Journey of a Single Mom in Business with Kira Hartley Klinger

Ange Dove (00:01)

Welcome to your the boss podcast show and today I have with me Kira Hartley Klinger Kira welcome to the show.

Kira Hartley Klinger (00:10)

Thank you so much. I was excited to join you.

Ange Dove (00:12)

Yeah, it's great to have you here. So I think we're going to have a really good chat here today and encourage people maybe that are listening and thinking, should I start a business? Maybe I'm too busy and we're going to put that fear to rights today, right? So Kira, tell us a little bit about yourself. What should we know in the context of what we're going to talk about today?

Kira Hartley Klinger (00:36)

So it's not just about overcoming that, I too busy? For some of us, it's about overcoming that, am I too old? And I was 40 when I really got into starting my business. And it was because I got divorced. I was still raising my last child. I needed to make money. So yeah, that's when business, I can't say took off. That's when business crept into the brain.

Ange Dove (00:44)

okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (01:06)

You know, it was a number of years before I consider it to have taken off where it was my only job. could quit all my other jobs. And then, you little by little, it grew. One business grew into two business. The second business grew into books. The books grew into public speaking and podcasting. And, you know, it just ended up becoming a brand that I didn't even know I was creating. We didn't call it a brand 20 years ago. You know, now, now all of a sudden it's a brand.

Ange Dove (01:13)

Mmm.

Ange Dove (01:31)

Mmm

Kira Hartley Klinger (01:35)

So I didn't know that that's what I was doing, but here we are.

Ange Dove (01:37)

Let's take, see, there's a silver lining in everything basically. So we hear this story a lot of people start a business not really intending to start a business. I was the same. didn't intend to really start a business. I just wanted to make some money from home.

Kira Hartley Klinger (01:42)

Yes, I can keep up with those young folk. Dang it.

Ange Dove (02:00)

And then I found out that I had to register a business in order to do that. That's how mine started. And then it grew quite rapidly from there. The demand was there. So I was able to give up my full time job quite quickly after that. And I never looked back after that. But it's kind of like the necessity of it, right? It's you haven't got any other choice. It's you've got to do something to make ends meet.

Kira Hartley Klinger (02:19)

no. Yeah.

Ange Dove (02:29)

and then you end up on a journey you never thought you'd be on, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (02:36)

Indeed. I mean, I think a lot of us have this dream throughout our lives of, it'd be so glamorous to work for myself. I would love to work for myself. I'd love to have my own business. I'd love to do this and love to do that. And I'm sure you get it too. People on the outside looking in saying, you're so lucky you get to work for yourself. You get to, you know, not work if you don't feel like it. And it's like, no, that, no, that doesn't really happen much. It's not quite what people think that it's going to be.

Ange Dove (03:02)

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a lot of hard work. And that's what I tell my clients when they start office, like, don't think this is a get rich quick scheme. It is not. It's a lot of hard work, especially in the early days. And if you're not sleeping, basically, you're working on that business.

Kira Hartley Klinger (03:06)

Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (03:21)

Yes. I'm still guilty of checking my email in the middle of the night if I wake up and I'll look at my phone and it's like, okay, no emails, you know, go back to sleep. But you know, in my business, if I don't respond quickly, they find someplace else to go, you know, so.

Ange Dove (03:24)

So, so, so.

Ange Dove (03:38)

Yeah, yes, yes, this is very true, very true. If you're not quick off the mark responding, you're right. They'll ask several different people. They'll go with the first one that responds. Yeah, so that's one of the realities of business. that's one thing you've got to, yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (03:54)

Never off the clock, not really.

Ange Dove (03:58)

So just brought me through a little bit about the process of how you did set up the business in those early days and what was it like in the early days so that people can really understand, okay, it's not a bed of roses, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (04:11)

Well, it's not. it's kind of funny. I have a friend, my best friend. She, we both buy and sell. I am buying and selling to the 10th power. She's buying and selling. look what I found at a yard sale. You know, so we're slightly different, but the same. But we were just laughing about it the other day because there's a lot of people today that do this buying and selling, right? But they can walk into a situation, pull out their phone.

take a picture of something they've never seen before, the internet's gonna tell them what it is and what it's worth and what it's sold for. It's gonna tell them everything that they need to know. All they have to do is hit a few buttons and it's listed for sale, piece of cake. When I started, I still had dial-up internet. And it took, right, was painful, you know? I still had dial-up internet and...

Ange Dove (04:55)

Oh God, no! It was, it was.

