Resiliency & Growth

Sarah: Welcome back to the Banowetz Marketing podcast. I’m glad you’re here. My name is Sarah Banowetz and today I have Rina Jensen with me and she is a business resiliency coach. 

Rina: Yes. 

Sarah: How are you today? 

Rina: I’m fantastic. 

Sarah: When we were off camera, I was like, I don’t think I’m going to be able to say resiliency. 

Rina: And you did just fine.

And you’re like you say it, and I’m like, no. Cause I push people off a cliff. 

Sarah: She does! I’m like, you’re coaching me right now.

Rina: Guess how my relationships all go. 

Sarah: Well, it’s good. You made me do it. Yeah, it was good. 

Rina: And you did a fantastic job. 

Sarah: We’ll see if anyone in the comments makes fun of me for it. Resiliency.

Well, that was better. I need to get practice that’s yeah. So that’s, like in a nutshell, that’s the podcast. 

Rina: Yeah. 

Sarah: You make us do hard things and we get better at it and we’re done. That was it. So do what Rina says and hire her.

No. Tell us a little bit more about yourself, Rina. 

Rina: Oh my gosh. What would you like to know? How did I get started as a business resiliency coach? 

Sarah: Yes. And you had your own business prior? 

Rina: I did. 

Sarah: Well, a different business prior to this one. Right? 

Rina: Yes, so backstory, in 2012 I quit my job. I was, 30 something years old and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

So I quit. It’s like peace out dudes I’m done, which was great for my marriage, but it was really awesome for me. I had about nine months where I didn’t have a job. I didn’t know what I was going to do and needed, really needed to find something that was going to do one of two things; either make me extremely happy or, teach me amazing things. And so I was at New York life. That’s where I landed. And my thought process was, I have no idea if this is gonna make me happy, but I know I’m going to learn a lot of stuff. 

Sarah: That’s a great thought process to have. 

Rina: That’s what happens when you get to a point in your life where you’re like, I’m just done living to other people’s expectations and I want to start making myself happy.

So. That’s what I did. And I did learn a ton of great things while I was at New York life. I learned the most important thing I learned has nothing to do with what New York life does, which is insurance and securities. I learned relationships and connections and helping people achieve the success they wanted to achieve.

And, of all of the things that I needed at that time, that was, that was the thing. And while I was there, I had hired two business coaches and they were phenomenal woman, I adore them still today. They’re very goal driven, cause most business coaches are. This is your goal. Let’s work backwards, what do you need to do on a daily basis in order to achieve that in your timeframe.

And it helped, but there was still this underlying, I don’t really want to pick up the phone and make cold calls. And what I didn’t know that I needed was someone to talk to me about the things that were subconscious that were affecting my ability to do those things. 

Sarah: So like the root, the core.

Rina: Yes. And, so I quit there. I quit because I’m far too creative. I know that’s a shock. I did not like government regulation and compliance. Like, don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need you down my throat and telling me that I can’t use the word “is” just drove me insane. 

Sarah: Was that real? 

Rina: Yes, it is. Yes. For real, I couldn’t. I made some marketing for myself and on a postcard, I rode a motorcycle at the time, and I was going to give it to other bikers. And I put on that, that having life insurance or not is the difference between setting your family up in case something were to happen and not, or something to that effect.

And compliance came back and said, you can’t use the word is. And I said, seriously? It’s the most ridiculous, but it is, I’m not lying. So that was a frustration point for me. 

So I had the opportunity to buy a retail store and I did. It was amazing. I loved it. It was a home decor, art gallery boutique. I worked only with local artists and had amazing relationships with interior designers to bring in their discounted and clearance items for cost.

And one of the things that happened while I was there, was I started coaching some of the artists that were coming through the gallery on their confidence because artists are not… we don’t have a lot of confidence in a lot of areas and we definitely don’t want to be so vulnerable as to share our art with people because, you know, you’re not going to like it. And if you are a family and you tell us that it’s lovely and amazing and how amazing we are, we’re going to think you’re lying to us. 

Sarah: Yeah. Not believe you. 

Rina: Right. So, during domicile, I had a lot of encouragement to start coaching people. And I wasn’t ready. I loved what I was doing with the store. I wasn’t prepared to start coaching people. And then there’s always also that part of me that thought, who would want to coach with me? 

