Hi, everyone, and welcome to relationships rule. My guest today is coming from sunny California. And I'm very excited to talk to her. Her name is Kara Steinman. And Kara and I were introduced through LinkedIn through a podcast agency. And often I'm not super impressed when that happens, but I got an inkling when I saw what Kara was all about. And I know you're gonna love it because she thinks just the way I do. So first of all, welcome to the show, Kara.
Thank you. I'm
happy to be here. My pleasure. So tell my audience please, what you do what your thing is what you're all about. And they'll know right away that why I said what I said, my
jam, you want to know my jam. I help women entrepreneurs, build relationships, preferably professional relationships that make it easier for them to do business. So strategic relationships.
And how do you do that?
I do one to one consulting, I help women figure out who they are. So they can align with the right people and that sort of thing. But I primarily build communities online, that help women come together and build really deep meaningful relationships that keep them well connected. Yeah.
Which is like music to my ears, because one of the things I saw in the information that was sent to me about you was that you believe that funnels are not necessary relationships are that's a different way that you said it. But it is essentially the same thing. And I couldn't agree more. And so, you know, we've been in a in a society lately where everything's online. And so everyone thinks that we have to have these funnels to bring in business. Talk to me about that myth in your eyes.
Gosh, I think that, that it's really easy to feel like we can write some content and put it out there in this funnel, and that we won't have to do anything, we won't have to actually interact, but our words and our content and all of these things, all of these things that we put out, there they are. They're reflecting us, and they are going to build the relationships that we will eventually probably have in person. Yeah. And so so it's not like it's not as
passive as we would like to think it is. And at one point I really liked. I really liked inbound marketing, the idea of inbound, because you weren't, it wasn't pushy, it was very magnetic. And we could put our stuff out there and just wait for people to want us and not have to engage in any way until till they got there. But I think that we're at a time when trust
is so scarce, and people are lonely. And we visibility relies on us having allies, it really relies on us having deep meaningful connections that somebody wants to promote you through. And that requires investing in other people making the time to do that requires being invested in other people.
And do you notice that and I couldn't agree more? And do you notice that? That they're still that you have to actually teach? Or train certain people that, that in building relationships, you really do need to focus on showing an interest in the other person, I believe that we still have to teach that to some people. Because for different reasons, like either they're nervous, or they're, they're unsure. So they start to talk about themselves, or they don't know what kind of
questions to ask whether they're just not comfortable. And with that, with that process, but it does work. Yeah,
I think you're absolutely right. There's a couple of things going on there too. You're probably right about the nervousness, people. But there's this business idea in business that we have to be busy that we can't talk about personal stuff, there's that kind of line that we've drawn,
and I don't like it. I don't like that line at all. Because the people that I want to wreck I work with people I like and in order to know someone to get to like them, I have to know more about them than just the service they provide.
And yes, so I actually when I'm working with LinkedIn clients, building their profile with them, I talk about trying to in not trying but by about infusing some subtle little things into their profile about their, their personal habits are their hobbies or their interests or some things that they do when they're not working. So that I can tell or
they can tell if somebody has actually read their profile. If they find that little thing that maybe they're an avid hiker, or they play soccer in their spare time or whatever or they they you know, were a movie buff or whatever it is that maybe someone looking at their profile had connects to a As a starting point to build rapport, those are the best kinds of things to find out. And yet, I will say now you're, you're younger than I am. And your generation tends to put out more personal things
on the other platforms as well. I have a hard time doing that. So there's that there is that fine line for me, but I find with LinkedIn, I can make it work. And and people pay attention if they pay attention, it makes for better starting points for relationships, I think.
Yeah. And I think being true to who you are, that you know, you being less comfortable with the really personal open stuff in business, that's who you are and how you operate. And you're going to be more comfortable working with clients who are more aligned with that level of openness. But some people and this could be a temperament thing. There's, you know, the ocean ocean test personality tests that looks at openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These four
traits know that one, yeah. Okay, ocean, that one that the extra
the openness trait that might might correlate with how people act online. And so open, people are going to have an easier time working with other open people. And that's not to say you can't work with people who are different than you. But understanding that they're different from you, is different than like, really, you know, when you meet somebody, and you just click, it's usually because you've got something in common in that way and the way you operate? Right, right,
exactly. So how do you do you do any training with your community? Or do you just allow them to, you know, or do you encourage them getting together? Or do you have events online or in person to, to have people network,
I built the community, I structured it so that we would be in a container that felt very safe. And the guidelines explicitly say we are in a, we're in a safe container, where we need to be vulnerable if we're going to get to know each other. And so I do come right out and say that, but then we have connection calls and mastermind calls that are all
very intimate and comfortable. And, and I really connect, I try really hard to connect with each new member, one on one at least once to help them get connected with other people who are alike to them. So that they start building that network quickly. And then we have we have the way that it's structured is structured is very casual. And we have very intimate
conversations in there about things other than work. Ah, okay, family, and we have a channel called ADHD all day where the neurodivergent people are talking about challenges in life and work and family. And then I just launched a purpose play shop inside the community, which is a daily prompt to help us build emotional intelligence, self awareness and creative confidence.
