Scale with Data-Driven Strategy

Speaker 1: [Music] we undervalue the things that come easily to us and overvalue the things that are hard for us hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the Sheed experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Dorothy halah is the founder of needles ey media a digital advertising agency for datadriven businesses looking to scale as well as co-founder and CEO of the gig a digital media company that helps Freelancers acquire and profit from high income Online skills in 2017 Dorothy began freelancing and quickly fell in love with the freedom flexibility and uncapped income it provided after generating more than 1 million in freelance fees she pivoted that experience into a results driven paid traffic agency that spends millions of dollars each year on behalf of their clients thank you for joining us Dorothy you're the founder of needles ey media tell us about it and what led you to come up with the idea to launch your

Speaker 2: business business absolutely similar to a lot of agency owners it's frequently an accidental business and that was definitely the case for me we are a paid traffic agency so we help our clients primarily digital product sellers to scale their customer acquisition we're really great at taking people who they stuck in the launch cycle and they're looking to create an evergreen selling system or maybe they're already selling Evergreen but hitting that ceiling to scale what we really love is taking those clients or maybe successfully spending 10 20 30,000 a month and scaling them up to half a million a month or more I started freelancing on my own helping people with their Facebook ads and that eventually morphed into starting to bring on a team and eventually turning into the agency that

Speaker 1: it is today and that's so smart because so often as entrepreneurs we have the knowledge but it's how do we put the knowledge into the right platform and how do we get that knowledge in front of our clients and customers yeah absolutely so how do you work with a client to do that walk us through a little bit of how you work with your

Speaker 2: clients we are definitely very Boutique so we only work with typically about 10 clients at any given time it's very different from the typical agency that might have 100 clients and a bigger team I can give you an example of a client we're working with right now that is is very typical where she teaches people how to write children's books she has a program around a self-served course and also a mastermind and higher ticket

Speaker 1: things but she was launching several times a year and was leaving so much on the table both in terms of Revenue but also just the number of people who she could help because when you have a program where you're only opening the doors maybe a couple times a year you really have to take on this big risk of okay I'm going to put 20 30 40 50 $2,000 of AD spend into this launch and hope that the sales come out where I need them to be on the other end versus what we're really guiding her through right now is this process of getting an evergreen selling system in a lot of cases that's a webinar or a video sales letter and it's really this process of okay let's start with live webinars typically our clients will run a live webinar once a week until we get a recording that is converting where we need it to convert then we'll flip that Evergreen and then really start to scale we had a client in 2022 that was spending about $20,000 a month driving to traffic into his offers and last month I think he spent 600,000 on Facebook and Google ads and generated multiple seven figures on sales from that so it's really the power of being able to sell all day every day rather than a couple opportunities each year

Speaker 2: and that has to be so fun to look at

Speaker 1: those analytics and see the growth it is I'm definitely a numbers person I intended on being an accountant that's what I studied Finance and Accounting in school and basically took a dramatic left turn realized that I was not excited about that path at all gave up my job offer like two weeks after I graduated from school and I went to go work for a startup instead and I just got addicted to the excitement of these early stage companies and helping them to grow and really being able to see such impact from the work that I'm doing and that's definitely something that's

Speaker 2: always really motivated me good for you for making that shift for realizing it and saying I put all this time and energy into an accounting and I can still use that but I'm going to go do something I'm more passionate about I

Speaker 1: think it's important to ask the right questions I went into business school thinking okay I I want to be successful but what does that even mean I had this very kind of stereotypical idea of that meant a corporate career where I was going to make a lot of money that was basically as far as it went and I stumbled into this whole world of personal development my senior year of college and it was the first time that I ever bothered to ask the question of is this job actually G to make me happy and it's so funny to me now looking back that happiness wasn't even part of my equation before that moment that's true for so many of us and expanding your mindset to realize that not everything has to be a trade-off it doesn't have to be make the income you want to make or enjoy your work or enjoy your life make that income or be able to work less than 100 hours a week so asking better questions how can I have all of the things that I want it just primes your brain to give you an answer and then you can start working towards that that's so true and it's also celebrating our successes when we do what we love and we celebrate it it makes us want to go out and do more yeah absolutely you are also the co-founder and CEO of the gig tell us about it and how how did your

Speaker 2: businesses expand and grow the gig is still pretty new and really it was born out of this experience that both myself and my co-founder Jim Hamilton we each used freelancing as our path into entrepreneurship for me I was leaving that startup I wanted the type of flexibility and autonomy that I had in that job and was so lucky to have I didn't want to go work somewhere that was going to make me be in an office five days a week wanted to control my destiny and same thing for Jim he was actually a massage therapist at the time and was making $35,000 a year and his body was breaking down like it's a very physical line of work and so he started freelance copyrighting he'd always loved to write and decided to try his hand at doing that for other people and for businesses and then same thing for me I actually hired a coach to hold my hand and teach me from the ground up how to get results for clients using at the time it was Facebook ads this opportunity for freelancing to be this kind of very accessible entry point into working for yourself or starting a business is something that we're both so passionate about so the gig is a daily email newsletter that helps people to both acquire and profit from these high income Online skills like ads copywriting graphic design these types of things which we all need all entrepreneurs today need this as brick and mortar sales become less likely and online sales become are every day yeah I always say it's like getting paid to get your MBA right because obviously like when you're a beginner freelancer like when I started I literally I never run a Facebook ad in my life right I was looking for clients who were willing to take a bet on me and who were most of them kind of earlier on in their Journey they couldn't hire an agency that was going to charge them $5,000 a month or more to run their ads it allowed me to get that hands-on experience and because I had invested in that coach I had confidence that I could deliver on the promises that I was making so I think that's important you have to be able to do the job you're being hired to do you're able to work for different types of businesses and really get that experience and then continuously raise your rates get pickier with clients as you do develop that skill set and yeah I love that analogy of it really is like getting paid to go get your MBA and really hone your

Speaker 1: craft what do you think are the biggest

Speaker 2: challenges that entrepreneurs come up against as it relates to scaling their business hiring it's certainly the biggest challenge I've had it's also been the most rewarding thing that I've done but it is hard for me the hardest moment in my business was this period of time where I was the bottleneck to everything nothing happened without my

Speaker 1: involvement and I really didn't see this path forward how to get out of that and it it really was this limiting belief I had of okay why would anyone who's better than me at paid traffic at running ads at marketing why would they ever want to work for me when they could have their own clients and make more money and what I didn't realize we undervalue the things that come easily to us and overvalue the things that are hard for us and I love being a business owner I love looking at the finances and I love sales I love prospecting with new clients I love managing other people and the team and systems and processes and not everyone does and so recognizing that there are people out there like whatever it is that is holding you back in your business for me it was being stuck being the only person who's inside of the accounts and like directing that strategy what I eventually realized was there are people out there who are so much better at that than I am who would love to not have to do all of these other things that that I actually really enjoy that are really more about managing the business so it was definitely a big unlock for me realizing

Speaker 2: that and how good did it feel once you

Speaker 1: automated and once you got out from underneath because I think a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in that space for me it was really about not just hiring the people I thought I could afford but hiring the absolute best people that I possibly could and then giving them ownership over their roles I was frankly not very happy inside of the business up until in 2021 I was trying to hire a senior media buyer and I saw this profile come through from my recruiter for this guy who was clearly dramatically overqualified for the role that I was hiring for and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking oh my gosh I need him desperately and so he actually sent me an email about an hour before our interview cancelling because he had offers on the table from agencies much bigger than mine this was a Friday and he was planning on accepting one of those offers on Monday so I basically emailed him back convinced him to jump on the phone with me we talked for several hours we just hid it off and but basically came to can we find a number that works for him and and I couldn't even come close to matching what these other companies were offering him I could literally offer him like half of what he had on the table so I ended up this was Friday we scheduled a call for Sunday for me to give him my best offer I ended up jumping on a 6 AM flight to Washington DC on Sunday morning to basically go have the conversation with him in person and convince him to come work with me and it was that bold move that ended up convincing him to come in and really he basically single-handedly doubled our business in 2022 just through scaling with our existing clients I tell that story because it really is the power of so often we just hire the people that are are convenient that are there our friend of a friend or someone who we feel like is within our price range rather than trying to stretch ourselves to hire the person who can truly transform your business I love that story and how great you got on a plane love that initiative you just weren't going to take no what was so

Speaker 2: cool about it was he said to me later that when I told him that I was getting on a plane to come talk to him that he knew he was going to say yes to me almost regardless of what number I put

Speaker 1: in front of him often we just need to find the courage to go after what we want and like you said just refuse to take no for an answer and we're also human so you put the human aspect there you went to speak to him in person that had to mean so much yeah absolutely I know what I look for in a freelancer so I can't wait to hear this what are the the five high income skills that wealthy business owners look for in a freelancer

Speaker 2: when we at the gig talk about high income Online skills we're talking about skill sets that meet a couple of different criteria so I'll touch on those first one is it something that gives you leverage to earn more and I'll give you an example here say that you're charging $50 an hour to do design or to run ads or whatever it might be it's going to take you a certain number of hours to get to $55,000 if you can then charge $5,000 for a single project and get that done in 20 hours your effective hourly rate has just skyrocketed so being able to charge on a project basis rather than an hourly basis is really important if you're going to start freelancing and then really being something that first of all you can do from anywhere because that's something that's important for a lot of Freelancers and then also has proximity to the sale so what I mean by that is someone can trace actual Revenue customers back to work that you did so they read an email that you wrote they clicked on an ad that you wrote in placed or they actually spoke to you on the phone before signing up high ticket closers so these are the types of skills we're talking about and then when you are dancing in one of these areas it's incredible how low the bar is honestly to set set yourself apart because so many business owners have had horrible experiences with Freelancers who aren't reliable they don't deliver on time they totally ghost don't communicate and so if you work fast deliver things on time and on Deadline and are responsive and communicative you are already ahead of 80% of the competition out there I really think that there is so much opport out there if you're just willing to do the simple things to be someone who a business owner can rely on and who can trust to do this work for their

Speaker 1: business and you're so right because I've worked with Freelancers that I've loved that did such incredible work communicated very well I never had I always knew they'd follow through and then I've also had those Freelancers where they'd be okay on some days and then other days I would really need something and it'd be two and a half

Speaker 2: hours before I heard back yeah so it's true we talk sometimes about the say do ratio and I think even if you're not a

Speaker 1: freelancer even if you're just a business owner having a high sayd ratio is one of the biggest things that you can do to set yourself up for Success what is the ratio of things that you say you're going to do and then things that you actually do and so much of this is really just about keeping promises to yourself even if it's not something you're promising to do for a client even just if if you're telling yourself I'm gonna I'm going to post on LinkedIn once a day or I'm going to submit a proposal or whatever it is keeping promises to yourself is so much harder than keeping promises to other people for a lot of us and so if you can really focus on all right let's increase my sayd ratio whether it's just within your own business and your own life or whether it's working for clients it's going to make you just really take massive leaps forward in terms of what you can accomplish and that's good advice for any entrepreneur no matter what we're doing cuz so often we think o I want to do that and then do we really maybe we will but maybe we don't do it as fast as we could saying by the end of the week I'm going to have this done and that really sets

Speaker 2: everything into motion yeah absolutely I'm actually having this experience right now because we recently hired a director of operations in Needles ey media and it's the first time that I've had someone holding me accountable to the deadlines usually I'm setting my own deadlines and no one else is checking on them so it's so easy for me to say all right I'm just going to push this to next week I think it's so powerful no matter what your role is no matter who you are having that accountability is so

Speaker 1: important that's so fun though CU I'm sure it takes some of the operations away from you and you can focus on other

Speaker 2: growth strategies yeah it's been a major

Speaker 1: unlock it's exciting being an entrepreneur and growing a business is challenging what is one obstacle that you've come up against and how did you

Speaker 2: overcome it I love that question my biggest obstacles have really been in finding the right people for the team it's so important to get in the room and what I I mean by that I know with your brand you offer masterminds and events and it's such a lonely Journey being an entrepreneur that getting yourself in the room to be around other people who are chasing big dreams and building businesses and really going after the life that they want it is so powerful because I've had so many moments I'm sure most of us had where I'm crying on the floor of my office because I have had something it feels like a massive blow and I'm never going to recover and how do I move forward and what am I going to do and we've all had those moments as you persevere through them you start to build more resilience of realizing okay I've been here before I figured it out then I'm going to figure it out now but getting yourself in the room and surrounding yourself by other people who are chasing these types of goals it gives you a level of support that I think is so important

Speaker 1: and it also helps to really stretch your vision of what's possible I think so many of us we just think too small right and we're capable of so much more than we often give ourselves credit for I think really persevering through those tough moments and surrounding myself with people who can support me through them has been one of the best things

Speaker 2: I've done for myself that's so true and such good advice I spoke on a panel yesterday and we talked about how even celebrating successes empowers us to want to go out and do more sometimes we don't do that enough we work so hard to accomplish something and then we think okay that's done what do I want to do next I just got a text message yesterday from a friend of mine in The Mastermind I'm a part of he had a live event and it was a small event it was about 10 people in the room and he was selling this ultra high ticket package and he ended up selling nine out of the 10 people in the room into this program and he was so excited it was a six-figure day for him and it was actually his first sixf figure month and sixf figure day and he texted me saying I want to tell you about this I want to celebrate I felt weird texting it to the the big group thread with everyone in the Mastermind and we celebrated for a second but then I told him look this isn't how it works you can't just share this with me you have to go post this because everyone wants to see you win everyone wants to celebrate with you and you are stealing from someone else the opportunity to be inspired by what you've accomplished and to believe that they can do it too there's other people in that group that hold events who would love to see that vision of what it could look like to sell 90% of the room it was such a beautiful moment of just congratulating him and sharing in that success and so I couldn't believe in

Speaker 1: that more yeah you're so right and I love when you said celebrating with him and then saying if he can do it I can do it too yeah magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and oursel that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy

Speaker 2: I love this question I know it's such a big focus of what you talk about and I think that's important because you are a more effective leader and a more effective business person a better partner if you have a relationship if you have a family you are better all around when you are filling your own cup and it's so easy when we're chasing big goals and building businesses to give ourselves The Leftovers to give everything we have to other people and to our business and to have nothing left over to fill yourself back up for me horseback riding is my biggest passion in life I've been riding my whole life I live in Chicago so I go an hour and a half outside the city to go ride each Direction and usually Wednesdays and Saturdays are my days to go out to the barn and for a long time I went through this period where I was constantly cancelling that Wednesday and it was the easiest thing to pull off my calendar when I was having a busy week or I

Speaker 1: needed to fit in a meeting and I really had this moment of realizing the damage that I was doing to myself and to my business to take off of the calendar the biggest thing that is giving me joy and so now I am diligent about protecting that time and making sure that I can go do that each week and it does allow me to show up better for my team to show up better for my clients and to really be so much more productive every other day of the week I think it's so important and what a great thing to do to be able to get outside and ground yourself in nature and even being around animals so different from your daily life and it's interesting I actually have reflected recently on why it is that I love horses so much and the thing that came to me is that when you're an entrepreneur especially when you have clients there's so many people expecting things of you and depending on you and wanting you to show up in a certain way and I think that's what I love so much about animals is they have no expectations they just

Speaker 2: want you to be there be present yeah it's definitely the thing that makes me more effective in my business when I give myself that time I love that you have been such a joy to talk to today and you've given us such good advice can you tell us where we can find you

Speaker 1: absolutely I admit despite having a social paid traffic agency I do not post on social hardly at all but find me on Instagram at Dorothy Hollow h o a and on LinkedIn under Dorothy halah I would absolutely love anyone who wants to reach out I'd love to connect with you and support you in your

Speaker 2: journey thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave [Music]