Nicaila Matthews Okome 0:02

You're listening to side hustle Pro, the podcast that teaches you to build and grow your side hustle from passion project to profitable business. And I'm your host Nicaila Matthews Okome. So let's get started.

Welcome, welcome back to the show. It's Nicaila here and today I have a really exciting and powerful episode with Rachel Rodgers. Rachel, if you don't know is a woman of color, a mother of four and a seven figure business owner in that order. This is in her own words. Rachel started her career working on the hill with nonprofits, federal judges, and Hillary Clinton. When Rachel realize that changing the world is easier when you have some cash in your bank account, she decided to build a million dollar business and then teach other women how to do the same. Rachel is the creator of the Hello seven podcasts, and the founder of we should all be millionaires. So club, her book we should all be millionaires is a women's guide to earning more building wealth and gaining economic power. Every week, her no BS business and life advice gets delivered to over 125,000 fans and her visionary guidance for female entrepreneurs has been featured in time Forbes entrepreneur, Fast Company, the Washington Post, and more. I really love this episode, you guys. The few solo episodes ago, I talked about what I learned from reading this book, how it was suggested to me by my sisters, and how I got so much out of it. And honestly, it's too much to even cover in the episode. So I hope you do pick up the book and read it. But we touch on what I felt was the most important thing, which is the stories that we tell ourselves that prevent us from being millionaires, that make us think that being a millionaire is a bad thing, that it's negative, it's a negative thing to think about money and to want more money in your life. Now, I know not everyone struggles with this, but a lot of people do. And it's time that we confront that head on. So I love this conversation with Rachel for that. And also, she even puts me in the hot seat. Okay, so I'm letting you guys in, I am leaving that in the episode. So you can see that I too, am continuing to grow. I confront new challenges at each level. And she forced me to confront the ways that I am restricting my own growth as a business owner. It's something that I'm working through. And we all need to work through our individual things. So let's get right into it. I can't wait for you guys to hear this. So let's go. Rachel, thank you for being here.

Rachel Rodgers 2:41

Thank you so much for having me.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 2:43

I'm excited to talk to you. Yes. So as you know, I was already a huge fan of your book, read it cover to cover after my sister has recommended it. So we do the sister business Saturdays once a month, and it was a topic of conversation for one of those. And once I went through it, I really really got a lot of gems out of it. And so I want to make sure you guys, you guys listening get this as well. So before we even talk about your background, you said something in your book, we should all be millionaires, you right? Before we start to build wealth, we have to heal our relationship with money. What did you mean by that?

Rachel Rodgers 3:20

Yes, well, because the thing is, I see it. So I've been a business coach for a long time, right? So working with 1000s of entrepreneurs over over the years, I've been an entrepreneur for 12 years. And what I've learned from that journey is you can have all the right action steps and all the strategies and that's what my clients say, give me the strategy. What's the strategy? Let me just run the place, right? And so I'm like, Okay, here's the strategy, and then they don't do it as Why didn't you do it? Well, because you have some belief in your head that's stopping you from taking action. Right? So it's like, we got to really look at what is our relationship to money? What are our beliefs around money? I often I think that some of the common ones are, we believe that making money is hard. We believe that we're gonna lose friends or family members when we make money, like people will stop wanting to, you know, be our friend and hang out with us. You know, I think we changed. Exactly, exactly, they're gonna we're gonna have more haters. And honestly, some of those things are absolutely true, they are going to happen and does that mean that you're not going to reach your full potential because somebody might be mad or somebody might be might feel away right? And so we really have to look at and like what stories did we have as a kid right? But like what you know that wealthy people or mean, or wealthy people are jerks, right? Like what what do we really believe about money? And what do we believe the impact of money is going to be on our lives? We have to evaluate that journal on it really discover, why do I have discomfort when I start winning? Because the truth is, right, we're accustomed to struggle. So we're very comfortable struggling and we, you know, we start winning, and then we bring it back down to struggles so that we can stay where we're comfortable. And the only way to, you know break through that is to really evaluate what are the beliefs that I that I hold Oops. And how can I challenge those beliefs and really see them see it differently, right and change that thinking, because that thinking is what's keeping us small that thinking is keeping us from doing the work that we're here to do having the impact that we can have, right? Like, I just think about, the reason why I put myself on the cover of my book is so that little brown girls can see me and be like, Oh, I can be a millionaire too. And I don't have to be a celebrity. And I don't have to be an athlete, I'm gonna be a businesswoman. Right? And I can make a million dollars, right? So I wanted that to be more possible, am I going to let a belief that people are gonna hate on me stop me from inspiring all those people know what's more important, the mission is so much more important than holding on to that belief or holding on to those friends who are haters, right on the down low, like, we have to really look at. And it's like, of course, we have a messed up relationship with money. Look at the history of this country, where we come from, and the legacy we are inheriting. Right, so we have to look at that and evaluate that and start to heal that. And we have to look at one of the things I started doing to heal my relationship with money is studying business people, black business, people in history in American history, right? We don't learn that in school. You know what I mean? And so I started studying that and looking at Madam CJ Walker and other historical figures that build amazing businesses that had a great impact on their community. So I can say like, oh, this is my legacy. This is my legacy, not just slavery, right? Not just all these other horrible atrocities that took place. But that's part of my legacy, too. How can I own that piece of it as well?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 6:30

Right, right. And I, that part of the book resonated with me. And I'm glad that you started out with that. Because I'm not someone who would say, Oh, I struggle with, you know, thinking about money or thinking that oh, I'm doing well. So now I need to self sabotage. I don't necessarily struggle with that. And I know some of you guys probably don't, either. But as someone who is a believer or a Christian, there were times when as a business owner, you have to think about money a lot, you got to start planning, you have to think about what what do I want out of my life? And how am I going to get there. And so as you start to have to wake up every day thinking about money, you start to feel this dual mind of, and you start to think about those things like oh, money is the root of all evil and all those messages that we were taught. Yeah, but that is not true. Like you do not money is not a bad thing. You are not more virtuous by remaining poor, or by not being rich, keeping yourself in a lower economic status that does not make you more virtuous,

Rachel Rodgers 7:30

and your

Nicaila Matthews Okome 7:33

head on. Absolutely. Talk about that. So can you touch on that a little bit more to in terms of like, you know, you're like, you know, do you think God won't like this guy likes donations to do you think? If you don't care about money, do you also not care about paying your rent? You know what I mean? Like that?

