Welcome to another inspiring episode of The Abundant Coach! This week, Lauren Brollier Newton dives deep into the world of organic marketing with Kari Tumminia, an expert content creator, coach, and senior marketing manaher of brand & organic growth at Brave Thinking Institute. Kari’s insights come from years of experience building her own organic following and helping countless coaches create thriving businesses.

During this conversation, Lauren and Kari unpack the fundamentals of organic marketing, showing how it can help coaches build long-term success by fostering authentic connections with their audience. They also tackle the common challenges coaches face, like imposter syndrome and choosing the right marketing platform. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the idea of marketing or unsure how to attract the right clients, this episode will equip you with practical tools, inspiring stories, and the confidence to make organic marketing work for you.

Key Takeaways

1. Organic marketing is a long-term strategy that builds trust, authenticity, and client loyalty.
2. Start by identifying where your clients are and what type of content you enjoy creating.
3. Overcome imposter syndrome by reframing it as a skill gap and focusing on your purpose rather than external validation.
4. Authentic, imperfect content is often the most effective—it connects with people on a human level.
5. Clients who find you through organic marketing are more likely to become lifelong fans and advocates for your work.

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00;00;03;23 - 00;00;32;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

Welcome to the abundant coach. I'm your host, Lauren Brollier Newton. This is a weekly podcast about creating full spectrum success with a thriving coaching business, while making a profound difference in the world. Each week, you'll discover insights, strategies, and inspiration to help you attract your ideal clients. Facilitate real transformation in their lives, and grow your coaching business while living your purpose with true freedom and fulfillment.

00;00;32;07 - 00;00;54;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. Super happy you're here today. We've got such a good one for you because our next guest has, So much experience in organic content, which I don't think gets enough air here in the coaching world. So we're really, really excited to talk about that today. She is the content manager at Brave Thinking Institute, which we will get into.

00;00;54;28 - 00;01;16;26

Lauren Brollier Newton

What, a, complex job that is and how much writing she's doing in organic marketing on that front. She's an author. She has built an organic following of more than 100,000 followers. She is someone who has created her own six figure coaching business. And so what I love about this conversation that we're about to have is that you're going to see what it's like to build it.

00;01;16;27 - 00;01;26;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

You're going to see what it's like to manage content. Like there's just so much juiciness in here. So, please welcome Kari Tumminia. Kari. Yay. Thank you for being here.

00;01;26;23 - 00;01;37;21

Kari Tumminia

So thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk about this. I'm super passionate about organic everything. And I do I agree, I think it's not talked about enough. So I'm excited to have a conversation with you. It's so good.

00;01;37;23 - 00;02;00;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay, so tell me right off the bat, I'm going to go into a question that's like kind of in the weeds. But this is the thing that comes to my mind when I think about organic marketing. And so I'd love for you to like, either tell me I'm wrong or dispel any myths about this, but organic marketing, the thing that comes to my mind is it would be awesome if it just happened, and I feel like it's going to take forever.

00;02;00;12 - 00;02;02;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

Sure, selling something about that.

00;02;02;23 - 00;02;26;11

Kari Tumminia

I mean, yes, it would be awesome. I also think that it would be awesome if it just happened, because then I wouldn't have to work as hard as I do, right? But I think that I think that in some ways, organic marketing can feel like it just happens because it's really, really built on who you are authentically and or like and in actuality, in your business.

00;02;26;13 - 00;02;52;09

Kari Tumminia

So when I ask people to think about organic marketing instead of marketing as a whole big giant umbrella, I'm usually asking them to start to think about how can I show up in whatever space I'm choosing in a way that is not pushing people to buy something, necessarily not selling something. I'm not paying for ads. I'm not. I'm not looking to get that fast, quick sale or result.

00;02;52;09 - 00;03;29;12

Kari Tumminia

I'm looking to create a space where people can connect with me authentically so that they know who I am. They love my brand, and they naturally want to engage with me as much as possible. And so some of that does take time. Just like building any relationship takes time. But what I find is that when people are willing to really practice it like it's a skill set in their business, that sort of like think of it like relationship building instead of like marketing, that, most of the time they hit a stride and it actually can be kind of fun and interesting, a lot more fun than I think the rest of marketing can feel

00;03;29;12 - 00;03;47;28

Kari Tumminia

sometimes that people will hit a stride, and it does start to, like, almost gain momentum in a way that it feels a lot easier and faster. It's just that we have this perception that it's going to be like, it's going to take forever, it's going to be so slow. And oftentimes when we start, we're not getting that response that we might want to be getting, but it's just because people don't know us yet.

00;03;48;00 - 00;04;04;11

Kari Tumminia

So I always tell people that I talk to you about this thing of it, like dating, you know, on your first, second, third date, you're not getting married yet. You're not supposed to. And similar with organic marketing, we have to we have to go through some of those early dates before people are going to be sort of like raving fans.

00;04;04;13 - 00;04;31;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love that. Okay, so this is this is super interesting to me because it's making me think about. So if we build a relationship with someone through our organic marketing, being ourselves, talking about things we're passionate about, providing value, I feel like when you do get the client or receive the client or the purchase or the interaction, it's so much more of a lifelong fan like, I will be with you forever, as opposed to cold traffic where it's like, I might click and buy this, but I might not care.

00;04;31;19 - 00;04;33;07

Lauren Brollier Newton

I might not even remember your name.

00;04;33;09 - 00;04;59;08

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, 100%. And that's not just a feeling that's backed across the industry by statistics. So when we practice good organic marketing, good brand authority, good, you know, connection with the people that we are eventually going to sell to, those people that come through that organic line, so to speak, are better customers or better clients than the people who might come through an ad or something where they've only had 1 or 2 interactions.

00;04;59;08 - 00;05;22;14

Kari Tumminia

And it's a fast purchase. There's a place for both in most businesses, depending on the size of your business, but most people will recognize or they'll experience for themselves that those people that they've taken the time to build in their audience and to grow that relationship with, they're going to stick around a lot longer. They're going to spend a lot more money, and they really do turn into like, raving fans.

00;05;22;14 - 00;05;40;26

Kari Tumminia

They'll be the clients you'll have who will buy every program that you put out for years to come because they love you in the work that you do and they trust you. Unlike someone who might see you in an ad and has no idea who you are, but they're kind of like their interest is piqued, right? To turn those people that come through cold traffic, like through an ad or something.

00;05;40;26 - 00;06;01;19

Kari Tumminia

So direct response into a lifelong customer. You have to do a lot of work on the back end. Once they get into a program or they purchase something small from you, you have to really nurture that relationship. They have a great experience in your program. They have to experience profound personal changes and they have to build that know, like and trust inside your business.

00;06;01;21 - 00;06;18;03

Kari Tumminia

And so organic marketing, we're just doing that work on the front end. So by the time they make a purchase, they're already a raving fan. They already trust you and they already know they're going to have a great result from your program. They're not looking at your stuff with like, skepticism and, you know, not being sure what the experience is going to be like.

00;06;18;03 - 00;06;23;03

Kari Tumminia

They have already kind of like met you. They've built this kind of like parasocial relationship, so to speak.

00;06;23;06 - 00;06;25;03

Lauren Brollier Newton

I think that's so true.

