Speaker1: [00:00:00] Today, we’re talking about a pretty cool topic. It’s also a pretty new topic to the online space. It’s something that I haven’t really heard very much about until really when covid hit. I feel like people were talking about it in the online space a lot more. And that is this concept of social selling, which is essentially selling through the DMS instead of via like sales calls, but not in a invading or sleazy way. And I’m very interested in this topic. So I thought, who can I bring on to talk about this topic and about selling more of our stuff, our digital products through social selling? And that meant I brought on my friend Latisse Hudson. Latisse is a business coach, leadership mentor and social sales expert. And Latisse is on a mission to help women make more money, increase their impact, all while living a life that they love. And she says in quotes, A woman with wealth is a woman with power. And clearly she is someone. After my own heart. We have a very, very similar mission. We are very passionate about helping women achieve more wealth and we talk a lot about that. We talk about her business journey, which is so fascinating and how fast she has grown, and she’s just really amazing. So let’s dove in and listen to what she has to say. You are listening to the Empowered Business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, a mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help one thousand women make one hundred thousand dollars a year. That’s right. One hundred million dollars towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know right here week after week so you can join us on the journey to one hundred million dollars. Sound good. Then let’s jump in. Let’s welcome to the Empowered Business podcast. I’m really excited to have you today.

Speaker2: [00:02:07] Thanks, Monica. I’m so excited to be here.

Speaker1: [00:02:11] I wanted to connect with you forever. I was telling you before we start recording. And so I’m I’m super excited because we’re going to talk about a topic that I know nothing about, but I’m super interested in it. And I know you’re, like, really good at it. So I’m excited to dove in and talk all about it. Before we get started, I’d love to know more about your entrepreneurial journey, how you started and what you’re doing today.

Speaker2: [00:02:34] Yeah. Thank you so much. So I started entrepreneurship really back in like twenty, sixteen, twenty seventeen. I was working in corporate America, not feeling super prefilled, my back in management. So at the time I was working for Lozes and Herminator and then I got another position and I became a regional H.R. manager for a different company. So I was really, really busy, but I was super unfulfilled. I was like looking outside of my corporate window, being like on paper, it looks like I have the dream. I had a six figure job at twenty four. I had a company car. I had all the things that are really young age. But I this was like so unfulfilled. So back in twenty seventeen I actually got pretty sick. So I was out of work for a couple of months on paid leave and I got the desire to like make more money. I was like, why not figure out how to make more money. I’m already getting paid. Right, so how can I figure out making more money. So I created a I had a car rental business like peer to peer car sharing, kind of like Airbnb for cars. I did that for a while, really loved it and worked really well on the side. But ultimately in twenty eighteen I kind of was like fed up with my corporate job. So I ended up quitting my corporate job in September. Twenty eighteen had like fifteen thousand dollars in the bank account and I was like, well we’re going to figure it out.

Speaker2: [00:03:50] So I left my corporate job and I had my car business, I had my Amazon e. Com business and I was running that. I was making like five to eight months. We’re doing pretty good there. But again, I was still unfulfilled. Like, that’s a topic that’s the the general conclusion we get from from our corporate jobs, at least that I had. So I went, yeah, right. So I went to a conference in February twenty nineteen with like all these car rental people. And I was just like, this is great. But when I’m like 30 years old do I want or thirty five or forty like I see myself renting out cars and selling stuff on Amazon. No I don’t. So at the time I had a business mentor and she was like because I was trying to transition into coaching and she’s like, well you have to go all in on one leg, you can not be back and forth, you’re half in or half out. You need to pick one. So she basically not force me. What was like you need to get rid of your other businesses because I had like my LLC and all that. So it was pretty legit and official, but I was like, OK, I got to go all in. So I ended up like liquidating my cars, liquidating all my inventory and jumped to full fee and May twenty nineteen as a business coach. So that’s kind of like a little bit of the back story, how I kind of got started into coaching.

Speaker1: [00:05:08] So and and who do you help with your coaching.

Speaker2: [00:05:11] Yeah. So back when I ended up, when I first transitioned full time I was working with side hustlers like helping them create an additional side hustle on the side of their corporate job, because that was my experience. So that’s kind of how I started.

Speaker1: [00:05:25] Ok, OK, so you have a high ticket program now, right at your core offer? Yeah, it is. And how is that positioned?

Speaker2: [00:05:34] Yeah. So throughout the transition I ended up deciding that I really loved working with leaders, high performers. So that’s kind of why I transitioned over to working with coaches specifically because I had coached in corporate and I was like, this is a natural progression. So essentially how we have it positioned today in twenty twenty one is we really help our clients create high end group coaching programs and get out of it like that one to one work. So that’s kind of what we do.

Speaker1: [00:05:59] Ok, and through the high ticket, that’s when you started doing this concept of social selling. Is this really one that.

