Latest / The DM Sales Gal: Close Sales in DMs with Instagram Stories, Lead Generation & High-Ticket Sales Strategies / From Rehab to $68K Months in Sales: The Story Behind Scaling My Business | Ep 29

Transcript

From Rehab to $68K Months in Sales: The Story Behind Scaling My Business | Ep 29 · The DM Sales Gal: Close Sales in DMs with Instagram Stories, Lead Generation & High-Ticket Sales Strategies

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I got sober from fucking opiates.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I went through extreme withdrawal.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, there's a lot of shit that you can do.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's so ridiculous.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, as of this month, we've made$68,800 in sales.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: If your Instagram stories and your Instagram DMs aren't bringing you 16k hot and steamy leads, and you're not exactly at the sales pool you want to be at for this quarter, I've got you.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Hey sales friends, I'm Alyssa, your cheap sales gal.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I've been in business for 11 years, and I currently run a done for you lead generation and lead management agency with Instagram DMs.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm about to show you guys all of the juicy sales things on Instagram, Instagram stories to get new leads, and closing sales in the DM sale and sales calls.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So let's get into all of the juicy details.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Hi guys, welcome back to the DM Sales Gal.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: I am recording a podcast episode at night and like second-guessing every third word that I say because I feel like I'm not making sense.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: But here we go, we're gonna give it a shot, anyways.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: So, unbeknownst to me, people think that I'm really good at hiring.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I guess because like we as a company have hired a lot of people.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about that.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about scaling as an agency.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot behind the scenes that you need to know.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: In case you thought that I made it look easy, it's not.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: In case you didn't think it was worth it, it fucking is.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: It so is.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: So I'm super excited to talk about that.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk a little bit about hiring order.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk about how I see people hiring and maybe some helpful notes for when you're hiring this year and next year of what's going to help you get the most ROI from hiring, and specifically around like hiring for sales and also hiring for marketing.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I've hired for lots, lots, and lots of things, so we will talk about all of those.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, this episode has been coming for some time.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: You guys have been DMing me asking me like my clients, and I mean this has really been happening I would say most of the year since like spring of this year when people saw me hiring and hiring and hiring.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: I would get DMs like, how do you hire a sales team?
2:25
SPEAKER_00: How do you hire a team?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not a hiring expert, but I have had significant experience this year, so I'm not an expert or teaching per se, but I can tell you about my experience for Shores.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about that, but um yeah, earlier this year, this kind of started marinating when I was at the beginning of like this scaling journey of this year, of people asking me, like, how do you hire?
2:55
SPEAKER_00: How do you hire a sales team?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And I thought they were trying to hire my sales team, but really they just want to know how I did it, which is fine.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Also, and then more recently, over even like as recent as like the last week or two of October, people have been asking me, like, how do you hire?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: How do you know who to hire?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: How do you find them?
3:12
SPEAKER_00: How do you qualify them?
3:14
SPEAKER_00: How do you train them, manage them, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And also, I'll put this note out there because my CRO Zoe knows this through and through.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: I do not fucking intend to be a manager.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: We have a team of 20 people, and I talk about this with my husband too, because he has like an employee job, and I'm a business owner, and I'm like, they like nobody will stop offering my husband like added management opportunities, and he doesn't want it.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, he wants to do the work, he don't want to fucking manage nobody.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: If he has to, he'll manage one or two people, but like he does not want to be a manager, and I wholeheartedly agree.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, I wanna do what I want to do, not just fucking manage people.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, but I've gotten lots of questions on this over the last year, and then like um maybe a month and a half ago, but I still remember, maybe like early September.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know, I'm getting bolder with age.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I truly just don't give a fuck.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't give a fuck what you think about me.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: True, truly, I don't care.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this, hopefully you like me.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: If you hate me, I'm fine with that too.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm 34 now.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Who fucking cares?
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I was 34 on July 10th, just FYI.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But then I just keep getting bolder and more confident with a lot of data to fucking back it up.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Every fucking thing I've come across in business this year when I thought I couldn't, I could with the fucking right people on my side.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Also, every time that my like squirrely brain is like, you can't do it, I don't know if you can do it.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna do it?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I like steps, right?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I have ADHD, like I like steps.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Every time we come across some new massive like scaling hurdle over the course of this year, of which there have been many.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So many.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Every time we come up against it, my brain is like, I don't know, can you do it?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Or like, are you strong enough?
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Are you big enough?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, can you handle it?
5:15
SPEAKER_00: What if it goes wrong?
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Lately I sit in bed and I'm like just in this chain of like literally, like, what what should I be worrying about?
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Wait, there is nothing to worry about.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: What could I be worrying about?
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Shall we not?