Kira Hartley Klinger (05:03)

The listing was like two pages long on a regular computer. There was no such thing as doing it on your phone. It was a few pages long. You had to take photographs on a actual camera on an SD card, put it into your computer, put the pictures on your computer. There was a lot of work behind it. Very slow process indeed.

Ange Dove (05:09)

Mm.

Ange Dove (05:23)

a lot of work to do, very slow process.

Kira Hartley Klinger (05:29)

So this is where I started out. And it did start out as a hobby. I was doing the same thing. I would go to sales with friends and I'd be like, well, nobody's buying that. I wonder if it's worth anything. was an infant at the time. It was in its first decade. And so it was kind of exciting to dabble in this.

Ange Dove (05:33)

Right.

Ange Dove (05:42)

Right.

Ange Dove (05:46)

So is that where you were putting things up initially on eBay? Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (05:50)

Yes, it started it started on eBay and it started doing it just for fun to make extra money You know, I was still married. He was still the big breadwinner I still had side jobs, but I also was still primarily a mom, you know But so it was only it was really the only thing I had to my hat on when I got divorced I'm like, I don't know what to do anything else So I just why not see if I can go harder And so I started going to auctions and sales all the time and I started buying more and more and

Ange Dove (05:57)

to money. Yeah.

Ange Dove (06:03)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (06:10)

Mm.

Kira Hartley Klinger (06:20)

and I started to grow this huge pile, you know, in my house and in my garage. it was, yeah, up until probably, I think I went to bed a lot of times at one o'clock in the morning. And then I was up back up again at nine to do my little four hour part-time job at the school. And it was a lot of work in the beginning to try to get it off the ground. And it was still, even at that, I think it was four years before I was able to quit my part-time job and just do eBay. You know, it took...

Ange Dove (06:36)

Yeah. OK. Wow.

Ange Dove (06:46)

Okay.

Okay, so what were you selling?

Kira Hartley Klinger (06:53)

Anything. Anything that nobody else wanted and that showed me it was worth money. And it had to be cheap because I didn't want to take out loans. I didn't want to get that kind of financial support. I didn't have enough faith in myself to be able to put myself into debt for this new thing. So I had to be able to work with the change in my pockets.

Ange Dove (07:11)

chat.

Ange Dove (07:17)

Mm. Mm.

Kira Hartley Klinger (07:23)

So for a long time, was just stuff that sold really, really cheap. The stuff that was left over at the end of the sale that maybe somebody was going to throw out. But I found weird things that were worth money that a lot of people would throw away. You know, I remember in my early years, I bought this stack of bandanas, you know, the blue and white, they call it indigo, but the blue and white bandanas, and a lot of them had this polka dot pattern on them.

Ange Dove (07:24)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (07:32)

Right.

Ange Dove (07:39)

Okay.

Ange Dove (07:45)

Mm-hmm.

Kira Hartley Klinger (07:53)

And I learned a lot about bandanas this time. There's little emblems down in the bottom corner that tells you how old they are. Well, these were roughly from the 1940s. And they came from the estate of a railroad engineer who had passed away. And so this stack of five crisp brand new never used 1940s bandanas, I think I paid $5 for them. And the first one out of the stack that I sold, sold for $100.

Ange Dove (08:02)

Okay, wow.

Ange Dove (08:18)

Bye.

Kira Hartley Klinger (08:22)

He wanted one of the polka dot ones and I was like, oh and I said, well, I have three more of the polka dot ones. He said, I'll take those too. So in a matter of minutes, you know, what, what, what $500 on bandanas that I paid $5 for. that kind of, yeah, that kind of became like my calling card, my niche. I'm going to look for the stuff that is overlooked. You know, that very same sale, I bought a horse hide.

Ange Dove (08:41)

That's amazing!

Ange Dove (08:49)

Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (08:52)

leather jacket that was from the 1940s and I paid $10 for that and somebody in Australia paid me $400 for it. So it's just really random weird things, you know, but it's fun.

Ange Dove (09:04)

Yeah, okay. And then you would then have to physically post these things out to them, right? So it's quite quite labor intensive as well, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (09:12)

Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (09:16)

It can be, because I've bought some really weird things that were really hard to ship. Now I have what I call my shipping guy, and he doesn't ship everything for me, but when I buy something really strange, like an old upright vacuum that doesn't come apart, I take it to him. You know, I've taken him entire mannequins. I'm like, here, ship this.

