Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA welcome to Balancing Acts, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm your host, Linda Hamilton. I'm a CPA certified exit planning advisor and systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success.
We know the numbers matter, but what the story behind the numbers uncovers, hidden threats and opportunities. One thing I've noticed over and over is that success isn't just about working harder. It's about having the right strategies in place, about taking action and about recognizing that all of your activities, your mindset, your process, your sales, everything affects your bottom line. And so today's problem we're going to talk about is what I call breaking seven figure barriers. And there's a 2% and a 9% problem.
Only 9% of business owners, small business owners, actually break seven figures. Only 2% of women owned businesses break seven figures. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But our guest today, Betty Hines, the founder and CEO of Women Elevating Women, is here to help us understand and break that down. Why do so few break seven figures and often might even be hard to stay at seven figures? So, Betty, we've known each other a long time. Betty has been 20 years with the Women's Presidents organization as a chapter chair. She formed Women elevating women in 2018 and has been very successful. And most recently, among her many awards, President Biden awarded Betty with with a lifetime achievement award. Welcome, Betty. I'm so glad to talk to you about unpacking this seven figure barrier.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Thank you, Linda. And I am just overjoyed to have the opportunity to share my story and share our story.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And so let's start with where your inspiration came from to create Women Elevating Women, also known as woo.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Right, Exactly.
It all started having worked with WPO for, like you said, almost 20 years, most of my working relationship has been with women who have revenues of a million, up to billions. And I realized there was a gap. There was a gap for those women that 8 to 10% in this country who were trying to scale their businesses to a higher level, but just didn't have the tools, tips and techniques to get there. And so that was inspiration. So I felt it was incumbent upon me to take my experience and bring it to those women into the market. And there we formed Women Elevating Women because you don't have to do it alone. And that's where woo comes from.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: That's. And we know that doing anything in business alone is not a Recipe for success. And as I talked about in the open, it comes from, you know, what are your strategies for actually breaking those barriers. So you mentioned that you saw that gap. Can we go in a little deeper into what exactly the gap is?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Sure. A lot of the gaps. When women are at that six figures, they plateau.
They don't have the resources, they don't have the opportunities, they don't have the strategic introductions. That's the biggest gap because you can have all the tools, but if you don't have the resources and the right connections, it's hard for you to elevate. That is why with the women elevating women, I captured what we call the five pillars of success. And so I took the success of entrepreneurs and executives, married them together, and that is what we've introduced into our platform, our plateau, it is our mantra on how we scale businesses.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: And I do want to go into all of your pillars as a discussion, but is there something about mindset first that it takes to actually get from a six figure big business? And you know, that could be anywhere. I think 88% of women make less than $100,000 a year in their business. So that is six figures. But it's a low six figures and it may be enough for what they have. But what mindset shifts have to happen to actually get to maybe the upper six figures?
[00:05:06] Speaker B: A lot of it has to do with the support and encouragement women tend to. At least the ones that I've come around, I've worked with many of them over the decades, is that scarcity mentality. They don't have to do this alone. If they have that understanding and they realize that they could scale faster and further if they work together, then they can reach that beyond that six figure plateau. What we try to do is first is really giving them that encouragement, helping them understand that they can as well as others if they want to, and they can take it to the next level. If they see it, they can believe it. So a lot of it, the mindset is not feeling that you're alone because they're not alone. There are women just like them that are trying to scale to the next level. So that shifting, having that community building ecosystem, that is support for all these women and mentoring them and nurturing them when they have an idea and taking them making those introductions, that's the mindset of accomplishment and support. And that is what we do in our women elevating women community.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: I love that mindset. And you know, you're talking about support and having an idea and Believing that you can scale that idea, that you can build a much more successful business. But then we also get to the numbers too, where oftentimes women tell me in the programs I do teach that they don't really understand their numbers. Right? That they're some are intimidated by their numbers. And that can make a difference because as I said, you know, your numbers tell a story about the past, about what's actually happening. So how does wou help people get some understanding? Maybe it's your courage pillar. I'm not sure.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Where does that come from? Yes, thank you for bringing that up. In fact, we were honored to have you speak at our last conference.
I don't have all the areas of expertise, so what we bring in and what we have on our advisory council, as my advisors, I have a cfo, I have a cpa. We bring people in and they present to these individuals. We have pillar meetings. And one of them is the courage pillar. And that's the courage to take care of your wealth, both your business and your personal. So we bring in these outside expertise and they will guide you through the process. We also help them establish their KPIs.
This is something that a lot of small businesses neglect. If you don't measure it, you don't know where you're going. We also make sure they have a strategic plan and they have a business plan. So we bring in those resources to meet with them individually and as a group. And what I have found is that sometimes a smaller business, they might be embarrassed over the knowledge that they don't have. We provide a comfort level where they can ask whatever question, no question is a dumb question. We let them ask those questions and we provide them with the necessary resources that they need. Because each business is different so that they can execute effectively.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: I completely agree with that. Each business is different and, and the numbers, they may have some similar challenges, but some people are going to have more of a challenge in a particular area than another. You know, we all bring a different expertise or the reason we started our businesses. And you and I both own businesses as well. And you talked about KPIs. Let's go into that a little more. What's an example of a KPI that will help a business measure? Maybe getting, if they're at 100,000, getting to their next 100,000 or and so forth?
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Well, first when we talk about the KPIs, they need to have a strategic plan. So if they say, for example, I want to grow my revenues by X percent, that's great. That's an objective, but they need to map out how are they going to get there, what are the throughputs that are going to get them to the next level. Does that mean if they're a service business, does that mean you have to have so many contracts, do you have to bring on additional members? If they're product based, it's like how many more products that you have to have. Then also you're going to do a timeline. They need to see are you going to. Because it could be seasonal depending on what their service or their products are. They need to map out. I'm going to do X amount in the first quarter, X amount in the second quarter and review those monthly, those key measurements, let them know if they're on the right path and if they're not on the right path, what adjustments need to take place. And sometimes they're not going to know all that, but that's why they have, they had a, they have members or they have their team and they'll take a look at each one of those teams. What are you doing to help us scale that business or what are you not doing? So you have to put those performance measurements in place to track the pace of your business, the scale of your business and the trajectory. And if it's not there, then you need to know how to pivot. So all these KPIs help them in scaling.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: That's great. And so they're selecting KPIs based on their own goals and objectives that they've implemented in their plan. And I know we both think very highly of creating a business plan to help you, help you grow. So how do you introduce that topic to WOU members?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: It's one of the very first things we do. We have them, we give them. You know, I like you have been through the, the one page business plan. I've taken that course. And so we use a version of it for our members and people think initially they're intimidated, thinking, oh my gosh, I need to have a, you know, 10, 20 pages. They can go with a simple plan because first they need to get their thoughts down on paper because if they don't have it written down on paper, it's hard for them to follow or to track. And so we have them from the very beginning it's like, okay, what is your strategy? What is your objective? And we want to say what are the steps you've taken to get to your objective? What are the measurements? So that's day one that we have with our members and members who have been with us. Then we take it to the next level. We have them bring one key objective because you can have a whole bunch of them. But we ask them to be one key objective and they report on that on each one of their meetings. Plus we assign them accountability partner so they can meet with them and they get a mentor because sometimes they can see something or don't see something that an outside person can do it. So we have them bring one objective to start with. We don't want to bring three to five. Let's get one. Start with one and then we scale it from there.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: That is, I think, an awesome insight into getting, getting started. And we're going to take a break. We hope you'll stay with us because Betty's going to talk more about her pillars for success to be able to break seven figures. And we'll be right back. But Betty's website is wb w e w crew.com welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton, and we're talking with Betty Hines, the CEO and founder of Women Elevating Women. And we're talking about breaking seven figures. How does a small business find the strategies to achieve that success? Because so few. Only 2% of women break seven figures and only 9% of all small businesses do. Betty, you have defined five pillars of success, and I know you focus on getting businesses first from six figures to 1 million and more. So how did you select those five pillars?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Well, thank you for asking me that question, Linda. In my experience, I've been a C suite executive, I've been an entrepreneur, and now I work at the capacity as a consultant. So what I did is that I modeled characteristics that I saw in successful women entrepreneurs and women executives. And why I took the woman executives, because if you find a woman executive that has a income salary of six figures, plus typically they have their own little mini P and L, they're running their own small business. And so in the back of their mind, they are. They have to think like an entrepreneur to be successful with that. So that's how I selected the five pillars. And the five pillars are collaborate. And I'll go into that later. Connect, communicate, encourage, and cultivate. But these are pillars that I saw resemble successful entrepreneurs and successful women executives.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: So let's talk about, let's go a little deeper into one of them. What would you say is the beginning of where they work once they become WW members?
[00:14:44] Speaker B: The biggest one I see for women is how to collaborate is the collaborate pillar. That is something that is not particularly a strength that I've seen in the past of women were getting better at it. But if you take a look at just individuals who are running their own business, you must know how to collaborate. If you're in the corporate space, you need to learn how to collaborate with other divisions in the business community. You need to learn how to collaborate each other. As I said before, and you'll hear me say it again, you don't have to do it alone. Particularly at a smaller business, you won't have the bandwidth sometimes to take on some of these contracts or take on these initiatives. Why not work together? And so through collaboration, and I tell them all the time, there's enough out there for all of us. There is really enough for all of us. And the example I will tell them is how many OBGYNs do you know out there? There's a lot of them. It's how they execute and determines the number of patients that they might have. But collaboration to me is one of the very key pillars. If you're willing to collaborate, you're willing to succeed.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: So let's break that down, collaboration a little more because it can mean different things, right? In an OB GYN, right, there are multiple doctors because they're on call 24 7, right when they deliver babies. And so they might have partnerships in, or some of them work through hospitals. But so what are some of the other forms of collaboration that can make a difference to someone wanting to grow?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: For those of that are in the government contracting space, some might have a certain level of clearance and some may not. You can work, you can partner with them. You can work as a subcontractor for someone that is a prime for those who are not in the government space. Maybe you both go into this, this business, this organization and say, hey, look, my expertise is on this piece of what your needs are. Want to assess the needs of a corporation, but I have a partner here, I have someone that I know that can supplement what I'm doing so we can work collaboratively to really meet your needs. That's after you've done the assessment of what are some of the needs of that particular business. But too often we want to take a big bite, we want to eat it all when we know we don't have the bad width or we might not have the capacity or the capabilities. So reach out to another woman business who you know has that capability and ask them to go on with you on a joint venture.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: And that's great advice. And one of the simplest forms I think of collaboration. People don't always Think of it this way are when you hire independent contractors, that's a capacity issue. I don't have employees, I don't have a team. And maybe it's a smaller business or someone it could be occasionally it's a friendly competitor where they're helping you fill in and in other times is if you don't have the capacity to grow and you take on work that's too much, that's maybe one of the worst things that can happen, right? Because that can hurt your reputation, it can hurt where you can't deliver on the things you've promised.
So independent contractors is a form of collaboration. You want to do it with a compliance mindset, but that is what we see across so many of these businesses right there. Do you have any examples of a success story of someone who used collaboration to actually break seven figures and maybe move on, you know, outgrow woo, so to speak, which is a credit to woo if they, if they grow larger.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: I would say my partnership in collaboration with Women Presidents organization.
Oftentimes when WPO will go to a conference, even the Wii bank conference, they would talk about wpo and sometimes when they're interviewing the women, the women say, well, I'm not quite at the seven figures, you know, I don't have that million. And in the past they would have to say, oh, we're sorry, you know, our apologies once you get there. Once you get there, those words is like a slam closing the door in a woman's face. Now what they can say, well, you're not there. That's our requirement. However, we have a sister partner here that will take you at six figures and once you scale, we can move you into the WPO organization. We've done that numerous times. I would say over 10% of the women that have come through wou we have moved into WPO. We also have women who there might not have been a chapter, a local chapter nearby that rather than lose them, and this is a collaboration, we kept them in our organization as a member at large. And then when they were ready to open, then we moved them back over to wpo. So that to me is a true example of a collaboration that's been a win win both for WPO and for whoop.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And for our audience listening. WPO stands for the Women President Organization. It is a peer advisory organization for women owned businesses of $1 million and up. And Betty and I have been invol the Women President's organization for many, many years and it is a, a nonprofit business model and so they have some wonderful business owners who kind of serve as an advisory board. But one more thing on collaboration, some will fear collaborating, right? They'll fear they're going to take your IP or, or you know, maybe it's going to, or the revenue won't work out and there might be disagreements about that. How do you address the fears of collaborating with other business owners who are not your employees?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Well, you know, there's a lot of organization, women organizations, and we could go and list many of them that have certain elements of a WOO or a wpo, but it's really how you execute. You have to find out, the woman has to find out what is the organization that's going to best fit their needs. So for wou, we're for those who are six figures and we're a global organization. There are other people who might appear similar to ours, but it's what your need is. The thing that we differentiate with WOU is that we have other partners, one being Women Presidents organization. And our whole mission and goal is to take that woman business to help them scale to the next level. And we also recognize too that some of the women don't want to be at the million dollar threshold. They're very comfortable at a half a million and that's fine. But where do they go? They stay with us. The other difference that we have is that there's a lot of organizations out there that have these eight weeks or 12 week courses. Once they've completed those courses, we're the what's next? And that's why we are a differentiator. Because once they've completed, and I won't name them, but there's several out there that you and I both know where they have 12 weeks and then they graduate. And though they might stay connected with each other via email, they still need to have that nurturing. And so where do they go? And if they're not ready for a woman president's organization, we are that organization that can satisfy that need. We can continue to nurture them. So that is where I see that there's a differentiation to what we do and what the organization do and why. You have to assess what is the best fit for you.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for that. And there are many organizations for both men and women who want to grow. And I think you mentioned earlier accountability and support. Right? It's not enough to just take a class or a workshop because when it stops, you still need the support, you still need the accountability. Because entrepreneurs are constantly brainstorming, they're constantly coming up with New ideas, trying to find ways to pivot. So I think that collaboration is one of the most important things you can do to help you get your business. Especially if you're at 1000-002000-00250,000 and you want to make it to 500, maybe you want to stay there. That's always your choice. But at the same time you want it to be your choice. What is it you want? What objective do you want to be able to get you there? And there's lots of support available for that. Betty, if people want to understand more about your pillars, where can they find information about collaboration?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: It's on our website, woocrew.com that's w e w crew.com it will speak to all our pillars. And right there, that's some people that we've had at one of our conferences. Two of my advisors to the CEO, but all the pillars are there. It also talks about the different levels of memberships that we have.
The favorite membership level is the member at large. And then we have what is called the Woo Crew. And the Wooco is one that I personally facilitate. We meet six times a year, but they also have five pillar meetings. Our Woo Crew members also are assigned. This year we've partnered with WPO where they are able to have a mentor from the WPO organization.
We have a cohort program and these are women who have revenues between 100,000 and 500,000. They might need some additional business acumen. And this is where our cfo, Tiana Lee Gong will facilitate that group because she dives deep into the numbers with them and their KPIs and assigns them the accountability partners and they also get a WPO member.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. We're going to take a break and I hope you'll stay with us because when we come back, we're going to talk to Betty about another one of her pillars. We're going to talk about of the five, I think we'll come back and talk about communication. Stay with us.
Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and a systemologist. And we're talking with Betty Hines, the CEO and founder of Women Elevated Women. And we're talking about breaking barriers together, how we can break our grow our businesses and break that one million dollar mark. And this segment, I want to talk about communication and some of the common entrepreneurial challenges that women face when they grow their business. Betty, I know that communication is one of your five pillars. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely. Something that I tell the woman all the time. I said, you have to brand your business. No one is going to know who you are, and no one's going to be able to do business with you if you're a secret agent. So you need to learn how to be, how to brand, communicate your personal and your business brand. That's not something that we've done well. We can't just assume we have to brand. We have to be on social media platforms. You have to identify the right one that's for you. But it's important that we do brand ourselves. Who are we? What do we represent? Who are we trying to attract to be part of our organization or our products? What, who do, who do we want to sell our products to? So branding your business, and not just your business brand, but also your personal brand, because you are behind the business.
You are behind the business. People will speak to the CEO and know who the CEO is, but they also need to understand what do you represent, and that's the branding of the business. So we take, we take a lot of time and work with the individuals on branding, social media, getting TV interviews, having conversations with people like you, Linda, get your message out there. Because if they don't know what you do and how you do and how you can support them, they're not going to be able to obtain your services.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Because people won't be able to find them. Right. So, you know, I love that. And, you know, let's talk about branding a little bit. It's really important to know who you serve. Right. You know, it reminds me of Simon Sinek's very powerful why, you know, and then people buy. They don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So how does that work into the communicate pillar?
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Well, for woo. How that works into the communicate pillar, we have a saying and we say, as iron sharpens iron, women elevate women. And so we say, women, it's incumbent upon you to support each other. It's not a sacrifice, but as you elevate somebody else, you'll be elevated. So we have to get that mindset together in terms of the branding messages and what our purpose is and what we represent.
So these days, right now, women need to work collaboratively. We need to brand collaboratively. If I know there's an opportunity out for you, Linda, then I say, hey, Linda, this is your brand and I know someone who is interested in your brand. Let me make that introduction for you. So we need to be supportive of each other. Again, we will scale if we work closely together, we don't have to do it alone. And once people see that you are willing to brand them, they will brand you.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: So you said a lot there. So let's break that down a bit. In both the personal, the business brand, they are separate, but they have to be aligned as well. So let's start with the personal branding side. When I think of personal branding, I think a little bit about core values sometimes. You know, I'm a CPA in my profession. There's a lot about, you know, integrity which is expected from a cpa, but also being empathetic to business owners are very intimidated by their financial story, by their taxes. So what do you look at in personal branding for WOU members when they come in?
[00:29:44] Speaker B: I look for WOO members when we speak with them, when we interview them, we try to take or ask questions to see are they open to support someone else and not just themselves. It can't just be where you're entering an organization just to take, take, take. There has to be a give process. And that is also, that's the personal brand. That's what we do in woo members know that we are going to brand you, we're going to talk about you, we're going to say you will see it. In our post, we're always reposting if someone has an award or achievement, be it personal or their business, we know it's understood that if that's part of our organization, you want to recognize that person, you want to give a shout out and bring attention to that individual with your network. So yes, it is important and that's important that we as women make it the utmost responsibility of each other when they come into WOO is that it's your responsibility not just to brand yourself, but to brand the membership. Because no one's going to know about the membership unless you tell our story.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: And that's a form of also connection and collaboration, right? Of supporting. And when you're in a large corporation, you have tons of support around you, right? There's hundreds and thousands of employees all working together. But when we're small businesses, you don't have that. You don't have that in your team. So by joining an organization like WOO or the Women Presidents Organization, you end up expanding your reach and having others talk about you. So in that part, the communication part is having others get to know you, but you also lifting them up. And I love what you said, you know that by elevating others, you elevate yourself. I also think of that A bit like kindness, you know, being kind and. And Bob Berg's book, the, the Go Giver, which is a wonderful book about giving rather than just receiving in success in business. So now let's switch to the business branding. What does that look like? Like, why is that important to brand your business? And are there different elements of it?
