Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Category: Money

  • Ep286: Growth Through Connections with Women’s Business League founders Melissa Gilbo and Amy Pocsik

    Ep286: Growth Through Connections with Women’s Business League founders Melissa Gilbo and Amy Pocsik

    As the saying goes, “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, bring company.” This couldn’t be truer for the dynamic duo, Melissa Gilbo and Amy Pocsik, founders of the Women’s Business League.

    They could have lived a good life with their stable careers in finance and loving families to support them, but a fateful encounter at a local pizza shop in Georgetown, Massachusetts led them to abandon their six-figure state of mind to pursue the unconventional life that they live today.

    Building around trust, they made a community that was aimed at encouraging and empowering women to be the big shots that they were meant to be; providing a network of support, business connections, and the educational tools for success.

    “We decided to really build the table that we wanted to sit around,” Amy described, “total powerhouse women who were up to big things and making a big impact.”

    Amy and Melissa believe that relationships shape the business and not the other way around. Putting fellowship first, building on their connections, and putting the work boots down, is the key to the success of their community.

    “If you focus on generating value for others, it’s going to come back to you and your business 10-fold,” Amy said.

    Melissa added that “The commonality in what women are looking for is that authentic community and those real relationships.”

    Now, with an expanding network of members and a power-house team, the Women’s Business League isn’t just a legacy by the duo, but as Melissa puts it, they have made a message to anyone and everyone who has a dream and the drive, that we are better together.

    “The heart of Women’s Business League and the focus of these chapters is all about connection and relationship building.”

     

    More from Amy and Melissa:

  • Ep284: Publish Your Passion with Author Entrepreneur Jesse Kreiger

    Ep284: Publish Your Passion with Author Entrepreneur Jesse Kreiger

    Sharing your talent with the world is a great way to put it to good use; whether it’s in music and arts, lifestyle, or finance, there is an audience who would love to hear about it. But if you’re having trouble finding the right words, Business author and Entrepreneur, Jesse Kreiger tells us how he learned how to publish his passion and help others write their own success story.

    Starting a music label was the first step Jesse took into the world of Business. Today, his simple dreams of making music have grown into a mission. Now he helps aspiring entrepreneurs make the most out of their passion by putting it into words.

    “I can connect the dots or I can see how music, entrepreneurship, travel and languages all blend together to create—and allow me to support authors, in a way that many say is very impactful, in some cases [even] profound.”

    He explains that the trick to writing starts with retelling the process of your growth. He says that simplifying it into steps makes it easier to follow through.

    “Think of the mechanism you currently use to get results with your clients, what is your process and chunk that down to a number of steps.”

    He stresses how entrepreneurs and people with business experience should explore the benefits of becoming a published author.

    “This should be helpful for anybody that has business experience that doesn’t consider themselves a writer or an author per se.” He points out, “that it shouldn’t be a limiting factor to becoming a publisher, and having a great book.”

    Jesse also discusses his process for writing by saying “Think of it like when you first onboard a new client,” he says,“what do they need to know to get started? Then how do you help them shift? What’s the benefit of the product or the experience that you provide?”

    He advises business owners to treat writing like another day in the shop, “You are mirroring your own customer journey, and telling them something valuable in the process.”

     

    More from Jesse:

  • Ep282: Putting a Price on Your Passion with Marketing Expert Sarah Dann

    Ep282: Putting a Price on Your Passion with Marketing Expert Sarah Dann

    We dream of a career built on passion and profession – making it big while doing something we love. While it’s much easier said than done, Marketing Expert, Sarah Dann, believes that the payoff is worth the effort.

    Sara Dann is an entrepreneur and business consultant who has built a multi-million dollar business dedicated to helping women monetize their brilliance over the past nine years.

    Through her group programs, digital courses, 1:1 coaching, as well as her podcast, You’re Fucking Welcome she has helped thousands of women learn how to combine strategy with soul to create successful businesses.

    Looking back at what she’s been through, she tells us, “I believe in what I do and I’m not sorry and in fact, you’re lucky to be paying me.”

    Honing her expertise for the past nine years, Sarah dedicates herself to helping women realize their business potential by combining strategy and soul to monetize their brilliance.

    “I started my business to help women make money doing what they love, to live that unconventional life and actually enjoy their careers, enjoy their businesses.”

    Supporting a business’ growth almost came as second nature for Sarah, but starting her career, she had learned that being prim-and-proper wasn’t always the right way to go. And with so many people wanting to get into the coaching scene, she makes it a point that growth should come while staying authentic.

    “I think in life and in business, it’s a situation where the more we experience things, and the older we get, the freer we feel to just simply be ourselves and we’re okay with who likes it and who doesn’t.”

    “Transparency and authenticity and people actually caring about what they do feel like the biggest and most important trend there is.”

    From her humble beginnings, deciding to ask for more money for her expertise was a turning point for Sarah as it assured her that she was on the right path to making a conventional living out of her passion.

    “As I got more confident to say no, as I got more confident to own my worth, and you know to ask for more money, it’s just kind of evolved and grown into what I feel is who I was always supposed to be essential in the first place.”

    Overall, Sarah emphasizes how living life while staying true to yourself—and sticking to your original plans—often brings in the best results.

    “It means not settling for the norm, allowing yourself to really honour what you want and go after it.”

    More From Sarah:

  • Ep263: YouTube Ads and How You Can be a Retargeting Ad Machine, with AdOutreach President Aleric Heck

    Ep263: YouTube Ads and How You Can be a Retargeting Ad Machine, with AdOutreach President Aleric Heck

    Have you ever seen a bullfrog eat a dozen smaller frogs? Or a video on a haircut transformation? Or even wet paint being scraped off the side of a barrel in the most satisfying manner?

