Elaine Lou Cartas is a career and business coach focused on women of color, but before that, she was a political organizer for Democratic campaigns and a fundraiser for keeping low-income students enrolled in community college.
Speaking to Business Insider, Cartas insisted that her work as an organizer was actually pivotal in teaching her the skills she needed to win more than 200 clients and make just over $100,000 with the launch of a single product, a bundle of coaching services she dubbed her "mastermind program," all within two years of setting up shop. And all of this was with no paid advertising. Cartas is the first to admit her backstory is not glamorous.
What qualified her to do this? As Cartas set about figuring out how to woo clients and help them succeed, she quickly understood that her background in organizing actually had huge overlap with her new venture. The skills she mastered trying to get Iowans to make calls on behalf of her candidate actually served her incredibly well in her new career. When a campaign would call up Cartas and ask her to round up 100 people for a town hall meeting in less than a week, she would freak out.
Is that sexy? New fangled? Fun? No, but it works. "I did unsexy things like phone calls and door knocking and I continue to do unsexy things. Something that I've learned and also teach my clients is I might not be able to control how much money I make, but I can control how many conversations I have," Cartas said.
It also gives you resilience. "My parents and the generations before them didn't have that life of choice, but I do. And for me, I feel like just living my dream, which is having my own business, is honoring their legacy," Cartas said. That sense of purpose keeps her going when things get hard. "Community is so important because you don't feel so lonely. You know that you have issues and problems and fears and doubts just like other people. You know that you're not alone and that anything is possible when you have the right support. You don't have to just Google all your answers" she explained. Volunteers are, by definition, not paid, so campaigns know they need to appreciate the heck out of them or they're not going to stick around.
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