Marketing as Leadership with Milana Leshinsky: Show Up and Stand Out | 002

Today, on Leading with Purpose. I'm honored to welcome a true innovator and trailblazer in the coaching and marketing world, Milana Leshinsky. Milana is the creator of the original tele summit, the author of coaching millions and simplicity entrepreneurship, and the founder of coaching Genie, a platform revolutionizing how coaches scale their business in our newest soulful leadership anthology, elevating purpose and empowering change, Milana shares her wisdom in a chapter titled, marketing is leadership unleashing the power of your voice. I'm really excited to dive into that. This is the first time that Milana is actually revealing her secrets to the innovation that have kept her at the top of her niche for over 20 years. Today, we're diving into her journey the power of simplicity in business and how marketing is at its very core, an active leadership Hello, Milana, welcome.

Hey, Mark, so good to be here.

We were just having a little pre chat, and I think it's important for listeners to know what a huge inspiration you have been a role model in my life. A lot of what I'm doing is really based on the foundation of stuff that I've learned from you. So it's a great honor to have you here talking about marketing and leadership with

me. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. So proud of everything you're doing, and very excited to play, to have played a role in it. So thank you for letting me know about that.

Absolutely. And I love watching the evolution. And again, when we met, you were already, you know, at the top of the field, but you continue to evolve, and part of that is around the idea of simplicity, and we'll talk about that. But this idea of marketing is leadership. Can you share what this means and why it'll be such a game changer for entrepreneurs and coaches?

The idea of marketing is is a form of leadership. Came to me as I was starting to work with my clients a little closer and watching them shrink a little bit when they realized that they needed to market themselves, because it takes courage. It takes confidence. And if you think about what marketing is all about, and then you compare what leaders are doing or should be doing. There's a lot of overlap. For example, leaders need to inspire people, so do marketers. Otherwise, people won't buy and won't come to into your funnel or into your world, right? So both leaders and marketers need to inspire others. Leaders need to take a stand and have a mission, and so do marketers, because how do you market without knowing what you're saying, what you stand for? One of the big ones is leaders. People look at leaders when they are in critical situations, sort of have a problem or a challenge, and they look to leaders to give them hope. Well, guess what? Marketers are supposed to be doing? Both are giving hope to their audience. Otherwise people will not be inspired to join them, right? So there's a lot of overlap in there, and if you can unlock yourself as a leader and have a leadership approach to your business, you are automatically going to become a better marketer, and actually vice versa. You know, I would never consider myself a leader. I am marketing my business, but people have told me that I've inspired them to do certain things, or I have, you know, like you were saying, you know, played a role in your evolution and your growth as well. So it's really interesting for me to see how I didn't know anything about marketing, but really wanted to share and advocate for my audience, and that turned me kind of like a into put me into a leadership position in our space, a little bit because of the things that I was doing from the marketing perspective. So, and I think it's a really worthy cause, is to become a leader in your niche through great marketing, and you can do that absolutely

well. I love the conversation around marketing and leadership. I also love marketing and innovation, because that was a big piece of what you've brought into the industry is innovation, and it's just now that you're realizing that that's a piece of your secret sauce, and you're going to start teaching people how to bring out their innovation. First started for you. I guess you probably were doing it way before that, but you're most known for originally creating the tele Summit. That was a wonderful innovative idea. Now you have coaching. Teeny tell us a little bit about that, about marketing and innovation, because you got some other cool things too. They're very innovative. I'm always

