August 22, 2022 • 52 mins
Her credentials were stacking up... but they were worthless once again. On this episode, Sam takes us on the journey from Canada to Australia and finally to Houston, Texas. It was the frustration of having to start all over again that led her to entrepreneurship but the passion for helping others that has kept her focused.
Sam Varner is a profit coach, money making business strategist and podcaster with a no bs style that I totally love. She's passionate about helping women make money in their business. No more Hobby Jobby!
In this episode, you'll hear about:
1. What's keeping you from making money
2. It's more than just strategy
3. You're the investment
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Varner (00:00):
And it took me forever in my business. That is
the one thing that if I was tosay like what pinpoint from
being kind of sort of passivelydoing a business to actually
being successful, it was meembracing headspace in a way
that I hadn't before. I feltlike it was very woowoo. It
wasn't really up my alley tobegin with for a long time, I
would read books and be like, Idon't know what this is talking
(00:22):
about. And when I finally didembrace it, it was like, Oh,
this might have been the thingthat I've been missing all the
time. I can't just like actionmy way through things or tactic
my way through things. What youlearn is you can do a lot of
other things. And so it's notworking and you have to really
think about, well, then why isit not working. And so when I
finally did embrace the mindsetpiece in a way that was
(00:46):
meaningful, lo and behold, itworked.
Jamie Stephens (00:51):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of
breaking up a corporate eachweek I chat with everyday women
that ditch their nine to five tobet on themselves. We break down
their journey intoentrepreneurship, unpack the
lessons learned and create thevision of how this life gets to
be if you're willing to getuncomfortable and step into your
potential. I'm your host, JamieRenee, to time corporate escapee
(01:14):
and coach to burnout womenlooking to plan their escape.
Let's go.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Breaking up
with corporate today. I have Sambarter on here. And Sam is a
profit coach, and a money makingbusiness strategist. Welcome to
(01:36):
the show, Sam,
Unknown (01:37):
thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Jamie Stephens (01:39):
Yeah, just to kick us off. I mean, I'll just
go ahead and jump right in. Oneof the things Sam and I were
talking about was the profitpiece, I was telling her at this
point and my business, I havelike a really expensive hobby
that I've been working on. Butwe're gonna get into that in
just a little bit and reallykind of pull out that profit
piece. But before we do that,let's go ahead and get just a
(02:01):
little bit of your backgroundand kind of what you were doing
before you kind of landed inthis role.
Unknown (02:08):
Okay, sounds good. So, um, I think the best place to
start is the fact that I went toschool 180 years ago, it feels
like sometimes now. But I wentfor public relations and
communication. So that was a Iwas going to go and work agency
and I was going to that was whatmy career path was going to be.
And everybody listening knows,right your your career path
(02:31):
versus the path that happens isalways the exact same. And the
agency collapsed, and I trippedinto a finance job. It was I
needed a job, it was a jobavailable. And so I went into
finance at that point, which is,if you had ever seen me
struggling at the kitchen table,doing my math homework, you'd be
How did that even happen. But loand behold, it's like fifth
(02:54):
grade math to do financeessentially met, you know,
adding and subtracting, so Icould do that much. And I ended
up in finance. And what happenedfrom there is, it's funny now I
look back on it. But my husbandworked for oil and gas, big oil
and gas. And he got a job offerin Australia. So I was working
(03:15):
my way up the corporate ladderdoing estate planning and
financial planning and workingfor the Canadian Medical
Association. At that point, wewere so in Canada, and he got a
job offer in Australia, which isamazing. Who doesn't want to go
in Australia by the beach? Likeof course we do. So off we went
to Australia with at that point,we had a three and a half year
(03:39):
old and a one year old. And mythought was I would just get all
of my license or yourqualifications in Australia. And
I would work there I would goback to work. We get to
Australia, we find that we'refirst off we're having baby
number three. So that's asurprise because now we're in a
foreign land with no familysupport, and we're gonna have
three very little kids all closetogether. But I do all the
(04:02):
qualification I get ready I willeventually one day go back to
work and in that position. ThenMike comes home and says hey,
how do you feel about Houston?
Oh, Australia, like Houston,USA, Texas, like what? Music
Yeah, yeah, I they want to knowwe want to go and work out of
the Houston office. It'd becloser to home like all of those
(04:24):
pieces are, are very appealingat that point. We've been gone
for three years. But my Canadianqualifications are useless in
Texas. My Australianqualifications are also useless
in Texas. And so we moved toTexas, and I decided I was going
to build a business like aturtle shell that could come
with me wherever he took me. SoI wasn't sitting in that
(04:47):
situation of like and againqualified and all these
countries I don't have been andfind it very pointless. So
that's how I ended up fallinginto our partnership was almost
out of necessity, right? Gettingmyself to that point of, okay,
this, this sucks, I don't wantto just be qualified and all the
lands they don't live in. So Iwill, I will just make my own
thing that doesn't need all thelicensing. So now I started,
(05:11):
when I started my coachingbusiness, I started doing
financial coaching forindividuals. So personal
budgeting, and wealthdevelopment strategies and that
sort of thing. Almost everybodythat showed up in my sphere was
business owners. So it becamevery obvious that I was
attracting business owners and Ineeded to go back into that kind
(05:32):
of corporate money side ofthings rather than just the
personal side. So that's how wegot here. And we've been in
Texas now for eight years. Sothat's, that's how we got here.
Jamie Stephens (05:45):
That's quite a, that's quite a journey. And I
mean, it's just that I wouldhave to be just so frustrating
to to just like, finally getgoing. And then just okay, like,
here we go, you know, which Ifeel like, women tend to be in
those positions a lot more thanmen. So I really, I'm a big fan
(06:05):
of entrepreneurship, especiallyfor those reasons so that women
get more choices and love andthose things. I know, it kind of
just like glossed over in yourthing. But what was that
transition between working withindividuals and working with
businesses? Kind of what didthat that look like? Like within
a couple of months? Or how longdid it take to figure that out?
Unknown (06:28):
It was pretty quick, it was pretty quick, realizing that
I could help people figure outlike, what is the budgetary
changes they can make in theirhomes, to just create some more
financial flexibility right atthe beginning, or they have a
business and we could just maketheir money, which alleviates a
lot of those budgeting problems,right? If you can figure out how
(06:49):
to take the thing you're alreadydoing, and have it be more
profitable, which of course isalways like more money in your
own individual pocket, then allof a sudden, you're not trying
to like can I Starbucks it? Ordo I have to kind of the latte
factor, like all those thingsthat we hear about in personal
finance, which I kind of despisethat philosophy anyway. So I
(07:09):
think it was just like, oh, no,I'm just going to do it this
way. And then I started talking,you know, on social media and
networking and stuff. More to ifyou have a business and I always
I it's funny, you said like Ihave an expensive hobby, I
always talk about hobby job,right? Where like, it's a little
more hobby than it is job. Andbecause it's not, it's not
paying all the bills, right?
It's not creating that incomethat's giving you that, that
(07:31):
flexibility and that freedom.
And that was the thing thatstarted talking about. And so
then people that were in thatposition, that's exactly who
showed up to begin with was hey,yeah, I haven't they, I need to
make it be a business becauseit's, it takes all my time and
causes me a lot of stress to bea hobby.
Jamie Stephens (07:49):
So what were kind of the overarching themes,
like with what I'm assuming thatsome patterns emerged with what
people were showing up with whythey weren't making money, and
you know, asking for a friend,so
Unknown (08:05):
I love it. I know this person. Okay, so huge themes
that I see really often is okay,I think competence is huge,
right? Like really steppinginto, I am all in on this idea.
And I am like Full Tilt aheadand doing it confidently. We do
a lot of hiding behind thecomputer. Sometimes the busy
(08:28):
work of like I worked reallyhard this week, I worked all
day. I accomplished a lot ofthings. But I didn't actually
talk to any other humans aboutwhat I have to offer. Right. So
that reluctance to kind of makeit public and have it out there
in the world. That's huge. Andthat stems often from a lack of
sales skills. So mostentrepreneurs don't start in a
(08:51):
sales role, and work backwardsto creating a business. They
start with a passion, they startwith something that drives them.
And they they're so excitedbecause they know the value of
what they have to offer forclients and they're so excited
about that potential. Butthere's that really big like
sleazy stumbling block of salespeople get really caught up in,
(09:11):
I don't want to pester people, Idon't want to overwhelm people,
I don't want to only be talkingabout my business all the time.
I think I might sound like aused car salesman, you know, a
terrible, terrible one from a1992 movie kind of idea, right?
And it's that those two things,the companies in the sales
skills are usually at theforefront of the problems. And
(09:32):
then sometimes there's the moneyin the finance deck on the back
end of like, how do I evenfigure out what my pricing
should be? If you're in aposition of like independently
setting your own prices,sometimes, depending on the
business, that's not the case.
But those three things show upover and over again, right?
Yeah,
Jamie Stephens (09:51):
yeah, I can see that because that is so much of
what I have worked through overthe last year. I mean, it's
yeah, it's really not so muchlike the The Skills part of
things has not tripped me atall. Yeah, I think like a
lifelong learner or somebody whocame from a corporate, you know,
like, I can pick up on the knowhow to do these things. Yeah, I
(10:11):
can do that things. But it'slike articulating the value of
the things, being confident inmy own ability of the thing,
because I don't have theofficial training, you know, all
of the things that can meetyeah, I've definitely realized a
lot of those. The good news is Ido feel like I'm mostly on the
other side of that I've done alot of just personal growth over
(10:35):
the last year, just really justpushing myself and put, you
know, all of those things thatwere once very uncomfortable,
including something like this,like, No, everything's new at
one point.
Unknown (10:47):
Yeah, we all start at the beginning, right. And I
think we forget that sometimes,because we so often see people
like midway through theirjourney, or three quarters of
the way through in reality, andthey're so good at that. They
are so smooth, it's so clear,they they come across really
well. And then the reality is,there was a point if you I mean,
with everybody, unless theyclean up their social media. If
(11:10):
you're ever feeling that way,just go way back go into the
archives of like, what did itlook like? The first time they
tried to do it? It probablylooked ridiculous, right? They
probably stammered and stutteredand didn't know how to present
themselves or like, you know, Idid a whole webinar once and
didn't have a call to action.
There was no like, it was like,thanks for coming. By, like,
(11:30):
there was no way to contact me.
There was no, there was no wayto purchase anything from me. It
was just like, I'm so glad wespent this hour together.
Thanks, guys. I can relate tothat. Right? And you get off and
you're like, oh, no, that's notgonna work. I was like, and I
have I don't even know what tothing.
Jamie Stephens (11:49):
Translate to nothing. Yeah, experience. Good
experience.
Unknown (11:54):
Yeah. What to not do put that in the Don't do that
again. Call me. Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (11:58):
You know, like that is like a, just a big
column for entrepreneurship isit's just a whole bunch of,
we'll put it in that column.
We'll learn and move on. We'llput it in that column. We'll
learn and move on. It's just arinse and repeat.
Unknown (12:13):
Yeah, it is. And I think, I think almost titling
that column wins. Right? Yeah,it was the first time you did
that webinar. Well, that's thewin. It doesn't have to be like
if we anticipate that the windshould be in I sold 20 spots in
my coaching program. That'sinsane. For one wouldn't
nobody's going to do thatdrowned. And just going from
(12:35):
like, I've never done a webinarto now I've done my first
webinar, that's a win. So we putit in that column, and then all
of a sudden, it starts to belike, oh, all those things,
right? That whole column doesn'tfeel so painful. When it's a win
win. It's a thing I've achievedthe thing that I try the thing
that I put out there and learnfrom feels better. It feels way
(12:57):
better than being like my work.
