SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Welcome back to Plan Like a Boss. I'm your host, Tanya Lawson, and I'm here with Nicole Ricardo today. Nicole helps creatives design a business infrastructure that runs like a well-oiled machine with offers, funnels, and systems that actually support their long-term goals. Blending intuitive strategy with over 17 years of experience in marketing, she teaches creatives how to turn their passions into a sustainable, scalable online education business that flows with ease. When she's not helping her fellow creatives, Nicole explores the other side of life and death as co-host of the Real Ghost of and Parapeculiar podcast and is co-owner of the Parapeculiar Museum of Haunted Items. Her work in the paranormal world has been featured on BuzzFeed, Yahoo News, Fox, and she's been a featured speaker at paranormal conventions and events across the country. Welcome, Nicole. Hello. I'm so excited to have you here. I know I'm excited to chat. So ordinarily, I start these interviews with, you know, tell us your story. Tell us how you got here. But I think this interview is your story. So we're gonna start a little bit with because I know you didn't start in business. You started as a flutist. So why shouldn't you tell us? Go, go way, way back.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45

Take it back. Let's rewind many moons, many moons ago. Yes, um my background is as a classical flutist. I started playing music when I was in first grade. Officially, I started with piano lessons as many of us do. But yeah, fast forward through a lot of going to Allstate and competition and all that jazz, decided to go to college for music because of course, why not? When you're in high school and everybody's like, oh, you're so good. You should do this. Are you going to school for this? Right. You're like, yeah, sure. Okay, cool. I guess so. So that's what I did and went to college. I got my bachelor's and my master's in flute performance. And I'm just gonna slide in there that when I was in college, I also was part of a Woodwin quintet. And while I was running that quintet, we did a lot of really cool things that I facilitated. And I really always loved the admin side of things. So, like setting up our events, submitting grant applications, getting people to our concerts. I set up a tour for us. We got a recording offer from Naxos. So all of these things that were getting us out there, which was marketing essentially, but I didn't know at that time that that's what it was. Um, I just knew I really enjoyed it. But yes, so after graduation was working and teaching and taking auditions and all of the things that we musicians do. And that's my music life.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

So, what bridged you into business from music? Obviously, you were already dabbling in marketing while you were in music without knowing it. What pushed you into the world of business where you really made a name for yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