creating something new. I noticed that I approach business and marketing a little differently than a lot of people, especially in the coaching space. There's, you know, certain marketing foundational things that you're supposed to be doing, right? You're supposed to, you know, have a message, have an offer, put yourself in front of people, and, you know, gain a lot of visibility. And everybody's trying to do that, but only few succeed. And I really think it's because the mechanics of marketing is not enough to be successful, you really need to do something different, do something better, do something that stands out. So to me, innovation, you know, innovation for the sake of innovation, is fun, but it doesn't take you anywhere. So you want to apply innovation towards solving a problem in a different or better way that is easier, faster, more creative, more niche, more specific. You know, you have to do things in a way that nobody else is doing, and it doesn't mean that you have to invent things. I think it was Steve Jobs who said that not everybody can invent, but anybody can innovate, and innovation is simply an improvement on an existing solution. So to me, innovation is a way to stand out and as somebody who creates things and enjoys creating things, I kind of naturally have always approached my businesses like, Well, no, this is our this is already being done in this way, and I need to do something different. I need to do it in a different way, right? And so asking yourself, How can I do things differently. What is my audience hearing that other experts are saying? And how can I say things differently? Or what can I put together like, you know, I have this program coming up. We're going to have an innovation think tank right within the program. And one of the questions I'm going to be asking you, why should your business exist? And that's a tough question. It can also be very triggering for people. Well, what do you mean by my business? Why should my business exist? You know, because I'm a great coach, I'm a great expert. Well, that's not enough anymore. There's a lot of amazing coaches who are struggling. My own coach, I was looking for her a few months ago, because she was so good. For years, I've hired her, and she disappeared and no longer in business. And she was such a great coach, I had to dug out her personal contact information. So she finally responded to me, and she said she no longer has a business. She didn't enjoy marketing, and now she does corporate consulting, and you know, she was kind enough to give me a coaching session because I desperately wanted to have her input on something. But that is what happens an amazing coach no longer in business because she didn't figure out how to do marketing in a way that fits her personality, her skill set, and so on.

That's really important, again, that it fits. Because when you say innovative, new ways of marketing, some people might just think of like, what's the new marketing trend right now? They might be thinking about clubhouse. That was innovative, one idea, you know, and

the trend is it still alive. Are people still doing club though? I'm

sure it's still there, but I haven't heard anybody mention it in a long time. But you like, you don't just get out of the box, like you throw the box away. You've got something really creative in marketing with, like, this deck and that, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that as one of just kind of the ideas that people can think about outside of the box of marketing. It's not,

And so people who might not be familiar with EFT, that's the first thing, is you take this current belief that you have for

emotion and reframe it, right? Yes, or emotion. That's why some of the some of the cards have the word fear on them, like fear of being vulnerable, because you have to share your story. You have to be able to be a little, you know, vulnerable as part of marketing. Well, that's an emotion, fear. What are the reframes for those two cards that you just shared? Yeah, so, marketing is a necessary evil. The reframe is, actually, marketing is a method of self expression. I don't know if you can Oh, yeah, yeah. Marketing is a method of self expression. And then it goes on to really share. By approaching marketing as a creative expression, I can enjoy the process and make it an integral part of my business, and it's an opportunity to share your passion and so on. And for this one, fear of being vulnerable, the reframe is my vulnerability will draw my ideal clients to me. So it it's a little bit of a paradigm shift for people that I am terrified of sharing my story. I mean, it makes me feel so vulnerable. But, oh, wait, are you saying? It's going to draw my ideal clients to me who really connect to me on a heart level. Yay. I can do this. So these are the things I was saying to people in my tapping sessions, in the EFT with EFT clients, and I connected the dots, and it became an innovative card deck, an innovative product. And I remember scratching my head and thinking, why doesn't this already exist? And I really think it's because I was the person that was supposed to create it because of my marketing experience and EFT experience together connecting the dots. So what are the dots that you can connect in your coaching business, or, you know, service business that will allow you to come up with something really innovative? Because when you create something innovative, other people follow you, potential clients, partners, visibility, opportunities. Everybody wants to you know, be part of what you're doing. I

love this connecting the dots piece you were talking about your innovation, and part of your innovation is actually around simplicity. And part of that was your very cool, unique tool. That's another good example about using innovation. Do you want to share a little bit about coaching genie and how that fits into marketing?

