Speaker 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Meet Rachel Allen

Tom Jackobs 0:36

Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show, where we dive deep into the art of authentic entrepreneurship. Today, we're thrilled to introduce the marvelous Rachel Allen, a marketing maven with a knack for combining data-driven decisions with a dash of human heart. With 16 years of experience and a client list that reads like a global address book, Rachel has mastered the magic of meaningful marketing. Join us as she shares her treasure trove of tips and tales from the thrilling world of heart-led businesses. Rachel, welcome to the show!

Rachel Allen 1:10

Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here!

Tom Jackobs 1:12

I'm really excited to, to talk to you today as well because I love having other marketing, folks on, especially when it's from the heart. So I'm really excited to get your journey and how your heart-led business is providing a great service for people. So I can't wait to dive into that.

What Heart-Led Means

Tom Jackobs 1:30

But of course, the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Rachel Allen 1:35

"I think the logical definition is a business where you make decisions based on your values. But as I was thinking about this question, I kept coming back to this feeling that I get in the middle of my chest whenever I'm making a decision or thinking about how I wanna work with a client, and it feels like it's literally coming from my physical heart and I've learned to follow that, of just like, "Oh, this way? Mm. Nope, nope, nope. That way," And so for me, it's a very intuitive thing, and I do think that manifests as decision-making from your values and leading with humanity and all of that, but it's just a very physical experience for me

Tom Jackobs 2:09

That's really interesting. I have not heard that before, but it totally makes sense that, that you can get that physical feeling as well when things are going right. And, you know, we definitely get... like, I get gut feelings sometimes when I know something's not aligned.

Rachel Allen 2:22

Totally.

Tom Jackobs 2:23

So that totally makes sense. Yeah.

Rachel Allen 2:26

Yeah, I've described it before as almost feeling like there's a little magnet right, over my, sternum here, and it kind of is like, oop, that way, you know? And, I've learned to ignore it at my peril.

Tom Jackobs 2:36

Oh, yes. And we can definitely dive into some of those stories as well. I'm sure they're good, cautionary tales to, other people.

Human-Centered Marketing

Tom Jackobs 2:45

So but first, let's dive into your business and how you transitioned into having a heart-led

Rachel Allen 2:50

Yeah. Uh, well, I'm a marketing strategist, but what that really means is I make words make money and I solve problems for people. So people bring me in when like they wanna sell something and it's not selling but they don't know why or they're like, "Oh, I have this incredible idea but I can't get anybody else to understand what it is or why they want it," and I'm like, "I'm on it." So, um, I come in and I do that and I do it from this very like human-focused perspective which is why I wanted to talk to you about this 'cause I know you do as well. I think so much of marketing is like predicated on an adversarial relationship between the seller and the client and that's nobody's best interest, you know? But it works so much better when you can see it as this very human-centered, heart-led relationship of like, "Hey, I have this thing and I really truly believe it can help you. Is that of use to you?" And like that's a totally different tone to go into the interaction with

Tom Jackobs 3:44

Yeah. absolutely. and especially when you're thinking about... Like when, when I go into a sales situation, I always think about what's best for that other person, and if I can even serve them, how would I serve them to their best interest. Yeah. and marketing kind of follows that same, same kind of principle as well. So the natural question is, like, how did you learn that? Or how did that come about, and what was your journey into, to doing that?

Rachel Allen 4:12

I think was fortunate in that I learned marketing from internet courses and library books. And so I never had anybody really telling me it should be otherwise, and I would see these marketing campaigns that were very aggressive or manipulative or just, like, unpleasant, and I would get really annoyed by them. And so being a giant nerd, I wanted to understand why I was annoyed by them. And I would start picking it apart, and I think ultimately what it almost always comes down to is either very lazy marketing, where they're just like, "I don't know, throw something up there and see what happens," or it's this like, "I have to extract the money from you" type of marketing, which is unpleasant. Like I always knew it just felt bad, and I didn't wanna do things that felt bad. If I wanted to do that, I would go get a, real job working for somebody else. So I kind of fell into it, and was just fortunate enough to meet people who were also aligned with that, and I was able to, really practice that from, basically the beginning of

Accidental Entrepreneur Story

Rachel Allen 5:10

my business.

Tom Jackobs 5:10

So tell me about how you transitioned into owning your own business.

Rachel Allen 5:14

Uh, well, I actually fell into it totally backwards. I did not know that what I do now was a job that existed until I started doing it. Um, I,

Tom Jackobs 5:21

Okay.

