Scaling Your Business Effectively with Jereshia Hawk

22:26Like too many times I buy stuff off of Instagram ads. Same. It's like, but they keep showing it to you. The threshold to purchase it isn't too high. My discernment isn't super high and you'll just swipe the card. That's very different when you want somebody to come in and you're asking your client to be vulnerable with you. Absolutely. In a coaching dynamic. Absolutely. But can I pause? Because I had a conversation yesterday. We were doing consulting and she's not a coach. She's an accountant. And I was really encouraging her that she's doing tax strategy. She is doing not just tax computation.

23:00And I'm like, these are people who have the means and are trying to look for ways they can pick you or they can pick another tax strategist. But why on paper would they pick one or the other? But if you can go out and really show your differences, your systems, your team, then that becomes a defining factor. And so it's not for people who are listening and be like, OK, well, I'm not trying to build a personal brand. I'm not a coach. I'm not selling my IP. But in a way you are. I mean, I'm not sitting here. This again goes back to the point of I'm not asking you to become a famous influencer. Right.

23:29You are not looking to be you don't have to be famous. You don't have to be an influencer. I'm not asking you to try to go build an audience of millions. But I am asking you to make it easy for a prospect to discover what your values are. Make it easy for a prospect to have an opportunity to create a transference of trust before they pull out their credit card to purchase with you and give them the opportunity to understand what your perspective is. Because again, going to the tax strategist example, if I have three tax strategists that I could be hiring from - That's right, say it. Like they all are technically delivering the same function of the job, but the experience of working with them is gonna be night and day from person to person.

24:06Thank you. And who you choose to hire, you want somebody who has aligned values with you, who you respect their perspective. And most of the time, and this is what I tell my clients, is that your clients don't get the opportunity to discover your perspective until either after they've paid you or behind some gateway. They've had a book of sales call. They've had to already pay you to discover that, which can work. Not saying that it can't, but I imagine that it takes a lot longer to get a yes versus all that stuff you're doing privately, bring it public. It's going to shorten your sales cycle.

24:42You're going to be able to charge more. Are you going to be able to differentiate yourself? Your leads are pre-qualified. Exactly. Like use your free content to pre-qualify your leads versus using your free content to build a mass audience of influence. And I think that's the difference. Like you're a service or coaching or consulting. It's a relationship. You cannot automate human connection. Like I think there's a non-negotiable. And I think that video particularly is one of the best ways to create that transference of trust in a digital medium. That's right. Outside of, you know, in person.

25:11I mean, that's like the best. And even beyond that, like just as a final nail in the coffin, it's not just that video is the most effective. It's also what is indexed in the algorithm right now. Yes. So if you're going to be spending time. You might as well. That's right. It's like triple dip. Can you please just try to do one thing that's going to be favorable? Okay. So what we went through was really identifying how you found your voice and how you've built that business. And we spoke to the person who says it doesn't come natural. And then you made a case for it and you followed it up with facts and not feelings.

25:41And so now when we go to identify, you are going after a very particular person. Yes. And you made that. And that's something that's a little bit rare and a lot of people would not do. How did you go in and say, I'm going to identify this audience? What was that work like? Well, identifying the audience was something that I always struggled with. But I was really clear on what is the problem that I solve? What is the promise that I can deliver? So I think that when I'm even coaching clients on like niching down, I like to think about it as just where can you specialize? And this, again, goes back from corporate experience and getting my degree.

26:11it's like, look at the people who got paid the most. Typically, if you look at doctors, a brain surgeon is going to get paid more than a general physician. In the engineering space, like a biomedical engineer is going to get paid more than a civil engineer because their area of expertise is more specialized. And I thought about that the same way in my business. I'm like, okay, how can I specialize the promise that I can deliver based off of results that I have seen and the pattern of results that I'm getting with clients, the pattern of results that I've been able to get for myself. And that was a process.

26:40It's still a process. Like I think that you have to get some practice, whether you're doing it on your own or whether you start working with clients and you start to notice patterns. Once you start to notice those patterns from client to client, like I keep repeating myself 80 % of the time in these areas, or I keep seeing clients get these similar type of results 80 % of the time. I'm like, that's golden. Now we know the patterns. How can we define a promise around that so that we can specialize you based off of the experience that you have, the results that you've seen. It's a reiterative process.

