110 | Lessons from a Top Leader: Katie Martin Shares the Secret to Success in Network Marketing or Social Selling
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[00:00:00] All right, guys, y'all are in for a real treat today because you are going to be hearing from the heart of somebody that you likely already have heard of. But her story is pretty amazing and really close to my heart because I've been able to watch what this dynamo, the fabulous miss Katie Martin has been able to do in her life and in her business in the seven or six and a half, something like that.
Yeah. It'll be seven in September. Yes. So. Hi Heather. Thanks for having me. So happy to be here. ~Um, ~I'm a fan of your podcast. I love listening and love all of the interviews that you've done and with the people inside our company and outside of our company. And, ~um, ~you're just doing a great job. So appreciate you having me on today.
Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for taking the time to share because actually by the time this podcast airs, you will also be a podcaster. So you're going to be able to add that to the amazing list of everything that you've done from obviously a Seint to be top leader. A Wilhelmina model, which I can't wait to hear more about that from your heart as [00:01:00] well.
~Um,~ but you just recently launched a podcast as well. So definitely want to dive into all the things.
~But~ for those who might not have heard you [00:02:00] and your story, I would love for you to do just like a quick backstory of who you are, where you grew up. You can integrate as much faith, whatever you want into the mix.
I would love to. So, well, I'm from Pennsylvania originally. I grew up in a little town called Clarion. It's ~um. ~Like in the Western part of the state, it's a little North of Pittsburgh. And then I went to Penn state university and I actually lived there for, ~uh, ~six years postgraduate. I was in a band, ~um, ~lead singer in a band for quite a long time.
And then I kind of like was a, ~uh,~ my art credits at Penn state. I was like bench jewelry. ~Um, ~and so I wanted to kind of explore that. So I did some, ~um,~ like I had a line of jewelry for. ~Um, ~probably the same amount of time that I was in the band. So that was like kind of my, my day job. And then at night I'd go sing,~ um, ~and because of that day job, I picked up a camera because I needed to photograph all my pieces and, ~um,~ you know, put them on a website and put them in juried fine art shows and things like that.
So I kind of taught myself how to shoot in manual mode up with a camera. And then [00:03:00] when I got married and had my first baby, I just became obsessed with taking his picture and, ~um,~ you know, it just became harder and harder for me to find studio time to work, ~um,~ on my, on my pieces and just more time to be a mom.
So I spent, you know, a few years, ~um,~ being, being a stay at home mom, but not, not. I was always working. I was either working a project base for an interior designer or whatever. I worked my way through it, but kind of from home and then started my photography business. ~Um, ~you know, when he was about 6 months old and, and would do weekend work and anytime I could fit it and I would do it.
And then I grew that business over about 12 or 13 years and. focused. I've shot everything, you know, under the sun, you have to kind of try it all before you figure out what you're best at or what you really love the most. And for me in the 10 years that I, ~um,~ was shooting, you know, I had gone through a divorce, which was very difficult.
And it's amazing how, you know, your girlfriends are like the family that just. Comes to your aid, you know, there's no [00:04:00] family like girlfriends that just really pick you up when you're down. It's amazing to me. I just always felt like, gosh, these women are like working. They have their own families and they just, it's like how amazing a woman's heart can just multiply when needed.
~Um,~ and the fact that they were just carving out time to make sure I was good, ~uh,~ just. Blew me away. And I felt like I needed to show them somehow how extraordinary they were. So I started a series of, ~um,~ in my photography business called the Siren Sessions, where I just had this vision that I wanted to bring a woman in on her own.
Cause most of the time, this is like, and I'm sure women will resonate with this story, but you know, they booked me for their family photo shoots. They'd wait three months for me to be available when the date was right. They would make sure and like pray for good weather and pray that their kids had napped and had a snack and that the outfits were all perfect and pressed and cleaned and, you know, that all the stars were aligning and it would just be this massive amount of, this massive amount of resources going into [00:05:00] making this perfect day.
And then as soon as I would take the camera and point it just at the mom, she'd be like, You know, not me, like, great lady. You're crazy. Just shoot the kids. And I'm thinking to myself, hold on a minute here. You are the reason that this whole production is happening in the first place. And if you don't take your job seriously as this historian and your family, and literally the one that's keeping the ship up here, you know, if not for you, can you at least understand that when your kids are 35, they're going to want that picture of their mom.
You know, they're going to want that. And I felt like I was climbing an uphill battle. It just confounded me that there was this loss of personal value every time that the camera was pointed at them, that they never wanted it to happen. And I'm like, you, you, you jump through every hoop to make this happen.
And now suddenly it's like, you have this opposite reaction. Like what's. Beneath that what is behind that and I wanted to get to the heart of that devaluation Like how do we lift [00:06:00] the veil off and just start to celebrate ourselves again? So I started a series of photos that was just for women and convincing these babes to come in my Studio and to spend money and time On not just a photo of them and their family, but just them by themselves, they would literally walk in and be like, why am I here?
How did you convince me to do this? Like, it was a hard sell, but I was up for it because I'm like, wait till I prove this to you. Wait till I give you this experience that might change you, how you feel. I mean, I had people call, come to me and be like, Holy cow, Katie, after having that photo shoot with you, like I started to really step into my power.