Rachel Allen 5:22

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 5:22

Love that.

Rachel Allen 5:24

I had gone to school for, journalism and Asian studies, and then I graduated into the '08 recession, and of course, you know, nobody's hiring. In my 22-year-old brain, I was like, "Well, what's the furthest possible way I can get away from Tennessee?" And turns out that's Hong Kong. So I bought a plane ticket and I left. But I, didn't get a work visa, didn't have a plan, and so I landed with like,

Tom Jackobs 5:46

Okay

Rachel Allen 5:47

200 bucks in my bank account and had to make rent. And so I started googling, like, how to make money online, and I found this marketing freelance job. and I was like, "Well, you know, I don't know how hard can it be?" And I gave it a try, and I earned my $3.25 writing this ad, and I was completely hooked.

Tom Jackobs 6:05

Nice. Awesome. 2008, $3.25.

Rachel Allen 6:09

Oh, I know. Still like, egregiously low amount of money. And then I traded down from there because my next job was coming up with topics for, like, a, a pre-Wikipedia, Wikipedia kind of site, and they, um, gave me nine cents per topic I could come up with.

Tom Jackobs 6:23

Wow. So generous.

Rachel Allen 6:25

I know. It made me get really fast, though.

Tom Jackobs 6:28

Right, exactly. Let me try to get 100 of these out an hour.

Rachel Allen 6:32

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Jackobs 6:36

Wow.

Nomad Life Lessons

Tom Jackobs 6:37

And so how long were you in Hong Kong, and what was the rest of the journey there?

Rachel Allen 6:41

So I was there for about two years,and then,

Tom Jackobs 6:44

Okay.

Rachel Allen 6:44

I lived nomadically for the next 10 years after that. I moved about every six months or so. and then, yeah, ended up in London for a while, and then went through a breakup of a relationship where I had made the critical error of connecting my visa to his. So when the relationship ended, I had to leave the country. Uh, yeah, like don't, don't do that. Um, but I, sort of couch surfed for a while with a friend in Switzerland and then moved back to Washington DC and now I'm back down in Tennessee.

Tom Jackobs 7:12

I love that 'cause I was living the kind of nomadic life as well. And, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection and you're good to go.

Rachel Allen 7:19

And it's so much easier, I think, nowadays 'cause the internet's more widespread. I don't know if you remember the little internet dongles you used to have to get, to try and connect with the Wi-Fi? Yeah

Tom Jackobs 7:29

Yeah. Well, and I had a, like a hotspot as well, like a global hotspot. That I would carry around. And one time I was in the Philippines on an island in Siargao, Island, and it was like the fastest I could get was 3G. And I was trying to do video calls, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, this is painful."

Rachel Allen 7:47

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 7:49

Yeah, I'm, like, not gonna do that.

Rachel Allen 7:50

Yeah, no. And it was like Skype back in the day too, So it was really buggy and yeah.

Tom Jackobs 7:56

Yeah. It's crazy. Well, that's, that's very cool.

Community Through Lulls

Tom Jackobs 7:59

So 10 years of the nomadic and just, you know, kind of working for yourself, being a freelancer, what's been the, the most pleasant surprise that you've had for, you know, having a heart-led business?

Rachel Allen 8:13

I think it was the first time that my business really hit a lull, and I had, I wasn't sure what to do. Since it was my first time going through it, I was like, "Oh no, it's all over. I'll never work again." Which now having been through like five internet apocalypses, I know that's just not the case. But

Tom Jackobs 8:29

Right

Rachel Allen 8:30

I was, I was so ashamed and I didn't wanna tell anybody, and I finally opened up to one of my business friends, and she was like, "Oh girl, come on. You're fine. it's gonna be fine." And all of these wonderful people that I had worked with and met, rallied around me and encouraged me and sent business my way, and just gave me the confidence to keep going. And I hadn't gone into it to, make these relationships pay off or anything. I just made the relationships 'cause I wanted to work with cool people and I like making friends. But to see that I could rely on that and have that as a safety net when things were hard was very touching

Tom Jackobs 9:04

Yeah. You know, I think that's a common story that I hear as well, and I, that I've experienced also, that as an entrepreneur, we're, we feel like we're the only one.

Rachel Allen 9:14

Yes.

Tom Jackobs 9:14

and a lot of times we're told, just soldier through, you know, burn the boats.

Rachel Allen 9:18

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 9:19

Just, do, grind it through. And which I think is just really bad advice anyway.

