Creating the Right Business Model for You

Holly Haynes: 00:00:00

Wow them like make it like a wow factor. But even to create that you've got to have the conversations to understand what do people want? Like what are the trends going on? What are you seeing what's helped you the most what's your story and then put that into place.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:00:24

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business, while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:01:12

I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode with my friend Holly Marie Haynes, she empowers female entrepreneurs to build thriving, scalable businesses that reached six figures and beyond without getting lost in the ever changing social media algorithms. So you know, right now that we became instant friends, she is probably one of the sweetest and most modest people that I've ever met because this conversation was so juicy, so real realistic, and not just the what you see on social media. And what we're taught to believe is how business works. But how it actually goes and she has impressively built her own seven figure business while juggling a full time job achieving financial freedom and also being able to retire herself and her husband in just two years, which is an absolutely incredible feat. Now today, Holly runs a successful strategic coaching business alongside the crush the rush planner Co. And you can find her on the top 100 range crush the rush podcast. She just also happens to be raising twin daughters with her husband in Columbus, Ohio. So dive into this episode with Holly and make sure that you have your notebook because it is so so good.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:02:30

Hey, Holly, I'm so pumped to have you on entrepreneur school today. And I want to tell a story to people before just to like set the tone of our relationship. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see that we have like matching initial necklaces, which and also when I met Holly she was wearing more pink than me, which also made her my best friend immediately. And so we met at the podcasting moms conference because you have an amazing podcast called Crush the rash. And you were there as one of the experts talking about podcasting. And then after the conference as you do you hang out with the other speakers. Because I was a speaker there as well. And so I told Holly, oh, my husband's here, he can drive us somewhere. And I was with you know, and it turned out to be like how many four of us? Yeah, yeah, for four of us, plus my husband. So five of us. In the end, he had rented like a convertible BMW because he likes cars. And he like want, all he did while I was at the conference was go for a drive. He drove like through three states for like eight hours, because that's what he wanted to do. And so we crammed in the back of this convertible, BMW, like sitting on top of you guys were like sitting on top of each other. But the world's best selfie came of that. And

Holly Haynes: 00:03:54

That's totally the world's best selfie. My husband is like, where are you? And what are you doing? And I'm like, Oh, don't worry. It's fine. It's all business. It's fine.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:04:03

Yeah, we totally have seatbelts on we.

Holly Haynes: 00:04:06

It's totally fine. It was so fun, though.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:04:09

Yes. And we drove like three blocks to a hotel to have like the most expensive cocktail of my life. So that's the story of Nashville.

Holly Haynes: 00:04:16

That's amazing. It was super fun and a great story.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:04:19

So good. And so I'm really excited to bring you on the show today. Because when we met and I knew we just like connected for summary reasons. First of all, you are a big advocate for not relying on social media to build your business. So I was like, yes, thank you high five to that. And we've been having some conversations behind the scenes about what we're going to talk about today. Because, of course, we could have many different strategy conversations about how to grow your business like and I will let you please tell us about like what your business is and how, what it looks like right now. But what we are going to get into is how you got there and how you help other people to get there in a minute. way more realistic way than what we are fed in this world. So I think that part of the whole, why I am really an advocate for not relying on social media is that it's just hard to even like know what you're seeing is true. And really understanding what people are going through in the context of how they built the business that they have, which I'm not going to deny that people have really amazing businesses. And isn't it amazing to think about the opportunities that we have as business owners, when we can create whatever we want? But also, what are the expectations that we are starting to kind of believe so let's start with with you and what you do, and like how it all came to be for Holly.