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yes, there is when you're trying to brand your business. Because a lot of businesses are similar. I mean, they're similar. What I do, I'm not the only one that's doing this. And when you, when you talk about branding your business, there's a certain element of office, that authenticity that you need to bring into the brand. I'm not trying to conquer the whole world and I make that very clear.
We have a small group and intentionally so our brand is. This is what the services that we provide with. Woo. But am I trying to be the size of a wpo? No, no, no. You know, I can't manage that. We all have. We're looking to bring in.
I'm thinking of the movie A Few Good Men, A few good women. 100, 125, you know, max, 150 max. Because that is manageable for our ecosystem, within our ecosystem. So we want to take that small group of women. That's our business, that's our branding that we're not trying again, we're not trying to. Though we're global, we've had people all over. We want to keep it a small pocket full of people that we can manage and that we can mentor. So our brand is having a small group of women that we can personally mentor, we can personally guide through the maze and process of doing business on a government level, on a corporate level, on any level, B2B, all of those levels. So those are the elements of branding for your business that we take pride in and we feel that we do well. And also for us, our brand is our expectation, unlike some organizations, is not for you to be with us 5, 10, 15 years.
We have an airport model that we bring you in our brand.
We will give you the tools, tips and techniques and once you're ready, you take off and we bring another one in. So we're not. Our intention is not to have you there now if you want to stay there forever, you know, we could be a member at large, but we feel that we'll give you the necessary tools, tips and techniques that two to three years because it depends on where you are on the Runway. If you're at six figures and if you're 100,000. It's unlikely you're going to get to a million in three years. If you do, I applaud you, share that secret sauce. But we want to be able to give you enough of the tools and tips that you can take off. That's what Google is all about. Our brand is that give you the tools to take off and then we bring someone else in.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: That's great, Betty. And I love how you just explained all of that about business branding. And for those in our audience, what I hope you heard was Betty was limiting. She's not talking to everyone. Right. So for those of you listening, you have to do the same for your business. Right. That it's important. I'm sure that all the WEW members come in working on their brand. Who do they serve, how do they serve them? What does their business model look like in terms of communicating and getting it done? And one thing I know as a CPA in practice is that who you serve and your business model impacts your pricing, impacts your delivery, model, impacts your bottom line.
It could impact your cash flow as well. So that's how important business branding is.
And when do you first join your cohort in wew?
Where does communication fit in, what they do?
Is it early on in the pillars? Does it impact the other pillars?
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Yes, it does. The cohort program, they are really trying to find themselves. A lot of these women that are in the cohort came out of corporate America and they were doing six figures and they're thinking like, okay, I have this idea, I've been doing this here in corporate America and the skills I have are transferable into me in being a consultant or starting my own business. And so once they put their business model together and we help them perfect and we say, yes, absolutely. So the branding is very critical for them to transition from corporate America to an individual. They will know a lot of people in the corporate space. But how do you transfer that to now you are a individual, you are a business brand yourself. You no longer attached to corporate America, but you have all those transferable skills. So yeah, it's early on. And that is why for them, we do a lot of the introductions, they have what they call the cooler chat, where they can have 90 minutes, we just implemented that, but they can just chit chat on what's going on. That is why it's important for them to have an accountability partner. That's why it's important for them to have a mentor to help them along that way. So again, these are people that are coming right out of the gates coming out, they're successful, they've been successful, but not in the entrepreneurial. It's a whole different world when you're in corporate America and someone else is making payroll versus when you're doing it on your own as a cohort and you're responsible for making that payroll and making those demands. So they do need a lot more nurturing.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Exactly right. And we're going to take a break in a moment. But I hope those listening are understanding that by joining a cohort or something like that, it's beyond a course and there's a lot of opportunities out there for male owned businesses and female owned businesses to actually get the support and accountability you need and to work on communicating your brand. Stay with us. We'll be right back to close out this segment.
Welcome back to BALANCING acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton and we're talking with Betty Hines about how it how a small business can break seven figures. What are those barriers and how the company, her company, women, elevating women helps women get past six figures to $1 million. Betty, we've been talking about your five pillars. We've talked about communication, we've talked about collaboration, We've talked about courage. A little bit.
I would like to talk about connection.
What is that particular pillar about?
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Sure. And I'm glad you asked this one because to me, this is a very important pillar as well as all of them. And the pillars that we've listed there, no priority are priority order. It's just where you are in your business. But the connect pillar, it talks about those strategic introductions.
I can speak for myself personally, the strategic introductions, though I came out of corporate America before I came to wpo. And then I decided that I wanted to do something on my own. It's those introductions. I don't care all the certifications or the alphabets you have behind your name. If, for example, Linda, you introduce me to somebody I know in my mind mentally, the process is, well, Linda, I know Linda, we've known each other, blah, blah, blah. And if she made that introduction to me, that person has gone past first base. I mean, it's sort of a vetting process. I'm going to do my own due diligence. But that introduction, because you're Linda Hamilton and you may had me, you made an introduction that carries a lot of weight for me because I know you. And that is where women will scale their businesses and need to do more of that. Even if it's not somebody that you feel you can work with. If you know of someone else that you've met and you say, hey look, Susie here, she, she's doing something like that. She could use that sort of input or that kind of relationship. We need to do more of those introductions. Guys will do it all the time. Hey Joe, do you want in on this? So to me, strategic introductions are very important, have been very helpful to me. There are a lot of people or a lot of companies, organizations that I did not know, but someone took me by the hand at a networking event because when you go to a network, you need to go to the network for a purpose. Not just to have the wine and cheese, but you go there for a purpose. And when someone is going to make an introduction for you, honor that introduction and know that they made that introduction for a reason.
Carry that with you and follow through and make the connection. Because you never know what pot lives at the end, what golden pot lives at the end of the rainbow. So that's something very valuable that we encourage our members to do. I don't care if you're at a six figure business or if you're under six figures. If you continue to make introductions and you have positioned yourself with other businesses that you have the integrity and that you're very authentic about your business, they will do those introductions for you.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: You said so much valuable information in that and you're talking about what you called a strategic introductions. So what is some of the strategy a small business owner can use? How can they be strategic about either asking for connections or making them?
[00:41:49] Speaker B: When you're going to an event and if you're not going to event, but if you listen because it's separate, if you have a mentor, then you will talk and one on one to a member about what your needs are and they'll be doing a session with you. But if you're going to an event, understand what is this event?
[00:42:04] Speaker A: Who.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: Because you're not going to meet everybody, you're not trying to meet Lottie body and everybody. You want to go in there with the intent of I've seen that this person has signed up or I know this company is going to be there. Okay? So you find out in your audience, in your community, does anybody know? Who knows? And then you have a discussion with them. If they don't know you well, make sure they know you well and say, I would like to have an introduction with this person. Can you do this for me? Will you do this for me? Don't get your feelings hurt. They say, well if they're hesitant because not everybody's Willing to do that. But you have to go to these events knowing what your purpose is, intent.
You and I do that all the time. We go to a WPO forum, there's thousands. There's at least 800 people that are there. We're not going to meet them all, but we do know there are certain people that we do want to connect with. So you have to network with a purpose. And these introductions of the people that you surround yourselves with, they will make the introduction. And the last thing I'll say on that, something that I always tell what Woo does, we surround ourselves with among the best.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: And I love that you're reminding me, you know. Yes, I go to a lot of events. Am I always strategic about going them? No, because I'm a people person. I love people. I love talking to people and connecting. But if you want to make it worth your time. Because I was just talking to a business owner the other day who mentioned to me that she was spending a great deal of money going to conferences and waiting for business to come from it, you know, through referrals. I mean, you're asking for an introduction, not necessarily a referral. That's an easy ask, if it comes from the right person. But when you have that purpose, how do you justify spending the money? Especially if you're in the low six figures, how can they balance that?
[00:43:57] Speaker B: I think they have to be very selective. You don't have to go to every event. All you need is like one or two really big hits or relationships, and then you grow and you scale. So you. I have on my calendar right now, I mean, you know, you probably got more than I do. But all these events based off the people that we know, we could be gone like seven, eight times a year and we don't. I had to disappoint somebody, say, I just can't. I just can't do it. You know, I just have too much on my plate.
So you have to select and make a determination. Am I attending this event just to be seen, or am I attending this event because I have some intentions? What are my intentions? If my intentions is to get additional business or to put my company name out there so we can do some. Some business with them? That's another indicator in itself. So it's really. What is your intent again? To be seen because you don't have to be in all the photo shoots.
Exactly. That's what I tell my people. You got to pick and choose.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And you know, and I think some of what you're saying that both the both of us do is we're supporting others who have events. So some of this time we want to show up because we're trying to support the people we know and who want to have a successful event. But if you're considering going to an event, I mean, this show is called Balancing Acts. And balancing is about strategies. It's balancing your time, it's balancing your wellness, it's balancing how you spend your money. Does the going to this conference to connect, does it help you accomplish your goals? And you always want to think about that and maybe plan out the year and events. You talked about KPIs earlier, right? So you know, what do you want to spend this year on it and be deliberate about how to approach that?
What else do you have? Can you share maybe a story or even your recommendation about connection and what someone can do this year if they're thinking about how they can go about increasing their influential connections?
[00:46:11] Speaker B: I think at this, this point in time, because everyone is holding on to their dollars not knowing, you know, day to day, week to week, what's going to transpire. I think you take a look at all. I would list them. I have, I've listed all the events and you need to take a look at who is the audience, who is going to be attending then also what is their theme and who are some of the speakers. Are some of those speakers going to be providing information that you need to grow personally and professionally? So and then you look at your budget. What can you and cannot you not afford? Also something that we should give some thought to. Maybe you want to share a room. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, share a room with somebody at the hotel to go to these conferences, but you don't have to go to all of them, just pay some out. Maybe you go to this one this year and maybe next year you go to the other one. But I think you need to map it out and say, particularly the ones that are six figures because it get costly, see which ones, pick out your top one and your top two.
And also take a look at those conferences and see if they have some sort of pay plan where you can pay gradually as opposed to paying all up front. But I what I do say you need to go to at least one because you will learn something and you go in there with the intent that you're going to come away with at least one or two, one or two.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: So you'll have connections and you'll generally learn something new that will help you grow your business as well, one last piece of advice. If you would you like to leave our audience with and then please share how people can find you online.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: Sure. What I've told my women we have a new model. We have a it's a new model. We always have the ones about women elevating women. But I said it's important as a woman today that you stay steady.
You say stay steadfast and stealth and you can do this all together. And you can learn more about women elevating women on our website, which is Woocrew.com that's WW Crew.com and there you'll see, you'll have a link for me on LinkedIn, also on Facebook. And you'll see all the things that my team has accomplished, all the awards and recognitions. And Linda, I just want to say thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share the Wu story.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: Oh, it was my pleasure, Betty, to talk to you. I love talking to you about ways women can be successful in growth because I think we share a common passion for wanting to help women succeed. And I hope the takeaways from this for our audience are look for ways to make some new connections this year. Map it out, plan your finances and look for some accountability and support. Check out Betty's website. She's always posting some great things online as well. And we hope you'll come back next week for another great episode where we'll be talking about new ways to balance the growth and success of your business and having a healthy life lifestyle as well.