Hmm, interesting. Okay. So you have a framework that, and I think that's probably part of what you were just talking about, that you are maybe not that you use to generate referrals? And do you? So do you teach that in your community?
I do. Yeah,
it's a little bit about that.
Yeah, I call it the radical referrals. roadmap. And part of that is because the acronym is read our ad. And part of it is because it's kind of a radical concept to prioritize relationships in business. That's not where we go with it naturally, it's very transactional. But I think it works really better if we're relational with it. And so the three parts of the framework are R stands for remember, we have to remember who we are, especially as women, we've been
conditioned away from a lot of our natural tendencies. And we, we maybe compromise our values to be parents and work in certain situations. So we have to remember who we are. So that because, and there's a great quote, by Brene, brown, she says, our ability to connect with other people is only as great as our ability to connect with ourselves. So the next step in the framework is to align. So we have to remember who we are. And then we can align with the right people. And this is about
values, a lot of it is about values. And you talk, you talked about putting little kind of easter eggs in your LinkedIn content, maybe on your website that hint at who you are and what you care about. And you can do that really easily with language. And I'm sure you do. That's what you do your clients probably, you know, I can put pictures of yourself on there too. But you can also say things like, you can use the words connection and freedom and whatever, those are part of my
values. So use those. And then once you're aligned with those people, that's just not enough. I think a lot of people stop right there. And they stop with like meeting people and connecting with people and they end up with this giant Rolodex, that doesn't really benefit them because they haven't gotten to the last part, which is D, and that's to deepen the relationship. And it's iterative. It goes around and around because we're people and we evolve and we learn about
ourselves. So we're constantly doing all three of these things in the, with the hope that we build a really strong strategic network of people that We enjoy spending time with and connecting with. And that's where we get visibility from. And
that's also how we build our referral network. Yes, think
about the word referrals, it just means someone's referring, referring to you or referring you, they're talking about you behind your back. And what they're saying is going to determine how somebody views you. So your visibility depends on what people are saying about you, behind your back.
Yeah, it's an interesting way to say it, I find that that refer that, that referring people or being a connector and referring, bringing people together as part
of your network, I think that is really what I love to do. But when I do it, and I don't know, if you do this in your network, maybe that you want to protect the people that you're that you already have that know like and trust with, that are already gone deep enough with it, that there's that trust factor, that before you bring that new person in and say, hey, I want you to to get together, you make sure that you have permission from the, you're a person that's already in your community,
before you bring somebody else into them. So you ask them, so you're meeting this new person, either in person or online. And you're, and you're looking for a way to support them, because you like what you've seen and heard so far, but you're not there yet. So you might want to maybe offer something of your own, but you also know they're looking for help with whatever, so you know, someone who can help them. But before you connect them, you check with the other person. And
I do that if I meet somebody outside of the community, and this wasn't intentional, I think this is just how it ended up working out for me. If I'm connecting someone from inside the rebel community, to someone outside the rebel community, I get both parties consent. If I'm connecting new members to or existing members who have been
there for a while to someone else inside the community. Other members inside the community I don't I just make a direct connection inside the DMS in the community because they're everybody's operating with the same assumption that, that if I'm introducing you, there's a reason for it. Or, you know, there should there's just a feeling and I, I talk a lot about that too, because I don't have to have a reason sometimes why two people should meet. You just know, just know these. I
don't know why you guys need to know each other. I just feel like you do. And I've had people introduce me before by saying that, and it cracks me up because it's always it often more often than not ends up being an amazing relationship. Yeah, but they couldn't really say why. And that's okay.
