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Did you know 80% of businesses fail? People are following instructions, but they’re the wrong instructions. In this episode of Imperfect Thriving, Kathryn speaks with Michelle Pippin on what gets in the way of women entrepreneurs, the musts for pushing your business forward, and the best way to create demand.

Meet B. Michelle Pippin

B. Michelle Pippin — a mother of three and wife (of one!) — is known for her “NO EXCUSES…. JUST RESULTS” approach to business success. Small Business and Marketing Expert, B. Michelle Pippin has been featured on shows like Good Morning America & ABC News Now, and can be found offering advice in the pages of countless print publications such as Forbes, USA Weekly, National Business Journals, Inside Business and more.

As the founder of “Women Who Wow”, she is relentlessly committed to producing “unreasonable results” for her clients. Her passion for being an entrepreneur and the ability to create a life you will love is palpable and contagious. Never one to follow the beaten path, she is a true renegade in the field of entrepreneurial success. … walking each client through the process of creating more money while having more time to do what they love. Her high-energy, inspiring messages are peppered with humor and story-telling, but grounded by her “always practical” strategies and real-world, right-now solutions founded in biblical principles. Follow her on Facebook here.

In This Podcast

Summary

• The best way to create demand
• What stands in the way of female entrepreneurs
• Three musts to move your business forward 

The best way to create demand

Create a brand or a voice that’s recognized. That means, preach more and teach less.

We’re oftentimes trying to prove ourselves as smart. Information is like a dime a dozen out there.

If you’re only giving teaching information, people don’t recognize your voice, why they might want to hear from you, or even learn from you. Preach at least as much as you reach. Get your voice out there so that people recognize it. Become a thought leader so that your brand or voice is trusted. Misinformation hurts people.

What stands in the way of female entrepreneurs

There is a longer space of time between idea and implementation. There’s a shelf life on our ideas. Don’t sit on an idea for too long. Start putting action and strategy into place to implement the idea. We also often get too caught up in emotions. Don’t be led by them, rather feel it, and take action anyway. Emotions are fleeting. You’ll also be able to shorten the gap between idea and implementation. Surround yourself with women who don’t tolerate mediocrity. Our behavior and actions are greatly affected by the five people we spend our most time with. Surround yourself with people who are in line with what you want to become.

Also remember, you don’t have to earn your way into any room or program. Walk in like you own the place, like you’re one of those admirable people and you belong too. Stop the addictive thought pattern of inadequacy in its tracks.

Three musts to move your business forward

The first must is to have a hit list. This isn’t about having an impressive email list. This is specifically targeting those who you can directly approach about your offer who will say yes. Reach out to those 50 people you know are perfect fits for your offer and invite them versus sending out a blanket invite to a huge list.

The second is is look at your systems in your business. Do you have a system for bringing in new leads? Do you have predictable obvious, common sense systems in your business? Consider what strategies you have that are producing what you want. Doing anything without a rhyme or reason won’t yield results or leads because there is no real strategy in place.

The third must is to assess every day if your actions are naturally, normally, and obviously leading to what you want. Daily actions should lead up to where you want to end up. Reevaluate your daily actions are in fact aligning with your goals.

Progress over perfection workshop

Do you hold your self to unreasonable or unattainable standards then criticize self when don’t reach that stand?
Do you compare yourself to others? focus on parts of you that you want to change? Do expect perfection from others? Often let down because of loft expectations?
Might be a perfectionist. Perfectionism can cause anxiety, depression, disordered eating, problems in relationships, and more
Join this 5 part Progress Over Perfection workshop for bite sized, interactive assessments.

Are you enjoying this podcast?

If yes, would you please review and rate it on iTunes here? Thank you!

Useful links:

• 5 Tips to Up Your Self-Care Game Right Now | IT 062
• Imperfect Thriving Facebook Group
• Imperfect Thriving on Instagram
• Imperfect Thriving Free Email Course (Your Blueprint To Thrive)

Podcast Transcription

Kathryn:

Welcome to the show, Michelle. I am super excited to have you here today. 

Michelle:

I’m thrilled to be here.

Kathryn:

So I’ve read your blog. I love it. I know a little bit about you, but for those of my listeners who don’t, please tell us a little bit about you and how you became a woman who wows.

Michelle:

Yes. So I’m an accidental entrepreneur. I was a social worker, married to a public school teacher and got pregnant. I had this thought is no judgment on how anybody else raises their kids. Like to each their own. For me, I wanted to be the primary caregiver for my child. Right. Like, I didn’t want to miss anything. I didn’t want a babysitter. I didn’t want a nanny.

However, we looked for family money. Like we didn’t just assume nobody had family money. We were diligent. Like we looked for family money to see if there were, if it was any divide, there is nothing there. We had it at the time, $213 in savings, which we had, like that was in savings. We had tucked that away.

