Hey BOSS Ladies

Building BOSS Visibility Without Burnout with Cinthia Pacheco

• Candice Dorsey

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Hey BOSS Ladies! In this week’s episode, I’m sitting down with the incredible Cinthia Pacheco, founder and CEO of Digital Bloom IQ, a powerhouse digital marketing agency that helps women-led businesses grow online without the hustle and burnout.

Cinthia is not only an SEO expert, she’s also paving the way in a new space called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), yep, that’s optimization for platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. 👀

We get real about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, why pivoting in your business can feel scary but necessary, and how to delegate like a true CEO without losing your voice. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed with marketing, or like you're doing #AllTheThings and not getting the visibility you deserve, this episode is for you.

💡 What You'll Walk Away With:

  • How Cynthia went from employee to BOSS Lady CEO
  • The difference between SEO and this new kid on the block, GEO
  • Real talk about pivoting when things just aren’t working
  • How to build visibility online without creating content 24/7
  • The mindset shift it takes to start delegating and actually enjoy your business
  • What sustainable marketing really looks like for women entrepreneurs
  • Why being multi-passionate isn’t a problem, and how to lean into it with support

🔗 Connect with Cynthia:

Cynthia’s AI Visibility course launching soon! This is a way for your business to show up in AI, which is awesome. Go to her website to learn more

💼 Ready to grow your network, amplify your voice, and actually plan collaborations that move the needle?

Join us at the next Hey BOSS Ladies: Connection + Collaboration Hour
✨ Register here → heybossladies.com/event

Let’s build relationships that build your business.
Now’s the time. Let’s BOSS UP. 🔥

Support the show

Follow Me on Instagram: @csdorsey_hello
Listen on Apple Podcast | iHeart Radio

Hey boss lady. Welcome to the Hey Boss Lady podcast. We're real conversation, powerful connection and intentional growth collide. I'm your host, Candace boss, founder, community builder, and your biggest hype lady around here. We don't do surface level. We talk strategy, systems, success, and the real stuff that happens in between. Whether you're tuning in on your morning walk during that client work, sprint. For a late night hustle session. I'm glad you're here. Let's get into today's episode and boss up together.

Candice Dorsey:

Hey, boss ladies. Welcome back to another episode of the Hey Boss Ladies podcast. I have the boss lady herself, Cynthia Pacheco. She's the owner and founder of Digital Bloom iq. Hi Cynthia. How are you doing today?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Hey, Candace. I'm doing well. How are you?

Candice Dorsey:

I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. So tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah, so my name is Cynthia. I'm the owner and founder of Digital Blue MyQ, and we are a digital marketing agency specific, specifically for female founders who want to grow online and be seen and change the world is really our slogan, which I know sounds very, it sounds very big, but that's what we wanna do. We wanna empower. These online businesses get found and we have a full stack digital marketing, um, agency from SEO to YouTube. Um, we do PPC, so ads. Um, and then I also teach, teach and teach SEO and teach AI now AI search optimization. So it's really like a full, a full thing.

Candice Dorsey:

Oh yeah, this is wonderful and this is a good thing because. I did have someone in my, uh, boss lady community talk about, was it in my community or was it somebody else's community? Talk about, uh, but not SEO's more, what is it called, GEO now or.

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yes, G.

Candice Dorsey:

Yes. And I was like, where have I been? I've been under a rock. I'm like, what is going on? Because we hear about SEO for years.

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yes.

Candice Dorsey:

but this new thing is coming out. It is like out, and I guess it's for like social media or something like that. Um, but we don't have to dive into that today. I'm just like, when you

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah,

Candice Dorsey:

just sparked something and I was like, Hey, something new is going on here.

Cinthia Pacheco:

yeah. We can definitely quickly touch on it at some point, but it is a new way of getting found online for sure. Hmm.

Candice Dorsey:

okay. Yeah, that would be, that would really good and interesting. So, Cynthia, tell us, how did you get to boss status, and what was that journey like for you?