That didn't work. It's so
Jamie Stephens (13:01):
true. And having that expectation at the front,
too. So like, a few months ago,I did a five day challenge
showed up live five days, anhour at a time. First time ever.
Yeah. And it was going into thisgroup coaching program. Yep. My
goal for the five days was Ishow up every day, I don't die.
(13:25):
I get this experience 100%. Andif somebody happens to sign up,
then we'll call that like bonus.
But my goal is that I survivedthis. And you know, it was like,
and lo and behold, that's kindof what happened. But it was
just like, Yeah, okay, I wasprepared for that. And yes,
there's still that, oh, like,little disappointment. But it's
not like I just walked away fromthat feeling like a failure. So
(13:47):
like, yeah, having thosereframes even before you go in
and having your results oversomething that you can actually
or your wins be something thatyou can actually control, like,
showing up every day and doingyour best. And that's that whole
reframe of that's not a failure,you just got to collect those
along the way and you're juststacking it up. And that's good.
(14:09):
Exactly.
Unknown (14:11):
And doing it more than once. I think, I think the one
thing that I've learned over theyears is how frequently we try a
thing once and we don't comeback to it because it didn't
work because we do have in theback of our head, even if we
don't set those goals if we'retrying not to kind of like put
ourselves in a poor position. Westill somehow in the back of our
(14:32):
head is like Yeah, but we needso many sales to justify this
and it's like okay, but maybe wejust need to say I'm going to do
a webinar every month or everytwo weeks until I land a sale
and then I'm going to do thatwebinar or whatever that looked
like every month right and I'mI'm saying this from coaching
world, but again, that's likeshoemakers, children guys, I
(14:54):
didn't do a webinar every month.
I kind of like threw in thetowel for a little while and now
Now it's back on my radar to doagain. But I think it's that
piece too of sticking withthose. Whatever those strategies
are long enough to give them achance to actually be successful
as well, is sometimes thehardest part of it. Right? Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (15:17):
So thinking back to one of the earlier things we
were talking about, I'm curious,has anybody ever come to you
with their jabi? Their hobbyjabi? And you recommended that
they just kind of make it ahobby? Or is there always like a
conversion of to yeah, this canbe a viable business. Is there
(15:38):
anybody that you just said,like, I don't know, if you're
cut out for this.
Unknown (15:42):
There's not been anybody where I've thought, oh,
I don't know thatentrepreneurship is going to be
your thing. But I've had acouple of people like just in my
environment, right, that hat,they they have a new idea. Every
time I see them. They want totalk about all of the things.
But there's no action. There'sno back end action. So I think
(16:03):
there is a little bit of that,like, the novelty of being your
own business owner, that I'venever had to say to somebody
like me, this is not for you.
This is not for you. Barista isfor you. That's your plan. Just
carry on this carry on carry onwith your job. It's great. No,
there's always been, there'salways been a way that I can
look at that business.
(16:24):
Regardless of what type ofbusiness it is, and be like,
Yeah, this can be viable. Butthis needs to change. Like often
it's appraising structure,things like that can be really a
problem sometimes.
Jamie Stephens (16:35):
So for the people that do have like, lots
of ideas and lots of thingshappening, or as an
entrepreneur, like how do youstay focused on stuff? Like
there's always shiny objectsyndrome, and I tend to be prone
to? So I'm just like, what isthe the secret sauce there to
(16:55):
actually
Unknown (16:57):
actually sticking to it? Yeah. Do you think your
shiny object is more like interms of strategy? So you're
still trying to achieve the sameend? Or you're just trying
different methodology to do it?
Or do you think it's actuallythe, like that structure of your
business like that? What is mybusiness idea? What am I
actually creating? Which one doyou think is the bigger?
Jamie Stephens (17:19):
It's more like, I know what I'm going for? It's
the individual pieces on how toget there that seemed to kind of
change a little bit. And part ofme is like, well, the more I
learn, the more I'mincorporating them, you know,
but then part of me is like,just shut up and finish
(17:39):
something.
Unknown (17:41):
Okay, yes. So that for sure says to me, first off, I
the first question I wouldalways have for you or anybody
else, who's in thiscircumstances, how many things
are you trying to build at thesame time? Right? Do you have
multiple different serviceofferings are multiple different
(18:01):
products? Are you trying to groweverybody all at the same time,
which, of course, then you'regetting like, you really only
have 10% energy for each one ofthese things, if you've got 10.
Or my suggestion always, forentrepreneurs at the beginning
is to like go all in on oneoffer. So at least even if you
are like choosing 15 differentways to promote it, or to sell
(18:24):
it or to have it out there inthe world, it's all the same
offer. So you're still talkingoff the same song sheet, if that
makes sense. And then I reallysaid my clients all the time,
you have to do a strategy for 90days. And all that we're doing
along the way is the evaluationpiece. Did it work, what worked,
what didn't work and changingone variable at a time? We have
(18:48):
a tendency, I think, as peopleto change everything like, Well,
that didn't work. So let's go onto the next thing. Or like, I
saw somebody on a pipe or listento somebody on a podcast and
they said, do this thing. And sonow I'm gonna try that, like
that seems right. It worked forthem. It should work for me. And
I'm a big believer that like, itdoesn't matter what strategy you
(19:09):
choose, it will work. If yougive it long enough to work.
Most people don't. Right. Theyjust abandon it to the next
shiny thing, right. Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (19:19):
I think part of what my learning opportunity for
the last year has been just thatbecause it was I'm not to say
that you can't. I mean, peoplefigure it out all the time. You
know, some of us are latebloomers, and it's fine. But
Unknown (19:39):
I've even figured out tons of things. I I have
Jamie Stephens (19:42):
figured out tons of things and there's still so
much more. But like one of thethings it's like, really, my
goal has been this podcast. Imean, like I was starting from
fresh. So I launched a podcast Ilearned how to do social media,
which for an introvert is love Ithat's a whole therapy. Course.
(20:03):
And it's,
Unknown (20:05):
yeah. You need like a service dog in the, in the Oh,
for reals when you're trying todo it right.
Jamie Stephens (20:10):
Is that my feet?
Yeah, exactly. So like all ofthose things, and I put all this
pressure to also build abusiness on, you know, and, and
I was not even sure what thatbusiness was in the beginning.
So I did a lot of angsty, flipflopping, trying to figure it
out, you know. So now that I'vefigured out what I want to do,
(20:31):
it's like, Okay, now, now, Igotta go, like, refill the
coffers a little bit. So I canhave more runway. But really,
it's, it's such a process. Now Ilike the whole just change one
thing at a time, because I dotend to go the throat in the
bucket.
Unknown (20:50):
Yeah, it makes all the difference, because then you can
start to see when you gettraction, right? It's not
immediate when you see thatwith. I mean, when you start
social media, and you startposting, and you you know, at
the at the early stages, you'revery quick to like, Wait, did
anybody, anybody callinganybody? Like, did anybody
follow me? All of those things,and it's kind of like, that's
(21:12):
never going to happen. 30seconds after you get, I mean,
your mom will follow you andyour sisters and maybe your
friends. You know, I know, myhusband follows me on Instagram,
but that was because I was like,why are you not following me on
Instagram? He's like, I don'thave an Instagram, like, how do
I even do that, and I'm like,here, I'll do it for you. Like,
you're gonna follow me onInstagram. Um, but there comes a
(21:33):
point, right? Where it's like,it gets more comfortable. And
now you're doing it morefrequently, and you're probably
a lot less quick to go and checkwhether it worked right away.
Right, as opposed to justknowing I'm gonna put out the
value, people will get it, and Istart to see that you're gonna
see it, not where you expect,necessarily, right? It's not
necessarily 15 comments, everypost or 35 comments or under 50
(21:56):
comments. But it's somebody whosays to you out in the world
that you actually know, like,hey, was a great post the other
day, I read that, and I thoughtthat was great. And you're like,
that makes me feel good. Andwrite probably didn't post,
right or comment on your post,they just told you in real life,
and so many people that you'rehaving an impact on through the
podcast through social media,they're not going to say like,
(22:19):
Hey, thanks, right? Even thoughyou know, they exist, right? You
will start to see that getsinterruption. And it's just
having the having the faith anddoing it until it works.
Jamie Stephens (22:32):
How long did it take you from the time that you
decided you were going to be anentrepreneur to the time that
you actually, like, startedmaking money? Okay, so
Unknown (22:43):
my trying to think back, I do everything and
measuring of like, how old werekids, and how I like judge my
entire life. So my youngest nowwill be nine in September. And
when he was, he was finallygoing to preschool a little bit
of time, right? So I carved outa little bit of time for myself
at that point. So it wasn't justa pipe dream, right? It wasn't
(23:04):
just me reading a bunch of booksand fine, making ideas. Probably
five and a half years ago now, Ithink. And the first money I
made was, we have a swimmingpool at our house and I was
getting the, you know, the babyfans put around the pool. And
the guy came and he were justchatting. And he asked me so
(23:24):
what do you do? And I said,Well, my financial coach, do
this all what is that? And so itkind of told them. And he asked
me how much I charge and I said730 bucks for like three months,
I think was the pricing I had atthe time. And he's like, Okay,
perfect. Well, why don't I dodefense for free? And then I'll
pay you half of what? Right?
Because that worked out was likewhat he was placing me
(23:46):
accordingly for it. So that wasabout five and a half years ago.
And then literally, I can'tremember what your next client
was after that. But it wasn'tvery quick. Like it was like, it
was a really and I think mostentrepreneurs will tell you that
the beginning is like it's like,I have a boyfriend. I have four
months or nothing happens.
Again, the pain of depression. Ihave a client deep right and it
(24:07):
and that eventually gets easier.
And then now I am I prettyconsistently getting to the
point of like between 10 and$15,000 months. That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah. So five and a halfyears of like, gradually
increasing how much time I couldspend right as kids. He's now
going into third grade thisyear. So obviously, I now have
(24:27):
six hours a day when they're inschool, or being like a working
human which right before thatwith four kids. It's a lot of
not a lot of time on my own. Soyeah, it's kind of taken that
long. So he's been in school forthree years. And that's really
when I was able to just committhe amount of time and not feel
like I was getting knocked offkilter with school days and non
(24:48):
school days, that sort of thing.
Jamie Stephens (24:52):
So how did you maintain like your optimism
during those those beginningyears? Is that what you part of
what you coach women on now?
Unknown (25:03):
Okay, yeah, the mindset piece is huge, right? It's
arguably pretty much every otherskill I can teach you. And I can
teach you how to manage yourmind. But that becomes the most
important part more than any ofthe other step, right? Like, can
you work a spreadsheet? Sure, ifyou can't, no problem, we'll get
your bookkeeper. Like, you canhire all those things out, but
to manage your own mind and beoptimistic and be driven, right?
(25:29):
So you don't have to be happyall the time. There's always
those times where you're gonnabe like, This is terrible. I
could just go back and get ajob, I'm going to just throw in
the towel. But for me, I waskind of like, I'm never going
back. I'm never going back towork for somebody else. And so I
have to make this work. Or Iguess I just, I just won't, and
(25:50):
I'll make $1,000 a month, andthat'll be that'll be what I
make it. Go back to no morelattes. So it was that it's it's
my kind of this, this isn't ashort term plan for me, right?
