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Ever wish you had a mentor to help you become who you were meant to be? Crystal Ware is redefining what it means to become your best self, in business, life, and love and sharing everything she she knows to get YOU there faster.
Are you stuck? Feel like you are meant for more but not sure how to breakthrough? Every week, we will explore all of your questions on building a path to true happiness, achieving success and creating our dream life. Brick by brick, we will work through the issues and mindsets that keep us stuck, dive into finding our passion and how to take ACTION. Clarity (vision) + Confidence (Owning your worth) + Courage (to live life on your own terms and become your own CEO) propels you to your destiny. And the good news it: its all within you!
Each week, host, Crystal Ware, will bring you all of the practical wisdom to grow every aspect of your career and life including mindset, vision, goal planning, social media management, financial acumen and so much more. You'll also meet top business leaders, entrepreneurs, mompreneurers and innovative thinkers who invested in themselves and found their way success and happiness by leading on their own terms.
You were made for more, so start living like it today. Join us as we take action, grow together, and get inspired to reach for your dreams.
Kar Brulhart 0:00:04
Instagram reached out to me my first year to do one reel for them to announce their bonus program. And even then I was like, how did I get on their radar? But then it took two years. After that, I didn't hear from them for two years. And then two years later, they came back to me. And now they come back to me all the time.
Crystal Ware 0:00:19
Welcome to get, get, get get get get get clear with crystal ware. Get clear on our goals, own our worth and learn to be the CEOs of our own lives. I'm your host, Crystal Ware, lawyer and former Fortune 500 corporate leader who found the confidence to say goodbye to a lucrative career and start my own business. Now I'm opening up the playbook and sharing everything I've learned to get you there faster. It may not be easy, but it will always be worth it because you are made for more. So put on your big girl pants, jump on board and let's reach for the stars. Are you ready to get clear today on the show? We have an amazing guest to talk about. So many interesting things about changing your career, changing your life, content creation, going out on your own passion. And I am so excited to welcome Kar Brulhart to the show today.
Kar Brulhart 0:01:16
Hey, Crystal. Thank you. And thanks for pronouncing my Swiss last name correctly.
Crystal Ware 0:01:21
Yes, it's actually not that difficult. And as we jump in, I will give you a little introduction here so everybody knows who you are and what your background is. Car is an official Instagram ambassador. She is part of the creator class of 2023. She has a wealth of knowledge background in social media marketing from working with the UN, Facebook, Michael Kors and so many more. She is now a digital nomad, moving around with her kids and husband and running her very own group coaching community called the Social Department, as well as working with Instagram. So we are going to have so many interesting things to talk about and I just can't wait to dive in.
Kar Brulhart 0:02:02
Me too. I'm so excited to chat with you.
Crystal Ware 0:02:04
Yeah, so tell us, because I think the most interesting thing to start with for everybody is that you were laid off from a job and that kind of really shifted gears for your life. So tell us, kind of give us a background of what you were doing before, how that influenced you and got you on the path to where you are today.
Kar Brulhart 0:02:25
Yeah, it was a crazy I call it my pandemic pivot. That led me to where I'm at today, which is social media consulting full time. I have now a multi six figure business and it's just been a complete roller coaster. So right before I was living in Brooklyn at the time. I'm in Mexico City now and this was two weeks before New York City shut down. I was nine months pregnant with my first child and two weeks before giving birth, I lost my job. I was at the time head of social media and partnerships for a startup and along with a lot of other businesses, they were forced to close down. And yeah, I found myself giving birth the day the city shut down and I had no job. It was like, honestly, as somebody that's quite ambitious, quite career focused and oriented, goal oriented, I was really at a complete loss of what I was going to do with my life. And I have to be honest and say that I actually thought that there was going to be a point that I would never work again. It was really rock bottom for a bit, but I decided to just throw myself into motherhood, which is something that I never thought I would do or say. I love being a mom, I've got two kids now, but it was never what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always wanted to have kids. I love families and children, but yeah, I didn't want to just be defined by being a mother. So I had been really fortunate.
Kar Brulhart 0:04:04
I had previous to this, I'd built up a bit of a rapport doing social media for the United Nations. I'd consulted for a few independent agencies in Berlin. That's where I lived before New York. And so through just my work on those campaigns and through my consulting, I started to get some word of mouth referrals. And so I was doing full blown social media management for people for like $500 a month, creating content, like all the strategy like crazy. And it was all just coming in organically through my Instagram account, a different Instagram account, a personal account. And so that kind of led me to think, okay, what if I started creating content around my knowledge and around the idea of helping people do this for themselves? And so around this time, Instagram had just launched Reels. So this is like early they launched Reels 2020. This is end of 2020 now. So around December 2020, I'm in Whistler. I'm from Vancouver, so I was in Whistler, BC. And we're snowboarding. And I start to discover Reels and I start to see people talking about how to grow on Instagram, how to build communities on Instagram. And I'm like, wait a second, I know how to do this.
