All right, friends. Welcome back to another episode. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a real, in real life friend who I met locally for coffee which is a rarity in this online space, Cara Chase. Welcome to the show, my friend.
Cara Chace 2:29
Thank you so much, and it's so funny we're doing this online even though we've been friends in person. Yes.
Heather Sager 2:37
Well, truth be told, we are not as close physically anymore. You've recently moved a little. I miss our coffee dates. I sure do. We'll talk about that today but I do love the online virtual coffee chats because I don't have to wear pants and I'm in the comfort of my house, and it's just normalized. I think it's cool. I do zoom dates with people I could all the time technically meet in person.
Cara Chace 3:01
It makes it easier to be really connected with people, for sure.
Heather Sager 3:05
Yes. Okay. Well, before we do the whole like now we're going on inside jokes and tracks. We want to welcome everyone to the show. Let's just set things out properly. So, Cara, I know you as the well, my local friend that I meet for coffee at our favorite coffee shop, but also as the Pinterest guru. I hate that title but you're really damn good at Pinterest. I have all the questions today but there's so many other fascinating thing. Give yourself the good old fashioned formal intro so that everybody can join us in the conversation.
Cara Chace 3:33
Yes. So as you said, I do Pinterest, right? I'm the same way I'm like, do I call myself an expert or a guru or whatever. I do Pinterest and I do it really well for online entrepreneurs. So anyone that has a business online where they want to drive more traffic to their website, I teach them how to use Pinterest effectively and why it's such a fantastic marketing platform. I have been in business since 2007, 2015. I niched into Pinterest in 2017. So I've been at this for a while. I have my own business, my own brand, the carachace.com. And yeah, I kind of spread myself out over doing one to one stuff and my Pinterest marketing program that I have for people. I kind of do all the things in the online space.
Heather Sager 4:23
I love it. And I'm super excited to talk about some of these things today because I just confessed to you before we hit record that I suck at Pinterest. And I say that with the, I love Pinterest for pinning recipes and decoration ideas and I have all these boards for around someday what my house will look like, right? But Pinterest for business, if I'm being totally honest, I have literally no idea. I just hear people say to use it, and I felt really silly in all of our conversations. You and I have been chatting. I felt silly ever admitting that out loud but here we go like full public curiosity. I want to ask you all the questions today because I do think that it's one of those tools or marketing tactics that everyone kind of knows what Pinterest is but it also is a little confusing around how do we use it for business so we're gonna dive that in today. We're going to talk about quite a few different things with marketing. But first, I really want to have call out my favorite thing to talk to you about, which is the fact that you, I'm going to call it something different than what it actually was but in my head, you used to be a secret agent.
Cara Chace 5:37
The technical term, the technical job title is Special Agent.
Heather Sager 5:41
Yeah, so I want to know like, you got to share the story right around how someone graduates from college, you become a special agent. I'm gonna call you secret agent, your secret 007, Cara. How does one go from that? Because you had a pretty established career, so now you're doing online marketing and you have this phenomenal brand that's very personalized. We got to hear that story.
Cara Chace 6:05
Yeah, sure. I'll try and keep it short because as you can imagine there's like a lot in there, right? So I went to four year college, I was recruited as a special agent right out of college. I, 22 years old, was doing high level criminal investigations. I worked on the San Diego Mexico border so you can imagine how busy that was. I did all sorts of high speed stuff, really grew up in that job. You can imagine as a 22 year old with that kind of responsibility and you just learned a lot of life skills. So a few years into that career, I started realizing how unfulfilled I felt and how much it was severely affecting my health but I was making really good money. I was doing something that I thought was gonna be super cool, right? Everybody's like, oh, that's amazing. And I'm like, no, it's not like the movies, like it's totally different than what it is probably it is.
Heather Sager 7:03
Envisioning the show I got really into a few years ago, the show Blacklist. Oh, yeah, you're like the Hollywood versions of things in our minds is not
Cara Chace 7:13
Totally different, though. There's a lot more paperwork than you could possibly imagine. So 10 years into that career, I left and I quit with zero plan. The only thing that I knew is that it was taking years off of my life and I was truly deeply unhappy. I had a series of really horrible supervisors. It was just, it was that moment of if I stay much longer, I'm going to have the golden handcuffs. No pun, intended criminal investigations, and not be able to leave. It won't make sense to leave. And it was just that, like, I gotta go, I gotta go. Everybody thought I was nuts because it's a stable career, you know, it's one of the few jobs with a pension still, like all this kind of stuff. I had no idea what I was going to do. So I left, knowing that I would just figure it out and me entering about a year and a half, I ended up becoming the Social Media Manager for the band Megadeath and Dave Mustaine. If you're not into heavy metal, you probably have no idea who they are. That's totally okay.
Heather Sager 8:27
I'm ask you to repeat the name three times. I'm like, this is not my job, like if Bruno Mars. Nope. Okay.