This is a very long term planfor me. And I think that helps,
because I'm not expecting to hitmy goals in a short term way,
either. Right? I'm, it's, I'mgiving myself enough time to be
(26:13):
like, yep, this will eventuallyhappen. Now, I'm also really
lucky in that we're, now we're atwo income household, but for a
long time, we weren't. But thatwas something that was an
option. There have been manytimes, right. If I had started
this earlier, back, when we werestill in Alberta, I would have
had to work this would have beena side hustle for me for a
really long time. Probably untillike replaced almost all, if not
(26:38):
all of my income, right. At thatpoint in our lives. We just
couldn't have had maybe like,well, I might make money. This
quarter. I might not, I wouldnot, you know, we wouldn't have
been able to feed our kids andthings like that. So it depends
on the circumstance you're inalways. And I think I never
forget how lucky I am that I'min a situation where Mike's job
(27:02):
can pay the bills and keep usgoing. While I build this,
right? That's a very, veryprivileged position to be in.
And I'm super grateful for that.
But it was always the end game.
It was like I'm doing this untilit works, right. And once it
starts to get working a littlebit, once you get a little bit
of traction, where you're like Ihad more than one client at a
(27:22):
time, or it's not like I coachclients for six months, and then
there's nobody until I find onemore person that might want to
coach, once you start to getthat piece, it starts to be
easier to believe that right tothink that this might be a
viable situation. See, I coachon that a lot. That's a huge
portion of it for entrepreneursis trying to keep themselves in
(27:43):
the mindset of, of thepossibility of what they're
building. Right.
Jamie Stephens (27:47):
So I know a lot of coaches end up coaching on
the lessons that they themselvesneeded to learn the most or, you
know that will you say that thatwas true for you as well?
Unknown (28:02):
Yeah, I think it's funny what will happen. So I
have my coaches for me thatcoach me, and we'll go and I'll
do a coaching, I'll be gettinghelp on something that I can't
get myself sorted out to save mylife. And then that week, almost
inevitably, I will have a coupleof my clients at minimum,
sometimes it's like three orfour of them that come with a
(28:22):
very similar problem. And I'mlike, Oh, I can actually help
you this week. Because I just, Ijust started this I work. Here's
where I think I am on this. Whatdo you think, and it's the
benefit of a coach is Yeah,their experience of they've done
it before they've gone therebefore. But it's also the
objectivity. And that's whereentrepreneurs, that's why I so
(28:42):
strongly encourage people to geta coach because you cannot see
the forest for the trees on yourown. You just can't. And you
need somebody to just be like,Hey, wait, just just look over
here. Oh, oh, I didn't evennotice. I didn't even see that.
I couldn't even see that. And soI think there's those parts,
(29:05):
right? I think it's like, yeah,I'm gonna coach you on exactly
what I'm struggling with, or thething I was struggling with
eight months ago that I finallyfigured it out. And now I can
share that with you. But thenalso the, let me show you what
you can't see or let me talk toyou in a way that you can hear.
Because we're mean to ourselvesreally mean to ourselves. And
(29:26):
your coach is not going to bemean I my clients do call me a
bit of an ass kickeroccasionally. But I'm nice about
it right? Like I'm never gonnabe mean the way that your inner
voice says me to you, but I willkind of be like, you can do that
faster. Yeah, you can do morethan that. That goal you just
said is I mean, do you feelproud of that goal? I feel like
(29:49):
it's doable and I'm like okay,but yeah, if it's like oh you
it's a putting a brush yourteeth and your to do list you
know you're going to burn Yourteeth, or you might have already
brushed your teeth. And you'rejust checking off for the sake
of checkmark. Yeah, doesn'tcount. Come on now. So
Jamie Stephens (30:06):
calling them out.
Unknown (30:10):
And what I need, I mean, and I think what happens
is I realize how much like thecoach that I have. Is that kind
of a coach, because that's how Ineed to receive rice. Sometimes
it is a swift kick in thebehind. Yeah. That's who
gravitates to me is like, Yes, Ineed, I need a push, I need some
(30:30):
help. I also need the support onthe back end, that you're never
going to leave me feelingterrible about myself, but you
kind of pull in people that arejust like how you were near
moments ago? And that's whoyou're coaching for the most
part.
Jamie Stephens (30:43):
I get that for sure. Yeah, I respond that way
to where it's really like don'tsugarcoat it.
Unknown (30:49):
Yeah, you don't need to fluffy jacket for me just like,
get it out there.
Jamie Stephens (30:53):
Yeah. Awesome.
So one of the questions on yourbio sheet is about your crush
formula, what? What is not?
Unknown (31:03):
Okay, so the crush formula is what I think are the
five kind of key areas tobusiness development, and to
profitable growth. So the crushformula has the five categories.
So you start with the C, whichis the core of your business, it
is your mission, your vision,your values, the way that you
want to build the life that yourbusiness is supporting. So it's,
(31:26):
it's kind of really digging intothat piece of it. Are is talking
about revenue. So that ends upbeing all of the numbers. Are
you ready to hire? Are you readyto expand? Do you need another
bricks and mortar location? Areyou needing to talk about
pricing? Do you need to figureout what your profit and loss
statement look like? Whateverthat might look like? The use
(31:48):
for utility. So it is reallytalking about? In order to scale
your business, you cannot be aone man band with no automation
with no software support doesn'tnecessarily mean you need to
build yourself a big team.
That's, you know, some peoplereally want to do that. And some
people are like, no, don't wantto do that. But it's creating
yourself all of the support thatallows you to scale right,
(32:09):
giving you the capacity to dealwith more clients than just 123
at a time, then S is sales. Soit's all how do we sell how do
we price? How do we promoteourselves? Overall, this is
where I find my like PR andmarketing kind of background as
really comes into it. Like howare we going to promote you? How
(32:30):
are you going to stand out anddifferentiate yourself really
confidently to sell whatever itis you're selling. And then age
is the headspace. So back tothat mindset piece really along
the way each piece of it is, andhow are you feeling? And what is
going on? I get claimedsometimes it'll come in and be
like, I didn't do any of thethings that we talked about
(32:52):
doing. I'm like, okay, that'sfine. Why? What stopped you like
what was it that stopped youfrom doing the thing you had
committed to What stopped youfrom being committed to that
action. And so often, that's theroadblock. It's not even, that
they don't know what to do, it'sthat there's something there
that we have to just workthrough a little bit. So those
five key areas, you keep comingback to them all the time.
(33:17):
People always say to me, becauseI poach with clients for six
months at a time. And theyalways say to me, like, Is it
six months, and then you'redone, like you're off to fly
free. And I'm like, yeah,sometimes people are super happy
to do that. But most of thetime, it's like, okay, now back
to the beginning, because nowI'm at a new stage. And I need
to be able to make sure thatthis is all still working at the
next level that I'm at. It'skind of a rinse and repeat. As
(33:40):
you said earlier, that formula,you just rinse and repeat until
it's really streamlined. Andthen you grow and you rinse and
repeat again. I like that.
Jamie Stephens (33:51):
I really like that you included the headspace
as well, because I am just afirm believer that that is just
a it's what makes everythingelse work. Because without it,
it's just, you're just gonna gocrawl in the fetal position and
stay under the covers and nevergive up.
Unknown (34:11):
And it took me forever in my business. That is the one
thing that if I was to say likewhat pinpoint from being kind of
sort of possibly doing abusiness to actually being
successful. It was me embracingheadspace in a way that I hadn't
before. I felt like it was verywoowoo it wasn't really up my
alley to begin with for a longtime. I would read books and be
(34:33):
like, I don't know what this istalking about. And when I
finally did embrace it, it waslike, Oh, this might have been
the thing that I've been missingall the time. I can't just like
action my way through things ortactic my way through things.
Back in my PR days. It was verymuch like well, what's the goal?
What are the tactics? How do Iget there.if I do the things it
(34:55):
should work. And it's like, whatyou learn is you can do a lot of
the things And so it's notworking. And you have to really
think about, well, then why isit not working? Right, right.
And so when I finally didembrace the mindset piece in a
way that was meaningful, lo andbehold, it worked.
Jamie Stephens (35:14):
Yeah. And I think that kind of goes back to
what we were talking aboutearlier, too, is, I mean, like,
once, that mind set pieces kindof in place, you you know, how
to frame everything else tosupport you on your journey.
Which, if you're not doing thatis really I mean,
Unknown (35:35):
it's really hard. I'll tell you, it's really hard.
Jamie Stephens (35:38):
Yeah. I mean, with just that constant repeat
of main girl in your head, justtelling you how stupid you are
the whole time. And what are youdoing it
Unknown (35:47):
again? So look at these people, they're doing it and
you're like, I should be able toI'm doing all the things. Yeah,
maybe not all the things Oops.
Jamie Stephens (35:55):
No, it's so important to to recognize that.
It's not. It's not just aboutrecreating the actions of
someone else. It's like, youcan't just follow a blueprint,
per se, and still get the sameresults. Because there's so much
that goes in behind theintention. And like where you're
at, and who your people, I mean,all of it so much, which is one
(36:18):
of the lessons that I've had tolearn over, like, every course
that I've bought every you know,it's like one of those things.
It's like, wait a second, why amI not a millionaire? Yeah.
Unknown (36:27):
Yeah, well, yeah, it's that it's that like, multiple
permutations and things, right,whoever made that course,
stumbled across a way thatworked for her. Most of the
time, it's the 57 things she'stried. And it finally works. And
probably because she stuck itout for long enough. Right. And
(36:50):
I think we just we're likelooking for that. As a society,
I think we just do the look forthe magic pill thing, right?
Like, what is the just tellingyou in three steps that you can
tell me how to do this, I can doit. I'm like, I could give you
everything I've done from when Istarted to now. And you still
wouldn't be able to replicate myresults, you might massively
exceed my results you might benever making it down it, you
(37:14):
just can't tell right, becauseit's got more to do with who you
are, and who your audience isand how you connect with them.
And the service that you bring,and you just have to find a way
to comfortably start sharingwork, right, and just doing it
probably more times than you aredoing it. That's if I tell
clients one thing is you need totalk to more people. It doesn't
(37:38):
matter. The industry doesn'tmatter. The business doesn't
matter, the entrepreneur, you'renot talking to enough people
about what you do and how youcan help them.
Jamie Stephens (37:46):
For sure. I mean, really, yeah, I know. I'm
like, hey. So your podcast is away for you to do that. Why
don't you tell us a little bitabout that?
Unknown (38:02):
Yeah, so she needs grit podcast is very much a
conversation. Ideally, I'mtrying to create a conversation
like this. It's kind of withmyself in a room, but still kind
of talking about the topics,what do you need to build your
business? What do you need toscale? What do you need to grow?
I'm just at the point where I'mgoing to start bringing on
(38:22):
guests into the podcast in thefall, which I'm really excited
about. Because up until now,I've been talking to myself in a
row. So I think it'll be somegood variety for the audience to
get a little bit of instead ofme just saying the things, let's
have a conversation about howthat actually affects my, you
know, my interview person, and aback and forth, right. So I
(38:42):
think those lessons can belearned just as easily, if not
more fun, without being justtalked to. So I'm excited about
that. But it's a lot of thesetopics. It's about being
profitable, it's about on beingvisible, getting your confidence
up there, on scaling yourbusiness, the next kind of
series of podcasts that arecoming out are very much that
(39:04):
scaling piece to what do youneed to grow from where you are
right now? And what parts of itdo you need to start thinking
about and implementing?
