Mastering Wealth: Strategic and Spiritual Insights for Women in Business with Samantha Hartley

Speaker 1: 0:00

So your business is constantly mirroring back to you where you are with things. So, for example, the clients who show up to you are a mirror of either where you are right now or what your next level is. If you have clients showing up and you're like, who is this? Like yuck, like what in the world, well that's where you are right now. They're mirroring back to you where you are and that means you got to work on yourself. So if they're like scarce and they're like asking for discounts and they're pushing back on price, well that's a mirror of you. ["try it In True"].

Speaker 2: 0:34

Welcome to Try it In True with the Dash of Wu, where we're all about mixing tried and true strategies that actually work with the magic of manifestation and the science of programming your unconscious mind so that you walk away feeling integrated, inspired and aligned. I'm Renee Bowen, certified life and business coach, professional photographer, middle-aged wife and mom to now three grown kids. I've built two multiple six-figure businesses with zero business training by digging in and learning the methods, and now I'm here to pass them all on to you, from photography and business strategies to energy healing, human design and the basics of manifestation. We cover it all here. I'm here to help you embrace your multi-passionate brains and lean in to the fastest and most efficient ways to reach your goals, whatever they may be. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, or maybe you're just here for the woo-woo, let's dive in and explore all the exciting ways to take your life, business and self-improvement to the next level. Thanks for joining me and get ready to be inspired.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Hello, hello, welcome back to Try it In True with the Dash of Wu. I am your host of this podcast, renee Bowen. I hope you guys are having a phenomenal week and that the rest of your week goes just as well, and I just wanted to give a shout out to those of you guys who have left reviews for me recently. Thank you so much. I absolutely love nothing more than seeing you guys post about your thoughts on the show and what you think about it, and we've had some really awesome guests lately and that is not going to change Anytime soon. I've got an amazing roster of guests coming up for y'all and it's a mix of strategy and business stuff that you need to know about and also all the woo manifestation mindset. We need both of these things in our lives. I mean, that's the whole premise of the show. So I hope that you guys are finding as much value in it as I find doing it for you, and I absolutely love hearing your feedback. So thank you so much. It's super easy to leave a review. In case you didn't know, you can just go to ratethispodcastcom, slash your neighbor and then just pick the platform and it's all done less than five minutes, probably less than two minutes, and it makes a really big difference for me and for the growth of the show. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I've got a powerhouse of a guest for you guys today. Her name is Samantha Hartley and she works with women consultants who are stuck on the revenue roller coaster or drowning in client work, and she helps them multiply revenues without exhaustion by working with perfect clients on transformational engagement so they can have profitable and joyful consultancies. She is the host of her own show called Profitable, joyful Consulting and the creator of the program's six figure engagements and the path to two million. Her passion is to empower women and girls to leverage their unique gifts to create financial independence through businesses. Her last job was in international marketing for the Coca-Cola company in Moscow, russia and it's Atlanta headquarters. She's an avid feminist, a hiker and a vegan, and she lives in Martha's Vineyard with her husband and their fur kids.

Speaker 2: 4:05

So we are going to talk about all things financial independence and how we can use strategy and woo to bring more financial abundance into your life. Let's get started. Hey, samantha, thanks for being here. I'm super excited to chat with you today. Thank you so much for having me so fun. Okay, so we're gonna just dive right in to the deep end here, because I know that's where you like to be too. We're all about melding the strategy and the woo here on this podcast, and I'd really love to start this episode asking specifically how we can kind of use both of those with relation to finances right Like that's your world. You do a lot of that, especially with, you know, female entrepreneurs and consultants and creatives. And so what are some both practical and spiritual ways that you love to bring in more money?

Speaker 1: 5:01

Well, I really love to have my clients and women in general think about the biggest thing they can imagine, like the biggest amounts of money they can imagine, because it's easy to say, well then, I want $10 billion, but you don't actually have a receptacle for that because that's like not true. So a lot of us have, you know, we can call it like a thermostat or we can call it whatever, but there's really gonna be like a reality check on how much you feel like you can bring in, and so a lot of the work that I'm doing is expanding what that amount is, cause when somebody tells me, well, I think, well, I wanna charge this much, or I feel like I wanna earn this much, and I'm like, when they tell it to me, I can usually feel their level of buy-in for that. So we have to really believe that number when we're saying it. And one of the spiritual gurus that we follow his name is Matt Kahn, and we really love this thing that he says about affirmations, which is that we'll say, well, you can't affirm like I am earning $10 million a year because, well, I just don't believe that I am right. But what he says is, if you keep affirming it. It just goes from unfamiliar to more familiar. So, realistically, I think a lot of my clients would say I don't really, I don't care about 10 million, but I really like the idea of like 2 million. I'm like cool. So let's take the number that like is realistic and cool for you and then start, just sit with that number and just get. So I'm earning.

Speaker 1: 6:26

My business earns $2 million a year. Or I bring in and this is one of my favorite ways from unexpected and unexpected places. My business earns money, or I bring in revenue. I bring in money from expected and unexpected ways and I just love affirmations as a way to get ourselves accustomed to hearing these kinds of numbers. And then I'm a big believer in law of attraction and also law of action.