Like I've worn a bikini for the first time in forever just because I would never dream of doing that. I think really bloomed and started to kind of own themselves, which was a very, very beautiful thing to witness was like a woman kind of coming into the studio, feeling very naked and afraid of like questioning every reason why she was there.
She would have a very beautiful experience in the hair and makeup chair. And that was a very big indicator [00:07:00] for me, ~um,~ that she just didn't have to worry about like, Oh, how does my hair look? How does my makeup look like when it was done for her? And she had this sort of celebrity moment. Then my only job at that point was to connect with her and kind of pull out the real.
Her, you know, really feel like I could, I could capture the essence of who she was and They're just I just was on this crusade Like if I present you with this piece of paper with your face on it I'm gonna prove to you the way that the world sees you versus the way that you see you It's like when Kit, you know I always wanted to give them magic glasses and then the minute that they put them on that they would suddenly see themselves the way That their kids saw them Like these magical women that are just so like a superhero in our midst, the way that they never could see themselves.
~Um,~ I felt like if that was what I could do in The Power of the Photograph, then I was doing the world a great service. And, but I also knew that the makeup piece was a key ingredient in her kind of letting her hair down and starting to, Not stressed so much about what the day was going to look like. And [00:08:00] it was just a beautiful thing because they would go through the photo shoot experience and then they come out the other end and they, they would literally walk out like Beyonce where they had just a few hours before walked in.
Like, how did this happen? It was an amazing thing to witness that, that blooming happen on a daily basis. Like it was the most beautiful thing to witness. ~Um, ~but then I'd get like a text message or phone call at like 10 11 that night. And they'd be like, Katie, Oh my God, I had the best time. I don't want to wash my face.
And that broke my heart because I thought to myself, it's not really the makeup. But it, it was for them. And the reason that it was like not sticking for them was that they thought, Oh, a professional did my makeup. I can't replicate that. How can I'm never going to feel that good again because a professional did it.
And I don't have that skill. So, about 10 years into my business, I decided that I had grown my, I had a studio, I had staff. For all intents and purposes, I look successful. However, my overhead was [00:09:00] way, way high. And I had a, I know, I know, you know that game, you know, when your employees are taking home more after, you know, than you are as the owner, I intersect very hard, ~um, ~because of her.
story with the bridal shop and just, you know, massive amount of overhead. ~Um, ~and so, and, you know, the leader eats last. So I just decided I was going to, ~um,~ kind of take my show on the road and try to grow my footprint. And I picked like nine cities, ~um, ~And I was going to go, you know, shoot as many women as I could in those nine cities.
And I was literally calling up college friends being like, Hey, I'm going to park my butt on your couch for a few days. And in this city or that city, I went to, you know, ~um, ~San Francisco. I went, I mean, I went to Charlotte. I went, I went all these different places, but Savannah, Georgia was the second to the last stop on my nine city tour that year, which I have to say was very difficult.
I was a single mom. I had to kiss my babies. Goodbye. I didn't know. I didn't, I knew that I was on this. Journey to find the smoking gun that was gonna set my business apart from the competition But I [00:10:00] didn't know what it was, but I literally trusted God that it was gonna happen. Something was gonna happen I was either gonna network myself with somebody that was gonna change The way I was doing business or something was gonna happen so here I am Savannah, Georgia where Heather lives and I was photographing Tammy Williams and she elected that day to do her own makeup.
And at first I was like, Oh man, this is not going to go well. But she was like, I can do it. I was a Ford model. She had, you know, modeled in her twenties. And I was like, okay, you know, she knows what camera ready makeup is. And when I showed up, no joke, I was a complete, like What's on your face? Like, because camera ready makeup and everyday makeup were like totally different things, right?
And here I was standing two feet away from this woman going, man, you look camera ready, but you also look so like your skin looks so good. You look like you're having like the best skin day. And, you know, Tammy wasn't like a 20 year old model. She was in her early fifties. [00:11:00] So she was a, I mean, she's always And a smoke show, but I just was so captivated by the way she showed up that day.
And so at the end of the shoot, she was like, Hey, do you want to see this makeup that, you know, I did. And I was like, yeah. And she pulls out this little palette and it was just like, I'm like, that's it. And she was like, yeah, this is it. And I said, well, okay, slow down here. Like, is it, how long did it take you?
Like for real? And she was like, about 10 minutes. And I'm like. What? And I'm like, and you're not like a closet makeup artist. Like you have a, you have training in this. And she was like, not at all. And so it was literally like I had an entrepreneurial seizure in the kitchen that day. I was like, this is the smoking gun.
This is the thing that I waited for this whole nine month journey. If I can teach a woman how to do her makeup. Then she can feel photoshoot studio day every day and I can take away that pain point of oh my gosh I don't want to wash my face because I can never recreate this [00:12:00] You know, it's like going to the salon and getting a blowout and being like man I don't want to wash my hair, you know, I don't know what that feels like, but I can only imagine so that really just I said yes on a whim to Saint in that one hour meeting Tammy Williams and Tammy Williams changed my life I say it all the time.
I was on a call a call on Sunday I'm six and six plus years into this business. Tammy's on the call We're training some like new people to you know Hit our foundation rank artist three and I look at Tammy Williams I'm like it within 2. 5 seconds instant flooding with tears and i'm like this woman changed my life She changed my life until you really get woke to the fact that you are sitting on A golden egg because I no longer had to trade time for money and I didn't even understand that concept.