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is what is this shit?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: As women, I don't need to find, like, look for things like sleuth and hunt to figure out what I could worry about.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Because we're not there anymore.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: We're the business isn't there anymore.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: We're not in like something terrible could happen tomorrow.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Something terrible could happen tomorrow, we'll be fucking fine.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: We'll be fine.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Which is incredible.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: But every time that I come up against something this year, like, can I do it?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a lot of work.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: This and like requires a lot of people.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I remember that I got sober from opiates.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I moved from fucking New York City, I was in far Rockaway, there were no fucking apartments in Brooklyn or Manhattan during COVID.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Everybody that shuffled around and got the good place got it, and it was cheap rent, and everyone scooped up the remaining fucking places.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I literally had no home.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: I could stay in Airbnb's, but like I didn't have a fucking home.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And then I moved camp with an entire family like backing me and moved from fucking New York City and Brooklyn back to Louisville, Kentucky, and went into inpatient rehab for 30 days and then outpatient and fucking got sober.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: So, like, scaling a business, like oh okay, cool.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, I got sober from fucking opiates.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: I went through extreme withdrawal.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, there's a lot of shit that you can do.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: So, we're gonna talk about all of the things.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: But I say all this because as I overcome each new challenge, and again, like I'll say we a lot in this episode, but I'm trying to start this with like my journey going through it.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: But I'll say we a lot in this episode, but like as me and my business have like evolved and grown so much, like so much over this year, and my like confidence and self-reliance and not self-reliance and learning to like trust other people to the like in 1 teenth degree, I keep getting bolder and bolder, and I don't care what people think, and I want to be myself, and I want to repel people that have their own fucking opinions of me, and that's totally fine, and I want to repel them.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: So then my threads and my Instagram stories and my emails and my podcast has also grown into a sassier, more confident, more me version of what they used to be.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: And so all these people are asking questions about like hiring and scaling and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: And I guess I posted something on threads and then another nine things on fucking threads as we do, and it really pissed this woman off.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, so pissed off to the point that I think someone told me, and I realized, and like fuck, call it a fucking badge of honor that there are people on the internet who have like we have no personal beef and are just like not even like commenting on my stuff, like being mean or judgmental, whatever.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Their own opinions, not even sharing those publicly, just making every single post on their feed within three minutes of mine attacking what I said for like a while.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: No one knows the story, actually.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've told anyone.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: I just kind of like let it go.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: I was like, fuck, she got a lot of time to watch everything I write and then go get like fucking pissed and write a bunch of fucking threads about how much I suck.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, she got a lot of time.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to use my time that way, but if she wants to use her time hating me, then my okay, so don't do anything to me.
9:18
unknown: I'm fucking fine.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, the one that I remember the most was me making what at the time was a fairly somewhat business vulnerable post where I talked about the fact that I what I want most of my business is to be able to close for it.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: What I want most of my business is to be able to close sales, bring in clients, and have a fucking outstanding team that can manage them for the most part, and I'm still there with clients too, but if I don't want to be there tomorrow, I don't have to be.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And me saying, like, look, put this in another context, okay?
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Back up for a minute.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Me saying that I wanted to just do sales for the business, and that is my goal.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And I used to say at the beginning of this year, and my like, I thought it was I don't know, it sounds fucking crazy, but I told my husband, like end of last year, I was like, Yeah, all I want to do is make sales for me, bring in the clients, and then sell some for them, and that's it.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: That's all I want to do.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: That's all I want my business to be.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: That's all I want my role to be after 11 years.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And when you say, like, for your business, all you want to do for your own business is make sales.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: I guess this person read that as this is so stupid to say out loud.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, let me try to get the words out.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: She wrote on threads, and these are like, look, I've like checked myself on it over and over again.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was about someone else.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: No, dude, no.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: No.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Within like five minutes of me posting anything, there was a direct, like, retaliating fucking thread up, like attacking what I said.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'd be hard pressed to find how it wasn't about me.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay, whatever.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Still, her thoughts on pretty much what I was going through, even if it was not about me, but it but it is.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: It it was.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: So I guess she heard me saying that what I want to do most in my business is make sales, and read it as she doesn't want to do any work.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Which uh boy, um, yeah.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Someone come talk to me about the lack of my work ethic.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't even finish the fucking sentence.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: It's so ridiculo it's so ridiculous.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's just a fucking misconception, too.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Or she can, you know, she can actually think, I don't want to work that hard, or Alyssa doesn't do any of my work.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, talk to my husband, guys, or anyone that knows me.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: All my friends, my whole family, all my colleagues, all my clients, all my team, like, come on, friends.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, anybody who's been watching anything I've been doing for the last six months knows that I've worked like 10 to 12 hour days pretty much the majority of since like the day we moved to fucking Denver, like May, June, July, August, September through mid-October, maybe I was working 10, 12, 14 hour days, like at least five days a week, and then usually some at least one or two days of the weekend, too.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: So like, come explain to me how I don't work hard.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: That's what a conversation.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's like, I don't know, it just makes me think of like Donald Trump.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, it it'd be like trying for me to try to like convince Donald Trump that he's not doing a good job.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's just that's not a starting conversation.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: You know?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Let's all fucking like keep really good thoughts that we get this motherfucker out of fucking office.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: If you aren't clear on my opinion, because um this time last year, about three weeks before this three weeks later this time this year, I got sued for being anti-Donald Trump.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: So in case you're listening to this and thinking of working with me or having me as a speaker, I fucking hate Donald Trump.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: So if you were confused, now you're not.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: If you disagree with it, you should stop listening.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, got that one done.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: So, let's go into this story.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was like the start of this that I'd been asked through the year, like, how do we hire a team?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna grow a team?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: When I started growing a team, I didn't fucking know how to grow a team.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I didn't like you guys know me well enough now.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: It's not like I like went to leadership camp.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's it's I'd say an upward battle at times for some to try to learn me, as my mom would say, teach me.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: But my mom would say learn me, because I said that when I was a little kid when I was like four, but it's like an upward battle to try to like get me to like decide to invest in education and then sit down and do it when I already think like I want to do and figure it out.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: So I did and I figured it out.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about it.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Right now we are at a team of 20 and team of 20 and a 20 client roster, which is even.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: It's odd too, because I feel like when people hear that, they're like, shouldn't you have like more clients than team members?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Maybe in a year or two when we sl like when we we are gonna switch to an escort, but also when I hire employees, maybe next year or else the following for sure.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: But we have a lot of people right now that work like part-time, part-time, like they work one or two hours a day, and then like I fucking love my girls, like they go on like two-week vacations, mosh with them fucking Japan.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, so, anyways, that's why we have 20 on the team and then 20 clients and growing.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's where we are right now, and I want to go back to the beginning for a second because people ask me a lot about you guys ask out of like fascination.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I'm using that word for a reason.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: You guys ask about like how do you do it, but also there's a huge I'm fucking terrified, how did you get over it situation.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, I can tell you the steps that I did to hire there's a whole fucking lot of steps for a whole lot of people, okay?