So in 2016, I got divorced. Cause you know, I quit my job, and there was some passive aggressiveness that had happened during that time.

And, Because the store would either sustain itself or me, I had to choose whether or not I was going to live in the back of the store and keep it or support myself. You know, choices that we make as an adult.

So I chose to survive. I started working with a friend and then got into coaching.

And the first year I was not super focused on what it was that I needed to do or share or teach. And then about a 2018, midway through, I learned about adverse childhood experiences. 

Sarah: ACEs. 

Rina: Yes. ACEs. And, I have a score of four, which is considered on the low end of the high side. And a lot of things started making sense to me after I realized this.

Comments that had been made to me when I was a child that were still affecting me today. Like, I didn’t have any idea why I wasn’t speaking my mind because I knew things and I knew I was right about some things, but I certainly wasn’t going to prove that. 

And, so resiliency, the resiliency aspect comes into play because if you look at the things that make a person resilient connection is the number one thing.

Sarah: Okay. 

Rina: The way that we think about and perceive things is in there as well. And so if we can alter the way that we think and perceive about people, places, things, events, then we have people that we can connect with and be our most genuine and vulnerable selves. Then we will be far more resilient than if we didn’t have those people and that, and have the ability to do that.

So that’s how that happened. 

Sarah: Wow. 

So what has the past year brought for you then? 

Rina: The past year has been amazing! 

I have collaborations with local organizations here to do small group resiliency coaching. I have, I teach a six week class called focus. You, I am launching a book club December.

Sarah: You’ve been speaking.

Rina: I’ve been speaking. Yes. I also am a co founder of Corridor Connection Network, which is a website that brings together all business events in the Corridor. If you’re not from the area, Corridors is Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and everything in between. What else? I mean, it’s just, it seems like everything is new yet nothing is new. It’s just a natural progression of life. 

Sarah: Our mutual friend, Sarah Lisinger mentioned on Facebook this week, she said, and I just really did resonate with me, she said, entrepreneurship is kind of like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down. 

Rina: Absolutely. 

And then you get to a point where you jump out of the air plane that you built. And build another one. Yeah. And then again, and again, and again, that’s exactly what entrepreneurship is. 

Sarah: Well, that’s what you’re working with. You’re working with people who are doing that and helping them to be resilient to that.

Rina: Yeah. So, my tagline, my 60 second pitch, is I help small business owners deal with the emotional and psychological side of business. Because we have to, and we haven’t been. We’ve been conditioned as a society to separate business and personal. And that’s just ridiculous because we can’t. If one’s in chaos, the other one is going to be in chaos as well.

Sarah: I agree. So my target audience, the people who listen to this podcast, business leaders and business owners, it can be very lonely, very lonely. I mean, the stress level of the stress of keeping things running, like how you were talking about your store, it was like, is it going to support me or is it just going to feed the store type of situation?

And then when you add employees and everything like that, I mean, it’s hard. 

Rina: Yeah. I was just having that conversation with somebody the other day, about how when we start freelancing, we are no longer amongst people on the daily basis. And that’s part of the reason why corridor connection network exists is so freelancers can get out of the house and be among people.

But if you’re the boss and you have employees, you can’t talk with employees about your stresses and concerns. And if you don’t know, have that support system surrounding you, then you’re going to experience far more stress and anxiety than you would otherwise. 

Sarah: Yeah, well, and the statistics of small businesses sustaining after two years and five years is, I mean the failure rate is very, very high and I wonder, personally, I know it comes down to a lot about finances, but the root behind that might be a lot of what you’re talking about. 

Rina: Actually, I teach a class on that,  how not to fail at business. 

Perfect. 

I had Googled all of the reasons why, or the top 10 or whatever, the reasons businesses fail. A lot of them are cashflow, poor management skills, poor communication, lack of participation in your sales funnel. I’m like, you’re not making cold calls. You’re not making connections. And every single one of those can be tied back to a fear. And those fears are loneliness. You’re alone. You are afraid to lose things or you have lost something that the universe is hostile. So people are going to take advantage of you, and Unknown, that the future is unknown. Our ability is unknown. And so those are the four, everything can be tied back to one. 

Sarah: That makes a lot of sense. 

Rina: Yeah. Yeah, it really does. So I’m like, let’s talk about why? What are you really doing when you are not reaching out to people?

