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How to Build 7 Figure Business When You're Starting Over at 40 · Create The Best Me

• 0:00
  Carmen Hecox: I've got this burning question to ask you. What if you could start a business with $500, grow it to seven figures and never have to do the go viral or go home dance?
• 0:14
  Carmen Hecox: Because today's guest did exactly that. And when I heard her story, I literally called her my unicorn. Because who does that? I'm sitting down with Lindsay Pinchuk, a long-time brand builder, community creator, and the founder behind Dear FoundHer, where women over 40 come together to build, scale and sell businesses with real-life strategies, not fluff. And in this episode, Lindsay is breaking down the simple old-school marketing moves that actually work even now. Why community beats audience every single time. And her sweep method, the framework that helps you take one message and multiply it without burning out. Oh, and we'll also be talking about what happens after the big win because Lindsay shares what it was really like selling the company she built and why the dream exit wasn't exactly rainbow and unicorns. So if you've been thinking maybe I'm too old to start or I need more money to begin, stay with us. By the end, you'll know exactly where to start and what to stop overcomplicating.
• 1:39
  Carmen Hecox: Let's jump on in right now. Lindsay Pinchuk, welcome to Create The Best Me. Girl, I am honored to have you on the show. Oh, Carmen, I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for having me. So for the listeners and viewers who have never heard of what I've called you're my unicorn. You are the unicorn. Could you please tell us who is Lindsay Pinchuk and what do you do? Yes. So Lindsay Pinchuk is a connector. She's a community builder.
• 2:13
  Carmen Hecox: I'm a marketer, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a mom, which is very important. And a wife and a friend. You know, all of these things factor into who I am. But for purposes of your show and today, I will focus more on the professional version of myself. I worked in magazine ad sales for 10 years at the Hearst Corporation and MTV and Time Inc. And when I first got pregnant, I decided that I needed a community for myself. I we were living in downtown Chicago and none of my family lives here and none of my friends were pregnant at the time. Little did I know that I was just going to be the first. We all have ninth graders. Mine just was born in October.
• 2:55
  Carmen Hecox: And fast forward to I started hosting events for expectant parents, really expectant moms at first, just ways to connect and meet other women who were pregnant.
• 3:07
  Carmen Hecox: There was really nothing like this in Chicago at the time. And you have to remember that this was 2010. There was no social media. So we were consuming information, getting our knowledge and whatnot and our resources very differently than we would be today if I was pregnant now and starting in today's world.
• 3:25
  Carmen Hecox: So I started my first company, Bump Club and Beyond, in 2010.
• 3:29
  Carmen Hecox: I took it from doing events here in Chicago to doing events in 35 different cities. We were working with brands like Nordstrom and Target, all the brands in the baby space.
• 3:40
  Carmen Hecox: I grew the company to reach 3 million people per month and generate seven figures in revenue. I bootstrapped the whole thing. This was not something that I had ventured behind. It was.
• 3:52
  Carmen Hecox: It was all done through very simple foundational marketing practices. And in the summer of 2018, in the summer of 2018, I was approached by three different entities asking if I was interested in selling my business. And I ended up selling my company to what I thought was the best option.
• 4:14
  Carmen Hecox: I knew this was something that I always wanted to do. This was a life stage business for me. I was no longer a young mom. I felt like my shelf life, being the face of this company that was for new and expectant parents, was kind of nearing its end. And it felt right to me. And. And so I sold the company. And in 2019, I went and I worked for the company who bought mine. And it wasn't exactly rainbows and unicorns, and it actually was kind of a nightmare. And so I did stay there for two years through Covid.
• 4:43
  Carmen Hecox: And I realized in about. I realized in 2020 that I. I was going to need to start this exit process. And I ended up leaving in the summer of 2021. And when I left, the company that I built, which is a very hard thing to do because it was still running, it was still operating, and much of my team was actually still there, even though I was leaving.