15:36
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you the steps that we have done for hiring, and you have to know too.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: I didn't fucking hire the 20 remaining people we had, and we've hired more than fucking 20 this year.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: We've hired at least at least 30 people this year.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Retained 20 sales team.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they gotta come and go.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't do all the hiring.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Zoe now does all of our hiring.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Zoe and Audrey do all of it.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: They have the posting, they have the videos, they have the applications, they have the sources.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: We have very specific sources for where we get our sales team members, but they have a whole process in SOPs, and everyone they fucking hire is incredible.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I'm not doing it all anymore.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: But when you guys ask me, this is like the beginning of it, when people ask me, like, how did you do it?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, A, there's a lot of steps.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: That's a long story, okay?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: I can talk about it for a long, long time.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of steps to it, but also there's something way bigger, which is I'm fucking terrified to do it, is what people actually mean, and I'm gonna use the word so everybody like hold on to your underpants.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Scaling.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't it's a super masculine word.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Guys, it just is what it is.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: You fucking grow a business, or you don't, or you or you stay where you are, but I couldn't.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: So this is the thing you have to hear in this entire fucking podcast.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: I've already mentioned for the 97 millionth time that I got sober.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: You know what happens before you get sober?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: You're not sober.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So I was in an in through active addiction for almost a decade, pretty much.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: All around it, all edges of it, up, down, sideways.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Of course it got worse, then it just kind of stayed where it was, and it blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: But all that to say, I didn't like accrue a ton of wealth during my active addiction.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's that's not what most people do.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: You spend money, you're not and you get money, and then you spend more money.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: You're not necessarily like keeping your funds.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I have student loans, I have debt, and I want what I want for my family.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: I want for us to be able to travel.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: I want I mean, I'm trying to tell my husband we need at least like 13 like dogs in our two-bedroom apartment.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: He says that like two is where we gotta start and we have to get one first.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with the spouses?
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, I I just want 13 dogs, okay.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't really.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that many dogs.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: I do, but no, not really, not actually taking care of them.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: But anyways, before I got sober, I was not in a f like fantastic financial position, and this relates for scaling.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: So if I am, you know, working by myself on our client work and doing most of the departments in my business alone, because they are that, they are now with where I'm at, I'm like, how the fuck would I do a podcast and you know, marketing and social media, and update my website and manage our clients and manage the team and think like forward and look at our like revenue and profit, like, and talk to my bookkeeper and our tech.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, how the fuck am I supposed to do all of this alone?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Bookkeeping, I should said.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I supposed to cover all those fucking departments alone, right?
19:00
SPEAKER_00: But the point.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: I told you guys it was the evening.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can really.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a choice of scaling, and I've run the numbers, and there's a thread on this too.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And I ran the numbers back then, and it honestly at the time my fucking head was just spinning because what do we all want when we start a business financially?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants something different, but big like banner, 10k months, right?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a I mean it is, it's a milestone, and they're easy numbers.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: We get to 3k months, then 5k months, then 7,500, then 10, then 15, 20, 30, 50 is where I shall be at the end of the year.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're about to pass 30, so we'd definitely be at 40, 45 um cash each month by the end of the year.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyways, it's going good.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: If we even get to 40, I'm pretty fucking happy with it.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I started this year at like January, I had like zero recurring revenue.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I think January or February I made like three or five grand.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the year, we'll hit 40 to 50k cash months, up from three to five K cash months, which is pretty fucking insane.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: But when I was at 10k months doing the work mostly alone, I could really manage four clients for about$2,500 each and make$10,000.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we put taxes in and we're down to about$7,500.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Then we add even like someone helping with social media or one team member, and I'm down to like$5k.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Then I add my living expenses and debt payoff.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm down to like$1,500 to work my fucking ass off, not be able to increase my debt payoff at all, have to decrease it if months were hard because I got overwhelmed and I couldn't get more clients because I was so busy with client work, I couldn't get anybody else, nor could I take them.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: So what's the fucking point?
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, scaling was not a choice.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: It was the only way that I moved forward.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: It literally, and I did this last year.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, before that, a year and a half or so ago.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: I looked at jobs because I couldn't wrap my head around it.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm making 10k months and I have to work like 50, 60 hour weeks and I save nothing?