Rachel Rodgers 7:52

Line? I care about your kids? Yeah. Do you not care about eating? Right? Do you not care about all of the resources that you have available to you? I think a lot of times, we think that we have a positive relationship with money, and we don't have these problems. But a lot of times, what's going to happen is as we grow, and as we have more wealth available to us, our subconscious might be at work, you know, so like, it'll be, you know, entrepreneurs will say things like, Well, I only want to do one on one work, I don't want to do things that are scalable, I only can be satisfied doing one on one work. And I'm like, is that true? Or is that a way for you to stay small? Let's actually look at the belief behind the belief and find out, like, why are you so committed to that? Why can't and they're like, Well, I can't my client can't possibly get a result of that one on one. Okay. So you're telling me that we can't get creative and think through? How can I make sure my clients get incredible results in a scalable setting? Let me brainstorm what that would look like. Let me at least do that first before I commit to putting a ceiling on my income, right? Yeah, no, the ceiling on the income comes first. Let's do that. Right. Give me all the I don't want to have employees. I don't want to manage people, right? Like, reasons is like, what's behind the reasons is probably some limiting belief about money that is keeping you small and preventing you from building the empire that you could be building and having the massive impact that you can be having look behind the surface stuff. I really dig in to say why and, you know, one of my favorite coaching tools, and one of my favorite ways to like uncover the limiting beliefs is just the five why's right ask why. And I do this with my clients, like, oh, I don't I don't want to do group stuff. Or I don't want to have employees. Why? Well, because I don't want to manage people. Why? Well, because I think it's gonna be hard. Why do you think that? Right? And just like, keep doing it until you get to the point? Well, this one time I did this, and you know, and I'm like, yeah, now we know what's really going on. Right? It's not stuff over here that you just keep repeating to yourself is really that stuff. And if we deal with that, we can break through to the next level, you know, so let's stop pretending that we don't like money. Let's stop pretending that we don't like nice things because we do. Right we have different nice things that we like some of us want fancy Should some of us want a nicer home, some of us want to send our kids to the best private school, right? Like, we want things. And the the desire is there for a reason. The desire drives us to go build things, right? So the more we have desires, and listen to those desires that motivates me to go grow my business, because I have a desire to have a ranch and build a farm, right? So that's one of the things that I want. So I have a desire to do that, that's going to motivate me to go build my business, the more I build my business, the more I impact other people and help them grow their businesses, right. So that desire is a God given desire, so that we will actually get our butts up and go do the work. Right? Don't think your desires are wrong, their desires aren't selfish, they are placed there for a reason, right to create, like, if we're going to be in His image, right? How you need to be a creator to so what are you going to go out there and create? And how are you going to make the world a better place with the resources that he's given you? We don't sit around and be like, money's bad. And let me hate on everybody, instead of going out there and using my gifts.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 10:55

Yeah. And that is my core belief with side hustling as well. So a lot of you guys, this is why I repeat the bootcamp because I find a lot of people are stuck at the beginning. And the all the thoughts you tell yourself about why you can't do it, oh, I'm gonna get fired. If they find out, Oh, my family will laugh at me or people will be like, What is she doing? All of these beliefs that you tell yourself? So one of the other things that you talk about in the book, I love this quote where you say, each day, you have to choose to reframe the thoughts that try to steal your peace. And instead, tell yourself a new story. Say, you know, I realize that the fears in my head are just stories that I tell myself, they are a prison that I have created to keep me from experiencing the disappointment of failure. They aren't true. Unless I continue to believe in them and then act on them and make them true, I can choose to believe something entirely different. Let's talk about the stories people tell themselves about money you go on to say so let's really understand the stories. We're telling ourselves, you guys and choose to think something different.

Yeah, so when did you become this all wise person? Rachel, how did you get started in entrepreneurship? I mean, now now you're you know, you're just killing it and doing all the things. But what was your background before creating Hello, seven?

Rachel Rodgers 12:24

Well, you know what's so funny? It's the most hilarious thing that I now teach people about money and talk about money. I'm like, I was the worst with money. I was the one that was overdrafting my bank account on a regular basis. I'm like, How is it that people come to me for expertise on this? This is bananas. Like, you know what God's plan, you just you don't know, right? Not Know what you're here for, right? No, no, no. But where I started was I went to law school while I went to college, I went to law school. And law school was a traumatizing experience. And I was because because it's really not created for people of color women, you know, and it's a very, like close knit. It's a very much a column of the old boys club. Right? So it's sort of designed so that you are uncomfortable if you're not one of them. And so a lot of my classmates was like, Oh, my dad's a judge, and my father's this, and I'm gonna do this after school. And it's all like who, you know. And I was completely unconnected, right? So I didn't have access to that. And I also just found like, we lawyers, right? We treat certain professions in this country, that they are better than others. And lawyers is one of them. And so like, you know, once they're in law school, they're like, Well, I'm going to be a lawyer. And so they start adopting this attitude of I'm better than everybody. It's like, lawyers and non lawyers. Right? It's like, the language that they use. And it's, I don't know, it's just very icky. You know, I didn't resonate with it. And I didn't like the people I didn't like lawyers. I just feel like it's a culture of practicing law is, is, is gross, frankly, very patriarchal, very sexist, very racist. It's all built in. And so I was experiencing that, but didn't know it. I didn't know and I didn't know how to name it. I just knew that it didn't feel good, you know, and I wanted to get away from all of it. So I did well in law school, but I by the end of it, I was like, I gotta get away from these people. I'm not here. I'm not going to even practice law, like, find me something else to do. And so I read The Four Hour Workweek, and I was like, Okay, let me start some side business. Right. So like, let me start my side hustle. And so I was clerking for a judge after law school, and I was like, I'm gonna start this t shirt business. And so I got like, you know, I found a designer, I paid for the designs, got the T shirts made, and then I realized, oh, in order to sell these, I got to actually have money for inventory. Right, I didn't know what to do next. And I didn't know who to call or asked and I was sheepish and feeling shy about my idea, right? So I like I wasn't gonna go be like, hey, who can help me with this? Right because I wasn't feeling myself at the time, although I wish I was right because I didn't have The confidence and so that T shirt business was not going to make it. And I was like, Well, I'm looking at all these law school loans, and how I'm going to pay them. And I'm like, you know, what do I could do, I'll just become an entrepreneur and I'll sell legal services, right? I'm qualified to practice law. Now I passed the bar. Let me just go start a law practice. So that's where I began, really out of necessity. I needed a job and I needed to not work for any, any lawyer. Yes, let me create my own freedom, because I'm not going to make it as some of these law firms with what they have going on up in there. So I just started my own practice and started working with entrepreneurs, because that's what interested me and honestly, I took whatever came in the door. In the beginning, I took family law cases, I took whatever I could get my hands on. And then, you know, slowly got focused on business law and doing IP law. And so that was that was my first business was my law practice.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 15:48