Sarah: Yeah. So you teach a class on this. When do you have one coming up? 

Rina: I don’t have one coming up.

That’s kind of a, whenever the mood strikes me. I think I’m going to teach this class today or next week so I can plan, but my website has all of that information on there and that’s just RenaJensen.com. 

Sarah: Okay, perfect. Very cool. So do you have any marketing questions for me?

Rina: Okay. Actually, this was perfect timing because one of the small group classes that I teach, we were talking about marketing and social media and all those things, and they said, I have no idea what a hashtag is how to use it or why it exists. It’s a pound sign. 

Sarah: You know what’s funny is like now, like the younger generation, they don’t see it as a pound.

Like we see it as a pound sign and they’ll look at it and go, oh, it’s a hashtag. 

Rina: No, it’s tic-tac-toe.

Sarah: So tic TAC toe, you play like, this. 

Rina: You start on the side, not in the corner. 

Sarah: So, hashtags. 

So there’s three questions. What is it? So a hashtag is essentially a communication channel. Okay. So it’s a way, let’s say you want it.

I think of it like a room almost. And I’ve never explained it like this before, so we’ll see, we’ll go with it. 

I’m thinking of like, especially with Slack, so do you know slack? Business communication. The way that Slack describes it is that you, when you’re in an office building, you have different rooms you go to.

 So you know, I have my office,Jen and I, Jenn is behind the camera right now, she and I share an office, and then Melody and June share an office. So we’ve got Melody and June’s office and we’ve got Jen and Sarah’s office. So essentially a hashtag is like, hashtag Jen and Sarah is one room, one avenue of communication.

So you would go into a different room to talk about that. So if someone wants to come talk with either Jen or I, they would come into our office. So you would use that. The same thing with the hashtag. So #JenandSarah  would be we want to talk to Jen and Sarah. So if you want to #melodyandJune, it would be like going into their office and talking with Melody and June.

Rina: Okay. 

Sarah: So #CedarRapids means that you want to talk about Cedar Rapids. So all of the communication regarding Cedar Rapids, as long as you talk with the hashtag Cedar Rapids on whatever platform like Twitter or Instagram, then you’re gonna be able to find that communication. 

Rina: So you could connect two rooms together by using two different hashtags.

Sarah: Yes. Yeah. So if you wanted to talk in, yeah. So let’s say you wanted to talk, let’s just say you were hashtag Rena and I’m hashtag Sarah. Okay. And someone wanted to talk to both of us. They really would do like you’re in different rooms. It would be like conference call. So #Rina and #Sarah, and then they could talk to both of us and we would, we would see it as long as we’re going onto that channel and walking into that room. 

Rina: Right. That’s a great way to explain it. 

Sarah: Is it? Okay. I’m like piggybacking off of Slack’s marketing, because that’s how they, they explain what Slack is. It’s essentially with the freelancer ‘travel the world’ mentality that we live in right now with our connected society, I’m using the internet.

If we don’t have to be in an office building, but we can still have the same type of office building communication, the same water cooler kind of communication. We use Slack here at Banowetz Marketing and our water cooler is hashtag general. So whenever any of us go to hashtag general or use that, then it’s something that the whole entire company would want to discuss.

And then if we want to talk about a specific project, Like, Oh, we need, for example, we need to so you can do this micro level, or macro, right? Inside a small area, which would be Slack or macro, which would be like Twitter. We need a new drive, a new cloud drive for Banowetz Marketing.

So we started a channel called #CompanyDrive. So that whoever wants to discuss the company drive and what we’re, what decisions we’re going to make about that , like a hardware drive, then we can do that. I t also, simplifies communication. So you don’t have like one giant conference room, essentially with everyone just being loud.

You know, like when we were at that networking meeting last night, it was so loud. So it helps, it helps things not be as loud. 

Rina: It helps to filter. 

Sarah: Yes. 

Rina: Got it. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Rina: Filter. 

Sarah: Yes. 

Rina: Yes. 

Sarah: That was a better word, filter. So what was the second question then? 

Rina: The question was,  essentially, best practices.

Like if you’re going to #CedarRapids, and you’re drinking coffee. So you would hashtag Cedar Rapids and coffee. 

Sarah: Yes. 