Right. That’s what we had built up. It was our life savings. And I took a quarter of that 50 bucks and I invested it to start my own business. And this was 22 years ago. This was when you heard rumors of people who worked from home, but you didn’t actually know anyone. This is before people used email. It’s before anybody could have a website that was like a regular person.

So I had no role model. There were no coaches to help me back then, and I just had to gut it out. And so that first year, by the way, I would have never said I was in business. I was just like a stay at home mom, cobbling together an income. In that first year, I pitched myself as an at-home secretary because the term virtual assistant hadn’t been created yet and long story short, like I did everything.

I typed water reports for us embassies overseas. I did, by the way, you don’t ever want to drink water at embassies overseas. I know, but yeah, it’s a good piece of information. I will never forget it. I did resumes and I did just like bookkeeping and I learned new skills and I was on, anything for money to work.

If you asked me if I could do Microsoft access, I said, yes. And then I went and bought a book for dummies on Microsoft access. And that first year I made $63,000. And I didn’t even know that I was a success. Cause I was just like getting enough to make ends meet. And it was later that I learned I was in business for myself.

I was really not a very good secretary. So I started an HR business with no experience in HR, but a degree in HR. And I loved that it made more money than I ever thought. I was essentially like selling employee manuals and things like that. But I hated the work. I mean, like for me, I’m free to be you and me.

I’m very like fly by the seat of my pants. So HR like dotting every I and crossing every T like, gouge my eyes out. I was young ignorant, I guess. I just shut that business down. I literally like called all my clients and said, Hey, I’m not going to come back. Like, if I owe you money, it’s in the mail.

Like good luck to you. Right. I could transition them into marketing clients, but I knew that I wanted to help other people in business make money. The reason was by that time I had started reading business books. I started learning that all the crap that was told to us in business books didn’t apply to me and it was dead wrong.

I was like, Oh my gosh, all of a sudden I saw that, you know, people say for the five businesses fail. All of a sudden I got it. I’m like, all right, 80% of businesses fail. No coincidence, 80% of the crap we’re told about business is dead wrong. So these are people who want to be successful and they’re following the rules.

They’re following the instructions. They’re just the wrong instructions. I started getting a little bit irritated, like how long before women entrepreneurs in particular start realizing that the rules and the people they’re following are leading to an 80% failure rate and started questioning that crap.

That’s kind of my story. So after my HR business, I became a business coach and a copywriter. Largely I was more consultant than coach. I’m kind of a crappy coach because I’m more interested in the outcome than your journey. Right. And then eventually. I just didn’t want one-on-one clients anymore. And so I created women who wow, it’s one of the fastest growing associations for high drive women entrepreneurs in the world.

We started with 37 members and now we have members in every state and eight countries. I’m just so proud to be at the helm of these women, because we’ve really made women who wow a place to begin, a place to become, and a place to belong. I don’t know about you. But if you are a high drive woman, if you’re listening to this, like, you know that there are certain places you go where you’re kind of tolerated and not celebrated, you’re kind of a little bit too much.

You’re kind of like you don’t quite fit in. I’ve always felt that way my whole life, but as a high accomplished woman, entrepreneur, I found fewer and fewer places that I am and my success was celebrated and not resented or tolerated. 

Kathryn:

Yes. I definitely want to ask you more about that, but my mind can’t even keep up with all the follow-up questions I have that I want to know about your story.

So, first off, what made you have the courage to take one quarter of your savings? Now $50 doesn’t seem like a lot, right? But it is when you only have 200. When all you have is 200, what made you have the courage to invest that in yourself? 

Michelle:

To be totally honest. I never looked at it as investing in myself.

Like, what I really bought was like a $32 roll of stamps and like some random other stuff. So it was like, I was in my worldview at that time I was investing in tools. My dad worked side jobs as a roofer and a framer growing up. So like investing in tools was like, common sense, right? If I wanted to start making money in this way, I need a tool to do it.

And the tools I needed costs about $50. For me, it would have taken more courage for me to leave my kids at a daycare. Frankly, I couldn’t have done that and I didn’t know any other option. I had nobody leading me, but the other was unimaginable to me. I had a stay at home mom. I was in love with these kids, right.

Kathryn:

Yeah. So what I’m hearing is it was easy to do because you were driven so hard by what you value. What you valued most was being the one there to raise your children. So it wasn’t even a question in your mind about what you were going to do to make that happen.

Michelle:

Exactly. Like to me, my kids, I bore naturally like with midwives instead of doctors and stuff. I didn’t leave a plan B for like a doctor who’d give me an epidural or, you know what I’m saying?

Like, and maybe people think that’s ignorant, right. Something could have gone wrong. But for me, it’s like, if you leave room for a plan B, that’s when you need a lot of courage and stick to it, or whatever. And to me, I’m like, I got two options. I’m literally going to have to start looking for a place to drop my kid off.

Or I’m going to think something else up. And I grew up very working class and I always saw my dad, he worked at a factory job, but he also had tons of side jobs, like he would roof or he would frame or whatever. I grew up understanding that if you were willing to work, you could make money.