Kar Brulhart 0:05:30
And I've got some great experiences working for the UN and building huge campaigns for companies like Google, even Facebook, Instagram. And so I'm going to start creating Reels. And that's how it started.
Crystal Ware 0:05:45
That is amazing. I've got to slow down and kind of back up a little bit because I'm really curious to know how you really felt about yourself after you had this great title, you were working at this great company and to get laid off. I mean, was it a total identity crisis that you ware having at the moment when that was occurring because I have three children. So I just know how stressful it is to be pregnant. I'm also a lawyer, so I remember how stressful it was like looking for a job when you have all the student loans. And I'm just imagining all of that going on when you've kind of wrapped up with like, this is who I am. This is the title that I have. This is the kind of work that I'm doing. And all of a sudden you're going through all of that but also becoming a mom, which is kind of a shift in identity too.
Kar Brulhart 0:06:36
Yeah. And I appreciate this question because no one ever asks this. And I think it's so important because it's so easy to talk about all the shiny, like, oh, now I do this. And it's been amazing. But it's like, no, it was pretty shitty getting there, right? And so I would actually even add a little bit more context to the story. When I was five months pregnant with my daughter, we already had rumblings in the company on the leadership team that things were not going well. So distributors were already feeling the effects of what was going to be a full blown pandemic. So we were actually told in advance, if you want to start looking for another role, go for it. And so I started interviewing at five months pregnant. And I wasn't quite showing I was, but I could still hide it. And it's so sad to say that you have to hide your pregnancy in corporate America, but I was in Manhattan and I was interviewing with know I had a dark I remember it because it wearing it must have been cold because I was wearing a dark blue cashmere sweater and dark so and under my pants I wore Lululemons. So I had like spanx on under my pants to hold the belly. And I interviewed at this company, I'm not going to name it and they gave me a job offer. And I told them before I signed, I called the guy that was going to be my manager because I was like, I don't want to go in and then be like, surprise, I'm having a baby in four months, right?
Kar Brulhart 0:08:06
So I was like, I'm accepting this offer, but I want to let you know that I am five months pregnant. And I had this whole plan and then they rescinded the job offer.
Crystal Ware 0:08:18
Oh, my gosh. Well, I have never talked about this before, but I also interviewed for a job while I was pregnant. And it was so crazy because I had my work bestie at my current company and I had actually taken the job and we went outside to talk to each other and she was also pregnant. We were six weeks apart and she was also taking another job. But I am shocked because I will tell you, I did the exact same thing. I was interviewing. I was not very far along, but I didn't tell them until I got the job offer because I felt that they would never rescind it. That there is some I'm not saying there's a legal protection around that, but I think a smart person could probably had you wanted to craft an argument towards sexism EEOC type claim if somebody did that. So I waited and they proceeded to allow me to go forward. It's a Fortune 500. I do think they probably had had somewhere along the lines I'm sure they've had some whether it's a meaningful rightful claim or not, they probably had had some kind but I am just shocked, honestly shocked that they rescinded it. Did you think about that or thinking about any legal action or were you just want to put it behind you?
Kar Brulhart 0:09:40
Oh no, I did. I even had a lawyer and we did send them a letter. We went to the EOC, but in the end, honestly, Crystal, they needed so much more evidence than I had. And I think in the end it was something like I didn't ever receive an official contract from them because it was all word of mouth, but I had like emails. So in the end it just kind of was, what do you call it? Like a dead fish out of water. I could have continued pushing or I could have just moved on with my life and I decided to just move forward.
Crystal Ware 0:10:12
But God works in mysterious waves. I mean, I'm sure that you see this and I just want to highlight this for people that are feeling upset or worried or something like this is going on, that you don't want to be there anyway. You want to be a mom and a person that would rescind a contract for somebody that's pregnant that just has a whole other can of worms right. That you just don't want to dodged a bullet. Exactly.