Jamie Stephens (39:12):
Would you say that for a lot of women, that
you coach, the thing that'sholding them back from growing
is letting go of the controlover their business? Or like
outsourcing that sort of thing.
Unknown (39:25):
Delegation is critical.
You can't you cannot do ityourself. We all try. And at the
beginning, part of why we'retrying to do that is money,
right? I don't have enough moneyto hire help. But you get to the
point where you can't growwithout spending money. And that
is a hard place to be in whenyou're at the early days where
(39:46):
there's not just money and youyou know, unless we're
independently wealthy, there'snot just cash to spend. But
we're getting looking at it andsaying like, what am I buying?
For myself if I hire a VA, andthe joy of the industry now. And
then you need industry beingentrepreneurship is that you can
hire somebody for two hours aweek to do something. So if you
(40:08):
buy yourself back two hours aweek, and you can sell one
client in that two hours, or youcan go to a networking event, or
you can create all of yoursocial media for the month,
whatever that looks like, butthat time, it's worth it. Right
and you, you just can't getthere without it. Because what
(40:28):
ends up happening withentrepreneurs is then they work
60 hours a week, and they'remiserable, and they quit,
because you're trying to do atall. So there's so many ways to
look at hiring that isn'tnecessarily like I'm hiring a
full time human person that'sgoing to need an office and
need, I don't know, 401 k, andthe all of that stuff like that.
(40:50):
There's just creative ways thatyou can get help and expand your
capacity, which allows you totalk to more people and tell
them what you do, right?
Jamie Stephens (41:01):
Yeah, no, and I was thinking about that the
other day to kind of rememberwhat how it came up or anything,
but I was telling somebody, youknow, if I were to go out and
start a restaurant, there wouldjust be this expectation that
I'm going to burn through a lotof cash, I'm going to have a lot
(41:22):
of upfront expenses that I needto cover for equipment, for
food, for staff for training forall the things, but then for
some reason, women go intobusiness and think I don't need
any money. I'm gonna do everysingle thing myself, I'm gonna
figure it all out, you know,when it's just kind of like, why
(41:42):
do we do that? Like, why do weminimize what I know, part of it
is probably necessity that it'slike, well, we don't have, you
know, $200,000 to just go sink.
That's why we're doing, youknow, an online business versus
like a brick and mortar, but itjust seems like, I don't know
why it takes us so long to kindof get to that point to where
(42:04):
it's like, Oh, I could actuallypay somebody to do that thing.
That takes me six hours. Andthey can do it in any
Unknown (42:16):
order. And it's it's that investment philosophy that
if I could change one thingabout entrepreneurs, especially
early stage entrepreneurs, isthat you don't have a bricks and
mortar. So the thing you need toinvest in is yourself. That's
it, you have to invest inyourself. And so that does look
(42:36):
like hiring a coach that youfeel is going to get you to the
next level, it is taking thetime to go to conferences or you
know, like business webinars,things like that, that are going
to uplevel whatever skills youdon't currently own right? It is
taking time to say, Am I doingthe $1,000 an hour work in my
(42:58):
business? Or am I accidentallydoing the $10 an hour work in my
business? Get rid of that $10 Anhour work. But then make sure
that you are and this is where Ithink then of course, like this
is a shameless plug. But likehaving a coach that helps you
figure out the difference, andwhere your skill sets are and
(43:19):
how to implement that shouldalways create a massive
difference in your bottom line.
Right? So it's like, if I wasgoing to hike up Everest, I need
somebody who's going to show methe way, right how do I avoid
that crevasse and avoid that,whatever it is, and body over
there, whatever on Everest. I'mgoing to hire a Sherpa to carry
(43:41):
my stop. But at least some of itbecause it can't possibly carry
it all myself and still do this.
And online entrepreneurs have atendency to think they can do
all of the things forever. Andthen they think it means that I
make all of the money, right? Iget all of the money. You look
at any other business in theworld, they are leveraging
(44:04):
whatever cash is available forthem in order to grow. Right. So
I get clients sometimes it sayto me, like I don't know if I
can pay your rates, right? Idon't have enough cash in my
business to do that. And I'mlike, Okay, what other ways do
you have that you could pay meif this is the thing and not not
as a pressure thing, like not asa need to pay me but what other
(44:24):
way? Can you create thissolution for yourself? Are there
books out there? Are thereseminars out there? Do you have
accessible loans or accessiblecredit that would allow you to
get that experience, get thathelp? And then grow? That's what
everybody does? Nobody pays cashfor the restaurant. Right?
Right. They take out a businessloan and they decide, okay, I'm
(44:47):
going to need to do theconstruction and then have to
hire staff before I have onepatron in here eating a
hamburger or whatever it is. AndI think it's that if we can get
over that mentality of like, Ican't spend any of the money I
just have to do this all byitself. It just takes longer,
you can do it, you can 100% doit. I believe any entrepreneur
that's really driven can do itthat way. It just will take you
(45:10):
longer inevitably, which isusually the last thing they want
to do is take longer,
Jamie Stephens (45:15):
right? Because the more you put that off
thinking that you're savingmoney, the more money you're
actually costing yourself.
Unknown (45:22):
Yep. Because that person can do it faster than you
can, right? Whether it's leadyou down the path, or create the
social media posts, or figureout how to come up with a sales
funnel. You could teach yourselfhow to do it salesman, no
problem, but somebody out therealready knows and can do it in
45 minutes. What are you doing?
Like, why are we doing this toourselves? I did that usually
when I started the podcast,because the hindrance for me for
(45:45):
the podcast was I don't know howto edit podcasts. And that took
me a long time to be like, Well,I just won't do it. Like, I'm
not ready, I don't havecapacity. I wasn't gaining any
capacity in my business where Iwas getting busier. And so when
I launched, I hired somebodythat set it all up on the back
end, did all of that for me andproduced the first three shows,
(46:07):
and edited it. And then I kepther on for a long time doing all
of my editing. And now my VAdoes all of my editing and all
of my marketing of the podcast.
Because there was no way I thinkyou're going to take it back in
house and you're going to do ityour own cell. That's only if I
don't if I have time to do that.
I've forgotten that I needcleaning to Yeah, right. Now a
(46:29):
long lesson to learn sometimesfor me, possibly. But, you know,
the sooner you learn that thefaster you'll go with the
growth. And that's the goal.
Yeah,
Jamie Stephens (46:43):
I will say that that was just one of the one of
my learnings that I was eager toimplement, because I you know,
in my corporate environment, Iused to lead a team. And it was
like, I found my way, like I wasthe delegation queen. No, no,
this is not a me problem. Thisis for you. This is
Unknown (47:04):
not my skill set. But look, you have this skill set.
Yes. Take this.
Jamie Stephens (47:08):
Yeah. So like, I really, you know, that's a good
one that I've developed over theyears. And so like being able to
be like, Okay, I recognize thatthis is not my strength or my
you know, happy place. Let's goahead and get rid of this. For
sure. Yeah.
Unknown (47:24):
Yeah. So critical.
Jamie Stephens (47:26):
So what else?
What else do you have going on?
What What kind of ways are youworking with people through your
podcasts through coaching
Unknown (47:35):
through the podcast.
Um, so the fun thing about thepodcast is because I'm now
taking interviewee applications,that's going to be a really fun
opportunity either come on intwo different ways, either as an
expert in your field, that iskind of in conjunction with what
I'm doing, right. So if you area support to building a business
(47:55):
in any capacity, then that's Iwant to have you on and have
that conversation about it. Soif your audience, anybody that
resonates with them, then thenput in an application. And I'll
send you that the link will bein the show notes, and on the
link tree on my Instagram. Somake sure everybody has access
to that. And then the second wayis I want to do some live
(48:17):
coaching on the podcast, becauseI think I'm in a number of
different group coachingprograms and have been over the
years. And I think there's somuch value in having somebody
else get coached and you beingable to listen to it and hear it
and pull from it, what resonateswith you, or like what might be
the thing you are going to dealwith next, or the thing that
you're also knee deep in rightnow. So those are the two
(48:40):
different ways I'm going to havepeople on the podcast. So if
you're somebody who knows youneed a little bit of coaching or
wants to kind of dip their toein, or just has a burning
problem right now that they'relike, if I could just get some
help on this one thing that'stripping me up, putting in an
application to me for that aswell. would be a cool wait.
Jamie Stephens (49:03):
I agree that those coaching conversations
that I hear, man, those aregold, not only do you learn like
they're your own approach of howto dig deeper how to pull
questions from people how toreally understand what the real
thing is that's going on. Butalso just the lessons learned on
(49:24):
the other side. I mean, there'sall of that. All of that is
really gone. That's exciting.
Unknown (49:30):
Yeah, so that's really exciting. So that's kind of
happening right now. And then,of course, anybody who wants to
come in and do one on onecoaching with me, I work with
clients for six months. So it isweekly coaching calls, it's me
really like elbow deep in yourbusiness, helping you get from
where you are right now towhatever that scale amount
you're looking for. So reallyworking on bottom line profit is
(49:53):
of course our goal, but allalong the way we work through
that crush formula and get itdown.
Jamie Stephens (49:58):
That's so awesome. All right. Well, Sam,
thank you so much for your timetoday. It's been such a fun
conversation.
Unknown (50:04):
Yeah, this has been great. I loved it.
Jamie Stephens (50:07):
Okay, that concludes another episode of
Breaking up with corporate and Ican confirm that Sam is my kind
of people. I had such a fun timechatting with her and got so
much personally from thisepisode with some of these key
takeaways. Number one, who areyou attracting? When Sam
realized that the majority ofthe personal finance clients she
(50:28):
was attracting just happened tobe entrepreneurs, she was able
to see the opportunity andcreate a program for them that
really took her business to thenext level. Number two, step
into confidence, get some salestraining and go all in learn to
talk to humans and share youroffers in a way that doesn't
feel sleazy or salesy. You don'tbecome profitable by hiding
(50:51):
behind your task list on acomputer. Number three, it's all
feedback. There's a lot of trialand error and entrepreneurship,
when something doesn't work out.
Take it as feedback, whatworked, what didn't What will
you change next time. Getcurious, not frustrated. Number
four, check your expectations. Agood way to keep up positive
momentum when you're tryingsomething new is to set the
(51:13):
expectations around what you cando something you can control
like showing up and giving ityour best. If you do that it's a
win. Anything else is justbonus. Number five, it doesn't
happen overnight. Going fromside hustle to full fledged
business paying the bills cantake time, focus on slow
sustained growth versus chasingafter immediate results. It's
(51:36):
like going to the gym and eatingright versus searching for the
next diet pill. Number six,manage your mind. You can
outsource pretty much everythingbut only you can work on your
mindset. Make it a priority.
Number seven, you can copy butyou can't replicate. Recreating
the actions of a successfulperson is not a magic pill for
(51:59):
success. Your mindset, yourpersonality, who you are,
there's so much more that goesinto it. Number eight, you're
the investment. When you have anonline business, you're the
investment your brain, yourlearnings, your time. So get a
coach, go to conferences anddelegate that admin work to a VA
as quickly as you can so youdon't burn out. That's it for
(52:21):
this week. Thanks so much to Samfor being on the show today. I
have all the links in the shownotes so you can check out her
programs or podcasts, all thethings as always if you enjoyed
this episode, help us sister outgo drop a five star rating for
me. There's a link in the shownotes to do that as well. Thank
you so much for being here and Ihope you have a fantastic week.
