Janice Porter: Donna, Hello everyone, and welcome to the
episode this week of relationships rule. Almost
forgot what it was anyway. Nice to be here and nice to have
another special guest with me. Donna. Cravada is my guest
today, and Donna is all about visibility, strategy and
storytelling, those are her special words. And she's been a
marketer, I think I would say, for many years, and I was in a
group, or what was it, a summit of some sort, that we did
together, and that's how we met. And I was fascinated by what I
saw, and wanted to talk more with Donna, and think that she
has lots of value to bring to the audience. So welcome to the
show, Donna.
Donna Cravotta: Thank you. It's good to be here.
Janice Porter: You're very welcome. So I'm going to dig in
a little bit with your be visible Club, which is a
mastermind community, the real 50 over 50, the wisdom
revolution that inspired me, and I love to hear about more about
that so but first I want to ask you, I know that you did a
revamp, like you took some time off from your busy marketing
career and step back to see where you needed to be. And I
think it was about two years correct that, yeah, yeah. So can
you share a little bit about, you know, the process, or the
aha moments that came to you about that
Donna Cravotta: I had reached a point where I had been working
with some clients that were very demanding, and it all kind of
collided with COVID, and my son graduating during COVID and
going to college during COVID and dealing with some health
issues. And it was just like there was this life work instead
of balance. It was a bit of a collision. And I was a lot of
stuff. That's a lot of stuff, and, and there was a point where
I was kind of off boarding these two clients, and three were
getting ready to come back on board. And I was just having
this day where, like, I just didn't want to do anything. And
I, you know, it wasn't. Everything was working. The
technical gods were all pleased and be so it was me. It wasn't
anything but me. That was just like, I don't want to do this,
and I don't want to do this, and I don't want to do this, and I
don't want to do this. And I said, Okay, time to step away
and, like, figure out what's going on here. And I realized
that I had built myself into an agency I didn't want and I
didn't want to be responsible. For all of those people. I'm a
single parent. My son was just like, settled after, you know, a
pretty rough transition of graduation and,
Janice Porter: well, COVID didn't help any of us. No. I
Donna Cravotta: mean, that's why it was rough, yeah, yeah. You
know, it's like, we'd worked all these years to kind of like, get
him to this point, and it's like, let's throw a monkey
wrench in this whole thing. And, you know, I just I, I was just
on autopilot, and I didn't realize what I was doing was not
what I wanted. And when I really thought about it, it was like,
oh, yeah, you don't want any of this. You don't want to be
responsible for all these people on a team, and right for clients
that are going to need 12 different things that you don't
like doing and and even if you try to outsource that, you know,
there's still the responsibility of managing that. And, you know,
it just didn't feel like it fit anymore. It felt like I was
putting somebody else's clothes on. And I said, Okay, well, you
just need to stop, because if you rush into something else,
it's not going to be the right thing. You need to just take a
little break, a break and a breather and pause and figure
out what do you want before you start building something
because, you know, I my, natural nature is to just start
building. Yes, I needed to kind of stop and have a plan first.
And I did, and I slowly worked my way back into what I wanted.
And I took myself through a process that I bring clients
through, that I used to call a content audit, but it's really
so much more than that, because I started to look at everything
that I've accomplished over 40 years of working. Mm hmm. And
you know, when I had, I worked in law firms for 25 years before
I started my own business in 2006 so there's, there's a lot
in all of this. Of course, I started to kind of go through it
and figure out, like, what do I want to do? What do I not want
to do? What is needed, what's relevant, what really helps
people. Because I don't want to just offer services that only
please me. They have to be needed and useful and wanted.