Speaker2: [00:06:06] Yeah, so honestly, since I started my business, I was doing quote unquote social selling without really calling it that, like a lot of people call it, like appointment setting or conversations or what have you. But I’ve been doing that since the beginning of my business because I didn’t know how to do ads or funds. I just knew how to talk to people. And that’s how I grew my business like initially.

Speaker1: [00:06:25] So how do you define social selling?

Speaker2: [00:06:28] Yeah, that’s a great question. So when I think about social selling, it really is the art of like connecting and having conversations, whether it’s like setting an appointment, like a call or getting them to apply to work with us instead of our program and then ultimately converting them in the dorms or in another form of like if you’re sending them to a checkout page or what have you. So it’s really about having those conversations and connecting in the dorm.

Speaker1: [00:06:53] Ok, so so, you know, when I think of social selling and the way it’s positioned out there right now, I think about it always being in the dorm like. Whether it’s Facebook or Instagram, those are the two main ones, right, where you would be able to reach people, do you friends, people first, because and I saw that you you said this and it just really blew my mind. You said it’s easier to close people essentially on Facebook than it is on Instagram, which. Yeah, hi. That’s against, I think everything I’ve heard. Probably you would agree, right, that what people are saying and even like I think Facebook, everything changes. I feel like every time I log in, I’m pretty sure now if you get a message request, it doesn’t go to like another folder. It actually is in your main list. But it will stay like, am I making that up? You don’t really have to follow people anymore. I don’t think

Speaker2: [00:07:41] You really don’t. But for the algorithm, it’s important that you do have that mutual connection because you don’t want to get flagged as spam. But even now, like they’re showing up in your actual news feed message requests, it’s really kind of creepy. But it’s showing up that way. And I had that happen. Yeah. So, yeah, Facebook has like two hundred versions of it going at all time. So everybody’s Facebook looks different all the time. So, yeah, it’s pretty crazy.

Speaker1: [00:08:05] So let’s play this through you. Your ticket, your program has an application, right?

Speaker2: [00:08:12] Yes we do now. Yes we do. Also we did used to do calls.

Speaker1: [00:08:16] You did calls. OK, so now you pre qualify through an application but you used to pre qualify with the sales call pretty much like you would see on a sales call. Exactly. OK, so now you have like a baseline of people that you accept to then. And I know this because we’re in the same program that teaches this. So then they if you accept their application so they’re qualified, then they go do send them to the automated webinar to understand what the value of the program is, what the program is about. OK, so they watch that. Now it’s time. Now you have to close the sale, which is essentially social selling comes in.

Speaker2: [00:08:55] Exactly. So in my business, I’ve been doing this for a long time, so we actually do it multiple different ways. But the gist of it when I take a hybrid teaches it is that type of funnel. And then ultimately after their watch the webinar, you can handle objections, answer questions in the em, and then they will like the client can check out like straight in the D.M., which is really cool how we do it in our business, though before I tech a high read. Like I said, I’ve been doing this for a while. We actually our primary funnel, we leverage Facebook groups, so we always have social selling going on in the back in with engaged people inside of our Facebook group. There’s two parts to it. So for our social is one of their KPIs is to get applications, so to get people to apply and then the other KPIs sales. So there’s two different aspects to our social selling inside of our program and our business.

Speaker1: [00:09:47] So for anyone who doesn’t know KPIs key performance indicators, I oh, I’m always like, wait, which one is that? Yeah, this is this is I feel like we’re back to corporate speak a little bit like the KP make me ambo’s monthly business objectives. They make me dream of my corporate days. Yeah. But they’re very important. I mean we have goals in our business. Do you have to especially if you have you have team members, you got to hold people accountable. OK, so this is actually very interesting. Oh, I have questions here. So you’re bringing people you have a free Facebook community then? We do, yeah. OK, so to you, that’s your gene pool.

Speaker2: [00:10:26] That’s like about 60 to 70 percent of our Legian is our Facebook group.

Speaker1: [00:10:30] Ok, so while they’re in the free Facebook group, you need so when you say social cellar’s, you’re talking about actual people that you employ that are doing these outreaches for you, correct?

Speaker2: [00:10:43] Yeah. So we have a good starting point. So there is three questions you can ask on your Facebook group for entry. And like one of our questions is like Haiti wants to send you a DM to learn more about how to work with us essentially. And the August with spreadsheet. We sort it. We have a whole database and then our social centers go in every day and they saw that and they start outreach that way. So that’s like our first line of like quote unquote defense, like generating applications. So that’s the first line. And then we’ll start like after they’ve gone through their list for the day, then they’ll go in the group and look who’s been engaging with my content, My Lai video, et cetera. So yeah, that’s how we start our cold. Like, they’re not really super cold. They’re like some cool leads. But that’s how we kind of start the conversations.

Speaker1: [00:11:27] That’s genius. No one’s ever told me about this before. Like, oh yeah. I think this is the first way, first time I’ve ever heard. It done this way like that really go smart. That is so smart. Well, my guess is why your teacher? Because exactly. You’re so good at this. OK. Oh, my gosh. I never would even have thought of actually asking that. And you’ve asked them permission. So they’re actually expecting now that they’re going to be outreach, too. So it’s not like one of these like spammy kind of feeling outreaches. Exactly. So why do you prefer the outreach on Facebook versus Instagram?