Ange Dove (09:35)

Right. Yeah, you've brought up a good point there as well of when you're in business, and you collaborate with people that can help you do things that you can't do. Right. So I've got, for example, it's not quite the same thing. But I have, for example, someone who does web pages for me builds websites, and he builds them really quick. So I can build websites, but I can't do it as quick as he can.

Kira Hartley Klinger (09:49)

Yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (10:03)

So I always just give it to him. So it's just knowing that person that can just do it easier, make it easier for you to do things, right? And just find that in your business. So you're not doing all of the hard stuff that you don't want to do, or you don't know how to do it as well, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (10:12)

percent.

Kira Hartley Klinger (10:18)

Right. And I'm a tightwad, so it doesn't have to be something that is price crazy. know, I'm still a tightwad. But I stumbled on him by accident. think that mannequin that he shipped for me. I paid a hundred. This is current. This is in the last couple of years. So I'm spending a lot more money these days on my investments. But I paid $190 for this mannequin and she sold, I think, for 800 bucks, something like that.

Ange Dove (10:24)

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (10:48)

And so I have to drive 30 minutes each way to my shipping guy, but he charged me a whopping $20 to make a box and package her. How do you go wrong with that? And there was definitely room in my profit margin to pay him 20 bucks. I couldn't make my own box in any short amount of time for 20 bucks. Yeah, so you can find your people if you're determined.

Ange Dove (10:48)

Right.

Ange Dove (11:02)

Yeah.

Mm, yeah. Fantastic. my god. That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And usually they'll just pop up when you need them, I find as well. It's just the right time and then it happens. And then, OK, so you did that. Then you've also written books. You're an author as well. So how did that come about?

Kira Hartley Klinger (11:20)

Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (11:23)

Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (11:32)

I am.

I've always been an author of some sort. I just was not a successful author. I published a few magazine articles in my 30s and that was really all the credits that I had. So I had put it away. Writing doesn't pay any money even if you're a really, really good writer, it still doesn't pay hardly any money. So I had put it away. But at some point, my eBay shop evolved into two shops. I split.

Ange Dove (11:57)

huh.

Kira Hartley Klinger (12:05)

because I started to sell a lot of vintage and estate fabric and textiles. That was another thing that I accidentally stumbled on, but I grew a really big worldwide audience for the fabric that I was finding. And so it needed its own definition. It needed its own lane. It was too lost in the thousands of things that I had for sale that had nothing to do with fabric on eBay. So I started a new shop on Etsy. And I still have both shops, but Etsy is just...

Ange Dove (12:15)

Okay.

Ange Dove (12:28)

Mm.

Mm. Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (12:34)

just the fabric and textiles. So what happened, you know, there's a lot of craziness in my life. There's a lot of crazy auction stories and there's a lot of interesting, quirky people out there that I've come into contact with. And so I started to write about these little stories on my fabric pages. And the people that were creating projects from this fabric became very interested in some sort of history behind the secondhand thing that they were buying, you know.

Ange Dove (12:36)

Okay.

Ange Dove (12:48)

Bye.

Ange Dove (12:53)

Okay.

Ange Dove (13:02)

Bye.

Kira Hartley Klinger (13:02)

So they started to ask me to write a book. And so it was this really random, unexpected full circle moment, but it's like, always wanted to write. So how do you turn that down? How do you turn down somebody telling you an audience? And it wasn't just one person, it was dozens of people. I love your stories, write a book. okay. So yeah, so I did, but I didn't publish the first book until I was 55. I've been writing since I was a kid.

Ange Dove (13:10)

Bye.

Ange Dove (13:23)

Nice, nice.

Ange Dove (13:29)

Okay. So we were talking earlier that, you know, the story is also that you're never too old, right? Yeah. So I mean, the obvious example of that is like Colonel Saunders, right? From KFC, right? Started his business in what is, I don't know, 70s? I don't know what the story is there, but yeah, you're never too old.

Kira Hartley Klinger (13:31)

55 but you know

Kira Hartley Klinger (13:46)

Yep.

Ange Dove (13:55)

And especially the day with the internet. Now, if you've got a mobile phone, there's nothing to stop you,

Kira Hartley Klinger (14:03)

No, there really isn't. with the internet, my gosh, it's like a book of knowledge at your fingertips. Now you got to take some things with a grain of salt. You have to double check your facts on a lot of things. But literally anything you want to know, you know, I, I self published my book. Why wouldn't I? I already had my audience. Why pay somebody else to market my book when I already had my audience? So I'm like, you know, I'm going to publish this thing myself. I didn't know anything about self publishing.

