Kiley Peters (00:00:00) – You have to have a perspective in order for any of it to matter. If you come at it with a perspective and you have a strong feeling, that can be a lens of which you view all of your work through and that you operate within, and that’s true and authentic to you. A lot of people might call that personal branding. Some people call it thought leadership, some people call it giving a damn and thinking differently. I think that’s what’s really important. And so for me, I believe in the stick that I’ll probably die on is that we need to make business personal.

Chloe Dechow (00:00:35) – Hi, I’m Chloe Dechow and with more than a decade of experience working with thought leaders, I’ve witnessed firsthand the impact of conviction combined with purpose driven entrepreneurship. This podcast shows you how to authentically bring together leadership, equity, and marketing to build your authority so that you can grow your impact and scale your business. This is a space for elevating women’s voices and redefining what it means to be a thought leader. Together, we’ll unlock the potential of our bright voices and create a ripple effect of change that resonates far beyond the realms of business.

Chloe Dechow (00:01:11) – This is the Bright Voices and Business podcast. Now let’s dive into today’s episode. Welcome back to the Bright Voices in Business podcast. Today I have Kiley Peters here with me. Kiley Peters is a keynote speaker, international award winning serial entrepreneur and executive business coach and consultant with over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience. Kiley is the founder of RAYNE IX, her executive leadership consultancy which helps women build life changing businesses by making business personal. Hi Kiley, thanks so much for joining me. Hi, Chloe.

Kiley Peters (00:01:51) – Thanks for having me. I feel really old having that 20 years in my bio like, damn, I’m just getting old.

Chloe Dechow (00:01:59) – You see old, I see credible.

Kiley Peters (00:02:01) – Oh well thank you. I’ll I’ll go with that I like that, yeah. Thank you.

Chloe Dechow (00:02:05) – Yeah, I’m here for it. So the first thing I wanted to ask you, Kiley, is, as you know, when I read your bio, you have a lot of titles. There’s a lot of identities within that. And I’m curious, you know, when we think keynote speaker, small business strategist, executive coach, serial entrepreneur, you’ve had a content marketing background.

Chloe Dechow (00:02:26) – What is important to you about having not just one label that you’re under?

Kiley Peters (00:02:32) – Good question. Well, first, I don’t know that any of those labels were intentional per se. They just happened. And I don’t know that it’s important to me to have I’m not like intentionally collecting labels. You know, some people might look at letters behind my last name and be like, that’s a lie. You’re intentionally collecting labels, but it’s more that I think I’m a multi potential light. And I have so many interests and so many things, and I try to take advantage of those interests and curiosities to help connect dots and bridge gaps and hopefully creative ways. And I think it’s a blessing and sometimes a curse. I think a lot of entrepreneurship requires you to wear a lot of hats. So in that capacity, I think it’s a blessing to be so curious and have such a varied background. But it can definitely be a curse, because I’ll tell you, the moment I feel like I’m gaining traction in one place, I’m like, oh, what’s this mean? Let’s learn about that.

Kiley Peters (00:03:34) – And that has a tendency to dilute focus, which is not great. And so, you know, it’s also a great exercise in self-awareness and restraint and discipline and asking for help when you need it. So the labels aren’t necessarily as important to me. It’s more just I want to make sure that I’m always honoring my continued thirst to learn and be an always student. And,, that just leads to a lot of labels after a while.

Chloe Dechow (00:04:07) – Yeah. What I heard in all that was really a love of curiosity in that these labels or titles are really just a representation of how you’re curious by nature and always learning.

Kiley Peters (00:04:19) – Yeah, I think so, you know, and don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a lot of value in people who are like, I do this, and that’s all I do. I think there’s a lot of value in that, but I also think that sometimes that can lead to some blind spots, like you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you have a lack of curiosity, then in many cases you’re not even aware of all the things that you don’t know.