So did you side hustle with the law practice before doing that full time?

Rachel Rodgers 15:52

Um, well, what I did was my sights or my sight, and also really was because as a law clerk, you cannot like I couldn't have another I couldn't represent people. So I couldn't practice law because I had to be neutral, like the judge because I worked for him. And so I couldn't practice law as part of my contract and retain contracts. People don't assume that you can't do a side hustle, actually read your employment agreement and make sure it says that you can, because a lot of companies have moonlighting policies where you absolutely can, you know, it's just certain parameters. So anyway, for me, though, I couldn't do it. So what I did during that time was I got ready for it. So I was like, Okay, what's my marketing strategy gonna be? How do I set up the entity? Let me go talk to let me find some mentors that can help me if I run into troubles as I'm a new lawyer, right? Like, I was setting things up and getting ready to start my and literally, so my clerkship ended on and you do one year and the nuclear comes in the next year. So you get a one year contract, and you're gone. Right? Right. So I was like, great. Um, on September 1 2010, the day after I ended my clerkship, I started my practice. And I already had clients lined up and I was like, we can start on September 1, just give me a couple of weeks, you know, so I had already talked to people that I already knew, and said, like, Hey, do you need these services? I can help you. And some people would ask me, like, do you ever refer for attorney? And I'm like, for what? And they would say, well, I need a contract. Oh, I could do that for you. September 1, I'll see you that. That's what I did. And I had three clients on September 1, and love it, you know, hit the ground running.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 17:23

Yes. So what what was the experience like for you, as you were starting up, you said you took on any cases that you know, you could find that would come your way, but consistency wise, right. It's so hard when you're starting up to predict what your revenue will be month to month? How did you handle? Yeah,

Rachel Rodgers 17:40

so it was definitely feast or famine. I mean, I had, what I did was I actually downsized my whole life. So I owned a house. I rented it out and moved into a tiny basement apartment with my husband. We had a nice car, I gave up that lease got like a busted whatever. Nissan Altima really old with that, you know, 100,000 miles on it, that I bought for like $1,000. That's what we were driving that really downsize my life so that I could live off of peanuts while I was trying to get this off the ground. And so that was my strategy. I'm like, How can I reduce my stress level, let me rent out this house. Let me do all of these things and make my lifestyle much less so that we can manage it while we figure this out. And so that's what I did. And then I just was like, I sent an email to everybody I know. And then I sent, you know, postcards, and like little holiday cards to everybody I know and said, I have a law firm, here's what it's called, here's what we can do. Please, if I can help you please become a client. If you know somebody that can use my services, please spread the word. And I sent that out to like, 100 people. So I'm like, Who are 100 people that I know that are either my classmates or, you know, my old professors, my parents, friends, my aunties, everybody. Yeah, I think a lot of people skip that step. And it's like, no, no, the people who already know you, they're going to hire you first. You're gonna let them know that you're here and ask them for their help, which we're terrible.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 19:08

First referral. Yeah,

Rachel Rodgers 19:11

exactly. That's where all my clients came from. That's all where all my referrals came from. That first like six months, they all came from those initial emails that I sent out.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 19:20

I love it. I also did an initial email when I launched side hustle Pro and I talk about that all the time. Like you have to let your network know what you are doing so that they can tell people what you are doing when someone's looking for an attorney or whatever your service is.

Now, at some point, people started asking you for things outside of legal services. So when did you start to make the move into helping people with their money mindset, their business practices, and overall growing their own wealth?

