How Giselle Hudson's Mantra 'Clarify Before You Amplify' Reshapes Business Scaling

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how to scale a business podcast. My name is Hector Santia step on. And I am your host for today. Our special guest is Giselle Hudson and I love their title. They're a clarity strategist, a consultant. And today we're going to talk about just that.

[00:00:17] Hector: And Hello, I think it's important for us to have this high level conversation because a lot of the episodes we've been doing have been getting really into the weeds. And I think that today's conversation is going to help us take a step back and really see the possibilities. So Giselle, thanks for hanging out with us.

[00:00:29] Giselle: Thank you.

[00:00:30] Hector: Talk to us a little bit about does someone become a clarity consultant? And what does that mean? And touch us up on a little bit about what you're doing with your clients right now.

[00:00:39] Giselle: Yeah. well, I took a very circuitous route to here. Started off in, chemical and wastewater analysis. Then I went on to corrugated packaging, then printing and, stint at a newspaper. And then I finally went into business for myself. I started off just looking at customer service.

[00:00:59] Giselle: For me, it has always been about making sense of things. And I guess that's where the clarity ties in I often tell clients. Clarify before you amplify. And so a lot of what I do is about getting clarity. If it's a problem, what is the problem? If someone comes to me, I want to find out.

[00:01:17] Giselle: If that's what we really should be working on. So a lot of the work that I do with clients is getting clear about where we should be putting our energies. Because many times, just this morning, for example, I was with a client and, they are limited resources. So while you want the Rolls Royce version, we need to look at what we actually have.

[00:01:39] Giselle: So it's a a dance between, being real and being ideal.

[00:01:44] Hector: Yeah. One of my mentors recently said that , he works in a, similar capacity to yours and that his expertise is actually not in the niche or the, in the industry, for the businesses that he serves, but his expertise is in the questions that he's asking and the essentially the clarity that he's able to bring his clients the power that has for someone in an executive role or someone who is in some sort of leadership capacity, especially.

[00:02:11] Giselle: Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times I'm not good at, jigsaw puzzles, but I'm good at, human puzzles as it were, because we are exceedingly complex. And for a long time, I always, I think I started asking the question, why some people do well in business and why others fail.

[00:02:29] Giselle: And it's, not a new question, but I have been delving into that, question for like over maybe is. So , I've come across a lot of information and I've, filtered out things. but you really need to understand yourself primarily before you, you go anywhere.

[00:02:46] Giselle: And a lot of the, understanding of self doesn't come naturally to people. Nobody really sees their potential or their possibility. It's, difficult to see.

[00:02:57] Hector: You said before that you need to clarify before you amplify. And I don't know if you did that on purpose, but the name of our podcast production companies is amplify media. , and I, could not agree with you more because when our clients come to us and they have clarity, things are so much move so much quicker, so much faster.

[00:03:16] Hector: There's so much traction that comes after that. And when they don't have the clarity, we know that, okay, we're in for a little bit of a ride, but also like, let's help them get the clarity. That's been part that we've added that into what we do, because we know without it, , they're liable to fail, like you said.

[00:03:33] Giselle: Yeah, exactly. And, I think there are things that what I've discovered and being an avid reader, even though you've heard certain things or, certain things, I remember hearing once at a conference to know and not to do. is not to know. But I think even so, there are nuances in that knowing.

[00:03:50] Giselle: So something hits you, depending on where you're at on your journey, something hits you and it's yeah, I think I get it. But then you, got it in, 1980 and then you get it again, 10 or 20 years later, and then it's a completely different meaning in 2024. There are things that people say.

[00:04:06] Giselle: So for example I've been listening to Jim Rohn, he's dead now, but, he talks about strategies for success and, today we, there's a lot of stuff about goal setting, for example, that yes, everybody thinks, okay, I've heard enough about goal setting. I want to puke.

[00:04:21] Giselle: However, something he said today that really stuck with me and that's like reasons like, yes, you have your goals, but what are your reasons? And, so there's some simple things that, yeah, I think when you have a collaboration like with yourself and your clients, or with me and my clients, I think that once there's that synergy, then there's that ability to exchange, and really build, on each other's levels of, like wherever we are at.

