0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like I Digress. Today, we'll be chatting about going from bartender to seven figure CEO in just 13 months. To drop these value bombs, I brought Nicole Cherie Hesse into the EOFire Studios. Nicole is a self-made millionaire who went from being a broke bartender to a seven figure CEO in just 13 months. Today, we'll be talking about the rags to riches story. We'll talk about avatars, finding your perfect clients and how to help them. We'll talk about actual revenue generated and how actual case studies in a big thank you to today's sponsors and Nicole for sponsoring today's episode.

0 (47s):
Looking for a place where you can experience live interactions with your audience, then Speakeasy is for you. I'm loving creating daily content on speakeasy and I know you will too. Visit getspeakeasy.com to download the app and go live today. Being Boss hosted by Emily Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and is an exploration of what it means and what it takes to be boss as a creative business owner. One recent episode on the Five Tips for Better Work-Life balance is a must Listen. Listen to Being Boss wherever you get your. Nicole say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 32s):
Oh, hey Fire Nation, how are you guys coming in hot today? And really feeling that feeling around success because I think that one of the things that I was told growing up was that we had to be a certain way and that if you wanted to be successful, you had to fall in line. You had to do what other successful people do. And I have found that to absolutely just not be true at all. I have been able to build my empire two, seven figures in just 13 months while being my true self. I am unapologetically me. And that's really when I became successful is when I stopped trying to be what other people want me to be.

0 (2m 12s):
Well, you are amongst renegades, you are amongst rebels. This is Fire Nation. We don't fall in line. So you're really speaking to the right audience and Fire Nation. As I mentioned in the intro, we're talking about going from bartender to seven figure CEO in just 13 months. And Nicole, we love and I mean love the rags to Rich's story, but in this case it's actually a bar rags to Rich's story, so that's even more fun. How the heck did you go from being a bartender to starting your business? Tell us that story.

1 (2m 44s):
Well, once upon a time I was a bartender, not just any bartender, but a fired bartender fired from not one but two bars in the same month, which was funny because it was about six months after I had stopped drinking. It turns out that they didn't really like sober me quite as much as they liked, not sober me and getting and getting fired from those two places. It was the best thing that ever happened for me because I realized that I was banging my head against the wall, that I was in a, in a world where I was underappreciated and undervalued and I had done some bar consulting at that time and really helped bars go from, I had one bar that went from doing 15,000 a week to doing $150,000 a week.

1 (3m 27s):
And so it was a, it was something I was good at, right? And something that I really enjoyed and something that I was absolutely passionate about. And I ran a chapter of the Bartender's Guild, so I was doing all the things, but sometimes even when we feel like we're successful, even when we feel like we're on the right path, we're missing something. And I realized that after getting fired from those two places, I could do something different with those skillsets. And the skillset that I really had was being able to cultivate an audience, really being able to connect with people. I helped bartenders all over the place to build regulars and help them to build out those shifts. That's how we were going from 15,000 to 150,000 a week.

1 (4m 7s):
And I, when I saw the online thing, I just didn't know that this existed. I had no idea about Facebook groups. I had no idea about online education and coaching. I, I just didn't know. And I fell into a Facebook funnel before I even knew what a funnel was. I clicked on one of those little ads and ended up buying a course that was all about how to do Facebook ads. Well, it turns out that I'm absolutely terrible at doing Facebook

0 (4m 31s):
Ads.

1 (4m 33s):
Not good at all. I was very challenged with the Pixel and all of the tech, but when I got into that course, I took it by storm. I finished all 90 modules in just two weeks, and then I went out there and got clients and I was able to get 10 high ticket clients in about six weeks, which completely changed my mi my life. I made $20,000. And the coach in that program said to me, he said, How, how are you doing this? How are you getting all these clients? And he said, Can you please teach us the other members? And I said, Absolutely. And so some of the little old men in that program, they really helped me with the Pixel and so I really helped them with their marketing. And then all of a sudden things, something magical happened, right, is that they started getting clients too.

1 (5m 14s):
And that's when he said to me, the coach looked at me and said, You're in the wrong business. You need to stop trying to do the pixel and you need to teach people marketing. You need to teach people how to do social selling. And that's what I did. I mean, it was just insanely fast. I built a Facebook group and made my first a hundred grand in about four months, had my first six figure month and my eighth month, and then on to seven figures. It was crazy.

0 (5m 35s):
Well, I just wanna take a step back here and tell me if I'm wrong. I mean, when I'm picturing you as a drinking bartender picture, kind of like the coyote ugly type of story, like dancing on bar tables and then you as the non-drinking bartend dress, like you're more like, Would you like an olive with that martini? I mean, is that kind of the right vision?

1 (5m 54s):
You know, I would love to say that that is the story, but it was so much, much worse than that. It was so much worse than Coyote ugly. I mean, it was a lot of debauchery, a lot of late nights, a lot of very, very poor decisions. And as I became so sober, something happened that was unexpected was that I got really mean. I got to the point where like I really just couldn't put up with anything at the bar. And so all of those things that were so over the line really started to feel over the line, right? And so that sense of self-worth made it really hard for me to be very compliant with bosses or compliant with unruly guests in quotations.

0 (6m 31s):
Let's talk about your current business. What is the specific problem that you solve?

1 (6m 38s):
I help people get clients, man,

0 (6m 40s):
Fire Nation. That is a simple call to action. I will help you get clients. It's a real pain, it's a real struggle, it's a real obstacle and challenge, but guess what? Most people don't know how to eloquently give that type of call to action on what they're serving their customers, what solution they're providing to real problems in this world. So really get a little more detailed into this and I want to kind of move it into the avatars. What is your perfect client and how specifically do you help solve that problem?

1 (7m 15s):
The specific breakdown here is attraction marketing. I don't do any cold outreach at all. So my ideal person is somebody who's tried cold outreach, who's done that thing where they sent 30 to 50 dms every day and followed up relentlessly and hey girl messages and somebody that feels that sting of rejection. This is like that core value kind of thing coming through is that feeling of injustice and that it's, it's that life isn't fair. And that was something that I really struggled with. So I tend to connect with people that have that same kind of defensiveness about them. And so my ideal client is somebody that recognizes that inside of themselves and realizes that this rejection style of marketing is only cultivating more defiance and more beliefs that it's not fair.

1 (7m 60s):
And helping them to shift who they are at a foundational level so that they start attracting clients because they're in their zone of genius, because they're being celebrated and not undervalued and underappreciated. So it's not just any entrepreneur, right? It's somebody who really has that strong core value connection to the sense of justice and wanting the world to, to be a better place.

0 (8m 24s):
Now you say attraction marketing. Let's dive a little bit deeper on that point. How are these individuals finding you? Get detailed.

1 (8m 32s):
Okay, so it all comes down to a very specific content strategy that works with the algorithm, but is based in transformation rather than leading with the pain, which is what 99% of the marketers are doing out there of saying, Hey, what are you struggling with? We don't do that at all inside of my strategy. We don't Pain point poke, we don't prod, we don't do any of those kind of probing questions that cause people to be in a state of distress when they buy. We really focus on a system that I call catalyst marketing because the truth is there's 9 billion people on the face of the planet and a lot of people are absolutely ready right now. They're ready to invest right now. They're ready to get results right now. And so creating a content strategy that attracts people who are ready to buy instead of people who are ready to buy in six to eight months after you poke 'em in the pain points is really how I did this so quickly, is that I laser focused my niche into talking to only to people who are specifically ready to get results now, not later.

0 (9m 29s):
And how do you find those people now that you know those people you want to talk to? Where are you going? What platforms are you using? What strategies and advertising are you actually effectuating?

1 (9m 40s):
I did my first million on Facebook alone and organically no ads. So this was built through a Facebook group. I got my first first chunk of clients through my personal page, which has, I've maxed out, I'm met 5,000 friends and then I've moved it over to a Facebook group. The Facebook group now has 16,000 people in it. And so the Facebook group is my primary source, and the way that people join that group is actually also through attraction, because I create content that goes out on my personal page and also into a few other key groups where people are seeing it and then self-selecting. And because of the name of the group that includes the words Client attraction secrets, people who are joining that group are admitting right that, and there by clicking that link that they have this problem that they don't have enough clients.

1 (10m 27s):
Why would you join a group called Client Attraction Secrets if you didn't want more clients, right? So they're already self-selecting as people who are very close to wanting to invest and wanting to move their life forward and get more

0 (10m 38s):
Clients. Fire Nation, we have the no bs, Nicole, she's just telling it how it is. She's breaking it down for you. We're gonna get real specific on numbers in case studies when we get back from thinking our sponsors, we all know how important engagement with our audiences as creators. Finding effective ways to provide value while also being able to interact in real time is a challenge. But now there's Speakeasy. Speakeasy is an app that allows you to organize your own live talk show. It's made by creators for creators and is uniquely built to help you monetize your audience. Whether you use it for live podcasting, show recordings or hosting premium content, people can subscribe to Speakeasy has you covered, wanna stream private shows for select attendees.

0 (11m 23s):
You can do that too. All you have to do is download the app, go live, and you'll be connecting with an interactive audience immediately. I'm loving creating daily content on speakeasy and I know you're going to love it too. So what are you waiting for? Visit getspeakeasy.com to download the app. Check me out at John Lee Dumas and let's start rockin. Speakeasy together. That's getspeakeasy.com. I look forward to interacting with you Fire Nation. As an entrepreneur, you want tools and software solutions that will help you scale and grow. And we know that scaling a business is unique. So flexible apps and integrations that can scale with you are critical, but finding tools and software solutions that will help you scale and grow without adding a layer of confusion and overwhelm to your business, that's a challenge.

0 (12m 12s):
Maybe you finally found a great software solution only to realize that it could take weeks or even months to implement, and now you're seeing hidden costs that pop up like consultants or having to hire new teams to help you manage your platforms. That's not cool. Wouldn't it be nice to have flexible apps and integrations that can scale with you? Great news. That's why there's HubSpots HubSpot Scales with your business. So there's no need to add another point solution or switch to an overly complex system from your first hire to your first million and beyond, HubSpot is impossible to outgrow. Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at hubspot.com. Nicole, we're back and here at Entrepreneurs on Fire, we pride ourselves on transparency on our openness.

0 (12m 55s):
We've been publishing a monthly income report for 108 months in a row since back in 2013 where we share all the numbers, all the struggles, all the successes. Let's talk numbers. How many clients have you served? How much revenue have you generated

1 (13m 13s):
Specifically? 1,746 clients served in just over two years. Two years and three months now. And that is 2.2 million.

0 (13m 25s):
What is the price point for people to work with you? I heard you say high ticket, Are there tiers? Is there just one price? How does that work for you?

1 (13m 33s):
Yeah, I have tears set up. So my signature offer is a $10,000 offer. I have a higher ticket that's $50,000 and then I have some low ticket options that help people to kind of get into, get into the flow, get into the vibe, including a virtual event series that I call Wonder Retreats. And those range between 2 97 to about 4 97 just depending on the subject matter.

0 (13m 58s):
So I mentioned case studies, what's one client result that has really hit home for you that you think would be really cool to share right now?

1 (14m 7s):
Well, I can't get off of this without talking about one of my clients that absolutely, I mean, you wanna talk about rags to riches, Incredible story. She was someone who grew up homeless and you know, really in that space of just, I mean shouldn't be successful by all standards of industry, shouldn't be successful. And when she came to me, she was just kind of getting her feet wet in the credit repair industry and she had a good concept, she had good results for herself, she'd really raised her status and been able to repair her credit. She'd helped some family members and she'd helped a, you know, a good chunk of her friends to get this result. And so she came to me and she said, I really want to be able to help other people to do this.

1 (14m 47s):
And she had some ideas about what she was gonna charge for her services, but we took, took a look at her roi. She wanted to charge $826 for her service because that is her birthday, August 26. And I said, Absolutely not. That is not a thing. We're not creating prices based on birthdays. We create prices based on the return on investment. And so we really dug into her offer and taking a look at, I mean, how she was changing people's lives and she was helping them to get business credit, helping them to, I mean, really get the loans that they needed to make their businesses successful, to pay off their houses to do all these things and elevate their status. And so we really broke down her, her situation and devised an offer that was 5K and last, let's see, it took her about six months to get everything dialed in and then she had a $60,000

0 (15m 36s):
Month. That's life changing.

1 (15m 38s):
Oh, well wait till I tell you the rest. Last February she decided to do a big launch and we set everything up and teed it all up with the attraction marketing style in her Facebook group with her brand new 5K offer. And she went up and sold $400,000 in 28 days.

0 (15m 56s):
Wow. I mean, fire nation, if you can't get inspired by that kind of rags to riches, I don't know if you got blood pumping through those entrepreneurial veins right now, so take it home for us with her. And is there another one you can share? And again, we don't have to get detailed with names or even specific numbers if you're not comfortable with that, but one other case that'd be pretty cool to kind of button this up,

1 (16m 18s):
I wanna add to the last one of, of this $400,000 month client is that she also has a 17 year old daughter and she taught the same strategies too that her daughter and her daughter just had her first six figure month at 17 years old. So that was pretty incredible as far as that generational wealth shifting goes as well. Another client that I think was particularly remarkable, she was only 27 years old when she came to me and she'd had some success in the coaching industry. She really focused on mindset techniques. She was a mindset coach that helped people through imposter syndrome and she'd struggled for about two years making, you know, making a little bit of money, getting clients here and there. But we worked together for eight weeks and we set up a launch strategy that was really just focused on what she was good at because she was doing all sorts of stuff, like extra stuff, too many things.

1 (17m 5s):
And so we got rid of all of the extra things and really just focused in on what she was good at, which for her was specifically doing lives. She had like one of those like great, like radio voices, you know, and people just loved to listen to her. And so we put her on these lives and after just eight weeks working together, she was able to raise her prices from, she was doing like $500 up to $2,500 and she did an $88,000 launch at 27 years old and went off to Costa Rica and started, started surfing.

0 (17m 34s):
I'm gone, I'm hitting the surf, I'm hitting the Caribbean. I've been there before. In fact, I'm there right now. Puerto Rico life is good. So real quick before we move into the last thing I wanna talk about, walk us back through again, your tier structure, how you came up with that and how you ascend people through that.

1 (17m 52s):
Primarily people come in first into the 10 K offer after coming through a wonder retreat, they come to the Wonder Retreat, they get a taste of it. I like to think of it as, as a sample, like if you're going to Costco and you get a, a delicious little sample of what's going on and really taste the energy, because I do things a lot differently than most entrepreneurs, you're not gonna find like a, you know, a five day challenge. That's just me telling a sob story about my poor dog and then I, you know, made a million dollars and you should too. It's, it's really raw, broken down, specific strategies where I deliver on the promise that, you know, for just $97, it's a great value. And so one of my secrets to success of this is to over deliver. As somebody that came through the hospitality industry, it's not just about the content, right?

1 (18m 33s):
It's about how people feel digesting it because we're creating an experience. The truth is people can learn this stuff on YouTube if they really apply themselves, right? And so really getting that bite size at $97 or 2 97 allows them to believe that the results are possible for them and then they ascend into that $10,000 offer. The $10,000 offer is about a year long for most people they go through. And when they start really getting into the nitty gritty and getting those big launches and creating sustainable income, then it's a no-brainer for them to step into that $50,000 offer and, you know, really commit to a full year of mentorship because it is about scaling from the inside out. It's not just your business, it's changing your entire life.

1 (19m 15s):
Because one of the most prominent motifs that I carry in my business is fulfillment. First, I have an amazing, amazing husband. I have two happy healthy kids that I homeschool. And you know, really being able to have that lifestyle first makes the success so much sweeter.

0 (19m 31s):
Bring this home for us. If Fire Nation has a skill and they wanna monetize it, but they're just not quite sure how to do it, what would your advice be?

1 (19m 40s):
The truth is, is that we think that our skills aren't monetizeable because they're natural to us. So it comes so easy and you're like, Why would anybody pay for that? It's so easy, but the other people don't feel that way, right? You have a zone of genius, you have a skill set. And so that first mindset shift that you need to make is to know that you are valuable and that your, your skill sets, your experience, the way you articulate things, there's no such thing as market saturation is that people will absolutely pay for it because they want to hear it from you. So the first thing that you need to do is talk to your audience, get onto social media, whether that's Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, and really just start talking about the results that you have and watch something magical happen because people will immediately start asking you, Wow, how did you do that?

1 (20m 25s):
When people ask you, How did you do that? You know that you have something that's monetizable. And so that's really the first step is believing that it's worth something.

0 (20m 33s):
I know there are some people who want to get in direct contact with you. How can they do that? What call to action do you have for us today?

1 (20m 41s):
I would really love to have you come and join the Facebook group. It's called Unicorn Client Attraction Secrets for High Vibe Wonder Women. And in my world, Wonder Woman is a mindset, not a gender bias

0 (20m 53s):
Fire nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with NHC and JLD today, so keep up the heat, head over to EOFire.com, type Nicole, N I C O L E in the search bar and her shown us page will pop right up. Nicole, give us that call to action one more time, any parting words, and then we'll say goodbye.

1 (21m 13s):
Would love to have you guys come join the Facebook group. Unicorn client Attraction Secrets for high vibe Wonder Woman, come on on, on Facebook and we will get you started because truth is, if a mouthy bartender can make it to a mouthy millionaire in 13 months, so can you.

0 (21m 28s):
That's great, Nicole, Thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (21m 36s):
Thanks, John.

0 (21m 37s):
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to Nicole for dropping value bombs and sponsoring today's episode. Fire Nation's successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days. And we're talking step by step. Visit the freedomjournal.com, the freedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there. Or I'll catch you on the flip side, looking for a place where you can experience live interactions with your audience, then Speakeasy is for you. I'm loving creating daily content on speakeasy and I know you will too. Visit getspeakeasy.com to download the app and go live today.

0 (22m 18s):
Being Boss hosted by Emily Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and is an exploration of what it means and what it takes to be boss as a creative business owner. One recent episode on the Five Tips for Better Work Life balance is a must Listen. Listen to Being Boss wherever you get your podcasts.