Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / How Losing My Job Built My Empire: Hailey Rowe

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How Losing My Job Built My Empire: Hailey Rowe · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

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I thought this was kind of the safer route to be working a day job than having
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my own business. But I realized if I'm gonna do this,
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I might as well do it now. I was young at the time
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realized like I don't have a ton of responsibilities except for myself
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So I was like, I'm gonna one-on-one coach health and wellness professionals,
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And that's what I started doing.
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All right, Hailey Rowe.
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Welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
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Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
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Yes, yes. We are excited to have you.
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~ so Hailey, you are the host of the Health Coach Nation podcast.
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And you also have your own online ~ fitness coaching business that you've
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had for for nearly a decade. and you've got quite an interesting story
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how you really were forced to become an entrepreneur.
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~ so I would love if you would set the stage for our listeners and just tell
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us how you became an entrepreneur.
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Yeah, definitely. So I am a marketing and sales coach and strategist
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for business owners. And a lot of the business owners who I work with
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are fitness entrepreneurs, health coaches,
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life coaches, people in the coaching space.
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And all of this started in high school.
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My first stab at sales at all was actually selling fitness DVDs of all things.
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I was an old soul. I started to realize I needed to take care of my health because
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~ not because I was getting old,
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because I wasn't, but I was a theater nerd and I realized my body
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was like gaining weight, and I was like,
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Well, ~ maybe I should do something,
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maybe I should be active. So I started ~ getting into fitness,
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then selling fitness DVDs, and then I went to college and got
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my bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship.
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And after college, I wasn't
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Sure exactly what I wanted to do at that stage,
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but I started to look for jobs because I kept telling myself I wanted
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to have a business, but I thought,
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I need more experience first, or you know,
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I was just kind of delaying as we do sometimes.
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And so I started to work in the startup world in business development and marketing.
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And the companies that I was working for throughout those years were usually
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in the wellness space.
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One was actually a coaching certification company,
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which got me more into coaching and knowing more coaches in my network
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and all of that. And then in 2017,
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what I thought at the time, you know,
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was my dream job, because I was working at a startup,
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I was doing their marketing, I was helping a lot with the business development piece
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and just learning so much. ~ but because there was a medical side to
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the company and it was taking a long time to get approved to open.
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and they had some unforeseen obstacles come up.
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The entire team was let go in a day.
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And that is when I decided, you know what?
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I've always wanted to have my own business.
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I thought this was kind of the safer route to be working a day job or work
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e even though it's a startup world which is high risk,
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I still thought it was safer than having my own business.
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But I realized if I'm gonna do this,
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I might as well do it now. And,
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you know, I was young at the time and and ~
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realized like I don't have a ton of responsibilities except for myself at the time.
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So I was like, all right, I'm gonna one-on-one coach health
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and wellness professionals, if that was my niche to start with,
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on the parts they don't like, which is how to market themselves,
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how to get visible, how to sell coaching.
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And that's what I started doing.
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And then over time, you know, that's when I started my podcast as well.
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I started to work with other types of entrepreneurs on their business
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and their lead gen, but I kind of have stuck with the ~ wellness professional niche
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with my podcasts and things like that.
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And that's kind of the main audience who I work with.
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Okay. All right. So you kind of have those natural entrepreneurial tendencies early
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on, selling the DVDs. You've always had this ~ this interest in fitness,
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right? And so you're working in the wellness space and you land what
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it what appears to be your dream job.
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You're learning a lot, having fun.
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you have an income and you're you're thinking,
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Okay, great, I'm gonna do this.
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And then all of a sudden, overnight,
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everyone's let
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go.
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And at that moment you decide,
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~ you know, I've been delaying this,
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I have this degree in entrepreneurship,
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I wanted to do it, why not now?
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And you just you just decide to do it.
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So at that moment, when you're still,
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you know, still young, very inexperienced,
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like what's what's the first step?
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How did you actually get started?
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Yeah. So I actually started doing some research.
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I reached out to people who I knew would be ~ in the wellness space or wanted
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to be in the wellness space. And I asked,
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can I interview you about like what do you feel like you don't know about marketing,
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about business? What is causing you the most stress when it comes
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to having and starting your own business?
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And I did these little interviews on Zoom and
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I got, I wrote down what they said.
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And then I said, if I made you a customized offer for this to help
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you with these things, you know,
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would you be interested in that?
