When life presents challenges – you can either stall or leap forward. Colleen Biggs chose to leap – and LEAP she did.
The host of the podcast Take the LEAP uses her platform to build community. A community of women business owners that share their success and their struggles, their wins and their losses. It is a mission of love and faith for Colleen.
Colleen has launched over 340 businesses, is an international speaker and a bestselling author in addition to being an award winning business woman – named her local Business Person of the Year in 2021. Colleen brings this experience to her podcast, interviewing guests from all areas of business, showcasing and highlighting them for maximum visibility.
Colleen explains: “it’s about visibility. I’ve been a business coach and consultant for 20 years. The number one factor that worked for every single one of my clients was telling everybody about them. Number one, you gotta get out there and tell everybody about you! I created platforms within my community for my members to tell everybody about them. And one of those platforms is the podcast.
My members are my primary guests. These are women in all different industries that are either launching their businesses, building their businesses or accelerating their businesses. I love it because there are all levels within the group. And that’s something that I really think is a benefit to my podcast because my listeners themselves are at all levels.”
Colleen doesn’t just bring anyone onto her podcast as a guest. She has an application process that potential guests go through. It’s about her guests being unique and she values authenticity. It’s important to her that her guests show up as themselves.
“That’s what makes you successful. What makes us stand out is being ourselves and not being like other people. We just kind of mesh them in with other people. And I’m really not looking for people with a ton of credentials to impress me. Well, honestly, I tell people to check your ego at the door. I want people that are interesting and all different industries. And someone that doesn’t try too hard to impress me.
I just love it when they’re quirky, and they’re real. I had a lady reach out to me once that told me she was a gay, black barista, marketing marketing expert and I was like, I don’t know who the heck you are, girl, but I need to have you on my show! We went on to become really good friends. She joined the community. I brought her in to teach expert marketing. She worked with some very high profile celebrities that you and I know. Many of them are in the world of music, working on their Instagram accounts and all. She wound up creating a book for marketing that I promoted for her. So we helped each other out. And it was all because she sent me an email, just saying this is who I am. And that to me is some of the most important pieces for women right now.”
Colleen learned that not everything can go smoothly. Colleen had another podcast prior to Take the Leap called Stand Up to Lead Up. The podcast had over 180 published episodes and was an asset of a business with a partner. The partnership dissolved and Colleen retained the rights to the podcast.
“You could call it starting over instead of rebranding. It’s the year, 2022 and it’s like that song – you know that song? I’m coming out, right? Yeah. So I really feel like I’m doing things my way and my original podcast was based on my original community, lead up for women. And leading up was really about leading your life the way you deserve to lead your life and speak up to lead up was the name of the podcast, so it was called Speak up to lead up, but it was labeled lead up for women speak up to lead up and it was about speaking up about giving yourself permission to say what you want to say, do what you want to do. We hold ourselves back a lot by not speaking our truth and realizing that when I say something, you know, I don’t really care what other people think” laughs Colleen.
“I tell people – when you walk into a room – own the room. Speak up, lead your life! Other people don’t go to the back of the pack, because what are you truly afraid of? And most of the time, they’re afraid that people will really see who they are. But that is what we are all wanting to see. That is what we’re all craving for so to speak up to lead up again!”
Colleen has never been a stats watcher on her podcast – until recently. She was intrigued by the countries following her and liked watching that number grow. Take the Leap is a continuation of her previous podcast, under another name. Colleen does own the rights to the podcast and she’s now working to incorporate the episodes into the Take the Leap show.
“I’m very proud of all of the clients that I’ve interviewed. I’m very proud that we’re ranked in the top three and global podcasts and that’s something that I just found out about – I’m not a stats girl. I don’t think about big long credibility lists. I do think it is important to shout from the mountaintops when you’ve created something so great and when you’ve helped so many other people out by creating what you’ve created. And we do need to celebrate more. Because it builds our confidence and we keep our power. So I do think it’s important that we celebrate when we have those moments.”
And celebrate Colleen does. And it’s a well deserved celebration.
October 2022 Issue
