Laura Kåmark [00:00:01]:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Be Bold Make Waves podcast. A show bringing you inspiring stories of women who are growing and scaling their business. I’m your host, Laura Kåmark, a website and tech integration specialist who works with owners who love their work and not their website. Join me as we have incredible conversations about business, mindset, productivity, and, of course, the website and tech behind the business. Let’s go ahead and dive in to this week’s episode. Hello, and welcome to today’s show. For those of you who don’t already know me, I’m Laura Kåmark, a tech automation specialist who works with coaches and consultants, who love their work, but not their tech. I’m so incredibly excited to introduce you to my guest today who’s a very dear friend of mine. Kristen Doyle. Kristen is a seasoned web designer, coach, and podcaster who helps small business owners make more sales with less effort. Rather than doing all the things on all the platforms, she shows people how to tap into SEO and strategic web design to attract more clients. When Kristen isn’t designing, coaching, or hosting her latest podcast episode, You can find her by the pool watching her 2 boys do endless cannibal cannonballs in the deep end. Kristen, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners about a little more about, like, how you got to where you are today?

Kristen Doyle [00:01:32]:

Hi. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here. Well, where did how did I get where I am today? I guess it all starts in 2012. So 11 years ago now, I was teaching at the time, and I had bought a lot of resources off of a website called teachers pay teachers. Which if you’re not familiar, it’s I tell everyone it’s a lot like Etsy, but for teaching resources, everyone has their own little small business. And sells downloadable activities, lesson plans, games, all kinds of things up to complete your long curriculum for different subjects. And, I was looking for something on TPT as we call it and didn’t find it. And I’ve always been pretty techie, so I decided to create it. And then I decided if I was looking for it, maybe someone else was too, so I would post it. And that has just snowballed itself into a whole other side of my business. It took on a life of its own and became its own business. And so today, I still run my TBT store, which is chalkingapples, but I also spend most of my time on coaching other TBT sellers and on web design.

Laura Kåmark [00:02:53]:

I love that so much. We have been just so our audience has a little background on us. We have been good friends for gosh. Number of years now. We enjoy — Yeah. — a program together. Once again, Sarah Masci, my listeners know I talk about her all the time, and she’s special. Clare Clare Lewis was on, the podcast last week. Yes. And we all joined a program at the same time with Sarah and have just, like, formed these really strong bonds and talk constantly on Voxer and support each other and all the things, which has been amazing. How did you I don’t know if I actually know the story, which is why I wanted to ask you. How did you get into web designing? What where did you start? Like, where did you even learn web design because when you were teaching, when where did that come in?

Kristen Doyle [00:03:43]:

Yeah. So that was an accident too. I am, like, the accidental entrepreneur. I did not mean to open a TPT business, but I did, and it grew into 1. I did not mean to become a web designer, but I needed a website for my TPT business. I realized, like, I need a blog. And actually my very first blog, I hired someone to install a template on blogger This is a long time ago. I hired someone to install a template on blogger for me, and, of course, it wasn’t really the way that I wanted it. And so I started learning how to code because on blogger, it is all hard coding everything. So I learned a lot of code because I was working on tweaking that theme and making it fit my brand and my business better than it did. And then a friend asked me if I could help her get a blogger site up. And so my first year or 2 of web design was strictly on blogger. And then I moved over to WordPress. And I’ve taken some courses since then, but really, I was I was very much self taught. In the beginning. So I learned a lot of things the hard way. But it’s been a fun journey. I

Laura Kåmark [00:04:57]:

that cracks me about blogger. I had my first blog was on blogger as well. I don’t know that I customized anything. It was a very short lived blog I started it when I moved to the Caribbean to the Virgin Islands and wanted to, like, post updates and keep everyone up to date what I was doing in this little island adventure I was going on, which again probably ended after, like, 10 posts. But that’s —

Kristen Doyle [00:05:23]:

I was there a long time, actually.

Laura Kåmark [00:05:25]:

That’s so funny. So I wanna talk a little bit about when you kinda did this pivot in your business and you niche down and we’re like, I am helping TPT owner, TPT sellers to have a website to grow their TPT business. Can we talk a little bit about that part of your journey?

