Lessons In Mindset and Money with Natalie Bullen

 

Natalie: So I think that's a good way for people to start with what they need to pay themselves. Because oftentimes people send these ridiculous numbers. I had a client who told me she wanted a business that made 100k A year gross. And I was like, Well, how much do you make in your job? She's making 125k. So I'm like, well, don't you need to replace your salary? Like, what are we talking about? Well wasn't expecting to see we're expecting to start entrepreneurship broke. We need to deal with that core expectation because as long as you expect to be a starving artist, you expect to have to make a concession you expect to cut your income in half. That's what's gonna happen.

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You're listening to the launch playbook podcast, the weekly podcast for service based business owners to discover the starts, stops and tools, the transformation that go into launching their online offers. I'm your host, Sara Vartanian. And if you want to launch your ideas into the world faster, with more success and less burnout, well, friend, consider this show your secret playbook to get you there.

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Sara: Today, I'm chatting with Natalie Bullen, a wealth and money mindset coach as the owner of unapologetic wealth, she teaches financial empowerment, money, mindset and sales training for ambitious women entrepreneurs, so they can step into the wealth they deserve and desire. She's also a financial planner, student to be registered investment advisor who shuns traditional personal finance values rooted in shame, guilt, and fear, and encouraged his followers to dream bigger, increase their prices and magnify their gifts. Welcome, Natalie,

Natalie: Thank you so much for having me.

Sara: My gosh, money. Few like Natalie, we haven't talked about too much on this podcast. And it's about time because you know, whether we're offering sales calls or pricing and offer or pitching on a launch event, one of our aims, of course, in businesses to make money, right. So we need to have these conversations. I'm so glad we're here for it. So can you tell us how do you work with online business owners? And what do you wish everyone understood about your work?

Natalie: I wanted this question. I work with online business owners by jumping up and down in their back and making them double their price joke. Sometimes I'm like, sneaking into their QuickBooks going, that's not enough money do better. Okay, I'm not doing that either. That's me. So I really work now with the mindset, how do you step into your true self in business? And what I mean by that is not the corporate person you've had to be to keep a job. That's a different person, not the person who you're, you know, not the daughter that your mom is proud of not No, no, no, you.

Entrepreneurship is a journey of self acknowledgement, self evaluation, it's ongoing work, and you can't out earn how you feel about yourself. So if you feel crappy about yourself, if you think you're bad with money, you think you suck at sales, if you whatever you will always earn in alignment with that belief. So we've got to shift your core belief in order for you to have lasting change. And that's in any area of your life, relationships, health, money, even money is my jam. But I'm learning. We're all interconnected. And if you're down in one area, you might be down in several areas. So I love to get with people to talk through their money story, their origin story, how they grew up, and what they believe about money and wealth and the wealthy, and see where there's maybe a core beliefs that needs to shift. What I think I wish people understood more about my work is that is non negotiable. mindset. It's not something you can just kind of push off to the side, you can try, it will catch up to you. Just because it's not all tactic and strategy doesn't mean that is not valuable. And it took me a long time to step into the fact that I am a money mindset coach, and I help people overcome their challenges and beliefs. Not just Oh, get on a budget, oh, here's how much you should say, Oh, here's how you hire a book keeper. That's great. But if you feel like crap, you will sabotage every big deal that comes your way. Doesn't matter what I said, I'll be your QuickBooks count.

Sara: Oh, my gosh, there's so much I want to unpack there. And I know we're gonna do so as we're chatting. But, you know, I can just say that for myself, what you're saying resonates so much that I have definitely feel it's not. It's not just a systems. It's the way I feel about things. And it's always been the case and I see that too much. And I hear that from so many business owners. Yeah, you're doing it an important work that we need. For sure. In your bio, Natalie, you talk about rooting out those more traditional values. So why are you motivated to make a change in the industry?

Natalie: You know, I did everything right. As a young adult, I had straight A's in school. I got a full scholarship but with college at 18 I worked two jobs. And you know, I love the Lord. I love my mom. I'm great, right? But I lost my scholarship working so much. I work very low paid jobs. I worked at Cracker Barrel for seven years wait tables for $2.13 an hour. When I was broke, I pick up a second job when I was still broke, I pick up a third job. And I got a degree I got a master's degree because everybody needs an MBA Right. And, you know, I really just checked all the boxes, I was on a strict budget, I never overdrew my account, I had a 700 FICO score, even though I was juggling all these payments and multiple credit cards. At a very small car loan when I was a renter, my rent was $450 a month. I mean, I wasn't living an extravagant lifestyle.

But yet a bad breakup, a health scare, and a sudden job loss landed me in the bankruptcy Attorney's Office, where I found my first seat in my 20s. It's very embarrassing. It's very painful. And it's trauma that I've had to work through in lots and lots and lots therapy session. And what I really couldn't figure out is where I've gone wrong, because curl the finance Guru, I did everything right, I had been on a budget, I had saved, I was working two jobs, you know, let Dave Ramsey tell it, it was beans and rice and rice and beans, I was doing it. And yet it still failed. Why? Because I was low income.

And when it came down to it, I didn't have the cash to float myself long enough to get back on my feet. And that's when I realized you can't budget yourself out of poverty. It like illuminated over my head, you can't do it a budget just tells your money where to go, it doesn't make more money. And if you're a woman under the sound of my voice or a person of color under the sound of my voice, the fact is you need to make more money. Understand if you were under the sound of my voice, you need to make more money you listener right now, because if you done and something happens all and it's good to have, you will suffer and that pain I have gone through is something that I I pray I can help even one person avoid. I know it sounds cliche, but even one person.

