Pregnancy is a beautiful time in any woman’s life and even more so when it’s her first. But that doesn’t always seem so in the world of business, where pregnant businesswomen are often expected to slow down or relinquish control because of their condition. In this episode, we will see just how far that is from the truth when you’ve got a couple who understand what it truly means to be partners in both business and life. Kelley Knott is the marketing brain behind their agency, Intrepy Healthcare Marketing. She also does online training and certification courses for physician liaisons. Pregnancy had initially been a challenge for Kelley to the point that she even kept it a secret from her team until she had a 7-month baby bump. With her husband Justin’s unceasing support, Kelley managed to cross the hurdles continues to do what she does best even if she’s only a few weeks away from giving birth to their first baby. Listen in as they share their inspiring story on the show with Matt Kelley.
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Partners In Business And In Life: Pregnant Businesswoman Enjoys Working With A Supportive Husband With Justin & Kelley Knott
We’re putting together a database of shows for people to go to and hear about success stories on couples supporting each other. Life is not easy and there are a lot of things that get thrown at us. It takes some turns here and there. When we come across couples supporting each other well, we want to expose that and send that positive energy out there for other couples to learn from. I’ve got a heavy heart. My buddy, a good friend of mine from college, and his wife, their house, where they live in Grand Lake, Colorado burnt to the ground.
It’s terrible.
I woke up to a text that he sent out to a group of us and he’s like, “I’m devastated.”
Was he safe? Was he out of the area?
Yes, they all were out of the area. Their kids are older and in college, so they weren’t at the house. I haven’t dug into the details, but I don’t think that they had much time to grab memorabilia.
I’m sorry to hear that. That is awful.
Thank you for that. I’m going to bring that up because there are many things that can happen in life and as couples, there’s got to be flexibility. We can’t have an agenda. Just flexibility and how we treat each other, act towards each other with different situations and float together so that we can keep the whole thing harmonious. I’d love to hear your guys’ story. I think it’s a very awesome and fascinating story. Do you want to start by introducing yourselves? Each of you takes a turn and maybe talk about your company and promo something if you want. This to be the time for that.
My name is Kelley Knott. I specialize in healthcare marketing. My business partner is also my partner in life and the love of my life, Justin Knott. Together, we built a unique healthcare marketing agency that all started with this idea of something that we thought we were good at. It blossomed and grew from there. Intrepy Healthcare Marketing is a full-service marketing agency. I also do online training and certification for something called physician liaisons. Not a lot of people are familiar with this term, but a physician liaison is like a business development representative for physicians in hospitals. They don’t do any sales like medical sales or medical device sales. They’re employed by hospitals and physicians to represent them, to help them grow their physician outreach, increase communication between referring providers, and increase patient referrals, which is an overall revenue increase in surgeries.
It’s about communication. I, with the help of my husband, built the first-ever online training and certification course for physician liaisons, as well as a small community and network where a lot of these liaisons happen to be women. There are some amazing men in our group too, where we get to share our stories, collaborate and support one another. I think that’s unique in this platform before it was a very closed off-world. I’m proud of that. I’m going to let Justin take over and talk about Intrepy Healthcare Marketing.
My background was in the startup and funding space, and that’s how Kelly and I started working together initially, but she pulled me into this whole world of healthcare marketing. She trained me as a physician liaison very early on in the first couple of years of our agency. Our core focus is building what we call the boots on the ground, the offline side of marketing. I developed a real passion for the digital side of things. It was born out of necessity like, “You’re doing this marketing for me, can you build me a website?” “Sure. I’ll figure it out.” One thing led to another and it’s been a roller coaster of a journey. Several years in now, we’ve got a budding agency that we do full-service end-to-end marketing execution to help medical practices all over the country grow.
You educated me that the two of you work together along with being married. I know that you’re expecting your first child. It’s exciting times for both of you. My wife and I work together and do with our business. When we’re talking to people, we’ll be talking a little bit about the business and it’s almost like they’re more interested in how do we actually stay married and work together.