Speaker 1: 6:48

As a Virgo, I'm like super practical. So, as woo as I am, to me there's always a way to practicalize anything that we're talking about. So we take those affirmations and we write them down as goals, and then I might say something like well, while you're sitting in that space of like I'm bringing in $2 million a year, what kind of ideas come into your mind? Of like what you could do or who you could reach out to or like, what might that look like? And for a lot of my clients, like they'll be able to like, have a next step from that, and if they don't, then I'm like I'm here to ideate with you and we'll come up with some ways that we can bring that in.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Yeah, I love that. I'm a Virgo too, so I know we definitely bond over that. And that's really you know kind of how I think all the time like, yes, let's go big right. Like you said, we have to get sort of comfortable with that and also feel it in your body right, like is that kind?

Speaker 2: 7:40

of that other piece to it. You know, like, oh, okay, yeah, I can say all the things I want, but if I don't feel it, then I'll actually get myself to experience it. The unconscious mind won't know that it's real, but I can tell my unconscious, I can make it feel like it's real, and that's the cool, totally the cool cool part. And I've heard you speak about this sort of concept that I'm currently also, low-key, obsessed with, which is this concept of like what if it were easy? Right, like, so let's kind of dive into that, expand on that a little bit, and like how creative entrepreneurs can kind of apply that mindset to their businesses. Because I know, like people out there, like, well, it's really easy to say like you know, what if it were easy? But what?

Speaker 2: 8:23

does that really like practically sort of look like you know.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I think it means delegating a lot more to the universe. This is the problem. It is hard when we're doing everything ourselves, and I know for a lot of women they don't necessarily feel like they have a strong support system around themselves. But there's a support system in the universe. That is like I always think of it, as like they're waiting for you to just give them something to do. And the more that I've worked with this in this way, the more I've started to believe that that they really are like would you just come give me like a task or an assignment or something? If you just imagine them, I'm saying them, but you know, whoever this is, but the universe.

Speaker 1: 9:04

It's like what can you delegate to the universe today? And so, when I'll call out women for overwork because we're doing this thing, where we're like, I feel like I have to do absolutely every single thing myself and I'm like, well, what if? What if it were easy? Well, if it were easy, somebody else would be doing anything at all. Okay, cool, well, delegate that something else.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So if we, I think, if we can be clear that the thing that I can do are, you know, in business we're going to call those lead indicators. Those are the things that are in that I can actually do something about. So I can show up, I can set my goals, I can figure out where my perfect clients are, where I might go to meet them, I can reach out to three different people. I can post on socials like those are the things that are in my power. And then I need to let the universe know what I expect to be happening when I'm not doing that work. And so what do I imagine? I feel like a lot of people are not sure about what they expect to have happen, like they're not clear on what it would look like when success happens. So then the universe is like, well, do you want? Like, well, here's somebody and they're like, no, I don't want that. Or they're like, well, here's somebody offering you a project or a job or something and you're like, that's not what I want to do. Okay, well, are you really clear on what you want to do? I think it's a lot like when people are kind of playing around with chat and GPT and you put a prompt in and then get some nonsense out of it and what we've learned is you have to say, here's the prompt. And then you're like tell back to me what I just told to you, so I know that you understand me. And then I'll say something back and you're like no, no, no, here's what I want. And then it gives you what you want.

Speaker 1: 10:33

I feel like if we can just be like that with the universe, I'm just like let me be clear about what I want and what I have people do. I usually have it on my desk. How should I do have it? I have my clients write down on a post it, not a post it, not this wall chart thing, this little teeny one by one inch. Post it. This is what I want. So I had a friend I was working with, who's a, she does like astrology stuff and somatic experiencing and things like that, and she had heard me talk about this concept and I was like, okay, so what is the? What do you want? What is the goal? And she was like, well, and it was like a long thing, and I was like it's a, post it and she goes $20,000 a month, consistent revenue and then something, something profit on that. And I was like that's the answer. So write that down like $20,000 a month consistently. I can like, if I'm the universe, I'm like noted, got it, and then that can happen.

Speaker 2: 11:24

Okay, I love that visual Cause again, like so many creatives in this audience, and you know, as a creative like that's what we do. We're usually very visual thinkers and so, making it really clear and and not even not a bigger post, it a one inch, post it.