Speaker2: [00:12:04] Yeah, so there’s a couple of reasons. So for us specifically, our biggest Leegin is on Facebook and we find that on Facebook, people are already there for connection and community because that’s what Facebook’s built off of. Instagram is really built off of its static’s photography like it is there for education. But we find that for especially selling high ticket, people need to be nurtured. They need to see you more than one time. So on Facebook, we just find that since we do have a free Facebook group, it’s just been a lot easier to convert at a higher rate because they’re seeing our content over and over again. So we have a pretty high, close rate because our people know, like and trust us and they’re listening to us. So they’re there. They’re just waiting to work with us at any given level. So we just love Facebook for that reason. OK.

Speaker1: [00:12:52] So when your social sellers reach out, this is the other thing, and I feel like a lot of people probably wonder this as well because. I’ve seen people have teen pages for their team because your brand is you like your website is the Hudson Dotcom, right? So yes. And mine’s Monegros Dotcom. So like you are your brand. So if someone if you’re going to be whether it’s in the pre phase or the selling phase after they’ve gone through and shown interest and applied, who reaches out? Is it their own Facebook account? They create unique Facebook accounts like I want to know.

Speaker2: [00:13:29] Yeah, there’s so many different. I get asked this question all the time, like how to handle that. So it ultimately is up to you. But we find that people are a lot more to connect when it’s being outreach from my my profile because it’s built up, they know the name, etc.. It’s kind of difficult to be like, you know, I know other programs teach like and even our own program that we’re in teach like having your team create a separate account. So we only have like two social centers right now and we don’t really need any more than that. They use my account, but they reach out as themselves. It’s not like me reaching out and them pretending. They say, hey so-and-so, it’s so-and-so from his team. And that’s been really, really instrumental for our people to see what’s possible for them as they go out and do this themselves.

Speaker1: [00:14:12] So, yeah, OK, so actually your personal Facebook profile.

Speaker2: [00:14:16] It is. Yeah, it is. But they’ll say it’s like Mattey from Letizia’s team reaching out. They won’t ever pretend to be me.

Speaker1: [00:14:23] That might be where people have the hang up like I think, oh man, I’ve had my Facebook account since 2004 and who knows. Like that’s it feels more like my life then. And to think about turning that over is an interesting I probably wouldn’t do it to be.

Speaker2: [00:14:40] I know a lot of people like have resistance to it. And this is what I say. Like for me, like social media is a business, like it’s I use it for business. I don’t really if I didn’t have a business online, I probably would have social media. So for me, it’s I’m indifferent on it. But a lot of people will start like different like new accounts as themselves and use that to communicate with their prospects and leads

Speaker1: [00:15:01] In any given week. How many D.M. conversations would you say are going on in?

Speaker2: [00:15:07] Probably seventy five to one hundred active that are going on.

Speaker1: [00:15:10] Wow. And so you have to obviously track these. How many tracking points do you have and where do you do all this tracking.

Speaker2: [00:15:16] So we do all of our tracking and Google sheets and er table and I don’t tracking my team tracks it like the social sellers are responsible, but a lot of it’s automated. So we use something called group leads to automate everybody coming over from our Facebook group. So that’s usually our biggest touch points is people that are already in our group. So all that gets automated over to your table. And then our team is tracking all of the the multiple touch points that they have with each lead on the table. Yeah. So we have different statuses and things like that.

Speaker1: [00:15:46] So when they’re KPIs are to get people to. So the actual first thing they do, they have to get people to apply and then it’s like a certain number that they need. Do both your social sellers cover both ends of users? OK, they do. Yeah. That’s so interesting.

Speaker2: [00:16:04] Yeah, they’re like full range. They have to be able to do it all.

Speaker1: [00:16:07] And what’s like the lead time from OK, if someone’s in someone signs up for your Facebook group, they said, yeah, you come to me. Yeah. To close. Do you have like an average of how long it takes to close.

Speaker2: [00:16:18] It just depends. I mean, it really depends on person. I haven’t calculated it like the averages, but we’ve had people close in forty eight hours from finding me from an ad to be like oh my God, I love lattes and us reaching out, watching the training and being like, OK, like I’m signing up, I’ll pay you five figures.

Speaker1: [00:16:34] Ok, that’s an interesting thing then. So let’s talk about Leegin. I mean, obviously people have to get to this group somehow. So how are you. Yeah. How are you getting them there.

Speaker2: [00:16:43] Yeah. So we literally run like a really simple Facebook to a landing page on the like. It’s telling them to join our free group like hey you’re going to get trainings, exclusiveness, blah, blah, blah, all that fun jargon and then read literally like add to a landing page on the landing page after they opt in on that thank you page. It’s like click here to join the group. They get into the group and then we just nurture the heck out of them with all of our content. So that’s literally we just use Facebook ads to get people into our Facebook group, etc..