It’s funny when you said that. It’s like the number one question we get all the time, “Are you guys crazy to work together? How do you spend that much time together?” It’s the number one thing we hear as well.
Especially now, because we’re years into our marriage and we were second in that journey as far as our group of friends. There’s only one that was married before us. They always ask us, “Do you commingle finances, and how do you manage all that?” We got all of that out of the way when we were dating. We started a business together and it was mailbox money then we’re like, “We’ve got to keep the lights on.” It was every paycheck for every client that we got early on, it went straight to putting food on the table. That was an easy transition for us.
I’m sure you know, Matt, we spend a lot of time with that person, so they need to be someone who you really like. I think one of the advantages that I say to people when they tell me that is I have more open, honest, and direct conversations than I ever could in a board meeting room or with my other employers because I can speak freely, open and honest. I feel empowered sometimes because you can challenge your partner, you can test your partner. You can also humble yourself and be open to new feedback. I think on the plus side, it creates a unique experience of open, honesty, and engagement.
I think it was a lesson I learned early on is everybody says it’s not personal, it’s business. I think Michael Scott from The Office said, “There’s nothing more personal than business.” When you’re married, that’s even more true. You can’t not blur that line. It’s of course, this is personal. I think learning that early on was important for both of us, and learning that we both operate in very distinctly different ways. The way that I’m wired, the way that she’s wired, her strengths, and my strengths and weaknesses, learning both of those and how we need to use those to the best of our ability was an interesting part of the journey as well.
I know you can relate to that.
I can relate big time. Missy and I did not start working together. I’ve been a realtor for 23 years and she started helping me on the back end of that several years ago, but not until we launched CatTongue Grips several years ago, she and I started working heavily together. You were saying, Kelley, with your communication, we have found that our communication and relationship has grown because of it. We have so much to share and to talk about. We talk about our marriage, our kids, and life, but on the business side, it’s really exciting to be able to bounce things off of each other. She has grown so much since she started. She’s the CEO, she’s the face of our company. She took over like, “Matt, get out of the way.” I’m not a control freak by any sense. I enjoy watching other people do things. I’m an observer throughout life of how people do things.
I think you guys have done this very well. You’ve taken the ego. You’ve taken the jealousy, you’ve taken the control. You take those things out of the equation. Justin, you had said about we have different skillsets and we have different things that work well for each other. Obviously, you two are open to identifying those and allowing whichever person is better at whatever things, put your best foot forward. Let that person run with what they’re best at for the betterment of the company.
Pregnant Businesswoman: It’s always important to see your partner as a pillar of strength.
That was even the discussion that we had because that’s definitely how I’m wired as far as I have no problem really stepping out of the way and as far as where my strengths were. We even made that decision early on as we felt it was the best fit in the fastest path to success if you were the face of the business as far as building your LinkedIn presence and building your visibility. That’s paid off tenfold as a result. She’s become a thought leader on LinkedIn, and the result has created a very beneficial as far as building sales, generating brand awareness, and all of that stuff.
When you play on strengths and that was a strength of mine was, I feel like business development is where I started, business development is where I belong, and it was what I was good at. When it came to some of the technical things, I didn’t see myself as skilled in some of those areas or even on an executive level. I started as the CEO of the agency, but as the agency grew, I saw his skillset was far from mine. When I became being an executive leader, taking charge and where my skillset lay was on another leadership level. I think it’s a little bit more fun but you don’t see behind the scenes. The camera is rolling and it looks one way, but you don’t see all the work and all the skillset of the team behind it all.
I think it’s always such a big deal to recognize that your partner is that pillar of strength, is the genius behind like, “What if you came at it at this angle? What if we talked about it this way and let’s target this?” You have the team who’s helping you execute and then, you’re in front of it. You’re talking about what you love to do, but it’s this team effort. Only one person gets that front face but it’s so much more than that.
You also have a journey too because I don’t think you ever intended on being what you become on LinkedIn and everything. You’re more naturally introverted too. It was an exercise in getting yourself out there.