Then you’re just kind of going on both. So, It doesn’t really, in my opinion, it doesn’t really help either one. It just gives you two rooms that you’re talking in essentially.

So coffee is probably a pretty popular, yes, not many. So you’ll slide through the feed really fast on coffee on Cedar Rapids. you’ll stay in the feed a lot longer because we don’t have that big of a demographic around here. Okay. So what, so if you use #coffee and #CedarRapids, then the good thing is, you’ll get likes and comments from people around the world who are entering coffee, and they’ll come fast and quick and then you’ll fall off. 

So Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this, what best practices are you want to, I think Sarah Lysinger has also said this too so I’m going to give both of them credit here, but you want to use, longterm hashtags.

So there’s like three segments, right? So longterm hashtags would be like # RenaJensen. Those are things that, as you build your personal brand, people will go back to, and they’ll see from years prior. 

Rina: Okay.

Sarah:  But maybe it’s not a popular hashtag right now, but you’re putting it there for the longterm goal of growing a personal brand.

Rina: Okay. So the hashtag I have is #betheglitter, hashtag be the glitter, #businessresiliency. 

Sarah: Yes. 

Rina: Okay. 

Sarah: Yes. So those are more of your like longterm. Business resiliency might be more of the middle one, but then you also do want to use ones that are fast and quick for right now. So, you can jump on.

I know that a lot of people are doing really good things by jumping on  common things that are happening right now. So let’s say that there’s something happening, locally or nationally that you’re able to tie in your coffee picture with. Like maybe a popular comedian is talking about something with coffee. 

Rina: Okay. 

Sarah: And so you hashtag their name or whatever trending, hashtag is happening at that time, because then essentially what you’re doing is you’re just, you’re just putting your voice out in the community. 

Rina: Shouting into the room for a second. 

Sarah: Yeah, to where people have congregated, because if you think about hashtags, like a room, if you’re in a room that has like four people versus a room that has you know, 2,000 people and you’re given the microphone in those rooms, if you don’t use a hashtag, unless you have a large following, people are not going to hear you. You’re essentially speaking into dead air. Okay. So if you have five Twitter followers and you just say,”I’m having a good day.”. No hashtag. Then you are only speaking to those five people and they have to be on Twitter to see that. So maybe only one of those people will actually read that you’re having a good day. 

Rina: Okay. 

Sarah: But if you say I’m having a good day, #CedarRapids, now anyone in Cedar Rapids can see it.

I’m having a good day hashtag, 

Podcasts with Sarah? 

Podcasts with Sarah.

Here’s where I realized the power of Twitter. So I have a tie with Ethiopia and several years ago there was a situation that happened with a pilot on an airplane.

And it happened around 10:00 PM at night, I think. I’m going completely by memory, I wasn’t planning on talking about this. But it happened late at night, and I got wind of it, I think by someone mentioning it on Facebook, but there was no news about it at all yet because it was happening at the moment.

Okay. So there was no news about it yet. There would be the next day, but there was no news about it yet. And I was like, how do I find out what’s happening right now? And so I went over to Twitter and I use the hashtag of the airline, of the specific ET501 or whatever it was. And, people were speaking in real time.

So I verified that what I had heard on Twitter the next day was accurate. And it was, I mean, essentially I was watching the news. It’s almost like if something happened outside this building, you could go down and watch it happening or whatever. Well, Actually, since we’re on the fourth floor, I’d be looking down on it and seeing what was going on, when you’re using hashtags you can see what’s happening.

So you can hear what people are talking about with specific things in society and the news. 

Rina: Interesting, I never looked at hashtags that way. 

Sarah: Really? 

Rina: Yeah, seriously. It makes complete sense. But I, you know, when we’re, we’re focused on these things right here in front of us, we don’t think about how globally we can use those things.

That’s why there’s trending. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Rina: I feel like I’m completely doing my nieces a disservice right now. You should know this. 

Sarah: I think part of it is I don’t, when I don’t understand something, like I don’t get things right away, right? I really don’t like not knowing.

Rina: Right.

Sarah:  So I think part of why I’m able to help is just because I’m like, what is everyone doing?  because I’m in marketing, I have to figure it out. Right. So, because it doesn’t just come super naturally to me, it helps to explain it a little better. 

Everyone else, they’re just like, it’s a hashtag.