Kiley Peters (00:04:41) – So therefore, you could be hitting blind spots and leading potentially clients or whatever down directions that are not in their best interests and not with poor intention just because of unintentional ignorance in some capacities.

Chloe Dechow (00:04:56) – Yeah. I’m curious, since we’re speaking of curiosity, let’s.

Kiley Peters (00:04:59) – Talk about curiosity I love it.

Chloe Dechow (00:05:01) – Yeah. I’m curious how having these different interests and, you know, roles and titles has benefited the clients that you work with who are primarily women entrepreneurs?

Kiley Peters (00:05:12) – Yeah, I’ll back up just a little bit, because back before I started my entrepreneurial career, I had worked in a number of different corporate jobs, and one of the reasons that I made the leap into entrepreneurship was I was working at a certain digital agency, and we’ll just say, like, if you work somewhere and they do social media, they’re going to sell social media whether or not. It’s the right solution, right? If you work somewhere and they sell advertising, they’re going to sell advertising whether or not it’s the right solution. And so I started to see myself in these companies.

Kiley Peters (00:05:44) – And you know, I’m not putting anyone on blast. But I was like, I don’t think I agree with that. You know, like so often we talk about generalists and specialists and specialists get a lot of great attention and chutzpah. Right. And oftentimes I think generalists are looked at kind of poorly. But I like to try to change that narrative because I think we need both. We need a generalist who knows a little bit about everything, so they can start to identify the right people and resources or paths to go down so that, again, we don’t hit those blind spots. Right. And then you can bring in a specialist who’s like the best at tax strategies, the best at accounting, the best at digital strategy, whatever it is. But if you don’t even know to know that those things even exist, then you’re walking in blind. And so I share that, because I think this is the first time that I’m saying this out loud, but I think I’m a really damn good generalist because I have been so curious.

Kiley Peters (00:06:44) – You know, I’ve I’ve run a business, I’ve exited a business, I’m a certified exit planning advisor, I’m a certified coach, I’m a content marketer by trade. I’m naturally curious. I love numbers and spreadsheets and I’m a creative. I’m love tax strategy because I think it’s beautiful and super nerdy and it’s just so cool and sexy and in a lot of ways, like I can think strategy and visionary and I can be an integrator at the same time, and not a lot of people can bounce around in all those places. And so I think I bring that to the table because I’m able to see the forest and the trees. I’m able to see the strategy and the milestones and benchmarks needed to get there. And I’ve also built a really beautiful network of trusted partners for myself. So when somebody comes to me and they say, hey, Kiley, I need help with sales or I need help with marketing, or I need help with accounting or tax or whatever it is, I most likely have somebody that I can direct them to that I trust they’ll be in good hands with.

Kiley Peters (00:07:45) – And that’s taken me years to develop and has cost me so much money over the course of making a lot of the wrong choices and a lot of the wrong decisions, in hopes that I can save my clients and my community from not doing those things. Because why make the same painful mistakes that somebody else has when you have the opportunity to not?

Chloe Dechow (00:08:10) – Yeah, and I definitely know you have a network of amazing women. And I think this curiosity and a lot of the other values that you hold magnetize is those women who want to do impactful, supportive work. So I want to talk a little bit about this generalist piece, because it sounds like you in many ways identify as a generalist because you have all these different areas where you know enough to say, yes, this could be the problem or the solution. And here’s somebody else who can take you the rest of the way to resolve some of those things. And I’m curious, as a generalist, how you apply that also as a thought leader, because I also know you’re a keynote speaker, you are writing a book, you have a podcast.

Chloe Dechow (00:09:00) – You certainly host lots of events where you’re a moderator or a panelist. So how do you apply your generalist background into a thought leadership platform?