And so I realized it was an important work. But how do you make more money? How do you make that happen? That's easier than it sounds right? Well, it depends. At this point, I would say it's harder for me to make less money. Now that I've been out in the sales world, I can tell you selling low tickets sucks. It was so hard. I had a $99 workshop and once that I literally had a woman DM me and go, who else is gonna be there? Like it was a party or something? I said, Ma'am, it's an online workshop. I don't know who all is going to register for it. Right. But the fact that I would have to answer these invasive questions in a dissertation in the DDM, for 99 bucks, charge 99,000, you probably don't get any pushback at that price point. Because those people know what they want. And they get it. So you know, I love being an example for people, hopefully to help them see, you know, look, the little black girl from Mobile, Alabama, was school teacher and a carpenter for parents can go out here and make money you can too.

Sara: Oh my gosh, deadly. Thank you for sharing that story. That is that's a lot you've gone through. And I can I'm sure so many of our listeners can relate to checking all those boxes and doing all the things that we're supposed to do. But realizing that you know, maybe one one thing away from somebody and change that a lot from us, right? I think that's the thing. And I even think about the past couple of years which covid and the pandemic and everything that's done as well to us that I think we're even more cognizant of that now and what we have to change in our business. I love that you call there the low ticket offer the questions you get i i hear that.

Natalie: She had so many questions. Did you live every time I have a low ticket nightmare binder, everything bad that happens anytime I sell things because I have a discount or cheaper than I shoot it to remind myself to never do that.

Sara: Yeah, I hear you I have something like that for with clients. I'm like, whenever I whenever I go out of the scope of what I what I know that I'm supposed to serve them for as like a launch copywriter. And like I know I need to do this. And whenever I modify that and really go outside of my boundaries of it, something always goes wrong. For sure. So Natalie, what do you think some of the biggest challenges facing online business owners are today?

Natalie: I think that the challenge is employee mindset. We are accustomed to being employees, you're used to getting paid a certain amount. And so having to be the marketing department, the sales department, the finance department, the executive department, the planning department, the compliance department, the legal department, all at one time, and one person in one body is hard. Most entrepreneurs are really good at their thing and pretty poor at damn near everything else. And so you find people with these gaping holes in their businesses. I would tell people you know, and not even just if you're starting shore up your foundation, if you've never had your contracts, or agreements reviewed by an attorney, put that on your to do list. If you're still trying to do your own book So you know, you don't know how to do your own books and you've never reconciled anything and you don't know what reconciliation means, do a collective or batch or find a local bookkeeper, and sign up for that service. If you haven't filed your taxes, go ahead and file the extension and make sure that you get someone to help you with those strategies. If you suck at sales, suck it up. sales and revenue is the lifeblood of your business, you got to get it done. And unless you can convince someone to do it on commission for you, which is still a challenge, if you don't know how to sell it yourself, because you're gonna have to train the salesperson just saying, that's not the fix all people think it is. But until you can hire a sales team, you are the sales part. And people have a core belief that it is harmful to take money from other people. That is their core belief. They don't think that but think about it. I remember being poor. And I remember someone asking me for money. And I remember being embarrassed to admit that it wasn't that I wasn't generous enough to give them the money, but then I actually didn't have it. So I don't ask people to borrow money, not because I've never needed it. But because I remember what it's like to feel that pain and guilt of not be doing well enough to be able to help somebody in their time of need. So I've internalized that, to me, it's bad to ask people for money, it's harmful, it could bring up a negative emotion in them if they don't have it to give. So you just shouldn't ask. And many of us can remember a time like that. And it's rubbing off on our businesses. We're fearful of asking for the sale because we don't know what other bills that person has. They have kids they have a life they have dog has been stealing. We don't really want to encroach upon their finances. We don't want to make them feel bad and have to let us know. We have to feel rejected, it's a lot easier if we just don't make up, right, that solves that whole problem. But it leaves you destitute, you just can't have a business that doesn't make offers and trying to lead on referrals only. I mean, you're you're going to be on, you know, revenue rollercoaster. And that's not fun that that fans will see a grind. You don't really want to be on that ride. So I think you know, online business owners, we're really gonna have to step into our power of being a CEO and go, How can I run this like a business? Not a hobby, not a side hustle? Not just like extra gas money? How can I build Well, with this business? How can I pay myself well with this business, and we're just gonna have to admit that we're scared, we're gonna have to admit that we are fearful of setting a goal because we're afraid we won't hit it. If you call out your fears, you can conquer them. So I have fears crop up. I call them out. I'm gonna look limiting belief. We're not doing this today. Look, scarcity. We're not gonna have that today. I have plenty more clients, I had to tell my refund been just yesterday. And scarcity came up and went, damn, do you really have the money to give them back? And abundance went? Absolutely. That's why she has the refund punt. Click the button, and it was done. So what can you do to call out those beliefs as they occur to take their power away? That's a powerful exercise I think people should try.

Sara: That's really powerful, for sure. And so I want to ask you two questions from that. So why don't let's just talk about your refund fun for a second. You and I were talking about it in the green room before we started. This is a really neat idea. So definitely be taking a note I mean, from everything Natalie's saying but right now this is this is really key. We talked about it.

