103: How To Stand Out From The Crowd & Make Money on IG with Erica Reitman

Transcript

How To Stand Out From The Crowd & Make Money on IG with Erica Reitman

 

SPEAKERS

Meaghan Smith, Erica Reitman

 

Meaghan Smith  00:20

Hello beautiful humans and welcome to another episode of the Money Mindful podcast. I am your host Meaghan Jean Smith. I'm a money mindset and life coach for women. I help women entrepreneurs and biz owners to change their money mindset so they can create the money and life that they want. Alright, listen. If you want to make money in business, one thing you must be able to do is sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell your offer. You might be the best service in the world. But if nobody knows about you, well, you might run into a little bit of trouble. Okay, you have to be able to, have to, have to, have to be able to tell people about what you do, and how you can help them. And do you know what, this is selling. This is actually what selling is. It's just telling people what you do, and how you can help them.

 

Meaghan Smith  01:16

So I am super stoked to introduce you to my guest today. Erica Reitman. By the way, I'm going to give you a swear bear alert. One of the reasons why I absolutely love Erica is she does not hold back with the F word. And you know, I don't either. So brace yourself. Kids, if you're in the back of the car, these are adult words. Okay. So Erica is a biz mentor for tell it like it is coaches who are ready to grow their online empire, especially while saying fuck. I love it, Erica, so much. Welcome to the show.

 

Erica Reitman  01:55

I am so excited to be here. I've been looking forward to our conversation, and I can't wait to get into it.

 

Meaghan Smith  02:01

All right, amazing. Amazing. Okay, so I got you on the show today because obviously, you're fabulous. I think you're fabulous.

 

Erica Reitman  02:08

Thank you. Thank you.

 

Meaghan Smith  02:09

But I also know that you are fabulous at selling on Instagram, you have amazing content, and you have a very big following. I know that you're really good in this area. And a lot of people who I work with Erica, have their own businesses, they market themselves. And we know Instagram isn't the only place you can market yourself. But we're going to focus on that today. And I would love you to just share all your goodness. so my listeners can walk away feeling like, holy shit, I'm never going to look at Instagram the same again. This is amazing. I'm going to do everything Erica says and just explode.

 

Erica Reitman  02:53

Oh, my gosh, thank you. Well, I have now used Instagram to grow two very successful, completely unrelated businesses, because before I was a coach, I was actually an interior designer. And the only place I have ever marketed myself is Instagram. I've never done any ads. Not that I think there's anything wrong with it. In fact, I'm going to start experimenting with them this year. But Instagram has been such an amazing place for me to connect with all of the people who want to pay me money. And so I love talking about it because the truth of the matter is, absolutely, it requires work and thought and planning and effort. However, it's also a lot easier than I think most people think that it is. And I see, because I work with coaches too, there is so often, as you were talking about, this feeling of being just terrified around the idea of selling. And honestly, for me, I say I sell every single solitary day on Instagram. Now I'm not always saying join my programme or buy my thing. I consider selling like, get on my email list, or join my close friends list, or I'm doing a masterclass, I would love to have you there.

 

Erica Reitman  04:16

So I really have gotten myself into the habit of just showing up every day, and being unapologetic about the fact that I'm selling. I know you're in a different country. We have Whole Foods here in the United States. I'm actually in Mexico right now, but I'm from the United States. I've never seen anyone walk into Whole Foods and say, 'Wait a minute. This is a little overwhelming for me. Everything is for sale. It's all in my face, I think you need to step back a little bit. It's a bit too much'. And for some reason, that's how we assume everyone is feeling on Instagram. Now of course maybe some people are feeling like that but those people are not going to walk into Whole Foods in the first place if they have a problem with it. So that's just kind of how I like to look at selling on Instagram. It's something that I now have lots of fun with. I'm not afraid of it anymore. I used to be, so this did take some time. But I've really reached a point where selling is just really freakin' fun for me.