Yeah, I love that too. Exactly. So tell me how you got into all this? What's your background? What, how did you come to be that entrepreneur that's doing all of this and building a community, I
came into entrepreneurship, because I'm completely unemployable. If you look at my strengths profile, and my Colby, Mo, and all of these, you know, tests, personality tests and objective ways to look at ourselves, I am not a person who is easily fits in a box with a description that I keep doing over and over again. So a lot of it is I tried to work for other people, and it just didn't work. And so I went out on my own. And I did a lot of content writing for a long
time and a lot of content strategy. And I was drawn to that, I think because of the strategy part. But there's also a lot of project management, and repent, there's a repetitive nature, in content when you're executing on a strategy over and over again. And that does not align with me very well. So I ended up going through kind of a meltdown during COVID. And had to stop working with clients doing retainer work like that,
because it was really, really draining to me. And I had to figure out what I am good at. And that required looking at my core values and my personality and my like I said strengths and the Colby, Mo and all these tools to kind of objective objectively say, Well, what should I be doing? If I what am I doing without even being able to help it? And someone pointed out to me that I had always worked on referrals. For the
first 10 years of my content marketing and strategy. career, I didn't even have a website, because I was networking and building relationships that were strategic, but I didn't realize I was doing it. So so the rabbit collective came to me because I was doing COVID I kind of start embracing that again. And I started connecting with all kinds of people like once you turn the fire on something you're good at, it kind of gets a little crazy. And so I was meeting all these women online,
and I couldn't keep track of them. And I wanted them to meet each other. But it was really time consuming, making email introductions to everybody. So I just said, you guys, come on, let's all just get in the same place. Let's come in this community, let's all network with one another. And then one of the members asked me that how does it work? Like she asked me to kind of deconstruct the way that I operate. And so that was where the framework came from, was just sort of a reverse
engineering of how I naturally operate. Interesting.
So I'm curious when you were in school, were you an athlete
I played intramurals. But I was an outlet. I did martial arts outside of school.
Okay. Individual sports. Okay. Yeah. So that's why. Yeah, like, I think there's different skills that come from individual sports, obviously, to team sports. And I think it makes a huge difference. So you were very independent in lots of ways. Yeah.
But very collaborative, too. I did end of individual sports, but I didn't like I was never very competitive. Yeah. So I think there's more of a,
I see, what's that? I see guitars behind you play music.
I learned to play the piano when I was growing up. And then I just picked up the guitar last year and started playing, which was sort of a bucket list item for me because I had, I had learned to play the ukulele in fourth grade. And I raised my hand to ask for a left handed ukulele on the teacher. I am Are you? Yes. Hey, fellow lefties. My husband's left handed too, but our son is right handed. So we like to joke that two wrongs make a right. I love it. Yeah.
Yeah, sorry. I find left handed people that I was at a bridge table. Last week we play bridge and three out of the four of us were left handed. That is so unusual. Yeah. It is the most my family like I have an uncle and uncle who was very ambidextrous. And my mother was ambidextrous. And my one daughter is very ambidextrous. She played a lot of sports. And she can like, bat or hit it with a golf club. Either way, you know, so, but nobody's left handed my little granddaughters
a little bit ambidextrous, but mostly right handed. But ya know, left
hold. It's 50% ish genetic. And the other part is just what you environmental maybe
that could be true, because back in the old days, you know, they used to beat it out. Yeah. Yeah. So sad to hear that anyway. Yeah, so I interrupted you, because I got
it. I had? Well, in this, this kind of goes to like the belief systems and the things that layer on top of who we are, right, like, when I melted down during COVID, I realized I didn't really know who I was anymore, because of a lot of the messages that I had gotten about myself. Who am I, you know, the belief systems that we pick up, really, really
get into our subconscious. And it was hard for me to even imagine that I could have a business other than the one I had, let alone, like the privilege of building relationships with people for a living, that's amazing. But just one of the beliefs that I picked up when I was young was that I, I put my hand up for a left handed ukulele and the teacher really embarrassed me in front of the class and shot me down and said, There's no such thing as a left handed ukulele, you
just need to figure it out. And I was I would think I was embarrassed, you know, for getting in trouble. I was the way I perceived it. But also just, you know, being different and asking for what I needed. And then having that just like, How dare you ask for what you need? Well, so I kind of had
always wanted to play the guitar. But because of that experience, I kind of just put it on the shelf and figured that's not going to be because I'm not ambidextrous, I can't do anything with my right hand, apparently, but discovered a little while ago that they totally have left handed guitars and left handed all kinds of left handed instruments
you obviously didn't didn't grow up with the Beatles. Did they play left handed? Paul McCartney's left handed as he did so he has a left handed look at all the pictures. He's the one with the guitar. The No, I never noticed that. I
mean, I love the Beatles, but I'm not like a Yeah, he's. I did not know that. Yeah. Well, she should have known that then. Now. I'm really mad.
