Salome Schillack (00:00):

Hello and welcome to episode number 111 of The Shine Show, today I interview my fabulous, one of my favorite people, Suzan Czajkowski. She is one of our Launch Lounge students, so I've had the privilege of hanging out with her every Friday for the last year. I've gotten to know her really well and the thing that Suzan and I have in common is we are both crazy introverts. We both would rather die than hang out on social media.

So my interview with her is called How to Thrive as an Introvert on Social Media with Suzan Czajkowski, and I know that if you're an introvert, you are going to love today's episode. Also, don't forget that we are opening enrollment to the Launch Lounge on the 29th of July. The Launch Lounge offers you all the support you need to create profitable online course launches that scale your business so you can hire a team, get your time back and become the CEO of your life, without wasting any more money on outdated ad strategies or taking on yet another online course.

If you want to get on the waitlist for the Launch Lounge you need to go to shineandsucceed.com/tllwaitlist. That's TLL waitlist. And now let's jump into my interview with Suzan.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch and grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster then tune in because you are ready to shine and this is The Shine Show.

Suzan, thank you so much for joining me. It is a lovely for me to have you here and get to hang out with you today.

Suzan Czajkowski (02:08):

I'm thrilled to be here. And really I always enjoy your company anyway. So I'm excited to be able to spend some time. This is great, thank you for having me.

Salome Schillack (02:14):

Yeah. You're welcome. I can't... Why [inaudible 00:02:16] we can travel again. And I can come over to the US and give you a big hug and sit down. I feel like on a day like today where you're at with the snow storms coming in, I feel like we need to sit down somewhere near a fire place and have some Gluehwein. Do you guys call the Gluehwein?

Suzan Czajkowski (02:36):

I don't even know what Gluehwein is.

Salome Schillack (02:38):

Oh dear. It's a mulled wine.

Suzan Czajkowski (02:41):

Oh, I'm in for that. There's an amazing restaurant looking at could be just even go out of the house these days. Looking forward to going back to this restaurant that has this huge stone fireplace. And they've got nice chairs near but you can also like sit on the edge of the fireplace and they've got some of the best chocolate chip cookies that you can find.

Salome Schillack (03:02):

I'm up for that. After all this ends I am going to travel just for chocolate chip cookies. I've always loved traveling but after this I'm just going to just travel all the time.

Suzan Czajkowski (03:14):

Yeah, I think we all are. We're all just going to uproot ourselves and move around for a while.

Salome Schillack (03:17):

Yeah, as like now I'm realizing just how much I love traveling. Now that-

Suzan Czajkowski (03:22):

You've been to this area, I'm in the northeast up in Boston, but you've been to New York.

Salome Schillack (03:26):

I've been to New York yes. I have not made it to Boston, but Boston is one of my number one places to visit on my list as soon as the borders open.

Suzan Czajkowski (03:36):

[crosstalk 00:03:36].

Salome Schillack (03:36):

As soon as they let the Aussies out. Who let the dogs out? No, who let the Aussies out as soon as they let the Aussies out because we can't go anywhere.

Suzan Czajkowski (03:45):

And you know a few people in this area.

Salome Schillack (03:47):

I do. Donna's there too. My sister. My online sister lives in Boston.

Suzan Czajkowski (03:52):

She's a good friend of mine too.

Salome Schillack (03:54):

I love Donna. So yeah, Boston fireplace I'm up for it.

Suzan Czajkowski (03:58):

Mulled wine. Mulled wine and chocolate chip cookies. Interesting combination, I think we can make it work.

Salome Schillack (04:04):

I have always been able to make alcohol and sugar work together. But that's not why we're here. We are here to talk about you and your amazing business. And just tell us a little bit about who you are? What is the difference that you make in the world? And who do you make it with?

Suzan Czajkowski (04:23):

Those are such big questions. So I own a marketing company, and I specialize in working with introverts, introverts who own businesses, and for whom being an introvert is a challenge when they're trying to market themselves because they're uncomfortable showing up all the ways that they see that they need to market themselves are high energy and put yourself out there and keep yourself out there and talk about yourself and talk about your business and talk to people you don't know, all these things that make introverts really uncomfortable and drain them of energy very quickly.

And so I work with introverts to help them find ways to market themselves that are more in line with how they show up in the world. Enabling them to show up authentically and make connections because they're just being who they are.

Salome Schillack (05:07):

Yeah, I love that and we're going to unpack that a little bit. How did you get to do that?

Suzan Czajkowski (05:13):

How many things do we do by accident in this world? It's a very, very long journey but my business has been open for 12 years and it started with like, I used to build websites many years ago. And very long journey short, I ended up helping just one-on-one helping people market their businesses and kind of just let's walk you through from the beginning all the way through and just market your business and get everything in line and make sure it's not working right.

And overtime, I was doing a lot with email marketing, I was working with one of the big email companies Constant Contact, as in one of their outside people who do a lot of presentations. And so I had like all these different specialties, and I'm trying to... Do you want the long version of this story?

