0 (2s):
Light that spark Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like a business infrastructure today, we'll be focusing on the balance, how having two kids under the age of two change, Alexandrea is elegant business and how she three X her annual income through the process and to drop these volumes, I brought Alexandrea Harrelson into EO fire studios, Alexandrea built a multi six figure company in five years after losing everything today, her and a team of 12 are passionate about supporting companies, worldwide missions through innovative marketing and consulting strategies.

0 (42s):
And today Fire Nation want to talk about how things changed when Alexandrea became pregnant. We're going to talk about how so many people want to scale immediately, but there's a couple of things you gotta to think about and do before you even think about scaling and a couple of mistakes that we can also avoid when growing our business and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, Fire Nation is time to stop trading time for money and start reaching more clients and making a bigger impact. And you can do just that with online courses, try Thinkific for free today at thinkific.com/EOF that's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

0 (1m 29s):
Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork. Alexandrea say what's up the Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree

1 (1m 53s):
With. Hey, everybody super excited to be here today. Okay. So I have, Ooh, I've been thinking about this one and you know, what it really boils down to me is we have a mixed bag here. I know some of you are going to say a lot of people don't think this, and a lot of people do, but the hustle culture that so many of us fall into that hustle trap, thinking that we have to beyond 24 7 to have a successful business, when that is just not true, you don't have to do that. Or that fear of, oh, I can't do X, Y, and Z. Cause I have to be working on my business. If I don't do this, my business will fail. That, that trap that we get into that so many people kind of we're all in it together.

1 (2m 36s):
And we keep sharing that. That is the number one thing I have learned personally, that is just not true. You don't have to do that. You don't have to hustle, hustle, hustle all the time

0 (2m 47s):
And Fire Nation. That's why this podcast episode is aptly titled the balance. And this is all about how Alexandrea had two kids under the age of two. And she also changed your outlook at the same time and three Xed, her annual income in the process. And let's just start off at the beginning because what the heck and made you do something crazy and launch a business in the first place. Tell us that origin story.

1 (3m 13s):
Oh my goodness. I will give you the cliff notes version. I promise, but it all boils back to cows. I can, I believe that one, my family had a farm and dairy and literally my dad ordered this box. One day, it came from a different place and he's like, Hey, we should start in drop shipping business. And I'm like, okay, dad, let's do it. And I was in college. I was a sophomore at the time and I had no idea what I was getting myself into whatsoever spent about six months just teaching myself everything about website design, graphic, design, copywriting. Oh goodness. You should see my first graphic designs. They were awful, but you know, I was learning it all at that time.

1 (3m 56s):
And over the next several years, it was my journey into entrepreneurship. That was my first taste of it. And it was a product based business. It was drop shipping, which is, it was a beast in itself. I got married and kind of looked at my husband. I was like, I don't really want to go down and I don't want to go get a nine to five. I don't know if that's me being a little bit prideful. I just don't want to do it. I've been doing this business. I left the farm and dairy supply. I said, I won't be a virtual assistant, whatever this is and learned what that was. And every door just started opening up. And then all of a sudden here I am, five years later, next week will be five years in business, have a team of 12.

1 (4m 36s):
We're a marketing agency. Now it has been, it's been crazy, but what started, it was just on some extra cash. So that's how I am here, which is crazy in itself to even say out loud.

0 (4m 49s):
Well, I will say having been in the business for 10 years now, myself launching entrepreneurs on fire back in 2012, I've seen a lot of my friends. A lot of my peers go through transitions where, you know, they actually like launched their businesses when it was just maybe them or maybe them and their partner and whoever it is. But then life does change and you know, maybe kids come into the picture and stuff. And I hear a pretty common theme that a lot of them say, what the heck did I used to do with my time? Because I feel like every spare second now is taken up by my child or by my shoulder now. And I just can't even picture or remember what it was like to not have this responsibility. Like did I just sit around watching Netflix all day? Like this is crazy.

0 (5m 30s):
So you are running your business when you became pregnant with your first child. So talk to us about the shift that you went through during that life moment.

1 (5m 40s):
It was overwhelming. It was, it was terrifying. Actually. I was a virtual assistant at the time, just me was doing it all myself and I was in that hustle trap that I, that I mentioned earlier, I really thought, you know what? I have to do it all. If I'm not going to be on all the time, my business was going to fall. I've built this amazing thing. And I got pregnant with my son and it just hit me. And I was like, oh no, I have nine months. What am I going to do? It was like, this time bomb was gonna go up. And I said, you know what? Everybody has been telling me that I should hire help. So I'm going to hire a team and I'm going to hire some and some people, and I'm going to do a VA agency and blah, blah, blah. I made so many mistakes.