Oh, that's too funny. I know. But that's terrible. As a teacher, I was a teacher, so to hear you, you know,
I've had a couple of teachers traumatize me because of, probably because I'm loud. I think I just realized recently that I have a triggering effect when someone says I'm a leader, like a leadership issue. And I kind of dug back and thought, you know, I did have that one teacher who kind of yelled at me in front of everybody and said, Scott, you can't always be in charge care. You have to let someone else be in charge. And like, stop being so bossy
that I was the Bossy kid to me. I always I'm, I'm the oldest of four. I had to be bossy. But the other thing is like, I don't know, when's your birthday was
April 17. Okay, so you're full on Aries, Aries,
and my daughter is in Aries. Because I'm a Virgo, and I'm like I have to be in control. And okay, so. But one of the things in reading all that horoscope stuff, which is really kind of fun, but I kind of like it. It you can turn it one way or the other. Right. So you can be the Bossy one. Or you can be the one that organizes and be you know, yeah.
Right. And I think that's something we learn when we all those tests are so there, you know, there's horoscopes, there's human design, there's all these different ways we can look at ourselves. And I think it's really valuable too, with a grain of salt, look at all those things. Because a lot of times some of our greatest strengths can become our weaknesses. If they're let loose. If they're not honed and moderated and I think I probably was really
bossy, and I probably was, you know, out of control. But that doesn't mean that
none of that you were out of control, you are probably just speaking your mind and being curious, which I want to come to in a second because that's the thing. You know, my one of my kids was the type a who would always push the teachers, you know, limits and ask questions, and why didn't I get an A plus? Why was it just an A, my other daughter,
completely introverted? Don't ask me any questions. I want to sit back in my seat and not, you know, be noticed in the classroom because God forbid, you should ask me a question. Totally different. So, I don't know. It's just who you are. Right? And yeah, we're
a lot of is just an aid. We're just different people. Exactly,
exactly. So that being said, I'm guessing that you are a full on curious person, because quite often good Networkers are curious people, right
to two of the top five strengths in my Clifton Strengths profile, are learner and input. And those are both like, give me all the information. Let me catalog it. And because of those, I tend to collect people apparently.
Oh, okay. So it's interesting, I did this. I did this program once called your sacred gifts. And it was a woman here who's been doing this for years. And she's really interesting. And she says, there's 24 Sacred gifts. And that I trigger something. Oh, I can't hear you.
Sorry, I'm laughing because I muted myself to write that down. Because I, the last couple of weeks, we had our little 30 minute strategy call, you know, and you mentioned that and I wrote it down. But of course, couldn't find the piece of paper. And I've been trying to remember last time you did it. I've been trying to remember what was that assessment?
I'll send it. I'll send it to you. And it's not really an assessment. It's a it's a, but you can get an idea from? Yeah, the first part of it anyway. I might still have it. I'll see if I can find it. Yeah, super curious. Yeah. So yeah. Anyway, okay. So tell me this. I'm going to ask you my two part curiosity. Question. And before we before we ant here. Do you believe that curiosity is innate? Or learned? And part two is what are you most curious about these days? yourself?
I think curiosity is absolutely innate, and that some of us probably develop it more throughout life. And some of us are probably maybe taught to tamp it down just a bit. Depending. And I think curiosity, we're all curious about things, just maybe such different things that we don't really notice. If someone's not curious about what we're curious about. We're like, why are they not curious?
Right, right. Exactly. So it's, it can be interest based as well. Okay. And what are you curious about today?
I am still most curious today, about the same thing. I've been curious about my entire life, which is like, why are people the way they are? And that, you know, that feeds into how Why does one person get along with one person and not with another person? And how do we interact with one another, and the, you know, foundations of a relationship and how they grow and build and just, I'm interested in people and how they relate to themselves and each other? That's great.
Do you I see you as the kind of person that sometimes people will say to me, well, two things, one, that I can talk to someone for five minutes and come away and know their entire life history? And secondly, someone will say to me, Wow, no one's ever asked me that question before or, or, you know, I've never shared this with anyone before. So in other words, I can get to the core quite quickly with people. And I have a sense that you can too.