Speaker1: [00:17:12] Your play is called Traffic.

Speaker2: [00:17:16] Yeah, we use. We do. When I started growing, my Facebook group originally was organic, like we leverage other Facebook groups, et cetera. But now I’m at the point where we have a marketing budget. So we do spend a good amount about Midford figures on Facebook ads every month.

Speaker1: [00:17:31] Do you have any email list?

Speaker2: [00:17:33] I do, yeah. It’s a it’s only like it’s about forty five hundred and right now it’s not super big.

Speaker1: [00:17:38] So your priority when they come from the ad is not email, it’s the group.

Speaker2: [00:17:42] It is. So we do have email sequence in the back end, but we our priority is the nurturing inside of DMS and in the Facebook group and in our content. So yeah.

Speaker1: [00:17:52] Why do it. Yeah. This is so different. I feel like it’s so unique compared to just like that. What you hear about selling online. Like, it’s not like this is not like what we learn in high ticket, you are right. This is very unique to I would never even thought of this. How I mean, how did it even come about? Just organically, like through trial and error?

Speaker2: [00:18:15] Definitely because I really like the goal with our Facebook group. It’s like a hub. So we primarily said one thing, our high ticket. But at any given time, like this week, we’re doing a show on intensives or we sometimes cancel a workshop. So for me, it’s about creating different leverage. And that’s why our Facebook group is so powerful, because they are nurtured so well. So I know not everybody coming in my Facebook group is going to buy my five figure thing. But when I do run like a Hager’s and I know the workshop, I can get fifty sign ups in five minutes because people love me. So community for me is so important and MLS is great and we obviously have one. We leverage it, but like my people just love that connection and that’s how I built my brand. So I thrive on that and I love showing up for my people. So it’s been really instrumental to us inside of our business.

Speaker1: [00:19:02] What kind of content in the Facebook group are you putting out?

Speaker2: [00:19:05] Yeah, so most of the content I put out, I call it like mindset shifting content. So it’s talking about what it’s like. And we talk we talk technical, like like we’ll do a how to type of live stream. I only do like one or two live streams a week. One is usually like it’s our it’s our we call it anchor live stream. We do every Monday at 9:00 a.m. and then my team is actually going to start doing those like supporting me, the coaches. So I’m starting to get content creation to do. But we do that live stream that gets email out, text it out, like that’s our big hurrah for the week. And then usually, like I do daily walks, I’m out like doing I call it walking chats with lattes. And it’s really giving them all like a kick in the butt to go take action on whatever they need to do. But we have like seven to ten brand pillars that I create content around and we just rotate through that every single week inside of our live stream. So it’s like it’s always like exactly what they need when they need to hear it. And it’s about wherever there along the journey. And it always ties back to our high ticket program, like what we teach some of their biggest objections. We talk about money and debt and all the things to get them to take the next step. So that’s really what I focus on, is shifting their belief from where they’re at to what’s possible.

Speaker1: [00:20:14] So it also seems like you don’t have necessarily a traditional product ladder either, because the only thing that sounds like it’s open all the time is to apply for your high ticket.

Speaker2: [00:20:24] That’s how we keep it really simple.

Speaker1: [00:20:26] So when you see that which is oh, do I admire I, I, I honestly don’t even know how many digital products I’ve launched over the last five years. I estimate it’s about seventy five. Oh my gosh. You there you are back and and I’m a very type organized person so our back end is actually creepy. Only if that’s a word organized but overwhelming to say the least. And probably for I mean, I’ve simplification for years. And so when I talk to people like you, I’m like, oh, wait, this sounds so much easier than it’s been doing.

Speaker2: [00:21:03] And I it’s so funny because we’re about to launch our mastermind’s. I we’ll have a second here because I’ve clients like begging for like let’s see what’s next. But also like one of my clients is both in our group today. She started our program is it was six months. It’s twelve months now. But she started with us a year ago or a year ago next week. She just hit her first six figures, like just cost one hundred and sales. So it’s really beautiful where we just caught our attention. We get our clients results. And for me, like having so at least how I work, I don’t if you guys know human design, but I’m a projector, so I have low energy. So for me, having too many products and programs would be overwhelming. So I just choose to keep it really simple and pour all in. And we’re about to launch the mastermind, which I’m really excited about. But now I have a bigger team, so I have that support to be able to do like

Speaker1: [00:21:51] The next level. How I have a question about the master before I have that. How many people are on your team?

Speaker2: [00:21:57] We have seven people on our team right now, but we’re looking we’re looking for two more full time coaches currently, two for the mastermind.

Speaker1: [00:22:03] Wow. And this is his payroll.

Speaker2: [00:22:06] Yes. Yeah. People are on.

Speaker1: [00:22:08] Wow.

Speaker2: [00:22:09] Yeah. So we had one full time employee and then the rest are contractors. OK, you two new coaches will be on employees, so which is really exciting.