Kar Brulhart 0:10:39
Yeah. But it was just all of those things that happened made me feel very I don't want to say well, for lack of a better word, angry. There was a lot of fuel in me and especially because I was having a little girl, I was like, I have to show her what's possible and I have to show her that men are not going to dictate my success because everybody that had said no to me was a male up to that point. Yes, that was really important to me and it was also aided by the fact that my husband was working at Google at the time. He was in a leadership role, so he was earning really well and he's always been really supportive of all of my dreams and all of my goals. And so he was extremely supportive. And I think that that's also not spoken about is that the division of labor, traditional gender stereotypes or gender roles in the home, those things don't really apply in my world because I have a partner who is so advanced, for lack of a better word.
Crystal Ware 0:11:43
Let's just take a moment and literally clap for very supportive husbands, because I say the same thing. Like, even when I had a really big corporate salary, I mean, what I was making was a big salary, but it was still a pillow in comparison to what my husband did. And people are shocked when I tell them that my husband is the morning guy. He gets all three of our kids ready to go to school, and they have to be at school at 720. He gets them to school, feeds them, and then he does a lot of other things, including that he's the sports guy. He takes everybody to all their practices. I mean, he doesn't miss a game. So even though he has a really big job, a very stressful job, he also is very supportive. And I actually just texted him, where was he on Friday or Saturday? And I was just like, you know, I love my life. I thank you so much. Because a big part of that is you being supportive. So I love hearing that your husband is also supportive. And I'm sure they probably don't think we tell them enough, but I definitely am thankful.
Kar Brulhart 0:12:48
Yeah, it's a game changer, for sure.
Crystal Ware 0:12:50
Yeah. And on that, I don't know if you can share, want to talk about because, you guys, nothing is planned here. We're just having a conversation about how that role reversal is kind of like working out for you now.
Kar Brulhart 0:13:04
Yeah, it was really fascinating because Max went from a decade at Google to voluntarily leaving Google, and we moved to Lisbon to Portugal. So we had this great idea. We're like, you know what? New York's getting pretty expensive. I was pregnant again with my second, and we had just, like, bigger visions for our life outside of Brooklyn of our six block radius because we were not enjoying New York anymore with a kid. It was just getting really prohibitive. And so he took on a new role at a crypto company based in Portugal, and within less than a year, he got laid off. And it was the first time in his life I'd already been laid off twice that he had been laid off. And I think that first time, if you've ever been laid off, you know this feeling. It's like, really bad. It's a bad feeling. But I was shocked that he didn't internalize it. He didn't feel bad. I think he had, like, one day. And I always think he's like a freak of nature this way that he doesn't dwell on things, he just moves on.
Kar Brulhart 0:14:12
It's his German nature. But he was like, yeah, I'm really sad today. I really believed in this company, and I knew that I was going to bring it forward, but here I am. And then he decided that he was going to be the stay at home dad, and he's like, you know what? I think it makes so much sense for you to go all in. I'd already been all in for a year and a half, but it was like, no, let's go all in again with your business, and I'll support you even more so that you've got more hours if you want them to stay at home. And so he's been at home now for over a year with the kids, and he loves it, and the kids love it, and I love it. And, yeah, things are just like they work that way for us now, so we totally kind of reversed roles, but I feel like this was the role he was born to be in. He loves it.
Crystal Ware 0:15:06
Yeah. It's so funny because I tell my husband sometimes, now all three of our kids are in school, so it's a little different of a look and feel for somebody to be home because they're not here all day, but had when they were little. If somebody really needed to be the full time caregiver, it would have had to be my husband, too, because I'm always thinking, I need to do this, I need to do that. Sometimes I feel like I just need to accomplish things, and not that being a mom is not accomplishing something. Raising a child is definitely accomplishing something, but I needed something more, and it would have also been my husband. He's just so much more patient, and I don't know, I think he had already achieved so much in his life that he feels like everything else is just icing on the cake. So I love that for him, and I love that for you all. And it also made me think about something else I've been dwelling on a lot that having your family with you so much of the time, and tell me if you think the same thing. But for thousands of years, really, until, like, the families worked on farms together. They had family businesses, they were together. And I feel like that's something that I personally feel like I'm missing. So when your husband is there with you, even he may be caregiving and you may be working, but the ability to have a lunch, to have a coffee, to go for a walk, I mean, do you think that adds a lot to your life?
Kar Brulhart 0:16:40
Oh, my gosh, yes. I'm like, are we the same person? We think very similarly, yes. And that's actually the biggest reason we moved to Mexico City, because we've got family here. We haven't lived with family in close to eight years because I'm from Vancouver originally. He's from Berlin, Dusseldorf, and we never had family clothes. And so we are each other's family, but now we still have that, like, that luxury to go for breakfast. We always have breakfast together. We always get our little coffee and our tea together. We'll go for spontaneous lunches, and it's so fun. It almost feels like we're dating and that's so important I think for a know we're celebrating eight years together. Eight years years. Seven years married. So I think it's important. And Mexico, being in Mexico gives us that family element, that support system that we were missing.