Kiley Peters (00:09:11) – I’ll say, I believe I’m a really good generalist, and I think I’m also a great strategist. So if I were to say I would be a specialist in anything, I think it would be small business strategy. And I think that those two things go really well together for a lot of the reasons that I just shared, because, again, I think if you were to say I’m a great strategist, but you don’t have any knowledge of how to build a company, so it’s prepared to make the owner replaceable or prepared for exit, you don’t understand anything about tax strategy. You don’t understand about marketing and business and sales and pipelines and managing people, and how to scale an operation that doesn’t require you to scale headcount. Like if you don’t know all of those things, it’s going to be hard to be a good strategist, right? You could be a great bookkeeper and not need to know any of those things.

Kiley Peters (00:10:04) – So I think it depends on the lane that you choose. But so for me, I think that it kind of lends itself to helping me be a great business strategist. If we’re talking about specialists and strategists, I’d say I’m a generalist at small business, and I’m a specialist in small business strategy. I’ve never said that before. There we go. Maybe that’s it. Who knows? But I think, you know, having that broad range of skill sets and perspective, I think. Well, at least I hope is compelling for people. And I’d say that, you know, if we’re looking at all like the textbook things of like, do you know this check? Do you know that check? Great. Yeah, I think I check a lot of boxes. But I think to your question about thought leadership, you have to have a perspective in order for any of it to matter. You know, like you could be like, I’m an attorney and I write great contracts. Do do do do do.

Kiley Peters (00:10:57) – And this is how it is. I’m an accountant and I’m really good at books. Doo doo doo doo doo. This is how it is. Like that’s black and white, right? But if you come at it with a perspective and you have a strong feeling that can like be a lens of which you view all of your work through and that you operate within, and that’s true and authentic to you. A lot of people might call that personal branding. Some people call it thought leadership, some people call it giving a damn and thinking differently. I think that’s what’s really important. And so for me, I believe in the stick that I’ll probably die on is that we need to make business personal. And that is the lens of which I’m approaching. Everything I’m doing right now is, you know, I really want to debunk this age old adage of, oh, it’s not personal, it’s just business. Business is people, and people are personal in every way, shape or form. And don’t get me wrong, yes, there’s automations and there’s technologies and yes, you should use all of those things.

Kiley Peters (00:11:54) – But at the end of the day, why are you using those things? You’re using it so you can save time. You’re using it so that you can save money, make greater profits. And what do you do with those things? You live more of the life that you want to live. And you create opportunities for other people. That’s all personal. So if we could all just get on the same bandwagon and believe that people matter more than anything else and take care of each other, I think that the world will be a better place. I think business would be a better place. I think we’d all stop competing and being so mean to people sometimes, not all the time. But you know, maybe we could take a chunk out of it. Who knows?

Chloe Dechow (00:12:32) – The whole making business personal and everything you shared really resonates with me. And that prioritizing humans first before everything else, because connection is one of the main reasons we are here to live and work and do all the things that we’re doing.

Chloe Dechow (00:12:49) – That really resonates with me, and I’m sure it resonates with all the right people for you and your business as well. I’m curious because I’ve heard it’s been a journey to get to this messaging, because all messaging is a journey. Let’s be real, if you can put together a messaging super quickly, you’re probably not doing it right. And so I would love to talk a little bit about this journey to get to the message of making business personal, because I know it didn’t happen overnight.

Kiley Peters (00:13:15) – It definitely didn’t happen overnight. Yes, it was a multiyear journey. So I’ll try to give you the Cliff notes version. For anybody who’s heard me speak, you’ve probably heard me say in 2021, I crashed and burned. And that’s still true. It happened. And what happened for me, looking back, you know, hindsight’s 2020. What I realized at the end of 2021 was that I was chasing somebody else’s definition of success. And this I don’t know why it took me so long, but I realized, like, oh, I should define success for myself.