Natalie: Yes. So I have a fund separate from my business checking account separate from my my money I have set aside for taxes, separate for profit owners pay it is called a refund fund. The goal is to have it be at least one hex your highest ticket offer. So that's the dollar amount and should be shooting for. But if that's really high, so you sell b2b and you sell 100k offer, do I expect you to have 100k Sit around refund for next year. But I do think especially if you're a coach or a consultant, if you're an attorney or an accountant, you not have people mix it in with their bad debt, uncollected debt fund, but I love the refund fun. And I'll tell you why. When I worked with the public, most recently, I worked at a bank branch, and I was the only person that technically no, I was the only black person there. And there would be people who would come in and who would say that they didn't want to work with a black person. Well, because of the hierarchy of bankers and because I worked with the a fluid segment. Unfortunately, some of those people would still end up with me, not because they wanted me or I wanted them but because of the amount of money in their bank accounts and the way that the hierarchy was structured at that. It'd be like if you're eight and you hate second grade teacher when you're in the second grade, you're just gonna have to deal with right? Yep. So it was demoralizing and soul crushing and it made me very unhappy that I'll have to deal with that kind of hatred. And so I decided when I started my business I would hamper I'll be stuck with a client, and they would never be stuck with me. So I'm gonna have enough to be able to refund you no matter what goes down damn what the contract says you're a bad fit. You're a hateful person. You don't learn you're not coachable. If I want to cancel you and send you want your way with your money, good read. I will say, sometimes there's less nefarious reasons to use it. I had a six week coaching program and unfortunately, one of my participants, son passed away. The second week, it was sudden and unexpected. Her son was not sickly, I cried, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried, and I thought, I'm terrible. She told me she didn't want to refund she wanted to come back, she's gonna come back to coaching. She just needed some time and a lot to think about what's your bearing your child? Why are you like prioritizing me, that just seems like a bad time to be thinking about other people, you know, but, but I attract women who put themselves left, and she's grieving. So I don't want to push, I send an email every so often, no response. And I thought to myself, I'm gonna pull together this money, I'm gonna pull together enough money to give her this money back and anybody else will be. And that's just what I did. And I knew I get a response when I clicked refund on that button in my Stripe account. And sure enough, here's the email. Oh, my God, thank you so much. I can't believe how kind you worked. Give me some money back in my time, hopefully you have restored my faith in God after my child died. So that is why I keep a refund fun. You know how you can afford that my charging what you need to charge. Your Business prices needs to encompass all your costs, tangible and intangible, including bad debt, bad theater, or just don't want to be bothered client, it needs to have enough money for you to take a month off. If you get sick, it needs to have enough money in it to pay your taxes every quarter it needs to have enough money in it for you to not go crazy for you to have a nice peloton treadmill for your husband to be able to kind of figure out what he wants to do for a few months and not have the pressure of hey, you better have your half and mortgage or we're going to have a fine. That's what you're pricing for. Most of us are pricing so small we are we are trying to put the least obtrusive offer into the marketplace, the tiniest little thing that that we're hoping nobody will know. And as you know, we just don't want to make a scene. You know, we don't want to do too much. Just Just Just whatever little parcel you could give me I would appreciate my Lord. And I believe that I want all money. I want accolades. I want success. That's what I want. People don't like it, they can deal with it. And I'm not going to get wealthy, charging just enough to cover my expenses. And I'm not going to show up to serve well that way either. I made a post on Facebook and asked people, what level could you show up differently for your clients if you doubled your prices, and people were like, Oh, I could hire support. I could onboard. I could give them fancy hips. I could give them five to support. I could, you know, be here and there. I could fly to them. I could meet them. I could support them. I could grow, I could change. I could write their book, I could relaunch my website, I could hire a 10 va and I'm like, why don't you because that sounds like the best thing for your client. We'd like to tell ourselves that the best thing is to let people keep their problems and keep their money. But I don't think that's true. I think people would willingly trade their money to solve their problem. And I'm willing to hand my livelihood on it.

Sara: So you mentioned a few of those money mindset issues cropping up, then you're saying a bit like how are we wanting this scrubs? And that we're only asking for just what we need. What are some of those common ones other ones that you're seeing showing up in the online space?

Natalie: Working for free? It's common with women when I work with women, and they do it for a multitude of reasons. Usually women don't feel qualified and they think they need more something whatever that qualification is. More degrees more certifications, more time more clients, more testimonials. Oh my god, the testimonials they need to run a beta program another beta program. I'm gonna go even though the breakout like Do you even know what Veda means you just y'all just beaten Vega down beta is tire, beta Domi free or broke. So I'll never get when people have an inaugural version of something why it's got to be free. I'm still kind of confused about the rationale behind that when beta is like what in the hell did I do to get this? I think it's really common when people are new. Oh, that's a big one. I knew so I can't charge very much. Are you new in life? Are you just new to this business? Because I wasn't banking. Seven years I've been a licensed financial advisor I've been a life insurance agent. I'm fit a small business advisor so yeah, okay, fine. I went from working for a fortune 500 company to work for myself but my brain still my brain right? Why should I have to start back at zero? Seems like I should be able to try As more because I've already proven that I could be successful in someone else's framework and a fortune 500 company. So if I could step on and do it on my own without the incumbrances of that framework and be able to help people one on one, why should I discount that proactive discounting that comes up? You know, I think for me, it's a little bit different men tend to struggle with status image, not wanting to be perceived as weak or having imposter syndrome. So you know, what I meet men when they come in my clubhouse rooms is different types of struggles, but they're all based in lack, you know, what we're really saying when we price low is that we don't believe we'll be able to keep our clients if we increase our prices, if you thought you could increase your prices and keep all your clients. That's what you were doing, right? But you think you can't you think you've got to pick one, it's either, I'll make, I'll increase my prices, or I keep my clients. I think we're all so loyal to the wrong things, bad jobs, bad relationships, bad social environments, people that we've outgrown, I think we're loyal to things that stick around, but not things that help us grow

Sara: Interesting. And all those things are keeping us stuck than from making more money.

