PR Coaching Services and Following Your Intuition

Chris Kiefer (00:00.882)

Welcome back to another episode of the Pursuit of Purpose. My name is Chris Kiefer, and today I have the one and only Renee Warren. Thank you so much, Renee, for coming on.

Renee Warren (00:11.246)

Well, thanks for having me. I have to correct you. I'm not the one and only. If you're a... There are multiple of me. I will say this if you have Google Alerts for your name, which you should. There is a woman in South Carolina that keeps getting arrested and she's making our name look bad because I get all the Google Alerts.

Chris Kiefer (00:15.323)

There's multiple.

Chris Kiefer (00:32.458)

Oh, that's, I didn't, I haven't even thought about that. I did know that speaking of names and just personal branding, like probably 10 years ago, I was doing like in a marketing company and making websites for people. And someone had been like, go find the.com version of your name and buy it. And I went and looked and it wasn't available. And it was like some random graphic designer or something like he was not active, but I had, I put an alert on the domain name.

And there was a time where, you know, like if you forget to renew, then it lapses. And then there's a holding period and then immediately after then you can get it. And I snagged it like he forgot, or I don't, I don't, maybe he was going out of business or who knows what happened. But anyways, I did finally secure Chris Kieffer.com, but there was another Chris Kieffer graphic design architect or something that was out there that, um, so I have come across the other, you know, I like that you said she's making our name look bad because.

Renee Warren (01:27.842)

Yes, she is.

Chris Kiefer (01:28.674)

Yeah, you don't want to have the top story be Renée Warren arrested for whatever.

Renee Warren (01:33.426)

Right? In South Carolina again, Renee, I didn't realize you traveled down there so much.

Chris Kiefer (01:38.786)

Yeah, totally. So first, I just wanna jump straight into this. And my strategy is people can go look up your stuff. You've got your own podcast, you've got a book, you've got a company, you're an entrepreneur. I'm just gonna jump straight into some questions that I have after digging into the content that you've already put out. And I wanna start with, in 2022, in December, you went to a Tony Robbins event, Date with Destiny, which I've heard a lot about.

But that was a big moment or shift mentally or your, just tell me about what happened when you went there.

Renee Warren (02:15.062)

Well, I know you're gonna ask me eventually about one of my favorite books that I'm gonna just start with one of them. It's called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And it is a beautiful exercise in doing morning pages. So you write three pages of conscious stream of thought, just whatever comes down. And part of this process has been a huge journey for me going from I used to have a very successful PR agency and it burnt out because I started it.

the same year that I welcomed both my sons, they're 11 months apart, and we grew really quickly. And my husband at the time was on planes going to raise rounds for his new startup. So all that being said, coming to this point in my life where I went into coaching and I was not aligned with the work that I was doing, but it seemed easy for me because I knew how to coach people and I knew how to run a business, it just wasn't passion filled for me. So.

I'm like, I got to figure out what it is that I want to do. So part of the exercises that I did was I signed up to take drum lessons because I figured, you know, I'm going to try something new that challenges me. That way it builds a new neural pathways. I experienced something different. Maybe it'll just provoke something. Then I did the artist's way and that was in I think I ended in August or September of last year. So a year ago and then on December.

fourth, we went to our second Tony Robbins event. Well, not our second, sorry, it would have been our second date with Destiny, which is like Tony's. My husband and I, yeah. Yeah. And the first time I went to date with Destiny was back in 2015 where I knew who Tony Robbins was, but I'd never been in a room with him and Dan had donated money to a charity and in exchange for that donation, you get two tickets to Tony's event.

Chris Kiefer (03:47.166)

And when you say we, this is you and Dan went together.

Renee Warren (04:09.29)

And I was like, okay, these are free tickets. So I'm making like nosebleed section. I don't even know what this is all about. So we show up in Boca Raton in 2015, and we ended up being in the chairman invited seats. So I'm literally sitting next to Melissa Etheridge, Natasha Bedingfield, like all of these famous people. Of course, me, I don't even know, like I don't know it's them and I'm hugging them and high-fiving them and Dan's like, did you realize that's Melissa Etheridge? But.

I'm like, who are these crazy people jumping up and down for 16 hours a day in a really cold room with no food? I don't understand this. So I think that was like the part of the journey. So fast forward to the last year, so December of last year, 2022. And I'm in this room and I'm like, I get it now. Like I wanna be here, I'm intentional in being here and I'm gonna do the work. And it just cracked me open. And part of it was, it's not just one event. It's a sequence of things that happens. It's just like.

anybody they can say, Oh, you know, is that one night that I got really drunk and I was hungover that stopped me from drinking ever again? Like, no, it wasn't. It wasn't the one night. It was every night before that. And it was all the things that happened. This was just the moment you decided. And so being in this room with Tony was like, I want to do what I love doing again. And for some reason, it was public relations. And I can get back into the space and crush it. And think about it.

And I am officially now, in September, at the time of this recording, paying myself more today than I did all the years I was running my successful PR agency.

Chris Kiefer (05:48.242)

So what was the unlock? And I wanna actually, before you answer that, the thing that's so fascinating, and I think that it's like, I agree with you, it's the moment you decided that's the difference. But I feel like something that I'm passionate about is like trying to, in this group, this coaching group that I'm in, the Man on a Mission group, we just went through mission stuff and trying to really like, what am I doing here? And so I have.

decided and like after lots of journaling and talking to people my mission is to champion the relentless pursuit of purpose so that's just like For as long as I can remember and partially because of losing my dad when I was a junior in college. I like I feel like I was catapulted forward into like I feel like I matured not in the moment of his like but it was like over the next year after he died

And then I get into the real world and I'm like, gosh, this is like, I was an engineer, I hated it. And I immediately just like pulled the eject button and got out, because I was like, I don't have time. My dad died right after he graduated or he retired. And three weeks after retiring, got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then died three months later. So it's like, I was faced with this idea of, okay, if I go down this, if my career is an engineer,

And let's just say I also have the misfortune of dying in my late 50s. Did I live the life that I wanted in my 50s, right? And so I feel like some people, they'll grind for far longer than I, I feel like I would have continued down that path for maybe 20 or 30 years as an engineer because I wasn't confronted with death as readily as I was, if that makes sense. But all this coming back to where I wanna get with you is, I have friends.

and people that I love, siblings that are doing things that I feel like are not their passion. They would tell you it's not their passion. They would tell you it's not what they want to do, but for some reason they're not able to make the decision to do it. And so I'm curious with that context, or you can throw that aside if you've got another angle, but I'm like what is the thing that makes someone like me be like, screw this. I don't even care what happens, but I know that I have to give it a shot.

Chris Kiefer (08:11.494)

because I'll regret if I don't.

Renee Warren (08:13.666)

The question really is why are we living our lives for someone else and not for ourselves? So there's a book called The Five Regrets of the Dying. And do you know the four of the five regrets? They have everything to do with what people didn't do and not what they did do. So you think about a night, however, you're on your deathbed. It's like I regretted not doing these things. So we often...

Chris Kiefer (08:34.192)

Hmm.

Renee Warren (08:43.658)

I'm gonna use this as example, it's a very blanket generic example. We're born into a household of lawyers. Our mom's a lawyer, dad's a lawyer, brother, sister is a lawyer because there's an expectation that if we're really good at this, we're gonna condition our kids to do the same thing or if it's not a lawyer, be a doctor. Because what a disgrace in our family name if you're not. So now you grow up and you're like, you're fighting this. You're like, I don't want this. It's not inherently something I wanna do and I'm not gonna be good at it. I'll be miserable. So...

you think about those things it's like yeah to be to be great to be the best at the world in something and even in your own world you have to be controversial and being controversial means that you're going to go against your family's beliefs what they expect of you your friends beliefs or what they expect of you and also means get this you have to leave people behind and not behind and sense like you're never going to talk to them again but that they don't understand it and they

And it's not even your place to explain it to them because they're going through their own journey, their own traumas. And so you gotta get on your own ship and you gotta ride into the sunset, whatever your sunset is. And so for me, when I went from closing this agency, which we were going through due diligence to be acquired, but I just couldn't even handle it, then people said, oh, you know, I wanna pick your brain. What does it mean to run a successful agency and hire these people? And...

After a while, I realized I needed to start charging for my time. And so I just turned into coaching. Now all of a sudden I became a business coach and it's not what I wanted, but I looked at my husband who was doing so well in the space and today he's still one of the world's best and I, and I see what he does every day and I know what it means to be a great business coach. And I thought I can do that too. But guess what? When you try on someone's pants, they're not going to fit you. And it did not fit me.

And I tried for three years and I didn't like it. And I said, you know what? I know what might've been expected of me. And even my husband didn't even agree with me, but for whatever reason I did it. And then one day the Tony Robbins event, it just hit me like a bolt of lightning. Who cares what other people think Renee, do what you love to do. And you're gonna disappoint some people, but guess what? You're gonna be of service to more people when you follow that purpose.

Chris Kiefer (11:05.154)

and doing what you love is PR. And what was the, or I guess, because you were doing it before, what was the shift mentally of like, I was doing PR wrong and now I'm doing it the right way. I mean, is it purely just a mindset of like, how you approach it is different.

Renee Warren (11:07.402)

Yeah, love it.

Renee Warren (11:25.042)

Well, yes, that that's the big thing. But I went through a lot of trauma in my agency. So every entrepreneur experiences super high highs and the super low lows, mostly in the same 24 hours. But at the time of starting my company, I had co founded it with a another woman who ended up becoming a very good friend of mine super close to the family. One day she just decided to leave. And she not only left, but she divorced her husband and moved out of town. So I was like,

There's something that went on, but in my mind, I wasn't capable of continuing on the legacy of this company without her because we were such good match. She was doing a lot of the finances and stuff, and I was doing the sales and the marketing, and she was more like talent person. And it was just a perfect synergy. And now I had this 50% of me that was gone in my mind. I'm like, how am I gonna be able to do this?

And so after that happened, as I was coming back catching my breath, I got sued for wrongful dismissal. And so, and it was from a woman I found out later on ended up being a character reference for my ex-business partner's new startup. So I felt like I was being stabbed in the back over and over again. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm a kind person. I treat people with respect. So why is this happening to me? And Tony says...

Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. Thank you, Tony. So then at the end of the day, I just ended up closing doors. There was just nothing more I could do. I was so raw and exhausted. My boys were like five and six, seven at this time. They were still young. And then I went into coaching and then the evolution of this agency that I run now is like, hmm. I was traumatized in thinking that, A, I can't do business alone.

So I needed a business partner. So I went through literally dating three other people to help me start this business. And they all kindly broke up with me. So that just added punches to the gut. Because here's why. It's not that they don't like me, we're still really good friends. But I don't know if you believe in God or source or whatever it is, that person, that thing, that energy is telling you, you can do this alone. And these three women were incredible people.

Renee Warren (13:50.026)

And so then I'm like, okay, what about this world I don't like? So what is it about PR I don't like? And I wrote this list. I'm like, there's here like three big things about running an agency or doing PR that I don't like. Great. I either outsource that immediately or I don't even offer it. And so I created programs. I don't even have to do that part of the, of the business. And I slowly brought in the team to fill in the blanks and to help me grow so that the things I do work on in a day are the things that I'm so passionate about. And it.

Chris Kiefer (14:09.342)

Hmm.

Renee Warren (14:19.602)

Easier said than done, but I'll say one thing is the most important thing in any business is your network. And you have to nourish the network like a baby. Because every single person that works with me in my business were referrals from other contacts or friends and they end up being perfect fits. And I'm not saying like that's not going to be the case as we grow. But for right now when you're small business, it's like you got to work with people you know like and trust and teach them how to do the work.

And so that's where we're at.

Chris Kiefer (14:52.038)

And I heard in another conversation, you said that you ran that million dollar agency that you had with 12 people and now you're making the same with a two person shop. I don't know if you've got three or whatever now, but two people. So what's the, um, what was the, the hack or the light bulb of like, Oh, and it sounds like first of all, you were doing things that you felt obligated to do maybe.

Renee Warren (15:04.822)

Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (15:18.482)

But what else as far as structure or systemizing? Immediately my assumption is that if you're able to make more with less people, it's because you've created a repeatable system or you're charging more maybe, that could be also. But what did your experience in the downsides or the things that didn't go well with the 12-person agency that now you have avoided or intentionally structured the business to...

circumvent those issues.

Renee Warren (15:48.946)

Yeah, so the first thing is process. And as soon as I started this business, I've created a SOP for everything. And I call this hit by the bus syndrome. For whatever reason, I don't show up to work tomorrow, my team can figure out what it is I'm working on and the priorities. Process is huge, so get that in order. Also the biggest thing is value. So, and I'm gonna say this mostly from a perspective of a woman because we do this to ourselves and we're so good at devaluing our expertise.

I've been an entrepreneur since I was 17 years old. I've only ever worked in corporate for not even two years. I've always ran my own business. And on top of that, I'm really good at what I do. I'm not saying this to be conceited, but I'm saying this because I know I work with a handful of people and they love the work that I do. When I'm on sales calls and there's no pushback on the price, I know I need to increase my prices. And so every sales call I took for everything, either my...

authority booster intensive, which is a VIP day or my retainer work. Anytime someone didn't push back on the cost, I increase my price. To the point now where it's like I know they're getting the value because we're taking 13 years of peer experience 24 years as an entrepreneur and disseminating this down into these really amazing programs for my clients. But it's the value thing. People undervalue themselves. They undervalue themselves because they think in their mind, gosh,

I wouldn't pay for that because I can't afford it.

but it's not because the value isn't there, right? So that's how, I don't wanna say simple it was, but that confidence to charge what you're worth. There's this saying, and I'm gonna butcher this, but they say, the story goes, some guy calls a plumber because the toilet's leaking. The plumber shows up, right? Throws out a 10 cent piece, fixes the toilet in 10 minutes, sends him a bill for $1,000.

Renee Warren (17:49.986)

And the guy's like, wow, that costs you 10 cents and it only took you 10 minutes. So why did it cost me a thousand dollars? The plumber says, because it took me 10 years to figure out which thing to use and how to do it. So you're not paying for my time, you're paying for the value that I give you, right? You think if you go buy furniture at Walmart, you know what you're gonna get versus going to get something custom, right? So it's this.

Chris Kiefer (18:09.979)

result. Yep, totally.

Chris Kiefer (18:16.858)

Yeah. Totally.

Renee Warren (18:19.374)

process and value and not doing the busy work. The part of my journey last time was that we were just doing very busy work to make it look like we were doing great work, but we're just busy. And now we just cut off the fat and just focus on the things that actually drive the results.

Chris Kiefer (18:31.422)

Hmm. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (18:38.066)

So I'm curious, this seems like an interesting, well, what you're talking about with the way you used to run your business, and you said that you were gonna recommend Dan's book at the end, but the Buy Back Your Time, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but Dan wrote that book, Buy Back Your Time, for, or how did he say it, so that you can build a business you don't grow to hate? How much of your, like,

Renee Warren (19:03.666)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Kiefer (19:07.09)

Because again, it's like the experience I would say I had a similar like I started a marketing company we grew to eight employees at one point and then we Just had to spin the whole thing down and we were like working like dogs and we were a bunch of you know Early 20 year olds and it just was like I want to have kids. I can't support my family making like $35,000 a year. It was just Like a lot of cool projects we were working on

But it was just like a ticking time bomb because everyone was overworked and stressed and it wasn't enough money to experiment and whatever. So I went and took like a real job, but then now I'm like went back to the entrepreneurial world and now I'm like 10 times more excited and energetic because I would say I'm definitely charging what I'm worth, but now I also am doing similar things where it's like, what do I love? Okay, this is my zone of genius. These are not.

don't do those things, do these things that I like. And that is immediately like the energy that I have at the end of the day is night and day difference than what I had at the end of the day when I was doing all the stuff and trying, and I feel like, yeah, all that stuff. But my question is, for like the principles in buy back your time that you're, I'm assuming, that book didn't exist or the simple framework didn't exist in your previous.

business attempt and now it does, how much of that is like directly like you're incorporating or thinking about that on a daily basis?

Renee Warren (20:42.222)

So I, so the author of Bye Bye, Your Time, Damer, tells my husband, and I've lived all those conversations over and over again. It got to the point in our relationship where I could take his coaching goals because I knew exactly the questions people were gonna ask and exactly the answer he was gonna give. But I never understood those concepts and frameworks in the order that the book delivered. And so it was always like ad hoc pieces here that.

Chris Kiefer (21:07.815)

Mmm.

Renee Warren (21:10.594)

So I read the book and as I was reading it, it was after the first chapter, even we were in bed at turning down, I was like, oh my, this is so good. He's like, I know, right? We were both surprised. And what I did was I read a chapter and I executed and I wouldn't read the next chapter until I executed or got some part of that chapter in motion. The first thing I did as he always recommends and I was resistant because no woman wants to admit their husband's right, I hired an assistant.

I hired an assistant and my goal was to get her full time. I found a woman, she's perfect fit. And I said, my goal is to get you on here full time. And that rose a game changer immediately. Because we think like the assistant's like, oh, that comes when I'm making a million dollars. I'm like, no, you need the help now. Everybody needs the help now, especially in your first year of business. Let me tell you this. You know how Elon has these rockets going to outer space? Mars, I don't even know where they're going.

Do you realize that 90% of the fuel used in those rockets is just to get it out of the atmosphere? Right, that escape, the escape velocity requires 90% of the fuel consumption. So when you think of when you're in the first year of doing anything in your life, you're starting a business, having a family, going to CrossFit, trying to get on stage to be a fitness model, whatever it is, 90% of your consumption is used up in that first year. So parenting, it's like, whoa.

Chris Kiefer (22:14.723)

And then just coasting.

Renee Warren (22:36.53)

Now all of a sudden there's a human being I have to take care of and I have to keep alive and all these things happen. Then when you have the second baby, you're like, I've been through this before. You might be a little more sleepless, but you know those expectations running a business. Same thing. Generally starting to do CrossFit. Same thing. The first year is really learning how to do all the movements. Maybe you're gaining weight, but really you're just learning how to do everything well. And then when you do it well, that's when you actually start to make gains. And so people give up too soon.

They give up way too soon. They say the less miles, never crowded for a reason. It's because most people aren't willing to go there. So just when things start to get hard and maybe like a little bit hard, they just say, I'm done, I'm thrown in the towel.

Chris Kiefer (23:19.678)

Yeah, I love applying that. I've heard that with the Rocket, but applying it to business kids, I can say, like we just had our fourth kid three weeks ago, and it's like, we're definitely, we used 90% on the first kid for sure, and now it's like, ah, whatever, she's fine. She's crying, but she'll be okay. Like you just are.

Renee Warren (23:28.95)

Congrats.

Renee Warren (23:34.51)

Yeah.

Renee Warren (23:38.598)

Yeah, there's a post a note on her head saying three months old, they took a picture and you put it on Instagram. Yeah. You love them all the same. It's just that the learning curve for that first time is the hardest, the most rewarding. But then you get to a place you can't undo that learning unless something dramatic happens to you. But the point is you've lived those experiences. And now you have that foundation, then your foundation just keeps getting higher and higher. So you can...

Chris Kiefer (23:43.096)

Exactly. Yep. 100%.

Chris Kiefer (23:50.503)

Yes.

Renee Warren (24:05.794)

do more things with more risk, hopefully.

Chris Kiefer (24:08.942)

Yeah, I'm curious. So, um, my wife, Natalie, she is, I've always said ever since I met her, she's like 10 times smarter than I am. She loves taking tests. She's got more letters after her name than the alphabet. And she just, she keeps like acquiring and for many years of our relationship, that's how she was. And she was a physical therapist, women's health clinical specialty, and then she got an orthopedic clinical specialty. She was one of like,

10 people in the country that had both of those specialties, which is kind of like, it's impressive, but it's also kind of random to have both of those. But she just was like, had the option to take this extra certification with a bunch of tests, she does it. So she's like extremely knowledgeable in like women's pelvic health. And so at parties, she's always in the corner with like 10 women around talking about pelvic floor muscles and all that stuff. I, about a year and a half ago,

Renee Warren (25:04.033)

Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (25:08.622)

maybe closer to two years ago, she jumped in and started selling the software that I had built. And it was the first time in our entire life that she was starting to get a glimpse into and deeper understanding into what I was working on. Prior to that, she would be taking tests and she'd tell me she's learning about new muscles and the tests that you can run. And I'm trying to be interested, but it's still like,

Okay, it's not like my head's going a million miles an hour in the software or in my world and hers is deep in this other space. But we started in two years ago was like the beginning of this, where now she's deeply understanding the ins and outs of what I'm doing in my business. And as she's like basically taking on all the sales and managing the people that are virtual assistants and stuff that are assisting with delivery and things like that, I feel like it's been this amazing.

um reward to work so closely with my spouse in and understand deeply what's going on so it's like when she closes a big client like I know like it's as opposed to be like hey good job you got a sale it's like no I know that there is so much time because we talked about it and she was going through the pitch and all this stuff and refining and getting coaching and I was so intertwined in that I was able to like be that much more excited about what she was doing

And the same thing for like, I'm working on a new feature or something. And it's like 99.99% of the world doesn't give two shits about what I'm working on, right? But she's like now in a place, and this is in the last two years to be like, that's so awesome. I know what you did to make that or do that or whatever. So that's the setup for, I'm curious how do you and Dan approach

like having your own things and still being like genuinely interested in the other. Because I like I've actually had like with our coach, who's kind of like a life and business coach. It's like my fear is that with this new baby that we just had, Natalie's taking time off work. And I'm afraid that she's going to like never come back to Boolean and she's going to just be a stay at home mom. But I also want her to be a stay at home mom if that's what she wants to do for this period of time.

Chris Kiefer (27:34.706)

But then I'm like, but what if she starts her own business? That would be really cool. But then we're missing out on like the synergy that we've been living in. I don't know if anything that I'm saying is resonating, but where's the like, first of all, are you following with like that trying to be excited or trying to be interested in what your spouse is doing, but also like just the limited capacity that we have to really be invested in so many things and you have to kind of pick.

Renee Warren (27:42.017)

Mmm.

Renee Warren (28:00.91)

Oh, I am Dan's biggest cheerleader. I love it. And what I love, Dan is such a good husband. And by way of just being interested in the things that I do every night before bed, he's like, OK, tell me the Meadow report. Have you heard of the Meadow report? The Meadow report is like in the old days, women would go out and forge in the Meadows for food and we kind of get a report on if there's predators and what's going on. And so today's terms really is like

How was your day? And so I give him a meta report. And most of the time his eyes are crossing and he's half asleep. But there's some times when he like perks up and he's interested, but he gives me the space. He gives me that time to talk. And anytime throughout the day, cause his office is literally right below mine. Anytime during the day, if I have questions or worries or anything's going on, he's never said no. He's been on very important phone calls before and I would knock on the door and walk in and he's like, yeah, come on in.

Because we feel like a priority. So we as in like myself and our two kids, we're always a priority. And I think part of that too is it allows them to launch because like, home base is good, I can go out and I can go to space and come back again. And the same. And I mean, we've obviously had our stresses in marriage and kids and businesses, but.

We get excited for each other. And I helped him with this book launch. I've helped him with PR and previous businesses. I helped him with recruiting. There were times in his business where he needed to bring me up for a few months to help him do stuff because I understand him, his business, his goals, his missions. I didn't have, he didn't have to train me. He just knew what I, what I could do to contribute because I know what the end goal is in all of this. And it's more quality time as a family.

I mean, that would kind of the point of buying back your time is, well, quality time with families, one of them, but it's also to be able to focus on things that actually move the needle in your business and life. But I mean, to answer your question, it's really, I don't think there's any fear that we wouldn't support each other ever.

Chris Kiefer (30:06.694)

Yeah, and I guess it's more of like the, do you feel like, do you feel that the, I guess, and I don't know if Natalie would agree with this. I'd be interested for her to chime in on this, but I'm wondering, do you feel like you are, how do you make sure that you feel value in your own work and like your expertise and knowledge?

when you are, well, I guess this is all within the last year. This is again, my perception of what you're doing. Prior to, was it a year ago or yeah, about nine months ago or something, you weren't tackling this beast of trying to have your own thing, right? And you were more in a supportive role. I'm assuming that there, that's like, cause I want Natalie to be super passionate and excited and have super high self-worth in everything.

but it's also nice to be working together, but someone's gotta be the face of the business. But to have her have her own thing, and you now having your own thing that can go to the moon, that seems really exciting. And it's also like, I guess the question is, how has that impacted your mental outlook, positivity, just like excitement to go tackle the day as opposed to just being like, I'm gonna see how I can be supportive today. Does that make sense?

Renee Warren (31:28.626)

I think there's seasons in our life. And if you're an emotionally aware person, you know what season it is and kind of your role in that season. And I, and Dan know this too, but Dan, I don't think I would have been able to do what I'm doing now at this level if this was two years ago. But because he has got two businesses, SaaS Academy and his elite entrepreneur program and his book, you know, was more successful than he imagined.

Chris Kiefer (31:37.659)

Hmm.

Renee Warren (31:57.75)

But he's also created all these systems and put all these right and incredible people in place to be able to support him so that he has more capacity in his calendar. So that I'm like, can't pick up the kids, can't bring them a soccer, can't do this. I gotta go here, I gotta do this. He's like, yep, I got it. Don't you worry, I got it. And so I think a lot of partnerships in this instance, they just don't take the time to have that communication. Dan and I meet every week.

We meet every week for 30 minutes and we have an agenda and we have clear things that we talk about. And it's like.

Chris Kiefer (32:30.714)

And that's just like, that covers everything in your life. Personal stuff like games, practices you gotta get the kids to, whatever.

Renee Warren (32:33.982)

Yeah. Relationship, finances, travel. So it's like our relationship, our finances, our travel, and then we plan the weekend. And there's a couple other things in between. So that's what we do.

Chris Kiefer (32:48.498)

So if I, I'm curious, because I want to, we've had, we've dabbled with like a weekly meeting on Sundays. When do you have that meeting? And you said 30 minutes. Is it like a, I'm assuming sometimes it's a Zoom call or phone call or always? Yeah.

Renee Warren (33:00.582)

Lunch meeting. No. Well, I mean, if he's traveling, yes, but, uh, usually, cause we both work from home, we go and we have lunch together.

Chris Kiefer (33:11.034)

And then you have it on what day of the week?

Renee Warren (33:13.342)

Now it's Monday, but it's been Wednesdays, it's been Fridays, but things shift.

Chris Kiefer (33:16.782)

Then you look for the next seven days and make the plan. Yeah. And then you guys also do a quarterly planning. So do you do the week, month, quarter, year?

Renee Warren (33:22.027)

Mm-hmm. Couples are straight.

Renee Warren (33:26.958)

So we do the weekly meetings and the quarterly retreats. We just came back from one in Denver, Ohio, like last week. And our big one comes up in December. So December is we look at, we plan the year, and I do this in quotes because it's really hard to plan an entire 12 months, but we look at, am I allowed to swear on this show? Okay. We have, we get invited to so many incredible opportunities and we have to turn many of them down, most of them down.

Chris Kiefer (33:46.521)

Mm-hmm, sure.

Renee Warren (33:55.562)

So we look at our roster of events that we've been invited to, and we say, are these fuck yeah opportunities? Fuck yeah, it's a huge F yeah for me, so that means I need you to come with me. And if it's not, then it's a simple no. And that's OK. But Dan understands that I'm an introverted person. I can do maybe one or two social events a week.

And then I might go on these like ebbs and flows of a lot of so, but I need that recovery. And he's the kind of person that gets amped up being around people. And I do for a bit, but then I get depleted really quickly. So when we look at all the things we're invited to on a weekly basis, like date night with this person going to this concert, what is it that we really want to do? And we can't deny how we feel. So there's actually an event tonight and I was like, you know what, Dan, it's not a fuck yeah for me because I'd rather go watch my son play basketball.

then go to this concert and that's just how I feel. So the thing about how we operate our family and our like relationship is largely help successful entrepreneurs run their business. And that might not be digestible for some listeners, but I get it. If you have an entrepreneurial mind or you are a business owner, it's totally understandable. So we apply business like philosophies to our family life so that we can just be more efficient with our time. We have standard operating procedures.

for everything in our life. From how to use the sauna downstairs to how to, you know, the agenda for our dog in a day. Right, it's at a play date right now. Like all these things, it's documented.

Chris Kiefer (35:19.492)

Ha ha.

Chris Kiefer (35:30.246)

That's awesome. Let's see, I gotta go back to, so you, I guess I would say anything else for, on this topic of entrepreneurial spouses working together, what other...

Chris Kiefer (35:50.302)

tips, tricks, like, ooh, this was like a big hack or thing that was awesome. I think, first of all, I love the idea of having, of like having an agenda for a weekly meeting with your spouse. That makes a ton of sense to me. And just applying that down deeper into other levels. What other like hacks, so to speak, could you give to any one listening that has a spouse and they're both doing their own endeavors, how to sync up?

and support each other, clarify, this is what I want, this is what I want, I'm not interested in that, great, let's pick and choose together. But it seems like a lot of it comes down to communication, but what other tactics are there to efficiently do that communication at the right cadence?

Renee Warren (36:31.187)

Oh, totally.

Renee Warren (36:36.482)

So the communication can only be allowed if there's support in the house. Now we moved across countries so we're not blessed with having any sort of immediate family around us to help us with the kids and that was never the case really. So we have a house manager. But he's actually in the book, Buy Back Your Time, because we talk about how you should be where you're financially feasibly able to do so is delegating some of that work to other people. So which means

We don't ever do anything about with the lawn. So we have like a lawn care company. We don't use the chemicals in our hot tub. We hire the company that comes and does that for us, our pond, all this stuff. Pretty much anything in the house, there's somebody that manages it. So Betty manages all of the trades people. She manages picking our boys up from school and just a lot of stuff like bike maintenance and making sure we have our winter tires put on our car because you do that in Canada. And so this...

Allows us to like not even have to worry that a light bulb is getting changed because it's going to get done. And there's a lot of people that have versions of their house manager. They're like, Oh, you mean I can ask my cleaning lady to do my groceries for me? Yeah, of course you can. If you can give somebody who is being charged hourly extra work to do for a few more hours, they're going to do it for you. And so people just think like everything operates in silos. And I was like this for the longest time too.

when we hired a cleaning lady, there was one day I was like, hey Shannon, if we paid you extra, could you do one grocery run for us a week on your way in? She literally drives past the grocery store. She's like, yeah, but that just means that you won't get an hour worth of cleaning. And then I'm like, well, can I pay you an extra hour? She's like, yes, you can. And that turned into her coming. So instead of having a full day at our house, we split it up between Tuesdays and Fridays. And now she was doing meal prep for us too.

Chris Kiefer (38:18.974)

Hey, you guys.

Renee Warren (38:32.35)

And so it just kind of like it's slowly we added on top of it the more that we could afford her and it became a possibility for us. We started delegating more. Shannon, I love shannon. She was a former cleaning lady. She doesn't really like kids. So she didn't want to do anything with them. Um, but then we started to build out our processes on top of this so that okay This house or this cleaning lady turns into a house manager. So we hired our first house manager Megan and now subsequently is betty and betty's been with us for like gosh two and a half years now

Um, but when you create that capacity in your space, cause there's no worry about mowing the lawn or shoveling the driveway or whatever, you can be together. So it could be like, Hey, Dan, I need 10 minutes of your time. He's like, yeah, sure. What is it? And then we could chat. We could chat about things.

Chris Kiefer (39:17.826)

Because normally for a typical couple even though that 10 minutes of trying to find 10 minutes in the day when you're also juggling a whole bunch of very minor tasks, that's why it's hard, but we burn I feel like the short answer or the reality is that everybody's wasting hours every day You just don't realize it and I when I say wasting it's like some of it could literally be wasting scrolling on social or Just like mundane random tasks like oh gotta bring the garbage cans in

That took me two minutes. Oh, gotta, you know, like all of it, it makes perfect sense what you're saying.

Renee Warren (39:51.658)

Well, and here's the other thing too, because you have an army of children is I think that we need to start giving our kids more autonomy and more opportunities to fail. And I love my parents. They were here for three weeks, but they were all obviously raised in a different generation where mom did everything for the kids. Everything. I remember I went to college. I was 18 years old and I was on my floor at in residence and I was like had to go do laundry for the first time and I looked at the laundry machine and I was like.

I don't know what button to push. I don't know which one I put the thing into and where and when. So embarrassingly, I had to go ask a woman on the floor to help me. And that moment I was like, oof, when I have kids, they are gonna do laundry the moment they can start walking. It's not gonna be perfect, but it's gonna be done. And so they do their laundry, they fold their laundry, they put it away, they make their own lunches. They started this all over a year ago, and they're 10 years old, 10, 11 years old. And they bring the dog for a walk. They feed the dog, they do all this stuff.

So, and also you're doing your kids a disservice. This is a note to you mothers out there who think you're a good mother only because you do the stuff for your kids. You're doing your kids a disservice by doing everything for them. They need to learn, they need to fail. They need to know how to use a gas stove to cook up eggs. It's just life. Right? And so, I mean, we can go down this rabbit hole to finding a good mother. I think 99.9% of the world are good mothers.

They just believe in these constructs that society says what makes a good mother. It's so easy to say, oh, a good mother is the one that makes organic fresh pancakes every morning for school. My kids are fed. Yeah, check.

Chris Kiefer (41:34.08)

Check

What would you say the I'm curious for in your own head, what was like, and this is again my assumption because I've been working through some of this for myself, the voices that you had in your head, and this could be voices about your being a good mom versus a bad mom or being an entrepreneur versus, or valuing yourself and your self worth and the value that you're able to bring to clients. What has been like?

I guess the assumption is that you always have negative voices. You just try to minimize the percentage of negative to positive, because I don't think it ever goes away entirely. Maybe it does. But what are things that you hear, that you're talking to yourself, of the negativity and maybe how that's changed from five, ten years ago to now? And again, in any domain of your life that is relevant.

Renee Warren (42:29.134)

Mm.

Renee Warren (42:32.578)

So I actually explained one of these scenarios to my 10-year-old the other day. Because we're at this time of year where it's really cold in the morning, but the afternoon's really hot. And the house is warm. So when my kids leave for school, they're still in shorts and t-shirts. They need pants and sweaters and sometimes even mitts. And I was, and they're responsible for everything when we leave the house. There's a very clear rule that, hey, if you forget anything, unless it's absolutely dire, you go to school with what you got. And you got to figure it out when you get there.

Sounds cruel, but what an incredible experience for them to learn. Like, hey, they forgot their lunch. There's enough buddies in their class that can give them something to eat. But in my head, I was like, I'm a terrible mother. And I said, hey, Noah, I used to have these thoughts that if you went to school forgetting your lunch or your mitts, that everyone would say, your mom's the worst mom in the world. That's my thought. And the teachers say, oh, you're so unorganized. Or wow, Renee's a bad mother.

But could it just be that the child forgot their lunch? Why is this on the mom? And so now I'm like, I don't care if people think I'm a bad mom, because I know I'm a good mom. I know I'm a good mom because other moms tell me how great my kids are and that's all I need is their kind, respectful kids. My job is done. They might be cold today because they forgot their sweater, but that's their fault. They're old enough to recognize that they need to prepare better.

Chris Kiefer (43:47.582)

Hmm.

Renee Warren (43:56.882)

And then the moment we can just start letting go of what's expected of us, most women know intuitively what they need to do. And some of us are just too scared to try like making their lunches or doing the laundry. Like I'm pretty sure on a handful of occasions, Noah has dried clothes that weren't even washed or they wash clothes without soap. Who cares? This is like a year ago and they're still fine.

Chris Kiefer (44:23.426)

Yeah. Nobody's hurt. They're yeah.

Renee Warren (44:25.498)

Nobody's hurt. They might stink a little bit. They might be hungry. They're everyone's still alive and thriving.

Chris Kiefer (44:31.726)

And how about in the, on the entrepreneurial business side of things.

Renee Warren (44:36.014)

Yeah, I think it's being so forgiving of people's little slip ups. Like, I think of a really simple example that my, my assistant, I love her. She accidentally scheduled our podcast email to go out on Sunday night as opposed to, or Monday night as opposed to Tuesday morning. And so people were like, hey, Renee, the episode's not live. And I was like, oh, sorry, scheduling error. So you know, the solution to the problem was, is just make the episode go live right away.

And it's not like I have a kajolian followers, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter. But there was people like, hey, yeah, yeah. And then so my reply to her was just like, oops, like scheduling error, no big deal, just triple check your work next time. And so I'm not gonna get mad at her because I've made this mistake for several times. So guess what happens is now our process gets more streamlined. And it hasn't been an issue since knock on wood. And that's just one example, but.

Chris Kiefer (45:10.286)

Yeah, they're like, hey, this is four hours off. What the heck?

Renee Warren (45:34.666)

Managing team, it's like people have lives, they have emotions, they have stuff happening at home in their personal life that we don't know about. And that weight and energy can be carried with them to work. And as leaders, it's our responsibility to understand that and respect that and guide them through it, but also understand that they have a job to do because there's other people relying on them. So it's the most you can do to support them. So people make mistakes, you just gotta forgive them. As long as they're not like...

Kidnapping your puppy or something.

Chris Kiefer (46:06.546)

Hey, yes, or yeah, or your child. Then there's no forgiveness.

Renee Warren (46:09.758)

Yeah. Oh, they can take the kids. I'm fine with that. Just don't take my dog. No, just joking.

Chris Kiefer (46:16.199)

So yeah, I'm curious from the PR side of things, you have, is it a, this is just going to be the mass applicable, I think, what is the name of your, it's not a course necessarily, or is it? It's a community, or the launch thing, or VIP?

Renee Warren (46:31.47)

So, right, so I have the company's called We Wild Women and we have two programs. We have your typical retainer based PR program where we do your PR for you. And then we have a program called the Authority Booster Intensive. So it's technically a month, but it's a one day intensive where I build out the strategy, the media list, the everything that you can take the strategy when we're done with it and plug it into your marketing system and your team executes.

because the method is something that you can use beyond PR. You can use it for business development amongst other things. But the whole idea is that you create this engine that just keeps on chugging every single week instead of just doing the ebbs and flows of what it would be like to hire an agency or to do a campaign. That's the thing I love to do the most, absolutely love. And yeah, retainer-based work. I love it too. I love it, love it too.

I have some incredible clients and we're at capacity. So what does that mean? What does that mean? No, what does it mean? The first thing you do when you're at capacity, you increase your prices.

Chris Kiefer (47:36.018)

You got a waitlist?

Chris Kiefer (47:40.006)

Oh, outsource, find out where is your, yeah. Oh, step one, increase prices.

Renee Warren (47:47.179)

Yep, step one is increase prices and then hire the people that can deliver on the services. So that's where we're at.

Chris Kiefer (47:53.022)

Hmm.

And so the first thing, the offering, is that a, could, is this, because it's like a training for an individual. An entrepreneur could take it, or they could have an employee in their business take it. Correct?

Renee Warren (48:10.47)

I suppose it is a training, but really it's, it's a whole custom thing created for you. So it's like, we write your pitches for you. So it's like your podcast pitch, your email followup, pitch, your journalist pitch, your TV pitch. We build out a relevant media list of up to a hundred contacts. These are all people that are vetted for your industry, for you. Um, and then when it's done, we do an implementation call. So this is typically with either the founder or the

Chris Kiefer (48:16.627)

Got it.

Renee Warren (48:39.81)

the person that's kind of in charge and the integrator. So this is the person that's doing the work. And everything I've created becomes your PRSOP. And.

Chris Kiefer (48:44.521)

Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (48:49.498)

Got it. And then so I see, cause my thought is, tell me if I'm thinking about this the right way, I'm curious or interested if I were to do this for my personal brand slash business, we would go through this process, but then ultimately I'm getting some SOPs that a VA or an employee could be trained on to then implement week in and week out and continue to do that.

Renee Warren (49:14.623)

Yeah. Yeah, so my VA does it for me. And most of the people that I train are the VAs. And then they have access to us for a month to ask questions. And then we do, at the end of the month, we do a wrap-up call just to make sure that everyone's kind of on the same page. And what I love about this is that for people who have that marketing team or the capacity inside, like a VA or an assistant, that can carve out about four or five hours a week.

