IAM863- Business Coach Helps Business Owners Make More Money
Podcast Interview with Amanda Abella
Amanda Abella is an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker, and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess so they can make more money.
Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates and closing multiple five-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Univision, and many more.
Prior to teaching marketing and sales, Amanda spent a decade as a financial writer and wrote content for companies like Wells Fargo, Discover, Credit Karma, Santander, and more. She's also partnered with companies like Capital One and Transunion in financial education campaigns.
She's also the Amazon bestselling author of Make Money Your Honey and has created a community of over 60,000 people across social media channels to make more money and live a more affluent life.
- CEO Hack: (1) Get your hands off the business and hire A-Players (2) Be vulnerable with your team
- CEO Nugget: Let go of that which is not working
- CEO Defined: Leading two different people
Website: https://www.amandaabella.com/
Twitter: @amandaabella
Instagram: @amandaabella
Facebook: Coach Amanda Abella
Full Interview:
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Transcription
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00:02 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:30 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I had a very special guest on the show today. I have Amanda Abeyah of AmandaAbeyah.com. Amanda, it's awesome having you on the show.
00:38 – Amanda Abella
Thanks for having me on. I am super psyched to be here.
00:41 – Gresham Harkless
No problem. I'm psyched as well. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Amanda so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amanda is an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker, and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess so that they can make more money. Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates and closing multi-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Univision, and many more.
Prior to teaching marketing and sales, Amanda spent a decade as a financial writer and wrote content for companies like Wells Fargo, Discover, Credit Karma, Santander, and more. She's also partnered with companies like Capital One and TransUnion in financial education campaigns. She's also the Amazon bestselling author of Make Money Your Honey and has created a community of over 60,000 people across social media channels, to make more money and live a more affluent life. Amanda, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
01:37 – Amanda Abella
I am so excited, let's get into it. Let's do it.
01:39 – Gresham Harkless
So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more on what led you to get started with all the awesome work that you're doing. Could you take us through your CEO story?
01:47 – Amanda Abella
Oh my gosh, this is such a good time to be asking this question because I feel like I only really just made the shift to CEO maybe in the last 2 or 3 years. Even though I've been in entrepreneurship since 2010. But for the first 8 years, I was freelancing, I was content marketing, I was doing done-for-you services for people. And around 2016, I was like, this isn't scalable. We're going to run into some problems. If you want to make good money and have the impact that you want to have. So I actually ended up taking everything that I used to build my first business and created my first program called Persuade to Profit. Created that in 2017. The first time I launched that, I did $10,000 in cash in 2 weeks. And I was like, oh, okay, I think this is the thing.
And ever since then, it's been a transition. Like a year after that, I had to hire my first, you know, full-time assistant. And now it's been actually in November, it'll be exactly 2 years since I hired her, and we've completely systematized the backend. I have a sales team now and all our funnels are working. This past week alone, when I'm interviewing you, we've done almost $40,000 in sales just in the last few days. So I feel like that CEO mindset thing has only kicked in in the last 2 or 3 years when I started thinking about scalability and team.
03:07 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I absolutely love you for being able to kind of talk about that process, because I think there's not enough kind of narrative and information about the process that it takes to get and become a quote-unquote CEO. And what not at all. Most people were just like, you just wake up, and then all of a sudden, you just wake up and you're a CEO.
03:23 – Amanda Abella
Yeah. And actually what I did on my own podcast was I was on my Instagram stories. I was really honest with people. There were moments in 2019 where I was like, guys, scaling really sucks. It is rough, right? Or you make bad hires or ads don't work or there's a bunch of challenges and problems along the way, which are normal. And I tell people to embrace them because that's how you learn. But I've been very, very transparent about the whole process. And then we just finished the main systems and then here comes the shutdown of 2020. Right. And then it's like half our clients lost their whole business overnight. And then because I was in finance, it was a flood of stuff coming at me as well.