Kiley Peters (00:13:47) – Well, that’s what we should all be doing. We should all define success for ourselves. And then especially the business owners should build their businesses in alignment with their personal definition of success. And I think it also applies to anybody who works in an organization. Right. So if you are not the owner, if you are not the entrepreneur, then I think it’s still applies there in terms of, you know, you can align the work you do to whatever your personal definition of success is. And so we share a common friend, the lovely Mel Ripp. And I was working with Mel, and I think this was maybe the beginning of 2023. So yes. So I crashed and burned in 2021, 2022. I spent the entire year kind of building this framework and figuring out how it all worked together. Right. And then of course, it went through multiple iterations, right? So every single time I was like, okay, how do I get this jumbled mess of ideas into something that might make sense to people? And then it would always be like, could I make that easier? Could I make it better? How do I keep refining it? Right? And it was talking to Mel, I think, at the beginning of last year.

Kiley Peters (00:14:59) – And I went on another rant, and she may have even been the one that said it, but she’s like, Kiley, I think what you’re saying is you believe that we should make business personal. And I was like, hell yeah. That’s exactly what it. Thank you for those words. And I don’t know if she gave me the words, but I’ll give her a credit for giving me the words. And that was like so much clarity for me, you know? And I also say that because I think it’s important that we talk about the fact that, well, people pay me to do this work for them, and I’m pretty good at it. Doing this type of work for yourself is so hard. It’s so hard because when we do this work for other people, one of the things that we do for them is we provide our services as a mirror to them, and they then can sometimes see the things that they couldn’t see on their own. Right. But if we’re trying to do these same type of services for ourselves, and we’re trying to be both the mirror and the object that’s being reflected like that doesn’t work.

Kiley Peters (00:15:57) – So I say this with humility, because I have enlisted the help of so many people over the last year, year and a half, as I’ve been trying to really hone my messaging and my positioning, I’ve had so many word vomits and rants and tears and I don’t know if I yell. We could probably say I yelled at a few times. Definitely cried. I absolutely cried many times. But there’s been a number of people who have sat with me and picked things apart with me and put them back together and then pick them apart again and then rearrange them. And I think it’s a constant process. I think, you know, we oftentimes say with artists or musicians, right? It’s never really done because it’s it’s a craft. You can create a song, but then there’s a remix that comes out right, you can paint a painting, but the only way it’s done is because you’ve decided you’re going to stop working on it now. And I think the same can be said for a lot of the work that we do, positioning and any service that we would consider a craft, because we’re always looking for ways to refine it and make it.

Kiley Peters (00:17:07) – Or I think we should be looking for ways to refine it and make it better.

Chloe Dechow (00:17:10) – Yeah, I definitely hold the same belief that messaging is kind of living and breathing, and you evolve it as your company grows, your understanding of the world grows, your understanding of your audience grows. Yeah, trends or things happen, right? Like life is dynamic and that’s true for you in your business. And it’s also true for the people that you serve. Yeah. So I love that journey that you took. Totally recognize doing that for yourself is really difficult. And being able to tap into your community to get that support. I also love that you refer to these moments as rants, because to me that demonstrates conviction for what you’re doing. And I think conviction is incredibly important when it comes to messaging and being on stage and things like that. It shows that you actually give a shit about what you’re doing. I just care. Yeah, there’s so much care and compassion, and when we’re working on businesses or messaging or projects that we’re not excited about, people recognize that.

Chloe Dechow (00:18:15) – Like they see that.

Kiley Peters (00:18:16) – Yeah, you can feel it. Anybody who knows me knows that I love love, which is, I think, a blessing more than it is a curse. It is sometimes a curse, but I just care a lot. And I think that that’s a superpower. One of my former coaches said that love is my superpower. And I’m like, you know what? Okay, I’ll lean into that. But yeah, I just really care. I care a lot. And sometimes I get burned by it. Absolutely. And that sucks. But more than anything, I’m grateful that I have the capacity to care as deeply as I do. And I hope that the people I work with feel that, because I think that’s important, that we share love and kindness and generosity and compassion, because this work is hard and life is hard. I was just texting with somebody the other day and we were just like, life is just hard. And we need to be gentler with ourselves and with other people and assume positive intent instead of assuming people are out to get us.