Cara Chace 8:34
No, no. Okay. So if you're familiar, I'll shortcut this for you. If you're familiar with the band Metallica, most people are. Dave Mustaine was the founding member of Metallica. He was the lead guitarist for the founding band of Metallica. So he's got some chops, for sure. So anyway, I knew nothing about social media. I taught myself everything because I saw an opportunity and I saw a need and I taught myself everything on the fly. This was the wild west of social media. This was like 2012. So it was before Facebook did their big algorithm change went to ads. It was like, I mean, everything was fair game. So I ended up managing 13 million fans across 17 social media accounts as my first job in social media.
Heather Sager 9:27
I know you were trained as a secret agent, so you're good.
Cara Chace 9:31
Good, right. So it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot and I set myself up for a second career. So after a couple years, things kind of ran its course as it does with celebrity in the music industry and all that kind of stuff. I started my own business in 2015 and I did all digital marketing because that's what I did for Megadeath. I started their email marketing strategy. I did all their social media. I do stuff with their website, you know, anything and everything. You name it, started up ecommerce stuff with them. So that is what I did when I started my first business. It was anything under the digital marketing umbrella. And then within a year, Pinterest really stood out to me as like, hey, this is like the best ROI for the least amount of effort. And then by 2017, I was like, no Pinterest is it and I niched, and it was the best thing for my business. And I've been doing that ever since along with a really heavy dose of entrepreneurship and productivity because I became a mom two times over, over the course of all of this and navigating all of those things as a small business owner as well.
Heather Sager 10:42
Yes. Okay. I love, I love your story so much. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think it's one representative, maybe not a lot of people have experienced in such a specialized profession or working for such a famous band, right, that celebrity factor, but I think it is representative, the idea that we all have these very eclectic and seemingly random experiences that lead us to this moment to dive into entrepreneurship, like how it's just fun. Okay, so I, I'm going to put you on the spot here.
Cara Chace 11:11
Okay.
Heather Sager 11:12
And I want you to make your case for why the heck we should be paid attention to Pinterest.
Cara Chace 11:18
Yeah, I can give you two words for that evergreen content.
Heather Sager 11:24
Okay, so say more on this because in my head, I'm like, oh, yeah, I have this same affinity for You Tube. So I'm thinking that because we're in this, let's set the context here. I feel like we're in this little bit of bubble in the online space which I think anybody who joins the online marketing world, you experienced very quickly that oh, my gosh, we're in this very weird bubble world that we didn't know existed. And then we're here, but it feels like being online, like, especially Instagram, or Facebook, like you have to be omnipresent everyday cranking out content, and it can get really, really exhausting. So take that pivot over to why Pinterest is maybe a little bit of a different pace.
Cara Chace 12:04
Yeah, it's a completely different pace. And I love that you, correlated it with YouTube because that is the core of why the platform is different. It is an SEO engine. It is not social media. So as you can imagine, with managing social media for 13 million fans, I got pretty jaded when I was doing that kind of high level work all the time in social media, and just the constant content treadmill and trying to figure out what works and all of that. So the difference is Pinterest is not social media. It is a visual search engine and the content lives forever. So what do I mean by that? I mean, yes, if you put up an Instagram post, you could scroll back to years and somebodies profile if you're stalking that, right, but you're not going to see that content
Heather Sager 12:58
Just don't hit like, because then it's going to be public that you're a stalker, a little weird, a little weird.
Cara Chace 13:01
So you know, but the algorithm is not going to show you that content after 24 to 48 hours, give or take, you know, there's a lot of new things with the algorithm lately. It's pretty short lived. With Pinterest because it's a search engine, it functions on keywords. So what that means is the algorithm that starts learning what your content is about, what your specific pin is about, and it will show it to the right people at the right time who are actively searching for a way to solve their problem. So Pinterest is an inspirational and aspirational platform. And like we talked about, right, you really only use it for recipes and your bathroom remodel you might get to next year, you know, whatever it is. But when you think about okay, how do I think of Pinterest as just a normal personal user? When do you go on Pinterest? When you're looking to get inspired? When you're looking for ideas? When you are looking to research and gather information and get ideas? That is the same place people are in when they are searching for anything whether that is how do I create a YouTube strategy. You might look for it on YouTube, a lot of people search on Pinterest for that as well. Looking for planner ideas, or to do list ideas or you know, whatever it is in your industry, in your space. People are on Pinterest and using it to search because it is a visual platform. It's so much more user friendly for people as far as that that quick visual hit of is this something I'm interested in. So does that answer your question, I can keep talking and talking.