People think I’m an extrovert. I’m a huge introvert, and that’s one of my biggest secrets. That was hard for me in business because he’s an extrovert. He’s never met a stranger in his life, and he impresses people everywhere we go. I think being on camera or being the face of the agency or the voice of the agency, I had to learn how to break out of that shell. I hope that I didn’t disappoint them if they met me in person if I was quiet or not quite as outgoing as maybe someone expected because they follow my content. It’s always good to challenge yourself. You have to push yourself past boundaries that make you uncomfortable. It was him that helped me push through those boundaries and feel like I can do this. He said it all the time. “People are listening, you just need to start talking.”
You touched on it. Justin, you’re her biggest fan, huge supporter. I love hearing this balance where Justin is like, “You’ve got this, you’re on it.”
I lead her. As she’s gotten closer to meeting our little girl and things have become more challenging for her as far as her getting around and feeling uncomfortable. She’s had a hyperemesis, where you’re sick all the time. There are the little things that I need her on when it comes to growing the businesses, and even her stepping in for an hour or two, it was so hugely beneficial. It’s impressive to see and it’s been fun to watch her journey through all of this. What she’s taught me along the way as well has been a woman’s intuition and lessons that took me longer to learn than if I’d probably listened to her in the first place. It’s usually on hires or bad times, either one of those. She calls it like a mile away.
What has the journey been like with being pregnant now? I’ll focus, Kelley, to you on the question. Justin, you can chime in all you want. As you’re growing the business and now you’ve got this little one coming along, is there something you can speak to for a younger couple that’s going to be doing the same thing you two are doing?
I’m trying something new in business too, for anyone reading out there. I do believe that people like to work with people and you have to get personal sometimes even when it comes to business. People want to hear. I struggled when I got pregnant, I didn’t even announce it. I think I was seven months pregnant before it was even public. I don’t like being personal especially on social media, but it’s the way I protect my family and my personal life. As I said, I’m naturally an introvert. It’s something that I struggled with and I didn’t want it to affect my business relationships. I didn’t want anyone to doubt my capabilities or if I’d be able to show up. In all transparency, this was the biggest challenge I’ve ever had in business.
I have had a rough pregnancy. It’s something called hyperemesis. Essentially, I’m ridiculously sick this entire pregnancy. I’ve always prided myself on being strong, resilient, or pushing through boundaries, and that’s something that made me very successful early on. Everyone had an opinion on what I was doing and I didn’t care. I knew what I was doing, it was working and it was showing. If people aren’t getting ruffled up or copying your content, you’re probably not doing it right. It was something I was so proud of, and then when I got pregnant, I got incredibly sick.
There’s nothing more personal than business. When you’re married, that’s even truer. Share on XI was up all night, sick. It drains you. You’re dehydrated. You need fluids. You’re not who you once were. I had a minor pity party one day when I was talking with my husband because work wasn’t getting done. I was used to getting up, building this content, writing this content, sharing with my audience, and working with my team in a different way. Being this sick, I could not get up. I felt like I couldn’t do it. I was so sick. I was exhausted and dehydrated. I told him I’m not what I once was anymore, and I had this huge pity party where I was like, “I’m nothing. Why can’t I do this?”
The most incredible experience where he stepped up and was like, “What do we need to do to get this done? What do we need to do for you? You’ll be back to doing this, but this is the most important thing right now.” With women and couples early on, it’s a new reality. You find new inner strength, things that you have to focus on and push through to see what’s important. Without that support or balance from my partner, I don’t know if I would have caved or if I would’ve said, “Maybe this isn’t worth it.” I should put it on pause, but he reminded me like, “You’ve built this empire. Don’t let it go. You’re even stronger now that you’re doing both. Your communication is going to get even better because instead of you doing everything, you have to now be an even stronger leader and communicate with your VA, partners, and team at Physician Liaison University on how to get some of these things done.” It was a big challenge, but I think it’s very real to reflect on who in your life is going to be there for you during that time and be a voice. Make sure you tell people you’re pregnant so they will understand. It’s not fair to the people I worked with either that they didn’t understand what was going on and I had to push through those boundaries.