Natalie: Oh, yeah, every last one. Because if you have friends who are entrepreneurs, and you're trying to launch a business, and you go join a membership, that's $300 a month, and he's going to teach you, you know how to network to style, building, you know, a business, and you go to your friend down the street that works at Wendy's that makes 1250 That you're paying $300 a month to be at this membership, they're gonna say, Are you crazy? That's your light. Bill. I asked you for $50 Last week, and you told me you didn't have it? What are they even teaching you, you could probably Google that. You're an idiot. It's gonna happen if you tell people who are misaligned with your vision. And so we commonly keep ourselves small to not rock the boat, get in a different boat, don't have to stay in his boat, like the level of resilience women have. We're literally going from childbirth daily, emotionally with me. Just let it go. Some people are trash hurts, okay, some people aren't going where you're going. Imagine if everyone in the Air Force had to agree on the destination. Imagine, imagine that anarchy is over the intercom it was every plane is going to leave this airport and fly to the same destination. And we're not leaving until everyone agrees. No one would ever leave. Everyone would rather stay stuck in JFK, then it'd be pushed off to an unknown destination of a consensus of a group of people. But that's what we do in real life. We stay stuck somewhere so that we don't have to agree to what other people want. Because we're trying to form a consensus. We don't trust ourselves. We asked our Mom, where's her cousin? We ask our best friend. We have random people on Facebook. Where's LinkedIn? We're, it's got a tough spin. Do you think I should start this business? Do you think I should join this membership? Do you think I should? And until we get a consensus, we will move? We're literally stuck in the same place. Why is your value not good enough? I dated a guy once, who made me angry. And I try to suppress my anger because it is ugly. And whenever I would say something he would go, no one else has made this complaint. No one else feels that way. And I go my opinions and no, I don't care if I'm the only person who's ever said this to you. It's still true. My opinion is enough. My opinion, one opinion, most people do not believe that most people do not believe that their singular opinion is enough. They believe that it has to be validated by multiple other sources. And until they can get a consensus, they won't move forward. If I had been waiting to have a consensus, I'd still be waiting tables like crap.

Sara: Why do you think that we feel we have to do this crowdsourcing?

Natalie: Because we've been taught not to trust our own voice, that we're stupid or dumb or naive or confused, that we're black and marginalized and poor that we don't really know what we're doing. Right? We had a president who said that, you know, black people needed his help. We were were poor anyway, struggling anyway, whatnot, what does the blacks have to lose? And that's the Commander in Chief, the commander in chief me in my humble praise. We have nothing to lose. Because we are doing so badly as people, we should just blindly align ourselves to whomever offers to help us because we're just doing that badly.

Sara: With all the messages that we're hearing from us.

Natalie: That's why it's taught us to not trust our own voice.

Sara: It's very sad. It's very sad. And I hear what you're saying to about. I mean, I think back to when I started my business, and I would you know, talk to my my partner or my My sister and all these people who were in business and you know, as much as my partner is like, I think you should go for he's been really great about that. The truth is, like, still not the right person to ask questions to because I needed to get another rooms as you were saying, like, get around people who are, what is it Brene Brown says, who are in the arena? I think she's, yeah, who are doing that. And I love that too. Because it is the truth like someone like you're saying, who's working at, you know, a minimum wage job is not going to understand why we're gonna spend that kind of money, they just were in different viewpoints, we're in different worlds really, of what we're doing. So to ask them their opinion on that doesn't seem to make sense. I think that too, with my copy when I give clients my copy, and I'm like, just this is for you. Like don't go don't go crowdsource this from someone like we've done the research, we've had the conversation, messaging, it's done. All you're doing is saying, like, does this still sound like me? Have I hit the right points, it's not like out to go out there and like, outsources everyone like this, because you know, your mom or your sister or your aunt, they're not in business, they don't know the research, they don't know. And I feel like it's like the same kind of thing here for our pricing.

Natalie: And, and they're good throw you off course, because they are coming from their frame of reference. And that why not always important to be in the right room, but it's important for that room to keep moving. Because what you struggle with when you were making 2000 a month isn't the same as when you're making 10,000 a month. So you're gonna have to continue to elevate, potentially above your coaches, peers and mentors, which brings up a whole new crop of Minecraft for people.

Sara: Oh, my gosh, I can relate to that, too. I mentioned to in the greenroom, we started that and the listeners now, I used to be an elementary school teacher for 10 years, and I'm in Canada. And I will say that elementary school teachers here get paid a lot better than they do in the US, which is great. Like, they're like, you know, I was approaching up to six figures as an elementary school teacher, which is different than, like, what?

Natalie: We should have moved to Toronto.