Kristen Doyle [00:05:46]:

Yeah. So that kind of all happened very organically too. I feel like this is the underlying theme in my business. We have just ebbed and flowed and grown. And, it’s all been just very natural and organic. I had a few friends, one who taught in the same school that I did. So we were in person friends all the time. And then some online friends, other TPT sellers around the country. I had a few friends who we had gotten kind of close. We talked about our businesses a lot. And I just had sort of become the person that they came to to ask for advice about things, to get feedback on something they were trying. Sometimes it’s to talk them off of a ledge, talk him out of burning down their business, which I know you and I have talked about multiple times. We we talk about it weekly, usually. I have heard if you don’t ever want to burn down your business, then you’re not really invested in it. So Here we go. We’re all in the right place. But I had kind of just become that go to person for some of my friends and I eventually just kind of decided this is what I really am enjoying doing. This is the part that lights me up. Still enjoy creating teaching resources. I’m still very happy to be helping teachers, but I feel like this is a way for me to take another step back and to help. Teacher sellers help even more teachers. It’s just a way to expand the impact of what I’m doing.

Laura Kåmark [00:07:18]:

And so when you decided to go into coaching, which that can lead to as I know because I have I have clients that are coaches. I have a lot of friends that are coaches. I work with a lot of I hire a lot of coaches. There’s a lot of mindset stuff that can come into with, like, giving yourself that name Coach. I would love and we know I love talking mindset and all that fun stuff. What were some of the challenges you faced with, like, taking on that title and that role in your business and becoming, you know, kind of stepping up and becoming this person who people look up to in the TPT world. Yeah.

Kristen Doyle [00:07:57]:

You know, like I said, it all kind of happened on its own, which is nice, but I really did not race that coach role, and I never called myself a coach until, what, maybe the last 6 months, maybe even 3. It’s been pretty recent that I have started when someone asks me what I do. I say I’m a business coach, and

Laura Kåmark [00:08:19]:

that feels

Kristen Doyle [00:08:21]:

very big, and it still sometimes feels like I am stretching a little bit, like a little bit of a reach. Like, am I really a business coach? But I know that I am. I definitely have had a lot of imposter syndrome creep in. I still do, obviously. A lot of imposter syndrome creeping in about it, but I’ve done a lot of mindset work with embracing what I do know. Embracing that I have learned a lot of things over my decade as a TPT seller and that I do have a ton to offer and to teach other sellers. One of my biggest mindset kind of traps, I think, is when I have a seller who I know because we just kind of do. There’s no ranking, but we just kind of know who falls where. When I have sellers who I know probably earn more than I do, on TPT or they’ve been around more years than I have. And I feel like who am I to teach that person? But I’ve been doing a lot of inner work on remembering that we all have different strengths. Some people are where they are by luck. And they still need some underlying foundational help with some of the things that I teach. Some people got so where they are with a lot of hard work and it suddenly isn’t working and they need to learn something new. So I’ve just been really trying to tap into knowing that what I have to offer can be good for sellers at any stage in their journey if they need what I’m offering. If if that’s where they’re, where they have a little bit of a weakness and I can come in and support.

Laura Kåmark [00:10:02]:

I love that. So with your programs, can we talk a little bit about the programs that you are currently offering and when people are in that right position to be like, this is where I’m at in my life, in my journey, and they’re a right fit for joining your programs.

Kristen Doyle [00:10:21]:

