What Comes AFTER $10K Months
Episode Summary:
I was doing my daily check-in this morning when I thought of this topic that I want to bring to the podcast today – what to do after you’ve hit $10K months and you’re trying to get to $20K, $30K or $40K months. Multiple clients have started with me at the $3,000 month mark and I’ve helped them scale to those levels. So I’m excited to share the one thing that you should focus on if you’re ready to uplevel and my own journey with doing this, too. I believe your success is inevitable, and let’s get started on you believing that too.
Topics Discussed:
Why hiring a team is the first step you need to take after hitting $10K months and overcoming popular objections that come up with this
How to make your growth edge exciting so you can give it your all
Anna’s own journey with growing her team and the affirmation she used to manifest her current team
Deciding the role you want your team to fill
The reminder that you never have to do business on your own
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna Rapp (00:03):
Good morning friends, or whatever time of day it is for you when you are listening to this podcast. I took some quiet time this morning. You guys know I do a daily check-in, which by the way, if you're an entrepreneur and you're working towards six figures in your business, one of my biggest suggestions for you is that you build in the habit now of doing a daily mindset check-in. You've heard me talk about this before, but are you doing it? Basically, I have six questions I ask myself every morning to check in. It's a complete game changer for, for your business, for your life. I will post the free Google Doc in the notes. But I was checking in with myself this morning really asking what, what do I wanna share with you today? And I have something juicy. And that is, you know, I talk a lot about sales because I truly believe that is the skill and the gap that keeps women back from 10 K months and beyond to be honest, right?
Anna Rapp (01:00):
Really getting completely sold on their offers, selling them consistently in a way that aligns with their audience and really getting over that self-promotion fully and being shameless about being the biggest advocate of your work. I was just talking to my cell with heart mastermind ladies yesterday about think about a product or someone that you love that you continually talk about, right? For me it's like cast iron. I love cooking on cast iron. It's like changed my life in a lot of ways and how it simplifies my dishes and everything. And I tell everyone I know about cast iron, cast iron, cast iron. Like I'm just like, oh my gosh, you have to get cast iron. And I was like told my ladies, what if we talked about our businesses? Like we talk about cast iron or whatever that is for you, right? Think about something in your life that you shamelessly advocate for or maybe it's a product or a business in town or a restaurant or a coach you love.
Anna Rapp (01:54):
How shamelessly do you promote them and can you get behind your own business and product and services in that way, right? Anyway but today I wanna talk about something besides sales and that is what comes after you master sales. What comes after you hit eight 10 K months, 12 K months, 15 K months when you're trying to get to 20, 30, 40 k months? And I was thinking about my clients that I've helped go from really making $2,000, $3,000 or less a month to 8, 10, 12, you know, 15, 20, 30, 40 k months. And I was like, okay, what did I work on with them after sales? I also hit on this in the podcast episode I did a little while back around the four phases of growth and the different skills you need to master at each income bracket. And so I'm gonna talk about this last income bracket and the skill there. Cause I think a lot of people hesitate to really fully master sales because I think subconsciously they're like, what's next? But what happens when I am fully booked
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right? Then? Am I just completely overwhelmed because I'm so good at selling that I have like clients coming out my ears and that I don't have freedom in the first place? And that's why I started this business was to be able to travel, was to be able to be with my kids, was to be able to have a part-time work week. So I just wanna share with you how I've been able to really grow my income but not grow my workload. In fact, every year my business becomes less stressful. I'm working about a three day work week right now. I do my like morning client check-ins on those other days. But besides that, I really keep the bulk of my work and calls Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And for many of my clients, they are working part-time hours even when they are making above 20 K months.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And the reason I wanna share that is I think we get stuck in this messy middle of 5, 8, 10 [inaudible] like really not even pushing towards that because we're nervous about what the future holds. And so I just wanna share with you this is the next level skill that you're gonna be working on after you hit take K months. And I hope that puts your mind to ease so that you can fully dive into, okay, so I know what's ahead, therefore I'm gonna stay present and smash my current goals and smash my current sales, get getting good at sales, right? Okay. And that is team, team, team, team, team. What does it look like to not do your business alone, right? So when you have so much sales happening that you have clients coming out your ears, this is a great problem, right? Then you hire team and so many of my clients have a lot of resistance to this for many reasons, right?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Number one, they may have had a bad experience with a manager or a boss in the past and so they're like, Ooh, I don't wanna be a bad manager or a boss, right? Maybe they've had a bad work experience working in a company before and they're like, I don't wanna create another toxic work culture, right? Again, just like we have bad experiences with sales and therefore it taints our view of selling with heart. We have convoluted experiences with team, with being managed with being a manager and therefore it makes it convoluted to do team with heart, right? But I just wanna let you know it's totally possible and it's totally delightful. Just pick, just like I feel like figuring out how to sell with heart really changed my life for the better and made me a lot more of a confident, grounded woman. I really feel like figuring out team with heart really helped me be more of a grounded, better woman, team member, mama, all the things cuz like spoiler alert, whatever fish we need to fry in our life or business, like for me right now, it's like dating.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I am really working that muscle. That's the thing that's keeping me humble and vulnerable. There's always gonna be something in our life that is a growth edge that we suck at, that we're trying to get better at that keeps us humble and vulnerable. I actually think that's a great thing because guess what? That's the human experience that we're always growing and I really think especially as ambitious driven women, as soon as we're not growing and challenged in a good way, right? That's where we start to sell sabotage and, and probably get either anxious or depressed to be honest, right? And I mean it's a balance. We wanna be able to grow and then relax a little bit and take some time to reprieve and and refresh ourselves, right? But in general we're always gonna have an area that feels like an edge. So what if we made that exciting, right?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
If sales is your air right now that you're growing on, what if you made that like, right? Like ooh, this is something that I get to improve on. Not just in the, so that I make more money into my business but also so that I become a better human being, right? That really helps me when I have a problem. Okay? So when you look at team, right? Or maybe you're listening to this episode and you are at that place where you are ready to hire. I really wanna give you so much permission to really see this as the challenge that you need to face right now and giving it your all right? Whether it is joining a program like Sell With Heart that has training around how to hire and manage team. Whether that's going to your local library and buying a book on team leadership, right?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
But it's really been like, ooh, this is my thing right now and I don't wanna get distracted by anything else. There's always like seven things we could fix in our business at all given times. But if you know that team is your thing, it's like really focusing on that and being willing to dive in and get messy. My season growing my team was very messy. There was all you guys know that when I'm working towards something, I create an affirmation. Let me just tell you this, like my affirmation was I have a dream team. I had that affirmation for probably like two years <laugh> because I didn't feel like I had a dream team, right? And this was really no fault to the women that were working for weed. This was mostly the fault of my own <laugh> because I was really figuring out what does this look like?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
What do I want my team, my business to look like? Cuz there's no one cookie cutter, cutter fit, size fits all when it comes to growing and scaling your business. So you really have to figure out what works for you, right? Are you hiring teams so that they are doing some of the work that you're doing so that you have more capacity to serve more clients? Or is your team serving your clients? For my clients that have done for you businesses, a lot of times I'm having them hire team members for to do actual client work, right? If it's a business like mine where I actually really enjoy the coaching, right? Some of my clients, they want to work even less hours than I do. So I help them hire support coaches so that like my kids are older now, they're six and eight, they're in elementary school, I have the time and I love coaching.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It lights me up, right? So right now in this season it doesn't make sense for me to have a support coach. But you may decide that if I had little babies I would be hiring a support coach right now, right? So you can, that's almost like two buckets. You need to think about am I hiring team to do client work for me or am I hiring team so that I can do more client work? I'm gonna say that again. Am I hiring team to do work for me or am I hiring team to do so that I can have more capacity to do client work? That's an important distinction and something you need to play with. And there's no wrong answer there, right? My biggest recommendation is just to try one or the other and see how it fits right From a lot of my clients, we have them try hiring someone that's gonna like actually do the work for their clients and then seeing how that feels, seeing if they like it, right?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's almost like I suggest to my clients when they hire someone to clean their house, just try it one time, right? When they hire a therapist, just try one session, see if you like it or hate it. Usually people end up loving it, right? But that newness that can make it hard to be we we don't know until we try like try the pants on, see if you like them. If you don't, you can return them at the store, right? <Laugh> or you can hand them down to someone else. So I think it's really giving yourself permission to kind of try with team both things, but both those things. Clear your capacity and anyway, so I had a season where at first I hired, I think I had up to like six or seven part-time team members working for me doing a bunch of little tiny tasks separated because it felt like that was the best way to do it.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I think it felt like financially it was the best move because then people were specializing. Spoiler alert it was the wrong move, right? As a small solopreneur business owner, you just wanna hire one team member at the start to do as much as possible. Even if you feel like quote you're overpaying them to do some of the tasks. At the end of the day, every person you manage takes time and capacity and resources and therefore you just really wanna be mindful of how many team members you're taking on, especially while you're learning to manage team, right? So <laugh>, I eventually let go of all seven and just kept one. And went to see how that went. It wasn't the best fit. And so from there I hired a different person and that person was the epic Haley Hatcher who is now the c o O of heart centered entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And we've been together for almost three years now and she is just my amazing, amazing right-hand woman. I'm so thankful for her. You guys hear me talk about her all the time. And then after that we hired a va, beautiful alley underneath Hailey. And now we recently hired a third member to really almost be under Allie in some ways. And I truly feel like I have the dream team. I truly feel so supported. I feel like I really am able to work in my zone as a coach, which is what I wanna do. I really feel like we're able to grow our business and do marketing and lead gen in the way that I want to. But I just wanna say it hasn't always been that way and it really was two years of me working with my coach Lacey and really being able to be messy for two years while I was doing it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Here's the thing, while you're being messy, you can get results. Like I hear this with women that when they're working on selling, you don't have to master selling before you make sales, right? You maybe will take six months or a year to work on getting good at sales, but guess what? You can be making money while you do it, right? For me, when I was working on team for two years team at the end of the day, right? Yes makes you more money but it gives you your time and your freedom back, right? So for me, I didn't have to wait two years to find more freedom and flexibility and relief in my schedule. I was feeling freedom and flexibility and relief, but it was just not really perfect. <Laugh>, I will say perfect, right in for two years. For me selling the skill is selling.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I knocked out a little bit faster. I would say I knocked it out in about six months. But same thing, right? Like even when I was struggling with selling and really learning to embrace selling, I was making money while I was doing it. So I just think it's important distinction cause I think we think like ugh, in order to like really step into a new skill, I'm gonna feel awful. But the truth is no, you're gonna feel great cuz you're gonna be improving, right? For me, my one to two year season of getting good at team, it was feeling hard, but it was feeling good along the way because I was seeing little wins, I was seeing little breakthroughs, I was seeing little growth areas. I was seeing little pieces of evidence of like, ooh, that worked well, right? And so just a reminder that as you're working towards something like yes, it gets nice at the end but it also gets nice along the way, right?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
If you join my cell, my heart sell with heart mastermind, that's my goal for you, right? Is that you would start seeing results and more sales and more money immediately as you are starting to practice the skill, as you are doing the worksheets that are helping you reorganize your offers, remarket your offers, refine your selling skills, refine your objection skills, refine your messaging, right? Refine your quarterly planning and how you show up and batch in your business. Like the goal is that you would get a good result at the end, but also every month all the way through. Okay, I just tell you that because you might be looking at me like, okay, two years of working on your team Anna, like, like how did you remain faithful? And I think it's number one, just seeing the vision and trusting yourself that you're gonna figure it out.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But also again, like seeing those ones along the way for some of my clients, I think about my clients that I have helped work towards 20, 30, 40 k months. They often would get stuck on one thing or the other. Like I remember one of my clients really got stuck on the selling, but then when it came to team, like she smashed it and like broke through that in like a month or two versus the selling took like more like eight months, right? Some of my clients, it's the opposite. Were like selling, they really smashed through that in a few months. But the team piece like me took a little bit longer. So I just wanna say like, just because something in your business right now is taking you a long time doesn't mean the other parts of scaling and growing your business are gonna suck, right?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Because it's just a complex, it's something when I see my clients really struggling with visibility and they're like, oh my God, if I can't figure out getting visible consistently, how am I gonna figure out all the other things? But maybe that's just your hard piece. Maybe that's your hard puzzle piece. So I think that hope that gives you a lot of hope to like not project that everything is gonna be hard, right? And also just to be faithful to the challenge in front of you and not compare yourself to other women's challenges. Cuz we just don't know their story. We just don't know their own personal blocks, right? Okay, obviously I have so much more to share in the Summit Heart Mastermind. I have so many resources when it comes to team. It's a huge thing I help my clients on because yes, I do think that selling is what gets you to eight to 10 K months.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
But I find that my clients even that are at like 5, 6, 7, 8 KK months. Often I suggest for them to start hiring and working on this because often I find my clients resist getting to the 10 K month because they're nervous about like, I do want it, I want the money, but I don't want the workload, right? And so often I'll have my clients start to hire a little bit early just to see that evidence of like, oh yeah, I can get support. Oh yeah, I don't have to overload myself. Oh yeah, I can't make this easier and easier for myself, right? So I just want to remind you, even if team building isn't your current season, isn't your currently your fish to fry, now you know what's next So that you can with confidence, fully show up to sell and sell out and get to the end, to eight to 10 K months knowing that your business is not gonna implode after that, there is a really clear next step.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
It really is that logical and simple as you grow and scale and get to, you know, 15, 20, 25 k months. And it's absolutely possible for you, right? It's absolutely possible for you. I shared that one of my favorite affirmations when I first started my business and I really feel like took me into my six figures was my success is inevitable. My success is inevitable, right? Really fully believing that whatever challenge you're facing right now in your business, whether it is visibility, whether it is sales, whether it's something else, really knowing and believing, I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna figure it out, right? It's safe for me to sell with heart and I'm gonna figure out a way to sell. And that fills in alignment with me, right? It's safe for me to build my dream team and I'm gonna figure out how to do it.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It's gonna be a little messy. It's gonna be a little vulnerable. But guess what I'm gonna learn along the way and I'm gonna open my heart. I'm gonna be a better human at the end of the day. And at the end of the day, I love a challenge and I'm up for it. I'm up for the challenge. I'm resilient, I'm strong. I can do this. I am supported, I'm equipped. Having a coach along the way is a hundred percent what has helped me. I have always had a coach for the last seven years of my business and I will never go without a coach. I think a lot of people have this belief of like, oh, I have to figure it out on my own. And certainly like if your intuition is leading you that way, do what you need to do. But for me, I will never not have a therapist.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I will never not have a coach, right? Even if there're, I mean certainly I have seasons where like I message my coach less, like maybe she doesn't hear from me for a whole month, right? Sometimes I like won't meet with my therapist for a month, right? But I know that she's there should I need her at any time? And having that support and having that confidential space, I just feel like is literally priceless. So if you are looking for that support from a woman who is heart-centered, if you are working on getting to your first six figures in your business, I would love to be your coach. I would love to support you. The support that I offer in my mastermind is nothing like I've seen in the online space where it really comes with, I had several women this week saying like, okay, what is it actually like on the inside?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
It is the perfect hybrid of personal support from me. There's no support coach in there. It is me supporting you personally because I love it. It lights me up. So we have a Slack channel so that we stay focused off social media for the coaching and I respond to anything that you put in there within 48 hours on weekdays. Whether that's copy you need reviewed, whether that's a mindset journaling, brain dump, and you want me to check out your Google doc and just coach you virtually there. And then we have weekly coaching calls and then once a month we also have structured training because I really feel like getting to six figures is strategic. And so we do quarterly business planning, we do mindset work. And then Haley does a team training slash systems training in there too. And if you have any questions, just ask me.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I'm an open book and just grateful for you, grateful for you. Thank you for being here on the podcast. I just love chatting with you ladies so much and just sending you so much love for whatever challenge you're in the middle of. I hope that you as the podcast leader, I hope you consider me your podcasty ho coach. And I hope that you know how much I love you and believe in you, believe in your success. So even if you're like, and I don't know if my success is inevitable, know that I truly believe, here's the thing, I really believe anyone can be successful at entrepreneurship, but they put their heart at mind to it. I believe that it's possible for you. You are not a unicorn in the sense of like, oh, but what if it's possible for everyone else, but not for me? No, it is possible for you to build a business with massive heart in a way that aligns with you, that aligns with your gifts and talents. More women need your heart on fire in the online space and I would love to hear from you if you need help with that. Okay? Have a great day. Loves.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.