So there's some very specific things that happened along the way to where I'm at now. One was that I got burnt out, being very specific with just email marketing, and digging into these little things. And I transformed my business over a couple years into this place where I am now where I'm helping people with their marketing overall. And so I've got a number of clients for whom I do that with where we're just like, what's going on in your social, in your email, and lead magnets and getting it all working together? Where's your website?

And that transition came because first of all, I was bored. But second of all, because entrepreneurs get bored, we just do. We're like, "I've been doing this for three years. Anything else? Anything else?"

Salome Schillack (06:35):

I don't think I've ever done anything for three years?

Suzan Czajkowski (06:38):

Exactly. If you get bored very quickly, you might be an entrepreneur. So with that, I made the shift. But in the two years, it took me to really truly shift my business, I did a lot of digging in and investigating what do I love? Who do I like working with? What's going on in marketing? And what's happening? And what's the shift happening that I can jump into? And one of the shifts that I saw was a big rising of this need for authenticity.

And you know, I'm in the States, I think some of it had to do with some things going on in the presidential world. Maybe, hard to say.

Salome Schillack (07:13):

Maybe.

Suzan Czajkowski (07:14):

So but that was a few years ago when I started tripping over authenticity and how very important it was. And people were really seeming to come out of their shell. But rolling from that to who needs to be authentic the most, who really needs that the most and realized as I was looking at the questions of who do I like to work with? Who do I enjoy working with? Who do I help the best? I realized that I was surrounded by introverts.

Salome Schillack (07:40):

Yeah.

Suzan Czajkowski (07:41):

And I just hadn't realized it in that yet. When I saw that I started taking a bigger picture and is like all my friends are introverts except like one. My family's all filled with introverts, and I hadn't even noticed. And when I say I did it by accident, it's something I was doing all along. I just didn't know that I was doing it.

Salome Schillack (07:58):

That is so cool. That's very cool. I think the internet is changing to like you say with authenticity matters more now. I think when social media, let's say the first 20 years of social media was the rise of the influencer. And I think we're moving away from that. I think we are more and more moving towards the rise of the micro-influencer, the smaller but deeper relationships, smaller followings, but deeper relationships, which I think opens up a lot of possibilities for introverts, or at least shifts the way introverts view social media and how to build a business on social media as an introvert.

Suzan Czajkowski (08:47):

One of the things that you just said that I think is important is like you're saying the rise of the influencer, I just actually saw a report today about how influencers are going to take a bigger and bigger hold. But one of the reasons influencing works and this relates directly to being an introverted business owner that needs to market yourself is it's banking on trust.

Salome Schillack (09:09):

Yeah.

Suzan Czajkowski (09:11):

We trust these people. That's why they can influence us. And when it comes to introverts, and their style of marketing, because they really thrive in these one to one environments. Because they really need to just be who they are, because they don't turn it on and keep it turned on all the time. They really just are being themselves, they're more approachable, they're easier to trust.

Salome Schillack (09:39):

Yeah. And I find being an introvert myself is that once you have that trust, the relationship goes deep fast. I feel like there's an initial lag in building relationships with people on social media, but once you get past a certain point, people are loyal for life.

Suzan Czajkowski (10:01):

Yeah, 100%. And that deep relationship is another piece of it, is introverts really value deeper relationships. They don't want the shallow relationships, that falls into the pile with small talk. They're like, "No, if we're not having a real conversation. Why are we talking?" There's a challenge there, you need to go through the small talk to get to the deep stuff and one of the things I do with my clients is really talk more around the skills of small talk.

You don't have to like it but you do need to do it as a bridge to the deeper talk. But they really want to get to the deep talk where the deeper conversations, the important things, versus other people who I think are like, "Nope, it's all the small talk, and then we're going to do the business," and they're not gonna go deep.

And it's where that deep conversation is where you're building and securing that trust. And it's not like, "Oh, trust me," it's like trust me, you can trust me, it's a different type of trust, where they can't, it's a relationship they're building.

Salome Schillack (11:01):

So how do you teach your clients to build trust this way on social media?

Suzan Czajkowski (11:09):

A lot of it is through consistency, and repetition. Because people have to be able to know what they're going to get from you. Because they get it all the time and you can't not show up. You can't show up sometimes and then go away and then show up again, there's got to be some consistency there. It's not just show up in all sorts of different ways. It's like show up the same way.

One of the hardest things to do in marketing is consistency. And so we lean into things like automation. We look at energy, and we'll use your energy the best so that you can do the work and then we set it up with automation, doing a podcast like this, it's a great answer. I have a client who is an introvert and she was getting ready to sell her book, and she was getting ready to get on the road and get on the stage and talk to people. And you talk to her and she's very quiet and calm, just like you were. She's very centered.

And I was like, "Do you want to go on stage?" And she's like, "Oh, no, oh, no, no, no, no, no." And so we got to talking about what she wanted to do, and the word podcast came up. And the beauty of podcasting is that you can do it out of sync with when you deliver it. And it enables you to show up consistently, but you can do your recordings during the time when your energy is the best.

