Heather

S2/Ep13: Heather Anderson – Learn How to Build Community as Your Superpower

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  • Heather runs a Group of over 31 thousand mothers, called The MamaHood, which is a connection of mothers in the Bay Area. She also has a club called The Club for mothers. 
  • Heather is a serial connector, she believes it is all about who you know. This episode will allow you to learn about networking. 
  • Dena asks where her passion started.
  • Heather loves bringing people together, and she has always been the person throughout her life who gathers people to do something.
  • Everything unifies around bringing people together and trying to create something.
  • Dena asks if she has ever deviated from this gift of gathering people?
  • Heather says yes, she never turned them off but she went down the path of day-job land where her gifts were sidelined. 
  • She relates to people who are stuck in a day job that does not resonate. 
  • Colleen asks about Heather’s roots and what led her to be a connector.
  • Heather was born in Connecticut and then her family moved to the Bay Area. She has been in the East Bay Area ever since. She has one younger sister and she also has kids. 
  • Heather is a loud person, cheerleading type.
  • Heather’s number 1 superpower is connecting people. 
  • She does not like the word networking, because the word brings to mind a self-centered way of thinking. She likes to live and grow communities in more of a natural way. She wants people to look at it as building relationships and having great people and friends in their life. She wants people to take the business aspect out of it and instead simply think about who they want to spend your time with. 
  • Making friends is the key and then sharing what they want to bring into the world next. 
  • Instead of networking, she likes to use the word community building.
  • Heather’s dad was an entrepreneur and created a bank. She ended up working there 13 years and it definitely was not what she envisioned for her life. At night she had a band that she would market for and play for at night. This and the bank gave her a background in community marketing.
  • Facebook groups were just beginning.
  • Heather just had a baby and she didn’t know any other mothers.
  • She began meeting mothers at breastfeeding classes and such, she created a group chat to keep in touch with them after. 
  • She had the idea to create the Facebook group for these mothers.m
  • Over the next 6 years the Mamahood blew up. 
  • Heather applied to go to Facebook’s community summit; over 5,000 applied and they chose 500. She also was selected as 1/12 to present. 
  • Dena asks when Heather accepted that this was her life course, and asks if she had to make a choice between this and music. 
  • Heather says that sometimes the universe pushes you down a path and in hindsight you look back and realize things. 
  • At first, she resisted the idea of Mamahood being a business. 
  • Heather did not want a business around being a mom; it did not excite her. She loves her kids and loves being a mom, but she did not want to make a business about it. At the time she wanted to write songs and wanted her band to be successful. 
  • The Mamahood still began to grow, and she had 5 kids so she had to take care of them.
  • She had a realization one day, and she still wanted to create a women entrepreneur community as an offshoot of the Mamahood. She became excited and passionate again.
  • The way she made this realization was through being quiet, self-care, and listening to her true self. 
  • Dena asks if Heather had to bring someone into her life to help her with her business?
  • Heather says yes, she has a virtual assistant. 
  • Some advice she is giving is imperfect action, baby steps, and not worry about perfection. Everything in business is about getting the ball rolling, and the first efforts are very difficult. Once the ball is rolling though, it has its own speed.
  • Daily action is another metaphor she loves. She wants people to “toss three pebbles in the pond a day.” 
  • Don’t get hung up on details. She just wants you to get stuff going.
  • Dena asks if she had friends help in the beginning?
  • Heather took a big risk in the beginning, which she does not recommend doing. She supported her family from savings and jumped into it as a full time job even though she did not have any money from it. In terms of hiring, her advice was “do it yourself until you don’t have time to do it yourself anymore.”
  • Heather hired a virtual assistant in the Philippines because they are paid well which truly makes a positive difference in their lives.
  • Heather says to figure out where your passion lies within your business, and get a virtual assistant for everything else. 
  • Colleen asks about the Mamahood
  • Heather explains that it is a free support group for moms in the Bay Area, they have a Facebook group which has 32,000 moms in it. There are breakout rooms for other forums as well. They will be launching regional chapters in 2021. 
  • There will be a new platform called Ujamaa. Both are free. 
  • The Club is a paid membership for women entrepreneurs who do not necessarily have to be moms, but they do have to be a founder or creative. 
  • They also have a resource directory called the M list on a web platform that links The Club and The Mamahood. She created this because all day long people recommend things in the Facebook group, so this directory has lots of resources. 
  • A perk of being in The Club is it can intersect with the Mamahood. Separately, business and personal development is covered in The Club.
  • Heather says that starting relationships and friendships is the secret sauce. She wants to bring joy, life, and connection back to busy entrepreneurs who would not have that otherwise. This connection truly helped these women. 
  • The Club does not have any promoting, it is more about support, guidance, and advice.
  • One can save 20% if you pay in advance, it is $500 for the year or for $50 in payments. 
  • Colleen asks if there is any area in The Club that allows for promotion. 
  • Heather says there is one main forum without promotion, and then she has others with promotion that goes to the Mamahood audience. There are also breakout rooms by industry. 
  • Dena asks about Heather’s book she wrote
  • Heather wrote a book about how she met her husband because she had a very weird love story. When she met him, he was a compulsive liar due to trauma, and everything he told her was a lie. After living together for two months, she realized everything was a lie. They made it through, and they have now been together for 14 years. Her book is called “Liar Liar Heart on Fire.”
  • The book is about one hour. She wants people to learn how to be empathetic to people going through trauma. Be open to the possibility that not everything is black and white.
  • Heather also talked about her band. They have been together for 14 years. They recorded their last album in 2016 and her 2021 goal is to record a new album. The album is called Blue Rabbit. She sings and plays guitar in the background. 
  • Heather’s final words are that she is very excited for 2021. 2020 was powerful for her to get quiet and reflect. She feels much wiser and ready to take on the year. 

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Miriam

S2/Ep12: Miriam Schulman-Tap into the Psychology and Emotion of Selling

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Artist, Business Coach, Podcaster

https://www.schulmanart.com/meet-miriam/

  • Miriam Schulman has a BA in Art History and a minor in Engineering from Dartmouth College. She also has an MS from MIT. She has always loved technology as well as art. She shares how the two blend so beautifully to foster a thriving business. 
  • Dena asks Miriam to take us back to when her story began.
  • Miriam’s story begins in the 4th grade when she had just moved to a new place. It was a difficult time in her life to be the new girl. Her teacher noticed she had some artistic ability and it was the first time she labeled herself as artistic. This teacher saw something in her that she did not see in herself. 
  • Miriam continued to have a passion but it was kept in the closet. A lot of her friends from high school are surprised because she never took an art class in high school. She was very academic but the only way she could stay focused was to draw.
  • When she was young, her father passed away. By the time she was in high school, her mother’s second marriage was falling apart. These circumstances did not allow her to follow her dreams of being an artist because she thought it was not associated with financial security. 
  • Dena asks how she was able to incorporate business and art so she can have financial success.
  • Miriam did not pursue art in high school, she did not officially major in art in college but she was in some art classes, and her first job was on wall street. After 9/11 happened, she realized she did not want to go back to wall street. She then worked as a pilates instructor where she learned marketing techniques that would help her in her art business.
  • She learned the sales and marketing from being a pilates instructor. She knew of predictable selling systems that could be used to sell anything. 
  • Dena emphasizes how they want to help women take on that business side and incorporate it into their passion.
  • Miriam goes on to explain how that was around 20 years ago. She began using those marketing techniques that she learned from her pilates class to sell portraits. In the last few years, she has been coaching other artists because she learned her system can work for others as well. She taught her clients her Black Friday Hack, for example, and every artist who used it ended up selling art. 
  • This system does not just work for Miriam, it is a marketing system that works for everyone. It isn’t just because of Instagram, or where you live, or if you have a podcast or not. It is the system itself that helps sell art.
  • Systems that we tap into regardless of what it is, as long as it is duplicatable, it can work.
  • When Miriam first started, she did not have the information on the internet that we do know. Her curiosity was sparked and she began lifelong learning on the subject. 
  • It does not have to take this many years to learn it, you can study with a coach like Miriam who can help you get to where you want to be with your business. It is about sales, marketing, and psychology. 
  • The platforms we use may change, but the psychology and rationale behind marketing never changes. 
  • Dena asks what Miriam’s stages of education look like in terms of her clients.
  • Miriam has levels of belief systems. For example, someone who is at ground 0 and has never sold anything because they believe their art has no value, she cannot help them a whole lot. Someone who is at this step, she recommends her free e-book called The Artist Profit Plan which is available at schulmanart.com\profit. She also has over 100 free podcast episodes that are very helpful. 
  • The people who come to Miriam who are not at step 0 are usually at step 1. They have sold some art but they are struggling. They are further along on that ladder of believing what is possible. 
  • Colleen asks about shifting people’s mindsets before Miriam even works with them.
  • Miriam says that people do not have to come to her with the kind of confidence that she has herself. She says that increasing confidence is the key to unlocking possibilities and most people know this. 
  • Mindset is baked into everything Miriam does. In her premium programs, she has a life coach that helps supplement the program to help with the mindset shifts. 
  • In order to be a top business person, you have to act like a top business person. 
  • Dena asks Miriam what her biggest goal she wants to achieve is. 
  • Miriam says a big driver to her is the legacy she is creating. When she is creating portraits, she is aware of that legacy. That becomes a family heirloom and will live on even after she is gone. When she is teaching her classes, she is also passing on her legacy of how she paints. With her coaching clients who are learning how to sell their art, her “passion professionals,” she is passing her legacy onto them as well.
  • Miriam specializes in portraits of people, and Colleen asks what got her into painting as well as what medium she uses. 
  • Miriam says that drawing people is what she loves to do most. When she first started painting, she was using watercolor. She dabbled a bit in oil, but watercolor was her choice since it is not toxic and is easy to clean up. It was the perfect medium for someone who was struggling with making time for her children as well as following her passion of painting.
  • Dena asks for people who are not willing to quit their day job, are there opportunities for people to still work with Miriam to get their business off the ground before they quit their day job?
  • Miriam says yes, absolutely. Many women in her program have day jobs that they want to leave because it does not feel like it aligns with their life purpose. The people in her program who are able to give more time will be able to accelerate the results faster, though.
  • Dena asks about the online space for selling art and how it works.
  • Miriam says that online art still sells the same in this day and age. She sells her art with risk reversals, in case it does not work out for them they can return it. Miriam says that seeing art in person is all about the relationship with the person who is selling the art. Miriam likes to tap into the psychology and emotion of the in person setting. Translating this to the online format is essential to selling the art. 
  • Dena asks if this is done through storytelling?
  • Miriam says that storytelling is very important, it isn’t as much about what the art looks like, but instead what the story of the piece is. People will not buy her art until they have the story. People collect art because they have a connection to the artist. The more you can help create that connection, the more successful you will be. 
  • Colleen asks about Miriam’s podcast and her storytelling. Miriam says it is much easier to teach by using stories as metaphors; stories are used to teach.
  • Stories get us into an emotional space which allows us to resonate with the message.
  • Dena asks what the next steps after step 1 would be, and the time frame of it. 
  • Miriam says in order to work with her, it is application based only. 
  • Miriam does have art classes and everyone is welcome there. In terms of her business classes though, she has an application process because she does not want to take on clients who are not ready yet. 
  • She then talks to them about their goals and struggles and the next steps they need to take to get to where they want to be. Usually her coaching and mentoring program lasts about 1 year.  
  • Miriam’s parting words are you are enough, you are more than ready, and you deserve to make an income from your incredible artwork. 
  • You don’t have to know everything right now, it is okay to be a lifelong learner.
  • The power to have a coach or mentor at any time in your life is so impactful. Having someone in your corner is essential. You are worth it to have a coach and mentor, especially one like Miriam Schulman!

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