Emily Thompson 0:01
Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host Emily Thompson. And in this episode, I'm joined by my business besties Tasha L. Harrison and Erica Courdare to talk about the end of online businesses as we know it. You can find all the tools, books and links we reference on the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and share us with a friend.
Emily Thompson 0:34
Erica Courdae is a DEI coach and co-host of the Pause on the Play podcast. Her leadership has helped hundreds of individuals define their values, diversify their networks, and call people into conversations about inclusivity and individuality. Tasha L. Harrison is a romance author and creator of the hashtag 20k and five days writing challenge and word makers or writing community where authors come together to do the writing work. Both Tasha and Erica have been guests here on the Being Boss podcast a number of times in the past both together and separately to catch up on them and their stories check out their previous appearances in the show notes for this episode at beingboss.club.
Emily Thompson 1:18
I don't know if I'm excited about this anymore.
Erica Courdae 1:21
Yes, you are.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:26
What do you mean?
Emily Thompson 1:28
Before we got on everyone, they just told me how they're gonna make me cry later. That's maybe the goal.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:36
That is not what was said at all. Okay.
Emily Thompson 1:41
But for this so I'm like I'm literally sweating right now. I'm going to have to air out my armpits a little bit. Just little bit. I do think this episode should be a little more chill though. I think heated it its own ways. I get very excited to see what the two of you have to say around this takut Topic. Topic topic. I can't speak here we go. I had coffee this morning. This is the results. Did Geez. Here we go. I'm excited to be chatting with you guys about this. And then maybe having regrets about what happens next. But we'll get there in a second. You're in an hour or so. I think to get us started though. I want to know what crystal is closest to both of you. Just pick one I know that's a real issue for both of you.
Tasha L. Harrison 2:31
I do have the Indigo Gabbro
Emily Thompson 2:33
Oh, nice. Yes.
Erica Courdae 2:35
Black Tourmaline. Oh, yeah. Double terma terminal terminated.
Tasha L. Harrison 2:40
I also have our what is it?
Erica Courdae 2:43
Oh, Charoite.
Tasha L. Harrison 2:47
I've got the Charoite and Indigo Gabbo.
Emily Thompson 2:49
Yeah you do Charo or we're never going to be able to say that.
Tasha L. Harrison 2:53
Charoite. No Charoite is how you say it. I'm confident.
Emily Thompson 2:56
Charoite or Charoite?
Tasha L. Harrison 2:59
All I remeber is the ITE.
Erica Courdae 3:01
That part.
Emily Thompson 3:03
How do you remember it, Tasha?
Tasha L. Harrison 3:05
Charoite take a shite.
Erica Courdae 3:09
This is why we love you so much.
Emily Thompson 3:10
Indeed indeed, I have a blue kyanite tower that's just going to be rolling around in my hands.
Erica Courdae 3:16
Hey, there.
Emily Thompson 3:17
For the entirety of this day. And I bring this up because we just did our third annual rock shopping trip together last week, this past weekend or the week before. So about a week and a half ago. We were in North Carolina together doing some rock shopping, ogling over everything, making no beginner mistakes. Remember that time we touched the Selenite? We do?
Tasha L. Harrison 3:42
Yeah, at the very beginning, at the very beginning.
Emily Thompson 3:45
It was so much fun to hang out with the two of you for that weekend. And Erica, I got to spend a couple more days with you. And though I did talk business with you, I think it's fun to note, maybe for the even the purpose of this episode that while the three of us were together, we talked to no business.
Erica Courdae 4:01
No, no.
Emily Thompson 4:04
Not at bottom moment of it.
Erica Courdae 4:06
Because it's so rare to be an entrepreneur like self employed, and to feel like the people that do business as well that you do business with or that you know, own their own, that the conversation doesn't go there. It always feels like it goes there and to have had that time to where it really was just talking. I mean, like literally we were in the car for hours. And I don't think that it went
Tasha L. Harrison 4:30
I don't even remember what we talked about.
Erica Courdae 4:32
Everything.
Emily Thompson 4:33
We literally just talked about how to say Charoite the entire time.
Tasha L. Harrison 4:39
It did preoccupy the last day.
Emily Thompson 4:42
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, so I think that's a fun thing to note. Because I feel like we've been friends long enough. We've like done these things long enough that we don't feel that or it's we have other things to talk about now. I guess.
Erica Courdae 4:56
Yes.
Emily Thompson 4:56
Than business, which you know, has is often the case but I think it was fun that for that entire trip. We were not talking business. Because really though business does take up so many of our other conversations, right. So just because we didn't talk business during that particular a couple days together, doesn't mean that this isn't something that we aren't talking about always. Because we are.
Erica Courdae 5:23
Right. But and this is why I want your opinion, both of you on this, I feel like there is a point to where so much, especially in the online space tells you that you have to live, breathe and bleed your business. And so you don't get to come out of it. And so I have found that when there are opportunities to connect with people on a human level and just talk about stuff that it has nothing to do with work. That's where the aha moment show up. That's where the oh shit I need to think about that? I don't know where that came from. Because how did I miss that up to this point? It's a whole nother level of awareness that you let yourself into when you take yourself out the business box that you were supposed to be locked in, that you'll get from zero to a million dollars in 30 days.
Tasha L. Harrison 6:09
That's not realistic. Calm down.
Emily Thompson 6:12
Yes, Tasha, your little hand.
Tasha L. Harrison 6:17
Um, I do feel like I come at that from two different directions. Okay, like I found before I started looking for business besties when you know, Being Boss gave me that that nametag when I started looking for business besties I was in a situation where I didn't have a whole lot of friends who were involved in any sort of entrepreneur business. So it was hard to talk to them about anything. Yeah, because I was so preoccupied with that. And then I went through a period of time where, you know, I had business besties where all we did was talk about business, and then I got burned out on those. And now I have you all.
Erica Courdae 6:59
Huh, I agree. I concur.
Emily Thompson 7:02
Nice. I agree with that, too. It is nice to it is nice to have sort of all the relationships right? And also to to have to have this one and Tasha, you manifested maybe the OG business bestie, which I think is very funny.
Tasha L. Harrison 7:20
Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, y'all know the story.
Emily Thompson 7:24
Yeah.
Tasha L. Harrison 7:24
I told Emily. She was gonna be my friend. She was like, Okay.
Emily Thompson 7:30
Whose this crazy bitch.
Tasha L. Harrison 7:32
Get this bitch from round me. And then by the next time you saw me you were like, what do you want from me. I will prove friendship. I was like, got her.