Yeah. Absolutely. So I’m currently in the middle of kind of restructuring programs. And really the reason for that is I didn’t have those well to mind who is each program for kind of audience is built in yet. I had a lot of offers and I didn’t really have a specific target audience for each one. So I’ve really been working on narrowing it down now and So I have kind of an introductory offer that is a live, virtual live boot camp. That runs a couple of times a year, and this is one of the first ways that people usually get into my world into my scope. And this one kind of tackles. If I broke down being a TPT seller into 3 parts, which I have, I call it the savvy teacher seller framework. Because my TPT business is centered around the savvy teacher seller, which is my podcast. I Broke that down into 3 parts, and the boot camp really addresses the first piece of that, which is to improve your TPT product listings. And then once we have good TPT product listings, once we have our products in a good place, then we’re ready for traffic to them. So the next phase for people is to move into my SEO course, which kind of covers phase 2 of my framework. And then once you have good product listings and you are getting organic traffic through SEO to your products, to your blog posts, wherever, then the next step is to go ahead and expand your audience and start doing more marketing around things. And so I have a coaching program that addresses that end things. So it really is now that I have cleaned it up, it feels like a very linear progression for people. And really moves them through doing things in the order that makes sense for most people’s businesses.

Laura Kåmark [00:12:16]:

Oh, I love that. I look forward to when I am able to break down my framework and get into that progression because, I mean, I’ve, you know, again, we’ve been friends for years. I’ve really enjoyed being come kinda coming along for the ride on your journey, and I love seeing how all of our friends in our different masterminds and accountability groups. So we’re in how their businesses are growing and progressing and, you know, the little tweaks and changes along the way that we make. It’s really fascinating to me. You have a lot of businesses. Like, I do. You are a very multi passionate entrepreneur. You I know you still have, as we talked about, already, chocolateapples, which is your TPT store. You have your coaching and you also do your web design. How is there anything you would do different? Is there any that you could maybe? Because I know, like, a lot of people in the audience are multi passionate have a lot of things that they’re doing. They have their hands and a lot of things. Is there any advice you would give someone of how they could make it a little easier?

Kristen Doyle [00:13:26]:

Yeah. I have definitely learned the hard way on a lot of this, and I know you have witnessed a lot of it where I have looked at all of my businesses and thought I have to cut something. I can’t do it all. I have to get rid of one of these, and I keep coming back to Yeah. But I don’t want to because I am multi passionate. I enjoy all of them. And then there’s there’s the other reality of if you’re going to be a coach in a niche, people really like for you to know that niche because you also are working in it. They don’t want to hear a lot of times from coaches who don’t do the work that they’re doing. So there’s that of it as well. My TPT store and my coaching go hand in hand because I don’t have much authority as a coach if I don’t know what’s going on in TPT right now. I have to stay up on all of that. So what I have learned is, obviously, I’m going to have to balance at least 2 businesses, if not 3. And what I’ve learned is it’s really important to have some good people on your team who can support you and help fill in things that I, as the CEO, which I don’t like to even call myself, but as the visionary at the person who started all of this, there are certain things I don’t need to be doing, tasks that I can hand off to team members. So I’ve learned to trust some team members, and that is a whole other whole other thing to manage. As you know, all of a sudden now you’re managing people in addition to managing your business, and that’s another whole thing to deal with, but I have learned how to do that pretty well. And, that has been a big a big saver for me as far as being able to handle, but all I was gonna say both, all three businesses. The other thing is starting to automate as many things as I can. And I am still working on that. There are a lot of pieces right now that I have hired people for that really could be automated, and I’m working on transitioning to automating some things like my, social media posts for chocolate apples are getting automated right now. My email for chalking apples are also gonna be put on an automated kind of a system, not quite automated, but automation lights or maybe we’ll call it. But finding ways to automate as much as I can and take as many steps off of my to do list as possible, even, you know, looking for ways that I can use Zapier to connect this platform to that platform so I don’t have to do the work. Sometimes that can feel like I am wasting time on trying to figure out how to automate, but in the long run, it can save so much time on an just over and over day to day basis.

Laura Kåmark [00:16:15]:

Oh, absolutely. I know. And we’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast. I had Jackie money on early on. And we talked a lot about automating things because Jackie, of course, as we know, we both hired Jackie is just the queen of all things automations. I’ve been doing a lot of setup for clients in the past year with putting those evergreen emails into sequences for them because it’s a really great way to get some time back is to have because then you have these emails. You have, these really amazing emails you write to your list. And then If someone’s just now joining your list, they miss out on all that great content and value you’ve provided people who’ve already been on your list. So instead being able to put in place a nurture sequence, that is evergreen where people as they get into your world will continue to get that value. I think there’s something really amazing about that. Yeah.