Kiley Peters (00:19:11) – It’s a lot of energy wasted.

Chloe Dechow (00:19:13) – Yeah, energy better saved for for something else.

Kiley Peters (00:19:17) – Yeah. I mean, like anything else?

Chloe Dechow (00:19:19) – Anything? Yes. Anything else? Well, I can speak as somebody in your community that we do feel that.

Kiley Peters (00:19:25) – So thank you Chloe.

Chloe Dechow (00:19:27) – I definitely feel that from you. The other thing I wanted to just ask you about was what advice you would have for somebody else who is interested in taking your journey and taking little nuggets from what you’ve shared and what you’ve done, and applying that to their own thought leadership journey as they get started.

Kiley Peters (00:19:48) – I would say first you got to do the work on yourself. You can’t go to any stage or any platform of any kind with any authority. If you have no idea who you are and what you stand for. And that does not mean that like Friday night, you’re going to stay in for three hours and you’re going to be like, who am I? What do I stand for? No, that doesn’t work like that. You got to do some hard work.

Kiley Peters (00:20:11) – You have to. I recommend therapists, I recommend coaches, I recommend time, I recommend self-help books. I recommend self-discovery books and retreats and long walks in nature and curiosity and questioning who you are and what you’re meant to do in this world until it feels like it’s really rock solid. And it’s been my experience that that often takes a lot of time, time, and exploration. We have to be gentle with ourselves. A little bit of tough love, but I’d say once you get clear on who you are and what you stand for, what you have to say, and the unique perspective that you bring to the world, because you’re not going to benefit yourself or anybody else by just regurgitating everything else that’s out there. We’re all inundated with so much content, and the world is so saturated that if you don’t have something new to say, then save your breath until you do. But once you figure out who you are and what you stand for and what I call your true specs like how it’s uniquely different to you, then do it.

Kiley Peters (00:21:12) – You know, and that can be intimidating for a lot of people. And I would say just start somewhere. Start somewhere and be honest with yourself in terms of which platform or medium you like, right? If you hate public speaking. Don’t decide to become a speaker. Podcasting is probably not your jam, right? Maybe you’re a writer, and maybe you should be looking at a blog, or writing a book or whatever it is, right? If you’re like, I hate writing and people say I’m really charismatic, maybe a speaking gig is your jam, but get really clear on your ideas and what makes them different. And again, that too takes time. Just like we just talked about. Like you’re it’s unlikely that you’re going to figure it all out on a Friday night. I don’t know why I keep saying Friday nights. It shows that I have no social life. But,, you know, like any night of the week or morning or afternoon, you know, any period of time, but just start somewhere and be humble enough to ask for feedback, because oftentimes, one of the greatest mistakes that we make as humans and humans in the thought leadership space, I think, I think it’s fair to say we assume that we’re always our own audience.

Kiley Peters (00:22:23) – And we’re not. And just get clear on how your message lands with the people that you want it to impact, and be humble enough to take feedback and tweak the things you have to say so that they resonate in a bigger way and make a bigger impact. I’m not saying to change how you think and feel. I’m just saying be mindful of if your goal is to make an impact. Be mindful of the ways that you can be most impactful. And the other thing I’ll just say, because I feel like it has to be said, there’s a lot of thought leaders out there that just want to hear themselves speak. Oh my God, it’s so annoying. Again, it’s such a saturated space. So I would say like, get clear on who you are, what you stand for, how you view it uniquely. Do it in service to other people. Not just to hear yourself. Stand on a soapbox and hear your voice. Repeat back to you like so annoying. So that I guess that would be my advice.

Chloe Dechow (00:23:24) – Yeah, and it’s interesting because a lot of the women I speak with that is one of their fears about becoming a thought leader is that they are afraid that being quoted in the news, or starting a podcast, or getting on stage is a reflection that they’re vain or that they’re egotistical. Because in a lot of ways, there are leaders out there who that’s why they’re doing what they’re doing. Yeah, for sure. And so I think that work you talked about Kiley, about really getting clear on who you are, what you stand for, and that y like your purpose. I know you do a lot of work to help women figure out what their personal and their business purpose is, and that when you can cling to your why, that makes the whole ego conversation fade away because you’re again doing it in service of others, not for yourself. Yeah, and that also makes it a lot more sustainable to keep showing up. It does what you’re doing.