00;06;25;05 - 00;06;30;00

Kari Tumminia

Yeah. So it's just what you have to do to work either way. Right. So what side do you want to do it on?

00;06;30;03 - 00;06;48;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, because I think the skepticism part is a big part. So I'm just thinking about like my own journey as a buyer. And I'm thinking about like like I'll give you an example. Like I'll go to an in-person event and I'll see someone speak and I'll get to feel the whole vibe, and then I might grab their book there, and then I might start listening to their podcast.

00;06;48;16 - 00;07;03;29

Lauren Brollier Newton

And then, like when I enroll in something with them, I already feel like this is going to be awesome. And so I'm not like thinking like, oh, should I cancel this? Or what is what are they trying to sell me now? Like I'm thinking that thought as much. And then I think of the times where I've maybe clicked and purchased like the $27 something.

00;07;03;29 - 00;07;19;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Sure. And it's only $27. But like my my feelers are out, you know, it's like, what's the next thing? And it's so weird, like so weird. Like, as a buyer, even though I'm well-versed in this work, how that just naturally. Yeah.

00;07;19;06 - 00;07;50;03

Kari Tumminia

And a lot of times that cold traffic, the follow through is so low. Like, we know that if a lot of the people that click on that $11, $27 or $33, like whatever the magic number or formula you found is for your offers, those tiny offers or those like kind of like smaller, not high ticket offers. A lot of times they are really likely not to even finish the program or not to even use the thing that they bought, because their investment in your brand and business is so low to begin with.

00;07;50;05 - 00;08;15;14

Kari Tumminia

And so yeah. Are you making a sale? Yes, yes. Are you getting someone on your list? And can they be nurtured into a larger customer? For sure. But that still takes just as much time as organic marketing comes all the way back around to that first question, as people get so concerned with organic marketing that it's like so slow it takes forever, so does nurturing a cold traffic person inside your email list to get them to, to turn into a long term yes, investor into your business.

00;08;15;17 - 00;08;34;05

Kari Tumminia

And so for me, I'm I'm always looking at it like if we're going to spend the time anyway, I'd rather do the thing that feels authentic and fun. And I truly, truly, truly believe and will die on the hill every day for every business. I don't care whether you're a solopreneur or you're a coach. I don't care if you're a $50 million a year company.

00;08;34;08 - 00;08;53;05

Kari Tumminia

Every effort you make in organic marketing, every effort you make in any sort of brand building or relationship building or authority building, wherever you're going to do it, whatever your arena is, that makes every other effort you make and any other type of marketing, whether it's ads, emails, anything else easier?

00;08;53;07 - 00;09;08;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, I totally agree with that. It's so interesting. Like I have a million questions for you. So let's go back to the beginning. And for someone listening to this that maybe isn't sure what qualifies and what doesn't qualify as organic marketing, can you just give us some sort of a definition like what would that cover?

00;09;08;14 - 00;09;29;01

Kari Tumminia

Sure. So typically when we think of organic marketing, we're looking at anything that you don't really pay for. So you think of direct response marketing, which is sort of the opposite end. That's where I'm putting money into, say, an ad. The ad goes out, people click on it. I can see exactly how this many people purchase. And I made this much of that money back.

00;09;29;01 - 00;09;51;24

Kari Tumminia

Right. So I'm just asking for a sale. That's why it's direct response. Organic marketing is anything that qualifies that essentially is free to do for the most part, and it is centered around providing value, building your brand, and building relationships with your potential customers so you can think social media content, blogging, video content if you have a podcast, if you're on YouTube, if you are.

00;09;52;01 - 00;10;13;23

Kari Tumminia

And that doesn't mean that we never ask for a sale in organic marketing. It just means that the focus of that marketing is not to get a direct response sale, it is to build a longer term relationship. Most people nowadays are doing organic marketing, on the internet. But you can do or you can make organic marketing efforts in person as well.

00;10;13;23 - 00;10;23;05

Kari Tumminia

So if you're doing, like networking events, anything that lets you just connect with other people and build a relationship where you're not paying for the connection.

00;10;23;07 - 00;10;42;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes. So that's how I built my business. I was just going to say, so I built my business primarily going out, networking, doing speaking engagements, having workshops, inviting people to the workshops. The workshops were primarily free, giving tons of value and then inviting them in. So that would be like the the community based version of organic marketing.

00;10;42;15 - 00;10;58;29

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, absolutely. Again, anything that's building your brand, building your authority and establishing relationships that you can then nurture into long term raving fans of your business. So whether you're doing it in person or you're doing it on the online, it doesn't it doesn't make a difference. It's equally as important either way.

00;10;59;02 - 00;11;25;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay. So one of my personal biggest passions, as you know, because we've had these conversations before, is I love helping the coach, who isn't necessarily the most, tech savvy or feels the most capable with social media. Like, I love helping that coach to get a start. And so if you were speaking to that coach who's like one of could be one of two camps, could be I'm a brand new coach and I don't know what I'm doing.

00;11;25;28 - 00;11;36;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

Or it could be I'm actually an established coach, but I haven't really used organic marketing. So how do you get the start? Like what would be for a coach of one of those two camps? What would you suggest they start with?

00;11;36;11 - 00;11;59;00

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that the start is going to depend on the answer to two questions. And the first thing I'm interested in is where are your clients. So the people that you're most passionate about working with, the people that you want to be fans of your business, the people that you are most likely to be able to help the most with whatever you do and however you do it.

00;11;59;00 - 00;12;27;18

Kari Tumminia

So whatever your ideal person is, where are they hanging out? Are they at those networking events? Are they in your town? Are they on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok? Or are they googling, searching for answers to look for blog posts to read? You want to find out where are those people already? Because one of the biggest hurdles that people face with organic marketing, they don't have to, is that they will often try to do too many things.

00;12;27;21 - 00;12;38;15

Kari Tumminia

So I'm going to do organic market. I'm do it great. And then they'll pick 17 million platforms. They get overwhelmed. They don't see results right away. And then because they don't see results, they don't stick with it long enough to see results.

00;12;38;15 - 00;12;39;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

That's right.

00;12;39;19 - 00;12;56;27

Kari Tumminia

And the other problem is that people will pick platforms or places to do organic marketing where they're the people they actually want to work with aren't really spending time. And so you want to look for where the people I want to work with spending time. So if you don't know who your ideal clients are, I don't think people need to niche down really specifically.

00;12;56;29 - 00;13;15;08

Kari Tumminia

But we want to know, like, is there an age range that's most likely to be able to, like, afford me, hire me and I can help them? Is it men or women because they're doing different stuff on the internet? Right. And are they experiencing like, what's the issue that I'm helping them solve? What's their, their pain? What's their their longing or their discontent?

00;13;15;08 - 00;13;38;18

Kari Tumminia

As we often say here, what are they looking for? And so where are they already? And the second thing I want to know from people who are looking to start organic marketing efforts is, what do you love doing the most? Because if you hate it, if you hate it, then you're never going to be able to stick with it long enough or do it passionately enough or well enough to really authentically connect with people.