 

Meaghan Smith  05:22

Yeah, so let's talk about this, because you refer to our dick brain, which I love so much. Yes, I completely agree. Yes, our brains are arseholes.  Let's set the scene a bit. Because there's really common, I think there's a lot of threads, like common threads that people think and where our brains block us from showing up, standing out, being unapologetic. I want to talk about that a little bit more. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Erica Reitman  05:57

Well, this - I'm a big believer in using Instagram and any social platform in a way that feels really, really good for you. That is really kind of the core of how I run my business. And so for me, what I have realised is I have the most fun building my business and getting people to pay me, when I show up in a way that makes it very, very clear who I am, and what you're going to get if we work together. And what I have found is, because I just really let it all hang out on social media, it's very, very rare for me to get someone coming into my orbit and purchasing one of my programmes or working with me, who isn't a really good fit, because I just show up all the time as who I am. If you - even if we've never worked together, chances are if you've been following me for a while and really kind of taking in my content, you know what it's gonna be like to work with me as a coach. You know I'm gonna keep it real. You know I'm gonna call you out. You know I'm gonna sometimes have strong opinions. And so, on a work front, it's really been amazing. And it has really helped me connect with those, like dreamy, oh my god, I couldn't have invented you in a lab any better if I tried, sorts of clients. And so that's been really amazing.

 

Erica Reitman  07:23

On a personal front, because I really do share a lot about my own life, ups, downs, failures, struggles that I go through, I talk really openly about my experience with depression and taking medication, I talk about the fact that I chose not to have kids. And so I do bring up these topics that sometimes people are afraid to touch. And again, if that is you, that's okay. I have just found that in terms of growing my business, one of the things that's helped me the most is connecting with my community. And so I don't really think of people, you know, I don't even like, I don't like the word followers. It just sounds so weird for me to say. But one of the ways that I have really been able to connect with my community, even in ways that surprised the hell out of me, is by showing up being vulnerable, letting it all hang out and talking about things that are going on in my life, as if everyone who is following me is a friend of mine, because that's really how I think of them.

 

Meaghan Smith  08:32

Yes, I love that. And actually, that is something that I do when I go on Instagram, is I imagine I'm talking to my clients, because there's - once you hit over, I don't know, like 50 followers, 50 people in your community, for me, that just starts to get to be like, I can't imagine this amount of people in one room. And if I start thinking about the 1000 people on my account, I get overwhelmed and I'm like, ooh, who are these people? But if I think that I'm talking to my clients, I'm just like, Oh, this is fine, of course, I would share this with them. I totally want to tell them all this stuff. But another point I picked up from what you just said there, Erica, is you showing up authentically, just lettin' it all hang out on Instagram, tells me that you have a good relationship with yourself, right, and that's actually different to selling. I think the reason why you can do that is because you have a relationship with yourself where you feel like 'I trust myself, I've got my own back. It's okay, I can put this out there'. And this is really interesting because I don't think a lot of people talk about this when it comes to selling but that's actually an integral piece there. But that's not what we think about when we think about selling, like being authentic and just being able to show our true selves. What do you think about that?

 

Erica Reitman  10:04

I mean, I think that's 100 per cent right. You bring up this point, and it just makes me think about the fact that I don't think it's so much that people are afraid of selling. I think it's, people are afraid of being judged. They're afraid of what other people will think of them. And that takes it a step further. It's not just - there's definitely some fear around selling and putting yourself out there. But honestly, I think it's probably more this idea that, 'If I do this, what are people going to be thinking of me? What are they going to say? Will they think I'm being too much? Are they going to unfollow me?'

 

Erica Reitman  10:44

And I know, I can totally relate to this idea. I have gotten to a place, I think it's a combination of my age, my time on the internet, all of the different ways I've put myself out there in the past, I just give zero fucks what you think of me, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. If you love hanging out with me, and learning from me, and you know, spending time with me, I want you in this community, and you are welcome there. If you do not, I send you off with love, and I'm very thankful that you made space in my community for somebody who's actually really excited to be there. And so, I am not trying to please everyone, I don't want to please everyone. In fact, being polarising is one of the things that I intentionally inject. It's not super hard for me because I just have very strong opinions that sometimes just put me in that polarising space. But it's very much a technique that I use on social media very successfully.

 

Meaghan Smith  11:50

Yeah. Yes, I want to talk about all these things and examples. But I think that's maturity as well. And not in terms of just age, but maturity about yeah, being comfortable with yourself, and just like, 'This is who I am. Take it or leave it. It's not a problem if you don't like it'. But that's kind of like a rite of passage, I think that everybody has to go through when they first start a business. I know for me that when I first started, I was shitting myself, putting myself out on social media, I had never done anything like that before. And it just was - I mean, I use social media to share photos of, you know, a family event or something with my friends and family. And then suddenly, I'm speaking about my podcast. And then when I created a business, I'm speaking about my business. And at first it just felt so scary. But I think once you get out there and get started, you just realise 'Oh, is that all. Oh, it's not really a big deal at all. It's just, I just get to talk and people either like me, or they don't and they engage with me, or they don't. And it's not even a problem'.