Ange Dove (14:27)

Fantastic.

Kira Hartley Klinger (14:33)

But the internet did. I didn't pay anybody to format my book, to publish my book. You know? So... Yes, I published it on Amazon. And I also print out copies because I'm here to tell you Amazon does not sell your book. You sell your book. I have a handful of sales on Amazon. But just the other day, I took my books and my shop on the road to a quilting guild.

Ange Dove (14:34)

Yeah. Fantastic. So where did you publish it? On Amazon?

Ange Dove (14:51)

Yes.

Ange Dove (15:01)

Mm.

Kira Hartley Klinger (15:02)

I presented to 50 quilters and I sold 24 copies of the book. So, you you sell your book. It's foolish to think that you're going to publish, self-publish a book and put it on Amazon and you're going to sit there and watch the numbers and watch and hope and pray that you become a best seller. It doesn't work. It does not work.

Ange Dove (15:07)

Nice.

Ange Dove (15:19)

Yeah, it's like they say with building a website as well is like build a website and they will come. No, they won't. You've got to promote. You've got to promote. So how did you do that? So did you when you were at the Guild and you marketed your book and you had these people interested in buying, did you just send them to Amazon to buy or did you have copies there that you're going to sell them? You had part copies.

Kira Hartley Klinger (15:26)

You're right. You're right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (15:44)

I had hard copies, yes. Now, you know, the book on Amazon, it's the paperback is $14. Out of that $14, I make about two bucks, maybe three at best. If I buy my own author copies, they cost right around $5 a piece. And then I can afford to sell them for $15. Now I'm making $10 a book.

Ange Dove (15:52)

Mm.

Ange Dove (15:55)

Mm. Yeah. Mm.

Ange Dove (16:02)

Yes.

Ange Dove (16:07)

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (16:08)

So when I go to quilting guilds, you know, I have two books now. There's going to be three in the series. I see this beautiful boxed trilogy set on my shelf and then I'm probably done because I want to retire. anyway, so right now there's two. But I brought them both with me. And when I presented a quilting guild, it's about an hour long. I bring fabric samples. I teach people how to felt wool from vintage wool clothing. I teach people how to tell how old a piece of fabric is. I give this

Ange Dove (16:21)

Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (16:37)

you know, this little spiel. But there's some comedy in there. There's some stories from some of the auctions. Yeah, I mean, we just, we talk, we talk one of the things they love most, which is fabric. And then I read a chapter from the book. And so afterwards, I can say, okay, well, you know, they're $15 a book, but if you buy them both, you can have both for 25. Because I'm still making $15 for two books, whereas on Amazon, I'm not. And so many people bought both books.

Ange Dove (16:39)

Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (17:06)

So yeah, but that's where I sell all my books by taking them to the people or in my Etsy shop because the people are already there. And this is another free marketing tip because my customers are already there. All they have to do is print something out on a piece of paper. Like currently my note for packages is a really great review that I got on one of my books by all things, a man who writes science fiction. And he was over the top with my fabric horse book. So

Ange Dove (17:15)

Okay.

Ange Dove (17:32)

Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (17:36)

Currently my note is all about, it's his review and I just write it in there, hey, I appreciate you, thanks for your business. So every single day I'm putting out at least a dozen of these notes and packages from people that have bought something from me. So I have this free advertising tool for my books. And so then they can come back on Etsy and they can buy the book and I can sign it or they can buy it on Amazon if they want. But there's all these clever little things that you can do that don't have to cost money.

Ange Dove (17:57)

Okay.

Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (18:04)

You know, just have to be creative with it. You know, the quilting guilds, they pay me to show up. These are my people. Where do I go to find my people? Okay, these are my people. They pay me a speaking fee and they pay me mileage. Now, the first year I did it, I waived the speaking fee because I wanted to gain some credibility. But I still sold books every time I would go. So I wasn't losing, you know.

Ange Dove (18:04)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (18:25)

Mm-hmm. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about this because like you mentioned, as we were talking earlier, that you've built a personal brand now around what you do and people know you for that. And you're doing all the things you're supposed to do to build a personal brand. you said that's not what they called it.

Kira Hartley Klinger (18:37)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (18:49)

when you first started, there was no such thing. It's just you just happened to do the right things, Because you recognized the demand from the audience, really, right? You just answered and filled that demand, right? So talk to me about your speaking gigs as well, because this is an excellent way for people to if they're starting a business or they're running a business, for them to get out there in front of their audience and find new customers there.

