BOSS MOM Shares The 3 Words That Helped Her Build A Million-Dollar Online Empire

Welcome to the Scale or Fail show. I am your host, Alyson Maslin. I am a business growth mentor and love to bring you the expert so that you can grow and scale your business. And today you are going to meet someone that I am so honored to bring on the show and talk about scaling. She has created a movement right here on the Scale or Scale. Hi everyone. Welcome to the Scale or fail show and today I'm super excited to introduce to you. Dana Malstaff is the CEO and founder of Boss Mom. She is a mother, author, speaker, business strategist, podcaster, blind spot reducer. We all need one of those. And a movement maker. And yes she is. She launched the Boss mom brand with her first book, Boss the ultimate guide to raising a business and nurturing your family like a pro. She did this in 2015 and quickly grew to a six figure business within one year. She now has over 20,000 students in various courses. She has a Facebook group with over 37,000 members. And she helps women all over the world raise their business and raise their babies at the same time. Yes, it can be done. She believes that we need to show our children that doing what we love can be financially viable too. And I hope wholeheartedly agree. So, Dana, thanks for joining me.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Well, I'm glad you're here. And you and I met, was it like three years ago? Something like that. At a mastermind. And you know, you had, you know, it hadn't been that long, but I could, I saw the trajectory of what you were doing in your business and I thought it's so incredible. And, and so can you for our listeners, our viewers, if you're on the video, podcast or audio that are generally business owners and I'm sure they are wondering how did you, what led you to start this online community?

Yeah, so I quit my job and decided I was going to be a consultant six, six or so years ago. And I quit. I was working 14 hour days, you know, was at the director level and was burnt out and decided to quit. And everybody took me out, fed me tequila and I got pregnant with my husband. I was, I was married at the time. We'd been trying and it wasn't working. And so I found myself in this situation where we were living in Columbus, Ohio. I didn't know how to run a business. I didn't know how to have a baby. Like I didn't know any of those things. I wanted to be great at both. I'm a Very ambitious, you know, jump in. I always worked for smaller entrepreneurial companies, so I thought, I've got to have it. You know, I. My dad owned an auto body shop. My stepdad had been entrepreneurial, and. And I was like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be amazing at both. And then I realized I didn't know anybody that owned a business, really, that was my age. None of my friends had kids. And I was in a situation where I just felt alone and isolated and, to be honest, a little crazy. Everybody would go, why would you quit your job if you're going to have a baby, you should go back and get a job, because that's security. And, you know, why would you send your kid to daycare if you're just going to be home? If you're home, why don't you just have the kid home with you? I'm like, well, I can't get anything done if I'm home. And so everybody that I was surrounded by made me feel bad about myself and made me question whether or not I should be doing what I was doing. And I just. It just was not a good feeling. Well, I was in a cafe and a Panera. I was in a Panera. I like to call it a cafe to be snazzy. But I was in a Panera, and I saw a woman with her baby and what looked like her mother, and they were hanging out together, and I just started crying. Because I'm originally from Southern California. I'm very close with my mom and my stepdad. And I called my husband up, and I was just like, would you consider moving to San Diego? And it was negative 11 degrees in Columbus, Ohio. And he was like, I will quit my job tomorrow. Yes, let's move to San Diego. Sounds like a great idea. Three months later, we'd sold our house, we drove out to, you know, to San Diego, and something beautiful happened, which is there were tons of moms that had businesses, and there were tons of just people that were trying to make businesses work and exploring this idea of starting. Starting their own thing. And I started feeling less crazy. And what I realized was, wow.

Wow.

I am. If you're surrounding yourself with the right people, like, it's not just about surrounding yourself with the people that you wish you were like, it's just surrounding yourself with people that don't make you feel like you make terrible decisions, because they're all making the same decisions. And I saw this huge gap of other moms that we were searching in. These entrepreneurial spaces. But we weren't finding this mom entrepreneurial space. And not just a I want to have babies and I want to have businesses, but this. These ambitious women that have these amazing jobs and leave them not to, you know, not. Not just to have babies or not just to pursue a career, but because they have these multiple passions that they want to pursue and they can't help themselves and they don't want to feel bad about it. And so I decided to write a book. Boss mom was what came out of it. And when we asked everybody about it, they got so excited, and it did so well that we, you know, did what any entrepreneur would do, which was we started Boss Momming everything you could. Awesome. And you've been growing ever since.

Fantastic. Well, it's a great brand. And, you know, I totally get your story. I grew up in Oklahoma, and I had the same thing. I felt like such an outsider because, you know, I had all of this entrepreneurial drive. And I just remember because I had an ad agency that was my first business, and people would go, oh, that's just such a little cute thing that you're doing, you know, well, Boss mom.

Has become this thing that we talk about building a business you can brag about. Because there's so many women in our space that feel like they have to justify what they're doing, justify the time they're spending to build something that they care about, justify it because that either they're not a good parent because they're dividing their time, or the whole. My whole first book was about you can't. If you love your kids and you love your babies, loving your. Your business, loving your business doesn't mean you love your babies less. It's not like you have to take that love away and. And it goes somewhere else. Like, you are allowed to love multiple things. And actually being passionate about something outside of motherhood, I think is a good example to set for your kids about pursuing things that make you happy and it makes you a more enjoyable mother.

Think about it this way. If you're. When your kids grow up and they come to you and they say, mom, I have this dream that I really want to focus on. What are you going to say to them? Right.

Yeah.

Right. You want them to go after their dream. That's what you do. And I do. I do think it's do what I do, not do what I say. Yeah.

Yeah. And in our community, we find that we wanted to make sure we built a space that wasn't just for seven figure business earners. Or women that wanted to be the next Oprah. It's like if you want to just have vacation money, like if you just want to pursue something so you can feel valued outside of just how you contribute as parent or as a spouse, you know, that that's, that's just as good. Like, you don't have to feel less than because you're not building an empire and you don't want to work five days a week or 80 hours a week like you do. We want you to build things that help the economy, that help other people have jobs, that help, you know, put beautiful things into the world and solve problems. Because there's so many wonderful brains out there that even on a small scale can make either local or massive impact. And all are really valuable. And so that's part of what Boss mom is, is it's we say no judgment, just dance parties like we believe in. True. If we all just hired each other, we'd all have six figure businesses, is what I said.

Oh, my gosh, that is so true. Well, I love what you're doing. And so what do you, what do you think was the reason for just the big growth so fast? I mean, you were obviously delivering a message that people really needed to hear.

Well, there's, I think there's a couple things. One, the very first thing I did is I hired somebody. It was a VA for two hours a week, and they pitched me on podcasts. So from the very, very, very beginning, I was getting interviewed at least twice a week. In the beginning, it was as much as humanly possible. I would get on every show I possibly could, and I would get interviewed as much as possible because there's no better advertising than be able to spread my message for a half an hour, an hour at a time, to somebody else's audience. So I tell people, get on, get featured, like, get in places. And when they tell me I don't know exactly how to talk about what I talk about, I tell them, clarity's in the doing. Just suck in the beginning. And then you'll get better at it when you're forced to continue to talk about things. And then you'll find your words, you'll get better at it. So start with the small shows and, and build your way up. So that was one of the big, big tactics, I think. The other thing is I'm really passionate about what I talk about and I have a lot of energy for it. So I tell people, if you talk about the thing that you do, and then you want to take a nap Afterwards, then you might want to reconsider what you do, because if somebody asks you to explain why you started something or why you spend this time or what you want, how you want the world to be different, you better be really excited about it, because people gravitate towards that excitement. So I do think that the amount of energy that I have gets everybody really excited about it. And then I repeat myself all the time. I tell people, stop saying different things to the same people and say the same thing to different people so that I become known for the message that I want to spread. And then when somebody goes, you know, app Sumo was looking for somebody for International Women's Day, and there was a woman there who had been to one of my events. She's like, oh, you need Dana like this. She'll be great. You know, And I didn't seek that out. I just. She reached out to me, was like, hey, we want to do a co webinar with you. And I was like, sweet, that sounds great. So, you know that. That idea that you're passionate, you're telling your same message to everybody all the time, and you're. You're going out and really spreading that message, like a movement as much as possible, so it can catch momentum outside of me. And then discussion starts to happen with other people, and I facilitate that discussion, and then magical things happen.

