From Speaking to Selling: Caterina Rando's Blueprint for Women Entrepreneurs

Welcome to Stay On Course with me, Julie Riga. My life has been a roller coaster of highs and lows, but what I know to be true is that when we are grounded in our purpose and savor the sweet moments of life, we are truly a success. Today, you are going to get the ingredients for success because life is salty and life is sweet. Together, let's explore the possibilities of our own lives. and learn from thought leaders around the globe. Ready guys? Let's cook it. You were thriving on your own until leading others became your new reality. I'm Julie Riga, and I created Before I Lead for high achievers like you, CEOs, new leaders, and side hustlers who've hit that uncomfortable space from doing it all to having to lead it all. It's not just a skill gap. It's an identity shift. You're overwhelmed. You're doubting. You're stuck between growth and burnout. Let's change that. Join me at beforeilead.com or visit julieriga.com because it's time to stop surviving the shift and start owning it. Welcome, welcome everyone to the next edition of the Stay On Course podcast. Today I have Katarina Rondo and she is a mentor extraordinaire for women in business on a mission. She's a dynamic speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader dedicated to helping purpose-driven entrepreneurs thrive. Welcome Katarina to the Stay On Course podcast. Thank you, Julie. Much appreciated. well welcome welcome it is fantastic to have a fellow italiano on the podcast i haven't really done the accent very much here katarina so thank you so much for for allowing me to do that but before i get started i ask all of my guests what is your favorite food or maybe italian food my favorite my favorite pasta is pasta arrabbiata which means angry pasta little spicy right yes a little spicy usually with penne the penne shaped pasta very good very good very good i love that okay and you know i know you're sick of it everyone who is italian eats italian their whole life what what is your really your favorite food i really love thai food i would have to say this Thai food as a genre, I'm always like, let's go to Thai. Let's go to Thai. Yeah. Maybe it's the peanut sauce. Maybe it's the bad Thai. Um, but yeah, cause it has a little spice too. No, I love that. I love that. You know, Italians are funny, at least for me, I don't ever want to go out and eat Italian food because I can make it at home. That's true. So we're going to go out and we're going to eat Chinese or Thai or sushi or, you know, something like that. So we're not going to make that at home. We're not going to make that at home. Although I did learn how to make sushi. Good for you. The rolls, I know how to make them. Yes. That's great. My first business was I owned a cafe and catering business. Oh, that's exciting. It was all Italian. Yeah. I love that. All right. Today, we're going to talk about something very near and dear to my heart. And that is speaking, but not just to gain applause, but to gain Katarina, what do you call it? Insta clients, insta clients. I love that. So yeah, let's get into those ingredients for success. Where do you want to start the conversation today? Well, let me say, I mentioned my first business was I had a cafe. You know, when you have a cafe, you want some clients, what do you do? You turn on the lights, you open the door, people come in especially if the food is good and the service is good when you are a consultant or a health coach or a business coach and you need some clients and you might be you might be working from an office you might be working from your house how do you get people to come and work with you it doesn't work the same way well we could of course do social media but that's not as fast as a path to cash, as giving a speech, people seeing that you have massive value to bring. And as a result, they want to work with you. It's a fantastic way. So every week, just as an example, every week I do this networking meeting. It's epic. For those of you listening, whoever want to join, it's 8 a.m. Eastern Standard. And I'm not there, my friend, because it's Eastern Eastern Standard, 8 a.m. And it's a Delray Beach local kind of thing. Okay. But I got myself a little speaker slot every week on there. I have a mini spotlight I got myself. That's great. Yeah. And today I did a little segment and boom, I have seven people that want to come to my program on Monday. Amazing. You see how it works? I love, exactly. And it's very, very easy to get clients from speaking. Yeah. Tell us about how easy it is. Like give us like some, what does easy mean? Okay. Well, let me back up here and say the shortest distance between you and your full client base is speaking, networking, and referrals. But the challenge with networking and referrals is people like you, but they don't necessarily know that you have massive value. When you're speaking, you get to showcase your massive value. Yeah. Or you gain Insta clients. I absolutely love that. Well, and they can get a flavor of who you are. They can experience you. And if you're really good at what you do, you create an experience for them. And you just like do this, you kind of like draw them in. Yes And Julie thank you for saying that because when we think of speaking people think of the speech It not just the speech It how are you connecting with the people in front of you And you as the speaker want to make them feel seen heard welcomed valued included uplifted So that is more than just let give a talk and when you do that that does draw