• 5:05
  Carmen Hecox: I did this with one goal. And the goal was really to help other women business owners build and grow their businesses. And so I left, and I started taking clients in a consulting practice, mostly female-founded brands. And what happened was a lot of small business owners, women small business owners, were coming to me and they were saying, well, I'd like to work with you too. But they couldn't necessarily afford my consulting rates. And so I created a mentorship. And around the same time, I started my podcast, Dear FoundHer. And Dear FoundHer is really my twice-weekly letter to women business owners who are over 40 who are building and growing businesses from places of experience. And I started the podcast, I had the mentorship, and from there I really listened to the consumer, to the community. We started hosting events, we built an online community for women business owners over 40. And now we are really not just a podcast anymore. We are a movement. And I would say that I'm living my best life, and I am probably the happiest I've ever been professionally. But here's the kicker. You did it with 500 bucks. I did originally, yeah. I am just like floored. How on earth can you know? Because a lot of us think we need to take out a loan, take out, you know, a second mortgage to start the business that's going to be our heart's desire. But you did it with $500 and turned it into a seven figure business. How do you do that? That's like, that's why I call you my, my unicorn. So my whole theory and my process is that you really just have to stick to very foundational marketing strategies. You don't have to do anything fancy. If you are sticking to these basics of marketing and you are consistent with them, you will grow your business. And that is what I did.
• 6:59
  Carmen Hecox: So with Bump Club. So I will use Bump Club as the example, but, and, but this is actually how I also built Dear FoundHer. So with Bump Club, when I started, like I said, you have to remember there was no social media. So your way of reaching people was very different.
• 7:13
  Carmen Hecox: It was very word of mouth. So the very first thing that I did is the first thing that I tell everyone to do. And if you haven't done it, you still can do it. There's no time limitation on this, but I sent an email to everyone I knew and I told them what I was doing and I told them, you know, even if you're not pregnant right now, you know someone who is, please make sure you pass this along to them.
• 7:33
  Carmen Hecox: And my very first event for Bump Club, we had capacity, the prenatal workout. And so we were planning to do one class, I think, with the capacity of 25 people. And we ended up getting close to 50. And so we had two classes and it was really just word of mouth.
• 7:48
  Carmen Hecox: So that was the first thing was, you know, just being very simple and letting people know what you're doing. The second thing that I did from day one is I partnered with other entities. And I think a lot of times people, business owners look at partnerships and they think like, oh, they have to be paid transaction or it has to be something very complicated the way that you need to look at partnerships. And this is how I built Bump Club until the day I left; we were still doing partnerships in this capacity. Even when we were doing paid partnerships, we were still doing partnerships like this until the day I left.
• 8:21
  Carmen Hecox: You have to look at partnerships in the most simplistic way, and that is, how can I borrow this entity's community, and how can they borrow mine? So at Bump Club, that meant holding, hosting events with other entities, bringing in speakers who would then share our events. We would let give them the stage, they would share our events. We started working with brands really strictly trade partnerships. They would provide product for our gift bags, they would provide food, they would provide photography services in exchange for us talking about them to our community.
• 8:55
  Carmen Hecox: And that was really the foundation of how I built my business.
• 8:59
  Carmen Hecox: A lot of the brands that started working with us in that partnership capacity very quickly and soon into the lifetime of the business were reaching out and saying, but we want more, how can we pay to do more?
• 9:15
  Carmen Hecox: And that's when I started billing them for sponsorships, and I started creating sponsorships. So, you know, I share this because one, I think a lot of people overcomplicate it, right? And, too, I think people don't know where to get started. But when you have this very simple foundation, you build upon it.
• 9:33
  Carmen Hecox: And it's not like I went out on the first day and went to Target and said, hey, like I'd like for, I'd like to do a six-figure program with you. Target ended up coming to me because of the partnerships that we were building with the brands that were sold in their store. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes laying the groundwork. Because oftentimes when you're working with other entities, their competitors and their partners will start noticing you, and they want to work with you as well. And so that's really how I built Bump Club.
• 10:05
  Carmen Hecox: And then Dear FoundHer very similarly. I knew when I started the podcast, I had this vast list of female founders in my network, and I knew that I would want to share their stories. People would listen. It's like advertising for them and their brands. But I also knew in turn that they would come on the podcast and they would share their episode. And they did. And that's what happened.
• 10:28
  Carmen Hecox: And so on, day one with the podcast we started, it was a partnership. I dropped four episodes. I had had like 15 to 20 episodes, like banked that we were, you know, getting ready to put out within the first week.
• 10:43
  Carmen Hecox: I had like two dozen pitches because people were hearing the episode from the people who were on my show, and they were sharing it, and they were notable founders. So that right away was like very foundational, and we built upon that.
• 10:58
  Carmen Hecox: And there are a lot of people who come on my show who have hired me for consulting, who have sponsored Dear FoundHer events, who have come back onto the episode, or who have then introduced me to other founders in their world that I've wanted to meet.