 

Erica Reitman  13:06

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it takes practice, for sure. And I often get asked, you know, people always seem to be looking for a way around the hard, messy part. Like how can I make this easy from the beginning for myself, and unfortunately, you just can't, the only way through this is to do it, is to show up, is to feel uncomfortable. And do it again and again and again, until you reach a point where it doesn't feel uncomfortable anymore. And that timeframe will be different for everyone. But we all just have to go through it at some point. I've just, you know, I've been on social media for so long, that I now have lots and lots and lots of experience dealing with people who have varying opinions, thoughts, ideas on what I should be doing, how I should be looking, what I should be saying. And honestly, again, I just give zero fucks about any of it.

 

Meaghan Smith  14:07

What the hell? That makes my blood boil, that somebody has the time to talk about how you should be looking, or what you should be doing. I mean, honestly!

 

Erica Reitman  14:21

I think that most people are coming from a good place. I have to share with you, because this just happened, I just cut my hair and had it coloured but when it was first coloured it wasn't quite blonde enough for me. So I went back and I got some more blonde in my hair and I posted a picture after on Instagram and somebody wrote to me and said, 'You look so much younger with blonde hair. Don't ever go back to dark hair. It ages you so much.' Now, I am sure she thought she was giving me a compliment. For me it was kind of like 'So are you saying that I looked horrible before?'  I suppose I wasn't quite sure what to do with this thing. And again, I know that this person was coming from a good place. But this stuff does happen on social media.

 

Erica Reitman  15:14

And that is a good point to bring up, some of the fears that we have, might be realised, because you are going to sometimes get people who are sharing their opinions and their thoughts with you. And again, I say you just kind of have to practise dealing with it, and not caring about it, and letting it go. And the more it happens, the easier it gets. This isn't something by the way, even with me, that happens very often. It's very, very rare. I would say that 99.9% of my interactions on Instagram are so positive, and amazing and inspiring and fulfilling, and all of that. But you will sometimes have people that just don't understand that you are not interested in their opinion.

 

Meaghan Smith  16:04

I love it. Alright, so let's change this up a little bit and help my listener with a starting point. So let's imagine they've been playing around on Instagram for a while, they're not really sure what they're doing. Where's a good place to start? Let's create some baby steps.

 

Erica Reitman  16:28

Yeah, well, so my advice is, everyone is usually very focused on, 'How do I grow my audience? How do I grow my audience? How do I get more followers? Where can I find them? What can I do? What hashtags should I be using?' And there is nothing wrong with that. I want that for everyone who is listening. But my advice would be - I like to use this analogy of a dinner party. So let's imagine before the pandemic, you're throwing an amazing dinner party, and you've invited people over and you found all of your recipes on Pinterest, and you found a perfect outfit, and you made a playlist on Spotify, and you just have the most gorgeous table that you've arranged and everything is perfect. And the doorbell rings, and all of the people are coming in and they're sitting around your table, and you're out in the driveway with like a janky piece of poster board that says 'Dinner guests wanted'. You have your dinner guests, they're sitting at the table around you, there may be five, there may be three, there may be 10. These are people who have already raised their hands and said, 'I want to hang out with you, let's do this thing'.

 

Erica Reitman  17:40

And what I find is instead of focusing on those people, there is this idea that we constantly need to be finding more and more and more anonymous followers, just to up our numbers. And I really don't think you need a tonne of people following you in order to have a really successful, profitable business. And so my first piece of advice is stop worrying about the people who aren't there and start worrying about the people who are. Because truthfully, I don't think we should be focused on getting one more freakin' follower until you can, you know, until you can be very sure that you are showing up every single day, as best as you can, offering as much value as you can, doing all that is within your power to connect and, you know, bring those good vibes to your community. Once you have that covered, then let's talk about you growing.