Kiley Peters (00:24:21) – And, you know, that’s one of the things that I talk about, as you know, is like running a business is hard.

Kiley Peters (00:24:27) – And so that’s why, again, I stake my claim and we have to define success for yourself and then align your business accordingly. Because if you are not building a business that you love doing, when she gets really hard, you’re going to give up. If you can’t see the fight in it, you’re not going to make it. And the only way that that works, in my opinion, and from what I’ve seen be true, is you have to really believe in the work. You have to be rooted in your why, and you have to just be so committed to it. Because if you’re like, here’s a small example. I spoke to somebody a little while ago and they said that they were like, oh, I want to be my own boss. I’m going to start my own company. Great. Good. Awesome. They were like, great, I’m going to build a team. So they built a small team and then things got really tough and they were like, okay, well, I’m just going to set up the team and then I don’t know what I want to do.

Kiley Peters (00:25:16) – So I’m going to go get certified as a yoga instructor and, and then come back in and it’ll be fine. And then at least I have options. And they came back and like everything had fallen apart. And like, I don’t know I don’t know how you do this. And I looked at this person. I was like, do you think that you bailing on your company to go become a certified yoga instructor was the best way to lead them to success? No, I would have bailed too. Like if I was the employee, I would have been like, I’m out, you know? So you have to be convicted. You have to be committed to the path and you have to really believe in the why. Otherwise, it’s not going to work.

Chloe Dechow (00:25:56) – Yes. I couldn’t set up better myself. How does somebody go about finding their why if they don’t know it yet?

Kiley Peters (00:26:03) – Well, as you know, there’s a whole series of exercises that we go through at RAYNE IX. We do this in one on one work as well as in our group program, the accelerator.

Kiley Peters (00:26:14) – I believe in finding your why. There’s a lot of different ways that people come back into it, and there’s a lot of different frameworks and a lot of different exercises, and they’re all well and good and valid. In all the work that I’ve done and the research I’ve done, this is what I think is the cheat, the shortcut. There’s this quote by Jay Shetty in the book, Think Like a monk and he says, serve the pain. You know best. And I like to listen to audiobooks. And so I was listening to this book on audiobook, and when I heard him say that line, I was like, oh my God, that’s it. And like. That’s not an easy thing for people to answer. But, you know, even as a marketer, I spent years of my life as a marketer and people would come up to me and they’re like, well, what’s my greatest differentiator? I don’t know, I’m the same as the person next to me and blah, blah, blah.

Kiley Peters (00:27:03) – And it’s like, well, what pain do you know best? And they’d be like, boom, this. I’m like that. They’re like, oh. And do you talk about your why like everybody has felt pain, right. And I’m not trying to take it to a dark place. Right. But we’ve all gone through some kind of shit and oftentimes it has a lot of different labels. Right. And so I think it’s a matter of pulling out the labels that you want to identify, which you would then like if you took all those labels and you stuck them together, that would be the persona of the person that you want to help and the problem that you are solving for them. And it’s going to resonate with you because you’ve felt it. You’ve been there, and you can’t solve a problem for somebody else that you don’t. Well, I shouldn’t say you can probably solve a problem for somebody else that you’ve never experienced yourself, but you’re not going to have the amount of conviction or the empathy possible because you’ve never experienced it yourself.