I was like, I'm killing myself. I'm a single mom. I'm booking 15 shoots a month. I'm literally losing my life. I'm not experiencing my kids because I'm stuck editing night and day. You know, it was just, and I was [00:13:00] like, I can't make more appointment times. I can't make more photo shoot time and I can't charge more.
I'm already at the very, very top of what I could possibly reasonably charge. So in walks this little makeup thing. In my mind, I didn't even think I was starting a new business. I just thought I was buying a tool for the business I already had. I was like, Oh, this will be cool. This will be set me apart from my other competition.
And nobody else is teaching their ladies how to, you know, do their makeup except me. And then all of a sudden, these women were just like, Telling their friends, like, you gotta go see Katie, she's gonna do your makeup, you're gonna love it, and they just, they all bought it, they all thought it was so, you know, beautiful, and effective, and affordable, and easy to apply, and it just was checking all these boxes for these women that were truly dying for a solution to those problems, and within about, I would say, eight months, I just had to, which was very difficult, and I know that you feel me on this too, about like, It's putting down a [00:14:00] business that was like a child that you had reared for a decade.
You know, I felt like I was leaving my kid on the, on the curb and like driving away. ~Um, ~because that business really helped me survive through a divorce and, and kept my kids fed and kept a roof over their heads. But it was, I had to hold fast to this idea and totally God just said to me, you're, you're not forsaking that.
Whether you have a camera in your hand or a brush in your hand, the ethos of your business is the same, which is to help a woman realize herself. You have to, you know what I mean? And so that, and now instead of impacting 15 people a month, Through the power of social media and the fact that network marketing is exactly that it's a building of a network and the impact that you have not just on the customer side, but then on the side of the artists who entrust you to be their mentor to go change.
You know, I'm.
I have the power to [00:15:00] go change somebody else's life by presenting them with this business opportunity. So therefore it, it was multiplying the, the mustard seeds were being thrown out tenfold in this model. And that was important. Whoa. Okay. So crazy. I mean, there's so much goodness. I'll take a breath. I'll take a breath now.
Fireworks. What's crazy is, and I'll make sure to link to this in the show notes, but we have Tammy's story, which is like totally kind of the other side of it that I, she was actually one of my first interviews, I think on this podcast. And so I'll make sure to link to it. But what's really cool is for somebody who might be thinking or looking at you and be like, Oh gosh, well, of course Katie could, you know, sell thousands of dollars of makeup or build, you know, a big team and do all of this.
When you see someone like Tammy, who, yes, like you said, she's total smoke show. Always has been, but she has still to this day, not really ever been live. Right. Yeah. She doesn't want to go live. Prides herself on it. Yeah. Prides herself on it. Like definitely social media outside of her fun, like animal centered Tik TOK, like [00:16:00] definitely not a social media thing.
But what did she do? She, she was confident in who she was enough as a woman, which is what you're at the core. Like you said, the ethos of what the Lord is equipping you to do through saint, through everything, through all the things we're going to talk about. It's she had that and she felt confident enough to connect with you to then boldly share about a product that changed her life that then changed your lives.
And now you've had the chance to change the thousands of women's lives on your team. You've impacted me. ~Um, ~I know that my sales, like one of the, I think one of the first sales trainings I ever watched you do my sales, like doubled from that point. So, you know, you've impacted my business. And what's really cool, Katie, is you're still to this day.
Like actually shouted out. On a recent podcast, Aaron Meekins, a gal on your team. I know you know who she is, but she specifically, when I said, Hey, Aaron, you are crushing it, your business, what in the world happened? And she said, Katie Martin is what happened. Inspired her to create, you know, basically a vision and a [00:17:00] goal for what she wanted in her business.
She went for it with consistency, leaned into who she is authentic, authentically, and now her business is exploding. So yeah. It's just so great wherever you are as a listener in this journey, because I know somebody like Katie, I mean, shoot, I'm like over here, I'm like, she looks like a million dollars.
And I'm like, do I really want to go gray anymore? I don't know. I love that you're doing that. I love that you're doing that. I'm applauding you big time. Well, thank you friend. But it's for me, it's, it's a part of like, I want to embrace who, you know, the Lord made me to be pearls and gray and whatever. And all.
And so where everybody's listening, like, I want you to know that, listen to Tammy's story to listen to Katie's story and know that there is a secret and Katie and I were chatting about this before we hit record. And I would love for just to spill the beans. Like, what do you think is that, that magic bullet or that little, like, secret everybody got a pen and paper.
Yeah. So I, you know, we were, we were chatting and I, I half joke because it's like at any time. Yeah. Cool. Any bucket that you find yourself in, in [00:18:00] life, we always want the magic pill. Like, Katie, just tell me what the secret sauce is. What's the cheat code? What's the smoking gun? Like, what do I gotta do? And I'm, I'm here to tell you.
You ready? You ready? Ready? Ready? You got to be yourself. I know that's you're like, Oh, what, what, what a cliche, stupid answer, but no, let me unpack that for you a little bit. So one of my best friends, and I'll just, this is a shameless plug for the, for the podcast, but it's easy to say, like when I started doing social media, I was scared.
I was nervous. I was, you know, my whole feed was other people's faces. It was, I had a photography business, so I never put my own face on my social media. It was all my clients and just. Like a portfolio, you know, highlight reel of these are my clients and not let me shout them out. And it was all just user generated content from my portfolio.