• 11:13
  Carmen Hecox: So it's been an amazing journey. Just really built on basic marketing principles. So that's how I've done it. It's kind of like old-school principles as opposed to new-school, which is what a lot of people practice. Yes, yes. And I think like, I do think you need to embrace new-school principles; right? I mean, as I built Bump Club, social media became a thing when I first was starting. I'll put this into like a timestamp for you. When I first started Bump Club, it was right when Facebook lifted the parameter that you had to have an Edu email. So like Facebook was originally first only for college students and you had have an edu email to be on Facebook. So I started Bump Club fairly shortly after that point, maybe within the year. And so we had Facebook pages like personal pages. But when I started Bump Club, there were no business pages.
• 12:02
  Carmen Hecox: So when business pages became a thing, we got a business page. When Instagram became a thing, we joined Instagram. When I never really was a big TikToker, but my team did that on the bump club. We did have a bump club TikTok as well, but. But we really grew up alongside social media, and we had to adapt to these changes. But it's. Even with new school technology and funnels and all of these things, what really works are the basics. And if the basics aren't in place, those new technologies aren't going to work for you. I think what a lot of people struggle with is that they think that starting a business is more for the young adults, those in their twenties. Why do you feel that women over the age of 40, these are the ones that, that starting a business is for? These are the ones that are going to excel? First and foremost, women over the age of 40 are the largest group of growing entrepreneurs out there.
• 13:03
  Carmen Hecox: It's a, it's a proven statistic. They own the most new businesses that are coming to fruition. I think that this is because women over 40 have experience.
• 13:14
  Carmen Hecox: They have experience not only corporately and in business, but they have life experience. And there's this level of experience that young adults, they just don't have. And I think too that the reason why women over 40 are starting businesses that are successful and that last is because women, this is a demographic that also grew up before social media, before instant gratification.
• 13:41
  Carmen Hecox: And while, yes, we may feel a little bit intimidated by those strategies, and when it comes to business, I think that in terms of building a business, we are the ones who have the actual skills to enter the world of entrepreneurship and to do it successfully because we have that foundation. And I think, you know, like, when I talk to you, I don't want to knock younger entrepreneurs. I think that it's amazing. Even my daughter, I'm going to use her as an example; she's 15. She is actually currently starting a business, which I am helping her with, and she's very impatient, and she wants it immediately. And I recently said to her, I felt like she was all over the place with what she was doing. And I wrote her out a form, like a template, and I said, " You need to answer all of these questions about your business. What is your name? What is your mission? What are you selling? What does it cost to make that product? Where can we source X, Y, and Z?" Like, just everything. And I said, and that's how we're going to get to a price, and that's how we're going to figure out what it is worthwhile to sell. She wanted this to happen, like, in a matter of a week. And I said, it's going to be months. Like, it's, you know, this is not something that is an instant thing. And I do feel like women over 40 are also more secure in their belief in themselves, even if sometimes that doesn't seem that way. But I do believe that women over 40 are kind of like, I don't give a shit. And I come across many more women who are over 40 who are like, I don't give a shit, than like, women who are even in their 30s or 20s, and they're so worried about what everyone else thinks.
• 15:24
  Carmen Hecox: I also think that women over 40 are building businesses for themselves. They're not building businesses to necessarily appease other people or to impress other people. They are taking an idea that keeps them up at night, and they are making it happen. And it's for them so that they can live a life that they want to live, and that the business is working for them. And it's not that they're working because of the business, if that makes sense. Yeah. And. But I think I have seen and I've talked to many entrepreneurs that have said, when I decided to start a business, my business was this. That didn't work out. And so then it did this, and I did this, And a lot of the business that they talk about that they switched over before they finally became the unicorn.
• 16:12
  Carmen Hecox: They're not even the same business. And I think that that's like a.
• 16:16
  Carmen Hecox: I don't think that that's necessarily like an age parameter. I think that that's entrepreneurship, right? Like, oftentimes you have an idea, and you start working on it, and you realize that people don't necessarily want that, but they might want something else. And so I think that a big thing that I tell women who come into my world is you have to listen. Like, listening is going to be your key. It's going to be your unlock for making your business successful.
• 16:43
  Carmen Hecox: You might go into something thinking, I want to do this, and people need this.
• 16:47
  Carmen Hecox: But if people aren't buying it, it's either your message is wrong, or it's just actually like, there's a disconnect with what the service is.