Kar Brulhart 0:17:35
And I don't remember the last time I was this content.
Crystal Ware 0:17:41
Oh, I love just it's just so amazing. And my husband and I are both very routine so it's hard for us to kind of break out. But when we do that, I mean his office I pretty much work from home and his office is 1 mile from our house. So whenever we have coffee, sometimes I'll ride with him to drop off the kids and then we'll get coffee and we'll sit in the driveway and drink our coffee for half an hour and talk and it's just like extra special. And I think about that as I get older. The more and more is like what do I want to give to my kids? I want to give them that kind of life. The kind of life where you want to be together as much as possible and you're not running away from each other. Because I feel that's what we're missing in our society that we're just not supposed to be away from our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles and our cousins. We were all together for so many years and now we're not. And so that is the one thing. Yeah. And I know it's not possible and I don't say that to make anybody feel bad where it's not possible for other people. I mean, I have so many aunts and uncles and they are kind of scattered now. But when I was a child, I spent a lot of time with all of my extended family and it's just what drives me.
Kar Brulhart 0:18:58
What's your background, Crystal? What's your ethnicity or family origin?
Crystal Ware 0:19:03
We are all just American and crazy enough. Ware East Texas, which is like along the Louisiana border from two different small towns. My dad's family is from one and my mom's family is from another. And then we lived in a suburb of Houston where my grandparents just happened to live in neighborhoods 1 mile away from each other and then they were 5 miles from us. So we were just all here.
Kar Brulhart 0:19:32
That's where you get that family important value. That's so fascinating. I thought you were going to say Italian or something.
Crystal Ware 0:19:40
I know. Sometimes I feel like that because we've always had a big close family. I mean, we had like 30 people at Christmas every year and that's all I've ever thought about. Yeah, that's amazing.
Kar Brulhart 0:19:51
We did the same with our Mexican side of the family. My dad's Swiss but they are a lot more nuclear. Like they stay within their immediate circle where the Mexicans everyone all the time.
Crystal Ware 0:20:04
Yes. And I love that. Well, our nanny who is basically our extra grandma, she lives 3 miles away and has her own bedroom at my house. Also, she's Colombian and she has 13 siblings. And she was like, that's really crystal. What I like more about being in America, if your family comes to visit, you don't have to host them in Colombia. They will be like, I am coming, and I am staying with you, and I might be here for a month. And I said, that sounds kind of awesome, though. And she was like, oh, until they're there for a month.
Kar Brulhart 0:20:36
So true.
Crystal Ware 0:20:37
Which is good and bad, but I really love just having people around. All I can think about is one day if I have 20 grandchildren, I would just love it. They can be all around.
Kar Brulhart 0:20:50
I see why you have three children.
Crystal Ware 0:20:51
Yes, and I would have had more, but my husband was rightful in saying, you're going to lose your mind because I'm a little too OCD, a little too clean and organized. Kids don't care about that. I just want to pause and say thank you to all the amazing people tuning in and making this show a success. And to share some exciting scoop. I am opening up for the first time ever, one on one coaching. We have two options available the Executive Edge two week program and the Career Catalyst six week program, which will use my proprietary Earn It framework. If you're ready to propel your professional journey, crush your salary goals, or need someone to coach you through a big career decision, let's conquer it together. Limited spots for Unlimited Empowerment links to sign up will be in the show notes and in the link tree on my Instagram and LinkedIn site. See you there. So all of that to say you're leading this amazing life that you love, that everything has come together for a reason for you. So you had this kind of bad experience and you turned it into something so, so positive. So how did you go from really starting your own business, from thinking outside of the box to getting to be an Instagram ambassador? How did you line up or kind of open your mind to the possibilities and let these come into you?
Kar Brulhart 0:22:26
Honestly, it was through seeing other women doing it and talking about it. And I didn't even know this whole world existed before I entered it. And this will be my third year of business on my own, but it was just through immersing myself in it and then seeing what was possible. And I would say adapting and pivoting quickly. I wasn't letting myself be scared. I remember I launched my first course, which went on to make me six figures without even really knowing how to launch a course. I was literally googling how to film yourself in a PowerPoint. I was piecing it all together as I went, but becoming friends with people that had done it or had been in this entrepreneur world for a while, like one of my really good friends now, Patrice Poultzer, she's a master at storytelling and helping people craft their stories. And she was one of my first mentors, I would say, who was like, film it. She's like, don't even film it. She's like, sell it and then film it. And I was like, oh my God. What do you mean sell it before it's ready? It was like a lot of it was just like being really nervous, let's say, but going for it anyway and trusting that it was going to work out. And trusting that if you ask yourself, have you ever failed at something?