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And a couple said yes. And then I just charged a really low rate,
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did a little bit of a beta program with them and helped them start learning
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marketing, learning better time management skills in their business,
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learning how to acquire clients.
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And that's really where I started.
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And then I started to, of course,
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invest in mentors and courses and you know even though I knew a
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lot about marketing having your own business it always takes
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a different flavor because you're not used to talking about yourself
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and you sometimes you know can get clouded judgment because you're like
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you take everything personally and versus when I'm working for the startups
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I'm like bold and I can you know write really good copy for them but then when it's
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about yourself and your own business sometimes you get in your own way.
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So I just started to, you know,
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have my own mentors, do my own courses,
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get support for myself, and just try a lot of different things and start to realize,
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here's where I'm getting my clients from and here's what's sticking,
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and then doubling down on those kinds of things.
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Like one thing I realized kind of early on,
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probably around 2018, was that LinkedIn started to become my favorite platform for
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connecting with people, networking,
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~ things like that. And so I started to really like do that every week.
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And it's really paid off throughout the years.
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So I think everybody listening,
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we all want this like I'm sure we want this story that we just started
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and everything clicked and we had the magic bullet and we found
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a specific strategy and it was it was all gung ho after that.
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But
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It's a lot of trial and error.
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It's a lot of seeing what works for your audience and your business
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and then doubling down on what you're observing is working.
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Absolutely. Okay. So so much to unpack with that that whole last section.
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So at first that that's really interesting because you make the decision
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to do this and you know you want to have this business,
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but you're not really sure which direction to go.
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So you in hindsight, this seems like such a great idea.
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You just start interviewing your ideal clients on what their pain points
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are and what they need help with.
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And that just by listening and doing those interviews and and hearing what they said
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and then
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realizing how to solve that problem,
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that's how you've got your first couple of customers and you were basically
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off and running.
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Mm-hmm, yeah.
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Okay. All right. And then also too that's another ~ big topic this these days
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was with the imposter syndrome.
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So like you mentioned, like when you're working for the startup,
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you can be bold and confident and you know,
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write this this ~ very you know compelling copy.
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But when it comes to selling yourself,
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right, then all of a sudden like you're not sure and th that voice kicks
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in and it's you know, everyone at every level.
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~ if they're a human being gets imposter syndrome at at one point or another.
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So how like what's your strategy for overcoming that and moving forward even though
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you're having those voices that are trying to talk you out of it?
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Yeah. Well, there's a couple things that come up.
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~ number one, I think it's important to remember that everybody
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has a little voice of imposter syndrome at every new ceiling they break through
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and every new level. And I think we just need to almost like carry
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it like an emotion in our purse with us as opposed to letting it take over
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and drive and cause us to not try things and not be visible and all that.
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Now, I don't think
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you should, you know, fake it till you make it and act like you're something you're
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not. But I do think it's really important if you want to overcome imposter syndrome,
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the easiest and the best place to start is to get experience.
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So no matter so write down here are the reasons why I'm lacking in belief.
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And whatever they are, that just means you need more experience in that.
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And I think
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For me, that's why when I first started,
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I was not charging what I charge now.
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I did a beta rate. I did a very lower,
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much lower rate than what I charge now because I wanted to build experience.
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I wanted to build belief in myself.
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I wanted to build case studies and testimonials.
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So I told them, I'm gonna give you this like really low cost because
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I want to develop a case study with you.
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And I want your feedback and and I want that along the way.
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And that really helped me.
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build belief in my product and service because I was listening to feedback,
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because I was, you know, just getting the experience.
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And the other thing is your message can evolve over time.
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So for me, I didn't start off saying,
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you know, I'm the, like now I call myself the Mary Poppins
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of Business Resources because my clients have literally called me that.
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So I've I've used that in my marketing.
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Or I didn't say I'm a top 25 coach in Chicago because I didn't have that back when
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I started. So
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I started with a messaging that I felt I could really help people with,
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which was more along the lines of I help you with your business habits that
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end up producing revenue and clients and better time management skills.
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And then as I got clients more and more results with them,
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my message was able to evolve and expand to be more about,
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you know, I help you with clients directly and I help you with
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the marketing strategy and all that kind of stuff.
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So I think it's important to
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Let yourself evolve, but don't let,
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my message isn't good enough yet or whatever stop you from at least getting
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out there and getting started and starting to seek out visibility opportunities.
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~ because that is how you overcome imposter syndrome is by doing
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the thing you're scared of and realizing you can do it,
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and then you build belief in yourself.