21:29
SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, riddle me this shit.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: This sucks.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: And it did.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: I was like, this can't be it.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm fucking missing something.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And I and I was.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So for the last six months, scaling was not a choice.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I would say really, like, I mean, May, June, July, August, September, October, I put my fucking heart into it.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And I and and everything I had, I've put everything I had, and it was fuck, I might cry.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have time.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Tissues.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say this.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Did I say that I ordered a bunch of airy shit?
22:03
SPEAKER_00: I've been treating myself better.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I know you guys care about that, and you'll be you'll be glad.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: But I haven't gotten tissues for the fucking office.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was forgetting last night.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did buy$467 worth of airy shit, and it's awesome, and I'm wearing it right now, and it's so good.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Like soft clothes, it's so good.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I fucking love it.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm redoing the office.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I cleaned the office for like three hours this weekend, and now everything that was pink is becoming dark green, and I'm super excited about it.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: But I put everything I had into growing this business, and I would say really probably started April, March, April, March.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, is when I had one team member from the DM sales team and then another, and I've had people on like a DM team before.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: At the most, I had like three, maybe three, maybe four, at some point in uh 2025.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: But then I started like I just went into a new iteration of this business and started getting really clear on my offers and really clear on who we wanted and what we wanted to achieve, and not to mention the fact that I was a lead gen agency for like 2024, 2025, etc.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: And now we are leads in sales, like we close sales for you.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: But when I think back to like March, April, or yeah, I'd say March when we really started to scale.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: So like eight months ago, I can't do math, it's 9 12 p.m.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: It was so huge, and I've put everything into it, and it was so worth it.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: I knew I could do it, I didn't know what it would take to get here.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: It took a lot, but it's so incredibly worth it.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: So, we're gonna go into more of hiring order, but that's what I want to say to that, that scaling wasn't a choice, and uh, I'm gonna cry at some point.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know why I'm trying, I wanna be able to speak, and I can't I'm like recording in fucking Riverside, and I can't fucking pause the fucking recording.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, if I cry, then I can't talk.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: So, and it's like it's a podcast, so I'm supposed to be talking.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I put everything into this, and every every time it was hard, you know, I keep trying to take care of myself.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: My husband tries to take care of me.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm doing a pretty fucking good job as of like the last week of taking care of me, and I'm gonna explain that in just a minute.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: But every time it's really hard, I remember doing this for my family.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And you make sacrifices for the people that you love, and of course it's for me and like like what I'm doing and the way we're growing.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, of course it's for me, but it's for me and my family, which doesn't, you know, we're not like a family without me and my husband and our kitty and pseudo two dogs after we travel, we're gonna go to Costa Rica first next year, like his first time out of the fucking country, which is crazy.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And I've been to Spain, France, Mexico, Canada.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he hasn't, so I'm just super excited and I want to spoil my husband, etc.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: etc.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: But every time it was hard, I remembered it was for us.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And in addition to that, it's for all the people that you can help, and it's for all of their families, so that's what I come back to always okay.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Um because it's a podcast, I'll try to cut deep, deep, keep, keep speaking.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: So now we're at 20 clients and 20 team members, and I'll tell you who's on the team.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And this is so ridiculous.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, as of this month, we've made$68,800 in sales.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: All of our new contracts are four to six months.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Our clients re-signing are re-signing for four to six months.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Fucking yay.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the revenue that I've made, like those sales that I've made, go to March or May of next year.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: So, like, still until half of next year, I've got fucking recurring revenue and like it just gets me going.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, like you know, you know, you know.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: My husband loves that when it the revenue gets me going.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not joking.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, so 68,800 in sales so far in October.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: It's October 27th, so we still got fucking four days left.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm all for a Halloween sale.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll run a Halloween sale.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You guys never know.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Whoever knows what the fuck I'm gonna do.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot more time to think now, and that means there's crazy shit coming.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Like when my brain isn't focused, it's gonna make up some crazy shit.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: So get ready for that.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: It'll be fun.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the fuck we're doing for Black Friday.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't give a shit.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: That'll come to me in the future.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be fun.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: But 68,800 in sales from this month, 28,117 cash this month, and we still have more people coming in.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's just where we are now.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I'll do an October recap at the end of the month, like be like next week, the week of the second of all of October.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is for sure the best month like I've ever had.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: I should have said that at the beginning.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the highest month I've ever had before now was like 24,500, something like that.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And now I wanted to pass 25, and now we're at 28, over 28, so I'm pumped.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And in case you hadn't heard, we have skip the sales call membership for$37 a month.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, I hope you guys know this.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I intentionally kept the membership cost as low as humanly fucking possible just to like at this point, literally just to cover like the expenses of like managing it, of me and my team and the platforms, like just to cover it.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So, and if anybody wants to join and you truly can't afford it, no questions asked, you can let me know, and we will provide scholarships too for three months into the membership.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyways, yeah, so 20 clients, 20 team members, uh close to 69k, 68,800 in sales, 28,117 in cash.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I try to be really, like, really, really clear on the numbers because I think it matters.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And here is who is on the team.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: So we've got Zoe.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I feel like they're like in the Brady bunch, or like, I don't, I don't know.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could like show you guys them.