And so even through college, I did put myself through college. I was broke as a joke. I mean, I didn’t even know how to be that broke, but I kind of had the philosophy. Like if I needed money, I could make money. I could write someone’s thesis. I could pick up an extra shift at the restaurant. I could do whatever.

Right? Like there were always ways I could make money. And so at that time, I didn’t think about starting a business, but I was like, what are the different ways I can make money? I had my, anything for money tour is impressive. We got a little creative with it, but it went off.

Kathryn:

I love that. That’s one of the things that I do with my clients is we look at our eight domains in our lives and really get down to what it is they value. Not what other people tell them they should value, but what they value. And then that becomes your compass. It makes all of your decisions easy. Right?

Michelle:

 It’s huge. Because as women, I think I read that your kids are grown like mine.

Kathryn:

I have a 15 year old, a 22 year old and a 20 year old. So two almost grown.

Yes.

Michelle:

So I have a 22 year old one who will be 20 next month and then a 18 year old. But you know how, like when they become even higher middle school in high school. Decision fatigue is huge, right? Like that’s the hardest part of parenting. I feel like, and it’s hard as part of it nearly anything. And so I agree, like when I can just look at decisions based on alignment, it’s like, if I line everything up, then there’s no issue.

So for me, like the decision making is pretty huge because I just make sure it aligns with where I am now and where I want to go. And the straightest path possible is the easiest. 

Kathryn:

Absolutely. And we’re, we are satisfied with ourselves and with our decisions when we are congruent with those values. If we steer away from them, everything sort of falls apart.

But when we’re congruent there, it works like clockwork. I completely agree. So you also mentioned how 80% of the rules and the techniques out there about how to be in business are wrong. What should we follow when we’re women entrepreneurs trying to get out there and make money?

Michelle:

 Yeah. So the first thing is like, I deliberately made women who wow affordable for anybody who seriously in business. But if you don’t have any money at all to invest and you just are really thinking, I don’t know what to do.

What I’m doing is not working is look at what everybody else is doing in your specific industry and do the opposite. That’s a great place to start. So like, as an example, when I was a coach, you would have never, ever found me with like a link on my site that said, sign up here for a complimentary consult.

Why? Because everybody else had that. And I knew coaches weren’t making that much money and I needed money. And so like, I just didn’t do what everybody else was doing. I’m big on like common sense and practical, pragmatic thinking. So for me, it’s like, I want to make sure in any area of life, but certainly in business as well, but in marriage and fitness, like whatever. Is the normal, natural, like expected outcome of what I’m doing, what I want.

Right. Does it line up essentially? And so to me, it’s like, people will say. You just need to get your name out there and I’m like, Hmm, well, what does out there mean, how will I know if I’m out there enough. It takes money to get my name out there. Right? I’m more interested in getting my clients in here, come visit me at blankety-blank dot com.

I’m more interested in that. And so just that one little flip of the common narrative, like I had to get my name out there. Wait a minute. Do you really want to get your name out there? Because I do not get paid for you to know my name. I want you in here where I can help you with you.

And so I just want to make sure everything is common sense. And if everybody’s doing it, remember it leads to an 80% failure rate. So don’t do it. The other thing too is if you’re like me, when the coaching world kind of first became a thing, and I started looking at people who like were standing in front of their private jets, I later learned that jet was like repossessed that day.

Kathryn:

Those are rented for the photo shoot.

Michelle:

Right. Well, back then, you couldn’t do that. You know what I’m saying? Like you couldn’t as much, but now, I mean, obviously it happens all the time. But the thing is like, if you signed that you’re watching. Whether it’s me or somebody else. I always look for what they’re doing, not what they’re teaching.

Right. And that’s almost like a magic trick. It’s like, I’m thinking, no, no, no, no. I want to look at what you’re doing, how you’re showing up, because money and success always leaves a trail. Sometimes we can be following people and we’re even paying them. They’re teaching us to do this and do that and follow this and across this T and dot the I.

And in truth, you have to be like, wait a minute. What are they doing? To have that success and we don’t get paid well. You don’t get paid handsomely to be a doer of a thing, right? Like you’ve got to really start to build in some positioning within your market and building demand for your voice and all of that stuff, which is pretty easily done.

As long as you take a direct path to it. 

Kathryn:

Yes. I absolutely love that. So I was reading your blog post, why we are not making the money we deserve. I work with perfectionists who believe that what their brains tell them of I’m not enough. I believed it when my brain told me that for 49 years. I’ve only been away from that thought for a couple of years now.

You mentioned never thinking I’m not enough, but rather thinking I’m too much. I find this fascinating because now that I’m confident in my purpose, now that I’ve made this big transformation that I made over the last few years. I feel that thought creeping in sometimes of I might be too much for people.

Right. Versus I’m not enough. I don’t hang onto it or believe that it’s true, but it passes through my brain. Tell me more about when you first realized that you had this thought and how it affected you.