 

Meaghan Smith  18:42

Yes, that is such an important point. And if you go and check Erica out after you've listened to this, on Instagram, you'll see that she has thousands of followers, but I'll just pipe up and say, I have, I don't even know the exact amount, but it's basically around 1000. And I have created a profitable business. Like, I don't care about getting new people following me, at all. I just communicate to the people who are with me. And so I can attest that this is absolutely true. And I know lots of other people on social media who have 500 followers or 800 followers, and they're in the same position. They are running a business and they are making money. So I mean, I think you get to a point where you want to scale and you're looking at things in a whole different way, but followers does not equal money. Let's just make that very clear.

 

Erica Reitman  19:42

Yeah.  I like to say do you want followers or do you want dollars? I want dollars.

 

Meaghan Smith  19:50

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, yes. So, alright, so let's talk about how do we stand out, though. How do we actually, how do we make ourselves unique and attract the people that we want to attract and not look like everybody else because I'm, truthfully, there's so many people on the internet that I just see that look the same. I'm like, I don't even know who that person is. And you, I've got to say, are brilliant at this, you definitely stand out. There is no mistaking, this is Erica Reitman. We're on her page, like without a doubt. I know everyone's going to be, after they've listened to this, they're going to be going out and checking you out. But let's talk about that.

 

Erica Reitman  20:39

Yeah, I mean, this is another one, it's not that hard to stand out. Because I agree with you, I do feel like there are a lot of people who are doing the same old, same old thing. And, you know, really avoiding this whole process of stand - I mean, some people find standing out the thing that they don't want to do. This is the number one thing that I want to do, I am kind of allergic to doing the same thing that everybody else does. So I always like to do things my own way. What I will say is oftentimes when somebody is asking me this question, they're automatically assuming that they don't stand out right now. And I think this goes back to the mindset stuff, you are unique, whoever you are, and you are probably easily standing out if you are showing up regularly on social media intentionally, and sharing yourself and trying to grow your business and doing it in your own special way. So what I find is, most people have a pretty good head start there, they just don't think that they do.

 

Erica Reitman  21:49

But my number one piece of advice, and it's gonna scare some people, but that thing in your head that you've been wanting to talk about, and you keep pushing away and saying, 'Oh, I'm not going to bring that thing up'. Talk about that. That is going to be your first step to standing out. Because most people are afraid to do that. Most people are afraid to share a simple opinion. And so for me, sharing an opinion, is another really easy way to stand out because for some reason, most people are just terrified of it.

 

Meaghan Smith  22:26

Yes, I love this so much. And that's one thing that I see a lot, in terms of creating more income, because, Erica, I'm a money mindset coach. And one thing that you have to do to make money is be seen. Money cannot find you, if you're not being seen. Now, you don't have to stand out like Madonna. I mean, you don't have to go and make a crazy erotica book or something and do something really out there. That's not what standing out means in the sense of what I'm talking about. But you need to be seen for people to find you and see you. But being seen, you can be seen in whatever way that is, like whether that's you're really into craft and you do all craft things and you attract people who are craft or that you're religious, or you're not religious. Or you swear a lot, or you don't swear a lot. You're gonna attract the people who fit, for you, but you have to be seen. And I think that's a huge block. When we were talking before about obstacles that people face when they're starting, I think that's something that is major and being seen is connecting to selling, selling is being seen, and being seen is selling because you're - I mean, I just want to take this kind of beyond Instagram in the sense that we're always selling ourselves. Like even if you don't have a business, we're always selling something like when you're at work with your colleagues, or in business, or with your partner about, you know, working out where we're going to go with the family on the weekend. I mean, in some sense, I'm selling the idea. Listen, I think we should go to the waterfall, not the bushwalk. I mean, if you can look at it from that angle. Because often I think selling is seen as this icky thing where we're trying to push something on somebody. But I see selling as you're just presenting an idea. You're making an offer and you're looking for the match, like you're looking for the match of the person who's like yes, I want that. Anyway, I think I'm getting distracted here but I can see you want to say something. Pipe up. Yeah, pipe in!

 

Erica Reitman  24:53

Well, I also see this strange disconnect with those of us who have online businesses and use social media to sell because along with my Whole Foods example, every company that exists in the world has a main goal of selling and making money. And nobody seems to have a problem with it. It's just expected and accepted. And for some reason, for those of us who do business online and who use social media, I don't know who started this or whose idea it is, there now seems to be this thought that like, we need to be doing things differently, and should feel shame around this thing that, like, take a look around. Every business, everywhere, if you're a stockholder in a company, you want that company to sell as much as it possibly can. Sure, there are other pieces involved in the business. But if you had to choose one thing that was accepted universally about being a successful business, it's selling as much as you can. So why has this become like such a dirty idea for those of us who are on social media?

