[00:00:00]
Genecia Alluora: This episode is brought to you by Instant podcastleader.com, the leading platform to launch your podcast in 48 hours and make it profitable. Get your free audiobook and free webclass at instant.podcastleader.com/webclass.

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Genecia Alluora: A strong and independent woman is something to behold. She pays her own bills, buys her own things, and she doesn't let a man affect her stability or self-confidence. She is a Soul Rich Woman. Are you ready to be rich in doing what you love be on purpose and in control of your life again. And for women who love the F-word podcast, we will be openly talking about getting more clients online, getting recognition as the leader and female entrepreneur, and also the F-word being fabulous, having freedom and financial independence. It's time to own and love the F word. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:04]
Genecia Alluora: Hey, gorgeous. Welcome to today's episode. Now, on this episode, I have completed an interview with Shannon Winston of Keep What You Earn podcast show. And I would like to share with. You the interview done because in this show I talked about secrets of manifesting money quickly. Creating abundance in your life is not just the only ingredient to your financial success or to own your F-word. You too need another secret ingredient to own that level of success. So I hope you enjoy this episode and I look forward to speaking with you really soon.

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Shannon Winston: Welcome, Genecia. It's so great to have you.

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Genecia Alluora: Thank you for having me on your show, Shannon.

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Shannon Winston: Absolutely. So, as you can tell from the introduction, there's no question that Genecia has accomplished a lot in her life. And we all know that this type of success does not happen overnight. So could you go into a little bit of your background, how you started Soul Rich Woman and even beyond that, growing up, your business, everything? Tell us your story.

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Genecia Alluora: Well, now I run a female entrepreneur network that's called Soul Rich Woman here in Southeast Asia, and we started this in 2015. Before that, I was running a cafe retail chain business. We were in three countries. We had 18 franchisees and licensees, and after four years of being in the business, we exited to a public listed company. So it was then I cashed out. And then I invested into soul rich woman. Before all this happened, I was a teenager, 14 years old, waiting and doing school like every other kid but my family financially, we were not sound. So I had to support and work through and support myself through school. My mom pawned her gold and saved money, sent me for some instructor certifications, aerobics instructor, country line dancing, as well as yoga instructor program. So I took up these programs, and I started teaching part time during my studies. Throughout my entire journey has not been smooth because I'm not well to do. I'm poor. My schoolmates often bullied me because my shoes were not new. It would hand me down. My uniforms are old, and my bags and my pencil cases and everything that I use are usually secondhand, or if not, someone passes me those items.

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Genecia Alluora: So it's never easy. So being bullied was one of the things that causes myself that seemed to go way down, especially when I remember one incident, they cornered me and they threw my bag across the classroom floor, and all my books were strewn across the floor, and nobody, nobody stood up for me. And everyone was just standing there and just looking, just afraid to speak up or stand up for someone being bullied. So I think that was something that left the impression in my heart. And I went back home and told my mom about all the different bullying situations that happened to me in school. And she told me this, turn your mess into your message. Now, even though I don't really get it get it at that point in time. But my tenacity and grit and determination grew because my mother was my source of mental and wellness and emotional support, and I persevered and that's how I moved forward. 2006, I joined Miss Singapore Universe. I came in top three in the same year, I competed in another beauty pageant, and I won Miss Singapore International and went on to Japan to compete internationally.

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Genecia Alluora: And with that, the doors opened. I worked really hard and started my own consulting business in image and grooming. My clientele are CEOs, politicians, leaders of companies, directors of companies, because it was not because I was Missed Singapore, well, that opened the door, but because I had a lot of, I would say, instructor experience since 14. By the time I hit 21, I had already more than a decade of experience speaking. So because of that, that gave me credibility and really worked very hard to move myself through. But, you see, it came to a point where I couldn't move anymore because I was stuck. I don't want to be a trainer on my life in terms of, I get paid, I work, I get paid, I don't work, I don't get paid. So I kind of have, like, a quarter life crisis at that point and ask myself this question, what am I going to do with my life? Am I going to be a slave to entrepreneurship? Now, I coined this term. A lot of people say it's the red race. I call this the entrepreneur red race, which means you thought that you're entrepreneur, you don't value your own time.

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Genecia Alluora: You expect to be paid when you're a full time job. But when you become an entrepreneur, you don't expect to be paid. You don't value your time. How do you spend your time every single day? So in 2012, I went online and the rest is history. I hired a mentor. I cross $100,000 in three months and then I made a million dollars in a single year. And that is history. So my determination move forward past the cafe retail chain business to now Soul Rich Woman is to get women to own their F-word, which is freedom, financial independence, family, as well as being fabulous.