[00:04:50] Giselle: Yeah, to a much higher position that redounds well for both parties.

[00:04:55] Hector: Yeah. Are there any, whether it's for yourself or clients that you've worked with, or even just people that you've seen, or businesses that you've seen make these mistakes, are there any horror stories perhaps of things that, of people that who tried to amplify before they clarified?

[00:05:13] Giselle: yeah, I think most times where you get the horror stories are when companies think that they have the answers. And I actually find that a lot with larger organizations, And the larger the organization, I wrote something recently called, exploring if you know the answers, then why hire the consultant?

[00:05:31] Giselle: If you already know the answers. So I've seen where I've been in meetings and I've been brought in to solve a particular issue, and then the client starts telling me what to do, not that I'm opposed to, like I said, a collaboration, but okay why don't you just try these things on your own then,

[00:05:49] Hector: yeah.

[00:05:49] Giselle: because you're literally like wasting money.

[00:05:52] Giselle: Calling me and if it is just someone you need to shun the items, you need an intern,

[00:05:58] Hector: What

[00:05:58] Hector: do you think prevents them from, getting that clarity? what are some of the roadblocks, the bottlenecks, or even , the misconceptions or the wrong perspectives that keep someone from having that authentic clarity perhaps?

[00:06:12] Giselle: yeah, I think it might be sometimes holding on to tightly to how they look, or, like how they position themselves because to say otherwise might seem, it's their interpretation of what is weak. Or what does it mean if I, appear as if I don't know, there might be, a lack of maybe open mindedness a need to control the narrative, control how things go.

[00:06:37] Giselle: Fear innate fears. Like I said, maybe things that are underlying like imposter syndrome or, feeling like I've been found out. And that is very, very typical. I didn't realize how normal it was. Maya Angelou talks about it. being, Oh, gosh, they're going to find out now that I really can't do what I'm good at doing or Steven Pressfield talks about it.

[00:07:00] Giselle: the war on art or off art Steven, forgive me, but yeah. So I think that the affairs. misunderstandings. And yeah, it's probably a bitter, too much ego in front of, so like you said, ego in front of that bar, in front of your authentic self, the mask that you're keeping intact for one reason or the other, whatever it is that you choose to hide.

[00:07:24] Hector: Yeah. This is really good stuff. When we get back from break Giselle, , I'm curious about the process, right? Because I think that's probably where the magic lies is in, what, maybe what some of the questions are or the steps that you're taking through. And so when we get back from break, I'd love for you to expand on what that process might look like.

[00:07:41] Giselle: Absolutely.

[00:07:44] Hector: Y'all, today's episode is brought to you by amplify media and we are the part two. We are the people to call after you talk to Giselle because if you have a passion, a purpose, a message, a mission, something that you want to get out to the world, but you don't have the time, the team and the tech skills to do it, we can help go to amplify media.

[00:07:59] Hector: com. That's a M P L a F Y media. com. You can also check the show notes for info. And with that, let's get back to Giselle.

[00:08:08] Hector: So Giselle, I started off to say that you give us as much of the magic sauce as you can, right? There's magic in the chef, if you will. But if you could help someone to understand what that clarification process look looks like, help us to see that picture.

[00:08:22] Giselle: The first thing, and it's the hardest, and it's the one that most people gloss over is getting to understand themselves. And a lot of us think we do, but we don't. And I think It's layers. it's understanding likes and dislikes and things like that. Things that you might be good at.

[00:08:36] Giselle: But I think it's more getting into things that we probably don't always think about. How do we do in groups? How are we with people? What do we like to do? What don't we like to do? What feels uncomfortable? Sort of tapping into that feeling part of ourselves that would dictate, are we doing things that are making us uncomfortable? Or is this, what brings us joy? I love the word joy. I have it actually tattooed on my arm now, just as a reminder. but It's about understanding yourself, and I've found some tools, for example, on the, Motivational Code, M Code, and I actually certified in that process.

[00:09:14] Giselle: But the why, by Simon Sinek, I think that's pretty helpful. My why, for example, is to make sense of things, which was exceedingly helpful, but it's just part of a puzzle. The Motivational Code tells you, how you do what you do. So it's not just about that. I like doing this, but how do I do that?