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: This podcast will be on YouTube next year.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Marie will carry us there.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh fuck knows I ain't getting there by myself.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to make a YouTube account.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a lot of work.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, I I don't want to be on YouTube.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't even you guys think I love Instagram.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Somebody just asked me to speak today.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, yeah, you're so great at like I know you know about social selling.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: I sell on Instagram.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, we do we have done LinkedIn lead generation, it's just so slow, and like unless you're gonna put significant AI into it, which I just don't want to be a part of really.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: But I don't be on fucking YouTube or like I I just wanna be at the park and like fuck around on my phone when I want to.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: But YouTube sounds like a really scary planet to go to.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't I swear to fucking god, I don't like look at content.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: You guys may not know this.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I really don't look at content.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: I look at my clients like Instagram stories and try to look at as many of them each day.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I can't look at all 20 of you guys' Instagram stories every day, but I'm trying.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Trying to look at as many as I can.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm trying to switch back between like maybe A, B, and C days, more A, B, C, and D days, or A, B, C, and D, and E days, where I rotate which clients I work on each day with the team.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, but, anyways, this podcast will be on YouTube in the future, and if that was so, then someone who isn't me could like edit it and put pictures of our team up there, but it's not me, so uh Zoe is our chief revenue officer and chief operations officer, and also brought me our wondrous Audrey, our operations manager, um, underneath Zoe.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: So those are my opscals.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Then we also have the SEM, the one remaining, still standing man on the team.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the SEM.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: The SEM got 19 ladies to keep in line.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: And I do mean keep in line.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is like super cool and super smart and responsible.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we had one male sales team member.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Brandon, we'll miss you.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he didn't stay after one week.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: He went on to something that was a better fit for him.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: But we have one man, and that's the same.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: So, the same, if you're listening, I love you.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, Zoe is our chief revenue officer and our chief operations officer.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I got really lucky.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend like a combo package.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, fucking go for it.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Um arguably, like, we pay a significant amount, getting close to closer to 5k, I think, now in four for operations, and Zoe, I'll fucking pay you whatever you ask.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: I she knows that already.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: I asked her to re-sign before she could ask me if I wanted to re-sign.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: I was like, please sign me up for another six months.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, tell me whatever I need to pay you.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's how essential.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's how much they mean to me.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And you guys love this too.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, you guys are like, you rave about your team.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh Marie, let me not yell under the mic.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh fucking course.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to whisper yell.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I fucking rave about the team.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Obviously.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: First of all, don't have people on your team if you don't want to fucking rave about them.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Second of all, they work hard for you, so you should rave about them.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Number three, they're fucking supporting the fucking company.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: So they better be the best that we can possibly fucking find.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: And they are, because Zoe and I and Audrey have worked at it all fucking year.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: And for the last like four months of that, I'd say they've worked at it, and I've been like, damn, you guys did a fucking great job, thank you.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I fucking love my people and try to treat them very, very, very, very, very well.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, so CRO and COO combo package is Zoe.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Audrey is our operations manager, Bassem is our client experience manager.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Laura, who will listen to this because she's gonna make emails on it, and her emails are making us money, and I love you, Laura, and for your emails, and that the emails are making us money.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Laura Haley is our email marketing revenue focused email marketer.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Laura, I'd give such a better intro if it wasn't 9:20 p.m.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: She is a fucking badass email marketer and knows how to make a fuckload of money from it.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, podcasting, we pay Marie, who will be listening to this podcast right now.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: For socials and sales pages and web and creative direction.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Overall, we pay Emily Hester, who I've been with for six years.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, we have Megan Wall, who is my under her team is my CPA.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: She's also done my bookkeeping and CFO stuff, and then the big kahuna.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: We have 13 DM team members, um, which is I know.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: It's fucking nuts.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: It is.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: It is fucking nuts.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: I it's not small.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: It's not small anymore, but I mean a lot of them have been with us a really long time.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean like through this year, a lot of them have been with us like through this year, and the new ones we get are really good, and like literally at this point, and I told my husband this and I was tired and we'd smoked some weed, and he was like, What the fuck are you talking about?
34:06
SPEAKER_00: But I was like, I hired someone who hired someone who hires people.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: That's nuts.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: So I hired Zoe, who hired Audrey, and then they hire people together.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: So we do have new DM team members with the pace that we're growing and we're keeping a real close eye on it.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Um we do have like new team members that start say every one to two weeks.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: So we'll probably have 15, 17, maybe 20 people on the DM team alone by the end of the year.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we also have DM team members where like apparently we've now thankfully, I'm so grateful, become their full-time job.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: So I have team members working, like, who want to be at eight hours, which means we need to start providing benefits next year.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, working on it.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, and then what else was I going to say?
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Something.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it'll come back to me or not.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: But then we get to like, how did I get to this point?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: And I have notes over here on the side of the screen.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: How do we get to this point?
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And that it's really fucking hard at points.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you just have to, you know, me last week say, No, I'm not doing it.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Who else is going to?
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Someone on the team, or do we hire someone, etc.?
