Ep. 040 Why You Should Be Authentic With Catherine Gladwyn Cracking Content Podcast

Welcome to the Cracking Content Podcast, helping entrepreneurs to amplify their expertise through storytelling, content, and PR so they can get more sales and make a bigger impact. Every business has a story to tell. Don't be afraid to tell it.
In this episode, we've got the amazing Catherine Gladwyn, who is a bestselling author and business mentor. We love to talk to solopreneurs and people who've got bigger teams about how content has made a difference to their business.
{1:51} Claire Winter: Can you tell us which bits of content you like creating and what's made the biggest difference in your business Catherine?
{1:57} Catherine Gladwin: The kind of content I like creating is honest and fun. So I've always been very authentic. I think that's a word that I've brought into my life a little bit more since I started my business, but I am just me online. If anybody follows me, if anybody looks at my posts, they'll know that I speak exactly as I write. 
{2:24} Catherine Gladwin: I'm very upfront about things. I'm going through some health issues at the moment, and I've been sharing that online, and that's always worked. That's worked for me. That's enabled me, importantly, to attract the people that I'm going to get on best with because there's no airs and graces. They know exactly what they're getting into if they want to work with me. 
{2:58} Catherine Gladwin: I also blog. I do blog quite regularly. It's mostly giving advice to help people in their business. And I've got to say, I'm really surprised that I do it regularly, but they're never very long, and I don't sit there thinking about them. They were actually massively important to enable me to write my books because I used a lot of the content from my blogs in my books. Repurposing.
{5:17} Catherine Gladwin: Social media should never be relied on as the only form of marketing.
{6:03} Catherine Gladwin: I started to write my first book, which is quite niche, it's how to be a virtual assistant, I started to write it and I planned out all the chapters and I thought, "Actually, I'm kind of talking about things that I've covered a little bit already in my blog." So I went through my blogs and pulled the content out. 
{7:35} Catherine Gladwin: The second book is the 20% rule. I came up with the 20% rule. No one client should take up more than 20% of your time or your income because then if you lose them, it doesn't matter. The whole book covers how to ensure your business is sustainable and safe and more importantly profitable as well.
{12:55} Claire Winter: What content do you like consuming?
{13:00} Catherine Gladwin: I go for authenticity. I like to read things. I enjoy reading posts from people that make me laugh. That add humor to their stuff, don't take things too seriously, don't talk in corporate speak. That's not really for me. I've never enjoyed that. Even when I was in the corporate world I never enjoyed that. And people that resonate with me. 
{14:36} Claire Winter: The other thing that you've had a lot of success with is sharing your story. Your personal story, but also your business story, with the media. How have you found doing that?
{14:48} Catherine Gladwin: Well, the first time I did it, I think my first story was about my health, I get pituitary tumors and I've got Addison's disease, so I talk about that to raise awareness because they're both rare diseases. The first story I did was in The Daily Mail and I was so scared because we all know what The Daily Mail is like. And I was convinced that I'd have paparazzi on the front door and they'd find out about that penny chew that I nicked when I was nine years old. And there was a slight incident with somebody's number plate once and I thought they're going to unearth everything, but of course they're just not interested.
 
{16:00} Catherine Gladwin: I've got another piece coming out in The Guardian shortly as well. And the way I get them is just by asking. So a little bit of tenacity. I fol