    Youtube is one of the many strange places on the internet where you find yourself spending hours upon hours, jumping from algebra lessons to cat videos, to a crash course in philosophy, and to videos about a dance group carrying a coffin. It entertains, educates, but as Aleric Heck of AdOutreach found out, it can also make millions.

    Aleric, before being the president of his own company, made his first exploits on Youtube through a review channel called AppFind which impressed the heck out of a client. So much so that they invited him to work for them.

    “They basically called me up and said, ‘Hey, we would love for you to drop out of college, fly out here to Silicon Valley, be in charge of YouTube ads and you know in this tiny side of YouTube thing will give you a six-figure salary,’” he narrated. “Maybe for a second I looked at that,” Aleric said, “but I knew that I’ve always been this way—that I wanted to be the king of my own castle.” He understood that there was more to Youtube than cat videos and Top 10 countdowns which is why he is encouraging everyone to dive into this new era of content advertising.

    “Right now is the time to come in as an early adopter on YouTube ads,” he emphasized, “and take advantage of that blue ocean.” He notes that Youtube is the second biggest search engine next to Google and it is a place where you can find leads, get sales, and most importantly, make revenue.

    On top of that, Aleric explains that even young starting influencers can grow their audience using what’s called Youtube Discovery Ads, where users will be suggested to watch your video next because it has the same theme as the previous video you watched; sort of riding the same wave that a more prominent channel has. A great tool for YouTubers looking to grow a fan base or take in more subscribers.

    Aleric notes that each business needs to make adjustments and decide on ads based on their own capabilities, but for him, there are set rules that one should follow which pay off big in the long run, one of these is to at least spend 20% on retargeting ads, guided by the Pareto Principle.

    He also encourages businesses to diversify their online presence in multiple platforms—omnipresence as Aleric put it—where he spends at least $50 a day, testing new platforms.

     

    More from Aleric:

  • Ep260: WFH. Living Life On Your Own Terms, with Badass Digital Nomad host Kristin Wilson

    Ep260: WFH. Living Life On Your Own Terms, with Badass Digital Nomad host Kristin Wilson

    “WFH”—an acronym that was almost non-existent until 2020— is now the most popular trend globally with the pandemic affecting the lives of every nation and social class, forcing us to Work From Home. After decades of investing millions into the tech industry to make smaller computers, powerful smartphones, and whatever the heck 5G is, there is a sort of beauty to humankind’s obsession with tech now that we can work remotely.

    It sort of a delight in a way when you think about it: years of competition and advancement has prepared us for a pandemic of this magnitude. But even before the word COVID-19 was carved into our minds, entrepreneur, writer, influencer and surfer Kristin Wilson has been working from home and advocating remote work for the past 18 years.

    Now, Wilson is lending her knowledge to help people, relocate and live better lives without being stuck in an office space. An “advocate” of WFH years before the pandemic, she has worked as a digital nomad and has preached its benefits through her writing in Medium, and Quora, as well as her YouTube channel Traveling with Kristin, and podcast, Badass Digital Nomads.

    Though it has affected travel for most of the world, she acknowledges that this pandemic pushed the lives of everyone almost a decade into the future. “Well you changed, literally overnight,” Kristin said, “because before the pandemic happened, I was estimating that it would be at least another 10 years before the majority of companies accepted the possibility of remote work and work from home for their employees.”

    “I was kind of acting as a remote work advocate to not only help individuals work remotely but also to prove to CEOs and companies and small business owners that their employees could work from home and that it would be a win-win for everybody. When the coronavirus happened, I was like ‘Okay my work here is done.’”

     

    Making Your Own Path

    Even back in her middle school years, she knew that she was not meant to be stuck in an office space.

    “In middle school, the personality tests and the career tests, well I actually would fail those,” she said, “like I would get the results back and it would say, like, ‘Error message, could not fit you with a job’ and then all my classmates would be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a doctor, I’m going to be a firefighter,’ you know, all of the like cliche jobs and mine was just like, I had too many different interests to fit into any job profile. So fast forward to when I was in college, the anxiety of choosing a major was like the same thing. And the only thing I knew that I liked to do was to travel.”

    Now that she’s achieved the work-life balance that she has dreamed of, Kristin has made it her life duty to help others see the beauty of life outside the workplace and even assist them in moving to new places.

    “I’m just on this path to share everything I’ve learned about creating your own job, working remotely or living in foreign countries, and just living life on your own terms.”

     

    Building Your Roots

    Though technology has closed the distance of communication, this globe-trotting entrepreneur acknowledges that our electronic monitors are not a good enough alternative to genuine human connection.

    Which is why she wants people to make connections and build communities, through “slow travel” which means staying in a foreign country for more than a just week or even a month.

    “I even had the T-shirts that say Slow Obsessed With It,” Kristin said, “because when you travel really quick, you meet a lot of people, but the relationships are all on this acquaintance level and it can feel really shallow, sometimes, but also you can go really deep with people quickly and have like this soulmate-connection.”

    She predicts that when the travel bans are lifted and the effects of the pandemic have simmered down, she foresees that there will be a “global migration” and people will realize what they’ve missed while being away from the office.

    In the end, Kristin emphasizes that other than sightseeing our most important experience in our global journeys is the connections with people that we make, and at times our realizations may overwhelm us, that she has this to say:

    “As human beings, you still need that core group of friends that you can rely on and that core community,” Kristin says, “and if you start to feel like you’re disconnected or that you’re really alone in the world, [you] just kind of step back and go back to your roots a little bit. [this could mean that] maybe it’s time to go home.”

     

    More from Kristin:

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