Rachel Allen 9:23

I agree.

Tom Jackobs 9:24

You know, and it's just hard on the person as well. It's like, "I know, I'm trying," but there's nobody else that understands what you do.

Rachel Allen 9:31

Uh-huh.

Tom Jackobs 9:31

It's when you get around other like-minded entrepreneurs, it's like, "Oh, my people. this is cool." Yeah. And then the problems don't seem so bad because theirs are worse.

Rachel Allen 9:40

Exactly. And if you have somebody who's like willing to be the first one to be like, "Hey, things are real bad right now," then everybody comes out of the woodwork and they're like, "Oh my God, it is really bad." And then you don't feel so alone. So that's what I've tried to do in these, I don't know, the past couple times it's been bad. I've been the first one certainly in my feeds to be like, "Anybody else's business having issues?" And then everybody floods in.

Tom Jackobs 10:05

Nice. Nice. That's part of being heart-led as well. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people who understand and, and get you. Now everybody loves a good train wreck story.

Firing an Unaligned Client

Tom Jackobs 10:15

So what, has there been any challenges as you navigate being heart-led and needing to make a profit?

Rachel Allen 10:25

Yeah. so I've got a couple. I think the first one happened very early on. I ended up signing a client for five figures, pretty early on in my business, which was just ridiculous. I had no... I didn't know what I was doing. I had Googled again how to do a sales call before I started talking to this person, and it was a wonderful experience. But as I got more and more down into it, I realized that this person's business was predicated on common but, kinda less than excellent tactics when it came to bringing in clients. And at one point, I heard somebody who worked in the business telling a client that they needed to mortgage their house to be able to afford to pay for a program. And I was like, "Uh-uh." Like, I can't. Even though, uh, it, it would've never been associated with me, my name wouldn't have come up with that, but I was like, "I just can't be a part of something like that." And at the time, this person was my biggest client, and it felt like a complete fluke to me. So again, I was like, "I don't even know if I'm gonna sign anybody ever again." But I fired them. And yeah. And it was this real moment of "Am I gonna go be a bartender? I don't know. We'll see." But I just knew that I couldn't, like, I couldn't square it with myself to be a part, even supporting a part of that, even if it would never tie directly back to me.

Tom Jackobs 11:34

Wow. And how long into the relationship did you realize that?

Rachel Allen 11:38

It was probably like 18 months or so in. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 11:42

Okay.

Rachel Allen 11:43

Yeah. So we'd been working together for a minute.

Tom Jackobs 11:44

Yeah. And then said, you know, "Thank you for the, the five figures and I'm out."

Rachel Allen 11:50

Yeah. I was like, "Yeah, I can do a month and then I gotta transition out of this." Like, I deeply respect you and appreciate you, and we're just not working in the same way.

Tom Jackobs 11:59

Yeah. That takes a lot of courage to be able to do that. where did that courage come from?

Rachel Allen 12:05

I think it comes back to that, that first decision that I made of I don't know, let's move across the world and see what happens, 'cause I think it's I don't know, this, something in me where I'm like, you know what? I don't know what's gonna happen, and I know that something is going to happen. And I think by that time, I had a very tenuous, tiny little thread of trust that I would figure stuff out, and that's grown stronger over the years as I've made these moves and stuff has worked out or not worked out, and then I've had to figure out how to fix that too. But yeah, I think it's just this illogical, irrational willingness to bet on myself that I don't know where it comes from, and I'm so grateful that I have it.

Tom Jackobs 12:47

Yeah. I mean, I, there's a lot of, people that want to be entrepreneurs, but they just don't have that kind of, that skill set or the tenacity to be actually to ignore a lot of the negative stuff and just go for it.

Rachel Allen 13:01

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 13:02

You're true entrepreneur. That's a- amazing.

Rachel Allen 13:04

Hey, again, I would never, never in a million years would've thought it, but I just fell backwards into the right job for me.

Tom Jackobs 13:10

That's cool. Now, going back to that, the client that you fired. So early on you said that magnet. So was that magnet repelling at that point? Or

Rachel Allen 13:18

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 13:19

like how strong was that magnet for you.

Rachel Allen 13:21

Yeah. It was this like... So I tried to ignore it. It's this like sort of light sinking feeling of like, mm, you know? And I would find myself like physically leaning away on calls and stuff. And then I was like, "Oh no, that's what's happening. Oh." And I tried to be like, "No, it's fine." But of course it's not. And then eventually it starts to feel like friction, you know? Like, like a sandpaper type feeling and I'm like, I just, I can't. I have to sleep. I can't do that.