Something that I have come across over and over is people not wanting to announce their pregnancy within the office, if their job is secure with customers and clients with sponsorships for different athletes or people. You waited until you were seven months. I’ve said it over and over, I don’t have all the answers but I want to start this conversation and bring it to the forefront where people can learn real-life stories like your own. I feel there had to be some built-up stress, especially 5, 6, 7 months about, “What am I going to tell them? I’m sick?” versus if you would have been able to have a celebration. Why in the workplace, why in society is it not celebrated when two people are going to have a child and bring another human into the world to love and give life to and all that stuff?
I had a couple in the show where a gal told me that two of the women that she knows from her career had to choose. They chose between having a child and a family, being a mother, and their career. These are two women that she worked with closely and both of them chose careers. I was like, “What a horrible thing to have to choose.” You’re having a baby. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I would like everybody reading to step back and think about the toll it takes on a female’s body, what she does to give birth to that baby and carry it. Let’s support these women. I don’t know if it’s all men that aren’t as supportive and give you the fear because I’ve also heard women can be a bit rude and tough on other women out there too. I don’t know in your case if it was both genders or not, but I would sure like to change the perception of pregnancy to something beautiful and celebrated across the board. A career is there, it’s stable and it will be with this woman and with this man if he’s affected by this also in his work.
To be honest, once I announced it, I had more support than I did negative experiences. To anyone reading, you make it way harder and put way more pressure if you don’t get personal and talk about it right away. Women can be as hard. In my personal experience, I haven’t come across anyone in the women or women in this space that have not been supportive. I’ve only had one conversation where I felt like it may have affected the business relationship, and it was a business development interactive. We need to get started in February, and my baby is due in December. The conversation that as soon as I announced that I was pregnant, they were like, “Okay.”
For the most part, most people have been supportive and I needed to get out of my head and my own space. It’s like, “I’m about to be even stronger as a woman by being both mom and boss.” I can now even relate to my clients better because most of my clients have family, so welcome to the world. I think I had opened my own eyes, but I want women out there to embrace the pregnancy and the work life, and not feel like it’s such a struggle. I think you talk about couples who support and are flexible, it does start with communication. I needed my partner more than ever in our work career these past months.
I think that’s been the thing as far as from my side, as far as the husband’s side, especially people reading that are either starting a business together and haven’t had kids or they’re going to have kids once they’ve started a business together thing. That’s been the most important thing is you surprise yourself with how quickly you can adapt to those things. People like to try to prepare for it. There’s not much that you can do to prepare for it. Most people you talk to are like, “You figure it out,” and that is what happened.
Pregnant Businesswoman: Pregnancy is a new reality for women and couples. It’s when you find new things to focus on and push through to see what’s important.
I know for us, it was definitely with the sickest she’s been, and obviously, that’s not the case for 90% of women. With ours, she needed me pretty quickly to step in and help fill those gaps. It’s the same in business, it’s even more so when we found out you’re pregnant. In relationships in general, you can’t play the 50/50 card and it’s not always going to be fair. When your hat’s been tipped as far as stepping up and filling in when the other can’t, then you need to do that. You put your big boy pants on and you do it. Since she has fallen ill, her main core focus and responsibility, it would be on staying healthy, staying relaxed, and keeping the baby healthy, and then I can take it from there. We’ve been able to do that and she’s been able to do what she can do.
It’s been a great benefit of growing the business and we moved from States in the middle of all of this on top of her being pregnant and we purchased a house. She’s been trying to put a house together, put a nursery together while being very sick with a baby. You figure out what both people can do, and then you’ve got to work your ass off to fill in all the gaps as they present themselves. At some point, I’m going to need her when I grew up for whatever reason it is, and she’ll step up at that point.
You guys are doing jobs on the fly, which is good practice for when the baby appears.
We haven’t crossed that bridge yet because this is our first step. That’ll be a whole other chapter.