00;13;38;18 - 00;14;06;06

Kari Tumminia

The the crux and driving force of organic marketing is authenticity. Must be authentic every time. Without question, you must be all it has to come from. You. So if you are looking at your whatever the other coaches are doing or whatever other business people are doing, or that, you know, the ad that you came across on whatever social media platform that says you must do this thing to to get like an organic audience and you're like, okay, I have to blog, but you hate writing.

00;14;06;08 - 00;14;25;06

Kari Tumminia

You're not going to get great results from blogging, because not only will that energy of hating it show up at everything that you do, but it's going to be really hard for you. Yeah, it's pulling teeth. You're going to procrastinate. You don't want to do it, so don't pick. But if you. But if you love writing, then blogging could be a really great option for you, and loving it is going to make it that much easier.

00;14;25;08 - 00;14;45;08

Kari Tumminia

Maybe you, you know, the idea of sitting on like a a video camera for ten minutes talking about a topic makes you just want to like, die inside. Then YouTube is probably not the platform for you to pick, you know, can you sit on a video? Can you look at your phone for two minutes and talk about something though?

00;14;45;11 - 00;15;20;19

Kari Tumminia

Because there are options for that. So that's looking for where are your clients, the people that you're most excited to work about, where they are already hanging out, and what do you love to do enough that you're willing to do it for a long enough time to build those relationships? And I would say the other piece of advice I would give to that same group of people who's just starting out, is that any idea that you may have gotten about having to do any organic marketing perfectly enough, or like to a high enough level, or to like the high enough technology level to get results is 100% a lie.

00;15;20;21 - 00;15;37;03

Kari Tumminia

And I'll tell you that we know this in marketing for a couple of reasons. One, because in organic marketing, again, authenticity is the driver and we're looking to build relationships. So people want to show up. They want to see you show up in a way that feels like they can connect with you. And so you don't need the highest tech.

00;15;37;08 - 00;15;56;27

Kari Tumminia

You don't need the the big fancy things. You don't have to have the giant fancy website with all the functionality. You don't have to, you know, have the YouTube studio set up. People aren't looking for that anymore. They used to be. But now we know that we're moving into this, this era of organic content needing to be authentic to even take off.

00;15;57;00 - 00;16;17;25

Kari Tumminia

And I'll also share from my own personal experience. So I parlayed my my coaching business when I stopped coaching one on one. And formerly I decided that I wanted to start fresh. I started from zero and I wanted to build an audience purely organically, just giving value and educational content. I don't even sell anything related to my content.

00;16;17;25 - 00;16;38;15

Kari Tumminia

I'm just showing up on the internet wanting to build these relationships with people. And TikTok is the platform that I happen to use. And if you're afraid of TikTok because you think it's some like, new fangled thing for the kids and you have to do a fancy dance on there to, like, make it, you don't. There's a lot of the largest user base for TikTok is actually women from 35 to 45.

00;16;38;18 - 00;16;58;08

Kari Tumminia

00;16;58;08 - 00;17;18;27

Kari Tumminia

I had just gotten my daughter, who was like five at the time, to finally go to sleep, and I was exhausted. And I had this idea for a little video and I was like, oh, I'll just record it and I'll save it as a draft and I'll rerecord it. So I'm like laying on my couch looking like a mom basic like a toddler mom just stressed to all, like stressed and exhausted and nothing fancy.

00;17;18;27 - 00;17;40;04

Kari Tumminia

The lighting is terrible. No fancy audio, not a microphone, just holding my phone. I like chat out this video that I had planned to make later, and then instead of pushing drafts, I accidentally pushed post. I didn't even know. And I went to bed. And the next day I woke up to hundreds of thousands of likes, thousands of comments.

00;17;40;04 - 00;18;02;18

Kari Tumminia

And literally I went from, I think at the time I had like 700 followers on the app, and I went from 700 followers to 20,000 followers in 12 hours. Right. But that's the kind of and I was like, oh, oh, that video was objectively terrible. Right. Like every professional, like, marketing person out there would be like, this was an awful video.

00;18;02;18 - 00;18;30;00

Kari Tumminia

Like it wasn't scripted. I had no lighting, no makeup, no nothing. Just my phone, you know? But that was the video that took off. That was the video that started to build this audience that I have built and I'm still building. And if there's ever any hope for organic marketing and all of the people out there, coaches and difference makers and speakers and authors and course creators who are helping change people's lives, it's that whatever idea you have about I have to do it with this level of perfection.

00;18;30;04 - 00;18;55;07

Kari Tumminia

It's not true because people are looking for authenticity. They're looking to connect with real people because for so long in marketing, it hasn't been about authenticity. We haven't been connecting with real people that your audience will find you. Whether you have a really beautiful lighting system and a microphone because you love that, or if you're laying on your living room couch because you just got your kid asleep and you're tired, you can't do anything else.

00;18;55;09 - 00;19;00;24

Kari Tumminia

They will find you. As long as you're being yourself and you're sharing your authentic message.

00;19;00;27 - 00;19;15;26

Lauren Brollier Newton

I think that's so true. This reminds me of one time I was having a workshop with my clients like I had, you know, recruited my clients and their friends and whatever to come to this in-person workshop. And it just reminds me of the laying on the couch thing. So I'm it was the first time I'd ever worn jeans on stage.

00;19;15;29 - 00;19;20;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

So like, it was a new it was a new experience for me. And I'm teaching on consciousness.

00;19;20;14 - 00;19;23;04

Kari Tumminia

Super light topic for everybody.

00;19;23;06 - 00;19;38;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

But the whole time I was like, oh my God, I think my zipper's down. I think my zipper's down. So like the whole time I'm like teaching unconsciousness to thinking my zipper's down. And then finally I was just like, dude, can someone tell me if my zipper's down? Because I'm like, standing up here freaking out the whole time and everybody started laughing and I like, checked.

00;19;38;23 - 00;20;01;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

And I was like, dude, please tell me if my zipper's down, like, shout at me. And, and I didn't think anything of it. I was just like, there's no way I'm going to hide checking my zipper. So I'm just going to ask the audience. And then like that weekend, we enrolled new clients and we built relationships and, like, I'm not kidding, carry, like, five people told me I knew you were my coach when you asked if your zipper was down on stage.

00;20;01;26 - 00;20;02;18

Kari Tumminia

Absolutely.

00;20;02;21 - 00;20;20;26

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. And that, like, shocked me. I was like, oh, well, that's good, you know? But it was like that moment of vulnerability slash personality slash just being who I am. Like, that was the thing. Nothing I shared on consciousness. Nothing of this like great teaching or the lighting or the stage or how much we paid for the buffet lunch.

00;20;20;26 - 00;20;24;27

Lauren Brollier Newton

It was literally like, I knew you were my coach when you asked if here's a frozen.

00;20;24;29 - 00;20;44;08

Kari Tumminia

And I think that's what people are craving, and we know it too. Like we're talking about it like I think so, so, so often, as you know, again, coaches and speakers and course creators and authors, people are doing the work like we can get so hung up on, like talking about like marketing and figuring out how to market ourselves and how to market our businesses.

00;20;44;08 - 00;21;08;09

Kari Tumminia

But we know that when we sit down on the couch at the end of the day and we're scrolling through whatever social media app or we like or, you know, we're, you know, reading our email or we're, you know, googling something for search results. We can spot that, like, sort of like old school almost nowadays, like inauthentic, salesy hype or edited like hyper professional marketing from a mile away.