Michelle:

Oh, I think my whole life. So my parents are amazing parents. I always say that like my confidence as far surpasses my actual ability, but I prefer it that way.

 Because there’s a lot of them, people who are so, so able, but they hold themselves back by being a perfectionist. By earning another certification, another degree or whatever, and like, God woman, why are you trying to prove so much? Just go out there and be. Like just go out there and impact people.

So for me, even as a young girl, you know, not to shine too bright, does that make you?

Kathryn:

It absolutely does. You should be quiet, be in the background and be sweet.

Michelle:

Right. And this was not from my home. Right? Like my home did not do this and I’m talking purely social staff. Absolutely. Too pretty, don’t be too popular, whatever.

Right. Because what happens is all of a sudden you are like shunned and shamed for being too much. Right. In college, like I was tolerated, not celebrated, right. I’ve always been fully myself, which is sometimes resented in the entrepreneurial world. Like. I’m sort of a dark horse. Like I don’t pay to play.

I don’t pay to get in a room like with Daymond John, or to share the stage with Susie Orman or to have Gary Vaynerchuk even come and speak on my stage. I don’t pay for that stuff. Like I develop these relationships and people might not know my name, like who is that? Right. They resent. Cause they paid handsomely to like climb this ladder or whatever.

I’ve experienced it everywhere, but the truth is. I don’t see it almost as being a thought that passes. I think I am too much for some people and I’m okay with that. I want to be okay with my too much newness because I’m just right for a perfect market. I just want to talk really quickly to your clients who are listening to podcast about perfectionism. For me, I got into business because I had to make money like.

It was nothing else to be totally honest. This was a profit venture. I think that’s pretty pure for business. I appreciate my spaghetti days is what I call them, but I definitely appreciate that because it kept my focus on profit and income streams, which is a very healthy focus for being an entrepreneur.

What I can tell you from that perspective is that perfectionism is the enemy of profit. It is the absolute enemy of profit. If you’re okay with that, then maybe start a nonprofit, maybe start a ministry. You don’t want to keep pretending you’re in business and allowing perfectionism to Rob your business of its potential.

Kathryn:

You are so right. It holds us back from spending money and investing money. We spend too much time thinking about things and not enough time actually doing and learning from those things. I could go on and on about how perfectionism holds us back in business. For sure. Tell me a little bit about how, what you offer in your business to your clients, to your people has evolved over these years from those spaghetti days. 

Michelle:

Yeah, principles are principles. If they’re truly principles, if they’re true all the time and everywhere they’re applied. It’s funny that you asked me that because right now I am re-releasing my first digital product that I first released in 2010.

I’m re-releasing it as the 2020 version. I’m selling it for the same price. And it really is like, I go through it. I’m a little embarrassed by the videos maybe, but all the content is still the same. So what do I help women do? Like one, I helped them clear the cobwebs of all the things that they think they have to do in order to be a success. That they don’t really enjoy doing and newsflash aren’t working so that we clear their schedule.

Then we create aligned action plans. I am big on helping them become more of themselves and bring more of themselves to market. I know this sounds cliche, but I’ve been talking about this for nearly 20 years. As we have Amazon coming on the scene, as we become a whole lot less geographically dependent on working where we live, being more and more you is so much more important than it ever has been.

It is the only thing that will create demand. For your work. Right? And so a lot of people are like, well, how can I not get Facebook to shadow ban me? How can I make sure that my posts are seen. I’m like, you know what woman, you need to create a voice that people come looking for. Then they’re going to find your tail on Facebook or Instagram or wherever you’re showing up.

They’re going to be looking for you. You’ll know you’ve done it, right. When let’s say you usually send out your post, 6:30 in the morning and it’s 6:40 and you’ve got four people. Like, are you okay? I haven’t gotten the email, they’re waiting for it. Right? You need to build that demand.

Then your brand kind of supersedes all of the changing algorithms and whatever Zuckerberg is doing or whatever. Because people are preferring. One, they recognize your voice, then they prefer it and now they demand it. Then you don’t have to worry about all those other things that keep us busy and sometimes broke.

Kathryn:

Yeah. So what would you say is the best way to create that demand?

Michelle:

The first would be creating a brand or a voice that’s recognized. That means, and I’ve been harping on this for like the last six months with my higher level people, but I’m like, you need to preach more and teach less. A lot of the times.

And again, it might go back to some of the perfectionism stuff, right? Like we’re always trying to prove ourselves as smart. Right. So we have like this acronym named system, you know, I’m saying, and we detail it to death and by the time you launch it, like nobody’s even interested anymore. And by the way, information is like a dime a dozen out there.

If you’re only giving teaching information. Seven steps to lose four pounds in seven days, 14 days to blank. If you’re only doing that, what happens is, is people don’t recognize your voice or why they might want to hear or learn this from you. So the first thing is to really start preaching, at least as much as you’re teaching. Really get your voice out there so that people recognize it.