Heather Sager 15:02
Yes, you nailed it. Because I think coming back to the sheer logic of the like, in real time expiring content if you will versus that evergreen. I don't know why the media example are metaphor that came to my mind is like buying groceries, where we buy, although it's wonderfully nutritious, ignore this representation, but fruits and vegetables, they have a shelf life, right? How many times we go buy vegetables and then we put them in the crisper drawer, forget about them, and they go back. That was like wonderful intentions, ah. There are stuff in our pantry that's like the canned goods or whatever else that it could actually if you have to cook and you can't go to the grocery store you can pull from. So I'm just thinking like, the shelf life thing is huge and especially in this world where we're creating so much content. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are feeling burned out because they're not getting traction from their content. And I think a slight pivot of going well, where are you pointing your content? Like to be a question because I think for a while I was just posting on on Instagram, right? We're on my email list, which you and I were chatting before we went live. I have 100 Now 125 episodes on this podcast and we've maybe dabbled in putting some things on Pinterest. But oh my gosh, what an opportunity to be able to drive traffic to all of this existing content.
Cara Chace 16:21
Yeah. So two points I want to make here on that. One of my top traffic drivers every single month is a blog and a pin to that blog that I created in 2015, in 2015. So when you see all those cool infographics about like, how long does a piece of content last right? You see, like a tweets, 12 minutes and Instagram. I have yet to see the end of a lifespan of a piece of content that I created on Pinterest. Still, that's 2021, 2015. It still is one of my top traffic drivers every single month. Okay, would you make a little effort to learn and implement a simple strategy for a platform that gave you those kinds of returns?
Heather Sager 17:09
Yeah.
Cara Chace 17:12
Point number two, you're talking about 125 episodes. Here's the thing, if you decided to stop your podcast tomorrow which I hope you don't because it's amazing. You would have limitless amount of content you could put on Pinterest that drives traffic back to those epic episodes however long you wanted to. On Pinterest, it's not about creating more content, it's about creating more pins for the content you have. It is the ultimate repurposing.
Heather Sager 17:41
Yeah.
Cara Chace 17:42
You can create however many pins that go back to the same URL on your website, or landing page or opt in or whatever it is that you want. I continuously do that to test for my funnels, for my free opt ins. I'm always playing with new pins, new templates, whatever. I don't have to create a new landing page. I'm simply creating new content that drives traffic back to whatever that page is.
Heather Sager 18:07
Okay. I love it. I have to ask a direct question. Because I saw somebody talking about this earlier this month and it got me thinking. So when all the platforms, you have LinkedIn, Facebook, like all these different social media platforms. And you mentioned before back when Facebook, you said it was at that peak at 2012, right, before the algorithm started coming in, right, into these platforms, there tends to be this tipping point, right? Where it's like a free for all, you get all this exposure and then it's got enough users start getting sophisticated to start choking back what it shows, right, the algorithm comes into play. I've heard that okay, with Pinterest, it used to be that oh, my goodness, it was a free for all, you get all this exposure. But now if you're just getting started, it's not as quite, it's not as easy if you were in however many years ago. Is there any truth to that?
Cara Chace 18:58
Absolutely. There is. So Pinterest right now is at that tipping point. I'm not gonna lie and be like, oh, it's the you know, whatever. The changes that I've seen from niching into Pinterest from 2017 to today. They're big changes. And you're right. It's just like every platform where they get more sophisticated, more users, they roll out paid ads, and all of that kind of stuff. So the strategy today is not the same as the strategy in 2015. They constantly come out with all new, they call them products, right? But like idea pins are what they're pushing right now. Video pins, they have all sorts of different things that you can create as content. My foundation of my business, the way I teach and how I run my marketing is you can play with all the different things that they offer all you want. But at the end of the day, I use Pinterest to drive traffic to my website. I know how to do that and everything else that they come out with as a platform is just icing on the cake, but not really meat and potatoes since we're going with food and pantry, right? So it's like, okay, if I'm looking at my strategy for the month, and I know what I want to create pins for that goes back to my website, I might put up one idea pin or a few video pins or whatever it is but it's not the bulk of my strategy because I do enough testing and looking at my analytics to know that Pinterest still works as intended as a visual social media platform and it drives traffic back to my website. So do you need to be aware of, yeah, it's different than it was six years ago, you know, whatever it was, for sure. Is it as easy as it used to be? Well, it never really was easy and that as the thing that people get hung up on. They want to compare today to five years ago. The reason people have so much trouble sticking with Pinterest is because it's not an instant gratification platform. We are so used to Instagram and Facebook and Tik Tok and whatever it is where you're refreshing your app every five minutes to see how many views you have and that is a dopamine hit for people that they want. That is why these platforms have users. Pinterest does not function that way. Most of my clients and my students start seeing results with consistent work on the strategy six months to a year and when people think of do I want to spend six months to a year putting in effort on a platform, most people don't have that kind of sticktoitiveness with their businesses. They get distracted by the bright and shiny instant gratification promises. What I will tell you is if you do have the patience and stamina to stick with using the platform for that long, you will absolutely see results and it will be the best ROI for marketing that you've probably ever had.