Speaker1: [00:22:17] Isn’t that exciting. Oh, I think it’s scary.

Speaker2: [00:22:20] But we’re here my background and I’m scared about hiring employees. We’re in business. I have been but it’s necessary.

Speaker1: [00:22:26] So yeah, it really is. It’s really interesting because, you know, contracting is in essence, it’s it’s a low commitment, essentially.

Speaker2: [00:22:36] Yes.

Speaker1: [00:22:36] Oh, and. But but the loyalty, it’s not that you can’t get loyal contractors, I’m not trying to say that, but it’s a different when you’re paying someone on payroll, their commitment to your business is vastly different than the contractor. And I think that it’s the fear of hiring, getting a lot of people’s way. But I think we probably could agree, if you’re going to grow a million dollar brand, you’re not doing it on your own with contractors for the most part. I mean, there are outliers, but you really want to have an impactful team. I hear Maria say it. She says the business isn’t even just hers anymore. It’s her Tanon. Yeah, just as excited about their success, you know, and it’s just not about her anymore. It’s not her business. It’s the team’s business. And and that’s like the collective power of growing.

Speaker2: [00:23:27] So she’s a small business because they can see their direct impact, like your direct work is literally going to impact our bottom line or our top line or whatever, and literally will impact it from the work that you do. And it’s a really cool like it’s really cool to look at and see, like, the progression over time and really quickly. And so

Speaker1: [00:23:44] Am I. Operations manager just asked me. So I very transparent actually her numbers with her and everything. But I’m not necessarily consistent with sharing numbers. Yeah, not for like I do the numbers consistently, but sometimes it doesn’t occur to me. And so sometimes I’ll be like oh man, this month is a little soft and she’ll start getting nervous. And she’s and then the other day I just pulled up the spreadsheet showing her the numbers. And it comes right down to I think you need to do this for me monthly. And I’m like, oh, that’s a brilliant idea. We should totally do this monthly so that you’re all in. It seems so obvious now that she said it was like goal towards the same thing. But you don’t know. You don’t know. So you just kind of learn as you go.

Speaker2: [00:24:27] Absolutely. Yeah. We talk numbers every week in our team meetings, like just top line like sales and things like that. I mean, my obstructer, we’ll talk more in detail, but the whole team knows her every every step of the way, every week, so they know what they need to do.

Speaker1: [00:24:40] That’s so smart and corporate.

Speaker2: [00:24:43] So it works

Speaker1: [00:24:45] In all this. I did incorporate to so like why I didn’t I think I waited too long to hire personally. That was a big fault of mine and I just did it by myself for so long. That was like getting out of my it’s like reprograming myself that oh, maybe other people want to know about this team. Yeah. I should share this information. So I’m trying to get better at that. And it’s good that she’ll call it out and tell me. Thank you. OK, I have more questions. And the first one I have is this differentiation between a high ticket group coaching program and the mastermind. Yeah, people interchange. I know, you know, people interchange these terms and even to the degree that I will say, thinking about where I would draw the line between what is group coaching and what I would offer and a mastermind, even though I understand like what the difference is, how I would structure it seems like it’d be difficult. So first, can you, like, differentiate how you see the difference between group coaching in a mastermind and then like, is it it’s a stepladder, like you expect them to go through group coaching first to your mastermind or how do you plan on that working?

Speaker2: [00:25:52] Yeah, that’s such a good question, because we’re literally going through it right as we speak. So I love talking about this because I just got massive clarity last week and on it. So for us, like our high target group coaching program is really like for me personally, it’s going to be the go to for you to be able to scale your business to at least half a million dollars a year. That’s what that’s going to be. So we have different tiers like inside of our main program, Elevate to Success. That’s our main program. So you can have people that are brand new but really willing to be high achievers and go after it. And then also people that are really wanting to implement more of the tactics. And so that social selling, the funnels, the ads, things like that. So two different types, two to three different types of people can come into our group coaching program and as a very specific curriculum that they go through. And there’s not any like one to one access to me as the CEO now. And I think about our mastermind. The difference with that’s going to look like there is going to be there’s going to be more advanced type of trainings, is going to be guest experts. There’s going to be some in-person events and it’s not going to have such a rigid curriculum. It really is going to be like master mining and brainstorming and like a lot of like hotsy coaching. And they also will get access to me like once a quarter for one to one call. So that’s kind of what that will look like. It’ll still be structured with some group, like with group calls every week with our coaching team, but they’ll also have access to me. So that’s kind of what our environment is for our program. And it’s not going to be necessarily that you have to go through our first level. But most of our management clients will have gone through our first level program.

Speaker1: [00:27:25] And will you do in person with this?

Speaker2: [00:27:28] Yeah, absolutely. So we’ll host like one or two events a year or having decide on the number yet. But we’ll do some like in-person retreats and that’s going to be like really cool to kind of do. It’s going to be a lot more structured like kind of like a VIP day, but for like a mini group, so that’ll be kind of that

Speaker1: [00:27:45] You’ll have like an actual agenda and exactly that. Yeah. You did recently do a retreat. Yeah. And I was jealous. I was following along. So fun to be there. So were those people in your group coaching or was this something sold one off to your to your Facebook community, essentially?

