Turning Cringe into Cash | Rachel Pedersen

I don’t often have a repeat guest on my podcast, but when I do… it’s someone truly EPIC and Rachel Pedersen definitely qualifies.

Rachel has the ability to turn the stuff you want to hide into viral content. This, along with her no-nonsense practical tips on content creation earned her the title of the “Queen of Social Media”.

In our conversation, we talk about the stuff nobody tells you: cringy moments, flops, and what it takes to build an 8-figure business without losing your mind (or sense of humor).

Rachel and I covered topics like the realities of coaching and agency work, & she even gave me a hint on what’s coming up next for her.

Rachel’s truly not just “building a business.” She’s creating movements, challenging norms, and proving that the best success stories are the messy ones.

Topics include:

🤯 Rachel’s unfiltered journey from $15/hour gigs to $100K+ contracts.

🧠 Why sharing your awkward truth is the ultimate connection hack.

🔥 Her bold move to learn coding and take down overpriced software giants.

Rachel doesn’t play small, and this chat is a wake-up call for anyone tired of fake hype and shortcut promises.

Stay till the end for Rachel’s tactical breakdown on creating an insane amount of content without burning out.

Press play and let’s dive in. 🎧

#ContentCapitalist #RachelPedersen #SocialMediaGrowth #Entrepreneurship #BusinessSuccess

Follow Rachel Pedersen at:

https://rachelpedersen.com
https://www.instagram.com/themrspedersen
https://www.tiktok.com/@themrspedersen
https://www.facebook.com/the.mrs.pedersen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/themrspedersen/

Follow Ken Okazaki at:

https://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/
https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazaki
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-capitalists-with-ken-okazaki/id1634328251
https://open.spotify.com/show/09IzKghscecbI7jPDVBJTw
Content Capitalists YouTube

Transcript

Ken Okazaki: Hey, welcome to another episode of the Content Capitalist Podcast. Today, we have a repeat guest and this doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's because It's worth bringing back for a good reason. Rachel Pedersen, welcome to the show.

Rachel Pedersen: Ken, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Ken Okazaki: Thank you for being back. Now, quick note to both Rachel Pedersen and to anybody who might be watching this is I usually have a teleprompter and I could look right into Rachel Pedersen's eyes and the camera at the same time, but right now my tech is not working. So I might look here when she's talking, I'll try to keep it there as much as possible and I got to stare at a black circle, but it's all good.

We're going to have a lot of fun. Rachel Pedersen, first of all, I do want to say that following you on social media has, has been an experience for me. Three main things that stand out to me. Number one is you take things that a lot of people would consider cringy and turn it into something meaningful and also that attracts attention in the right kind of way. Number two is. There's things in your personal life that a lot of people would consider off limits but that you turn into almost like the core of your messaging and the third thing is that you've been around for in this space as an authority for a long time and it's I haven't seen so much other people doing it at that consistent pace.

Rachel Pedersen: There's people who spike and then they disappear. And then they have these stops and starts. You've been going for quite a long time. And that's that consistency is impressive. So I just wanted to give you that. Those three things are the things I notice about you. Things that stand out. I think a lot of other people are noticing that too. Well, thanks. Um, first and foremost on the cringe factor. Um, I think we all have a level of cringe in our day to day lives where we're like, I don't feel like the adult in this situation, or this was super embarrassing or, oh my gosh, why do I talk like that? Why do I do things like that? And so when I look at those situations, I actually have like an entire note on my iPhone that's moments that I want to talk about and things like being introduced to other parents and how weird and wild and uncomfortable it can be, anyone who's ever had to meet the parents of their kids.

friends. It's, it's weird sometimes. And you're like, am I the awkward one? Like what's happening? You know? And so I just, I know of all these different situations. Cause I'm like, if I'm dealing with this, there's a good chance that someone else is as well. when it comes to personal life, and this is really fascinating.

So Paul and I only have a few things that are. Almost 100% off limits. And this wasn't based on like a branding decision or a marketing decision. It was what are things that we as a couple agree we just don't want online? And those four things are, politics, religion, and or faith. Um. Almost 100 percent sex.

Sometimes I still make out of pocket jokes. Um, and then number four, we don't put our kids online almost 100%. And that's new as of the last couple of years. And honestly, that was a really big one. So there's a lot that seems

Ken Okazaki: think we're going to end the conversation right now. Cause that was the rest of my questions.

Rachel Pedersen: Oh, beautiful.

Ken Okazaki: No, those are, those are good points. Those are really good. And that you actually had that conversation, I think is important. I think that I haven't had that conversation with my wife yet about specifically, I kind of have, you know, I think we found a level where we're comfortable, but I haven't had that conversation and, uh, I think I should.

I really think I should.

Rachel Pedersen: It's a really big one. Um, especially since every single one of us have such different, you know, motivating factors, um, beliefs underneath everything. Sometimes it's really surprising. So originally when we first had the conversation, so my husband, Paul is very private. He hates being online. He hates social media.

He only has Facebook. Um, he did create a Tik Tok cause I send him so many Tik Toks that he has to be able to view them, but he never logs in and everything

Ken Okazaki: lurker, right?

Rachel Pedersen: just only the

Ken Okazaki: when it comes to TikTok, just views doesn't post, right?

Rachel Pedersen: Oh, he doesn't even scroll it unless I send him a video and he watches that one video. And he's like, I'm bored. This app is so dumb.

Um, so he's like really, really, really private. And for a long time, he wanted to actually also not be like on my profile. And we did realize, like, you'll probably get a kick out of this. We realized that if we don't post about each other once in a while, people assume probably about two to three times a year, That we're getting a divorce or yeah,

Ken Okazaki: that's how it's actually, that's the pattern on social media with other influencers. They always show up together and then they stop showing up. And then a few months later, Oh, by the way, we're divorced, right? Like, like, I don't blame people for thinking that because that's the pattern. I do want to call back to something you said earlier, which is great.

He said, how awkward and cringy you feel when being introduced to other.

Rachel Pedersen: Yes.

Ken Okazaki: Me and my wife were in Japan and same thing happened. And like sometimes it's at the school or the kids are visiting our place and then their parents pick them up or whatever that is. And sometimes they come over actually most of the time and we don't know their name. We just know them as like, you know, Ruby's friends.

Or we know Ruby's friend's name, cause they're with us. Right? So it's like, it

Like Ashley's mom. And then, and when they came, we'd just say, Oh, Hey, you know, Ashley is ready and stuff and we're scratching her head. What's her immune? I was like, we don't know. And then one time, they actually stopped over for a little bit.

And this is a variety of different parents. And we said, you know what? This is so embarrassing, but we don't actually know your name. We just know you as Ashley's mom. And she goes, Oh my God, I was saying the same thing to my husband about you. I don't know your name. You're just Ruby's dad. And then, and then it became this, this thing within, at a PTA.