00;21;08;14 - 00;21;25;25

Kari Tumminia

Yeah. Like we're we're not immune to it. Like we see it happening and we don't like it. Like at least I don't. I see it all the time. Oh, I see what you're doing there. Right? Like. Oh, like like I'm, you know, I wish I could just scroll through my TikTok feed, not see another ad about whatever the, the new thing is that's been promoted.

00;21;25;27 - 00;21;46;28

Kari Tumminia

And yet we'll turn around and still try to use the same tactics in our own business. And then we're like, well, why isn't it working? You don't like it either, so why are you doing it? Okay, I think that most people nowadays, especially with sort of the very kind of like online life, that we're all that most people are living.

00;21;47;00 - 00;22;11;18

Kari Tumminia

We're craving connection and authentic city. We want to know that things are real, you know, we want to know that things are deeper than what ChatGPT can tell me, or than what that ads that I should be buying. Or, you know what? The next kind of like guru who's on the internet, who we know in like four weeks is going to like have some like big story come out where they're like, they weren't the person we thought that we were.

00;22;11;21 - 00;22;42;02

Kari Tumminia

00;22;42;05 - 00;22;43;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

But yeah, 100%.

00;22;43;24 - 00;23;09;08

Kari Tumminia

And organic marketing is great again, whether you're doing it in person and you're making connections with people one on one or in groups or in workshops, or whether you're doing it on the internet, on whatever social media platform you love or videos or blogging or like, how are or emails, you know, however you're doing it, however you're building that connection, it is it is setting this, like organic, like all of that gives us this huge stage essentially to work from.

00;23;09;13 - 00;23;35;08

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, where we get to build those connections and be authentic and show up as thought leaders and share what makes us unique and different. And, you know, show people little slices of our lives. And it's like organic marketing. It's designed for that. It's made for them. And so by not doing it in our businesses, we're doing ourselves a massive disservice, a massive disservice.

00;23;35;10 - 00;24;02;21

Kari Tumminia

And I will often say to kind of the organic marketing doubters that, you know, there is I would I will bet I would bet my entire career that you can't show me a company or a brand or a business that has built long term success like they've been around. They're not just a new flash in the pan of some form, kind of long term, some level of measured success that isn't doing some form of organic marketing or brand building.

00;24;02;27 - 00;24;03;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes.

00;24;03;24 - 00;24;31;17

Kari Tumminia

They're sustaining their brand somehow. They're connecting with customers somehow. It might be a blog. It might be they're a social media presence. They're emailing people. They're doing something for free that's just designed to provide value, build relationship and grow their brand authority. Not a single one. And at the same time, I could give you a surprisingly long list of companies that are remarkably successful that you probably recognize that don't do any direct response marketing.

00;24;31;20 - 00;24;33;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

None like no paid advertising.

00;24;33;20 - 00;24;54;19

Kari Tumminia

None. And, you know, you know, Louis Vuitton is one of those brands. They do not do direct response marketing at all, not because direct response marketing doesn't have its place in some businesses, but because if you've done organic marketing well enough, you don't have to do direct response marketing, or you can choose how to do it when it really serves you.

00;24;54;19 - 00;25;14;03

Kari Tumminia

And it doesn't have to be a driving force in your business. Because if people know you and like you and trust you, if they already associate who you are with the solution to their problem, and they're not second guessing everything you're doing and show how you're showing up online or how you're showing up in person, you become the natural next step when they're experiencing the problem you solve.

00;25;14;06 - 00;25;49;23

Kari Tumminia

Or if you do your organic marketing well enough and you're willing to put that time and and resources and investment into showing up authentically and building those relationships upfront, then you get to be really selective about everything else that you do in your business. And again, like those big old, those big companies that we all recognize, like Louis Vuitton, like, you know, Chanel and Duval and even Apple does very, very little direct response marketing, if any at all, because they don't have to because they put all of that investment into their their brand, their authority, the relationship they have within the space they take up in people's minds.

00;25;49;26 - 00;25;53;06

Kari Tumminia

And we can do that as coaches to.

00;25;53;08 - 00;26;15;03

Lauren Brollier Newton

I was just thinking about all the people that I follow that I found organically. And actually, I want to ask you about something because, you talked briefly about, you know, you need to kind of know where your client hangs out. You don't need to niche down so much that you're like, I hope 32 year old that PR, you know, representatives in Houston to blah blah, blah.

00;26;15;03 - 00;26;32;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

Like you know how to get that niche down. It is good to know who you're serving for sure. But this comes back to the authenticity piece because I'm thinking of a couple people I follow on line. One of them is a gal named Ellen Fisher, and I found her because I'm becoming a mom and I'm giving birth at home.

00;26;32;14 - 00;26;48;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

And so I was looking at home birth videos on YouTube, like, you know, you can watch so many home birth videos on YouTube. I didn't know it was a thing, but I watched her home birth video on YouTube and it was like this beautiful, like, gentle birth. Like it didn't like the no pain, just like group outcomes.

00;26;48;24 - 00;27;05;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

The baby. And, I decided to capture that as, like a piece of my own vision. Like, if I watch this, I'm going to get into my mind that birth is easy. Okay, so that's the backstory. But then I started to follow her on Instagram because I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Share this beautiful birth. And then I realized, oh, she has this YouTube channel.

00;27;05;15 - 00;27;37;03

Lauren Brollier Newton

Oh, she has this podcast. And so she posted like two days ago on her Instagram and she said, I have never had a niche. I just talk about what I'm passionate about and the three things that she's passionate about have seemingly nothing to do with one another. So it's home birth. Yep. She's vegan one. She likes to bring two people together who have completely opposing views and actually have them have like a respectful and interesting conversation about like deep political topics that like, you wouldn't want to touch, like with a ten foot pole, like you like.

00;27;37;06 - 00;27;52;27

Lauren Brollier Newton

And so she goes home birth, she's got being a vegan and then she's got these like super controversial political topics, but where she brings two people together and they have this really, like deep and gentle and respectful conversation. So she lays this out and she's like, I never had a niche. I just talk about what I'm passionate about.

00;27;53;01 - 00;28;12;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'm a follower and I don't know how many followers she has. I think like 7 or 800,000 followers on YouTube, but I thought it was so interesting coming to this piece about authenticity that she talks everything about what she loves and what she cares about, and somehow she's like, I don't care. I personally don't care about being vegan, but like, I'll watch her vegan videos just because now I'm into her.

00;28;12;23 - 00;28;26;29

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'm like, she's cool. I love that one better. So, I would just love for you to speak to that. Like in marketing, I don't think most marketing people would say like, that's a good strategy. And yet that's why I follow Elon for like, I don't know that I and I think there's a hint of what you're saying in there too.

00;28;26;29 - 00;28;29;07

Lauren Brollier Newton

So like you could speak to that.

00;28;29;10 - 00;28;57;20

Kari Tumminia

Yeah. I think that look, I am a marketer at the end of the day. And so for me to kind of like Pooh Pooh the idea of a niche would be very disingenuous, because I do believe that nation is important. I believe it's important because if you are new or starting out, or you haven't had the success that you wanted to have as an entrepreneur, that refocusing on who you're serving can be a really valuable exercise because we cannot speak to everyone.