Kiley Peters (00:28:04) – And that’s been my experience working with entrepreneurs. So most entrepreneurs I know have started their business because they want to help someone like themself in some capacity. You know, that could be like, I’m a woman, could be I’m a woman of color or I’m a woman, period. Or I’m a whatever. And I live and wherever and I’ve experienced whatever. There’s all kinds of labels. But however you decide to put them together, that’s usually what happens. So most entrepreneurs I know have started their business to help someone like them overcome something that they have overcome, and they’re hoping to help them do it in an easier, better, less painful way. And I’ve also experienced a lot of employees who have experienced hardship and have now created careers based off of that. Like, I know somebody who was a very serious burn victim, and now they are a nurse in a burn victim department, right? I know somebody who experienced a lot of trauma as a child, and now they have launched a trauma therapy practice.

Kiley Peters (00:29:04) – There’s a lot of overlap there, and it’s not always a 1 to 1. But I believe we spent so much of our life working that we should be doing work that we believe matters. In order for us to be fully fulfilled as human beings and to have this sustainability and longevity, to make it the business and the career, etc., that we want it to be. Yeah.

Chloe Dechow (00:29:28) – That’s beautiful. And I know when I spoke with Mel, we talked a lot about different types of credibility as a thought leader. And you can have the professional experience, you can have the educational experience, and then you have the lived experience. And I know you just spoke a lot about lived experience and how that can often be underrated. When we think about thought leadership, we often think about all the titles and the accolades and the letters behind a name and all those things that are still important. And yet having that lived experience in serving the pain you know best is almost a little bit of like secret sauce that you can bring to the table.

Kiley Peters (00:30:07) – Yeah. I mean, I was just saying this to somebody last night. You know, there’s the phrase, you know, if you’re going to climb Mount Everest, do you want to go with somebody who’s climbed the mountain before, or do you want to go with somebody who’s read ten books on how to climb the mountain? I’m going with a person who’s climbed it every single time.

Chloe Dechow (00:30:24) – They have better directions.

Kiley Peters (00:30:26) – Yeah, yeah, yeah. They know. They know what to look out for.

Chloe Dechow (00:30:30) – They know what to pack. They know what they forgot to pack the last time. And they wish they would have had they know what they didn’t use and would be extra weight to carry around. Yeah. So yes. Absolutely.

Kiley Peters (00:30:40) – Yeah. And like I wouldn’t expect it to be a flawless experience, but I would trust it to be the best that I can at that time.

Chloe Dechow (00:30:49) – Yeah, definitely. One other question I have for you is around. So we’ve been talking a lot about attracting the right people to you through things like knowing your purpose, having conviction, really honing in on your messaging and being receptive to feedback.

Chloe Dechow (00:31:05) – But I also know when we get really clear on our messaging and who we are and what we stand for, we can also repel people and maybe cause a little controversy or conflict because we’re saying something that might be different from what people are used to hearing. And so I’m curious if you have any like, thoughts or advice for people who are maybe a little nervous about sharing their perspectives, knowing that there might be some resistance to what they have to say?

Kiley Peters (00:31:33) – I would say if there’s resistance to what you have to say, you’re doing it right. As a lifelong marketer, one thing that we would always say is like, if you want to be everything to everybody, you’re going to end up being nothing to nobody because you’re just a blank wall, right? Nobody can identify with you. Nobody can commit to you. Nobody can get on your side. So I ran a digital marketing agency, and we primarily were built on women, and we served women, and we got a lot of crap for that.

Kiley Peters (00:32:05) – But the beautiful thing was, I had women coming up to me all of the time asking to work for us because they’d say they were sick of being mansplain, they were sick of catty environments. They were sick of all these things that ended up being one of our greatest drivers in attracting and retaining really, really great talent. And the clients that we ended up working with were aligned to our values. So we got to do work that we really believed in because we were loud and proud about what we stood for. And yeah, we definitely did not win contracts that didn’t align with our values. But that’s okay because we would not have been the right people to serve those people anyway. And even now, like as I run Ray nine, you know, we work with service based women, small business owners. And I still, you know, like people have come to know that I support women entrepreneurs. Like that’s the thing. That’s my thing, right? But I’m still getting crap from people that like, oh well, why don’t you support men? Men need help too.