Salome Schillack (12:24):

Yes, and you can batch your energy in a way. So I really like that. I wholeheartedly agree with you about the consistency thing. And I think that is where introverts and I have fell into this trap many, many, many, many times with having false starts with like, oh, it's the beginning of the year, I'm committing to going live X number of times. And then by the sixth time you are so exhausted, you drop that one because something interfered, and then you drop another one and before you know it, you're not doing it anymore.

But there is something beautiful in learning to manage boundaries, I think in a way where you set a boundary around when you're going to be on and when you're going to be off. And then in those on periods, you can batch record podcast episodes, or you can batch record social media content or batch record something and then have off periods as well.

Suzan Czajkowski (13:27):

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, is we can anticipate when we're going to feel high energy, we know when that's going to happen, right? I do actually do lives, I'm more of an ambivert. So I'm in between introvert and extrovert, but that an introvert side kind of gets in my way a lot. So even if you're not a full on introvert, it can still get in your way. But I know when I'm going to be not just higher in energy, but also, clearer in my head [crosstalk 00:13:53].

Salome Schillack (13:53):

That's a big one. Yeah.

Suzan Czajkowski (13:55):

You can't just, "Oh, I've got lots of energy that I can't talk," when does it all come together? And I know for sure that for me, for example, like you're saying, when are you on? I know for sure that on Monday mornings I am on, I'm energized. I'm focused, usually. I've usually gotten some sleep. I can pretty much count on Monday morning. I've personally identified Monday morning as Monday morning marketing mayhem. And that's just when I spend my time doing my marketing for my business. And that includes going live, because I know I'll be in the right headspace for it.

And you're right, we can fall apart after about the sixth episode. You're like, "I just can't do it anymore." But I've learned especially because I focused it when I did that I got past that sixth one and it's just been hate rhythm and this is just what I do Mondays.

Salome Schillack (14:43):

Yes, but it's because you started with honoring your energy, honoring that energy. It's funny because for me, Mondays for me is quiet day. I don't want to talk to anyone on a Monday. I schedule my calendar in such a way that I don't have to talk to anyone on a Monday or on a Friday, I can talk all day from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm happy to talk all day, and my energy will be on. And if it's the only thing I get done is talking to people, I'm very good, I love it, I'll be energized.

But three o'clock this afternoon when I pick up my kids and I'm done talking to people, I don't go back into my office and start working. My work is done... My work was talking to people all day. That was my work and it took me a while to get to a point where I realized, that is the work, the talking to the people. That is the work. I know I can not talk to anyone at nine o'clock at night.

Like that is one of the prime creative spaces for me but I need to be alone, and I need to have my noise canceling headphones on and I can think very creatively at nine o'clock at night. But I cannot talk to anyone and I also don't talk to people on Mondays or Fridays because then I need quiet because I need to center myself. And I need to plan my week. And I need to think about where I'm going, it's that thinking, planning mode that I need to be in. So it's funny that you say you decide what your boundaries are and once you've decided it, then it becomes a habit.

Suzan Czajkowski (16:21):

Yes, exactly. You've got to identify them. You've got to learn how to clarify them. And for me, and for some of my clients, we label them. So calling it Monday morning marketing mayhem is like this is what I'm doing.

Salome Schillack (16:34):

Yeah, I like that.

Suzan Czajkowski (16:34):

And it's on a schedule and if somebody were to say, "Hey, can you meet Monday," I'd be like, automatically, I can't because it's labeled, it's on my calendar for mine. And it just is and it's just like you have identified. If work is talking to people, I don't do that on Mondays unless I really can't fit something in that has to happen. So there's an exception from Monday afternoons, but nothing happens before noon.

But yeah, my clients are all Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then I have one regular meeting on Friday. But other than that, I don't... Fridays outside of that, or that downtime, that if you want to get into your head and you want that headspace so you can be creative, so you can think clearly, so you can focus on something, you've got to make the physical room as well.

Salome Schillack (17:17):

Yeah, that's very true.

Suzan Czajkowski (17:18):

That's what I hear you doing, the time, the physical room, creating a space for you, you can do those things.

Salome Schillack (17:25):

Yeah. And it's funny, took me years to figure it out. I'll be honest with you, it took me years because I'm naturally not a morning's person. I get an afternoon slump, like I'm a little bit prone to having a little bit of a nap after lunch.

Suzan Czajkowski (17:42):

I was just going to say, this is an important piece of the conversation, knowing what your energy is, and how it naturally flows. You don't fight it, you don't schedule a meeting in the afternoon, you go, "Okay, two o'clock in the afternoon, I am going for a walk or I am sleeping or I am doing something else." And that's exactly right. I am a morning person. And that's my creative space. So I'll get up at five in the morning or something crazy like that, depending on what I'm working on at the time and spend a couple hours working on my stuff. I did that today.