 

Meaghan Smith  26:11

Oh my gosh, it's like - yeah, I saw some stuff, when the pandemic first started, where people were talking about, oh, that's really bad taste, you shouldn't be selling right now. But did you ever go into the supermarket and say, 'That's really bad taste, you shouldn't be selling toilet paper right now. You shouldn't be, you know, selling food, and this is like, how can you be trying to make money right now, in a pandemic?' I mean, it's ludicrous when you start thinking about it like that. So people who run businesses, when anything happens in the world should suddenly stop trying to run their business? I don't know. It's just like crazy shit. Like, what? What are you talking about?

 

Erica Reitman  26:49

Yeah. Yeah. And we all buy into this crap. And it starts to feel like a real rule. But nobody else is following it. That's the crazy thing. There is nobody else who owns a business that is following this rule, except for this, this tiny little sliver of those of us who are online using social media. I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. It's very confusing to me.

 

Meaghan Smith  27:15

Yeah, it is really weird, especially when you start teasing it out  and looking at it. Alright, so I want to, we've sort of touched on this. But let's, talk a little bit more about - because I know, Erica, people listening - this is what's going to happen. We're talking a lot about concepts, but they're going to be thinking, 'But Erica, tell me what to do. What should I do? Tell me some simple steps'. Let's give them a few simple steps. Alright, so we've talked about just being ourselves, putting ourselves out there. Practise, that's what I've heard you say. I'm just reiterating. Let's put ourselves out there, just be ourselves, practise. Just keep showing up. What else? Anything else?

 

Erica Reitman  28:04

I mean, there are so many things. Here's a really easy one that you could start today and will make all of the difference in the world in terms of how you connect with your community. Stop saying 'You guys', and just say 'You'. So instead of 'Hey, guys, just wanted to check in today. I've been thinking about you'. Listen to the difference with that and 'Hey. I've been thinking about you. I just wanted to check in because I'm not having a great day. How's your day?' Like, the feeling is so different, and your audience won't maybe even pick up on why they're feeling more connected to you. But you will know. And I am telling you, it will make all the difference in the world. Stop saying 'you guys' and say 'you' instead.

 

Meaghan Smith  28:57

I love it. That's amazing. Yeah. Perfect. That's the gold, there. Did you hear that? Did you hear that?

 

Erica Reitman  29:05

Did you hear that. Another thing I love to use, which I find is not talked about often and is a really underutilised thing to do on Instagram, is to use your close friends list. And so a lot of people don't even know what this is. But Instagram basically put this together because they thought, you know, like let's say you're at a family reunion and your little cousin does something cute but you don't necessarily want to share it on stories with everyone who's following you. You could create a list of your closest friends and family and just share the cute video of your little cousin with them. I have used it to grow my business and it is such an incredible tool. It is so flexible. There are so many different ways to use it. Most recently, I used it - I was launching my mastermind and since I work with other coaches, I used my close friends list as a space to show behind the scenes of my launch. And so I'm talking like, 'Here's the email sequence that I'm going to be using. Here is the amount of money that I spent on a designer to get this particular presentation'. Like really giving people the inside look into what goes into a big launch like I was doing, because it was a pretty big launch.

 

Erica Reitman  30:27

And it was incredibly successful, I have to say, even in ways that I didn't originally anticipate, because what happened was, everyone who joined the programme was on my close friends list. And it gave them an opportunity to get this really intense bird's eye view of what was going into it and how amazing this programme was going to be. And it just was this fantastic framework for me to talk about the thing for three months before it actually launched. And so close friends list is another thing that I think is amazing and a great tool to use. And depending on what kind of business you have, there are so many different options for it. I actually have a resource where I have, I think, 20 ideas for different ways that you can use your close friends list, which you can find in my bio, but it really is such an amazing, powerful and really flexible tool for you to use as a business owner, if you're using Instagram to market your business.