[00:09:32] Giselle: What am I motivated to do? So you do, you won't put a person who is motivated to solve problems in a status quo situation. So it means understanding yourself from different aspects. The other facets of that would be like your energy. When are you best? Are you best in the mornings? Oh, are you like me sometimes?

[00:09:50] Giselle: Like when I am in preparation mood or maybe research mood. I have a lot of energy. When I deliver that, I sometimes have to take a break for one, two days, three days because of the amount of energy I put into it. If I am on stage and it's a lot of people, or maybe even a small classroom of kids, which I've done, I was like spent at the end of it.

[00:10:12] Giselle: So it's a combination of things. But really, truly getting to understand yourself because that then speaks to what strategies are you going to employ? What are you going to apply to a business? Not every strategy is going to work. And so I look at, authors of books and I've read many books over the years.

[00:10:32] Giselle: They tell you about nine steps or 10 steps to this, or just do these three things. And I think it's important to understand that they are showing you themselves, but it may not necessarily work for you because you don't have certain things within you to execute like they've done.

[00:10:50] Giselle: So, a lot of things like, for example, if to go back to that energy thing, I'm not a person to hammer out to work comfortably in a nine to five, let's see, like I'm doing work all the time. And it took a long time for me to reconcile because I thought I'm lazy. And then you have all that negative thing going on.

[00:11:08] Giselle: So once you understand yourself, then you could begin to see okay, what strategies work best? What do I like to do? Because I tell people all the time, you don't have to do it all. You don't have to write. articles, you don't have to do a podcast, you don't have to do, social media, you don't have to be on LinkedIn, and it's exhausting.

[00:11:24] Giselle: So you need to figure out a quieter way for you, or maybe one or two things, that you could do consistently that could be sustained. So, I talk about getting you, that's the first thing, and getting Claire in terms of what strategies, work best, and what would bring you the, greatest results.

[00:11:41] Giselle: With the minimal amount of effort, and I want to say that I'm not suggesting, an easy work week or , it's work, but the thing is, it's, very focused, targeted work. And then finally, when you understand that, then you can begin to communicate a little more clearly, in terms of what you do, how you do it.

[00:12:01] Giselle: who do you want to work with? And that sort of gets you in front of the right audiences or, the right people that you would like to work with. It because of your messaging, people can easily find you, to work with you. So it's not like three steps, but it's like more three stages that I think, but the getting you is the most important part because everything else piggybacks on it.

[00:12:26] Hector: Is it any different for organizations, who are looking for, to clarify, if there's a team of people, is this something that the founder does , by themselves,, or is there a way to integrate it or, do that same sort of process with whatever sort of organization that person might have currently?

[00:12:45] Giselle: Yeah. So what I did like for this one organization was I did it with the founder and then I did it with his team. All the the leaders in the organization. And then we segmented in terms of. How do we leverage their expertise? Because, I was thinking, just this morning rereading an old book again about acres of diamonds.

[00:13:05] Giselle: And I think that many organizations have a lot of wealth within the organization, but they're not necessarily tapping into it. Because people are just, they're doing a particular kind of work, but in terms of. really mining for creativity and innovation, it's not really being done. We are just sort of like managing the day to day.

[00:13:26] Giselle: But if you really want to leverage that, I hear a lot of leaders in organizations saying, nobody's creative or nobody's innovative. But people need to be facilitated to get to that point, unless you naturally wired and brilliant in the 3 percent of the population that sort of, very visible and they've done certain things, but that's a core group, if you want to look at in terms of organizations, yes, you can do the same thing.

[00:13:55] Giselle: It's just, you're dealing with more people, it's a little more complex, but it's possible.

[00:13:59] Hector: Yeah, one thing that I've. Actually just started playing around with a good friend of mine, Jeff Woods, he was the CEO of the one thing organization. Are you familiar with the one thing,

[00:14:08] Giselle: The one thing. Yeah.

[00:14:09] Giselle: And I was thinking about it when I talked about that, the strategy stuff, don't do too many things. Yeah, exactly.