Cinthia Pacheco:

So I had been working in another marketing agency for a few years, um, kind of earlier on in my career and. I liked the work I was doing. I, I was having so much fun. I was traveling, I loved my clients, and I just got to this point where I was like, well, what if I just did this for myself? And the company I was working at was very horizontal, so above my boss. Like I had my boss and my boss's boss was the CEO. So I really couldn't go anywhere up. It was all like horizontal. and I just. I decided, hey, like if I'm enjoying these clients and these clients respect me and listen to me, I can just do this for myself. And it did def definitely take a leap of faith because I had no experience in running a business. Like I don't have a, like a lot of us, you know, we just kind of learned the business building side. Like maybe we have skills and we know we can help people, but the business, business, business building side is a whole other set of skills that. Is different. It's like two different sides of the brain, right? Um, so when I, when I decided, hey, I just wanna help female founders online, that was like the driving force. And then from there it was just a lot of experimentation and a lot of, at the beginning, you know, I didn't know exactly. What services were gonna get me profitable. It took a lot of trial and error and um, I did initially start with web analytics services and then I pivoted into SEO and now it's like, it's everything. And I do have a team, just to be clear. It's not just me. But, um, yeah, I was just a lot of try trial and error and seeing like what services are landing with the audience I wanna attract and. How do they, I think for a lot of us, it's like how can I speak to my audience in a way that they understand the value I give to them? Right. Not just me talking as an expert.

Candice Dorsey:

I love that. I love that because a lot of times, especially in like the virtual assistant world,'cause I started off with virtual. I still am, um, kind of, but I'm trying to transition and pivot,

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

more that I know that I'm good and can, you know, like you say, you know, give value. But I think the thing of it is, um, we often do, especially when we're starting out. Is we do one thing, we think we like it, and then we kind of like shut down everything. And then we say, okay, now we're focusing on this. And then the problem is we don't even know how to attract that audience, or we don't

Cinthia Pacheco:

Right,

Candice Dorsey:

how to get those clients,

Cinthia Pacheco:

right.

Candice Dorsey:

you know? And um, that's actually one of the things that I, I regret doing that because I was like, I'm gonna do website design. When I first started off as a virtual assistant, but I didn't know how to speak to those people,

Cinthia Pacheco:

Right.

Candice Dorsey:

hard getting those clients. So I'm, I'm happy. You kind of like touched on that a little bit. Yeah.

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah. Yeah, it's hard because it's becoming a marketer and if you have your own business, you need to know how to sell. Like, that's just reality unless you hire someone else to help you. Right. To, but even if you hire someone, you need to know the basics of selling. Like that is, I think, a foundational skill. Um, and it might not be how everyone else sells too. There's like a lot of nuance to, to marketing and selling online.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent yes. So what's one pivot that surprised you the most and taught you something, game changing about yourself?

Cinthia Pacheco:

So one pivot that it was kind of a pivot, but it was also, um, very intentional, uh, in that. It was like a very intentional decision that wasn't comfortable. That's what I wanna say, because pivot sounds like, oh, I'm just, it feel, it could feel like, oh, I'm just dancing to the side and it's com. It's not comfortable pivoting sometimes, right? Because you're so used to doing this thing that feels safe. So I knew when I started my business, I, I, I loved working online and I loved the freedom of, of having my own business and I wasn't really sure if I wanted to build a team yet. And it took me a while to realize that my calling is very specific and like what I meant to do and what I enjoy doing. And I would say the biggest pivot recently has been just accepting more and more what I'm good at and what I can delegate. And I know a lot of your listeners are solopreneurs, so this doesn't mean you need to build like a full agency like I have. It's. But it is about being honest of like, where do I shine? Like what is my energy really lit up? Because that's why we start businesses, right? Of course we start for the money, for the freedom. Like, you know, I love spending time with my daughter and like I love to be able to travel with my family and still work sometimes, but if we're not doing the things we love or that light us up some of the time, it's gonna quickly get really, it's gonna feel like a job. And, and like, not the type of job we wanna be doing. Um, so for me it was like, okay, what are the things that are like, that are holding me back and that I need to delegate? Um, and or I need also help in and just starting small, I think too, like hiring a va, just start with like five hours a month. You a VA can do so much for you with like a little bit of time. So I think starting small as well. And that's completely changed my business because I've been able to scale more. I've been able to. Just, uh, take more time off too and like still grow and, and pay myself, but I'm not doing all the things'cause I was just always doing all the things. And I think we tend to go into that place where we get so used to doing everything that we have no idea what it's like to run a business in a place where we're our best selves and we're, you know, shining in the way that we wanna shine.

Candice Dorsey:

I get that like everything you said, kind of like hit home, like for what's happening right now. In, in my business, I have virtual assistant, she helps me with, um, my, my hey boss ladies events and everything, and she does my emails,. But speaking, it was so hard to even give up the emails. Like, she is amazing because I'm telling you, when I'm in, when I'm in live, I'm not looking at the chat. I'm trying to focus on, you know, getting, the connection that I'm not looking at the chat. So she's looking at the chat and she'll say, Hey Candace, we have a question. And I'm like, oh, okay. So she's like right there and I'm like, I don't, I don't wanna deal with that. You can have it. But I'm so used to writing my own emails and, you know. I have a specific way that I wanna say and talk and everything. So she does all the scheduling out the emails and everything. I have yet to have her write any emails, like I actually created a template and just say, we're gonna follow this template, and all you have to do is maybe change the link and at the, that's it, and just schedule out. That's all you have to do. But it's just like, it's so hard to give that up. But as far as like doing lives and everything. That's her jam. Like I can give that up, but it, it's so hard when you've been doing something so long, you know, and it's like, that's

Cinthia Pacheco:

Totally. It's a muscle. It's a muscle. I mean, as we speak, my team is on a call with a client right now, and it's been a muscle to get there like this year, you know. At the beginning of this year, I would've been like, what are they doing? Who are they talking to? Like, I would've been freaking out. I don't think I could be here talking to you. Right? So I've been slowly delegating and it's not that I, you know, I, I love my clients and I still wanna do some client work, but now I'm really focused on. Like what parts of the client work do I love to do? Like what are the things that I really bring value to the client project? Because if I'm just on a call to being on a call. Like, what's the point of that? Right. So I get to really again, be very clear with what are my, um, strengths and where do I also enjoy because I could be good at something but also not enjoy it. Right. I think, again, we like tend to just the things we're used to. But like, where do I bring the most value to the client? Obviously my role as CEOI need to be selling, I need to be growing the business. I need to be developing our services, you know, whatever, those kind of more CEO brain things. Um, but again, if you're not into the agency thing, maybe writing down a list of like, what are the things that. First of all, you hate doing that, have to get done. Like something as simple as bookkeeping and taxes. Like could you, you know, set aside a budget for that? I feel like that's like such an easy one if you're not into it. Um, but maybe there's an aspect of your marketing too that you just feel so heavy and like. There's like Fiverr. If you, you know, Fiverr is such a gift. You don't need to hire anybody full-time. You can test someone out for a little bit of money and, and if it works, you, you can try it again. But that's how you start building that muscle of getting support. And you don't need to wear the badge of honor of like, I do it all like I'm this. Boss who does it all. It's like, well, maybe that's not the type of boss you wanna be. Right? Maybe you wanna be more someone who gets up and is doing the things that really are impactful and enjoyable for them.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. I just took the, um, working Genius test. This working

Cinthia Pacheco:

Oh, yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah. I recently did that, because I had a, I had a guest, previous to this one was actually gonna come out before this one, this episode, but, I had a guest, her name is Rachel Dorsey, and she's like a coach lead of the Burkin genius. And I went ahead and I took the test and everything and I found out that I'm more of the. Person who loved to do like new ideas, like

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yes,

Candice Dorsey:

new, new ideas. I'm

Cinthia Pacheco:

yes.

Candice Dorsey:

you know, and I light

Cinthia Pacheco:

Idea generator.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah, let's do this, let's do this and this. where I struggle with is actually. Following it through and completely completing it. Like

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

generate it, I can say, you know, Hey, we're gonna do this, and that lights me up. But if it takes a long time for it to, you know, actually be complete. I'm gone. I'm, I'm to the next thing that lights me up and I just did a, uh, and we'll go to the next question. I know this conversation is,

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

on,

Cinthia Pacheco:

No, that's good.

Candice Dorsey:

I just, I just love talking about this stuff. But, um, I had to talk to Chad, GTP, and I know Chad, GTP isn't like a, a counselor or a coach or whatever, but I had to just say, Hey, I'm struggling with when everything, every time something comes up um, or I'm working in something, I hit a brick wall and I

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

it. And I'm gone, like I'm doing off to doing something else. I'm like, why do I keep doing that? And it literally told me why I was doing it, like to be perfect and you know, that causing procrastination and I'm not seeing the. The goal, like the, the goals or the little things that's actually being accomplished. I'm like, oh my gosh, I have this big old thing in front of me. It is time to bail out because it's getting to be too much, you know?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

to

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

it and get like a checklist going for myself, just like I actually finished something, you know?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah. Yeah. Or get the support. I'm the same way. I'm the idea generator. I'm the one, and then I have people on my team who aren't. They're like, give me a list. I just need a list to do things. I'm like, great. We are gonna make a great team because I've got lists. I've got things to do now. Then at the end of the day, yeah, you gotta be like, okay, but is that idea still resonating? Like you have to check in with that for sure. But I agree. I feel like it's not about. There's like little brain hacks we can do to get around our own blocks. But I think at the end of the day too, it's like about accepting, I'm just the one who has all these ideas and it's not a problem. It's more about how do I get support with the ideas and like how do I decide which ideas I really wanna act on? And which ones maybe go on the back burner for a little bit. Um,'cause I, I think the problem is when we try to dampen who we are. Again, we, we end up sabotaging ourselves like we created this business because we wanna feel joy and satisfaction in our day-to-day. Why would we dampen who we are? Like it's completely the opposite, right? Of what we're striving for. If you're thinking, you know, if you have your own business, you're striving for a level of joy and satisfaction and excitement, you know, whatever your values are, um, and it's that possibility to live that life.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah, I agree. Oh, this is so good. So good conversation. I love having these conversations. okay, so let's dive into building visibility without burnout. Can you tell us more about that?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah, so. Like I said, um, one of the biggest things we do in our agency is SEO and we're starting to do GEO, which is, um, let me just break it down a little bit, uh, and then I'll get into like no burnout in those. So, SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it's basically getting found in Google. So if someone is searching. Solopreneur coaching community or solopreneur women's community. Then hopefully they find Candace's community as one of the options there in Google. Um, and now with us using Chachi, bt, and Gemini and all the AI tools. Now we've got GEO, which is generative engine optimization, which is basically having a tool like Chacha PT recommend you. So again, if someone is in Chacha PT saying, I'm so lonely, I just started my business. I want women's communities of other women who are with their business. Hopefully the hey boss ladies community comes up as a recommendation. So the reason why I love these marketing strategies is that they're very much like, uh, the, the analogy I like to use is it's like, it's like having a garden. Uh, so when you start to invest in your website and making it friendly for AI and for Google to find. You're planting the seeds for people to find you when they're ready to find you. So it's very different from social media where you're posting every day. You don't really know, like you can obviously, and I love, by the way, social media, I use it in my business, but I like to give maybe these women other options, right? That are burnout, a little burnout friendly. Um. So you're, you're planting the seeds on your website. You're doing these things. You're creating content that the tools can find, that Google can find, that the AI can find. And over time you don't necessarily need to create more and more content, which is what we're trained to on social media. It's like this cookie monster. It's like the content, you know, like the, the real cookie monster, like you. You create real after real, after real, and you're just like trained of like creating more and more. That doesn't work. With SEO, it's not necessary. You can create some foundational pieces and they will keep growing kind of on their own. Obviously there's tweaks and there's things we need to monitor, but once you've got your foundational pieces, that's it, and you've got this. Now you've got not just a plant, you've got a tree that's giving you fruit year after year. And that feels so much more sustainable or at least complimentary to other marketing channels that you're using that do require more like constancy or just a little bit more activeness. Um, so I think that that can be one way. To be able to take a break in your business to be able to take time off, um, to be able to just have seasons where maybe you're taking care of your family or your health or maybe you just don't wanna be as on. I think that's another like misconception when you have your own business is like, you need to be active all the time. And yes, you need to be present, but wouldn't it be great to have a season of, especially as women, you know, with our cycles, to have a season of like, okay, I can kind of sleep in this week, or I can. For me, it's all about my daughter.'cause my daughter's three years old and she's got so much energy and it's like a very intense moment of life. And so I love like to on Fridays, you know, I usually don't work in the afternoon and I take her out and we get an ice cream and we just hang out in a playground and like that to me. Is so rich, you know, and I'm, I'm not able to worry about whether my business is generating leads because I know that my SEO is working in the background and I know my GEO strategy is working in the background. Um, so that's one strategy that maybe I, and I haven't really explained what to do right with that, but that might be an alternative to other marketing strategies that maybe some women have have explored out there.