Tom Jackobs 13:48

And like I said, that's very brave to be able to do that, and especially at a large dollar amount. But at the end of the day, like you just said, you need to sleep at night.

Rachel Allen 13:56

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 13:57

Also, and you have your own morals and ethical obligation that you want to uphold,

Rachel Allen 14:01

And also to be clear, I cried like the whole time. Like

Tom Jackobs 14:05

Oh

Rachel Allen 14:05

the whole entire time. It was not a badass moment for me. It was a like, "Ah!" Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 14:11

What did I just do.

Rachel Allen 14:12

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Jackobs 14:14

Yeah. I had one of those moments at like years and years and years ago, I owned a, a small, personal training studio that also had a gym, like open gym. And the previous owner had a deal with an apartment complex where any of their, the residents could use the gym as an amenity. And then, the apartment building was like paying $5 per person.

Rachel Allen 14:36

Oh, that's low.

Tom Jackobs 14:37

I was like, "Oh, that's not gonna work for me. That's just not..." Yeah. So I went to them and I said, "Look, we're gonna need to raise it to like $20 per person." And then they canceled it. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, What did I do? What did I do?" Then, but then like two weeks later, I was like, "Wow, this is awesome. All those people that were wrecking my machines, they were loud, they're gone. This is amazing." And then the business kind of took off from there.

Rachel Allen 15:03

Yeah

Tom Jackobs 15:03

But it's interesting that, we catastrophize a lot of those decisions and then, but at the end of the day, it is the good decision if you're making it, with, your heart and your gut at the same time.

Rachel Allen 15:16

And I think the, the good and the horrible thing that I've learned is I, anything that I have catastrophized in my brain with my business has almost never happened. It's always like a completely different catastrophe that I could have never seen coming.

Tom Jackobs 15:28

Right, exactly.

Rachel Allen 15:30

So It's like, I don't know.

Tom Jackobs 15:31

Where that come from?

Rachel Allen 15:31

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Jackobs 15:32

Hadn't thought about that before. Yeah, that's crazy.

Heart-Led Profit Balance

Tom Jackobs 15:37

So how do you balance then the, the thought of having a heart-led business and making money at the same time.

Rachel Allen 15:46

So I think these two concepts are put in a false opposition. I think people see it as "Oh, I can either be heart-led and be of service, or I can make money." And I understand where that comes from, like psychologically, historically, there's a lot of like nerd stuff we can unpack there. But I think what it really comes down to is a lot of times people are afraid to take the responsibility for providing that service, because if someone's paid you, then it's like real, and I think people take an over-- like they overreach responsibility into other people's lives. So one of the best pieces of advice I ever got in business was keep your hands out of other people's wallets, which is like, you don't know what expensive is to them. You don't know what life looks like for them. you have to trust people to be able to say, "Yes, I can afford this," or, "No, I can't." And you have to let them make their own bad decisions if they're gonna do that. You can't be responsible for that. The only thing you can be responsible for is showing up and being of as much service as you possibly can. And so that's how I square it for me. That's how I square it with my clients. I try to give 150,000% 'cause, you know, relentless overachiever. I want to give so much to my clients, and I want them to walk away feeling like, "Oh, I, you know, I would've spent 10 times on this and it would've been worth it." And by showing up that, with that much care and investment, I really think that, you know, whatever, the money is almost incidental at that point. Like it's wonderful. I am committed to having a profitable business and a comfortable life, and I find that the less I focus on that and the more I focus on the relationship, the money works out.

Tom Jackobs 17:24

Yeah. Yeah.

Boundaries and Scope Creep

Tom Jackobs 17:26

100%. Do you ever, um, have those clients that, maybe take a little advantage of the situation that you're so giving? And how do you handle those situations?

Rachel Allen 17:37

I definitely have. Um, and I've had to learn how to hold my own boundaries with that. So I think the thing with a heart-led business is that you have to have a heart for yourself first as well. I think people often, yeah, they focus that on the outside and they're like, "Oh, I'll care for all my clients, and then I will be miserable." It's horrible. You can't take care of people like that. So I've had clients, I mean, scope creep, I think everybody has to learn how to deal with that. I've had a lot of that. I've had a lot of clients try to be like, "Oh, but when I signed a contract, I didn't realize you, like, expected me to follow through on paying you." And I'm like, "I'm sorry. Are we just playing here? Like, what's happening?"