I think. I think that is really key, what you said. I think so many people feel like they have to reinvent themselves every day, and they have to be completely different on social media every day, and I have to create new content every day. And that's, you know, that's a lot of pressure. And what you're saying is be where it's repeatable so that someone gets it, hears it again, and then they can share it with other people over and over and over.

Yeah, absolutely. And I always, since I equate everything to parenting and kids and all. All those fun analogies, your kid doesn't say the Alphabet once and they never say it again. Like, the only way they learn their ABCs or, you know, learn to count or any of those things is by repetition. Yet, you know, we think that we read something once and we've got it right. Like, we think that we talk about something once and it's internalized, and the answer is no. Like, we. You have to study your business and what you're trying to be known for and. And be an expert in just as much as you would if you were in school. Because at some point, if you're not becoming Known for something. You're not repeating what's important. You're not continuing to go out and make sure people know that this. That's why people write books and start podcasts on top on a very specific topic, because they become known for that. And if you're not doing that, then you're just out kind of dabbling and real, Real experts, real big brands, real things where people go, oh, I know what that is. I know what it's about. I know what they stand for. I know what they sell are people that have. And businesses have an established brand that they repeat what they stand for all the time. So I say stop doing all the new stuff and start picking the few things that you just want to keep repeating and then find new places to repeat them.

Yeah. Then just expand the market. So. Which you have done so quickly. So, I mean, this must have been such a major life change, Dana, for you. I mean, here you are in Cleveland, and then all of a sudden you're in San Diego and you have a book and you have this soul movement. I mean, did you ever, like, you know, I mean, 2015 wasn't that long ago really, you know, do you remember those moments where you just lying in bed going, holy crap, what? How did this happen?

Well, I feel like I've always known that I was gonna. That I, like, was gonna do something. Like, I'm a very go out and do something kind of gal. I never had any idea that my kids and having children would be part of my brand. You know, I started my business or started my own, you know, consulting, basically, when I was pregnant with my son, I wrote my first book while pregnant with my daughter. You know, so they have been very integral in the things that I've done in my business. And I. It's funny because you think that it felt like this really big change moving out to San Diego, but it actually set me right into this ecosystem that helped cultivate what I was doing. And so I've always looked at life as just an exploration, an experience where we're constantly learning. And then the people that are really successful take the 20% of the things that you learn that are really impactful and useful and can be leveraged, and we leverage that 20% and we don't worry or get hung up on the other 80% that doesn't. And I think that's one of the things that has come relatively naturally to me is not being married to all the stuff that fails so that I can really quickly move on and go, oh, that thing did not work. That's totally okay. It doesn't mean I'm not valuable. It just means that thing didn't work. What did we learn from it? What can we do now? And I. So in that way, it doesn't feel overwhelming to me. It doesn't feel scary to me. It just feels adventurous to me to go out and create this thing we have. And at some point, I'm considering how social media will change and all the things that will change. So as an entrepreneur, I always have to consider where's the market going? Because whatever I'm doing now is. May not be what I'm doing tomorrow. So what am I really trying to create and how can I ensure that it's something that has a legacy to it? And so I'm really trying to build a brand, a brand that will stand the changes that are going to happen over the next five or ten years. And I generally like to tell people, if you're going to be a freelancer or a consultant, that's great. You know, build your business that way. If you're going to have a true brand, then you build it to sell, you know, which I don't have any intention of doing, but that's what I'm, you know, I'm building with that idea in mind so that everything that I do recognizes that new things will crop up. And to me then it just makes it fun.

So when you talk about building to sell, because I think, you know, we talk about this in scaling all the time. What does that. I know you're not looking to sell right now, but this idea, does that mean systems? Does that mean taking you out of the equation? What is it?

