We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Trish Robichaud. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Trish below.
Trish, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?
I filed a human rights campaign against my employer while I was still working there. The human rights commission told me that it would be illegal for them to crank up the harassment because of the lawsuit, but that didn’t stop them. And so, I just kept going to work everyday because if I quit, I knew that would compromise my case. Mercifully, 3 months later, they let me go which solidified my case. 2 years later, they had to pay me 6-month salary for the discrimination and harassment I had been subjected to. My husband and I used the money for a down payment of the house.
From that experience, my lessons were two-fold. First, I learned about the need for self-advocacy but I also knew that many people with disabilities don’t have the emotional fortitude to tackle the battle that I did. So, I became a life coach for people with disabilities.
The second lesson was that “IT DIDN’T HAVE TO GO DOWN LIKE THAT!” The truth of the matter is that they responded in ignorance and fear. Ignorance being a lack of knowledge about how to deal with disability in the workplace, and fear, as in the fear of what it might cost them to accommodate me. So, I became a trainer of disability inclusion for businesses.
Trish, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Trish Robichaud is a Work-Life Inclusion Coach, Accessibility Compliance Expert, and Motivational Speaker who lives with multiple sclerosis and bipolar . She has been providing life & business coaching to entrepreneurs living with chronic illness or disability for well over two decades. Trained in adult education, support counseling, self-advocacy, social action, and life skills, Trish is a tech junkie at heart. She’s passionate about helping her clients automate their business processes to conserve energy and save them from entrepreneurial overwhelm so that they can finally earn what they’re worth. TrishRobichaud.com Trish also works with forward-thinking business owners who are looking to expand their staff and customer base to include the 25-60% of our population who happen to live with a disability. She’s been providing disability inclusion training and accessibility consulting for organizations in the public and private sectors for over 15 years. By becoming accessible to people of all abilities, they are inviting and welcoming the largest untapped market on the planet. ChangingPaces.com
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Being that I have multiple sclerosis, advanced heart disease, and bipolar, I have been forced to shut down my business for a year or more at a time for 4 times in 20 years. The most difficult thing about returning to work after such a long break is resurrecting your enthusiasm and momentum. For example, I was off work for 2 years when my life went off the rails, resulting in my bipolar diagnosis. Picking yourself up by the bootstraps and pushing forward multiple times is only possible if you have an inner drive and faith in a higher power. The most important thing necessary for resilience is self-forgiveness. Having this allowed me to have a safe space to start and begin again.
When you’ve been to the bottom of the well multiple times and each time, managed to find a way to claw your way out, you inevitably build a knowing that you can do it again. And when your target market is people you care deeply about, in my case people with disabilities, the motivation to keep going takes care of itself.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
The most effective method is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We’ve found in the last year at least 5 times return investment for what we spent on SEO. A lot of my leads have told me they found me on Google and it surprises me how effective this method has been. And, the second most active lead generation is on LinkedIn. We started a LinkedIn newsletter about 6 months ago, and our subscribers are over 2,200 now. I think that’s amazing, in my opinion. As a result, we are getting far more engagement and direct messaging than we ever have. I even have appointments showing up on my calendar!
Contact Info:
Website: https://trishrobichaud.com & https://changingpaces.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trish.robichaud/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/ewdisabilities/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewdisabilities/ https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12369751/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ewdisabilities
Other: trish@changingpaces.com
Source: CanvasRebel