So for me to start posting my own face or my own naked face, like a lot of us are asked to do, it was just very intimidating. I also was. [00:19:00] Going through the whole like imposter syndrome, like you're a photographer, not a makeup artist. Who the heck's going to listen to you? Like I really had, I did experience all of that doubt and just nervous energy.
But I was like, you know what? This is fun. And I know that I could do this because I'm already. Just from the belly to belly interactions because I did a lot in person. I could see the feedback wheel already happening. People were like, Oh my gosh, this is so great. And so that really was the jet fuel for me to keep going.
But I was also very careful not to paint myself into just a saint only corner. I have a pixie haircut. I love. Fashion. I love, ~um,~ keeping myself fit and healthy. I was a college athlete. So, you know, fitness and wellness and is it always been important to me? I'm a yogi. ~Um, ~I have a teacher training certifications for, you know, yoga.
So all of those pieces of I'm a single mom, like it all kind of was the patchwork quilt of who I was. And I knew that if I just was all the time, every day. I [00:20:00] just didn't want to feel like an infomercial that someone would want to turn off. So I was very careful and conscious to talk about the other parts of who I was.
And because of that, and the statistics don't lie, about 75 percent of the women that get color matched with me have a pixie haircut. They do. They, they come for the haircut and they stay for the makeup. So I would encourage any of you guys out there that just to evaluate what you stand for, who you are as a human, what is important to you, if you love to cook, if you love to garden, if you love the outdoors, if whatever it is, if you are a going gray, homeschooling mom, a going gray on a growing gray journey.
All of those things are super important in terms of illustrating who you are and what's important to you. So don't shy away from those things or think that somebody else isn't going to resonate with that. So, one girl in particular that came for the haircut and stayed, ~um, ~is a girlfriend named Karen, and I Truly met her on Instagram, ~um,~ through the power of the algorithm, we became friends, exchanged a lot of DMs, come to find out she was like a [00:21:00] fashion stylist, had like a styling business.
She was also a single mom, had three kids, boy, girl, boy, all these odd. Things started to surface about like her personality. Like, I'm like, Oh, what shoe size are you? The same size as me. What dress size are you? The same size as me. How, how, how tall are, she's like, you know, about an inch, inch and a half taller than me.
I'm on the taller side. And so she's real tall. ~Um, ~but yeah, and then we found out that we have the same birthday, like literally the state she's, she's five years older than me, but same birthday. And, ~um, ~there was just too many similarities to say that this was an accident. You know, so we have developed such a friendship.
~Um,~ I fly down to see her all, all the time. The guy that cuts her hair cuts my hair. ~Um,~ now he's like, you know, he's like a pixie god. Joelle Torres, we'll plug him. He's amazing.~ Um,~ And so, you know, we've bonded over so many things. I ended up even having a surgery in Texas and I was like, do you want to nurse me back to health?
Like this [00:22:00] woman literally met her online and like five years in, I can trust her to help me recover from a, from a major surgery and then get me back on a plane a week later. ~Um, ~so truly our podcast, which launches tomorrow on Valentine's Day, on Galentine's Day, we were going to actually launch it on our dual birthday in January, but we didn't quite have our act together.
~Um, ~so Galentine's Day it is, ~uh,~ we're going to be launching, it's called Separated at Birth, which is click bait for who are these girls. So, ~um, ~but we truly were separated at birth, but we were like the same human and, and really the topics that we're going to cover just a lot of like current things that women in their forties.
~Um, ~especially, you know, single moms, married people, divorced, whatever, like, just topics. We just that we find interesting. It's like when you have all those deep conversations with your girlfriend and we just kept saying, man, we should be recording this. This is some juicy stuff, not gossip. I'm not a really a gossip kind of girl, but, ~um, ~but just.
Understanding and kind of unpacking things that we see in the media and [00:23:00] and life experiences things that hardships that we've overcome what it's like to raise kids as a single parents what it's like to be a creative and want to create a business in a lay for yourself. There's so many different dynamics that we're going to unpack on the podcast and hopefully it'll resonate and hopefully it'll just be fun and.
Something that when you're listening, you'll just, you know, fist bump us from afar. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to listen to y'all's podcast. It's going to be so fun. And it will already be out when this episode drops. So I'll make sure to say you guys can, can binge away. Cause I. I know it's going to be amazing.
And I can't wait to meet Karen. She's a babe. She's a really, really beautiful human being. And I'm just again, but that just to go back to your question of like, what is the secret sauce of growing a business? It's like, as soon as you realize that being yourself is your superpower, which can be really kind of hard to nail down, like, who am I and what am I about?
It takes a lot of introspection, some digging,~ um,~ to really, because I think what happens to [00:24:00] us is we start. Listening to the conditioned version of us, the one that's gone through lots of life that says, you know what, you better play it safe, or you better be polite and not say what you really think, or you, you know, you're going to disappoint people if you actually are authentically say how you really feel about things.
~Um, ~and so, so many of us are walking around as these versions of ourselves that is not accurate. Yes, not accurate. And, and I think for me, I know that process of sort of burning away the old you in order to become the you that it's scary. It's scary because I knew that I was probably going to disappoint my parents and I was going to probably disappoint, you know, I got divorced.