So to me, simplicity is a way, not only just to simplify your life or your business, but it's alignment. Because as I was talking about simplicity, Somebody contacted me and said, Moana, what are you talking about? Tell a summer a virtual summit that's not simple, running online challenges that's not simple, running group coaching programs and launches that's not simple. Well, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's simple because it makes sense to me and it leverages my skill set, my experience, my passions to teach and to run events and to build tools and and products, right? But to somebody else, networking might be very simple. Well, I find it incredibly complex and uncomfortable. We talked about that mark, right? So simplicity is really it really stems from alignment. And for me, building awesome tools that simplify your business, and especially your coaching business, that was really important to me because, you know, I personally have run coaching programs for 20 years. In my third year of business, I discovered that I really love group coaching because it leverages my passion for teaching. You know, used to be a music teacher just the idea of being in front of a group of people and facilitating conversations and learnings, that was really exciting for me, but there was no platform to run group coaching programs, and so I had to piecemeal everything like I would take all these course builders and Google Docs and Spreadsheets and just a lot of different tools, and I would create a Frankenstein for my clients to use a program, and it was incredibly logistically challenging for everybody to participate in the program. So coaching Genie is that platform that I created that brought all those pieces together. So there's now only one client portal for everybody who is in the group program, and there's one coach portal for you to run your programs from. And so that's what coaching gene is all about. And the connection between coaching and marketing, to me is that when you have your program set up in a way that feels good, and you have that peace of mind that it's ready to go. You also you're also going to market it with more confidence and inspiration, and you're so inspired about your programs, ready, waiting for people to join. So that makes your job in terms of marketing and enrolling people much easier. So that's what it's done for me, and, you know, for hundreds of other users that are using coaching Genie. So I'm super excited about that platform as well. And if you are running coaching programs, definitely check it out. It's funny,

because that brings me full circle right back to the cards and that idea about vulnerability, because that's one of the challenges. Like people are saying, Who am I to do this or getting out and being seen? For you, it was the same thing you had be seen. And for somebody who might be thinking about that, how do you address that visibility piece? Because I love the idea that having that confidence makes you more bold and more courageous. But for those people who think like who am I to have this idea and get it out there? What do you recommend for somebody to step into their

secret theory? Mark, I don't know if I shared that with you before. My theory is that if you become a better marketer, if that is your goal, if that is something that you set yourself, you know, put put in front of yourself and say, This is what I would love to do. By becoming a better marketer, we will actually heal some of your traumas that you've experienced as a child, as a young adult that's sitting deeply inside of you, the fear of criticism, fear of being pushy. I have all these cards in front of me, having to be perfect. You know that that perfectionism or you won't get it out there, because when you are marketing a product, you're marketing a product, you're you're detached from it, right? You know, if you're marketing face lotion or, you know, makeup line or T shirts or whatever, you're just marketing a product when you're marketing your programs or your coaching services. Now you. Marketing yourself, and that triggers a lot of our past, trauma, insecurities. And you know, I speak about that from my experience with EFT as well, because a lot of people have shared with me like, wow, I I really feel like people will laugh with me, even my family will laugh with me for these ideas, right? So I have a card. I think it's called fear of having an opinion, or fear of criticism, something like that. And having an opinion in business is really important. Otherwise everybody will be marketing. The same message, the same thing, right? So getting comfortable with marketing, to me, is the same as starting to heal some of your insecurities that were caused by traumas. Because look at who is successful at marketing. They are the people who are very confident, very grounded. They know who they are. They know their value. They appreciate themselves. They have a lot of self love, and they know their value, right? And those people who are struggling with marketing, they're typically a little insecure with themselves, you know? And I, I'm not excluding myself from this equation. There's a very good reason why I created this card deck. Is because, you know, I was bullied as a child. I was excluded a lot, and so some of these are, you know, definitely trigger me. So a lot of them are also based on what I've experienced for myself and with my clients. As soon as you feel that you are secure and confident, you can put your ideas out there, and you can, you can immediately spot a confident marketer. And when I say marketer, I mean a coach, a consultant, a speaker, an author, we are all marketers, or at least we should be. Otherwise, marketing is not optional. I think some people think marketing is optional, actually is not if you think marketing is optional, you might want to go get a job. You don't have to market there. You're just going to be giving your client, right? I can talk on and on about it. So just right now,