Uh, so someone said like, we just realized we don't know each other's name. And everybody started laughing and everybody was in the same situation. And I think that that dynamic that happened is why bringing up those topics that are kind of embarrassing. You're like, I actually don't know your name.

That's a little bit embarrassing, right? But putting it out there, you realize, wait a sec, everybody thinks they've got the secret. But it's the exact same secret that everybody's got and then it starts getting shared and noticed and people have that reaction like relief, humor, and connection with you as a person who brought it to their attention.

Rachel Pedersen: I'm a huge fan of that. Especially the things that kind of go counterintuitive to all of the advice of being an entrepreneur or achieving some level of success. Like they say, you know, you have to always eat healthy, never eat fast food. And I'm like, listen, once a week. I'm ordering 70 worth of Taco Bell and I make no apologies for it.

Extra sauce, extra cheese, extra everything. Like those types of things are so fun to me. And I'm like, I wonder how many other entrepreneurs kind of feel the same way. Like they have their guilty pleasures and things that kind of go against being an entrepreneur according to like the traditional advice.

Ken Okazaki: So I'm a fan of sharing those, you know? I am too. Yeah, Brian Johnson, you know that guy who's like a decamillionaire and he's trying to, you know, reverse his aging. Does that name sound familiar to you?

Rachel Pedersen: Yes, yes. 

Ken Okazaki: I finally started to like him when he started saying, you know what, I actually need to slow down on the stuff and put on more body fat because everybody's looking at me and they think I look like an alien because his skin is so pale and he's so, you know, like gaunt all the time. Right. And, and then he's just like, and he goes, 

Rachel Pedersen: I need people to connect with me as a human. So I'm actually going to start eating some fast food every now and then. And he put on some, you need some fat on his face and his skin so that he could actually become relatable again. He became so unrelatable because it was. It was too extreme what he was doing. Yeah, I do admire those people who seemingly just always do the right thing. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about. The people who just They do the best thing. They make the best choice. They're constantly saying like, okay, what's the single best choice we can make? And then they make that choice.

And I'm like, I just wish I was that way. And I'm not. Uh, I'm more like, let's try all the worst things first and then see what we want to do. but when I see people like that, like Brian Johnson, who say, I'm gonna make all of these great decisions and then they just follow it. I'm like, that's so impressive.

I admire that trait so much. I don't have it though. 

I think I make all the right decisions and then I forget to follow through on them. Like I, I, at some point decide logically, yeah, this is what I should do. And this is what I'm going to do. And then a week later, I'm like, well, we got 20 percent there or something, right? That's fair.

Ken Okazaki: Yeah. I don't think I ever decide not to do the right thing intentionally.

Oh, I do. Oh, yeah. Maybe that's where we were talking before the show about the whole, like, Harley Quinn, alter ego potential. I, beside me, that's really rebellious. Like, I'm not going to do the right thing. I'm going to be bad tonight. You know, like, You know what? Okay, let me think this through.

Rachel Pedersen: I know.

Ken Okazaki: think I live that out in watching violent and gory movies and entertainment. Like, I get to be the bad guy by just watching bad guys, and then I let that stuff out.

Rachel Pedersen: Name three that you, I want examples.

Ken Okazaki: Oh, movies? TV? Like, um,

Violent and gory movies. okay, so,I love this one. There was a horror movie about Christmas. Reruns of, Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorites. Dahmer tape, is that what they called it? Uh, on

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah. Zac Efron, right.

what's the documentary?

Ken Okazaki: no, no, it was a documentary. Documentary.

Rachel Pedersen: Yep.

And then there was, right now Silent Prince is going blank, but there's this series of, basically, true crime. or worse, is where I like to go. There's a show called, uh, Rotten Mangoes on, on YouTube, a Korean podcaster. She's really successful. And she goes through some really gory real life stories and does like a one hour narrative or two hour narrative on those. And she looks for stuff like that came out of Russia and China and North Korea and stuff like really obscure stuff. Um, so yeah, that, that stuff is, it feels almost morbid. Then I don't desire to, and I, I guess I get to do it vicariously just by, just by watching it and then I'm back to myself afterwards. um, I, I actually like dark, uh, movies and TV shows. Like I loved squid games, not the dubbed

Ken Okazaki: Oh my god, I love that.

Rachel Pedersen: I know. Oh, so good. I, I won't say which of my kids, but we just watched it with one of our kids. I don't want anyone to know like how young my child is. Um, and this child loved the show, like visceral emotional reaction.

We fast forwarded all of the super icky parts, but. It was, I was really surprised. And then I loved like Parasite, one of my favorites. Um, and then like the platform, I like kind of like dark stuff a lot more than comedies, actually.

Ken Okazaki: I also like, uh, stories about scams and like, uh, you know, these elaborate, like, oh, drug dealers, like Narcos, amazing, uh, Griselda.

Rachel Pedersen: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ken Okazaki: so yeah, that, that kind of stuff. Those that's my go to. So, uh, and then I come to your life and I don't want to actually do any of it. So I think, I think maybe there's some, psychology.

We could talk about that behind why, why,

Rachel Pedersen: Let's get lighter here. Okay. Um,

Ken Okazaki: before we go deeper into this, I do want to mention a couple of things. First of all, guys, we've been chit chatting back and forth, like she's your, she could be, you know, just anybody. Here's some stuff I picked up. Tell me if I got this right. Okay. Okay. number one, you started in 2015, and before that, you had no experience with social media, you just, like, 2015, picked it up, and if I remember correctly, you had one client, and you asked for way more than you thought he'd pay, And when you do it, you're just like, holy crap.

And then when he asked around to other people. It was much more than they ever charged. Can you give me that number? If you remember correctly, if I, if I said that correctly?

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah. Let's go back. so I had the weirdest social media experience before 2015. So I was a single mom starting in 2010, and this is so bad, but in the evenings I would watch like reruns of The Bachelor, Bachelorette, The Kardashian, back when Netflix only had like 15 options, it was like yoga shows and a couple reality shows.

So I'd watch those I would drink like a mason jar of wine Boxed wine the really cheap bad stuff that makes you so sick And then I would tweet producers of TV shows and It was the weirdest thing because the producers of The Bachelor who I think some of them are still the producers of The Bachelor Started tweeting me back and we became friends and started having these like really weird relationships over email.

So that was my first experience with social media. And then I did a little bit with, um, being a hairstylist in, let's see, that would be 2013 and 2014. I wasn't prolific in any way. But then 2015 was the first time it was business related. And then, um, in 2015, so my first big client, uh, I, they were willing to pay me 15 an hour.