And it took me forever in my business. That is
the one thing that if I was tosay like what pinpoint from
being kind of sort of passivelydoing a business to actually
being successful, it was meembracing headspace in a way
that I hadn't before. I feltlike it was very woowoo. It
wasn't really up my alley tobegin with for a long time, I
would read books and be like, Idon't know what this is talking
(00:22):
about. And when I finally didembrace it, it was like, Oh,
this might have been the thingthat I've been missing all the
time. I can't just like actionmy way through things or tactic
my way through things. What youlearn is you can do a lot of
other things. And so it's notworking and you have to really
think about, well, then why isit not working. And so when I
finally did embrace the mindsetpiece in a way that was
(00:46):
meaningful, lo and behold, itworked.
Jamie Stephens (00:51):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of
breaking up a corporate eachweek I chat with everyday women
that ditch their nine to five tobet on themselves. We break down
their journey intoentrepreneurship, unpack the
lessons learned and create thevision of how this life gets to
be if you're willing to getuncomfortable and step into your
potential. I'm your host, JamieRenee, to time corporate escapee
(01:14):
and coach to burnout womenlooking to plan their escape.
Let's go.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Breaking up
with corporate today. I have Sambarter on here. And Sam is a
profit coach, and a money makingbusiness strategist. Welcome to
(01:36):
the show, Sam,
Unknown (01:37):
thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Jamie Stephens (01:39):
Yeah, just to kick us off. I mean, I'll just
go ahead and jump right in. Oneof the things Sam and I were
talking about was the profitpiece, I was telling her at this
point and my business, I havelike a really expensive hobby
that I've been working on. Butwe're gonna get into that in
just a little bit and reallykind of pull out that profit
piece. But before we do that,let's go ahead and get just a
(02:01):
little bit of your backgroundand kind of what you were doing
before you kind of landed inthis role.
Unknown (02:08):
Okay, sounds good. So, um, I think the best place to
start is the fact that I went toschool 180 years ago, it feels
like sometimes now. But I wentfor public relations and
communication. So that was a Iwas going to go and work agency
and I was going to that was whatmy career path was going to be.
And everybody listening knows,right your your career path
(02:31):
versus the path that happens isalways the exact same. And the
agency collapsed, and I trippedinto a finance job. It was I
needed a job, it was a jobavailable. And so I went into
finance at that point, which is,if you had ever seen me
struggling at the kitchen table,doing my math homework, you'd be
How did that even happen. But loand behold, it's like fifth
(02:54):
grade math to do financeessentially met, you know,
adding and subtracting, so Icould do that much. And I ended
up in finance. And what happenedfrom there is, it's funny now I
look back on it. But my husbandworked for oil and gas, big oil
and gas. And he got a job offerin Australia. So I was working
(03:15):
my way up the corporate ladderdoing estate planning and
financial planning and workingfor the Canadian Medical
Association. At that point, wewere so in Canada, and he got a
job offer in Australia, which isamazing. Who doesn't want to go
in Australia by the beach? Likeof course we do. So off we went
to Australia with at that point,we had a three and a half year
(03:39):
old and a one year old. And mythought was I would just get all
of my license or yourqualifications in Australia. And
I would work there I would goback to work. We get to
Australia, we find that we'refirst off we're having baby
number three. So that's asurprise because now we're in a
foreign land with no familysupport, and we're gonna have
three very little kids all closetogether. But I do all the
(04:02):
qualification I get ready I willeventually one day go back to
work and in that position. ThenMike comes home and says hey,
how do you feel about Houston?
Oh, Australia, like Houston,USA, Texas, like what? Music
Yeah, yeah, I they want to knowwe want to go and work out of
the Houston office. It'd becloser to home like all of those
(04:24):
pieces are, are very appealingat that point. We've been gone
for three years. But my Canadianqualifications are useless in
Texas. My Australianqualifications are also useless
in Texas. And so we moved toTexas, and I decided I was going
to build a business like aturtle shell that could come
with me wherever he took me. SoI wasn't sitting in that
(04:47):
situation of like and againqualified and all these
countries I don't have been andfind it very pointless. So
that's how I ended up fallinginto our partnership was almost
out of necessity, right? Gettingmyself to that point of, okay,
this, this sucks, I don't wantto just be qualified and all the
lands they don't live in. So Iwill, I will just make my own
thing that doesn't need all thelicensing. So now I started,
(05:11):
when I started my coachingbusiness, I started doing
financial coaching forindividuals. So personal
budgeting, and wealthdevelopment strategies and that
sort of thing. Almost everybodythat showed up in my sphere was
business owners. So it becamevery obvious that I was
attracting business owners and Ineeded to go back into that kind
(05:32):
of corporate money side ofthings rather than just the
personal side. So that's how wegot here. And we've been in
Texas now for eight years. Sothat's, that's how we got here.
Jamie Stephens (05:45):
That's quite a, that's quite a journey. And I
mean, it's just that I wouldhave to be just so frustrating
to to just like, finally getgoing. And then just okay, like,
here we go, you know, which Ifeel like, women tend to be in
those positions a lot more thanmen. So I really, I'm a big fan
(06:05):
of entrepreneurship, especiallyfor those reasons so that women
get more choices and love andthose things. I know, it kind of
just like glossed over in yourthing. But what was that
transition between working withindividuals and working with
businesses? Kind of what didthat that look like? Like within
a couple of months? Or how longdid it take to figure that out?
Unknown (06:28):
It was pretty quick, it was pretty quick, realizing that
I could help people figure outlike, what is the budgetary
changes they can make in theirhomes, to just create some more
financial flexibility right atthe beginning, or they have a
business and we could just maketheir money, which alleviates a
lot of those budgeting problems,right? If you can figure out how
(06:49):
to take the thing you're alreadydoing, and have it be more
profitable, which of course isalways like more money in your
own individual pocket, then allof a sudden, you're not trying
to like can I Starbucks it? Ordo I have to kind of the latte
factor, like all those thingsthat we hear about in personal
finance, which I kind of despisethat philosophy anyway. So I
(07:09):
think it was just like, oh, no,I'm just going to do it this
way. And then I started talking,you know, on social media and
networking and stuff. More to ifyou have a business and I always
I it's funny, you said like Ihave an expensive hobby, I
always talk about hobby job,right? Where like, it's a little
more hobby than it is job. Andbecause it's not, it's not
paying all the bills, right?
It's not creating that incomethat's giving you that, that
(07:31):
flexibility and that freedom.
And that was the thing thatstarted talking about. And so
then people that were in thatposition, that's exactly who
showed up to begin with was hey,yeah, I haven't they, I need to
make it be a business becauseit's, it takes all my time and
causes me a lot of stress to bea hobby.
Jamie Stephens (07:49):
So what were kind of the overarching themes,
like with what I'm assuming thatsome patterns emerged with what
people were showing up with whythey weren't making money, and
you know, asking for a friend,so
Unknown (08:05):
I love it. I know this person. Okay, so huge themes
that I see really often is okay,I think competence is huge,
right? Like really steppinginto, I am all in on this idea.
And I am like Full Tilt aheadand doing it confidently. We do
a lot of hiding behind thecomputer. Sometimes the busy
(08:28):
work of like I worked reallyhard this week, I worked all
day. I accomplished a lot ofthings. But I didn't actually
talk to any other humans aboutwhat I have to offer. Right. So
that reluctance to kind of makeit public and have it out there
in the world. That's huge. Andthat stems often from a lack of
sales skills. So mostentrepreneurs don't start in a
(08:51):
sales role, and work backwardsto creating a business. They
start with a passion, they startwith something that drives them.
And they they're so excitedbecause they know the value of
what they have to offer forclients and they're so excited
about that potential. Butthere's that really big like
sleazy stumbling block of salespeople get really caught up in,
(09:11):
I don't want to pester people, Idon't want to overwhelm people,
I don't want to only be talkingabout my business all the time.
I think I might sound like aused car salesman, you know, a
terrible, terrible one from a1992 movie kind of idea, right?
And it's that those two things,the companies in the sales
skills are usually at theforefront of the problems. And
(09:32):
then sometimes there's the moneyin the finance deck on the back
end of like, how do I evenfigure out what my pricing
should be? If you're in aposition of like independently
setting your own prices,sometimes, depending on the
business, that's not the case.
But those three things show upover and over again, right?
Yeah,
Jamie Stephens (09:51):
yeah, I can see that because that is so much of
what I have worked through overthe last year. I mean, it's
yeah, it's really not so muchlike the The Skills part of
things has not tripped me atall. Yeah, I think like a
lifelong learner or somebody whocame from a corporate, you know,
like, I can pick up on the knowhow to do these things. Yeah, I
(10:11):
can do that things. But it'slike articulating the value of
the things, being confident inmy own ability of the thing,
because I don't have theofficial training, you know, all
of the things that can meetyeah, I've definitely realized a
lot of those. The good news is Ido feel like I'm mostly on the
other side of that I've done alot of just personal growth over
(10:35):
the last year, just really justpushing myself and put, you
know, all of those things thatwere once very uncomfortable,
including something like this,like, No, everything's new at
one point.
Unknown (10:47):
Yeah, we all start at the beginning, right. And I
think we forget that sometimes,because we so often see people
like midway through theirjourney, or three quarters of
the way through in reality, andthey're so good at that. They
are so smooth, it's so clear,they they come across really
well. And then the reality is,there was a point if you I mean,
with everybody, unless theyclean up their social media. If
(11:10):
you're ever feeling that way,just go way back go into the
archives of like, what did itlook like? The first time they
tried to do it? It probablylooked ridiculous, right? They
probably stammered and stutteredand didn't know how to present
themselves or like, you know, Idid a whole webinar once and
didn't have a call to action.
There was no like, it was like,thanks for coming. By, like,
(11:30):
there was no way to contact me.
There was no, there was no wayto purchase anything from me. It
was just like, I'm so glad wespent this hour together.
Thanks, guys. I can relate tothat. Right? And you get off and
you're like, oh, no, that's notgonna work. I was like, and I
have I don't even know what tothing.
Jamie Stephens (11:49):
Translate to nothing. Yeah, experience. Good
experience.
Unknown (11:54):
Yeah. What to not do put that in the Don't do that
again. Call me. Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (11:58):
You know, like that is like a, just a big
column for entrepreneurship isit's just a whole bunch of,
we'll put it in that column.
We'll learn and move on. We'llput it in that column. We'll
learn and move on. It's just arinse and repeat.
Unknown (12:13):
Yeah, it is. And I think, I think almost titling
that column wins. Right? Yeah,it was the first time you did
that webinar. Well, that's thewin. It doesn't have to be like
if we anticipate that the windshould be in I sold 20 spots in
my coaching program. That'sinsane. For one wouldn't
nobody's going to do thatdrowned. And just going from
(12:35):
like, I've never done a webinarto now I've done my first
webinar, that's a win. So we putit in that column, and then all
of a sudden, it starts to belike, oh, all those things,
right? That whole column doesn'tfeel so painful. When it's a win
win. It's a thing I've achievedthe thing that I try the thing
that I put out there and learnfrom feels better. It feels way
(12:57):
better than being like my work.