00;28;57;23 - 00;29;15;13

Kari Tumminia

And that's the purpose of a niche. Really, really niche is just about you can't speak to everybody, you can't serve everybody, and not everyone's going to like you. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people that do not follow the person you're talking about, because her content's not for them.

00;29;15;19 - 00;29;16;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Or they.

00;29;16;11 - 00;29;48;11

Kari Tumminia

Stand her or they, you know, think home birth is dangerous or they, you know, are offended by vegans. Like, I don't know, like, right. You can think of three reasons why people wouldn't follow her. And so I think that having an idea of who you serve, if you're starting out or you're struggling, is really important because it gives you the opportunity to focus on instead of trying to talk to everybody, instead of trying to serve everyone, instead of trying to make everyone like you on the internet, which is a trap that I think a lot of entrepreneurs fall into.

00;29;48;13 - 00;30;14;05

Kari Tumminia

It gives you sort of permission just to speak to a very specific group of people. Yeah, but most businesses, as they grow, don't stick to one specific niche, right? They they will serve a multitude of people in different groups. And that's good. It's a sign that your business is growing and evolving. But who those people are, I don't think has to be the result of like unleashing exercise.

00;30;14;08 - 00;30;46;19

Kari Tumminia

Every time you decide that your business is going to uplevel or grow, oftentimes those additional niches will come really organically because you're showing up in some space somewhere talking about the things that you're passionate about really authentically. You will naturally draw some people to you, just like you'll naturally repel some people to you. Yeah. You know, and I can remember when I was, running my coaching business really actively, it was my full time gig at the time, and I was specifically, my niche was women in their 20s who were frustrated with the modern dating scene.

00;30;46;19 - 00;31;12;28

Kari Tumminia

Like they didn't want to do apps anymore and who, you know, just wanted to find their soulmate and be done. That's who I was. Look, I was focusing on and then just by kind of showing up organically, doing my organic marketing, being really authentic, talking about authenticity and dating, talking about, you know, setting boundaries and dating an expectation and relationships and communicating your needs and all the things that come naturally.

00;31;13;01 - 00;31;26;29

Kari Tumminia

Along with that topic, I ended up with actually a huge number of clients. A huge portion of my business ended up being women in their 50s that were dating for the first time post-divorce.

00;31;27;02 - 00;31;27;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

Interesting.

00;31;27;23 - 00;31;43;29

Kari Tumminia

And had never been on an app, didn't know what an app was. Had no idea what to do with like the world now and all the problems that come with dating now. And I didn't look for those people. I didn't make content with them in mind. I didn't like make a lead magnet for them, or I didn't run ads for them, I didn't.

00;31;44;01 - 00;32;04;14

Kari Tumminia

I just talked about how to show up authentically in your relationships, and how to set boundaries, and how to communicate your needs and how to navigate the apps, because they can be terrible. And those people showed up. And I think that that's a really good way to understand this, is that, yeah, in the beginning, I think you should niche because you got to know where to start.

00;32;04;20 - 00;32;24;12

Kari Tumminia

You have to have something just can't be everybody. It's not and whether your niche is your location, you know, your let's say you're only working with people in person because they're in your city. Yeah. So maybe it's women in your city specifically or, you know, or whether you're in niches like mine was like women in their 20s that have this specific problem.

00;32;24;12 - 00;32;43;14

Kari Tumminia

Or maybe it's, you know, vegan mothers who want a home birth, right? Like you're going to not the more you show up. And this is another sort of like plus for organic marketing is the more that you show up, not only will your audience grow, but the more you'll grow this idea of who you can actually serve and how.

00;32;43;14 - 00;32;57;20

Kari Tumminia

Because if you had asked me when I started my business, would I be working with women? As a 30 year old myself? Would I be working with women in their 50s who are like married and divorced and now newly dating? I would have been like, absolutely not. How am I going to even I what do I have to say to somebody who's been married?

00;32;57;20 - 00;33;24;25

Kari Tumminia

I wasn't married at the time right. Like what I have to say to this person? Well, it turns out I had a lot to say to that person. I just didn't know. And so I had to lead by doing the organic marketing efforts. I was also making space for my business and my client base to grow organically. But if you are just starting, I do recommend sort of having an idea so that you can answer that question of like, well, where are the people I'm looking for already hanging out so that I can make the most of the efforts that I'm going to make?

00;33;24;27 - 00;33;41;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay, so that comes that brings me to a question that I think a lot of newer coaches are going to have on here. Yeah, I love that you said that the city can be a niche, because that is what I did when I started my business. I was basically just serving the 20 mile radius around me as like the life coach for that 20 mile radius tour.

00;33;41;15 - 00;34;06;07

Lauren Brollier Newton

And, especially for women, although, you know, sometimes men would be like, this really resonates with me. But I think a lot of times in particular for life coaches or even health coaches, they will feel like, but it can help everybody. Like if you think about life coaching, it can help everybody that's longing for anything. If you're thinking about health coaching, is anybody that's having a health problem.

00;34;06;09 - 00;34;15;10

Lauren Brollier Newton

So and then it can create this like fear inside, like, oh my gosh, I can't, I don't know how to niche because I can help everyone. And so how would you start with that person.

00;34;15;12 - 00;34;33;09

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think that a lot of people, especially as they're starting out in their first beginning a business or they're reassessing their business and they don't have maybe a long, like storied background in marketing, that it's really easy to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a niche isn't in the first place. Right.

00;34;33;11 - 00;34;52;25

Kari Tumminia

And so I think you'll see a lot of content, you know, online or if you just like Google search, like how to choose a niche, where it will sort of indicate that a niche is like if you're a health coach, that that's your niche, but your niche is health coach instead of everything coach. But really, a niche is not the type of coach you are.

00;34;52;25 - 00;35;36;23

Kari Tumminia

It's really, again, this, this idea of who would be best suited for what you offer and how you do it. And while health coaching can serve everybody, like, I don't know, a person who couldn't benefit from some kind of health coaching. Yeah, I don't know a person who couldn't benefit from some sort of life coaching. You still are showing up in your business as the person that you are with your background, your story, your own personal transformation, whatever training you have and whatever tools that you're using and all of that information sets you up to serve a specific set of problems or maybe even a specific type of person better or more easily than you

00;35;36;23 - 00;36;20;09

Kari Tumminia

would other people. So when I was running my relationship coaching business, could I work with men? Yeah, totally. Could men benefit from my services 100% right? Did I work with men occasionally? If they were really aligned with the work I was doing? Sure, I could, but my background as a woman who was trained as a specific type of coach and had gone through all of the dating struggles that I went through in my 20s, as, again, a woman on the dating apps, which is a very specific experience, and my own personal story of transformation, where I was able to navigate online dating and find my husband, my now husband, it was my husband, then find

00;36;20;09 - 00;36;43;22

Kari Tumminia

my now husband and still keep all of my boundaries and self esteem and authenticity intact, and not sacrifice myself like that. Specific experience resonates with people from a very specific group. Your niche is not about what I. If I choose a niche, I can only work with these people. It's just that I know if I want the best results from what I'm doing.