• 16:55
  Carmen Hecox: And so you need to ask. So I'm always telling people, before you put something new out into the world, talk to people, ask, survey, you know, whatever it is, ask the people who you think are going to be your top consumers and who you want to bring into your community. Do you really need this? Everything that I have built around your founder has come from my community asking me. I mean, and a lot of it was built backwards. Like, if I were to do it all over again, you know, I would probably start with my newsletter, and then I would start with the community, and then I would go into the group mentorship. And that's really just kind of based on, like, the investment and the cost to invest in these various programs that I offer. But that's not what happened. People were asking me to work with me, and so I created a mentorship. And then the mentorship was like, we don't want to go anywhere. So we created the community. And then people were asking me for more information. And so I said, well, I might as well put it out into a Substack. I have all this content. So it did actually kind of work in a very backwards way. But it was all because I listened. Like, it came from me listening to the community. So it does not surprise me to hear you say that, and that people's businesses change, and I think they should change.
• 18:06
  Carmen Hecox: My business today does not look the way that it looked four years ago. I mean that. And that's because I've listened and I've made those changes.
• 18:14
  Carmen Hecox: I know another thing that some people so often struggle with is if they're trying to build a business. But and you say community is important, they'll say, well, I don't have time for community because I have all this other behind-the-scenes type of work that needs to get done.
• 18:30
  Carmen Hecox: Your community is your business's number one asset. And if you are not pouring into your community, and I'm not saying your audience, and there's a very, very big distinction here, an audience consumes. When you think of watching a play or watching a TV show or a movie, that's an audience. There's not a two way interaction a community. There is a two-way interaction. There is engagement, there are questions back, there's feedback. When you put your time and efforts into building a community surrounding your brand, that community becomes your best customers. And what I would tell business owners and what I do tell business owners every single day is the minute that you have an idea, and you know who it is that you want to talk to, simply start talking to them. Start putting content out online, even if it's not, has nothing to do with your business.
• 19:28
  Carmen Hecox: Just start talking to the people that you are going to want to bring into your community. Eventually, when you have something to sell, those people are going to trust you, and they are going to transact. And that is just how it works. That's human nature. People want to buy from people. They don't want to buy from a logo or from a color scheme. They don't care about that. They want to buy from someone who they trust. I would say even with Dear FoundHer, yes I was like I was mentoring on the side but it wasn't really something that I was publicizing. But I didn't transact with anyone in my community for probably a good six to eight months. I mean I wasn't selling anything to the. Dear FoundHer community until eventually, I think I launched a workshop and people bought it because guess what, they had been listening to my podcast and they knew my voice and they were subscribed to what I was sharing. If you are not tapping into community and building a community, it is a huge miss.
• 20:28
  Carmen Hecox: It is a huge, huge miss for your brand. And when you think of all the successful brands that are out there, there is some kind of community surrounding every single one of them.
• 20:37
  Carmen Hecox: And I think here's what I found is that I think that when people are trying to build a community, or they're trying to find out whether their product or, or whatever this is trying to sell, is going to be a profitable business or something people want, they end up pitching instead of asking. Yes. I would say yes, I would say that as well. And I, here's the thing.
• 21:01
  Carmen Hecox: I think that oftentimes when you simply show up and share your knowledge and you share your expertise, and you build that trust and authority, you never have to pitch.
• 21:12
  Carmen Hecox: You really don't. Like, I very rarely pitch anything. I'll say, oh, I had a client today, and this was her problem, and this is how I solved it. And that's it. It's not an actual pitch. But guess what? Oftentimes, people will reach out to me and be like, I need that. How can I get that?
• 21:31
  Carmen Hecox: And so it's really in how you frame things. And when you have a community who subscribes to you, they will automatically trust you to buy whatever it is that you're selling.
• 21:42
  Carmen Hecox: It's really amazing. Like, first and foremost, when I think of Bump Club, I wasn't even, like, there was no business plan. I wasn't, like, thinking of, like, how can I make money? Like, I was truly thinking of, like, how could I have a community and make some friends? Because I didn't know anyone who was pregnant. And so it was always community first. Like, it was from the day I started. It was like, I was very careful about what experts I put in front of the group, what products we used. I wasn't making a dime. People weren't paying me at this point. But I was very, very careful about that because I never wanted to compromise my trust with the community, and I never did. And even much later on with Bump Club, after I sold the company, the new company was all about dollars and cents. Like, it was like there was a line item for everything, and it showed. And the feedback that I got from the community was like, oh, my God. All of a sudden, like, everything is sponsored. Everything is about money. It's like, like, I felt like we were nickel and diming the community. It was, like, embarrassing to me. Also embarrassing because our profit margins were much lower. And so it wasn't even working. Which, which I think is really important to point out, because people were reading between the lines. We had a very, very big brand who wanted to sample, like, cleaning supplies. I mean, it was essentially cleaning supplies and our gift bags. Now, if you go on YouTube and you type in Bump Club and Beyond, you will see people unbagging and unboxing the Bump Club gift bags. They were magnificent. They were, like, worth two $300 filled with baby products, like bottles and pacifiers and diapers and blankets and toys and, like, everything. They were amazing.