Chris Kiefer (49:16.796)

Yeah.

Renee Warren (49:41.998)

to do this, you can crush it. That's the thing is it doesn't take, even five hours is a lot. Once you get onboarded and if you're executing on this strategy every week for like at least two or three hours, you can pitch a lot of people and then you start seeing how the system works. And I mean, I've had some people, my friend Callen just messaged me the other day. She's like, Renee, I was on three podcasts of the list that you put together and that resulted in $100,000 month based on the

business she got from that. And then I've had other people say something similar and they ended up hiring the right people. And my one friend, Ali, she's an operations company. She got so many agency clients because of it. So it works. It works if you believe in the process, but also works if you put in the effort, because I have a promise. There is a guarantee in my program, but the promise is that you have to execute as I tell you to execute for 90 days. And after 90 days, it doesn't work, then we can come back to the table.

but it has not been an issue because everyone's like, this is working. Oh my God.

Chris Kiefer (50:40.731)

Got it.

Chris Kiefer (50:44.454)

That's awesome. And so the ideal customer for this would be a business owner or entrepreneur, solopreneur that is looking to, like what are the tangible things that if I want blank, then I probably should consider this.

Renee Warren (51:00.766)

If you want to increase your authority, your credibility, to get in front of warmed up audiences, to get in front of other people's audiences, then you need this program. And the industries are almost everything at this point. I mean, I haven't worked with Elon trying to get his spaceship to Mars, but I've worked in real estate operations, coaching, product-based businesses. I mean, I had a company who was like a vending machine company come in and they're like, this is working.

Chris Kiefer (51:11.912)

Got it.

Chris Kiefer (51:32.146)

So, and what's the way, if someone wants to learn more, sign up, get a consult, whatever the process is, how does someone do that?

Renee Warren (51:32.27)

So, but.

Renee Warren (51:39.966)

Yeah, so they go to wewildwomen.com forward slash VIP day. Or they can follow me on Instagram, Renee underscore Warren. And I talk a lot about this stuff too. And everything's linked on my social as well.

Chris Kiefer (51:54.134)

Awesome. And last couple wrap up questions here for you. First of all, I always ask, is there anything else on your mind that you would like to, that you came in thinking, Oh, I want to talk about this because I still have another five to 10 minutes if you do, if you, if there is some other topic, otherwise we'll move to books and movies.

Renee Warren (52:12.19)

Yeah, well, I know we talked a lot about like the role of women and supporting partners and raising kids and whatnot. Um, I think the most important thing to consider and feel is your intuition. And there's so many people pooing stay at home moms, and I think that's absurd. That's the hardest job in the world. It's do what you love and do it. Well that it doesn't matter what other people think.

Just follow that passion. So that would be it.

Chris Kiefer (52:45.33)

Awesome. Book recommendations. What would you say your three book recommendations are?

Renee Warren (52:52.266)

Um, the artists way by Julia Cameron. I did that front to cover a couple of times, probably one of the most beautiful personal development journeys for me. The big leap. It's always a good one. Easy to read, but really opens up your mind and my husband's book. Bye back your time.

Chris Kiefer (53:12.542)

and favorite movie or movie recommendation or show like we talked about at the beginning.

Renee Warren (53:14.494)

I don't know. Yeah, I love Lincoln Lawyer, SWAT, Quantico. I'm pretty sure in a past life I was a FBI agent or some, I don't know, PI or something.

Chris Kiefer (53:29.382)

Are you a fan of like, like Oceans 11? Or do you like more of, you don't like the heist more? You like the, like the, what would you?

Renee Warren (53:37.95)

Yeah, I like the movie about the people trying to solve the heist. That's the kind of movie I like.

Chris Kiefer (53:43.866)

Got it. Yeah, have you seen the, there's a Netflix show that was originally in a different language called Heist, or Money Heist, it's called Money Heist. Have you heard of that? That one, I guess I'm trying to think, that might be more, that again is, it's like there is the person that's trying to solve the heist, but they're kind of doing both sides of the story where they go back and forth between the bad guys and the good guys, you know what I mean? And it's very intertwined.

Renee Warren (53:53.61)

No. Okay, no.

Chris Kiefer (54:14.214)

Anyways, that was a it's a the only thing I didn't like about it and it took like an episode or two to just Kind of block it out of your brain, but it's originally recorded in Spanish and they just did voiceovers for everybody So you hear it in English? It's not like you have to read subtitles the whole time But you just ignore that their lips are not moving correctly, you know It would we almost gave up on the second like on the second episode. We were like, this is crazy

Renee Warren (54:26.018)

Yeah. Oh.

Renee Warren (54:34.114)

See, that would drive me crazy.

Renee Warren (54:40.534)

Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (54:40.742)

Like this is so confusing, but it is like, it's a fantastic, like it hooks you for sure. But.

Renee Warren (54:45.956)

Okay. No, I love that kind of stuff. I love just trying to solve the problem, solve the case. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (54:51.074)

Yes, totally. Awesome, well, and then if someone wants to get in touch, you mentioned going to your website or on Instagram. One more time, what is the website?

Renee Warren (55:03.422)

Wewildwomen.com

Chris Kiefer (55:05.702)

Perfect, I'll put that in the show notes for everybody. And then on your Instagram handle is just Renee Warren.

Renee Warren (55:11.198)

It's Renee underscore Warren.

Chris Kiefer (55:14.126)

Okay, and you're not the Renee Warren that's in, where'd you say, in Carolina, in South Carolina or something? Yeah. Awesome, well thank you so much. I appreciate your time Renee, this was awesome. And I'm gonna be reaching out to Inquirer about that VIP day. So I got a lot of stuff on my ideas and dreams and stuff and it sounds like this is a cool opportunity. So thank you.

Renee Warren (55:18.206)

No, in jail. No. That's South Carolina or something. Yeah, no.

Renee Warren (55:40.61)

Thanks for having me.