Kristen Doyle [00:17:08]:

I think it is really Kamark, and I am having to do a lot of tweaking and playing with it to make it work for my business because chalking apples is a teacher focused business. Everything is very seasonal.

Laura Kåmark [00:17:21]:

Yeah.

Kristen Doyle [00:17:21]:

As you know, I can’t send out the same things. To someone who signs up for my list in August that I would send if they just signed up in March because what’s happening in the teaching world is completely different.

Laura Kåmark [00:17:32]:

Yeah.

Kristen Doyle [00:17:33]:

So That’s been a little bit of a hiccup in terms of getting that stuff automated, but I think I have settled into a plan, where I am gonna do monthly sequences. So instead of 1 year long nurture sequence, I have a September nurture sequence and an October nurture sequence. That way they get put into the right one based on what season of the year it

Laura Kåmark [00:17:53]:

Oh, I love that. So is that just a conditional tag where you’re saying, look at what the current date is and if it’s wherever, put them here?

Kristen Doyle [00:18:03]:

Yeah.

Laura Kåmark [00:18:04]:

Pretty much.

Kristen Doyle [00:18:05]:

Something like that. I’m still I’m still figuring out the actual workflow on the back end, but, yes, something along those lines.

Laura Kåmark [00:18:13]:

Well, since we were just kinda dabbled real quick into tech talk, let’s, I wanna talk about the tech that you use to run your business. I know a lot of it, but I would love to share with our audience, talking about just some of the platforms you use for your website, your courses, and just some of your favorite tech tools.

Kristen Doyle [00:18:32]:

Yeah. Oh, I feel like I am that person who uses a 1,000,000 different things, and they’re all cobbled together on the back end and zapier. Somewhere. Somehow it is all done. Let’s see. I so my website is on WordPress. And I absolutely love Elementor. You and I can just die on our Elementor in Divi Hills. I love Elementor. I know you don’t. But that is what I use for most of the website stuff. I use ConvertKit for my email marketing, I have tried probably 7 or 8 different platforms. I will not name them all off, but I have tried a ton of platforms. And at one point left ConvertKit tried 2 other platforms and came back to ConvertKit. So I have now resolved. I am never leaving ConvertKit again. It is a lot of work to move platforms. But, yeah, I I’m really happy with Convertkit for my emails. I love how many things they integrate with and just find it really easy to use, and I love their automations and their stats that they give us and everything.

Laura Kåmark [00:19:47]:

Can we talk about your email list a little bit? Sure. At what point in your entrepreneurial journey? Did you start building a list? And at what point did you start emailing your list? This is a judgment free question.

Kristen Doyle [00:20:03]:

Can I answer for my coaching and web design business? Because I feel like I did it right that time.

Laura Kåmark [00:20:09]:

I wanna hear for both.

Kristen Doyle [00:20:11]:

Okay. So chalk and apples. I think I started my website in around 2014. I was not doing an email list yet at all. 2015 or 16. Everybody was talking about email lists, and I okay. I probably should start an email list. So I started a list what I mean by that is I put a freebie out there and I put a sign up form on, and then I just didn’t do anything except deliver the freebie. And those people sat for a good year, year and a half before I even started emailing them? And of course, what is wrong with that? We all know when you email people out of the blue who haven’t heard from you in a year and a half, they unsubscribe. In mess. They’re all gone. Who is this lady? So I lost a lot of subscribers and then I got consistent, for a while. I probably emailed once a month ish. I would drop off and forget for a long time, but once I decided to really take my email marketing seriously. I got consistent about emailing every single week and running Facebook ads to my one of my best lead magnets to grow the list. And that is what I do now on my chocolate apples. It has grown exponentially since it started. What I did right with my other business have one email list for my web design and coaching business because it’s typically all the same, target audience. So there’s just one email list for them. And that one, I started an email list. I collected subscriptions or collected email addresses. And as soon as I decided that this business was serious, I went ahead and started emailing. And I won’t say that the entire time I have emailed consistently every week, there have definitely been gaps. I have been a lot more consistent lately. One thing that really helps is having a podcast because I put out new content every single Tuesday, so I have things to email about now. Which is super helpful. But definitely, I would say the thing I did wrong the first time as I waited forever to start emailing because I felt like it wasn’t worth emailing these, like, 50 people. And even when I had, you know, 200 people or 500 people, it just didn’t seem like enough to be worth emailing them. And with my other list, I I just didn’t. I just went ahead and started emailing people, and that definitely is the right thing because you wanna nurture people from the minute they start signing up.

