From Bartender to 7 Figure CEO in just 13 Months with Nicole Cherie Hesse: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by HighLevel, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And on today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down going from bartender to seven-figure CEO in just 13 months with Nicole Cherie Hesse. Nicole is a self-made millionaire who went from being broke to a seven-figure CEO in just 13 months. And we talked today about how even on the right path, You may still be missing something and how to create content that attracts buyers who are ready to purchase now and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nicole and our sponsors.

0:38John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, meet Hutworks, the number one boutique fitness franchise with 850 plus locations. They pioneered virtual workouts inside infrared saunas with recurring membership revenue, a low labor, high tech model, and a proven franchise system. Entrepreneurs gain a scalable business built for growth. Visit hutworks.net slash franchising to learn more. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.

1:19Highlevelfire.com.

1:22John Lee Dumas:Nicole, say what's up to Fire Nation. and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Oh, hey, Fire Nation. How are you guys? I'm coming in hot today and really feeling that feeling around success because I think that one of the things that I was told growing up was that we had to be a certain way and that if you wanted to be successful, you had to fall in line. You had to do what other successful people do. And I have found that to absolutely just not be true at all. I have been able to build my empire to seven figures in just 13 months while being my true self.

2:03I am unapologetically me. And that's really when I became successful is when I stopped trying to be what other people want me to be.

2:11John Lee Dumas:Well, you are amongst renegades. You are amongst rebels. This is Fire Nation. We don't fall in line. So you're really speaking to the right audience. And Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking about going from bartender to seven-figure CEO in just 13 months. And Nicole, we love, and I mean love, the rags to riches story. But in this case, it's actually a bar rags to riches story. So that's even more fun. How the heck did you go from being a bartender to starting your business? Tell us that story. Well, once upon a time, I was a bartender, not just any bartender, but a fired bartender.

2:48Fired from not one, but two bars in the same month, which was funny because it was about six months after I'd stopped drinking. It turns out that they didn't really like sober me quite as much as they liked not sober me. And in getting fired from those two places, it was the best thing that ever happened for me because I realized that I was banging my head against the wall, that I was in a world where I was underappreciated and undervalued. And I had done some bar consulting at that time and really helped bars go from, I had one bar that went from doing$15 ,000 a week to doing$150 ,000 a week.

3:25And so it was something I was good at, right? And something that I really enjoyed and something that I was absolutely passionate about. And I ran a chapter of the Bartenders Guild. So I was doing all the things. But sometimes even when we feel like we're successful, even when we feel like we're on the right path, we're missing something. And I realized that after getting fired from those two places, I could do something different with those skill sets. And the skill set that I really had was being able to cultivate an audience, really being able to connect with people. I helped bartenders all over the place to build regulars and help them to build out those shifts.

4:02That's how we were going from 15 ,000 to 150 ,000 a week. And when I saw the online thing, I just didn't know that this existed. I had no idea about Facebook groups. I had no idea about online education and coaching. I just didn't know. And I fell into a Facebook funnel before I even knew what a funnel was. I clicked on one of those little ads and ended up buying a course that was all about how to do Facebook ads. Well, it turns out that I'm absolutely terrible at doing Facebook ads. Not good at all. I was very challenged with the pixel and all of the tech. But when I got into that course, I took it by storm.

4:38I finished all 90 modules in just two weeks. And then I went out there and got clients. And I was able to get 10 high ticket clients in about six weeks, which completely changed my mind, my life, I made$20 ,000. And the coach in that program said to me, he said, How?

4:54John Lee Dumas:How are you doing this? How are you getting all these clients? And he said, Can you please teach us the other members? And I said, Absolutely. And so some of the little old men in that program, they really helped me with a pixel. And so I really helped them with their marketing. And then all of a sudden, something magical happened, right? Is that they started to getting clients too. And that's when he said to me, the coach looked at me and said, you're in the wrong business. You need to stop trying to do the pixel and you need to teach people marketing. You need to teach people how to do social selling.

5:22And that's what I did. I mean, it was just insanely fast. I built a Facebook group and made my first hundred grand in about four months, had my first six figure month and my eighth month, and then on to seven figures. It was crazy.

5:34John Lee Dumas:Well, I just want to take a step back here and tell me if I'm wrong. I mean, kind of like the coyote ugly type of story, like dancing on bar tables. And then you as a non drinking bartender, like you're more like, would you like an olive with that martini? I mean, is that kind of the right vision? You know, I would love to say that that is the story, but it was so much worse than that. It was so much worse than coyote ugly. I mean, it was a lot of debauchery, a lot of late nights, a lot of very, very poor decisions. And as I became so sober, something happened that was unexpected was that I got really mean.

6:11I got to the point where like, I really just couldn't put up with anything at the bar. And so all of those things that were so over the line really started to feel over the line. And so that sense of self-worth, um, made it really hard for me to be very compliant with bosses or compliant with unruly guests in quotations.

6:30John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about your current business. What is the specific problem that you solve? I help people get clients, man. Fire Nation, that is a simple call to action. I will help you get clients. It's a real pain. It's a real struggle. It's a real obstacle and challenge. But guess what? Most people don't know how to eloquently give that type of call to action on what they're serving, their customers, what solution they're providing to real problems in this world. So really get a little more detailed into this. and I want to kind of move it into the avatars. What is your perfect client and how specifically do you help solve that problem?

7:13The specific breakdown here is attraction marketing. I don't do any cold outreach at all. So my ideal person is somebody who's tried cold outreach, who's done that thing where they sent 30 to 50 DMs every day and followed up relentlessly and hey girl messages and somebody that feels that sting of rejection. This is like that core value kind of thing coming through is that feeling of injustice and that it's, it's that life isn't fair. And that was something that I really struggled with. So I tend to connect with people that have that same kind of defensiveness about them. And so my ideal client is somebody that recognizes that inside of themselves and realizes that this rejection style of marketing is only cultivating more defiance and more belief that it's not fair and helping them to shift who they are at a foundational level so that they start attracting clients because they're in their zone of genius, because they're being celebrated and not undervalued and underappreciated.

8:10So it's not just any entrepreneur, right? It's somebody who really has that strong core value connection to the sense of justice and wanting the world to be a better place.

8:22John Lee Dumas:Now you say attraction marketing. Let's dive a little bit deeper on that point. How are these individuals finding you? Get detailed. Okay. So it all comes down to a very specific content strategy that works with the algorithm, but is based in transformation rather than leading with the pain, which is what 99 % of the marketers are doing out there of saying, hey, what are you struggling with? We don't do that at all. Inside of my strategy, we don't pain point poke, we don't prod, we don't do any of those kind of probing questions that cause people to be in a state of distress when they buy. We really focus on a system that I call catalyst marketing.

9:00Because the truth is, there's 9 billion people on the face of the planet. And a lot of people are absolutely ready right now. They're ready to invest right now. They're ready to get results right now. And so creating a content strategy that attracts people who are ready to buy instead of people who are ready to buy in six to eight months after you poke them in the pain points is really how I did this so quickly is that I laser focused my niche into talking to only to people who are specifically ready to get results now, not later.

9:28John Lee Dumas:And how do you find those people? Now that you know those people you want to talk to, where are you going? What platforms are you using? What strategies and advertising are you actually effectuating? I did my first million on Facebook alone, and organically, no ads. So this was built through a Facebook group. I got my first first chunk of clients through my personal page, which has I've maxed out, I'm at 5000 friends. And then I've moved it over to a Facebook group. The Facebook group now has 16 ,000 people in it. And so the Facebook group is my primary source. And the way that people join that group is actually also through attraction because I create content that goes out on my personal page and also into a few other key groups where people are seeing it and then self-selecting.

10:13And because of the name of the group that includes the words client attraction secrets, people who are joining that group are admitting right then and there by clicking that link that they have this problem, that they don't have enough clients. Why would you join a group called client attraction secrets if you didn't want more clients, right? So they're already self-selecting as people who are very close to wanting to invest and wanting to move their life forward and get more clients.

10:37John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we have the no BS, Nicole. She's just telling it how it is. She's breaking it down for you. We're going to get real specific on numbers and case studies when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, Fire Nation, let's talk about something every business owner should care about, making your cash work harder. High yield savings accounts exist for a reason. Your emergency fund shouldn't just sit there losing purchasing power to inflation when it could be earning interest. The problem is most businesses don't have an easy way to earn on their cash, so huge amounts sit idle in checking accounts, earning little to nothing.

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12:24John Lee Dumas:Hotworks has 850 plus locations, giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to join a growing brand while bringing something unique to their own community. because building a successful business isn't just about the bottom line. It's about creating something you're proud of and making an impact along the way. You don't have to choose between purpose and profit. With Hotworks, you can have both. Visit hotworks.net slash franchising to learn more today. That's H-O-T-W-O-R-X dot net slash franchising. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner.

13:02John Lee Dumas:High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD. access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

13:41John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Nicole, we're back. And here at Entrepreneurs on Fire, we pride ourselves on transparency, on our openness. We've been publishing a monthly income report for 108 months in a row since back in 2013, where we share all the numbers, all the struggles, all the successes. Let's talk numbers. How many clients have you served? How much revenue have you generated? Specifically, 1 ,746 clients served in just over two years, two years and three months now. And that is$2.2 million. What is the price point for people to work with you? I heard you say high ticket.

14:26John Lee Dumas:Are there tiers? Is there just one price? How does that work for you? Yeah, I have tiers set up. So my signature offer is a$10 ,000 offer. I have a higher ticket that's$50 ,000. And then I have some low ticket options that help people to kind of get into the flow, get into the vibe, including a virtual event series that I call Wonder Retreats. And those range between$97 to about$497, just depending on the subject matter. So I mentioned case studies. What's one client result that has really hit home for you that you think would be really cool to share right now? Well, I can't get off of this without talking about one of my clients that absolutely, I mean, you want to talk about rags to riches.

15:11Incredible story. She was someone who grew up homeless and really in that space of just, I mean, shouldn't be successful. By all standards of industry, shouldn't be successful. And when she came to me, she was just kind of getting her feet wet in the credit repair industry. And she had a good concept. She had good results for herself. She'd really raised her status and been able to repair her credit. She'd helped some family members and she'd helped a good chunk of her friends to get this result. And so she came to me and she said, I really want to be able to help other people to do this. And she had some ideas about what she was going to charge for her services.

15:47But we took a look at her ROI. she wanted to charge$826 for her service because that is her birthday August 26th and I said absolutely not that is not a thing we're not creating prices based on birthdays we create prices based on the return on investment and so we really dug into her offer and taking a look at I mean how she was changing people's lives and she was helping them to get business credit helping them to I mean really get the loans that they needed to make their businesses successful to pay off their houses to do all these things and elevate their status. And so we really broke down her situation and devised an offer that was 5K.

16:27And last, let's see, it took her about six months to get everything dialed in. And then she had a$60 ,000 month.

16:33John Lee Dumas:That's life changing. Oh, well, wait till I tell you the rest. Last February, she decided to do a big launch and we set everything up and teed it all up with the attraction marketing style in her Facebook group with her brand new 5K offer. And she went up and sold$400 ,000 in 28 days. Wow. I mean, Fire Nation, if you can't get inspired by that kind of rags to riches, I don't know if you got blood pumping through those entrepreneurial veins right now. So take it home for us with her. And is there another one you can share? And again, we don't have to get detailed with names or even specific numbers if you're not comfortable with that.

17:10John Lee Dumas:But one other case that'd be pretty cool to kind of button this up. I want to add to the last one of this$400 ,000 a month client is that she also has a 17-year-old daughter. And she taught the same strategies to her daughter. And her daughter just had her first six-figure month at 17 years old. So that was pretty incredible as far as that generational wealth shifting goes as well. Another client that I think was particularly remarkable, she was only 27 years old when she came to me. And she had some success in the coaching industry. She really focused on mindset techniques. She was a mindset coach that helped people through imposter syndrome.

17:46And she struggled for about two years making, you know, making a little bit of money, getting clients here and there. But we worked together for eight weeks and we set up a launch strategy that was really just focused on what she was good at because she was doing all sorts of stuff, like extra stuff, too many things. And so we got rid of all the extra things and really just focused in on what she was good at, which for her was specifically doing lives. She had like one of those like great like radio voices, you know, and people just love to listen to her. And so we put her on these lives. And after just eight weeks working together, she was able to raise her prices from she was doing like$500 up to$2 ,500.

18:24And she did an$88 ,000 launch at 27 years old and went off to Costa Rica and started surfing.

18:31John Lee Dumas:Peace. I'm gone. I'm hitting the surf. I'm hitting the Caribbean. I've been there before. In fact, I'm there right now. Puerto Rico. Life is good. So real quick, before we move into the last thing I want to talk about, walk us back through again your tier structure, how you came up with that, and how you ascend people through that. Primarily, people come in first into the 10K offer after coming through a wonder retreat. They come to the wonder retreat. They get a taste of it. I like to think of it as a sample, like if you're going to Costco and you get a delicious little sample of what's going on and really taste the energy.

19:03Because I do things a lot differently than most entrepreneurs. You're not going to find like a, you know, a five day challenge. That's just me telling a sob story about my poor dog. And then I, you know, made a million dollars and you should too. It's, it's really raw, broken down specific strategies where I deliver on the promise that, you know, for just$97, it's a great value. And so one of my secrets to success of this is to over deliver as somebody that came through the hospitality industry. It's not just about the content, right? It's about how people feel digesting it because we're creating an experience.

19:33The truth is people can learn this stuff on YouTube if they really apply themselves. Right. And so really getting that bite size at ninety seven dollars or two nine seven allows them to believe that the results are possible for them. And then they ascend into that$10 ,000 offer. The$10 ,000 offer is about a year long. For most people, they go through and when they start really getting into the nitty gritty and getting those big launches and creating sustainable income, then it's a no brainer for them to step into that$50 ,000 offer and, you know, really commit to a full year of mentorship, because it is about scaling from the inside out.

20:09It's not just your business. It's changing your entire life because one of the most prominent motifs that I carry in my business is fulfillment first. I have an amazing, amazing husband. I have two happy, healthy kids that I homeschool. And, you know, really being able to have that lifestyle first makes the success so much sweeter.

20:27John Lee Dumas:Bring this home for us. If Fire Nation has a skill and they want to monetize it, but they're just not quite sure how to do it, what would your advice be? The truth is, is that we think that our skills aren't monetizable because they're natural to us. So it comes so easy and you're like, why would anybody pay for that? It's so easy. But other people don't feel that way, right? You have a zone of genius, you have a skill set. And so that first mindset shift that you need to make is to know that you are valuable and that your, your skill sets, your experience, the way you articulate things, there's no such thing as market saturation is that people will absolutely pay for it because they want to hear it from you.