And I think that is, it was a reckoning of some sort for me to be like, look, if you're gonna. Carve out a new life for yourself and you've got this open runway. What do you really want to happen [00:25:00] next and who do you want to be and, ~um, ~I think that it takes help to get there so I hired a like a business coach and a life coach and even the, the,~ um,~ habit finder that Heather and I did together several years ago was again planting the seeds of that personal development and I can credit network marketing for so much of that too is like, ~um,~ I think that's a really good idea.
It really, this business is the kind of business that's going to challenge you to become. If you really want success in your life, then you have to be willing to do the uncomfortable things. And the more you can peel away who you are, you and what do you want out of this thing? And what are you willing to sacrifice to get it?
~Um, ~and how uncomfortable are you willing to be? Because it's not always going to be sunshine and rainbows every day. You're going to have to go through some hard times and some, some. Peaks and valleys with your business and can you last through those? ~Um, ~and that's uncomfortable and, ~um, ~stay the course and, and stay true to what you believe in.
It's, it's difficult. So knowing who you are and one of the things that,~ um, ~[00:26:00] I still, I asked myself this question, these three questions every single day. And it's part of a course that I wrote, ~um,~ that helped me and it might help somebody out there also kind of dial into who they really are, which is how do you want to be seen?
How do you want to be heard? And what do you want to leave them with? So how are you showing up? Like people, no matter what I have tattoos on my hands, you're going to make it, you're going to make an assumption or a judgment about me based on all of this artwork that I have on myself. Whether I like it or not, like, that's just the way the world works.
You know what I'm saying? So, ~um, ~you know, what does your physical appearance say about you and who you are and how you're showing up? That's, that's a choice. That's an active choice that you make to, to come to the table as a certain way and the way that you present yourself. Then how do you want to be heard?
What comes out of your mouth is important. Thinking that through and like, You know, what do I want to leave people here with on this podcast? What do I want to leave my team with when I have a call? What do I, and anytime I have an exchange with my kids, what do I want to leave them with? It's a macro and a micro level of, [00:27:00] of examination of who you are and what you're about and holding yourself to a certain standard of like, okay, if, if the idealized me is dresses like this and looks like this and talks like this and walks like this and does these things, am I living up to that?
You know, who I'm being called to be. Oh my goodness. So good. And I, I want to do your course. I'm excited about it. It's so fun. I love that it plays on things like fashion and obviously beauty. And you kind of start there because I think women are always intrigued by that, sometimes intimidated by that.
But, you know, I, I think that that's, that's really cool how you meld the personal development meets the actual style pieces when it's. And I felt like it, I wanted it to be fun to do. And I just remember as a kid like opening up the magazines and being like complete your style profile and you could like check all the boxes.
Like to me there was a nostalgic piece of that that just kind [00:28:00] of felt fun. Like am I a Am I, am I, again, it's like, what is, what do you stand for? Are you the kind of girl that's like, just loves luxury brands and that's what you're about and you'll save all your lunch money to go buy that bag or that pair of shoes and that's what, you know, you're just like, oh, I love the aspirational value of that.
Or are you somebody that's like, you know what, I'm a vegan and I'm like, want to wear organic bamboo, cotton, everything that's made and. Out of recycled materials in the United States and da, da, and that's my who I am. And that's, you know, what I, ~uh, ~am, you know, ~um, ~attaching to like that persona, that aspect of who I am, that's meaningful to me.
So whatever that is, I don't care. Like there's no judgment. If you want to wear a feather boa to the grocery store on a Tuesday. Great. Like, I love that. Do you, but who are you, what are you saying in that? And,~ um,~ I think that's the question. Like, it's not a judgment of. Do you have to, are you a tattoo person or not a tattoo person?
Do you wear, you know, ~um, ~[00:29:00] sleeves all the way down and you're very conservative and you, that's where your comfort zone is. Or are you like, Hey, the more skin, the better, you know, or leather or whatever it is. So it doesn't matter what version it is. It's, ~uh,~ it's, it's, are you dressing for you? Are you showing up for you?
Because a lot of us, you know, and this is, I love my mom. If you're mom, if you're listening, I love you. But, you know, she used to buy me clothes that she loved. That's just the way it is. That's just, you know, if you grow up and you shop at the Gap and your parents shopped at the Gap, then you're gonna get stuff from the Gap at Christmas time.
But if, if it doesn't align with you, then it's okay to say, Mom, I love you. If Lilly Pulitzer makes black, You can send me that, you know, so, and she, you know, she's, she's beautiful and, and has her style and she knows now that I have mine, but for so long you get nervous about not wanting to ruffle [00:30:00] feathers and you don't want to hurt someone's feelings and so you just sort of, you keep taking on the things that don't align with you out of obligation or whatever.
And so if you feel that, that. Confinement, I'm here to tell you that you may ruffle some feathers, but the other side of that is just this freedom of being who you are. And when you have the ability to bloom like that and just show yourself for who you are, the amount of Alignment that just the, that God just puts people in your path that are like, okay, now that you've said, you've said, this is who I am and this is what I'm about.
And we'll put this person in this person in this person. But it's also a game of attract and repel. You're also going to repel what's not for you. And that's great because that person's meant for someone else, you know, so there's no confusion anymore. You just feel there's a certain contentment with that.
Um, [00:31:00] I, I wouldn't go back. I would not go back. Yeah. And you know what? What I love about it is, you know, I'm sure a lot of times when you're listening to this, I know I, I am, you can kind of think of, well, how am I showing up to my children or to my team? Not just in, in terms of putting them in a box or putting an expectation on who, how they show up, right?
What they look like, what they wear, what their makeup looks like, whatever, you know, whatever that looks, but it's, it's beyond their style. It's, You know, I think back to even some seasons in our journey here with Saint, and I know you and I have talked about this, where you can't expect people to make the choices, the same choices that you're making when they're in different circumstances and their lives are totally different.
So, you know, it's easy to let people, you know, be who they're meant to be, but that's love. And I know that you and I had that conversation and I had to apologize to you, you know, because, Oh, well, listen, I mean, one of the things that I heard this recently, it's just so, it's such a beautiful, ~um, ~[00:32:00] very succinct way to kind of sum things up.
This guy, he's the guy that says, ~uh. ~Friendly reminder. It's that guy that like trudges through the woods. He's like an older gentleman with a beard. He's the friendly, he's the friendly reminder guy. He's like viral on Instagram and he's just an older guy and he goes walking in the woods and just doses everybody with this good advice.
Okay. And it's always short and just so like, Oh, you know, just gets you. And this is one of the things that he said, and I'll never forget it. He said, true peace is being okay with people being wrong about you. Right. True peace, inner peace is being okay with being misunderstood. It's okay. And you know what?
The people that really are meant for you and meant to be in your life, Heather, you're meant to be in my life. I'm meant to be in yours. We would not be here having this conversation. Even though we've had seasons of feeling maybe a little misunderstood, the right people will always stay and the wrong people will fall away and we wish them well.
And that's okay. It's [00:33:00] totally okay. But it's okay to be accept that not everyone's going to get you. Yes, not everybody's going to get you and for those people in network marketing, they're like, oh my God, if I just start going online and I start talking about my business, like all my friends are going to be so judgy and they're going to not understand what I'm doing.
It's okay. It's okay that they don't because you aren't seeing that the people that will get you are about to flood the door. You know, you just think you're thinking about, oh, I'm gonna lose all this, but you can never lose something that's meant for you. No, no, you can't. It's impossible. You cannot mess this up.
If you are staying true to who you are, you cannot mess up. And so, yeah. I was going to say, ~uh,~ there's a great, another great friend of mine, Emily McCarthy. She's a Savannah fashion designer. Her beautiful grandmother used to have this saying, and I, and I actually the bracelet with it that says what's for you won't pass you by.[00:34:00]
Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh. Totally. Yeah. I thought I gave that to you and Karen's mother. But what's for you won't pass you by. And I think that like when you can see that and when you can believe that, and when you can know that that that's, that's a person, like you said, that's an idea that you need to take action on.
That's that, that confidence level that if you don't have the confidence in who you are, you're not going to do the thing to build the confidence, right? So what a, what a, what a dose of confidence to give somebody is to say to them, you can't mess up. You can't, you literally cannot mess up. The only way to mess up is to not try, is to just do nothing, which is not right.
And like at the core of it, to not act on what we're meant to do and who we're meant to be. Ultimately that's fear, which is the opposite of faith and, you know, whatever. It's like, you can either choose faith or fear with every decision. every interaction, whether it's a [00:35:00] tough conversation with a friend or saying, I'm sorry, or cheering someone on that.
Maybe that you're in comparison mode. There's so many different things that, so many different things that, that, and it's easy in this business, right? I mean, would you say that In your journey with network marketing, what has that looked like in terms of your personal growth over the gosh, well, first of all, it's just the thing you don't see coming, you know, you're just Oh, like, again, the day I signed up, I just thought, Oh, I didn't even think it was another business.
Like I said, I thought it was a tool for the business I already had. I'd never expected to give up. You know, my full time studio or my staff are walking away from what that business model looked like, but I just really kept listening and kept asking myself the right questions. And I think one of the, ~uh,~ if I could give advice to things, be yourself and stay curious.
I have always operated my business from a concept of, ~um,~ I wonder what would happen if fill in the blank. So one of the early things that I did was, you I kind of started to see the income that I [00:36:00] was bringing in based on the amount of time that I was giving Saint, right? Oh, if I can make this much money leveraging 20 percent of my time, like, look, I'm a businesswoman here.
I'm a single mom. I have three kids to feed. Like, at some point, I've got to take off the romantic hat and put the business hat on and say, Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I gave this 50 percent of my time or 100 percent of my time. So I started to play with those variables and I luckily had, was the boss.
And so I could do that. And I know for a lot of people, that's not always the case. They don't have that freedom and flexibility to, to play with those variables, but I would encourage you, even if it's just for a short period of time, give yourself a window to collect data that's acting like a business woman, not acting like it's a hobby is to say like.
Okay. For the next 30 days, I'm going to post or whatever, or I'm going to do this one. I'm going to go in my back office and just send a love message to one person in my back office. It's a current customer. It doesn't have to be social media related. It just has to be some action that you're going to take [00:37:00] compounded by a consistent effort for a specific period of time where you can collect some data and then measure your results.
And if, and there's no quitting. This is just a, this is just experimentation. And so if you can approach your business with a sense of curiosity, wonder and experimentation that this is all just, it's just a grand experiment. I wonder what would happen if like, those are just the words I live by. How do you want to be seen?