Holly Haynes: 00:05:47

Yeah, such a fun intro. Um, so my name is Holly Haynes. I'm in Columbus, Ohio, and I started my business just four years ago. And so I have a 22 year corporate strategy background. So I was working for Fortune 500 companies, really, I don't know, the best way I can describe it is like really complex problems. So they would bring us in as consultants, and they would be like, we're $50 million past budget, and we're not getting the, you know, insert goal that we want, like, fix it for us. So we would come in with our team and fix it. And so I was really deep into strategy. And in January of 2020, I was like, you know, I don't know if I want to do this for the next 10 years, which is honestly, like, one of my favorite questions to ask when I coach people is can you do what you're doing for the next 10 years? And my answer was like a hard No, because I was working a ton of hours, I have twin girls, at the time, they were five maybe. And I feel like time just like blurs together. They were little, the pandemic hadn't started yet. And I was like, I really just like want to do something where I feel like I'm making a bigger impact. And like, if I have to leave the house, it should feel really good that I'm leaving the house. And so that's like the short version of the story. I ended up hiring a coach before I even had a business. And I was like, I've got the business background. I need you to show me like the online stuff like because I don't know Instagram, I don't know, funnels, like I don't know, these things like show me the way. And so what came out of it was the podcast called Crush the rush, which started really, really messy. Like I did it in my basement. I didn't do it the way that I would do it. Now there was no trailer there was no like multi episode release. Like it was just it was just me talking. I thought that I was going to be a productivity expert. So if you listen to some of my earlier podcast is all about like time blocking and Pomodoro method. And I got really bored with it super fast. And then I was like, You know what I love strategy. Like I love it. I love designing product suites, I'm really good at like solving really complex problems. And so I ended up flipping my whole business model and teaching business strategy, but in a way that's like super, super, super simple because I was still working full time. I didn't have 100 hours to be on social media. I'm not on Tik Tok. I'm not making dancing reels. And so it's like, I had to figure out a strategy that worked for our lifestyle, and then in turn, started teaching it. So that's how we got started.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:08:26

Yes. And so. So let me know this. You were building your business while you were still working in your corporate job. And then you kind of made a transition. Can you walk us through that?

Holly Haynes: 00:08:38

Yeah, so I so we're, we've been in business for years, two of those years, I was working full time, I will also share that that was in the middle of the pandemic, and my kids were in kindergarten. So it was a lot. I mean, like I always say like, the phase that I never want to repeat is like your home at the time, my corporate job didn't really know how to work remotely. What sounds so weird, but it was a nonprofit. And that like wasn't their thing. So we're like figuring that out. My husband and I are like, Oh my god, like you learn everything you need to know in life and kindergarten. And now we're responsible for it because they're home. And I had this grand idea of I'm going to start I was already in this like, Oh, I'm going to start a business. So I thought at the beginning, the very first thing that I should do is launch a course because that's what everyone thinks that they should do. And the interesting thing is I don't like courses. I like have rules that I set like you can't buy courses because I won't watch them. Like I just want to talk to people and answer questions. But I kept seeing like, oh, launch course launch a course you know get passive income. This is like the thing, right? So I did it and keep in mind I had zero audience. I use Facebook for like friends, right? My Instagram was like nothing. I maybe had 20 people on my email list. So we're like starting with nothing. And I launched Shit. Luckily, I sold for at like $250. But keep in mind, I had already hired a coach. So we're like, I don't know, $9,000 in the hole, or something after launching a course, which, as you know, creating a course and launching, it takes a lot of work. And I was like this, this is not gonna work like this is not sustainable. It's not that it wasn't good work. It just didn't like align with what I liked to do. And I feel like you attract people who liked to do what you like to do, right? Like, I feel like that's how we sort of got to know each other. And so I took a minute and I was like, I can't, I can't do this. So I dabbled in like a couple of one on ones. And like, really gathered some feedback. I use the podcast as like data. So what episodes are the most downloaded? What are what topics are people asking for? And then I flipped my whole model and actually came out with our mastermind. So I was maybe nine months in, before I actually made a profit in our business. Because I sort of did the course route. And then I was like, this isn't what I like. And then I was like, wait, I have 22 years of experience, why don't I do something more high ticket, I'm not going to help 1000s of people at once. But if I could help five women who really could like change their life, like that feels way more exciting to me. And it knock on wood? It's done really? Well. We've had it for all four years so far.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:11:28