Heather Sager 22:12
Okay, that I'm making a big note here because we're gonna cut that little clip and that's gonna be the intro for the show today. It is it like exactly what you just said around this idea of the shiny object. We have to be way more aware of that as entrepreneurs. I don't think people are aware of how much their decisions like how it's driving their decisions by them wanting to feel good, wanting to feel like they're making progress right out of the gate. But when it comes to marketing, you have to make data driven decisions and we have to be thinking way more strategic long term. So I love how you just described that and this is one of those things that sure it's not going to have the instant payoff, but that longer term thing around having the ability to drive traffic beyond 12 months from now for something that you did six months ago. That's huge. Okay, I love this. Let me clarify something real quick. So think about somebody who's listening today who has let's say, as a coach or maybe they have a digital course like, right? Who's Pinterest really ideal for when you think around the kinds of businesses who should be thinking about leveraging this traffic vehicle?
Cara Chace 23:20
Yeah, that's a really good question because one of the myths that I see all the time is like, if you don't do DIY and recipes, you can't use Pinterest, right? So there's a little bit of a mindset switch to have here. If you are in one of the classic Pinterest categories, so interior design, fashion, DIY recipes, whatever, you are going to have a much bigger audience on Pinterest. It just is what it is. But to directly answer your question, anybody who has a website that wants more traffic should be using Pinterest, right? But it's understanding that, and I experienced this. Online marketing definitely has an audience on Pinterest but am I going to see the kind of stats that are DIY recipe blog is going to see? No, so you've got to understand the expectations. I mean, it's funny, people ask me this all the time. I'm like, do you have a website? Do you want more traffic? Well, you know, do you solve a problem? Because that's what we go into business for is to solve somebody's problem that we happen to know how to help with. If you solve a problem people are searching for how to also solve that problem.
Heather Sager 24:39
Yeah, okay. And it's interesting because I like I think to myself, like I don't necessarily go on Pinterest to search for these kinds of things. But we have to be really mindful that just because we physically do not, like so for example, I also don't search for things on YouTube. I do not, like I do not. I go to Google and that comes up right but I have to be very mindful. And I want to encourage people listening to, just because it's not a behavior that you do does not mean that that's how everyone else behaves. The data shows that people are on these platforms searching as you already described. So I think we really have to separate our own consumer behavior, searching behavior, separate from our ideal person. It's not always the same.
Cara Chace 25:22
Right. And I'm so glad you brought up Google because a lot of people don't know that Google indexes Pinterest. So when you go, yeah, so when you go on Google, and you search for whatever, you will see Pinterest boards, individual pins, you will see those results come up in Google. So it's not just that you're getting those results on Pinterest, it's all these other places that are being indexed or are indexing Pinterest that you're, it's like doubling your strategy.
Heather Sager 25:54
Yes. Okay. You convinced me. All right. So we need to use Pinterest, right? This would be a very smart strategy thinking for repurposing content, driving traffic back to the website. What are some, well, I actually wrote this question down because I really genuinely had it as a business. Let's be realistic for a business owner listening going, alright, Cara, you got me like. I want to do this. But just like with anything, it's like, oh, my gosh, I don't have any time. Realistically, for a business owner to get some traction, like how much time do they need to carve out for something like this to see that slow traction?
Cara Chace 26:28
So that is a really great question. Just like every other platform, what Pinterest values is consistency. So anybody that tells you, you have to pin 10 times a day, or you have to, you know, whatever it is, you don't know that for your business or your audience, right? The only thing Pinterest cares about is are you showing up consistently creating new content for this platform. I have people in my program that do a few pins a week. I have some that have gotten to the point where their system that I teach is so like, their plates are all spinning. That they are doing 10 or 15 a day, right. So this is part of why I love what I do and how I've created my brand is find what works for you and start slow because where we get lost in overwhelm is like you are saying, I'm convinced I'm going to do Pinterest. If you went in tomorrow, and we're like, okay, I'm gonna do this whole, like, excuse my French, balls to the wall strategy and I'm going to create 15 pins per day and do you're going to be burnt out in a week. And you're going to drop it and maybe come back to it a year from now and go, I really should have stuck with that. I should have done that. I should have whatever. I would so much rather business owners start with one pin a day, one pin a week, whatever. Just get started so you can start being present on the platform. Start showing up in search results and get your systems down and get comfortable with using the platform and then start taking it up a notch. Now, with that being said, someone that is going to hire out for it or you know, they have all sorts of time to start going all in on a strategy and maybe they want to do some paid advertising. They're going to receive results quicker. It's just like anything if you start slow and organic, that is the digital world that we live in for marketing. You're going to see results but it'll be slower and more drawn out. So it's really up to how much you want to prioritize Pinterest strategy for your business. But I would say the most important thing is not how many times are you pinning a day, it's that you're there and you're consistent and you set yourself up for success. You don't set yourself up for burnout and dropping the ball.