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Shannon Winston: I love that. I absolutely love that. Can we talk about there must have been a mindset shift that happened. There must have been like not a single moment. But what do you think were the key drivers that helped you shift into that entrepreneurial mindset?

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Genecia Alluora: I have never done do well in school. I think that's one thing. But the key thing that shifted my mindset was the desire to change and the awareness of it. So having the awareness and desire to change, I put myself through causes. I think skills are something that it cannot be removed from us. Education is only to that limit. I graduated as an occupational therapist. I'm in healthcare. And in this profession, that is that far we can go because the hierarchy in healthcare is very short. It's very I would say not high it's, low it's either you are like a junior and then senior, and then you are like the manager and that's it, right? So I said, okay, there must be something else we can do. So the key mindset shift is really invest in myself to desire for change through the awareness of putting myself out there.

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Shannon Winston: I absolutely love that. Yes. And I also find that I love hearing people's stories because your story typically drives why you do what you do. Make your mess your message. Like your mom said, you find out that your mission is to help empower others so that they don't have those things happen to them, like the bullying and that they learn these lessons early on. And I just absolutely love that message. And before we hit record, you and I were talking about financial success for women and the importance of financial freedom, financial independence but there's the glamorous side of it. And then there's the not so glamorous side of it. Kind of like a fitness journey, right? You can't you don't get progress without the work. So let's talk about what that looks like and what you believe women need to know about finances to be successful.

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Genecia Alluora: A lot of time to talk about the F word, right? So which a lot of women said, I want financial freedom, I want financial independence. And yes, we can give you the sincere, the why, we give you the how, and bam, it's done. Once they meet their 10k month, they're 20K months and then scaling upwards. I'm like, hey, what do you do with your money? Oh, I bought a Channel bag. I bought this brand. I bought the wallet I've been eyeing for a long time. It's a childhood dream. I was never able to do that, great. I mean, it's wonderful to reward yourself versus when you make the money and then you are not managing the money. You achieve the financial independence. You achieve to a certain extent, you're just getting started. But if you are not managing it, your financial independence could be entirely lost. So this is one thing that I always advise women to do. Always pay yourself first. I think that's very important. And use whatever that has been, I would say segmented out to pay yourself first and then use that to apportion out whatever you want to buy eventually delay gratification. That's the point number two. Hardly, I would say not all women will splurge on branded stuff. Sometimes they buy stuff for their kids, like, for example, holidays or even the ballet dress the kids has been dreaming about.

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Genecia Alluora: Yes, family is important, but that bloodline. Or I call it the cash flow of business it is that flow that keeps the entire business going. What if a client delays paying you? What if you needed extra emergency funds for whatever purposes, extra marketing dollars to get a few more, just maybe two more clients to get that going? So I think that would be delayed gratification. Last but not least, something I would feel very practical is if you really want something that badly for yourself or for your family, why not get two more clients? I always suggest to my coaching clients to be like, find two more person who will pay for that. So you keep a base set of clients for the retainer fee or whatever that you've made, invest back, and then maybe get two more so that you can extra buffer for the item that you always wanted.

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Shannon Winston: Yeah, and one thing I always preach is recurring revenue. So you're not having to hustle all the time for every single sale and that you know that there is a baseline or a foundation to your cash flow where if you want to splurge on something, an opportunity comes up or you need to invest more in marketing. You know, well, I just need to sign one more client and I can make that happen. And then you can actually kind of reward yourself. It's kind of like after this workout, I get a cookie sometimes, but it's a little bit like an incentive or a measurement to say, I'm ready to invest in this so that you're managing your cash flow responsibly. So I love that mentality.

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Genecia Alluora: Yes. And it's not always easy. So I just want to encourage for those of you who is listening today, find a peer group, like a mastermind, three, four, five of you. It doesn't have to be big like a community. Just a small group where you stay accountable, where you are supportive of each other. And there's no judgment in that group.

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Shannon Winston: Love it. So in learning all of this around financial independence and a lot of the same messages we share here, what do you think were the factors in helping you learn this, right? I know that you said you didn't go to school necessarily for this. So what were the lessons learned either for yourself or from others, where these concepts really stuck and these were part of your beliefs?

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Genecia Alluora: As quickly as I made my million dollars, as quickly as the million dollars depleted. Why? Because I didn't have any money management skill set, nor a mentor who guided me to growing or taking care of the finances in the business. Whatever I earn, I draw out the full amount and then I just use it, whatever I want. So how do I overcome that for myself personally is to really number one, if you're not a person who can keep the money, hire a CFO. And that was exactly what I did. I hired somebody and control my money to take care and handle for me. Number two, really get a mentor who really guide you what to do. Number three, repeat one. And two, because we are entrepreneurs, we don't really listen. We have our own opinions, we have our own mindset how we should spend our money. I would say if you want to hire somebody, engage somebody, believe in them fully, empower them fully. And really, I would say don't be the bottleneck of your business.

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Shannon Winston: Yes. And as a CFO myself, I would also say find someone who understands your goals and is willing to help you achieve them and to hold you to them. Because there have been many conversations I've had with clients where we talk about their top three priorities for the year and their spending does not align with those priorities all the time. And sometimes we have to go back to that first sheet of remember when you told me that this was the most important thing? Let's make sure that our budget aligns with that and that we're putting our money where our mouth is, literally.

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Genecia Alluora: Yeah, and I agree with that. I would like to add on will be put your goals in front of you because out of sight, out of mind. So that's how I work with my clients and myself. I put my goals, let's say, certain things we want to buy or we want to hire somebody at this rate. We put our goals down very clearly and on the board. So that we will not when we have the budget, oh, why don't we spend money on this year end party, for example? We kind of forget where we started and why we wanted to utilize or how we want to utilize the budget.

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Shannon Winston: Yeah, and I think that because we're so used to this, the original rat race of being an employee and having a set paycheck and a set budget and having that controlled for us, that when we are put in control, we have to actually exercise discipline and we've never had to before. And it becomes much, much more challenging to actually understand my spending must align with my goals or this is what I'm missing out on by spending money over here. And it's just so easy to say yes to so many opportunities. But you have to be mindful with your money. Even if you believe in the concept of manifesting money and that money is welcome into your life and all those good things, if you don't know what to do with it once you have it, then you're going to be really kind of running in circles and exhausted from trying to earn more and more and more. It's like trying to out exercise a bad diet. So Genecia, I just love your mentality over this stuff and I'm so excited we got to talk about it.

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Shannon Winston: I want to actually switch gears for a second because I know that you're known as an expert in going from offline to online, which talk about a great time for that to be valuable and also in personal branding and how important personal branding is for online entrepreneurs and for those business owners listening. Now, a lot of online business owners listen to this show and I'm sure we'll get so much value out of hearing your expertise on building a brand online. Especially because there's kind of this perception right now that the online space is very saturated. So I would love to hear from you about how you can truly stand out in what seems like a world where everyone is online now.

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Genecia Alluora: Yeah, this is actually pretty interesting, I feel, because post COVID most people are online. Anyone who has a Zoom who uses zoom is an online entrepreneur. Anyone who owns a software that does landing pages has an online funnel. So, let me put it layman would be if you own a camera, doesn't make you a photographer. If you own a website or a blog, doesn't make you a blogger. If you are a chef, doesn't mean you own a restaurant. You can run a restaurant business. So I think using this as a logic, if you look at the entire landscape of online, doesn't mean everybody has a nice website, is really online. So what online and really being there and present really mean will be how are you showing up for your clients and people you serve every single day? Now, there is a difference if you only serve your client by showing up once a week versus someone who is newer than you in the marketing game or online game, who's showing up two to three times a day, every single day for the next 365 days.

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Genecia Alluora: Your excuse of I've got no time, I have my family, I've got this, I got them too busy. Then maybe you want to reevaluate how much your success is going to be at. For example, is it just going to be a 3K month or 5k month? If you're going to put in only 4 hours a week versus someone who puts in 16 hours a day hustling to get things off the ground and make sure they are seen and heard, then that will make a lot of difference. Therefore, personal branding is no longer just about imaging and of course it's about messaging. But if you are not even showing up in the first place consistently then you will not be able to even with the best personal branding website and the personal brand photos and the best copywriting in the whole world but nobody knows about you think about best selling author. Everyone wants to be a best selling author. But if you're not moving towards the direction then that's something you want to consider.

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Shannon Winston: Yeah. And building a personal brand online seems like something that most people would assume. Oh, that's for these lifestyle people or that's for these people who want to be celebrities or they want to build a personal brand online. I'm actually of the belief and tell me your thoughts that almost everyone needs a personal brand these days to build up a trust factor. Including accountants like me, lawyers, even your dentist should probably have some type of personal brand to have their face out there. What are your thoughts on that?

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Genecia Alluora: If you talk about having a face versus not having a face, definitely having a face definitely builds the trust much faster. And always choose something that you can solve one problem for your customer immediately. That means if somebody will say okay, like you say you are in accounts space, you're in the financial space, but what area are you really good in? So you niche into that specific space and be really good at that. Create your own, I would say your own ocean, your own area instead of going to a space. And be number two, be rather your own category king or category queen. I think that would be key. Like for myself as Soul Rich Woman's founder, I'm not just a female entrepreneur network that does the usual business stuff. We are very core focused on helping women to go from offline to online to own the F-word. Now how do we do that? That's later on. But the messaging out there to the world is such so niche that when people think about I want to go online, I will think about Soul Rich Woman, right? Or if I want to start accounts, I want to find someone to start a company, they will not come to Soul Rich Woman, they will go to someone else for that purpose.

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Genecia Alluora: So be very distinct on how you're serving your people and that would be the question you need to ask yourself, which is, what is the one problem that I can solve for my customer immediately right now, so that in future and moving forward, they will pay me for my advice and for my service.

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Shannon Winston: I love it. And there's a lot of talk right now in having a niche online. And a lot of folks asked, can I have two? Can I have more than one? Can I go a little bit broader? I think there's a lot of fear around going too narrow. Have you seen that in soul rich woman in your community? And how have you been able to coach through that?

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Genecia Alluora: Everyone wants to be everything to everyone. I agree with you. The formal factor, the fear of missing out is huge. And I acknowledge that. I will not say, oh, it's not there, okay? It is there. So the way, and one key way I always get them to overcome is think about like an octopus. I don't know if you know Octopus. Octopus has eight lakes. So think about you are building your business like an octopus. First, build one leg. Until that leg is successful, move to the second leg and then the third leg, and then the fourth leg. If I put it into a sports metaphor, it will be the golf. Go to a golf course. You need to keep the first, then the second, and then your third, and then to the last hole, right.? There is a progression in everything. So don't deny the fear of missing out. Accept it, acknowledge it. Say, thank you very much for being there for me. And I just want you to get out of the door right now because I want to establish my key foundation so strong. My first lake, my first hole, and I'm going to move through it until I'm so good at it. And then I move to the next one.

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Shannon Winston: I actually love that analogy and it's so true because we get so excited about chapter ten that we don't go through chapter one through nine and read them. We skip right there and then we don't know what to do because we have no idea what happened in the story. Yes, I totally agree. So speaking of personal brands too, what other tips do you have for those who are maybe they're just starting out online. They feel overwhelmed or they do feel like the places is saturated online, wherever they are. Maybe it's Instagram. Maybe it's Facebook. LinkedIn. Maybe they're feeling like, oh, I'm not the only one. I'm not that special. Why would they follow me? What do you have to say to entrepreneurs who are struggling with those types of challenges?

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Genecia Alluora: Find five people who say and think that you are good in whatever area that you have probably helped them before. Because we lose confidence in ourselves in the midst of all this online mayhem, we lose ourselves. Oh, you know, the shiny star syndrome. Oh, this person is much more better than me. Because we compare ourselves to someone who has the glamour right now. But they have not seen that shit that person has walked through to get to that stardom or that status. So find five friends or five business. I would say peer to peer support in the community that you are in and get them to say something and recognize something that is good in you or you're really good with. From there, establish a confidence once again in that specific area because they don't get paid by saying what's good about you or what you have shown up for them, right? So hey, that's something to get started with.

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Shannon Winston: Absolutely. And there's a version of that that I do that one of my coaches taught me, which was to have a hype reel. And what I do is I take screenshots when there's a good testimonial or when there's kind things being said and sometimes you just need to read through those every so often to give yourself a boost. And I have a folder in my phone of those photos and I can say wow, I am making a difference. People do appreciate me and it's just nice to do that. Not from a place of ego. Don't do it just to boost your own ego and get a hit of dopamine or whatever. But it's really important to remind yourself that there are people who truly appreciate you. Even if you're getting any, god forbid, any hate online or you just feel like something's not landing, it's a great way to keep going because entrepreneurship is just a very volatile emotional roller coaster for a lot of people.

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Genecia Alluora: And we often as female entrepreneurs, we beat ourselves over little things that happen, clients not paying you on time and then you blame yourself and say am I that bad? And then when clients say something, am I really so lousy? There's nothing positive that you turn around. It's always the first instinct of the negative. So I think that reading something positive or have people around you who gave you the positive environment really will help you through. Remember, alone you are strong. Together we are unstoppable.