Laura Kåmark [00:22:50]:

Yeah. I think it’s so common for us too. You know, we hear Okay. Go build the website. Add a freebie. Okay. Send them the freebie, and then it’s you need to talk to them, but not everyone really talks about, well, what are you supposed to email? There are great memberships now. You know, our good friend Nicole CapEx. She has a whole, like, 52 weeks of things you can email about, which is an amazing resource But, I mean, it’s hard. I’m guilty of the exact same thing that you did. I grew a list, and it didn’t that many people on it, but they never heard from me ever. I mean, and then one day, I was like, okay. I’ll start emailing them. And then I probably dropped off for a while. And then I Like, I I’m not the most consistent. I do have an evergreen nurture sequence, but there’s a lot of people that I’m still building out that sequence. And so there’s a lot of people who are in that holding waiting period. Well, I’m like, oh, I need to get another email written.

Kristen Doyle [00:23:46]:

Yeah.

Laura Kåmark [00:23:47]:

But but I think it’s important for us to, like, we’re doing a lot. We’re wearing a lot of hats. Like, give yourself grace and know that, like, it’s okay. It’s okay for — And

Kristen Doyle [00:23:57]:

if you can’t email every week, email every 2 weeks or once a month, but as long as you’re showing up consistently for people, then they don’t forget about you. And when you do email down the road about these, they don’t all unsubscribe because they don’t know who you are anymore. You just wanna show up and be consistent. Whatever time frame that is gonna look like.

Laura Kåmark [00:24:16]:

I think that’s great advice. I love that. What would you say is one of the biggest challenges that you’ve overcome since starting your business? Oh, I think I’m

Kristen Doyle [00:24:30]:

still working on overcoming it, and I think it hands down is the imposter syndrome. Yeah. It’s just I think so common for a lot of us to feel that imposter creep up that says that who are you to be teaching this anyway? Who are you to be designing that website? Who are you to whatever whatever it is that you do? And battling that imposter and shutting it down has been something I’ve just been working on Constantly, I mean, the entire time that I have been in business, I think. I am in some ways always waiting for the other shoe to drop for for it to all fall Kamark. Even though I know I didn’t get here by luck, I know I worked hard to get to where I am. But that imposter creeps in and says, like, no. You just get lucky. You just you’re just here by luck. It could all the rug could get pulled out from under you any minute. So I I do. I have to spend a lot of time working on shutting that down.

Laura Kåmark [00:25:39]:

Oh, I can relate to that so much. I have that little voice that creeps in all the time, which luckily I have amazing amazing business coach I work with, amazing mastermind buddies who I can reach out to and be like, ah, this voice. And they’re like, tell the voice to shish

Kristen Doyle [00:25:56]:

It’s my favorite strategy, and I know I’ve probably told it to you before, to a friend actually gave me this not too long ago, he said to name your imposter. Like, maybe that person that was mean to you in high school or whoever. Name your imposter. And when it starts creeping up, literally say, like, I’m gonna use Laura because I know because we all know that you’re not my imposter. Literally say shut up, Laura. That’s not true.

Laura Kåmark [00:26:26]:

Oh, I love that. I don’t know

Kristen Doyle [00:26:28]:

if you

Laura Kåmark [00:26:29]:

—

Kristen Doyle [00:26:29]:

Like, shut up, Laura.