Heather Sager 29:00
Yeah, okay. I love this. There's like so many analogies that go with that, right? Like the whole metaphor of somebody who's like, oh, I finally want to get healthy again and right and they go buy all the green juice and all the things like go gung ho and then the third day they're like in the pantry eating Twinkies and Cheetos, because it's like it's not sustainable.
Cara Chace 29:18
So, right.
Heather Sager 29:19
I mean, anyone take that analogy, make it for yourself. But I love that like, I think there's this unsexyness of the idea of like, I'm just gonna do one a week. I don't know any entrepreneur that has such low ambition where they suddenly I'm going to do a new thing. I'm going to do Pinterest, like, they're not going to be like and I'm going to start with one a week because it sounds lame, right? They want to do the ideal picture. We're all high achievers. We want to go out with that. So give me recommendations for someone who's like, I know, I know, that's the next step for someone. They're like, oh, I'm going to do it. I'm going to carve it out, like we all have great intentions, but our eyes are bigger than our plates in this scenario. Like how would you help someone really buffer that, like it's really cool to do the one a week?
Cara Chace 30:03
Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna talk about the plate here. I love, it must be Thanksgiving. So, my biggest piece of advice is take a look at your plate and know how much time you actually have. This is a whole another piece of my business where I talk about ideal workweeks and structuring your time. If you're a busy entrepreneur or a parent, you know all the things. Do you really have time to do that Black Friday deal or whatever it is? Do you really have time to learn something new? If you're really gung ho about it and you want to create the time, is there something else you can give up? Like, be really honest with yourself as an entrepreneur with how much time you actually have? If you know that you are brain dead in the evenings and the only time you have is in the evenings, is that going to be a good fit for you? Probably not. So get really honest with yourself about the size of your plate and how much room you actually have. After that, schedule, the time to do it. This is one of the biggest lessons I've learned as an entrepreneur is I can sign up for all the programs I want. If I don't schedule the time to go through and learn and implement, I don't ever do it. I'm certainly busy enough to you know, never crack the books on anything new. I can keep myself busy. So schedule the time to do it. And as far as being okay, what is that your question? Like how do you be okay with one a week?
Heather Sager 31:35
Yeah, I think we're making a beautiful pivot here, right? Because this is where we're gonna take the conversation next. It's like we play on this. I remember, we're talking about this idea of entrepreneurs, right? We have the ability or we have this tendency to be very ambitious and I love this plate analogy, right? Like I even in my head, I'm thinking, there's no second healthy when it comes to what we have, although we think like, oh, later, later. We could do it later. But really that plate analogy, if you only have so much time, so much mental capacity, so much focus so much creativity, it's on the plate and we keep thinking. We can keep going back for seconds and thirds and it just doesn't happen. Yeah, we don't learn. And we, every time it's something new, like with Pinterest or Instagram, we get like, oh, you know, it's gonna be different this time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it the right way. I'm going to do it three times a day or I'm going to commit to something higher. I don't know, maybe this is just me, right? You just never seem to learn the lesson that the eyes are always bigger than the plate. So I think this makes a really big beautiful pivot. I remember you shared with me, I don't know this, probably six months ago. We're in the coffee shop. And you're like, I have this like, this is gonna sound so lame but you didn't say this. But it's like this tickle of an idea that I really want to venture out and you started describing this, this angst that you see so much with entrepreneurs around putting way too many things on their plate. And not like it was so simple as when an entrepreneur shows up to their computer, how they even structure their day to get these kinds of tactical tasks done.
Cara Chace 33:02
Yeah.
Heather Sager 33:02
So let's talk about now like your love and passion for this idea of productivity to create space for knowing what's important, but these technical things. Share a little bit about that not like your business.
Cara Chace 33:15
Yeah, I would love to. So this is one of those things where I have been doing this and tweaking this and building this since day one of my business, and I had no idea what I was sitting on and how much it was needed as far as sharing it. So when I first started my business, we had a two year old, one child. She was two. And they don't teach you entrepreneurship in school. Not really, they don't teach you time management and productivity. So I was waiting through having a young child. I'm trying to start a business. Too much flexibility, right? When you have no structure, then it's just kind of chaos, you know? And you're like, how do I? So I saw the need pretty quickly to structure my days and the first thing that I tried was time blocking. And time blocking is talked about a lot. And immediately, I felt like a failure. And the reason I felt like a failure was because the time blocking was so structured that it never quite worked the way I thought it was gonna work in my head. And then things fell off the list. Things didn't get done. And it was like it was so structured that it just it set me up for failure. So over the years, I created this version of an ideal work week that is based on theme days. And basically, originally I call them theme buckets, But really it was okay, the first thing I'm going to do is create the structure around my days, like I know after 3pm is all kid and family time. That's when I pick up from school it's you know, whatever. So 3 to 8pm is done. Okay, in the morning, I know I start work at 8am. And so if I'm looking at 8am to 3pm, and then I start filling in. I know I need to eat lunch and drink water and get up from my desk and take a quick walk. That's going to have, you know, whatever we end up with these blocks of time, that's not like 15 minute increments, or 30 minute, you know, maybe it's my morning block or my afternoon block. The problem is you get to that point, and then you just have this huge to do list, right, and you're like, you start grinding through that to do list and you end the day feeling exhausted, but like, you really didn't get a lot done. We've all had those days. I still have those days, right? I'm like, I don't know what I did today. But I'm really tired.