[00:14:16] Giselle: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:14:16] Hector: well,

[00:14:16] Hector: I was on a call with him where we're both in a group together and he was sharing about how he's leveraging AI to essentially create this clarity and that AI can really Ask some great questions and then with the input of , the individual, giving it back to the AI, they can actually really start to distill and clarify and critique and give feedback and , what his thesis was is that.

[00:14:41] Hector: A decision that used to take him weeks to be able to make because he would interview people. He would go out, find the information. He would do all of this research, put together the options and choices, and then, come back to a decision can now be done. In literal minutes, and that , the turnover between those decisions can now be expedited.

[00:15:00] Hector: Is that something that's on , your radar, or how do you see AI being able to play a role in, in this clarification process, if you will?

[00:15:08] Giselle: Right. So you see right away there, for example, for me, I'm defensive about AI, ? Because I have this fear that, okay, my strong suit is communication. My strong suit is being able to share and talk and, write and do that kind of stuff and figure things out. And I'm a real analog.

[00:15:27] Giselle: , I have everything, you know, writing reinforces, so I haven't really explored AI. I did something recently because of another client nonprofit. And they were doing like radio messaging and audio messaging. They did share a lot in terms of the platforms , but I haven't really delved into it.

[00:15:47] Giselle: But, I have to say that, after today, I think I'll I'll take a look at it because it might prove useful in the context of what you're seeing, because, you know, Early on when we were chatting, I said, about knowing the answers, right? A lot of people come to the table thinking that they know the answers.

[00:16:03] Giselle: I think it's also important, the quality of the questions that you ask. And perhaps AI can be a useful tool, in terms of generating those questions that would begin the process of, unraveling some of the bigger issues.

[00:16:18] Hector: Yeah, absolutely. This has been a really, really good conversation. I've got one more question for you, but before we do that, if people want to get in touch with you, go deeper in your world, where's the best place to do that? Great.

[00:16:29] Giselle: it's my name. gisellehudson. com g i s e l l e h u d s o n dot com. My phone number is 1 868 750 7859. I am in Trinidad and Tobago, so a shout out to the islands. And yeah, that's the easiest way or email giselle at giselle hudson. com.

[00:16:54] Hector: And we'll try and link that up in the show notes. So you can check that as well. But Giselle, in your opinion, my last question is in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:17:03] Giselle: Well, Clarify before you amplify, really, really understanding. I think that it's key. And in speaking of that, for example, even a simple exercise of revisiting vision, like looking at where you're going. Like not getting lost because it's so easy, especially in today, is there's so much destruction.

[00:17:24] Giselle: I think it's important to have a one page, in terms of where you see yourself, you're real, you're ideal and, what you want to do and then you begin building. So there are certain things I think that is important. Systems. very important. So I think that before you scale, need to get that.

[00:17:43] Giselle: Sometimes I look at, those people, people say first off, before you think about scaling, look at Your lead generation, for example, what system is that? Are you getting leads consistently before you can do anything else? And then you can begin to drill down and look at other systems in terms of customer service, delivery, product shipping, whatever your systems are integral to your business.

[00:18:06] Giselle: And I think that's exceedingly important and then once you start being able to work that system confidently, then you can begin, to scale because I remember reading a book called with the system and the guy talked a lot about, having a standard operating procedure, but knowing anybody can walk off the street, then be given this.

[00:18:25] Giselle: And know exactly what to do. So that's how detailed and, intricate you need to be in terms of what's being done. And have guides in terms of who can amend the system, etc. And then, you can continue build from there.

[00:18:39] Hector: Yeah. Great stuff. Such great valuable insights here and I'm excited to see the future of this because I think that as AI becomes more and more prominent that Your role is going to be even more important because , you talked about the quality of our answers are going to be determined by the quality of the questions that we ask.

[00:18:57] Hector: And it's people like you who have the great questions there. So I want to thank all you listeners for sticking with us and being with us today. We would be forever grateful for a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you know someone who needs to hear this, or maybe someone , who's amplifying, but they need to clarify for sending this episode, hit that share button and let them know that it might be helpful and go get connected with Giselle and myself on LinkedIn. If you're not already, we'll see on the next one