That didn't work. It's so
Jamie Stephens (13:01):
true. And having that expectation at the front,
too. So like, a few months ago,I did a five day challenge
showed up live five days, anhour at a time. First time ever.
Yeah. And it was going into thisgroup coaching program. Yep. My
goal for the five days was Ishow up every day, I don't die.
(13:25):
I get this experience 100%. Andif somebody happens to sign up,
then we'll call that like bonus.
But my goal is that I survivedthis. And you know, it was like,
and lo and behold, that's kindof what happened. But it was
just like, Yeah, okay, I wasprepared for that. And yes,
there's still that, oh, like,little disappointment. But it's
not like I just walked away fromthat feeling like a failure. So
(13:47):
like, yeah, having thosereframes even before you go in
and having your results oversomething that you can actually
or your wins be something thatyou can actually control, like,
showing up every day and doingyour best. And that's that whole
reframe of that's not a failure,you just got to collect those
along the way and you're juststacking it up. And that's good.
(14:09):
Exactly.
Unknown (14:11):
And doing it more than once. I think, I think the one
thing that I've learned over theyears is how frequently we try a
thing once and we don't comeback to it because it didn't
work because we do have in theback of our head, even if we
don't set those goals if we'retrying not to kind of like put
ourselves in a poor position. Westill somehow in the back of our
(14:32):
head is like Yeah, but we needso many sales to justify this
and it's like okay, but maybe wejust need to say I'm going to do
a webinar every month or everytwo weeks until I land a sale
and then I'm going to do thatwebinar or whatever that looked
like every month right and I'mI'm saying this from coaching
world, but again, that's likeshoemakers, children guys, I
(14:54):
didn't do a webinar every month.
I kind of like threw in thetowel for a little while and now
Now it's back on my radar to doagain. But I think it's that
piece too of sticking withthose. Whatever those strategies
are long enough to give them achance to actually be successful
as well, is sometimes thehardest part of it. Right? Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (15:17):
So thinking back to one of the earlier things we
were talking about, I'm curious,has anybody ever come to you
with their jabi? Their hobbyjabi? And you recommended that
they just kind of make it ahobby? Or is there always like a
conversion of to yeah, this canbe a viable business. Is there
(15:38):
anybody that you just said,like, I don't know, if you're
cut out for this.
Unknown (15:42):
There's not been anybody where I've thought, oh,
I don't know thatentrepreneurship is going to be
your thing. But I've had acouple of people like just in my
environment, right, that hat,they they have a new idea. Every
time I see them. They want totalk about all of the things.
But there's no action. There'sno back end action. So I think
(16:03):
there is a little bit of that,like, the novelty of being your
own business owner, that I'venever had to say to somebody
like me, this is not for you.
This is not for you. Barista isfor you. That's your plan. Just
carry on this carry on carry onwith your job. It's great. No,
there's always been, there'salways been a way that I can
look at that business.
(16:24):
Regardless of what type ofbusiness it is, and be like,
Yeah, this can be viable. Butthis needs to change. Like often
it's appraising structure,things like that can be really a
problem sometimes.
Jamie Stephens (16:35):
So for the people that do have like, lots
of ideas and lots of thingshappening, or as an
entrepreneur, like how do youstay focused on stuff? Like
there's always shiny objectsyndrome, and I tend to be prone
to? So I'm just like, what isthe the secret sauce there to
(16:55):
actually
Unknown (16:57):
actually sticking to it? Yeah. Do you think your
shiny object is more like interms of strategy? So you're
still trying to achieve the sameend? Or you're just trying
different methodology to do it?
Or do you think it's actuallythe, like that structure of your
business like that? What is mybusiness idea? What am I
actually creating? Which one doyou think is the bigger?
Jamie Stephens (17:19):
It's more like, I know what I'm going for? It's
the individual pieces on how toget there that seemed to kind of
change a little bit. And part ofme is like, well, the more I
learn, the more I'mincorporating them, you know,
but then part of me is like,just shut up and finish
(17:39):
something.
Unknown (17:41):
Okay, yes. So that for sure says to me, first off, I
the first question I wouldalways have for you or anybody
else, who's in thiscircumstances, how many things
are you trying to build at thesame time? Right? Do you have
multiple different serviceofferings are multiple different
(18:01):
products? Are you trying to groweverybody all at the same time,
which, of course, then you'regetting like, you really only
have 10% energy for each one ofthese things, if you've got 10.
Or my suggestion always, forentrepreneurs at the beginning
is to like go all in on oneoffer. So at least even if you
are like choosing 15 differentways to promote it, or to sell
(18:24):
it or to have it out there inthe world, it's all the same
offer. So you're still talkingoff the same song sheet, if that
makes sense. And then I reallysaid my clients all the time,
you have to do a strategy for 90days. And all that we're doing
along the way is the evaluationpiece. Did it work, what worked,
what didn't work and changingone variable at a time? We have
(18:48):
a tendency, I think, as peopleto change everything like, Well,
that didn't work. So let's go onto the next thing. Or like, I
saw somebody on a pipe or listento somebody on a podcast and
they said, do this thing. And sonow I'm gonna try that, like
that seems right. It worked forthem. It should work for me. And
I'm a big believer that like, itdoesn't matter what strategy you
(19:09):
choose, it will work. If yougive it long enough to work.
Most people don't. Right. Theyjust abandon it to the next
shiny thing, right. Yeah.
Jamie Stephens (19:19):
I think part of what my learning opportunity for
the last year has been just thatbecause it was I'm not to say
that you can't. I mean, peoplefigure it out all the time. You
know, some of us are latebloomers, and it's fine. But
Unknown (19:39):
I've even figured out tons of things. I I have
Jamie Stephens (19:42):
figured out tons of things and there's still so
much more. But like one of thethings it's like, really, my
goal has been this podcast. Imean, like I was starting from
fresh. So I launched a podcast Ilearned how to do social media,
which for an introvert is love Ithat's a whole therapy. Course.
(20:03):
And it's,
Unknown (20:05):
yeah. You need like a service dog in the, in the Oh,
for reals when you're trying todo it right.
Jamie Stephens (20:10):
Is that my feet?
Yeah, exactly. So like all ofthose things, and I put all this
pressure to also build abusiness on, you know, and, and
I was not even sure what thatbusiness was in the beginning.
So I did a lot of angsty, flipflopping, trying to figure it
out, you know. So now that I'vefigured out what I want to do,
(20:31):
it's like, Okay, now, now, Igotta go, like, refill the
coffers a little bit. So I canhave more runway. But really,
it's, it's such a process. Now Ilike the whole just change one
thing at a time, because I dotend to go the throat in the
bucket.
Unknown (20:50):
Yeah, it makes all the difference, because then you can
start to see when you gettraction, right? It's not
immediate when you see thatwith. I mean, when you start
social media, and you startposting, and you you know, at
the at the early stages, you'revery quick to like, Wait, did
anybody, anybody callinganybody? Like, did anybody
follow me? All of those things,and it's kind of like, that's
(21:12):
never going to happen. 30seconds after you get, I mean,
your mom will follow you andyour sisters and maybe your
friends. You know, I know, myhusband follows me on Instagram,
but that was because I was like,why are you not following me on
Instagram? He's like, I don'thave an Instagram, like, how do
I even do that, and I'm like,here, I'll do it for you. Like,
you're gonna follow me onInstagram. Um, but there comes a
(21:33):
point, right? Where it's like,it gets more comfortable. And
now you're doing it morefrequently, and you're probably
a lot less quick to go and checkwhether it worked right away.
Right, as opposed to justknowing I'm gonna put out the
value, people will get it, and Istart to see that you're gonna
see it, not where you expect,necessarily, right? It's not
necessarily 15 comments, everypost or 35 comments or under 50
(21:56):
comments. But it's somebody whosays to you out in the world
that you actually know, like,hey, was a great post the other
day, I read that, and I thoughtthat was great. And you're like,
that makes me feel good. Andwrite probably didn't post,
right or comment on your post,they just told you in real life,
and so many people that you'rehaving an impact on through the
podcast through social media,they're not going to say like,
(22:19):
Hey, thanks, right? Even thoughyou know, they exist, right? You
will start to see that getsinterruption. And it's just
having the having the faith anddoing it until it works.
Jamie Stephens (22:32):
How long did it take you from the time that you
decided you were going to be anentrepreneur to the time that
you actually, like, startedmaking money? Okay, so
Unknown (22:43):
my trying to think back, I do everything and
measuring of like, how old werekids, and how I like judge my
entire life. So my youngest nowwill be nine in September. And
when he was, he was finallygoing to preschool a little bit
of time, right? So I carved outa little bit of time for myself
at that point. So it wasn't justa pipe dream, right? It wasn't
(23:04):
just me reading a bunch of booksand fine, making ideas. Probably
five and a half years ago now, Ithink. And the first money I
made was, we have a swimmingpool at our house and I was
getting the, you know, the babyfans put around the pool. And
the guy came and he were justchatting. And he asked me so
(23:24):
what do you do? And I said,Well, my financial coach, do
this all what is that? And so itkind of told them. And he asked
me how much I charge and I said730 bucks for like three months,
I think was the pricing I had atthe time. And he's like, Okay,
perfect. Well, why don't I dodefense for free? And then I'll
pay you half of what? Right?
Because that worked out was likewhat he was placing me
(23:46):
accordingly for it. So that wasabout five and a half years ago.
And then literally, I can'tremember what your next client
was after that. But it wasn'tvery quick. Like it was like, it
was a really and I think mostentrepreneurs will tell you that
the beginning is like it's like,I have a boyfriend. I have four
months or nothing happens.
Again, the pain of depression. Ihave a client deep right and it
(24:07):
and that eventually gets easier.
And then now I am I prettyconsistently getting to the
point of like between 10 and$15,000 months. That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah. So five and a halfyears of like, gradually
increasing how much time I couldspend right as kids. He's now
going into third grade thisyear. So obviously, I now have
(24:27):
six hours a day when they're inschool, or being like a working
human which right before thatwith four kids. It's a lot of
not a lot of time on my own. Soyeah, it's kind of taken that
long. So he's been in school forthree years. And that's really
when I was able to just committhe amount of time and not feel
like I was getting knocked offkilter with school days and non
(24:48):
school days, that sort of thing.
Jamie Stephens (24:52):
So how did you maintain like your optimism
during those those beginningyears? Is that what you part of
what you coach women on now?
Unknown (25:03):
Okay, yeah, the mindset piece is huge, right? It's
arguably pretty much every otherskill I can teach you. And I can
teach you how to manage yourmind. But that becomes the most
important part more than any ofthe other step, right? Like, can
you work a spreadsheet? Sure, ifyou can't, no problem, we'll get
your bookkeeper. Like, you canhire all those things out, but
to manage your own mind and beoptimistic and be driven, right?
(25:29):
So you don't have to be happyall the time. There's always
those times where you're gonnabe like, This is terrible. I
could just go back and get ajob, I'm going to just throw in
the towel. But for me, I waskind of like, I'm never going
back. I'm never going back towork for somebody else. And so I
have to make this work. Or Iguess I just, I just won't, and
(25:50):
I'll make $1,000 a month, andthat'll be that'll be what I
make it. Go back to no morelattes. So it was that it's it's
my kind of this, this isn't ashort term plan for me, right?