Kiley Peters (00:33:10) – And I’m like, you know what? With all due respect, they’ve been fine. They’re going to be fine. They’re going to be fine. And I’m not looking to build a consultancy that has 100,000 consultants supporting thousands and thousands of people each year. I’m going to be a great fit for a certain type of person, and I only need a couple of them there. I think I looked up, they were like, I don’t know, 12 million women, small business owners or something like that. If I get the chance to work with a quarter of a percent of them in my lifetime, I’ll be thrilled. There’s plenty out there. So I guess I say that because. Don’t try to be everything to everybody because you will lose yourself in the process. Stand for the thing that you believe in, and trust that the people that you are intended to attract will find you, and they will also, by doing that, believe that they are in a safe space because you have clearly stated it and created it, and it allow you to do better, work faster, and I think create a greater impact.

Chloe Dechow (00:34:17) – I’m hearing both business strategy and just being smart about who you serve so that you can customize what you’re offering, customize their messaging, making a space where they feel safe and heard and seen in valued, and not worrying about everybody else and everybody else’s opinions. It’s funny that you’ve gotten crap, because I have to.

Kiley Peters (00:34:42) – Everybody I know has gotten crap for like staking a claim and something. You know what? It’s fine.

Chloe Dechow (00:34:49) – Well, and it’s hard to, you know, niche down or niche down, however somebody wants to pronounce that word. It’s hard to do that without staking a claim, right?

Kiley Peters (00:34:58) – It’s impossible.

Chloe Dechow (00:34:59) – You might hear you need to do this, and then you’re also getting crap for doing it. It’s counterintuitive. So you just do you you got to focus on who you are and who you want to serve and spend the most time with, because that’s also important. Who you serve is who you spend the most time with. Most of the time. Yes.

Kiley Peters (00:35:17) – No, that’s a good point.

Kiley Peters (00:35:18) – Be mindful of who you decide you want as your clients, because you will spend a lot of time with them. So if you don’t like that type of person, maybe change your perspective.

Chloe Dechow (00:35:27) – Absolutely. We spend more time usually with our clients than we do with our spouses or family, so it’s important to kind of keep that in mind as well. What kind of energy or vibe somebody is bringing into the space that you’re holding for them. So yeah, well, Kiley, I’ve had such a really great time chatting with you. You have so much to offer and so much of value to share with women entrepreneurs, and it’s such a privilege to be among those women. I would love if you could share where our listeners can learn more about you and all the wonderful work that you do.

Kiley Peters (00:36:01) – Well, one. Thank you for those kind words too. You can learn more about me at Kiley peters.com. That’s Kiley peters.com. You can check out more about my company RAYNE IX that’s RA and e I X.com IX is the Roman numeral nine.

Kiley Peters (00:36:18) – I also host a podcast called Welcome to Aloma and I just launched a podcast called Make Business Personal. So if you’re on a podcast rant right now, add those to your list along with this one, and you can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Chloe Dechow (00:36:33) – Kiley is everywhere, so you can find her on any channel that you consume.

Kiley Peters (00:36:39) – LinkedIn, Instagram, podcasts.

Chloe Dechow (00:36:42) – We’ll be sure to drop those resources and websites and social links in the show. Notes. Thank you again, Kiley for joining me. It’s been such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for having. Me. Thank you for joining me today. If you enjoyed this episode, invite your entrepreneur friends to tune in. Don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram at West Haven Coaching. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and continue the conversation with you there. And before you go, be sure to download my free guide, Five Steps to Building Your Authentic Authority, which will walk you through how to grow your thought leadership in a way that’s true to who you are and what you stand for.

Chloe Dechow (00:37:28) – You can find the guide at westhavencoaching.com/steps or follow the link in the show notes. Thanks again for tuning in. Together we are changing the faces and voices of thought leadership. Until next time, keep leading with authenticity and impact.