Speaker2: [00:28:03] Yeah. So it was my first ever in-person event. And I people were like, that was your first one? I’m like, yes, I was my first time ever. So we actually included it this first year. We’ll never do that again. But we did just include it because that was my own ego being like, I want to make sure it’s good enough. But honestly, if people are like, why don’t you charge for this? But yeah, it was my first time, but it was all clean. So current elevated. So, yeah, it was we had about twenty five clients come in all across the US. So it was so cool

Speaker1: [00:28:32] That I really feel like in-person is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I probably put a wrench in it and I kind of sidelined it again and stuff. I did really large scale events and corporate in the eye and I’ve always attended events in the business too. And I thought it’s always been a game changer is to go out, meet people in person. I think it’s even more impactful when you’re meeting people that are in the same program because you have this common ground and you just take something that you like. People are already forming relationships by the nature of a group coaching program, but then you take them in in real life and in person and it just changes the entire atmosphere.

Speaker2: [00:29:13] And yeah, it’s insane, but I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Speaker1: [00:29:18] Do you think that then, like, how do you envision if you do retreats that are not mastermind’s specific, like how will you open it up beyond group coaching? So people say that.

Speaker2: [00:29:29] Yeah, yeah. So since because I wanted to really get our first one out of the way. So now like the first elevate retreats done, I feel good about it. We got nothing but great feedback, sold a couple of VIP days on the back in, so that was really awesome. But now and I think about like the non specific because we’ll do much because I was a large scale like event like private chefs catered events like party busses, like it was literally insane what I did for these my clients, they were obsessed with it and so grateful. But when I think about the mastermind event, it won’t be is like it’ll be sold luxury, but not as big a scale. But when I think about this annual retreat, my vision for it is for it to be clients. They can look up, sell into it. And then also for the specific like speaking, because we did have a conference portion. I do want to outsell those tickets to kind of get people into our ecosystem that want to come for that so you

Speaker1: [00:30:16] Can buy high ticket while they’re there.

Speaker2: [00:30:18] Exactly. So I’m really learning how to soften the stage. I was just going to

Speaker1: [00:30:22] Phenix up on the stage. Yeah, that’s fine. From the stage is probably the scariest thing in my opinion. That is, I’m really nervous.

Speaker2: [00:30:28] That was only my second time public speaking at my event. The first time was only like a month prior at my friend’s event. I had never public spoke before like I did all the time, but. Right. Which is different training. Just did it. Yeah.

Speaker1: [00:30:40] Yeah, I did it all the time Inc.. I mean I a big boardroom presentations in corporate and for whatever reason, when it’s your own business idea, it’s a whole different level of like terrifying

Speaker2: [00:30:51] One hundred percent because you’re like it’s on riding on all of this and it’s like they love you anyway. So I think that’s kind of why we kept it like clients only and it went off without a hitch. So pretty proud.

Speaker1: [00:31:01] Does it do you ever. I’m sure you do, because I do. But maybe not. Do you ever, like, sit back and be like, this is my life now? Yes.

Speaker2: [00:31:10] I think I end up hurting us because we had a party bus to take us to talk off. I was like, I’m literally like riding in a party bus right now, like with my clients. And I started this like just a couple of years ago from my bedroom out of here, like frustration with my life. And there was a lot of tears and a lot of I can’t do this, but I literally made it happen. Like, I only started my business, like, just a couple of years ago. So but it happens really quick.

Speaker1: [00:31:36] I it’s really to me, incredible to build something from nothing like there was no basis for it. We just like built something out of nothing and it’s like,

Speaker2: [00:31:49] Poof, it’s here now. And like the thoughts I had, I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s literally here. And I was talking and envisioning it and I’m like, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it will. And like and one of my clients who was a one to one client that actually ended up coming like from twenty nineteen, she was one of my one on one and she was like, I remember you talking about this retreat and like it’s literally here today. So it was just it’s like a complete like oh my gosh,

Speaker1: [00:32:12] When you’re going through it, it feels like it can feel really heavy and you know, all the mind set traps that come up. And but when you look back, it’s like, well, that really wasn’t that long. I can’t believe how once you get the snowball, I tell you, I tell my students this all the time. I’m like, online business is just a gigantic snowball. I mean, in the beginning, it feels really hard from the sense that, like, you don’t think anyone’s listening. Nobody. Who cares, but when that snowball gets going, it goes so fast that two years go by and you look back and you’re like, how is this my life right now?

Speaker2: [00:32:46] And where does the time go? I’m like, I literally was just like crying in my bedroom floor, like about having to spend fifteen hundred dollars on a laptop and not knowing when going to get the money to like, yeah. I mean we’re doing like almost six figures a month, so it’s pretty insane.