Kar Brulhart 0:23:56
Like really failed at it hard on purpose, or even something you put your mind to and then it doesn't yield a result that you wanted, it's pretty ware that that happens. That you let something be an absolute flop. Right? And so that was really something that pushed me forward and continues to push me forward. I'm like, I will never let something be mediocre. That's just not me. And so that's been really helpful, just knowing myself and the standards that I operate at getting to. How did I start working with Instagram? Honestly, I still am shocked by that. I'm still really surprised, out of all the creators out there, that they handpick me in my lowest engagement ever. This is the year that I've seen the lowest engagement on Instagram in terms of likes and views and things. And they still came to me and asked me to be part of this creator class. And so that, I think, to be honest, has just been through repetitiveness, like doing it day in and day out and not treating it like a hobby. It's not a hobby. It's a full time job.
Kar Brulhart 0:25:06
I'm the breadwinner of the family. Right. And in treating it like as if I was reporting to somebody said, I report to myself.
Crystal Ware 0:25:18
Yeah, but still keeping it like there is some boundaries that have to occur there. Right. It is a business. You do have to have some dedication, some discipline around what you're doing. And so when we think about people just living the life and I'm sure you have a lot to say about this, I'm sure you've seen it. How do I make a million dollars by working 1 hour a day? I mean, good for you if you have so many products that are selling and you've set up funnels or whatever. I do believe it's possible. But to think that that is going to occur for the vast majority of people is crazy. So if you want to do something different, if you want to be a small business owner, whether it's owning a Laundromat or being your own law firm or being a content creator, there is consistent work to be done.
Kar Brulhart 0:26:10
Yeah.
Crystal Ware 0:26:11
It just is what it is.
Kar Brulhart 0:26:13
Yeah. And nothing is truly passive. Nothing. No. Even if it means you're just paying payroll, there is nothing that's not going to require work.
Crystal Ware 0:26:24
Yeah, absolutely.
Kar Brulhart 0:26:26
Well, I think you made a really good point in saying that there's so many, apparently so many people that are selling this quick win dream life, like multi six figure months. And it's something I've been actually talking about a lot in my content this year. And I'm so excited to see other creators now are doing the same. Like they're following suit. And it's so important for people to realize that none of this happens overnight. It took me three years. Instagram reached out to me my first year to do one reel for them to announce their bonus program. And even then I was like, how did I get on their radar? But then it took two years after that, I didn't hear from them for two years. And then two years later they came back to me. And now they come back to me all the time and I'm like, whoa, there was a point there where I thought I was off their radar. They've moved on. Right. But in terms of also earnings, it's not going to happen that you make fifty K, one hundred K months, your first year of business or your first three months of business, or by selling a $24 product the way you've been trained to believe is possible. Is it possible?
Kar Brulhart 0:27:42
Yes, it's 100% possible. But the chances of it happening for you are very slim to none. Those crazy examples that you're seeing, those crazy stories of people going viral or whatever, hitting six figures in seven days off of their free product, whatever, right? It's like crazy. Those are outliers. And I talk about this a lot because I don't believe in selling false dreams. I don't believe in fake program promises or making claims that I can't verify or show proof of result with. And that is just like such a problem in the social media industry right now.
Crystal Ware 0:28:30
Yeah, I totally agree. That did remind me of the one thing I wanted to ask about with your original course and how did you transition or how did you find the process of really selling? Like saying, hey, guys, I have a product. It is for sale. And not being worried about what other people would think, because I think that holds a lot of people up that have been in corporate or behind the scenes or doing something different where you haven't had to really be out there like, this is what I'm doing. I need people to buy it from me. How was that?
Kar Brulhart 0:29:04
Yeah, so number one, start a new account. Do not use your personal account. Yeah, because then you're just going to be like, oh gosh, like Sarah's Looking or Paul, my old manager's on know. And that's like, you don't need that, you don't need that energy. But yeah, so start a new account. And for me, I just talked about it. I talked about it often. I opened the doors for way too long. It was open for like, I think three or four weeks. And so every day I was talking about it, which was great practice. There's a reason I sold so much, but don't recommend that long of a cart open. The energy to do that is exhausting. And I think at the time I didn't rely on my emails. I only did, I think, ten emails in eight days, whereas now I would have been talking about that daily in the emails and I probably would have made like three times what I'd made just by doing Instagram. But I think it's just like, knowing that you have something that's going to help somebody is agency enough for me.