Tom Jackobs 18:14

Yeah, right.

Rachel Allen 18:14

Yeah, so I've had to, be very clear upfront about my own boundaries. What? am I actually okay with? because I will happily work with a client if we need to, I don't know, spread on an invoice or something, But if it's somebody who's coming in and they're just like, "Oh, well, I'm gonna try and get something out of you," then I'm like, "Okay, well, you will get exactly what we are contracted for to the letter and not one iota more."

Tom Jackobs 18:36

Wow. And, just like firing clients as well, having those boundaries is really important for your own health and mental health and just, you know, helping other people. But it's also sends the signal to the client like, "No this is what we do, and this is how we're going to act together, and I'm gonna give you everything I have within the scope." And, you know, it's nice to give back a little bit without the expectation of return. But if that's, they're taking advantage of that, it's like, okay, this is w- how that, how we're gonna play that game now.

Rachel Allen 19:13

Yeah I think you have to meet people where they're at and give them the opportunity to be their best selves. And I think a lot of that, I mean, for me, it certainly came down to better discernment with which clients I worked with, because I think in those early days, it's easy to be like, "I can help everyone." and then you end up working with people who, I don't know, build their site on GoDaddy, and then that's a whole thing. So, um,

Tom Jackobs 19:33

Right.

Rachel Allen 19:34

That, that is one of my no-gos now. It's one of my red flags of "Ugh, can't do it." but I think that when, again, the more clear I am with my boundaries, it's a kindness to the other person, because you don't wanna have somebody accidentally overstep and then they feel bad, then you feel bad, and it's messy and it's sticky. And it's like, no, just be clear and then let people make their own decisions.

Tom Jackobs 19:54

Yeah. No, and that's really good advice is to keep your hands out of the pocket, let them make their own decisions. Like that's, uh, that's something that I have to tell a lot of the salespeople I work with because they often say, "Oh, I'm not quite sure if they can afford it, and I don't wanna like..." I'm like, "How do you know?"

Rachel Allen 20:10

You Have no idea. They might've just got an inheritance.

Tom Jackobs 20:12

Did you look at their bank account?

Rachel Allen 20:13

Yeah, exactly. You have no idea.

Tom Jackobs 20:16

Yeah. And it's like, "Why, why are you making that decision for them?" Well, I'm not making it." "Well, no, you are because you're saying that they can't afford it. Where'd that come from?" And then, and especially in a sales environment, that then, the... now the, the prospect is going, "Well, maybe I can't afford it. They feel that way too. So, you know, it's, um, it's a definitely a double-edged sword in, in that sense.

Rachel Allen 20:40

And I think it comes from a deep empathy a lot of the times, but it can sort of go over into that codependence space of like, "Oh, I need to take care of your feelings so that I feel good about myself." And I'm like, Yeah. you just, it's, this is not the space for that. It's not healthy

Tom Jackobs 20:56

Yeah. Yeah, and definitely a lot of the heart-led business owners that I speak to are empathetic and, or empaths. So it totally... I can see how a lot of them, and us, like I'm pretty empathetic as well most of the time.

Rachel Allen 21:10

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 21:11

And that, you know, it's like, "Oh yeah, no, I want to help you, I want to help you, I want to help you." Then it's like, "Okay, I've helped you a lot."

Rachel Allen 21:18

Right.

Tom Jackobs 21:18

Where's that gonna... what's the reciprocity at that

Rachel Allen 21:21

point. Ugh. Yeah, a rule I had to make for myself a couple years ago was I cannot be more invested in your business's success than you are. 'Cause I was just getting my heart broken over and over again seeing these people where I'm like, "You just, you just gotta do the... I've given you everything. You just gotta do the thing." And for whatever reason, they didn't wanna do the thing, and the business was failing. And I'm like, "Ah, I could fix it. I could fix it," but it's not my job. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 21:46

Yeah, that's funny. I have-- always have to tell the employees too that, that work for me, especially in customer service, the customer is not always right, it's our job to help them feel that they are.

Rachel Allen 22:00

Exactly.

Tom Jackobs 22:01

And it's, and it's definitely setting those boundaries as well because, you know, my employees, like, one of the principles that we have is just let's make it easy for our client.

Rachel Allen 22:10

Yes.

Tom Jackobs 22:11

We don't want things to be friction. We don't want friction. We want friction less.

