Hustle Culture and the Real Secrets of Success with Racheal Cook
[00:00:00] Made Remarkable Intro: Welcome back. And thanks for tuning into the made remarkable podcast, hosted by Kellee Wynne. We all know the allure of hustle, culture, working tirelessly, chasing productivity, and pushing yourself to the limit. It's part of the glamour of being an entrepreneur, right.
What if the secrets to a thriving business lie in the balance and not the burnout. In today's episode, Kellee's talking with Rachel Cook, founder of the CEO collective and host of promote yourself to CEO podcast.
Rachel shares some eyeopening facts into the historical context of productivity. And her and Kellee discussed some of the most practical ways you can start creating sustainable, personalized business practices. Check out the show notes and transcripts for more information about Rachel exclusive promotional offers and any special links mentioned during the episode. Kellee loves connecting with listeners.
So don't be shy. Reach out on social media or just tap replying. Kellee's latest newsletter. Together, let's build a community that celebrates the remarkable. If you want to be notified every time a new episode hits the airwaves, just hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for joining us today and always remember. You are made remarkable destined to achieve the unimaginable. Now let's get to the good part.
Introducing Kellee Wynne and Rachel Cook
[00:01:22] Kellee Wynne: Well, hello, hello. I'm Kellee Wynn, artist, author, mentor, fiercely independent mother and wife and the founder of a multiple six figure creative business. And I love my life, but I've been where you're at. I was slogging away at this art business thing for more than a decade. Once I finally connected with my true calling, unlock the magic of marketing and built a system that could scale.
Well, I realized I can make an impact and make a substantial income. I'm finally running a business that I love and it makes all the difference. My biggest dream is to help you do the same. Let this podcast be the catalyst to your biggest success. . Hello, Racheal.
[00:02:12] Racheal Cook: Hey, I'm excited to be here, Kellee.
[00:02:14] Kellee Wynne: I am really excited to have you here because I have been a fan and a follower for a very long time listening to your podcast, learning from you on Instagram. I am not a student of yours, but I am a big admirer of yours. And I thought you are a perfect person to have on the podcast right now because You really embody the idea of non hustle building a business that's sustainable, that's good for your wellbeing, your health, your family.
So let's talk about it. Let's talk about who you are and what you're all about.
[00:02:47] Racheal Cook: I love it. These are my favorite things to talk about. So I'm so glad when you reached out to me, I was like, absolutely. Good. Love to have these conversations. And you know, you were sharing with me before we hit record that you're Recovering from a period of burnout.
And that's what started all this for me too, was I had burnout in corporate consulting. And when I started my business, I realized. I had to actually prioritize my health, which was not even a thought before. It wasn't even a thought that crossed my mind that, you know, I needed to take care of myself until you hit burnout and you hit adrenal fatigue.
And you hit all these things where it's like, if you don't learn how to take care of yourself, your body will. Tell you it is time to stop and that you need to do it differently. So that has been like a lot of the foundation of the way that I support women entrepreneurs with their businesses is yes, we want to grow and we want to be financially successful, but most women entrepreneurs start businesses because they want that freedom and flexibility.
They want to be able to prioritize their life. They want to be able to prioritize their families. And if they're from a background of burnout or overwork or You know, chronic illness challenges like I've had, they need to prioritize that too. And we live in a society that celebrates hustle culture, not taking care of yourself first.
So I love this conversation and this topic.
[00:04:10] Kellee Wynne: Let's talk about that from an entrepreneur's point of view, because some of my listeners are coming from corporate background. A lot of them are, artists, aspiring artists, and especially in the course creation. Is really where my specialty is who I have a lot of clients that are building their new business and I watch and I've worked really hard at creating very simple systems that are sustainable.
But I still watch in the industry in general, this massive push to just go, go, go to build the thing and make it bigger and make more money. And like, I'm all about abundance. I want to make a lot of. Money for sure. I don't want to do it at the sacrifice of myself. My biggest downfall, I think in the ambition to build my business is that I was listening to a lot of this, like Hermosi or someone called him Hustle Mosey.
And I'm like, yeah, he's got a lot of great information, but I, it's not sustainable for me to ever run my business the way Gary Vee or Hermosi or any of these like. Bro energy market all the time from the time you wake up till the time you go to bed. If you want it bad enough, you're going to hustle for it.
You're not going to ever stop. You're not going to quit. You're going to do this while you're sleeping. Like that's the message that you hear. And then I'm like, go, go, go. And then until you, the point you're like, I'm not even happy anymore.
[00:05:37] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:05:37] Kellee Wynne: So why are we fed this? I mean, I, I see a shift from boss, babe, do it all the time to a lot more gentler.
way of building a business. But why is it so easy to get trapped into this mindset?
[00:05:51] Racheal Cook: It's easy because we're going to zoom out for a second. Cause this is where I'm going to be a super nerd. I am a nerd of history. I look at the history of business and how we learned. Management as a tool.
All these things that were built into us for the last 200 years, actually longer than that. A lot of people think that this hyper focus on productivity and what was called scientific management was developed in the industrial age, you know, when factories were first coming onto the scene. But in fact, it started hundreds of years before that was slavery.
Slavery was the first ago. Round of mass industrialization. There's an incredible book called accounting for slavery, and they talk about how they were the same way we would like track and measure productivity and a modern business right now that was being done on plantations. How much output can we get out of?
a person, and then they would track how do we, how do we feed them? How do we care them? How far can we push them to the brink to maximize their profit? Well, then you think about the first wave of industrialization, the first people who went into factories and mines and these very, very, very dangerous working conditions were people who were considered second class citizens and they were there to be exploited.
So if you think back then think about there were children working in mines. There were children as young as five or six working in factories because they were the smallest ones that could get between the equipment. There were people who were coming, they were all immigrants, and they were not seen on par with the rest of society, right?
So, our history in general has been built on the exploitation of people. And, It started hundreds and hundreds of years ago and they have continued to repackage it into, the latest, greatest productivity, blah, blah, blah. Our productivity as people, as humans, as far as what business has been able to create has skyrocketed since the seventies, but wages have stagnated, while CEO pay has gone from being like maybe 10 times their lowest paid employee to like, Thousands of times.
Yeah. We have read 500 times. It's ridiculous. Literally. So when I, when you start to really get into this and that's one thing, you know, I have both my bachelor's and my master's degree in small business and entrepreneurship. So I've taken a ton of business and history classes. Like I'm not even kidding when I'm telling you I'm a nerd for this stuff, because you start to put it together and you start to realize that.
a lot of the things that is just so ingrained in our capitalistic society from the way our education system runs to create workers. It is not designed for us to create the freedom and flexibility we really want. It's designed to put us all through this hustle machine so that capitalism can extract as much as it wants out of us.
So You really have to like deconstruct that you have to like decolonize how you're looking at business, because our system, the structures we are all raised in, if you are in the US or Canada, or, you know, most Western countries, they're all built on this concept that if you work hard, you will succeed.
But that is not true. Because the work that I know
[00:09:28] Kellee Wynne: people who work really hard and they make no money,
[00:09:31] Racheal Cook: literally the people who literally are breaking their backs and who are like, it shouldn't cost a family, as much as it does just to survive. But we are seeing this, we are seeing these disparities so much.
And the more you dive into it, the more you're like, holy cow, hard work is not the answer. Because if that was the truth, then the hardest working person, you know, doing the most labor intensive job would be making the most money. Right. And that is not how it works. So we have to really deconstruct this and uncouple this in order to understand as entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Well, then if it's not about how hard I work, it's not about how hard I push myself. It's not about how much I hustle or grind. Then what is it about? How do I create the business growth that I want and the financial freedom I want, but how do I also have the life that I want? And it means you, you have to get out of that whole paradigm and instead shift the way you're viewing business as a whole.
And it's not about how hard you work. It's about how smart you work, which I know is also infuriating to a lot of people because then they're like, well, what does that mean?
[00:10:43] Kellee Wynne: Right? Where's the secret? And there is no secret. There is no secret. I also see that we've, like you said, we've repackaged it. And now that doing it yourself, being a creator, starting your own business has become so much more accessible in this century.
[00:11:02] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:11:03] Kellee Wynne: We are also now watching like, a whole different game of value and worth and comparison and listening to misinformation. So it's like, like you said, where is the secret, but there is no secret.
[00:11:18] Racheal Cook: Well, one secret I do want to let everyone know is that if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.
And here's the context for that. You brought up someone like an Alex Hormozy. Right now, people need to understand that there has never been a time in the U. S. where entrepreneurship has ever been as glorified. Glorified. Glorified. Like, if you're an entrepreneur, It is like the sexy new thing. I mean, if you think about decades before, if you said you were an entrepreneur, people would look at you like, you mean you're unemployed, you don't really have a job.
Right. Exactly. It was very different, and now it's, it's totally glorified. It's held up to being like this amazing thing. But what we have to remember is the world of entrepreneurship and small business is an industry in itself. And there are people who are selling us the dream in order to make money for themselves.
We have built up this whole industry of gurus who are making money off of people who now buy into this dream. And for a lot of them, like the statistics don't lie. Most small business owners do not last very long, especially if they're coming in it, this very distorted view of what entrepreneurship and small business is.
Yeah, for sure. And so we have to remember that, that a lot of the people who are out there that are the leading voices in entrepreneurship and small business, guess what? Most of them all have businesses about how to build a business and how to make money building a business. It's like the MLM of entrepreneurship and small business.
It has just exploded. And even someone like Alex Hormozy, who started and got a ton of recognition by saying, I don't have anything to sell you. Well, he was building an audience for two years. Let's be real. He does have something to sell us. And now he is selling it. Now he's part, you know, he's actively selling his school, uh, platform that he's engaged in.
He has books. He's been doing masterminds and things like that. He just had the ability to grow a huge audience and use that tagline as a way to almost, I mean, to me, it feels very, what's the phrase? It was a little bit of a sneak attack, right? Like he's saying, I don't have anything to sell you so that you can trust him.
But then he knew I'm building this platform with the intention that I am going to sell something, which is totally fine. It's just, it's very disingenuous. Like it's. Not what we should be looking at as the model or how to do things because it's not the best approach for most people. Most of us don't have two years to promise people we're not selling them anything.
And then we do the bait and switch and start selling stuff.
[00:14:08] Kellee Wynne: Right. And to have all the money to back up building up. An identity. Now there are some genuine people who've come onto the scene building their business from grassroots and it took time and I respect that. Like with you, Racheal, I know that you've been doing this a long time and there were no song and dance and lights and dazzles.
You built it organically from the ground up. You're a trustworthy voice, especially when you relate things back, which I've always appreciated back to slavery, back to the industrialization of humans, back to our productivity isn't our worth. Like you are the real deal, but there's so many out there that like, I built this all.
And now I'm a millionaire one year later. And I'm like, Ah, the comparison is killing me. My self worth plummets. I can't keep up. I feel like all I've got to do is grind and it's at the sacrifice of my health. And I know I'm not the only one.
[00:15:05] Racheal Cook: It is, it is one of the most frustrating things to me. And I think this is just something, you know, I've had the benefit of being in this space for 15 years now.
And so I've seen so many people come and go, right. And I've, I've seen when. You know, it's like the wizard of Oz. There's a man behind the curtain. There's so much you're not aware of until you've been in the industry for a long time. And you really start to understand how things are actually working. And that is something that is very unique to the culture right now, as far as entrepreneurship and small business.
I think the reason I've been around so long is simply because. I come from a more traditional business background working with actual, like, brick and mortar traditional businesses. So there's a huge difference there. Like if I walked downtown Richmond and walk into any of my friends, local businesses here, and then said the type of things that you hear online, they would just look at you like, what are you talking about?
That is such BS. I think because I was raised by entrepreneurs and always surrounded by small business owners that I kind of have a pretty good BS meter at this point. And I think a lot of the stuff is why so many people are exhausted because when the conversation is always about, you just need to work harder.
You just need to hustle. You just need to grind. And then they're not showing you the whole picture. They're not giving you the context and the whole story about how they actually got there or what actually was happening behind the scenes. They're just sharing the highlights.
[00:16:38] Kellee Wynne: Yeah.
[00:16:38] Racheal Cook: It's really, really easy to just find yourself investing in so many things, listening to so many things.
You literally get pulled in way too many directions and you can't, you no longer have the ability to think strategically about like what you're trying to accomplish as a business. So that's why I'm always like with my clients, let's pull it back. Let's get grounded. Let's stop looking externally for the answers and let's get clear about what it is you actually want here because chances are if you keep looking externally, you're going to get someone else's version of success, and you're not even going to get the whole version.
You're only going to get select parts of their story. They're not going to tell you the whole thing.
[00:17:19] Kellee Wynne: Where they got the funding, who they were connected to, you know, all that kind of stuff. Oh, my God, I know that there's some great. Like, Marie Forleo came from, she was dancing, right? And she turned it into a business.
She's one of the OGs. It doesn't mean she's still running her business the way she did at the beginning, but then, you know, that there's others. I'm just dropping names. Amy Porterfield was, what's his name's, um.
[00:17:44] Racheal Cook: Yeah. She worked with Tony Robbins as a content, head and that's a thing.
It's really hard to tell too, because there's just a lot of people who have become the dominant names in the industry. But the challenge too, is when all of these people are personal brands, we automatically as humans, when we're like following an Amy Putterfield or Marie Forleo, even Alex Hermosi, It's so easy to believe because they're a personal brand that.
They're doing everything, but they aren't the only one, right? Like, it takes time to understand that, oh, yeah, the reason they are doing what they're doing at the level they're doing it is they have teams of dozens of people that we will never know about. Most of these people that have the personal brands that are the big celebrities.
You go to their websites and they don't have a team page with information, like any other small business would. So it, it lends itself to this lack of transparency about what it really takes to succeed. Because if all you're seeing is a personal brand, who is getting a ton of attention, who's getting a ton of, you know, visibility and press and everything.
It's so easy to believe that like, Oh, they figured it out. What am I missing? And it's like, There's a lot that you might be missing. And that's why you're exhausted because you're trying to do the work of maybe 20 people that you don't even know exist.
[00:19:09] Kellee Wynne: Exactly. We think that we have to start it off so polished and perfected the way they already are now.
Yeah. And there's a key word that you said in there. They're celebrity entrepreneurs. Who would have ever thought we'd be in a place where An entrepreneur becomes a celebrity. Like you said, it's glorified now. And look, kudos to the person who, who starts from the ground up and build something amazing, but there wasn't transparency in that.
There is none.
[00:19:39] Racheal Cook: Well, and I think that's one of the hard parts about the personal branding in this space right now is that when you're a personal brand and we all know like personal brands are really helpful to sell something, right? If people connect with people, if you're wanting to get a message out there and you're wanting to get visibility on your business, it really does help to have a personal brand, but it does create the illusion.
That it's a solo person and that illusion is not real, right? Just not. And this is why people get burned out. So I literally just recorded something from my own show about, you know, how one of my pet peeves is you, you get these women who are doing just incredible things and they'll go on, like, A today show or something.
And they're asked, how are you doing it all? How did you just release this album and do this documentary? And you just had babies and all these things. And they're like, you know what? I am just extremely. productive and have a great time management system. My calendar is color coded.
[00:20:41] Kellee Wynne: And it's like, you don't have to cook a single meal for yourself.
[00:20:45] Racheal Cook: That's the thing. It's like, hold on. I've outsourced all the main tasks in my day to day life. I probably have a chef, a nanny, a housekeeper, a house manager. Personal shoppers. And then on the business, like it is this illusion that we are sold. And it is especially to women too, because we're supposed to work.
Like we don't have a family and then have a family, like we don't work, right. We're supposed to do it all, all at the same time. And so this is where I just get really frustrated with the whole thing. And I think this is why so many people get burned out is because when we lack that context, when we don't have this context and we're not looking at.
All the information coming at us and then running it through some filters, to discern reality from this beautiful Instagram perfect picture that people are projecting. Like we're not able to make good decisions. Because we're not getting the whole picture.
[00:21:44] Kellee Wynne: Well, and the, you know, I have two types of clients that come to me, those who are just starting out, which I love it.
They're experts in their field. They have a passion. They see an opportunity. I want them to succeed. But then I also even more than that, have a lot of people who've started a business and it's. A heavy burden now, and they don't really want to quit, but they're probably at that brinking point. And it's always about stripping it back and simplified.
For some reason, we've been told that we need to have seven different streams of income where that came from. Makes no sense to me because I get it. Millionaires have seven different streams of income, but they became millionaires first, and then they could diversify, start with literally That's the biggest problem.
If you cannot master one thing, you will burn yourself out trying to master seven things at one time.
[00:22:37] Racheal Cook: So I think this is one of the biggest things it's One of the first things I tell people is, you know, when we look at our business, it's so easy to overcomplicate it. It's so easy to overcomplicate it.
And I especially see this with entrepreneurs who are highly creative and they love the process of coming up with ideas, right? They love the process of brainstorming new ideas, new products, programs, and services. And the problem when You get stuck in that. That's great to get started because let's be honest to get started.
You have to throw some spaghetti at the wall and figure out what sticks, right? You have to figure out the right product. For the right people at the right price point, the right positioning, the right promotion strategy, like you have to figure all of that out to get started. But once something starts to stick, it's time to double down on that idea instead of going, okay, this is finally working.
Let me come up with some brand new other idea. And that's usually what I see a lot of people doing is something just barely gets traction. And they're like, That worked. Let's go do something else. And I'm like, you're actually making this harder on yourself. You're starting over and starting over. So think back, even like you said, Marie Forleo, she has had B School since I think 2010 and she's still running
it.
[00:23:55] Kellee Wynne: Very long time. Now she's added more things into it, but it was just over and over and over again, make B School the best thing that it could be.
[00:24:04] Racheal Cook: And literally Amy Porterfield, same thing. Like she has a digital course Academy, but prior to that, she had courses that convert webinars that convert and digital course Academy kind of smash those two together into one cohesive program called digital course Academy.
But she's been doing that for years. And I think this is something that a lot of people miss instead of paying attention to, again, the context, the history of what has happened. They just keep seeing. You know, new things they're seeing that people are putting out new things and they're going, Oh, that means I need to be always coming up with new things.
No, you can pick one thing, pick one thing. You're really going to focus on building your business around and build that out until it is as perfected as you can possibly get it and grow it. It
[00:24:54] Kellee Wynne: takes like the rule of one. It is, or or power of one. It's like serve one person, solve one problem with one solution on one platform.
And if you can put that on repeat, you have a business model that's sustainable. Yes. It's when you start adding in more, it's like, well, I need to be on TikTok and Pinterest and YouTube and I need a podcast. And I'm also on Instagram day in and day out. That in and of itself is a job without ever having sold your product.
[00:25:25] Racheal Cook: It absolutely is. And this is another big mistake I see a lot of people making when they're trying to pick their one platform or their one path to like promoting people, promoting their offer. They're not even sure what's working. And again, they just keep adding more hoping something else is going to work, but all they're doing is like diffusing their energy.
So instead of going a hundred percent at the thing that works, they're kind of like. 10 percent here, 10 percent here, 10 percent here, and nothing is working particularly well. So I think this is a big lesson. I think when I'm talking to people about uncomplicating their business so that they can avoid burnout, the first thing is focus on one core thing.
Every business has a core offer. Every single, every single successful business you've ever known. It boils down to one core offer. A great example of this is Lululemon. Think about Lululemon. Everybody knows this brand. They sell yoga pants. Guess what their core offer is? Black yoga pants. Do they bring you into the store with all their cute little, new designs and new colors and new patterns?
Absolutely. But I almost can guarantee that if you looked at their P& L, the vast majority of their sales comes from black yoga pants. Right. And we need to remember that, that all businesses have core offers that are like the bread and butter of your business. And you have to make that as solid as possible before you try to add layers to it, because each new product and program and service you offer is adding layers of complexity.
It's adding layers of complexity on the marketing, because now you've got to get the word out there. You have this thing. It's adding layers of complexity With sales, and it definitely adds layers of complexity when it comes to delivery, because behind the scenes, you've now got to deliver all of those things.
So simplicity is going to be inherently more scalable with less stress.
[00:27:25] Kellee Wynne: Absolutely. I mean, when people try to say, but look at this and this option, and what about this person who's doing all these things? And I say, if you get, like you said, get to the root of what all of them did, they had their one thing and they focused on the one thing.
Amazon was a bookseller before it was pretty much dominating every industry in the entire world, but they perfected that. They became known from that. They grew from that same with even you can talk about some of these people who are like, you are the niche, do whatever you want. They started with very specific things as well.
And I think that's 1 of the most important things we can do is just pick the 1 person. You want to serve. Don't try to be everything to everyone on all platforms. That's where the exhaustion is. That's where I've burnt myself out. That's it. Huge mistake that I can look back from the very first time I made a digital offer in 2018 is how many more layers of things that I added over the years instead of doubling down on but one thing.
And grow it as big as I could, because when you start growing the one thing, you also bring on more team members that can take certain things off. Now, I don't want some big 20 person team, but I have three people and the three people that I work with, plus maybe a couple of VAs that, that help with the little things like creating some reels.
But I have an admin, I have a marketing manager and I have a podcast manager and that's it. And they're part time. And that's my transparency to my audience. I'm not doing this all by myself. I couldn't, I would burn out even more, but it was every time I layered on something new, another course that I hadn't finished perfecting the last one to make it run like clockwork.
That's where it's like, okay, I have this huge trail behind me of intellectual property of products I've created, of ideas I've had, of starts and stops. And it, and it's just like gathering dust over here. I've finally came to a breaking point, which was last year where I'm like, I am going all in on one thing and I am not adding more until it is right.
[00:29:33] Racheal Cook: Absolutely. And this is something I tell my clients all the time is to do the hard work once and create. Assets in your business. So an asset is something you've built, like you build your house. And then once it's built, you don't have to keep building it. Like it's there, you live in it now. So an asset in your business is kind of the same.
And intellectual property is an asset. So an example of this is I first ran a free challenge. I called the fired up and focus challenge in 2014. This has been around for 10 years and we continue to leverage this asset. Now, did I tweak it and adapt it over time? Yes, because when I started, I was insane and decided it would be a 28 day challenge and it turns out that's just too long.
Like people were excited about that, but it was also. Losing people. And so it wasn't getting the result I needed, which was people converting into clients. So over time we took it from 28 days to 14 to 10 to five and the core five days. Are still the same first five days as the original 28 day challenge.
But because it's an asset I have, I return to it again and again. I don't have to recreate it all the time. Same thing with my plan year best year ever. We run this every year at the last quarter. I created that in 2016 and literally all I do every year is re record it to update the date. The year that I'm talking about the contents there.
And I think this is something a lot of people think that I'm talking about this too much. I've talked about this to death. I don't know. Everybody has heard me talk about this thing. That is not true. That is not true. We have to repeat things over and over and over again for people to, one, actually latch onto them.
Like if you remember the, the marketing thing, that's like, they have to see it seven times before it even registers. Well, it's probably 77 times. It's a ton. And if you think about the people who have really dominated their industries, they had a message and they were staying on message for years. So I think about Brene Brown with this.
When she burst onto the scene talking about vulnerability when her first TED talk came out and just got huge, every interview she did was about vulnerability. Every thing she posted on her website was about vulnerability. Like she kept coming back, same topic over and over again, same talking points. You could listen to her anywhere and you were going to get the same message across the board.
She was just taking it to, you know, other people's audiences. But she wasn't deviating and coming up with a whole new thing until she made sure that she was now the go to person when we think about vulnerability, we're thinking about Brene Brown, like that connection is now there. So we forget that. And I guarantee Brene Brown was like, I'm so damn tired of talking about vulnerability.
I don't want to, I don't want to talk about it anymore, but you have to talk about it for a lot longer than you think you will need to, in order to really get established and become that. Go to person in your space for whatever topic it is. You are an expert on. You have to be willing to pick the message and stay on message for a very, very long time.
I would honestly say for a lot of people, it's going to be at least 2 or 3 years. of talking about the same thing over and over just for you to become considered like one of the go tos in that topic area.
[00:33:09] Kellee Wynne: And that's so important for you to say, because I feel like it's so much easier. And I've heard this quote before.
So I like doubled down on it. It's say one thing, a hundred different ways instead of a hundred different things. It's exactly in that, that there's like, get, get obsessed enough with it that you can just. Unearth new ways of helping people with that idea that you have, you know, no matter what it is, whether it's the, you know, like before I was coaching, I was teaching art and I just found every which way to teach about color and, and it was consistent and it was over and it was over and over again, and, and it was my own boredom with it that led me to, to coaching instead and burnt it all down.
I don't regret that at all because. If anything, I'm definitely in my zone of genius now and not just in. You know,
[00:34:03] Racheal Cook: there's times to evolve. That's right. Like there's times to evolve. The problem is it's again, there's context and nuance with everything. If you're evolving every three months, then nothing has a chance to stick.
Exactly. And if you're growing a small business, a huge part of it is getting known for the thing that you want to be known for. And that means you've got to follow through for a few years on, on a core business. Theme or topic or message that you're trying to get out there before you try to layer anything else because it's going to be really hard to get known for a million different things.
And I think this is also where the rise of influencers has really confused a lot of small business owners because influencers are growing and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about. Right. Like whatever they want to talk about. And so we have these influencers who like maybe one minute they're doing some dance and the next minute they're showing us, uh, doing makeup and the next minute they're organizing their house.
Like they might try a gazillion different things, but their focus is not selling their own product. Their focus is growing a massive audience so that sponsors will pay them to showcase their products. So like their model is so completely different. But when we look at content, a lot of people look at influencers as how they should be creating content.
And so they start literally creating content on anything that pops in their head instead of going, hold on, what am I selling again? What am I trying to bring people back to? Right? Like there's got to be some more strategy behind it that works if you're a business owner and it's not, you know, showcasing every thought in every second of your life.
[00:35:43] Kellee Wynne: Well, and then that also brings us to the other problem that you may have gone viral with the wrong thing.
[00:35:49] Racheal Cook: And literally I've seen this happen for people
[00:35:51] Kellee Wynne: so much.
[00:35:52] Racheal Cook: And then they're like, Oh no, now everybody knows me as this person and I have nothing to sell them for that. Right. Well, I mean, it's fun that you went viral, but going viral does not mean you're making money.
[00:36:04] Kellee Wynne: Not at all. The numbers don't equate. Yeah. Oh, I mean, yes, sure. Well, I'm, I'm going to be the one that preaches a million times over. If it's not on your list, it doesn't really count because you can't sell to Instagram when you know the algorithm could screw you at any minute. But when you have a list, you have a list.
So it's the numbers are real. Like I know people with I was doing great selling art when I had less than 1000 people on my Instagram account. When I had 10, 000, it was harder. So the numbers don't always equate to, you know, your financial viability. So it's really more important who's there and how are you communicating with them?
[00:36:44] Racheal Cook: The there was a I guess it was originally an article, the thousand true fans article, and that's still one of the best ones for small business owners, because you don't need volume in order to be successful. And this is another big misconception. A lot of people think that they need these huge audiences. And it's like, No, I know plenty of small business owners who have very, very successful, profitable businesses with. A few hundred followers, a few thousand followers, and they're not spending all day creating content, but they are taking care of the client bases that they have. I know some people who aren't even on social media who have thriving businesses because they take such great care of their clients that they have an entire referral engine bringing in people.
So we have to always be really. Careful when we're making these decisions and to me, it always comes back to, okay, what actually works for me, what works for my business and how are people wanting to engage with me? Because the way I'm going to engage with, especially. a professional might be completely different from someone who I'm engaging with on social media.
So for example, if I were looking for, a lawyer or a financial advisor, I'm probably not searching on Tik TOK for that.
[00:38:01] Kellee Wynne: No,
[00:38:02] Racheal Cook: but I'm probably calling friends who also have similar businesses and lives to mine and saying, Who are you talking to for this? I need someone to help me figure out a trust. I need someone to help me figure out, you know, these new contracts.
Who are you talking to? And if we don't ask those questions, then we start doing a ton of busy work, again, thinking that we need to do it, but you might not need to. So it's all about stepping back and getting really clear about what is essential for your business and what's actually gonna work for you.
[00:38:35] Kellee Wynne: I had a thought while you were talking about what the secret is. It's an amazing product. If you don't have an amazing product that other people want to talk about, you're going to have a hard time continuing to sell. You're going to have to do the song and the dance. But if you make an amazing product that really serves your people and gives them what you've promised them, you will grow over time.
You will just because your customers will talk about you. It will show it'll be a parent. That's the number one, most important thing. And I do see sometimes people rush product for, for the money, for the whatever, but like spending the time to build it right from the ground up and actually serving your people, if you care more about their results, then.
Initially up front, your personal growth, right? Of your business. If you care about getting results, that makes you stand out from, in some ways we can say like, I'm not really faulting the big gurus or celebrities of the industry. They have products that have worked for people, but when it comes to you starting out, you have to make something so impeccably amazing that your people can't stop talking about it in other circles.
[00:39:56] Racheal Cook: I absolutely agree with you on this one. And I think this is a huge differentiator in a lot of ways. And I think this is something where great marketing and sales can only get you so far because at some point your reputation will catch up with you. And the question will become, is it a good reputation or a bad reputation?
You know, and unfortunately I've heard so much. T behind the scenes of what's happening in, in these spaces that I hear the stories of people who spent 30, 000 to join this high end program only for like a month later, none of the deliverables. I didn't get to talk to the main person at all. And I'm like, I'm sorry, these are reputation issues that stem from again,
not really investing in what the offer is and making sure it's going to be an impeccable customer experience. I can tell you one of my greatest signals for if a business is really going to survive is how many referrals are they getting from their clients? Yeah. Are their clients referring them and spreading the word about them?
Because if their clients aren't talking about them and aren't excited to share like the work that they've been doing with you, that to me is a red flag. It tells me that your customer experience is not up to par and it's. One of the easiest ways to differentiate yourself because customer experience across board has just the bars on the floor, it's on the floor.
It's not that hard to take a little bit of interest in people. And I think the reason a lot of that has happened is because in the last, you know, 10 or 15 years, there's been this huge push to online, this huge push towards automation, this huge push towards everything needs to be scalable. But the things that aren't scalable.
Are often the things that lead to a better client experience. And sometimes you need to pull out a couple of those things that maybe they aren't scalable, but they're a personal touch. They're not as scalable, but they get a better result because you're able to add some personalization to the experience.
Those are the things that people care about. And that's why they. Not only invest with those people, but that's why they come back. They continue to buy from those people. They buy every single thing that that entrepreneur has put out there and they stick around for forever. They bring their friends. They tell everybody about their experience,
[00:42:16] Kellee Wynne: right?
It's like I. I spent the money I dropped it. See, for me as a business owner that makes money, I don't mind investing in courses or programs, but I'm beginning to see now. Like, why am I investing in anything? That doesn't have a more personal space and I dropped 3, 3 grand on a program that I'm like, I think I learned everything I needed to learn from his.
Podcast and I get no one-on-one time for three grand. And it's like, okay, my program's less than that and you get personal time with me. And that's because I'm unscalable in that traditional sense of making $10 million a year. that's not my goal. Like, great. Would I love $10 million a year? Yes, but not at the sacrifice of building something that feels so.
Holistically good. I could never live with myself for a 30, 000 program that doesn't deliver. But what you have are celebrity entrepreneurs that have been told that your name alone is the reason people are paying for it. But that's not where people get results.
[00:43:19] Racheal Cook: I feel like that's such a scary thing to me.
It really is. It leans into the whole cult of personality instead of focusing on value and it just lead. It's so problematic in so many areas. It just is. It's just highly problematic. But I do think one thing to think about is. We are out of the information age. And I think we need to be very clear about that because there's still people talking about how fast the online course market is going to continue to grow.
And you know, how many people are starting online businesses online, online, online is the way to be. I am here to tell you that the information age is gone. We can all get information. And now with tools like ChatGPT, we can synthesize information faster than ever before. But what we need is personalization.
Yes. And this is where the big differentiators are going to come. If everybody has courses that are pretty much teaching the same things, it's hard to stand out. If you want to find A new space to really make a name for yourself. It's not going to be in regurgitating the same information that like 100 other people are talking about.
But if you have either your own specific process and lens that you are using to. Take people through, if you are personalizing it to their experience and their needs, we're going to see those things really be the levers that make a big difference for people. People are willing to pay for a more personalized experience.
People are willing to pay and continue to pay when you're Really thinking through the experience you're taking them through, and you have a process that can start to consistently get better results for them. It doesn't matter if you're helping them build a business, or you're helping them get their finances in order, or you're helping them get their health together if you're helping them write a book.
If you have a process that you're taking people through that gets them to that result consistently, you will be around a lot longer than someone who's like, let me just download everything I know about this topic onto you. That's not as helpful. Right.
[00:45:27] Kellee Wynne: No, that's not. I mean, how many courses can you buy that are self paced that are still sitting there?
Not tons. Yeah. The only products that I've spent money on that I actually use are the ones that have personalization and some sort of community that I can gather more. Like down to earth grounded information from real people feet on the ground, what they're experiencing, what their life is like, that's when I'm like, okay, this is worth it.
I'm in my office too often anyway. So I'd much rather talk to people.
[00:46:04] Racheal Cook: Absolutely. I see the same thing. And I think this is another part about building a business that's sustainable is not being stuck in your own silo. Entrepreneurship can be lonely. And, like, we had started this conversation talking about all these, like, hustle harder, grind it out, only I can do it mindsets.
It's really hard to break free of some of these negative mindsets if you're just working on it solo. I believe this work needs to happen in community because, one, we need to see other people. like deconstructing this mindset and learning how to do things differently. We need to see their wins to believe that we can do it too.
So a great example of this is in my community. I mean, I talk about a lot about building a life first business. And so one of the things I talk about a lot is rest and self care, which is incredibly hard for women entrepreneurs, because we don't like to really rest. We like to fake rest. You know, it's the weekend we're going to put on our And relax, but really we're also organizing a closet or answering our emails while we're watching a show with our family, but we're not 100 percent present for anything.
Like, we're really good at the fake rest.
[00:47:14] Kellee Wynne: I'm finishing that one last landing page.
[00:47:17] Racheal Cook: One last thing and still responding to slack messages and things like all the time. But what we're not good at is self care. And a lot of self care is boundaries. It's not bubble baths, y'all. It's boundaries. So a lot of the work I end up doing, it doesn't matter if you buy our CEO planner, or you attend a CEO retreat, or you're in our, the CEO collective, I'm asking things like, what days are you taking off?
Yeah, tell me more about what you're doing. I won't let anyone leave a CEO retreat without telling me days they are taking off because I need to know that they're actually allowing themselves that decompression time. It is so crucially important, but. Again, we get so swept up in all of these mindsets that we have been conditioned with because of society and culture in history, and we need to see people actually unplugging and seeing that it's okay to unplug.
That leads to a feeling of like, oh, it's safe. She just got back from a two week vacation and just shared in our community that. She didn't even take her laptop. She didn't have to check in with her team. Everything was fine. She came back and had a plan for how to like ease back into work after being gone for two weeks and was so excited to share with us how well it went.
It leads to the feeling of, Oh my gosh, I can see now what she had to do to get there. I can see the system she had to put in place. I had to see how she had to prepare. I. I can see how she had to communicate. I can see the boundaries she put in place. And now she's reporting to me that it worked. Yeah.
Maybe I can't take two weeks yet, but maybe I could take like four day weekend. Maybe I could do something a little bit differently. And that's why it needs to happen in community. Because if we're in our own little silo and we don't communicate with anybody, we assume that like, When, when we're getting that friction, trying to do these things, that it's not working.
The reality is if you're trying to change , your relationship with your business, if you're trying to put boundaries in place, if you're trying to put systems in place, there's going to be friction because it's new and different. New and different is always friction. It's going to feel uncomfortable because you are at your growth edge.
Your growth edge is uncomfortable. It does not feel like ease when you're in it, but when you're past it and you're in that growth zone, that's when the ease comes. That's when you're like, Oh, this actually does work. And then you allow it to sink in and like normalize. And now this is the way you are.
This is the way you're running your business. This is your new relationship with your business.
[00:50:00] Kellee Wynne: I love that growth edge. That's a great concept. It's something that I've been very much adjusting to. I love working with my clients and in community and seeing the growth, my most successful clients are just what we've talked about.
They've put the same thing in repeat year after year, and they're watching it grow. They've been a great lesson to me. The other big thing, as far as boundaries go, I made a huge shift. I'm announcing it again to you because it's kind of part of the process is I deleted all social media off of my phone.
[00:50:36] Racheal Cook: I love that.
[00:50:37] Kellee Wynne: I did. And now I'm like re looking at what can I do to grow this business? I'm not completely off social media. I have access on my laptop, but I don't have access to my laptop all the time.
[00:50:51] Racheal Cook: It changes your relationship with it, right?
[00:50:53] Kellee Wynne: Absolutely changes my relationship. And it also means everything that I choose to do is far more intentional.
That means When I get on, it's not a, it's not a song and dance for people. It's how am I connecting and making a relationship with people? I'm able to like finally call my nervous system, lot less anxiety, a lot less watching all these gurus tell me to go, go, go, go, go. Now I'm like, wait a minute.
What is the healthy path for me? I'm going to put that boundary on Friday. Friday is not a day. Well, it's not supposed to be a day for working, but it's absolutely not a day for video or face to face anything and saying that gives me a three day weekend every weekend. Things are changing. It's still a huge shift to mindset wise to go from.
You know, like you said, I work like I'm not a mother and a mother, like I'm not working, like it's been an impossible balance to learn. But I do believe that a huge shift is happening right now in, in the information industry, in a whole, I just see it happening.
[00:51:57] Racheal Cook: It is, it is a shift happening and it's a shift that's very personal to all of us, right.
And how it shows up for all of us is going to look a little bit different. And when we're in that growth edge, It is so easy to believe this isn't working because it feels hard right now. And I just want everybody to know like When you're trying these new things to make your business work better for you, if you're getting pushback from people, if you're feeling like, gosh, it's so hard to put these boundaries in place.
It's so hard to tell people I'm not available on Fridays. Or you're, trying to enjoy your Friday, but instead walking around going, God, I should really sit down and get ahead on this for next week. You have to know that those thoughts are going to come up and you don't have to believe all of them.
You can have that conversation with yourself and say, you know what? It's fine. I've got a game plan. I'll do it Monday. I have time carved out Monday. And it's just a process of like normalizing these things for yourself. Like any mindset work that you do, it takes time and it takes practice. And this is the greatest growth edge for everybody as small business owners.
It
really is.
[00:53:05] Kellee Wynne: It is the learning on which, which things are important to work on and which things just feel like I said yes to too much or it's urgent, but it's not important and learning that. You're actually going to survive in your business. If you say no, and you put it away, it's unbelievable. All the things we think we need to do.
I make these huge lists and I'm like, actually, I don't need. And this is in practice being an entrepreneur now for as many years as I've been to say, actually, my business will do just fine. If we don't do all those things, they're all nice to have not need to have.
[00:53:41] Racheal Cook: Absolutely. It's so much to consider. I love this conversation, Kellee.
I feel like we could go on forever. And I just want people to know that like one final thought before we wrap up, and it kind of ties back to your first thing. There's so many voices that are just shouting contradictory information at us. One of my biggest things I always think about is consider the source.
Would you like that person's life? Not would you like that person's business? Yeah. But would you like that person's life? This is something I learned really early on when I was in the world of, you know, traditional consulting, because. I was looking at people who were 15, 20 years ahead of me, and they were all making insane money driving all the cars, had all the waterfront properties, like they had everything, but they never saw their kids.
Most of their kids hated them. They were probably on their second or third marriage. They were like, just miserable humans. And I was like, you know what? I'm never going to take advice from people if I don't want their life. I only want to take the advice from people who I look at their life and I'm like.
I want that. Hmm. How did they do that? And it's not about the stuff for me. It's always about the experience of what they're having, you know? And so I'm looking for, when I look out in the world and I'm trying to look for people who I want to learn from, I'm like, who has amazing relationships? Who's kids are grown and want to come home to see them
[00:55:13] Kellee Wynne: or who will never leave their house because might haven't yet.
[00:55:17] Racheal Cook: I mean, and that's the, you know, like who's with their partner and still loves them today. Who has great friends and actually gets to go out and do fun things. Who has hobbies?
[00:55:29] Kellee Wynne: Who has integrity and values?
[00:55:31] Racheal Cook: Who stands up for things that they really believe in and they advocate for them and fight for them.
Like you have to align your own definition of success to things that matter with you. And then when you're looking for people that you're going to learn from how They have shown up and their life is going to tell you a lot about if that advice is going to align for you or not. So always consider the source.
Always consider what I want this person's life. Because if the answer is no, not really, then you probably want to look in a different direction.
[00:56:02] Kellee Wynne: Absolutely. On that note, who would be an ideal candidate for the CEO Collective?
[00:56:10] Racheal Cook: Yes. The CEO collective is my business, but also our signature coaching program.
It's a hybrid program. So we work with women entrepreneurs who are ready to scale their business without more hustle and burnout. We do that through our operating system framework that we help you implement into your business to streamline, systematize, and build the support team you need to make it all work like clockwork and the people who are perfect for it are honestly.
We work exclusively with women entrepreneurs, who are like minded, who want to build a life first business, who want to do work that is meaningful and that matters in the world, but they don't want to sacrifice their life, their health, their family in order to do it. So if you're interested in learning more, just come check out the CEO collective.
com. We have a ton of great resources as well as my podcast, promote yourself to CEO,
[00:57:03] Kellee Wynne: which I've listened to many times because there's so much good advice in there, Racheal.
[00:57:09] Racheal Cook: It's so much fun. I've podcasting has been one of my favorite things I've ever done. And it's been such a great asset for my business that it continues to go out into the world and share these types of conversations.
So thank you so much for listening and inviting me on yours.
[00:57:25] Kellee Wynne: I am so grateful that you came on to this podcast, especially because these were the things I needed to hear. I know my audience needs to hear this is where true words of wisdom.
[00:57:37] Racheal Cook: Well, thank you so much.
[00:57:39] Kellee Wynne: Thank you.
If you'd like to listen to or learn more about the podcast visit https://www.maderemarkable.com/blog for our show notes and links to the main players.