Sara: But I took a leave. And you know, I was taking care of my mom, she had six months to live, we took a leave to take care of her. And then I went full time my business during that time, and kept taking leaves until they originally made me decide I had to like they're like, Okay, you coming back? Are you not in four years. And I remember it was really hard to I couldn't make that decision that first year. And I was really scared because it was like you said, I checked all the boxes. I had the degrees. I had like that almost six figure job I had my summers off. And I mean, all my teaching friends were like, What are you going to do? How are you going to leave this? Oh my god, like, it's the job. And it is like in love. You know, there's the pensions and all those things, right? My dad was really worried about it. But I had to like, put all that aside and really think like, go inside myself. And you know what, talk to myself and my coach and things about moving forward. And it was plenty to that distance of the few years, to be honest, be able to say like, Yeah, I'm out. And so I did, I did leave. But I hear that with everything you're saying I'm like resonating so deeply with just from my own experience of moving from that full time to to this.

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Sara: So Natalie, you're talking around, you know, doubling our prices and like asking for the gods and all these things like that. So how do we figure out what is I don't want to use the word reasonable? Definitely be reasonable, but but like, how do we decide what how to price at that?

Natalie: Oh, like that, you know, they're all kind of complicated formulas that nobody understands and no one's going to use. I think a good place to start is your temperament and how you feel about work. So I'm going to tell you that I have chronic fatigue. I've got about four good hours a day and they're not consecutive hours either. Wouldn't that be lovely? I'm introverted. I have some social anxiety. I don't always like people. I love myself to always like people. So I have to ask myself one, how many clients can I even take on? So if I'm gonna do one on one, what does that look like? Right? How many people are we talking because I do three month programs and the first month. I really like to meet every week to get a foundation going on the mindset stuff that's gonna start coming up for people when we go through that origin story, if I only talk to you twice a month, that first month, that first month is gonna be really rough. So, if I've got to have, let's say, I want to make 20,000 a month, and I'll tell you why that's my benchmark in a minute. But if I want to hit 20,000 a month, and I'm only charging 2500 A person, well, I've got to have eight people say yes, this month and pay in full this month. Well, I guess that's okay. This month, but what happens next month? Right? Am I gonna have to close eight more well as a three month program, so now I'm gonna have what 61 On one clients, I'm going to have people I'm meeting with twice a month, and I'm gonna have eight people I'm meeting with every week. So I'm gonna have eight hour appointments a week plus the admin Trello board, getting them set up, the client gets the welcome card, the questionnaire, the contractor proposal. Meanwhile, my VA, I'm gonna do that in a week, every week for a month, plus the A twice a month from last month, what am I going to do next what I'm going to work on anymore, so I'm gonna have 24 hours, I'm gonna have eight people I'm meeting with every week. And 16 I'm meeting with twice a month, plus all the admins on board. Now I've got to all for the first one. I've got to do post cold. I'm exhausted, exhausted. So I think people should really play out their pricing. If you keep rising like your pricing. Are you ever gonna hit your benchmarks without burning yourself? Like, is it even feasible? even possible? Because what we did talk about is how I'm gonna close eight people a month. Like let's talk about that. How many leads do I need to generate to get enough sales calls booked to close eight people? I have a pretty high close rate. If I booked 12 sales calls, I could get 1000 commitments and pay. But how do you get 12 sales calls book? How many leads? Does that take like the time right? Again, I'm telling you, but we got four good hours a day, five days a week, I've only got 20 hours of I spent 16 of them on the phone with clients and only got four hours to prospect well that that map a map and so I would vote for people. What kind of person are you and what kind of lifestyle do you want. So I've decided that I want to move away from Alabama, Alabama is very low cost of living. My mortgage All in List grow was less than $900 a month, I have a Lexus that I bought at a very reasonable price my cardinal does. $285.09 We're pretty frugal as it were. And we always happen. But I want to move either outside of Nashville, Tennessee, or outside of Washington DC, either of which is going to have us looking at houses. Minimum half a mil. My house is 149, nine, gay. So it's a whole different ballgame. The property taxes are high, it's the cost of living is different. I want us near a major airport. And I want us in a creative city, my husband's a photographer, it would blow up his business if we weren't in engineer town with NASA. And I can work from anywhere and I want to be near an airport with nonstop flights. Because right now we have to connect everywhere that we go, we have to connect through Charlotte, we have to connect through Dallas with connecting there's no nonstop flight out of Huntsville. So we're gonna for reasons I want to make more money. So I've decided I need to pay myself $1,000 a month that will cover our Cobra that will cover our existing mortgage, that'll put money in both of our IRAs, etc. Well, in the business got to make at least double that, right, I believe you should pay yourself about 40%. I do profit first. So if if the business makes 20, I can pay myself eight I can satisfy for taxes, I can have money from a refund fun. So I kind of set a benchmark first of how much I wanted to make, and then kind of figured out okay, well, based on that, and the number of clients I want and the kind of programs I have. What does the program need to call ups? How often am I going to launch it? Or how long am I gonna have it? But I think that's a good way for people to start with what they need to pay themselves. Because oftentimes people set these ridiculous numbers. I had a client who told me she wanted a business that made 100k A year of growth. And I was like, Well, how much do you make in your job? She's making 125k. So I'm like, well, don't you need to replace your salary? What are we talking about? Well, I wasn't expecting to see we're expecting to start entrepreneurship broke, we need to deal with that core expectation because as long as you expect to be a starving artist, you expect to have to make a concession you expect to cut your income in half. That's what's gonna happen. You as your husband know that you're planning on taking a 50% rate cut to start this business because I would suspect you'd have problems with that since you're the higher earning of the two of you. We didn't even dawn on her that like she should expect to replace her income. That should even be a goal. And that sad like, hell yeah, working your own business is rewarding, but it's hard. I would never take a cut to run a business. Sorry, I deserve a raise. Think about that. Can you give yourself a raise? If you can't give yourself a raise? You're not. You're either not charging enough or you've fallen into the common trope of overspending. Because when we don't feel confident about our offer and ourselves and our money and our business, we try to fill that void with spinning the branches have one more program one more coach, one more offer one more webinar. One more masterclass, if I just get one more thing, then I'll be ready to be high ticket, then I'll be ready to go b2b, then I'll be ready to blank, blank, blank. It's just one secret investment away. And I just don't know what the secret is. So I have to keep, like the Russian doll. Just keep you keep trying. And eventually, there is a tree down and about how much money have you spent trying to get to this thing. And spoiler alert, if your mindset sucks, the coaching programs won't work.

You won't take their advice, because it will be too painful. It's too far outside your comfort zone. So I still think there's a lot of healing we've got to do. There's so much and you're right, my work is neat. The more I have these kinds of conversations, the more I'm like, Man, I really I'm onto something.

Sara: You definitely aren't, you know, you can't do daily Meyer looking at each other over not recording the video, we're just looking at each other for the conversation and like nodding my head rates. She's speaking because Natalie, I can like I'm like yes, yes, I have done that. Yes, I have signed up from one thing to the other, looking for that, like validation that this is that, that it's okay, now, this is the right seat card, this is the way to unlock it. And for sure. I know when I think about myself that comes from like, it took me a long time to realize I didn't need to have like a degree in this because at one point, I was like, should I go back to school to do this? Like the writing? I mean, I've taken some courses to literally learn techniques, but after that, it's like, I don't know, I think it's the way we think of myself I think is a way just being raised be told about like, you must do all these things. You have to have all this stuff, you need us permission, right? It's all this permission that we think we need. So, Natalie, when we are wanting to call in more money for our launches, let's say what do you think it takes because I know, like, you know, do you know, I work with people who are launching, and some of my clients are really worried about raising the price before their offer. And that's like that they're worried that they're gonna you know, that none of the people who bought him before gonna buy again, they're really fearful. And what so why do you think that maybe comes up? And, and also like, so what can we do to get past that or move past that for our launches?

Natalie: I'd think that the key to a successful launch is having an aligned audience. So instead of asking yourself, we ask ourselves the wrong question we ask, who would pay that much for my offer?

Sara: Oh, my gosh, yes.

Natalie: That's the question we asked. That's the question. The question we should ask is, I want to charge 10,000. How can I attract people who will pay that? That's the question. I want to charge X. How do I attract people who routinely pay X for personal and professional development. If I sell $800 shoes, and I go down to the flea market and try to sell them, I'm probably gonna have a problem because the people want flea markets are not looking to buy expensive shoes. That's just not typical flea market fair. Usually, the people there are either cheap, right, frugal or bargain hunters. They might have money, but they didn't come to spend it at the flea market, they came to get a good deal so that they could brag to their friends and family about how they got this whole sheet set for 25 cents. It's the wrong kind of buyer. So what we tried to do was convert our existing audience into a high ticket, we'll double or triple our prices and change nothing else. We don't change our messaging, our marketing, our website, our branding, photos, our brand voice the words we use nothing, we don't change anything but the price, and we try to sell that thing to our same audience. We get crickets, what I call high ticket crickets. And then we say raise your price doesn't work and then we lower the price right now. But in reality, you've got to shift so I can tell you that I love shoes. I've always been a person loved a nice pair of shoes. I wore heels every day until I fractured my left ankle, and I just had a beautiful collection and I never really had a lot of money. $100 was about what I could pay for some shoes. So Jessica Simpson, Steve Mann, Michael Kors. That was the top of what I could afford. I could go to Belk and spin 109 or 99 for some shoes. I got turned on to a company called the real real they're a consignment store that sells luxury clothes. And I went on the site and I found a pair of Jimmy tunes and they were on sale for $160 they had been worn once lightly scuffed Steel had dust box, I bought them and when I put on those shoes I knew I had made Steak. They were fabulous.

They're pink. They're suede. They're comfy. Oh, my God compliments when I wear those damn Jimmy Choo shoes. People think I'm important that they can well dressed. They guy magical is just me and the shoe. And so now, guess what? I started looking on Jimmy choose website and I was like, Holy crap. These shoes are like 750 12 $53,000 Wouldn't that hell am I doing on this website, I've lost my mind. So I stopped looking. And I went on about my business. And a funny thing happened. I started making more money, I started increasing my prices. And I saw that pair of shoes sitting there when I was cleaning after I got married my husband and we started organizing
nice shoes, and I'm like, those are some nice shoes. To give Jimmy Choo another chance maybe out of buy some brand new Jimmy Choo shoes, and I went on that site and suddenly the prices didn't feel that high anymore. Um, I'm not telling you Jimmy Choo shoes are cheaper. I'm telling you, I'm a different person. I'm more fluent in my bank account, but I'm also more fluid in my mind. And I'm starting to feel like I'm the kind of person who deserves $1,000 pair of shoes that my brand photos would be really bad as with those shoes on, then no matter how much weight I gained, the shoes will fit I'm gonna size eight and a half since I was 14 years old. I put on 30 pounds and COVID I need something that's gonna fit. No matter what I'm buying the shoes. Jimmy Choo never tried to convince me that the shoe was worth $1,000 Jimmy Choo never try to lower their marketing or messaging to attract the masses. Jimmy Choo waited for me to be a fluent enough to buy the damn shoe. There's a lesson here. If you want clients who can pay, you have to start marketing to their big problem. You can't call out beginners and then charge high ticket. It's incongruent. So if you want to have a better launch, how do you get it aligned? Market? So don't ask cool pay my for my stuff be on this. How much do you want to charge for it? Great. Go find people who do that. I'm sure Jimmy Choo started targeting me again, because I looked at a pair of Christian multiple times. And a person who will pay for that will also probably pay for Lobaton will also probably pay for Jimmy Choo and get all kinds of luxury ads now for $100 skincare because I made the mistake of clicking on one egg. And now Facebook thinks I'm rich. And they send me $10,000 trench coats, right. But here's the thing, they're conditioning me and at some point, I will be wealthy enough to be one of those buyers. But I won't if they waver on their messaging, if they flip flop all the time that they're high ticket today and low ticket tomorrow, if they're quality stocks, so you worry about what you need to do your launch agent, launch your social media manager, do social media, you're a copywriter, charge for your ish, all the competition is at the bottom, all of it. So when you price low and you cut your price, you're actually making it harder to sell, you're actually creating more competition. Because there's 1000s of copywriters that will write your sales page for 500 bucks or 1000 bucks, probably not too many charging 10k or 20k. So when you price yourself higher, you actually can get in a situation where you've priced yourself out of the competition. And your price can be a competitive advantage for you because it positions you as an expert, and it gets you above the crowd.