And I just went through this whole process over several
months, and I started eliminating things, and I
started to feel. Figure out what, you know what, what's
going to come with me, and you know what are, what, what else
happens? Like, what could be recycled, what could be
upcycled, what could be sold, what could be given away. And I
started creating these buckets, and I was like, Oh, this isn't a
content audit. I'm like, Marie Kondo ing, my business, yes. And
I actually watched a show called The the fine I think it's the
fine art of the Swedish death cleanse. And that's what they
do, is they go into people's homes while they're still alive,
Janice Porter: their stuff. Oh, what a horrible name, though,
Donna Cravotta: but it's, it's something that they do in
Sweden. It's like a ritual that they do. Yes, okay, there's a
book with the same thing, and they did a TV show, and there
was one episode that really stuck with me and the woman that
they went into her home, she was a retired Las Vegas showgirl,
and she had like a borderline hoarded home with, yes, all
kinds of freaky things in it. But they found these blankets
that her grandmother had crocheted for her when she was a
little girl, and they were tattered and stained and torn
and total disarray. And had she passed away, or somebody was
helping her, like just empty out this house, they would have been
in the dumpster. Right? They did was what they did was they took
these blankets and they restored them, and they mended them and
they fixed them. Oh, wow. They packaged them beautifully and
wrote these notes and they gave them to her granddaughters, who
she was estranged from. And this was like, the reconnection to
this relationship with her granddaughters. And I was like,
and this is what I do. Yes, your stories connect to their
stories, the things that they accomplished, the things that
were meaningful. And the irony of that is, like a visual that I
had for my work for so many years was like those little
squares that you crochet and then you make a granny squares.
Yeah. Granny Squares, yeah. And, like, I always viewed my work
as, like, the different elements of it as these little granny
squares. And individually, they don't really mean that much, but
when you put them together, it creates something of substance.
And, you know, just tying all of that together made me realize,
like, what I'm doing is so much more. And then, you know, I have
this whole real 50 over 50 community that was kind of
growing at the same time. And I realized that I'm helping women
that are of a certain age, realizing that what got them to
where they are is important and relevant. Because as we start to
reinvent in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. You know, start to think,
like, you know, our confidence takes a hit and yeah. Like, who
did everything I do before this point matter? Like, did I just
waste my time?
Janice Porter: Especially because things have changed so
quickly, so much we feel we do get Yeah, it's, oh, my god,
doesn't that even count? Yes, I know Yes. I've experienced
Donna Cravotta: that for sure. You really Yeah, you get the
whole, you know, the whole assortment of an imposter
syndrome. Yes, again,
Janice Porter: yes. So, okay, so let's just break these two apart
for a second. And first of all, I want you to tell me, and you
started to tell me, in a way, about your concept of being
intentionally visible and why it's important for business
owners to embrace this mindset. Can you elaborate on that? I
wonder. You know, what is that that? Does it start with you?
Because I know. Okay, I'm just going to preface by saying that
I know that when I work with somebody for the first time to
help them with LinkedIn and to build their their profile. It's
just one little piece right of what you do, but I like to get
into their head first and find out more about them that I can
bring something out that means something to them. And I'm, I'm
hoping and thinking that that's what you're talking about, which
helps them. Okay, yeah, so please elaborate with
Donna Cravotta: marketing. Most people really don't understand
the way it works. They listen to the loudest person, and that's
where they that's where they get guidance from, that's where they
buy services from. But it's not always the best way to go. Okay?
Usually one business model. All businesses are different, right?
So when you listen first, listen to yourself, listen to your
content, listen to those around you, listen to the people you
admire, listen to the people that you want to connect with,
that you want to help, that you want to work with. Everything
starts to become more intentional, and you're not just
randomly following the loudest voice, okay, randomly follow
that loudest voice. There's a lot of noise all around it, so
you're getting lost in all of that noise. But when you start
to become more intentional about how you want to show up, who you
want to be there. For the words you choose to use, the business
that you want to build. It changes everything, because
you're actually deciding where you want to be. You're not just
blindly following something. And the way that I feel the online
world works is is there's an undercurrent. And when you can
glide into that undercurrent, instead of chasing that noise,
you actually do connect with the people you want to connect with.
Okay, can
Janice Porter: you elaborate on that a
Donna Cravotta: little bit? Because the undercurrent is it's
quiet, and there's it's peaceful, and it's not frenetic,
and it's much smaller, it feels right, then it feels right, it's
aligned, it's connection, and you just kind of naturally go.
But people fight that, and they're going for the noise,
they're going for the shiny thing. I need to do what's next?
I need to build something. I need to going, I can't stop.
Janice Porter: So do you think, though, some of that comes from
the fact that they haven't and because they're confused and
playing the squirrel game that they don't sit down to to really
think about who they want to work with, who their target
audiences are, that aligns with their thinking, with the work
that they want to do, because that maybe clouds everything
from the very beginning. Yeah,
Donna Cravotta: that's part of it. And another piece of it is
that they're looking at demographics. They're just
looking at age, gender, location, race, you know, family
structure, they're not looking at what people care about.