Milana, this was so, so rich, like this is, I think, some of the best marketing advice and some of the best spiritual advice mixed together that I've heard. And I think I've heard you mention it before, and I talk all the time about how I believe entrepreneurship is one of the three great paths for personal growth, along with parenting and being in a relationship, but the idea of marketing as a path for healing, I got goosebumps when you were saying that and when you were giving these examples. I can just totally see that, like when you step into marketing, and how all of those little hurt, injured parts of you show up and be able to address those so not only is marketing important to make your business thrive, so that you can make the impact that you want to make, yeah, but who you become in the process. And I'm all about, like, it's not just the destination, it's who we're being in the process. So this has been absolutely delicious. You talked before about the why right at the beginning and how that plays into it. So I'm curious, like the title of this podcast is leading with purpose. What is leading with purpose mean to you? Well,

you can't lead without a purpose. I'm going to start by saying that because leading means advocating for something or for someone, and really wanting others to succeed, to do better, to to heal, to change in meaningful ways for them. So having a purpose as a leader and leading your business, leading in your business and in your niche, in your industry, to me, means having a path. You are on a very clear path. You know what you need to talk about, you know who you need to reach, and you also know who you don't, whose opinions you don't care about, because that is really important in in marketing, is not caring about everybody else's opinions, except for those of your ideal audience, right? Because they're the only ones who will resonate with you, who will connect with you, who will ultimately buy from you. So I think it's your path leading the purpose and path. They're very closely related, and if you don't have a path, then it's very hard to figure out, what's your marketing strategy, what's your marketing plan, what's your direction that you're taking your business into because you don't have a path. So that's how I see purpose, really,

absolutely beautiful. I love that clarity and. Distinction, and again, just appreciate being on this journey with you and to watch your leadership. It's funny to for many of us, we're like, who am I? And to know that even you were like, Oh, I don't, didn't consider myself as a leader, and now you're understanding that you are definitely a trailblazer, but also a leader, a leader of community, and to watching you continue to grow and to step in out of your comfort zone is very, very exciting. What does that look like for you right now? Stepping out of your comfort zone?

Well, you know my journey mark. I had a business for a long time, and then I started a new business with a partner, and then I had to leave that business and pretty much start from scratch. And I remember sitting in my arm chair the day after I signed all the papers and left the business and thinking, Wait, am I still an entrepreneur? Can I be an entrepreneur without a business? Because I didn't have any anything at that time, no commitments, no partnerships, no launches, no products, because I've put everything into my previous business, and so stepping outside of comfort zone, to me was definitely the idea of starting from scratch. That was very scary, but I knew I was going to start something I just didn't know what yet at that time and slowly, slowly, that's how coaching Genie was conceived. Is, you know, I think that if I hadn't loved that business, coaching Genie wouldn't exist. It just would have never come into my to fruition in front of me as something that we need but I think at the moment, for me, it is coming back to my events. This year, I decided to create a brand new event. I'm really excited about it. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. It's 10 months away. I can sign papers with my event planner that I used 10 years ago. And I'm really excited. It is especially in the post pandemic era, in five years, but it still feels like, oh, are people willing to travel? Should I be doing my event? But I really, really miss live events, and, you know, facilitating a transformation. And my event is going to be on Marketing Mastery, you know, because I'm so passionate and I've seen transformation for people, and their eyes light up with each card. You know, usually I do sessions and we pick up three cards that resonate with them, and we work through those, and they just walk walk away. So inspired. I want that in like that environment, so that the transformation can be bigger and more sustainable. And I think in person is much easier to achieve that as well. So that is me stepping outside of my comfort zone. Even though I've done events for many years, I haven't done one in a very long time. So 10 years, this will be since I've done a live event.