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Mm. Love that, right? Because we see so many people that don't achieve their goals
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or don't ~ get to where they want because they just don't try or they don't believe
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in themselves. They never take that first step.
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So it look sounds like your strategy was to understand where you're at,
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take action anyway, and figure it out as you go.
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And like you said, your message evolved over time as you got more experience
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and as you took action and as you reached these new levels.
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Is that fair to say?
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Yeah, definitely. And I will say,
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working at the startups, I was used to getting assigned things that
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I didn't feel qualified to do because it was a small team and they'd just be like,
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Hey, here's your task, figure it out.
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And so I do think that played a role when I started my own business because
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I was like, I just have to figure things out.
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They don't really care that I don't know how to do this.
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They're just like giving you things to do.
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So that's
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That was a big thing. And I also grew up,
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I told you I was in theater. And so growing up,
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I was I was singing a lot and I was auditioning for things.
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And I think that too gave me a bit of a thicker skin because you're getting rejected
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all the time. And it's one of those things where you try out
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for things and sometimes they don't even tell you if you didn't make it sometimes.
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They just ghost you. So I was like very used to that kind of culture.
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Which is very similar in entrepreneurship.
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You're gonna have sales calls and people maybe ghost you,
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or you know, they say no, or you get rejected for a podcast you pitch yourself to.
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So I do think in your life, becoming the kind of person who gets involved
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in things that build up your capacity,
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your stamina, you know, some of these skills can kind of transfer over into your
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business.
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Yeah, that's that's ~ such great advice,
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right? Because particularly with entrepreneurship,
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~ there's so much, you know, rejection and you don't know what you're doing.
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And like you said, people ghost you.
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I mean, that's why too, I always talk about sales as such a such
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a powerful skill for entrepreneurship to have because of those same things.
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And like you said, theater is very a lot of parallels there where you're doing
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auditions, you're getting rejected,
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and for for whatever reason.
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But you have to just keep going and right on to the next one.
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Okay, so you start out, you you figure things out,
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you get the coaching business going,
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you continue to develop these accolades and your message evolves over time.
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how did you scale it from just starting out and really not knowing what you're doing
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and and doing these low beta rates to then ultimately becoming ~ like you said,
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a top twenty five coach in Chicago?
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Yeah. Well, I think it's the process is always refining
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and iterating and advancing. So for me,
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I maxed out private coaching. And what I was realizing with my private clients
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is a lot of them had the same questions,
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the same pain points. And so I started to make resources for them
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and materials for them and templates for them.
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And I realized I kind of had
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a system and a curriculum going.
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And so I knew in order to scale and continue to grow,
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I wanted to have like a group program.
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And then eventually I started a membership that was based on what
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I had already created for private clients,
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just kind of organized in an order that makes sense for new entrepreneurs.
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So I think that people say
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build it and they will come. And I actually think it's more like have them come,
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work with them and build whatever you're making next.
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And then you have something you really,
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you know, can can scale. So for me,
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I I started to ~ scale by starting to offer a group program and starting
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to offer a membership. And that was really where a lot of growth took place because,
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you know, over time of course I started raising my prices for private coaching,
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but I also to
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~ started to develop these other offers.
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And that has become now my business model and and it's worked out.
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And ~ there's something for everybody depending on,
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you know, if they really want the hands-on and the private.
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My my group program's super hands-on compared to most,
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but it is something kind of in the the middle as far as there's also group
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component. And then my membership is probably more so the most group oriented
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and is like a starting option for people who
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wanna have a place they can come and ask their marketing questions and get help,
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but maybe don't need the step by step hands on private approach.
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Okay. So l y you took the the same principles that gave you success with
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the private clients, and then once you max that out and you basically maxed
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out your time, then you realized,
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okay, I can turn this into a group offer or I can set up a membership
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and that way you could really scale with the same principles that help those coaches
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privately, but just organize it in a more efficient way and that way you
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can you can help more and more people in the same amount of time.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Okay. And so I cause there are a good amount of coaches too that that
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we have as listeners. What do you find are some of the the biggest challenges
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or the biggest pain points that the coaches you work with have currently?
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Yeah, so what they struggle with the most is many of them are super passionate about
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the coaching part, but then when it comes to marketing and sales,
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they've never had a business before.
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They don't have that background.
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And so they feel very lost as far as how do I become visible.
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And what does not help is the fact that there's a million different ways
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to be visible. So they come into this world hearing so many options.