So it's so interesting because when I look back, and I know this is something you and I have talked about many times. This book that I read at the beginning of the year, what is it, Surrender Something by Michael? I don't know, but he's just saying yes to everything, right? To see what comes of it. And so it's kind of similar to that, to be honest, with my story, where I never would have imagined to be doing anything business related, you know, and especially, oh my gosh, if you had told college Nicole, I would have laughed in your face because I was diehard. Like, I am going to be principal flutist in an orchestra. If this is not what I'm doing with my life, I will not be happy. Like, this is my priority over literally anything and everything else, you know. But after I graduated, of course, we all know how difficult it is to make an actual living with being a musician. So while I was subbing and performing with a ton of different orchestras, I was teaching, I had a bunch of students. All of these things that I was doing still did not add up to a livable wage. So I also had to go get a normal job. And I also did not want to stay in Tallahassee, which is where I got my degrees. I wanted to move, so moved over to Austin, where you have no connections, right? Which is always scary for us to do. I went from performing and teaching and doing all of these things in music pretty much full-time to just my full-time job and not knowing anybody and not really being able to break into the music world here in Texas. But fast forward a few more years and honestly, I just kind of finally got sick of my own shit and was like, I need to stop whining about wanting to do music things, but then not actually doing anything to put myself out there to do it, right? So I made this decision like I'm sick of working for somebody else. I want to be able to do things that I love, work with the people that I love, which is other musicians, other creatives. And so I created my branding. I built a whole website around it. I started being very strategic on social media, and then I just started pitching myself. I started sending out pitch after pitch after pitch, right? And started getting opportunities and getting more opportunities. And then I went down to part-time at my job, and then I was doing music for the entire rest of the time until the balance kind of started outweighing. And in this time, mind you, when I was in my nine to five, I was also doing some marketing things. So I worked in medical, but I started doing marketing things for them as well, specifically a lot of like social media marketing. And so I also took on a private social media marketing client as well. And the scales finally tipped where I was able to be like, okay, I'm leaving my job and now I'm just gonna do all of my music things full time. I was teaching at quite a few schools around here, teaching at like a music lessons place, subbing with a few places, and had my social media marketing client. So as I'm doing this, I'm kind of documenting things on social media, right? Remember at the beginning of this, I said I started getting strategic with how I was showing up online. Because the thing I realized very quickly, especially after moving here, is it doesn't matter how good you are at what you do, if nobody knows, it doesn't matter. It's not gonna result in anything, right? So I was kind of documenting this entire journey on social media. And of course, as I, you know, booked a new school or booked a new gig or whatever it was, I'd share about it because you're happy and you're excited and you want to share what you're doing with your friends and the people that you went to school with, right? And when I finally made the transition and I was doing music full-time with my, you know, one private client, I started getting on a weekly basis on Instagram, I was getting multiple messages from people who were just following me online, people who I knew from school asking me, how did you do this? Because we all know if you are in any creative field, right? We all know how hard it can be when you are you have that normal full-time nine to five job to be able to then make the transition back into doing what you want to do, especially a creative field. It it just it just is what it is. You know, there's not a lot of uh full-time, you know, opportunities in those roles. So I was getting all of these messages, and we only have so much time in the day, right? So as much as I wanted to be able to do coffee chats and hop on calls and meet up and whatever with all of these different people and help them and tell them everything I did, I couldn't. I literally could not. I did not have the time to. So with one Instagram post, this was launching back in the day. With one Instagram post, I launched the very first iteration of what became kind of my my signature offer, create your career. And it was literally like, hey, I know I keep getting people asking me to do this. So we're gonna hop on Zoom every week for these 10 weeks or however long it was. And I'm literally gonna walk you through step by step everything I did. I'm going to show you the ins and outs. I'm gonna teach you everything that I learned, anything that you're creating. Like when you build your website, when you start doing this or that, I'll look at it too. I'll be there with you, help you make sure everything's looking good, like give you my feedback if you'd like it, and come hang out. If you want to know what I did, here you go. Hop on Zoom with me and I will tell you everything that I did. And so that was the very first round of create your career because I was showing you how to create your career. Wow, very, very creative naming, Nicole. But anyway, so yeah, that was the very first iteration of it. It was a lot of fun to go to that very first round. I think I had maybe 20 people in it who ended up signing up and going through it with me. And they were all other musicians. And by the end of it, watching, so there was one girl who she had come in, she was about to graduate grad school, and she was like, When I graduate, I want to have a full-time music studio. I don't want to have to go get a job, right? And then there were a couple other people that were doing things part-time or had just recently quit something and were like, I want to be doing what I want to be doing full-time, right? Or at the bare minimum, like part-time. So by the end of it, the girl who was in grad school, she graduated and she had a full-time music studio. And a few of the other people who wanted to be doing their own thing full-time, they had booked enough things that they now were able to transition and leave their normal jobs or go down to part-time and start doing what they really were passionate about. And I just remember sitting there and having this moment and I was like, okay, uh, I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, actually, is sharing this information with other people and helping other creatives, you know, especially in this space where it is so notoriously hard to be able to do that for yourself. But yeah, I was like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing is sharing this information and helping others. Yes, I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 10:30

And we come from similar backgrounds, both having music degrees and everything and moving into business. Now, you had an agency for a while as well, correct? So tell us what led to that and how you moved in. Because because your your your business transitions are fascinating. And I know that's what people are interested in, because there are a lot of people out there who maybe they're wanting to move into working for themselves, or maybe they've been doing it for a while and and they're just not happy with what they're doing anymore and they want to make some changes. So talk a little about the agency.