Okay, this is amazing. And I want to like unpack a little bit about the whole, like, it's the narrative that we hear, right? Yeah. And when you're starting to create a business, and you're looking at online strategies, and whether or not your business is actually like a fully online business or like a hybrid. I know a lot of people who listen here and who are in my world do you have like in person and online kind of together, which I love because yeah, certification. And also, hello, you do live in a place and there are people there. Yeah. And so we started thinking like, Okay, this is the way this is how, you know, the big names have, have made all of their money, and they have done a really great job, and they've built these programs and, and so if I just build a digital course, then I will be able to, like earn the money that I want to earn. And you're pointing out so many important factors there around like the ability to have success with that, especially quickly, is a lot to do with your tenure, you're building an out of an audience, your ability to identify the right people, and to have actual people to sell it to. So this whole, like the content that we were talking about behind the scenes was like, let's talk about the first time that you've ever tried something versus time because all we hear from most people, online is the best time. And even if they had like, I'm sure you know, who I'm talking about who had like a $273 first launch and now makes $10 million when she launches. It's been a big, there's been a lot of things that have happened in between there, right?

Holly Haynes: 00:13:09

Yeah, I mean, there's so many things to unpack. And I think the first one is, I should have looking back, like because I don't consume courses. Like it didn't make sense for me to create a course I just thought because everyone else was doing it. So I always say like, you don't have to copy and paste someone else's business model, like, what feels good to you. Like, that's where I would start. And then my second sort of tip is, you know, I did a handful of one on ones, even if you don't want to do one on ones long term. And if you're a product based business, like do a focus group, or like, get some feedback, but figure out what people are asking and then build the thing that feels good to you. But it's what they're asking for. So I always say like, give them what they want, and then teach them what they need. Right? So if I come in, and I say like, well, I'm going to teach you 17 modules of strategy. So you can build, like a seven figure roadmap, people are like, I don't want to do that. But if I could say, Hey, I'm going to teach you an income stacking strategy. So you could create three products with what you have. They're like, Oh, okay, that's different, right? So it's like listening to your audience, and like, what they're asking for it and then creating the thing. Even if behind the scenes, you're teaching something like that's a little different. I mean, still deliver on what you said, but you're showing them like, hey, I can teach you this. But also, you need this too. And so I think for me, that was like, lesson number one. And then lesson number two, when you learn from and all of us do like some of the big names. They have, like hundreds of people on their team. Like I'm listening to this podcast right now. And it's, I can't remember what it's called. It's like marketing, muck, Muck rock or muck rack or something. And it's like the family tree of Tony Robbins. It's fascinating. But basically, it's sharing like, hey, they have 17 people also promoting their program and they have, you know, millions of followers like It's like apples to oranges. And so I think For me, I just had to realize, well, let's say I have 100 people on my email list, the typical conversion rate is one person. And I think when I learned that I was like, Oh, this is like really different than maybe what I thought. And so that's how I got so into one, let's deliver something of what people are asking so that my conversion rates higher, even with a small audience. But also, I gotta build an audience, like, that's where my focus, and I think that's where you and I align is, you really got to think about like building the right community and the right audience, so that they do want to purchase your offers. And it does make sense.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:15:34

Oh, yes, I love all that so much. And the first thing that that you're saying there is listen to people. And so I know that where a lot of people can get stuck is like, what? I don't have anyone to talk to me. Yeah. So this is like a whole chicken and egg situation like how do you find the people to get the input when you don't have the audience? And you're supposed to be building the audience? And you don't know what you should be saying? Because you don't have that kind of input?