• 23:24
  Carmen Hecox: And this brand wanted to sample cleaning supplies, and they wanted to pay a lot of money to do it. And I said to the powers that be, absolutely not. I said, I'm not putting a cleaning supply in a gift bag for parents with baby items. And I said, what happens, like quality control? What happens if one of those cleaning supplies leaks and then it ruins the rest of the bag? And I said, you're going to be dealing with like a big problem on your hands here. And they really pushed me on it, and they wanted to take the money. They were like, we need the revenue, blah, blah, blah. I said, go find the revenue somewhere else.
• 23:56
  Carmen Hecox: I said, long as my face is on this company, we are not compromising our community by potentially harming them. And I said, this is just not something we're doing. And like, that was kind of it, but it was. I'm making it sound much simpler than it was. It was a very big argument. And it was kind of in that moment, amongst other things, that I realized that I needed to probably step away. And I think the other thing that may have been, and here's what I'm hearing, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that this was your second child. You know, this wasn't just the 15 year old you have now. This was the other child. This was the twin to this child. And you nurtured, you loved, you put so much passion and thought and listening to other moms or future moms.
• 24:43
  Carmen Hecox: And so you built this company out of love and compassion and need. You knew what people needed. That was gone. This was my child and the community was my family. And I really looked at it like that and I felt like I was being asked to compromise my integrity and my values, which I just won't do. Right. And so I think when someone asks you to do that, that's kind of a red flag and it's a great indication that you need to probably figure something else out. And so, yes, I mean, this, you know, this was my baby. It's interesting because I spent probably eight months fighting to figure out how I was going to leave because I really wanted to leave on a moral high ground. Like, it was very important to me that I didn't just disappear, that the community didn't feel like I abandoned them. I was the face of this company and I very much wanted other faces to be a part of it. And the company did not take me up on that plan. Like, the plan was to bring other moms in so that I wasn't the only face. No one did that. And so I was left to be the face of this company. And I just really felt that when I left, it had to be me saying, I am moving on now. And so it took about eight months to get to this point. And so when I left, I actually, on my last day at Bump Club, I closed my computer and I was on the phone with the person who was my counterpart at the company, and I had to give them the Instagram password. That was actually the last thing I had to give them. They were so dumb. They didn't take the Instagram password when they bought my company.
• 26:24
  Carmen Hecox: And so I just kept it kind of under lock and key. And that was like, it's kind of my leverage, to be honest. And I gave her the Instagram password. And I remember I said to her, I have to call you back. And I hung up and I blacked out at my desk and I called my husband. I, like, yelled to him. I was like, I need your help. And I literally, I was sitting in my chair, like, I blacked out. And it was like I had this physical reaction to letting go and walking away. And a lot of people came to me and they were like, oh, my God, you must be, like, so upset that you're leaving this. You're leaving your baby. And I said to them, you know what? I've been sitting shiva for, like, eight months. Like, I am thrilled to be leaving now. Like, now I'm like. But to them, it was new, right? And so to your point, yes, it was like leaving my baby. But it was a long period of time that I was able to process that. And by the time I was able to leave, I was just ready to go. And was it difficult for you to figure out who you were after you left? Because for a long time, you were the founder and CEO of Bump Club. And who are you now? What are you going to do?
• 27:33
  Carmen Hecox: You know, it really, truthfully, it didn't take much time. I knew right away that I was going to take clients. So Bump Club actually was my first client. There was so much that they had not extracted from me. That part of the agreement upon me leaving was that they were going to be my first consulting client. And I want to say it was like, for two or three months. So for two or three months, I had this buffer where I could let people know I had left, which was great because that's how you get new clients.
• 28:00
  Carmen Hecox: And I was making money from them, so I had that. So when I first left, I went on vacation. We spent like 10 days in the mountains in Colorado, and I wasn't working. And it was really the first vacation I had taken in 10 years. Like real vacation. Like not, you know, answering it to anyone. And. But it was. The funny thing is, is it was during that time that I had the idea for Dear Found Her.