SPEAKER_00: 11:02

Yes, yes, many iterations. And it really all, to be honest, comes back to the just saying yes, right. So the agency came about because as I was doing this and showing other people, hey, this is what I did. And, you know, as I had mentioned before, it was pretty structured in the way that I did it. I did my branding, built my website, started putting myself out there online strategically, then started pitching myself, right? Boom, boom, boom. This is what I did. And so as I'm teaching other people how to do this, I ended up having some people come to me and be like, hey, I'm actually really struggling with this. Can you just do this for me? Right. Whether it was doing their branding or doing their branding and using that to put on their website, building their website, whether it was social media, social media marketing, writing their website, you know, any uh iteration that could be done within what I was teaching. And so the first time somebody came to me and asked, I remember thinking, like, well, that's interesting. I mean, I I guess I can. Like, I've done it for myself, you know? And the first time, of course, you feel a little imposter syndrome, right? You're like, well, I mean, I don't know. Like, do I actually know what I'm doing? Like, am I, like, are you sure like me? Like, you don't want to ask like a more web designer-y web designer to do this for you, you know? But I was like, okay, well, they're coming to me, you know. Obviously, I am however many steps farther ahead than they are. Like, I've been there, done that. I'm more comfortable building these things and they are. So I just said yes. And of course, in the beginning, you know, with pricing, it was more so just kind of like for my time versus, you know, the exorbitant website development fees that things can get into. But yeah, that is how it turned into my agency because after the first one, I was like, okay, that was super cool, but also that was kind of a lot to balance with me like teaching these classes and then also having all of my music students, and then also having my own my social media marketing client, which had gotten to a few more clients at this point. So I was like, okay, this is really cool, but I don't think I can balance all of this myself, right? So I actually asked Taylor Rossi, who was in the very first round of Create Your Career, you know, when she had built her site and did everything, it looked really beautiful. She had done a great job, and she had made it very clear like, I want to start doing these things for other people. I want to start helping with marketing and social media marketing and doing these things. And so I asked her, hey, like, would you be interested in helping out with people who want their website built for them? You know, obviously, you know how to do this now. Since I showed you everything that I did, we can kind of work on developing the systems together, the processes, be in this together, right? And so it just kind of evolved from there. And then the more things that we booked, then it was like, okay, we're getting more design things. We need to bring somebody on as a designer. Okay, we're getting more uh copywriting requests. We need to bring on somebody dedicated just for doing copy, you know. It was just kind of a natural evolution of again, just people coming and being like, hey, you've already been there, done that. Can you help me do this? Like, I just don't feel equipped enough to be able to do it myself. And I also don't want to learn how to do it myself. Can you just do it for me? You know? And so that's really how it evolved. It was kind of a natural offshoot of teaching people how to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

Excellent. And now what made you decide to get out of the agency business?