Well, I think that you know the way that I'm even like the way I'm approaching a live event. I've wanted to do a live event for several years now, but I remember telling myself, unless I come up with a really unique event idea, I will not do an event, because people no longer go to events to learn, because they can learn online. If you're going to an event, if you're going on a plane, you are making arrangements for your dogs, for your kids, for your work, if you're still you know, if you have a job, you are going to want to make sure that it's not something you can do online. So by going to soulful leadership retreat, I know I can't get that online, that's where I'm going. Will I learn something, absolutely, can I get that? The networking, the connections, the experience, the heart experience that you're creating with Renee online? No, it's impossible. And so I'm developing an event that you cannot experience online, you have to come so that's the way that I approach my live event, and getting outside of my comfort zone, and making sure that when people get on a plane, they know it's because they cannot get that experience online. So that's a little bit of how I think about it.

So. I'm thinking back to your cards for one last question, just for somebody who might be afraid to step out of their comfort zone, or afraid to innovate, because innovation is scary. It is trailblazing. You know, you're out in front. It may not work. And what advice would you give for somebody to encourage them to step into something bigger?

I love it. And if people want more pep talk, where can people find your cards? I'll put the link down in the

is the ultimate pep talk, because with every card, you break down those negative or limiting beliefs about marketing and about becoming a trailblazer, you can go to Marketing Mojo method.com marketing Mojo method.com, get my card deck, and

I'll put marketing Mojo method.com in the notes as well. Again, I do it's a pep talk anytime that you need one if you're feeling down. I think it's a great way to again, shift the mindset.

I was going to say what's what's cool about each card has a negative belief every frame, and then a question at the bottom that inspires you to take up small actions towards overcoming that belief and starting to market. This one is actually one of my favorite cards. What if someone else steals my idea ideas because they think that their ideas are so unique that they're afraid to put them out there? But actually the reframe is nobody can be me. Nobody can be me because of the way that you connect the dots in your like nobody else could have created coaching gene. I know that for a fact because I have the coaching, the marketing, the software, the EFT, the somebody said, the European mindset of I. Having a very great, very good organizing methodology for everything, having a place and having, you know, the marketing experience, to put it out there so nobody else can be you, but so each card has a question that you can journal on. So if you do one card a day, at the end of 44 days, or 44 cards. I can't even imagine the transformation that you experience. I say that this card deck is the best book on marketing I've ever written, Mark

but I love that. That's great way to wrap up our call as well. I am so grateful for you in just your who you're being in the rural but what you just shared today, especially the piece for me, my big takeaway was the idea of how marketing can actually heal those, those injured parts of us. So I'm going to actually write a full blog on that. I also got something else I'll share with you later. So you've inspired me even more just in this conversation again. Thank you for being an inspiration for me, a mentor, but also a friend. Is there any last words that you'd like to share before we say goodbye?

Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate being part of your podcast, Mark and just being part of what you're doing. I think that being an entrepreneur can be a scary journey. So see it as that as a journey. Marketing is part of it, but also, everything you're doing as a coach, as a as an expert, as a business owner, is designed to transform you and the people that you are impacting, so that the ripple effect, and I never thought about what you said before, that there are three paths to transformation, parenting, relationships and entrepreneurship. I love that. I think I've never heard that said before. But how true is that? And we have chosen, well, you and I both have chosen or chosen all three. We're all in. And I would say that entrepreneurship is not the hardest one of three. I agree. For me, it's definitely been the parenting, but this is definitely something that you have to be brave and courageous to take on. But also, if imagine that people out there need you and need your help, I need your voice, and the only reason they haven't gotten it yet is because you're not marketing yourself enough, they just haven't been able to find you. So how dare you not market and not let those people who need you find you. So I'm going to make that last words for our conversation today. That is beautiful.

Milana, thank you so much. Thank you for having me big hug. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you all look forward to talking to you soon.