1 (6m 23s):
But what happened was I learned so much through that. And I, in September, my son was born in December. So in September I was like, I'm going to hire all these people. Didn't train them. I didn't even really interview. I mean, it was like textbook opposite of what you're supposed to do when you start hiring a team. And I had, my son had PPD really bad. There was some issues with the delivery. It was really rough. And the business, the team that I had put into place, he just wasn't working whatsoever. And I took everything back myself and I kind of fell into that trap again of complete stress. I was so overwhelmed. I was so scared of losing what I had built.

1 (7m 3s):
And I loved my son obviously, and just had this baby. And I still loved my business, which was also a little bit of a baby to me. And I just didn't know what to do and where to go from there. And then guess what? I got pregnant with my daughter four months after my son was born, which was whew. That was crazy in itself. And then I'm like, oh no, what do I do now? I've already, I've already taken back the reins. I'm like, I'm just going to do it all myself. And what I learned through this whole process was that when you go hire your team, you have to be smart. Okay. That sounds pretty common sense. Right? A lot of people listening and they're like, yeah, you should probably go through a really good interview process when you're hiring a team, but you have to have the expectations laid out.

1 (7m 49s):
What do you want it to look like? How do you want it to be? And for me, I knew that I wanted to spend time with my kids. Cause I knew my time was about to be taken up drastically. And I wanted to take this time with my kids and not be so stressed out about business. I wanted to run with me still there and in it, and being in my zone of genius rather than just kind of like, ah, putting out all these fires everywhere and freaking out and doing XYZ. And so for me, my motivate, my motivating factor was I just, I want to live. I want to have freedom. I don't want the very thing that I built to give me freedom to be the thing that took it away from me.

1 (8m 30s):
So that was my big, that was my big aha moment right there. Fire

0 (8m 35s):
Nation, get your priorities straight. But to get your priorities straight, you have to actually know what your priorities are. I mean, I'm telling you there's a lot of times when I'll be coaching somebody or talk to somebody and be like, so what are your priorities right now? Like what are your top 1, 2, 3 priorities. And they will look at me like deer in the headlights. There'll be like, wait, wait. I'm like, well, you don't know your priorities. Like how are you actually getting done? What needs to get done? So know your priorities, Fire Nation. Don't have that deer in a headlight, a moment and Alexandrea, so many people. And I mean, so many people want to scale. They want to leverage and they want to do it yesterday. They want to do this immediately, but you have a different philosophy.

0 (9m 18s):
So share two specific things that we should always do before we even think even consider scaling.

1 (9m 27s):
I'm going to go back to what you just said. Have your priorities straight. Why do you want to scale in the first place? What is the reason behind you wanting to scale? Is it because we want more money? Is it because you want to make a bigger impact? Is it because you want to share your mission with more people, more companies, whatever that is, have your priorities straight before you even think about scaling for me? I, I thought tangibly, if I, when my son was, was well, when I was pregnant with my son, I thought if I hire more people that I'm going to scale, that's me scaling that is not scaling. Scaling is when you can step away from it.

1 (10m 7s):
Like you're not in it. You're able to be in your zone of genius because you know, now this priority of have this mission. I want to support these other company's missions through X, Y, Z. I want to make a bigger impact through X, Y, Z. You know that then you can go on to the next step of the scaling, which is, or yeah, into the next step of scaling, which is much more tangible, but know what roles you want to hire for, but not just that know where your time is going before you start hiring. So it's a very simple exercise, but I always say, take a week and take a simple Google sheet and, and track. Where did this five minutes go?

1 (10m 47s):
Where did this 10 minutes go? Where did it every single minute of your day, go in your business. And then look at that and analyze and say, okay, this is what I need to cut off of my list right now. This is what I can hire for this can fall under our customer service rep. This can fall under an OBM, maybe a director of operations, maybe just a copywriter and start building your team that way. Because by freeing up the most amount of your time at, at first, you're going to be able to sit in your zone of genius. You're going to be able to create more, do more, be more, live, more, all of the Moore's and your business is going to scale. That to me is scaling. It's kind of like, you can make all the money in the world, but if you don't have any money, you're not wealthy.