27:10You're going to continuously be refining over the years. But that's kind of was my approach. I'm like, people who are specialized get paid more. I feel like that'll be the same way in this coaching space. So just where can I specialize based off of what I know right now? Continue to get more results, then refine my specialty. Get more results, refine my specialty. And that was like a rinse and repeat system I did over and over again over the years. How long did it take for you to get to the six figures? 18 months. Wow. So it was 18 months, nine months still working in corporate. And then I had my corporate dropout date and my Hawk Hustle Independence Day.

27:43And I quit my job. And then it was another nine months. That was when I made my first$150 ,000 in a calendar year. And then from there was$150 ,000 to$330 ,000,$330 ,000 to like$840 ,000,$840 ,000. What happened from the$330 ,000 to$840 ,000? What happened there? I leveraged. so to get me to 300 grand I ran it as a group coaching program at the time and I was still doing some private one-on-one and out of all the clients that I had worked with in private one-on-one and in the the coaching program at the time that was two grand I'm like all these people the ones that are succeeding like my outliers they're like they're ready now to take their private one-on-one and document all the patterns that they're noticing and turn it into a group program and I remembered when I was selling my 9k offer I'm like that thing sold like hotcakes it was easy to sell.

28:30You know, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try to figure out how I can make another five figure offer. And around the 300 grand mark is when I went all in. I got rid of all my other offers. I decommissioned them. And I was like, I'm going to just create this one program called Leverage. And Leverage was helping individuals who have been selling private one-on-one or coaching or offering a service one-on-one had got success from it and wanted to document that and turn that into a group program. Interesting. So you specialized. I specialized again. Yeah. And I always say, use your client's feedback to inform your frameworks moving forward.

29:04So it was never like, I never was pulling things out of a hat just randomly. Right. I was really good at listening to what are my clients telling me? Where do they start? Where do they end? I think every great program solves one problem and creates a new one. That's right. So I'm like, pay attention to that. Like, what is the problem that this one solved? What new problem is created because they've achieved a new level of success? Is that a problem that you want to anchor your messaging against? Is that a problem that you want to monetize and to solve? And that 300 grand mark, I think it's a really pivotal point in anybody's business.

29:37Because I feel like it's one of those defining moment periods. Because a lot of what I did that made me successful, things would have to change in order for me to get from 300 grand to a million. Explain that. Like what? Let's get in the nitty gritty. Yeah, I mean, I think that you can get to 300 grand, like, without a lot of standardization. Like, I think you can get there just off a sheer hustle. I mean, you can get to a million off a sheer hustle and real power. I think you'll cap out and burn out shortly after. But 300 grand, I think that you can sell probably three, four different offers and just, like, muster your way up with sales activities to get there.

30:09I think that is very difficult to do beyond 300 grand. from my own experience and what I see with clients, especially when you layer in their mothers or they're going through tough financial stuff with their partners or like with life happening. So that was like a moment in time where I was like, what is your model gonna be? What is the model that you're gonna use to get to a million with? I'm like, I can either double down on this$2 ,000 offer and get that to a million. And the thing that I asked myself is, okay, Jay, you could sell anything. Get that off the table. What do you want to anchor your messaging around?

30:43What psychology of buyer do you want to talk to for the next three years? And that was what influenced me to say, I can either try to sell to the newbies in the industry and I have to play a different lead generation game. I have to play a different, it's a different way to operate the business. It's a volume game. I was like, am I going to play the volume game or are I going to play like the deep value close relationship game? And I think that's the decision you have to make at 300 grand. That's right. And that was the decision that I made. I was like, where has it been easiest for you to sell?

31:10And again, what psychology of buyer do you want to market towards on a consistent basis? And I was like, I'd rather market to the person that is more sophisticated, uses more discernment in their decision making, but is also looking for a more specialized solution to the problem that they have. Oh, that's beautiful. And it went like hotcakes. Then COVID happened. And then it went like hotcakes again. Why do you think? I think that because of economic sentiment. Like, I think during COVID, even though we were going through a massive, you know, global pandemic and people are like freaking out, there was a flood of cash in the American market.

31:44Yes, there was. And I think because there was a flood of cash and a lot of people didn't have to work. I mean, I shouldn't say have to. They couldn't go into work. People were laid off. But also there was a lot of stimulus built into the economy at the time, which is, I don't know if this has happened in another point in history, to my knowledge. But during COVID, I feel like the buyer sentiment, while we're going through a global crisis, people had this feeling of opportunity. Yes. Housing. A fresh start. It was, yes. You can see that in how prices even in real estate went. Yes. People were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking price.

32:18And it's like, where are people getting all this money from? And it's like interest rates were stupid low. So, like, I think there was a lot of overall sentiment of, like, hope, possibility. I can do anything. That's right. And people, this is the first time I think as a halt that all of us had, people had a moment to stop. Yes. We were, I think a lot of people were keeping themselves busy and distracting themselves from the internal discomfort that they were feeling. Like dissatisfaction in their jobs. Yes. Dissatisfaction in their relationships. It was like a wake up call. Yes. And I think that when you have that global moment in time that pauses all of us and it's like, what do I really want?

32:53So many people were like, I want to grow my business. I want to start a business. And at the time, my ex-husband, he's a hedge fund manager. And he was like, milk this. And I said, say less. He's like, this is a very rare moment in time. I really do appreciate him because he helped me understand macroeconomics in a way that I didn't have exposure to. Can you explain it for us right now for people who are? I'm going to explain it at the golden retrieval level that I know. No, that's great. That's great. Because what happens is because history repeats itself. A hundred percent. We hope and praise that there's not a global pandemic.

33:21But people will, at some point in time, realize that they want something else in their relationship, in their life, in their business. in their professional life, whatever the case may be, and they will have their own personal COVID. And so when another person can meet them when the nail goes through their foot, meet them right when they're experiencing their own personal COVID, how do we milk it for what it is? Teach us that. So he explained it to me in a macroeconomic standpoint. Like there's every industry has a cycle and it's important for you to understand based off the industry you're in, what is your cycle?

33:48There's always gonna be an ebb and flow. Ray Dalio talks about this in the book Principles too. And if you look at real estate, like 08 was a massive boom. A lot of people lost a lot of money, but that's where a lot of wealth is created during those tough times. So what we were noticing, he's like, this is probably going to last like nine months to maybe two years. We don't know how long it's going to last, obviously, but like there is a flood of money in the economy right now. There's a lot. People have opportunity to spend that money right now. And for your industry in particular, like people want new businesses, new job opportunities.

34:20They want to create their own career paths. Like they want that type of freedom. If you can have the capacity to be able to serve the demand when the demand is our, I don't have to manufacture the demand. Demand is there. These people are going to be buying regardless. So who are they going to buy from? And that's where I was like, okay. He's like, this might not last that long. So go for the next 18 months and like just go ham. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go for the next 18 months. So what did ham look like for you? Ham looked like for me. Specialize, my offer. Again. Like that was when I, yes, I decommissioned the old program.

34:51I was like, double down on where you see the biggest opportunity right now. And if people have the money, which they do. And I also look at like discretionary spending. So if you look at the type of consumer that you typically attract, and out of the time I had a good enough data to look at, like my top 20 % of clients and the way that I kind of do this, this is not like a pure science, but I go into my Stripe account and what type of credit card or debit card are my clients paying for my services with? And that gives me some level of insight. majority of my clients are like either chase or amex card holders which if you're an amex card holder that lets me know that you have i would guess you have a larger threshold for what you can like purchase on that card lets me know your credit score is probably a little bit higher that person probably has maybe a little bit more discretionary spending that's not like a science but like that's when i talk about know your customer those are like little just things that I pay attention to.

35:44And at the time I was like, okay, I'm going to specialize again based off of the best results my clients are getting. Let's pause here for a second. You enter in with a 2K or more or less when you realize that you have a bonafide business, you have your 2K offer. That's what got me to 300 grand. Right. And then at 300 grand, you decide to decommission those, go to a 10K offer that gets you to what point? 800? Yeah. I've sold that program for the next three years. So that program got me from$333 ,000 or something to the next year,$840 ,000. The next year was like, I think 1.2 mil and then 1.4 mil, something like that.

36:19That was the main offer I sold for three years. And you went from specializing from like, I'm taking my one-on-one clients. I'm going to teach those people how they take their one-on-one clients and build a group coaching program. And then you specialized again from that group. Yes. So like services that sell was the 2K offer that I sold to get me$300 ,000. And I was helping anybody that wanted to sell their first four-figure offer. It could be coaches or service providers. So there was a little bit of generalization in the who. And it was still kind of like a newer business owner. And then from there, I was like, do I want to keep serving the newbies, which I love y 'all.

36:50We all got to start there. Or do I want to anchor my business against something more sophisticated? So I was like, okay, I'm going to work with people who are already making close to a hundred grand, somewhere between 50 and a hundred thousand. They've seen results and they need help now, like multiplying those results. And that's where I knew my sweet spot was. I think that's also important for me to layer in this conversation. I'm really good at optimizing something that exists and taking it to the next level. I think there's a lot of entrepreneurs who are really good at getting a business off the ground.