And it's not really a big client, but it was, Good side money. So that was pretty decent. And I actually didn't get a fantastic paying client probably for, for, let's see, 2015 to 2018. 2019. Yeah, it took me quite a few years to get someone who paid more than, you know, 300 to 1500 a month. It took a long time, Ken.

Ken Okazaki: Isn't that wild? Well, I think for people who are watching online, that's wild. For them, for people who've been to that path, they're just like, yeah, that's sounds about right.

There's this distortion field that happens on social media and stop me if I'm wrong. It's that. The people who have extraordinarily rare experiences of instant success are the ones that everybody notices and the people who take that, the more common path, which, which is that it takes a long time, takes a lot of work, they don't get noticed, which is why everybody fixates on the Michael Jordans of social media and they, and then that's the bar they want to reach.

Now, I think that it's a double edged sword. The positive is that more people get up and try because they believe it's reachable and achievable. The, the negative is that It sets unrealistic expectations and people give up too easily or people sometimes they join my coaching program and they're just like, how come I haven't, I don't have a million view video yet, or how come I haven't been able to replace my income?

And they're like two months in, I'm just like, how long have you been working on your business so far? Yeah. Okay. 15 years. And we've been at this for two months. that's the double edged sword, right?

Rachel Pedersen: I love that you shared that because one of the things I was actually talking to Paul about this last night. Um, he said, you are one of the most like remarkably stubborn people I've ever met. Like when things don't go right or don't go well or aren't smooth or feel awkward or uncomfortable, like you keep trying.

And I was like, Thanks, Faith. That's so nice. Um, I've had so many video flops. I've had so many failed clients. I've had, uh, people talk me down when I was trying to charge 750 a month. All of the above have happened. Now, I've been in business for a decade, Almost a decade. That's so wild. And, um, it wasn't until 2019, 2020, that I started to see like the big, big success.

Now we did grow quite a bit. Um, I was like, doing done for you services, but it was like piece meal together and way too much work exhausted 80 plus hours a week. And it was my first big client. Cause I want to come back to that. The first big, big one where I kind of like, fell off the bed. I was, I was actually in a hotel room in San Diego with Molly Mahoney.

And we were recapping from a long day and the email came in and I had sent a proposal to Dean Graziosi for 113, 000 for consulting and strategy and they said yes. And I literally just like fell off the hotel bed because I was like, what? But I think that was in 2021, I want to say. And then someone had once told me like every time someone says yes to like your biggest package or every three times, I'm like, what?

Ken Okazaki: Raise that biggest package to a bigger price because you'll be surprised by who says yes. And so then the next one I sent out to a software company was 247, 000 for the year. And they said yes. And that's when I was like, I just need that package up. Okay. I guess. Here we go. Mm Knowing Molly Mahoney, you guys were definitely singing and dancing and jumping on the bed,

she is also a real, a superstar in this space and, uh, when I first met her, we, we just clicked right away. and I don't know, we just, her and you actually have a lot of similar energy is just, we don't have so much of a common background aside from business, but let's talk about the same stuff we get.

For me, it was her, her bedazzled pants she wears all the time. I'm just like, that is shiny, but it looks so uncomfortable. She was like, come, you want to feel it? You know, we just started and we're at a conference and she came to my booth and that's how we first connected.

Rachel Pedersen: No way. We've actually been friends for, my business was full time. So I put out like a random post on Instagram and I was like, I don't think many people follow me, but I'm going to try. And I was like, I'm looking for guest bloggers or opportunities to guest blog or trade blogs of people. I think this was early 2015, if not 2014, and Molly wasn't even fully the prepared performer yet.

And she messaged me and she was like, she actually emailed me. She's like, I don't want to sound like a creeper, but I'm in love with you and your brand. And I want to guest post with, and for you, like, let's do this. And it was like a friendship love affair from that moment on. And we've been amazing friends for a decade plus, longer than I've had a successful business.

Ken Okazaki: You know, she was one of the few friends who actually, she was the only friend who showed up when I was in the mental health recovery, um, place she, she visited and she brought me flowers and she had written a song for me. And like, yeah, she's, she's just amazing. a genuine kind human through and through. You know, this is a podcast first where we're like both falling over a mutual friend. So shout out to Marley Mahoney. We're going to tag you in this. You got to watch this. And, uh, we both appreciate you. I'm going to bring up something here. Tell me about this. You helped to grow a skincare business by 6, 725%, and when you started working with them, they're making about 300, 000 a year, and you got them to about 3, 000, 000.

I hope I got those numbers right. Can we talk about that?

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah, it's close. So this skincare company came to me and I'm really glad she didn't tell me this when she hired me, but she basically had to skip her mortgage payment to hire me. for ads and social media. And that's a lot of pressure. I don't normally like doing startups cause that type of pressure just, it kind of breaks me out and I get in my head.

Ken Okazaki: I can do it. It's just not my favorite. So she was doing five to 6, 000 a month, mostly doing like farmers markets, trade shows, et cetera. It was, I mean, it was fantastic skincare. And then, um, she flew to my house and. We mapped out this incredible like five minute webinar that she could use for social and I edited it, edited it, and then put emojis on it and wrote the copy and we scaled her to She started with me in June And by Christmas, she did 286, 000 in a month, so it grew pretty quickly, and she ended up doing like 5 million a year, I think Russell Brunson almost became an investor, but it was, it was pretty intense, I'm not gonna lie, very intense, Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious about what was that time delay from when she plonked down the money and said, please help me to when she came back and says, Hey, I made all my money back. And some, cause there's that, that in between stage, right? Where both as the, Yeah. The service writer, yourself, the expert, and the client, you're both kind of holding your breath like, this better work, this better work, this better work, right?

Tell me about that gap period, because that's what a lot, that's what freaks people out, and that's sometimes they start doing weird stuff like accusing you, or, or, or feeling bad about themselves, or all the above, giving up completely, and that's

Rachel Pedersen: yes. Um, most of the time I notice that with the exception of, you know, there are certain clients where they are in delayed sale industries. I recently worked with someone in education consulting and their package sizes were anywhere from 35, 000 to almost 400, 000. And it was through like RFPs and school districts.

So like that was, That was a super delayed sale process. Like that was, that was hard for me cause I like faster results. Um, within the first three months I can always tell, is this going to work or is it not? So I need to see signs of life within the first three months or I actually part ways with clients because I don't like that discomfort of why is this not fitting?

Why is there not market fit? Um, but I'm just going to be honest. A lot of clients demand results month one. I've seen it time and again. I bet you have too, actually. They expect it. They want to see, okay, what can you get done in one month? And I already paid you, now you're asking for more, even though sometimes it takes a month to build out strategies and templates and all of the architects and brand voice and all of that. so for her, she was fascinating as a business owner. She wanted a return month one or it wasn't going to continue. so when I say,

Ken Okazaki: Well, we shattered a mortgage that you didn't know about, right?