00;36;43;24 - 00;37;02;12

Kari Tumminia

As far as audience building or organic marketing, or paid marketing or whatever I'm doing to spread the word about who I am, who is most likely to respond to those efforts so that I get the biggest bang for my buck. Whether my buck is the time I'm spending writing a blog post or making a video, or it's the money I'm putting into that right, it's not the limit.

00;37;02;12 - 00;37;21;13

Kari Tumminia

And I think people hear niche and they think either. They think that, like my niche is just I'm just a health coach and that can serve. Everybody said that's my niche. Or they think, oh, I'm going to limit myself and there's gonna be any clients for me. All it's doing is taking whatever you're putting out there and making it align with the people who are most likely to respond.

00;37;21;16 - 00;37;38;03

Lauren Brollier Newton

And I think it's important that you're sharing that. That doesn't mean that other people find it. It doesn't mean that you only serve that group. Yeah. Because a lot of times, one of the questions that I get a lot in the role that I play at Brave Thinking Institute is I think I'd be good with this group, but I don't only want to serve that group.

00;37;38;03 - 00;37;58;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

And then people start to feel restrictive. And I think this is a great thing. Like when I first started, following Mary Morrissey, she had a meet her knee. She was, I think it was like 60 plus women who want to, like, rediscover themselves. And I was 30 years old when I met Mary Morrissey. I was not her ideal client.

00;37;58;15 - 00;38;14;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Right. So to speak. You know, I was not the avatar, but the message that she was sharing with that particular audience still resonated me for the time that I was in, in my life, which was, here's what I've been doing and I don't love it, and I want something different. And, so that's a I always think about that.

00;38;14;04 - 00;38;20;00

Lauren Brollier Newton

Like you don't, just because you have the niche doesn't mean that you're not going to. Everybody else that resonates isn't going to find.

00;38;20;03 - 00;38;38;04

Kari Tumminia

No. And again, my own business of like starting with women in their 20s who are dating and then expanding to women in their 50s who were post awards and then I and it will continue to evolve. So the more you show up and you refine whatever you're making, like whatever you're putting out into the world. Yeah. To address specific problems.

00;38;38;04 - 00;39;01;16

Kari Tumminia

Because this again, what Niching lets you do is who's most likely to respond. What specific problems can I solve? Because, you know, you might be a health coach, but does that qualify you to support, you know, patients who have had heart transplants? Maybe not. Right. Could they benefit from health coaching? Sure. But that there is like limits and legalities and stuff that's built into there.

00;39;01;16 - 00;39;27;28

Kari Tumminia

So they might not be your ideal client even if they could benefit from health coaching. Right. So, you know, we want to look for again like the point of your niche is never to. And this is what I tell people like. The point of choosing a niche is never so that you can get online or start a blog post, or make a video and say, this video is for women who are 25 and single and struggling with the dating app and just want to find their soulmate and just want to be done with dating.

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;45;15

Kari Tumminia

And if that's you, then stick around here. The point of a niche is so that you can look at that person who's most likely to respond to your efforts and say, what are they? What are they struggling with? Yes, you know, what are their pain? What are their problems? How can I help them? And how can I make it clear that what I offer is for them?

00;39;45;17 - 00;40;08;15

Kari Tumminia

And the more you talk about so you're actually not talking about the person, you're talking about their experience. And that experience is probably a little more universal than you might think. And so you'll naturally draw other people who are outside of your quote unquote, niche. But if you didn't start somewhere, you fall into the trap of, again, trying to speak to everyone or get so overwhelmed about what do I even talk about?

00;40;08;15 - 00;40;19;01

Kari Tumminia

Why do I make the next what do I make the next blog post about? What do I make the next workshop about that we end up getting kind of like caught up in our own heads. Then we never do anything.

00;40;19;03 - 00;40;41;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

I think that is such the important point. Which brings me back to something that you said earlier. So you said there's two things you would do with the newer client. Where are your clients based on who your ideal client is and what do you love doing the most, whether it's writing or video or this? Okay. So again, and I'm used to, in my role working with oftentimes people who are very much struggling with some of these things.

00;40;41;12 - 00;41;01;01

Lauren Brollier Newton

So that's where my devil's advocate comes up. But like, what about this? Because I know that's the question that they would ask me. So so where are your clients and what do you love doing the most? Someone who is struggling with what nowadays we call imposter syndrome? This feeling that I'm not an authority. I can't put myself out there.

00;41;01;01 - 00;41;24;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'm a fake. What? I'm a fraud or whatever it is. I don't have the confidence. A person that's really struggling with that. When you get to that question, what do you love doing? Might feel like that is even if I might like teaching or even if I might like, might like writing or whatever it is that piece is holding them back from actually being able to show up as their authentic self because they're authentic.

00;41;24;04 - 00;41;33;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

Self is the imposter in their mind when that when they're navigating that limiting belief. So from a mindset perspective, what do you say to that person?

00;41;33;21 - 00;42;03;03

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, I think that's a really, really good question. And I think that as someone who also struggled for much of my career with imposter syndrome, and I find just in the work that I even do now, just from a marketing perspective, just connecting with other coaches in the industry, other course creators in the industry, other speakers in the industry that I, I think there is something about being the type of person who is drawn to the helping fields and is drawn to supporting other people that's drawn to like wanting to change the world.

00;42;03;03 - 00;42;32;08

Kari Tumminia

That predisposes us to being really more highly at risk from imposter syndrome than the rest of the general population. So I think it's a it's a really important question, and I would say that there were two things that helped me personally overcome my own imposter syndrome, and that that is, we'll say, three. The first is understanding that the state of not having imposter syndrome is a skill.

00;42;32;10 - 00;43;00;18

Kari Tumminia

And so we can build it like we can any other skin. So just because you feel like an imposter right now, just because you aren't sure if you're in authority right now, just because you are predisposed for whatever reason, whether it was childhood trauma, whether it was some previous experience, whether it's because you're a sensitive, full hearted soul and the world is just means sometimes, like whatever it is, you don't have to stay in that state because learning to not have imposter syndrome is a skill you can build.

00;43;00;20 - 00;43;19;03

Kari Tumminia

Yes, what you feel right now matters because it's your current experience, but it is not an identity. And I think that the the biggest mistake most people make about imposters, they think it's their identity. I have imposter syndrome. I always feel like an imposter. And I just tell people it's a it's just a lack of skill set.

00;43;19;06 - 00;43;19;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes.

00;43;19;26 - 00;43;25;03

Kari Tumminia

Just when you can build that skill, I can build like you can learn to use a hammer and nails to build a house.

00;43;25;07 - 00;43;25;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes.

00;43;25;23 - 00;43;40;00

Kari Tumminia

Because if you handed me a pile of wood and a hammer and a nail right now, for as accomplished of a person as I am, like my resume is wildly impressive. And I don't say that to be, like, cocky about it. I just say, like, I've done a lot. I have a lot of experience or things that I'm very good at.

00;43;40;00 - 00;43;52;00

Kari Tumminia

But if you handed me a pile of wood and a hammer and nails and said, hey, you need to build a shed, I would be like, I'm helping you doing, I cannot help you. I don't even know where to begin.

00;43;52;01 - 00;43;52;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah.