And when I was done working on my thing, and it was eight o'clock in the morning and time to work on my client stuff, I felt so positive because I created that time and taken it and used it and spent two hours in my own head. And it just really set the day with a nice tone.

Salome Schillack (18:27):

But the way that I had to figure it out, I used to think that well, because I'm not a morning's person, then I shouldn't speak to people in the morning, I should speak to them in the afternoon, and get my work done in the morning. But that didn't sit well with me, but once I figured out that no, I need a big block of quiet on a Monday, the whole Monday and a big block of quiet because I am that, like I need big blocks of me time to refill, like an hour of me time is not going to do it for me. I need three days.

When we go on holiday, I tell my husband the first three days I'm not going anywhere, me, the couch, a book, Netflix. That's what it is for three days. And then I kind of come out of my shell again. But once I figured out that, if I manage it in terms of big block Monday, big block Friday, and then I can just go, go, go Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and not see talking to people as an interruption.

Because that's what it used to be for me, talking to people used to be an interruption of my actual work, which is weird because it is my actual work. You have to establish those boundaries but what I wanted to ask you next is if you teach your clients how to manage their energy and your time blocking like this and creating healthy boundaries around it, what about replying to posts, replying to comments on social or being active in Facebook groups, because I find that is something that's incredibly draining for me as well.

Suzan Czajkowski (19:59):

Yeah, one of the things that is important to note is that every introvert is different. And so for some introverts that is incredibly draining, and for other introverts, they're perfectly happy to do it because they're not face to face with anybody. So it depends on who the introvert is but there are, I do have one client who very specifically, she's like, "Oh, my God, they're everywhere. What do I do?"

Salome Schillack (20:19):

I feel a bit like that sometimes.

Suzan Czajkowski (20:22):

Everywhere, they're everywhere, like, okay, so this is what we're going to do. We know what time you're posting, you need to be... If anybody responds right away, you really need to be tuned into that. After that, let's keep a monitor on it and after we just got to talk about when can they walk away from that post? Because if somebody responded to it three days later, do they have to reply? It's like, "No, you don't."

And so we talked about that, some of it's the time, how long has it been since the social was posted? But also, how many did you get? If you got 10 responses, you can respond to the first five and you're fine. But it's helpful to respond to more if you can, but we also talk, can I do the responding? Every now and then I'll see something and I'll pop in there and I can do it. So having somebody serve as a resource to help you so you don't even have to be the one doing it is an interesting answer.

Salome Schillack (21:12):

I think what I learned that's helped me is I have to first take responsibility for the need to take care of it. It's when I resist it, that I feel like I need to run away from it, and that it is going to catch up with me. But when I take ownership of it, take responsibility for it, then I can go okay, "In these circumstances, it's okay for my assistant to reply. In those circumstances..." For example, I have a Facebook group where I'm now training them to just post their question twice a week, and I will answer it in a video.

Because I know I can go live for 20 minutes and answer their questions, which is a lot easier than trying to type out a long-winded answer in a group, or the same as what you said, I give myself permission to let there be comments that are unanswered, that's a big thing, like it's this-

Suzan Czajkowski (22:09):

One of the things I think I hear you saying is regardless of how it is, putting that plan in place, we can lean into the plan. I think some of the stress is not knowing what to do. Can you do anything like you're saying resisting it versus putting a plan in place? Okay, I'm going to reply to the first five that come in that day, I'm going to monitor it. I'm not going to just sit there on there. I'm going to check it two hours later, I'm going to [inaudible 00:22:34] and that kind of thing. What are my windows? What's my plan? What can I do? What don't I have to do? You go in there with a plan, whatever that plan is and then you've got a road that you can navigate?

Salome Schillack (22:46):

That's right, and then you can evaluate the plan and see if it worked or not. But it's made a huge difference for me having a rule that I don't ever reply to anything on social media on my phone. So now I am forced to come and sit behind my computer and put a timer on and do the replying, I have it blocked off in my calendar. And then when the time's up, I'm out and that has made a big difference.

So we've talked a lot about like managing energy, managing your time, managing social media, but what other ways are there that you find very effective to help introverts market themselves?

Suzan Czajkowski (23:23):

I think one of the best things we can do is find something that they don't have to manage, that they can put out there once and let it run as its own machine. So that's part of it. And then the other I just use what I feel is the magic word is setting up a marketing machine where you've got things in place, you've chosen what you're going to do, you've set aside what you're not going to do, and then you turn it into a machine that's just going to run for you.

But in that marketing machine, we need something that you don't have to tend, you don't have to keep recreating, you create it once and you put it out there and then you're focusing on just getting more eyes on it. And that is something like a lead magnet and that lead magnet and you talked about it recently in one of your podcasts and it was fabulous because I'm like exactly right you have to get the right lead magnet out there.

And if you do, doing so much work for you, you did it once and you're just getting it out in many eyes and hands and emails as you can get and it's a lot lighter of a weight for marketing than other things. Social media can be very heavy, blogging can be very heavy, anything that you're having to create more content and more content around is heavy.