Kar Brulhart 0:30:17
And how do you get around the fact that your peers are watching or that other people who are also selling something similar and maybe have more experience than you are watching? And all of this happened to me. I have some of the biggest accounts out there follow me and they watch my stories. They never engage. They're just watching. And there was this one woman who I will not name, who would actually get into my DMs and she would be like, this isn't true, or this isn't accurate. Something I would say about instagram strategy. And I was so insecure my first year that I would apologize to her and I'd be like, oh, I'm so sorry. I thought that this was the thing, whatever. And she continued to drop into my DMs up until late last year when I finally just stood up to her and I said, listen, these are things based off of my experience and these are proven strategies that work. And I said, I don't need you to validate my experience or what I know to be true. And she went away after that, but it's hard. And I would get like, crippling anxiety crystal, like I would say something or have a perspective that was different from what all the other coaches are saying out there. And now everyone says what I say, and I'm just like, yeah, because you saw that I said it. I'm sorry, but that's how it works.
Kar Brulhart 0:31:47
But I don't feel anxiety anymore. I just say it. I know it, I stand by it, and I know that what I teach brings results. So that's empowering.
Crystal Ware 0:31:58
Yeah. Well, it's interesting that we're talking about this in the moment because I was just dwelling over this guy that came back and he kind of had a weird comment on one of my LinkedIn posts a week or so ago. And then he came back and posted again and I was like, who is this guy? And I was just trying to debate with myself. I wasn't going to give it too much energy, but just debating, should I block him? What is going on? Because basically he was like, people, you don't need to pay a coach for anything. Hey, I feel like and I said this, I have mentored so many young women. I am mentoring several right now for free, and I put out a lot of content.
Kar Brulhart 0:32:41
Okay.
Crystal Ware 0:32:41
So the fact that I'm going to launch a course and I'm going to pay for it and I do take limited because I still have a regular job, too. Limited coaching. I was just like, why is this guy even taking the time to say this? Why is he coming onto my post? I'm not like, full throttle selling people like, hey, buy for me, buy for me, buy for me, buy for me. This is the only way. This is all but it was just so weird, and I figured I've got to have a strategy for dealing with this because the more you interact with people, the more you talk to people, I think the more of these people are going to come out of the woodworks.
Kar Brulhart 0:33:16
Oh, yeah. And the more you put yourself out there, people think it's an open invitation, and they forget that there's a human behind it.
Crystal Ware 0:33:25
Yeah.
Kar Brulhart 0:33:26
I think the way I sometimes think about it is like, wow, I triggered some kind of pain in this person. I triggered this person so much about their own shortcomings or misgivings or insecurities that they felt the need to bring me down and tear me down. And then all of a sudden, you reframe it and you start to feel bad for that person, and you start to have more compassion for them. And I feel like that anxiety and that anger and that quick to trigger response just kind of dissipates, and that's helped me a ton.
Crystal Ware 0:34:05
Yeah, absolutely. Well, on Instagram, I know that on your account you grew it totally organically. Are you against Instagram ads, or do you just feel like it's not right for most people?
Kar Brulhart 0:34:20
Oh, I love that question. Honestly, I'm not against ads at all. I'm probably going to have to start doing ads next year if I want to scale to whatever next figure amount. I'm like, whatever. At what point is it enough? No, it's enough. But I don't talk about Instagram ads or Coach ads because it's not my expertise. The last time I ran ads, I was working for Share the Meal at the United Nations, and that was in 2015. So my experience running ads is very limited. It's not new. Although ads have not changed very much, I do have an understanding of how they function in campaigns and goals. But I think for the average person, they get ads wrong, and that's partially because of Instagram and how easy they make it seem to boost a post inside of Instagram, for example, right? You click a little button, boost that post for $5. Seems really inexpensive to get an extra 3000 pair of eyeballs on your page. I'm like, that sounds like a great deal.
Kar Brulhart 0:35:22
Why wouldn't you do that? But the problem with that is that it becomes a bit of like a vicious circle where you start to pay for impressions that you probably don't deserve. Organically your content, especially beginning and in the beginning, when you're starting out an account in the first couple of years, believe it or not, your message is probably not clear yet. Your offer is probably not clear yet. So I think it's a bit of a waste of time. If you're just boosting post without a campaign objective, without an overarching strategy about where are you going to funnel people along their customer journey, right?