SPEAKER_00: 14:34

So the agency has, I guess, kind of similar to when I phased out of the nine to five, you know, there just comes a tipping point where it's like, okay, this is like if I'm having to choose between working a normal job and working for somebody else and teaching music lessons and do these things that are music related, which is what I really want to be doing. I'm choosing that, right? And for me, it's very energetic. It's like I am always paying attention to my energy level. So at the end of, let's say, a music lesson, at the end of class, at the end of a normal workday, whatever it is, what is my energy like? Am I feeling lit up? Am I feeling inspired? Am I feeling excited? Or am I feeling drained and tired and like I need to go home and not talk to anybody for three hours? You know what I'm saying? With the agency, blew up, kind of blew up, a lot bigger than I was ever intending it to. But with that comes a lot of work too. And when you are managing so many pieces of a puzzle all at one time, it becomes very overwhelming very quickly. And that in and of itself became a full-time job. But for me, my priority and what lights me up the most has always been doing the, you know, one-on-one work with people, like getting on our calls or the group coaching calls and being able to talk things out with people and really brainstorm and strategize. Like that is more where, in my opinion, my zone of genius is versus like, sure, I can manage all of the, you know, 500 balls that are in the air and stay on top of the clients to get their things by this date so we can get this done, so we can go to this phase and blah, blah, blah. But it's like, I didn't go into this to be a project manager necessarily, you know what I'm saying? And so we started cutting back significantly and being like, okay, we're only gonna take uh one web design per month now or one web design every couple months or whatever it was, you know? But then at a certain point, when you're cutting down on that, it's just a natural give and take, right? When you're cutting back on that, you have to build something else up to kind of make up for that income, right? And so as that was kind of phasing out for me, I was trying to build up my online programs, right? And being like, this is really what I want to do. So I'm gonna do this. And of course, you know, Taylor did the same thing and the other people on the team did the same thing. So now Taylor has like a thriving, amazing photography business, right? And so it just kind of came to a natural, like, okay, cool, like this just no longer uh is feeling like something that's super exciting for us. And so we never had a big, you know, the agency is closed, you know, like going out of business sale, whatever. You know, we never did a big thing like that. And I think transitions when we're talking about these, like, as you can already see up to this point, like I've gone through quite a few, you know. And I think people can, it's so easy to get in your head about like, oh, well, then I'm gonna have to make this announcement and I'm gonna have to do this, and I don't know if I really want to do this yet, or I'm not quite sure, or whatever. Things naturally ebb and flow. So that's just kind of what we did. We let it naturally ebb and flow. And sure, of course, there was a certain point where we did say, you know, hey, we're only taking this many designs at a time or whatever. Um, and there did come a point where we did make a post saying, like, hey, we're no longer accepting web designs from just anybody. Like if you're a friend, if you're somebody that we know, that we love, if somebody's referred you, still reach out. If we have capacity, we'll take you on. And we do still do that too, even to this day. Like, if somebody that we know, if somebody that we love reaches out to us, sure, we're here to help. Like, if we have the capacity, if we can work it into our calendar, we want to help you, you know. But there was it was never this whole big like official thing, you know? And I think a lot of people get very in their heads about that of like, oh, well, I'm afraid to do this because I have to decide and I have to figure out blah, blah, blah. It's like, just dip your toe in the water and see how you're feeling. Because guess what? You can like cut back on whatever it is you're doing and not announce it to the world. And maybe you decide you hate it and then you want to go back to doing that thing again. Cool, do that. Like, you don't not everything needs to be a whole big Instagram post, you know what I'm saying? And so I think that by having all of these transitions and doing it that way and never necessarily like announcing having like hard, hard launch, if you will, um, until it's like, okay, we're 100% sure this is what is happening, you know, I think that takes a lot of pressure off of it too and gives us grace and being able to find what we like and try new things and try different things and try things that we're interested in or that we might be interested in and just dip a toe in the water and see how we feel about it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

I love that attitude of just just try, just see. It it may not be for you. Now let's talk about what you're doing now because you've made another pretty significant transition in the public space anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 19:36

Yes. So, and now for something completely different. Um, so yes, I am doing a lot of paranormal things now, which yes, is very different. And I have been doing it for quite a while. I think I started my podcast back in 2020. Granted, paranormal things, you know, ghost stories, ghost shows, whatever. I've been that weirdo kid my entire life, you know, for literally as long as I can remember. I've been interested in these things. But it wasn't until I had a friend who actually, funny enough, also a flute player, that we met at FSU when I had gone back as a guest speaker to speak about business things. Anyway, that's how we met. But he ended up moving over to Austin. And funny story, he's part of another transition too, because he actually is a person that I ended up giving all of my flute students to when I finally left music teaching and just focusing on the business. But anyway, um, yeah, he moved here and it just was something I had always had in the back of my mind. And I will preface this by saying I had no idea at the time how much work a podcast is, especially doing, you know, going out and doing a paranormal investigation and then going through all of that audio and cutting it out and trying to make it into a storyline and putting all of that out. No idea. No idea. Otherwise, I probably never would have done it. So ignorance definitely can be bliss sometimes, but eventually you will figure it out. But anyway, so yeah, we were just kind of joking around and I knew he was into paranormal things too. We went on like a a ghost, a local ghost tour, and there was like a little like investigation event at one of the places here we went, and I literally texted him and I was like, so like scale of one to 10, how interested would you be in starting a paranormal podcast? And he he texts back and he's like 11. So I'm like, great, let's do this. Um, so we did, and that has also gone through its natural evolution. Now it is most of what I do because I have obviously my podcast, The Real Ghost of, which is investigations, but then along the lines, you know, personnel changes. It is now myself and my partner Damien, who also had his own podcast, Parapeculiar, prior to us meeting, but then we met and you know, we just kind of combined all of the things. So now we do both of the podcasts together and also run the Parapeculiar Museum of Haunted Items. And yes, in doing these things and these weird things and having the museum, we now spend most of our time traveling around and we're exhibiting these things, and we are doing talks and we're speaking at other paranormal events and we're doing lectures at other things like tonight. Literally tonight, we're going, we're driving down to a library down in San Marcos and we're doing a talk down there. So yeah, we're kind of all over the place now, and obviously the podcast uh editing takes a lot of work. So we're we're doing that, and uh yeah, that is the uh what Nicole is up to.