Oh, yes. When you're. I love your book. So, yes, I read it and I was like, yes, yes. This is so good. Yeah, absolutely. So, like, this year we just brought on a sales rep. So is the first time we. Actually, I. My background is partially in sales. I love it. I'm one of those people that gets all lit up when I get on the phone and talk to people. But yeah, in order to be something that is scalable, we have to, you know, push that out and make that sure that I'm not the one bringing in revenue. You know, the idea is, if I dropped off the face of the earth for a month, would the. Would the company grow and get better? Is one of the things we always have to gauge. So outside salesperson systems that are replicable, you know, we have a new membership site where the content is driven based on conceptual ideas, not on my Personality and things like that. So, yeah, making sure I'm definitely the face of the brand. But we want to make sure that the content and the movement and the ecosystem that we've created and the rules of our community and how we establish that and the safety and the meaning of everything is. Is something that can run without me. So, yeah, we try to establish that.

Yeah. And you're like the spokesperson of the brand. I love that. So what do you think are important things for business owners to know in such a crowded market of people trying to be the expert of this and that and getting noticed these days?

Yeah, well, I think. I think there's a couple things. One is definitely stop trying to please the masses. If you're gonna pick something, pick the exact kind of person that it serves and make sure that that's the person that you're speaking to. I'm a big believer that words matter. So if you don't know how to write and really create the story for you, then please hire somebody to write and create a story from you because it can make or break people getting excited. I always tell people, create your manifesto, your movement. Manife. Because if you can't use words that are going to attract people to you based on their belief system, then they're gonna. Nobody's gonna be attracted to you because if you're pleasing everybody, you're not pleasing anybody is basically the phrase, I think.

Right.

So I definitely think that, like, don't try and go big, go small, and you can. You'll end up expanding as potentially as you grow. So I definitely think that's one of the important things. I think one of the other really important things from the online space that people have a hard time with is that content creation is that they go, oh, well, I'm just gonna. What they do is they start with marketing without establishing the systems and the products within their business. So they have this thing that they spend all their time creating more content for to try to get more visibility, but the visibility doesn't get them anywhere because they don't know what their business is that they're really growing what they're known for, the one or two things. So we lose our focus trying out stuff because we never. We spend so much time creating marketing for the. For the thing we haven't established to sell. And then we. It doesn't work right off the bat because we don't have enough time to really get into the selling part of it, or we don't like to sell. And then we try and dabble in A bunch of different things. And then we think that maybe we're just not a good business owner when people are just doing it backwards. Make sure you know exactly what you're selling and what you want to be known for, and make sure that system is set up first. And then you flip to the 80% marketing and 20% actual implementation. So I think social media makes it hard for new business owners to not get caught up in that. In that sort of cycle.

Yeah, that's such good advice. And I think this is where people throw thousands of dollars away. You know, you're trying to attract certain customer. You don't really know who that customer is yet, you know, and really what they need. So that's great advice. And, you know, you've created this amazing tribe and it's grown very quickly. They're super dedicated. They repeat what you do, they share what you do. And so what do you feel is key right now? I mean, you see kind of tribes emerging, but what do you feel is key in creating the tribe and then keeping it to sustain and grow?