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know what I was gonna say about the team.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I said this on threads too, and the same girl just fucking twisted her panties up, like this one really ruffled her fucking feathers so much.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to piss you off, like for reals, but this is probably gonna get me in trouble, which is a great reason to say it.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: I wrote on threads.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: I wrote on threads that at this point in my business the team is arguably more important than the roster of clients.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, deep breath, seriously, because the business cannot run without the team exist like without the team running well, very well.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: And I know this.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: If fuck forbid we lost a team member, two, three, whatever, if we lost to Parven heads, that would suck.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: When we lose DMT members, also fucking sucks.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: But we can hire more people, but we have to have the team to do the client work.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: So they literally are my first priority because we cannot serve the clients without the team and the team running well and the team happy and the team healthy, etc.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: etc.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: So I posted that on threads.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, she hated that one.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: She did, she hated that one.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sorry.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I was not trying to fucking like anger you.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but then what I was going to say is because I have such a fucking great team now.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Last week, I don't Zoe, I don't even know if Zoe is listening.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what the fuck documents I was reviewing, but like I was I literally now feel like a babysitter of like a pretty chill kid.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: It's like in my business was a child, because I'm not having kids ever.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I love them.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: But if and I babysat from like fucking 12 to like 22 plus.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Like I babysat all through NYU in New York on the Upper West Side for these like super cool Jewish kids.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Their dad was a surgeon, like they're it was it was wild.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe she'll listen to the podcast, Sophia, one day.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: I still know the older girl and she's incredible.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: But anyways, if my business was a child, it would be like, you know, like an eight-year-old boy who's like super cool, likes video games, he like kind of likes you, so he's like super sweet and like goofy.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's that's my business, you know.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Like this kid might be like asking me if like he can make me mac and cheese, you know.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's my business.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Like my business is treating me well, and I treat it well back.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I honestly feel like as of this week, my husband's like, but you don't need to like work tonight.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know, whoa, this is crazy.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I'm doing extra to get ahead, but my business is really kind to me, and like I'm just the caretaker, I'm like the custodian, I'm like the cool babysitter taking care of a pretty chill kid.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: But before that, as of I don't know, I think it was last week, um, we've been redoing infrastructure again because we put out a new you guys probably don't even know this at all.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Maybe my one one new client who signed today that starts on Thursday.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Wednesday, Stephanie, maybe.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, so real fast, but she might know this, obviously, because she bought it.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: But we have a new offer called Done Free VM Sales for group programs specifically, or group program and agency.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: You have to meet all these qualifiers, but if you do, there's a$30,000 sales guarantee.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: So you make you pay$7,500 for three months and you make$30,000, or we work until we hit it.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: So we have that new offer.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: What fuck?
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Like beginning of the month, October, I made the done with you lead-gen offer, and then we still have our$1,500 a month offer.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm like using hand gestures.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: You guys can't see anything I'm doing.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Marie can, and you can mock me for it later.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: But dump for your DM sales is now$2,500 a month with 10% commission,$30,000 sales guarantee.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: We make$30k in three months, 90 days, or we work until we hit that goal for up to three more months.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's our dump for your DM sales.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Then the second tier is what we've been doing all year, it just repositioned it a little bit.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: It's called Dump For You Lead Management and DM sales.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's$1,500 a month.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: So you already have leads, but you're not like dying under a pool of them where we can close, close, close, close, close, close that fast.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Like they still need qualifying, nurturing, etc.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: And then we have the done with you lead generation where we're generating new leads and pulling you in, and that's$7.50 months.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, we made all these three offers.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you them actually for you guys to buy them.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm telling you them so this to make sense.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: We made all these new offers.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Which I fly when you have a team of 20.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: If you do a thing, it affects everything.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: There's very little that I was there's very little I can do in my business that it isn't gonna affect team and clients, both, and incoming clients, and partnerships, etc.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Which is fine.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like we're all holding each other up together, you know.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking about something and I hadn't had cave yet this morning.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: I was making coffee and I was like, this is so weird.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh man, I've gotta tell her I'm doing it.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what she's she's gonna think, because like I was not awake.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't know if I can get away with it and not tell her I was gonna give somebody an extended payment plan.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and like it's my fucking business.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I can do whatever I want.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: We're we're you know, we have guidelines and then sometimes I make a veer to the left or the right, but there is very little that can be done without affecting everybody.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: So when I make a new offer or change a new offer, fuck, if I fucking rename the offer, the$1,500 a month was done free weed gen all year.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Now it's done free weed management and DM sales.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, we've changed we've changed posts, we've changed emails, we've changed links, we've changed stripe links, we've changed onboarding forms, we've changed onboarding guides, we've changed onboarding processes documents, we've changed uh the sales SOPs template, we've changed the weed tracker name, like um, there's no like just one little change.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: So we just like girl, what the fuck?
42:13
SPEAKER_00: Ain't nothing little.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: If you want to do it, then you gotta know everything that's coming, and now I do.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: So we ain't building any new fucking offers for the rest of the year.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: Everything we got, I love it.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep doing it.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: It's all working, clients are happy, new clients coming in, etc.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: But basically, I made all these fucking changes and I was fine-tuning all the documents that our like operations team was looking at, and then I was like, again, it was it was like evening and hubs was at work and I'm sitting here, and I at that point I was tired and I was working way harder than I am now, and I was like, why the fuck am I doing this?
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Why are we in this situation?
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, why are me and me in this situation?
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, because me created this situation, but for a good reason.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: There was demand for something I could provide, and I wanted to, so I made a lower offer for$750 a month, and the$1,500 a month still stands, but then I made a$750,$750 a month offer, and then I made a$2,500 month offer because we needed to.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: But I'm doing this and I'm like, okay, what's the origin story to me fucking working at 10 pm?
43:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's it, because I did something good.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: We needed these offers, I made these offers, and per usual, and I've told people this too, like, I can sell out my shit or however many fucking spots I want with a carousel, right?
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, I knew I could sell it, so I sold it.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the infrastructure piece.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: So I did these things and made these new offers for a good reason.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: But then that means ops, ops, ops, ops, ops.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, take a fucking bath in the ops, okay?
43:43
SPEAKER_00: My ops people, please use that.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Alana, if you're listening, please use that.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: How can you make your operations into a bubble bath?
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: When I was like just in a not like a cold, like icy, uncomfortable bathtub of fucking operations.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there on my computer where I am right now, and I was like, why the fuck am I in this fucking situation?
44:04
SPEAKER_00: I did something good, so why am I doing something I hate?
44:07
SPEAKER_00: And then I remember.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: It's my business.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Me and the people I hired, who then hired and hired and hired, have a really fucking solid team.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: If I don't want to do this, there's probably someone else I can pay that can.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to go over 14 five to eight page documents for the three SOPs updates across the board for every offer.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, there was all sorts of stuff that we're doing.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: It was super granular.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm still looking at all the high-level changes.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm still doing that, but I didn't need to go through literally, like, it was like 50 plus pages of documents, and I couldn't finish them on Thursday night or Friday.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna spend Saturday and Sunday doing them, and I was like, this isn't what it's supposed to be.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I went and told Zoe, and I was frustrated and I was tired, and my husband came home and he was waiting on me to eat dinner, and I was talking with Zoe, and my husband's knocking on the door, and I was like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I can't like review all of this shit and be this in the weeds.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, we need to push me up.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: We have to have like what I have to do be what I have to do, and everybody else, like everything else, can pretty much go to someone else.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And that's why now I'm at the point where this feels like babysitting.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, and like I I don't know, side note too, like you guys know I fucking love sales, but also like today I woke up like I don't want to get lazy.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: I'll get super back into it too.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be lazy, but I haven't been lazy for eight months.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, I broke my fucking motherfucking ass off.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: But this morning I woke up and like the person who was signing to start Thursdays, she was signing and she had some contract requests, and then another one, my team said, like, yes, she wants in.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm waking up to the team saying, We made another sale, like, can we push it to the right person?
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you approve this?
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Do we approve this date?
46:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool, we'll send all the details to onboard them.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I don't know, I don't have to do that much.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: So, like, all I want to do is sales, but today I didn't want to fucking sell, so I didn't, and we um, and even though I didn't want to sell, we still closed 18 grand today.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: From one contract that's 15 grand and one contract that's three grand.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, hiring order.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's get to that piece as well, and then we'll we'll call it, and I'm gonna go eat and a bunch of fried food items.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I said I've been taking care of myself, like I painted my nails with two coats and top coats, and I keep ordering shit for the house, and I started exercising on Sunday and already ran Sunday and Monday, and even so, my sweet husband bought us a lot of fried foods.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: He likes the like cheap like Croger or King supers, like cheese curds, mozzarella sticks, potato skins, jalapeno poppers.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: We have most of those things in my freezer, and I will go munch them.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: But first, hiring order.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is how most people hire, and this is totally fine.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: I just have a note for you at the end.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: So, if you guys have hired anyone, you have probably hired for a virtual assistant or operations manager or OBM.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Probably one of the first things you may have hired for branding and web first, probably.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you probably hired for like branding website, then you hired VA operations OBM, then as we're scaling our client roster, we get busy, so we hire for marketing, so you hire social media.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: Once you have a website, have clients, have ops assistants behind the team, have social media to help you ideally pull in leaves, right?
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Somebody told me the other day that they put, um, I know who it was, uh, that they'd put like six, eight grand plus into like a CMO and not made any money.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that's marketing.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: And then you also have to pay for sales or do sales.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing sales, then you gotta be good at sales and you gotta do it consistently and you gotta track it, and you gotta adjust your strategy on the fly.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, most people hire, I'm gonna count and like say them.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, brand slash web, one thing.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Number two, VA ops OBM, number three, social media.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: Number four, once you, you know, have a website, you have clients, and you have ops assistants, you have social media, you're doing marketing, ideally you're pulling in more leads, then you hire a bookkeeper.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to fucking do that.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: And then you're tapped.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: And you basically have covered, like, now I have an operations department, now I have a marketing department, now I have client delivery department, which might be you who's bringing in new business.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: If I had to like not look at my notes off the top of my head, I would literally just classify the main parts of my business as that basically that I would say it's ops, client delivery, marketing, and sales.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and then we, you know, we have bookkeeping and taxes and blah blah blah.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a coach, that's a whole other podcast.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: There was a time when I was having a crisis at the end of July, like three months into scaling.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: I just fucking melted at Abby's retreat in Keystone.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: Abby has another retreat next January 2027.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: If anybody wants to come to the Rado, I can't believe I get to say that.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm so fucking lucky to live here, it's insane.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I had a meltdown, basically, totally fucking warranted.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Everyone was super supportive and thought maybe I need a coach.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Girl, no.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: I just needed my partners.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: I just needed to like go in further with like my fractional partnerships, like my fractional COO and CRO.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't need a coach.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not at this time.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, what I want to tell you all is let's say you've covered those departments, maybe your client delivery, and that's totally fine.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: But let's say you've covered ops, you have an OBM, maybe you have a COO, let's say you've covered client delivery, maybe it's you, maybe it's you with a client delivery assistant, or one or two people, or more, or five people underneath you.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: You have a marketer, right?
