3. Invite Yourself to Make More Money

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Welcome to Episode Three of How to Make More Money, a podcast that helps you get seriously good at the game of making serious money. I’m your host, Kelly Hollingsworth. I’m glad you’re here. If you listened to the last episode, you know that we talked about feeling stuck.

When you’re feeling stuck and you’re not moving forward with getting to that next level in your business, fear is almost always the culprit. Sometimes we say it’s fear of success or a fear of failure, but that’s not helpful because we’re not really afraid of those things. Actually, what’s going on is there are five (far more specific) fears that are holding you back that you may not even be aware of. So if you didn’t listen to that episode, I wholeheartedly suggest you go back and have a listen.

Now we embark on the solution. How do you solve for fear? With skill. Beginning with today’s episode, we’re embarking on a deep dive into the seven skills you need to take your income to seven figures and beyond.

Discovering the Seven Skills

So how did I discover these seven skills? One year my sister-in-law gave me a book for Christmas. I don’t remember the title, but the subject of it was, what women need to do to build seven figure businesses.

And I squealed when I opened the present that she gave to me, because I was thinking this has been my life’s work. I’ve devoted my entire life to this topic. I think about it all the time. I talk to my clients about it all the time. This is where they all want to go. I help them get there. And someone wrote a book about it and you bought me this book for Christmas? Amazing. I never even knew a book like this existed. This is so much fun.

I was thrilled to just have the book in my hands because I felt a cosmic connection to the author, another woman who was writing a book about exactly the stuff I’m interested in.

And it feels difficult to meet women like me sometimes. One time a physical therapist asked me, “So Kelly, what do you do for fun?” And I looked him in the face and I said, “Revenue generation. That is the most I can think of.”

So here I am with this book, I’m so excited to read it. I was reading it before anyone even got out of their pajamas on Christmas morning. I’m hunkered down, reading this book in the corner of the living room. And here I have to say that I love my sister-in-law, but I did not love the book. Why not? Because there was nothing in it that truly would help another business owner generate a seven figure income. It was written by a woman who had generated her own seven-figure business, but the stuff she was writing about was stuff that was things seven-figure business owners do, that look necessary that are completely unnecessary.

And the things that were missing from the book were the critical ingredients that she had obviously done to create her seven-figure business, but I don’t think she was even aware that she had done those things or that they contributed to her success. So she was one of those people who was great at doing, not necessarily great at teaching and coaching. Not trying to fault her, just saying when I got to the end of the book my disappointment remained.

Then I told my sister in law, “I’m actually glad you gave me this book because it’s jogging my brain to start thinking about, what does it really take?” This has been the subject of 25, almost 30 years of my professional life. So I thought, what does it really take? I know the subject, like the back of my hand, but how do you make it simple? How do you make it so simple that you could distill it down to its essence and put it into a book?

So I put me to work on this question, and over many brain-bending months that were not very enjoyable for the people around me. I have to tell you every time my husband was talking to me, he would look at me and say, “I don’t even know where you are.” But I finally distilled it down to its essence, and it’s all just… It comes down to seven skills. The seven skills I’m going to tell you about dial up the ease and efficacy in each of your business’ four essential functions.

The Seven Skills Make You Better at Business

Now you may not realize that your business has exactly four essential functions. They’re the same in every single business, no matter what you do. It’s very simple. First, you just have to attract an audience. Second, you convert them into clients or customers. Third, you deliver the good or service that you promised. And at some point you also have to collect the cash. Mike Michalowicz in his great, amazing book, Clockwork says, “It’s ACDC, attract, convert, deliver, collect.” Makes perfect sense.

So these four functions are IT, whether you’re a hedge fund manager. Or a horticulturalist. If you’re a life coach. A lawyer. If you run a lemonade stand. Whatever you do attract, convert, deliver, collect. Those are the four essential functions of every business.

So today with today’s episode, we’re going to embark on learning the seven skills that take these four essential functions and transform them. When you acquire and apply the seven skills that I teach, your business functions as never before. There is ease around each function, everything you do is more effective because the skills make you better in each of the four areas of business.

So what does this mean for you? You’re attracting people to you like never before. You’re converting like never before. The term “sales” doesn’t even exist for you. Sales is about convincing and persuading. With the seven skills, there’s none of that. People just want to work with you and they self-select into becoming your clients. The best prospects are self-selecting into becoming your clients all the time. And they’re not cost-conscious, what’s front and center in their minds is the value you create. And how they can’t wait to work with you so they can tap into it.

When they do work with you, you deliver. Clients are getting the big transformation they came for and they’re delighted. Friends are telling friends. The media is telling everyone. People suddenly are calling you up, wanting to interview you. Great team members ask to work for you. You’re getting the top talent and you don’t have to chase it down. It’s just showing up on your doorstep because they just want to be around what you’re doing.

Demand for what you do, and the special way that you do it, skyrockets. Your prices rise. Your effort decreases. You have white space to think and dream and strategize. So basically you’re working less, you’re making more and you’re enjoying your business more because your business is no longer fueled by your own efforts. It’s no longer fueled by hustle, instead it feels powered from within like a diamond that looks like it’s lit from inside. That’s how your business operates. It has an engine that’s driving itself. And how does this happen? You create a business like this using the seven skills that I’m going to teach you in the next seven episodes. In short, through a skills-based approach, your business boldly goes where no business (at least of yours yet) has ever gone before.

Sound good? If so we start on that in the very next episode, but before we dive in, I want to take a few minutes today to lay the foundation for what’s to come. The first thing you should expect to happen as you listen to the seven skills is you’re probably going to think that all sounds very interesting, but you’re not going to see how some or even all of the skills necessarily apply to you and your business.

This is a common thought, but it’s what I call a thought error. It’s not true and it’s not useful. Here’s an example of what I mean. This summer, I went hiking with a friend who had just attended a presentation I did on the seven skills. And she said exactly what I just told you. Basically, “Yeah, that was interesting, too bad this stuff doesn’t apply to me and my business.” She told me all of the reasons why the seven skills didn’t address what was happening in her business and the problems in her business. In the span of a two-hour hike though, I helped her see how all of the skills applied to her own business. And not just applied, but solved every major problem she was having. And before we were down the mountain, she said, “Oh, my word, this changes everything.”

So keep an open mind as you listen, as we talk about the seven skills in the upcoming episodes. These skills will help you improve what you’re doing in each of the four essential functions of every business. So there’s no business they don’t apply to.

You have to invite yourself to play the game of making serious money

Often, what’s really going on when you think the seven skills don’t apply to you is that there’s something else bubbling beneath the surface. Often it’s, who am I to think about just blowing the doors off my current business and making it run so much better. I’m just this little player. I have this little business and it’s fine. And why would I think I could really take things to the next level like that? And here, if that’s what’s bubbling beneath the surface of, I’m not sure this applies to me… here what I’ll say to you is what I say to every client who’s wanting to grow, but is asking, “Who am I to do that?”

That the answer is that every entrepreneur answers this question for themselves, and how they answer seals their fate. Whenever I was running my hedge fund, a man asked me, “So what do you do?” And I said, “I’m a hedge fund manager.” And he said, “Whose fund is it?” And I said, “Mine.” And he said, “No. I mean, who do you work for?” And I said, “Me.” And he said, “Listen, what I mean is… I mean, it’s not just Kelly Hollingsworth’s hedge fund, is it?” And I said, “Well, yes, it is. That’s exactly what it is.”

So why did we have this exchange? Why was this dude thinking, she can’t just start a hedge fund. It’s a very common thought. It’s what I call it a low profit thought. And the reason it’s a low profit thought is because people who think this kind of thing are always waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder and say, “It’s your turn.”

We think that there’s some eye in the sky who looks down and decides who gets to do what. But that isn’t how it works. There is no velvet rope around the “big league” field of commerce. There’s no gate. Making serious money is a walk on type of sport. If you’re sitting on the sidelines, literally all you have to do is stand up, walk over and get up on the field.