This is a very long term planfor me. And I think that helps,
because I'm not expecting to hitmy goals in a short term way,
either. Right? I'm, it's, I'mgiving myself enough time to be
(26:13):
like, yep, this will eventuallyhappen. Now, I'm also really
lucky in that we're, now we're atwo income household, but for a
long time, we weren't. But thatwas something that was an
option. There have been manytimes, right. If I had started
this earlier, back, when we werestill in Alberta, I would have
had to work this would have beena side hustle for me for a
really long time. Probably untillike replaced almost all, if not
(26:38):
all of my income, right. At thatpoint in our lives. We just
couldn't have had maybe like,well, I might make money. This
quarter. I might not, I wouldnot, you know, we wouldn't have
been able to feed our kids andthings like that. So it depends
on the circumstance you're inalways. And I think I never
forget how lucky I am that I'min a situation where Mike's job
(27:02):
can pay the bills and keep usgoing. While I build this,
right? That's a very, veryprivileged position to be in.
And I'm super grateful for that.
But it was always the end game.
It was like I'm doing this untilit works, right. And once it
starts to get working a littlebit, once you get a little bit
of traction, where you're like Ihad more than one client at a
(27:22):
time, or it's not like I coachclients for six months, and then
there's nobody until I find onemore person that might want to
coach, once you start to getthat piece, it starts to be
easier to believe that right tothink that this might be a
viable situation. See, I coachon that a lot. That's a huge
portion of it for entrepreneursis trying to keep themselves in
(27:43):
the mindset of, of thepossibility of what they're
building. Right.
Jamie Stephens (27:47):
So I know a lot of coaches end up coaching on
the lessons that they themselvesneeded to learn the most or, you
know that will you say that thatwas true for you as well?
Unknown (28:02):
Yeah, I think it's funny what will happen. So I
have my coaches for me thatcoach me, and we'll go and I'll
do a coaching, I'll be gettinghelp on something that I can't
get myself sorted out to save mylife. And then that week, almost
inevitably, I will have a coupleof my clients at minimum,
sometimes it's like three orfour of them that come with a
(28:22):
very similar problem. And I'mlike, Oh, I can actually help
you this week. Because I just, Ijust started this I work. Here's
where I think I am on this. Whatdo you think, and it's the
benefit of a coach is Yeah,their experience of they've done
it before they've gone therebefore. But it's also the
objectivity. And that's whereentrepreneurs, that's why I so
(28:42):
strongly encourage people to geta coach because you cannot see
the forest for the trees on yourown. You just can't. And you
need somebody to just be like,Hey, wait, just just look over
here. Oh, oh, I didn't evennotice. I didn't even see that.
I couldn't even see that. And soI think there's those parts,
(29:05):
right? I think it's like, yeah,I'm gonna coach you on exactly
what I'm struggling with, or thething I was struggling with
eight months ago that I finallyfigured it out. And now I can
share that with you. But thenalso the, let me show you what
you can't see or let me talk toyou in a way that you can hear.
Because we're mean to ourselvesreally mean to ourselves. And
(29:26):
your coach is not going to bemean I my clients do call me a
bit of an ass kickeroccasionally. But I'm nice about
it right? Like I'm never gonnabe mean the way that your inner
voice says me to you, but I willkind of be like, you can do that
faster. Yeah, you can do morethan that. That goal you just
said is I mean, do you feelproud of that goal? I feel like
(29:49):
it's doable and I'm like okay,but yeah, if it's like oh you
it's a putting a brush yourteeth and your to do list you
know you're going to burn Yourteeth, or you might have already
brushed your teeth. And you'rejust checking off for the sake
of checkmark. Yeah, doesn'tcount. Come on now. So
Jamie Stephens (30:06):
calling them out.
Unknown (30:10):
And what I need, I mean, and I think what happens
is I realize how much like thecoach that I have. Is that kind
of a coach, because that's how Ineed to receive rice. Sometimes
it is a swift kick in thebehind. Yeah. That's who
gravitates to me is like, Yes, Ineed, I need a push, I need some
(30:30):
help. I also need the support onthe back end, that you're never
going to leave me feelingterrible about myself, but you
kind of pull in people that arejust like how you were near
moments ago? And that's whoyou're coaching for the most
part.
Jamie Stephens (30:43):
I get that for sure. Yeah, I respond that way
to where it's really like don'tsugarcoat it.
Unknown (30:49):
Yeah, you don't need to fluffy jacket for me just like,
get it out there.
Jamie Stephens (30:53):
Yeah. Awesome.
So one of the questions on yourbio sheet is about your crush
formula, what? What is not?
Unknown (31:03):
Okay, so the crush formula is what I think are the
five kind of key areas tobusiness development, and to
profitable growth. So the crushformula has the five categories.
So you start with the C, whichis the core of your business, it
is your mission, your vision,your values, the way that you
want to build the life that yourbusiness is supporting. So it's,
(31:26):
it's kind of really digging intothat piece of it. Are is talking
about revenue. So that ends upbeing all of the numbers. Are
you ready to hire? Are you readyto expand? Do you need another
bricks and mortar location? Areyou needing to talk about
pricing? Do you need to figureout what your profit and loss
statement look like? Whateverthat might look like? The use
(31:48):
for utility. So it is reallytalking about? In order to scale
your business, you cannot be aone man band with no automation
with no software support doesn'tnecessarily mean you need to
build yourself a big team.
That's, you know, some peoplereally want to do that. And some
people are like, no, don't wantto do that. But it's creating
yourself all of the support thatallows you to scale right,
(32:09):
giving you the capacity to dealwith more clients than just 123
at a time, then S is sales. Soit's all how do we sell how do
we price? How do we promoteourselves? Overall, this is
where I find my like PR andmarketing kind of background as
really comes into it. Like howare we going to promote you? How
(32:30):
are you going to stand out anddifferentiate yourself really
confidently to sell whatever itis you're selling. And then age
is the headspace. So back tothat mindset piece really along
the way each piece of it is, andhow are you feeling? And what is
going on? I get claimedsometimes it'll come in and be
like, I didn't do any of thethings that we talked about
(32:52):
doing. I'm like, okay, that'sfine. Why? What stopped you like
what was it that stopped youfrom doing the thing you had
committed to What stopped youfrom being committed to that
action. And so often, that's theroadblock. It's not even, that
they don't know what to do, it'sthat there's something there
that we have to just workthrough a little bit. So those
five key areas, you keep comingback to them all the time.
(33:17):
People always say to me, becauseI poach with clients for six
months at a time. And theyalways say to me, like, Is it
six months, and then you'redone, like you're off to fly
free. And I'm like, yeah,sometimes people are super happy
to do that. But most of thetime, it's like, okay, now back
to the beginning, because nowI'm at a new stage. And I need
to be able to make sure thatthis is all still working at the
next level that I'm at. It'skind of a rinse and repeat. As
(33:40):
you said earlier, that formula,you just rinse and repeat until
it's really streamlined. Andthen you grow and you rinse and
repeat again. I like that.
Jamie Stephens (33:51):
I really like that you included the headspace
as well, because I am just afirm believer that that is just
a it's what makes everythingelse work. Because without it,
it's just, you're just gonna gocrawl in the fetal position and
stay under the covers and nevergive up.
Unknown (34:11):
And it took me forever in my business. That is the one
thing that if I was to say likewhat pinpoint from being kind of
sort of possibly doing abusiness to actually being
successful. It was me embracingheadspace in a way that I hadn't
before. I felt like it was verywoowoo it wasn't really up my
alley to begin with for a longtime. I would read books and be
(34:33):
like, I don't know what this istalking about. And when I
finally did embrace it, it waslike, Oh, this might have been
the thing that I've been missingall the time. I can't just like
action my way through things ortactic my way through things.
Back in my PR days. It was verymuch like well, what's the goal?
What are the tactics? How do Iget there.if I do the things it
(34:55):
should work. And it's like, whatyou learn is you can do a lot of
the things And so it's notworking. And you have to really
think about, well, then why isit not working? Right, right.
And so when I finally didembrace the mindset piece in a
way that was meaningful, lo andbehold, it worked.
Jamie Stephens (35:14):
Yeah. And I think that kind of goes back to
what we were talking aboutearlier, too, is, I mean, like,
once, that mind set pieces kindof in place, you you know, how
to frame everything else tosupport you on your journey.
Which, if you're not doing thatis really I mean,
Unknown (35:35):
it's really hard. I'll tell you, it's really hard.
Jamie Stephens (35:38):
Yeah. I mean, with just that constant repeat
of main girl in your head, justtelling you how stupid you are
the whole time. And what are youdoing it
Unknown (35:47):
again? So look at these people, they're doing it and
you're like, I should be able toI'm doing all the things. Yeah,
maybe not all the things Oops.
Jamie Stephens (35:55):
No, it's so important to to recognize that.
It's not. It's not just aboutrecreating the actions of
someone else. It's like, youcan't just follow a blueprint,
per se, and still get the sameresults. Because there's so much
that goes in behind theintention. And like where you're
at, and who your people, I mean,all of it so much, which is one
(36:18):
of the lessons that I've had tolearn over, like, every course
that I've bought every you know,it's like one of those things.
It's like, wait a second, why amI not a millionaire? Yeah.
Unknown (36:27):
Yeah, well, yeah, it's that it's that like, multiple
permutations and things, right,whoever made that course,
stumbled across a way thatworked for her. Most of the
time, it's the 57 things she'stried. And it finally works. And
probably because she stuck itout for long enough. Right. And
(36:50):
I think we just we're likelooking for that. As a society,
I think we just do the look forthe magic pill thing, right?
Like, what is the just tellingyou in three steps that you can
tell me how to do this, I can doit. I'm like, I could give you
everything I've done from when Istarted to now. And you still
wouldn't be able to replicate myresults, you might massively
exceed my results you might benever making it down it, you
(37:14):
just can't tell right, becauseit's got more to do with who you
are, and who your audience isand how you connect with them.
And the service that you bring,and you just have to find a way
to comfortably start sharingwork, right, and just doing it
probably more times than you aredoing it. That's if I tell
clients one thing is you need totalk to more people. It doesn't
(37:38):
matter. The industry doesn'tmatter. The business doesn't
matter, the entrepreneur, you'renot talking to enough people
about what you do and how youcan help them.
Jamie Stephens (37:46):
For sure. I mean, really, yeah, I know. I'm
like, hey. So your podcast is away for you to do that. Why
don't you tell us a little bitabout that?
Unknown (38:02):
Yeah, so she needs grit podcast is very much a
conversation. Ideally, I'mtrying to create a conversation
like this. It's kind of withmyself in a room, but still kind
of talking about the topics,what do you need to build your
business? What do you need toscale? What do you need to grow?
I'm just at the point where I'mgoing to start bringing on
(38:22):
guests into the podcast in thefall, which I'm really excited
about. Because up until now,I've been talking to myself in a
row. So I think it'll be somegood variety for the audience to
get a little bit of instead ofme just saying the things, let's
have a conversation about howthat actually affects my, you
know, my interview person, and aback and forth, right. So I
(38:42):
think those lessons can belearned just as easily, if not
more fun, without being justtalked to. So I'm excited about
that. But it's a lot of thesetopics. It's about being
profitable, it's about on beingvisible, getting your confidence
up there, on scaling yourbusiness, the next kind of
series of podcasts that arecoming out are very much that
(39:04):
scaling piece to what do youneed to grow from where you are
right now? And what parts of itdo you need to start thinking
about and implementing?
Jamie Stephens (39:12):
Would you say that for a lot of women, that
you coach, the thing that'sholding them back from growing
is letting go of the controlover their business? Or like
outsourcing that sort of thing.
Unknown (39:25):
Delegation is critical.
You can't you cannot do ityourself. We all try. And at the
beginning, part of why we'retrying to do that is money,
right? I don't have enough moneyto hire help. But you get to the
point where you can't growwithout spending money. And that
is a hard place to be in whenyou're at the early days where
(39:46):
there's not just money and youyou know, unless we're
independently wealthy, there'snot just cash to spend. But
we're getting looking at it andsaying like, what am I buying?
For myself if I hire a VA, andthe joy of the industry now. And
then you need industry beingentrepreneurship is that you can
hire somebody for two hours aweek to do something. So if you
(40:08):
buy yourself back two hours aweek, and you can sell one
client in that two hours, or youcan go to a networking event, or
you can create all of yoursocial media for the month,
whatever that looks like, butthat time, it's worth it. Right
and you, you just can't getthere without it. Because what
(40:28):
ends up happening withentrepreneurs is then they work
60 hours a week, and they'remiserable, and they quit,
because you're trying to do atall. So there's so many ways to
look at hiring that isn'tnecessarily like I'm hiring a
full time human person that'sgoing to need an office and
need, I don't know, 401 k, andthe all of that stuff like that.
(40:50):
There's just creative ways thatyou can get help and expand your
capacity, which allows you totalk to more people and tell
them what you do, right?
Jamie Stephens (41:01):
Yeah, no, and I was thinking about that the
other day to kind of rememberwhat how it came up or anything,
but I was telling somebody, youknow, if I were to go out and
start a restaurant, there wouldjust be this expectation that
I'm going to burn through a lotof cash, I'm going to have a lot
(41:22):
of upfront expenses that I needto cover for equipment, for
food, for staff for training forall the things, but then for
some reason, women go intobusiness and think I don't need
any money. I'm gonna do everysingle thing myself, I'm gonna
figure it all out, you know,when it's just kind of like, why
(41:42):
do we do that? Like, why do weminimize what I know, part of it
is probably necessity that it'slike, well, we don't have, you
know, $200,000 to just go sink.
That's why we're doing, youknow, an online business versus
like a brick and mortar, but itjust seems like, I don't know
why it takes us so long to kindof get to that point to where
(42:04):
it's like, Oh, I could actuallypay somebody to do that thing.
That takes me six hours. Andthey can do it in any
Unknown (42:16):
order. And it's it's that investment philosophy that
if I could change one thingabout entrepreneurs, especially
early stage entrepreneurs, isthat you don't have a bricks and
mortar. So the thing you need toinvest in is yourself. That's
it, you have to invest inyourself. And so that does look
(42:36):
like hiring a coach that youfeel is going to get you to the
next level, it is taking thetime to go to conferences or you
know, like business webinars,things like that, that are going
to uplevel whatever skills youdon't currently own right? It is
taking time to say, Am I doingthe $1,000 an hour work in my
(42:58):
business? Or am I accidentallydoing the $10 an hour work in my
business? Get rid of that $10 Anhour work. But then make sure
that you are and this is where Ithink then of course, like this
is a shameless plug. But likehaving a coach that helps you
figure out the difference, andwhere your skill sets are and
(43:19):
how to implement that shouldalways create a massive
difference in your bottom line.
Right? So it's like, if I wasgoing to hike up Everest, I need
somebody who's going to show methe way, right how do I avoid
that crevasse and avoid that,whatever it is, and body over
there, whatever on Everest. I'mgoing to hire a Sherpa to carry
(43:41):
my stop. But at least some of itbecause it can't possibly carry
it all myself and still do this.
And online entrepreneurs have atendency to think they can do
all of the things forever. Andthen they think it means that I
make all of the money, right? Iget all of the money. You look
at any other business in theworld, they are leveraging
(44:04):
whatever cash is available forthem in order to grow. Right. So
I get clients sometimes it sayto me, like I don't know if I
can pay your rates, right? Idon't have enough cash in my
business to do that. And I'mlike, Okay, what other ways do
you have that you could pay meif this is the thing and not not
as a pressure thing, like not asa need to pay me but what other
(44:24):
way? Can you create thissolution for yourself? Are there
books out there? Are thereseminars out there? Do you have
accessible loans or accessiblecredit that would allow you to
get that experience, get thathelp? And then grow? That's what
everybody does? Nobody pays cashfor the restaurant. Right?
Right. They take out a businessloan and they decide, okay, I'm
(44:47):
going to need to do theconstruction and then have to
hire staff before I have onepatron in here eating a
hamburger or whatever it is. AndI think it's that if we can get
over that mentality of like, Ican't spend any of the money I
just have to do this all byitself. It just takes longer,
you can do it, you can 100% doit. I believe any entrepreneur
that's really driven can do itthat way. It just will take you
(45:10):
longer inevitably, which isusually the last thing they want
to do is take longer,
Jamie Stephens (45:15):
right? Because the more you put that off
thinking that you're savingmoney, the more money you're
actually costing yourself.
Unknown (45:22):
Yep. Because that person can do it faster than you
can, right? Whether it's leadyou down the path, or create the
social media posts, or figureout how to come up with a sales
funnel. You could teach yourselfhow to do it salesman, no
problem, but somebody out therealready knows and can do it in
45 minutes. What are you doing?
Like, why are we doing this toourselves? I did that usually
when I started the podcast,because the hindrance for me for
(45:45):
the podcast was I don't know howto edit podcasts. And that took
me a long time to be like, Well,I just won't do it. Like, I'm
not ready, I don't havecapacity. I wasn't gaining any
capacity in my business where Iwas getting busier. And so when
I launched, I hired somebodythat set it all up on the back
end, did all of that for me andproduced the first three shows,
(46:07):
and edited it. And then I kepther on for a long time doing all
of my editing. And now my VAdoes all of my editing and all
of my marketing of the podcast.
Because there was no way I thinkyou're going to take it back in
house and you're going to do ityour own cell. That's only if I
don't if I have time to do that.
I've forgotten that I needcleaning to Yeah, right. Now a
(46:29):
long lesson to learn sometimesfor me, possibly. But, you know,
the sooner you learn that thefaster you'll go with the
growth. And that's the goal.
Yeah,
Jamie Stephens (46:43):
I will say that that was just one of the one of
my learnings that I was eager toimplement, because I you know,
in my corporate environment, Iused to lead a team. And it was
like, I found my way, like I wasthe delegation queen. No, no,
this is not a me problem. Thisis for you. This is
Unknown (47:04):
not my skill set. But look, you have this skill set.
Yes. Take this.
Jamie Stephens (47:08):
Yeah. So like, I really, you know, that's a good
one that I've developed over theyears. And so like being able to
be like, Okay, I recognize thatthis is not my strength or my
you know, happy place. Let's goahead and get rid of this. For
sure. Yeah.
Unknown (47:24):
Yeah. So critical.
Jamie Stephens (47:26):
So what else?
What else do you have going on?
What What kind of ways are youworking with people through your
podcasts through coaching
Unknown (47:35):
through the podcast.
Um, so the fun thing about thepodcast is because I'm now
taking interviewee applications,that's going to be a really fun
opportunity either come on intwo different ways, either as an
expert in your field, that iskind of in conjunction with what
I'm doing, right. So if you area support to building a business
(47:55):
in any capacity, then that's Iwant to have you on and have
that conversation about it. Soif your audience, anybody that
resonates with them, then thenput in an application. And I'll
send you that the link will bein the show notes, and on the
link tree on my Instagram. Somake sure everybody has access
to that. And then the second wayis I want to do some live
(48:17):
coaching on the podcast, becauseI think I'm in a number of
different group coachingprograms and have been over the
years. And I think there's somuch value in having somebody
else get coached and you beingable to listen to it and hear it
and pull from it, what resonateswith you, or like what might be
the thing you are going to dealwith next, or the thing that
you're also knee deep in rightnow. So those are the two
(48:40):
different ways I'm going to havepeople on the podcast. So if
you're somebody who knows youneed a little bit of coaching or
wants to kind of dip their toein, or just has a burning
problem right now that they'relike, if I could just get some
help on this one thing that'stripping me up, putting in an
application to me for that aswell. would be a cool wait.
Jamie Stephens (49:03):
I agree that those coaching conversations
that I hear, man, those aregold, not only do you learn like
they're your own approach of howto dig deeper how to pull
questions from people how toreally understand what the real
thing is that's going on. Butalso just the lessons learned on
(49:24):
the other side. I mean, there'sall of that. All of that is
really gone. That's exciting.
Unknown (49:30):
Yeah, so that's really exciting. So that's kind of
happening right now. And then,of course, anybody who wants to
come in and do one on onecoaching with me, I work with
clients for six months. So it isweekly coaching calls, it's me
really like elbow deep in yourbusiness, helping you get from
where you are right now towhatever that scale amount
you're looking for. So reallyworking on bottom line profit is
(49:53):
of course our goal, but allalong the way we work through
that crush formula and get itdown.
Jamie Stephens (49:58):
That's so awesome. All right. Well, Sam,
thank you so much for your timetoday. It's been such a fun
conversation.
Unknown (50:04):
Yeah, this has been great. I loved it.
Jamie Stephens (50:07):
Okay, that concludes another episode of
Breaking up with corporate and Ican confirm that Sam is my kind
of people. I had such a fun timechatting with her and got so
much personally from thisepisode with some of these key
takeaways. Number one, who areyou attracting? When Sam
realized that the majority ofthe personal finance clients she
(50:28):
was attracting just happened tobe entrepreneurs, she was able
to see the opportunity andcreate a program for them that
really took her business to thenext level. Number two, step
into confidence, get some salestraining and go all in learn to
talk to humans and share youroffers in a way that doesn't
feel sleazy or salesy. You don'tbecome profitable by hiding
(50:51):
behind your task list on acomputer. Number three, it's all
feedback. There's a lot of trialand error and entrepreneurship,
when something doesn't work out.
Take it as feedback, whatworked, what didn't What will
you change next time. Getcurious, not frustrated. Number
four, check your expectations. Agood way to keep up positive
momentum when you're tryingsomething new is to set the
(51:13):
expectations around what you cando something you can control
like showing up and giving ityour best. If you do that it's a
win. Anything else is justbonus. Number five, it doesn't
happen overnight. Going fromside hustle to full fledged
business paying the bills cantake time, focus on slow
sustained growth versus chasingafter immediate results. It's
(51:36):
like going to the gym and eatingright versus searching for the
next diet pill. Number six,manage your mind. You can
outsource pretty much everythingbut only you can work on your
mindset. Make it a priority.
Number seven, you can copy butyou can't replicate. Recreating
the actions of a successfulperson is not a magic pill for
(51:59):
success. Your mindset, yourpersonality, who you are,
there's so much more that goesinto it. Number eight, you're
the investment. When you have anonline business, you're the
investment your brain, yourlearnings, your time. So get a
coach, go to conferences anddelegate that admin work to a VA
as quickly as you can so youdon't burn out. That's it for
(52:21):
this week. Thanks so much to Samfor being on the show today. I
have all the links in the shownotes so you can check out her
programs or podcasts, all thethings as always if you enjoyed
this episode, help us sister outgo drop a five star rating for
me. There's a link in the shownotes to do that as well. Thank
you so much for being here and Ihope you have a fantastic week.
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