Shock Your Potential – 2022 Preview – Michael Sherlock

I wanted to take some time today to talk about some of the exciting things that we have going on at both Shock Your Potential and Kukuabiz, which is our sister company. [00:52]

I will give you a little highlight as to what we are going to see for the last quarter of 2021 and a little projection into 2022. [1:07]

In most businesses, quarter four is the time for planning, budgeting, aligning, setting next year’s goals and working towards what builds the organization. [1:35]

If you’ve been following along, you know what happened to Shock Your Potential at the beginning of the global pandemic which was a hit for many people. [1:51]

In my little corner of the world prior to that pandemic, the majority of my business at Shock Your Potential was me travelling around the world to speak and train mostly on leadership and sales. [2:13]

I had really worked hard to get to a number of great and frequent programs, I was working on some training contracts with some very big companies and looking to expand what I was doing. [2:37]

I still knew that it was probably not a good idea to be a one trick pony and to have to manage everything. [2:54]

Everything worked well and a lot of speaking gigs were coming in and then all of a sudden, the pandemic happened and there was nothing. [3:34]

I questioned myself on what I was going to do and how I was going to come back from this. [3:57]

After some reflection and a lot of discussion with my husband, I made the decision to double down all those things that I wanted to do or knew I should be doing. [4:34]

It was in those moments of the first days after I came out of my crying fit that I realized I had an opportunity here. [5:11]

Over the next few months, we did some amazing things for my business and I decided to double down and add more team members who are all based in Kenya. [5:27]

My guests and my colleagues in the entrepreneurial world were taking notice more specifically of what was happening with my team that was growing. [5:49]

I was taping several podcast episodes and in one day, I had three people request me to find them people from Kenya and I realized there was an opportunity here. [6:11]

That’s how we started the second company, Kukuabiz, that matched other people in Kenya to be virtual assistants or support small businesses like me around the world. [6:50]

We made our very first placement in August of 2020 and now a little more than a year later, we have a handful of people that are connected and matched with businesses all over the globe. [7:16]

My focus changed from speaking on leadership and sales to me building opportunities, not just for myself, but seeing what we’re doing right and helping other entrepreneurs to do it right as well. [7:51]

It is also about helping other people, especially talented professionals from Kenya, to operate on a global scale. [8:11]

 In the last two months, I’ve really grown both businesses in some new and unique ways. [8:51]

 I went through the process of getting Shock Your Potential certified as a woman owned business enterprise and a woman owned small business enterprise and I’m very happy I did it. [9:03]

I made the decision to try and get myself out of the day to day details of both businesses, which meant that I had to promote some people. [9:29]

My team is fantastic and I have three incredible women who have been with me literally since the beginning and that’s Mercy, Lorna and Jossie who I promoted to be Vice Presidents. [9:40]

It has been an incredible honor to work with these women and help take them to the executive level of their careers. [10:08]

I’m trying to teach them all my experience as fast as possible without overwhelming them and terrifying them. [10:25]

If you are an entrepreneur, and interested in other ways to help promote your business, we may have a couple things that will be interesting to you. [10:38]

I have written and published two books, ‘Tell Me More: How to Ask the Right Questions and Get the Most out of your Employees,’ and ‘Sales Myxology: Where the Most Potent Sales and Customer Experiences Follow a Recipe for Success.” [10:54]

We wanted to create something new when we created the Shock Your Potential Bookstore and we have a couple dozen authors in there right now. [11:27]

To be a part of our bookstore, if you’re an author, we want to create with you a little video where you talk about why you wrote your book and what it means to you. [11:44]

We have different ways that we promote authors throughout the month as well as picking an author of the month each month. [11:58]

Starting in 2022, we’re going to have some really great fun, new and unique interactions with the authors. [12:06]

If you’re listening and want to have more opportunity to be a go to person in your area of expertise, I would encourage you to reach out to us about Shock Your Media Potential. [12:36]

It’s going to provide a direct access to media producers, and media writers where you can be seen directly for media opportunities. [13:06]

If you have a podcast or you’re thinking about a podcast, but you don’t like to manage all the parts of the podcast, we now have Shock Your Potential podcast management services opportunity. [13:53]

We manage everything from the entire podcast and guest booking and production process to as little as editing. [14:06]

 If that’s something that you’re looking for, then reach out to us for that. [14:26]

For the 2022 podcasts for Shock Your Potential, We are looking forward to have some fun new opportunities throughout the year. [14:32]

We will have great monthly themes and high level and quality guests on for our podcasts and showing you directly how our guests can help you. [14:45]

We are fully booked through all of 2021 and we have a waiting list for 2022 right now and for people interested to be on our podcast, please reach out to Josie at  Josie@shockyourpotential.com . [15:18]

If you want to be on more podcasts, we have an opportunity where with very low entry cost, we can match you with a podcast to be on that matches your goals and expectations and where you get a new podcast connection once a week. [15:42]

Finally, I just want to thank you for listening and being a part of what we’re doing. [16:02]

When I first started the podcast several years ago, I didn’t know what it was going to do for me. [16:07]

There were definite, direct results where speaking opportunities came from the podcast for me, but I didn’t really use it to its full potential. [16:25]

Now it has turned into something that is the driving force behind actually both of our businesses. [16:36]

If you are interested in exploring how you use a podcast to really grow your business and to grow true and meaningful connections, you can reach out for that as well. 16:43]

To get a hold of us, reach out at;

info@shockyourpotential.com,

 Michael@shockyourpotential.com, will get you directly to me.

Jossie@shockyourpotential.com, for anything related to the podcast.

Mercy@kukuabiz.com  for anything related to Kukuabiz.

As always make sure to send us your comments, thoughts and feedback. [18:12]

Social media handles

https://www.shockyourpotential.com

https://www.kukuabiz.com

https://shockyourpotentialbookstore.com/