Laura Kåmark [00:26:33]:

I really love that. I was actually listening to Denise Duffield Thomas’s podcast the other day, and she had a whole episode on or syndrome. And she was saying that she was at some conference or something and happened to be in the elevator with someone who she looked up to. And she’s like, can I just ask? When does it go away? Like, what’s the income level I need to hit? So the the imposter syndrome goes away, and the woman was just like, oh, honey, it doesn’t. Ever. Yeah. It will not ever go anywhere. It’ll always be around. I think also Liz Gilbert talks about in big magic where she’s like, fear will always be there. You just have to tell fear. Get out of the driver’s seat, go sit in the back. That’s where you belong. You can come along for the ride, but you need to sit in the back. That’s paraphrasing, of course.

Kristen Doyle [00:27:15]:

Yeah. I love that. Damn it.

Laura Kåmark [00:27:17]:

Oh, so good. What would you say that you’re doing that’s kinda being bold in the industry? What is

Kristen Doyle [00:27:28]:

bold in my industry? You know what? In the TPT world, I think I was the first person to really embrace launching a course and doing it in, like, a live I call it a boot camp. But a live virtual event where we all get together on Zoom and work on the same thing, and we’re all making progress on the same things at the same time together for this week of excitement. And I will say I was so nervous to put it out there because I knew no one had done anything like this in our niche before. I’d seen it in other places. I loved the idea, but I knew no one had done it in the TPT niche before. And I was super nervous. About how it would be received and what people would think. And turns out, people love it. The excitement and the energy from working on your business alongside other people who are working on their businesses. And we’re all working on making the same changes. That that community just lights up for that week, and we all get so excited and so motivated. And it has just been it’s so fun. It drains me. I am an introverted extrovert, an extroverted introvert. I don’t know. I’m right in the middle. And so I love it. It’s so much fun. It also drains me. I need a whole vacation by the end of it. In fact, I we’re gonna do another boot camp this fall, and I think a week and a half later is when I leave for vacation. Yep. Because that is what I need. I need to just get away and decompress a little bit. But it is so much fun. And because it’s so fun and so motivating, people come back for me to teach the same content, year after year, they get a discount, of course, but they come back and they want to do this again with the group because it’s so much fun.

Laura Kåmark [00:29:28]:

Oh, I love that. It’s so fun being in a group and having that, like, uplifting support and just, like, everyone’s in it together and you have just this, like, great excitement. I love that so much. I love that you’re able to provide that for your people too. That’s so cool.

Kristen Doyle [00:29:44]:

Yeah. It’s so much fun. The biggest question I get at the end of our boot camp week is, can our group stay open? Because they want to stick around and continue. And of course, I can’t keep all of the different boot camp groups open because that would be a lot to manage, but I do funnel them all into one kind of a alumni group after.

Laura Kåmark [00:30:03]:

Oh, I’d love that. So I wanna talk a little bit about your podcast because it was actually really fun when I launched people make waves. Was right around the same time we were ring back and forth a bunch because I was like, oh, I’m about to launch a podcast. You’re like, I’m launching a podcast. I’m like, oh, this is fun. We can be podcast launch. Lunch buddies together.

Kristen Doyle [00:30:21]:

I feel like that’s when we started talking on Voxer every day. It’s when we were both launching podcasts at the same time.

Laura Kåmark [00:30:27]:

We did. So we’ve been daily boxering for about a year now because I know you just had your 1 year. My year is coming up. I think by the time this goes live, we’ll be past my 1 year the 1 year anniversary. So — Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations on yours. What were some full, why did you decide to launch a podcast?

Kristen Doyle [00:30:48]:

So I am an SEO person that is what I teach So clearly, I know that in order to have good SEO, we need content. And that content needs to go out on a regular basis, but I hate blogging. Like, I just do not want to write blog posts. It’s not my thing. It takes way longer than it should every single time I do it, and I just don’t enjoy it. But I do enjoy chatting. I love to get on Zoom and have a conversation with somebody about their business. I don’t at all mind recording by myself and just talking about business out loud. I don’t like having to write it fit for me in terms of how can I put out content to help my audience to grow my SEO, all of those things, but how can I do it in a way that I’m gonna enjoy? And so for me, that was the podcast and the other kind of flip side of that is knowing where your audience is. I asked my audience at the end of one of those boot camps, how they like to consume content. And I asked them, you know, do you like to read on a blog? Do you like to watch videos? Do you like to listen to podcasts? And 8 out of over 500 people told me they like to read blog posts. So that was a good push for me not to bother with this thing I don’t like anyway because my audience doesn’t even like it. And then the rest of the answers were kinda split 5050 between video and podcast. And to me, podcasts just felt easy because I wouldn’t have to worry about video. And yet, here we are recording a podcast with video the entire time, but that’s okay. I do it all the time too.