Rina: Right. 

Sarah: I’m like, yeah, but what is a hashtag and why are we using them? So if anything happens that you hear about, Twitter is excellent for this, that you search by hashtag. I should restart my Twitter account, maybe. I actually, we don’t speak very much on Twitter.

I will say that. The funny thing is, is I’m an extrovert and I found that I really like this face to face. So I use Facebook I’m just like old school. I’m just like, I like Facebook. 

Rina: Right?

Sarah: So I have an Instagram account and I should post a lot more.

Like even yesterday, I posted a picture of my daughters and my husband and I playing a board game, and I was like, I should put this on Instagram, but I really don’t want to.  I like Facebook. 

Rina: I do too. I have Instagram. I think I have a Twitter account. 

Sarah: We repost stuff on Twitter, which you’re not really, that’s not best practice you’re supposed to use every platform, natively, meaning you don’t want to repost. 

Rina: Original content. 

Sarah: You want to post original content on each. There’s a point when you just can’t. I mean, to me, I’m just like, you know what, I’m at least gonna post something and yes, it’s the same thing that posting on Instagram and Facebook, but we also use a management tool that helps us so that we only have to post one time and it goes to all the platforms. 

Rina: Right. 

Sarah: That said, besides that content that we’re posting, I really don’t post much on Twitter. What I do is I listen. And comment, I don’t even comment that much, which is funny cause I’m a talker, so I should. I love Twitter to listen. 

Rina: Okay. 

Sarah: Twitter is great for listening because you get to find out what people are really talking about in terms of that demographic. Obviously you’re, hearing the thoughts of people who use Twitter. 

Rina: Right. 

Sarah: So it’s not perfect in terms of there’s a lot of people that you’re not hearing, the thoughts of that don’t use Twitter, but as far as the people that use Twitter, you can listen in on conversations and really find out what people are really thinking about.

Like the BET awards, that type of thing. Like, if you’re at home by yourself and you’re watching like the BET awards, you can use those trending hashtags and then like have conversations with people around the world who are also watching.

Rina: Huh? That’s kind of fascinating.

Sarah: So when Tyler Perry made his amazing speech, I cried. I did not get on Twitter cause I did have family in the house. 

Do you know what Tyler Perry has been doing? 

No.

It’s crazy awesome. Go to his social media channels.

He’s doing some amazing stuff. His BET speech this year was amazing. 

Rina: Okay. I’ll go look it up. I will search the hashtag. 

Sarah:  Did I answer all the questions? 

Rina: I think so. I mean, those are the two most important ones. Like, what is it and how do you use it? 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Rina: I think that’s it. 

Sarah: And then why would go along with that, just so that you can communicate with people and everything like that.

Rina: Yeah. Yeah, that was good. 

Sarah: So if people are listening to this and they want to get connected with you, but they’re, they’re still on the fence, like what can you do to help me type of situation? What would you say to those people? 

Rina: Go look at my website. It’s brand new. It’s amazing. 

Sarah: Devin Green just finished it, right?

Rina: Devin green is phenomenal. That kid, I call him a kid, but he is just amazing. So he wanted to learn some things. It’s a WordPress website and he wasn’t super familiar with it. So he wanted to learn how to create things. And my website was  his playground.

Sarah: I am glad he’s using WordPress. Yeah. He, I’m a big fan of WordPress.

Rina: I don’t care one way or the other. 

Sarah: It helps with SEO. 

Rina: So I’ve heard that. Yeah. So Devin did my website, right? And it is the most magical place. And he really captured me, like he created my logo. You’ll be able to see it on there. It’s just, he’s amazing.

He’s amazing. So if you need some help, like totally reach out to him. 

So anyway, My website is RinaJensen.com and there is how to work with me, what resilience is about, my story that’s on there, my dogs are on there. If you just want to talk to me for an hour, you can book that time. And if you want to take a resiliency assessment to see how resilient you are, then we can do that.

That comes with an hour of coaching as well. It’s a great place to go play, and then you can see the workshops. 

Sarah: Very cool. Thank you for being on the podcast. Rina. Thank you for having me. Well thank you for listening, and we’re glad you tuned in. If you need any marketing help or business resiliency, resiliency, help, make sure to reach out to us and we will talk to you next time. Thank you. Bye.