 

Meaghan Smith  31:28

Oh, that's super cool. Alright. And also I'll be putting all of Erica's details in the show notes. So you'll be able to find out how to find her when you go to the show notes. So I want to kind of finish, we're getting to, we're moving towards the end. But I don't want to miss out on talking, really talking about mindset and being grounded in our value. And what I mean by that is that I think one of the obstacles to selling is that we confuse our self worth with our service. And they're two completely different things. They are not related. Right? But it's almost like if we have low self esteem, or we just don't value ourselves, we don't value what we're selling. And even if what we're selling is fucking amazing. You know, I see this so often, like people have this amazing thing to sell, but they downplay it. Or it's like that same kind of thing when somebody gives you a compliment, whatever, and you're sort of like, oh, this old thing. You know, it's like you just, you downplay it. And even though somebody is right in front of you saying, 'That's awesome'. You're still not being grounded in your value and just really holding that space, like yeah, this is awesome, right. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And I'm just curious to know your thoughts around that.

 

Erica Reitman  33:05

Well, so here's another analogy that I really love. There is a store in the United States called Marshalls and I am obsessed with it. It's, I don't know if you have something similar. It's kind of like a, you know, one of those stores where the previous season's clothes get sent to and they're way less expensive. And you can just search around for hours going through the racks and finding things and I love the hunt. So Marshalls, again, one of my favourite stores, I could go two, three, four times a week and not get bored. Because their inventory is changing all the time. There is always something there that I'm going to be interested in. If I ever went into Marshalls, and they had like the shoe section closed off, and they were like, you know, we didn't want to overwhelm you today, so we're not going to show you that piece. Don't worry about going there. You can go into the rest of the store. But you can't go over there. I would be really pissed because I love this place. And so even if I go in, I don't have any kids, I don't walk by the kids section and think 'I want to firebomb all of the people who are in here right now. And I hope they die'. That's not what I'm feeling. I just walk right by. And so the thing I like to remind my clients is, you are somebody's favourite store. There are people in your community who feel the same way about you as I do about Marshalls.

 

Erica Reitman  34:40

And so I know for the people that I feel this way about on Instagram, if they have an amazing programme, and I miss it, I'm angry, and it's not for sale anymore and I can't get in, I'm like, you know, I'm not angry at them but I'm like really upset. Oh my god, this would have been so perfect for me. I wish I knew about it. And I really want people, when you are selling something and you are putting yourself out there, to remember that you are talking to the people like me who are obsessed with Marshalls, I want to know everything that they have, all of the sales, all of the good things, all of the new stuff, I want to hear about all of it. And those are the people in your community who are going to be excited about what you're selling. And in fact, if they miss out on it, they're going to be pissed, just like I was. So you are somebody's favourite store. That's really an analogy for me, that totally changed the game. And I think of it so often. So hopefully that'll be helpful to someone listening.

 

Meaghan Smith  35:45

That is a golden nugget. I love that so much. Yes. And that's a complete mind shift, like thinking about yourself and what you are offering, like that. I absolutely love that. Thank you for saying that. That's a beautiful analogy. And what I also thought of when you said that was, because I don't use Instagram as my main place where I get clients, but I have a presence on Instagram. But one thing that blew my mind as I've been learning to use Instagram more and get better at using it and showing up there more, was a couple of months back, I was marketing something. And I was putting stuff out every day in my stories. And I did three posts about it, which to me felt massive, putting three posts out about one thing and having it in my stories every single day and doing a live about it. And still so many people were like, 'Oh, what was, did you do an open coaching call? I didn't even know about that. Oh'.

 

Meaghan Smith  36:54

And we think, you know, this is the thing that just blows my mind, we think we're putting so much stuff out there. And we don't want to you know, we don't want to overwhelm people. We don't want to bother people. But mate, nobody gives a shit. Nobody is, like nobody's counting how many times you've posted. Nobody's looking at, 'Oh, they've told me about this too many times'. No. In fact, it's almost like you have to tell people about it 100 times before they even realise, 'Oh, I think Meaghan's doing something'. I've noticed this. Like, that was a huge lesson for me, to just be like, 'Oh, I could be talking about this 100 times more than I am, and there would still be people who have no idea what I'm doing. So it's fine. Just keep talking about it.