Laura Kåmark [00:32:34]:

Are you repurposing your video at all?

Kristen Doyle [00:32:36]:

I am currently using them for Instagram Reels. Little clips from each episode to promote the episode, but I am saving the full video and the plan is eventually to put them up on YouTube.

Laura Kåmark [00:32:47]:

Yeah. That’s what I’ve been doing with mine. And then I just saw because I was putting I had a blog post. My my also least favorite thing to do, but I do trainings, and I put in the blog, So my blog posting isn’t as consistent as, of course, the podcast is. But, I’m very similar to in my, like, the reason I chose to do a podcast was because I can sit and talk all day long on Zoom with, you know, meeting new people. I love it. I think it’s a lot of fun. I’ve had some really fun guests come on and just create some new relationship which been really fun for me, but I’m just not gonna sit and write blog posts. It’s not what I wanna do. Yeah. But I did just see that YouTube now has a podcasting, which I’d heard about when I was listening to a micro summit, micro audio summit, and they were talking about the whole podcasting thing that you should be putting your podcast on YouTube because I believe the reason was because it’s gonna show up in search engine.

Kristen Doyle [00:33:42]:

Yeah. I have heard that too, and I actually, in the last time that I surveyed my podcast audience, I had two people specifically ask me in one of the open ended questions if I could put my podcast on YouTube. So I am thinking about it. It’s a next step for sure. I’ve got some other other ball in the air right now that I’m working on juggling and working on setting some back end systems up and things, but it is definitely on my radar.

Laura Kåmark [00:34:09]:

Oh, I love that. What would you say that you are really proud of when it comes to your business. As you know, I’m a huge fan of celebrating our win I always do, of course, with my cheese plate, which led to me creating a cheese course, which you know all about because you were there for the recording of that. But what could we celebrate about you today that you’re proud of?

Kristen Doyle [00:34:33]:

Oh, what am I proud of? I mean, we can always look at, like, the numbers, and I have a lot of numbers I’m proud of. I have served over 25100 TPT sellers now, I think, or maybe 20 it might be over 24100. I might have rounded up. A lot of TPT sellers and helps them grow their businesses, and I’m super proud of that. But, honestly, if I look at, like, the big picture of my business. The thing I am most proud of is how I have grown as a person because I am a business owner. Me 12 years ago, before I started my TPT store, I would never ever have gotten on a plane alone to go to a city I’ve never been to to meet people I haven’t seen in person to talk about business. And me as a business owner. I, obviously, I travel a lot. You and I get to see each other coming up in a few months. I’m so excited. I do a lot of travel now. Most of the time, I do know people there, but I have had occasions where I got on a plane to New York. And got off the plane and hopped on an Uber by myself and went to corporate offices for TPT, did a webinar with them, turned around, went to the hotel, got dinner. I went to the Empire State Building alone, you know, and did this whole It was a very quick trip. I was I think I was in New York 36 hours, maybe tops. Very quick trip, but for me to have the confidence and just to be willing to step out and do that sort of thing on my own is that’s just one example, but I’ve had so much personal growth from the things I’ve kind of been forced into as a business owner. And I think that’s that really is the thing I’m most proud of.