Rachel Rodgers 20:00

Yes. So I practice law for about six to seven years. It was like a transition period that last year of because the law is like, you can't just be like, Oh, deuces, right? You have to finish up all of the work that you already are holding, they won't let you out, right? Like, get in trouble with the bar, you have to. So I was like, sort of winding up the coaching once I started saying yes to that, and winding down the law practice over a year's time. So I practice for like six or seven years that I have the law practice. And I grew it to almost a million dollars, it was just, you know, around 700,000 A year and in annual revenue, I had a team, I had two attorneys working for me, I had admin staff. And so I grew, I grew that business. And what I discovered during that time, is I'm a good salesperson. I really like talking to people, I really like helping, you know, I like our potential clients. I like hearing their stories, I like matching what we do to solve problems for them to remove the friction so they could do what they do. And I love that part. I hated drafting contracts. I hated doing trademarks, like I hated the actual legal work. And I got so good at it, that it became very boring to me, you know, like so repetitive, because it was mostly transactional legal work. I liked negotiating deals, I'd like saying what should go in the contract, but I don't want to be the one to actually draft it. Right. So, so that was my journey. And what happened was a lot of our entrepreneurial clients were like, Hey, how are you making so much money? How was your business? Are you hiring employees? Tell me what you're doing. And I was like, Oh, I'm just doing XYZ. And I would just give them business advice for free, like not realizing that that had value because my professional degree was in this. So that's the only thing I could sell in my mind. And then I had a mentor say to me, you need to start charging for that. Like, why are you giving that away for free? That's value. And so I'm like, really? So I was like, Okay, let me just try. Like, I think I started like saying, you can hire me for an hour? And I'll answer your questions, legal or business for like, I don't know, 250. Definitely undercharging eventually went up to like, $500, or whatever, to answer questions. And then finally, I was like, started to admit to myself, Oh, I actually want to just do this full time. Like, I actually love giving the business advice. I love strategizing. I love teaching people how to do what I've done, because so many people want to know. So let me teach that because at the time, too, all of the business advice was like, how to get to six figures. And I'm like, Oh, I've been there, done that. And also six figures, laying them off, like 100 grand, then I'm gonna do it. I'm like, let me tell you how to get at least 500,000 And then above. And what I was trying to do was crack seven figures. But I think the why wasn't is because I actually hated the work. So it's like I said, I wanted more clients, but I really didn't, because I didn't want to do the work, you know. So eventually, what happened was one of my associate, one of my associate attorneys had a friend who had a business. And she was trying to figure out how to stop touring around the country. She was like, I'm making $100,000 a year just under 100,000. And I need this income, but, but I have a little boy, and I don't want to tour around the country without him. Because that's what she had to do. She had like a course or a workshop that she would tour around all these different studios and teaching around the country. And she was like, I need to know how to like make money without doing this. And by that time, I had created a small business bodyguard, which was like that was be considered my side hustle. It was like a digital product that I would sell on the side. So I knew how to do a lot of things. And so I was like, Okay, I'll coach her. And so I charged her, I'm gonna say it was like six grand for like six months of coaching. Yeah, under charging. And she was sort of like my test case, I was like, let me see if this could work. So I just coached her for six months, we'd talk every two weeks, I'd tell her what to do. I gave her resources strategize with her. And by the end of it, she had a way more successful business. She grew her audience. She had an amazing new offer, she was making a lot more money, and she didn't have to tour anymore. And so she told all her friends, and then they started coming in. And I was like, I really liked this. So then I started thinking about the transition period. And it took me a while to say like, Okay, I don't have to do this anymore. But I had kids and I was the sole breadwinner, so I had to make that money. So I couldn't just close my practice and be like, I'm gonna do this thing over here. Because it sounds fun. I had to slowly wind down the law practice and scale up the business coaching and it took me like a year to do that. So

Nicaila Matthews Okome 24:17

once you were full time with that, did you immediately make it a course format? How did you scale that?

Rachel Rodgers 24:23

So I mean, I was just trying different things. And at the time, too, I had signed up for a coach certification because I wanted to be good at it, you know. And so I wanted like the tools, the coaching tools, I wanted to learn how to use them to help people with their mindset stuff that kind of gotten away because I could see I have the strategies and the marketing and I know what to do. But I want to make sure that I can help them get past the places that they're stuck. So I did a coach certification and then I just started trying different things. I hosted a retreats I did like one day events. I did one on one coaching I sold group coaching I mean I sold like eight different coaching packages that I was experimenting with short term courses, all the things wore myself all the way out. I'm tired just recounting it to you. So I've tried a lot of things. And then I had to figure out like, oh, doing all the thing is, it's not gonna work. You got too many babies for this child, right? Like, what's what, what's actually moving the needle, like, let's look at the data and say what's sold is exactly what I used to do in my law, practice what's sold the most, let's cut out all these services that don't sell or that require a lot of work. And that's not our best seller. Let's just focus on our best sellers and get rid of everything else and streamline, the less we do, the more money we make truly Yes. And so I was like, Okay, great. Let me do that with the business coaching. And so I started merging that and narrowing it down. And so I narrowed it down into first a course, and did this course and launched it and it did, okay. And then I was like, You know what, I'm going to launch a mastermind. And that's really what I launched. Once I did my course, which is called multiply, then that summer, I was like, Okay, this ain't it. This was this, that launch was exhausting. And now I got to deliver. And I'm like, I don't ever want to do that again. Because, you know, I was trying to do one of those big mega launches, we made 400,000, which was the most I've ever made and a launch but I was doing it mostly myself with my husband helping me. That was it. Because I had at this point, had offloaded all the attorneys on my team, the admins on my team had gone right, because they were they had got hired for a law firm, they weren't interested in this new thing. And so it was me and my husband, and I was like, I tired. I don't want to do all these coaching anymore. I don't want to do mega launches of these courses. That's exhausting. And so I was like, I'm gonna do a mastermind, I want to work with people long term. And so that's what I started Hello, seven with. And we had 50 people in it. And we made a couple million dollars, and it was great. And that's what we did up until the pandemic. So that was that that's the journey.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 26:52

What is a mastermind to you? So what does that entail? What does it mean?

Rachel Rodgers 26:57

Yes. So a mastermind is really just a group of entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses, and who want to grow like as in personal development. And they gather together to mind meld right to say, like, we all got different expertise. We all have different industries that we're in, we have creative ideas, let's gather together, Let's support each other. Let's create a network. Let's hire each other. Let's have each other on our podcasts and platforms, right? Yeah, let's help each other out. And you know, my structure was there's a group leader, right? So I know how to build a seven figure business. I'm going to teach y'all how to do that. And in the meantime, I'm going to sort of facilitate attract great people, for y'all to be connecting with each other and strategizing and partnering with each other. So to me, that's what a mastermind is, whether it's paid or unpaid. Yes, that's what it should look like, in my opinion.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 27:48

Got it. And there's a couple things I want to unpack. So first of all, I love that you talk about getting that coaching certification, because nowadays, too many people are labeling themselves business coach, and you know that there's a lot of gray area here.

Rachel Rodgers 28:05

Yes, there's a lot of gray area. As a side note, I do think coaching is mostly women, woman run business, and like woman run industry, there's a lot of women coaches, I would probably guess that there's a lot more women coaches than male coaches. And in fact, I think there's data. So I think when that happens, I think it's very easy to diminish something that women are doing, you know what I mean? That's fair. And so I feel like the coaching industry, yes, there are definitely legit complaints. But I also think it's devalued work, just like teaching is devalued, because mostly women do it. Yeah, so it's devalued. So I think we have to keep that in mind. Like, we should critique things, we should say, How could this be better? And also notice, notice our biases that are coming into play when we're analyzing that at the same time,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 28:53

and I think also that we should be more clear about what it entails. That's why I ask what's a mastermind, for example, because a lot of people don't know what these terms mean, what what is this? First of all, should get business coaching? Because I believe, right, you should side hustle for a bit. First, grow your business, because you can't expect to go from scratch. Or maybe you can you tell us to go from scratch to jumping into your mastermind and having a 7 million business that you haven't even validated is a good idea that there's a customer out there for this at all right? So there's phases of this. So who 100% should be looking for business coaching, like what's the prerequisite before you're ready for business coaching?