37:21And there are some entrepreneurs who are really good at once a business is off the ground, they're really good at growing it and scaling it. And I think I read maybe E-Myth. It might have been that book that was like, help me. I'm like, I'm really good. If something already exists, I can optimize it. I can look for profit opportunities. I can reduce overhead. I'm really good at that. So that was also like, okay, that's where I thrive coaching. That's where it's easiest for me to coach. And I'm like, quite honestly, there's more money to be made there. So that's when I specialize. I'm like, I'm not going to bank my messaging, my marketing, my business model for newbies.

37:53I'm going to bank it towards somebody who's a little bit further on. And that offer was 10K. I started with 10 people to validate it, make sure the process was tight, figure out the messaging. And then continue to refine it, refine the promise. So it was really helping people get beyond their first$200 ,000 in revenue with a leverage group program. By helping them reduce their number of private one-on-one hours and turning 15 one-on-one hours into two calls a month type of thing. Then you refined it again going into COVID. And what did that change look like? Well, during COVID, the benefit of why I was able to capture so much cash during COVID is because my delivery was tight.

38:31Delivery was standardized. The promise was clear. all the aspects of my client delivery were documented standardized I was able to bring in program coaches without diminishing or my client results so like the offer was solid so during COVID what happens even with like the Oprah effect when people go on Oprah and you get on her wish list so many businesses have gone bankrupt because of that because they get all this attention but they can't handle the demand they cannot fulfill it and I was really good at the fulfillment And so during COVID, I was like, Jay, just go ham on the marketing, go ham on your messaging.

39:05And that's when I started to, I launched my podcast. So at the time, all of my sales really came from live video. And I would show up live, pretty much every time I went live, I'd make a sale. But I was like, I need to figure out a way to leverage my marketing content and create more of like my own internal Netflix. I need like bingeable content for people. So I started my podcast. Podcast might have started maybe right before COVID, but I actually like put effort into it. I prioritized the platform because I noticed a lot of my clients would find me on Instagram. They would binge my podcast. They were private lurkers.

39:37They were not public engagers. They were silent and private decision makers. So that's something else I noticed too from my data. And I was like, okay, I knew if somebody consumed at least four hours of my content, they'd be ready to make a buying decision. Not to say they'd be a yes, but they'd be like primed enough. So I was like, you just need to create long form bingeable content. And all of my messaging was 100 % tailored to the promise of the program that I was selling. And I think, again, that's a differentiation in marketing from I'm being an influencer and want to go viral. I mean, no podcast I've ever published has gotten more than 2000 downloads.

40:10But if you have 1000 people who are mostly qualified that are listening, you can make millions. And I think that was, again, like another, I'm not chasing the masses. Like my free content became my church. It was like, my free content was how do I get you to a hundred thousand dollars you can listen to my podcast and get to a hundred grand because that's what I need you to be pre-qualified before you can even work with me so good so all my free content was how do I get you pre-qualified so that you can even be eligible so good and you know where what I'm selling will make sense at the right time for you and then I would document every objection I got on the sales call and two weeks later that would turn into marketing content so all of my marketing content was its only job was to pre-qualify leads help over, you know, address objections, introduce a new perspective, shift a belief that aligned with the offer that I was selling.

41:01So when we talk about shifting beliefs, this is where I kind of want to loop it, kind of like close the conversation because we've gone through so much. When there's somebody who's hearing this, how do you shift the beliefs for somebody who says, that will just never be me? I will never be that. For the person, what do you say to that person? Well, you can't convince somebody like of anything. Like I know that in my work, I'm like people can borrow my belief for a short period of time, but like their essence, you can't force somebody to do anything. But when I think about shifting a belief, like I used to have a belief that I have to run paid advertising in order to get in front of new leads for my business.

41:41So when I think about a belief, I'm not necessarily trying to like change their character, but I am trying to help them think differently about how they approach solving the problem that they have or being able to properly identify what their problem actually is. Because nine times out of 10, people come to me, it's like, oh, my business needs to grow. I need more leads. I need to go viral. I need to run ads. I'm like, that could be the case. And also like you could double your revenue right now because you're undercharging and we just need to increase your price. we could create more profitability in the business because, you know, by reducing some of your overhead because you're overspending because your client delivery is too customized from client to client.

42:18If we standardize your delivery, you don't need three people to be manually customizing every client relationship. So I mean, like, that's what I mean by shifting a belief. I was really just introducing new variables on how they can approach solving their problem and being able to properly analyze what their problem actually is. I remember in the early days, I mean, I spent so much time trying to convince people of like, that you can make thousands of dollars. And I'm like, Jay, you're losing out on money trying to like, and I think that's a tough thing for like a woman of color. I feel like this is very true too.

42:48And I have clients that are like immigrants. I'm like the first in my family to do a lot. I think when you're one of the first, it's very natural to like, I got to bring everybody along with me. And, you know, everybody's not, the thing that I've learned in coaching is that I want for you what you want for you. I can't want for you more than you want for yourself. And it's not my responsibility to project what I think you should want because of, you know, I don't know what my own beliefs are. So I think that's a detachment thing I've had to learn over the years that like I only can want for somebody ultimately what they deeply desire and want for themselves.

43:25Now, a lot of time we lie to ourselves about what we want, which I'm like, we can work through that. But at the essence, I'm helping you materialize, you know, what your heart desire is, what assignment God has, you know, attached on your heart that you believe is available for you. So, I mean, so when I say convincing or shifting a belief, I want to make sure I'm clear. I'm like, I'm not trying to change this person's character or I'm not trying to project my beliefs onto them. I'm just trying to help them properly diagnose what their issue in their business is and also introduce new variables that they haven't considered to get to their outcome.

43:57And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I wanted Jerisha Hawk on the show. One thing she just said, I'm here to introduce new variables to solve an old problem. I am hoping that at some point in this conversation, you were able to apply a new belief, not changing who you are, but simply saying there is a different way to look at what is going on in my business. I hope that you understand that what she did to got to where she's going and where she is, is she stopped doing what everybody else was doing. And she used skills within restrictions. She basically said, you must take what you have and make it work.

44:33And she learned that in cornfields and that somehow, you know, from Detroit to the cornfields to, you know, La Jolla, California, this is what she's been doing. And, you know, she flipped her funnel. She realized that she can play the small game with newbies, or she can simply say, I have a skill set. I need to define my message. I need to define who it's for. And then I need to be able to say, I can go out and strategically build out a funnel that leads the right people to me. Now, one of the things that her mentors had said when she felt unqualified. So if you are in the place of feeling unqualified, number one, you don't need to know everything.

45:07Number two, you know how to ask the right questions. And number three, you can ask for help. Thank you, Jerisha, for being here and helping us ask for help, helping us ask better questions. How do people go deeper with you? Where are we sending them? I mean, you have a podcast. You have a website. Let's give a little shout out. Let's give a shout out. Yeah, definitely come check out the podcast. It's called Jerisha Said. You can listen to it on iTunes, Spotify, wherever. I'm just in the middle right now of doing a season of like talking about taking seven minutes off for my sabbatical, how I'm reentering my business, how I'm rethinking about business.

45:41So it's really juicy right now. Yeah. Just even being able to afford to take a sabbatical and just seven months sabbatical, seven months sabbatical without having to change the quality of my life. And like, I mean, the dope part about it is, and I think maybe the thing that I want to drive home is just remember what you start at your business. Like many of us who are starting online businesses are so that we can create a certain lifestyle for ourselves and for our family and make sure that you are leveraging the profit from your business to build your personal net worth. I cannot emphasize that enough.

46:12I think it's very easy to get in our space and get distracted by big launch numbers and big revenue numbers and like focus everything on that. And then you might've had the biggest launch of your life, but you didn't pay yourself last month. And it's like the peace that I have right now is because of this last eight years of how I managed my profit. And I'm deeply grateful for that and deeply grateful for the Instagram and Facebook and the internet because of that. But that's a lot of what I've been talking about in this season of the podcast is just how to make sure that you're clear on what your owner's intent is, how to align your business model with that intent so that when you're operating your business, your profit that you take home and that you keep is actually aligned with what you ultimately want and desire.

46:52So come on over to the podcast. Yes and amen. Jerisha said and JerishaHawk.com. Yep. JerishaHawk.com. I love it. Sliding my DMs on Instagram. Yeah, you know she's there. Yeah, I am there. You know she's there. Tell me what you enjoyed from this episode. I would love to continue the conversation. At JerishaHawk, at Jasmine Star. We create this show for people who are ready to uplevel their lives, talk about scaling. and to look at different business models because there is not one size business. She is living proof that a very smart, brilliant, strong woman can find a way to build a life that she loves, a seven-figure business, while also creating an intention for wealth to be able to do things that empower her, take a seven-month sabbatical, and then share what she knows with others.

47:30Thank you for listening and watching to The Jasmine Starr Show.