• 28:22
  Carmen Hecox: And I said to my husband, like, I kind of think I need to like, take all these experiences and all of my contacts and really start sharing with other women business owners. Like, I'm so sick and tired of hearing all the unicorn stories and all the amazing things that happened to female founders and how they've sold their companies for billions of dollars. The more I talk to people, the more I realize that my story is actually the norm. But you wouldn't know that because no one talks about it in the press. And so I said to him, I want to like, shift that narrative. And so it was really on this vacation that I decided that I was going to do this. And when I came home and I sent out this email that I had mentioned to you that I was taking clients, I got a couple of clients, and that kind of fulfilled my professional life for the rest of that year. So that was 2021. And at the same time I started building Dear FoundHer. I was just recording episodes and I was figuring it out and I was learning how to podcast. And it was in the new year that I launched that. And so it was very shortly after that I became the host of Dear Found Her. And that's, that's really what I kind of built upon moving forward. And did you find that. I know you said that you were quickly connected with powerful, well known people to be guests on your show.
• 29:37
  Carmen Hecox: Was it because of the brand that you built under your first business that these people trusted you and said, I want to be part of your show. I want to, I want to help you start this new business.
• 29:48
  Carmen Hecox: So very much like how I built Bump Club. So from the get go on, Dear Found Her. I reached out to people who I knew to be like that I wanted on my show. So, for example, like, there were a lot of female founders in the baby space. I actually only had a few from the baby space, to be honest. But like, my first guest was my friend, Dana Gordon. She is the founder of Dana Rebecca Jewelry. It's a huge jewelry company that sold in so many different stores. Dana was my first guest and Dana has a huge following and she's a huge proponent for female founders. Like, massive shout out to Dana. She's unreal.
• 30:21
  Carmen Hecox: And she was my friend. She's my friend. And so she said yes, like, I'll totally Come on. And the other couple of women that I had on as well were people that I knew. And so originally it was just friends of friends and people that I knew that I was interviewing. I also am a part of a couple of different, like, publicity and PR circles. And so I dropped a little, like, you know, I dropped a little blurb in those circles that I was accepting pitches for this podcast, and a lot of people who represent brands in the baby space also represent other brands. And so they started pitching me. And, yes, they knew me from my Bump Club days, and we had relationships, working together on various baby and kids brands. And so that was really where I got started.
• 31:04
  Carmen Hecox: But then what happened was, I would say probably like, only a couple, like, a few months in, we were having such great success with listenership and with the guests that we were having and people sharing. I really was starting to get, like, I get probably five to 10 pitches a day, and at the time, I was probably getting, I don't know, maybe a dozen or so a week. And a lot of them were good. And then what happened was I made a list of people that I wanted on the show. Like, I had some bucket list guests. And on that bucket list for the first year was Becky Kennedy, who's Dr. Becky Kennedy from Good Inside. I interviewed her during Bump Club before she even had an Instagram account. So, like, I was one of her first interviews. And now she's like an international bestseller. Millions of followers. Amazing. I wanted to get her on my show. I wanted to get Jen Sherman from Peloton, and I wanted to get Bobby Brown. And by the end of the first year, I ended up getting all of them. And not through connections from me. Putting it out into the world and asking people and saying, these are some of the people who have been on my show. Would you like to join them in this mix? I mean, when you start naming some of these founders that I had, I can't even remember who I had in the first season. I mean, I still had very good, very good people on the show, and people recommended me, and they said yes. And, you know, and it's one of those things now that, like, we reach out to brands and we're like, you know, Rebecca Minkoff has been on the show. Jen Sherman has been on the show. And it's very hard to say no to, you know, if you're a female founder, it's very hard to be like, no, I don't want to be part of that circle. And so we're in our fifth season now. So it's it's taken time. I don't want to say it happened overnight, but it was a. It was a progressive build.
• 32:48
  Carmen Hecox: Do you feel like a lot of these founders feel like it's their responsibility to give back to the community, to give back to these other women so that, you know, boost them along, help bring them up?