Salome Schillack (24:34):

Yeah, that is true.

Suzan Czajkowski (24:36):

Create something once and then you just put it out there and you're creating things around it. When you do a lead magnet, you're going to have to create things like Facebook ads to get it out there but the Facebook ad content draws on the content and the lead magnet. You're not starting from a blank slate.

Salome Schillack (24:52):

Correct.

Suzan Czajkowski (24:52):

[crosstalk 00:24:52].

Salome Schillack (24:54):

And the beauty of having... You might need to taste a few lead magnets to find the one that's your sweet spot. And you might need to taste a few ads to that lead magnet to find the sweet spot. But once you do, I have a lead magnet that's been running for, I want to say almost since January last year, so it would almost be a year and those ads have so many comments on them. And now I'm going, "I want to change it." But that is like the gift that keeps on giving. And it just delivers people onto my email list every single day on autopilot.

Suzan Czajkowski (25:30):

And I have a client that I've done that for. Mine do okay, I'm still searching for my best lead magnet because sometimes you have to, but I have a client who, out of the gate had the right lead magnet. And it took us a while... I started working with her this past January. And it took us a while, she had the lead magnet she didn't know that's what it was. And the day I saw it, I was like, "Oh, I know what we're doing with that." And turned it into the lead magnet set up so that she could use it on her website and then started running ads in April.

So she had zero people on her email list in April and because we had the right lead magnet, you also need the right audience. And we found that fairly quickly, we had to move things around a little bit. But we figured that out and we started in April, and by September, she had 2000 people on our email list.

Salome Schillack (26:19):

Fantastic.

Suzan Czajkowski (26:21):

I know you're supposed to put chunks of money, and we didn't put a lot of money into it at first, it had its own power and it just turned away, a little bit of money and just kind of kept feeding it and it just kept chunking people in and she was getting people every day and it just really, really worked. And then one day, we were like, "What if we threw some real money behind this?" And so we just did a test and we were like, "Whoa, okay." [inaudible 00:26:45].

Salome Schillack (26:46):

I love it when that happens. I love it. There's so much value in the kind of low and slow. A lot of people think they need to wait until they have the big chunk of money and it's just not true. The low and slow gets you further faster than the fast chunk of money.

Suzan Czajkowski (27:04):

And honestly, if you look at her low and slow versus the chunk of money, I think she got... If you look at it, and you can say she probably got about the same number of people. But it just either way it worked. It worked really, really well. And I was just really excited for her because as an introverted business owner was trying to market herself it gave her confidence.

Salome Schillack (27:23):

Oh, that's fantastic.

Suzan Czajkowski (27:24):

She was getting feedback. She was getting comments, all sorts of conversation that she would... She was somebody who had to be like, "Do I have to answer all these questions?" I was like, "No, no, we just want to monitor them. Make sure that they're saying anything crazy in there." Because they've been running for a while at that point. I was like, "No, it's fine."

Salome Schillack (27:41):

That's fantastic. And the beauty of that is now you can create an automated email sequence.

Suzan Czajkowski (27:47):

Yeah.

Salome Schillack (27:48):

That nurtures them.

Suzan Czajkowski (27:50):

For the lead magnet, you're going to have one anyway.

Salome Schillack (27:53):

But you can build it out, I'm at the moment looking at building out for lots of 90-day nurture sequences. Look, we're thinking about it and I'll share more once we've done it and we know that it works. But nurture sequences that follows 90 days of, it's a process that goes through 90 days. And if people have stopped opening emails, at the end of 90 days, I'm going to break them off of my list, they'll go into a reengagement sequence, but then they're going to get booted off, because Google looks at our open rates, and it looks at those things, and if I can get to a point where I have an amazing lead magnet, which I do have in place, that brings me the right customers on autopilot every single day.

And I have a nurture sequence in there, that builds the relationship with them, gets them to trust me without me being in it at all. And then on top of that, I have the weekly podcast that comes out. So they have that opportunity of almost real time interactions. And I have a Facebook group and I have all these things that by the time we're selling a lister or by the time we're selling the Launch Lounge, or by the time I'm inviting people to become clients in the agency, so much of the work was done on autopilot, because we poured that energy in beforehand.

Suzan Czajkowski (29:15):

Yeah, that sounds amazing actually, I can't wait to hear more about that. [crosstalk 00:29:18].

Salome Schillack (29:21):

A year from now I will have a full report.

Suzan Czajkowski (29:24):

No, I look forward to that. And I've heard people doing that and I think there's a shift towards doing some of that. One of the things that I do in the marketing systems that I'm putting together with my clients is after they've gone through a short automation, getting them into the regular newsletter circuit. And I like that because it is even though we're writing it asynchronously to when we send it out. It's generally speaking like you're saying semi-real time, what's going on right now, the holidays, this same client, let's talk about the same client Rosie. And she's got this lead magnet that's just going great. She's also got a podcast that's done really, really well.