That's funny, you mentioned that, because when I was going through this kind of meltdown, trying to figure out who am I, I felt like I wasn't really good at anything anymore. And looking back, that might partly be because so many of my really, like core strengths are softer skills. They're not execution related. You can't see something on the other end of it. But I asked my husband, Babe, what do you think my
superpower is? Yeah. And he said, Oh, that's easy. You can talk to somebody for five minutes, and they're telling you stuff, they wouldn't even tell the therapist. Yeah. And I'm like, at that, that there again, though, that has been a liability at times, because people will tell me stuff. I don't really want to know. And you don't put it right. Yeah. And then and sometimes it's fine. And I've learned to, you
know, just roll with it. And to be really non judgmental, I think because when people tell you stuff about themselves your whole life, you have to just learn to just let it be but people will some people will get a vulnerability hangover and avoid me after they've told me something very intimate. Okay, and I'm not judging but I think that there's some shame there that maybe it's misplaced.
Well, then, then you would probably know how to bring them around.
Yeah, usually it's okay but you know, Certain people are more more apt to let their shame control them than others. But yes, you're we're probably very much alike. Yeah, I
think we are in so many ways. And so just before we wrap up, let's get back to business for a second. And, and you see how they are really so totally related. It's just crazy, right? And core values. That's where it all comes down to. I mean, when I meet someone on LinkedIn for the first time, and even just the questions that I asked if they answer them,
don't answer them. If they ask a question, if they even care enough to ask a question, if they've read my profile, all of those things come into play for me, initially, until I can, you know, sort of peel back the first layer and see if they're interested in doing that. But I've met some really interesting people, just from being online, which is kind of fun. You have one thing I was curious about here that that you asked, what are some unconventional ways to build your network on LinkedIn?
What do you have, because I teaching people all the time. So I'm just curious what you do that works, or that you show people,
I think that probably comes from not starting my search on LinkedIn. And I don't focus a lot on, on posting and starting the conversation myself, I like to jump into other people's conversations, I like to get into the comments of posts that I find interesting, and talk to people who are already in that conversation. So it doesn't have to be me
starting the conversation. Yeah, and I'm also not afraid to take it to the DMS like right away, because I don't have an agenda right away, like I don't have anything I need from you or want from you. I just want to connect. And usually to tell them that I really liked what they had to say or that I think they're really interesting, or probably because I'm curious. So I guess that's where it comes from, is just like a very innate curiosity about people and what they're all about and what
they're doing. Yeah,
that's, that's interesting, because that is a strategy that I show people sometimes, but I'm more about hanging out in the mailbox in the private messaging. And so I will do is show people a way to, you don't even have to go to the content, you can just do a strategic search to find some people in either a category or a location or whatever filters you want to use to find some prospects or some referral partners or strategic collaborators that you want to
find on LinkedIn. And then start looking at those profiles. And from there, go in and ask to connect with them, or follow them for a bit if you prefer, I go right to connect with a message and try to get them into a one on one. And, and it works. And I have a few messages that I that I like to ask them to see if I can get them talking about themselves. So it's kind of fun. So that works, too. So
that sounds like it's interesting, because you have a slightly different approach than I do to kind of get to the same end, I'd be curious to know what your what your Colby Mo is because it sounds like you have some structure and some rep like repetitive systems that sort of work
for why it didn't study my Colby that closely. So I'll have to go back and look at it and see well,
I'm super curious, because I'm the opposite of you. I don't have a structure or a system that I can like really repeat. But which is why I start outside of LinkedIn and just in the real world, then I go because it's so easy to connect directly with people, I go find them and talk to them on LinkedIn just directly.
We'll have a conversation about that one. Yeah, definitely. Okay, thank you. That's awesome. Well, this has been amazing. And I appreciate your time. And I love that we have so much in common and and that we're both left handed it couldn't have gotten it before we end, I wonder if you have any final words for my audience and where people can find you. And I will, of course put it in the show notes as well. But over to you. You
know, I think I would just piggyback again, on what you said earlier about letting yourself come through in your marketing and your content and your, you know, interactions online. I think if you are willing to let yourself be seen, it'll be a lot more easy to it'll be a lot easier to build your reputation and become visible and have success because people have to see you to appreciate you and want to work with you.
Very cool. Thank you. Where can they find you?
I just like to connect on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn
it is and I have that. So I will put that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Kara, for being here and for sharing your expertise and personality with us and I've
enjoyed it so much. Thank you.
You're very welcome. And to my audience, thank you so much, and we will see you on the other side.