• 33:00
  Carmen Hecox: I don't think that anyone feels it's their responsibility. I think that in the female founder space, people just want to. I don't think that, like, anyone feels indebted or feels like they have to. Like, I truly believe that, like, everyone I've come across just wants to share their knowledge and their information and their expertise. And truthfully, I would say that the. Those that are over 40 are really more apt to do that. I mean, I'm generalizing. I am really generalizing, but I would say that, like, there have been some founders who are on the younger end who were more difficult than others and who I would maybe choose not to even have. Or, like, you know, we're asking me a million questions and making it about them, and I can't even think of a single single founder over the age of 40 who did that. Like, everyone has been like, yes, I want to be on the show. Like. Like, yes, I want to be on the show. And, like, no one has ever pushed back on questions that I've asked or anything. Like, I think in this circle of women, really and truly, people want to help. Who is Dear FoundHer for? And who is it not? It's for women business owners over 40 who are building and growing anything. And, you know, it could even be a passion project. It could be building, like, a personal brand for themselves because they want to build their knowledge and their authority. It's really for any woman over 40 in business who wants support in doing that. The biggest question I get is, do I have to be 40? Like, I'm not yet 40. And I say, no, of course not. Like, you do not have to be 40. But you have to know this is a show and this is a community that once you step inside, most of the women are over 40. And that's the mindset of the women who are here, that we don't gatekeeper. We support one another. We lift each other up. We share resources. Like, we're not competitive with one another. I have women who do the exact same thing, who work together on things. There's enough business to go around for all of us, right? So that is really who it's for. Who it's not for are people who think they're going to come into the community and hard sell themselves or who don't want to participate in community and aren't going to lift each other up and who are just going to kind of like be voyeurs and collect all the information. I mean, I guess you could do that, but that's. You're not going to get the most out of this. Like, the. The women who are getting the most out of our community are those who are talking to one another, supporting one another, collaborating with one another, and just really playing an active role in our community. What about the woman who is still in corporate America, but she wants to get out?
• 35:35
  Carmen Hecox: I would say that that woman should absolutely be listening to the podcast and should be reading the newsletter because you're gonna feel inspired by the stories that you hear. And in the newsletter you're gonna get actionable advice to take those steps. I think that the hardest. The hardest decision that I ever made was leaving corporate America. The first time. Not the second, the first, because I loved my job and I wasn't looking for a new job. I loved what I did. I loved work. I worked at Good Housekeeping. It's like an iconic brand and I loved everyone there. But to me, this is the litmus test I use for all of it, for anything.
• 36:13
  Carmen Hecox: What's the worst that happens if I leave? The worst that happens is my business doesn't take off and I have to find a new job. Can I live with that? Yes. The answer is yes. And I think that getting to that point where you make that decision is really hard, especially if you need your job because of financial reasons, especially.
• 36:35
  Carmen Hecox: Or for insurance or whatever the purpose is. And. And also if you just aren't sure. I always suggest to women who want to start something, to start slowly while you're in corporate America. I worked and was pregnant and had Bump Club for a year.
• 36:50
  Carmen Hecox: And that was the best decision that I ever made because I was able to see that I could do it. Now I wasn't doing Bump Club in the capacity where I was, you know, working with Target and Nordstrom. It looked a lot different, but it gave me the courage to not be starting from scratch. And same thing with the second time. I mean, when I left Bump Club, they were my client for three months. I made sure I had a cushion of income before I left. I would say that the women who are in corporate America who think they want to start something, I think this is a great place to get motivated to do so. That was my long answer. I love your long answer.
• 37:31
  Carmen Hecox: You talk about Sweep marketing. What is that?
• 37:35
  Carmen Hecox: So, okay, so Sweep is my framework that truly is marketing made simple. When you ask me, like, how do I. How did you build this business? When I left Bump Club and I paused for a moment, I looked back and thought back, okay, what did I do to really make this successful? Like, what was it that I did or didn't do? And why was this successful? And it was successful because I was everywhere, but I was everywhere with the same message. And so I created a framework called Sweep, which stands for Social Media, Website, Email Marketing, Events, Partnerships, and Publicity. And basically what it is is you take one message or one piece of content and you sweep it through as many of those outlets as you possibly can. You're not always going to have all of them, but you could easily get to three to four of them. When you do that, it amplifies your message. Your message and your content is more suited for driving business if it's in three places than if it's in one. And I think a lot of times right now, people just resort to social media and they stop. And you can't do that because, number one, you don't own your social media. So if social media goes away tomorrow, forget it. But you also have people who are consuming you in other places. You have a website, you have hopefully an email list. If you have an established business, maybe you have events or you're participating in other people's events, you want to be amplifying your message.
• 39:14
  Carmen Hecox: And when all of those spokes are working together, it really creates a flywheel for amplification of your brand. And I always tell people, do not put all your eggs in one basket, and do not let that one basket be social media. I mean, I think it's really a big mistake. And the minute that I see clients start creating an email list or a substack or partnering with other people to spread their message, they start seeing positive results and they're like, oh, you're right. Like, I can't just be on Instagram yelling into an abyss, right?
• 39:48
  Carmen Hecox: So that's what Sweep stands for. And that's what I teach. For the listener viewer who says, I want more, I want more.