And between the lead magnet and the podcast, one of the things that's really exciting, I think I just shifted topics here. One of the things that's really exciting is when you see something take off, when you see something hit. And one of the things I like about the regular newsletters is that you can engage and ask questions and see whether or not your list is engaged and that'll help tell you whether or not you've got the right people.

And it's the same with a podcast, like what you're doing where you can take a look and people are responding to it? Do they like it? And getting that bead on do we have the right audience is really helpful when you're ready to sell something to them.

Salome Schillack (30:31):

That's true. And it teaches you the language to use too. I look at the hits in terms of podcast episodes, in terms of email headlines, in terms of all of that, and literally recreate the same thing, the same thing, and people still have a need for it. We think everyone retains everything we share with them, they don't, they retain a very small amount of it. And if it hit once, six months later, it's going to hit again. And six months later, it's going to hit again, and you learn the language of hitting that pain point or that desire with your ideal customer, which is really good.

Suzan Czajkowski (31:10):

Yeah, there's a lot of magic, exactly what you're saying. There's a lot of magic in using the words that your client would use, and that's one of the problems that I see business owners have across the board is we talk in our industry language. I'm making an assumption here that everyone knows what I mean by a lead magnet. We got a lead magnet out there and everyone's like, "I'm happy to do that. Tell me what it is."

Salome Schillack (31:31):

Yes.

Suzan Czajkowski (31:31):

And so making sure that we speak in the language of our audience so that they know that we understand them. I think the magic thing we're going for is for them to say in their head, "How did she know that? She knows me so well." I'm just thinking that but that's where trust lies. We get them and we help them understand that we get them because we're speaking their language.

Salome Schillack (31:53):

And learning the language comes from this energy of consistency and it's the low slow consistent, it's the introvert energy, not the extrovert energy that does the learning that gets to the point where the person says, "Wow, she's in my head."

Suzan Czajkowski (32:11):

Yeah. And somebody turns around, and you're still there. You haven't flown away and gone to someplace else. You're not a hit and run, you're here and you're still here, and you're still here because you're reliable, you're consistent, you're trustworthy. So they can lean into that and then as they get to know you, and this is what you're doing in your podcast, you teach them the words that are in the industry that you're trying to help them in. But they aren't there when we meet them.

Salome Schillack (32:40):

No, they're not, we've got to take them with us. You've been an entrepreneur for 12 years?

Suzan Czajkowski (32:45):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (32:46):

What's been the hardest thing?

Suzan Czajkowski (32:48):

That transition was really hard and really scary when I went from, I don't want to just do this one thing in email, or I want to do moving into the very, very big picture, that two years of not knowing what was at the other side of this transition, just knowing I was in transition, really, really scary. And what's interesting to me about that is that I have moved many, many, many times in my life, there were 20 years where I moved once a year, as an adult by choice.

And so transition actually is a place of comfort for me, that two years of, "Okay, I'm not doing what I used to do, but I don't know what I'm going to do next," and I'm in this investigating space was very, very scary and very, very hard and important. And I'm happier now than I was then by a lot and every entrepreneur is going to transition because again, they get bored or something happens, or the market shifts, and they're small, so they can shift with it. You need to choose to shift with it. You can't say, "But I'm still going to do the same thing I'm going to do if everything is, you're selling CDs and music has gone online, you need to think about whether or not you want to go online. You need to go with the market.

And it's the same thing and you've got to listen to yourself, and you've got to trust that what you're doing is going to help you if you just listen to yourself, to the world and it's a scary time, because we want to do, do, do and now you've got to sit and listen and it's just hard.

Salome Schillack (34:16):

Yeah. And did you find that in 2020 that was the theme for you as well?

Suzan Czajkowski (34:21):

2020 wasn't as hard for me as a lot of people because I already work from home and I have for 12 years and I don't have any kids and staying home I'm like, "Oh, no, I have permission to do the thing I was doing anyway." And I think for a lot of introverts that was... And I've seen a lot of memes on this where it's like, "Oh, yeah stay home." I have no problem with that. You homeschool, one of my favorite places so that works for me. So there was that, it was a scary year. I'm not in any way just counting... Not only is it scary, it was hard for all of us in our own different ways. Then I think the... I don't leave the house became fear of leaving the house which isn't healthy, right? There's a lot of bad stuff that happened for everybody but that idea of staying home that's where I was like, "I got that [inaudible 00:35:08]."

Salome Schillack (35:09):

I felt a little bit the same about that. I was a little bit annoyed that I lost my privacy at home, then now all of a sudden, I have to share the house with my husband and my children during the day, which is like, this was my me time.

Suzan Czajkowski (35:23):

Yeah to be able to run around the house all day on your own and not have the kids to trip over. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that I'm of a small group of people who can actually have that. But we were talking you and I once and you were saying, "You put shoes on," and you were like, "Wait this is uncomfortable." Because we're used to being at home in our socks or barefoot.

Salome Schillack (35:42):

Yeah, I don't wear shoes anymore.