Speaker 2: 11:40

That's the thing that's that's the thing to think about Because, like, even these are too big and I love that because it is. It's like you're a little posted to the universe, right, like this, is it and I hear that so much to you, like in my coaching business like, well, what do you want? I don't know, I don't know. Like you know what I mean, like that's such a big like thing. It's like I feel like a lot of us, and even just even photographers, if we're just kind of like kind of shifting gears, but same thing, like okay, well, what kind of business do you want? I don't know, I just want to make money. Okay, we got to get a little bit more clarity, because unless you're clear on it, you can't tell the universe what you want and it's just going to keep giving you. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It's just a mirror. It's going to reflect exactly the talent.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Okay, abraham Hicks person, one of the things that they will talk about is, if you're not sure what you want, then when you can ask, the universe is I don't know what I want, help me see what I want. And to me it's kind of like inviting the universe to show you. Like the dessert platter at the restaurant, when they bring the whole thing out, I'm like I don't know, like what is there. So I think a lot of us, especially creative people, because we're powerful and we can make things happen, we want to be careful about what we make happen, we want to be intentional about what we make happen. And so when we're asked what do you want, we're like I don't know Cause, I don't want to say something and then not like that.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So what's possible for me? So this is the thing you can affirm is all right for the next few weeks. I want the universe to show me what's possible for me. I want you to show me examples of what could happen for me. I want to see other people's businesses. I want to see houses and stuff that I like. I want to see vacation. I want to see somebody resting in a way that I would love to Like. Just invite the universe to show you on the menu, and that way you can begin to ask for and invite what you want to have happen.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Yeah, I love that because I'm a super big fan as well. I listen to a lot of that Just, even sometimes randomly, like if I just need a boost, I'm like, oh, just going to like pop that on real quick, and whatever I need to hear today is what I'm going to hear. You know, it's like a little reframe, like it's me right back in, but it's so true. It's like. The contrast is also super important, right? And sometimes, when we ask to be shown like, ok, what do I want, well, sometimes we're going to find what we don't want, and that's important too, right? It's important for us to have that contrast.

Speaker 2: 13:59

Yes, like yeah, that's a no, and the thing that I see so many people, so many women especially, do is not honor the no, right? They just go oh, that's that's for me, because it's obviously coming to me and I'm not going to turn money down. I can't turn money down, can you? So can you speak to that a little bit too, because I know you probably see a lot of that as well? So how can we kind of say no? Because we know that when we're saying yes to many things, obviously we're getting burnt out and we're also saying no to good stuff.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Yeah, in our language, in my spiritual group, we refer to it as the divine no. It's saying no to all of the wrong things so that you can say yes to the right things, and it's like it's done from. It's the feminine, it's a feminine boundary. It's not like this no, no, shut down. It's a feminine boundary of like no, you can't have the cookies before dinner, you can have cookies after dinner and no, you can't do whatever. But it's no to the wrong thing or the wrong timing. And I have a client I'm working with recently who has had a very successful business before, like hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues, but it was $5,000 at a time, which for my clients is a very low number. So I'm trying to get her to work with fewer clients for a larger amount of money.

Speaker 1: 15:16

And so most of my clients are. What we're looking at is $25,000 packages and above a six-month engagement and above that, so she's been gradually. She'd never sold those things before, so it's only been. I've only been working with her for seven weeks. She's totally a beast implementer and she's been able to say no, which was incredibly hard for her because she didn't want to lose this feeling of the bird in the hand. Well, I'm already talking to them and they want this and I'm like you have to turn that down. If you say no to that, what you're going to find is either the very same person that you said no to will come running back to you and be like OK, like they took a shot. They didn't know. Either they didn't know that something else was possible or they actually want it more than they wanted to negotiate. So she's been dealing with a little bit of negotiation and I'm like no, no, no, we don't negotiate. So because she said no to them, she is getting. She's getting them to say yes to what she wants. And if you have a blanket, I don't negotiate policy or don't give discounts. When you have a blanket policies like that, there can always be exceptions, but the opposite cannot be true, if you're always negotiating and everything's always discountable and all of that kind of stuff, then it turns into a mess. So she's really been working on staying strong, not negotiating, and it's allowing her to close the biggest engagements of her life and get the results that she wanted. And I feel like sometimes when we're alone it's harder to do that. And when you have somebody who can kind of like give you the tools for a conversation to stay strong, then you can do that better. So she's closed a six month engagement, which she'd never had a six month month before. She's closed a $6,000 a month, which is the most that had ever been, et cetera. So things are going great because she's standing firm about turning things down.

Speaker 1: 17:04

If you say yes, I'm adamant about perfect clients. Who you work within your business is the biggest determiner of profit and joy. It's the same way of saying who you work within the business is the biggest determiner of how much money you're gonna lose, how expensive they're gonna be energetically and psychically and all of the things, and how much misery you're going to tolerate. So you can only work with perfect clients. So if you accept anything less than a perfect client, what happens is I find I'm just tormented by them, and every time somebody shows up who is just not a fit for me and I turn them down as hard as that can be, three great ones line up right behind them. So this is a real piece of faith in the universe and in yourself, of like. But if I turn this down, I'll never get anything again. You have to believe that the universe has your back and there'll be more after that.

Speaker 2: 17:54

In my experience, every single time that has been the case, yeah, that's really a great affirmation for people to hear, because, yeah, and it's a scarcity thing too, you know what I mean, like you know it's easy. It's just easy to stay in scarcity because it's the comfort zone, it's the unconscious thinks it's safe.