00;43;52;17 - 00;44;18;29

Kari Tumminia

And so just like I could learn the skill of building a shed with a hammer and a nail and a piece of wood, I can learn to not to not identify with imposter syndrome in the same way. It is just a skill to practice. The second thing that really helped me break through my own imposter syndrome was understanding that from a psychological perspective, most people are motivated to inauthenticity or to imposter syndrome from one of two reasons.

00;44;18;29 - 00;44;49;29

Kari Tumminia

And usually most people will lean toward one versus the other. And so knowing which one you are can be really helpful. So people are motivated to not standing out or not being themselves or not being authentic, usually because they are trying to preserve relationship or reputation and relationship is my connection or the perception that the people who are close to me, half of me, and reputation is the perception that other people who are not close to me have of me looking.

00;44;50;01 - 00;45;15;21

Kari Tumminia

Usually people's imposter syndrome is fueled by one or the other, and figuring out which one's yours is probably fueled by can be really helpful for sort of mitigating those motivations. Right? So, for example, if it's reputation, then you understand, like, okay, I'm not worried about the people are close to me, what they're going to think of me if I put myself out there on, on the internet, I'm worried about like what all these people I don't know, we're going to think about.

00;45;15;21 - 00;45;36;15

Kari Tumminia

Yeah, like, what conclusion are they going to draw about me as a person? And that gives you a different sort of like pathway to solving that, to like thinking about, okay, like what is actually true about me as a person. What what's the worst case scenario that someone might conclude about me as a person who I don't even know on the internet?

00;45;36;17 - 00;46;02;21

Kari Tumminia

And when I put this, when I publish this video or I publish this blog post or I send this email, what's the worst case scenario and what's the actual impact of that one person deciding that they don't like me? Does it matter for like why I'm here on the planet? Does it matter for my purpose? Am I willing to trade my purpose for what that one person I don't know might think of me?

00;46;02;24 - 00;46;22;24

Kari Tumminia

You know, those kinds of questions versus if it's relationship and you think that a close relationship of yours is at risk because you're going to put yourself out there like it's going to change the way someone thinks of you or views you, or it's going to shift your relationship, then that gives you an opportunity, from my perspective, to address that relationship.

00;46;22;27 - 00;46;23;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes.

00;46;23;16 - 00;46;44;13

Kari Tumminia

Put the video out there and wait to see if a person is going to reject you because you went for your dream. Just go to them and say, hey, I really want to start publishing these blog posts because I want to be a coach and I want to help people. And I have told myself this story that if I do that, it will change the way you think about me and you're not going to be in a relationship with you.

00;46;44;15 - 00;46;59;22

Kari Tumminia

And one of two things is going to happen. They're going to say, oh my God, no, that's crazy. And then you'll know that it's an internal story that you've told yourself, and now you can address that. Or they're going to say like, yeah, I would think of you differently. And then you get inside of that relationship is something you want to keep in your life.

00;46;59;25 - 00;47;01;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

100%.

00;47;01;11 - 00;47;36;00

Kari Tumminia

Yeah. I want to sacrifice my purpose to stay connected with that person so valuable. And I think the third thing that helped me with imposter syndrome was understanding that I really struggle with imposter syndrome when I was, and still a little bit now, today, it'll pop up occasionally. When I was anticipating that there was going to be some sort of like, controversy or like negative comments, or people are going to disagree with what I said with, or they were going to be mean in the comments, or they're going to say, I wasn't qualified or didn't know what I was talking about.

00;47;36;03 - 00;47;50;18

Kari Tumminia

And I worked with a mentor once who told me and I was, you know, working on kind of like mastering all of this work at, at content stuff. And I wanted to show up on social media, and I was just like, I don't know if my anxiety can handle the negative comments. And I knew I would just, like, feel awful about it.

00;47;50;18 - 00;48;34;18

Kari Tumminia

And there's and for whatever reason, this clicked with me and I don't know if it'll click with everybody in the audience, but for whatever reason, she said to me, she said controversy is a strategy. And ability. And I was like and she's like yeah. She was like and essentially what I took from that was here I am not doing what I actually want to do sitting on my hands, because I anticipate or waiting for some form of controversy or negativity from the public, when in actuality, if I thought about it like something that I was going to create on purpose, to use to help me fulfill my own purpose even better, or to

00;48;34;19 - 00;48;55;19

Kari Tumminia

reach the person I was meant to work with. Right? Because, you know, in actuality, again, for me, my my platform was TikTok, but any of the social media platforms that were doing social media or blogs or anything on the internet, basically any form of engagement from the public as positive, it means that that app or that right in to show your content to even more people.

00;48;55;22 - 00;49;19;28

Kari Tumminia

And so I just kept reminding myself, like controversy is a strategy I'm going to do on purpose, so that my video has more of a chance of reaching that one person that really needs to hear what I have to say, or that I really could help, or I really could serve. And I'm going to let this person, this other person, leave a negative comment on my video, knowing that it's going to maybe make it more likely that's going to reach the person it should.

00;49;20;00 - 00;49;32;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love that so much. I think that that's such an important point, because it goes back to what you said about purpose. Like, am I willing to give up my purpose? Am I willing to give up? When I first started my businesses, I never wanted another woman to feel like I was feeling I felt alone, I felt like an idiot.

00;49;32;25 - 00;49;50;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

I felt shame for everything that had happened in my life, and my dream was like, I want to help other people to feel like not alone in this. And so it's like, am I willing to give that up in order for this internet troll or or person who just doesn't agree with me? Like, is that a good trade off?

00;49;50;15 - 00;50;16;22

Lauren Brollier Newton

And it's interesting because I know from, you know, when you talk about the organic marketing piece, like, I know from going in-person, I went to a million networking meetings. And and I'm not saying this is the truth of every time, but most times when someone verb like verbally disagreed with what I said or challenged me, it was usually a male business person in that networking group and they'd be like, oh, you know, yeah, that's pretty like we were.

00;50;16;22 - 00;50;36;10

Lauren Brollier Newton

We were like, oh, you know, some kind of pseudoscience or, you know, like whatever comment they would make. Right. But I was so unapologetic about it because it worked in my own life. I would be like, well, cool. I already have the results I want. So, like, if this doesn't resonate with you, like, it's cool, but it was because I was so unapologetically, like emphatic that this is how it worked.

00;50;36;13 - 00;50;56;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

Then I was like, you can like say what you will, but me and my clients are having the results. So if you don't want that, like, that's cool. It was actually one time, I think you'll appreciate this. Carrie. There was this guy who was talking to me about science and how he didn't feel like something I was saying was scientific about the about the.

00;50;56;26 - 00;51;14;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

Basically, I don't wanna get in the weeds on this conversation, but it was basically about the zero point field, like how energy works at the subatomic level. And so he wants to have this whole like dialog around this in person. So it's like he's trolling me on that, or I was just in person. And so he was basically saying like, well, I don't really think science has proved this or that.

00;51;14;25 - 00;51;41;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

And my comment to him was, so you're the guy that would have put Galileo in jail. And he was like, I mean, it was like shocking to him. He was like, what? And I was like, well, you're saying because we haven't seen a ton of this yet, it cannot be true. And that's why even though Galileo was right about his observations back in the day, they jailed him because it wasn't going with this like basic knowledge, they're saying.

00;51;41;15 - 00;52;08;18

Lauren Brollier Newton

So anyway, I bring this up to say, if you have enough passion for the topic that you're teaching on and you know it works and you want everyone to have it that wants it, you'll have a willingness, like you're saying, to make it okay, that someone is going to either challenge you or not like it, or, whatever it may be now, you might not be in the personality to be like telling this guy he would put Galileo in jail like that.

00;52;08;19 - 00;52;16;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

That's my personality. That might not be everybody, but you can also just say, that's totally okay. Like, I'm I'm happy we're here.

00;52;16;06 - 00;52;37;10

Kari Tumminia

And I think our response to those moments where people disagree with us or they leave, you know, negative comments or it create something, you do create some sort of like introvert, like, you know, some sort of like uproar. I think that our response to that has to fit in with the same level of authenticity that we're creating the content from.

00;52;37;12 - 00;53;01;12

Kari Tumminia

Right? So no, there's no right or wrong response to a troll on the internet or someone who disagrees with you, or someone who disagrees with you in person. You know, I find interestingly, of course, on the internet, I think we get a little more negativity from people because they're protected by like, social distance. Right? Someone walking up to you in the street and is far less likely to be like, I think you're a hack, then they will like leave it in your comment section.

00;53;01;14 - 00;53;24;17

Kari Tumminia

But I think at the end of the day we can do two things. One, we have permission to respond authentic authentically to any of that. And so you can push back. I will often use nowadays those types of comments, if they are, unless they're like nonsensical, right. But if they are like make sense and they're and they're maybe valid points, I will often use those comments to make more content.

00;53;24;19 - 00;53;25;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

Love that.

00;53;26;01 - 00;53;45;19

Kari Tumminia

Here's a, you know, here's a question. Or here's someone who doesn't earth who thinks this is true instead. And let me tell you what my perspective is, or here's what my response would be. And, you know, again, that for me, because I'm naturally an educator, that's my passion. That's a really authentic response for me. If someone's like, I don't, this has not been my experience or this is not what I agree with.

00;53;45;19 - 00;54;05;15

Kari Tumminia

I'm like, great, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to teach more and not that person, but just to teach anyone else who might be wondering the same thing. Yeah, so I will use those those as opportunities for more content. And I also tell people, especially in the online space, like feel free to use the block and delete buttons as often as you want to.

00;54;05;15 - 00;54;28;14

Kari Tumminia

You know, one online, no one in-person either, but no one online is entitled to the space that you take up on the internet. And so just because you put content out publicly, if there's stuff that is showing up on your content that makes you feel bad, that is like genuinely not helpful and not constructive and not supported to the supportive, to the mission that you're doing in the world.

00;54;28;16 - 00;54;49;18

Kari Tumminia

Delete it, delete it, block them. You know, like and I, I, I have a hard and fast rule not only for myself but for anybody that I've ever kind of like supported in organic marketing is that you can choose to do what you want with constructive comments or people who genuinely disagree with you. Yeah, you said opportunities. If you want for other content, you could ignore it.

00;54;49;18 - 00;55;08;11

Kari Tumminia

You don't have to respond to every comment. You don't have to read every comment. Like no pressure for that. No one's entitled to your time or your energy or your attention. But if there are comments that are genuinely, genuinely not constructive and not supportive and often will have nothing to do with whatever you're talking about, delete them and block them 100 times out of 100.

00;55;08;17 - 00;55;09;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

I agree.

00;55;09;18 - 00;55;32;17

Kari Tumminia

Wholeheartedly, absolutely. And I think I think again, like especially in the coaching field and this field is helping these helping fields, as we sometimes can be so empathetic to people. And we're so used to being supportive and holding space and doing all of those things that we forget that we're supposed to have big hearts, but we're also we're also supposed to have really big boundaries.

00;55;32;20 - 00;55;39;18

Kari Tumminia

And if you're going to put stuff out into the world, those boundaries have to be strong. Blocking delete people every time.

00;55;39;20 - 00;56;00;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

I agree with that, because you're also preserving the integrity of your community as well. So you're protecting not just yourself and having good, clear boundaries, but you're building a community of people who are genuinely interested in something. I don't feel like the community also needs to see just this out of nowhere comment. That's not constructive. It's like, that's not good for the community either.

00;56;00;12 - 00;56;13;29

Lauren Brollier Newton

And I'm a big fan of Block and Delete. I do it all the time. Because just like in person, if someone came up to me and called me a name and whatever, like I'm not letting that person hang out with me. I'm not like, oh, let's go grocery shopping together. Like.

00;56;14;02 - 00;56;35;26

Kari Tumminia

No, no, we don't. This is not what we do on the internet. And look, the reality of all organic marketing, we talked about niching and sort of, you know, how you will attract when you show up authentically, anywhere in person, online, that you will naturally attract not only your niche, but the people who are just aligned with whatever problems you're solving and what you're offering, even if they're outside of that niche and your niches will expand.

00;56;35;29 - 00;56;53;03

Kari Tumminia

But at the same time, in order for you to attract those people, you must repel other people. And so all of this, at the end of the day, is information. And those people are telling you really, really clearly that they are not your people. They're not the people you're supposed to work with. They're not the people that are supposed to be connected to your business.

00;56;53;03 - 00;56;54;21

Kari Tumminia

Let them go in peace.

00;56;54;27 - 00;57;15;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

But yes, yes, in peace, I love that. Okay. So I'm going to ask you the question that I always ask as the last question to every podcast guest. If you were building a coaching business from scratch, that you couldn't use your TikTok followers, you couldn't use any. Anything that like this is from scratch. What's the first thing that you would do?

00;57;15;26 - 00;57;41;17

Kari Tumminia

Coaching business from scratch. The first thing that I would do, I would not look for anything else or consume anything else, or do any more research or find any more information or answers until I figured out what I was truly most passionate about doing in the world. Because I think we get so stuck in looking for the right answer, right?

00;57;41;17 - 00;58;06;18

Kari Tumminia

Like, what's going to be most profitable? Where am I going to make the most money? What's going to be the best career? Who you know, what's this other person doing? Or who are they serving? Or like, what kind of business are they building? But if we know the end result that we're most passionate about bringing to the world, then it can inform all of those other things, including what mentors we choose, including what kind of marketing we do, where we do it, who we're serving, how the kind of business we build.

00;58;06;21 - 00;58;15;11

Kari Tumminia

All of that should be informed by what is the end result that I'm most passionate about bringing to the world. And so that would be the first question I would answer before I do anything else.

00;58;15;13 - 00;58;30;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

Carrie. Too many. You are so awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest. And if you want to find Carrie, the best place to find her is on her TikTok channel, where she gives all educational videos at Carrie to many, I we'll see you on the next episode.

00;58;30;17 - 00;59;07;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

Thanks for joining me. This week on The Abundant Coach. Visit our website at Brave Thinking institute.com/coach certification, where you can dive even deeper with additional resources and exciting opportunities. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast so you'll never miss an episode. And while you're at it, if you loved the show, please rate and review to find out how to jump start your abundant coaching career and more about my journey to seven figure coach, check out our free Meant to Be a Life Coach quiz available at bti.com/coach quiz.

00;59;07;14 - 00;59;09;11

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'll see you in the next episode.