Suzan Czajkowski (35:45):

Exactly.

Salome Schillack (35:47):

What has been something that's been surprisingly easy for you about building a business?

Suzan Czajkowski (35:51):

The tech has been surprisingly easy for me. And I had [crosstalk 00:35:55].

Salome Schillack (35:55):

Which some people will hear you say that and be like, "What?" First year.

Suzan Czajkowski (36:00):

So to be clear, and we didn't really go through this. My background before I became an entrepreneur included technology. I started out in the Air Force as a technician working on electronics, like at component level, working on like resistors, and transistors.

Salome Schillack (36:16):

So were you the only woman in the room?

Suzan Czajkowski (36:19):

I was one of the few, but there were others. There were actually others at the time and that was in... A bit out of date myself here. That was in the late 80s.

Salome Schillack (36:26):

Wow.

Suzan Czajkowski (36:26):

I got out right before Desert Storm. Long story short at Hewlett Packard and I worked in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, and I went back to school and got some degrees and taught and stuff. I've been in a lot of industries, doing a lot of things, my degrees are in communication and so I approach marketing from a communication standpoint, and I only do digital marketing, which is electronic, so you can tell all these things that I've done, and we rally together [crosstalk 00:36:59].

Salome Schillack (36:59):

I actually think you and I have the same degree. I have a Bachelor of Arts in what they called communication science. That's what they called it in South Africa, and industrial psychology, which is organizational psychology.

Suzan Czajkowski (37:15):

So I have a BA and an MA in interpersonal and organizational communication.

Salome Schillack (37:19):

Oh, okay.

Suzan Czajkowski (37:20):

So there's some crossover, there's some absolute crossover. But I was doing interpersonal and organizational is how do we speak one-on-one and in systems?

Salome Schillack (37:28):

Yes.

Suzan Czajkowski (37:28):

But there's some psych in there as well, you kind of [inaudible 00:37:31] that in there as well. And women's studies, a lot of women's studies and my master's thesis was women in leadership in the US Forest Service. And there the first woman leader was in 1976 and I did this in 2000, so there had been about 25 years of leadership, and just in the 25 years, that women had come up in the US Forest Service as leaders, the leadership strategy, the leadership style changed from being... I'm not finding my words here, being really directive to more engaging and participative, but it shifted from telling him what to do to getting everybody to participate in leadership. Authoritative, there's the word, authoritative to participative. So it had shifted-

Salome Schillack (38:22):

Which is the masculine and feminine.

Suzan Czajkowski (38:24):

Exactly. And that influence that women had in leadership, but then coming up in leadership had, there was a lot of things that we had to shift and move in the organization, in the US Forest Service in order to enable women to be able to be leaders. And a lot of that was just accepting it just in a lot of like technology and stuff like that things have to shift if women are going to be a part of it.

Salome Schillack (38:48):

Yeah. Awesome. Fantastic. I did not know that about you. That's really exciting.

Suzan Czajkowski (38:53):

It was fun, I've ranged around a lot. But the benefit is that I can adapt whatever industry my clients are in, I can usually get my head in there pretty quickly.

Salome Schillack (39:03):

I think you and I have that in common too.

Suzan Czajkowski (39:06):

I believe that. I mean, I'm in your membership and I see that every time you talk to somebody, they tell you what they do, and you're like, "I got it," and you're in so I can totally see that. You're adaptable.

Salome Schillack (39:14):

Yeah, it's one of my strengths. I know that I can very quickly read the room or the situation. I want to know from you if somebody is listening, and they feel like they are like, "Yes, I totally associate with you." What would be your best advice for them if they are just starting out on this journey of building their businesses? What do they have to focus on? What are the mindset shifts? What are the key strategies? What would you say?

Suzan Czajkowski (39:45):

One of the first things they need to do is talk to the people that they're hoping to serve or that they're intending to serve. Find out what the problems actually are and you listen to two things. You listen to what the problem is, don't just go out there and be like, "Okay, I'm going to fix this problem." Go make sure and it exists and talk to the people, but also listen to how they say it. What are the words they're using to describe the problem? An example of that is I would say, I want to say the introverts have a problem being seen, and that they have a problem with visibility. But what they say is, they don't want to put themselves out there and they don't like to talk about themselves.

It's totally different way of saying it but I want them to understand me, I need to say it in their words, if I want them to believe that I can help them. I need to say it in their words. So that's one of the very first things that people need to do is find out what the problem is in the language of the people they want to help. And in the process, you're building connections and invite those people to help you see what the answer could look like.

Salome Schillack (40:51):

I love that. I love that. So that could you be making them working for free at first and they might be making a lower offer and keep offering until you get results and help them get more results and increase your prices that by, that's how I started coaching.

Suzan Czajkowski (41:07):

That's how I start, I think almost everybody has started that way.

Salome Schillack (41:10):

That's how I started with Facebook ads as well, I ran so many free Facebook ads before I started charging for it.