Rachel Rodgers 29:41

Yes. Okay. So full disclosure, right. When I started my business, I went, I started in September. By December I hired a business coach. So it didn't take me long to make that investment in myself. Now. I didn't hire like a one on one coach because I don't think I could have afforded it or I probably could have found a way

Nicaila Matthews Okome 29:59

but yeah, How much was your coach at the time was that like a course where it was,

Rachel Rodgers 30:03

I signed up for a retreat, and the retreat came with like a certain amount of coaching session group coaching sessions afterward. And so that was a $2,500 investment, which felt like an enormous amount of money. Yeah, of course. And it was, I did a $500 deposit. And that's all I could afford. I'm pretty sure I put that on a credit card. And then I was like, I don't know how I'm paying the next $500. But I got 30 days. So I'll figure it out. You know, and I did, I did figure it out. So to me, if you can get a mentor to help you who's already done it, and who can help you go faster? Do it, in my opinion, if you can afford it, do it. And if the cost of it is going to be debilitating to you being able to get the value and take the action, because it's so terrifying. Don't do it. Right. Right. But if you can have it, and I had mentors before that, right, so I assemble mentors, legal, like lawyer mentors who had their own solo practices, I like ask them to mentor me so that I had somebody I could learn from. So I always was very much like, How can I sell on my growth? How can I accelerate my learning? So like, how can we go faster? And if we can't get it in a book? Can we get it in a book? Can we get it in a course? Where can how can I learn so that I don't have to make the mistakes? And figure why am I reinventing the wheel when somebody's already made a wheel? Wheel?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 31:23

Sidebar guys, this is why I teach podcast coaching, right? Because you're coming into a much more saturated industry. Now. Why would you try to do it from scratch with like YouTube tutorials? When I can literally tell you what I've done? What's working? What's going on right now? Like, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Exactly. Business Coaching wise, are there certain type of businesses you work with? Like? Does it have to be online businesses? Are there like physical store owners and physical product businesses that you work with as well? Yeah,

Rachel Rodgers 31:52

I work with almost any kind of business. Like I don't really do manufacturing or kind of construction, like those areas. But I have retail businesses, product based businesses, a lot of professional services, online businesses, coaching businesses, consulting businesses, people who sell to corporate, we coach them all, because what I'm teaching them how to do with how to build a sustainable business. So what most people do in the especially in the online marketing world, they're teaching, marketing and sales. How do you sell stuff? And how do you make money and put up big numbers on, you know, on the revenue board, right? selling and marketing is super important. And I value that immensely. And I see myself as a saleswoman like that was that what I was good at? Right? In my practice? That's why I was a rainmaker right, I can bring the clients in. So that's super valuable. The sales and marketing, but most of them teach that and nothing else. So like, Okay, I got these clients, how do I get them results? How do I make sure the frappuccinos made the same every time? How do I scale this thing? How do we solve for the problems that are stopping us from growing and continue to grow and have major impact and not have the quality of the product diminish? Right? How do I build a team? How do I manage a team? How do I lead a team? These are all important questions that we should be asking. And nobody's talking about that we're all just talking about sales and marketing.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 33:10

That drives me bananas. So yeah, we get them in the door. And now what?

Rachel Rodgers 33:14

Now what, right? So to me, especially because I work with diverse entrepreneurs, my goal is for us to not have lifestyle businesses, if you want to lifestyle business school, there's nothing wrong with it, just know what you're building, right, you're building yourself a great job, whenever you're not there, you're not gonna make money, right, you're gonna, you're gonna have to step on the gas to get the the engine to go, and it's always gonna be your foot. And if your foot is not available stuff on that gas, there is no money, right? That's cool, right? Nothing wrong with that just know what you're building. However, if you want to build an asset that lives and extends beyond you, and has major impact, and can provide a great place to work for people, and can be something you sell and give to your kids or your kids come in and run this business in the future, or whatever, there's so many different scenarios, you want to build a real asset that has value when you don't show up, I don't have to show up to my booth today, I don't have to show up my business for value to be created for our clients and for us to sell things and deliver things. Right. And that is the ultimate freedom to me that is an asset that is worth millions. And so I want to build that and I want to teach people how to build that. So that's what we do we teach you how to build a sustainable business with systems and process and team and proper operations and something that has a strong valuation should you decide to sell it in the future or as part of your network that you can extract value from at any time for whatever it is that you want to sell, or buy or anything that you want to do. So to me, that's what I'm trying to teach people how to do not be you know, just sell things all day and then sell more things and create more things and sell those things too. It's like let me have a new offer every five minutes that drives

Nicaila Matthews Okome 34:54

I mean, you're definitely striking a chord with me because I think that nowadays, lifestyle Businesses are presented as something that's so appealing and attractive, and a low hanging fruit way to start making money. But what's the long term plan? And one of the Smart Things I like when people do is create a asset, while they have already had a built in audience because they were this, you know, lifestyle business. So I think both things can work hand in hand strategically. Now, you mentioned before the pandemic, you were doing the mastermind. And I know that there was a moment you talked about it in the book where you're like, what are we going to do? You know, people are strapped, like, they can't afford these services. What shifted in your business, once the pandemic hit?

