Meet the Relationship Coach with a Multi-Million Dollar Business, Sami Wunder: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Hustle and Flowchart. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be meeting the relationship coach with a multi-million dollar business, Sammy Wonder. Sammy is a leading international dating and relationship coach specializing in helping high-achieving women attract and keep romantic love. She has enabled over 240 clients to get married. And today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about how love doesn't have to wait until after you've achieved your business goals, why successful women struggle, and having limiting beliefs and oh so much more.

0:39And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sammy and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts.

1:14Sammy, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? So glad to be here. Thank you for having me, John. And something essential for success that I believe most people, especially high achieving women, are going to fight me on is that love and success go together. You don't have to choose between one or the other. And love certainly doesn't have to wait till after you're successful and have achieved your goals. So I stand for stepping away from the singular focus on our building our businesses and building our careers that often comes at the detriment of our love lives.

1:57And I see so many people abandon their focus on their relationships and their dating and romantic lives. And they're working so hard to build their businesses and climbing up the career ladder because they have this limiting belief that you cannot do both together and have both together. And they always say, I will first focus on my business and then I will focus on love. But for so many of my high achieving clients, especially, it gets really late by the time they decide to focus on love. So just imagine, you know, dying tomorrow with seven figures in your bank account and the most perfect automated funnel for your webinar, but nobody to hold your hand by your bedside.

2:35I think that's not fun. So don't neglect your love life. In fact, really make sure that you're making your career and your love life work together for you. I'll double click on that because Fire Nation, it's real. I've talked to a lot of my colleagues and peers who have done what Sammy was just sharing and kind of put off that romantic side as they were just focusing on the business because they thought it'd be a unwarranted distraction. And then one day they just kind of looked up and they were like, what am I doing this for? Like, what am I doing all of this for if I have nobody to share this experience with, this moment with, this life with, this success with.

3:13It's a question that seems to come up for so many people. And we'll be talking more about this Fire Nation because Sammy is the expert when it comes to all of this topic. But first, I want to talk about the reality, Sammy, that you are a gold medal economist and you quit that job. A lot of people would be like, what the heck are you doing? But you went on and you built a multi seven figure business, helping successful women find love. What made you decide to make that transition? So I would say it was three factors that served as a catalyst when it came to quitting my golden career as a trained economist and becoming a love coach for high achieving women.

3:55So the first thing would be my lack of job satisfaction, to be honest, missing that feeling of creating a real impact in the world. You know, I remember sitting at my desk writing these long reports on the lack of social protection in Africa at my United Nations job in Geneva and wondering, you know, how is this going to help someone? And when will I be able to see the impact of what I am doing? And I also just wondered if there was more to life. I had this fire in my belly to make a difference. And I wanted it now, not 10 years later. I think the second catalyst for my career transition was my own personal struggles with men and romantic love as a high achieving woman.

4:36The man that broke my heart, we always have one, made me dive into studying romantic relationships. And I learned so much in that period of growth and healing after this one person who I thought was the one for me. And I understood how attraction works between men and women, the importance of having solid self-worth, also understanding the importance of maintaining polarity inside your romantic relationship, the masculine feminine energy balance, and how men and women are biologically different, whether we like to accept it or not. And I think my own personal revolution within my love life happened at such a rapid speed.

5:17I felt like a whole new woman with solid self-worth and standards. And within months, I was dating some really wonderful, kind, successful men who were treating me like a queen. And I got engaged to my husband within nine months of meeting him. So I knew that I had stumbled upon something valuable in terms of understanding what made romance stick. And finally, I would say the third catalyst for my career transition was moving to live in Paris with my husband, where he got a great job with the Urban Space Agency. And I ended up being in a life situation where I was housewife. And of course, I really enjoyed being a housewife.

5:56But then slowly, after some time, I started to, you know, feel disappointed that, you know, there has to be more to life. I started to feel unfulfilled. And I couldn't speak French. So I couldn't find a job in France. And I had a master degree, I was intelligent. And so in that moment of desperation, you know, I again felt that question come up, you know, what can I do to make a difference in this world? And that's when the idea was really born. I connected the dots in my head, you know, I could see that here's something I've been able to achieve for myself. And so many of my fellow smart, successful women in my master's cohort at my workplace, you know, they had very similar love struggles.

6:38And so I asked myself, what if I started to give these messages, but to do this professionally. And I decided to dive in, become a love coach. And I remember I had 10 ,000 euro savings in my bank account and I invested 8 ,000 back then just to formally study becoming a coach. And ever since then, I would say we've not looked back. I know my process works to help my clients find and keep love. We run a multi seven figure company today. I've used my strategies to help over 250 of my successful single clients find love and get married and more than 300 partnered clients to bring their marriages back from divorce in the past five years.

7:19Wow. Those are results. And Fire Nation, I love those three catalysts that Sammy shared, but also I love that visual that you brought up just back at the beginning of the episode where we were talking about, do you really want to be on your deathbed with nobody to hold your hand and have seven figures in the bank account? Like, is that a reality you want to come true if you're focusing on the right things? But at the same time, we do have to be honest, Sammy, that burnout is real. So how are you able to go from having a seven-figure year to a seven-figure quarter? So at least four plus X-ing what you were doing without burning out.

7:57What was your secret there? This is so exciting. and we've actually had two seven-figure quarters in 2021. So I think it's important for everyone to know that this wasn't an overnight success. We went in the first year to six figures, then multi-six figures in the second year, seven figures in the third year, and so on. And I think one question that I kept asking myself was, how can we impact more women's love lives positively? Business and strategy-wise, I think seven-figure quarter was a combination of multiple factors, doing one-to-many coaching. My group coaching program, Elevate, where we spent six months with our high-achieving clients and helped them find soulmate love.

8:39And it's at the 5 ,000 mark. So I think that one-to-many service really supports your high seven-figure quarters without burning out. We also had a multiple tier of support that we run in the company. So, for example, I do really low ticket items just to give people a lot of value. And then we channel them into the bigger group coaching programs because I always felt like, you know, I don't want to just serve the woman who can, you know, spend$50 ,000 or$10 ,000 with me. I want to serve as many people as possible. And so low ticket gives me that high level of impact with lots of people. And then in the group coaching and high-end coaching, we go up and my private clients pay six figures to work with me one-on-one.

9:29So, of course, that also contributes. Just having these high-ticket support options also contributes to having seven-figure quarters without burning out. Now, I think when it comes to talking about burning out, for me, what has really made the difference is that I do not focus anymore on client pursuit. But I go for client attraction. You know, at the start of your business, you really have to sell and you really have to, you know, work hard and push your message and, you know, get people in and pursue your clients. But for me, I believe every business reaches a stage where client attraction really, you know, and client self-selection.

10:09So, you know, client by client attraction, I mean, we don't run after our clients to sign up for our programs. They DM us. They ask us for our services. And I think that's where you really conserve your energy because you're only speaking to people who are self-motivated and you're only speaking to people who are self-selecting themselves. And that means that 80 to 90 percent of the calls we have, they convert and they sign up for my programs because we're not pushing and forcing anyone to sign up with us. The women who are signing up to work with me are truly self-motivated and self-driven. Now, at the personal level, of course, I have two small children.

10:49One just turned one year old. So it is quite a juggle. And I think when I have my launch months, it's so important that in order not to burn out, I have enough support at home. So I plan intentionally more support. So my babysitter, for example, knows my husband is stepping in to support with the kids so that Sammy, coach Sammy Wunder has time to focus on the launch without getting burnt out and having stress. And I think we also just have a really positive environment at home. So everybody knows, like my five-year-old son knows, it's mama's launch time. And every time a sale comes, we all do a ThriveCut Autobot dance.

11:35And we make little hearts and stick them up with the name of the person that signed up and really rejoice for them that how this work is going to change their lives. So I think this maintaining this really positive, happy environment at home is so supportive in terms of not burning out. And of course, I cannot miss speaking about my team, which is absolutely phenomenal. I mean, they take off so much burden from my shoulders so that I can be in my zone of genius and create content and create messaging that speaks to my high-achieving client who wants to have love in her life. Fire Nation, burnout is real.

12:16And doing the things that Sammy's talking about won't happen overnight, but you can happen over time to your life and business if you are taking the right steps, if you have that supportive team around you, which is so critical in so many different ways. So thank you for sharing all of those things, Sammy. And let's move on to romance because you are a relationship expert. So let's talk about why high achieving women specifically struggle so much in their romantic lives. Break that down for us. Oh my God, this is such an amazing question. And I could talk about it for hours. But if I had to give you a few bullets, I would start by saying that I think this amazing woman's biggest struggle is that she brings the same energy that she uses in her workplace to her love life.

13:07This means that, you know, when I am in my boss babe mode, and I'm in my CEO mode, you know, I'm in my masculine empowered energy, this is an amazing energy to have. It helps me get things done. It helps me plan, organize, initiate, lead. But when I take this relationship to my husband, this energy to my husband, this energy is not a turn on for him, because it feels like I'm still a woman, but he feels like it's a man in a woman's body, right? It's an energetic thing. So a lot of the high achieving women are struggling in their love lives today because they are using their empowered masculine energy in their romantic lives.

13:49If they're single, they are walking up to men, asking men out, calling men, texting men, initiating, pursuing the connection, pursuing the romance, paying for men, giving men gifts. And there's not enough space there for men to step up and be the men these women want these meant to be. And so what happens is that these women end up attracting lazy men, passive men, because when you understand how attraction works and how sexual polarity works, if a woman is approaching her love life and her masculine, the likelihood that she will attract men who are more laid back, relaxed, you know, more on the passive side is much higher because that's how polarity works, opposite energies attract.

14:36And that's not a problem per se. I think it's totally okay if some women want those kind of men and like those kind of men. But what I see in my years of experience now, having helped thousands of clients, women do get resentful. They come back and they say, why doesn't he plan a date? Why isn't he more romantic? Why doesn't he want to give to me? And that's because the energetic agreement right from the start of the relationship was that you're going to be in your masculine, which means that in order for sexual attraction and tension to exist, he has to be in more in his feminine. So I would say leading in your love life with your masculine energy is not the best idea for high achieving women.

15:22I think secondly, a lot of the high achieving women struggle in their love lives because they are doing what I call ego dating. Of course, nobody does this intentionally or on purpose. But this is about a highly successful woman who makes a lot of money, owns a fancy car, has a big house. she looking to have a man who makes even more than her has an even fancier car has an has an even bigger house and when he doesn't then he's not a good enough match now the problem with this is that you know we are looking at men's worth through what they make the money they make the house they have and the car they have and this is slightly or rather gravely hypocritical because it's the same thing, you know, when men look at women and just, you know, choose them for their looks or choose them for their bodies or choose them for, you know, the money they have.

16:16So I think it's important not to ego date, but to understand that, you know, love and romance is about hard connection. A man who may have a house that is smaller than yours is not lesser than you or less worthy of you, he can contribute in so many other ways inside the relationship. He can still be a great partner, an amazing partner. So I think there's quite a lot of ego dating that happens with high achieving women, because, you know, we have achieved a certain amount of status and money, and then we always want the bigger and better. And we just put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We put a lot of pressure on men.

16:54And we must really understand that romance is about heart connection. And men have, just like women, men are intrinsically worthy and their worth cannot always be measured by, you know, how much money they have or how fancy their car is. Thirdly, I would say a lot of the high achieving women struggle in their love lives simply because they are believing that men are intimidated by their success and their brains. And my experience shows me that this is such a toxic limiting belief for women to possess because once a woman has this framework or has this lens of looking at the world of romance you know men don't like my me being intelligent or men don't like me being successful any other relationship issue that may actually be you know something that is figureoutable or solvable we can't even get to that because we just assume it's my success that threatens him.

17:53So I think it's so important to remember that empowered men are not threatened by our brains and our success. I think the right way to look at this would be they don't fall in love with us because of it. So my husband doesn't love me because I run a multi-seven figure company or I have been on Forbes and Business Insider. I think he loves me for the girl I am. He loves me for my idiosyncrasies. He finds me attractive. Those are the things that, you know, make men fall in love with us. And so I think this over-identification with our professional lives and this over-identification with our success and our achievements and thinking that that is what, you know, a man is looking for or that is what a man is threatened by.

18:38I think this is one of the core struggles and challenges of the high-achieving woman in her love life. Wow, Fire Nation. Another three value bombs on this topic. So much knowledge here. And we're actually going to flip the script when we get back from our little break here. And we're going to talk about signing six-figure clients. So it's going to be more of a business conversation about how you can sign high-ticket clients, Fire Nation, when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges, especially now. It seems like everyone is working with smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky-high expectations.

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20:00Get ready for growth without the growing pains. Visit hubspot.com slash spotlight to see all the updates. So Sammy, we're back, and you've had women who are, let's just be honest, very eager to get your help in both love and relationships. And you've been able to sign multiple six-figure clients. You, of course, have had those seven-figure quarters that we talked about. What are some of the secrets for Fire Nation for our entrepreneurs that are out there to signing six-figure clients? What does that look like? I think the first thing is you have to believe in the value of the transformation you're providing in your clients' lives.

20:39So, So, for example, the clientele I work with, multi-six-figure, seven-figure entrepreneurs, you know, they have money, you know, money is easy for them. But their heart craves so much to have that partner and that love to share their life and their success with. So I knew for a fact that, you know, as a mom, I, you know, my private time is highly limited. But because there is so much demand for my private services, I, because love is quite a nuanced field and, you know, people still really like to talk to me one on one. So I decided that I was not instead of canceling out my service, because I had so many requests, and I felt like I'm going to burn out and get overwhelmed if I, you know, take all these private clients, I decided to just up my rates.

21:25And I offer six figure contracts to work with me for a year. And amazingly, you know, these have been the easiest clients to sign for me, because they're not new. They're people in my community. They know me. They trust me. They know that Sammy's work works. They've probably done some of my smaller programs or even done my group coaching program, Elevate. And things are shifting for them and they'd like to move at a faster pace. And that's when it's interesting because these women approach me and ask me, you know, can I work with you on a longer term basis instead of, you know, short bursts of time?

22:04So I think when it comes to signing six-figure clients, the most important thing is vetting really hard because it is an investment and you don't want to end up in an energetic relationship with where you are either disappointing your client or you are killing yourself under the burden of charging six figures for your private time and your private support. So I think it's really important to bet really hard, evaluate the client really hard. So in my case, I, you know, get on a call and I set the expectations. I suss out, you know, what are their expectations? What are they hoping to get out of this experience?

22:44Are they 100 % clear that, you know, no love coach can give you 100 % guarantee that you will have your man at the end of the experience? Of course, it happens all the time for my clients. But still, I'm not God and I do not give that guarantee that 100 % you'll have your man by the end of this experience. So if somebody asks for that kind of guarantee, that's always a red flag for me, because I think it's emotional maturity says and people with life experience know that nobody and no one can ever give you 100 percent guarantee. So I think it's really important to set the right expectations, to evaluate, to vet and make sure it feels good to both parties and to watch out for any red flags like, you know, somebody asking for a guarantee or somebody who has a really anxious energy around money.

23:34So what I usually do is when somebody is really excited to work with me on a high level investment like this, I tell them, OK, you're a great fit. I would love to take you in. But why don't you go or go home, sleep over this decision? And if you still want it tomorrow morning when you wake up, you know, we should do this. So I give them plenty of time and non-pressure environment. And to be honest, it's just amazing the kind of results these clients are getting and what a great energetic fit they are. because they make this investment in themselves and then they're really accountable to themselves and they're really self-driven and self-motivated.

24:11And with just my tweaks and my guidance, they get excellent results. So for me, I would say this is one of the most fulfilling ways that I have experienced working in my business. And that last point, Fire Nation, I think is a fantastic point is that these type of clients become more accountable to themselves. And in a lot of ways, they become your best. and sometimes easiest clients, or if not the easiest, they are not the hardest. And I've had this happen time and time again with my high-ticket clients. They've just been the best because they have put in the work, they are accountable, they are looking to get results, and they're getting results.

24:46So of course, they're happy with the service for a lot of reasons. Now, let's really end with a bang here, Sammy. You've witnessed some women disempower themselves within relationships. So what can these women do to take their power back? I love that question. And I think the first thing women can do to take their power back, if they're single, I think they should be dating lots of men at the start. So no woman should be getting exclusive too quickly and sleeping around with a man too quickly on date number two and date number three, not because having sex with a man is bad, but because it attaches you and it gets you vulnerable around somebody you hardly and barely know.

25:32And so just taking your time with exclusivity, really getting to know the person is such a great game changer for women who just give their power away by getting exclusive too quickly. And then later finding out, oh, he doesn't want marriage. Oh, he doesn't want kids. Oh, we don't share the same values. So I think doing all that vetting at the start of the process instead of getting exclusive and then figuring things out is a very smart move for women to take their power back if they're single women. Now, if there are women in relationships, I think one top game-changing advice is to stop overgiving.

26:07And I think so many women, high-achieving women, because we're so great at nurturing. I think women are just natural nurturers. we tend to over give and over care for our men inside our relationships. And I always tell, tell my clients, you know, mother, your kids, not your man. And we tend to have this energy of, you know, wanting to do everything for him. And I remembered my client telling me that, you know, she's a, she's a very successful entrepreneur herself. And she said that she was dating this guy. And then she went over to their, to their apartment and his kitchen was dirty and they wanted to cook.

26:42So he sat down on the couch and, you know, she cleaned the entire kitchen so that they could cook. And at the end of it, you know, she felt really not happy and not satisfied. And she said, I did not feel like a queen at all. I felt like his housekeeper. So I think really toning down on your giving and making that space for men to be able to step up and give to us because it makes them happy. It makes them happy to make us happy. It makes them happy to see a smile on our faces. And I think just women learning how to receive more versus always giving and coddling men is a great game changer for high achieving women.

27:20Very important stuff, Fire Nation, to be thinking about for a lot of different reasons. You know, not just if you're not in that situation that Sammy's talking about right here, but you know, just overall in life, this could be, you know, with business partners, this can be with life partners, this can be in some situations with family as well. So just really be thinking about how you're interacting and engaging with individuals as you're going forward. And Sammy, you obviously shared a ton of value throughout this entire interview. If you could just share the one key takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets and understands from everything that we talked about here today, then give us any call to action that you may have for us to connect with you.