At first, when you get there, it may feel like a foreign land. But it’s not a hostile territory. It’s just exotic travel. It’s different, but it’s not unwelcoming. It’s just a new culture with new rules and new lingo.

Here’s an example from my own life. I was working in the hedge fund industry in Manhattan. I had just moved to Manhattan. Recall that I am hayseed from North Idaho. And there I was hanging out with people who had MBAs from Wharton, and PhDs from Yale. I went to North Idaho Junior College, first two years of school. NIC!

So, here I am with all these people who went to prep school. They knew about polo and private equity funds and a whole world that I had glimpsed in movies, but had no real sense of. I didn’t really even understand a lot of what they were talking about much at the time. So one day, everyone in the office where I was working was talking about going away to the country. I didn’t know exactly where they were talking about, but I wanted to go, too. So I had planned to go to Flathead Lake, Montana for my vacation that summer. It’s my favorite place on earth. And when the time was coming up for me to leave for my trip, when everyone else was saying, “I’m leaving for the country tomorrow,” I finally could join in and I said, “Oh, me too. I’m going to the country tomorrow too.”

And one of the guys looked over at me and he said, “Where are you going?” I said, “Montana,” and I smiled. Like everyone in Manhattan goes away to Montana, like they all knew it’s the greatest place to go. And I was so proud and happy that I was the one who was going there. And then he said, “Oh honey, that’s not the country. That’s the frontier.”

And that’s when I learned something that I didn’t know before. That going to the quote, unquote country means going to the Hamptons. And I thought, “What? That’s not the country. That’s Long Island.” But if you live in Manhattan, that’s what they think of as the country.

So that was one of my many examples of not fitting in, in Midtown Manhattan. But why am I telling you this story? Because the truth, is I didn’t fit in. I was nothing like those people, and they could see it, and they could smell it, and they could hear it. I was dripping with different-ness.

But guess what? I was still in the game. They weren’t mean. They were just noticing that I was different and talking about it with me. It meant nothing for my prospects for success in that business. So please take this to heart. Making money is not like in the movies, the rich person isn’t the villain who’s trying to keep you out. I showed up as the hayseed from Idaho, the scrappy upstart, who wanted to learn and grow and succeed. And no one kicked me out. If anything, they cheered me on. I had way more supporters and cheerleaders than I did detractors. The rich aren’t trying to keep anyone off the field. If anything, the exclusions go the other way.

My grandmother, who was on public assistance for most of her life was always railing against rich people. Always saying, “They don’t want us around.” But nothing could be further from the truth. The people who are making all the money do so because they’re not exclusionary. They welcome all comers. They love connecting with other like-minded people, no matter where you are in your journey. It’s the people who aren’t making money who simply think they’re excluded.

And guess what? You get what you think. When my grandmother felt excluded, what do you think she did? She hunkered down, avoided anyone who might have money, and created that exact result with the thought that it was the way of the world.

So what I’d like you to glean from this episode, before we dive into the seven skills that will help you make as much money as you ever want to make, is that a big reason we think, This doesn’t apply to me, those skills don’t apply to me is because we’re still thinking that someone needs to invite us to the party. We need permission from an outside source before our name is on the roster.

What you really need is the decision to self-select. That’s how you earn not just their respect, but also your own. And, that’s the way in. If you’re not already in, self-selection is the only way in. No one’s going to invite you. No one’s going to give you permission to join.

Why not? Because they know that no invitation is necessary, no permission is necessary. It’s just up to you to decide to join in. So if you’re ready to make that decision to get on the field and start learning the skills, join me for the next seven episodes. Seven skills for an income that goes to seven figures and beyond. These skills don’t just help you build it. If you’re trying to build it or if you’re struggling with what you’ve built so far, they also provide a filter through which you can diagnose any business problem. So please join me for those, and thank you for being here today.