Holly Haynes: 00:16:03

Yeah, I mean, you have to just start and I know, that's like the lesson that no one wants to hear my best recommendation is, you probably have somebody in your world, you just don't realize it. So like, for me, it was like, Okay, I've worked with some really amazing women over the last 20 years of my career, I'm going to go to them. And I'm going to ask them like, hey, what when you think of like, what I do on a day to day basis, like, what do you think of like, what words come to mind? Or if you're gonna hire me for something like, what would you hire me for? And so I think sometimes we think that we have zero experience. But we really do have like, a lot of life experience. And there's people around us, that might not be people that would hire us, but people that are friends or that we've networked with, we could start to ask questions. And then I think, you know, the next step is just being really clear on who you serve. And making sure I would say like, busy mom is not like a statement. Right? So like, be super clear on who you serve. And then you you've got to like, put yourself out there. I mean, you've got to start something, maybe it's a blog, maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's a, if you want to have an Instagram account, right? Like you've got to start. So yeah, but somebody's gonna pay attention. And it is slow at the beginning. But I think they're, I mean, I know you talk about a lot like there's a lot of things that you can do behind the scenes between like networking, and press, and PR, and all these things where maybe you get 10 eyes on you or 15 eyes on you. And then because your messaging is correct, and you've done the research behind the scenes of what you're really good at, people start paying attention.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:17:41

Yeah, for sure. Oh, my gosh, I don't even know where to like follow up from that, because you're giving such such good advice there, as well. And just like the whole, you do need to move forward and start something and tweak. And also you said it can be slow at the beginning. But then I'm like, but you said like within nine months, you had like a mastermind. And I think that's amazing, too.

Holly Haynes: 00:18:06

Yeah, here's the thing that my mastermind at the beginning was 11 people, right? So it goes back to the numbers of like, okay, if I have 100 people on my email list, which I would consider big at the time, and I could find 11 people that I could help like, that's really good. So I think sometimes we forget that, like, the micro numbers are actually okay, as long as you're serving the people in the way that's going to help them the most.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:18:34

Yeah. And then sometimes a lot of people feels like that's so many. It's all perspective.

Holly Haynes: 00:18:42

It is all it really is all perspective. But I don't even say like, I've got a couple of clients, we have a program called anti social school. And I have a couple clients who I'm like, do a local event, invite five people that you think you can help teach something and ask their feedback, because they probably have five friends, they all bring friends, then you have like 20 people on your email list. Like I feel like it doesn't have to be this like complicated. I mean, I teach like create a lead magnet and do all the things but like, sometimes it can just be an organic conversation that turns into, I'm going to ask questions, and then that turns into, oh, I have 10 people asking me about this. I'm going to create something to help them. Mm hmm.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:19:26

Yes. And because you're putting the effort into like something so much more direct with the audience that you're trying to reach versus, you know, doing the behind the scenes stuff that we think that we're supposed to do, like I'm going to spend three weeks making a lead magnet and pull my hair out trying to figure out the technology to get it set up and then realize that I have to get eyeballs on that lead magnet and figure out how am I going to do that. And then you made me start Facebook ads that cost you 1000s of dollars in case you never went to a room of people in any of those situations,

Holly Haynes: 00:20:03

Yeah, well, I mean, I do love a good lead magnet, I call them mega magnets, because I say that, you know, sending people a PDF isn't going to cut it anymore. So like, wow them, like make it like a wow factor. But even to create that, you've got to have the conversations to understand, what do people want? Like? What are the trends going on? What are you seeing what's helped you the most? What's your story, and then put that into place?

Kelly Sinclair: 00:20:30

Okay, so it yes, all of these things. And so I just want to like tie this all together by going Yeah, talked about like the beginning, and where you started and the results, kind of from your first launch and what you thought you should be doing? Let's talk about, like, what your business looks like now, and why you feel that it's, like really successful for you.