Sara: So Natalie, I'm thinking as you're talking around raising our prices and going high ticket, and that low ticket can keep us from let's say making more revenue. Does that mean that we shouldn't have low ticket in our in our offers? Or what do you think around the span of what would be a good idea for ranges of types of offers? We should have?

Natalie: I love this question. I think that we should strive for a deep business model instead of a why business model. And I'll tell you what I mean, when you've got a wide business model, you have a lot of different offers and a lot of different price points to solve a lot of different problems. So you'll see people with a free webinar on a $9 tripwire and a $37 ebook. It's got a $97 course $197 course $297 course about 500 own membership $1,000 coaching call a $2,000 mastermind. It makes it really difficult to hone in on one problem because a $9 buyer on a tripwire is a completely different customer than someone who would pay $2,000 A month or $2,000 total for CO Jake, and you spread yourself really thin and you're always chasing something as my mom would say you chase two rabbits, you won't catch either one of them. I'm a fan of having a deep business model, meaning how can I get one type of client to a solution in the most logical way. So if you have a course, that will help people grow their audience and your social media manager, then having a course that's 200 bucks, and then getting people maybe to book calls with you that are $1,000, and then getting them into a monthly retainer this done for you this 2500 Makes sense. Because you can get people to whet their appetite on the course get a quick win when they grow their list, get on the call with you to build some trust, and then set them up into your done for you premium service. What wouldn't make sense is trying to stuff seven other offers at various price points, because it makes it hard for people to buy that way. I also think we need to be careful with low ticket as a signature. Because unless you've got volume, I'm talking an email list of 50,000 or 100,000 people, that $49 thing isn't going to get you to the revenue months that you need, like we talked about earlier, if I want to pay myself $1,000 a month, I need a business that grosses at least 20k a month, how am I gonna get 20k A month $49 at a time, unless you guys huge, huge audience and you know, listening to me right now, whether you do or don't have that the math doesn't work. And so I'd rather say You know what, I have a $10,000 signature offer. And even if I don't sell that many of them, I'm okay, if I just steal two of them and I'm good, then they have to say let me try to piece together another $97 or $98. To get to that 20 case, I think there's a time and place for low ticket. I think it's smart if it's leveraged the right way, but I don't think people should be doing low ticket as their signature awkward until they've grown to a tremendous audience.

Sara: That makes so much sense. And you know, that's that's some things on my talk to clients or talk to people who are wanting to launch as well, that, like audience numbers really do matter. And I know we want to say like sometimes there's like some niceties around wanting to say that doesn't matter. But it doesn't matter if we want to make you know more especially with the low ticket, because I've definitely had clients with a couple 100 in that list versus you know, multiple 10 1000s You really see the revenue difference there because it's still like a conversion number, right? Like there's still only so now you're gonna sell. I love that idea of going deep that that makes so much sense. That leads to you have a favorite revenue generating activity.

I love sending voice notes in the DMS that is my jam because people know that it's me. It's my voice they know it's not my assistant, I love being able to quickly just shoot off but know Hey, been a while since we've chatted, how are things going in your business? Hey, I saw that post you made or such and such I thought that was so clever have been? No Hey, I was looking up your website and notice that your calendar was down. I didn't know if you realize that. Like, I've literally caught stuff on people's calendar and website, send it to them. And they're like, Oh, thank you so much. I'm so grateful. Hey, how are you doing? Like, just striking up conversation with people. I've sent 42 DMS a day me. So that's that's kind of where I live at.

Well, you're so good at that connection piece. We were talking about that in the greenroom too about how like you show up on online and just like, share and start conversations. And I can I can see that. That is a lot of DMS, I think strive to you a couple of days. That's amazing. Obviously, it's working for you. Honestly, like we could talk about that. So I want to bring up actually those conversations that you start I was thinking about one that you started yesterday I was looking online, talking about that whole 97 cent thing you were talking about that how that maybe as a practice is keeping us from reaching the next level doing things like that.