Kira Hartley Klinger (18:52)

Right.

Ange Dove (19:18)

So explain why that's such a good marketing tool to have.

Kira Hartley Klinger (19:24)

There are so many people out there that want to be in business and that are trying to be in business and that technically for all intents and purposes are in business. You have a tremendous amount of competition. And one of the best ways to succeed is figure out how you're going to stand out from everybody else. I am certainly not the only person on Etsy that sells fabric. Nowhere near. I think the last time I looked, I think that there were, my gosh, 2.5 million sellers or something like that on Etsy.

in between Etsy and, and eBay over the last 18 years, I have combined sales of about 60,000 items at this point. so, but in order to grow that, in order to create that speaking is a really powerful tool. Cause like you said, you take it to the people. you know, I, I take it to people who sew and yes, they bought my books that day, but the next morning I had a $70 fabric order from one of the members. came to my shop.

Ange Dove (20:03)

Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (20:22)

you know, but they also do word of mouth, not only that, but they also become different clients of mine because they say, you know what, I have this large stash of fabric, I'm getting older. Do you want to buy it? Let's talk. And so it becomes a resource for me to becomes a lot of things, speaking thing, it just creates your circle, so much bigger. But I was terrified of speaking going into it. I always hate it speaking in front of people I use, we do missions in our in our

Ange Dove (20:35)

Huh?

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (20:52)

town, my husband and myself, and I was always the one that had to stand up in church and announce, hey, it's time for the annual Christmas, know, da da da da da. my gosh, I would sweat and get beat red. And I'd have I'd be thirsty, you know, waving my arms all over the place. I hated it. was terrified, but I had to overcome it, you know. So it was a really good way for me to overcome that as well. And, you know, there's another good thing that kind of

Ange Dove (21:00)

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (21:21)

can creep you up to it. I do a lot of Instagram videos for my shop. I teach little things. This is how you can burn test fabric to see what's in it. This is how you can tell how old this fabric is. These are the sales I'm having in my shop. This is what so-and-so bought in my shop. But it's a good way to get comfortable on camera and you can retake it as many times as you want until finally you get to the point where it's like, I'm taking this way too seriously. I'm just gonna be me.

forget it. mean, you have videos with the chicken sitting on my shoulder for crying out loud. It's like, why not? You know, I'm not looking to go viral, but every single thing that I do gets tagged back to my shop and gets tagged back to me. You know, tagging is huge. Tag, tag, tag, tag every opportunity you get to bring it all back to you, you know. So yeah, but the guest speaking for the Quilting Guilds, that

Ange Dove (21:47)

Yes.

Ange Dove (22:08)

Okay.

Kira Hartley Klinger (22:16)

Again, I was, I think I totally flopped at my first one. But then I booked another one and another one and another one. And, and then the podcast interviews started, you know, think in the last year I've booked almost 50 podcast interviews, you know, and it's all really great marketing of you of your product. It's so nice to be able to put a human face to what you're giving business to, especially these days, you know, personality.

Ange Dove (22:43)

Yeah, nice. Yeah, especially these days. Nice. So I love this because I think it's something that I would say most people can relate to because I think the majority of people don't like public speaking until they get used to it and do it. So and then sometimes to just to start, it just seems so terrifying.

Kira Hartley Klinger (22:46)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (23:10)

I say. I mean, I was as well when I first spoke, like first got on camera. I, my God, I was so terrified. And then I literally I use the word terrified. It was terrifying. Because it's like our age kind of thing. We were we didn't grow up in front of video cameras, right? That was for the movie stars, right? This wasn't our world. Right. So my kids are just like, they whip the camera out and, you know, they'll

Kira Hartley Klinger (23:18)

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (23:23)

Hello? It is?

Kira Hartley Klinger (23:30)

No. Right.

Ange Dove (23:39)

they don't think anything of filming and then they can, they don't worry about what they look like. They just, you know, I think that I was like, my God, absolutely terrified. And then when I'd rehearse, what am I going to say? I've got to memorize everything, right? Then they turn the camera on and then my brain was just empty. I forgot everything. was like, no, no, no, can't do it. So, and I did what you did.

Kira Hartley Klinger (23:59)

Thank you.

Ange Dove (24:06)

in a way, but in a different way, but the same principle of I just repeated and repeated and repeated until it felt normal. Right. And I did this through doing a video challenge. I thought, OK, I read somewhere, you know, to get comfortable with something, you have to do it 21 times. So I thought, right, I'm going to do a 21 day challenge. So I did I did a challenge on video.