So by having theme days, based around, like what you need to do in your business, you take a look at your day, and you're like, Okay, I'm a morning block and an afternoon block, what can I do in my theme for today that is going to move my business forward. So for example, my Mondays are content creation days. Those are when I outline content that I want to create or graphics for content marketing, you know, whatever it is. I do no meetings on Mondays. It's just time to myself to really be in that creative space. Tuesday is the day that I dedicate to Pinterest and my program, Pin Power method, and anything that needs to happen in their Wednesdays is like client work and admin work, right. So you have these general buckets of the major things that happen in my business that have to get done that move my business forward. So when you start off the week with your brain dump to do list, you can start sorting them into your theme days, by what can happen when, and it frees up so much brain space and energy. And the biggest benefit is you're doing less context switching. And if you've been in the online entrepreneur space, you know, the context switching is a big no, no, because you're just losing time and brainpower and it's all the million tabs open in your brain. So when you group your tasks together by your day is you're able to focus and get in that flow state and not have the context switching. So I've been perfecting this for years based on sheer need of like, I need to build a business and I also need to live a life and I'm not blogging at eight o'clock at night on a Sunday ever again, like I got to figure this out. I didn't realize how how well this worked until online school last year. So the then two year old was a second grader and we did 100% online school for her and I saw her really struggling with context switching with like, here's your five lessons and five different subjects every day. And halfway through the year, I said this is not working for anybody. She's stressed, I'm stressed like it's just not working. And I said what if we started theming her days. And so Monday, she would do all her math for the week. Tuesday, she would do all of her social studies and Language Arts for the week. Wednesday, she would do all of our science for the week. She finished her school year in April with a 97%. And it wasn't till I saw how this method worked for my eight year old that I was like, I have to share this.This is a really big deal. And so it kind of led to that moment when we were having coffee and I was like I think I need to do something with this. Because I am not the only one that is trying to build a business as a mom or somebody with many other obligations that quite frankly, are more of a priority, often, right? So that's how that all started. And Pinterest fits into it beautifully because the reason I niched into Pinterest is not only the ROI, but how it's so scalable in the batching method that I learned and now teach to make it something that I do once a month. Not every day, not several times a week, so it's part of this whole I need to find time on my plate once a month to get my entire Pinterest strategy done. To me that sounds a lot better than trying to figure out reels every day or what stories and all that you know whatever cuz I want to go to one of the things,
Heather Sager 39:39
Don't we all, right?
Cara Chace 39:41
Yes. Yeah.
Heather Sager 39:43
I love everything that you just said. And I would imagine that anyone listening, their brain was firing off around like, oh, yeah, I've tried, I used to try to do it, like we've all tried versions of that, right? But even if it's just a reminder to come back, I think anyone listening this going okay, so how Cara describe like the theme days. But the theme days like oh my gosh, that works so beautiful for you. I love theme days. I love that direction. I tried that for a while and I got away from it so I'm making notes. But I think coming back to like, we all try these different things. And when you said like, this isn't working for me, like we're as entrepreneurs, I think sometimes we forget that we get to remake our own rules whenever we want to. And I love like the inspiration of your daughter helping you. Anyways, I am obsessed with you. You know that. I learned from you all the time.
Cara Chace 40:30
Yeah, you know, but it's like anything else that you try new, you have to actually use it and do it for it to be successful. I use the Full Focus planner. And you got to actually use it for the planner to work. And I overlay my whole theme day planning method on top of it and you know, in conjunction, but anybody that's learning something new, whether that's Pinterest or, you know, whatever you decide to do, give it a fair shake. And then decide if it's right for you and it fits.