Speaker1: [00:33:01] We had our first six figure month and I was like, whose life is this right now. Like where, where we’re how I because I remember start I quit my corporate job in the beginning of twenty sixteen and my husband and I had a big butting of heads about the I was very primed to take on contract work if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. And I kept telling him I’m going to build a brand and it’s going to be beyond our like we can’t even I mean at the time, you know, when you come from corporate and a regular paycheck, you can’t comprehend what a thirty thousand forty thousand dollars a month looks like. That seems so. I mean, I get it from his perspective. He’s like, OK, yeah. See how you’re turning down these three thousand dollar contracts for us to pay our bills, you know? And I’m like, no, I’m building a brand and it’s going to be a thing. And now it’s just it’s like whiplash because we look back and we’re like, how did this happen? You know? But it it’s in, you know, people I know it’s so easy to look at where people are instead of like the journey they had to go on. And so and then they give up. Right. Like, I’m sure you see a lot of people that give up in the beginning because they’re like, wait, am I I’m not like you. And it’s like, yeah, but this even though it seems like it could have happened overnight, it didn’t. It’s like you have to stick with it.

Speaker2: [00:34:19] Yeah, you absolutely have to stick with that. Even like I’ve seen some of my clients that came in and just have wanted to have given up and maybe come back a few months later. But it’s just like you just have to stick with it and I promise it’s going to get it’s going to get easier. I think it’s funny how you mention your husband is like, OK, like about hitting thirty forty thousand a month. It’s funny because a couple of weeks hard, my friends like, oh yeah. We just, just spent a couple of dollars on an ad. So Nancy, because she’s like you spent a lot on ads like what are you talking about now. Like Oh yeah, I forget like I have to talk regular, not in business. Online speak.

Speaker1: [00:34:52] Yeah. Because it’s mind bending. My sister this time last year she was she’s a physical therapist and she really wants to take it. She’s just burned out, which I don’t I don’t blame her. She’s got five kids.

Speaker2: [00:35:04] She’s like, oh wow. I got a busy life.

Speaker1: [00:35:06] And she you know, she can help so many more people on the Internet. She just can. And so we were going through my panel and she was getting a little sick. But just imagine if you kept all this money for yourself. I’m like, but then I wouldn’t be where I am. Like, you have just it is really hard in the beginning to understand that you do have to spend money for momentum. But what if you just had left contractors like, look how much more money you bring home. Like, yeah, but how many more hours I’d be working and how much work stress would be on my plate and then I wouldn’t be as productive because I’d be so stressed. You know, it’s you can’t. And so yeah it is. When you talk to people who are not in this world and you talk about like this, what seems like big numbers, but in essence, it’s just that’s how you grow. You you have to spend money to make money.

Speaker2: [00:35:53] Yeah. Like it’s a business like draw Mocksville five figures on my team every month. It’s normal.

Speaker1: [00:35:58] Like, oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, like now I’m so glad I did this. Interesting. At the end of last year when I was thinking about hiring, I did this interesting projection expense. I saw my my master’s in finance. I’m yeah. I oddly do like numbers, I will say. So I built this projection spreadsheet where every hundred thousand dollar like if we are if our run rate is in one hundred thousand dollars increments, increasing how much we can spend percentage wise on team and, and everything and how that changes. Really nerdy of me. But it was it was really fun because then I could sit back and say, OK, well when we’re a run rate of run rate of eight hundred thousand, we can have three full time team members. And if we had a million, we can have four. And it’s like it’s so when you look at the numbers like that, it helps you not to be nervous about spending the money because it’s just math. Honestly, is

Speaker2: [00:36:54] This this is just math. Yeah, just the numbers in the data. That’s why I love using traffic to grow, because it’s literally like a dollar in eight to ten dollars or whatever the number is.

Speaker1: [00:37:05] So and if you look at the numbers, then there’s nothing to get. Like I was trying to explain it to him. When I look at the numbers, I’m not I don’t get nervous about what we’re spending because I know what the return is at that rate. And if you don’t know that. Yes, then you might you might be nervous

Speaker2: [00:37:23] About spending money freaking out a little bit. But and I talk to my friends about that all the time. It’s like we just have to look at the data literally. We have to look at the data. Then it calms them down for like a second. They’re back to spewing, but we get it we get it under control.

Speaker1: [00:37:37] I know that feeling. All too well, right? OK, so last question for you, because this is what you’re good at while you’re good at a lot of things, but social selling, I’m going to bring it back to social selling, which is if someone wants to hire someone on their team like they’re listening, they’re like, I never thought about damning people and closing sales this way and not getting out a million sales calls because I don’t know, I don’t like sales calls either personally. So how do you even find a social seller? It’s like a job description that exists now. Like where how how does this work?