 

Erica Reitman  37:47

Yes, yes. I mean, honestly, we just moved to Mexico City. Before this we were living in a town called San Miguel de Allende. I would say like, I don't know, like 30 or 40% of my content every day was about this beautiful town that we lived in, in Mexico. I was always sharing walks. I was going out on my patio every morning and tagging the location. I would say about once a week somebody would reach out to me and say, 'Where do you live in Mexico?' And that, for me was the reminder, like, I talk about this thing so much that I feel like if I say the word San Miguel de Allende, again, people are just gonna vomit. They're just gonna be so sick of it. And all the time, I would get asked that question. So I always say you need to talk about your stuff so much that before you go back on Instagram again, you're saying to yourself in your head, 'oh, my god, I can't believe I'm talking about this again, but here I go'.

 

Meaghan Smith  38:47

Yeah. Oh, gosh. Alright. There is one thing I've got to ask you, though, that I am curious about, is when you're posting to Instagram regularly, how do you - I mean, I know you do stories, because I follow you, I love your stuff. You do stories, you do - I mean, I'm not sure how often you're posting, you know, making actual posts and things like that, see, I don't pay that much attention. But how do you manage your time around Instagram? Because one thing that comes up for me is, oh, I don't want to be on my phone, 24/7. I mean, are you just happy to be on your phone all the time? Or are you actually not on your phone as much as we think? Or just - tell me. Tell me all the things.

 

Erica Reitman  39:34

I just, I have a totally different view about all of this now. I should say again, I don't have any kids. So I have a lot of flexibility in my life in terms of time and commitments. But truly, I look at Instagram as my full time job. Nobody thinks twice about spending eight hours a day at their full time job. Now, I don't typically spend eight hours a day but it could be two, three, four. And for me, it makes sense because that is the place that I have built a multi six figure business, it's worthwhile for me to hang out there. And not only that, I have fun hanging out there because I am now creating content and showing up in a way that feels really good for me. Another mindset shift I made is that I look at my content as assets that I'm creating for my business. And each one of them is worth my time and effort as if it was actually like a real asset like we would think, you know, a financial money asset. And so again, this is something that for me, is worth my time and effort and energy and having figured out a way to do it, that feels really good and fun for me, has made all the difference in the world.

 

Meaghan Smith  40:52

Oh, I like that. Yeah, I really like that way of thinking about it, creating assets. I mean, I can relate to that. I love assets. I love having lots of assets. So that works for me, thinking about it in that way. Oh, that's so good. Oh, my gosh, you have given us so many gems today, Erica. But before we wrap this up, I always ask my guests, if you have a habit or a ritual or some sort of mindset thing that you do around money that you're happy to share, and it can be related to your business or your personal life or whatever. I love talking about money. I love hearing as many things as we can hear about, oh, wow, I never thought of that. So like, let's hear it. Women talking about money. This is what this is all about.

 

Erica Reitman  41:46

Yeah, well, so my next big goal in my business is to make a million dollars. And so something that I do, honestly, at this point, probably on a daily basis, is I really tune into the CEO millionaire version of me. And I think through decisions and situations as if I were already her, so would the CEO millionaire version of Erica on day one of her launch be worried that only three people signed up when you wanted five? Would she be spending all day deep in her dick brain, worried about that? The answer would be no. And that for me, that CEO millionaire version of myself is so great, because it always just snaps me out of all of the bullshit that's swirling around in my head over a variety of different things. And I really have started using it. Yes, it's super helpful with the money stuff too, but even like with my presence, and how I want to show up and who I want to be out in the world, I've found that not only is it really helpful, it's a fun exercise too, because I like showing up as this version of her.

 

Erica Reitman  43:05

And so, in my personal life, for example, my goal is, I don't know how much money overall I would need to achieve this goal, but I want one day to not have to check in with my husband, when we're making travel reservations, to see whether or not we're travelling first class, I want it to just be understood that obviously, that's what's going to happen, and we don't need to make a pro / con list about it, or think about whether or not it makes sense. And you know, it's just a thing between the two of us. And so, in my personal life, I have started where I can, I'm not at the point where I can fly first class to Australia, maybe. But if I'm flying from you know, Mexico City to Houston on a connecting flight, maybe I'm flying first class there and I'm bringing these elements into my life as much as I can. And so I just have loved really kind of stepping into the CEO millionaire version of myself and always thinking about what would this chick be doing right now? What would she be thinking? What would she be saying?

 

Meaghan Smith  44:14

Ah, yes, that is the best. And I've actually done whole podcast episodes on this concept. What you just said then is literally how I've created a business. It's forward thinking all the time. What would she do? What would she do? I mean, I just got a designer to do a brand logo for me and work all that shit out in my business. Now, do you need that to sell? You absolutely do not. You do not need, I mean I've been running my business for over a year now, and I only just got a logo done. You do not - that does not create money. But the person that I am in my business, running a successful business, that I see myself in the future - does she have her branding done, and have all that stuff sorted? Absolutely she does. And so it's like, yeah, let's do this, like, let's do all this fun stuff in my business, so I think that's such a great example. And I'll bring something up that I just noticed on your Instagram, which I think relates to this. I've just quickly flicked through but you had some gold dishwashing stuff like you know, something that you put on your sink where you store your sponge, and it looks fabulous. And you also had a gold bowl for your dog because yes, exactly what you said, dog bowls are ugly as sin. What is happening, pet stores? I totally think this relates, because I'm imagining millionaire CEO Erica Reitman has a beautiful dog bowl for her dog, and has a gorgeous gold, I don't even know what it's called, but thingamajig that you've got on your sink, that you store your dishwasher brush in, right?

 

Erica Reitman  46:07

And that's a great example too, because it's - those things are not a lot of money. This gold, this isn't like solid gold. This was a gold bowl, I got at Zara Home for $18. So we're not talking about like very extravagant stuff. But this is actually something that I was very intentional about when we moved to our new apartment. I said, I am not bringing in anything that is not beautiful. And that goes for things that we just for some reason, accept in our lives, like sponges, for example. Why are all sponges like fluorescent purple? Like I don't, I don't want a fluorescent purple or green sponge in my space. I don't like it. If you do, I think that's cool. But I want everything that surrounds me to be a aesthetically pleasing. So I found a neutral sponge. It was $1.50. I didn't invest a tonne of money. But I was intentional about making sure that the things that I bring it into my space, make me feel really good. Whenever I look at them, even if it's an ugly sponge.

 

Meaghan Smith  47:18

Yeah. And I think the little piece in that, Erica, that doesn't land for a lot of people, I think in the beginning, is that that's actually what is going to make you the millionaire CEO. Because you're showing up as her now. You're doing all the things that she would do. And when you think about it logically, of course, it's inevitable that you will turn into the millionaire CEO because you're doing, and you might not be doing every single thing on day one, but you're just slowly, but you know, consistently taking those steps. Yeah, this is what she'd do. This is what else she'd do. Oh, she'd also do this. And then you just become that person. I mean, this is kind of magical shit, that my brain sometimes is like, Wow, I can't believe how powerful this is. But it is so powerful. Anything that you want, just start imagining that future you and then behave as her now. Like, life changing.

 

Meaghan Smith  47:31

So if your future you shows up on Instagram every day, and sells, like start doing that now. Or if she has a VA, a virtual assistant, who helps with that sort of stuff, start looking into getting one now. Yeah, that's like the secret sauce key to the universe that Erica just shared, then I'm losing my voice. But I've done episodes about this before, I can't think of them off the top of my head. But I'll make sure I link them in the show notes. But I think we're at about time, Erica, so I just want to say this has been fabulous. I think that my listeners at home playing along are going to get so much out of this because really, everything is way more simple than you think. But sometimes we just need to get out of our own way. And you've given us some really amazing practical things with Instagram that we can start today. So thank you for that. I really appreciate you making the time to be on the show all the way from Mexico City, by the way, you're my first guest from Mexico. So that is so fun. I can't believe we didn't even really talk about that at the start. But yes, super, super fun. So thank you so much for being here.

 

Erica Reitman  49:47

Thank you so much for having me. This was such a great conversation.

 

Meaghan Smith  49:51

You're welcome. Okay, alright. Erica is fabulous. Okay, if you have a social media presence and want to create sales through using social media, go out and follow Erica on Instagram immediately. Her details will be in the show notes. And if you are loving what you're learning on the Money Mindful podcast and want to work with me, yes, I love helping women uncover and unblock their limiting beliefs around money and success. I think to have money and success and a life that you love and love yourself in it requires a positive relationship with money, success and your self. If you want a life that's designed by you for you a life doing what you love making the money that you want to make and loving yourself all the way through it, I can help you with that. And you can find out more about working with me by booking a consult on my website. Alright. Until you hear from me next week, have a beautiful week. Bye bye.