50:38
SPEAKER_00: You either you or someone is doing your social media, maybe your emails, maybe your ads.
50:44
SPEAKER_00: And so we have all these things covered.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: You have ops, you have client delivery, you have marketing.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: And what about sales?
50:51
SPEAKER_00: And people don't like save for it.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Like save room in the budget, not save up for it.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't need to do that, really.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, you need to be like when you're gonna invest in us, even for our$7.50 a month offer.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: I'd advise that you're at least at like$5k months for our$1,500 a month offer.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: I really would for people that are close to like$8,$10,$15k months or more, 20, 25, and then people doing our$2,500 a month offer are usually at$25,$30,$50k,$100k months.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: But people don't remember to save room, not saving, save room in their budget for sales.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: And to go back to the beginning, if you're growing at all, if you have more clients in October than you had in September, then you're growing, and I have learned from scaling that it's a lot harder to stop scaling than it is to keep scaling.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: It's forward fucking momentum.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're growing, you don't have to say a bad word, we don't have to use the S word and say scaling.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're growing, if you one day want five clients, ten clients, twelve clients, fifteen clients, twenty people in a group program, fifty people in a group program, at some point most of you are going to need sales support.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: I need you to find out when that's going to be.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, a lot of times, I don't know, it's like people hit 1015, 20, 25k, 30k, and they can't keep growing.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And ads.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: Our clients do ads, and then we feel the leads that come from the ads.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: But I need you to know your tipping point.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: And you might not know until you get closer to it.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: But our clients who hire us either don't want to do sales or don't have time to do sales, and that really is it.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have time to do sales, it's usually because I love what Taylor does.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, Tehua de la Fuente, our client.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: That's my cat.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: I love what Tewa de la Fuente does.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: She's just like running around the country speaking, and we're fielding her leads.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: So people are either busy with client work or don't want to work that fucking much, which like fucking hats off, love that for you.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: They either don't want to work that much, they want to work on something else, or they know it's not their strong suit.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: But I need you to know whenever you come up against I don't want to do sales anymore, or I can't, you need to have the budget in mind for that.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: And our lowest offer is$750 a month.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm trying to make it as feasible as humanly possible while being able to pay an outstanding team what they're worth and like have enough profit to make the service make sense for us, but keep it low for you guys.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: And we'll probably raise prices a little$100 or$200 um on different services next year.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: But that is a lot of my hiring story.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: I made this podcast episode really long.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: I didn't intend to.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a lot in there.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you guys can come ask me questions.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: My TLDR would be I want to say don't be scared.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't be so s don't be so scared you don't do it.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: If I could do it, then you guys can do it.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: It's and I go back to the same mission.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: This is for the people that I can help.
54:18
SPEAKER_00: My clients, my community, my members.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, by the way, skip the sales call starts on Thursday.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: So the first kickoff call is Thursday, 10 a.m.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: and we're going over 10 a.m.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: mountain time, my time in Denver, and we're going over Instagram stories planning and lead review and like DM sales planning and strategizing.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much everything Instagram stories, lead tracking, and like closing in the DMs mostly.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyways, every time that this got really hard, I tried to take time for myself, and then so fucking crazy to be able to tell a story from the other side.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: God, there were points where I just thought we'd fucking crumble and I wouldn't try again.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: This is the third time I've tried to scale an agency.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that, but I was like still drinking and shit in between, and yeah, the it was a non-starter.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know, think sometimes you have to try it and fucking fail to fuck, fuck, funk, funk out.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, you have to fail to know how to do it better.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it do this for me and my family and my clients and my members and the impact it makes on their families and their communities, and I don't think being scared is is a reason to not do it.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: Because you guys have as much impact as you possibly want to have, and that could be that you make a really big impact on three clients, or maybe you want to impact 30 clients.
55:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, my goal is to for us to have probably 40 clients double by the end of the year, and like how fucking grateful am I to be able to help 40 people and their families.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: 40 people right now I get to help 20, 20 women and their families, like, and 20 team members that I have like honestly the fucking honor to pay them because I couldn't pay my bills, and now I get to pay 20 people and know that that money helps them and their families, and then help 20 clients and know that that's helping them and their families, like that impact is more than I could have dreamed of at some points, and it's only gonna it's only gonna grow.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna go eat cheese curds.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, we got some really good spicy ranch.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: I love you guys so much.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening and to this long episode.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're doing something fun in the meantime or relaxing, and come D me on Instagram and uh know too that if you guys ever want to talk to me and it's my team, just say like, hey, can you pull Alyssa in?
56:57
SPEAKER_00: And they will.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: They're really good at that.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: They ask me at least like two or three times a day.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, this person wants you, you, you.
57:03
SPEAKER_00: So just ask.
57:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I will talk to you guys soon.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: If you want to come on Thursday at 10 a.m.
57:11
SPEAKER_00: Mountain Time, 12 p.m.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: Eastern time, it's Thursday, October 29th.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: It's the first kickoff call of Skip the Sales call, and the link is in my bio on Instagram.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: And if you have questions, you can DM the team, and if you want to talk to me, you can ask for me.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: Um if you guys have questions about hiring and scaling, blah blah blah.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could tell you what number episode this is, but you'll know when you see it.
57:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you could just DM us hiring and we'll know what you're talking about.
57:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: Bye.