people in it does start the relationship and it has them want to get more from you it does it does and you know now that we're in this like tick tockification of everything isn't it crazy it's just insane katerina i gotta tell you i i i'm trending right now on social media gosh on tiktok on tiktok on tiktok you are so vip my friend i don't know like you gotta like watch one of my videos i i don't know i think this is viral i think i went viral okay i'll tell you what i did i did this post about this is 50 so if you hashtag this is 50 okay one of my videos came up. I'm at 30,000 views right now. That is awesome. Congratulations. It's so stupid. That's it's the stupidest video I've ever done. I it's literally eight seconds long. Okay. But the point I'm trying to make, which we're going back to the point, right? Is that it's eight seconds. So I literally had eight seconds to grab people to stay the full eight seconds. Amazing. So after this, I'll show you the video. Okay. And what are you doing in the video? I literally, I keep saying literally, that's a filler word, filler word guys. What I did is I looked, I kept seeing this trend about like women in their fifties. What does an average 50 year old to look like. So I, and I have this little shtick I do on, um, on the TikTok account. It's called Florida living life. And so in every single video I do, I said, I say here in the state of Florida, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I always start out with that. So I'm generalizing the entire state, which is already controversial. Okay. And then I said, this, this is what 50 looks like welcome to the club well guess what my friend i could do hashtag this is 60 because i'm 60 all right let's do it awesome i like that yeah and so now i got i have i'm up to like 300 and something comments like i'm i'm pretty sure i'm at 30 000 views at this point but it's weird you know because you have to be so quick to grab the attention but then once you grab them you got to take them and connect with them. Right. Absolutely. And have them want to keep coming back and have them follow you. And eventually they'll become your client. Hopefully not all of them, but some of them. Right. Yeah. Now the thing about that is that social media is a slower path to cash. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but for the most part, it's a slower path. Julie, when you're selling services, okay? Like if you're selling, you know, slim down solution or you're selling earrings, that can be a much faster path to cash. But when you're selling services, especially personal services, people are going to want to check you out for longer than eight seconds. Yes. And the, so do you think like the webinar and how long do you think you need? okay well okay julie this is like whole thing but let me say this it depends and here's why you got mary you got jane you got sheila mary is an insta client she meets you she vibes with you she's been looking for someone just like you jane she wants somebody like you but she hired someone like you before and she didn't have a good experience or she didn't get her roi so she's going to watch longer. Sheila likes the idea of working with you, but she's never even considered working with anyone like you. So she's going to take even longer. Mary's Insta. Jane is a slow cooker. Sheila is a super, super slow cooker. And that's why it's not just about the speech. It's also about the follow-up and the relationship building. Yeah. Okay. I got a new client. So I told you before we started, I went to Colorado last month. I was giving a bunch of talks, loved it, met great gals, but they had never met me before. So they spend an hour or 90 minutes with me, or sometimes I only had 20 minutes for my talk. Well, okay. That's not enough for somebody to invest a few thousand dollars in most cases. So what, so then I gotta, I gotta make sure I have time to talk to these people after. And yesterday I signed up a lovely gal. Her name is Jennifer, signed her up for my sales program, starts in September, third conversation. Earlier this week, I signed up someone for our mastermind cruise next year, two conversations. Someone else joined our speaker program, four conversations. So we don't, and some, but sometimes it's only one. But my point is that the days of people running to the back of the room to buy from the speaker, and of course now they can't run to the back of the room because it's all virtual clicking the link to invest in a high ticket program sure those days are long over and the reason is because we can we can type in whatever we want and we can get a plethora of possibilities all at once right that's why the relationship is so important you're totally right i agree so what do you think the appetite or what is the price point of someone that comes to these events like what do you think they would just like kind of sign up for what is the price point okay so so so let me say this guiding principle alert guiding principle alert okay the more time people spend with us the more they're open to the possibility of investing with us and also the more dollars they're open to investing. So for example, when I do a retreat, sometimes I have 80 and 90% of the people signing up for the next thing before they even get out of, before they even leave the retreat, okay? Why? Because they just spent a week with you. They like yeah what next okay But if they never invested with you that gonna be a harder sell So that why you have to and you also have to remember Julie people are not only investing with their dollars they're investing with their time. Sure. So when we say, Hey, sign up for my three month, six month, year long program, that's going to be a harder sell regardless of price than your four week, your six week, even your 10 week. Yeah. Yeah. So you know what I just kind of learned in this moment is the retreat thing. I wasn't thinking that the retreat is leading to something else. Oh my gosh. It is always. Okay. That changes everything, right? Yeah. Julie, another guiding principle alert. Okay. Guiding principle alert. At the thing, you always offer the next thing. Okay. At the thing you always, everybody, let me say that again. At the thing, you always offer the next thing. Exactly. Okay. I get that. Let me tell you my first retreat, I had 13 gals there and I broke even my first time. This is many years back, 2014, but I made so much money on the upsell. I made more in one day than I had ever made before because they came, they had got massive value for the week. Sure. Most of them signed up for my year-long program which was a big investment well how much is the year-long program what is the price point on that the programs we have these days are anywhere between 55 and 9,500 okay interesting so the thing is they spend a week with you they love you they get mass value bing bing they're like yeah ready for more yeah and you can also use a retreat as part of a program So I mentioned next week, I'm doing a retreat at my center. That's part of a program. They're in my year long program. They're coming for a week for a retreat. Right. Okay. Stand alone either. Okay. It can be part of it. What happens when they come? I invite them to the next thing. Of course. If the next thing doesn't start for another year. You're inviting them to the next thing. I invite them to enroll. Yes. mm-hmm and when they go to this retreat i i imagine they're getting more than just learning are they getting like oh yeah yeah just give us a little like a flavor of what that's like yeah well when women get together first of all you have to give them connection they want to connect they love to connect it's part of their bliss of being together is meeting each other and getting to know each other. We do that. We also, you have to have fun. We, on our last retreat, our mastermind cruise, we just got off. We did a silent disco pajama party. We did afternoon tea with fascinators. We did a accelerated jewelry exchange. I say, love it, never wear it time to share it. And we added in women empowerment, sing along. I mean, the gals had a blast and they have to have a blast in order to keep coming back. Sure. Sometimes, sometimes even Julie, them just being together and meeting each other. And that's our job to facilitate that means they're going to be so happy. Yeah. Well, they're going to want to come back and see each other. This is like their vacation. Absolutely. But their business pays for it because mine are for women in business. Yeah. That's fantastic. And in fact, I'd like to say every woman who has a business, she needs a retreat at least once a year, ideally twice a year, because she gets out of her normal environment. She goes hang out with other amazing women. Even if it's a retreat that it's not a business retreat, like we do a bliss retreat, which is for business women, but it's not about sales marketing. It's all about personal growth, transformation. They still talk business. They still grow their business as a result. And we need to be having a time to reflect on our business, not be in the weeds every day, which is how most of us are. Most of the time we're working, we're working on all the to-dos. Yeah. That's so insightful. I, yeah, I've always wanted to do a retreat. I do want to do a retreat one day. I want to, I want to host a retreat. Good. You know, we got to come to some retreats. I know I got to come to a retreat, right? You got to come. And here's, let me also say, cause sometimes I've got a lot of clients that do retreats. And the reason is they come on a retreat, they see what they like, they see what they would do different. They also see, oh, this is, this is not, not that hard. Well, of course that's what I want them to think. There's a lot of work involved. However, all, when you get people together, especially women, we have such a great time and it keeps your clients coming back. So Julie, I don't like to call it a sales funnel. I don't like that term. I call it a sales fountain. And this is because I only work with women and women, the ideas, they go round and round. They keep coming back fountain. Your fountain is flowing and retreats are part of your offerings to your clients that keeps them coming back and has them blissing to be with you. I love that. I love that. So like, let's kind of do a little recap of why again, why do we need to use speaking to share our businesses? Because, because you get to share not only your massive value, but you also get to share your heart skills. You get to share your genuine caring. You get to share your possibilities for these people. You get to share more than just some super tips. Yes, share some super tips, but also, and you get to share your story usually, or you get to share client examples, which is great. That helps the audience understand how you work with your clients. And if you can do that and leave your audience, this is my goal every time super tip alert leave the audience more uplifted than when they showed up now they are going to lean in to come and work with you but i do want to be clear the fortune is absolutely in the follow-up absolutely and sometimes it takes a few calls and that's where the relationship building happens and that why by the way you want to always have something to invite people to like I do a free workshop at least once a month sometimes twice a month This time I think I doing one three times this month because it a good season for that And so then I can invite people to come to this workshop to the other, this workshop on sales, this workshop on speaking, this workshop on doing retreats. And I can also, by the way, Julie, use those recordings to send to people that were not at the workshop. Right. And so that is, you're getting a lot more bang for your investment of your time. Yeah. Yeah. And I tell all my clients, this is standard operating procedure for all my clients. Zoom workshop virtual every month. Yes, we can do on the ground. I know you're involved very much in your local community. Some people have a local, great local community to be involved with. Some people might not have that, but absolutely at least once a month virtual. I love that. Yes. Yes. Yes. And when you do these virtuals, do you come in with your full agenda ready to go? Or do you kind of leave it into the moment to dictate what's going to happen by the people that come? Well, I definitely take time for questions for sure. Julie, I'm sure like you, Like at this point, I mean, yesterday I spoke at someone's summit. I did my own workshop. I did not have to prepare for any of it. Why? Because I trust myself enough and I've got my many thousands of hours in on speaking. The more you do it, the better you get. And the goal is not to speak. The goal is to be a masterful speaker. And that is not just the talking part. It's also the connecting. Yes. You know, I was talking about this the other day in my program. I was talking about this idea of being present to the moment and what the moment is asking for as a speaker. And I like to call it the intelligence of the moment. That's beautiful. So like in every moment, there's an intelligence coming. And so there is an intelligence coming by the people that show up to that moment. And you could get into that moment thinking you're going to do this thing. And like you're preparing and you're doing it and you're doing, but you got to leave like a little flexibility to listen to what the moment is asking for. Right. If that makes sense. Yes, absolutely. To be intuitive into what the moment is asking for. And that's based on who's in the room and what do they want? What's going on with your personal energy and to, yeah, feel the vibe and speak from, speak from that place. Yeah. So let me say one important thing. Do not be attached to your agenda for your talk. And this is why before I would do like 10 tips for X, Y, Z. Now it's just strategies or tips. I don't say how many, because I don't want to have to get through 10. And when I start yesterday, we did a 90 minute workshop. I did it with a friend of mine because we're doing our retreat on retreats together. And I said in the beginning, Hey, I've given you a super comprehensive handout. We're not going to get through all of it. That's why I'm giving you a super comprehensive handout. Sure. You later. And so that way I let myself off the hook that I got to get through all the content. I love that. I love that because, you know, at the end of the day too, how much can somebody really remember? Yeah, that's true. And that's why your stories and your client examples are so important because that is a big part of what they're going to remember. I love that. So, Katarina, tell me, what are you working on right now? What am I working on right now? Well, I have a mentorship program that starts in a couple months called Expand Your Fempire, where gals come for a retreat in San Francisco, and then we do virtual call once a month, and we do one-on-one coaching once a month. That's the most elite program that I've got. And I'm working on our mastermind cruise, which is next August, where we'll have 60 gals on the ship, all masterminding together for a week. We're going to Alaska. Wow. I'm working on my retreat on how to do retreats. That program starts in November and we go on a cruise in February. Amazing. well Katarina let me say it again Katarina Rondo thank you so much for being a guest on the Stan Course Podcast I'm blissing to be with you thank you Julie it was a fantastic conversation thank you so much my dad Ennio Riga was not just a chef he was my hero from the hardships of World War II to the heights of culinary excellence his story is nothing short of remarkable now this story lives on in stay on course a book that is very close to my heart it's filled with his own words his recipes and the wisdom he imparted to me just imagine four months before he passed he handed me his life story urging me to finish it in these pages you'll discover the secrets behind mouth-watering dishes and the lessons he taught me about leadership and perseverance. And trust me, there are some incredible tales in here, like the time he pulled off a birthday bash for Frank Sinatra with just 48 hours notice. So if you're hungry for inspiration and craving a taste of Ennio's legacy, go to julieriga.com. That's www.julieriga.com. Thank you for listening to another episode of Stay On Course. Please don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast so Julie can continue serving up delectable experts and appetizing content directly to your earbuds. And remember, right now you have the ingredients to be living the life you are meant to live. This has been a production of Stay On Course Studios. That's stayoncourse.studio.