Kathryn:

What I’m hearing is that we are relying too much on what we know and not who we are. We need to give more of our opinion and not just the straight up facts.

Michelle:

Not just your opinion, but your experience. You want to rail against what other people are getting wrong in your industry. If, for no other reason than the fact that misinformation hurts people.

 I mean, I don’t so much care. Like I’m not a big, I live pretty simply I’m in a rural town. I am not really a big shopper. I don’t get into cars. You know what I’m saying? Like, it’s not so much I’m doing this now at this point. Cause I need a new LV bag. It’s not that. It’s more because there’s heartache that accompanies the misinformation.

There are really accomplished and driven women who are feeling bad about themselves. They just cannot get the financial piece of their business and they feel rejected by their market. It’s like there’s heartache and stress and strain and self-esteem issues that come along with that. So I rail against it.

I ask any of your listeners, what are people getting wrong in your industry that you know, are wrong and that people are listening to, and it’s costing them. Whether it’s in health or finances or marriage or anything else and rail against that. You’ve got to be willing to let them hear your real voice after that you keep showing up and they begin to prefer hearing.

Learning, whatever they need to learn from you. Why? Because they trust that you’ll give them something that they cannot find elsewhere. I tell people with women who wow, I’m like, you know what? You can go to a million different business coaches doing a million different masterminds and associations, but yeah.

I have no shame in saying you cannot get anywhere else, what you get from women who wow. That’s absolutely true because I’m not anywhere else. Then the third part of that is that building that demand. That really does come into a balance of some paid where people are paying for access to you and a mixture of that paid and free.

We get into a little bit more of a nuanced thing there, but that’s sort of the process. 

Kathryn:

Yeah, absolutely. That brings me, me to my next question, which is I see so many women branching out into their own businesses because they’re tired of being told they’re too nice in corporate America.

They’re tired of being limited by others. They’re tired of their flexibility being limited by these particular hours. Limited in their incomes. Only to then limit themselves because they don’t know their true value. Do you see that? If you do see that in female entrepreneurs, how do you help them acquire that self-esteem or that self value that has to be there if they’re going to make money. And has to be there for them to find their own voice and their unique ability to offer?

Michelle:

It really breaks down one into kind of what businesses are going into. A lot of people are leaving corporate America and they’re going into like a consultant, coach, speaker kind of personality based business. On that end, it can feel very intimidating. Cause I’m not saying to you right now, like if you and I were on a sales call and I’m like, Hey, I’m selling this widget.

Here it is, it’s four inches long and it does this. Do you want the widget? And you say, you know, actually I don’t want the widget. No I’m saying, do you want me right. Not a harder sell, but it’s a harder rejection when that happens. So that’s one part of it for that one really quickly. It’s like, no is just a, not now.

Particularly in the consultant expert business. A lot of times people are rejecting your offer. Not because they’re rejecting you, but because they don’t have confidence in themselves to make that investment. Like we think it’s us, but it’s not. A lot of times is that they need, and again, the preaching versus teaching, when you preach, you build their confidence and their belief in themselves.

So they buy more regularly. Right? Well, part of it, we are bringing corporate America mentality into our entrepreneurial world and it has no place. Right. So we think we’re going to do things for free at first, and then we’ll inch it up and we’ll climb the ladder. There is no ladder. There’s no moral or otherwise obligation to climb a ladder in the entrepreneur world. Leap to the top.

There’s no reason to start out charging less than you’re worth. I would venture to say that even when your confidence there’s you have what I call like a confidence lag or confidence lapse, which means nothing. It only means that you’re human. Don’t read into it. It’s not some big sign just means you’re human.

When you have that, what I want you to understand, particularly if you need money right now. Like you do not have to get that confidence sorted. You can take confident action, even when you feel unconfident, right? You can price confidently, scared, and it’s like, do it anyway. Right? So to me, I feel like they’re bringing in this corporate mentality of climbing some ladder.

They need to own who they are. When they are in doubt, when they think, Oh my God, I can’t pull this off. Practice in a mirror practice. Say it confidently, act confidently because that builds confidence. 

Kathryn:

Yes. I could not agree more. Like I want to say amen to all of that because what I helped my perfectionists do is to understand that how they do in business, how much money they make, how they value themselves, how they price themselves and their services begins and ends with what they think of themselves.

I help them separate. Get rid of that thinking. Because it’s thinking then emotions and then actions. If you have the wrong thinking, you’re going to have the wrong actions that aren’t going to get you where you want to go. No matter how hard you try. I completely agree about the confidence part.

I tell all of my perfectionists, you can’t learn your way to confidence. Confidence comes from doing the hard things that align with what you value. You doing the hard things teaches you. Wait a minute. I can rely on myself. I can trust myself to do the hard things. Then you see that confidence level starts shooting up, up, up and up.

