieve or get. But at the same time, coach or consultant or counselor or business owner is a human being and it's okay to, I mean, the way I even think about, for example, you know, even financial payment, right? I think financial payment as my clients are supporting me. You know, that's one way that they are supporting me as I'm supporting them in different ways. And so we are willing to frame the relationship as one of mutual human support. It is, I know, it's just more fulfilling in my experience. It makes it so much easier to get out of bed every morning. Get out of bed every morning like I'm being shot out of a cannon. My first thought every single morning when I wake up is who do I get to work with today? What do I get to do with them and for them today? I never thought I would be here. I was a lifelong cynic until I started my own business. And then this shift happened and everything just blossomed. Well, one of the shifts that I've noticed with you as your content has, you know, and you've mentioned that a bit, what would you say about that? You know, it was one of the most surprising and valuable things. That I got from early in our, in our one-on-one coaching was your, your absolute insistence on creating as much useful content as possible, because I had been one of these folks that, oh, you know, I did a blog post this month. Do I really need to do another one? And I was afraid it was a whole thing. They had to tie back to fear. I was afraid of talking about things that I wasn't an expert at. I was afraid of making mistakes. I was afraid of sharing my opinions. You know, I was afraid of being myself. And so one blog post a month was extremely painful because I had to wear that mask and it's hard to see the keyboard even when you're wearing the but as soon as I knew that I could be authentic, as soon as I knew that I could make mistakes, that I could change my mind, that I could share little things as well as big things. You know, they didn't have to be a thousand word toms that were great wisdom. People would come and, you know, leave flowers on my front porch. They they just had to be something that my people, my my community finds useful, would find helpful, warm, would give them a good feeling, would give them a new idea, would make them feel heard and seen and paid attention to. And so that was another just a fabulous part of entering into relationship with you is just I see now everything is content. I have content folders. I have a content board in my other room where I scribble down ideas and stick it up there and flesh it out later. And it's it's just the reaction has just been amazing because now people feel like they know me, not just people who have known me for a couple of years, but but people who are just finding out about me for the first time, they know what kind of person I am. Sometimes I think they do one of my free, my those 30 minute consultations. Sometimes I think that they do those just to be able to have a conversation with me and find out that there is somebody else in the world. There's a kindred spirit who believes the same things they do. Yeah. And that's OK. Yeah, totally. Wow. And how is our work together impacted your I mean, I call it draw for productivity, but kind of your your structure and your process? You know, I think I've probably over the course of my business and I started almost 20 years ago. I think I've probably tried 50 different productivity methods. I'd get a new book, you know, I'd get getting things done. I'd get this tracker and this to do list and this reminder thing. And they were helpful. I won't say that the cumulative knowledge wasn't helpful, but but there was no joy in it. There was structure, which is good, but there was no feeling of rhythm. There was no feeling of connection to my the rhythms that are inside me, the rhythms of my own energy, for example. And so joyful productivity as as you teach it, I internalized as a way to pay attention to what my body does, where my energies are, where my left, what part of the day my left brain is strongest, what part of the day my right brain is strongest and time things and schedule things in that rhythm, you know, and including things like creative rest. I don't know if I've told you this, but your creative rest just broke the whole thing open for me because I had always felt guilty. I would get exhausted. You know, I'm a person who some mornings has to look down 10,000 lines of goopy code and then I would get down on myself because at noon I was completely brain dead and I really needed a nap. I just needed 30 minutes to sit quietly and turn it all off. And I would feel guilty about that because, you know, you're supposed to keep going. This is pure work ethic. Keep going. And so how my structured day looks now, my creative brain is strongest in the morning and I've been waking up early to work on the book that I've been creating and all other creative projects all get packed into the early part of the day and then I take a rest. Yeah, I give that part of brain a rest and then I communicate. So I create and then I connect with my people for a few hours, which is always joyful. I exchange emails. I do strategizing. I have calls with them. And then at the end of the day, I often will consume more material. I'll process what I learned during the day. I'll get it all down on paper and I have an end of the day ritual as well. But it's just been super, super helpful. And it's been something that I've been able to keep to because my brain now knows this part is for this, even if I never look at my planner at all and never get a single reminder from my calendar. I know what I'm supposed to be doing at any given time of the day. It's just fantastic. Wow. I can't I feel like I'm gushing, but it's just changed everything for me. It's so wonderful. And one of the results right now that you're producing is your book, which I've already read a draft of it and I'm so excited personally about it. I can't wait for the world to know about it. I mean, you're going to have it on Amazon, so it's going to be kind of widely available. You're going to have it on your website as well. Do you want to share anything else that you're working on right now? And or offerings that that people should know about? Let's see. I'm I continue to do the work that I do. So I I work with small entrepreneurs and small solo entrepreneurs and self-employed people, freelancers, and they have different needs than big companies do. And so I offer lots of different online marketing related stuff, help with social media, help with websites, help creating websites, but not necessarily the multi-thousand dollar custom website. I do do those, but most of my people don't need those. What they need is help with content. They need help developing their story. We need help choosing a platform, getting it all down on paper, figuring out what functionality will create a conversation between themselves and the person that they're trying to reach their audience member. And so I sell what I call bite-sized help. And if someone needs me for a consultation for two hours, if someone needs me to make something work that's sticky on their website, I do that. That's where I'm finding the most joy and most demand, because I'm dealing with people who are very a lot of folks are very online marketing savvy, very website savvy and social media savvy and so I can help them in that way. For folks that really don't know where to start, I have a great program that I'm just loving the heck out of. It's called the 90 minute website and it's a guided program. So it starts out with an e-course that helps them to corral all of those pieces that go into a website, everything from how do I write my bell page to where in the world do I get pictures that don't cost a thousand dollars. And all the questions, what is website hosting? Why do I need it again? And the course covers that. And then we gather and I'm available for consultation up the way. And then we gather together and we over the course of a couple of hours, we sit down and we go from zero to launch with all the materials that they've been guided through through gathering, we put it all together and we launch the site and it takes so they go from nothing to a website in about two weeks. That's amazing. Well, I mean, it is so valuable to have somebody as experienced as you guiding them along the way. So it's something that I'm going to be telling people about. And if anybody is watching this and you say, yeah, you know, it's time for me to launch my website or it's time for me to revamp my website, because my offerings and message has changed. Contact Margaret, because she has the wisdom, experience as well as the compassion and authenticity and the technical skills kind of lead guide people through it. So thank you for the work you do. Thank you so much for doing this interview. Is there anything else you want to complete our time together with? No, I just love your audience, though. I just want to make sure that that you know and that they know that I think that we're we're basically going to save the world. Authentic businesses are really are going to bring humanity back to a world that is sort of teetering on away from humanity and compassion. And I think bringing our passions and our work into the world is going to bring us all away from that edge and back to connection with each other. So I'm just so glad to be part of the community of George. Thank you so much, Margaret. I love having you in the community, and I'm just looking forward to seeing your your message and your work continue to grow. And so, folks, of course, there will be links to Margaret's websites and Facebook page and the notes of the video. And I encourage you to go and check out her work. She has some amazing articles. She posts them regularly and go check it out. So thanks, Margaret. Thanks, George. You're welcome. Great to see you.