How to Hit 7-Figures with One Killer Community and E-Products | Bossbabe (#185)
You get a chance to really connect with your community. One thing you called out at the beginning of this podcast is I have a really good connection with my community, and that's not by chance. That's 7 years of delivering value every single week, delivering what I say I'm gonna deliver.
Speaker 2:I'm Jim Huffman and this is If I Was Starting Today, a collection of conversations about half baked startup ideas, growth tactics, and stories from founders, including my own journey as a business owner. All of the content is centered around one question. What would you do if you were starting today? In today's episode, I interview the co founder and CEO of Boss Babe, Natalie Ellis. Boss Babe is really impressive.
Speaker 2:They are a community for women led entrepreneurs and she's helped over a 100000 women start and grow businesses. She also has a social media following. That's pretty massive, approaching 4,000,000 people, and she has a paid membership program. She has e products and she's built a very, very impressive, large 7 figure business. And today, we get into the details on if if you were starting a community in 2023, what would you do?
Speaker 2:How would you approach that? Talks about what she did in the early days and how she would kind of do that again, today. We also get tactical on the systems and processes she uses to run her kind of media machine because a lot of people wanna put out content and do good work, but, it's really about the systems to pull that off. So really hope you enjoy this episode with Natalie. Alright.
Speaker 2:Today on the podcast, I have someone that I was on her podcast, and I had an amazing conversation. I was like, even halfway through, I'm like, I need to convince her to come on mine 1, but 2, after she launched her podcast, I got all these people emailing me and, like, hitting me up and leads came in. I was like, geez, she has an insane following. And, she does. And so I've got Natalie Ellis here from Boss Bae.
Speaker 2:But, Natalie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, and I'm glad that it was a success, Pam.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was very cool. And I knew you had a big following, but just how engaged your audience was was was really cool to see. It's funny because I was telling my friend Tommy Griffiths, who was also on your podcast, because he was on a podcast too. I'm like, you gotta talk to Natalie, man.
Speaker 2:I was like, she has an insane user base. He's like, oh, I've been there. He's like, yeah, they're amazing. So, yeah, you've you've you've got a nice reputation. But we're we're just gonna get into you have an insane community with Boss Babe, but I wanna put you on the spot.
Speaker 2:It's to what I want it's 2023. It's April. You have to do it all over again Mhmm. To build a community and build this following. What would you even do?
Speaker 2:How would you start?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I've actually thought about this a lot because I'm often coaching people who are making big transitions or starting from scratch. And I often think, what would I do differently? So when I first started, you know, Instagram and social media, I was very, very different, and building audience was very different. But it still required just as much hustle back then as it it and as it does now.
Speaker 1:So one thing that I would definitely do is I just pick one platform to go all in on. And for me, that would probably be my email list or a YouTube channel. I'd really think about what's the one platform that I wanna grow and that I wanna create consistently good content on, and that would be the channel that I create really good long form content on. And then I'd have a team take that content, repurpose it, create, you know, a lot shorter content and put that out on social, but I really wouldn't be so worried about those metrics on social. It would be very much about, do I have a presence?
Speaker 1:Am I nurturing the community that's already there? And I'd be really thinking about the growth metrics on just one channel. If I was starting again too, I'd probably allocate some budget to paid. Again, you can grow organically. You totally can.
Speaker 1:But for me, if I was starting a little over again, I'd wanna go faster. And, you know, I've been doing what I'm doing with Boss Baby for 7 years now, and so what you see is the result of 7 years of hard work. And if I was starting again and I wanted to take a shortcut to that, I'd be thinking about putting some money into paid, creating really good content, giving so much value, not necessarily thinking about what my ROI is for quite a while. And I think, again, that's why Boss Baby is successful, but I'd be thinking about how am I giving so much value and how am I becoming known for this thing that I'm giving value on specifically?
Speaker 2:That's really good. So I wanna get into choosing that category that way you you wanna own, but I wanna back up. You said something really smart, like, focus on one thing and do it really well. And you called out YouTube, and you called out email. So would that be, I'm gonna build a massive email list 1, or I'm gonna build a great YouTube channel and really build the subscriber base?
Speaker 2:It's it's choosing one of those. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Or even a podcast. And I generally choose one of those that have longer form pieces of content on there because it's a lot easier to then build other channels when you start with long form. So let's say I pick YouTube as my primary channel, and I'm creating 1 60 minute video per week. That's a great piece of content to then spin out onto Instagram or TikTok if I choose to do those things.
Speaker 1:I might, you know, wait 6 months before deciding to get an Instagram. But when I do, you know, that's 6 months worth of long form videos. I can send to an editing team, have that chopped up in probably another 6 months of content created for me. And so I'm thinking in terms of that, you know, when I first started my business, I wasn't necessarily thinking, how can I get the absolute most out of every minute of my time? But now I am.
Speaker 1:Like, even the conversation you and I had before the podcast, it was like, okay. Let's create a completely different piece of content because I don't wanna create a content piece of content that I've already created. It's not useful to me. It's not useful to you. It's not useful to my community or your community.
Speaker 1:I'd be thinking the exact same way starting from the beginning. How can I create one good piece of content that's different every single time and use that to then create other piece of content and spit it out? So I like the idea of YouTube, email list, or podcast being those main channels. I think, you know, they're very easy to grow. You get a chance to really connect with your community.
Speaker 1:One thing you called out at the beginning of this podcast is I have a really good connection with my community, and that's not by chance. That's 7 years of delivering value every single week, delivering what I say I'm gonna deliver. That's a lot easier to do when you have long form pieces of content. You know, if someone reads the long form email from you or watches you on video for 60 minutes, they're gonna feel slightly different towards you than if they just see a quick post that you made on Instagram. And so that's generally how I think about building community, building audiences, starting all over again.
Speaker 1:And, again, something I think I've done really well is focused on my community and never really taken those shortcuts to revenue. And it means now I do have an amazing community that is monetized, but I didn't take shortcuts to get there. And I'd be thinking about the same thing because products come and go, but your community stays. And that's been really powerful for me. As I've evolved, as my business has evolved, as my desires, interests, and their desires and interests have changed, they still remain, and it's the products that change to serve all the different life stages that we're at.
Speaker 2:Alright. You said like 10 things that I wanna go deeper on. I'm trying to choose my own adventure here. I want to talk about you said something like you were really intentional on focusing on your community even in the early days and now. What are some tactical things you could say?
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go YouTube. I'm gonna do podcast or email. I love that point of long form. You're building this content. How do you then latch on this idea of community?
Speaker 2:Because I think there's a difference between having an audience versus a community. Right? It's either, like, one to many versus one to 1 and a lot of engagement. What are some things people can think through when wanting to build that community? And this is very selfish as we're building our email list and podcast, because I'm like, man, I'm I'm not engaging as as I should.
Speaker 2:What what are some things people should do?
Speaker 1:Well, the start is I think people might be surprised to know I reply to every single email that I get as a response to my newsletter, and I reply to every single DM that I get on my Instagram. And it's not something that I outsource. You know, I generally, if someone tells me, oh, such and such signed up to my program because they heard about me through you, I know who that person is. And that's the way that I've thought about community. It's not that I put out a piece of content or I put out a product and I'm kind of putting it out there to a number of people.
Speaker 1:I'm putting it out there to specific people, and I feel like I have that real connection with them. And I know you sometimes hear people say that, but I really mean it. And I think the people that have strong communities also really mean it. There are certain things and principles that I've always stuck to to make sure that I never ruin that relationship with my community. One of them, for example, is if I release a program, I release it at the lowest price it'll ever be because I know the people that buy it right away, the people that know and trust me the most.
Speaker 1:You will never find me doing a Black Friday sale 6 months later and offering this program at reduced price. That is going to make those fast movers, those loyal customers feel so unseen. I never do it. You'll never see me bring someone onto the podcast that I don't actually trust or believe in, and I will not have them share their knowledge with my audience because I believe that they're a conduit to, like, coming through me. And I feel like people who listen to me having conversations with them are going to trust them because I trust them, and I'll never compromise like that.
Speaker 1:I won't upload an interview for what was very good. And, you know, on one side of things, does that lose me money? Shoo out. On the other side of things, does it lose me relationships? Sure.
Speaker 1:It's actually lost me one relationship in particular, and, you know, I don't really care. I'm not really doing it for the relationships and the money. I'm doing it because I really honor and value my community. And like I said, when you think like that, you're thinking long term. I'm thinking about being here 10 years from now.
Speaker 1:I'm not thinking about what does my profit look like 1 year from now. And I think that's the real difference between audience and community building.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I think having that long view gives you an unfair advantage against those that just have kind of a short term view, because you're gonna have totally different actions and and and motives. So as you're able to engage with community, that also tells me you you have a very impressive content machine that you've built to support all of this output. And there's a lot of things out there on and I love your point of long form because then you can turn to short form content. What are some other things you do that maybe people aren't doing or that aren't emphasized enough to run a good content machine because it's something everyone's trying to do, but not a lot of people are doing well.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Systems are everything. Systems are absolutely everything. And so we have built out some really good content operating systems where when I create a long, small piece of content just like this podcast interview, it gets uploaded into a certain place in our ecosystem, and that will trigger a lot of automated task creation inside of Asana, and it will be delegated automatically to certain people on my team who will then know exactly what to do with the content. So let's say I finish recording a 60 minute piece of content.
Speaker 1:I upload it. Automatically, a a series of triggers will happen. Feel like I need to sell this this operating system at some point, but it will automate a a series of actions that will be delegated automatically, and people know what to do. And so it's almost like you put a 60 minute video in the system and out pops 10 6 minute videos, and it's very automated. And it has taken a long time to get here because it's not as simple as take this video and chop it into 10 small videos.
Speaker 1:There's a real formula to do it because, you know, if you just pick some random clips, sure, you might create the content, you might tick the box, but it's gonna get no engagement. And so it's not necessarily about being efficient, but it's about being effective. And so while creating these systems, I've created a lot of playbooks and training on what a great piece of content really looks like. I love to have a gold standard example of taking a long form and turning it into short form, and that will explain certain things like, here's what makes a really good hook. Here's what makes a really good stand alone piece of content.
Speaker 1:Here's what makes a good piece of content that someone will actually wanna click and take the next action. So, for example, you know, there's different types of content. There's a piece of content I put out might put out there to promote my podcast where I might not give all the tidbits away in that small piece of content. I might give one piece of value, but then I might create a cliffhanger and say, hey. Go listen to the podcast for the rest.
Speaker 1:Or if I wanna create a standalone piece of content for virality or growth, I'll make sure I close the loop and I give all the value in that. And so I'm training my team on all of this stuff, and I don't think it's something you can necessarily outsource from the get go. I think you yourself as the content creator need to understand these things first because, firstly, you'll create content with that in mind. You'll be able to deliver things in a certain way. You'll be able to get your point across in a better way, and it'll make your team's job easier.
Speaker 1:But second to that, you'll be able to coach and train your team on being able to create content in the right way so that you're essentially duplicating yourselves and duplicating your time. I think if you outsource it too soon to people that don't fully understand it, they'll never hit the mark and you'll tell yourself a story of no one can do it as good as you can, but actually you just haven't found a way to be able to teach it in a way that people can then duplicate and understand.
Speaker 2:It's it's so true. Delegation is everything, but it's yeah. And I I ran into those mistakes too. I start to delegate. They do it wrong.
Speaker 2:It's, nope, I have the special sauce. Only I can do it. And then you're like, no, you're not that special. You just have, you don't know how to do systems, but that that's that's such good advice. Okay.
Speaker 2:Start with one thing, long term content, YouTube, email, podcasts. You've talked about creating systems, you've talked about really nurturing that community in a one to one way. I think I like forget, I forgot to start with step 1, which is, how do you choose your thing? How do you choose the category you wanna own, the thing you're known for? Because I think a lot of people can be a little too sporadic.
Speaker 2:So people are like, I don't really know what this person is about, so I'm out. What I love even about your name, it just says what it stands for and what it's about. Once you get to the content, it's all it has the the same connective tissue or theme. For someone that's trying to hone in on that and they're really struggling, what what's some advice you would give? Or are there struggles that you had?
Speaker 2:Or was it always just easy breezy?
Speaker 1:Well, it's definitely not easy, and it's also not a linear journey. So I would think about what is something that you are an expert on that you can talk about without getting bored of. I think that's a really good place to start, but I also tell you that this is going to change as you change. So right now, I'm in a space of really thinking about what I want my brand to look like and what I wanna be talking about because, honestly, it's changed. I used to love talking about Instagram growth.
Speaker 1:Now I love talking about systems, and everything really changes as you change. You know, we're not the same person for the rest of our lives. At least we wanna hope. Why not? And as we go and evolve and enter new life situations or enter new growth edges and we're in different places, we just wanna talk about different things, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:But you have to be willing to talk about something that you're an expert on consistently to be able to build that brand. And I also think, you know, in that, you need to choose the platform that you know you can create content on consistently. So don't tell me you're gonna do YouTube if you absolutely despise creating videos because you're probably not gonna stick to it consistently. And if you're not willing to do something consistently, you can forget about getting results. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:If you're a natural writer and you love that, don't feel like you need to be on a video platform in order to get your message across. Maybe newsletter is great for you. If you love to talk and you don't love being on video, you know, if your sweat's on, headphones on, and podcast feels like the right vehicle for you, great. There's no one size fits all for everyone, but you have to be willing to commit to something that you can do consistently. And I also think taking a step further, what one content format can you master?
Speaker 1:I I don't see a lot of mastery these days, and I think it's really important personally. When I first started, I decided I was gonna do Instagram, and I wasn't throwing everything at the wall and hoping it sticks. I was really good at writing. I didn't love being on camera, and I decided, you know what? I'm gonna get really, really good at writing viral quotes, and that's all I did.
Speaker 1:That's the one content piece that I mastered. I really honed that craft. I was posting at least 4 times a day, 7 days a week, taking no breaks, honing that craft. And then as my brand started to evolve, as I started to evolve, I thought about, okay, what's the next piece of content that I wanna be able to hone in? I started a podcast way later than people would imagine.
Speaker 1:I'd been in business all years, I think. So I started my podcast maybe 5, and a lot of people were saying, you know, you should have started it so long ago. It could have been so big. And I say, I doubt it because I was already focused on mastering something else. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so while I could have had a podcast on a certain size and an Instagram at a certain size, you know, I don't have almost 4,000,000 followers by chance. I have that because I focus there. I focus my energy there. From where you focus, your results are. And now that I'm really interested in podcasts, I'm focused on podcasts, and I know that I'm not straddling strategies.
Speaker 1:I've outsourced the boss of Instagram to one of our team, and I'm focused on, okay, what does it look like to become a really good podcaster? What do I need to know to be able to master this content format? And I I just see so often we spread ourselves so thin. We try and do so many things because while looking at what everyone else is doing, while looking at everyone else's grass and thinking that it's greener, but, actually, it's not, like, it's not the truth. And if you are watching someone almost being a jack of all trades and you're tempted to copy, I really say slow down, think of the long term game, and decide what you wanna master.
Speaker 2:Are you a business owner in desperate need of talent, but you have issues finding good people? Or worse, you find the talent, but then they want you to pay them double what you have budgeted. Yeah. I know the feeling. This is where remotely talent can help.
Speaker 2:Imagine having a personal HR team that finds you a plus talent, and here's the best part, it costs you 40 or even 80% less than US employees. It's magic. So let's say you need help with setting up your social ads, your Google ads, email marketing, website development, customer service. Their team sources the top Ukrainian talent for you, and they deliver 3 top vetted candidates straight to your inbox. It's a one time payment, and best yet, straight to your inbox.
Speaker 2:It's a one time payment, and best yet, they give you a 60 day guarantee to ensure you're happy. Hey. If it doesn't work out, they'll find and replace the talent for free. Even better, 3% of all sales go to the Children's Hospital in Ukraine. At Growth Head, our agency, we've hired 4 people from Ukraine.
Speaker 2:I am blown away by the level of work we're getting. So whether you need a virtual assistant or a creative director, give this a try. Go to remotelytalents.com right now and start a conversation. See if they can help you. You really have nothing to lose.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. I feel like you're my personal therapist or executive coach right now because it's what I need to hear because it's so true. And And I think we're all guilty. I can be guilty. It's like, oh, that worked well for them on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna do that for me, but I'll I'll I'll have a better hook or whatever. But it's like, think differently as far as what's the thing that you can have your own unique spin on and really master. It's like doing less rather than more, but doing it really well. And I liked how you kind of, you indirectly said I had my sites on Instagram. I figured that out, and I did it really well.
Speaker 2:And then you could delegate and elevate somebody. And now it's like podcasts. Let's figure that out. Even just like comparing podcast notes, what are you seeing that has had, like, nonlinear leaps in growth with podcasts or even, like, go back to Instagram? It's, like, sounds like you figured out that format that worked well that helped give, like, a nonlinear lead.
Speaker 2:But what are some things that are working or some struggles that you have? Because I can even compare notes as well on on my end.
Speaker 1:I think with podcast, the biggest thing I'm seeing growth from is swapping ads on people's podcasts. You know, I learned this with Instagram. It's really hard to get your audience to jump platforms. So when I think about platform growth, I think about what can I do on that specific platform to help grow? And so swapping ads with people that have podcasts of a similar audience to yours, it's how I grew my Instagram back in the day.
Speaker 1:You know, I would collaborate with other pages, and we'd do shout outs for each other. That was just what you did. You did a shout out swap. Yeah. And if they had more followers, I would do more shout outs to them to
Speaker 2:kind of make it easy.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a really good podcast growth strategy. Again, it's like what I said in the beginning, you know, you have to hustle, and you really have to put the work in. You know? Not everyone just pulls out a microphone and all of a sudden becomes Alexandra Cooper, Joe Rogan. It doesn't happen like that.
Speaker 1:You know? You have to hustle. You have to put that work in. Not every single person hits gold right away. And so thinking about, okay, how many people can I email today to get a podcast swap done?
Speaker 1:Or, you know, how can I be reverse engineering what this person did for growth? But having that laser focus, I think, pays off a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. No. That's really, really cool. We it's funny.
Speaker 2:We we haven't done as many of those, but they work really well. And obviously, if you can get like a rainmaker, like big time guest, that always helps, but easier said than done. We as we started doing distribution on YouTube and TikTok, that actually had a nice lift at your attribution has been a little tricky on that one, but overall, we've seen the growth since we've done that. And what's interesting we found, I don't know about you, but specific content categories perform extremely well. When we do, like, 10 startup ideas, you could start, like, in 24 hours or stuff like that works really well.
Speaker 2:And even, like, roundups of like, I can't get Paul Graham or Sam Altman on the podcast yet, but we'll do, like, a roundup of, like, their quotes or best blog post.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a great idea on the roundup. I haven't done that yet. So what are you doing? You're pulling from all that content and putting it all into an episode?
Speaker 2:So what we do is we found, like, Paul Graham had this epic con or this post on, like, how to start a startup from, like, 15 100 of YC. And it's a really long blog post, and we essentially did the cliff notes version of, hey, here's this awesome blog post. No one reads anymore. We're gonna break it down for you. We did that.
Speaker 2:Sam Almond, he, like, turned 30. He, like, 30 things I learned at 30. And we did a breakdown of that. And it's kind of a fun way to switch it up. So you can just, like and then we actually wanna start doing it with books, like the the 4 hour work week.
Speaker 2:Here's our summary, and here's what it would look like today. Because it's a sneaky way to put Tim Ferris or someone iconic in your headline without interviewing them.
Speaker 1:That's so smart. Will you use chat gpt to summarize anything, or are you use really doing your own thought process and evaluation of the content?
Speaker 2:I feel like you're on my browser. I was literally last night having it work on summaries, because I always look for a blog post that'll summarize a book to get a book. But I was I was playing with that. I was even playing with chat gbt. I was like, take the top 10 nonfiction books on Amazon and rewrite a headline based off of those.
Speaker 2:So, like, think of, like, a book head. Just just like, I'm just trying to play with that. I was even like, not to go to it wouldn't do this, but adult fiction books are like the most sold book on Amazon. So I was like, rewrite a title of an adult erotic book and give me a funny name of an author. So anyway
Speaker 1:Oh, my God. That is brilliant.
Speaker 2:But it wouldn't it doesn't do erotic stuff. So I was like, okay. I need to pump the brakes there. But it I mean
Speaker 1:GPT's got boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yes. I need to have boundaries as well. But I
Speaker 1:think interesting. That that's definitely getting me thinking of, okay, if we could pull some reason. I think there's there's always our own thought leadership and opinions that we can infuse into it. But if we're able to pull, you know, those cliff notes and then infuse our own stuff into it, I'm always interested in just playing around with different content formats and not necessarily always being interviews or solos. Like, what else could be really interesting?
Speaker 1:And, again, like, okay. That's something my team could help with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I agree because everyone does the interview podcast, and there's times where it's great. Because even you, you're so kind. I was like, hey, here's some questions. And you're like, Jim, it's like, I've answered this question 9,443 times.
Speaker 2:Let's let's do something different. I'm like, you know what? You are right. Like, I hate that question too. We're we're switching it up.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, chat GBT, it's it's your virtual assistant. It gives you the the cheat sheet to do this stuff. One one thing that I really wanna hit on because a lot of people also wanna do something that you're doing, but they they can't. You've found your niche. You've built your audience.
Speaker 2:You've built your community, but you've also been able to create amazing products, e products, and different things that you're able to monetize. What what, like, whenever you're thinking of launching a new product, what is that process like on how you figure out, hey, this is something my audience would actually want? Is it like a validation process or you just kind of know? And any advice for someone that's looking a lot of g products, okay, don't do this, do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for me, I have to be really excited about something to create it because a lot of our launching is organic, and so it requires me to create content around it. And I just will not create content that I'm not excited about and that I don't think will add value. So right now, I'm thinking about the next product that we're gonna create. It's been a while.
Speaker 1:I'm really ready. It's been a couple years since we've created something new. I'm feeling really ready to do it. And for me, I've been thinking, well, okay, what really excites me? What lights me up?
Speaker 1:And what phase of life am I in? And so that the content could be really organic around this. And what I'm loving right now is my life operating system that I created a couple years ago. It's been helping me so much as I enter this new period of being a mom and a CEO and so many other things at the same time. And this operating system's been really powerful for helping me manage my life and not feeling like I'm constantly behind and being able to find that work life harmony that we all talk about and desire.
Speaker 1:So that feels really exciting for me, and I know I can't do it prematurely. I have to make sure whatever I create feels like it's complete. So that's kind of the the period I'm in where I'm doing my own work around it. Okay. If I was to distill exactly how I create this and how I implement it, what would that look like?
Speaker 1:And that normally starts as a huge body of work, and then I simplify, simplify, simplify, so it's digestible. And then I already, you know, feel like I know what my audience would want and not want, so I kind of already have a sense of whether they'd be interested or not, but I will ask a lot of questions along the way of, okay. Why would this serve you? Why would this be powerful? Because I feel like in order for them to buy it and have their lives changed, they have to have it speak to them, and they have to have it speak to their situation.
Speaker 1:And that their situation might be slightly different to mine. So that is research involved, but, you know, maybe not as much as if I was just starting out and I didn't feel like I knew my community as well as I do. If I was advising someone that is new at the space, I would say, you know, have you been working with these clients 1 to 1? Have you really developed a methodology that's worked for them multiple times and you know that replicate, you can get the same results? Are you able to tell me exactly why they need it, why they would buy it?
Speaker 1:I think all of that research generally is important. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's very cool. And, like, for listeners that are interested in some of the stuff that you offer, like, what's the best way to get into whether it's, like, the membership program or, like, even just kinda list on all the things that you offer?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Probably the best place to start would be going on bosswave.com and taking a look. We have our membership, and we have a couple signature courses on there. If you're wanting to jump in with products, you can look there, or you could go on there and join our email list. We have a really good newsletter that goes out twice a week.
Speaker 1:It's called The Boss Babe Edit, and it's making business and marketing fun. It's like Gossip Girl meets, you know, Harvard Business School. It's fun. That's a really good place to start. Obviously, our podcast, The Boss Babe Podcast, there's tons of free stuff out there, and we talk about what we do often enough that you'll generally be able to pick up whether something would be for you or not for you.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's really impressive. You guys go to Boss Baby. Like, on membership, and what you get, I think it starts with $48, which is very approachable. And just everyone I've spoken to out of the society is very, very impressive.
Speaker 2:And I think mentorship is great, but, like, having the right peers is everything, just to compare notes. Do you do you at all speak to or can you speak to the size of the company, whether it's other members or, like, revenue or anything so people understand the scale?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, we have 1,000 and thousands of members. I think, ultimately, we've had around a 130,000 students through different programs and trainings and things that we've had. Hundreds of thousands of people on our email list who get our newsletter. You know, multiple millions downloads on our podcast.
Speaker 1:So we're a pretty good size. We've been doing this for a while, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. That I mean, it's it's really impressive. So I've got 2 more questions for you, and then I'll let you get on with your the first question is we're both parents with young kids. Give me a parent hack.
Speaker 2:We're both running companies and trying to raise these creatures. What is like one of your go to hacks for trying to juggle it all. Right? Because there's the struggle and the juggle. I mean, for me, I'll I'll give you some time here.
Speaker 2:It's it's making snacks ahead of time to have them in ziplock bags to be prepared. Second is I'm kind of training my kids to like business podcasts, because sometimes they'll say funny words, except they cussed in 1. And I was like, oh, crap. That that will backfire. And my 3 year old dropped an f bomb, but that's fine.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, what what about you? What give me give me your best parenting founder hack.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, one of them is very top of mind for me because the last few days, my nanny has been off sick, and I'm in a huge transition period in my business. And my number one hack is being fully present with where you're at. And so when she called in, I was like, okay. Well, I know exactly what my day looks like.
Speaker 1:It looks like mothering. And I'm gonna be, you know, with the whammy, and I'm gonna be fully present. And, realistically, almost everything can wait until tomorrow or the end of the week. And if it can't, do it during that time. You know, it might mean that your dishes get might not get done.
Speaker 1:It might mean that your emails don't get done. It might mean that your team feel like you're just ignoring whatever it means. If I am being fully present with her, I'm not stressed. Right? Because I'm only stressed if I'm present with her, but my mind is in my emails, my mind is in my Slack, my mind is in my to do list, then I'm feeling overwhelmed, and it almost feels like I'm not where I should be.
Speaker 1:Whereas if I am fully present and telling myself this is exactly where I need to be right now, and everything else can wait, and I'm not doing brain surgery, and no one's gonna die from Yeah. You know, me pushing this task out 2 days. It takes a lot of the pressure and a lot of the strain off, and that really, really helps. And then another thing I do is I just time block my conda a lot. I'm nursing right now.
Speaker 1:That's why I told you what what my hard stop is. I'm still nursing, and I made a commitment to myself that I wouldn't stop nursing just because my business needed me during hours that are, you know, overlapping with nursing time. So I've been super clear on what my priorities are, and I time block around that so that I'm not having to make those sacrifices, and I can do what's really important to me and then also get my other things done. I think it's always a balance. I don't think any of us feel like we're crushing it all the time.
Speaker 1:I definitely don't. Some weeks, I'm like, woah. I'm really feeling amazing. And other weeks, I'm like, oh my god. I feel like I've been putting the washing machines and just hung out to dry.
Speaker 1:I was like, that's just parenting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I like your first answer better than mine. So I'm a edit this podcast so I have that one. You're a better parent than me after that. Well done.
Speaker 2:Alright. So last question I'd like to ask everybody, what is the nicest thing anyone's done for you in your professional career?
Speaker 1:One thing comes to mind specifically, and I have a mentor who has had so much belief in me, especially during the times that I haven't. So a couple months after having my daughter, I went through some really difficult postpartum depression and anxiety. And I was in a really dark place, and I was telling myself I just couldn't do it all. It wouldn't be possible to do it all. And I was letting everyone down and everything needed to change.
Speaker 1:And this mentor of mine, who is someone that I really, really look up to and respect and I think when someone like that believes in you, it means a lot because you know what they've achieved and you look up to them so much and you know they've seen so many things. And so when that person was looking at me saying, listen, you're gonna make it through this period, and it doesn't mean that your business needs to change completely. It doesn't mean that it needs to end. It doesn't mean that you need to put, like, put things away or let go of things. It just means you need to give yourself time.
Speaker 1:And I really believe in you, and I believe in where you're going, and I wanna be part of that journey with you. I would say that's one of the nicest things that anyone's done for me, especially because, you know, they had nothing to benefit or gain Yeah. From supporting me in that way, especially when I was in a place where I'm like, I think I'm gonna throw in the towel. And
Speaker 2:Interesting. We had all
Speaker 1:these collaborations lined up and all these things. And for them just to see me as a human being and put that before anything else business wise was really powerful. And for them to transfer the confidence that they had in me onto me was really powerful.
Speaker 2:That's cool. Especially, it's one thing for people to help you out when times are good, but it's like when times are rough, it's like that's really when you need the the support.
Speaker 1:It's like who shows up for you when it doesn't benefit them.
Speaker 2:Right. Yes.
Speaker 1:Really. Who shows up for you when it doesn't benefit them? Because you'll notice, like you said, when times are good or when someone's benefiting from you or what you do, feels like everyone's your friend and everyone will show up for you. But when you're in a time when it's like, you know, you're not benefiting anyone, you might be making some decisions that really don't benefit people, Do those people still stick with you and say, you know what? I love you as a person, and what you're doing is not gonna benefit me at all, but it's gonna benefit you, and that's what's important.
Speaker 1:Those are the people that you wanna have around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That that's such good advice. Alright. Cool. Well well, Natalie, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:Let's let you get back to to your fam. But, yeah, bossbabe.com. Where else can people check you out? Obviously, the podcast, we'll put the link below if you wanna get more details on that. But where can people get get more?
Speaker 1:Yeah. The Bossa podcast is amazing. And then my Instagram is at I am molly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's amazing content. I'm so glad we got to make this happen. It was a blast. But I look forward to talking more.
Speaker 2:But thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I'll give a few plugs. 1st, I send a weekly newsletter each Thursday featuring 5 articles or tools that have helped me. You can sign up for these weekly updates at jimwhuff huffman.com. 2nd, for anyone running a start up, if you need help growing your business, check out Growth Hit. Growth Hit serves as your external growth team.
Speaker 2:After working with over a 100 start ups and generating a quarter 1,000,000,000 in sales for clients, Growth Hit has perfected a growth process that's hell bent on driving ROI through rapid experiments. Plus, you'll get to work with yours truly. So if you wanna work with a team that's worked with startups that have been funded by Andreessen Horowitz or featured on Shark Tank, then check out growthhit.com. And finally, I wrote a book called The Growth Marketers Playbook that takes everything I've learned as a growth mentor for venture backed startups, and I've distilled it down to a 140 pages. So instead of hiring a growth team, save yourself some money, get the book, and you can just do it yourself.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'd love to hear feedback. I'm on Twitter at jimwhuffman. Are you a business owner in desperate need of talent, but you have issues finding good people? Or worse, you find the talent, but then they want you to pay them double while you have budgeted. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know the feeling. This is where remotely talent can help. Imagine having a personal HR team that finds you a plus talent, and here's the best part, it costs you 40 or even 80% less than US employees. It's magic. So let's say you need help with setting up your social ads, your Google ads, email marketing, website development, customer service.
Speaker 2:Their team sources the top Ukrainian talent for you, and they deliver 3 top vetted candidates straight to your inbox. It's a one time payment, and best yet, they give you a 60 day guarantee to ensure you're happy. Hey. If it doesn't work out, they'll find and replace the talent for free. Even better, 3% of all sales go to the Children's Hospital in Ukraine.
Speaker 2:At Growth Head, our agency, we've hired 4 people from Ukraine. I am blown away by the level of work we're getting. So whether you need a virtual assistant or a creative director, give this a try. Go to remotelytalents.com right now and start a conversation. See if they can help you.
Speaker 2:You really have nothing to lose.