How do you want to be heard? What do you want to leave them with? And I wonder what would happen if, and part of the. My 2024 was like, you know what, Katie, if you want to, ~uh,~ help and impact more people, I wonder what would happen if you called your friend Heather and said, can I come on your podcast? I mean, if you want to expand your reach, then get out of your comfort zone and start asking the people that you care about, like, I wonder what, you know, like just start getting yourself in front of new audiences and say, wonder what my impact could be.
~Um, ~and so, yeah, that was one of my challenges was like, let's, let's, let's go on as many podcasts as we can [00:38:00] just to say hello to new people and impact more people. So, ~um. ~Yeah, that that I would say that the the to answer your question about how personal development has impacted and I would not be even understanding of the whole idea of personal development were not for this business and the challenge that it presents you to grow as a human.
Because at the end of the day, a lot of us are accidental leaders. And so to be entrusted to mentor another person, it kind of is like, Oh my God, it's like being a new mom. You're like, you're going to really let me go home with this baby. You're going to leave it, leave it in my care. I don't know what I'm doing.
You're like, I hope I don't mess up big time. And I remember feeling that way. ~Um, ~At the beginning, having new teammates, I'm like, I don't even know what we were, you know, it was the Wild West. We were ignorance and fire for real in the early days of Saint. I feel like in a lot of ways. I love I want to tap into that energy again and again.
And I think that the only [00:39:00] way to tap into that energy of the past of being sort of ignorance on fire is to operate with a sense of curiosity and experimentation and to experiment. It's pressure free. It's all an experiment. And that, that is like, that's where you grow as a human and you tap into the personal development and the business growth at the same time.
That's so cool. And one of the things that's been really fun to watch, because obviously, you know, I'm a back office ninja is it's really cool. You over the last year have really, not that you ever went away from saying in any way, shape or form, but you've really gone all in. And it's really cool to watch your business grow and have spotlights of new leaders and emerging gals doing amazing things.
And I'd love to know what your heart looks like for your business. Wanted to go in the next year. Absolutely. Like, you know, I think it's one of the other thing about this business is you have to decide if you're going to do this for the long haul. And I love one of the things that Amanda taught us at the beginning, gosh, [00:40:00] thank goodness for her mentorship and love.
I just love her so much. And I remember her saying, like, if you were to look at the stock market and you look at the stock price in a 24 hour period of time, the little ticker goes like this. Right? It's like a EKG, right? And then you pan out to a week, and it still kind of looks a little volatile, and then you pan out again to a month, same stock, and then a year, and you see that those radic what looked like radical ups and downs, like, this is amazing!
This is the worst! This is amazing! This is the worst! You know, that energy. When you pan out across the year, you see this. It's gradual chugging along into this upper trajectory. And that is, you have to stay big picture focused, ~um,~ otherwise you'll just get consumed. And of course people are going to fall away.
People are going to have whatever reason that they have to leave the business. I've had whole legs of my team disappear overnight, crushed my paycheck, and I had to start [00:41:00] all over again and rebuild. And again. You know, the old saying, if it doesn't break you, it makes you and I think restarting at the bottom again was a rebirth of what matters to me.
How can I do this better? How can I, how can I mentor people more efficiently? How can I instill belief and paint big picture belief into people? ~Um, ~so it really challenged me to be like, okay, well, we're not quitting. We just have to Maybe pivot, shift the prism a bit and keep going and now armed with a whole bunch of, ~um, ~data of what has happened up to the, up to now.
How do I, how do I look back and say, okay, well, this is what's happened. I have, before I had no data, I was never in a network marketing business before. So it was just like, okay, what did I learn from year one to year three? And then how can I use that? Education to impact your 5678 and beyond. ~Um, ~because the fact is people will come and go and they all have their own reasons [00:42:00] and you can't, you know, again, I have to take that on my own medicine.
It's like those people need to say. That their inner peace is being okay with people being wrong about them. Maybe I don't want to make a judgment of like what's going on in their life of why they need to walk away from saint or why they might need to take a job promotion or why they might need to Choose another company or whatever like whatever's going on in their life I'm sure they have good reason and they felt called to make that move.
So I wish them. Well, of course I'm never going to be the kind of person that's going to stand in somebody's way for making the best possible life that they Can for themselves even if that's not to stay On this train with me. However, I do still that doesn't that doesn't change the belief that I have and what I'm building and what I'm creating and the women that are to come, you know, I still have unwavering faith in where we're headed.
And that's evidence just by the latest announcements of our global expansion and the places that we're heading. It's so thrilling and so exciting. And, you know, that [00:43:00] those those good that good news came at a great time. For, for a lot of people, definitely. And I know my listeners will, will know because I sound like a broken record that, you know, this book, the renewal for field leader and about that, exactly what you're talking about is zooming out.
Like any billion dollar network marketing company has had, you know, a season of. Of a peak of hyper growth season, kind of like broke by promotion, a shakeout, which is when things get a little scary and rocky, but then guess what happens leaders like you and I, and some of the amazing, you know, sideline teamies and things, we get really clear, like you said, on the data with what's working and what we can do opportunities of growth.
And we focus our energy on that. And then what's really cool is, especially when you pour something like global expansion, which is on the horizon for us, which I'm so excited. You know, I believe with every fiber of my being that this is going to be a billion dollar company. And I cannot wait to be a part of that.