Speaker2: [00:38:09] I think so. The term is like so new. It used to be really Holbeck appointment setting one of the more formal tones terms for like high ticket get closer. It’s like on a sales call. So I like to look at people that are familiar with like high ticket closing, high ticket digital marketing, online business. What I found is that people that aren’t like teachers, retail, anybody that hospitality, those are the best people for this type of job. And it’s really about like painting a really good picture of what’s going to be entailed in the job at base. Like, you have to love to talk to people, because if you don’t love to talk to people, you’re going to hate your life as a social seller. So you have to love to talk to people. And I think that’s a really big quality. The other thing I look for is people that are willing to not push the bounds, but like willing to have willing to go there, essentially, because you have to handle people’s voice. You’ve got to help them get out of their objections, get out of their stories. So you have to be willing to also coach inside of the team. So I find that even coaches are really good fits for social selling, but it’s not like I was like so good at it. So those are some of the top qualities that look for as far as like finding a social seller, you posting a job description for social selling is probably not going to bring people in. So I really like to phrase it as like kind of braising it under, like digital marketing or high ticket closing or sales representative and then kind of explaining that in the interview process. And then people kind of start to fall in love with like, oh, my gosh, like I get to hang out on Instagram or Facebook all day, sign me up. So that’s how we’ve done it. And it’s it’s really been really working really well.

Speaker1: [00:39:46] Ok, and when you ask people they’re going into your Facebook group, if you can damn them, do ask if you can DM them on Facebook or Instagram or you just default to Facebook,

Speaker2: [00:39:56] Just Facebook, because they already there say, OK,

Speaker1: [00:39:59] Do you personally like when you are engaging, when you are engaging in social media outside of your group, is it primarily on Instagram?

Speaker2: [00:40:06] Engaging outside of my group, the other platform towards Instagram. I have a pretty good sized audience over there, so we do definitely give a lot of attention over there, too.

Speaker1: [00:40:14] Is it structured?

Speaker2: [00:40:16] Not as much over on Instagram. It’s a lot more free flowing for now.

Speaker1: [00:40:20] Or like you just showing up when you. Yeah, that’s how that’s the only way I can go to Instagram. I actually we divided it out and I’m letting my team I’m like I treat it, my Instagram, even my business one as like a lifestyle one. I’m like I like my sister in law messages me on here. I can’t sure to turn that over to my team just how I feel about Facebook to be divided it out. But for me on Instagram, I just felt like I couldn’t show up unless it was because I wanted to. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for money.

Speaker2: [00:40:50] That’s kind of the Instagram, too. But we just had our marketing assistant take over and we’re bashing content for now. I think I signed that earlier. But yeah. So it’s getting much more like the esthetic is changing and all of that because we have like thirteen thousand organic grown followers over there. So and definitely we do get clients from there, here and there. And so we’re just going to be doubling down on that as well. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker1: [00:41:12] Yeah. I’m just so impressed with your business growth. It’s been fun to watch.

Speaker2: [00:41:17] Yeah, it’s been. We like 10x our business in less than a year and now well we hit seven figures this year so we’re really excited.

Speaker1: [00:41:24] Insulation’s good for you. You’re in the two percent of women who break the seven figure mark. Yeah, I know I’m

Speaker2: [00:41:31] Not there yet, but we will be by December thirty first.

Speaker1: [00:41:33] That is my goal to that. Yes, let’s do that. Honestly, when I heard the stat, which I heard from Rachel Rogers, that the first person that told me about the stat, I’m like, oh no, that guy got to be in that two percent that

Speaker2: [00:41:47] Is so low. It’s like, come on, y’all, we got to get it together

Speaker1: [00:41:51] Because that’s that’s ridiculous. And that’s like my driving. I’m sure it’s a big driving motivation for you. Two of the more women that we can get to make a million dollars, I think about that, the influence that we can have by putting that money into the economy. I view my business like I referred to it as a micro economy because that’s what it is like. The more money I make, I then I hire more women in my business to give them a way better life than they get from the way people treat them in corporate. I hire household staff. I pay them fairly, you know, like it’s just it’s like a micro economy that reforming and getting keeps on giving. Yeah. And it’s like the hub and then you have the spokes at anyways. I can go on forever because I think it’s fun, but

Speaker2: [00:42:34] It’s I love it and I think the more women on. Rusty, in that concept, like the more that we can truly change the world and it starts with, you know, having more women have wealth, so I’m 100 percent here for it.

Speaker1: [00:42:46] Yeah, me too. All right. So where can everyone find you?

Speaker2: [00:42:50] Yes, you can find me over on Instagram Eltis Hudson. I usually hang out there and then also inside of my free Facebook group, elevated women entrepreneurs.

Speaker1: [00:42:58] Also, we will link to both. And thank you so much for all of your knowledge and wisdom. I had a fun time.

Speaker2: [00:43:05] Thanks, Monica. Appreciate it.

Speaker1: [00:43:10] Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Empowered Business podcast, if you want to get started creating your own digital products and don’t know where to start. We have a brand new training that can help. It’s called Three Secrets to Creating Digital Products that sell like crazy head on over to empowered business. Dutko Ford’s profit to join the free training. Now, see you again next week.