Laura Kåmark [00:36:31]:

I love that. And I think that’s amazing. I know it’s interesting to think. I mean, We’ve all gotten on these airplanes. And, I mean, even and went and traveled with, basically, a room full of strangers who we met on Zoom. And we hang out within a Facebook group. It’s really interesting this whole dynamic of the online business and creating these friendships that, I mean, I talk to my online friends every single day. Mhmm. I don’t talk to my long, you know, friends that I in my real life might my in person friends that I know in, like, I don’t talk to them that much. And the people who have I’ve become the closest with in the last few years are people who are just, you know, they’re scattered throughout the US, Canada, South Africa. Like, they’re all over the world. And — Yeah. The connections we’ve made, and it’s really amazing.

Kristen Doyle [00:37:26]:

Yeah. I love how we’ve created these little pockets of community

Laura Kåmark [00:37:30]:

—

Kristen Doyle [00:37:30]:

Mhmm. — off of the internet off of people we met in a Facebook group, or we got thrown into a mastermind for some course that we participated in or something like that. And I have several different ones because I have different businesses with different different groups of people, but it’s so good, though, to be able to be in a community with people who understand the ins and outs of your day to day life. And a lot of times, our local friends are what we would call our in person, our in real life friends, maybe they don’t understand all of that because if you don’t own your own business, if you’re not running this business you created out of your head, which is what we’re all doing. Right? We’re all running some sort of business we came up with. If you don’t do that, then it’s hard to relate to those day to day struggles that we have. And it’s just so good to have a community that I can reach out to when I’m wrestling with a decision or I can’t figure something out or maybe I just need to vent a little bit to somebody who gets it, and we can just be there to support each other and help.

Laura Kåmark [00:38:35]:

I love that. I remember when I went to my first, like, mastermind retreat and it was we were all the getting there together. That’s when I met you in person and I remember just sitting around at night. Like, we’re not doing anything structured or we’re just hanging out, drinking some wine, eating cheese, and talking about, like, cheese plate. I’m talking about, like, email funnels, and I’m like, this is lighting me up so much right now where we can have these, like, business discussions that again, I can’t talk with anyone around me here locally about with these conversations because they don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t know what

Kristen Doyle [00:39:12]:

I just — — saying email funnels to your at home friends and their eyes glaze over. Like, I don’t know what you’re saying. And I will preface that. I will say I have very supportive in real life friends who will listen to me blab about business, but it’s different.

Laura Kåmark [00:39:31]:

Yeah. It’s different. Oh, I love it so much. Kristen, this has been so much fun. I could sit and talk to you all day, and I will continue the conversation in a boxer course. But there’s one question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. And that is, what is one piece of advice you would give to someone when they are growing and scaling their business to help them be bolder, be louder, and make waves.

Kristen Doyle [00:39:58]:

Well, we have talked a lot about imposter syndrome today. So I am going to say my piece of advice is to find a strategy that works to shut down your inner imposter, whether it’s giving them a name and telling them to shut up or telling them they belong in the back seat, like you said, Finding a way to shut down that imposter, I think, is it’s one of the biggest things that I’ve had to do in order to be willing to do those bold things and to try new new things that have ultimately been so great for my business. They’ve been those things that really moved needle that I needed to try, but I had to shut down an an imposter before I was willing to do it.

Laura Kåmark [00:40:38]:

Oh, I love that so much. Such great advice. Kristen, Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you find you online, where they can hang out with you, find out more about you for all my teacher listeners where they can come get in your world?

Kristen Doyle [00:40:52]:

Yeah. So I am on [email protected]. I am also christendoyle.co on the web, and My podcast for anyone who wants to learn all about growing your teacher’s seller business is called the Savvy Teacher Seller.

Laura Kåmark [00:41:09]:

Love that. I will link all that up in the show notes. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. This was so much fun.

Kristen Doyle [00:41:15]:

Thank you for having me.

Laura Kåmark [00:41:17]:

Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at laurakamark.comforward/podcast. And if you’re ready, to turn your website into a marketing machine, get more sales, save time, and simplify the back end of your business, grab my free resource, power integrations, for your website. Head on over to laurakamark.com/power. If you enjoyed today’s episode, Make sure to subscribe. And also, I’ll just love you forever if you leave me a review. It helps get this podcast in front of other people that can help inspire Thanks so much for listening. I’ll see you next week. Bye now.