Kira Hartley Klinger (24:15)

Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (24:27)

my gosh.

Ange Dove (24:30)

getting on video and I invited people in to do this with me for 21 days and I gave them some tips on what to do on camera and then gave them homework to do for the next day and we did it that way for 21 days until the end of the 21 days all of us were fine on camera, right? So it's, it is really, it's, it's being afraid of the unknown really, right? Until you, you then get comfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (24:56)

And if friends are being judged...

No, that's huge. She's like, I don't want to be judged. didn't. Yeah. I look back on one of my first videos on Instagram and I look like a deer in the headlights. It's like, how do I get this off? And I, I redid that same video because I made this product along the way that removes odors from textiles. Okay. So I was marketing this product and the first video I'm just like, you know, like just, yeah. And I look and I redid it and I'm bouncy and I'm cute and I'm fun and

Ange Dove (24:59)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (25:18)

Right. Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (25:29)

funny and it's like that one's so much better you know just I don't know why it's so hard for us to just be ourselves like the kids are these days you know the kids take these selfies and put them out there and they're like my gosh you put that out there you know

Ange Dove (25:37)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (25:42)

Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (25:46)

I mean, you know, we choked about this beforehand, me breaking my tooth. I didn't want to come on with my tooth. You just have to not be so hard on yourself, you know, be relatable, be fun.

Ange Dove (25:47)

is true.

Ange Dove (25:59)

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point as well, because we're our own worst enemy, in a way, and it's the only thing that's stopping us actually is us. Right. And if we got out of our own way, just think how much you know, as I said to people, how much could you do if you actually got out of your own way, because nobody else cares. Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (26:08)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (26:23)

whether you've got your makeup on or whatever, you know, they don't care. They just want the information. They want the, you know, in your case could be some entertainment as well. And, you know, so that's, that's the secret to it is really just get out of your own way. And this, this for me happened when a coach told me, know, Angela, it's not about you. It's about the people you should be serving.

and you're not because you're not showing up for them. And then it was like, wow, OK, that was literally a light bulb moment for me that made me think, OK, yeah, it's not about me. Why am I making this about me? So when you reframe it that way, that it's not about me, it's about them, then you remove a lot of that fear, I think. But you still have to practice and get used to it.

Kira Hartley Klinger (27:13)

That's great though. That is really good because if you could start thinking about what am I trying to do for the person I'm talking to, then I think you quit thinking about how you're delivering it and more of, what do I need to say? What do I need to say to land this customer to make this human connection to? And writing things down, I'm sorry, is a failure. I trying to rehearse.

Ange Dove (27:19)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (27:23)

Mm.

Ange Dove (27:32)

Yeah, make them understand and stuff, right? Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (27:40)

I did that one time getting up in front of church. like, you know what? I'm going to write it down this time because I always forget to say things and then I'm always upset with myself. I just kept getting lost in what I had written down. It's like, okay, well, this was pointless. It just...

Ange Dove (27:46)

Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (27:53)

I thought of this today as well, because I was at networking event today and people get up to speak and they're talking about their own business, what they do every day, and they've got the mobile phone and they're reading their script off the mobile phone in front of everyone. So there's no connection because they're just looking at the phone, they're not looking at everybody else. And then you just kind of think you lose trust because it's like, well, if you don't know what you do and you can't speak about it.

You know, maybe you do it. Yeah. So I think, yeah, that is, that's part of being authentic, right, is just being able to speak about what you do because you know it, you know it. And you don't need a script to speak about what you do. You probably need some memory markers, right, for your age, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (28:21)

How do I have faith in you? Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (28:41)

Yeah, indeed.

Ange Dove (28:46)

So I used to do videos with StreamYard before I got onto Riverside. was on StreamYard. And what I loved about StreamYard is you could do banners. You could prepare banners ahead of time. So you could break your talk into maybe five sections, do a banner for each section. So I would just click and the banner would come up and I would talk about that. Right? And so that was my memory aid. Otherwise I would forget what I was going to say because the structure would be all over the place.

Kira Hartley Klinger (29:08)

thanks. Yeah, you know.

Ange Dove (29:16)

But that's what you need is just something to remember what it is you're going to talk about. And then once you've got that in front of you, you should be able to talk about it. And I think as well I've heard people say as well a lot of the fear of public speaking is because you don't know what you're supposed to be saying when you go up there as well. Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (29:37)

Right. The quiet moments when you're struggling to figure out what to say. Yeah.