Rachel Rodgers 35:47

So what happened was that, you know, once it was declared a pandemic, that was a very scary time, a lot of people were like, I can't go to work. I don't know what's going to happen, people who had more vulnerable positions, or certain industries were hit really hard. And so suddenly, income was like, dried up overnight, right? economic markets are not moving suddenly, right. And so all these people, a lot of my clients, either they were in the travel industry, or they were in certain industries that got hit hard, and they're, you know, or they were forced to close their doors. And so they literally couldn't sell anything. Or, you know, like one of my clients was doing grant writing for, you know, health professionals, helping them get, you know, grants. And so all of that was stopped overnight, right. So like, suddenly, they're not getting new clients anymore. Their clients are calling them saying, I can't pay. And so then my clients were calling me saying, I can't pay, right, or they're their partners had lost their income. And they're like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta close, right, right, and tighten up the belt, right? Because we don't know what's gonna happen. And it's understandable. That's an understandable reaction. And so we had a lot of that happen with our clients. And we were like, What are we going to do? Right? Like, what's, what's the next step? We were actually on the cusp of a transition. Anyway, we had just come back from doing like a deep dive with a coach in San Francisco. And we were going to figure out this new strategy that we were about to deploy that was all based on live events. And so we have this whole plan, this game plan that we had created over a week with a facilitator, we came back and the pandemic happened literally a week later. And so we're like, well, scrap that. money and time. Clients, and so we were like, okay, so most a lot of March was spent, like in the tub crying, you know?

Yeah, I'm about to do. So. That's that's what was happening. But this speaks to the power of a team, right? I had a salesperson on my team. And she was like, listen, I know, that is scary right now. And nobody's buying nobody's booking sales calls anymore. Like I know, scary. However, we have a lot of passionate people that follow us on our what podcast, our podcast audience loves us. And they want to work with us. They could never afford the mastermind, because it was like a high end offer. But is there something that we could offer them? Because we were a very streamlined business? So we had the mastermind and that was it, you could work with us in a mastermind setting. We really worked with people who are at six figures I'm trying to get to seven, that's our focus was

Nicaila Matthews Okome 38:21

how much was the mastermind, because he said most people couldn't afford it.

Rachel Rodgers 38:24

25 grand 25 Okay, and they could pay like $2,000 a month. And we helped them rapidly grow. So it was 100% worth it. And honestly, I was under charging, especially for how much we over delivered. But yeah, but so my salesperson came to me and said, we need to do something for this podcast audience because they love us. They are passionate and they want they need help. But we're not offering anything to them at the price points that they that they would that would make sense for them. And so we're like, okay, let's, let's come up with something. We had a big Facebook group at the time. So we went to the Facebook group, and we said, like, Hey, y'all, well, if I can help you with anything, what would it be? And they put, I want you to help me with branding, I want you to help me with, you know, growing my revenue, I wanna, I wanna, I need to figure out sales, I need to figure out how to hire an assistant, right? Like, everything they wanted help with. And I was like, okay, so I need to create an offer with literally everything. And so then I got the idea. And here's what I figured out, what I figured out is that a mastermind and a membership are exactly the same thing. It's just how many people are in it. So if the mastermind has 50 people in it, or less, or 100 people or less, is pretty exclusive, you get a lot of access to the person teaching it. But you also you know, it's a small group, you can really have deep relationships with each other. A membership community is essentially the same, right? You could have group coaching, you could have content that you're teaching, it can be very similar structure, except you have a lot more people in it and the price point is lower. And so when I saw people's responses, and I just you know, to me if you don't know what to do, go to your customers and ask them what they need from you. Like that's, that's where you find the answers. And so I went to my customers They said what they needed. I was like, let's try a membership community. And mind you before this, I hated memberships. I was like, I'm never doing a membership membership. So of course, that's exactly what I wound up doing. And so we launched a membership in April of 2020. We just basically took our Member site that was focused on the mastermind, not ever, we didn't give them access to everything, but we gave them access to specific things that we knew would help them in the stage that they were at. And we, you know, had one group coaching call a week. That's it, and this community, and we had 300 people joined right away. And so off the bat, it was a million dollar offer, because there were 300 people on a recurring, and it was 295 a month for 12 months. 12 months. Yeah, so it was a 12 month, right. And we there was no commitment, but people stayed long term. And then, you know, some things happened that caused it to grow even more the following month. So we had 1000 People join in, in June. And so by that time, we had 1300 People now, and then it's grown to 2500. And that's where it's at right now,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 41:02

this is so interesting, because I too, felt that way about memberships. At some point, I'm just like, it just it also seemed like a lot of work. You know, are you the one teach a lot? Or are you You know, it's different members of the team?

Rachel Rodgers 41:18

Yeah, so no, we have different members of the team that are in there teaching and coaching. And I'm not even I don't coach that often in it anymore. But we have an incredible team of people that teach and coach in it. And we have all this amazing content that's available to them and a pathway for them to follow to help them it's the same thing helping them go from zero to seven figures. And so we just created a structure that makes sense. And the community, like just having the community of people where you can have a place to celebrate your wins to say, Hey, I'm struggling with this. Can somebody help me? And so now and now we're incorporating live events? So it's, it's like, clearly there was a need for it? And oh, yeah, you know, once I realized that, but the reason why I hated memberships, though, is because I felt like people always do them because they're cheap, right? So it's like, it's inexpensive. It's the safer thing to do as an entrepreneur, let me just charge $95 A month because we think, Oh, I don't have to sell it. If it's $95 a month, people just buy it. No, they won't, you still got to sell it, you still got to sell them on it. So it's like stop trying to avoid making like having to sell and just charge what this thing is worth instead of. So even with a membership, we're charging premium prices at 295. Right? We're not and that price is about to go up to because it's been a while. But we chart, we charge premium because I want people to pay attention. I want them to be focused, I want them to get the results. And I find that they pay more, all those things happened.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 42:52

Yes, and how do you feel about hiring? What are your tips there? Because obviously, you have a big promise. And people are expecting a lot. And now you have to make sure that they receive that from people who are not you. Yep. How do you accomplish that?