Emily Thompson 7:44
Right. Did it, I did it. You did do it. Right. Okay. agreed with all of that. touchy feely. Love you both. Fine. Let's get down to business. Let's get down to business and talking about this topic that I feel like we've been talking about so much lately. Off and on, honestly, maybe for about a year and honestly, probably about the time that I told you, but because I told the two of you first, that Being Boss was coming to an end. So it'd be that the Being Boss podcast was ending. It was like literally the day I remember having a thought and sitting with it for a few minutes and getting a Marco Polo and being like, Y'all Guess what I just decided? And you're like, ooh, tell us more. llike why are you thinking this? Why are you feeling this. And it really turned into what has been almost a year long conversation of what I feel like we've dubbed a couple of different things like the end of the golden age of the internet, right? Or the end of online business. Or maybe that's very like apocalyptic, obviously, because we get really dramatic when we talk about almost anything and everything. Right, they're both shaking their heads. You're like yeah we do. But it's something that we've talked about a lot. And I want to talk to the two of you about this, because you both have your own perspectives both as you do what you do. And Tasha being an author and the sort of host of a writer, community. Erica, you do DEI coaching with clients and also host a community of your own and a podcast and all of these things. So we're sort of seeing it from a couple of different angles. And I think that we've sort of come to this realization that through each of our lenses, we're kind of seeing the same things. In terms of online business. We've also been in it long enough, I think, you know, it's funny, I've been in online business for about 15 years, which is really wild, like people getting on the internet now we're born when I got started.
Erica Courdae 9:49
Shots fired. Damn, yeah.
Emily Thompson 9:52
Yeah.
Tasha L. Harrison 9:52
No, I saw a tweet the other day. Well, it's a TikTok where someone said if they were some kid was going in on Gen X like why are we letting them off the hook. We're like we're older than Google. Leave us alone.
Emily Thompson 10:03
Yeah.
Tasha L. Harrison 10:04
And I was like you know what? I am older than .
Emily Thompson 10:07
Yep. I was joking around with Lily, the other day that I founded Etsy Because I was there within the first like, what year or two of it starting, like I was in that space. And one of the big sellers before there were big sellers on Etsy. And so, you know, to be in this place, but also from your perspective as well. We have this interesting sort of conglomeration of experiences and our fingers in enough pies because we're all community runners were like, we're seeing this not only in our own businesses, but in like everyone's experience of the internet in our communities in a way that what we're saying is like, well tested and founded, right?
Erica Courdae 10:51
Mhmm.
Tasha L. Harrison 10:52
Yeah. Yeah.
Erica Courdae 10:54
I find it interesting, too. Because Emily, you and I both have something that is offline. And so I was offline before I came online, stayed offline. And to have jumped in the soup and been like, wait, the soup is too hot, the soup is too cold. Right.
Tasha L. Harrison 11:14
The bowl is too small.
Emily Thompson 11:18
Okay, so Erica, actually, how long were you doing offline business before you got online? And how long have you been doing both? Just set a bar here?
Erica Courdae 11:28
Offline? Shoot, actually, offline has been my entire cosmetology career, which was since I was 18.
Emily Thompson 11:38
Oh, snap. Okay.
Erica Courdae 11:39
So
Emily Thompson 11:42
Not that you're that old.
Erica Courdae 11:43
No, but I mean, I'm 43. So like, yeah, longer than Google?
Emily Thompson 11:47
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 11:48
Like, I had to, you know, maintain everything without online schedulers, and, you know, email reminders and things like that. So I had to make relationships. And when I went into having the wedding component of my business, I don't think I started any online component of that. I started that around 2006, 2007, the online component, I think I started around 2009.
Emily Thompson 12:21
Okay.
Erica Courdae 12:22
And I actually, in that was more of like Wedding Wire, and like the online advertising. So
Emily Thompson 12:29
Yeah, yeah.
Erica Courdae 12:30
And then eventually, it was like, Wait, contracts are no longer printed. And, you know, everything became like an email chain, and so much more was done virtually. And then when I started the coaching and consulting, like, not long before, that was when I actually was like, Oh, this whole online business coach thing, I didn't know this was a thing. And that was around 2015. And it kind of blew my mind of how there were people online, that you pay to tell you what to do. That was how I felt about it to be able to, I'm very confused what's happening here. And that was completely different. From what it is now where it's like, now I'm in it. And yes, I am one of those people that you pay to tell you what to do to an extent, like if you were just being matter of fact, is it that simple? No, but for the sake of the description. And it clearly felt like around that 2017 2018 2019 It was nowhere near the same but it was just kind of like all the kids in the pool. Like what the hell happened?
Emily Thompson 13:42
That was before all the kids actually even came to the pool.
Erica Courdae 13:45
Correct? Correct. And so I can't imagine somebody trying to get in this now. This pool is infested.
Tasha L. Harrison 13:54
There is pee in the pool.
Erica Courdae 13:58
And it's because it is very different to be in this attempting to navigate it, knowing what you know, also trying to just pay attention to what's happening, but to have not already been in it, and just be like, I want to jump in now. I'm not going to tell you not to. I'm just going to tell you it is very different from what it was.
Emily Thompson 14:19
There a lot of pee in the pool. Yeah, a lot of pee, a lot of people. Um, I love that you bring this up, you brought up several little points here that I want to hit on. And one is I think this conversation will very much steer into the online offline realm of like bridging the gap and or, you know, choosing one or the other. And then on the we'll also talk about pee in the pool, I'm sure several more times over the course of this conversation because there's it's basically just a pee pool now.
Erica Courdae 14:46
It's an interesting space.
Tasha L. Harrison 14:48
That chemical that's supposed to tell you who peed it's no longer working.
Erica Courdae 14:50
It didn't turn colors.
Tasha L. Harrison 14:52
It's just the color of the water now.
Erica Courdae 14:54
I have to also acknowledge like, I'm in it, so I'm saying this as the person is still in it. No different then like, you know, when I do my DEI stuff, it's like, Yes, I'm actively trying to dismantle something that I'm a part of Hello, capitalism. Yes, I ordered from Amazon. Like, I get it. So, you know, this is a conversation about getting it and also still being in it.
Emily Thompson 15:14
Sure. And I also think there's something here with, you know, if anyone is listening to us who's thinking about jumping into this pool, welcome. We've just told you what's in it. But also, I think that's even part of what is happening in this online world as well. And maybe like, just spoiler for the entire, like, my whole perspective on this entire conversation, is, my experience of this is it my experience, both like firsthand, and like second hand of like watching other people do it as well, is that it's going to become, I believe, more and more difficult to like, like that 1% of 1%, who, you know, make some million dollars off that launch or like, you know, has this multimillion dollar business where they just spend three hours a week like telling other people what to do, or whatever, I think that's going to become more and more of an exception, like more and more of just like the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. But I think it's going to become more and more easy for people to make $50,000 a year, are you going to break six figures like, you know, next week, or with this four step plan, or whatever? I don't think so. But I think that it's going to become more and more accessible for anyone to make not awful money from doing something online. And so there's sort of this, like, I think what, what we need to think about is an adjustment of expectations, where what you're still seeing, and what you're still getting taught is that you can come in and follow this four step plan and make a million dollars next month, or whatever it may be.