• 39:56
  Carmen Hecox: I want to be part of founder. How can they do that? All you have to do is find me on Instagram earfoundher and you can actually DM the word join and I'll send you the link right away. But if you go to Instagram and you go to Dear Found her, there are so many links in our bio that give you all the stuff the newsletter, the podcast, the community.
• 40:17
  Carmen Hecox: Anything that we have going on will be there. And it's me who answers.
• 40:22
  Carmen Hecox: I answer the DMs. We do have an automator who answers some of them, but if you ask a question, it's me who answers. So, you know, I would absolutely suggest giving me a follow over there and getting a taste for what Dear FoundHer is all about. And so it's open enrollment all the time. All the time, yeah. And how much does it cost, roughly? Yeah, I'm fully transparent here.
• 40:44
  Carmen Hecox: The community. So the podcast and the newsletter. Free.
• 40:48
  Carmen Hecox: There's free versions. Okay. The newsletter has a premium version that's I think $100 a year. I think maybe 87. The community, the online networking community is $997 for the year. And it includes office hours with me and the community once a month. It includes an expert workshop with someone who I bring in to talk about publicity or social media or time management, whatever the topic is of the month. And then of course the community itself, plus all of my resources. So I have like ebooks and checklists and a million different resources that are in the community that you can use and tap into. I have swipe files for like how to reach out and DM people for partnerships. I mean, there's a lot of very nitty gritty information there. So that's the community. And then the mentorship is application only. And the mentorship is a year long intensive program. With me, it's a group cohort of 10, and that's $5,000 for the year.
• 41:44
  Carmen Hecox: But I think the most important thing is if they join your community is you're only going to get what you put in. Yes. And if you. And it's thank you for saying that because when you watch the orientation video, that's the first thing I say. And I. But I would say that for any community. You know, it's not just mine. I mean, I think you get out what you put into any community that you're a part of.
• 42:08
  Carmen Hecox: And I just so happen to have an amazing community where we have 98% participation rate in our Circle group.
• 42:16
  Carmen Hecox: That's really high. That's really high. And that's like my year in review on Circle told me that, that 98% of the women in our Circle group participate.
• 42:27
  Carmen Hecox: And I mean, you'll get in what you put out, right? Or you'll get out what you put in, essentially. Yeah. That's incredible. Cause I know a lot of times you go to different communities and you just have a lot of what I call fly on the walls. You know, they're just kind of there. They're listening, but they're not, they're not participating, they're not connecting.
• 42:45
  Carmen Hecox: The way that I tell our community to engage is like keep the circle group open when you're working and if you have a question or if you want to run something by people, drop it in the community. It might take a day for you to get the response that you want, but people respond.
• 43:00
  Carmen Hecox: I mean, and as we're growing, more and more people are responding, which is amazing. That's great. Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will include all of your links in the show notes so that people can connect with you and be part of Dear FoundHer, because it sounds like an amazing community. Carmen, thank you so much for having me and I can't wait to share this episode with our community. Great. Thank you so much.
• 43:24
  Carmen Hecox: Okay, can we just circle back to the fact that Lindsay started with $500, built a seven figure business by sticking to the basics. Here's a few takeaways I'm holding on to and I hope you do too.
• 43:40
  Carmen Hecox: First, foundational marketing still wins.
• 43:44
  Carmen Hecox: Consistency beats fancy every time.
• 43:48
  Carmen Hecox: Second, community is the asset, not the followers. And the audience watches and the community talks back, trusts you and buys from you.
• 43:59
  Carmen Hecox: Third, partnerships don't have to be complicated.
• 44:03
  Carmen Hecox: Lindsay's whole approach is how can we borrow each other's communities in a way that helps everyone.
• 44:10
  Carmen Hecox: And fourth, the reason her sweep method works is because it reminds you not to put all your eggs in one basket, especially not in social media.
• 44:22
  Carmen Hecox: Take one message and sweep it through social media, website, emails, events, partnerships and publicity. And if you're still sitting there thinking, but what if it doesn't work?
• 44:36
  Carmen Hecox: I love Lindsay's litmus test. What is the worst that can happen? You learn, you. You adjust, you pivot and you keep going. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with a friend who's ready for a midlife pivot and I'd love to hear from you. What is the one thing you're going to simplify after listening today? Drop it in the comments, and if you want to learn more about Lindsay, join her Dear FoundHer or connect with her. Head on over to createthebestme.com/ep162, or you can click the links below. Until then, keep dreaming big, take care of yourself, and remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.