Speaker 2: 18:13

Blah, blah, blah you know all of this things, and so it just keeps pulling you back and there is no effort required to stay in that comfort zone. You know like you can just stay there, but you're gonna still keep emitting that same frequency and getting the same clients as well. And that's another thing that I see a lot. You know like we're in different fields, for sure, but there's a lot of similarities there, I think, in terms of, like this perfect client that you talk about a lot. I always talk about target client, ideal client, and even with photographers, creatives, in general. That is so important because if you're not attracting them first of all, that's an issue right. You gotta be able to understand how to attract them first, I believe, and once you sort of get them into your universe, okay, then it's a lot easier than to work with them. Just in general, it's the attracting the wrong people that I see a lot of, and a lot of that, I think, is because they're staying in that I need work and I just need to work with everybody. So I love that.

Speaker 2: 19:19

You know, if you guys were listening to this, that you hear that affirmation of that feminine empowered. No, it can still. That boundary is very, very important. It doesn't have to be heavy handed and it doesn't have to feel, you know, like you said, super masculine. You can still stay in your feminine and actually that's that flow state, that more things happen anyway, but honoring it and knowing that the universe has your back and knowing that when you say like trusting, that is the hardest thing that I see all of my clients struggle with is the trust. How do you work with your clients on building that muscle? That's a really big thing in my world, I see.

Speaker 1: 20:00

It's huge. I think it. You know it starts with a worldview of is the universe on my side or isn't it? And, as I mentioned, I'm in spiritual community with people and you know, some of us are just either born or raised with like the universe has my back, and then some people just feel like no, I'm not really sure about that, and I feel like that's the basic spiritual work that we have to do all the time is to really cultivate a relationship with, of trust with the universe, or at least neutrality, if you can only get to like a neutral, like I don't really know that it has my back, but at least it's not like constantly, like tormenting me for no reason In terms of your own skills, like a lot of us, I think, a lot of people are raised where, especially women, they're raised like well, I can count on me and that's about it.

Speaker 1: 20:45

So I'll just be in charge. Everyone's lucky that I'm in charge and so I'll just. I'll just do everything myself, thanks. So if that is our belief, then I think the thing that we need to be able to do is to trust that we can make things happen, we can make the results happen that we want to have happen and I really feel like there you just build up a track record with yourself. If you watch your actions and you and you get results. Day by day, you get better at them. What, when I see people flip out of this into its opposite, is when they're they're expecting like you're either born lucky or you're born good, but not both. What has helped me is realizing that I can develop muscles, like I can get better at marketing I can get better at, I can get braver at showing up and doing difficult things like going to networking meetings or applying to be the speaker at that conference or asking you know, going approaching that school and saying I'd like to be your, your go-to person for this event. You can just you know you can develop these skills like a muscle.

Speaker 1: 21:55

I'm a friend and I are practicing. We're learning remote viewing, which we're brand new at, but it seems like a thing that is completely impossible when you start and we both are kind of good out of the gate. It's been remarkable how we're kind of like we're actually really good at it when you look at what we're, what we're remote viewing, and you imagine that somebody's holding a photograph of something that could be anything in the entire world, or they have a box and it has something inside of it. There could be anything in the entire world, and we're landing a lot of things that are accurate. So what's hard to believe, though, is that I can get better at this. This is actually muscle, and, relatively speaking, I'm actually not that good relative to where I can be.

Speaker 1: 22:41

So if all of us look at our initial skills of like, well, if you play the piano, can you get better at playing the piano if you practice?

Speaker 1: 22:46

Yes, so it's you put the reps in. To me to go all the way back to this like trust, I have to put the reps in on something abstract like trust, just like I would with remote viewing or playing the piano or any other thing that I just wanna get better at. Putting the reps in means I show up even when I'm starting to lose hope about it, and I'm like I do the things that are hard, I do the things that are like one step outside of my comfort zone, and I do that, and my language to my clients is we do this stuff as a demonstration of our commitment to the universe. Your clients necessarily come to you through your marketing. They're gonna come to you through your energy. But nevertheless we do the marketing because it's a demonstration of my commitment to the universe. I may have somebody who just I meet on an airplane one day and they turn into a client.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Well, how do you account for that in your marketing? You don't, but that's how the universe works. However, does that mean I stop doing my socials? No, it means I show up all the time and I'm consistent in my marketing. I'm consistent in the things I should be doing.

Speaker 2: 23:49

Oh, yeah, that's a great point, such a there's a lot there. But what I really love especially is the resonance that you just touched upon, right Because, and kind of going back to that perfect client and like the marketing. All of that is so tied into it that I always kind of talk about, especially like in what I do with photographers specifically. Like one of the biggest things I hear all the time is that, well, I can't raise my prices, no, like no one's gonna pay whatever five $6,000 for this, because I wouldn't do that. And my first thing is, like well, first of all, you are not your target client, but it starts that resonance does start with you, right? So I really do believe that your vibe attracts right, like, just like what you're saying. So that's why it's so important to honor that and to like get really good at the kind of vibe you wanna put out. What's that radio beacon? What are you admitting? Because you are going to bring that back to you. But then it's that other piece of okay, well, that's sort of where that like yeah, I wouldn't necessarily pay $5,000 or $6,000 for this service because I can do it for myself. So of course I would hire you, but I would pay that for something else that I value, right, and so that all that sort of belief system that comes in there, but it is it's putting in those daily reps of the trust.

Speaker 2: 25:12

I like how you break it down to that, specifically because sometimes, when people are so in it and those of us who deal with anxiety and I don't know, as a fellow Virgo, like I think I just came out anxious, you know what I mean Like it's just like in our DNA for some reason and it's just been this opportunity, as I like to call it, to work through it. I think that there's a lot of gold in it. You know, if we look at it and say, okay, well, this is obviously triggering for a reason, and so those of us who have sort of that, it can feel heavy and big at times. Sometimes that's all you can do. It's just really just trust and build the muscle of trust as much as possible and show up as you're doing it, and just show up, you know, even when right, and so I think that's a really good point for people to remember that resiliency and then getting back up and that you are gonna get better and nothing is permanent.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Yeah for sure, especially with the feeling you know, and you talk a lot about in your content too, which I love about this idea of expanding yourself to expand your business, and I really feel like that sort of fits in line with that as well. What are some practical steps that entrepreneurs, like female entrepreneurs especially, can do to implement this idea of expanding themselves so that the business expands as well, because it's a reflection?

Speaker 1: 26:38

It's literally well, not literally at all, but metaphorically it's completely a reflection. So your business is constantly mirroring back to you where you are with things. So, for example, the clients who show up to you are a mirror of either where you are right now or what your next level is. If you have clients showing up and you're like who is this? Like yuck, like what in the world, well that's where you are right now. They're mirroring back to you where you are and that means you got to work on yourself. So if they're like scarce and they're like asking for discounts and they're pushing back on price, well that's a mirror of you.

Speaker 1: 27:15

I never really I can count, on one hand, the number of times I've asked for a refund for something. I mean it has got to be absolute just shit for me to say I want a refund on what I bought because I don't need that energy in my life. I don't attract it. I am the kind of client for the people who I'm a client for, that I expect my clients to be, and I think expectation is a huge piece here. So what do I expect the universe to give me? So when people show up for me as potential clients, I recognize immediately who somebody is as a perfect client or not. So if there's anything that you see in that person that you feel like doesn't resonate with you, then you get to say I don't think they're my client, maybe there's somebody else's client. I used to joke that if you have somebody come to you and you don't want to work with them, you can refer them to someone that you don't like. It's a joke, but you don't like them and you don't like the other person. Who knows, maybe they'll get along. There's no accounting for taste. But if you're getting pushback on price, it means you're not clear on your own value. If people are coming to you and you're like I don't know why this person is coming to me for this stuff, it means your marketing messages aren't clear, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 28:29

So very often if you look at what your business is, what's happening in your business, it'll tell you what's going on with you. So a lot of times I'll go in and my clients' books will be a mess and I'll be like well, how much money did you earn last month? And they're like I don't know. I'm like, okay, well, how about last year? I have no idea. I'm like what do you know? What do you know? Yeah, like you have to know this stuff. So those books are a mirror of your head, of what's in your head, and like when you start to get fluent with the money piece and comfortable with the money piece, the universe will trust you to send you more of it.

Speaker 1: 29:06

I was just with friends this past week and they laugh at me because I pick up pennies and I'm like a penny is the smallest part of a million dollars and the universe sees how you are being with money and if you can't handle penny, it's not going to give you more. If your books are a mess, the universe isn't motivated to give you more money. If your credit cards are all overdrawn and a mess listen, I don't judge because I have been there. I've had the credit card debt out the wazoo, I've had like crazy stuff out of control and then one day I was like dude, I want to be rich. I cannot be rich with these behaviors. So we roll back.

Speaker 1: 29:42

I worked on bringing in more money. We like got our act together, our financial act together, because I want to be a good steward of money. And now I can tell the universe in good faith, like bring it, because I'm ready to do this. There's an education piece and there's like also a deserving this piece. You are worthy, you have inherent value. You don't need to be different in order to bring in more money. Behaviorally, though you might need to be. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:08

That's okay. So that I'd love to dive into a little bit more, because that is, I think, where people get like huh, you know what I mean, I've seen it happen. I totally I'm right there with you. Like that. That's exactly the same things that I will say to people constantly.

Speaker 2: 30:23

But that concept that you just mentioned, okay, let's say someone, you know, like you said before, there's a lot of debt they're mishandling, they don't know, and I see this a lot, I see this a lot with photographers specifically. I'll ask them how much they made last year and how much they want to make this year, and they have no idea whatsoever. And money is like the most taboo subject. Obviously, that's all they're programming. It's not even their story. Blah, blah, blah, that whole thing. But the getting out of it part right, that part of like okay, well, to be abundant, I have to be abundant to be, you know, to want to be rich, then I need to be in that energy of it. How do you do that without overspending? How do you? You see what I'm saying? Like that's the question I always get.

Speaker 1: 31:07

So I'd love to hear what you have to say about how you can be responsible and have good behaviors, but also be in abundance so that it does come and so the first thing is to like get a realistic picture of what the situation is and then get a realistic like plan of how you're going to get where you need to be. So, $1,000 in debt and realistically pay off, you know, $100 of that a month. Okay, fine, then that's what I'm going to be doing until something different changes. And what I think is really critical for business owners is we can. We can earn. We don't have the thing that people have a salary have, like I guess they can get a part-time job, but like we can make more money in our businesses. And so really, the focus to me I've never felt like something was out of my control, because I feel like we'll always earn more money. I'll, you know, I'll figure it out, but I'll bring in more money. A couple of ways you can bring in more money is that you can work with a client twice as long, so you can double the package, you can increase your prices or you can extract something and charge for that separately. So if you've always bundled everything into a single price for photography, for example, you can bring out this, something here that normally it would just be bundled in and be like give it a fancy name and you're also going to be getting this thing and that's this much money. So there are ways to to create those packages, but in general, like, think big about the top line of your business. Now we're back to our debt. I'm going to be chipping away at that debt, I'm going to be thinking of all of the the ridiculous things that I'm spending on and I'm going to move that money to that.

Speaker 1: 32:44

However, in my past, in my leanest days, renee, when I was like, oh my God, we'd have enough money. We need to really downsize everything, and so we lived our kind of like our poor life is what I would call it. In some ways, it was kind of fun. We would like sit at the bar and share a dinner and go to the cheap movie theater Like that was kind of fun. However, what I can tell you is it didn't. It didn't make a difference to how much I was earning, because I always had enough money to cover my bills when we started living our rich life. I I always have enough money to cover my bills. Like the first time, I hired a coach who was like $1,500 a month and I was like, oh my God, $1,500. And I was really careful to make sure that that money was always there when that debit. It was always there even though it would have been impossible to think about that before.

Speaker 1: 33:30

So I find for a lot of people your life expands. Your ability to cover expenses expands by how, how big your life gets. But some specific things that I love to do are going to like the fanciest hotel and like have tea in the lobby, even if the tea is like $15, you're like in the Ritz Carlton having tea in the lobby or whatever. Or you go to lunch at the like dress up and go to lunch at the really nice place. You have an experience of yourself in that atmosphere and a few things happen. In the beginning we were talking about like when things are kind of far from you. In the beginning you might have this like imposter, complex and feel like I don't belong here. Oh, my gosh, I have like all of this like fraudulent is happening. Eventually you're like I fit in. Oh, here I am, they know me, or I'm back, or I recognize this, or I have my favorite thing on the menu, and then it becomes your place. So you're getting yourself accustomed to a richer life.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Yeah, I know that's so good because there's so many things you can do and it doesn't have to cost you a lot of money. Like you said, you can still be smart and be abundant. You can still be smart and put yourself in the energetic space of that frequency, right, because also, you never know who you're going to meet in those places as well, and so that's the other side of it, right, and you can't know about that unless you put yourself in those places. And I definitely think that the imposter syndrome that you hit on a little bit too is really big, because imposter syndrome is really you've just never done it before. Like you said, it's new to you.

Speaker 2: 35:10

So I think that we sort of make it a lot bigger than it needs to be, this whole like fraudulent feeling, of course, because we create our own stories up here and it's really easy to just kind of fall prey to that and be like, oh, I'm imposter, and just like one little thought sinks in and then it just like attracts all the others. But really, to the day, the more you do it, the more you show up, the more you actually take action and do it, the easier it gets, because you're no longer new. It's no longer. You are creating that experience every time you do it and I love. I don't know, are you a fan of or do you look? Have you probably worked with Dr Joe Dispenza? Have you looked into stuff? Obviously, yes, definitely.

Speaker 1: 35:54

I think so yes.

Speaker 2: 35:56

So we know that we don't even have to physically do some of these things, right, like we can literally meditate and we can get to these places where we are even building actual muscles, if you're talking about like muscles in your body. I'm sure you know the studies that he's done where the muscles in the body actually respond. So if we can do that, then we can actually do that, we can fix this imposter stuff and we can build the muscle of resilience and showing up and trust, which I think is really the hardest part for so many people. So, that being said and we touched on it just a little bit but I do want to ask you a quick question about branding right, like I mean, like he talked about showing up. He talks about you know, yeah, it doesn't mean that I can't not show up, it doesn't mean that I can't.

Speaker 2: 36:48

You know, just because I'm resonating and I'm sitting here resonating all this stuff, I have to show up and market and kind of do my things. That's that action taking right. What is how big of that role right Is in what you do with consultants and also just like creatives in general, because as creatives, the big thing I hear too is like I am doing all the things, I'm wearing all the hats in my business and I don't like being online and I don't like being on camera and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right, like. So what do you? How do you reframe that for your clients?

Speaker 1: 37:21

It's. You know, a lot of them resist all of the things that I mean my clients are. One is a very creative person who happens to just do $250,000 engagements with on leadership, with large corporations, but she's very artsy and the way we do this planning is she has this big deck of images and we say she is feeling like this right now and doesn't want to feel that way anymore. And this picture of a of children playing is how she does want to feel, and this picture of like I don't know this sad old oak tree feels is how her social media feels and she wants to like. We are doing that kind of thing with her and it's like you're going to find your own way in is key as far as branding. To me, it's the answer to what do you want to be known for or known as, and so getting figuring out what that is is absolutely critical. The way to start is to ask people like right now, what are you known for or known as? If you were going to refer someone to me, what would you say? If you were going to describe me in three words, what would you say? So really kind of getting a baseline for what, what you're known for right now and then figuring out like, over time you're, the goal of the intention of your social media and intention of your marketing is going to be to get you known for that.

Speaker 1: 38:38

I have one client right now who frustrates me to no end. She has done no marketing ever, she has no social media whatsoever and she has a huge business. But here's the deal what's her marketing? Well, she's extremely well known for a certain thing she does. She's extremely niched and specialized in what she does, and so people are like if you need this, you call her. So she has that from a very large company who sends her tons of business and then referral partners. So she's just known and she's done enough work with them that now it's that it starts to perpetuate itself. So the original people that she worked with now refer people and refer people. So if we could all be that lucky, that would be wonderful. And it's still very reactive. So I wouldn't want my whole business to be that reactive. I would still want to be visible and want to generate my own leads rather than kind of being at the mercy of like who happens to show up when, and I would really want to be able to take charge of what I'm known for. So she's receiving leads who are being sent to her, but what are those people being told? If she's wanting to kind of expand or pivot or whatever, then those ones are coming from their. They're from the past, they're who she was rather than who she is or wants to be. So we're working out fine, but our next steps are to figure out what that baseline is right now, what she's known for, and then begin to paint a picture of who she wants to be and who she wants to attract.

Speaker 1: 40:11

So to me, when I consider, do you need to niche? Do you need to specialize? So in my world, a niche is like the market that you're serving and the specialty is the thing that you're doing, and the overlay of both of those is when it's more powerful, if it's possible to do something like that. So originally, when I left the Coca-Cola company, I was working with businesses in general and I was doing international marketing, because that made the most sense. And then I started to just do like marketing for small businesses. So you can hear marketing is the specialty and small businesses is the niche, even though it's not that small a niche, honestly. And then the more I worked, the more I realized that I wanted to work more specifically with consultants, executive coaches, you know, like those kind of business expert businesses and then do marketing for them. But really, what started to happen was that what I do with my clients now is so expansive because I'm doing everything from mindset to marketing. We'll talk about their team, we'll talk about all kinds of different things that it's really about overall business growth, but it's still for consultants and it got even more niche down to women consultants. So you can hear that the specialty increases and the niche is well, the specialty in my case kind of went away. It's much more broad, but the niche is there.

Speaker 1: 41:29

So if you're thinking about like, what is for you, that's, your example is like who do I want to do this for and what segment of the population, the total population, do I want to do this for and which of my gifts and skills do I want to bring to that particular market?

Speaker 1: 41:46

In photography, you know I love to go where the money is, so I would look at corporate photography, I would look at, you know, luxury travel, all those kinds of things. I think those would be super fun. And if you're like, yes, but I love kids and families and people awesome Do that. And within those audiences there are the higher end people who really want to invest in, invest something more in that. What I think is so interesting about photography is how, with the rise of the iPhone, everybody was like, never mind, I can just do this myself. And all of us are realizing there's still something to know. So why do I go get headshots taken? Because I'm like, because when I take pictures with my phone, they're you know, they're hit or miss. So really finding those people who value the thing that you offer is key.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Yeah, and that and your branding is key to that. Like that's the marketing and the branding piece of it, right, like you can't find them. If they can't find you, right, they need to know you're out there. You need to be available in general to the universe and also physically, literally, and also understanding who you're targeting. That's a huge, huge part of it. Because, yeah, like that's really what I focus on is a more you know, a boutique full service photography experience portrait photography but it is for people who value photography. It is for people who you know who do spend a lot of money on a single experience for either their, you know, their family, their high school senior, their branding, whatever it is, and the belief that you know you are going to find proof, basically, of whatever you believe, obviously, and there's just a lot, you know a lot of a lot of people. A lot of people will continue to believe that, well, no one has money right now, so that's just a dying thing, just like when the iPhone came out and everybody was freaking out because photography is going to die. That didn't happen and there's still plenty of people with money. You just not looking, you're not, you're not finding proof of because you're not looking for it and you know it's.

Speaker 2: 43:35

It's one of the it's. It's that, that, that belief that there's either you're going to do it or you're not. Like you said before, you're either going to stay in this place or you're going to be called to this future version of yourself. But this is so fun. This is just a great conversation. I don't want to keep you here all day, but I do want to dive really quickly, before we wrap up, into all the way Woo, because I know you can go all the way Woo, like I can. And first of all, you said okay. So your fellow Virgo, do you know your big three? You're rising in your moon.

Speaker 1: 44:05

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm going to say Sherry's Rising, which is why you think I have a great big personality when you meet me out in public. But I have a cancer moon, which means that, when I'm not big enough in public. I'm at home on a couch with a covered in dogs and cats. Love, I love that.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Yeah, I would have maybe pegged a little bit of Capricorn in there, but maybe that's the very go coming through. But yeah, for sure, cancer is my mid-heaven, so that has a lot it's very interesting about, like, because it kind of it'll show up in my coaching a lot like more so than I ever thought, like I don't have a ton of water and the water I do have is Scorpio, so that's all.

Speaker 1: 44:42

Oh yeah, I just run away from Scorpios as a blanket statement.

Speaker 2: 44:46

Same. I don't know what it is, but like in my youth it was the only men I ever dated were all Scorpios until finally I was like what is happening? But it's been really funny. I have like a stellium and Virgo. They're like I'm so Virgo, it's like ridiculous. Like a little Libra rising, so that is like again with your stag rising. That's the same thing as like people think I'm very social, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, oh no, I'm an INTJ, I would like to be home. I'm definitely not like to be doing all the things all the time. What about?

Speaker 1: 45:15

your human design.

Speaker 2: 45:16

Are you a Mani Gen?

Speaker 1: 45:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:18

Yeah, that's that, that checks out.

Speaker 1: 45:21

I don't know the human design, as I don't know the human design as well, but I I think it's. What is the other one? It's a. Is there a seed something? Oh, it must be a Mani Gen. It's the right thing.

Speaker 2: 45:33

I think well but, I, do know the Myers-Briggs oh yeah, what's that?

Speaker 1: 45:39

So my Myers-Briggs I'm an XNFP, but I was going to ask you about being a T, because a lot of times, women who are a T on Myers-Briggs get the feedback that they're cold. Yes, interesting, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:50

That goes along with being a Virgo too, though, I think, and I also have an Aries Moon, which I call, like big dick, aries.

Speaker 1: 45:57

Yeah, yeah, good, good, that's very much like like absolutely not.

Speaker 2: 46:01

You know what I mean, and it's so funny because of my kids. I have twins and my twins both have stag-rising, they're Libras with stag-rising, and they both have Aries Moon and I'm married to an Aries and so there is like so many horns so many horns around there Love it.

Speaker 2: 46:19

It can be a lot Okay. So thank you so much for showing up for me today and showing up for us and, like, really just like laying all of this awesomeness down, because I can talk about this kind of stuff all day, every day, as I know you can too, and I know that there's a lot of people who are going to walk away with a lot of really good nuggets from today. So tell everybody where they can connect with you If they want to reach out to you. I know that you know you work in this very specific space, but, like, what's next for you? Like, do you have anything like fun on the horizon? That kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 46:52

We always have fun stuff spiritually going on. I mentioned that about viewing. That's the things that I can mention in public. We have a lot of stuff that we don't mention in public that I can like wink, wink, wink at you about. That are always wonderful and exciting adventures into the fifth dimension Love.

Speaker 1: 47:08

I'm really like I'm just super, super motivated, driven, like, passionate, like I'm here to enrich women and so if, when women are ready to really step into their power and get richer and I'll have a message it may sound like it's for somebody else, but that's the message for you and if you're listening to this, there's a reason. You're hearing it and you deserve to be rich just exactly as you are. You don't have to change, you don't have to become anyone different. You deserve to be rich and live a rich life and be enriched in every way. So I'm on all the socials, samantha Hartley, and a good, cool, little free thing that I offer is something called the definitive guide to winning six-figure clients. It's got a little more of a corporate focus, but you may want some corporate clients and also it's just a lot of the mindset shifts around how you need to think about doing something like bringing in six figures and for a single client Like that's totally possible.

Speaker 1: 48:04

I personally know photographers. I have some of my first perfect clients were photographers. I personally know photographers who do engagements like that, doing lots of good work. So you can find that at sixfigureclientscom. With the new world six figure clientscom, I will definitely put all of that together. I'd love to meet you.

Speaker 2: 48:20

So reach out. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'll put all of those links, too, in the show notes for people so they don't have to remember. But that's really, really cool. I love that and, yes, it is possible. So thank you for that little last bit of fire you just dropped. Thank you so much for being here. It was so great meeting you, super fun to talk with you. Ciao. So many nuggets to walk away with from this episode. I really love that takeaway at the very end. There you are the right now. You're worthy right now, not next year.

Speaker 2: 48:51

I often have clients that I'm working with actually have one right now who had just sent me a question about that this morning, and she's like I know that we're talked about raising my prices and we've done the numbers and we've and we've gotten clear on. You know where she's been and where she wants to go, but there's this okay. Well, should I wait though? Should I just kind of ease into it? No, you shouldn't ease into it. You can just do it. You can just do it right now. You don't have to wait to be worthy in 2025. You can be worthy right now, and the sooner you do it, the better.

Speaker 2: 49:23

Just burn the boats. If you guys don't know that, saying right, like so it goes back to I'm going to butcher it Some war, some general from some war, back when they had you know, ships so the long time ago, and that was the thing, like they went to conquer this island and he said, you know, when we get there, burn the boats because we're not leaving, we're going to conquer this island. And so sometimes that's just that the attitude we have to have with ourselves, because, left our own devices, that trust and the fear is just going to get too big. And it's so easy to stay in that and to stay in scarcity when you burn your boats and when you just dive in to the deep end and you just go for it and you do it and you trust and you know that you are taken care of and that universe has your back. Guess what it just does.

Speaker 2: 50:12

So if you needed to hear that today, you're welcome. Thank you guys for joining me. As always, it is a pleasure to have you here and I'm so honored that you choose to spend this time with us. So thank you so much. Have a wonderful rest of your week. I love you. Bye.