Rachel Allen 22:14

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 22:15

So but they-- a lot of times they'll take that to the extreme and like, and that's the scope creep comes on our side.

Rachel Allen 22:22

Right.

Tom Jackobs 22:22

A lot of time. And the other principle that we drive by is, having that, those open, honest conversations comes from a place of love.

Rachel Allen 22:31

Yes.

Tom Jackobs 22:32

That's a really hard skill, I think, to learn, to be able to either, have discipline an employee with love.

Rachel Allen 22:40

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 22:41

And for a client as well, set those bounderies.

Rachel Allen 22:43

Right.

Tom Jackobs 22:43

Versus just being a hard ass about stuff.

Rachel Allen 22:46

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 22:47

And pissing people off.

Hard Conversations With Love

Tom Jackobs 22:48

How have you balanced that kind of that skill set?

Rachel Allen 22:50

I mean really badly early on. But, um, as I...

Tom Jackobs 22:54

Well, of course, that's how we learn.

Rachel Allen 22:55

Yeah..

Tom Jackobs 22:55

Right?

Rachel Allen 22:57

I think, you know, as I get into it, I, what it comes back to is I start from a place of, really deep regard for the person on the other end. And I try to come at it with non-judgment. And, like, even if I'm in a situation where I'm like, Oh you have really, wronged me," for example. So I had a client years and years ago who she signed a contract which she did not read, and she had thought the monthly payment was the entire year's payment. And so when invoice two came around, she was like, Oh, what are we doing?" And I was like, "I-- This is, like, booked about, like, 50% of my capacity for the year, and now you are wanting out of this contract." And so I took a couple days. I was like, "I need to, figure out where I'm at with this." And I took a couple days. I got through my own feelings on it, and then I realized, she's not, she wasn't doing this maliciously. She wasn't doing this, out of ill intention. I- and I ultimately came to the conclusion that I valued the relationship I had with this person more than I valued that contract. And so I was like, "Okay. Well, here's the buyout clause. Here's my proposal for how we move forward. I'm gonna be very honest with you that this is, it's gonna make my business kinda hard this year, and I am disappointed, and I still value you, and I wanna still have a relationship with you." And being honest about where I was instead of being like, "No, it's totally fine," you know? Like, I think that helped me not feel resentful. And we've ended up working together, I think, every single year since then. So it's come back, and the relationship has been wonderful. And it's even better 'cause now we know we can have a really hard conversation and still do good work together.

Tom Jackobs 24:26

Yeah. that's such a great story too. and good example of being, having that balance and being able to have those hard conversations, but when those hard conversations come from the heart, it's a lot easier to keep that relationship then alive. Yeah. and it's really really helpful for both parties.

Rachel Allen 24:47

Right. Exactly, 'cause at least we know where we stand, right? I would always rather have a good clean fight than somebody being secretly mad at me. And it's Yeah just tell me what's up. If you think I've messed up, please tell me. If you think that... I've had clients, thankfully not many, one or two throughout the years have been like, "Oh, you are the worst mistake I've ever made." And I'm like, "That is good to know. Also, you should probably take some more risks. If I'm the worst thing that's ever happened to you, you're doing fine."

Tom Jackobs 25:13

That's funny. It's so true. That's awesome. Well, Rachel, this has been just a fascinating conversation just, and being a digital nomad and just all over the world, and we have so much in common with that.

Rachel Allen 25:27

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 25:28

Just how you fell into your business as well. I love that. It's awesome.

Where to Find Rachel

Tom Jackobs 25:32

How can people learn more about you and the work that you're doing?

Rachel Allen 25:35

They can find me at boltfromthebluecopywriting.com or just connect with me on LinkedIn

Tom Jackobs 25:40

All right. will definitely link those up into the show notes as well and, make sure that people are clicking over there and checking everything out that you're doing. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing... Being vulnerable with us and sharing the tough stories and the good stories as well. I really do appreciate you coming onto the show.

Rachel Allen 25:58

It has been wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.

Tom Jackobs 26:01

Very welcome.

Final Thanks and Outro

Tom Jackobs 26:02

And thank you listeners for listening to the show today, or watching it if you're on YouTube. We really do appreciate it. And make sure that you do check out everything that Rachel's doing. We're gonna put that all down into the show notes, so make sure you go down there and, read those show notes, click away. And also while you're down there, I think there is a share button. You could share the show with a friend or a loved one that could use the advice that was shared today, and I would definitely appreciate that as well. So until next time, lead with the heart.

Speaker 2 26:32

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.