And so that like, that [00:44:00] doesn't mean that someone else can't have an experience somewhere else or that we should. We're making that just like we have to let them all in their fashion. Take that case study and blow it out of proportion to where it now has to mean so much more for like, Oh, well, you know, because this person left now it's gonna like, you know, that it's making a statement about the future of a whole company.
Like that's, that's not. That's not even a mature statement now. Totally. And we could probably do an entire other podcast. Yeah. No, you know what? You just got to stay in your lane. I love, it's almost like you have this grownup set of new set of rules, right? Like I've, I'm, I'm not a toddler in this business anymore.
So it should be on me to take the data that I've learned, the education that I've, you know, just my work, uh, you know, my work experience and let that. That died me, but I really think tapping into that sense of [00:45:00] wonder of the world is my oyster. I feel like I'm right at the beginning. It's it's zero. The score is zero zero again.
You know, we're starting a brand new game with a brand new. Sweet soul that just joined today and how am I going to impact her? And how can I apply that same set of like the discovery phase of what it's like to be a new artist all over again, like, and, and experiment with your business. And I wonder what would happen if like that you have to just, if I, I can't tell you so many times, like if you could just apply that to your business, you would blow your own mind.
So good friend. Well, I know we have been chatting about all the things and I loved it. It was so fun. So much fun. Where can they go to find you? Katie? Well, my home is on Instagram. ~Um, ~I would say that's where I spend most of my time. And then there's a gateway to pretty much everything from there. I have a website that you can look at, ~um, ~that has a lot of the arms of my business.
[00:46:00] But, ~um,~ you know, my Lincoln bio has all those same Same triggers and things. The course is called the Atman Course, A T M A N. The course, the Atman is a, is a Hindu word for the self, the breath. It's sort of the you that only God knows. It's the one you can't run from. It's the innermost you. ~Um, ~so that journey is, ~um,~ you know, and I'm still dropping new episodes of that.
It's kind of like a Netflix show. I drop a new one and, and that way. I don't know. At least for me, it doesn't feel overwhelming, ~um, ~to consume. So if there's like, you know, you log in and there's 40 modules that could feel a little overwhelming. So there's just, there's a few on there and, you know, it's self paced and you can get through it, ~um,~ with new episodes dropping all the time.
~Um,~ the podcast will be on, on, you know, Apple podcasts and Spotify. It's called separated at birth.~ Um, ~we didn't even talk about Willamina. We don't even have to talk about Willamina. Willamina just like happened. It was kind of a thing. And. You know, but I do have a profile on their website, which you can check out.
It's just, I'm the most shocked person of all time that that happened to, you know, 40, 46 years old and [00:47:00] signed to a major agency in New York is just like, what, but. It's so cool. And her reel, I mean, obviously I'm not the social media guru and I miss so much, but I did not miss when she posted that announcement and is still to this day, one of my very favorite reels.
And I'll make sure to link to that as well so that they can check it out. It's a beautiful example of, of what it's never too late to reinvent yourself. And the purpose of all of the things that you've been through, whether it is, you know, a divorced mama of three beautiful children, you know, photographer, a singer, a curly hair, you know, all of those things, like they, they have brought you to where you are right now for a purpose.
And it's been really cool, Katie, to watch you step into you. And to be able to serve so many women. And I know you're just getting started in it. Like you said, well, I have a lot of energy, so I'm ready to, I'm ready to keep going. I do have big vision for not just our company, but for what that means for me and the girls on my team.
And I, I. [00:48:00] Pinch myself every day. I mean, I, I've talked about this before, standing backstage in San Antonio with all of you guys, you know, I love that our company kind of makes a little fuss over us, ~um,~ as leaders and gives us that special little walkout, but just standing backstage and just sort of like looking at everybody and their beautiful dresses and thinking kind of, ~uh, ~how did I get here moment, but not just that, just looking around the room, not just at all these beautiful women, but just thinking to myself, like each of these women has.
Put in the work. They have changed their lives. They've changed their family's lives They've built these empires like that is a that is a room that I always aspired to be in That's the room where the conversation is different And so I just felt so glad so much gratitude to be amongst my peers are such badass women Like I just I had that moment of just like wow Like look at all these women not just their beauty their outside beauty, but just how Truly powerful and how they really followed the calling and, and took action [00:49:00] to create the life that they dreamed about and, and to, to, ~um,~ not quiet, not put their light under the basket.
They said, I'll, I'll be myself. I'll I'm, I can have impact. I can do this. And so it's just a very, very inspiring group to be around. And I would just say that as a whole Saint. And the community that we have is just a very inspiring room of people to be in. So very lucky and so and so lucky for you. I mean, Heather, you are one of the very first people you Tammy, I mean, and Sarah and Amanda were like the very first mentors that I had in this business and I had no idea what I was doing and I would call you nonstop and be like, what am I, what do I do here?
What do I do here? And you know, ~um, ~so I just feel like being in lockstep with you and, and these other ladies is, has just been one of the great joys of my life. So thank you. Ditto, darling. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for sharing your heart and you're a beautiful person inside and [00:50:00] out, Katie. So thank you for having me.
I really enjoyed being on here and I'm just, I'm in awe of everything that you've done. We were talking right before this. I'm like, you know, like 109 podcasts in Holy cow. Like, wow, that's amazing. So I'm about to, I'm about to put one out. So I'm like, Oh man, such an accomplishment among all the others. So thank you, Heather.
Darling. Love ya. Alright. Love you too. Thanks for having me.