Heather Sager 41:03
Yes. Okay, I love this. I too, I want us to use the full focus planner. Side note, we'll link it in the show notes. I was a user of that from like, day one, when Michael Hyatt came out with that 2017. I have since switched to Best Self Co and a couple other things. There's some fun that also have like a bunch of those on my wall. But I think what you said is so powerful, right? It's not about which planner to use is the fact that you actually have to use the system. And what I always find this anybody that I get people asking me all the time, actually one of my top YouTube videos is me reviewing the full focus planner, ironically. But I had people ask me all the time, and it's like, it's really not about the planner, although they're all great. It's about using it. Okay, so I love all of this. I want to do something new on the show I mentioned before I was going to do this for you. I want to try something that I was inspired by my friend, Ellen Yen, mutual friend. I watched her do a podcast interview live in downtown Portland last night and on her podcast. She does something called the lightning round. And I want to do that series of questions. Some are going to be related to speaking since that's what I talk about all the time and a lot of people in the show want to be better at speaking. I want to know, Cara, how does speaking show up right now in your business?
Cara Chace 42:18
Yes. So as we know, there's not a lot of live events happening or there haven't been. So speaking shows up in the content that you want to create, video, podcasting, you know, whatever it is.
Heather Sager 42:35
Yeah. I mean, we do it all the time every day, right? I'm just thinking about in your entrepreneurial career, where has been your favorite place that you've spoken?
Cara Chace 42:45
Oh, gosh, that would be a difficult decision between Bermuda and the Bahamas.
Heather Sager 42:53
Oh, you pick locations. Okay, were they like, were you speaking at an event or what was the context around it?
Cara Chace 43:00
Yeah, it was actually the same conference, the Coterie Retreat, which is a wedding industry magazine and membership. So I was speaking to wedding planners and people in the wedding industry about Pinterest.
I love it. You fancy. Okay. I love that so much. Okay. I don't know if you're able to answer this one but I'm going to try it on for you. I want you to tell me when was the last time you experienced big nerves when it came to speaking or maybe the nervous around something in business?
My goodness. I would say anytime that I am asked to be a guest, I have that little bit of like, because I want to do well and provide value. So I would say the last time I really truly felt that was the joint presentation that I did with ConvertKit recently.
Heather Sager 43:49
That was within the last couple weeks. Yeah.
Cara Chace 43:51
Yeah.
Heather Sager 43:51
And is that a normal thing for you, do you still get nervous when you speak?
Cara Chace 43:55
Oh, absolutely because I tend to be a very off the cuff person and I read a lot if you can't tell. So I'm always afraid that I'm going to like go off on like, a tangent, you know. So yes, I do get nervous because
Heather Sager 44:12
You're not alone in that when I do a lot of conversations with entrepreneurs. I didn't realize that that is something that so many of us are worried about. And I think what you said, the nerves are good, right? Because you want to do a good job. And I think that's really it's honest. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Okay, two more questions. I love learning. I know you love reading and listening to things. What books or podcasts are you super into right now?
Cara Chace 44:36
Yes. So I have gotten hooked on Jordan Peterson. He did the 12 Rules for Life, which is one of the books I read during 75 Hard and I am reading his follow up book right now which is Beyond Order, and it's one of those books where you really have to pay attention. And like you can't have other things happening while you're reading it because it's so dense, but it's so thought provoking. Podcast wise, I am loving the Mindset Mentor who is Rob Dial Jr. He does snackable content. So they're like 20 minute episodes and it's all mindset stuff around entrepreneurship and that's my favorite like getting ready in the morning podcast.
Heather Sager 45:18
I love that. I love the getting ready the morning podcast. That's been my thing lately, too. It's like put it my ears. Do my makeup like. Get ready. It's what a great way to start the day.
Cara Chace 45:27
Yes.
Heather Sager 45:28
Okay. You mentioned 75 Hard. So let's go there for a moment. So those who listened to the show and listened for a while they know, last spring, I discovered the 75 hard challenge and was all in on it and lasted the whole 75 hard, I actually went 94, 96 days I can't remember before I got sick and injured and then fell off the rocker. But you also did it my dear. So give us your take on the 75 Hard challenge.
Cara Chace 45:52
Yeah, so I found out about it because of you. When we met for coffee, I was like, Oh, tell me more. This sounds like something I would want to do.
Heather Sager 46:01
And I couldn't have the coffee, right? I was drinking like black coffee and I couldn't eat any of the muffins.
Cara Chace 46:08
So I am one of those people that love setting goals for myself and jumping through the hoops to challenge myself. And I actually started day one on my 41st birthday as a gift to myself because I wanted to give myself the gift of following through on something so intense.
Heather Sager 46:29
Should we talked about that because that was me. It was right after my 37th birthday. It was two weeks later that I'm like this has to be my best healthiest year. So I had the birthday tie into.
Cara Chace 46:38
Nice, nice, and most people are like, what is that a sick joke or something? I was like, no, it really is like I'm giving myself a gift. So it's super stringent. I don't know, if you want to, you know, get into all the rules and whatever.
Heather Sager 46:50
If you want guys, to go back into the 75 Hard episode with Frannie Wilson, who was the one that inspired me. We did all of that so go back a few episodes back in June of 2021. We talked about it.