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Shannon Winston: I love that. Oh my God. I hope you guys are writing down the stuff that Genecia is saying. She's full of just great lines. To you could take these and put them as post it notes across your desk to stay motivated. I absolutely love it. So Genecia, you also have a lot of resources out there for women around a topic I love right now, which is delegation, operations, having people to help you because like you said, together we are unstoppable. And that's not just in network, but that's in your business as well, right? So tell us about how you became passionate about this topic and what resources you have for our listeners around that?

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Genecia Alluora: I became passionate about this topic after in fact, it was during my cafe retail chain business. Because even though I had the money, I had the business, I had everything that I have. I didn't feel as contented. I felt that something was missing. I was not doing what I was called for. And therefore when I exited the business with my partners, I was like oh, because we exited the public listed company, right? So we exited with cash on the market. This is it, I'm going to do something about it. So that was something that I wanted to move and to shortcut women's success. I would say that to help them to get the opportunities that they will have never thought of. To have it easier than me because I lend them my giant platform, my giant shoulders, and let them leap off to the next phase of your life. Because success is never about glorious wins. Like you said never about the ego, it's never about the winds, but it's about how you can take a step back and let other people shine as well.

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Genecia Alluora: So I have two resources for the listeners today. One is, how do you do a million dollar personal brand? And the other one is, how do you delegate 80% of your to do list to your assistant so that you can make money online and that's available at soulrichwoman.com. And that is S-O-U-L-R-I-C-H-W-O-M-A-N dot com, soulrichwoman.com. Or you could connect with me on social like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok at Genecia Alluora and that is G-E-N-E-C-I-A A-L-L-U-O-R-A.

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Shannon Winston: Love it. We're going to have all of those links in the show notes to make it as easy as possible for you. All you do is click on that. And these are free downloads, right?

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Genecia Alluora: Yeah, free. Absolutely free.

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Shannon Winston: Fantastic. Make sure you guys jump on that. I'm going to be definitely reading the delegation one, hands down. I know that that's something that I'll be working on very soon. Now, Genecia. We love here keep what you are to throw off three rapid fire questions to our guests because it helps us get to know you a bit better. And I just think they're really fun and they're around money. So, Genecia, what is one investment that you can't live without?

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Genecia Alluora: Myself.

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Shannon Winston: Tell me what you mean by that.

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Genecia Alluora: Well, it's the matter above the neck that keeps me alive and going and inspiring more women's lives. Yeah.

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Shannon Winston: Love it. What is one thing that you learned about money that turned out not to be true?

[00:30:35]
Genecia Alluora: That you need to hard work to earn money.

[00:30:39]
Shannon Winston: I agree with that one. And what makes you feel like a millionaire?

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Genecia Alluora: When I see other people's success stories?

[00:30:48]
Shannon Winston: Love it. Absolutely love it. Couldn't agree more with any of those answers. I think they're all brilliant. And now please do follow Genecia on Social. Make sure that you're tagging her and me in your posts. If you enjoyed this episode, share it and let us know what your biggest takeaway was. It's the best gift that we can give her. So thank you Genecia, so much for jumping on the show and I hope to see you again soon.

[00:31:13]
Genecia Alluora: So you will like to master the key of getting known online in just 30 days. Even if you have no business or no online presence and you want to use podcasting to get yourself seen, heard, recognized as a leader online, connect with me and book my Clarity call. And that is at soulrichwoman.com/clarity. S-O-U-L-R-I-C-H-W-O-M-A-N.com/clarity. C-L-A-R-I-T-Y.

[00:31:49]
Genecia Alluora: I look forward to speaking with you and sharing and learning about how we can help you to be seen as a leader online. To make the strategic shift this year to keep getting clients online. Last but not least, to turn no into yes easily and 10 X your financial independence. Remember, for women who love the F word being fabulous, having freedom, financial independence and a happy family, you can have it all. Signing off and bye for now.

[00:32:26]
Genecia Alluora: The key to unlock consistent success. The key to unlock the diamond within you. No other things involved. This is what you need to do and must do tonight. You can do it because I've done it. As long as you have a mentor who can take you from where you are now to where you want to be. You can shortcut your success. You can be different in order to make a difference. Turn your talent into your business. Turn your passion into a pay check by being you. By being new and only you. Give yourself a second chance. Never say no to your failures. As a woman, we have the power in our hands. Never let your fears hold you back. Quit thinking and start doing. Life is really short and keep pursuing what you truly ever wanted to achieve. Women come together alone. We are strong. Together we are unstoppable. The Soul Rich Woman Blueprint is going to be transforming your life today, yesterday, last year because you took action today, I'm going to say more power to you.