Ange Dove (29:42)

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I think this is one of the things that, as you said, is if people are afraid to do public speaking, but then what you talked about was there's so many benefits to it that it sort of becomes, okay, well, why wouldn't you do this for your business if you really want your business to succeed? And

And as you've proven, and I think as I've proven as well, is the more times you do it, the more it just becomes natural. You're not afraid of public speaking so much now, right?

Kira Hartley Klinger (30:21)

no, no, this last quilting guild, we had a blast. It was one of the most receptive crowds I had. They asked so many questions that we went way over time. And I knew we were over time. I'm always over time. But yeah, when you can talk for an hour and then wonder where the time went, then you know that you've arrived. Yeah.

Ange Dove (30:37)

Yeah, that's great. That is great. Okay, so as we wrap up today's session, is there anything that you feel that we should have talked about that we didn't?

Kira Hartley Klinger (30:52)

We covered a lot. mean, especially at our age, being too old is definitely a roadblock that people need to quit saying, you know. But also, you know, that it's, people like to say, it's too late. It's too, for whatever reason. And it's just, it's just not, it just all depends on how badly you want something. You know, it's great determination.

Ange Dove (30:52)

You

Ange Dove (31:09)

Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (31:15)

Yes, that is so true. Yeah, because like when I started my business and this is when some people tell me, I'd love to start my own business, but I really don't have the time. I've got my family, I've got my job and everything. And I'm like, okay, well.

I started my business with a full-time job as a teacher. Then I had extra work in the evenings because I had to mark the homework and everything as well. That's not done in teaching time, right? Then I had two kids under the age of two. And then I was doing my copywriting business on the side. Right? So saying, don't tell me you haven't got time. You've got the same 24 hours I had. It's just, is it a priority for you to get this done?

Right. that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kira Hartley Klinger (32:00)

Exactly. I can tell you in the first four years, I cannot tell you what would have been on TV at any time. did not want TV was not, I had one, but I never put it on. You know, there was no time. So I did get on my elliptical a lot at usually one o'clock in the morning. But sometimes, sometimes you need that for the brain.

Ange Dove (32:08)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, you are focused on.

Ange Dove (32:21)

Good. Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (32:26)

But yeah, it's prioritizing your time, just like you said.

Ange Dove (32:31)

Yeah, if you really want it bad enough, you'll find a way to do it, I think. And then it's worth the work when you do.

Kira Hartley Klinger (32:38)

And that's worth the work and have the right people in your background too. That was so huge for me is having a support system that believed in me and didn't agree with the negative thoughts in my brain. They agreed with the dream. They didn't come into them and say, yeah, I can't do this. I don't have the time. And then somebody saying, yeah, you really don't. You're just too busy. You don't need that.

Ange Dove (32:55)

Nice.

Ange Dove (33:01)

Okay. Yeah. And I find as well, like when I first started my business, the only person that said, go and do it was my husband. Everybody else was, oh, no, no, no, you shouldn't do that. You've got a good job. Stick at your job. Don't risk it. It's a bad economy. You know, you haven't got any experience in business. No, don't. And I was just stubborn. think one of the things was I was stubborn. But also just I knew that

Kira Hartley Klinger (33:27)

That helps.

Ange Dove (33:30)

I knew that was my path forward to get out of where I was and to be able to gain some control over what I wanted to do and spend time with my kids, which I wasn't really doing when I was teaching. So yeah, I knew that it was just like short-term pain for long-term gain in a sense. You put in the work early, you'll reap the rewards afterwards. And you learn a lot along the way.

Kira Hartley Klinger (33:40)

Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (33:55)

And at the end of the day, yeah, who doesn't want to write their own life story? You know, I mean, I think we all do to some degree.

Ange Dove (34:00)

Yes, that's such a nice way to put it. Yeah, yeah, that's a nice way to put it, write your own story. Coming from an author who has written this.

Ange Dove (34:15)

Okay, so where can we send people so that they can know more about you and your shops, your business and your books?

Kira Hartley Klinger (34:23)

Okay, so shame on me. A website is on my bucket list. It has not happened yet. I have a hard enough time juggling all of these demands of you should be on this social media and that social media. But I am on social media. You can find me on LinkedIn. Talk there that that's under Keira Hartley Klinger. I have a Facebook author page that's under Keira Hartley Klinger.