Suzan Czajkowski (41:16):

When you do something free, it allows you to make the mistakes, it allows you to ask questions, it allows you to take 30 times as long.

Salome Schillack (41:21):

That's true and in that phase, you make a ton of mistakes. You mess it up but the beauty is you get to say, "I messed up, I learned, I'm moving forward, I'm not going to wear my mistakes as a coat, I'm going to shake it off and move on."

Suzan Czajkowski (41:40):

So now in the future, because I made that mistake in the future, when I see that I'm going to know what to do instead, I will be able to do it faster.

Salome Schillack (41:40):

Exactly.

Suzan Czajkowski (41:49):

And when you go on down the road, and you're 10 years in and people are paying you more money, they're paying you for the education that you got 10 years ago, they're not just paying you for the time you spent just now, they're paying you for everything you've been through that enabled you to do the thing you did just now.

Salome Schillack (42:08):

Exactly. And it also it gets you to a point where you just, if you're selling services, like you and me in the agency, I have no problem standing for my prices, nobody can negotiate my fees with me because I am that sure of the value that we deliver. But three years ago, if someone wanted to negotiate I maybe would have because I was still like, "Oh, am I pushing it? Am I not?"

Suzan Czajkowski (42:38):

And there's a whole other conversation in there about the value that a price [crosstalk 00:42:43]. When you can, you get to a place in your business where you're like, this is my price, because this is my price.

Salome Schillack (42:51):

It feels good to get to that place. It feels good to be like, "We don't negotiate that bit."

Suzan Czajkowski (43:01):

Yeah, it's not a question of the amount, it's the question of are you in or are you out?

Salome Schillack (43:05):

Yeah, exactly. Because I'm not going anywhere [inaudible 00:43:09].

Suzan Czajkowski (43:09):

If you don't sign on, their leaving that space open for somebody else to sign on. And I'm okay with that.

Salome Schillack (43:14):

Yeah. And there's plenty of other people you can go sign on with. Thank you.

Suzan Czajkowski (43:21):

And the other side of that though is, as people who are in business, as long as you and I have been, where we're in this place, it's hard to find the time to build our businesses and to grow our businesses and to develop them. And so if somebody doesn't want that space, I'm like, that's called development space that I can use to build [crosstalk 00:43:37].

Salome Schillack (43:38):

Yeah, correct. Yes. And I always look at it as I explained it to someone the other day as well. I said to them, "I charge an abundant fee that allows my team to have abundant space to do abundant work for you. If that doesn't sit well with you, and you would prefer rushed space, hustled space, hustled time to do a rushed hustle job for you, you need to go find another team."

Suzan Czajkowski (44:07):

There you go. And that's about fit, do they fit?

Salome Schillack (44:12):

Yeah. I appreciate the time you have spent with me. Thank you so much. Introversion is a topic you and I can both talk about all day long. Because I'm also, some days I'm extreme introvert but then I love being on stage and I love talking about myself and I can do that all day long. But if anybody wants to find out how they can learn from you, or work with you, where can they find out more?

Suzan Czajkowski (44:39):

So there are a couple of spaces. Like I said, I'm on Facebook every Monday and that's a live show.

Salome Schillack (44:45):

Where do they find you on Facebook?

Suzan Czajkowski (44:47):

On Facebook at Suzancz S-U-Z-A-N-C-Z is where I'm at. And that's my morning show on Mondays at 10:30 Eastern time. But my website, best place to find me would be suzancz.com and I'm opening the Introverts Marketing Academy in just a few weeks, which is very exciting. And so it's introvertsmarketingacademy.com.

Salome Schillack (45:12):

Fantastic. I love it. Wonderful. So if you're an introvert like me, go and look up Suzan Cz, how do you pronounce your surname?

Suzan Czajkowski (45:21):

Czajkowski.

Salome Schillack (45:23):

Czajkowski?

Suzan Czajkowski (45:24):

Yeah.

Salome Schillack (45:25):

Fantastic.

Suzan Czajkowski (45:25):

You got it.

Salome Schillack (45:26):

I'm glad when I meet people who have harder surnames to spell than Schillack.

Suzan Czajkowski (45:30):

When I look at Schillack, I'm like, "That's not hard. Have you seen my name?"

Salome Schillack (45:36):

Yeah, Schillack is pretty easy, although I still have to like I have a little rhyme in my head to try to remember how to spell. Suzan thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And thank you for what you've shared with everyone here tonight.

Suzan Czajkowski (45:49):

Thanks for having me. I really, really enjoyed talking to you.

Salome Schillack (45:52):

You are very welcome. Well, there you have it. And now you know how to build a thriving business even if you are an introvert and Suzan's one of the amazing students inside the Launch Lounge, you can become a Launch Lounge student too by going to shineandsucceed.com/tllwhitelist. Inside the Launch lounge, you will find all the support you need to create profitable online course launches that scale your business so you can hire a team, get your time back and become the CEO of your life. Without wasting money any more money on outdated ad strategies, or buying yet another online course.

Salome Schillack (46:38):

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.