Crystal Ware 0:36:00
Like, they're going to land on your.
Kar Brulhart 0:36:01
Page, and then what happens? And let's say you've got a lead magnet or an email that they go and subscribe to. Then what? Then what, right? And so that's where I feel like a lot of people hit dead ends with ads, is that they assume that the ad is going to fix all of their problems and be the solution to a decline in engagement, a decline in reach, and a decline in sales. And they're a Band Aid in essence, I don't think, or they're an amplification. And so they will only serve, I think, to amplify your problem because you're going to spend more money and you're not going to know why people are not converting.
Crystal Ware 0:36:42
That's so fascinating. I love that. I think that's good information for people that hear again, back to the whole overarching theme of it's not that easy to make a million dollars a year. You're not going to just set up a few posts, have some ad strategy, and boom, it's going to run through. It's going to take trial and error, take time. And to your point about the messaging, I completely agree. I started out with this idea of this is what I care about, this is what I want to talk about. But how did that come out? And I feel like I'm probably only at 75% on where my message and where I think it needs to go and really being honed in. And it's come a long way in the last I guess it's been like really twelve to 14 months since I've really been working on these things. So I could not agree more. It's kind of like what I tell people about when you build or buy a house or whatever, don't go out and fully furnish the house the first two months because you need to feel the house. What is the house saying to you? What does the house need? What does it want?
Crystal Ware 0:37:43
What do you want it to look like? You really don't know until you live there a little bit. And I would say that's absolutely true on messaging as well. I know that we are going to run out of time and I could keep talking forever. So maybe we need to have you back in the new year, do another one. But I wanted to ask two final things. One, what are your top three tips for somebody who's starting a new business, Instagram.
Kar Brulhart 0:38:11
I think one is like, understand and this is what I told someone yesterday. What is he? I don't know how to call him. He does conferences. He's a professional speaker.
Crystal Ware 0:38:23
Oh, yes.
Kar Brulhart 0:38:24
And so he's never done Instagram, and we're going to do a trade, actually. He's going to teach me to become a better speaker, and I'm going to teach him how to use Instagram to get more speaking engagements. But what I told him right off the bat is I said, this is not going to be you post for 30 days or you post for three weeks, and then you have this huge following that's ready to buy from you. And they love you and they're always going to be around. I was like, this is a long game, and you're going to have to carve out time in your week to dedicate to this platform if you want it to become a lead generator and a conversion channel. And he was like, Absolutely right. So that's the first thing. It's like, do not buy into all of the hype around. It's so easy to go viral. It's so easy to gain 50,000 followers in a year. It's so easy to make six figures in a month. It is not like you said, none of this is easy. Add it to your to do list every single day because that's what it's going to be. The second thing I would say is if you don't possess all of the skills and all of the knowledge, don't be afraid to invest. Do your homework.
Kar Brulhart 0:39:36
Of course. Take a look. Is there a clear program promise? Does the price correspond to the transformation that's being offered? Take a look. Do your due diligence about that creator or that coach, right? Go and take a look on LinkedIn. Google them. Do they actually possess this skill set that they are selling to you? Or did they only do it for themselves? That's really important. But don't be afraid to invest. And that doesn't mean $20,000. It means like $400 here, $200 here, and level up, level up, level up. And then I think number three is don't give up when it stops working, because it will stop working at some point.
Kar Brulhart 0:40:22
It always does. And you have to just pivot. You've got to understand, how can you take a look at your content, reevaluate it, come up with a different angle, a different idea, a different series. Because think about your own consumer habits, your own viewing habits. We're constantly looking to be entertained or educated or to learn in a new way. So the same way your audience will be thinking. And you need to be able to pivot, not take things personally, and just keep going.
Crystal Ware 0:40:56
I love it. Those are great three actionable tips. One, it takes work. It's a job. You're going to have to invest time. Two, don't be afraid to invest some money if you want to treat it like a business. Most businesses you have to invest in. And three, don't give up when it starts working. And I really love that because I talk about all the time the power of the Pivot. The power of the pivot. If something is not serving you, if you are not reaching your happiness, your fulfillment, your joy, pivot. It's never too late, you're never too old. There's always something new, amazing to learn and do. So pivot. Pivot pivot.