Michelle:

Confidence is a habit and an action. I have a full program called betting on you. And here’s the truth. In any situation, physical, financial, emotional. I want to bet on me. I’ve learned to bet on me. It’s the safest choice I can make. Right. But that didn’t start that way. I grew up very confident, but in entrepreneurialship it’s different and it can be simple if you’re doing it right, but it’s not easy.

There’s a lot of things we have to wrestle through. Like if your bills aren’t paid elsewhere as mine were not. Some anxiety over money and then there’s like rejection stuff and all of that. I can tell you the difference between, like when I made five figures a month, six figures a month, I can tell you the main difference was I did not allow my emotions to dictate my actions. 

At five figures a month, you can cut out five figures a month and you can still like get in your head. And, Oh, I don’t feel like this today. At six figures a month, when you see someone at that level. 

You know what the biggest difference between them and you is not their certifications or how much money they’re spending on Facebook ads. I don’t even do that kinda crap, but like, what is important to understand is that our drama. We don’t get into the drama so much. It’s like I say, do you want to buy the widget and you’re like, Michelle, I don’t like that widget. I hate the color.

It sucks. And I’m like, alright, next, right next, I’m moving on. But when you’re not succeeding at that level, you get a little bit into your story too much. I’m like, I’m not a two year old. I can take actions aligned with what I want, even when I don’t feel like it. Even if I don’t feel inspired. Another thing is a leftover, which could be a good thing from the corporate world is like, Ask yourself.

Would I tell my boss, the crap I’m telling myself, like today, I don’t feel inspired. Can you fathom calling your boss and saying that? Absolutely not. You just gotta treat it like it’s a real opportunity and it’s all up to you and you’ll train yourself to prefer it being all up to you. 

Kathryn:

Yeah, absolutely.

So the other thing that I wanted to ask you is. As female entrepreneurs, what would you tell us that the three things are that we could use most to move our businesses forward? Like the top three things that we should be doing?

Michelle:

The first one I would say is a hit list. Even to this day, even though I have an impressive email list and all of that. I would never launch any program or product or event without a hit list of 50 people.

I’ve been true to that my entire life. What I mean by that is not an avatar and not a group of people and not 50 people on your email list you’re going to email all at one time. What I mean is 50 people that you’re going to invite to say yes to your offer, like right away. You’re ahead of the game.

Why? Because most women entrepreneurs, we hint about our offer. We post on Facebook. We unveil some really shiny bright sales page. But we don’t look at people and say, Kathryn, I’d like you to buy, right? I think this is perfect for you. The one would be a hit list. It’s simple. It’s direct. It doesn’t matter where you are in your business.

If you have something that you’re proud of, why not invite 50 people to take a look at it? It’s crazy not to. It is a great moneymaker. 

The second thing to do is look at your systems in your business. I’m a hippie kind of, you know what I’m saying? I’m free to be unique. I didn’t realize the systems I had in my business, but I’m a creature of habit.

I did a years ago, but it’s still very relevant, a seven systems training. Systems that are in, at work and at play in my business at all times. Really look at the systems like, do you have a system for bringing in new leads. A lot of times people will say, I feel like I’m selling to the same people over and over.

And I will say, well, what are you doing to get new people? And it’s like, well, I post on Facebook. Yeah you post on Facebook to the same people you did yesterday, right. Or I do X, Y, Z. And so like, do you have systems? Do you have predictable obvious, common sense systems in your business. You want to look at that.

In fact, the pre-work for the new 2020 program, I’m launching from a 2010 product is I reveal in the pre-work my system. And I’m like, look around you. What are you counting on? Is it a hope and a prayer? Do you have strategies that are producing what you want? Because a lot of times that’s a big eye-opener for women entrepreneurs that they’re just doing a bunch of stuff, but there’s no rhyme or reason.

They’re kind of just hoping to get picked up or hoping to get seen. There’s no real strategy there. 

The third is to make sure that every day you’re asking, like, so for instance, if I wanted to lose 20 pounds. If I want to lose 20 pounds and I’d look at my daily actions. So I would say, well, today did my actions line up with the fact that I want to lose 20 pounds?

Well, not if I ate a box, a little Debbies and didn’t work out. Those actions line up for gaining 20 pounds. So really like assessing your day, if not planning it that way, it’s like, do these actions, do they naturally, normally, and obviously lead to what I want.

Kathryn:

 Yes, absolutely. Totally agree with that.

I like to use a morning mindfulness routine at the beginning of the day to ask myself, what do I want to accomplish today and what actions are going to get me there. Then at the end of the day, assess exactly what you’re talking about. Every day is a little bit of a scientific experiment. I’m not holding myself to be perfect and do it all right in that day.

But what can I learn at the end of the day from what I did or didn’t do.

Michelle:

Yeah. You know what’s horrible. And maybe this alight just shocked somebody who’s listening into a new habit, but we often do this literally once a year at the end of one year. That to me blows my mind. Like we only plan, we only look at our vision.

We only write out our goals. We only assess a a plan once a year. And it’s like, man, if I could just even get women to do it once a month, right. Like one of them, things that I do within membership is I have what I call an entrepreneurial espresso. It’s meant to wake people up to their potential and all of that is delivered every morning.

 I don’t want them to just have mindfulness and just concentrate and just see their vision and just see their potential once a year. Oh my gosh. Like if you did that think of how good you feel after that new years business planning meeting. We need this daily.

Kathryn:

Absolutely. It’s not enough to go out and do if you don’t analyze and assess it afterwards. To see whether it’s getting you where you want to go, or whether it’s not getting you. 

Michelle:

Persistence is only a valuable trait if you’re persisting in the right or the right direction. It can be pretty detrimental otherwise. 

Kathryn:

That kind of reminds me of like an old cartoon where you see the character running so hard in place before they actually take off?

Michelle:

 Yeah. There’s a whole lot of women entrepreneurs on what I call the treadmill of business. Right. They’re cheering each other on and they’re huffing and puffing and they’re sweating. Nobody’s noticing that the scenery doesn’t change year after year after year.

Kathryn:

Busy as they can be, but just not moving anywhere. Absolutely. So what do you think stands in the way the most for women entrepreneurs, when it comes to their success in their careers.

Michelle:

 Yeah. I think one, there is a for women entrepreneurs versus men and meanwhile there are a few good men, male entrepreneurs.

They used to come in and say, do you take men? And I would say like, if you can write a check to women who and your wife be okay with it fine. Right. But yeah, I think there’s a longer space of time between idea and implementation, right? That’s a big one. Success is cooked up in a messy kitchen and we just need to embrace that.

One is to shorten the time between idea and implementation and everybody listening knows what I’m talking about. You’re in the bathtub and you get an idea to email this person, a video message. Or you get an idea for a product or whatever. There’s a shelf life on our ideas. It’s like the mana that in the old Testament, like it grows moldy if we save it too long. All of a sudden that great idea we were thinking was amazing. It’s going to finally be the thing two days later. What were we thinking is because the shelf life ran out. So that would be one thing. The other thing is we get too caught up in our emotions and I’m a very emotional person.

I’m a very loving and physically affectionate and available mother. All of those things. But I’m not led around by the nose, by my emotions. I can feel something and take an action anyway, and I call it adulting. But a lot of times we give too much credence to how we feel, but the truth is emotions are fleeting.

If I’m feeling like a loser and I’m unconfident this morning. I’m not gonna feel good, confident by nursing that emotion. I’m gonna have to take action. So I think that taking dominion over our emotions is shortening the time between idea and implementation is too. And also surrounding yourself with women who do not tolerate mediocrity in any area of their life.

Like that was the biggest thing for women who wow. I know I started it, but I got great value out of the fact that I’m surrounded by women who aren’t playing business. They’re not doing business just to tell their husband what they did all day. They’re actually like creating jobs and creating success and taking the world by storm and creating the life that they really want.

They feel proud of it. I’m surrounded by a bunch of proud and accomplished women. It’s easy to feel virginal when you are surrounding yourself with prostitutes. I’m from a very small town. It would have been easy for me to feel successful. Like I’m killing it. If I stayed like local and small.

Because I was doing things they hadn’t even thought of doing, but I want to keep growing. Surrounding myself with women who stretch me is a really great idea.

Kathryn:

Yes. They say that our behavior and our actions are greatly affected by the five people we spend our most time with. I think it’s definitely important to surround yourself with people who are in line with what you want to become.

If you have a different vision of yourself versus exactly what you are right now. Cause that’s just going to keep you stuck there. Right? You need to find the people that are already where you want to go for sure.

Michelle:

I have a bonus tip. Can I say it?

Kathryn:

 Oh, absolutely. I’m all for bonus.

Michelle:

I just want to remind women that you don’t have to earn your way into any room or price point or a program or anything like that. You can just walk in like you own the place. A lot of times, like people have asked me like how I got gigs with big famous people and I’m like, you know what? I just walk in. Like, I’m one of them. Before, you know it like Damon John is wondering who is that person?

 Cause I’m not coming up asking for an autograph. Like I act like I belong. It’s been a habit of mine. Whenever I had the inkling that I needed to be better or different or more educated or somehow earned my way, I’m like stop. That is an addictive way of thinking. And you’ll never be enough if you have that.

So I was like, stop I’m enough right now, I’m going to walk in like, I’m one of them. The truth is I’ve had relationships with people who are at the helm of these industries and they’re just like us. They have doubts, they have bombs, they have flops of their launches. They have all sorts of things.

Kathryn:

 Absolutely. I love that so much. So I’d like to wrap up the podcast with a couple of different questions. First. I want to ask you where we can find more about you online.

Michelle:

Yeah, so the fastest place really is to go facebook.com/womenwhowow. That’s plural women who out I give daily resources for women entrepreneurs there.

I’m enjoying Facebook a little less, all of our resources gone there. It’s daily and it’s free. I’d love for you to go there. If you’d like to talk with me, m.me/womenwhoout. I would love to hear more about your business. I would love to invite you to join women who out I can tell you that you will not regret it.

There’s a ton of memberships out there. We have a 74% retention rate. Our members are over 70% of them are six figure earners or more. They didn’t all start that way. We’re very simple and build success around you. But those two places, the m.me/womenwhowow, the facebook.com/womenwhowow are probably the fastest, best ways to get in that’s with me.

Kathryn:

Okay, great. And I will make sure I include all of that in the show notes. There are a couple of other things that I like to do at the end. Would you be up for a little rapid round of questions?

Michelle:

 Yep.

Kathryn:

 Okay. Awesome. Country or rock music?

Michelle:

Country.

Kathryn:

Who’s your favorite artist?

Michelle:

Oh, my gosh, I never have a favorite artist.

I would have like favorite groups of artists. Alabama, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, old school. 

Kathryn:

Old school, real country.

Michelle:

 Yes. I was country before country was cool. 

Kathryn:

It’s kind of funny because the way you look reminds me of Miranda Lambert, I’m sure you probably get that a lot.

Michelle:

I get that a lot.

Kathryn:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jeep or Mercedes?

Michelle:

Probably a Jeep.

Kathryn:

 Are you more visual or auditory?

Michelle:

Auditory. I’m actually legally blind without my lenses in. I want to be visual.

Kathryn:

 Yeah, definitely. Neutral or bright colors? 

Michelle:

Neutral. 

Kathryn:

Cardio or weights? 

Michelle:

Cardio. 

Kathryn:

Mick Jagger or Nelly? 

Michelle:

I really don’t care for either one of them. I don’t dislike either of them, but like I’m ambivalent towards both.

Kathryn:

Who would you fill in the blank with? 

Michelle:

Are they both music stars?

Kathryn:

 Yes. Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones. And then Nelly more rap.

Michelle:

Oh, gotcha. Yes. I would think like, I also do like some rock, like red hot chili peppers. Beastie Boys, nineties kind of stuff. 

Kathryn:

Yeah, definitely. 

Michelle:

But it’s funny. I’ve only been to one concert my whole life and it was called the Hoard Fest and it was like a bunch of different people, but I’ve never loved one artist.

So much, except for Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Alabama, and I’ve never been any of their concerts. I’ve really never loved many artists enough to sit through. Like, I like it three songs that they do. So to go to a concert where  all their songs would be boring to me.

Kathryn:

Oh my gosh, I love a good concert.

I was trying to make a list of all the concerts that I’ve been to starting in middle school for my kids to see. It was like 30 something at least. I couldn’t even remember that. I liked the feeling of being in the presence of people that are excited in the live music. Love it. Snow skiing, or water skiing?

Michelle:

Snow skiing. 

Kathryn:

Popcorn or candy at the movies?

Michelle:

Candy. Milk duds. 

Kathryn:

Caff or decaf.

Michelle:

Oh my gosh. Caffeine for sure. 

Kathryn:

All day long. Roses or tulips?

Michelle:

Tulips. 

Kathryn:

Beautiful. So I’ve appreciated having you here today. Absolutely loved our conversation. I want to finish up with one more question. What is one imperfect action we can all take today to move closer to our best lives.

Michelle:

Yeah. So my dad used to say, do something, even if it’s wrong. Action is the way to get whatever it is that you want. You’re not going to get it by thinking about it. So take action. Even if it’s wrong, don’t worry about the wrong action. We all make the wrong action. There is no straight line to success.

To be honest with you, it’s always going to be a zigzag. The key is to keep those zigs really small. That means taking daily action, assessing that action. Did you get closer to the goal? Not as close to the goal. Also to borrow from the future. If you are only relying on what you need to do today on a fear or anxiety or some emotion you’re feeling, then you’re kind of going to stay in maintenance mode.

But I always like to go, like, what would the multi seven figure entrepreneur do. What would that woman do? That’s what I choose to do. I align my actions in that way.  I don’t look forward. I look backwards. It’s like, if this were my reality, what would I do in this instance? That applies to whether I’m going to fire a client, do a launch or anything like that.

It applies. It’s like, what would she do? I borrow from the future in that way. It keeps my zig really small. It’s not a straight line. It keeps it small.

Kathryn:

Absolutely reverse engineer your actions from where you want to go. I second that motion. Do something today. Even if it’s wrong, you’ll learn from it and you’ll know what to do next time.

But if you just keep thinking about it, you’re never going to get there. I’m talking to all you perfectionists out there who think you have to 100% totally understand and make the right move. The right move is just making a move. So I completely second that motion. And I just want to thank you for being here, Michelle. I had the best time.

Michelle:

Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me.

Kathryn:

Absolutely. So until next week, go out and take imperfect daily action. And I will meet you right back here. Same time, same place.