I think a big thing too is we created our own company and that gave me a lot of flexibility and support. I can’t imagine if I had to put a suit on like my sister-in-law. She’s a badass lawyer and she’s pregnant. If I had to put a suit on every day and be in the office from 7:00 AM until 5:00, I think I’d die. All my respect goes to these strong women out there who do that every single day. They do it when they’re sick too, and they come home, clean the house and then build a relationship with their husbands. That’s what motivated me too. I’m happy I built my empire where I had some freedom and flexibility, but women do this a lot harder every single day.
You can’t play the 50/50 card in any relationship. It’s not always going to be fair. Share on XYou mentioned that another part of this is the work, which you guys have handled out and then also the home life. You mentioned these women in careers that require going to an office and dressing up, and then they come home and clean the house. I do dishes. I do the laundry. I help out around the house too. To the readers, you’ve heard it on other podcasts and people speaking that, that helps a relationship tremendously. There’s nothing fun, nothing rewarding about doing the dishes, cleaning the kitchen, or doing laundry. It is repetitive and it takes time. It’s not a one-person job. That needs to be a balance also to have a successful relationship.
I’m happy you brought that up too. I know that you and Missy probably share a lot of responsibility, not only business but personal. You have a family as well, and you have teenagers. You’re definitely in a different phase, and it requires a team effort to run a business together and run a home. My parents always said, “If you start keeping a list, you’re going to lose.” It’s not about who does more, as much as it is about who steps up when they need to step up. He’s a huge help around the house too. I hope couples that are reading if you think of what you can do for your partner too. You don’t always know what they’re going through. I try to tell myself, “He deserves it so what can I do to make his life better?” I know he does that for me.
I think the division of labor is really important. I do more of the cooking and I spend more time with the kitchen, mostly that’s my domain as far as what I need to be cleaning and my responsibilities outside like taking the trash out and things like that. That stuff needs to stay an open dialogue because as she has been sick and I’ve been focusing more on the work stuff. It’s shifted even more of our roles, but it continues to be something where you have to keep working together and keep an open dialogue if someone either doesn’t feel unsupported or things aren’t getting done.
We definitely don’t have set gender roles and some things are probably very stereotypical and some things aren’t. It’s who’s doing it for each other now.
We had a switch in our house, our son who’s in high school, his homework ramped up from eighth grade to ninth grade. I’m dyslexic. I struggled all through school, just got through. He struggles too, he’s dyslexic. He got that from me, but my wife is incredibly brilliant and an all A-student and my daughter is. It was very clear early on that it made zero sense for me to try and help with study and do homework with them. It’s two dyslexics in a room trying to figure out an English paper. It’s not going to get us doing any good. Missy’s taken up the homework side with him. I was like, “I’m going to do some more around the house then. Every night after dinner, I’ll do the dishes while you’re doing homework. I’m not going to sit on the couch while you’re doing the homework, and then you come down and the dishes are still all over the place from dinner.”
It is picking up the slack. It’s got to start with communication and starts with being fluent. Things aren’t set in stone. They’re not always going to be fair and so you step in those gaps.
It’s definitely never fair.
I also want to touch my opinion on having someone in the house, helping with the children and whatnot. You guys are probably going to be a bit unique, you both work from home so you’re going to be able to plan to do it yourselves and all that with your child, and continue to work. I’m also of the mindset that for the women that are career-oriented, that have to work in offices and go out of the house and that’s what they’d like to do, and the men are doing what they’re doing work-wise. Whether it’s a grandma, an aunt, an uncle, a nanny, or whatever it is that takes care of the children during the day, it’s a better situation for everybody, for both of those adults to be able to go out and work, do what they want to do, have a fulfilled day and a fulfilled life with that, and then come home and the husband and wife are on the same page.
They have a ton to talk about, are happy, satisfied with their day, and then take over the mommy and daddy roles through the evening and then the morning. I’m of the mindset that’s healthier for husbands and wives having a better relationship, staying together longer, not tipping that scale on the divorce side of things versus one of the adults staying home. I guess what they want to do to care for the child. Do you have any thoughts on that?
We talk about that a lot. It goes back to the fact that we built our freedom. The building caught up our little empire together has provided a lot of flexibility for us to get to do both. In reality, I can’t work in front of the computer all day. He can’t work in front of the computer all day and have a two-year-old that’s going to entertain herself. We’ll get a lot of help from family and friends in the beginning, but I want a life of both. I’ve communicated that to my husband and he’s communicated that to me.
I had a stay-at-home mom growing up, and some of the things you can’t take away are she never missed a soccer game. She was always there for field trips and anything that I needed. I want our kids also to get to experience that. Now I, myself, love work a lot, and I think it’s a good outlet for me and I love building our company. I’d like to be able to balance both. That means that I have to stick like with our agency to schedule processes and plans and how I’m going to get that extra support because, in reality, you can’t do both 100%. I’m probably going to need some assistance as they get a little bit older, whether it’s family and friends or part-time nanny for when we are working and collaborating together, and I need to have that time dedicated to work. I’ll have that time, but also be able to work with my schedule that if I want to be there at home or be there at school for our kids as they grow, I can do that as well.
I think it’s getting the business to a place together growing it, where we can financially, I can have 3 days on or 2 days off or 5 days on, where I can control the schedule. It’s not me, it’s him too. He was talking about that there are going to be days that I have got to put all my attention to work and I’m going to need him to help me with all the attention at home. He said, “Not a problem.” It’s his family too, it’s not mine.
I think that was one of the things even that we had talked about when we first got married. I think that’s what attracted us to build the type of businesses that we did because it creates a lot of flexibility like her having the online course stuff. You can go in. You can fill a month’s worth of work and you can do that in a couple of days, and then you’re focused on pushing that out from a rollout perspective. It creates a lot more ease of use as far as managing work and personal life. I think that was one of the things that we knew that she ultimately wanted to do as far as raising the kids and hopefully give her the ability to do that as we move into that phase of the journey.
Pregnant Businesswoman: It requires team effort to run a business and a home together.
Kelley, you touched on, it’s both of us here that are making these adjustments and are excited to have this child. That’s something I think about a lot. The men and women equally want to have these children, want to have families, kids to play within the yard and throw the ball with, and to grow up, watch to go to college, and that whole thing. It needs to balance at the very beginning of the stage like you guys have done pre-birth and organize that. Make sure the egos that control that jealousy on every front go out the front door so that you all can totally be together on all of your conversations, on all the tasks. Make everything inside of the house as easy as possible regardless of what the task is. That’s going to allow both of you to enjoy each other more.
Your energy is going to be better, your kid’s going to feel that, the people around you are going to feel that. It’s the women that take the burden of carrying these babies in birth, and the men need to step up and understand what is going on over there in that category and how amazing it is what they’re doing on that front and say, “I’m here to do a whole lot more than I’ve ever done.” As the children get older, these roles are going to change and massage and everything else but it takes two in and out of the house to make it work nicely.
It starts with making sure that you’re on a good foundation, even especially the babies are another part of the journey that we’re excited and it’s going to come with uncharted territory. It’s going to be difficult in raising a kid. It’s no cakewalk from hearing from our parents and getting advice, but I think you want to make sure that you have those conversations, you do focus on being on the same page and having a really strong open dialogue, and move back to your home so you have grandparents.
Is that what you focus on? Did you get closer to the family?
It was. I’m speaking in May 2021 at a big convention. I’m going to be a keynote speaker. They’re paying me to speak and my baby will be five months old at that point. Justin and I looked at each other like, “What’s our plan?” I need to not have a baby on my hip during this power station. We talked it out and then my parents in that scenario are, “I can’t wait to go to South Carolina.” We are getting them a room so that I can speak, and then together we’re working on a dual breakout session. That’ll be the new normal, it’s finding the support and help where we can.
Your child is going to grow up not only with the love of mom and dad but also with education of she can do anything in this world, “Look at what my mom is accomplishing.”
It’s so important to teach that early on.