Candice Dorsey:

Oh, that's amazing. Because you're right. Like we are trained to like post and, you know, do the, you know, do the reels and everything. And I actually just started teaching, doing reels, um, showing the boss ladies how to do reels without burnout. And I'm like. Girlfriend, you don't have to be cute. Just do something

Cinthia Pacheco:

Let's do it.

Candice Dorsey:

seconds. Post your caption on there, have your call to action, and that's

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

you know, you don't

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

burnout and do all the things. And um, I am really happy that you mentioned that because that's what we have in our mind. We're a business. We have to have visibility, that's no doubt. Like in order

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah,

Candice Dorsey:

you know, but how can we do it in a way that won't burn us out? You know,

Cinthia Pacheco:

yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

families. Exactly, exactly. So

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah. And you have to find the tricks like Yeah, I, I, I don't wanna hate on any platform'cause I do all of them too, but I do want to. I think the thing is with Instagram in particular is it's so accessible. Like we have it on our phones. The platform is already addictive. Like it's just, we go there and so we're. It's like easy to be in the middle of the night creating a reel, right? But if you think like your reel might take, I don't know, 15 minutes, if you're lucky, maybe up to an hour in some cases, you know, if you're doing a, a more hefty reel, if that hour you can take to creating some content on your website that would attract people like, think about it, right? A little bit of both, right? So I, I like to diversify, like recommend a diversified strategy. With, with marketing the cool thing about SEO and go is like you're really targeting people. You can target people who are already looking for you. So you can target the people who are service and product aware, which means they're like searching for you have already. And then you also target the people who are problem aware. So the people who know, you know, they, they feel their problem, but they don't really know you exist yet. So that's very interesting. Um, compared to, again, social media where it's a little bit, there's still like the algorithm will show your audience relevant things. It's not random, but it's different. It's different how they find you and the intentionality of how they find you is so different than search marketing.

Candice Dorsey:

This been so good. All right, so as you know here at, Hey Boss Ladies, we're all about connection to collaboration. What type of collaborations are you looking for right now?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Um, what am I looking for? So I love to connect with other online business owners. Uh, if you. Especially service-based businesses, to be honest. So if you're a va, that's great. If you're a web developer, um, if you are any sort of marketer, that's always great.'cause a lot of the clients I work with are, you know, could be a good referral relationship. Uh, or it could just be a way to actually work on a project together, right? Um, and collaborate from that point of view. And I'm also looking for those types of businesses. Because we have courses like I have an SEO course, I have a GEO course that I just. Brought out, and I have a few different, different courses. I also have affiliates, so I have a lot of like marketers who have clients that ask them about SEO, but they don't wanna teach it. And so they can share my course and they get an affiliate, um, cut of that. So that's like another nice collaboration of a way to diversify your income and you don't need to do anything, right. You just recommend the, you know, you have your link. Obviously you still have to recommend it, but, um, it's kind of a fun way and I've had a few different, um, like I have a friend who's a Pinterest marketer and she's had great success recommending my courses.'cause a lot of people ask her about SEO but she doesn't wanna teach SEO. She doesn't, you know, wanna do SEO. So it's like just such a natural thing for her to recommend.

Candice Dorsey:

Yeah, this is great because I actually have someone. In my boss ladies community weeks ago ask about, um, they're like, I wanna know how to do SEL for my social media. And I'm like, girlfriend. I was like, oh, please don't ask me that. I'm just showing you how to just do it, you know, for your business. I was like, I am not going that deep, but this is good to know that I know someone like that can actually help and support in that particular area. So,

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah.

Candice Dorsey:

um, send over, you know, affiliate link and everything. I would definitely let the, my boss ladies know. and how do people connect with you?

Cinthia Pacheco:

Yeah, so you can go to the site, digital bloom iq.com. And I'm also on Instagram after all the bitching I did about the reels. I am on Instagram. I do spend the hour on the reel too, so it's Digital Bloom IQ on Instagram.

Candice Dorsey:

We'll definitely link those up in the show notes. Well, Cynthia, thank you so much for coming on. Hey boss ladies.

Cinthia Pacheco:

Thanks Candace. I had a great time.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of Hey Boss Ladies, if you love what you heard, don't forget to follow the show, leave a review or share with a business bestie. And if you're ready for deeper conversation and powerful connection, join us inside the hey boss ladies collaboration experience happening every month. The link is in the show notes below. Until next time, stay bold, stay brilliant, and keep showing up like the boss you are.