SPEAKER_01: 22:42

I love that, and it's it's so exciting. I'm one of your biggest cheerleaders, and I that's gotta be scary though. Transitioning from business into you know ghost investigations and stuff. So, what was that like for you as you're starting to make that trend? Because I I know you and I know that you were doing this before you ever went public with it. What was that like for you going public with such a huge dramatic transition?

SPEAKER_00: 24:15

I'm gonna be honest, very nerve-wracking because the paranormal, like boy, oh boy, you want to talk about things that are gonna be polarizing to people, okay? The paranormal. So yeah, definitely nerve-wracking. And it is something that behind the scenes, for probably a good couple years, I had been really like super in my head about, to be honest. And I mean, I still it is still something that like I can get in my head about and start to worry about because you know, the business stuff at this point, it's not like I have phased out of it completely. Like I was saying earlier, you know, I do still love like the one-on-one calls and the mastermind calls. So I am still running my mastermind, which is very near and dear, and I love it. And I feel like I will always have it and always have that aspect of my business. But all of the other things I've pretty much at this point pushed aside and am just talking about the paranormal stuff now. But yeah, it it has definitely been a process. And even now, you know, I'll still feel a bit self-conscious about it. But it's been interesting and difficult. Trying to find ways to balance that because, you know, they they are not related at all, right? It's like there's just not really much of a tie-in. It's like, hey, you guys came here because you like to talk about business things and funnels and systems and blah, blah, blah. Now let's talk about ghosts, you know? So uh yeah, it definitely would is a pretty extreme example of a transition. But what is interesting and what I have found throughout all of these things is typically the people who are your people, like they like you for who you are. You know what I'm saying? It it is that way with all of us because no matter what you do, you are not the only one doing it, right? There's a million and one people who can build your website, there's a million and one people who have a paranormal podcast, there's a million and one people who talk about writing blog posts, like there's a million and one people who do all of these things individually. But the reason that we follow the people that we do, the reason that we trust and listen to the people that we end up investing in and working with is because we resonate with who they are as a human, right? So I've definitely found that to be the case. And it has been very interesting to me to see how many people carry over, even from, you know, when I was still working only with musicians and still posting about like all of my music teaching and music gigs and stuff, how many people that are I still have from that time that will like book a reading with me now or be like, oh my God, I listened to your recent episode on blah, blah, blah. I can't believe this happened, you know? So that has been interesting, but I will say also just like really warms the heart. You know what I'm saying? To know that these people that we meet online, and I think this is something that gets really glossed over on social media because, like, yes, it can be annoying, yes, it's another thing on the to-do list, whatever. However, some of the people that we meet through these things, like, first of all, we never would have had an opportunity to meet otherwise, you know, like it's just because we have this amazing platform now that we are able to do these things, but they're real humans, you know? Like, that's how we met through, like, so, you know, some manner of social media bringing people together. And then it's like now we've known each other for like years and we've, you know, met in person and had the retreat together. And it's like, this is amazing. Like, I consider you a friend, you know, like I care about you deeply. And it's like these relationships, like, these are real human relationships that we have the ability to build with people if we take the time to do so. And so I think that that also is a huge piece in all of this. Is I think nowadays social media can be so easy to just be like promo post, promo post, like CTA, launch, launch, whatever, you know, versus actually sharing who you are. And I think that is the piece that really is what draws people to us and keeps people there through all of the iterations of whatever we decide to do because they are there for you and they are there for who you are, and they care about you as a human, you know, not just you are what you do.