Rachel Pedersen: yeah, yeah. So when I say it was intense, that's kind of an understatement. Um, ran my life for those months. I'm just going to be super honest. I focus more on her business than on any of my businesses.

And at one point I looked through Facebook back when you used to be able to like filter by dates. And I saw that in one single day, there were 1000 Facebook messages back and forth between her and I. So it was just, it was constant. So there was a lot of pressure there, um, and month one, I did get the return enough that.

Ken Okazaki: Month two could happen, but that's why I don't work with startups anymore. It just, ah, it's too much. I can't do that. Like, let me breathe, please. So when you say you don't work with startups anymore, is that across the board or if they come in with realistic expectations, do you make exceptions?

They have to have financial runway. Absolutely. I will never willingly put myself or my team into a situation where the mortgage needs to be paid again. Because that puts undue expectations of success onto other people. And that's just, that's too much for me. I don't like it. So I will sometimes work a little with a startup, but like I said, they have to have a track record of established businesses in the past and or a platform and definitely financial runway. I mean, for me,the way I see it is if they've got a war chest and, you know, a certain amount of money so that it's not going to risk their livelihood or I mean, you know, their shelter then I'm okay for me. Startups? I've had some bad experiences with startups too, but the exception I found is if it's not their first startup, then I'm way more comfortable. If they've started up something else, then they've, they don't have, they're not hoping to, you know, To get to, you know, to be a unicorn with this business, maybe they're hoping that they're not going to demand and put that pressure on you because yeah, it gets unrealistic sometimes with people who have no idea and they're walking in and that's scary.

That is scary. Yeah. I haven't really faced that for a very long time. It's been a minute for me too, thankfully. I, I got a few of these posts that, uh, I had before the call, I have Roselle go in and look at, you know, some, some great posts and bring them to your attention, but before I do, I want to pivot there in a second, agency owners slash coaches, I see this, you know, double dipping kind of thing happening a lot where you're an agency owner and you, You've had some success.

Therefore, people come to you and they're willing to pay you to coach them and vice versa. Coaches set up agencies. Where are you in that space? What's that balance?

Rachel Pedersen: Ooh, I am pretty close to 50 50. Uh, it feels like normally I am either 60 in agency, 40 in coaching or vice versa. I, I tend to prefer agency and consulting over coaching most of the time.I'm trying to think of how to answer this because this is really wild and taps into like so many of our thoughts for the next five years and I'll just be transparent.

Um,sometimes when you're coaching or when you are doing education, not all the time, but it can feel kind of. invisible, or not make believe, but do you know what I mean? It's like, there's nothing tangible unless you, you know, create swag boxes. And so I love that with done for you and done with you.

You get to hand the client deliverables and be like, this is your done for you brand voice analysis. these are your four levels of brand archetypes based on 30 hours of video that we. dissected with 286 or 87, uh, data points. Do you know what I mean? So I, every time I think like, I'm not working with clients anymore.

I'm never doing this again. Um, I kind of fall back in love with it and I end up going back to it again and again. I love working with clients. Um, I do like coaching as well. I just find that sometimes the more people pay you and have skin in the game, In like an agency or consulting model versus coaching, they, they implement faster.

Ken Okazaki: I see that across the board. So I kind of have like, at this point in time, ask me again in a year, uh, at this point in time, I prefer the agency model But you still are maintaining that coaching side of your business too, right? And when you do the coaching versus agency, is there a crossover where people come into coaching? It's like, you know what? I just want to pay to do this for me. And they jump over.

Rachel Pedersen: quite a bit.

Ken Okazaki: Does that happen?

Rachel Pedersen: Oh yeah. Usually people will send their team members into my coaching programs and then be like, okay, now that we know she's legit, you've implemented a few things, let's go ahead and go all in. That's, I see that actually a lot. So yeah.

Ken Okazaki: That's great. I've recently just, just launched a coaching program. Now it's not my first one. I did a couple before. Those lasted maybe a year or so. And The reason I stopped those after about a year was because I didn't see what I call an infinite continuum where I could continue working with them and they can continue making progress forever, which, which is a lofty goal. Literally we'd finish like the modules I created and they'd say, what's next? Do you have an upsell? I'm like, you're asking me for an upsell? I thought like, that gets, that's people, that's things people didn't like or whatever. As I thought about it, I'm like, well, we could repeat the same stuff and try to do it better.

And, you know, a lot of people do that. It didn't feel interesting or exciting to me.

Rachel Pedersen: It's like the, the, you know, the fourth grade grammar teacher who just cycles through different students coming through and she teaches the same stuff. But imagine it's the same class and you're teaching the same stuff over and over year after year.

And I was like, nah, so I shut it down. Mm hmm.

Ken Okazaki: About two months ago, I launched something else and I called it EU syndicated and the, the difference. With this one is that, it is a coaching program through and through what I learned from the past is a lot of people get stuck when you say, Hey, here's how do you script something out now?

Go shoot this, right? Great. Now you got it. Now you got to go edit it or whatever. And it's all the technical parts that people just, they get stuck. They get left behind. You know, they got so many different levels of skill. So I did a hybrid thing, which is I'm going to teach you how to plan the month, uh, We're going to actually, the first time around, we're going to actually create the scripts for you.

Then you're going to shoot it, then we're going to edit it for you, we're going to launch it together, and it's what we call a click here call, where we, somebody gets one on one with them, and we don't log into their social media, they share their screen, we say click here, click here, click here, it gets all posted properly with all the right settings, and that recording becomes their SOP.

Rachel Pedersen: And we do everything for them the first time, so that the second time around, It's easier.

Ken Okazaki: monthly, they, they just, they can review it and get better and better. So we're giving them a little taste of what agency work is like as like a support for the course. So, I'm hoping that this is going to be something that gets people started faster, but also gives them a taste of both worlds.

Here's agency, then here's coaching, and you can choose your own journey after that first period where we do it for you with the coaching. So, we'll see how that goes long term. So weird out. Can be, okay. So I just launched a hybrid model as well. That is coaching plus certain elements done for you. And the word syndicate is in the title of mine too. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what is it? Are you in my

Rachel Pedersen: content. No, I don't even think I'm on your email list, but I don't think you're on mine either. So, um, yeah, the content syndicate and we just opened it like kind of quietly, which is so bizarre.

And I'm just testing this out

Ken Okazaki: show is the Content Capitalist, and the coaching program is used syndicated. You're totally stealing my stuff. Rachel, this, this call is over.

Rachel Pedersen: I reported myself talking about syndicates a year ago. I'm just going to point that out. Oh, that's

Ken Okazaki: No, this is so cool. No, this is it.

great minds think alike. That must mean that if you felt that way and I feel that way, like that's a need in the space. I don't know. I think it's validation that that's going to be a shift that coaching moves towards. Cause I, I think that for the most part, coaching as a model, as it's always existed is kind of busted. I think there are busted models, but I do, I have been in some really great coaching programs that I've kept going back to. I, here's, here's where I draw the line is that I don't think it's about the model. I think it's about the dedication of the coach to the client. Like, are they in there trying to get to a million bucks a year as their primary goal?

Or are they in there trying to help every single one of them? client succeed and turning away those that they don't believe have a high. Like a very, very high chance of hitting success by their metrics. And That's to me is a differentiator because I've seen people start with really crappy business models for the coaching business, but over time learning and then adjusting and turning it into one of the best programs out there because they care so damn much.

Rachel Pedersen: And of course they have to have had a lot of success in the thing that they're coaching on. those things aren't aligned, then you get crappy business models. I think what you just said was big. They have to have had success in that arena or at least supported success in a major way to have an inside look. and then they have to be able to create systems, strategies, frameworks as like a foundation and then be able to tweak it based on individual businesses.

And that's where that care element comes in. I totally agree. 

Ken Okazaki: And that's a tricky part for me because on social media, I, I've never made a viral video that got a million views of myself. My clients, tons of them, right? Um, I've never been the, like, like, for, the things I'm bringing up here is like how I contrast with you. You have, you're on the cover of the book, uh, you're on a lot of million dollar viewed videos, multi million dollar, not dollar, million viewed videos. And you are very, very public and out there. And it's easy for people to relate that success to what, you know, uh, what's possible for them. Like I want to be like that. When I come up, I have made an intentional decision not to name drop clients as a part of my marketing. Simply because when I think about if I was in their shoes, what I want to be the poster boy of, of some agency, it just doesn't make me feel so good.

So I don't do it unless they actually bring it up and I don't even ask them. But a few people have said, Hey, Ken, you know, you could totally use this material in your marketing and that I will. So I don't know if I'm being too hard on myself, like, am I trying to fight with one hand behind my back? What's your take on that?

Rachel Pedersen: Because it is a little, it's more challenging to get clients. Uh huh. Um, and then, Yes, I would say yes, you're putting too hard on yourself, which is, which is interesting because It's the people who don't care about their clients who are the best at marketing themselves non stop. I mean, I'm talking the ones that hit, you know, eight figures in their agency, and they're just constantly churning clients and billing people on recurring contracts that are year long. Um, I do wait for my clients to break the seal as well. So, like you might have noticed when I talked about the education consulting company, I don't say their name and there's a reason. Publicly, they never talked about me. So I'm like, well, I guess I won't mention who you are, even though I helped you grow from a million per year to a million per quarter in 12 months, but that's okay.

We'll just talk about it as a generality. Um, the truth is everyone needs different advice, Ken. Some people need the advice to be more bold and some people need the advice to just like calm down a little. And I don't sense that you're a, someone who needs the advice of like, yeah. Calm down a little.

Ken Okazaki: Stop flaunting your success. Stop being so loud with your achievements that you've had for your clients. I think you're the person that deserves the push because you back it up with integrity results and like a work ethic. So I'm just gonna swerve. I think that you should. Like start putting some of that out there, you know, Thank you for that. I do appreciate it. And here's the part where I always pause before posting something because, for example, I have a client who's, Uh, their podcasts, we're producing all their videos and editing everything. And there's over 3 million monthly downloads, really successful. Uh, we had other podcasters who are in that, uh, like 2 million range and they're all over YouTube and everything all around like business and entrepreneurship.

That's the niche we go into. And before I hit post, I'm like, wait a sec, we just came on and we've been working with them for like a certain period of time, uh, less than a year, but they started this podcast way back and for me to show those numbers and say, this is my client, which is true, and they're making, they have this much, you know, Downloads and Exposure and this How Much Money They're Making seems so disingenuous that they did ten years of work and I just came in and as like the cherry on the cake and somehow associate that huge number with me which and then I just I don't hit send.

Like, if I read that then I'm going to get attracted to those big numbers and then At some point when I realized, wait a sec, you know, he only came in for the last few months and this came, like, I might kind of feel like this guy is just, uh, he left out some key details, which you can't put the whole story into one, you know, paragraph.

Right. So like, how do you deal with that? That's why I don't hit enter on those, on those posts or stuff. When I talk about my client success,

Rachel Pedersen: yes. So, you know, Joseph Campbell's, um, The Hero's Journey. So the concept of every hero has a journey of 12 massive phases. So something that really helped me with this process of sharing my client successes was the idea that my client is the hero of the journey that I'm portraying in social or in anything.

So when I'm sharing their story, when Sarah came to me. She had, you know, 10 million annual downloads or less than a million downloads per month of her podcast. And then we started working with her 11 months ago. Today, she's experiencing 3 million downloads per month. That makes a huge difference. So you highlight like, no, listen, they're the hero.

I was the, you know, what, what is it? Like a step, step or stage, like five or six is introduction of the mentor. You're the mentor. You're not the hero. They're the hero. When you try, this is not preaching at you, but this is more for anyone listening. When you try to make yourself the hero of your client's journey, they will grow resentful.

I know this from both sides of that. I've done it. And it was a huge mistake. And it also had people do it for my journey. And I was like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You don't get to take my success and make it sound like it was all because of you because you weren't there for the bad times or the five years before that.

Ken Okazaki: So when I realized, like, okay, they're the hero. I'm just the mentor. I'm coming in. I can highlight what they've done before I came in, the hard work that they put in, the journey that they've been on, the struggles that they've experienced, the wins that they've had, and how I helped. And then instantly, you look good to them and to everybody because it's honest. got to put more thought into that. And, uh, yeah, thank you for that.

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah, it's,

Ken Okazaki: makes a lot of sense.

Rachel Pedersen: a great one. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. But it does take time to like digest. Mm hmm.

Ken Okazaki: I think what I'm facing is, uh, some version of imposter syndrome. Every time I think about putting that up, that's, that's all it is just at a different level than, than, uh, in the first round. Isn't that weird? Hmm.

Rachel Pedersen: It's

Does that still hit you sometimes? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. On, uh, on so many different levels. Um, like one that's recent is, you know, the last year and a half I've been coasting on social. I've done decent. I was still consistent, but it wasn't like my best work until the last like really, probably month. And for me to go out there and like create content about like, here's how you create content and here's how you grow on social, here's how you go viral, when I know the last year and a half, it's been minimal for me.

Um, these have been some of my lowest numbers in the last three years. Again, like imposter syndrome hits, like who am I to talk about that? And then I just remember, oh yeah, I'm Rachel freaking Pederson. Like I've done this many times. This isn't my first go around. I've helped myself do it. I've helped others do it.

And I just have to rely on that past success. And if someone hates. I can turn their hate comment into an amazing video where I'm like, Hey, like, have you ever tried to build a business going through like grief or loss or depression? Like, hello? Well, this is what it looks like to come back from that. So I hope you don't ever go through it, you know?

Ken Okazaki: So that helps me a lot is just to remember if someone hates, I can turn that into a learning lesson. Yeah, that makes sense. I, something you told me before, actually, I think I've watched it in your content is you said, one of the things you do is you keep a folder of all the, uh, All the, the screenshots and videos of what your clients say about you. So that when you have a low moment, you just go through and watch those.

Then it just pumps you back up. I took that on. And that helps me so much because as a business owner on the, in the public and internally, the stuff that flows to the top is the stuff that they're the problems that nobody else at some level in your business could take care of. And it's problems, right?

And. When things are going well, those don't come to your emergency inbox, they just coast along as if nothing happened, and they, and they don't get noticed. So, that tip helped me overcome imposition. Every time, just like, it's not working, this client's not breaking through. I have that folder and just watch through it and I literally cry sometimes.

Rachel Pedersen: I'm like, okay, okay, we're okay. And, uh, yeah, that, that helps me. Uh, there's one thing I've been doing lately, like in this journey of, Getting back to like mass content production and posting at a super high level, high value, consistent, kind of like I used to do. Um, I've been doing it actually now for five days and my views and reach have hockey sticked in five days.

I'm talking 10 to 15

Ken Okazaki: you break down what's going on right now? Because we haven't talked tactics at all. So this, this is what, uh, this is what we got to jump into.

Rachel Pedersen: Yes. So back in the day, I used to have two modes and one mode was like, uh, hyper production and one mode was like, this is baseline. We never fall below baseline. Um, Baseline is five, I'm sorry, three to seven TikToks and or reels per day. So short form videos that go out everywhere.

Um, actually I should pull up my list because I have a list that I follow every day in my, uh, tool for this. My tracking tool, because I think this is more helpful. Three to five podcasts per week. Three to five, um, emails.

Ken Okazaki: all your persona, your social media, right? Not your client stuff.

Anything else? One many chat, uh, triggering Facebook posts for my page. One to three Instagram mini chats, uh, two to five Instagram stories, one to five text based content pieces for threads, one to five content pieces for Facebook profile, not necessarily the same for both. Uh, and then, and then when I turn it into overdrive mode, then I also include our other brands as well as three to five YouTube videos per week and the high end of the range for everything. How's that? And that's daily pretty much. So let's talk about how much time you're spending in content creation. Like, I feel like I just walked into a. You know that scene in Harry Potter where they go to, it looks like a small tent and he walks in and it turns out to be this huge cavernous thing. That's what I feel like I just, just happened.

Rachel Pedersen: Um, getting all this stuff out. Tell me about that. What's, how do you do it? Yeah. Okay. So I'm only on day five. And so I haven't followed this level of content production for probably two years total. Um, back in the day, I used to actually do more because every single thing was every day, Monday through Friday and some on weekends, it was even a higher level of output. When I get my systems and my flow down, which takes a little bit of time, cause I have to also overcome like imposter syndrome or over complicating things or perfectionistic tendencies.

It takes me two hours each morning, which isn't too bad, actually. Two full hours. And I'm talking. Yeah, So this is back to back, like just next, next, next, next, next.

it, nothing is chill. And for any platform, I can't schedule something on for like later that day so that they're not all always going out at the same time, which isn't the biggest deal in the world. But if I want to space things out, I'll put them in my notes on my, uh, like, you know, like the Apple notes and then I'll go back and post them later.

But yeah, when I say two hours, I'm talking two hours, nobody talked to me. My ADHD meds have already kicked in. Uh, I'm not going to the bathroom. I'm not eating. I'm not taking a break. My do not disturb is on and it is sprint mode for two straight hours and then it's all done. Right now it's probably taking me three to four hours, which is super uncomfortable.

And I'm like, I really hope this isn't because I'm getting older. No, I, I'm out of practice. Um, yeah, it's taking me about three to four hours per day right now. And so I'm kind of still sprinkling it in, in between things. Um, I have a feeling I'm probably about 20 days away from feeling really good and practiced and back in the groove of things.

Ken Okazaki: And then it'll be back to like two hours a day, Monday through Friday. Oh So let me get this straight. In these two hours. Is it just the shooting? Because when I look at your Tik Tok and your Instagram, it's also a little bit of editing. You put the titles on there. Sometimes there's some trending music. Uh, some, you know, some simple edits are in there and a bit of writing in the, in the captions.

Rachel Pedersen: Is that all of it or just shooting? no, it's everything. 100 percent of everything. Yeah. Uh, the only thing that sometimes takes longer is if I'm going to go from basically like my live stream version of YouTube videos to edited versions. I haven't figured out AI edits yet and I lost my, my favorite video editor. She went and worked full time for a company.

Ken Okazaki: I was so sad about that. So she was amazing and I haven't replaced her yet, but if I do live stream style YouTube, I can do that in the two hours. If I personally have to edit the videos for YouTube, it's going to take me three to four hours when I'm in the groove. It just takes me so long to do that. It's too hard. Yeah. We could have a talk later. Maybe, maybe I'd be able to, uh, refer somebody to you potentially who can be an

Rachel Pedersen: Love that.

Ken Okazaki: let me get this straight. Uh, you're that list you gave us, like About 20 creatives a day, roughly. That's kind of what, what I was telling.

Rachel Pedersen: Yes.

Ken Okazaki: And for me, the, the thing that would be tough if I was in your place, and maybe you help me sort this out is let's say I, you know, I was in your place and I did that, and then I started a coaching program and say, Hey, look what I did here's, here's how to do it.

Nobody is going to get to that level of, of production as you, unless they hire, you know, a team of three people, maybe to, you know, do all the writing and the filming and the cutting for them. And they just show up. How do you reconcile that part? And does that ever come up when you're talking with clients in the coaching space?

Rachel Pedersen: Difference between coaching and agency is big here. So with our clients for the agency, they usually have at least a couple of VAs and or a marketing person and or a content person. So on the agency side, we expect you to have a few team members or else we can't fully kick this into high gear. Now, that being said, we do have systems that I don't actually use for Enhancing content creation for our clients without them having to spend more time in front of the camera.

Uh, and those are very efficient. And then on the coaching side, so I, I haven't even scratched the surface of what I know I can build. Do you ever feel that way? Like, do you ever feel

Ken Okazaki: All the time, every single day. I'm like, I'm, I'm 44 years young. Wait a sec. I'm almost halfway through my life. Like that, that my age is the scariest part because. of how big I see this getting, how far this can go, how much better it could be. And my vision for, for this is so big compared to where I'm at.

And by the way, a tiny little callback to earlier, you said you've been doing this for 10 years and Uh, we I'm in an entrepreneurs community and when we last got together, we have this discussion, like how old are you as an entrepreneur? Like when did you fully become an entrepreneur? Meaning like this was your main thing and you didn't, wasn't a side gig.

Um, for you, I guess that's 10 years and we'd say you're 10 years old. Happy 10th birthday. For me, I'm six

Rachel Pedersen: thank you. I

when I started looking at that perspective, then it kind of calms me down. I'm like, okay, I'm just a six year old, still learning shit, still figuring it out. And that's why I'm okay with where I'm at. love that. It was right around like end of year nine, Year 10, that I started to feel like, Oh, I kind of get how everything comes together now. And it started to all be super clear for me that really and truly didn't happen until year 10. And so these next five years is going to be about really taking like the lessons from the first 10 years and saying, how do we actually maximize this and take it further?

So in one decade, I have barely scratched the surface, not even close, not even close. I have so much more potential than what I built and that's okay, right? Life. So I've done eight figures, which kind of boggles my mind a little bit, especially when I think, okay, where have I come from? Okay. So that's a massive.

According to, uh, the co founder of Canva, Melanie Perkins husband, do you like how I don't know his name? I referred to him as Melanie Perkins husband as if he wasn't a co founder. Okay, so her husband has these interviews where he talks about distance traveled and how we need to give more credit for distance traveled.

So, for example, if you grew up on the West Coast, old money, you went to Stanford, et cetera. If you built a 10 million company, it's just not as much distance traveled as someone who grew up in poverty. I'm like, Oh, I love that. So I have a lot of distance traveled, still haven't even scratched the surface and I've done eight figures.

My coaching students, they just want to make six figures consistently. That's the dream still. You can make six figures off of one or two platforms. No question. I know this because I've done it multiple times for many companies. I would never suggest someone do this unless I saw that they were a machine.

Ken Okazaki: You know, there's certain people where you're just like, Oh no, this person's a machine. I would never tell one of my coaching students that they needed to do something like this. It would just be too much. Please don't do that to anyone listening. That makes so much sense. So you just take them where they're at and say, Hey, this is not for everybody. And, uh, if you're one of the crazies like me, then yeah, go for it. Otherwise. You know, tread, tread lightly, choose the path. It's going to work for you. It's going to kick your butt. As we come around to, you know, we're coming into just about an hour right now.

Can we talk a little bit about feature? We did touch on it just now. You said there's so much more. Where are you seeing things pivoting for yourself? Because technology is changing quickly, uh, things like the way social media globally is, is shifting. There was some scares about TikTok and it turned out to be a lot of smoke and no fire.

Rachel Pedersen: Who knows? Uh, AI is a big deal. Uh, you know, foreign influence on, on US politics. That's also things that people were kind of freaked out about. You as a business owner, how's that affecting you thinking about it? Okay, so all of those topics kind of feel like the things that come up every year, or a couple times a year, too. You know what I mean? Uh, politics always comes up. Global economics, global shifts, um, technology advancements. I love Diving into all of those, but the biggest thing that I think about is what are people asking for right now?

And I don't mean asking for in terms of like them posting, I need this. What are people upset about? Where are people feeling stuck? Where are people not feeling heard or seen or feeling taken advantage of in a particular industry? And it might sound like I'm being elusive, but only because I haven't really like fully shared where I'm going yet with this, but basically.

I have been learning Python and PHP coding, both of those languages, because I have this really strong deep, deep knowing of a software that I need to build that probably isn't what everyone would expect from me. Um, it's not necessarily related to social media, but it's something that is not only needed.

I am so personally upset at one of the industry leading softwares. and how they treated me and a bunch of my friends that I was like, I'm going to create your competitor and I'm going to make it cheaper and I'm going to make it better and I'm going to learn coding and I'm going So that might sound wild.

I kind of call it like the Robin Hood project. Um, it's in an industry where a lot of companies are, yeah, they're charging just unfair rates, um, for subpar services. They're not developing things. They keep raising rates. You could probably guess what it is just from listening to this, but I won't answer if you do.

And so I had this whole, whole car on my desktop called the Robin Hood

Ken Okazaki: if I, if I think if, if it's what I think it is, there's a big graveyard of people who've taken that path. And why do you think

Rachel Pedersen: think it's funnel software, no. Do you think it's funnel software?

Ken Okazaki: Yeah, it did.

Rachel Pedersen: No, no, no. I, I thought about that years ago, but no, it's not funnel software. Um, it's something else that's actually not many people successfully go after it because most people go into the funnel route and the funnel route is really difficult because funnels, you have to Integrate with so many things.

You have to have integrations with the emails. You have to have integrations and relationships with all the payment processors. You have to handle FTC and SEC. Oh, it's just, that is nuts. Now I'm going into something else. It, it's more entry level. I, I wouldn't dare go into funnels. I thought about it for a while and then I looked it up and I was like, Ooh, this is ugly.

Ken Okazaki: it's wild.

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah, no, I wouldn't.

Ken Okazaki: You know, who'd really positioned themselves well, though, is, uh, Zapier, Zapier, however you want to say it. They're, they, they were the, the guys. selling the shovels to the, to the gold diggers, you know, they made all the money, they just connect all the crap that people can't figure out how to connect.

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah. It's, it's wild. I love Zapier. I use it pretty much every day for different clients and for our business, but it drives me crazy that that sometimes is needed to connect different software, you know? So this thing you're, you're thinking about building and you're learning coding for it. Do you feel like you want to go into SaaS because it's going to support the businesses you already have? And you can use that as your, your, your base of strength to raise this, you know, embryonic project. Is unrelated to the other businesses. It's related enough that I think they both could strengthen one another. Um, but I never like for one business to support others. Um, I've done that way too many times over the last 10 years, you know, you rob. S Corp A to make payroll on S Corp B and you're like, this is awful. Why am I doing this? Um, I, I love to evaluate at this point.

This was a long, hard fought, earned lesson. Um, I love to evaluate each and every company itself. in a silo. Like if there's benefit from one to the next, that's fantastic, but I will never look at one company and be like, okay, this company is struggling, but it kind of feeds this company. I'm like, no, all companies separate.

So yeah, the way I built it is going to be really, really different. I'm excited about this because this gets to really tap into the nerdy side of me that loves like learning and geeking out and finding solutions. Honestly, Ken, I think I'm a Like nerdier than people realize underneath it all. Um, I think so.

Once people see me like Off of podcasts, they're kind of surprised by the things I like to talk about or the books I like to read and diving into coding and trying to figure out how do I solve these issues that are happening for all these software and you and users. Oh, it's just, it's like this incredible mystery that I'm so excited about.

So it's kind of more personal than anything. Yeah. And it's a little bit of a revenge.

Ken Okazaki: cool. For me, coding has always been I did TED talk on a long time ago, and I didn't get deep enough to, you know, to really do anything significant. However, I've always felt that that was the cheat code to, to business. If you can, if you're good at it, and you can intuitively create solutions that other people can't figure out, that's amazing.

But the route I went was, if you remember, 15 years ago, if you could edit a video, that was magic. Everybody's just like, Oh, wow, you know how to edit video? Here's money. And that's, that's how I got. And so I got enough, uh, job satisfaction and, you know, praise, I guess, for that skill. Now it's the most mundane, you know, entry level skill that anybody has on their phone.

And the stuff we're doing on our phones is Stuff that a, a million dollar editing machine couldn't do 15 years ago. So I think I picked a route that kind of expired in its novelty pretty quickly. I wasn't expecting, but I think coding is becoming more accessible because of AI. You just, you just say, Hey, look at this code.

Rachel Pedersen: What's wrong, debug it, or I need code for this. And just like copywriting, it'll give you something that you could go in and then start working on without staring at a blank sheet of paper. So maybe I should look back into it again. Because it's become so easy again. And I really and truly believe if you know what you're looking for and what the end result is or what the issue is, that's huge. So we'll probably not dive into this today and we'll have to do another one in the next year or so.

Ken Okazaki: I better let you go soon. You got your kids and Thanksgiving. I

Rachel Pedersen: So when I look at, user experience, so this is actually something that I get really, really pissed about all the time. And I was like, why do I keep getting so pissed about user experience? Like, for example, when I log into, let's say, Amazon, why is the search experience so bad? Or why is the homepage so bad?

Not actually created for me. This is really bad. The recommendations are not custom. And I know this cause Paul has an account and I have an account. We watch in different places. And then I'll look at both of ours and we'll have the exact same recommendations on the homepage. And I'm like, this user experience could be.

50 to a hundred times better, more like Netflix, which doesn't even have the range that Amazon prime video does. So, and I, by the way, I complain about this all the time. And that's where I was like, I think I need to look at this and ask myself, why am I

Ken Okazaki: mean, Amazon prime or Amazon shopping.

Rachel Pedersen: Uh, Amazon prime video specifically, just any app.

Ken Okazaki: platform sucks.

Rachel Pedersen: It's so bad. And we

Ken Okazaki: have a, they have a few good shows on there, but it's so frustrating. I hate it.

Rachel Pedersen: Yes, so every single software, every single app I log into, Paul always gets ready anytime I like sign into something new or whatever, because they'll be like, ugh, this makes no sense for the login button. This is crap. Why would they do this? This is so hard to navigate. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I do the same thing, EviePoise software that I use.

Sometimes when I'm building funnels, um, or whatever, I just, I, I complain and I was like, wow, I complain a lot about this. Why am I complaining so much about this? And that's when I realized I needed to start studying. User behavior, user experience, how, um, how human behavior and like natural inclinations based on psychology alters and affects the way that people experience a website, an app, a software, et cetera, because these companies have the best Developers and right designers and everything in the world. And yet they fail to actually understand the way that people's minds operate. They are so used to staring at it that they don't sit and watch. A thousand different people from different regions, from different backgrounds going through and watching them say like, this makes no sense. How do I do this? Et cetera.

So that's where I started nerding out. Cause I realized coding is just the logical objective side of things. The subjective side is. Where do people assume everything is going to be and how it's going to work naturally and intuitively? And if your software or app does not fall into that, then you are creating dissonance and discomfort in someone's brain.

Sorry, that was like super nerdy. But anyways, that's kind of

Ken Okazaki: No, no, that's cool. I'm going to give you something dirty. You ready for this?

Yeah, Okay. I've got an iPhone 15 pro and I just uplaid it. Uh, uh, I just got the latest, uh, update, whatever, about a week ago. And. I don't know if the 14 has this. I'm pretty sure the 16 has this. But now you could do really accurate eye tracking.

I could look anywhere on my screen, blink, and it clicks. And the reason this is going to be so cool for you is that now you could do eye tracking on mobile devices and heat map websites. Now, I don't know if anyone's built a web app for this yet, but I do know that I could look anywhere on my screen, It's not as accurate as the Vision Pro, obviously.

Even with my squinty Japanese eyes, it knows where I'm looking. It, it knows, and, and, uh, I can navigate using my eyeballs. So for me, I thought, oh, that's, the first thing that hit me is like, website heat map software. Like, you could deploy this en masse, because I remember, I had to buy like a 2, 000, no, it was like 5, 000.

I can't remember. It was too much. I bought this huge contraption to do, uh, heatmap eye tracking on mobile devices about 6 years ago. And that really, really helped me to start editing the videos differently. Like where do the captions go? Like I got really, really into it. Like, how big is the face and everything?

Uh, but now it's built in. It's built into every well, at least the newer phones. And once someone makes a software for that, you're going to make a lot of money.

Rachel Pedersen: There's no hardware you need to send. Just say, click this link, scroll through here for 30 seconds. And Oh, here's a, you know, 10 coupon, you know, that is so cool. Let me see what model I have of my phone cause I feel like you'll be mortified cause I take

Ken Okazaki: go to accessibility and then see if there's eye tracking. Uh,

Rachel Pedersen: Oh no, I don't have it. I promise you. Okay. Oh yeah,

that was wild Yeah, that is so cool.

Ken Okazaki: because UX eye tracking is everything. It's like, do people even see the button? Like how come it's invisible? And then you can figure that out pretty quickly. Hey, Rachel Pedersen, I'm going to wrap this up. We can nerd out and geek out forever.

Rachel Pedersen: Am I happy?

Ken Okazaki: I think, I think we had a good conversation. I want to ask one last favor and that is I'd like to end my podcast now by asking you a question to ask the listener.

And the reason I do this is we hear instruction all the time, do this, don't do that, here's what's working, here's what's not, but the things that I found cut through the most is when you ask someone to ask themselves a question and get for themselves is what's actually going to be the most impactful in terms of helping them.

Rachel Pedersen: So if you could ask someone a question to ask themselves, what would that be? I have a two part question. Uh, the first part is when it comes to your content, your marketing, everything that you put out there, how do you want people to describe you, your content and your message? Okay. That's part one. How do you want people to describe you based on their interactions, what they see and experience?

Ken Okazaki: And part two is how would you need to show up differently? in order to achieve that. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Thank you for that.

Rachel Pedersen: Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: Well, Rachel Pedersen, thank you so much for this conversation. We should do this again when you feel like it. Let's circle back. But otherwise, everybody else, thanks for listening all the way to the end. And as always, there's links down below to check out Rachel Pedersen's, uh, her social media, her website, her courses, and her agency.

We're going to drop all those things below. And Rachel, thank you so much for joining me. It was a true pleasure and well, happy holidays.

Rachel Pedersen: And same to you. Thanks for having me, Ken.