1 (11m 30s):
You know, that kind of mindset around that. For me, it's about time. That that is my priority. I want time. I want more freedom. And so I scale my business with that idea in mind, fire,

0 (11m 41s):
Nisha, we're going to talk about mistakes. We're going to talk about hardships. We're going to talk about a dream team and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, it's a common assumption, words like automation and scaling equal losing that personal touch. And it's just not true. Automation is not only the thing that will help you scale and grow your business. Overall. It's also the exact thing that allows you to spend less time on busy work so you can focus more on what matters connecting with your customers. If you're ready to work faster, not harder. You can start today with the time-saving automation capabilities available in HubSpot CRM platform. HubSpot's CRM platform lets you automate tasks. Email sends in more allowing you to put your prospecting on autopilot, but still keep that personal touch.

0 (12m 25s):
And HubSpot has workflows that will help you automatically rotate leads to your sales team. Seamlessly update contact properties. As a prospect works their way through the sales process. Keep your data cleaned and organized, automatically update information or notify sales. When dad has gone stale and more imagine empowering your team to tee up a series of hyper personalized emails and follow-up tasks to prevent prospects from slipping through the cracks. It's all available to you on HubSpot CRM platform. Learn more about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity at hubspot.com. That's hubspot.com. The pandemic has changed how we do business and how we make money. And over the past year, we've seen a lot of entrepreneurs turning to online courses to help hit their bottom line goals.

0 (13m 6s):
But we've known just how impactful online courses are. For years. We've been using Thinkific the best platform to create market and sell it online course since 2017. But don't just take it from me. Meet Kate class and co-founder of coastal drone company. She's been using Thinkific to train thousands of students to become certified drone pilots before creating online courses. Kate spent a lot of time coaching students in person, constantly traveling around cities. But by teaching online with Thinkific, Kate has been able to reach more students, earn more income and achieve more location and time freedom. Now Kate easily creates new videos and lessons each week with Thinkific updating courses and lessons while on the go and our students love the simple user-friendly way. Thinkific allows them to learn and take action fast.

0 (13m 46s):
So if you're ready to create an online course as a lasting way to reach a wider audience, build revenue and make an impact, then Thinkific is the perfect partner to have by your side. Get started at thinkific.com/eof that's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF. So Alexandrea we're back. And before the break, we were talking a little bit about mistakes and we've talked about a few that people make, but I want to dive a little bit deeper. Let's talk about some critical mistakes that Fire Nation can avoid when growing their business.

1 (14m 21s):
So I mentioned the first time that I tried to hire my, my team. So have it. First mistake was I kind of went off the word of other people said, oh, she's really good. You'll love her. You have to figure out who is going to match you. Who's going to match your vibe. Who's going to match what you want in your team. Second thing that I did was I was scared to hire. I was so terrified of hiring anybody. I knew I wanted to grow the team, but I didn't want to hire anybody. So that's funny. Right? And for me, I had to realize that when I was spending the money, I wasn't just throwing it away.

1 (15m 4s):
I was allowing myself to then have that freedom that I had so wanted. And by doing that, I was able to then grow this amazing team. But I literally think my, my team right now is a dream team of people. The kind of goes hand in hand with that. But two is hire before you're ready to hire. There were so many times where I hope my goodness. I have to hire her because we have all this new work and I need to hire right now. And I would make the wrong hire. I would make the wrong decision. I wasn't following my gut. I was falling my head. Like I just need to fill the spot right now. That's a huge mistake. I see people making hire before you're ready.

1 (15m 46s):
Get them used to you. Get them used to how you work, how your company works, what your SOP is, are, what your frameworks are, so that when you get more, if you're in a service provider business or, or wherever you are, you get more sales, you get more customers, you get more clients, whatever it is that you can say, okay, awesome. We have perfect person that can handle this. I'm not having to scramble at the last minute to find a perfect match. Let's talk about

0 (16m 13s):
Hardships because when you're scaling a company, especially in a short amount of time, there's going to be some hardships. There's going to be some struggles. There's going to be some obstacles and challenges. That's of course we can avoid by talking to somebody who already been through those and come out the other side. So share with Fire Nation. Some of those hardships that come with scaling a company in a finite short amount of time,

1 (16m 38s):
Mindset shifts had to happen in a very short amount of time. I had to see myself as a leader a lot faster than I originally did. I really didn't see myself in that leader position. When I was going into this, I kind of just saw myself as somebody who was doing all of the things I had to learn personally, to step away and to step into the leadership role. And that was the hardest thing that I had to do. I had to realize that I can't be designing graphics right next to my graphic designer. And then on the other hand, going and doing this high level strategy, the tug of war that that created mentally was a nightmare.

1 (17m 21s):
And I wasn't able to show up in my best self and serve our clients honestly, in the best way, because I was being tugged back and forth. So for me, it was truly stepping into that leadership role and saying, Hey, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust my team, let them live in their zones of genius and that's going to be it. And that once I started to learn to do that, and I embraced that, that was when we just started growing exponentially. And it was pretty beautiful,

0 (17m 55s):
Letting people live Fire Nation and there's zones of genius. It really is a beautiful thing. I mean, that's where they want to be. That's where they thrive. That's what they're going to do, their best work. And so you want to find people who are really focused on doing their best work within their zone of genius. You know, you can't just hire somebody and fit that square peg into a round hole and expect greatness to come out the other side, cause it's just not going to happen. And so we talked about, you know, the dream team and how you really figure that out, but I'd love some more hard learned lessons that you found while hiring that dream team while building that dream team while molding that dream team into not the mistakes you made round one, two and three, by being like, oh yeah, you'll love that person.

0 (18m 40s):
They're so cool. And then being like, well, they might be cool and they might be great for somebody somewhere, but not for me in this time, in this position. So really finished strong over this dream team concept, some lessons that you learned and anything you want to share on this topic with Fire Nation, top

1 (18m 57s):
Of the hardships of having to personally work through setting into what, into that mindset of a leader. I had to be very weary of who I hired to, and this can sound kind of scary sometimes, but I had to be conscientious of when I went to put that application out there or the job, the job application out there, and I said, okay, I need a copywriter. I needed to be very, very specific about what I needed, what I expected, what I wanted out of a team member, because there were many times where I hired and it was on me most of the time that I didn't lay out the expectations of, I need you to do X, Y, and Z.

1 (19m 42s):
I need you to have this type of experience. And they came on and it was a nightmare. And the last thing that you want to do while you're trying to grow your business is have this turnaround of team members, right? Like nobody wants that. You want people that come on and they're going to be in it for the long haul. Another very important thing that I've learned is when you're hiring, paying attention to details, this is like a little side note. But in those job applications, ask them a question like, Hey, what's your favorite vacation spot? And the people that don't answer that, I kind of knock them off the list because that shows me attention to detail. I have learned that trick over the years and it works really well.

1 (20m 22s):
But when you are interviewing in, please interview, you don't make that same mistake that I did where I was just like, oh, they said, she's great. I'm going to bring her on. And I feel like a lot of people get stuck in that trap of I'm going to build my business. I'm going to scale, but I don't know who to hire. So I'm just going to grab whoever to do it. Don't be scared to spend a little bit more than you thought you were. If you can financially afford it. Remember that these people, that you're hiring, they are supposed to be there to support you. You want them to support you. My ticket for hiring this dream team was making sure that we were all on the same mission.

1 (21m 4s):
I wanted somebody, anybody that comes on, I want them to come on and I want them to appreciate she ate the business. I want them to appreciate the clients. I want them to take the same care of everybody that I would take care of them, right? Like that's so important for me. But for me, I had that moment where I would just hire people out of fear. I would hire people because I was scared or it was last minute. They didn't come on because of a certain mission. They didn't come on to be a part of something bigger. They came on to just do the work and that's not how I work. And I truly believe that's what has set our team apart. The people that are on our team and then I will talk their praises day and night, but they are truly there because they want to be a part of something bigger.

1 (21m 52s):
And it's a family. And when you start treating your team members like that, when you start allowing them to rise in their positions, everybody's going to rise. My own coach has told me this. I rise. We rise. They rise. You know, everybody rises together. And what happens when that happens is amazing. You see your clients rise, you see their customers just feel, feel the power behind it, right? Like they are so amazed by what you're able to give because everybody's stepping into their own zones of genius. But ultimately I do want to leave you with this is that when, when you are stepping into this leadership role and you're trying to grow your team, and if you're struggling, if you know, I have these really big situations coming, right?

1 (22m 42s):
My, my daughter's pregnancy was rough. She was a twin. We lost the twin. It went into a high risk pregnancy. She was premature. She was in the NICU. It was really hard. And I could have easily said, you know what? I'm done. I'm not going to build the agency anymore. I'm not going to go down this path. And it was 20, 22, but I just, I persevered through it. I pivoted it didn't phrase. I said, no, this is what's going to happen. And we're going to make it happen. And I had faith. I gave myself a ton of grace for saying, okay, I know that I'm going to have to get a doctor's appointments four times a week, but I'm going to hire my team.

1 (23m 22s):
And I'm gonna trust them step into the level of trust. As much as you can step into the role of not micro-managing treat them as family. And when you do that, everything else sort of just falls into place. It's really hard to grow, especially in a short amount of time. It is so hard. You will find yourself in a lot of positions where you're kind of up against the wall. You don't know what's going to happen. You literally are between a rock and a hard place. I don't know whether to go this way or this way or this way. And I will say I hired a business coach, a business mentor. And after I did that and I realized, Hey, I'm not crazy.

1 (24m 4s):
There's other people out here that feel the same way that I do. And here I am wanting to give up. And she's like, no, no, no. You're not giving up. You're going to do it this way. And this is, this is the way to do it because I've been there. That was the, how was the key for me to like fully release all of this fear intention that I had around growling. Because I'm like I said before, like I had never really considered myself into this leadership position. Now, here I am and it's worked out fine. And for me personally, I go into everything, honest, genuine, transparent. I am a human behind the screen. So many people out there it's like this facade, right?

1 (24m 44s):
We're all human behind the screens. And I have shown my team that I've showed our clients, that the people I coach that like everybody, like, I'm a human, I'm not better than you. We're just in this together. I might know more. I might be on a different level, but I'm not better than you. Like all of those mindset shifts that you have to do that is what's going to help you get through those hardships. Just a little bit easier. So many

0 (25m 8s):
Value bombs, so many great takeaways. Alexandrea, I want to finish strong. Give us your final call to action. Give Fire Nation that call to action. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (25m 21s):
So I am super excited to do this. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but this is, this is what I am really feeling led to do for Fire Nation. So I'm super excited. I mentioned that I love this genuine, honest transparency. I am a talker. If you haven't figured it out by now, I love talking. I love creating connections. There are two ways that you can technically work with us. We have the done for you marketing agency side, which is we act as fractional CMOs. That is, that's what I built. I'm also a business mentor and I help entrepreneurs who have been in this stressed out hustle phase and kind of break away from the stress.

1 (26m 5s):
They can strive for more freedom with less time. Well, that sounds funny. More, more freedom with less time invested in their business. So what I'm doing is if you go to HarrelsonMedia.com/fire, I am opening up outpatients for free 20 minute calls with me, myself and I. These are, I know that's, that's a biggie right there. I opened the door, but I want to get to know you. I want to make these connections. I want to go into these calls with the intention of learning about you and your business and giving you action, actionable tips that you can take.

1 (26m 48s):
Maybe it's one, maybe it's five, maybe it's 10 that we come up with in that time period that you can take into your business and your life. From what I have learned from what I have been through and allow you to thrive into your mission as a business owner and continue to grow yourself. So Harrelson media.com/fire, all the details will be on that page

0 (27m 12s):
Or nation when somebody offers their personal time for one on one, I'm talking, one-on-one not once in many one-to-one, you need to take advantage of it, because if there's just one thing that cracks open one aha moments that you get from that conversation, it will be worth lifetimes of listening, just listening to content. You need to engage when the engagement opportunities arise so far, an issue, the average of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with AH and JLD today. So please keep up that heat. If you head over to eofire.com and type Alexandrea into the search bar, Hirsch on page will pop up with everything that we talked about today.

0 (27m 55s):
Best show notes in the biz. And of course, take action. Fire Nation. Be proud of yourself today by heading over to HarrelsonMedia.com/fire. When you do that, sign up for a free call with the lovely Alexandrea, and you're going to have a fantastic conversation, and I guarantee you, you will be better off for it. Alexandrea, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Alexandrea. And one thing that I've identified over the years is that successful entrepreneurs are productive, disciplined, and they are focused, which is why I created the mastery journal, a gorgeous full leather journal that will ensure that you master productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days, it's my best work ever visit the mastery journal.com use promo code podcast for a $15 discount.

0 (28m 54s):
And thank you for listening to my podcast and I will catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Fire Nation is time to stop trading time for money and start reaching more clients and making a bigger impact. And you can do just that with online courses, try Thinkific for free today at thinkific.com/EOF that's T H I N K I F I C.com/EOF. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork.