the bossbabe podcast - 329. I Made 600k by Joining a $29 A Month Membership

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be lonely. The right community can be the secret to growing your team and scaling your business to 6-figures and beyond. This week's guest, Hollie Clarke, has had her life and business completely change since joining The Société in 2018. In this episode, she shares how membership and participation helped her shift from running a side hustle to being a 6-figure queen. From honing in on her unique skill set and meeting her business bestie to making $600,000 in the first year of business, Hollie is proof that you are the sum of who you surround yourself with. The best part is, there is nothing stopping you from doing the same! Are you ready to leap into your greatness and surround yourself with ambitious go-getters who can propel you to new unimaginable new heights? Tune in to hear how The Société is the career + community upgrade you’ve been looking for. Listen now! HIGHLIGHTS The ONE thing that took Hollie from $0 to $600K (and you can start doing it today) How I figured out what to look for in a co-founder, and where I eventually found her The $29 membership that changed the game for Hollie + what she did to specifically move the needle The main thing Hollie attributes to the change she made in her business (and how she did it) LINKS Natalie talking about the Société: https://bossbabe.com/membership FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

When you're starting, or if you're starting like a service-based business, you know, maybe you want to be a designer, a website designer, something like that. I think just starting and giving things a go is the best way, because you don't know what you don't know. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise. Keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently stepping outside her comfort zone

to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast. There is something so big coming in Boss Babe so soon. Like if you're listening to this, it's coming in a few weeks. I've said this many, many, many times, but if you are not a society member, join the society. It's bossbabe.com slash membership. You are going to really kick yourself if you don't end up joining because every single paying member at the time that we launched this product is getting it completely free. And it is going to be more than double the price of the society. So you're going to kick yourself if you don't have a membership. So get a Bossway membership. That is the most important action you need to be taking from this podcast is get a Bossway membership. It's really important. But something really,

really big is coming. If you also join, you can also watch the Q&A session I did, the coaching session last week, where I actually told them what was coming. If you are a member and you haven't seen that yet, definitely dive in. Going into this episode, I am really excited to share this one with you. So this is a moment taken from a previous interview that we did. I hope you enjoy it. The only way I thought you could make money online was if you're a travel bugger. And I was like, I don't really like writing. So I don't want to do that. In the ad agency, the weird thing was the ad agency hired freelancers, but I didn't really put it together that freelancers had their own business and worked for themselves and had this freedom. I also didn't imagine freelancers to work from anywhere else other than just like their home

or like going into whatever office they were doing freelance work for. I don't know. Like when I reflect back, it seems weird that I didn't make that connection, but I just didn't. So yeah. So when I kind of like got into the society, it was so eyeopening, like so eyeopening. I couldn't even believe that there were all these people who were like me, who also wanted to like build a business that meant they had a bit more freedom. And it was just so cool to see. I, I don't think I was

even like, I just didn't even know. I feel like you don't know what you don't know. I think because I'd had like a sneak peek of what you were building before and kind of knew like a bit about it and I'd like seen the material and worked on, you know, some like workbooks and design and things. So I think for me, it was like eyeopening and it was like no brainer. Like, of course I'm going to join. But I think even though I had some like behind the scenes knowledge, I was unprepared for how cool it was going to be. Like, as soon as I joined, I was like, wow. I, and I think because I had never joined any community or done anything online before, I think that's why I was so like, just taken aback at how cool it was and how,

how like so many people who were the same as me could be in one space. Like I'd never really experienced that before, you know, like going to university and you willingly opt to put yourself in a position to do something that's quite niche and specific, but prior to doing anything niche specific, I don't know, you're surrounded by the world and the world is really different and has lots of differences in it. I don't think I joined with the intention of knowing what business I was going to build. At first, I was just like a sponge. I just absorbed everything, learned as much as I could. I was just inquisitive all the time

about what opportunities there were and then I think this is also sometimes underrated about telling other people what you're doing because it can be scary but in the suit shop this is how I got my first like I don't know kind of more like proper client and so I was in the suit one of the boys I worked with his mom was starting a business and it was like a water bottle business. And we were just like chatting and, you know, as you do. And I was telling him, you know, about, you know, I was like doing design, I was doing design work and that's what I'd done at uni. And I was just kind of starting and figuring it out. And he was like, Oh, I think my mom kind of needs someone like that. I don't know, come over and chat to her. And I was like, okay.

And this is not how I would say to sell your services now or talk about what you do, but this is what I did because I didn't know. Right. So I went over and I just said like, hi, I can do a bunch of different stuff. I haven't really done this before. No idea how much to charge, but in the suit shop, I get $25 an hour. So I'm happy to do basically whatever you need for that. And she was like, that sounds great. Let's do it. So it was very much like learn as you go. And I think when you're starting, or if you're starting a service-based business, maybe you want to be a designer, a website designer, something like that. I think just starting and giving things a go is the best way because you don't know what you don't know.

And it can be different to corporate, different to any other experience you've ever had. So with her, I literally did everything. And also, I think this was the cool part is even if I didn't know something, I just YouTubed it. I just Googled it. I would have... So I built her Shopify website. I never built a website before. I'd never even heard Shopify before I met her. So I had Shopify up on one half of my screen and YouTube up on the other half. And I just did it. She needed photos. So I took photos. I planned the shoot. We got all the stuff. I edited everything. I used Photoshop, built Shopify, set up her domain, her email address, set up Facebook page, Instagram page, blog, showed how to upload things. And I was like, I'll record tutorials for you to show you

all this random stuff and anything she needed. I just did. And I was like, yeah, sure. Yes. And I basically just said yes and then figured it out late. And I think I just learned so much. And she was just like the most wonderful human ever. We're still friends to this day. And yeah, I definitely really learned so much from just saying yes and giving it a go. And the price didn't really matter. What I was earning didn't really matter. It was more about the experience. For me, it was just like any opportunity to connect with anyone, learn anything. And I think also along the way, I realized that as much as I was moving on, there was then people who were looking at me thinking, oh my God, but how did she do that? So I think everyone always looks to other people and sees,

oh, well, if they can do it, I could probably do it. So I think I also wanted to share that too. And I think something else I also did was just always like encourage other people, get to know other people, comment on other people's journeys, and just try to be as active as possible in the community. So then workbooks were really popular, like downloadables, freebies, and things like that. And that was the thing that then I was known for. People would always message me and tag me to design workbooks, their programs, and freebies, and just design beautiful things. And then that escalated into basically just designing anything, period. So what I would do is comment. If anyone needed any help with anything, I. So what I would do is comment, like if anyone needed any help with anything,

I would comment. But also when it was anything to do with design, I would comment, engage, and then other people realize that I was good at design. So then other people would recommend me and tag me. And then it got to a point where actually, people would tag me before I even had the opportunity to raise my hand and say I was available. And then I kind of got a few clients, few clients. And then because I shared my journey in there, also other people shared their journey. So when other people would work with me, they would then share that journey in the society and say, Oh my God, I'm so excited. I'm working on my new product design with Holly. Look where we're at. Or, Oh, I've just got these back from Holly. I'm so excited. I'm working on my new product design with Holly. Look where we're at. Or,

oh, I've just got these back from Holly. I'm so excited. Can you let us know which version you prefer? A or B? Which color direction do you think we should go in? Or something like that. So I think as I grew my portfolio and experience, I was also sharing that. And my clients were also sharing that because my clients were from the society for the most part. I really just showed up there, shared. And my first year in business, I mean, yeah, my marketing, I hardly had to spend any other money really at all. And the cool thing was that the society is like a protected area. So say you're like at nine to five or you're doing something else or like maybe you feel weird about talking to other people about it. Like you don't have to show up. So like my Instagram at that point was still just like all travel content and like, you know, my normal life. And I would still connect with people on there. And on my stories,

I would show like behind the scenes and things. But I would say like that wasn't really a fear of mine at that point because mostly I was showing up in the society. Then in the society, I met this girl called Chelsea and we just started chatting. And because she was also someone who would kind of like post a bit and share in there. And I feel like we knew of each other, but we didn't like know each other.

And she is basically my opposite in every single way you could possibly imagine in every single way you could possibly imagine every single way. All of the things that I'm really amazing at are like not her zone of genius. And all the things that are not my zone are completely her zone. So we just kind of connected and, you know, cause it was like, it was locked down. So this is like the end of kind of towards the end of 2020, maybe like September 2020. And so we were just like chatting and we'd spend time on Zoom together.

And I don't know, we just got on so well. And I remember like sending her a message. So I live in the UK and Chelsea lives in North Carolina. So in Wilmington in the US on the East Coast. So we have never met in person ever at this point. We've literally just chatted on zoom, like, you know, a good handful of times. And I'm like, Hey, I think like, I think the message I sent was like, I think we could like do some really cool work together or something like something that was like low key, but also like not.

Yeah. So she was like, yeah, I really think we could too. So, so September, 2020, like I put it out there and I'm like, Hey, I'm interested. And she's like, Hey, I'm kind of interested too. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is

simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. What I think we did, which I think set us up for success is basically

we like dated, you know, like business partner friends And like, we just got on Zoom. We didn't talk about business for like the whole of September and like the whole of October, just talking about like our visions in life and like what we're passionate about and like our values and what we want out of life, what we enjoy doing. It was, I don't know. I think it was like a really unique way to like, to start because also we couldn't go to lunch together. We basically just had to like figure it out over zoom. And then, so I then separately like had decided that I wanted a way to kind of serve more people who couldn't necessarily afford to work with me doing branding and websites. So I then created some Instagram templates and started to sell those.

So then Chelsea and I thought, Oh, okay. What if we launch those together for Black Friday as a very easy test to see how we work well together. But on the front end, it looks like it's just me launching it. But in the back end, she's involved. So we weren't then telling the whole world what our plan was in case we didn't like it. So we kind of... I feel like why this has worked is we baby-stepped into everything. So we did that launch. She did all the back end of it. Chelsea was an officer in the military. She then worked in like project management. So she's very like really good at tech,

really good at project management, really good at like team management, really good at like the details, really good at like adding all the backend in, really tried to like... I think what she did was really add in like another layer and like she could see my blind spots and and I could see her so I think that was probably like the power of both of us and I'm the kind of

person who would probably think a little too much before I take action and she probably takes action maybe a little too quickly I feel like even like with the templates, I probably would have perfected it a little more and waited a little longer, but probably too long. And she probably would have just, you know, done it immediately. So I think that's what works so well. So we did that as a first go and that worked really well. And we were like, this is pretty cool. So then after that, we decided, okay, why don't we do a masterclass for people to help them figure

out their pricing and packages ready for the new year? And let's see how we do that together. And what we thought was unique about us is Chelsea, basically, she was an OBM, an online business manager, project manager for big businesses online that did lots of launches and things like that. What we decided to do, she ran mostly a retainer-based business, and then I ran a project-based business. And because I had lots of experience in the creative area, and she had lots of experience in more of the tech area, we decided that we could put our knowledge together and do a masterclass for other service providers, really telling them everything that we'd known to build our businesses. Because Chelsea's business at that point, she was making consistent 40, 50k a month,

which is wild. And I was probably selling projects for 10 to 15,000 dollars. Easy, a couple of months. And I also had my like the we also have them templates so yeah so we decided to do the master class and that was cool too because I guess we had to like plan this master class and we hadn't necessarily like done stuff together that was other people could see and also like teaching and doing a live webinar together when you actually don't know other people and you have to, there's like a lot of like synchronicity that kind of has to happen that you can't necessarily like plan. So I think I didn't really know all of that going in,

but it was actually quite a test to see what we could do. And yeah, that went really well. And so many people got so much value out of it. And then we decided to run a bootcamp version of it. So it was like 4 weeks to go into the new year. And then it just kept going. And I think it's funny because we always intended to do an announcement of like, we're business partners and everything we do is together. But it happened quite slowly. And then suddenly, everything just was together. And we basically both decided that if we were going to do this, we had to be all in. It was like all or nothing. So we both stopped doing our separate businesses, stopped serving clients individually, and we said, we are all in. It is super weird.

We literally had never met ever. We live in different countries. She lives in the US. I live in the UK. Due to lockdown, we also had no current plans to meet anytime soon because it was really dependent on government restrictions. So when we made that decision, we also made it knowing we have no idea what we're going to meet. So it definitely was scary. But I think the weird thing is I feel like I never doubted it. Like I just knew, I knew that it would be fine. I knew that it would be great. I mean, it is scary. I mean, we legally set up a business together in the US, full-on, legally owned a business together and had never met. And I think luckily, my parents are pretty supportive. They were just like, cool, go for it. I definitely had some friends who were like, you don't know her. And what if what if it goes wrong and those kinds of things.

But I think what I did was I just, I didn't really even entertain any negative thoughts because I just thought like, you don't know her. You don't, you don't know. And yes, it could all go horribly wrong, but what if it didn't? We also made, I mean, I can't even, $600,000. Okay. That was just a little taster of Holly's episode. A few of the things that I thought would support you most on your journey. If you want to listen to the full episode, the best way is just Google Holly Clark Bossway Podcast, and that will come straight up and you can listen to the whole episode where we go in a little more detail with Holly. I will say Holly is just one of so many incredible success stories we have within the Boss Babe Society. I am so

passionate about our membership and I really want to encourage you to come join us. We are going to be closing doors very very soon and then the price is going to more than double. We have already closed the doors for monthly, and we are soon going to be closing the doors for annual. Please do not end up kicking yourself because you missed out. I know so many of you wanted to join monthly, had the tab open in your browser and just forgot to get round to it and then realized it was only annual available. So please do not then do the same thing with annual because the price is going to more than double. And I want you to get in now. I'm giving you as much notice as I can. I want you to get in and really get the most out of it because

the curriculum, the content, the templates, the playbooks, the rhythms, all the things inside the society are so incredible. And this new platform we are actually migrating to is mind-blowing and I just can't wait for you to experience all the magic and goodness that is. So head to bosswave.com forward slash membership if you want to join us and we'll see you in there. Outro Music