Rachel Rodgers 43:09

Yeah. So um, hiring is usually something that we're terrible at as entrepreneurs because we've never done it right. Unless you came from an HR background, right? You probably suck at hiring. Right? So it's like, it's an it's something you have to conquer. It's something that you have to learn how to get good at and how do you do it practice? Right? And so, to me, it's like, Okay, here's what I think the key to hiring is honesty, right? being super honest about what is it that I need? And what is it that I value? What are the company values in my culture, right? In the mind, company culture and being clear about that, and communicating that so that people who that's a fit for can find you. And then once you're interviewing people learning how to interview and get behind the mask, right? Ask the questions that they're not expecting, kind of catch them off guard a little bit, create an environment where they feel safe, being totally honest. And having them go through a couple of rounds of interviews, make them jump through a couple of hoops to make sure they really want this job. You know, it's almost like having a funnel the way that you would do with a potential client, right? Like you got to fill out an application, then you have to have a sales call, right? That's our way of qualifying them. So let's qualify those potential employees as well. And try to get behind the mask and get good at interviewing so you can really identify. And then also, I used to hire people and say, Listen, for the first 90 days, it's a trial. I hope it works out. I'm going to onboard you, I'm going to train you I believe in you. And at 90 days, we'll both assess is this working? Or is this not working? And if it is, then we can confirm that it's permanent. And that's when your benefits begin at 90 days. Right? Like so. That's kind of that was how I did it in the early days. And trust me, I messed this up a million times. So like, we have to be okay with the trial and error and understand that entrepreneurship means testing you are testing everything all the time. Sometimes gonna work sometimes it's not and if it doesn't work, you're gonna learn a lot and then you can get better right and apply those lessons and get better. So So I think that hiring is crucial. Getting good at it is important. But they are amazing, talented people out there, there are people on my team who do things that I absolutely could not do, like hello seven would not be where it is without the talent that we have on our team. We have 30 full time employees now. And now I have an amazing HR director. So she's she runs that. And so like, you know, hiring is no longer my problem. Level people Yes, but But Well, yes. And that's what the other thing is, if you can get help, right, if you can hire a recruiter to find you the right people do it. Because again, right, if there's somebody who knows how to do it, and I don't know how to do it, let me save myself the headaches and have them do it for me, right? Because they have the skill set or have them teach me how to do it. Because,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 45:45

right. And, you know, before we get to that level, I just want to bring it back a little bit, because I know most of us listening are at those stages where we're conquering, like what we touched on at the beginning, the mental roadblocks that are keeping us either from starting or from growing. I took one of the quizzes on your site. And I think the results said something about, you know, all the people I need to hire and I was like, well, well, well, Rachel. Well, it was the results, I forget the name of the quiz. It's like just basically, you know, the assessment of growth scale assessment. Yes, guys go over that. Hello, seven.co. And take that. And I was, you know, I was like, this is accurate. But now I need to wrap my mind around this. And work on this next stage. Because there's a there's a moment where you just can't visualize hiring this many people like it's overwhelming. And we have to recognize that.

Rachel Rodgers 46:45

What have you just thought about hiring the next person? Like who that person that you really need on your team?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 46:53

I'm not sure. That's why I need some coach. I need some more coaching. I feel like I'm, I have a solid team that moves the podcast forward now. But then as far as business wise, I need to think that through.

Rachel Rodgers 47:11

Yes, yeah. Do you have a full time executive assistant,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 47:15

I not a full time I have a virtual assistants who is not full time contractor, yes, who is amazing. So that I need to even utilize more like I under I struggle with under delegation.

Rachel Rodgers 47:30

And so just think about this, like, here's how I always when you have a great employee, you hire them an assistant, yes. And then you'll get more out of that employee. And so you are your first grade employee. So that is always what I recommend is your first hire as a full time executive assistant. And when you do that, trust me and you just give them every and anything hand over your inbox, right like handed over. And of course, train them, talk to them communicate so that they know what to do. But let them do it and take that off your plate, all you're going to do is think of ways to make more money and to have more impact and to make your content even better. Right? So it's like if you free up that brain space, from scheduling things and sending emails and some of the admin tasks that probably you know, for a lot of us like they definitely are not in my wheelhouse. I'm terrible at staying on top of that. Organization.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 48:19

I am very organized, what my inbox time, response time, yes, you know, suffering because of, of my lack of delegation. And you know, we're gonna get better at this. We're gonna get better at this. Yeah, so I appreciate the Assessment Scale response

Rachel Rodgers 48:36

time, the response time is directly connected to revenue, right? To respond quicker to opportunities, you respond quicker to potential clients, right? Because while they're in the inbox waiting for you, they start Googling other places, right? And then maybe they get a faster response over there. So then they give them money. And so they're giving you money, right? Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we need to just do the ROI and realize what money am I? Because I think we always focus on what is it going to cost me right to hire this executive assistant, hire this coach, hire whatever investment what is it going to cost? We don't think about is what money am I already losing? Because I refuse to pay this cost, right? So like, what's the value of that the value of the executive assistant for me is literally millions of dollars that I otherwise would not write because I would be distracted working on this stuff instead of doing what I do best and what's really in my wheelhouse and

Nicaila Matthews Okome 49:25

my strength. And the cost is not even necessarily financial. Like I hear you say the cost is time which is more valuable than the actual right So cost is not oh, what it literally costs but how am I utilizing my time? If I'm not doing XYZ if I'm not having my wonderful assistant helped me more.

Rachel Rodgers 49:47

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think the more we can do that, the other thing she was like I want us to like really embrace and enjoy pouring into people helping people mentoring people, right like the people on your Team, those are people that they probably look up to you, they probably think you're amazing for what you have accomplished, right? And they want to learn from you. That's why they like being around you. And so if you pour into them, they could, they could have accomplished all kinds of things. And so like, How can I teach this person this skill set instead of doing it all myself all the time? Yeah, it's actually very generous for me to say, Let me teach you how to do this. So you can take this over, and now you have that skill set on your resume. Now you're raising the value of your services, right? So like, let's remember that part of it too, and not think, oh, it's selfish to ask for somebody to do this for me.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 50:35

You're so right, you're preaching. So my next priority is to be someone who could say this into my ear every day, every day, I wake up, and we have a quick little powwow and you know, that I go after it.

Rachel Rodgers 50:47

Exactly, yes. My sister, honestly, my assistant saves me from myself all the time, because she'll be like, I know, you want to say yes to that. But I know that when the day comes, you're not gonna want to do that thing. So I'm gonna go ahead and say no, and I'm like, You know what, I love you. Thank you for saving me for myself.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 51:03

Just before we get into the lightning round, what should everyone's first step be if they are interested in learning more about Hello, seven, working with your team? What should be the next step?

Rachel Rodgers 51:21

So there's two things they could do. One is they could do the gross scale assessment, because that's going to help them see like, where am I at right now you get an entire report, that's going to tell you exactly what you need to work on for your business, because it's very specific to the level of business that you're at. And it'll give you specific advice to build that start to build that sustainable business. So that's valuable. And that's great. That's on our website. But the other thing that I love is we do a challenge every month, it's called the Make Money moves challenge. It's just make money moves Dotco. And that's where we spend five days together, making money moves, I'm going to teach you how to sell I'm going to give you money moves to make every day and you got to do your homework and take those action steps is transformative. We have so much fun. And by the end of the week, they're going to be you want to do mindset work in five days, you're gonna be a different person by Friday.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 52:07

All right. All right, guys. So you heard you heard what you need to do next. So now we're gonna do a quick lightning round. Rachel, you just answered the first thing that comes to mind. All right. So number one, what's a resource that immediately comes to mind, when you think about your business that you can share with the side hustle pro audience,

Rachel Rodgers 52:27

the first thing I think of is coaching, like, for me, that's the most valuable thing. But in terms of a tool that I love, and I'm obsessed with loom, so loom like you know, loom is an app that you can use to record your screen, and you can talk over it. And so that's what I use all the time with my team to give instructions on things to say like to walk them through something to say, here are my edits on something, it just makes everything go faster. And the faster I can give feedback, the faster our company moves. So that's one of my favorite tools right now.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 52:57

Alrighty. Number two, what's been the best business book or podcast episode that you've listened to this year?

Rachel Rodgers 53:04

Ooh, so my favorite business book is called self made. And it's about madam CJ Walker. So that's the book that I highly recommend people read because you actually get to see like, what was her marketing strategy, right? Because that I'm CJ Walker is the first female millionaire in America. And a black woman. Yeah, to be clear, and just brilliant, right? So there's so much to be learned from that. So that is my favorite book to recommend. I'm trying to think one of the things that I read that I really liked, it's about the flywheel. And it's by the guy who did good to great. And he teaches you about how to create a flywheel in your business. And it's how you scale your business to 100 million because that's what I'm studying now and learning how to do so. That would be the other book that I've read this year. That's been great.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 53:48

Okay, number three, what is a non negotiable part of your daily routine

Rachel Rodgers 53:54

breakfast with my children as the down and have breakfast with my children every single morning. That's how we start our day, we have that time together. And that's, that's non negotiable.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 54:03

It's number four, what is a personal habit that you think has helped you significantly in your business?

Rachel Rodgers 54:10

Running? I just started I started during the pandemic, because I just wanted to have a reason to go outside and I was like, I see people running on TV all the time. Like, I'm like, I'm gonna try it. I'm bored. I'm try running and just going for walks. It's a great way to clear my head, get outside like change my mood. If I wake up funky, I'm like, let me go for a walk and not spread my phone around all the people send boxes while I'm walking so it can be productive like sending messages back and forth to friends family team. So walking and running is like my favorite thing to do. And I usually do a minimum of two miles but I'm getting I'm growing up to like four miles is where I'm trying to get to. Yes.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 54:54

And then finally, what is your parting advice for fellow women? Inside hustlers who want to be their own boss, but are scared of losing that steady paycheck?

Rachel Rodgers 55:06

Yes. Here's what I want you to know. Making money is easy. It's all the stuff in your head that makes it hard. So just start to say to yourself every day making money is easy. And then look for evidence that that's true. What evidence is in front of you that that's true? Yes. And when you find that evidence that helps you to know Oh, now I know what the next best action is to take you to make making money be easy, right? So like, oh, I if I think about making money as easy, and then I think of a friend who could use my services, if I just go talk to her and say, Hey, would you like to hire me? She might say, Yes, that was easy. Oh, stop, stop the belief that it's hard. It's the belief that it's hard that actually causes you not to take the right action.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 55:48

I love that. And before we wrap, you know, one thing that I want to share, and it's been my takeaway, and I hope it's you guys's as well is, a lot of times when we get caught up in our head, we are doing a lot of braiding ourselves for where we see it in our business. You know, like, for me, like when we started talking about my business I was I felt a little bit like, oh, no, no, I wasn't. Inviting you back. We always feel a little bit embarrassed about where we are as if we're not on a journey, as if we shouldn't. As if we can't look back at where we were and be proud of how much we've achieved so far. Even if you have just thought about and wrote down what you want out of your life and out of the side hustle you want to start. That is something to be proud of, okay, you are worth more you will grow, you will get better. Stop being ashamed to stop parading yourself for where you think you shouldn't be. And just move forward. Take this conversation. Take the steps that Rachel recommended and let's go from there. Yeah,

Rachel Rodgers 56:54

I have I cosign and also I just need to say I'm proud of you. I'm impressed with you. Thank you. So definitely you should be impressed with yourself and all that you've accomplished. You're amazing. So I love that message and I cosign 100%

Nicaila Matthews Okome 57:06

Awesome. All right. So where can people connect with you again after this episode connect with Hello seven. Learn more about you pick up we should all be millionaires let them know.

Rachel Rodgers 57:15

Yes. So yes, you can grab the book and the workbook is coming out in a couple months. I'm very excited about that topic. That companion workbook and hello seven Darko is where you can find us on Instagram all the time. Rachel Rodgers es que Rodgers with a D. And then you can hang out with me there.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 57:36

Alright guys, and there you have it. I'll talk to you next week. Hey guys, thanks for listening to side hustle Pro. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe rate and review on Apple podcasts. It helps other side hustlers just like you to find the show. And if you want to hear more from me, you can follow me on Instagram at side hustle Pro. Plus sign up for my six bullet Saturday newsletter at side hustle Pro, that CO slash newsletter. When you sign up, you will receive weekly nuggets from me, including what I'm up to personal lessons and my business tip of the week. Again, that side hustle pro.co/newsletter to sign up. Talk to you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai