April 21, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of The OBM Show (also available to watch on YouTube), I sit down with Accredited OBM Lindsay Connolly, a former NYC fashion executive turned remote OBM working from Belgium, to unpack her incredible journey from corporate leadership to building a purpose-driven, high-value business.
Lindsay didn’t start as a VA or test the waters with small freelance gigs. She made a clear, intentional leap into the OBM role—charging premium rates from day one and designing a business that fits her life, not the other way around. In this conversation, she shares the mindset shifts, systems, and real-world strategies that helped her confidently step into a new career with clarity and conviction.
We talk about:
- What prompted Lindsay’s career pivot and how a move abroad became the catalyst for change
- How OBM Week and the OBM School Accelerator gave her the tools and confidence to start strong
- Her approach to pricing, setting boundaries, and sticking to $100/hr—even when it felt scary
- What her business looks like today: a 25-hour workweek, premium clients, and clear systems
- The identity shift that came with this work—and how it’s transformed her presence at home and in business
If you’ve ever felt unsure whether your skills can “translate” into the online world, or you’re craving a business built around your values and life—this episode will give you the clarity, inspiration, and proof that you already have what it takes.
—------------------------------
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✨ Ready to take the next step?
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Until next time—keep building the business behind the business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Today I'm sharing one of the most inspiring OBM
journeys I've had the honor ofwitnessing because I'll be
honest with you guys, sometimesThe biggest personal
transformations come from theboldest career moves.
My guest today is LindsayConnolly, a graduate of both our
accelerator and accreditationprograms, and a shining example
(00:21):
of how powerful it can be to beton yourself.
When Lindsay relocated from NewYork to Belgium in early 2020
with her husband andtwo-year-old, she found herself
at a crossroads.
She had a solid corporatebackground, but no idea how to
break into the online space.
Fast forward to today andLindsay runs a premium OBM
(00:43):
business serving clients acrossindustries without ever
discounting her rates.
In this episode, we talk aboutthe unexpected moment that led
her to the OBM path, what itreally looked like to get her
first clients, and how she builtconfidence in a brand new
environment, and how she usedher natural skills and corporate
(01:03):
transferable skills to deliverhigh value services and as an
online business manager.
If you've ever wondered whetheryour experience in corporate, in
life, translates into the onlineworld, or whether it's possible
to charge premium rates as anewcomer, this episode is for
you.
(01:23):
Let's dive in.
Welcome to the OBM show, thepodcast that pulls back the
curtain on what it really takesto thrive as an online business
manager and help businessesscale without burning out.
I'm your host, Sarah Noked,agency owner, OBM mentor, and
(01:44):
founder of OBM School.
I've been working in the backend of online businesses since
2009, building systems, managingremote teams, and mentoring OBMs
who make businesses run likeclockwork.
Now, I've seen what works, whatdoesn't, and the messy middle
that no one talks about.
(02:04):
Here, we get real about thetools, strategies, and stories
that drive sustainability.
If you're ready to stop spinningyour wheels, step into your
leadership role, and see whatactually happens behind the
scenes of thriving businesses,you're in the right place.
(02:28):
Let's get started.
Welcome, Lindsay.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Let's just get right into it.
So we want to talk a little bitabout your journey as an online
business manager.
So the lovely Lindsay is part ofour OBM school.
She is currently wrapping upcertification.
You have really had an amazingrun as an online business
(02:51):
manager thus far that we aredefinitely going to get into.
But before we do, can you speaka little bit about your journey
as an online business managerand how you found yourself in
Belgium.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm super excited to be here.
Thank you.
So my family and I moved toBelgium from New York in January
2020.
And I was working in corporatefashion companies at the time.
(03:14):
So I left my corporate job, asyou can imagine, to move to
another country, figure out howto start a life here.
And we moved for my husband'sjob.
So I was kind of a little bitout of work, kind of set with a
two-year-old at the time, liketrying to get everything
situated and set ourselves up ina new country.
That was about six weeks beforethe first COVID lockdown.
And yes, it was a lot of fun.
(03:36):
I think COVID has taught all ofus like we needed to find these
kind of balances that existed.
In my New York life, I wasreally running at like a million
miles an hour.
I'd always kind of known Iwanted to work for myself in
some capacity, but I didn'treally ever give myself time or
space to like figure out whatthat actually meant.
So when we moved here, it waslike, okay, well, corporate's
(03:58):
not really an option at themoment because of COVID and
because you're so fresh and Idon't speak any other languages
besides English.
I joined a business mastermind,which ironically, I was like, I
don't even know what amastermind is, but somebody
said, I was thinking like,they're going to tell me how to
start a business and like do allthese things.
(04:20):
And obviously that's not fullywhat a mastermind is, which is
fine.
But the coach of that mastermindwas like, you're basically like
an OBM.
And I was like, what is thisthing OBM?
So I'm like franticallyGoogling, like, what is this OBM
thing?
And that's really how I foundlike your space, your community
and all of that and reallystarted exploring.
That was like the beginning of2021.
(04:40):
So yeah, Yeah, that's great.
I love when people, you know, Ihear it.
I hear that all the time wherefriends or colleagues will say
to somebody, you know, you'dmake a really great OBM and then
they have to go and like figureout what that means and what
that looks like.
I think from the corporateworld, at least from my
(05:00):
perspective, I didn't havereally any idea what was
happening in the online space.
Like I knew there was peoplethat had businesses in the
online space, but like how theyran, I don't know.
I just, it was like, not even inmy, like, you universe at the
time.
So even coming into this spaceof like working with a coach and
everything was online, like itwas all just so strange to me.
(05:20):
So I'm like, what is this?
It is totally strange.
I'm like, what is this likeonline business?
What's a VA?
What are all these things thatyou can be like?
Who am I and how do I fit in?
So what were some of thosecompelling things that about the
OBM role that you were like, Oh,that's me.
Oh, I feel that.
Like, were there someoverarching or overwhelming
(05:42):
yeses for you?
Totally.
So I was the director ofoperations and process
improvement for these fashioncompanies that I worked at in
corporate.
And we do a lot of like projectmanagement ironically is now
known as launch planning, but Inever, it was like, you know,
are they taking it?
They're taking like a page fromour book.
(06:04):
I feel like maybe, maybe it'sgoing the opposite way actually.
But as I like started to seesome of your content and some of
your courses and even otherthings that I've seen online, I
was like, oh, I see when theysay this, it means this in my
world.
Oh, when they say this, it meansI was like, I know how to do all
this stuff.
You know, I had like zeroconfidence in the beginning and
a lot of imposter syndromebecause I was like, I don't know
(06:27):
what this online world is andlike how I even fit into it.
But then as you start like kindof understanding like the
translations between gettingback layers of fun totally like
this one means this thing andyou're like oh I can do this I
do this all the time I've donethis for 20 years like this
makes sense yeah this is like ohthis is so innate to me and I
(06:48):
find I mean it was like that forme for sure and I think more
than anything I was like OBM Ican really align myself with
that because I'm a manager andI'm a leader I don't want to be
somebody's assistant definitelywant to do more than just
project management although thatis a big part of what we do as
OBMs and for those of youlistening we will link in what
is an OBM here naturally,because some of you will find
(07:11):
that you want to kind of dig inmore and understand the full
scope of the role.
So that's so interesting to me.
So you were told by a coach,sort of like the stars aligned,
you found our community andwe'll leave that link down below
as well to our confident OBMcommunity.
So what was like your next step?
When you say the stars aligned,it like couldn't have worked out
(07:33):
more perfectly.
It was like one week before OBMweek.
Oh, wow.
But she had told me about thisand I'm like, you know, I did
nothing but Google about OBM.
I was watching all of your like.
All of my old unedited badvideos.
But it was all such good stuff.
I was coming from nothing.
So I was like, Ooh, what's thisgirl talking about?
(07:54):
I like it.
And then you're like, I'm givingthis four day workshop of OBM
week.
And I'm like, well, you know, Iwork for myself, so I guess I
could do it.
Yeah.
And, you know, join the houreach day.
And I won.
the accelerator.
And I'm like, this is fate.
This is literally fate.
Because do you win anything?
I've never won anything in mylife.
(08:16):
Never.
I never win anything.
And you were like, Lindsay.
And I'm like, And I turned on mycamera and I was like, hi.
And my son's like, what'shappening?
And I was like, I don't know.
He's so strange.
Oh, I love that.
I forgot that you won theaccelerator.
And you know what?
Actually at the time of thisvideo airing, we are actually
(08:38):
currently in OBM week.
So those of you, you can stillsign up and catch those replays.
Do it.
Just do it.
Just do it.
Just take action.
Because I think like a lot ofwhat I didn't understand And
it's more about talking topeople, I think, that are
corporate curious, let me say,of like, you don't even know
really like maybe, you know,you're not totally happy in
(09:01):
corporate or like there's maybeyou're in denial.
That's OK.
We're going to leave you there.
Also, you know, anything you'rejust exploring your
opportunities.
Right.
And I think that like there's alot of really amazing
transferable information thatcame out of OBM week that was
like, oh, yeah.
And that's how I started reallybuilding my confidence to say,
like, yeah, you can do this.
This is great.
(09:22):
You know, that warms my heartbecause that is my intention.
If I can just, and literally, Iknow this is cheesy, but if I
can just impact one, somebody'slife, especially a mom who is
looking for that flexibility,then I have everything.
legit done my job.
Game changer.
Game changer for me.
Yeah.
Really.
It's just like things reallystarted to take off and I
(09:44):
definitely by no means is easy.
No, no, I will never.
Yeah.
No, not, not an easy thing.
Starting your own business,running your own business,
marketing yourself.
Like I'm definitely not likemiss marketer.
No, no, me neither.
Yeah.
Despite what it looks likeonline, me neither.
Yeah.
I'm like very introverted.
We are behind the scenes people.
(10:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that is one of the biggestchallenges I've found is like,
how do people know what I'mdoing?
Besides reaching out to mynetwork, of course, of like,
well, but I'm separating a bit.
All my old people are mostlycorporate people.
There's nothing wrong with doingwork with corporate people, but
also I'm separating into thisonline space too.
And I'm like, how do I even, Idon't even know anybody over
(10:26):
here in this online space.
That's been one of my biggestchallenges.
And really one of my main goalsfor 2022 is like, just get
yourself out there.
You got to get out of your ownway, figure out what platform
you want to talk on and just gotalk and just go and do it.
Yeah.
And I think overwhelmed byeveryone else.
Yeah.
A great book that I'm actuallylistening to on audio again is
(10:47):
atomic habits by James, youknow, and so that book and we'll
link that below here as well.
Cause I think it's so importantto recognize that these small
little changes, like even if youjust spend like literally 1%
more and being consistent, youknow, it could be like a
Facebook group that perhapsyou're a part of, or some other
community or, you know, arelationship that you are
(11:09):
building.
And you just, every day you likecarve away a little bit more and
more and more.
And that's really all it is.
It's just being consistent.
I want to rewind a little bit.
So after OBM week, you got theprize of you won the spot in the
OBM accelerator, which isamazing.
So then you just kicked it intohigh gear.
So from that point of just kindof immersing your in our world
(11:30):
inside of OBM school, how longafter that did you start to like
get moving as an OBM landclients and all that good stuff?
It definitely took some time.
And I think a lot of it had todo with also my imposter
syndrome.
So I think coming from thecorporate side of things where I
was like, yeah, I see thetransfer, but I'm like, I'm
still scared to talk to theseonline people because it just
(11:53):
seems like, Because there's theframework.
It's like, yes, I've got allthese transferable skills, but
where's the framework?
How do I blend this intosomething that I can like serve
on a beautiful platter and havethem eat it up?
Yeah.
So I think the amazing thingabout the accelerator and like
all the great information andcontent that you have in that
(12:13):
program is it started to likegive me the confidence that as I
was reading what you were sayingand all the SOPs that you give
us and in your videos, I waslike, yeah.
I would say that same thing.
Okay, I understand now how she'ssaying it and how it's relating.
And at that point, then I hireda business coach for one on one
(12:33):
at that point.
And it was like, okay, just goon Instagram and make a story
and just talk about what you didtoday.
Like from a client perspective.
Right.
And you have to do it to whereyou feel comfortable.
You know, like you don't go outthere and think that you're
trying to be someone else thatyou're not.
And the hardest part for me wasI didn't have a lot of clients
in the beginning.
So I said like, oh, I don't haveany examples that I could even
(12:57):
post on Instagram or post on,you know, the stories or
whatever.
So I just started pretendingthat I was working in my own
company as an OBM and that everylike activity in the,
accelerator I was doing to thismade up company.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I was like, oh, they're acoach because I don't really
(13:18):
know any other online serviceproviders like at that time.
Well, and now in the OBMcertification, I was like, oh,
it's perfect.
Exactly.
Here they are.
Dylan's here.
Yeah, exactly.
So really, I'll say that likeall of the pieces really fit
together for me when I startedworking in the certification
(13:39):
program, because it It was evenmore validation that I knew what
I was talking about.
And also I could apply thoseskills to said company.
Right.
Paid up company.
So you, I know because we'veworked together closely, I know
that you have a very richcorporate background.
You are like, even when we hadour interview to begin with, I
(14:00):
was like, oh, you need to start,you need to do the OBM thing.
So you...
went directly from corporateinto OBMing.
Because I think this isimportant to mention here
because a lot of people,including two that I've spoken
to just today, we feel sometimesthe need to step, not just one
step back, but like 18 stepsback.
(14:21):
So you're doing project andoperations management in your
corporate career.
And then what happens is when westart online, we have to start
at like a different level,almost going back to virtual
assistant or something of thatnature.
You didn't find that as a pullor were you like, what's this VA
thing?
Do I need to do that first?
(14:41):
There was definitely somethoughts in there.
It seems like in order to get anOBM client, I need to be a VA
first and like part of an agencyor something like that.
But to be honest with you, Ihave a more premium rate that I
charge and I'm completely pricedout of a VA range.
Like I would never get hired asa VA.
Which is so amazing to me.
(15:02):
I love that you've always beenlike, my prices are here.
I have to tell you and I have togive props to my first business
coach.
She was like, set the price anddon't ever look back.
Set the price and don't everlook back.
And I was like, I'm worth this.
And honestly, I have to coachmyself some days to be like, I'm
going to put my price down.
And it's like, no, you are worththis.
What you like bring to theseclients into this table is worth
(15:24):
this.
Don't second guess yourself.
I have a lot of mindset issuesaround like being at the premium
level, but being an imposter,but it is possible.
Well, I mean, I think, you know,I think sometimes I'm like,
well, it keeps you honest.
You know what I mean?
I mean, that's sort of, I thinkjust part of what we do to our
Yeah.
Yeah.
(15:59):
bringing value to the client.
My biggest joy is like seeingthat relief on their face when
you, yeah.
And they've got one time backorganized and they were like, Oh
my God, how did you do that?
This is amazing.
And I'm like, that made my wholeday and it made everything worth
it.
And now write me a testimonial.
But to get them to that point islike the more important thing to
(16:21):
me.
And I know that if I go over thecontract hours, I have to like
keep myself in line a bit, butto deliver to the expectation of
that, to like get there, Ididn't, I have to coach myself a
lot on this, but that is mygoal.
And that's why I'm worth it.
I think that's incredible.
And, you know, and important tomention here that we don't have
(16:43):
to go into your rate because itwill change and, you know, but
it is the over the hundreddollar an hour mark.
And it has been from thebeginning.
I've always really admired andappreciated that angle that you
have.
And I think it's reallyimportant because, you know, for
those of us who are scaling ateam-based business, which you
are, you have to have quoteunquote premium pricing.
(17:05):
I think it's just regularpricing that affords you the
flexibility of bringing on teamand having more time with your
son.
And, you know, which brings meto that beautiful question of
like, you know, what is yourwhy, you know, for doing all of
this?
So the first why is actually me,to be honest.
And that might sound veryselfish.
No, it doesn't at all.
(17:25):
I wish there was more of that inthis world.
Yeah.
I kind of mentioned earlier, Iwas running at a thousand miles
a minute.
When I lived in New York, Inever stopped.
I never turned off my emails.
I never turned offnotifications.
I never even like gave myself aminute to like know myself as a
mom.
And as like a wife, I gotmarried and I was like, who the
(17:46):
heck is this Lindsay Connellyperson?
And then I became a mom and Iwas like, what the heck?
I'm responsible for the smallhuman being.
Yeah.
And you're just...
in New York, you're just runningso fast all the time.
And I was like from here tohere, to here, to here, to
daycare, that I like, you know,the reason that this became so
(18:07):
important for me is that I couldmake my schedule.
I could move my scope.
I could do the things that trulylit me up.
And to be honest with you, I'mlike a much better mom to my son
now.
Oh, I'm a much better wife.
I don't know.
You could ask him, but I thinkI'm a much better wife to my
husband.
I know I'm a much better personto myself.
(18:28):
That's important.
Because when you're happy,everybody in your life is happy.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And the thing that's reallyamazing about this space that's
different from corporate is Ifound that in corporate, your
job can change all the time.
And you could have a new thingadded to your scope or your job
(18:48):
responsibilities, literally fromone day to the next.
And you can't really say muchabout it.
Like, yes, you can resign andfind a new job and whatever in
this, like you have a, firm,hard contract that says the
stope is the following, or Isuggest that you should have
that if you don't have that.
But by saying like, we agree tothese, you know, whatever five
(19:11):
objectives, if you're coming infrom outside of that, I'm sorry
that the answer is no.
Yeah.
And I for sure have to coachmyself all the time to be like,
say no.
Yeah, that's right.
Cause I mean, people pleaser isour default.
Yeah.
And I think you even have it inyour like commitment when you
want to become an OBM, like no.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we have our manifesto, ourOBM manifesto.
(19:32):
No is a complete sentence.
No is a complete sentence andit's okay to say it, but it's
also okay to say it.
I think that was kind of thedifference where it's like when
I came from corporate, it wasnever okay to say, no, I don't
have the bandwidth for this.
No, I don't have the team forthis.
No, I don't have the time.
And that's such a keydistinction of that employee
(19:53):
mindset versus the entrepreneurmindset or the leadership, not
necessarily leadership, but asan employee, you're like always
just doing, doing, doing.
And as a entrepreneur, you haveto, you have to say no.
And I think, I don't think, Iknow that our OBM clients
appreciate when we tell them no.
It's for their own benefitreally in the grand scheme of it
(20:15):
all.
Because I think if you're anoverworked OBM via anybody, if
you're overworked, you're reallynot giving a hundred percent.
No.
And honestly, the relationshipthen is probably a bit like
turmoiled at that point becauseyou probably get some resentment
or upset, you know, about likethe scope creep coming in.
And then they're like, whyaren't you delivering on this
thing you agreed to?
(20:36):
And you're like, I actually hateyou now.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Wait, how did we get here?
UNKNOWN (20:41):
This is what I think about you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
You're like, you're my best client.
How did we end up here?
And it's like scope creep.
I know.
Say no to scope creep.
That's so true.
Say no to scope creep.
Yeah, it just really does screwthings up all together.
So you, I mean, you came fromcorporate to the OBM space.
What did you bring with you fromyour corporate job?
Like you had...
From a knowledge perspective?
(21:03):
Not from a knowledgeperspective, because I know that
because we obviously we'veworked together.
I just want to highlight herethat special sort of energy you
have because there is thisnotion that an online business
manager works with onlinebusinesses only.
I want to shout it from therooftops that Actually, no, we
work remotely and we're not inthe office.
(21:26):
We're online in that sense, butwe work with all kinds of
clients.
And the reason why I was like,we have to talk to Lindsay is
because you're working withmainly, I know it's changed
recently, but mainly corporateand your past corporate
contacts.
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
And a lot of my initialconnections and contracts were
(21:49):
with corporate companies.
And I will tell you that that isa lot of how I got my mindset
strength around saying no,because it's very hard to work
with your former employers orformer like colleagues and that
kind of thing and be able tokind of hold scope.
But yeah, there is a place inthis world where operations
departments and operations teamsand all of that can be run from
(22:12):
an online space in the corporateworld and you still have
boundaries and you're stillworking as a, you know, in your
own business, in your own space.
It is possible.
That's how I've built mybusiness over the last year, to
be honest with you.
So it's the main revenue driverfor me.
Which is incredible.
I think that is so inspiring forme.
And I think for a lot of ourlisteners, because there's a lot
(22:33):
of people that are in corporatenow and thinking to themselves,
I'm ready to do the OBM thing.
I'm not really sure what myniche is going to look like.
I'm not really sure what X, Y,and Z is going to look like, but
you know, I'm ready, I'm readyto do this.
So recently you have startedworking with different, I think
more traditional OBM clients.
(22:54):
So how did that come about?
The first non-corporate client,let me say, was actually a food
truck.
So that was a little bit of ahybrid event planning was
online, but like obviouslyphysically they were somewhere.
And then now I'm actually with aclient that is fully online
based.
So we're doing like the fullcourse thing.
(23:15):
And he's in Belgium, right?
He's in Belgium.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
I do remember you mentioningthat.
Ooh.
Cause people are like Europeansdon't have online businesses.
I'm like, yeah, they do.
And it's so funny.
They just don't call them thesame thing here yet.
So it's like really, um, I'dlove to be like introducing this
term online business manager.
(23:36):
Well, that's a great Instagramlive to talk about that.
UNKNOWN (23:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
If you're like kind of scared ofhow you figure out how to
transition over, you never knowwhat your company is going to
say.
They really value you.
And if you have a feeling ofwanting to start your own
business or kind of live by yourown design kind of thing, and
you're in this kind of moreproject management, operations
type role, something like that,it wouldn't hurt for you to like
(24:01):
give it a shot to say, what doesit look like if I was working
only 20 hours a week, forexample, in this same kind of
role, but I have an opportunityof learning this OBM thing and
I'm not working for you fulltime.
And corporations have a lot ofbenefits for you to not be
working full time.
I know there's some liabilities,but, you know, and you can start
(24:22):
kind of learning and growing inthat way.
And then from that really gaveme the ideas of how I got
non-corporate clients, because Iwas like, wow, if these people
are having these problems, soare these people.
And really all of our problemsare the same, regardless of the
type of business and industrythat we're in.
As long as it's a provenbusiness model and the
(24:45):
entrepreneur has that mindsetfor delegation and there's
revenue coming, there's noreason why we can't fit
ourselves in there in some way.
Yeah.
And in the end, I've found thatlike 60 to 70% of all
operations, regardless of thetype of industry it is, is
mostly the same.
It's a lot of the sameactivities.
(25:07):
I mean, yes, one business mightdo these three things and this
guy over here doesn't do that.
And so, you know, it's a copyand paste kind of activity.
But I got a lot of questions inthe first year, like, what's
your niche?
What's your niche?
And I'm like, yeah, I'm notworried about a niche.
Like, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Cause you don't need to worryabout a niche.
Yeah.
I feel like we, we all, wealways want to get to the finish
(25:30):
line and I'm like, enjoy it.
You know, after, more than adecade of being an OBM, I'm
still like, you know, maybe Iniche on business size, but
that's about it.
You know, an industry size andmaybe how many employees or team
members this client has.
But I mean, that's part of thebeauty, I think, of being an OBM
is, being able to choose andwork with different industries.
(25:53):
Because otherwise, life getsboring.
And that's why we left corporateto begin with.
Let's be honest.
Totally.
And I was going to say the samething.
I actually get a little bitirritated when people are like,
what's your industry niche?
And I'm like, I don't have one.
You want to know why?
I love everyone.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, okay.
I don't love everyone, but youknow what I mean?
I love, I love business, alldifferent kinds of business.
(26:15):
I want to know about the foodtruck and how, I don't know how
food trucks work.
Cool.
Tell me about it.
I want to know about the financeguy.
I want to know about the coach.
I want to know about the graphicdesigner.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, there's,yeah.
One of the things I learned wayback when was, you know, when
you are, when you have acompetitive advantage and,
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(26:54):
when it comes to those things.
And I'm like, you know what?
I don't want to pigeonholemyself.
(27:19):
No.
ads because you said somethingout loud next to your phone.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm like, I don't know theanswer to that question.
And honestly, like the businessreally started when I was like,
everybody, everybody shut up.
(27:40):
And just let me be honest withmyself.
Let me, I know what I need todo.
I know how to start a business.
I know how to run a business.
I know how to take theinformation and piece it
together to a thing that feelsright for me.
For you.
Stop with all the other stuffand just be honest with
yourself, Lindsay, because youknow what to do.
(28:00):
Right.
And really it was like verytransformational for me.
It was like my mini breakthroughwhere I was like, ah, Things
make sense now.
It's starting to clip.
Just be honest with yourself.
At what point were you in thejourney?
Like a year in, six months in?
Yeah, it was like a year later.
Yeah, no, totally.
Because I think it's importantin our day in the life to
(28:21):
highlight that.
And I say to people all thetime, they ask me, well, how
long is the accelerator?
Well, it's a 12-week moduledrip.
But the program is six months.
And it's going to take you atleast that, if not longer, to
make this work for yourself.
Yes, for sure.
And there's like the, the prothe program is so jam packed,
which is amazing.
It was so overwhelming at firstthat I was like, okay, save this
(28:44):
one.
Cause eventually you're going tohave to do this thing.
Right.
Right.
But not right now.
You're not, you know, I'm tryingto think of, you're not
onboarding a client at thismoment.
So just put that one on the sidefor a second.
Right.
So now my process actually hasbeen okay here.
I'm at this stepping stone in mybusiness.
How do you want to do it?
Lindsay?
Okay.
(29:05):
you know, X, Y, Z.
Now I'll go see what Sarah did.
Just curious.
Did I, maybe Sarah missed, hadsomething that I missed or maybe
like I had something that shemissed.
And then I was like, okay, howcan I make it melded together?
That feels good and right to meand how I want to like present
myself to the world.
And that I found is like mysecret sauce of like your genius
(29:28):
that you've given us, like myown genius, like melding
together to be like exactly theYeah.
How I want my business andmyself to be portrayed.
I want to talk a little bit herearound what a day in the life
looks like in the Lindsayhousehold from the time you drop
off that little angel to thetime you tuck him in at
(29:48):
nighttime.
So, yeah, so I actually kind ofstart my weeks on Sunday
mornings, I try to get up beforethe family, if I'm lucky.
And I'll take like, I don'tknow, 45 minutes to an hour to
just look at the next week.
And the first thing is like,what's coming up from a personal
(30:09):
perspective of the week, like,Does my son have an activity
after school?
Who's cooking dinner?
Do I need my husband to help mewith pickups certain days?
Can he do it?
Who has night meetings?
I mean, my husband works acorporate job.
at the moment.
So I have East coast clients ofthe United States and he also
has us colleagues.
We have night meetings.
(30:31):
And so we try to like balancelike, okay, you have a night
meeting on Monday.
So I'm going to block mycalendar.
All right.
I'm going to have night meetingson Wednesdays.
So on Sundays, really we'redoing like, what's our family
going to do?
That's so, I love that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Um, and then Monday morning,like when I finally, I dropped
my son off at school, I don't doanything before, like when he
(30:53):
gets dropped off, then I'm like,okay, sit in your office.
No, then you have to have like10 coffees and be like, I know I
at least need a five minute likedance party about I'm by myself
finally for the first time ofthe week.
You know, then I'm looking atthe calendar and I'm like, okay,
I set up my calendars.
I put like a time blockingGoogle calendar separately.
(31:14):
So what I do is blockreoccurring meetings for what
days I'm going to be working onwhat clients.
So typically I have like one tothree hour time blocks named in
this special Google calendar forwhen I'll be working on that
client's activities.
I have a love-hate relationshipwith time blocking, but it
(31:36):
really has helped keep me ontrack.
Because you're like, but there'snot enough time in the day.
Right.
But then I was like, wow, lookat all this stuff you got done.
Like there actually is if youfocus.
Well, it's Parkinson's law,right?
If you have the whole day, it'sgoing to take the whole day.
If you allow yourself threehours, you're going to get it
done in three hours.
Yeah, totally.
So I end up like, you know,shifting around if the client
(31:57):
asks for a meeting and thenwhatever.
But I try to keep Mondays andFridays completely meeting free
if possible.
Fridays is always a three hourtime block for CEO time.
So it's- Love that.
only working on my business.
Yes.
Um, nothing else.
And like, if somebody tries toblock over that time, it's like
moved to your husband's likedate date.
(32:19):
And I'm like, no, no,sweetheart, you can come at six
o'clock.
You can come, no five o'clock,whatever.
Um, but you know, besides that,then I have like, for sure
blocked out.
I drop off my son between eighto'clock and nine o'clock every
morning.
I pick up my son between four 30or five o'clock.
to six o'clock every day.
I'm at dinner until eighto'clock would be a very big
(32:42):
exception for you to get me onthe phone from between five
o'clock and eight o'clock.
My dad.
Yeah.
That's my family time.
That's dinner time.
That's like, I don't look at myphone and that's protected time,
protected time.
And that's like the baseline ofthe calendar.
Like if any of those things haveto move, my son has to be picked
up early for whatever reason.
(33:03):
And he can't go to the daycareafter school because everything
shifts to accommodate all of thefamily time.
Yeah.
That's also why I love this.
That's also why I love thisopportunity too.
It's like, it just, that neverwould have existed before.
Yeah.
It's, it's just magical.
I love the time blocking thingbecause time blocking is
(33:23):
definitely where it's at.
So Lindsay, how many clients areon your roster currently?
Three.
Three.
So like how many hours do you,would you say you work on client
stuff?
In a week?
In a week, probably like 25hours.
25 hours.
So like you're pretty muchworking like five to six hours a
(33:44):
day.
Cause you know, Mondays andFridays, you're not doing the
meetings, which I love.
I think it's so important to sayhere that, um, you know, we
don't need to show up every dayfor meetings.
Like Mondays and Tuesdays arethe only days a week that I
actually do meetings.
I mean, I'm in my pajamas mostof the time anyways, but there's
a certain mindset that you haveto get into before you have a
meeting.
You know, I don't know.
(34:04):
Like, it's just, I don't, Idon't know.
It's like, it's hard for mesometimes to get into that mood
or into that mindset.
So I love that you've mentionedthat.
And then when you are working onclient stuff, five hours a day,
let's say on average.
Yeah.
What kinds of things are youdoing?
Cause I think people sometimesare like, what does an OBM do?
Like what, what does that looklike?
So it's different.
(34:25):
Okay.
So in my court with thecorporate client, I'm helping
introduce these best practicesof the OBM space into the
corporate environment.
So there's, Exactly.
That's like the biggest one,right?
Like, yes, there was someclick-through guides that was
like, click here to do thisspecific action.
But in their equivalent of alaunch plan, there was not
(34:46):
process documents like lined upin the fashion industry.
You call it a go-to-marketcalendar when you bring your
product to market.
There's like a hundredactivities that have to happen
in order for you to get clothesin a store, let's
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
say.
SPEAKER_00 (35:01):
And it's, you know, you calculate the whole calendar
and there was a lot of like kindof subjectivity and emotion
around it, not just around liketrue calculated dates.
So I've been like creating forthat space, number one, a
calculation.
So it's like, if we're going tochange this date, this is how
everything shifts becauseeverything is calculated based
(35:21):
on dependencies.
It's kind of like, if you know,project management, that's kind
of traditional projectmanagement.
Yeah.
So a lot of project managementSOPs baking out for those
corporate.
Yeah.
Yes.
Now we're going like, what doesthis line item say?
Okay.
What is the exact SOP that goeswith this line item?
And we're linking it up andwe're doing exactly that.
I want the click-throughs.
I want to like know why I'mdoing it, who's involved.
(35:45):
And that's really one of the bigthings I think that was like, we
all probably knew it incorporate, but we never gave the
time to do it.
Right.
The beauty of this space islike, You don't have someone
coming to your desk all thetime.
You don't have somebodyinterrupting you.
You're not nonstop on meetings.
Right.
And you're, you're enough in thebig picture to know why you're
doing the things.
(36:05):
When I was in corporate, my bossused to say to me all the time,
well, just come up with astrategy for that.
Well, how can I come up with astrategy if I don't know what
the big picture is here?
I don't know where we're going.
I don't, I don't have thosedetails.
The separation from likephysically being there with
people in the office, if peopleare going back to the office,
like really does change thingsas well.
Like I'm not in any of thebureaucracy.
(36:28):
I'm not in any of the gossip.
I'm not in any of the otherstuff that can like take away
time from the day.
Yeah.
I like hanging out in the cookiecorner all afternoon.
Yeah.
You know, the cookies are alwaysgood, but you know, in the end,
like you're not getting shitdone.
Right.
So like in this kind of space,you're able to take the best
practice of like, how do I getshit done?
Yeah.
And, and give it to them.
(36:49):
So that's like the corporateworld.
And I think there's a lot ofopportunity systems and project
management.
There's never an end to that.
I think a lot of the times asOBMs, when we're managing
projects, we're like, well, it'sso natural for me to organize
things or to put things into aproject management tool.
You know, I think oftentimeslike, That's the work of an OBM.
Like that's exactly what it is.
(37:09):
It's a lot of project and teammanagement and, you know,
helping that client get clearabout their ideas as well.
And being that sounding board.
I think that that's like thebiggest thing in the not.
So now if we switch to thenon-corporate line, every
business owner that I've workedwith has this like great vision
of how it works.
And yeah, The beauty of being anOBM coming into their business
(37:32):
is you have the outsider'sperspective.
So you say, okay, I see that youwant like these things to
happen.
I'm going to ask you all thequestions because you don't
think to ask yourself, you'redoing things and you don't
realize that you're doing themin a reoccurring fashion or
whatever.
Or even just like, let's sayyou're going to launch a course.
That doesn't happen frequently,but you don't realize what
(37:54):
you're doing as the businessowner sometimes to launch the
course.
If I'm sitting here and watchingyou or I have no idea what your
course is about, I'm going toask you so many questions that
ultimately will lead towardssuccess.
all those SOPs so that we can doit better the next time and
faster.
And clear goals and a clearstrategy.
(38:15):
Let's get it all out on thetable.
Let's set the client'sexpectations so that they're
realistic.
You want to launch?
great.
We're going to launch that intwo months, not next week.
Right.
Yes.
Well, there's definitely that.
Cause you know, you've got allthese goals.
That's great.
You know, I want to make thishappen and make this the best
launch ever.
One of them has been launchplanning that I've been doing
(38:35):
with a lot of client, whichproject number three in the
certification.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, what's a lot offun is like being able to, it's
a lot of fun for me.
I know a lot of people are like,no launch planning.
And I'm like, no launches are,can be fun.
Everything is a launch too.
Like you said it, yourself atthe beginning.
We're calling project managementlaunch something.
(38:56):
Yeah, exactly.
What is that?
Okay.
It makes sense.
Yeah.
A launch is just managing aproject.
That's all it is.
It sounds scarier, but it's not.
Don't be scared of launches.
Don't get, don't get wrapped upin that.
You know, don't go down thatroad with your client.
No, but even if you take like,so if I go to the food truck as
(39:16):
an example, they have nothing todo with launches, but what they
wanted to do was automate someof their processes in a better
way than manually, like gettingan email from a client and
manually putting their name inGoogle contacts and then
manually having having it inthis, other, you know,
reconciliation.
Automations are great.
Yeah.
The business owner was like, Iknow there's a way.
(39:37):
Yeah.
I don't have time to do it.
Yeah.
And it's not my zone of genius.
Yeah.
And I was like, let's just getin here.
Let's talk about the end goal,like how you envision it.
And then let's just back it outfrom there.
That in and of itself is alaunch of like getting to the
final point of automation.
To me, those are the things likeyou automate one thing for
someone and they were like, liketheir whole, someone on their
(39:59):
team, their whole mind iscompletely blown.
And I'm like, I love that.
That is what I live for.
Yeah, exactly.
That look on someone's face.
Like, yeah, yeah.
The breakthrough moment.
Yeah.
You just saved me an hour andI'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so good.
Yeah.
I, I, I love that as well.
It's just such, it's like thenod towards the, like you're
doing, you're in your zone ofgenius lens.
(40:20):
You're doing what you should bedoing and you're having a really
great impact on people.
Yeah.
I think that's a really goodthing to bring up, too, is like
I struggled a lot with goinglike this is really easy for me.
So it must be easy for otherpeople.
And it's not.
And I think recognizing likeit's easy for me.
So let me just help you.
You know, not everybody is readyto accept help as a business
(40:43):
owner.
Some people are still trying tofigure it out on their own,
which is totally fine, you know.
Do you, when you're in and whenyou're ready, just know, like,
there are people in the worldwho really get out on this shit.
Yeah.
I mean, really, it's like, I hada conversation with a friend and
I was like working on thislaunch plan.
I was like, oh my God, it's soexciting.
And he was like, why are wetalking about this?
(41:05):
And I'm like, I am so excited.
You're like cracking open thatbottle of wine and working on a
launch plan.
I have to literally tell peoplethis.
I'm like public serviceannouncement, just because
project management andorganization and being, you
know, maybe not, maybe a peoplepleaser also, but like, you
know, being very likeempathetic, let's say towards
(41:27):
people just because you're likethat doesn't mean that you
shouldn't charge for it or youshould give that away for free.
That's actually what you need tocharge for.
Yes.
It is.
And it's really easy.
I think when you come into thisonline space that you're like,
but it's easy for everyone.
So I don't need to charge.
(41:48):
Well, it only takes me threeminutes to do it.
And I was like, yes, but it tookthat person three hours to do
it.
And they still didn't get itright.
And they're not sure if it'sactually working.
They have no way of testing it.
Yeah.
I mean, who knows?
Right.
And, and, and it may be if it'ssomething recurring, like they
don't even remember to go checkit next week or next month.
Exactly.
Or they're sitting up in bed allnight being like, oh my God, did
(42:10):
this get done?
Did that get done?
Like people ask like, well,where is, where do you find OBM
clients?
Well, they're usuallydisheveled.
They're usually exhausted, youknow, because they're doing all
the things and it's, it'sterrible because there's so much
of this that falls into our zoneof genius where we can really,
really support them.
Yeah.
I mean, one of my biggest goalsof this business is like, you
(42:30):
know, people would say like, howdo you want to help people?
How do you want to serve people?
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know.
And it's just even recently onlycome into clarity for me where
it's like, you know what?
I want to help people sleep.
Yeah.
I want to help people if theyhave family, friends, kids,
dogs, like whatever balance,whoever you're like, you know,
(42:51):
people are that you want to bespending your time with.
Like, I want you back with them.
for as much time as you can, butlike, let's run a successful
business.
Let's make a lot of money.
Yeah.
And let's like, enjoy beinghumans.
Yes.
And not behind a computer, likeall day.
Let's enjoy our lives.
Yeah.
Let's enjoy our lives.
Which brings me to my finalquestion.
(43:11):
If somebody came up to you andsaid, Lindsay, I'm thinking
about being an OBM.
what words of advice do you haveto give me?
What would you tell somebodywho's like thinking about it,
but maybe hasn't yet taken theleap?
The curious ones, the curiousones.
Yeah, the curious ones.
Like, can I do this?
Do I have what it takes?
Yes, you do.
(43:32):
That's number one.
Tell yourself yes, but giveyourself space and grace, which
is like, don't just run in to doit because we're talking about
it here or you saw it onInstagram or you saw it,
whatever.
And like, you think it's thenext thing to do, whatever.
Thank you so much.
(44:06):
You know, and I'm not trying tolike pitch your program or
anything, but saying like, justtake an hour each day.
You don't have to come on off ofmute.
You don't have to put your videoon if you're not comfortable.
Just listen to it and likeabsorb it.
Let your mind think about it.
Ideate it.
Give yourself time.
Yes.
Give yourself time.
We never give ourselves enoughtime.
We don't give ourselves time orwe expect it.
(44:28):
Well, what do you mean?
I have to spend time learningsomething new.
Oh, that freaks me out.
Like I get that too.
It's going to make sense when itmakes sense and it's going to
make sense at a different timefor you than it did for me, than
it did for you, than it's goingto be for someone else.
Like just give yourself space,be honest with yourself.
If like this is right or not,right.
Trust yourself.
(44:48):
What a story.
Lindsay's journey is such apowerful reminder that the right
career move doesn't just changeyour professional trajectory.
It can transform your entirelife from moving across the
world to building a thriving OBMbusiness on her own terms.
Lindsay shows us what's possiblewhen you combine courage,
(45:10):
clarity, and the right support.
And I love how she leaned intoher natural strengths and never
compromised on Proof that youdon't have to start at the
bottom just because you'restarting something new.
If you're feeling inspired totake your first step or your
next step in the OBM world, headon over to obmschool.com forward
(45:32):
slash resources to grab our freeOBM starter kit, explore our
training programs, and see howwe support aspiring OBMs like
Lindsay to build careers theylove.
You'll also find Lindsay's linksand every resource mentioned in
today's episode listed for youin the show notes.
Thanks for tuning in, and I'llcatch you next time on The OBM
(45:53):
Show.
Today I'm sharing one of the most inspiring OBM
journeys I've had the honor ofwitnessing because I'll be
honest with you guys, sometimesThe biggest personal
transformations come from theboldest career moves.
My guest today is LindsayConnolly, a graduate of both our
accelerator and accreditationprograms, and a shining example
(00:21):
of how powerful it can be to beton yourself.
When Lindsay relocated from NewYork to Belgium in early 2020
with her husband andtwo-year-old, she found herself
at a crossroads.
She had a solid corporatebackground, but no idea how to
break into the online space.
Fast forward to today andLindsay runs a premium OBM
(00:43):
business serving clients acrossindustries without ever
discounting her rates.
In this episode, we talk aboutthe unexpected moment that led
her to the OBM path, what itreally looked like to get her
first clients, and how she builtconfidence in a brand new
environment, and how she usedher natural skills and corporate
(01:03):
transferable skills to deliverhigh value services and as an
online business manager.
If you've ever wondered whetheryour experience in corporate, in
life, translates into the onlineworld, or whether it's possible
to charge premium rates as anewcomer, this episode is for
you.
(01:23):
Let's dive in.
Welcome to the OBM show, thepodcast that pulls back the
curtain on what it really takesto thrive as an online business
manager and help businessesscale without burning out.
I'm your host, Sarah Noked,agency owner, OBM mentor, and
(01:44):
founder of OBM School.
I've been working in the backend of online businesses since
2009, building systems, managingremote teams, and mentoring OBMs
who make businesses run likeclockwork.
Now, I've seen what works, whatdoesn't, and the messy middle
that no one talks about.
(02:04):
Here, we get real about thetools, strategies, and stories
that drive sustainability.
If you're ready to stop spinningyour wheels, step into your
leadership role, and see whatactually happens behind the
scenes of thriving businesses,you're in the right place.
(02:28):
Let's get started.
Welcome, Lindsay.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Let's just get right into it.
So we want to talk a little bitabout your journey as an online
business manager.
So the lovely Lindsay is part ofour OBM school.
She is currently wrapping upcertification.
You have really had an amazingrun as an online business
(02:51):
manager thus far that we aredefinitely going to get into.
But before we do, can you speaka little bit about your journey
as an online business managerand how you found yourself in
Belgium.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm super excited to be here.
Thank you.
So my family and I moved toBelgium from New York in January
2020.
And I was working in corporatefashion companies at the time.
(03:14):
So I left my corporate job, asyou can imagine, to move to
another country, figure out howto start a life here.
And we moved for my husband'sjob.
So I was kind of a little bitout of work, kind of set with a
two-year-old at the time, liketrying to get everything
situated and set ourselves up ina new country.
That was about six weeks beforethe first COVID lockdown.
And yes, it was a lot of fun.
(03:36):
I think COVID has taught all ofus like we needed to find these
kind of balances that existed.
In my New York life, I wasreally running at like a million
miles an hour.
I'd always kind of known Iwanted to work for myself in
some capacity, but I didn'treally ever give myself time or
space to like figure out whatthat actually meant.
So when we moved here, it waslike, okay, well, corporate's
(03:58):
not really an option at themoment because of COVID and
because you're so fresh and Idon't speak any other languages
besides English.
I joined a business mastermind,which ironically, I was like, I
don't even know what amastermind is, but somebody
said, I was thinking like,they're going to tell me how to
start a business and like do allthese things.
(04:20):
And obviously that's not fullywhat a mastermind is, which is
fine.
But the coach of that mastermindwas like, you're basically like
an OBM.
And I was like, what is thisthing OBM?
So I'm like franticallyGoogling, like, what is this OBM
thing?
And that's really how I foundlike your space, your community
and all of that and reallystarted exploring.
That was like the beginning of2021.
(04:40):
So yeah, Yeah, that's great.
I love when people, you know, Ihear it.
I hear that all the time wherefriends or colleagues will say
to somebody, you know, you'dmake a really great OBM and then
they have to go and like figureout what that means and what
that looks like.
I think from the corporateworld, at least from my
(05:00):
perspective, I didn't havereally any idea what was
happening in the online space.
Like I knew there was peoplethat had businesses in the
online space, but like how theyran, I don't know.
I just, it was like, not even inmy, like, you universe at the
time.
So even coming into this spaceof like working with a coach and
everything was online, like itwas all just so strange to me.
(05:20):
So I'm like, what is this?
It is totally strange.
I'm like, what is this likeonline business?
What's a VA?
What are all these things thatyou can be like?
Who am I and how do I fit in?
So what were some of thosecompelling things that about the
OBM role that you were like, Oh,that's me.
Oh, I feel that.
Like, were there someoverarching or overwhelming
(05:42):
yeses for you?
Totally.
So I was the director ofoperations and process
improvement for these fashioncompanies that I worked at in
corporate.
And we do a lot of like projectmanagement ironically is now
known as launch planning, but Inever, it was like, you know,
are they taking it?
They're taking like a page fromour book.
(06:04):
I feel like maybe, maybe it'sgoing the opposite way actually.
But as I like started to seesome of your content and some of
your courses and even otherthings that I've seen online, I
was like, oh, I see when theysay this, it means this in my
world.
Oh, when they say this, it meansI was like, I know how to do all
this stuff.
You know, I had like zeroconfidence in the beginning and
a lot of imposter syndromebecause I was like, I don't know
(06:27):
what this online world is andlike how I even fit into it.
But then as you start like kindof understanding like the
translations between gettingback layers of fun totally like
this one means this thing andyou're like oh I can do this I
do this all the time I've donethis for 20 years like this
makes sense yeah this is like ohthis is so innate to me and I
(06:48):
find I mean it was like that forme for sure and I think more
than anything I was like OBM Ican really align myself with
that because I'm a manager andI'm a leader I don't want to be
somebody's assistant definitelywant to do more than just
project management although thatis a big part of what we do as
OBMs and for those of youlistening we will link in what
is an OBM here naturally,because some of you will find
(07:11):
that you want to kind of dig inmore and understand the full
scope of the role.
So that's so interesting to me.
So you were told by a coach,sort of like the stars aligned,
you found our community andwe'll leave that link down below
as well to our confident OBMcommunity.
So what was like your next step?
When you say the stars aligned,it like couldn't have worked out
(07:33):
more perfectly.
It was like one week before OBMweek.
Oh, wow.
But she had told me about thisand I'm like, you know, I did
nothing but Google about OBM.
I was watching all of your like.
All of my old unedited badvideos.
But it was all such good stuff.
I was coming from nothing.
So I was like, Ooh, what's thisgirl talking about?
(07:54):
I like it.
And then you're like, I'm givingthis four day workshop of OBM
week.
And I'm like, well, you know, Iwork for myself, so I guess I
could do it.
Yeah.
And, you know, join the houreach day.
And I won.
the accelerator.
And I'm like, this is fate.
This is literally fate.
Because do you win anything?
I've never won anything in mylife.
(08:16):
Never.
I never win anything.
And you were like, Lindsay.
And I'm like, And I turned on mycamera and I was like, hi.
And my son's like, what'shappening?
And I was like, I don't know.
He's so strange.
Oh, I love that.
I forgot that you won theaccelerator.
And you know what?
Actually at the time of thisvideo airing, we are actually
(08:38):
currently in OBM week.
So those of you, you can stillsign up and catch those replays.
Do it.
Just do it.
Just do it.
Just take action.
Because I think like a lot ofwhat I didn't understand And
it's more about talking topeople, I think, that are
corporate curious, let me say,of like, you don't even know
really like maybe, you know,you're not totally happy in
(09:01):
corporate or like there's maybeyou're in denial.
That's OK.
We're going to leave you there.
Also, you know, anything you'rejust exploring your
opportunities.
Right.
And I think that like there's alot of really amazing
transferable information thatcame out of OBM week that was
like, oh, yeah.
And that's how I started reallybuilding my confidence to say,
like, yeah, you can do this.
This is great.
(09:22):
You know, that warms my heartbecause that is my intention.
If I can just, and literally, Iknow this is cheesy, but if I
can just impact one, somebody'slife, especially a mom who is
looking for that flexibility,then I have everything.
legit done my job.
Game changer.
Game changer for me.
Yeah.
Really.
It's just like things reallystarted to take off and I
(09:44):
definitely by no means is easy.
No, no, I will never.
Yeah.
No, not, not an easy thing.
Starting your own business,running your own business,
marketing yourself.
Like I'm definitely not likemiss marketer.
No, no, me neither.
Yeah.
Despite what it looks likeonline, me neither.
Yeah.
I'm like very introverted.
We are behind the scenes people.
(10:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that is one of the biggestchallenges I've found is like,
how do people know what I'mdoing?
Besides reaching out to mynetwork, of course, of like,
well, but I'm separating a bit.
All my old people are mostlycorporate people.
There's nothing wrong with doingwork with corporate people, but
also I'm separating into thisonline space too.
And I'm like, how do I even, Idon't even know anybody over
(10:26):
here in this online space.
That's been one of my biggestchallenges.
And really one of my main goalsfor 2022 is like, just get
yourself out there.
You got to get out of your ownway, figure out what platform
you want to talk on and just gotalk and just go and do it.
Yeah.
And I think overwhelmed byeveryone else.
Yeah.
A great book that I'm actuallylistening to on audio again is
(10:47):
atomic habits by James, youknow, and so that book and we'll
link that below here as well.
Cause I think it's so importantto recognize that these small
little changes, like even if youjust spend like literally 1%
more and being consistent, youknow, it could be like a
Facebook group that perhapsyou're a part of, or some other
community or, you know, arelationship that you are
(11:09):
building.
And you just, every day you likecarve away a little bit more and
more and more.
And that's really all it is.
It's just being consistent.
I want to rewind a little bit.
So after OBM week, you got theprize of you won the spot in the
OBM accelerator, which isamazing.
So then you just kicked it intohigh gear.
So from that point of just kindof immersing your in our world
(11:30):
inside of OBM school, how longafter that did you start to like
get moving as an OBM landclients and all that good stuff?
It definitely took some time.
And I think a lot of it had todo with also my imposter
syndrome.
So I think coming from thecorporate side of things where I
was like, yeah, I see thetransfer, but I'm like, I'm
still scared to talk to theseonline people because it just
(11:53):
seems like, Because there's theframework.
It's like, yes, I've got allthese transferable skills, but
where's the framework?
How do I blend this intosomething that I can like serve
on a beautiful platter and havethem eat it up?
Yeah.
So I think the amazing thingabout the accelerator and like
all the great information andcontent that you have in that
(12:13):
program is it started to likegive me the confidence that as I
was reading what you were sayingand all the SOPs that you give
us and in your videos, I waslike, yeah.
I would say that same thing.
Okay, I understand now how she'ssaying it and how it's relating.
And at that point, then I hireda business coach for one on one
(12:33):
at that point.
And it was like, okay, just goon Instagram and make a story
and just talk about what you didtoday.
Like from a client perspective.
Right.
And you have to do it to whereyou feel comfortable.
You know, like you don't go outthere and think that you're
trying to be someone else thatyou're not.
And the hardest part for me wasI didn't have a lot of clients
in the beginning.
So I said like, oh, I don't haveany examples that I could even
(12:57):
post on Instagram or post on,you know, the stories or
whatever.
So I just started pretendingthat I was working in my own
company as an OBM and that everylike activity in the,
accelerator I was doing to thismade up company.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I was like, oh, they're acoach because I don't really
(13:18):
know any other online serviceproviders like at that time.
Well, and now in the OBMcertification, I was like, oh,
it's perfect.
Exactly.
Here they are.
Dylan's here.
Yeah, exactly.
So really, I'll say that likeall of the pieces really fit
together for me when I startedworking in the certification
(13:39):
program, because it It was evenmore validation that I knew what
I was talking about.
And also I could apply thoseskills to said company.
Right.
Paid up company.
So you, I know because we'veworked together closely, I know
that you have a very richcorporate background.
You are like, even when we hadour interview to begin with, I
(14:00):
was like, oh, you need to start,you need to do the OBM thing.
So you...
went directly from corporateinto OBMing.
Because I think this isimportant to mention here
because a lot of people,including two that I've spoken
to just today, we feel sometimesthe need to step, not just one
step back, but like 18 stepsback.
(14:21):
So you're doing project andoperations management in your
corporate career.
And then what happens is when westart online, we have to start
at like a different level,almost going back to virtual
assistant or something of thatnature.
You didn't find that as a pullor were you like, what's this VA
thing?
Do I need to do that first?
(14:41):
There was definitely somethoughts in there.
It seems like in order to get anOBM client, I need to be a VA
first and like part of an agencyor something like that.
But to be honest with you, Ihave a more premium rate that I
charge and I'm completely pricedout of a VA range.
Like I would never get hired asa VA.
Which is so amazing to me.
(15:02):
I love that you've always beenlike, my prices are here.
I have to tell you and I have togive props to my first business
coach.
She was like, set the price anddon't ever look back.
Set the price and don't everlook back.
And I was like, I'm worth this.
And honestly, I have to coachmyself some days to be like, I'm
going to put my price down.
And it's like, no, you are worththis.
What you like bring to theseclients into this table is worth
(15:24):
this.
Don't second guess yourself.
I have a lot of mindset issuesaround like being at the premium
level, but being an imposter,but it is possible.
Well, I mean, I think, you know,I think sometimes I'm like,
well, it keeps you honest.
You know what I mean?
I mean, that's sort of, I thinkjust part of what we do to our
Yeah.
Yeah.
(15:59):
bringing value to the client.
My biggest joy is like seeingthat relief on their face when
you, yeah.
And they've got one time backorganized and they were like, Oh
my God, how did you do that?
This is amazing.
And I'm like, that made my wholeday and it made everything worth
it.
And now write me a testimonial.
But to get them to that point islike the more important thing to
(16:21):
me.
And I know that if I go over thecontract hours, I have to like
keep myself in line a bit, butto deliver to the expectation of
that, to like get there, Ididn't, I have to coach myself a
lot on this, but that is mygoal.
And that's why I'm worth it.
I think that's incredible.
And, you know, and important tomention here that we don't have
(16:43):
to go into your rate because itwill change and, you know, but
it is the over the hundreddollar an hour mark.
And it has been from thebeginning.
I've always really admired andappreciated that angle that you
have.
And I think it's reallyimportant because, you know, for
those of us who are scaling ateam-based business, which you
are, you have to have quoteunquote premium pricing.
(17:05):
I think it's just regularpricing that affords you the
flexibility of bringing on teamand having more time with your
son.
And, you know, which brings meto that beautiful question of
like, you know, what is yourwhy, you know, for doing all of
this?
So the first why is actually me,to be honest.
And that might sound veryselfish.
No, it doesn't at all.
(17:25):
I wish there was more of that inthis world.
Yeah.
I kind of mentioned earlier, Iwas running at a thousand miles
a minute.
When I lived in New York, Inever stopped.
I never turned off my emails.
I never turned offnotifications.
I never even like gave myself aminute to like know myself as a
mom.
And as like a wife, I gotmarried and I was like, who the
(17:46):
heck is this Lindsay Connellyperson?
And then I became a mom and Iwas like, what the heck?
I'm responsible for the smallhuman being.
Yeah.
And you're just...
in New York, you're just runningso fast all the time.
And I was like from here tohere, to here, to here, to
daycare, that I like, you know,the reason that this became so
(18:07):
important for me is that I couldmake my schedule.
I could move my scope.
I could do the things that trulylit me up.
And to be honest with you, I'mlike a much better mom to my son
now.
Oh, I'm a much better wife.
I don't know.
You could ask him, but I thinkI'm a much better wife to my
husband.
I know I'm a much better personto myself.
(18:28):
That's important.
Because when you're happy,everybody in your life is happy.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And the thing that's reallyamazing about this space that's
different from corporate is Ifound that in corporate, your
job can change all the time.
And you could have a new thingadded to your scope or your job
(18:48):
responsibilities, literally fromone day to the next.
And you can't really say muchabout it.
Like, yes, you can resign andfind a new job and whatever in
this, like you have a, firm,hard contract that says the
stope is the following, or Isuggest that you should have
that if you don't have that.
But by saying like, we agree tothese, you know, whatever five
(19:11):
objectives, if you're coming infrom outside of that, I'm sorry
that the answer is no.
Yeah.
And I for sure have to coachmyself all the time to be like,
say no.
Yeah, that's right.
Cause I mean, people pleaser isour default.
Yeah.
And I think you even have it inyour like commitment when you
want to become an OBM, like no.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we have our manifesto, ourOBM manifesto.
(19:32):
No is a complete sentence.
No is a complete sentence andit's okay to say it, but it's
also okay to say it.
I think that was kind of thedifference where it's like when
I came from corporate, it wasnever okay to say, no, I don't
have the bandwidth for this.
No, I don't have the team forthis.
No, I don't have the time.
And that's such a keydistinction of that employee
(19:53):
mindset versus the entrepreneurmindset or the leadership, not
necessarily leadership, but asan employee, you're like always
just doing, doing, doing.
And as a entrepreneur, you haveto, you have to say no.
And I think, I don't think, Iknow that our OBM clients
appreciate when we tell them no.
It's for their own benefitreally in the grand scheme of it
(20:15):
all.
Because I think if you're anoverworked OBM via anybody, if
you're overworked, you're reallynot giving a hundred percent.
No.
And honestly, the relationshipthen is probably a bit like
turmoiled at that point becauseyou probably get some resentment
or upset, you know, about likethe scope creep coming in.
And then they're like, whyaren't you delivering on this
thing you agreed to?
(20:36):
And you're like, I actually hateyou now.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Wait, how did we get here?
UNKNOWN (20:41):
This is what I think about you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
You're like, you're my best client.
How did we end up here?
And it's like scope creep.
I know.
Say no to scope creep.
That's so true.
Say no to scope creep.
Yeah, it just really does screwthings up all together.
So you, I mean, you came fromcorporate to the OBM space.
What did you bring with you fromyour corporate job?
Like you had...
From a knowledge perspective?
(21:03):
Not from a knowledgeperspective, because I know that
because we obviously we'veworked together.
I just want to highlight herethat special sort of energy you
have because there is thisnotion that an online business
manager works with onlinebusinesses only.
I want to shout it from therooftops that Actually, no, we
work remotely and we're not inthe office.
(21:26):
We're online in that sense, butwe work with all kinds of
clients.
And the reason why I was like,we have to talk to Lindsay is
because you're working withmainly, I know it's changed
recently, but mainly corporateand your past corporate
contacts.
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
And a lot of my initialconnections and contracts were
(21:49):
with corporate companies.
And I will tell you that that isa lot of how I got my mindset
strength around saying no,because it's very hard to work
with your former employers orformer like colleagues and that
kind of thing and be able tokind of hold scope.
But yeah, there is a place inthis world where operations
departments and operations teamsand all of that can be run from
(22:12):
an online space in the corporateworld and you still have
boundaries and you're stillworking as a, you know, in your
own business, in your own space.
It is possible.
That's how I've built mybusiness over the last year, to
be honest with you.
So it's the main revenue driverfor me.
Which is incredible.
I think that is so inspiring forme.
And I think for a lot of ourlisteners, because there's a lot
(22:33):
of people that are in corporatenow and thinking to themselves,
I'm ready to do the OBM thing.
I'm not really sure what myniche is going to look like.
I'm not really sure what X, Y,and Z is going to look like, but
you know, I'm ready, I'm readyto do this.
So recently you have startedworking with different, I think
more traditional OBM clients.
(22:54):
So how did that come about?
The first non-corporate client,let me say, was actually a food
truck.
So that was a little bit of ahybrid event planning was
online, but like obviouslyphysically they were somewhere.
And then now I'm actually with aclient that is fully online
based.
So we're doing like the fullcourse thing.
(23:15):
And he's in Belgium, right?
He's in Belgium.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
I do remember you mentioningthat.
Ooh.
Cause people are like Europeansdon't have online businesses.
I'm like, yeah, they do.
And it's so funny.
They just don't call them thesame thing here yet.
So it's like really, um, I'dlove to be like introducing this
term online business manager.
(23:36):
Well, that's a great Instagramlive to talk about that.
UNKNOWN (23:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
If you're like kind of scared ofhow you figure out how to
transition over, you never knowwhat your company is going to
say.
They really value you.
And if you have a feeling ofwanting to start your own
business or kind of live by yourown design kind of thing, and
you're in this kind of moreproject management, operations
type role, something like that,it wouldn't hurt for you to like
(24:01):
give it a shot to say, what doesit look like if I was working
only 20 hours a week, forexample, in this same kind of
role, but I have an opportunityof learning this OBM thing and
I'm not working for you fulltime.
And corporations have a lot ofbenefits for you to not be
working full time.
I know there's some liabilities,but, you know, and you can start
(24:22):
kind of learning and growing inthat way.
And then from that really gaveme the ideas of how I got
non-corporate clients, because Iwas like, wow, if these people
are having these problems, soare these people.
And really all of our problemsare the same, regardless of the
type of business and industrythat we're in.
As long as it's a provenbusiness model and the
(24:45):
entrepreneur has that mindsetfor delegation and there's
revenue coming, there's noreason why we can't fit
ourselves in there in some way.
Yeah.
And in the end, I've found thatlike 60 to 70% of all
operations, regardless of thetype of industry it is, is
mostly the same.
It's a lot of the sameactivities.
(25:07):
I mean, yes, one business mightdo these three things and this
guy over here doesn't do that.
And so, you know, it's a copyand paste kind of activity.
But I got a lot of questions inthe first year, like, what's
your niche?
What's your niche?
And I'm like, yeah, I'm notworried about a niche.
Like, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Cause you don't need to worryabout a niche.
Yeah.
I feel like we, we all, wealways want to get to the finish
(25:30):
line and I'm like, enjoy it.
You know, after, more than adecade of being an OBM, I'm
still like, you know, maybe Iniche on business size, but
that's about it.
You know, an industry size andmaybe how many employees or team
members this client has.
But I mean, that's part of thebeauty, I think, of being an OBM
is, being able to choose andwork with different industries.
(25:53):
Because otherwise, life getsboring.
And that's why we left corporateto begin with.
Let's be honest.
Totally.
And I was going to say the samething.
I actually get a little bitirritated when people are like,
what's your industry niche?
And I'm like, I don't have one.
You want to know why?
I love everyone.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, okay.
I don't love everyone, but youknow what I mean?
I love, I love business, alldifferent kinds of business.
(26:15):
I want to know about the foodtruck and how, I don't know how
food trucks work.
Cool.
Tell me about it.
I want to know about the financeguy.
I want to know about the coach.
I want to know about the graphicdesigner.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, there's,yeah.
One of the things I learned wayback when was, you know, when
you are, when you have acompetitive advantage and,
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(26:54):
when it comes to those things.
And I'm like, you know what?
I don't want to pigeonholemyself.
(27:19):
No.
ads because you said somethingout loud next to your phone.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm like, I don't know theanswer to that question.
And honestly, like the businessreally started when I was like,
everybody, everybody shut up.
(27:40):
And just let me be honest withmyself.
Let me, I know what I need todo.
I know how to start a business.
I know how to run a business.
I know how to take theinformation and piece it
together to a thing that feelsright for me.
For you.
Stop with all the other stuffand just be honest with
yourself, Lindsay, because youknow what to do.
(28:00):
Right.
And really it was like verytransformational for me.
It was like my mini breakthroughwhere I was like, ah, Things
make sense now.
It's starting to clip.
Just be honest with yourself.
At what point were you in thejourney?
Like a year in, six months in?
Yeah, it was like a year later.
Yeah, no, totally.
Because I think it's importantin our day in the life to
(28:21):
highlight that.
And I say to people all thetime, they ask me, well, how
long is the accelerator?
Well, it's a 12-week moduledrip.
But the program is six months.
And it's going to take you atleast that, if not longer, to
make this work for yourself.
Yes, for sure.
And there's like the, the prothe program is so jam packed,
which is amazing.
It was so overwhelming at firstthat I was like, okay, save this
(28:44):
one.
Cause eventually you're going tohave to do this thing.
Right.
Right.
But not right now.
You're not, you know, I'm tryingto think of, you're not
onboarding a client at thismoment.
So just put that one on the sidefor a second.
Right.
So now my process actually hasbeen okay here.
I'm at this stepping stone in mybusiness.
How do you want to do it?
Lindsay?
Okay.
(29:05):
you know, X, Y, Z.
Now I'll go see what Sarah did.
Just curious.
Did I, maybe Sarah missed, hadsomething that I missed or maybe
like I had something that shemissed.
And then I was like, okay, howcan I make it melded together?
That feels good and right to meand how I want to like present
myself to the world.
And that I found is like mysecret sauce of like your genius
(29:28):
that you've given us, like myown genius, like melding
together to be like exactly theYeah.
How I want my business andmyself to be portrayed.
I want to talk a little bit herearound what a day in the life
looks like in the Lindsayhousehold from the time you drop
off that little angel to thetime you tuck him in at
(29:48):
nighttime.
So, yeah, so I actually kind ofstart my weeks on Sunday
mornings, I try to get up beforethe family, if I'm lucky.
And I'll take like, I don'tknow, 45 minutes to an hour to
just look at the next week.
And the first thing is like,what's coming up from a personal
(30:09):
perspective of the week, like,Does my son have an activity
after school?
Who's cooking dinner?
Do I need my husband to help mewith pickups certain days?
Can he do it?
Who has night meetings?
I mean, my husband works acorporate job.
at the moment.
So I have East coast clients ofthe United States and he also
has us colleagues.
We have night meetings.
(30:31):
And so we try to like balancelike, okay, you have a night
meeting on Monday.
So I'm going to block mycalendar.
All right.
I'm going to have night meetingson Wednesdays.
So on Sundays, really we'redoing like, what's our family
going to do?
That's so, I love that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Um, and then Monday morning,like when I finally, I dropped
my son off at school, I don't doanything before, like when he
(30:53):
gets dropped off, then I'm like,okay, sit in your office.
No, then you have to have like10 coffees and be like, I know I
at least need a five minute likedance party about I'm by myself
finally for the first time ofthe week.
You know, then I'm looking atthe calendar and I'm like, okay,
I set up my calendars.
I put like a time blockingGoogle calendar separately.
(31:14):
So what I do is blockreoccurring meetings for what
days I'm going to be working onwhat clients.
So typically I have like one tothree hour time blocks named in
this special Google calendar forwhen I'll be working on that
client's activities.
I have a love-hate relationshipwith time blocking, but it
(31:36):
really has helped keep me ontrack.
Because you're like, but there'snot enough time in the day.
Right.
But then I was like, wow, lookat all this stuff you got done.
Like there actually is if youfocus.
Well, it's Parkinson's law,right?
If you have the whole day, it'sgoing to take the whole day.
If you allow yourself threehours, you're going to get it
done in three hours.
Yeah, totally.
So I end up like, you know,shifting around if the client
(31:57):
asks for a meeting and thenwhatever.
But I try to keep Mondays andFridays completely meeting free
if possible.
Fridays is always a three hourtime block for CEO time.
So it's- Love that.
only working on my business.
Yes.
Um, nothing else.
And like, if somebody tries toblock over that time, it's like
moved to your husband's likedate date.
(32:19):
And I'm like, no, no,sweetheart, you can come at six
o'clock.
You can come, no five o'clock,whatever.
Um, but you know, besides that,then I have like, for sure
blocked out.
I drop off my son between eighto'clock and nine o'clock every
morning.
I pick up my son between four 30or five o'clock.
to six o'clock every day.
I'm at dinner until eighto'clock would be a very big
(32:42):
exception for you to get me onthe phone from between five
o'clock and eight o'clock.
My dad.
Yeah.
That's my family time.
That's dinner time.
That's like, I don't look at myphone and that's protected time,
protected time.
And that's like the baseline ofthe calendar.
Like if any of those things haveto move, my son has to be picked
up early for whatever reason.
(33:03):
And he can't go to the daycareafter school because everything
shifts to accommodate all of thefamily time.
Yeah.
That's also why I love this.
That's also why I love thisopportunity too.
It's like, it just, that neverwould have existed before.
Yeah.
It's, it's just magical.
I love the time blocking thingbecause time blocking is
(33:23):
definitely where it's at.
So Lindsay, how many clients areon your roster currently?
Three.
Three.
So like how many hours do you,would you say you work on client
stuff?
In a week?
In a week, probably like 25hours.
25 hours.
So like you're pretty muchworking like five to six hours a
(33:44):
day.
Cause you know, Mondays andFridays, you're not doing the
meetings, which I love.
I think it's so important to sayhere that, um, you know, we
don't need to show up every dayfor meetings.
Like Mondays and Tuesdays arethe only days a week that I
actually do meetings.
I mean, I'm in my pajamas mostof the time anyways, but there's
a certain mindset that you haveto get into before you have a
meeting.
You know, I don't know.
(34:04):
Like, it's just, I don't, Idon't know.
It's like, it's hard for mesometimes to get into that mood
or into that mindset.
So I love that you've mentionedthat.
And then when you are working onclient stuff, five hours a day,
let's say on average.
Yeah.
What kinds of things are youdoing?
Cause I think people sometimesare like, what does an OBM do?
Like what, what does that looklike?
So it's different.
(34:25):
Okay.
So in my court with thecorporate client, I'm helping
introduce these best practicesof the OBM space into the
corporate environment.
So there's, Exactly.
That's like the biggest one,right?
Like, yes, there was someclick-through guides that was
like, click here to do thisspecific action.
But in their equivalent of alaunch plan, there was not
(34:46):
process documents like lined upin the fashion industry.
You call it a go-to-marketcalendar when you bring your
product to market.
There's like a hundredactivities that have to happen
in order for you to get clothesin a store, let's
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
say.
SPEAKER_00 (35:01):
And it's, you know, you calculate the whole calendar
and there was a lot of like kindof subjectivity and emotion
around it, not just around liketrue calculated dates.
So I've been like creating forthat space, number one, a
calculation.
So it's like, if we're going tochange this date, this is how
everything shifts becauseeverything is calculated based
(35:21):
on dependencies.
It's kind of like, if you know,project management, that's kind
of traditional projectmanagement.
Yeah.
So a lot of project managementSOPs baking out for those
corporate.
Yeah.
Yes.
Now we're going like, what doesthis line item say?
Okay.
What is the exact SOP that goeswith this line item?
And we're linking it up andwe're doing exactly that.
I want the click-throughs.
I want to like know why I'mdoing it, who's involved.
(35:45):
And that's really one of the bigthings I think that was like, we
all probably knew it incorporate, but we never gave the
time to do it.
Right.
The beauty of this space islike, You don't have someone
coming to your desk all thetime.
You don't have somebodyinterrupting you.
You're not nonstop on meetings.
Right.
And you're, you're enough in thebig picture to know why you're
doing the things.
(36:05):
When I was in corporate, my bossused to say to me all the time,
well, just come up with astrategy for that.
Well, how can I come up with astrategy if I don't know what
the big picture is here?
I don't know where we're going.
I don't, I don't have thosedetails.
The separation from likephysically being there with
people in the office, if peopleare going back to the office,
like really does change thingsas well.
Like I'm not in any of thebureaucracy.
(36:28):
I'm not in any of the gossip.
I'm not in any of the otherstuff that can like take away
time from the day.
Yeah.
I like hanging out in the cookiecorner all afternoon.
Yeah.
You know, the cookies are alwaysgood, but you know, in the end,
like you're not getting shitdone.
Right.
So like in this kind of space,you're able to take the best
practice of like, how do I getshit done?
Yeah.
And, and give it to them.
(36:49):
So that's like the corporateworld.
And I think there's a lot ofopportunity systems and project
management.
There's never an end to that.
I think a lot of the times asOBMs, when we're managing
projects, we're like, well, it'sso natural for me to organize
things or to put things into aproject management tool.
You know, I think oftentimeslike, That's the work of an OBM.
Like that's exactly what it is.
(37:09):
It's a lot of project and teammanagement and, you know,
helping that client get clearabout their ideas as well.
And being that sounding board.
I think that that's like thebiggest thing in the not.
So now if we switch to thenon-corporate line, every
business owner that I've workedwith has this like great vision
of how it works.
And yeah, The beauty of being anOBM coming into their business
(37:32):
is you have the outsider'sperspective.
So you say, okay, I see that youwant like these things to
happen.
I'm going to ask you all thequestions because you don't
think to ask yourself, you'redoing things and you don't
realize that you're doing themin a reoccurring fashion or
whatever.
Or even just like, let's sayyou're going to launch a course.
That doesn't happen frequently,but you don't realize what
(37:54):
you're doing as the businessowner sometimes to launch the
course.
If I'm sitting here and watchingyou or I have no idea what your
course is about, I'm going toask you so many questions that
ultimately will lead towardssuccess.
all those SOPs so that we can doit better the next time and
faster.
And clear goals and a clearstrategy.
(38:15):
Let's get it all out on thetable.
Let's set the client'sexpectations so that they're
realistic.
You want to launch?
great.
We're going to launch that intwo months, not next week.
Right.
Yes.
Well, there's definitely that.
Cause you know, you've got allthese goals.
That's great.
You know, I want to make thishappen and make this the best
launch ever.
One of them has been launchplanning that I've been doing
(38:35):
with a lot of client, whichproject number three in the
certification.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, what's a lot offun is like being able to, it's
a lot of fun for me.
I know a lot of people are like,no launch planning.
And I'm like, no launches are,can be fun.
Everything is a launch too.
Like you said it, yourself atthe beginning.
We're calling project managementlaunch something.
(38:56):
Yeah, exactly.
What is that?
Okay.
It makes sense.
Yeah.
A launch is just managing aproject.
That's all it is.
It sounds scarier, but it's not.
Don't be scared of launches.
Don't get, don't get wrapped upin that.
You know, don't go down thatroad with your client.
No, but even if you take like,so if I go to the food truck as
(39:16):
an example, they have nothing todo with launches, but what they
wanted to do was automate someof their processes in a better
way than manually, like gettingan email from a client and
manually putting their name inGoogle contacts and then
manually having having it inthis, other, you know,
reconciliation.
Automations are great.
Yeah.
The business owner was like, Iknow there's a way.
(39:37):
Yeah.
I don't have time to do it.
Yeah.
And it's not my zone of genius.
Yeah.
And I was like, let's just getin here.
Let's talk about the end goal,like how you envision it.
And then let's just back it outfrom there.
That in and of itself is alaunch of like getting to the
final point of automation.
To me, those are the things likeyou automate one thing for
someone and they were like, liketheir whole, someone on their
(39:59):
team, their whole mind iscompletely blown.
And I'm like, I love that.
That is what I live for.
Yeah, exactly.
That look on someone's face.
Like, yeah, yeah.
The breakthrough moment.
Yeah.
You just saved me an hour andI'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so good.
Yeah.
I, I, I love that as well.
It's just such, it's like thenod towards the, like you're
doing, you're in your zone ofgenius lens.
(40:20):
You're doing what you should bedoing and you're having a really
great impact on people.
Yeah.
I think that's a really goodthing to bring up, too, is like
I struggled a lot with goinglike this is really easy for me.
So it must be easy for otherpeople.
And it's not.
And I think recognizing likeit's easy for me.
So let me just help you.
You know, not everybody is readyto accept help as a business
(40:43):
owner.
Some people are still trying tofigure it out on their own,
which is totally fine, you know.
Do you, when you're in and whenyou're ready, just know, like,
there are people in the worldwho really get out on this shit.
Yeah.
I mean, really, it's like, I hada conversation with a friend and
I was like working on thislaunch plan.
I was like, oh my God, it's soexciting.
And he was like, why are wetalking about this?
(41:05):
And I'm like, I am so excited.
You're like cracking open thatbottle of wine and working on a
launch plan.
I have to literally tell peoplethis.
I'm like public serviceannouncement, just because
project management andorganization and being, you
know, maybe not, maybe a peoplepleaser also, but like, you
know, being very likeempathetic, let's say towards
(41:27):
people just because you're likethat doesn't mean that you
shouldn't charge for it or youshould give that away for free.
That's actually what you need tocharge for.
Yes.
It is.
And it's really easy.
I think when you come into thisonline space that you're like,
but it's easy for everyone.
So I don't need to charge.
(41:48):
Well, it only takes me threeminutes to do it.
And I was like, yes, but it tookthat person three hours to do
it.
And they still didn't get itright.
And they're not sure if it'sactually working.
They have no way of testing it.
Yeah.
I mean, who knows?
Right.
And, and, and it may be if it'ssomething recurring, like they
don't even remember to go checkit next week or next month.
Exactly.
Or they're sitting up in bed allnight being like, oh my God, did
(42:10):
this get done?
Did that get done?
Like people ask like, well,where is, where do you find OBM
clients?
Well, they're usuallydisheveled.
They're usually exhausted, youknow, because they're doing all
the things and it's, it'sterrible because there's so much
of this that falls into our zoneof genius where we can really,
really support them.
Yeah.
I mean, one of my biggest goalsof this business is like, you
(42:30):
know, people would say like, howdo you want to help people?
How do you want to serve people?
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know.
And it's just even recently onlycome into clarity for me where
it's like, you know what?
I want to help people sleep.
Yeah.
I want to help people if theyhave family, friends, kids,
dogs, like whatever balance,whoever you're like, you know,
(42:51):
people are that you want to bespending your time with.
Like, I want you back with them.
for as much time as you can, butlike, let's run a successful
business.
Let's make a lot of money.
Yeah.
And let's like, enjoy beinghumans.
Yes.
And not behind a computer, likeall day.
Let's enjoy our lives.
Yeah.
Let's enjoy our lives.
Which brings me to my finalquestion.
(43:11):
If somebody came up to you andsaid, Lindsay, I'm thinking
about being an OBM.
what words of advice do you haveto give me?
What would you tell somebodywho's like thinking about it,
but maybe hasn't yet taken theleap?
The curious ones, the curiousones.
Yeah, the curious ones.
Like, can I do this?
Do I have what it takes?
Yes, you do.
(43:32):
That's number one.
Tell yourself yes, but giveyourself space and grace, which
is like, don't just run in to doit because we're talking about
it here or you saw it onInstagram or you saw it,
whatever.
And like, you think it's thenext thing to do, whatever.
Thank you so much.
(44:06):
You know, and I'm not trying tolike pitch your program or
anything, but saying like, justtake an hour each day.
You don't have to come on off ofmute.
You don't have to put your videoon if you're not comfortable.
Just listen to it and likeabsorb it.
Let your mind think about it.
Ideate it.
Give yourself time.
Yes.
Give yourself time.
We never give ourselves enoughtime.
We don't give ourselves time orwe expect it.
(44:28):
Well, what do you mean?
I have to spend time learningsomething new.
Oh, that freaks me out.
Like I get that too.
It's going to make sense when itmakes sense and it's going to
make sense at a different timefor you than it did for me, than
it did for you, than it's goingto be for someone else.
Like just give yourself space,be honest with yourself.
If like this is right or not,right.
Trust yourself.
(44:48):
What a story.
Lindsay's journey is such apowerful reminder that the right
career move doesn't just changeyour professional trajectory.
It can transform your entirelife from moving across the
world to building a thriving OBMbusiness on her own terms.
Lindsay shows us what's possiblewhen you combine courage,
(45:10):
clarity, and the right support.
And I love how she leaned intoher natural strengths and never
compromised on Proof that youdon't have to start at the
bottom just because you'restarting something new.
If you're feeling inspired totake your first step or your
next step in the OBM world, headon over to obmschool.com forward
(45:32):
slash resources to grab our freeOBM starter kit, explore our
training programs, and see howwe support aspiring OBMs like
Lindsay to build careers theylove.
You'll also find Lindsay's linksand every resource mentioned in
today's episode listed for youin the show notes.
Thanks for tuning in, and I'llcatch you next time on The OBM
(45:53):
Show.
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