So I was like, okay, just finished building out systems, already burned out and now we have to deal with this. And I think honestly, that's the moment I really became a CEO. Because I walked into my team meeting the Monday after the shutdown and I said, this is what we've been preparing for suit up. I'm really having to be a leader in that time and space when it was really hard and you're very tired and you're worried about your team and you're worried about your clients. And now what are we 7 months into this? Is that how long we've been in this whole situation? It feels like forever, probably 7, or 8 months. It feels like 5 freaking years.
Exactly. But now is when people are like, Oh my gosh, we saw how you showed up. We saw how you led your team. We need to be a part of this. Like you were right the whole time. So I feel like that was like the rite of passage right there for the CEO. And because I've been so transparent about all of this the whole time on my own podcast and on Instagram stories. That's what everybody tells me. They're like, oh my God, no one talks about this.
05:06 – Gresham Harkless
Right. Yeah. You don't really get the real vision, but as you said, you know, so well, I feel like that has so much to do with leadership. And you talked a little bit about your podcast. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and talk a little bit more about how you work with clients and how you serve them?
05:21 – Amanda Abella
Yeah, so we have our main program, which is Persuade to Profit, and our sweet spot in Persuade to Profit is to take people who've been doing one-on-one work, maybe one-on-one coaching, for example, or you're a freelancer like I was and helping you create your first scalable offer, we're gonna help you build out your first marketing and sales system, and then I'm turning you into a closer because my secret sauce is the fact that I know how to sell, I know how to train teams on how to sell, and I know how to train people on how to sell.
05:47 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, and that sounds so simple to do. But I imagine that that's been a process for you to get there. And I feel like a great sign of being able to be an expert and be really known for that is to be able to teach other people as it sounds like it's what you're doing.
06:00 – Amanda Abella
Yeah, not even just your clients, like try when you got to teach a team to sell things on your behalf. That's like, that's another level.
06:06 – Gresham Harkless
You would think
06:07 – Amanda Abella
It's the same, but it's not.
06:08 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I feel like that's probably, and I don't know if you find this or hear this a lot, I feel like that's a major hiccup with a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to try to transition to that CEO. How can I replicate myself because I do it so well that I don't feel like anybody else can sell anybody else? This or that.
06:26 – Amanda Abella
Yeah, it's real. I, with salespeople specifically, went through a few hires that didn't work out because I was trying all these different things. And then I was like, Amanda, just put your recruiter hat on. What is it that you need? And I was like, I need people with batteries included, as one of my mentors says. I need people who just understand sales and then I train you on the product and we tweak you, but I don't have to explain the whole mindset of sales to you. Like I'm not starting from square one just because you've been aware of my brand for a while. Cause I think some people do that though, like hire their VA for like sales support or they're like, oh, there's someone in my community and my email list who really wants to learn how to do this. Don't do that. Just go find salespeople.
07:11 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love that the batteries are included, I think so many times we forget that about the hiring process of that recruiting aspect. And sometimes it sounds like even to getting clear on what you're looking for because I think sometimes we just like, oh, we want a salesperson to really drill down that step, you know, right above that or right after that to say, okay, we want those batteries included. We want somebody that actually has that experience and we can just show them the product or service that they're going to be selling.
07:35 – Amanda Abella
Yeah. When I hired my first assistant, I felt like something people really struggle with is going from a fleet of contractors to employees, because for some reason, payroll seems so much more serious to us. And I understand that. But at the same time, they're like, oh, I'm so scared. I'm like, yeah, but you're spending more money on like 4 VAs who aren't fully dedicated to you when you can just go find someone who's a hundred percent in and pay them.
08:03 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that's, and that's why I love what you talked about that mindset shift because I think I've heard people talk about kind of like businesses, like being on the jungle gyms where a lot of times you're trying to go to the next rung, but you're holding on to the rung before you swing over.
08:17 – Amanda Abella
And you can't move. Yeah, that's like the last 2 years of my life. Really? When you're in that scaling phase, you're like in those 2 rungs and it can be tough because you're building out, you're getting rid of old systems in order, cause that are no longer gonna work, right? In order to get rid of those old systems, you have to build the new ones at the same time, plus you're training people. And that's why I tell people who asked me about scaling, I'm like, you better know how to sell.
Because scaling is expensive. And it evens out it's worth it. Like, you know, we, one of the things that we did is we brought a lot of our stuff in-house with like in-house systems. So we actually ended up slashing our expenses once we were done building that. The thing is you had to carry the expense of both while you were building it. Right. So I always tell people like you best damn know how to sell all these scaling problems that you have could be solved if you knew how to sell.
09:06 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Well, you know, I've heard it might have been Mark Cuban or something he says something along the lines of a lot of times, businesses go out of business because of lack of sales And I think so many times we think of all the other things, but sales can kind of cure-all to some degree when you're able to kind of sell. If you are having a hiring problem or maybe that ad didn't work or whatever, you can make that up, so to speak, with sales and with the ability to be able to communicate and get your message.
09:31 -Amanda Abella
Yeah, ads is a big one right where people are like oh I'm just gonna throw money at ads and that'll be like the holy grail speaking as someone who has hired people for ads and is now learning them herself and I'm like do how much money you need to throw into an ad budget for a few months just to get enough data to nail this. If you don't have data, you better learn how to sell.
09:51 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot of times you hear those people that hit the big well, so to speak, just by trying something out. But a lot of times that's more, that's not the case for a lot of people when they get started.
10:04 – Amanda Abella
Yeah, and it's funny because the one thing that solves all the problems is the one thing everybody wants to avoid.
10:10 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, interesting. So that's why I love that you empower people to do that and that's part of your secret sauce. Yep. Awesome, So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient?
10:28 – Amanda Abella
I think there's a couple. I get asked about training a lot, And I used to be a recruiter. That was like my last job. Throw them in the fire, right? Like just throw them in the water and say, swim and the cream will rise to the top. Now you have to have the emotional fortitude to not like sit on your hands and not get involved, which I actually, understand how difficult that is. And I still sometimes struggle with it where like my team has to be like, I'm gonna back off, right? Right, which I give them full permission to do to me, right? Like back off, right? So I would say that's it. For you, if you hire good people, like a player, a, they're going to cost you more money, but B, when you throw them in, they will rise to the top and they will figure stuff out and they will bring you more solutions than problems.
Right. And for those of you who are worried about like, Oh, they cost money. Well, you, This goes back to knowing how to sell. So you can grow into it and pay these people. And I'd say the other thing that has been very effective, and this is a newer thing, it's okay to be vulnerable with your team. People think they can't do that. I thought I couldn't do that, right? And then what ends up happening is like, there's almost like a disconnect when you're not vulnerable with them, right?
So for example, I was at a team meeting a few weeks ago and I'm like, guys, we've made all these changes. Like I need to see the money coming in. Like I was very honest. I wasn't panicky or breathing down their necks, but I was like, this needs to start working just so y'all know what's up, right? And when I was that vulnerable with them, they just wanted to go for me 100 times harder.
12:03 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. I wanted to ask you that for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
12:13 – Amanda Abella
What I would say I'm actually pretty good at, Thank God. I just didn't know until it was brought up to me. And I have seen people struggle with this where they will not let go of stuff that's not working either because they spent so much time, they spent so much money, they spent so much energy, and they just hold on to stuff that does not work and takes away from the ultimate mission of the company. Let it go like that frozen song, you know, let it go. If it's not working, right, let it go. It's OK. you learn from it and you move on and you adjust, but you have to let it go.
12:45 – Gresham Harkless
I know we touched a little bit on this. So I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Amanda, what does being a CEO mean to you?
12:56 – Amanda Abella
You're not just leading yourself anymore. I think when you go into a CEO mindset, I mean, there are business model changes and all that kind of stuff, but your relationships within the business also significantly change. And I think that's a shift people have a hard time with because you're used to doing things by yourself or you're used to going hard by yourself, right? But people are actually looking to you for guidance and leadership right now. And it's not just your community anymore. Now it's people who are working for you as well. So it's almost like you have to lead 2 different people and you don't necessarily lead them the same way. So I think learning that dance has been very cool for me and has helped me just kind of become a better human being overall.
13:46 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's so powerful. And I love that answer and that perspective because you just mentioned that you were kind of going through that transition or had gone through that transition and put that CEO cap on. And I think so many times when you're a high achieving person, especially individually, it can be really hard to, I guess, divorce that person and become this new person that you need to be able to empower people to be able to let go, to be able to coach them up, to be able to give them a hug, I guess you can say when it's not going as well but you still know that they have it. So that dance that you kind of spoke to is so huge. And I think it's maybe more art than science. And I think that's what sometimes makes it a little bit more of a challenge.
14:26 – Amanda Abella
Yeah. Well, I teach sales. That's one of the main things that we do. And it's knowing people and knowing how to deal with people and talk to people and cater to people and serve people. That's all sales really is. And I'm noticing that being a CEO is the same. It's just, you're not just serving your audience. Now you're also serving the team that you're leading.
14:47 -Gresham Harkless
Yeah, but you're still in the people business.
14:53 – Amanda Abella
Yep.
14:54 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, Amanda, I truly appreciate that perspective, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.
15:09 – Amanda Abella
Yeah. So you can find everything at amandaabella.com. That's A-B-S-and-boy-E-L-L-A. And for any women who are listening, if you wanna get good at high ticket sales, cause that's our sweet spot, we actually have a free Facebook group for that where we're doing free training on it. So if you go to group.amandaabella.com and slash join, you can get all the information that you need for that there. And we would love to have you. We just started this group a few weeks ago and we already have 500 women in there who want to learn sales and negotiation and get good at it. It's a personal mission for me and the company to just help as many women as we can get really good at this particular skill set.
15:49 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate you, Amanda. We will have the links and information in the show notes. And, as we said, a lot of times sales is the lifeblood of business and often it's something people will run away from. But it's, I've always seen it as a way by which you can take your gift, your product and service, whatever it is you have to serve the world and share with as many people as possible. And if you look at it sometimes from that perspective and you approach it that way, then it helps out so much. So I love that you help so many people give their gifts and serve their gifts to the entire world. So I appreciate you for that and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:35 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:02 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:30 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I had a very special guest on the show today. I have Amanda Abeyah of AmandaAbeyah.com. Amanda, it's awesome having you on the show.
00:38 - Amanda Abella
Thanks for having me on. I am super psyched to be here.
00:41 - Gresham Harkless
No problem. I'm psyched as well. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Amanda so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amanda is an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker, and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess so that they can make more money. Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates and closing multi-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Univision, and many more.
Prior to teaching marketing and sales, Amanda spent a decade as a financial writer and wrote content for companies like Wells Fargo, Discover, Credit Karma, Santander, and more. She's also partnered with companies like Capital one and TransUnion in financial education campaigns. She's also the Amazon bestselling author of Make Money Your Honey and has created a community of over 60,000 people across social media channels, to make more money and live a more affluent life. Amanda, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
01:37 - Amanda Abella
I am so excited, let's get into it. Let's do it.
01:39 - Gresham Harkless
So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more on what led you to get started with all the awesome work that you're doing. Could you take us through your CEO story?
01:47 - Amanda Abella
Oh my gosh, this is such a good time to be asking this question because I feel like I only really just made the shift to CEO maybe in the last 2 or 3 years. Even though I've been in entrepreneurship since 2010. But for the first 8 years, I was freelancing, I was content marketing, I was doing done-for-you services for people. And around 2016, I was like, this isn't scalable. We're going to run into some problems. If you want to make good money and have the impact that you want to have. So I actually ended up taking everything that I used to build my first business and created my first program called Persuade to Profit. Created that in 2017. The first time I launched that, I did $10,000 in cash in 2 weeks. And I was like, oh, okay, I think this is the thing.
And ever since then, it's been a transition. Like a year after that, I had to hire my first, you know, full-time assistant. And now it's been actually in November, it'll be exactly 2 years since I hired her, and we've completely systematized the backend. I have a sales team now and all our funnels are working. This past week alone, when I'm interviewing you, we've done almost $40,000 in sales just in the last few days. So I feel like that CEO mindset thing has only kicked in in the last 2 or 3 years when I started thinking about scalability and team.
03:07 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I absolutely love you for being able to kind of talk about that process, because I think there's not enough kind of narrative and information about the process that it takes to get and become a quote-unquote CEO. And what not at all. Most people were just like, you just wake up, and then all of a sudden, you just wake up and you're a CEO.
03:23 - Amanda Abella
Yeah. And actually what I did on my own podcast was I was on my Instagram stories. I was really honest with people. There were moments in 2019 where I was like, guys, scaling really sucks. It is rough, right? Or you make bad hires or ads don't work or there's a bunch of challenges and problems along the way, which are normal. And I tell people to embrace them because that's how you learn. But I've been very, very transparent about the whole process. And then we just finished the main systems and then here comes the shutdown of 2020. Right. And then it's like half our clients lost their whole business overnight. And then because I was in finance, it was a flood of stuff coming at me as well.
So I was like, okay, just finished building out systems, already burned out and now we have to deal with this. And I think honestly, that's the moment I really became a CEO. Because I walked into my team meeting the Monday after the shutdown and I said, this is what we've been preparing for suit up. I'm really having to be a leader in that time and space when it was really hard and you're very tired and you're worried about your team and you're worried about your clients. And now what are we 7 months into this? Is that how long we've been in this whole situation? It feels like forever, probably 7, or 8 months. It feels like 5 freaking years.
Exactly. But now is when people are like, Oh my gosh, we saw how you showed up. We saw how you led your team. We need to be a part of this. Like you were right the whole time. So I feel like that was like the rite of passage right there for the CEO. And because I've been so transparent about all of this the whole time on my own podcast and on Instagram stories. That's what everybody tells me. They're like, oh my God, no one talks about this.
05:06 - Gresham Harkless
Right. Yeah. You don't really get the real vision, but as you said, you know, so well, I feel like that has so much to do with leadership. And you talked a little bit about your podcast. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and talk a little bit more about how you work with clients and how you serve them?
05:21 - Amanda Abella
Yeah, so we have our main program, which is Persuade to Profit, and our sweet spot in Persuade to Profit is to take people who've been doing one-on-one work, maybe one-on-one coaching, for example, or you're a freelancer like I was and helping you create your first scalable offer, we're gonna help you build out your first marketing and sales system, and then I'm turning you into a closer because my secret sauce is the fact that I know how to sell, I know how to train teams on how to sell, and I know how to train people on how to sell.
05:47 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, and that sounds so simple to do. But I imagine that that's been a process for you to get there. And I feel like a great sign of being able to be an expert and be really known for that is to be able to teach other people as it sounds like it's what you're doing.
06:00 - Amanda Abella
Yeah, not even just your clients, like try when you got to teach a team to sell things on your behalf. That's like, that's another level.
06:06 - Gresham Harkless
You would think
06:07 - Amanda Abella
It's the same, but it's not.
06:08 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I feel like that's probably, and I don't know if you find this or hear this a lot, I feel like that's a major hiccup with a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to try to transition to that CEO. How can I replicate myself because I do it so well that I don't feel like anybody else can sell anybody else? This or that.
06:26 - Amanda Abella
Yeah, it's real. I, with salespeople specifically, went through a few hires that didn't work out because I was trying all these different things. And then I was like, Amanda, just put your recruiter hat on. What is it that you need? And I was like, I need people with batteries included, as one of my mentors says. I need people who just understand sales and then I train you on the product and we tweak you, but I don't have to explain the whole mindset of sales to you. Like I'm not starting from square one just because you've been aware of my brand for a while. Cause I think some people do that though, like hire their VA for like sales support or they're like, oh, there's someone in my community and my email list who really wants to learn how to do this. Don't do that. Just go find salespeople.
07:11 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love that the batteries are included, I think so many times we forget that about the hiring process of that recruiting aspect. And sometimes it sounds like even to getting clear on what you're looking for because I think sometimes we just like, oh, we want a salesperson to really drill down that step, you know, right above that or right after that to say, okay, we want those batteries included. We want somebody that actually has that experience and we can just show them the product or service that they're going to be selling.
07:35 - Amanda Abella
Yeah. When I hired my first assistant, I felt like something people really struggle with is going from a fleet of contractors to employees, because for some reason, payroll seems so much more serious to us. And I understand that. But at the same time, they're like, oh, I'm so scared. I'm like, yeah, but you're spending more money on like 4 VAs who aren't fully dedicated to you when you can just go find someone who's a hundred percent in and pay them.
08:03 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that's, and that's why I love what you talked about that mindset shift because I think I've heard people talk about kind of like businesses, like being on the jungle gyms where a lot of times you're trying to go to the next rung, but you're holding on to the rung before you swing over.
08:17 - Amanda Abella
And you can't move. Yeah, that's like the last 2 years of my life. Really? When you're in that scaling phase, you're like in those 2 rungs and it can be tough because you're building out, you're getting rid of old systems in order, cause that are no longer gonna work, right? In order to get rid of those old systems, you have to build the new ones at the same time, plus you're training people. And that's why I tell people who asked me about scaling, I'm like, you better know how to sell.
Because scaling is expensive. And it evens out it's worth it. Like, you know, we, one of the things that we did is we brought a lot of our stuff in-house with like in-house systems. So we actually ended up slashing our expenses once we were done building that. The thing is you had to carry the expense of both while you were building it. Right. So I always tell people like you best damn know how to sell all these scaling problems that you have could be solved if you knew how to sell.
09:06 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Well, you know, I've heard it might have been Mark Cuban or something he says something along the lines of a lot of times, businesses go out of business because of lack of sales And I think so many times we think of all the other things, but sales can kind of cure-all to some degree when you're able to kind of sell. If you are having a hiring problem or maybe that ad didn't work or whatever, you can make that up, so to speak, with sales and with the ability to be able to communicate and get your message.
09:31 -Amanda Abella
Yeah, ads is a big one right where people are like oh I'm just gonna throw money at ads and that'll be like the holy grail speaking as someone who has hired people for ads and is now learning them herself and I'm like do how much money you need to throw into an ad budget for a few months just to get enough data to nail this. If you don't have data, you better learn how to sell.
09:51 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot of times you hear those people that hit the big well, so to speak, just by trying something out. But a lot of times that's more, that's not the case for a lot of people when they get started.
10:04 - Amanda Abella
Yeah, and it's funny because the one thing that solves all the problems is the one thing everybody wants to avoid.
10:10 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, interesting. So that's why I love that you empower people to do that and that's part of your secret sauce. Yep. Awesome, So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient?
10:28 - Amanda Abella
I think there's a couple. I get asked about training a lot, And I used to be a recruiter. That was like my last job. Throw them in the fire, right? Like just throw them in the water and say, swim and the cream will rise to the top. Now you have to have the emotional fortitude to not like sit on your hands and not get involved, which I actually, understand how difficult that is. And I still sometimes struggle with it where like my team has to be like, I'm gonna back off, right? Right, which I give them full permission to do to me, right? Like back off, right? So I would say that's it. For you, if you hire good people, like a player, a, they're going to cost you more money, but B, when you throw them in, they will rise to the top and they will figure stuff out and they will bring you more solutions than problems.
Right. And for those of you who are worried about like, Oh, they cost money. Well, you, This goes back to knowing how to sell. So you can grow into it and pay these people. And I'd say the other thing that has been very effective, and this is a newer thing, it's okay to be vulnerable with your team. People think they can't do that. I thought I couldn't do that, right? And then what ends up happening is like, there's almost like a disconnect when you're not vulnerable with them, right?
So for example, I was at a team meeting a few weeks ago and I'm like, guys, we've made all these changes. Like I need to see the money coming in. Like I was very honest. I wasn't panicky or breathing down their necks, but I was like, this needs to start working just so y'all know what's up, right? And when I was that vulnerable with them, they just wanted to go for me 100 times harder.
12:03 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. I wanted to ask you that for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
12:13 - Amanda Abella
What I would say I'm actually pretty good at, Thank God. I just didn't know until it was brought up to me. And I have seen people struggle with this where they will not let go of stuff that's not working either because they spent so much time, they spent so much money, they spent so much energy, and they just hold on to stuff that does not work and takes away from the ultimate mission of the company. Let it go like that frozen song, you know, let it go. If it's not working, right, let it go. It's OK. you learn from it and you move on and you adjust, but you have to let it go.
12:45 - Gresham Harkless
I know we touched a little bit on this. So I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Amanda, what does being a CEO mean to you?
12:56 - Amanda Abella
You're not just leading yourself anymore. I think when you go into a CEO mindset, I mean, there are business model changes and all that kind of stuff, but your relationships within the business also significantly change. And I think that's a shift people have a hard time with because you're used to doing things by yourself or you're used to going hard by yourself, right? But people are actually looking to you for guidance and leadership right now. And it's not just your community anymore. Now it's people who are working for you as well. So it's almost like you have to lead 2 different people and you don't necessarily lead them the same way. So I think learning that dance has been very cool for me and has helped me just kind of become a better human being overall.
13:46 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's so powerful. And I love that answer and that perspective because you just mentioned that you were kind of going through that transition or had gone through that transition and put that CEO cap on. And I think so many times when you're a high achieving person, especially individually, it can be really hard to, I guess, divorce that person and become this new person that you need to be able to empower people to be able to let go, to be able to coach them up, to be able to give them a hug, I guess you can say when it's not going as well but you still know that they have it. So that dance that you kind of spoke to is so huge. And I think it's maybe more art than science. And I think that's what sometimes makes it a little bit more of a challenge.
14:26 - Amanda Abella
Yeah. Well, I teach sales. That's one of the main things that we do. And it's knowing people and knowing how to deal with people and talk to people and cater to people and serve people. That's all sales really is. And I'm noticing that being a CEO is the same. It's just, you're not just serving your audience. Now you're also serving the team that you're leading.
14:47 -Gresham Harkless
Yeah, but you're still in the people business.
14:53 - Amanda Abella
Yep.
14:54 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, Amanda, I truly appreciate that perspective, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.
15:09 - Amanda Abella
Yeah. So you can find everything at amandaabella.com. That's A-B-S-and-boy-E-L-L-A. And for any women who are listening, if you wanna get good at high ticket sales, cause that's our sweet spot, we actually have a free Facebook group for that where we're doing free training on it. So if you go to group.amandaabella.com and slash join, you can get all the information that you need for that there. And we would love to have you. We just started this group a few weeks ago and we already have 500 women in there who want to learn sales and negotiation and get good at it. It's a personal mission for me and the company to just help as many women as we can get really good at this particular skill set.
15:49 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate you, Amanda. We will have the links and information in the show notes. And, as we said, a lot of times sales is the lifeblood of business and often it's something people will run away from. But it's, I've always seen it as a way by which you can take your gift, your product and service, whatever it is you have to serve the world and share with as many people as possible. And if you look at it sometimes from that perspective and you approach it that way, then it helps out so much. So I love that you help so many people give their gifts and serve their gifts to the entire world. So I appreciate you for that and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:35 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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