Emily Thompson 16:56
And that's not going to happen, it's probably never going to happen for 99.9999% of you. But the ability to come in and make you know, a relatively passive though, we've talked many times about how passive isn't really passive, a relatively passive nice side hustle income from doing something on the internet is going to, I don't know become more of a norm, which I also generally love for everyone, but I think it's gonna be it's just a whole different mindset going into this than it was, you know, five years ago, whereas most of what's being talked about still is what was the norm five years ago?
Emily Thompson 17:42
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Emily Thompson 18:42
That's my spoiler. I want to get into some questions that like, like, let's let's go there through our own experiences. And I want to start with over the past five years for both of you, how have you seen sort of your efforts paying off in the online world? And maybe through that lens? Like how has engagement changed for you? So you can think about this with your like one on one clients, you can think about this from you know, your online marketing efforts, maybe your newsletters or your social media, or even Tasha would love to hear from you in terms of like sales of books and those sorts of things. How are you seeing engagement changing? Or have you how have you seen it change over the past couple of years?
Tasha L. Harrison 19:30
Okay, um, engagement is shit.
Emily Thompson 19:34
Yeah.
Tasha L. Harrison 19:37
Like as far as book sales, like I've gotten to the point now where it's, it makes more sense to come offline and just do like email marketing. And only like, have a designated group to talk to people who actually want to buy my books and have them be my evangelists versus trying to compete with people who are either are spending 1000s of dollars on ad spend, or just hit the market with a trendy thing that everyone wants to read like Monster romance, which I'm never gonna write.
Emily Thompson 20:12
Never say never.
Tasha L. Harrison 20:17
Friends, never. It's just not my zhush. And one of the things that I find is that, you know, there's been like, it used to be like, there were reader spaces and author spaces. And now it's all kind of, like incestuous and bastardized, like everybody's on the same platforms, authors are interacting with readers more, the relationship between readers and authors are more contentious. Everybody thinks that they're owed something like, readers think because they read my book that I'm supposed to share their content that they make about my book, while also telling me to stay out of reader spaces, like it just gets really weird. But as far as like my writing related business, that has always been decent, I quit my job in 2019. And that was mostly because well I joined Being Boss in 2016 2016, and with all the tips that I learned from you all, I learned how to like side hustle in my editing business. And I was making money with that without running ads just by word of mouth. And it got to the point where I was like, well, I need to either quit this day job that I absolutely hate, or I'm not going to be able to make as much money editing as I could. And in 2019, I decided to quit my job, and then the world shut down. So kind of like, you know, I've been in a state of transition since then, like, you know, discovering that, Oh, I like this thing. No, I don't I quit it, and then just kind of transitioning into something else until I finally arrived at this writers community, which has been pretty solid, but also just kind of plateaued, you know, like, growth is slow. And there, as much as I try to keep people engaged as that's what I mean, engagement is shit, no one wants to engage. There's just so much information. You know, like, there's so much information out there, there's lots of people telling people different things, there's still this idea that if you follow this ABCD, you know, plan of action, you're going to be a million dollar author. And just like online business period, that time has passed, doesn't matter. If you do 11 tiktoks a day, you're still not gonna hit it, you know what I mean? But we're the publishing world is kind of in they're, like on the late cycle with this stuff, like they do business. Like stuff that business business, small businesses have been doing for a while, authors are just now getting that information. But they're, they're diving into the pool late. So everything is really hard for them, it's really hard for them to get visibility, it's hard for them to get engagement. And it takes a lot more time to do that it takes away from the writing. So
Erica Courdae 23:10
That piece, the fact that you have to spend so much of the time not doing the thing that you do. And that was the piece that kept, like jumping out at me with this. Because, you know, clearly if we think back generations, there was a point to where you had big businesses, and that was kind of it like small businesses, what is that you might have the person that might sell some stuff, or pickle some stuff or whatever, and they just did the thing?
Emily Thompson 23:42
We're canning now?
Erica Courdae 23:44
Yes, you were making the things in the community.
Tasha L. Harrison 23:47
Okay.
Erica Courdae 23:49
But you didn't have a business. And so now it's like, Oh, I do a thing. And now I have a business. And so it went from there being big businesses to would kind of shifting and you started getting some boutique businesses and some, you know, like, I think almost the madman agency type of timeframe, you started having a little more of that. And you would notice that in the narratives that we saw laid out, doesn't mean it's 100% of how this work, but you notice the visual of it shift of what was represented. And then all of a sudden, during, you know, kind of the 80s and 90s. You saw more small businesses, that it was clear they existed but there still wasn't online business stuff like everybody's a business owner. Everybody thinks they're a business owner.
Tasha L. Harrison 24:36
Yeah, I think it was more side hustlers in the in the 90s. Definitely, like everybody had a side hustle,
Erica Courdae 24:42
But it wasn't online business yet. That's the thing. It was still just people that were like, I fix cars, and I'm gonna go ahead and get me a little shop or I do hair out of my basement like you had them in that way. But then all of a sudden, it was like, wait, I do this thing. And so now I have a business and so it almost.
Tasha L. Harrison 25:01
That girl that does hair in her kitchen is considered a cosmetologist, when she hasn't gone to school, things changed.
Erica Courdae 25:08
And doesn't know how to run a business.
Tasha L. Harrison 25:10
That part.
Erica Courdae 25:10
Doesn't run a business well, doesn't understand the business of it doesn't understand. And I say this is somebody that for years, the growing of it, the scaling of it, the maintenance of it, the legalities of it. I was just like.
Tasha L. Harrison 25:27
Also building relationships.
Erica Courdae 25:29
Right. And so you didn't, didn't do or even understand what the things were, it was just like, start a business. Because I remember when I kind of jumped in it, I was doing a service. And all of a sudden, people wanted to pay me and I was like, Well, I guess it's a business. And I started a business. And I just kind of jumped in the deep end, the difference was I was offline. So I made face time, I made relationships, I maintain them, I grew them, there were referrals. But then all of a sudden, when he went online, it was like, Wait, there's a whole lot of extra stuff here that I don't know. And so when you hit like where we are now, you know, there was this live for a while there that was like, you can just put your stuff on Instagram and you'll just blow up overnight just post all of these times a day. And it was like Instagram post the business does not make and.
Tasha L. Harrison 26:22
But people do not know this.
Emily Thompson 26:25
Well, and people knew that like that's sort of what I was going back to a minute ago where like, we're still getting told things that you know, that work 10 years ago, right? You show up on Instagram as the only person who knows how to do this thing and your winning. But like y'all, that age has been over for like a decade.
Erica Courdae 26:46
But, but it is still be the lie's though being sold.
Emily Thompson 26:50
Yep.
Erica Courdae 26:50
You know? I mean, I remember, I don't know, it was about 10 years ago, I remember buying courses from an influencer, who shall not be named, that I later was kind of hearing things around the fact that a lot of what they were giving was being regurgitated from other people. And then you started recognizing the patterns of like, Oh, you.
Emily Thompson 27:11
The incest of online coaching.
Erica Courdae 27:13
Absolutely. And so.
Tasha L. Harrison 27:15
Which is why I don't share a lot of information about what I do online.
Erica Courdae 27:19
But like, another piece of it, you have to share.
Tasha L. Harrison 27:21
You can't keep it behind a paywall, like, it limits how you can share your information about your business, or even get the word out. As someone who sells information, if I put too much information out there, somebody else is gonna be like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna do what she doing. Bout to go steal what she got.
Erica Courdae 27:37
But when it was offline, it wasn't, it didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like if I say this thing, you're going to now co-op my thing and go do it yourself and claim it to be yours. Does that mean it didn't happen? No. But it felt very different. When the opportunity to have access to so many more people meant so many more people had access to you and everything that came with you. And their ethics may not be quite as great.
Emily Thompson 28:04
Yeah. And I feel like that's all absolutely true. That's sort of like the dark underbelly, right. Like if you show up in this space, you share your things which like and I'm guilty of for years, like get out there, share what you have what you know, and give it all away for free. I told you episodes ago that we created a monster saying those things.
Tasha L. Harrison 28:22
Cause now they have a bunch of content out there just to AI and strip.
Emily Thompson 28:27
Indeed, indeed. And so here's what I want to like bring up around this, though, is that we as a business owner community, like everyone who's like in this space, doing this thing has exchanged the quality of word of mouth marketing, for the quick hits of dopamine, that come from social media marketing, which is something that like I've talked about this ad nauseam at this point, right? If you need any further convincing episode number 213, word of mouth marketing Kathleen and I went real deep, and it's one of our best performing episodes. And it's real real. And something that sort of there is this sort of larger, larger pendulum swinging right where we all went and did the online thing so much now that like internet as Gen pop, right, we've talked about that several times, like everybody and their brother and grandmother and great aunty and everybody is on the internet now in a way that like, just the things that worked before that happened do not work anymore, because the essence of the internet is just literally different. So I personally love seeing because actually, even when I recorded that episode with Kathleen. Hold on, let me look at the date of this one. Because I do want to know when this episode came out, oh shit, it was actually 2019 So in June of 2019, Kathleen and I released that episode at that point, recognizing that internet marketing is going to shit everybody, if you really want some longevity and sustainability in your business, you need to be focusing on word of mouth marketing. And then now, you know, four years later, post pandemic, everybody got online, it is more true now, even than it was then the who has always been incredibly true.
Emily Thompson 30:23
So online engagement, I think we can all agree is like, generally down. And it's not just us, this is one of those pieces where it's, it's not just my fingers in my own pie, this is my fingers in all the bosses pies, that I'm coaching or, you know, talking to one on one or in the community, or whatever, everyone is experiencing that. So if you are trying to launch a thing, if you are doing all of the marketing things that everyone has told you just simply works, etc, etc. And it's not working. It's not just you. This is the reality of the internet, and anyone who is coming out and saying, You know what my biggest launch ever all of these things, one, I would deeply question what that actually means. And to know that there is still that one person of the 1% of the one person out there who is making money selling you their experience as that point 01 I don't know, 1% of 1% or 1% is
Erica Courdae 31:16
Yeah.
Emily Thompson 31:17
But they're selling that experience to you as if that's just how it happens. And that's not how it's happening anymore. Um, okay, couple more, a couple more like overarching questions, I want to ask around online, how the online landscape has changed for you in your individual industries. So think about like, Erica, you went into this a little bit a minute ago, with like, when you started, there wasn't online scheduling, you weren't doing marketing, like it was all word of mouth. But like, maybe for the past five years. Tasha, I feel like we had some conversations about this on the show for you a little bit as well, fairly recently. But I would love to just see, maybe you can illustrate how much the online landscape has changed just in the past five years.
Erica Courdae 32:10
I think in the past five years, part of it, I will say it's the person experiencing it. Five years ago, if I was going on somebody's podcast, I probably talked to them. And we set a time and we recorded. Now, I'm getting text messages of where to show up and when to show up like I'm getting reminders from people, like it is completely different than what it was, it's much more hands off. I think even five years ago, while it was clearly more hands off than what it was, you know, five or 10 years before that, you probably still talked to somebody, you probably still got on a connection call where things like that are being a lot more automated, or they just kind of go away. And I say that as somebody that has a contact form on my website that has voice, video and text in it, which makes it more personal. But it's a it's a form. Where before it was like, you know, getting on a zoom call felt impersonal. And really what a lot of people still did was they got on the phone.
Tasha L. Harrison 33:22
Ew.
Erica Courdae 33:22
Now people are like phone new me call you on the web.
Tasha L. Harrison 33:25
Don't talk to me.
Erica Courdae 33:25
Don't call me on my cell phone. So it is completely different in that it went less high touch and now it got even more disconnected. But I'm noticing people want to go back more high touch the things that aren't as easily leveraged. People do want to actually connect people will have more FaceTime people that are outside or like I do want to kind of, you know, meet you in person, or if I'm in town, let's have a coffee date. So it's become a little more personalized. But we're going back to understanding that even one line. It's not the throwing up of a static posts, you have to connect with people. And it is who likes you that talked about you to somebody else. It just might happen online, and you have access to more people to do it. But five years ago, podcasting was easier.
Emily Thompson 33:31
Amen.
Erica Courdae 33:31
There weren't as many people. And so that was a gift and a curse. Because they were still people that were offline that didn't understand it. They couldn't wrap their brain around it. So trying to use it as a marketing tool, did kind of have some challenges to it. If your audience wasn't all just online, but you now had access to people that you otherwise wouldn't have had access to, which was which was nice. As somebody that you know little over four years of podcasting, I was like, Oh, this is great. And then it was like, but these people are also kind of burned out. And looking back now I recognize what some of it was. Because I mean, you have so much that you were being inundated with. It was a lot. And so that I felt like it was definitely like the hype before COVID Of like, all of the things being thrown at you.
Tasha L. Harrison 35:24
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 35:24
And so now there's this point to where people are like, Oh, no, don't. Get out my inbox. I'm not paying you to be in my inbox. I don't.
Tasha L. Harrison 35:34
I don't want to pay you to be in my inbox.
Erica Courdae 35:37
There's just all this stuff. And people are starting to almost like rebel against it a little bit. And I think the challenge is, is that they still want to find their people, particularly if you happen to be located somewhere where you're having a hard time finding your people. And sadly, in the US, there are places where your people aren't nearby, Florida, and you're stuck there. And you are trying to find some.
Emily Thompson 36:06
Yeah, didn't catch that one at all.
Erica Courdae 36:09
So you're trying to figure out how can I not feel so alone?
Emily Thompson 36:14
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 36:15
And so your trying, you know, online gave you that. But it also disconnected you from figuring out how to connect to the world at large.
Emily Thompson 36:26
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 36:26
People forgot how to just have conversations, I noticed that there are some people that now it's so much harder to be in a conversation, to make eye contact, and not from a sense of like, if you have you know, you're neurodivergent you can't about that, that's different. It's more like,
Tasha L. Harrison 36:45
Call me out next time.
Erica Courdae 36:51
But I say that because this, these are the things that not from a, not from the mental health of there's something happening, but I don't know how to do these things. I wasn't conditioned to do these things. I have been in a pool of never having to worry about these things, because I can type behind an anonymous screen. And now it's like, no, no, no, we have to figure out how to come out.
Emily Thompson 37:17
I love that you're seriously sort of going back to that pendulum analogy or metaphor, whatever. Where, you know, five years ago, it was a little more high touch because people were just using the internet as like a loose tool or like a sort of minor tool in their arsenal, the pendulum, pendulum, as it swung the other way, as we sort of in this place where everything's super automated, that like to the point where it feels so impersonal, that nobody wants to show up for it, you sort of hit on something that I did not talk about in the last episode where I talked about sort of the difficulties that podcasting has become. But one of the things that I think you sort of hit on here that I do want to note is how hard it is to get guests to show up for episodes. These days. It is like ongoing, difficult to like they'll schedule and then they just won't show up. It's a whole and I think it's part of the inundation, right, they have too many things on their calendar, there's 47 other opportunities, because there's a million, you know, 800,000 other podcasts
Tasha L. Harrison 38:17
I'm sorry I have to interrupt you. That's disrespectful.
Emily Thompson 38:20
It is rude AF.
Erica Courdae 38:21
It is. But but let's acknowledge I came from a point to where if you had an appointment, and you weren't going to make it, you'd let somebody know.
Emily Thompson 38:30
Yeah. Oh. I'm not saying it is ok.
Erica Courdae 38:33
Oh, no, but that was the thing. But now it's more like, hey, so sorry. And it's it's more normalized to not be proactive, if you're not going to do something.
Emily Thompson 38:43
Indeed.
Tasha L. Harrison 38:43
Ghosting is normal.
Emily Thompson 38:44
And because like because you're just a person on the internet, right? This isn't like someone who you're going to see in four weeks to get your hair done again, right? This is someone that like is literally responsible for the way you look.
Tasha L. Harrison 38:56
Don't play with that.
Emily Thompson 38:57
where you're gonna have a little bit more respect. This is just like some Joe Schmo who runs a podcast, and why should I care if I show up or not? Or whatever it may be, where, you know, the pendulum swung all the way in that direction. And then I think for a subset of us, because I don't think this has trickled down all the way I think some of us that are significantly more engaged and have been engaged in this space for you know, some amount of time and like have a level of maturity that is not present in all humans have started swinging back the other direction. We're like, How can I actually make this like a in person Coffee Chat. I found myself literally wanting to travel to cities to have coffee chats, instead of doing a zoom again, in a way that like, can we just do this in person? I'll come to you whatever that looks like. And so but I don't think that that is the case on mass, right? Like in the whole of Internet users because and I think as AI becomes more of a thing, there is this other set. I think we are like a subset, right, those of us who are like let's get engage more where I think the vast majority of the internet is going to continue going incredibly impersonal way. Yeah.
Erica Courdae 40:07
It is.
Emily Thompson 40:08
And ew, I don't want to play in that pool.
Tasha L. Harrison 40:10
Absolutely gross. So considering what happened five years ago, five years ago, we were still doing Being Boss vacations.
Emily Thompson 40:20
Indeed.
Tasha L. Harrison 40:21
Five years ago. Well, what four years ago, five years ago met Erica at a conference. So even though I am you know, stridently anti social, like, dislike peopling to a large degree, I was still going to in person things and also scheduling in person things. I was in an in person writers group was actively looking for other people to start an in person writers group with that, and now people are just like, yeah, I want to meet in person, but like, can you plan it and I'm like, Girl, I can plan it. But if you don't show up, I'm on the hook for this money. Like people were like, we want to have a writing retreat. I'm like, I have a writing retreat by myself every year.
Erica Courdae 41:07
See.
Tasha L. Harrison 41:08
Y'all are free to come. But I'm not paying for you. You got to stay wherever you go, stay, we can meet up in one place. But you know what I mean? Like the risk, trying to do something big and in person.
Emily Thompson 41:19
When everyone has become so flaky.
Tasha L. Harrison 41:22
Yes, so flaky and acceptably flaky. And then on the podcast thing. Five years ago, I also had a podcast, me and my friend had a podcast, and pretty promptly realized as we were gaining interest and getting downloads, that in order for us to actually excel in turn over to that point where we were getting lots of listens. It required both of us to treat it like it was job and we both had full time jobs.
Erica Courdae 41:49
That was the piece I was getting ready to say this whole pay to play. Not that is new, because even back in the day offline. You had, I'm about to throw everybody real back real for you had to like pay to be in like the Pennysaver or whatever the things were. They came in the mail.
Emily Thompson 42:06
Oh, girl, I was talking the other day about how I remember having a meeting with and someone who sold advertisements for the phone book. Y'all remember that.
Erica Courdae 42:16
Yes. So like the yellow pages, the white pages? Yeah, the bus stops, the benches, the whatever. So like, you know you you had those those things there. But now it's like.
Tasha L. Harrison 42:29
I had to ask my sister the other day like how do you buy a hoopty? Like, where do you go? Because the PennyServer does not exist. So we're like Facebook marketplace. I'm like, Oh, I'll be buying cars off Facebook marketplace. You just drive out to somebody's random house in the middle of nowhere, which we actually did with the pennysaver too.
Emily Thompson 42:45
How is that any different from the classifieds, how is that any different?
Tasha L. Harrison 42:50
But like it just felt you know what I mean? Like at least if someone was like she went missing, you could say she went to see this guy who had this ad in the Pennysaver.
Emily Thompson 43:00
She circled it.
Tasha L. Harrison 43:02
Like when they do the what do you call it the documentary on your murder.
Emily Thompson 43:12
Tasaha I will solve it, I will solve it you. It will not be unsolved.
Erica Courdae 43:17
But that's the thing like back in the day, I felt like the way that you would advertise versus how you advertise now was different in the in person piece of it. I remember the first conference I went to doing everything and burning myself out. And then promptly recognizing more did not mean more. And I learned that if I'm at a conference for five days, I'm probably only going to attend things two hours two to three days max. And that includes the day that I am the presenter if I'm speaking there. And because I have found that the relationships that worked and that flourished and that actually had some type of longevity, whether that was the connection whether it turned into a client whether it turned into referrals. It was because I took time to make face time with people I built relationships.
Emily Thompson 44:11
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Erica Courdae 45:21
So basically realizing that actually making relationships with people meant talking with them, finding out about them as humans. And so I knew what that meant before. And that served me when I had to go fully online because everybody did during COVID. But I knew how to make relationships. And I think the interesting pieces is everything that we've talked about, whether it's online, or whether it's offline, there's too many people that don't understand how to create and maintain and foster relationships.
Tasha L. Harrison 45:57
Oh, my God, people are so bad at relationships. And, as I said, chronically antisocial. But that's mostly because I do not enjoy small talk. And I cannot continue to be surface with people. So if I'm in a situation where every time we interact, it is just surface, I just rather not. I'd rather not count me out. Don't text me no more lose my number. You know, and it's I know, I probably should be doing more to try to foster relationships. But it's the the reciprocity is not really there. I feel like because the three of us mostly are like people who always extend ourselves in that way. Like, we're always trying to make a connection with people, we're not trying to have like a superficial surface relationship. And then we end up giving, giving, giving, giving to people, and then we feel empty. And then we get angry, because we're empty, because people keep taking from us, you know what I mean? And then it fosters this kind of like, oh, I need to protect myself, I need to be more careful about who I interact with. And then being careful just becomes I interact with five people and a dog.
Emily Thompson 47:10
I think what you're illustrating here is really important, because what you're illustrating is how I let's just eyeball 50% of the population feels about social media marketing, right of how like how that level of soul showing up and doing online business in a way that you know, has been expected of us for so long that like not only doesn't work for us, but literally depletes our ability to do the other things that we need to do. Right. And so and so if if you're listening to this, and you're feeling that way, know that like, that's normal and fine. And I think were this like building closer relationships to help you in business, whether that's like with your customers, or clients or with your vendors or with your business, besties or whatever, and finding marketing avenues that actually work for how you want to engage with people, because engagement has changed. I think, for a lot of us, it's because we realize how we want to engage with our people. And there are people for whom social media is still working just fine. And I love that for you. But that's probably less than 50% of everyone listening. Right. I also I want to pull up two things here. Actually, that sort of hits on one that I had put here in particular for Erica and that is like the emotional toll of the work that we do has become in some ways in the online space. And your experience of this is like so next level as a DEI coach, right? You're like, you're
Erica Courdae 48:45
the poster child for what can go wrong.
Emily Thompson 48:47
Indeed, indeed, well,
Tasha L. Harrison 48:49
Not because you are doing anything wrong.
Erica Courdae 48:51
Not because I did it wrong. But because of where
Emily Thompson 48:53
Because of the work that you do.
Erica Courdae 48:55
Right? The emotional capacity of it.
Emily Thompson 48:58
You're just like showing everyone where it is most on wrong. Not that you're doing wrong, it's just what everybody else is doing wrong. Um, but like, but there is when you are putting yourself in the online space in the way that we have to now we're like, more vulnerable, more authentic, show us more and people are expecting more from us, is actually a conversation that I've had with Kathleen a couple of times. And the reason why I super stopped showing up on social media or even like why I'm not trying to get on Tik Tok or whatever is because audiences expect so much more from you. Where did you get that lipstick? Where did that hat come from? How dare you think or say that? Like what? There's so many opinions coming out you that like. Personally? No, thank you. I'm not trying to put myself in any of those spaces. Another piece that I want to bring up here, because I think that AI is just getting started. And we talked about this, obviously but I think there's there's going to be more content, more questions around authenticity, than ever before, in a way that's going to be real, real, real, real real in ways we don't even can't even fathom yet. And because there's so many of us thinking that the internet is just the place where we can barf out all of our opinions, the politics of everything, I think is just also going to get worse and worse, in which case, not only is it a pool full of pee, and people, but just generally a cesspool.
Emily Thompson 50:28
And I think where this sort of leads us to is this idea. I mean, we think we tried to sort of solve this problem a couple of years ago with these sort of gated communities, right, and we all three of us run a gated online community. And I think all find joy in them in our own ways. But even because that engagement piece is less so than ever, and people are less willing to pay for just more stuff. Those aren't even viable business models anymore. And not just, you know, something that I've seen personally, which I think we'll be talking about a little bit next episode, but it's something that I'm seeing across the board, gated online communities across the Internet are closing, because that engagement piece, because of all of these other things that we've talked about, is just failing, in which case like leads me to the end of the golden age of the internet, right? We're a creator, a valid creator who has actual expertise, which is a whole other conversation, right, who can come into a space, share what they need to share in a way that is that is accepted and engage with to produce revenue like that, like golden moment of our ability to show up and do this in a way that is accessible to more people than not, I believe, is over, I just believe is over, for better or worse, because I do think that once that golden age really got going everyone started seeing it. And now the problem that we're seeing is, you know, Tasha to your episode a couple of weeks ago, the idea of authors coming in and questionably using AI and claiming it as their own right and writing. Right Erica just that bullshit that you have to deal with on an ongoing basis from everyone who calls themselves a thought leader but is really a maybe a piece of trash.
Tasha L. Harrison 52:27
Like, I don't want to be led by your thoughts. Leave me out of it.
Emily Thompson 52:30
Absolutely not, absolutely not. Or like or what I'm seeing in my space of like business coaching has become a fucking joke. Like an absolute joke. And I mentioned this in a previous episode that I did with Kathleen, this idea that I don't want to be in the same playground as my peers as the people who are quote, unquote, my peers. Like if you show up most like list that being but that being boss podcast is on the people who are running those other shows are you and a multitude of ways and in ways that some people see and unfortunately, in ways that no one is noticing, unless you have some behind the scenes info, and then you know the things and you're like, wow, these are thought leaders that are really maybe trash.
Tasha L. Harrison 53:21
Hold on though. It's not even just that there's thought leaders who are maybe trash there are people who have no thoughts. And they're stealing thoughts and slapping on a name tag, getting on Tik Tok, Instagram, whatever, copying content, and then conning people out of hundreds and 1000s of dollars. And what always gets me about these fraudulent fuckers that they have the absolute audacity to do it while I'm sitting over here, like, Oh, am I charging too much? It's too much money. Mind you, they're just like, I'm gonna be a development editor for you. I have no degree, no experience. Pay me $1,200. And I'm like.
Emily Thompson 54:02
I've never run a business before in my life except for hacking the Instagram algorithm right here in this moment.
Tasha L. Harrison 54:08
To tell you bad information.
Emily Thompson 54:10
I heard a nightmare story recently very recent scenario with a relatively well known business coachy person in the world who was selling a high price mastermind group for $50,000 and then didn't deliver a single thing, and then wondered why it was that all of their people got together and came back after them and wanted all of their money back. I know I in and when I hear stories like that, I'm like one, really the biggest thing is I don't want to be in this industry anymore. I don't want and like in the business coaching industry, but also in this online world of it. Will I continue hosting my personal mastermind groups? Absolutely. Will I be spouting any of my shit here on the podcast or on Instagram or on tiktok absolutely not, absolutely not, because I don't want you to think of me and these people in the same room together ever again.
Erica Courdae 55:11
Okay, so I have a thought and I want you all opinion on it. I noticed this a few years ago and I've seen it play out time and time again, when you have some people that put themselves in the coaching space. And this is one of the challenges that I've had with that, you know, the tag of being a coach because it's, it's, it's muddy, it's muddy.
Emily Thompson 55:32
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 55:34
But I've noticed that there are some people that will specifically start masterminds or programs or whatever it is to try to get people in it. And it's really about either them needing that validation I want friends, or people being like, I want to be your friend so I'm going to pay to be in this because I want to be in your picture I want to be in your energy and it's like so we paying 50 grand for friends that's what we do.
Emily Thompson 56:01
It's just called a sorority. I thought we got done with those after we like really got made it through puberty. Um, right. So I think and I did just get my heart rate is up just in general because it really does make me incredibly heated but I think just sort of summarize this. Is this idea that with Gen pop joining the internet, right? And with all of us, me included teaching you that you should do the thing you should like show up do that, like figure it out, do the thing. We've just created a world where there is too much inauthentic stuff happening.
Erica Courdae 56:43
There's a difference between authenticity and verbal vomitting.
Tasha L. Harrison 56:47
There's just more scammers. This is what I'm seeing. And yeah, that that was kind of bred by the the, by this course, you'll be a million dollar, whatever. People who just were selling shortcuts when they were around during the Golden Age and didn't make their money the way that they're telling people to to make money. Like, oh, Instagram wasn't around when you had a big online business. But when like you started from a different place, you already had a successful business, and then you jumped on Instagram, and then you became a million dollar business that is disingenuous to try to sell what you did 10 years ago to someone who's getting online now, as a shortcut, or, you know, whatever. And I think people are looking for shortcuts so much. Now, nobody wants to do the work. I'm sorry, I just sounded like Kim Kardashian, but nobody wants to work in here.
Erica Courdae 56:51
So they want the shortcuts, but people are giving shortcuts in the sense of like, I'm not going to give you the whole picture. They forgot to bring in the piece of like, but wait, I already had a friend that had a tech company that I was already able to insert myself into.
Tasha L. Harrison 58:02
You get the bullet points, but not the actual machine behind the business.
Erica Courdae 58:05
Right. And so these whole entire chunks of it didn't get included of what happened or Hey, yes. Similar to the last episode. Yes, my podcast is in the top 100. But when I don't tell you is I spend 10 grand a month?
Emily Thompson 58:21
Yeah.
Erica Courdae 58:21
I don't know you that.
Emily Thompson 58:23
Right that. And, and honestly, one of the things that I find is I've like spent more and more time here, like the longer I'm here, the more I see behind the veil and know that there's way more going on behind the veil. Then you anyone is being told in a way that like leads me back to my situation of I'd rather just sell rocks.
Erica Courdae 58:48
I want you to just sell rocks.
Tasha L. Harrison 58:50
And I just want to buy rocks.
Erica Courdae 58:53
Right?
Tasha L. Harrison 58:53
Why is that? Not like a job? Yeah.
Emily Thompson 58:56
Just buying rocks. Um, you were there with me last where we just bought rocks. That is what we did. Right? It's a fun time. So okay, okay, we got really heated on that one. I love it. I do want to start wrapping this one up. And I've even let's Whoa. So many things happening my arms are out flapping around here right now everyone. This got real wild. Um, I do want to sort of like, bring what we just said into like a pretty picture as much as possible. I know it's not pretty it's it's the it's a pool of people and pee right where like, where the do Wow.
Erica Courdae 59:44
Okay, here's the thing. There's, there's the picture and there's the understanding that even even with the pee in the pool, even with the contamination and the radioactivity that is festering. I think it's also just like acknowledging that there are people in it that want to be in it, there are some genuine people in it,
Emily Thompson 1:00:04
for sure.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:00:04
And there is a way for you to do this honestly, and not buy into the scam of it all, or get caught up in, you know, being chronically online because you think that's gonna expose you to more brands.
Erica Courdae 1:00:16
Burned out on all front.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:00:17
Burned out on all fronts. So I think the takeaway, what I would get from this, if I was listening to this show is that not just adjust your expectations but don't expect much. Like either you have to really love doing it. Like if you're doing it because you love doing it. And that is the energy that you have behind it, then you're probably more you're gonna get more sincere, you know, clients work readers, whatever. But if you're doing it just because you're trying to market, people can sense that they can smell it, you can smell it.
Emily Thompson 1:00:53
You say that, but a lot of people aren't smelling it.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:00:56
I mean, people are unsmart I can't account for unsmart people.
Erica Courdae 1:01:00
They haven't done it long enough. They don't know, they don't know.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:01:03
I'm doing the internet. So like some of them are really internet savvy and understand when they're being sold. But I think they're especially when we talk about like people wanting more access to you like this whole face forward thing where people are doing more videos, and, you know, just exposing parts of their life, which are usually made up too they think that they're getting an authentic person telling them things and they form these parasocial relationships with these people because they see their faces all the time. Right. But they're not realizing that this relationship is just as fake as the person who was just sharing static pictures even more so in a lot of ways.
Erica Courdae 1:01:40
Right? Yeah, see, and I want people to think about that piece of like, you know, one, don't overcomplicate it, because a lot of stuff that you're seeing really is just overcomplicating it like, if you have something that you do, or you offer, you do it well. You have ethics around it, you be consistent. You build relationships, and you've kind of rinse and repeat. And it, it can be that simple at some point. And remember that none of this works. If you're not building relationships, I don't care what anybody says, If you are not building relationships, I don't know what the hell you're doing. That's just a hard stop on every like, I don't care about your funnel. I don't care about your your photo shoot. I don't care about your logo. If you have not built relationships, and you are not going to show up as the person that you sold yourself to be out here business catfishing people like you did not do that. Like build authentic actual relationships, honor other people's humanity the way you want yours to be honored. And stop trying to chase somebody else's template that ain't chose does nacho cheese does nacho cheese.
Emily Thompson 1:02:56
It's not y'all did a great job summarizing that for me. Thank you. Thank you. And if I can bring this back, even from my perspective, because part of this is like why it is that I'm done with this show. It's because like I am done with this industry. And most of what I just got really heated about, like if I were a watercolor artist, selling my art on Etsy, or Instagram or wherever, like, I'm not talking about that industry, though. If you keep your eyes open, you can see the shit too. Right? There are people stealing shit, there are people who are like, have some questionable things have like, it's everywhere. And it's always like, snake oil salesmen were a thing 100 years ago, right? Like there's always going to be scammers and bad people in an industry. And what I have simply found is that in the online business sort of coaching and not even that I'm just coaching for online businesses, but selling business coaching online and sort of having a voice in this space has become so inundated with so much gross stuff that I don't want to be here anymore. I say that as I go into crystals, which is basically just snake oil in its own way to some people, which I get and like I combat in my own ways, but it's a different kind of combating than what I have experienced in this space over the past couple of years. And how that is incredibly affected engagement in my space of like so many people have had awful experiences like buying into a mastermind or not getting delivered something buying into a community and it being in disgusting place, buying into a course and it offering literally nothing of value, right? Where these are not problems that I want to solve anymore, basically. And so for me in this space done but also it's something that I see across the entire internet in all places and I love that we really hit on what I think is sort of the the combat of the moment for this problem. And that is building real relationships with your customers, with your vendors, with your clients with your, your business besties. Right, and also finding some sort of offline component or a way to take your business into the offline space because I do believe that that is where business sustainability is built. Because we have talked about this pendulum swinging right several times. Online, it swings fast and often. And you were like, you aren't like whiplash? Who has online business whiplash? Oh, Instagram algorithms, new social media platform new standards for how you do this. Now everyone's doing ebooks. Now, no one's doing ebooks anymore. Like all of the things.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:05:48
Course. Get a book deal. Don't get a book deal. Like it's just starting a YouTube channel. Give it all for free. Don't do that. Like what the hell?
Emily Thompson 1:05:55
Yeah, it's crazy. So for me to a large part of walking away from being Boston. Really the thing that I want everyone to think about for their own businesses, is that if you're tired or burnt out, or overwhelmed, or whatever, not to say that offline businesses easier because it's not no easier. But it is a little more digestible.
Erica Courdae 1:06:18
It's different in the yeah.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:06:20
Also, it's not in your laptop or your phone. So when you leave the store, you leave the store.
Emily Thompson 1:06:26
I love that you think that Tasha, because I'm still thinking about candles and crystal, so I'm sitting on my couch.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:06:30
I mean, well, you do get a little, a little cha-ching. But I'm saying you're thinking about it, but you're not like, actively like, Oh, let me sit here on my phone. When I have five minutes to share some content. You're just thinking about your business not engaging in business,
Erica Courdae 1:06:46
Or the expectation that nobody's nobody's gonna show up on your phone at 9:43 Hey, I know you might be sleeping, but I'm gonna leave this for you for tomorrow morning. And the next thing you know, you're working.
Emily Thompson 1:06:58
Yeah, rock customers don't do that.
Erica Courdae 1:07:02
No, they go in and they check out and they give you their money. And then tomorrow, they just want you to put something in the ups for them. That's about it.
Emily Thompson 1:07:08
Yes, indeed. There's much more understanding of, of customer service hours. Yeah. And not to say because I have actually seen some bosses lately moving into the physical product realm. And I love that like if that is your calling, I'm not trying to create a new trend where we're all starting brick and mortar stores necessarily though. I think most cute small towns or big towns could probably use some more mom and pop shops. Absolutely. And it is it is it is a beast in itself. It is still incredibly difficult on a completely different level. But it doesn't make me as tired or generally sick to my stomach as being in this space now does
Tasha L. Harrison 1:07:49
I'm gonna buy a laundromat
Emily Thompson 1:07:52
Oh, actually, I think that's a great idea. That's like one of those Boomer businesses that's about to like hold their owners are about to die and laundromat still need to be a thing I was gonna say some millennial ideating.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:08:04
As someone whose washer and dryer is down and I won't get a new one till the 29th I have been reading experiencing mats and I was like you know what, what if we put a bar in here and some books.
Erica Courdae 1:08:16
That's what I was about to say it's like a watering hole like you can make it literally into like the spot.
Emily Thompson 1:08:22
I literally saw someone on Tik Tok not too long ago who did this you'll have to give them a surely you can Google them just like cute little couple who bought a laundry mat and made it like a community center but
Tasha L. Harrison 1:08:36
it's but it's like far out. But what what I did remember specifically was when I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. There's this place called the burger bar laundromat. It's literally just the burger bar laundromat. You go get your burger you get to drink.
Emily Thompson 1:08:51
Say what you mean.
Erica Courdae 1:08:54
I mean, I'm sitting here anyway, I might as well go ahead and
Emily Thompson 1:08:56
that way and when you drop ketchup on your shirt, you can just go through it.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:09:03
Anyway, you can't leave the clothes.
Emily Thompson 1:09:05
I love it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's then let's maybe do we is there a wrap up here? That was the wrap up.
Erica Courdae 1:09:12
right so this this is no more of these kinds of bodies.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:09:19
That's a lie. We're gonna be doing this on Marco Polo.
Erica Courdae 1:09:21
That's different though. Not for public consumption.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:09:27
People are going to be deprived of our dazzling amazingness together.
Emily Thompson 1:09:31
Will they?
Erica Courdae 1:09:32
You can always get all this you can get all this.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:09:36
I mean, combined together. No, they're not gonna be able to experience this anymore.
Erica Courdae 1:09:41
I like it. It just won't be it just won't be like this. I won't be like this.
Emily Thompson 1:09:47
So that's actually next episode. Everybody you guys and everyone listening? I think I literally just burped in the middle of saying that. Sorry, Corey and everyone if you heard that burp.
Tasha L. Harrison 1:10:01
Burper. She's a burper. thIS is something that I learned about her. Meeting her in person she burps.
Emily Thompson 1:10:07
I do I burp a lot. I do this because I'm talking to him. I'm just swallowing air. I'm just gulping it I think. I think I'm just gulping aire.
Emily Thompson 1:10:18
What's the excuse when you're not podcasting
Emily Thompson 1:10:21
So here's here's the thing, though legit, whenever I was up at Kathleen's, which I was talking to you guys on Marco Polo. I remember thinking one day, wow, I'm not as burpe as I usually am. Because I'm not talking because no one's there.
Erica Courdae 1:10:30
No, when you also,
Tasha L. Harrison 1:10:31
you also had the plague.
Erica Courdae 1:10:34
And didn't know. It couldn't figure out why nothing tasted right. So you just went well? Why am I gonna open it? Nothing tastes Right.
Emily Thompson 1:10:40
Right. So anyway, I do just go pair when I talk. So sorry, if everyone heard that, maybe you didn't love that. But in the next episode, we'll be talking about what happens next. And honestly, what I want to leave everyone with on this episode is that I don't want conversate actually, conversations like this will never be over because I have very pointedly cultivated enough boss community around me that I'm not facilitating for I am obviously know what I mean. Like I did it for myself in a way that I will never stop having conversations like this. And that's one of the realizations I've had to come at to, as I've, you know, sort of gotten into these last couple episodes. And I'm like, Oh, this is going to be over. And like, it's not though. I'm just not going to be sharing all of them on the internet in this way, which I have definitely loved doing. But I have enough boss folks around me that I will keep having these conversations and who knows, maybe someday I will record and release more of them. We'll see.
Erica Courdae 1:11:47
Never know.
Emily Thompson 1:11:48
I'm not going to ask you what makes you boss feel boss because we're gonna do that in the next episode. So we're just so everyone knows we're recording these last two on the same day. So it's gonna be weird if I ask them out and ask them later. So I'm going to depart from the usual situation not asking I'll just simply say, I see you and thanks y'all for having this chat with me. This is exactly how I wanted my last regular being boss episode business bestie conversation to go.
Emily Thompson 1:12:25
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