Oh, I love this. I just spoke at Social Media Marketing World on this very, very topic, and it got me. It gets me so excited to talk about, because I mentioned that I think that 90% of the Facebook groups out there right now are dictatorships and not, not maliciously. People don't mean to get up and, you know, tell people how things are. They do it because they think they have to manage it. And leadership isn't about managing. Leadership is about facilitating. And what we want to do is we want to facilitate bringing out the strengths in the people within our space. You do that within your team. You do that with your kids. You do that with your, you know, all of the situ. Your masterminds or whatever it is you're in. You do it within a community, too. So a tribe and a community is about leveraging people's strengths, which means if you pay attention, people will tell you what they want. So there is your natural policers, right? People be like, I'm shutting my Facebook group down or my community down because it's just too much work. I'm trying to manage all these things. I'm like, let other people do some of that work for you. There's the people that naturally want to tell you when someone's breaking the rules. They're the people that naturally want to be the person that, you know, gets is the shoulder to cry on. They're the people that naturally want to do. Be the trainers and be the experts in certain spaces. There's naturally the people that just want to nurture and be there to connect and be the connectors. And what you do in a real good facilitated community is you recognize and celebrate those roles and those people, raise them up so that you have tiers, just like you would in a company, tiers of almost management of different kinds of roles and spaces within your community that people just do naturally. And then they gain from that because they get clients and they get friends and they, you know, they get clout and all of those things. And so what I tell people is just be more of a facilitator. Stop trying to manage everything and control everything and let people naturally be helpful to you. And now, I mean, the Boss mom community is such an amazing ecosystem where we truly, I mean, we. In the last, I think three or four months, we've gotten three of our community members to number one bestseller in their category in Amazon just from Boss mom support. There are women who say their entire business is built off of Boss Moms hiring them. You know, we have this whole space where women are set. Like, my goal is to have a million women say the catalyst for my business was Boss Mom.

Yeah.

And that's. That's an important part. We want to be a jump starter for women to really give them the oomph to move forward. And part of that is not me not trying to be at the top, but me helping facilitate and raise other people up. And in doing so, I get referred business all the time.

Well, you know, it's interesting because what you're saying is you're saying two things. One is find the leaders in the group and elevate them to step up just like you would in your company. And two, really spread your mission over and over and over and get people inspired around the mission, which creates a movement. And that's exactly what you would do within a company. So in a sense, what you're saying is when you are creating this movement or this community, just treat it like this is your company, your team that you want to be inspired to run with it as if it's their own business.

Yeah. And I tell people that you can, because everybody gets metaphors. Metaphors make it easier to understand concepts. And so I tell them, think about if you're. If your community were an office building, would you have doors? Would there be cubicles? Would you have bright walls like you have. Would there be plants? Would there be, you know, like, free coffee? Would you have lounging places for conversation? Would you have creative spaces with round tables? You know, would Everybody have Fridays off. Like, what kind of culture would you want to cultivate where everybody's there all the time? Or where everybody's there a minimum amount of time so they can be with their families in other places? So I tell people, when you're thinking about any kind of culture, any kind of brand, culture, community culture, think about a physical space of what would you make it look like it? Would it be simple? Would it be complex? Would it be vibrant and fun? Would it be, you know, like, serious? Because some. Some spaces and culture, you know, spaces that people create should be serious. I had a friend tell me. She's like, I wish I could make people laugh like you. I seem to always just make people cry. And then I went to one of her. I spoke at one of her events, and it was amazing. She was bringing out these really deep parts of these women that needed to be heard. And they were hugging each other, and there was tears everywhere. I was crying, and I was like, oh, you've got a gift, honey. Don't try and make people laugh like, you stick with what you're good at. And this culture that we created is important. So deciding what you would think the physical view of the community that you're building would look like if it were in a building. And that'll help you visualize what the rules are going to be. Because the secondary part of the way to create a sustainable community is to protect it. So you have to know what the rules are. You have to know what the boundaries are. You have to know what you're gonna let in and kick out. Because we kick just as many people out as we let in. And if I don't protect that space fiercely, then people don't trust it. And people have to feel valued, and they have to feel safe. And that's the only way to create loyalty. And if we create loyalty in that way, then these women will stay. We have 72% of our group is active every single month of 37,000 people. And that's because we protect it fiercely.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's just like a team, too. If you let someone to come in on the team and they kind of turn everything upside down and you let them, what is the message that you're sharing? I don't care. I don't care. So really, really powerful and so shifting gears a little bit. What do you feel with moms? And, you know, I can talk about this all day long, but I would love to hear, because you're talking to so many moms, what do you feel that they struggle with the most in going full out for their dreams.

Yeah, well, the biggest thing we hear is time management. The balance, right, is what they say. The balance between being a mom, being an entrepreneur, being a wife, being a daughter, being, you know, all of those things. And what I try and tell people is that we have to start being really confident in our decisions because the reason you feel guilty or bad about staying.