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They need to be on.
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Instagram, they need to be on Facebook,
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they need to do podcasts, they need to do local marketing,
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they need to be on TikTok. And it's very hard when you're a new business owner
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to know which thing should I prioritize and which thing is going to work for me.
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And how do I get focused and almost,
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you know, remove the non-essentials and pick a couple things to really double down
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on to get clients. So what I help a lot of coaches do is
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what to prioritize in what order because I feel very lost in the noise
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of all the different marketing options.
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The other thing I see them really struggling with is they are focused on,
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you know, what they think people want.
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they make a whole website and they make a whole content and everything based
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on what they think's really cool,
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but not what their audience actually says in their own words.
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that they actually want. So they're not listening to their target audience feedback
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or they're just thinking about what they think is cool as opposed to what they think
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what their actual ideal client would say is cool and would pay for.
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~ and then I think the other thing is they label themselves in ways that's really
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not helpful. So they say, I'm just not,
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you know, I just am not a marketing person or I just can't learn sales.
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Like I will never I I just don't like sales or whatever.
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And then they end up
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setting themselves up to not be open to learning it or finding a way that works
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for them and their personality type.
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And they stay stuck in this label,
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like, I just get really overwhelmed easily.
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So I can't, you know, I just can't learn how to manage my time in my business.
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Like so checking your labels is another big thing that we have to
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do because mindset does play a role in how well your business is going to go.
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Love that. So so so important.
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And like you said, they they talk themselves out of it subconsciously just
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by those things that maybe ~ they don't even realize they're saying,
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like, I'm just not good at ~ not good at sales or I'm not a marketer,
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right? And it's it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
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Yeah. And another big one is perfectionism,
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waiting to put things out there until you have the perfect website,
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the perfect copy, you know, you know,
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every back end thing in your business.
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And it doesn't work like that.
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If you wait to start building an audience,
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it takes time to build trust with an audience,
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by the way. So I think another misconception people come in with is like,
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well, once I launch, like, I mean,
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I'm gonna be like flooded.
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And then they launch and they're like,
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~ whoops, like it takes time to build touch points with people and build trust
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and have them reach out. And so while you're waiting to put out that perfect thing,
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because you think once you put it out there,
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it's gonna explode. No, ~ like start now.
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It's gonna take a little time,
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don't worry. And start to put out the message and build your visibility
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and don't let perfectionism
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stop you from getting started because a perfect idea in your head that never gets
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out there to the world doesn't help anyone versus putting something
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out there that's helpful to at least one or two people,
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continuing to improve it as you go is much more beneficial
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for actually moving forward in your business.
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Love that. All right. And Hailey,
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looking back at your journey thus far from ~ the the early beginnings
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and then the startup where ~ you know yeah,
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you were let go overnight and you made that decision to become an entrepreneur.
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And then looking at your journey and you've built this coaching practice
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and scaled it and and come so far,
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what what would you say has been the best part of your entrepreneurial journey?
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the best part is the clients I get to work with because they are it in you know,
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it's one thing to help them make more money and and help more clients
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and make an impact. But what's more important to me is seeing them
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do things they never thought they were capable of and increase what I call like
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the internal locus of control.
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It's so cool to me to
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be able to be a part of their journey of them realizing they can do more than they
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think and they can just decide to do something and do it.
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I think a lot of people think they don't have control over that,
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they're helpless, that life happens to them.
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And I like to watch the transformation happen of them going from believing things
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that aren't serving them to realizing like,
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wow, I can actually run a business.
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I could do more things than I think.
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And that byproduct of the skills they learn in business,
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how that pours
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into other areas of their life and has a ripple effect on their whole life.
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So that's what I love seeing.
23:07
Wow. Well said. All right. And Hailey,
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if people are listening to this and they want to learn more about your your coaching
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and the different programs that you offer,
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what's the best way that people can find you online?
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Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at Hailey underscore row H A I L E Y underscore R O W E.
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I also have my website, Hailey Row.com and a free class teaching you
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my four steps of client attraction framework,
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which is at Hailey Row.com slash client hyphen attraction.
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I also have the Health Coach Nation podcast,
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which you're gonna be a guest on.
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So those would be some of the top places,
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but I'm on all the platforms at Hailey Row,
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so
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All right. And we will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
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All right. Hailey, thank you so much for taking the time to be here
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and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
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We greatly appreciate it.
23:58
Thank you. Thanks for having me.