Crystal Ware 0:41:32
So I love that. That's awesome. The last thing I wanted to ask you, just a really quick, what is your 32nd, 45, 2nd, whatever, take on sharing your children on social media to build a following? I'm just curious. I have mixed feelings. I have mixed feelings. I have so far not done that. I have a private social media page where I share with my family and friends, but I have not and I'm just curious, but I have other friends that I have two people I know pretty well who are influencers with 60,000 followers, and it's a lifestyle brand, and they show their kids. So if they're listening, don't judge me. I'm just curious.
Kar Brulhart 0:42:15
Yes. I don't judge anybody that posts their children. I think it's a deeply personal choice and one that everyone should be able to decide on. That being said, my own personal opinion is I do not share my children on my public account. When I do post them, I cover their faces with stickers or I do like their backs. And that is primarily because I have extensive knowledge into the dark web, so to speak. Yeah, my husband used to work for Google, and I worked for the UN primarily helping children. So we were briefed on a lot of things. So I don't post my children. There's a lot of bad actors out there. There's a lot of child pornography and terrible, terrible things. And so that's number one, why I don't do it. Even like when people post their kids in the bath, I'm like, don't do that.
Crystal Ware 0:43:22
Oh my gosh. Even in my private, when I see people do just I think at one point, my husband was like, stop saying it. Please stop saying it, Crystal. I know how you feel about it. And I'm like, I know, but I can't believe they would do this. I just am very sensitive to it's. And the reason I'm asking now is because I happened to be looking yesterday at a cute little photo of one of my children, and I was like, gosh, I kind of want to share this because I just love them. I want people to see how amazing they are. But then I just said, I just feel like it's not worth it. And it doesn't really go with my brand anyway.
Kar Brulhart 0:43:55
Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing is, we're living in a time, I think it's the first time where our children will grow up with this digital footprint that we right. Like, we first started posting on Facebook when we were in college, probably, and we were able to make poor decisions, but decisions about what we posted and if we wanted to be tagged in a picture. And so I think that that would be devastating to me if I was creating this massive digital footprint that was public of my children's lives. And then they hit a stage where they were like, WTF, get rid of this. And then you can't like you can to an extent, but don't forget that everything you post on Instagram, whether it's private or not, meta owns. Yeah, that's pretty intense.
Crystal Ware 0:44:59
Well, that again, everybody. It's not to judge. It's not to saying whatever way you want to do. I listen. I love blogs. I had a blog before I was even married, and some of the people that, oh, my gosh, one of the girls that I followed, that I interacted with regularly has 500,000 followers on Instagram. I just happened to find her again and I was like, Holy shit, maybe I should have been staying on that train a long time ago. But I love seeing other people's kids. I love lifestyle blogs. So I am not judging, I am not hating. I was just curious of another opinion, because I kind of go back and forth for me personally, but I think this has been such a brilliant conversation. Car, I have loved talking to you today. Thank you for bringing all your expertise, all your charisma to the audience for Get Clear. Besides helping people figure out how to digitize and market themselves, do you have anything else that you want to share or anything that's coming up?
Kar Brulhart 0:46:00
I will be hosting a live workshop at the end of November called Fast Forward Insta. And it's my live training, step by step, how I'm using AI to 100 X, my content creation. And I say that laughing because it's just blown my mind how quickly I'm able to create content these days. And if you're keen on learning more about growing your following and making more sales in 90 days, you can take a look at my social department. It's my group coaching program, and that will be opening again in 2024. And, yeah, if you are listening to this and you liked it, please send me a DM and say hi, I'd love to hear that you came from here.
Crystal Ware 0:46:45
So that's great. I have loved this. Everybody. Remember, part of what we're doing here is bringing new ideas, new ways of living, loving, building a career that works for you, works for your family. If you are feeling unstable or unsatisfied in some area, that means you are meant for more there. So don't give up. Don't despair. Know that you can stay open, that things are going to come to you, that life has a way of giving back to those who are open and want to work for it. And I know you're made for more and you know you're made for more. So don't settle. Life is out there. Happiness is out there. Find it, make it your own. Whether it's doing what you're doing today in a better way or doing something totally different, these are why we have guests of all different shapes, sizes, what opportunities. So until next time, keep getting clear.
Crystal Ware 0:47:38
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you want to create a career you love, get the salary you deserve and build the confidence to live life on your own terms. Sign up for my free newsletter where you'll get actionable tips to raise your worth, build your wealth, create freedom and create a life you absolutely love. Head over to crystalworldmedia.com to sign up or click the link in the show notes and join thousands of others making their dreams a reality. Whether you are just embarking on the journey or well on your way, the worthful newsletter has something for you. See you next week.