SPEAKER_01: 28:32

Yeah, it's about that authenticity. It really is. It really is. So if you had say there's someone out there who has their business and they really want to make a big pivot light like you did, or maybe they've already started doing it, but they're just terrified to go public with it. What is one piece of advice you would give them?

SPEAKER_00: 28:52

Oh my gosh, just do it today. Whatever it is that you want to say that you are sitting there and you're thinking about it, and you're sitting on your hands and you're like, oh my God, I don't know if I should say this. I don't know what they're gonna think. Post it. Post it today, literally right now. Tag me in it, I will come hype you up because that is the thing I see, like I think that holds people back the most, you know, that I have seen across the board, no matter what industry it is, no matter what it is you're wanting to talk about or wanting to say or have on your mind, is we'll sit there like hemming and hawing and the back and forth and should I, should I not? I don't know, I don't know. Just fucking do it. Because also in the grand scheme of things, like we care about these things so much, but to other people, like when they're scrolling, it's not like the reality is they probably just don't care that much. Do you know what I'm saying? So, like, we put all of this pressure on ourselves. So just say it. Like, just say what you're thinking. It doesn't have to be, you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier. Like, it doesn't have to be a like, we are close for business or whatever it is, you know? It can just literally be the authenticity of it of being like, hey, this is something that's been on my mind, uh, kind of thing about doing this. I really love doing this thing. Uh, yeah, let me know. Anyone else into this? Like, I don't know, just post it. Who cares? You know, just like literally say, this is what I'm thinking about. Like, that is okay. It doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't need to be polished. And at the end of the day, I think people resonate even more when you do things like that because it is you being authentic. It is you being a normal human being. Everybody can relate to that. Everybody can relate to sitting there being like, oh my God, I've been thinking about posting this for the past like six months, but I just haven't been able to. And I'm hitting posts right now because, you know, I'm making this into a bigger deal and it's probably really not that big of a deal. But I like the paranormal and I like ghosts and I want to talk about them. So if you are into that too, let me know. If not, cool. I respect if you don't want to talk about ghosts, thanks for being here. That's all. Bye. You know, like it doesn't have to be a big thing. Just do it. Just do the thing.

SPEAKER_01: 30:56

Absolutely. I love it. I love it. Now, if people want to get in touch with you, maybe like like you said, you do readings. You're you're a medium. So if they want a reading or if they are there spots open in the mastermind right now?

SPEAKER_00: 31:09

There are, yes. So all of the things for getting in touch with me. So if you are somebody that is wanting to up level your business, specifically online education based businesses, so courses, build out your whole funnel, lead gen system, all that jazz, yes, come on into the mastermind, hang out with me and Tanya. Yeah. You can find me at my personal Instagram, it's probably the best place. It's just my name at Nicole Ricardo, R-I-C-C-A-R-D-O. And through that, you'll be able to find all of the other paranormal profiles too. I do kind of post like my personal profile is my personal profile. It's my life, it is what I am doing. And the podcasts, yes, we do have at the real ghosts of, which is our investigations, and we have at parapeculier. But if you are interested in the uh weird side of things, the best place to find us on that is our Patreon, which is patreon.com backslash parapeculier. And that is, yeah, we have lots of live stream hangouts. We have a little book club for our weirdo book fans. We just finished Third Eye Spies, which is all about like remote viewing, which was super cool. We do live investigations where we do experiments and hop on a live stream and all, you know, investigate together. So if you're into weird things, that's the place to find us for that.

SPEAKER_01: 32:30

And if yeah, I'll make sure to link all of that in the show notes so that'll make it easier for them. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I am so excited to have you. And as Nicole said, just do it. Just get out there and do it. All right, until next time, keep planning like a boss.