They're not looking at values. And that's the thing that goes
into the undercurrent. When you care about the same things, you
connect.
Janice Porter: Well, I'm thinking that they're just
thinking about money,
Donna Cravotta: yeah, and and that's just it. Because if you
think about, like, you go into Facebook ads, if you look at the
back, you know, the back end of Facebook ads, what's it doing?
Demographics, it's all connected to money, then that, but, but
it's not looking at what people care about. It's not looking
about what, what they feel. It's not looking, you know, it's not
looking at their why? Like, why am I doing this? That you do
this? Something is driving you to do this. I mean, we quit our
jobs, right?
Janice Porter: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So in your be visible
club, you work with the people that, and they're, are they all
women? Yeah,
Donna Cravotta: I had, I had one man in there last year, and he
didn't come back.
Janice Porter: It was too feminine energy there for him.
No,
Donna Cravotta: he was actually good with that. You know what he
said? He said that his business grew so much they didn't have
time to be there anymore. And I was, like,
Janice Porter: interesting, okay, so, but that's your
general that's who you Yeah.
Donna Cravotta: And it just kind of, it just kind of all happened
that way. And you know when I you know when I do work with
clients, we start with a detailed questionnaire, and a
big part of that is having them think through all of those
things, because until you do that, you're never going to
really connect with the right people, because you have to kind
of understand them.
Janice Porter: Well, it's funny, because I resist doing those
kinds of things too, like really sitting down and getting to the
heart of you know, who is my target audience, and so on and
so forth. I hate doing that stuff. I don't know why. I think
partly I go by my gut, and I'm pretty intuitive when it comes
to who I resonate with or who resonates with me and and
whether, because I'm a relationship person, that's what
I do. And I I find it pretty easy to if I can't draw them out
then, then they're not my person, because they're, you
know, like it's usually, I make people feel more comfortable
about and able to talk quickly to me, you know, talking to open
up quickly to me. And I always tell this, this story about my
husband going golfing with, yes, he does, and went with his
friend, and they hooked up with this couple from Australia. And
he said they were the nicest couple. He said, We, you know,
we found they live in such and such a place, and we had a great
golf match. And I said, Oh, where in Australia do they live?
How many kids do they have? What do they why were they over here?
He says, Janice, we were just playing golf. I have no idea.
I'm like, I could have had all that out of them in five
minutes, right? Superficial, that answer that he gave me, but
Donna Cravotta: most people don't think that way. I know
it's crazy. They don't, and they have to be led to think that
way. And they don't want to do these forms, and when they do,
they realize. Uh, like they, it's ones on them. Like, ah,
that's why this didn't work, and that's why that work. And no
wonder,
Janice Porter: yeah, for sure. Yeah, totally. Um, so you, how
many people do you have in your mastermind, your your
intentionally visible, be visible, community attitude?
Donna Cravotta: It's, small right now, because it's, it's
relatively new, and I've kind of been, it's been a work in
progress. So there's only about 20 people in there.
Janice Porter: That's good. That's manageable, yeah, but I
don't, you know. I
Donna Cravotta: don't want to grow it very big, right? I want
to keep it small, and I want people to be in there that never
want to leave. Well, and do they work their friends Well,
Janice Porter: that's right, do they bring their questions for
masterminding each week or each month or how often? Do you mean?
We
Donna Cravotta: have, we have two calls a week a month, and we
have, it's all built into a membership site, so there's lots
of opportunity and places to ask questions and and learn more.
That's great. And there's lots of, you know, there's a whole
course in there, and there's resources and tools, and we'll
be bringing in guest experts at some point. But there's just so
much to go through right now that I don't want to, I don't
want to complicate it more. But, you know, it's, it's, it's a
full library of, you know, years and years and years of my work.
That's
Janice Porter: great. And then you you have this new, this
other thing, the real 50 over 50, the wisdom revolution. And
that, of course, appealed to me because I think I love the name
the wisdom revolution, because that's, that's what it is we, we
don't want to be shoved under the rug. We have a lot of wisdom
to impart, and women over 50, and I think that's wonderful.
Tell me a little bit more about that, because I just hooked up
with you on that, and I'm excited about it.
Donna Cravotta: Yeah, you're on the web page. And I was not
planning this. I was in the middle of rebuilding a business,
and that, you know, takes its own level of work. And, you
know, I was figuring out any odd. And I was, you know, still
figuring out my son in college, and, yeah, all of these things
going on at the same time. And I was listening to Mika Brzezinski
from MSNBC talk about the Forbes 30 over 50 Conference, which
she's involved in, and they were all big names, people that don't
really need more visibility, right, right? I'm laying in bed
listening to this, and I'm thinking, start to think about
all the women that I know over 50 that could really use more
visibility. And I'm like, why is orbs featuring any of these
women? Even in like the 50 over 50, there's like three or four
different franchises associated. And, you know, to go attend one
of these events, it's a $10,000 ticket, yeah. And if you want
to, you know, apply to be part of the Forbes 50 over 50, and
you're a small business owner or a founder, you need to have 10
million in revenue as a minimum. So I'm just laying there, and
the whole thing is just rubbing me the wrong way. And I start to
make a list in my head of all the women that I know over the
age of 50 that are doing good work. So I grabbed a pen and
paper because I'm starting to fall out, and it took me 15
minutes to make a list, yeah, and I started to do keyword
research, and everything was about hair and makeup and your
body's falling apart and life's going to be awful, and might as
well give up now. And then, I bought the domain, the real 50
over 50 for $1 I realized that I should have had to pay more
money or negotiate for that, yeah. And then it was like, it
was all kind of coming layer by layer. And I was like, Okay, so
like the people that make decisions about our laws, about
finances, about insurance, about health care, about retirement,
they're all using the same tools I'm using, and this is what
they're getting, hair and makeup. Yeah, and I'm thinking
about all these women that I know, and we were going to sit
down and have a conversation, like, hair and makeup might come
up, but it's not going to be the first thing, right? Yeah. And I
just started to reach out to my friends, and I was like, because
everyone was a friend, a colleague, a client, and I was
like, Well, if I just started interviewing you. Would you want
to be interviewed? And within two weeks, I had 40 interviews
booked, wow. And tomorrow is going to be our it's either the
88th or the 90th interview. And this month will be our 12th
panel, and we've got interviews booked all the way. I think the
next one is may 2025,
Janice Porter: I know. I think I'm in April, yeah, so that's,
that's awesome. It's
Donna Cravotta: been a thing, and it's very, it's very casual
and very loose, but the connections that are happening
are incredible.
Janice Porter: Yeah, that's very cool. And I have to block off
some time to make those Connect. Make some time for that, because
that's what you have to do, right? Right? But you, you feel
like, when you're part of something, even though it's
like, I'm brand new to it, that it's going to be a warm
conversation, because you're connected through you. And so
that's really special. And
Donna Cravotta: everybody, everybody is either somebody I
personally know or somebody they introduced me to, yeah,
Janice Porter: that's really cool. So I'm going to switch
topics for a second, because this one interests me a lot, and
I know that you've been studying AI and chat GPT and all of that,
and how do you integrate that into your strategies for
visibility and storytelling? How do you make that work in
practice?
Donna Cravotta: So many ways. Oh, really.
Janice Porter: Okay, yeah, so
Donna Cravotta: many ways. And again, the word intentional is
going to come up, because I don't look for like most people
view AI tools as being a productivity tool, and you'll
save time. Okay? I view them, I mean, you're going to save time.
It's Oh for sure, you know. But that's not my that's not my
reason for using them. My reason for using them is you now have
access to a level of information you literally cannot hold in
your brain, for sure. So how can you partner with this
information? So now you can take up level everything that you do
and make it better while you're saving time and yes, being wiser
with the way that you work, I get a visual of like being able
to take the New York City Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd
street and put it on like a backpack, and I have this with
me at all times I can go find out all of this information and
what I Do a big part of what we do in the be visible community
that I'm in is we learn how to ask these tools the right
Janice Porter: questions, right that's what I'm learning right
now too. It's fascinating. It's fascinating.
Donna Cravotta: And sometimes the questions could be super
simple, it could be a paragraph a sentence, and sometimes
they're complex and they're layered and and you have to ask
in stages. But what I find is one of the true gifts of working
with these tools is it makes you stop and think about what you
really want before you ask anything, because now you have
to ask for it.
Janice Porter: Do you use chat, GBT, or do you have another
favorite? Um,
Donna Cravotta: it changes because the tools change so
frequently. Uh, huh. My most recent favorite tool is
perplexity.
Janice Porter: Oh, that just got mentioned to me the other day.
Yeah,
Donna Cravotta: that's somebody favorite tool. Um,
Janice Porter: and how is it different? It's
Donna Cravotta: really good for research, and it gives you the,
it gives you the resources of where it pulls everything from,
and then bottom of every chat, it gives you a list of related
questions. So it makes you think a little more. You know, I like
go back and forth with them. Yes, I always, I always ask,
like, what else do you need? Am I missing anything? What can I
provide to you to make you know, to make you make this task
easier for you? So
Janice Porter: I was learnt talking and just testing.
Somebody showed me how to set up a 90 day content calendar
through chat, GPT, and what to ask it, and so on and so forth.
And then somebody else in this group that I was online with
said, Now, once you've got the topics, it was for twice a week
for 90 days, because you can pre program or you can schedule
LinkedIn now to with your posts for up to that time. And then
this person said, then go to perplexity. And for each of the
topics. Ask it for three versions of a post and and I
said, Why would I need to go there? Can't I use it chat GPT?
He just said that it was more detailed. Yeah,
Donna Cravotta: they work differently. Yeah, okay. I'll
have to test it out. And Claude is another one. Claude is really
good for writing. I've heard that
Janice Porter: one too, but I haven't, I
Donna Cravotta: don't, I don't use chat. GPT much anymore.
Well, I like
Janice Porter: because I can, I've learned how to use it. And
it's, you know, I just did a an outline with somebody that I
was, I'm going to do a joint webinar with, and got it to pull
up a format that I was asking it about and stuff. And so it gave
us a guideline to get started, because we don't know each other
that well, and so I'm trying to build that relationship at the
same time. So yeah, it's kind of interesting. It
Donna Cravotta: is interesting. One of the things that I did not
too long ago for a client was I explained what the client does,
and then I said, Where is there overlap with Brene Brown's work
from her book, The Atlas of the heart, okay? And it gave me all
of like these areas where I can incorporate some of the work
that she shares publicly and online. You know, she's got a
gold hub on her website. Brene Brown does about i. About her
work around the atlas of the heart, and it just brought this
whole new level of it just it was just made everything so much
richer, because it brought in the whole emotional aspect of
the work that my client was doing and and to just see how it
dovetailed so nicely. Really showed the thought and the
effort that my client put into her work that it was able to
match up like with Brene Brown's work. That's
Janice Porter: cool. So when you do something like that with a
client, do you do it with the client, or do you do it in the
back end?
Donna Cravotta: It depends. Like, you know, sometimes, like
when we're working and be visible, we're kind of just
doing things together, ad hoc, but like, when I'm working with
a client and I'm putting together a strategy for them, I
lean into AI, and I kind of, you know, I did that myself, because
I'm like, Okay, I was getting curious with all the different
resources and tools that I use. But what I do is, when I find
something like that, I share it with the client. And that's one
of the things I like about perplexity too, is you can share
a link to the chat and share it with a client, and then they can
keep working on it with what you started.
Janice Porter: Yeah, okay, so you're teaching them as well how
to use it in a way.
Donna Cravotta: I think, I think it's critical that we all know
how to use this. I
Janice Porter: do too. I do too. Now, just curious on a side
note, then, has your son started using it? And no, okay,
Donna Cravotta: no, my Sam, my son who's about to graduate with
a digital media production degree. No, interesting. That
went out,
Janice Porter: yeah, I know, like, yes, and my daughter is
the same. I mean, they're older than your son, but one is taking
is doing well with it, and the other is just starting to see
how it could help her. But she's not asking me any questions,
because I don't know anything. So there you go. Yeah, when
Donna Cravotta: he's ready, I have, I have the whole
trajectory for him of what he needs to learn, but I'm not
going to, I'm not going to argue with him. He's 22 when he has
everything, he
Janice Porter: knows everything, yeah, exactly he knows
everything, yeah.
Unknown: So
Janice Porter: was I going to say? Okay, I guess I want to ask
you what? What's one piece of advice that you would give to
business owners or professionals who are just starting their
journey to become more visible and engage their audience
effectively,
Donna Cravotta: to trust themselves. Okay? Because I
think when people you know, there is this whole posse of
people that are just waiting for new online business owners to
show up to sell them things they don't need. Yeah, trust
yourself. You won't buy them.
Janice Porter: I know I hear it so often,
Donna Cravotta: you could spend years digging yourself out of
that, or you can just go out of business because you don't have
the resources to actually build a business after you've wasted
your time and your money. I
Janice Porter: know I can't tell you the number of people that
have hired very expensive coaches, and all they get is
online courses or the odd online connection with that person.
They very rarely see that person. Yeah, and I mean,
Donna Cravotta: you've got to put yourself in the trenches.
You've got to listen and learn, figure out who's doing it? Well,
what I've learned? I mean, next month, I'll be in business 18
years. So I grew up with the internet, you know? We I, when I
started my business, there was no social media, right? And you
really need to learn how to trust yourself and know who
you're working with, know who your client is, know what you do
for them, why you do it for them, and the impact that it
makes. And once you really solid in that the decisions you're
making are coming from that, and that's your values, that's your
why, that's your mission, and that's how you help people. So
that really becomes a very strong barometer in what you
need and what you don't need in your business, like, something
that you can equate it to, like, when you have a baby for the
first time, you have this whole list of things you think you
need and you don't really need that much. All I
Janice Porter: remember always saying is, nobody told me about
this. Nobody told me about that. This wasn't in a book, you know,
yeah,
Donna Cravotta: but, but the things that like, if you go into
like, a baby store, they'll give you a list a mile long of all of
the things that you need. You don't need most of them. You
don't need, you know, diaper warmers and you don't need all
that stuff, but you need, you need a way to feed your baby, a
way to bathe your baby, a way to soothe your baby, and a way to,
like, you know, get them to sleep. You don't need much more
than that. And it's the same thing with a business. You don't
need that much when you're starting, because everything
that you're going to do in the beginning is going to change up
here, everywhere, everywhere, like what you know. Think about
when you started your business. How many things are you still
doing?
Janice Porter: You find that it's funny. I decided. Did. I
was invited to this book launch that's later today, a friend of
mine and an ex client launching her book. And she was a
politician here for a long time, and has an interesting story,
but she doesn't live in Vancouver anymore, and she's
coming down here to do one of her book launches, and it
happens to be right when the our local, our provincial in Canada,
we have provinces in our provincial election is happening
soon, so I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll go the I don't
know who I'm going to see there, or meet there, whatever, but I
don't go to many in person things anymore, and I'm already
thinking, well, if I get there on time, I can probably sneak
out about an hour and a half. That's what I'm already
thinking. But I'm also thinking, I don't even take business cards
anywhere, any I don't have any that are up to date. I just take
my phone now, you know, and it's got all I need. So I'm going to
go for a little while anyway, as long as it's not pouring with
rain, which it seems to be trying to do today. But anyway,
you just never know. You know who you're going to meet or
reconnect with. So, so I'm going to do that. So um, so I just
want to clarify. So when you're working you've got your be
visible mastermind community, and you've got your real 50,
over 50. Do you work one on one with clients as well, and in
that, are you doing their marketing plan with them? Is
that what you're doing, or are you just taking their business
and starting it from the bottom up again?
Donna Cravotta: It's, you know, most of the work that I'm doing
with clients is all around visibility, but it touches
everything. So when I work with clients, I go through everything
that they're doing. Like one client I worked with not too
long ago, what she needed was she needed a lot of advice on
her website, because there were things that just needed to be
fixed. So about half of the work that we did was just me doing a
website audit for her, and she made all the changes, and it's
already making an impact, you know. So I meet people where
they are. I don't do a lot of implementation work anymore. I
don't focus a lot on social media, because I focus more on
content development and strategy, because then you could
take that content you could share, and because the social
media platforms are changing so much, and you just never know
where your audience is, so they really need to learn how to
listen to where their audience is.
Janice Porter: Well, that's what I was just going to say. They
don't need to be everywhere, but they need to be where their
audience is not where they like to be, necessarily. They have to
learn where that right platform for them is.
Donna Cravotta: Again, it's a lot easier than people make it
out to be. Of course, you don't need to do if Instagram does 800
things, you probably need like 10, yeah, yeah. And by paying
attention and listening and seeing. You know what people
respond to. You figure out what those 10 things are. And I kind
of push people into the figuring out part, because once you know
that, you can figure this out again, you don't make the bad
choices
Janice Porter: right, right? And so when you say helping people
be visible, it's more about being visible on their website
that will draw attention.
Donna Cravotta: It's everywhere. Okay,
Janice Porter: do you encourage people to do? Sorry, go ahead.
Donna Cravotta: It's about being intentionally busy, not just not
just push Not, not just pushing out. Yeah, stopping first and
figuring out where you should be, like, where are your knowing
your clients? Where are they, and not just clients, like I
speak in audience, because, yes, people come into the world in
all different ways. I mean, it could be, you know, through the
media. It could be podcast, it could be vendors that you work
with. It could be, you know, the tools that you use in your
business. So opportunities come in all different ways, and I
gotta let my cat in because the landscapers are here. I'm sorry.
Janice Porter: All right, so we're just going to wrap up. I'm
going to ask you a couple quick questions. First of all, my
favorite word is curiosity, and I'm sure you love that word too.
I just know, and I want to know a two part question. One, do you
think that curiosity is innate or learned? And part two, what
are you most curious about these days?
Donna Cravotta: So for part one of the question, I think it's
both okay. I think that we all have curiosity inside of us, but
it's more readily accessible to some than others. Okay? And I
think we need. Who really explore the things that make us
curious and cultivate that? Because I really believe that
curiosity is the thing that keeps us young at heart. It
keeps us young that keeps us constantly learning. Since my
son was a little boy, I signed every one of his cards with I
love you. Stay curious. Oh, really.
Janice Porter: Oh, that's brilliant. I
Donna Cravotta: really do think that, you know, that's the thing
that sparks everything else. Yes, the thing that continues to
do something, to learn something, to find something.
And then what I'm curious about is, I'm just curious about
people and like, what happens when people connect? And this is
like, one of the gifts that I've received from the real 50 over
50 community is, like, it's just I listen to myself. Like, when
I'm talking to somebody, I'm listening to who do they need to
know? How can I connect them with? Like, what happens when
they meet? Like, what are the things that will happen that
wouldn't have happened if they didn't meet, and that always
gets me curious, because we really need each other. Yeah,
Janice Porter: yeah. It's great. That's super Thank you. You
consume a lot of information yourself. Do you is your go to
reading a real book, or audio listening, or video listening,
podcasts, television. What is it? Okay? Okay.
Donna Cravotta: I don't read as many books as I used to, because
my eyes are just so tired at the end of the day. But I listen to
a lot of audio books, and when there's a book that I love, I'll
get the print version too, and I'm like writing in the book
while I'm listening to it.
Janice Porter: So I'm guessing those are business related
books, or self or personal development books, not novels.
Donna Cravotta: No, I haven't read a novel in a long time. I
want to, but I just don't have the time. I
Janice Porter: know I'm the same way. I did read one a few years
ago. Oh, what was it called? About the young girl in
Louisiana? Oh, crawfish, where the crawdads and, yeah, that was
good. And then I started to try and read lessons in chemistry.
And then I saw that it was on Apple TV, and I thought, oh,
it's drawing me to go watch it instead, because I got through,
yeah, it was really good, yeah, but the book is really good too.
But I just It got a bit I'm glad I saw it on, on the red I
watched, or I read three chapters, and it wasn't staying
there with me. But anyway, so that's kind of fun. But yeah,
generally for me, it's, it's business books, because people
are on my podcast and I like to read their books, but it's hard
to get through them all. Anyway, this has been delightful. Thank
you so much, and thank my audience for being here. And if
you have any questions for Donna, you can find her at
cravata Media Group, and I will put her details in the in the
chat and Donna, do you want? They'll see anything about the
real 50 over 50 and and the be visible club as well, right?
Donna Cravotta: Yeah, everything's on my website,
perfect. Alright, I
Janice Porter: encourage you to go check it out, because Donna
doing great work, and it's all about relationships. So thank
you again, and remember to stay connected and be remembered.
Donna Cravotta: Thank you. Bye.