Holly Haynes: 00:20:53

Yeah, well, I mean, I would say, success is different for everyone. But I was able to quit my corporate job. So that feels like a good win to me. And I would say success, for me is actually our schedule, our income is important. But for me, it's being able to like, you know, go to my kids activities during the day to volunteer at their classroom to take them to dance class to put them on and off the bus. Because like I couldn't do that before. So that's, you know, I always say like, you can have two goals, you can have an income goal, but then also have like a non monetary goal of like, well, how would it feel maybe if you made a little bit less money, but actually had free time to like, go to a yoga class, or I did a Pilates class this morning? Like what, you know, what does that look like? I didn't start my day till 11 o'clock today in the corporate world that is like, Oh my God, right? Yes. So that would be the first thing. The second thing is, is we used the mastermind, again, as data. So like, I'm a big fan of listening to your audience, like watching the trends looking at the numbers. And so we build our product suite based on what people asked in the mastermind. So now I have 11 people that are like really invested. I'm working with them for six months. But I have other people who are like, I just, you know, I can't make that kind of investment. And I didn't have anything else for them to go to. So it's like, okay, because I launched this thing and got feedback. Now I'm going to create a container, where if they can't do the mastermind, they can do our membership. And so then I launched our membership. And then I kept getting a lot of questions of like, well, how did you design this? I use social media. But I use it in a very different way, where it's like, pretty much all repurposed. And like, my social media account has gone down multiple times, like, I it's just not like it's not a driver for us. Like, how did you do that? And so then we created a program of teaching people how to do that. And so I've just really gone through and said, what are people asking? How do I create that now it's in alignment with what I teach, right? Like you don't like change your, your niche or anything like that, but, and then we just kind of worked backwards. So we started, we started low, we knew the course would work, then we flipped the model. And then we like broke it down to help people at different levels, like beginner, intermediate, and advanced. And so now, I mean, it took four years for this to get built. But now I can like pick and choose based on our schedule. Okay, what is what makes sense to launch right now, based on what's going on in our schedule? What's going on in other people's worlds? What would be the most helpful now and so now we've got this product suite that I can sort of build upon, but it's all based on feedback.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:23:34

And I think it's so interesting, actually, that you ended up starting out with the high ticket thing, because

Holly Haynes: 00:23:42

kind of scary, like, like, did I really do that? But yes, I did.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:23:47

Yeah, because there's so many, like, I'm gonna just tell you all the things that would sabotage me from doing now, which there's like, well, I don't have enough reputation yet. I don't have a big enough audience yet. I haven't, like people aren't gonna start by paying me like five figures, they're gonna want to start by having a taste of something like all of these beliefs that we have. Right? And so is that like, one of the things that you teach to the people in your mastermind to start your model that way?

Holly Haynes: 00:24:14

Well, it does depend, it depends if you have an audience, because I would say if you have a really large audience, you can actually start the opposite way and be successful. But most people don't have a large audience. And then they get frustrated when they're like, Well, I sold 10 $27 horses or whatever, which is great. 10 is great, but what is that $270? I mean, that doesn't cover like a trip to target at these days. So I mean, I'd be extreme but it's like, so you really have to think about like, what are your income goals? What are your schedule goals and then like work backwards into, okay, am I just in a season where I want to test some things out and it's fine, that is $27 And maybe it makes sense, or am I in a season where I want to We're at my corporate job and I need to like, move fast, then it might look different.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:25:05

Mm hmm. And I love that too, that you're acknowledging every everybody's got a different path. And it's going to be based on your own goals and what's in alignment for you, and so many ways, because that's another thing that I think that he like, misrepresented in the online space, right that like, this is the way and follow my exact method. And if you follow my method, then you will get these results. And like, I totally get that people are selling that because it did work for them. But also, I mean, you've had over 20 years of corporate experience with different clients, I've over 15 years, I've never written the same plan twice.

Holly Haynes: 00:25:45

Right, exactly. Right. But I think people forget what you just said, like you have 15 years experience like us that. Like, that's experience, right. Like, that's what sells whatever the thing is, it's not like the last, you know, 30 days that you were on Instagram, it's like the experience that you've had, helping other clients. And I think people forget that they have all this life experience. Like I always use the my girls, the twins as an example. Because it's like, when I had twins, they like all the stuff that exists with like kids and babies just feels very different now. And I was like, I would pay serious money if I could just talk to another mom that had twin girls, because all the like baby books and all the like, things that you would buy, like nobody talks about twins, like and they're much more common now than they were like, 10 years ago. But I was like, well, this doesn't work for me like this. I don't know how to carry two car seats, like at one time, like how, what do you do at Target? How do you put things like, how do you where do you put your groceries, right? And so I would pay money to just talk to somebody with that experience. And so I feel like, that's where you can make money is because people want your real life experience. And I think we forget that we have it.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:26:57

Oh, yeah, we were like, I'm a new entrepreneur and everything is reset. Yeah, back to zero because you made a pivot or changed your career path. Like sure there's a bit of a, like, there's the other things around running a business that you need to figure out, which maybe are new to you. But that doesn't negate the the work and the and, and I'm telling you, I'll tell you this, too. I see so many of the people online who was like my story is, I struggled with something, I figured out how to fix it. And now I'm going to teach you how to do it. And I'm like, Well, I just went to school and got a degree and then worked in a corporate and so that somehow that doesn't count as much as scrappy. I figured it out myself pathway story.

Holly Haynes: 00:27:44

Yeah. But I would argue like if you are in corporate or you have had like significant experience, like you've had some scrappy moments, I'm sure the which make really good stories. And I feel like we forget that or we don't give ourselves enough credit for the experience that we've had.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:28:00

Mm hmm. Oh, my gosh, yes. Well, thank you so much for helping shed some light on like the reality behind the scenes in what like, and just really empowering people to build the business our own way. Is there any like final words of wisdom that you want to share? As we're wrapping up?

Holly Haynes: 00:28:18

Oh, gosh, words of wisdom. So I have this a bunch of quotes on my board. And one of my favorites is you control your energy, not the outcome. And I feel like that's really important, especially if you're like a new entrepreneur, like we were talking about, like, well, I don't have anyone to talk to you. And how do I build an audience? I only have five people on my email list. Well, what have you just focused on your actions like, okay, every day, I'm going to do two things to get in front of a different audience. Like maybe I'm gonna go to a networking event, maybe I'm gonna post something, maybe I'm gonna ask a friend like what they think of XYZ, right? So I'm always like, I can't control what people's what people decide. But I can control my actions. And I feel like the consistency over that I always say consistency, Trump's talent, like most people won't be consistent with their actions. So if you can be consistent, and you can be like, Okay, I have an idea. I'm going to gather data, I'm going to implement something, I'm going to look at the data, I'm going to implement something else, like eventually, you will get the momentum, but most people quit before they see that. So that's one of my favorites. Oh, that's so good. And it really like underscores the whole belief system that we have that things happen quickly. And if they don't, then we should change what we're doing entirely and throw it in the garbage and start again, because I feel like most people quit and they're like, so close, right? Like they're so close to like, the next thing like our podcast growth was like teeny, teeny, tiny. And then all of a sudden, like one week one episode hit and it was like, off the chart. I didn't do anything differently. I still do the same thing today that I did four years ago, but it's just like, consistent over time.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:29:59

Hmm. Hmm, such a good reminder. I'm taking that personal day too. So thank you so much, Holly. Tell everyone how to hang out with you. Yeah.

Holly Haynes: 00:30:09

So I would recommend if you go to Holly Marie haynes.com, forward slash social, I have our whole I call it our anti social framework. And it basically walks you through, like, how to say who you are some of the things we talked about, about introducing yourself getting in the right room. It's a private podcast, because I love podcasting. And then you can find me and Kelly is on there as well on the crush Suraj podcast.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:30:35

Yay. All right. Thank you so much, Holly.

Holly Haynes: 00:30:38

Thank you.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:30:41

You did it. You just listen to another episode of the Entrepreneur School Podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prep dinner, or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here. I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode, and tagging us on Instagram, head to entrepreneur school.ca for tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community. And until next time, go out there and do the thing.