My Etsy shop, if you're into fabric or textiles or you know somebody that is, have a lot of people that have given my books for gifts for people that are kind of in that lane, that is Doddoddy, D-O-D-O-D-D-I-T-Y. Instagram is also under the same name. Instagram's pretty strongly linked to my Etsy because like I said, I do a lot of those videos and those videos bring me a lot of business. I'm really surprised. And I don't pay for those videos to boost those videos.

Ange Dove (35:02)

Bye.

Ange Dove (35:09)

Nice. Nice.

Kira Hartley Klinger (35:15)

Don't get wrapped up in that garbage. I've tried it a few times. It has never netted me any more business than just putting it out there, being fun, being original. Yeah. Because I'm a type, I don't invest in all that nonsense, but it's still a good tool. It really is. And know, the books aren't just about fabric because a lot of it weaves in my journey in this world. It weaves in things that I bought that have nothing to do with fabric. You know, it's just.

Ange Dove (35:23)

Okay, interesting. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (35:43)

Mmm.

Kira Hartley Klinger (35:43)

It's just been basically this journey. So yeah.

Ange Dove (35:47)

Yeah, and then what I get from listening to you as well is what comes across to me is the power of being visible. You just put yourself out there and just let people know, here I am, this is what I do. And you get the business back in return.

Kira Hartley Klinger (36:06)

Right, right, you really do. mean, I did my first podcast found me that way. All things a TV producer found me from one of my stupid little notes in one of my packages because she was a customer and I'll show you the TV producer. I mean, you just never know. You got to put yourself out there in every creative possible way that you can think of. You need to make yourself stand out.

Ange Dove (36:12)

Mm.

Ange Dove (36:23)

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think don't discount the audiences that you have as well. Like you mentioned, people are multifaceted. They're not just one thing. So you never know. And then word of mouth as well, they'll say something to somebody else, hey, did you see this? Look at this. And then they might say, I someone who wants that. So yeah, it just works.

Kira Hartley Klinger (36:39)

Bye.

Kira Hartley Klinger (36:46)

No?

Kira Hartley Klinger (36:51)

I had somebody, I got a messenger message yesterday. She said, I found you in a search. I have a stack of quilt blocks. Can you help me figure out how old they are? And first question is, what search did you use? Because my husband, he loves to put my name into the Google search and watch all the page after page after page that comes up. But it's the power of visibility and it's the power of tagging yourself all the time. So yeah.

Ange Dove (37:03)

Uh-huh.

Ange Dove (37:06)

And what such is.

Ange Dove (37:18)

Yeah, right. And now that we've got AI coming up with AI as well, people are searching in different ways as well. So if you've got a strong presence online, then somebody goes into ChatGBT or one of the other AI tools and asks, you know, who's the best whatever.

Kira Hartley Klinger (37:21)

you found me and I'm more than happy to help her but yeah it's just really

Ange Dove (37:47)

If you're there already, you're going to come up in those listings. That's what happened to me. This guy booked me in, booked into my calendar. I do outreach on LinkedIn.

Kira Hartley Klinger (37:52)

Right. is definitely.

Ange Dove (38:03)

called Outreach on LinkedIn to people. And when he booked into my calendar, I was like, I don't recognize that name. Pretty sure I didn't speak to this person on LinkedIn, right? And then when I asked him when he came on, where did you find me? He said, I found you through chat GPT. I just searched for, what was it? I think, I can't, what was he searching for? I think a personal brand consultant. I think he said, who's the best personal brand consultant in Singapore? My name came up. Yes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (38:29)

Can you cut that?

Ange Dove (38:32)

So that opened my eyes.

Kira Hartley Klinger (38:33)

We can compete. We can compete with these young whippersnappers and their technology. Look at us go.

Ange Dove (38:38)

Yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (38:44)

You

Kira Hartley Klinger (38:44)

you

Ange Dove (38:47)

you say you're never too old right? We have wisdom, we have wisdom.

Kira Hartley Klinger (38:49)

No.

Kira Hartley Klinger (38:53)

Yes, by leaps and bounds that we have.

Ange Dove (38:56)

Yeah. Okay, so Kira is lovely speaking to you today. She said, we talked on the top of the hour that this would go by so quickly, right? And it has. We've done 40 minutes now. So it's gone really quick. So really good conversation. I've loved having you on. So thank you so much for your time today.

Kira Hartley Klinger (39:09)

Right.

Kira Hartley Klinger (39:17)

Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, this was fun.

Ange Dove (39:20)

Yeah, you're welcome.