This has been amazing and I thank you so very much for your time, insight, and experience. It’s amazing. I always like to wrap up with one question. When I was doing some homework and looking around and stuff, I came across this stat from the Smithsonian. There are about 5,000 statues around the country in prominent places to give awareness to men that have done some great things, and obviously, we’ve seen some controversy.
Some of those that are not saving anymore, now there are 4,000.
Five thousand was the number I saw on that front and 400 for women in our country. I’m pretty darn sure there are more than 400 women that are very well respected throughout the years and should be known until the end of time on what they’ve given and who they are. I like to ask if each of you could give me a name of a woman from any time, any period in history that you think is deserving of a statue, and why.
My answer always surprises people. I am a Lucille Ball fan. I love Lucy not only for her show, but because I loved her show so much, I tried to learn about her. I feel like for women in a time where Marilyn Monroe, and I’m sorry for any of those readers who adore Marilyn Monroe, I have a different taste in my mouth. When it’s about makeup, beauty, sex, and all these things, Lucille Ball really pushed the envelope. She did the ugly face on camera and she was unbelievably funny. On top of that, the marriage itself is not desirable, but the team that they built, they were revolutionary in the way that cinema and TV’s films. She was an entrepreneur from the very beginning.
When she got pregnant with a Hispanic man, they told her she couldn’t be on TV. She said, “I’m a mom, and we’re going to do this for the first time ever.” She’s the first female to ever be recorded pregnant. She’s the first female executive producer. She’s the first female who brought up that screenwriters should get the credit for these TV shows because she was the one who had the talent on screen, but it was her husband who created the first-ever type of camera to do three different types of shots. They collaborated together and created one of the most iconic shows in history, and then she was the first-ever female owner of a production studio. People don’t know that she owned RKO Studios. She created Star Trek. She’s the first-ever in huge time Hollywood.
It was a time of Marilyn Monroe where it was all about beauty, glamour, sex, and how women could be. That’s what made women famous, and that’s what made men and women different. I feel like she didn’t mind being ridiculously funny and ugly face. She owned the biggest studios in Hollywood at one point, and people had no idea that was I Love Lucy, and solely owned it too. That’s pretty amazing. People should look a little bit deeper about who it is. If you’re a businesswoman, what does it take? If it takes being creative, being unique, be original, and then understanding how you can push them in work. She was a huge queen on her own right. I think Lucille Ball.
That makes me think about I’ve heard some women speak about how women in the business world get told that you have to be more like a man, in your persona and all of that stuff. I say no to all of that. My experience with being in real estate for many years, working very closely and competing against women day in and day out on everything is to be yourself. There are women in real estate that are very successful. Everybody, we’re all who we are. We build a clientele based on who we are because if we’re real, then we don’t have to put a front on all the time and it’s not going to be seen through over time. It’s like if you’re more sustainable, you’re going to be more productive. You’re going to have cleaner, better thoughts. Everything’s going to run a lot better through your mind if you be who you are and please women out there. Look at what Lucille Ball did. She went counterculture but she was who she was. What you said educated me about her is unbelievable. I had no idea she had done all that.
In a world of Kardashians, women need to speak up and be authentic. Share on XShe’s always been a huge role model. I feel like even in a world of Kardashians, it’s okay to be beautiful and fun, but remember that it is who you are and you can speak up. We need to speak up and be authentic.
Thank you for that, Kelley.
She is one of my top on the list. She is the one that introduced me to her and learning her biography, like RKO, the power and the way that she had over in the Hollywood industry that ended up introducing us to all the people about Star Wars and Star Trek, and all of that stuff. It’s incredible. She’s definitely, I’d say, in my top three list. Probably one of the other ones, I’m a huge sports person. I played sports my whole entire life and I played college football. I’d say of the women that have impacted sports the most that deserve the credit is Serena Williams. It’s not just the absolute total domination of the sport of tennis, but on top of that, what she has done since she has had a baby is massive. Not only career resurgence, which she has dominated and taken that sport back again since she had a baby and she got all of this flack after she had a baby that her career was over.
She went to one seven majors in the first two years coming back after having her baby. It said it empowered her to show her baby now that it was on this planet, how strong she was. She’s had that heart condition, all of these different things. She’s impressive with what she’s done with her whole career and being African-American on top of all of that too. I’d say it’s probably her with my love of sports. She’d be the more notable and impactful woman.
I love what you spoke about because I’ve already mentioned, but the women having the babies, I don’t know, God flipped a coin or whatnot, and how it got decided who carries the babies in this thing. I think it is such short-term thinking on any man or woman, any gender to analyze a gal who’s pregnant to have a child in a negative way. For those announcers and for those sportswriters to talk about Serena like, “She’s pregnant. Now her career’s going to go down to where she’s not going to be dominant again,” why would they ever go that direction because she’s having a child? Why aren’t they saying, “This is awesome? Serena is starting a family, how amazing for her. She’ll probably be off for this length of the time and she’s going to come back stronger than ever?” That wasn’t the conversation before, but like you said, Justin, with what she’s done.
I think there’s a few as you brought that up. There are 2 or 3 other women that also are doing very well post having children on the tennis circuit. I don’t recall their names, but I remember reading that in Sports Illustrated not too long ago, they were talking about them and that is a great point. Hopefully, that resonates out with people across all parts of life, not just with sports, but in the business world, and everything that we do. Women having children is an incredibly positive thing for them, for the husband, for everybody around them.
Let’s make it a celebration and make it an amazing thing and know that they need our support during that time because it’s hard on the body and the mind. Can you imagine what the hell is going on with this big old belly now walking around with? My eating’s all different and I feel different. Kelley, in your situation, hyperemesis set in, you’re like, “What is this? I’m sick all the time.” You’re back to the doctors, “Is my baby okay?” “Yes, your baby is going to be fine, but this is what you’re going to be dealing with.”
It’s short-term to knock a female, there are only two genders on the planet, men and women. We’re here together. We started together. We’re going to be here until the end of the time together. The only way we make other babies and new humans is together, support those women and let them know this is awesome what you’re doing, and you are going to be 1,000 times better after this is over and whatever you choose to do in life.
Thanks for bringing such light to it.
You’re welcome. You got me off on a tear, Justin, with that one.
You bring up a good point. I think it’s very true. It was all lip service until now that we’ve gone through the middle of this journey and having seen it myself. I wholeheartedly agree.
Thank you. You guys are amazing. I’m so excited for you. I wish you all the best with that beautiful baby girl.
Thanks again for having us. We enjoyed talking about it. It’s always fun talking about our journey, a little trip down memory lane.
We’re having a lot of fun with this. I couldn’t be prouder to have you both on it. It’s awesome. Thank you.
Thank you again.
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About Kelley Knott
I support physician liaisons, physicians, medical practices and hospital systems in two ways:
1) Physician Liaison University – This is where I teach physician liaisons, physicians, medical practices and hospital systems the profitable action steps for building a highly engaged physician relations marketing program, with online training courses, 1 on 1 consulting and tested strategies to build physician referral relationships with ease.
More info here: https://kelleyknott.com/
2) Intrepy Healthcare Marketing – Full service digital agency focused on healthcare marketing. A few of our core services include web design, SEO, review generation, social media management and social advertising.
About Justin Knott
Every business has a story to tell and a passion behind the reason they created their business. This story and love for what you do create the drive for what owners do every day.
I help physicians and medical practices tell their stories, promote their procedures and specialties, and engage with existing and potential patients to drive new business and growth. As the President of Intrepy Healthcare Marketing, I aid doctors and surgeons in creating a connection with their patients and communicating key differentiators.
I specialize in medical website design and development, physician liaison consulting, referral marketing and practice growth, social media, content marketing, online reputation management, search engine optimization, and lead generation. I have specific expertise in on and offsite Local SEO to ensure your medical practice shows up at the top of search results.
At work, my main focus is on growing my client’s businesses, but outside of that, I am hanging with my wife, staying active, and playing with my two dogs — living in Atlanta but a Florida native and beach bum at heart.