Cara Chace 46:59
Yeah. So my takeaway was, people get a little crazy with the rules, right? I was in a couple Facebook groups. And there's a lot of people that were just, they weren't nice to people online. So there was a lot of this doesn't count or you fail, or you know, all this kind of stuff, which I was like, no. And my takeaway was, it was really great to do. I made it my own. I didn't break any rules, but I definitely made it my own and what was best for me. And my biggest takeaway talk about not being able to turn the entrepreneur brain off was like, this guy has an amazing funnel.
Heather Sager 47:46
Yeah, because it's like this free challenge, right? That you go through.
Cara Chace 47:52
All the day, I was like, this guy is a marketer, like he isn't that guy, right?
Heather Sager 47:58
Totally. Totally.
Cara Chace 48:00
Yeah, so what's been interesting is since then, so I completed it in the summer and we moved to a different state at the end of summer. I know for 100% certain I would not have been able to deal with what we dealt with as a family logistically and moving out of state and still completed that. So I'm really glad I finished it before all of that happened. But there are things that I took with me and things I'm like, I never need to do that again. I'm good. So I have a different morning routine. Now it was, I copied your morning routine because it was brilliant. It was 45 minute walk first thing, takes care of your outside, and then your outside workout and then read while you're having.
Heather Sager 48:49
Side note, you and I passed each other quite a few mornings, 5:20 AM. We would be like the shadowy figures through our neighborhood.
Cara Chace 48:58
Right. So what I took away from that was, I really loved having that time to myself in the morning as you can relate to with little kids. So I still now get up at five. But instead what I do is I come into my office and I do about 15 minutes of yoga. I drink a big glass of water and meditate and read and that's my morning routine now. So it doesn't feel so like intense punishing, you know, whatever. But it is that integrity of I'm getting up and doing these self nourishing things before I have to mom, and have to taxi and have to whatever. So there were some really good takeaways from that for sure.
Heather Sager 49:38
I love that. And I think that also goes back to what you're talking about being able to have that dedicated space for your theme days, right? If you have that time in the morning, it really sets you up to then be more focused and present in those moments and follow through with the commitments that you already made.
Cara Chace 49:51
Absolutely.
Heather Sager 49:52
Cara, I could talk about these things all day long, but we got to lay on this plane here.
Cara Chace 49:56
Yes.
Heather Sager 49:57
I know we covered a lot of things today, right? I really love how you broke down Pinterest. You've made a really good case. I'm very excited about genuinely around this and I know people listening are going to want to learn a little bit more about it. So where can people connect with you online and specifically, where they can they learn a little bit more about your Pin Power method?
Cara Chace 50:13
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm at carachace.com And it's C,A,R,A, C,H,A,C,E.
Heather Sager 50:19
Yes. And we will write to it in the show notes. So if you just wherever you're listening to this show notes and then we also have everything linked on our website.
Cara Chace 50:27
Yeah. So there is where you will find my free masterclass on tripling your traffic with Pinterest and how to do it in a way that actually fits into your schedule and doesn't overwhelm you right. So that's like a one hour free masterclass where you can learn all the beginning stuff about how to make that happen. That specifically is at carachace.com/free.
Heather Sager 50:50
Perfect, okay, I love that. And then I know you don't love hanging out on Instagram butyou are on Instagram. Where can people connect? And also like, be like, oh my gosh, this podcast episode was amazing. Take a screenshot and tag Cara and I on Instagram.
Cara Chace 51:07
Yeah. So the benefit of having a name that spelled differently is I have my handle everywhere, right? So it's just at @carachace on Instagram, and I am in there poking around quite frequently. So yeah, you can find me there.
Heather Sager 51:21
Perfect. Perfect. All right. Parting words. Cara. Is there anything else you'd like to say today to listeners listening who are excited about Pinterest, excited about speaking. They're excited about ending the year strong like whatever final words that you have you want to share?
Cara Chace 51:34
I would say that the best time to start was yesterday. When you think about the story that I conveyed about how one of my top traffic dryer drivers is a blog I wrote in 2015. Don't wait to do that. Just get started one bite at a time. Take it easy, make it work for you. But it's like that apple tree quote, right. The best time to plant it was 20 years ago, the next best time is today. Do that with Pinterest. You will see results if you stick with it.
Heather Sager 52:08
I love it. And I'm excited to start implementing this in our business. Doreethy, my right hand on my team. She's been playing with it a little bit over the last year. And I'm excited to take what we talked about today and get into your masterclass and learn more so that we can start experiencing the benefits of the evergreen Pinterest model.
Cara Chace 52:24
Yeah.
Heather Sager 52:24
Okay. Wonderful. Love, love. Thanks so much, girl, for being here. And hey, listeners, thanks so much for coming into another episode. We got another couple really great guests coming in the next few weeks. So we'll see you back here next week. Same time, same place. See ya!