The whole oh my god, I'm so funny. Me and my sales coach are doing a workshop. Oh my god, it's gonna be hilarious. But you know, we talked about like, how much money has been stolen from people about rural marketing. So when you look at something that is priced at $97, what does that actually ate? Right? If something is will say $197? Do you really believe you are spending 100? Does that Max still even work? Do you spend 197 and your brain think 100 and not 200? That's really the case you're probably not my client. To be honest. If 197 reads like 100 And you would buy it at 197 and not $200 You're not my client, because that's not how a fluent people buy absolutely nothing and Tiffany ends in the seventh. So we've been giving people this kind of arbitrary silly $3 discount that they didn't ask for. I don't know why people didn't. I'm sure they had add three more dollars. And if you think about it in aggregate, like over years and years and years, like, you have a workshop every month and you get 50 people in it, a you're losing $3 Every single time you losing 150 bucks a month, right? $1,800 a year. And that's a small offer to a small audience. I know, I wish I had another $1,800 Right now, you know, like when I meet people complain about stripe fees, that's your stripe, absolutely 2.9% and 30 cent. So you're giving away the strength be on a whole 100 of that. $200 Why so they don't have to pay it. But again, we've been taught charge 197 297 597 It works. We've gone from nines to seven it to me seven looks like a sale, right? It looks like a discount. And there's a lot of pricing psychology that goes into things. But that's why I hate things on the decimal to the to the cent unless it's a physical good in a store, you go to Walmart, sure they are going to be $13.98 cent, we expect that on a physical product. But if you sell a service, there's no reason your service should be $69.99. That looks like a large number, believe it or not your brain MRI 69.99 as a larger number than 69 or 70. Because it's for desktop, it's for numbers. It's four digits, it looks larger, it takes up more space in your brain. And you're right. So $69.99 has been proven statistically to feel larger than $69 and $70. How because it's four digits be used. So why discount yourself like, I don't need a sale, I don't go on sale, I got the funniest email, I'm definitely thinking about replicating something like it. It was on Black Friday. And she basically wrote and said, You know what, I know everybody's on the sales today. But I'm not as a matter of fact, my prices went up to pay me more today, because I'm awesome. It was so bloody Oh my god. And she probably made a fortune, because She asserted her value and presented herself like an expert. Experts are cheap. And if you cheat, no one will believe that you're very good.

What a way to send out the inbox to on Black Friday.

Oh, yeah. On the day that you know, everybody else isn't in the middle of a discount dance.
So thanks. Yeah, thank you for bringing up that conversation that I saw online. I thought I was so intrigued by the comments what people were saying because it is so true. It's like it is one of those real marketing persuasion tactics that we've been taught, right that are like, Why? Why are we doing that? Like we're stealing from ourselves, basically. So I appreciate you diving into that. Now, before we wrap up. What is one thing that you hope the listeners take away from this episode,
that you can earn as much money as you desire to? I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but it is possible. Many of us have closed ourselves off to a future where we could be wealthy certainly I had I just quit my job. 12 weeks or so ago, I made $51,000 And my salary and maybe another five or 10k a year in bonuses depending on what kind of shenanigans the company got into because we were always in the news lawsuits and stuff like that. But I had just relegated myself to a life of middle class and this because I couldn't really see a way out. And so start thinking about what your options are. You're young, you still got time my mom is 72 and she is still actively out. She says Mary Kay now she's doing a great job. I mean, she definitely isn't one of those, you know, you're old and it's too late. So if you're understanding my voice and you're under 72, for damn sure you could be out doing something to increase your income and stop playing small. All the competition is at the bottom, all of it. That's where it's most competitive. Gas stations undercut each other by pity Walmart and Target going these price wars Dollar Tree Family Dollar family circle, they're all competing in this low price segment. There's not as much competition at the top. If you're a copywriter, and you do a whole sales page for 500 bucks, but it's for a high ticket $25,000 mastermind for 500 bucks. They're making hundreds of 1000s of dollars on that launch. You got clay and you probably had to convince them to hire you because there's hundreds of copywriters writing whole sales pages for 500 books, not that many charging 20k I actually have clients charge 20k for a sales day. She doesn't have a lot of competition. By the time people come to her they're already sold. And she only sells to people who have the propensity to blow their launch out of the water so they're gonna make their money back and they're gonna feel good about it. So she's not price haggling. She's not on the phone with people who are price sensitive. She's on the phone with people who are value seekers. So be thinking about how can you attract people who seek value in in their lives, not just people who are moved by price and that way you're not in price wars with people who are still haggling over whether they're going to give you a couple 100 bucks.

Amazing. Now Natalie, where can our listeners find out more about you and working with you?

Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram at unapologetic wealth or clubhouse which is where you can hear me run my mouth for hours and hours on end by clubhouse is at Natalie Bolin the site's under construction, but will be Natalie bullen.com

Thank you so much, Natalie, thank you for coming today and sharing all of your wisdom and thoughts with us and some of those awesome sayings from your mom to I love them. Isn't she cute? I love hearing that she's 72 and she's still doing seven she's got time. Thank you so much Natalie listeners definitely go check her out. All of the details will be in the show notes of course. And until next time, keep going out there and keep launching. Thanks for tuning in to the launch playbook podcast. If you want to get weekly launch secrets in your ears. I hope you'll hit subscribe on iTunes so you'll never miss an episode. Because who knows? It could reveal just a thing you've been looking for to make your next launch a success. And be sure to leave a five star review on iTunes telling me how this episode inspired your launch plans. Until next time, keep putting your big ideas out into the world. I'm rooting for you