She Hit 7-Figures: Now What? #FreedomFastLane

And so that's kind of my invitation to entrepreneurs who know they can create bigger success than they're doing right now is to recognize how the discomfort of not creating the success you want is actually the worst possible scenario. Not the yes that you'll get if you get it. Not the no or the rejection, but just that discomfort of playing smaller than you were meant to be.

Build a business, invest the profits. Hey guys, I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and this is Freedom Fast Lane.

What up Fat?

Yeah. Okay, so I don't nail every intro on the first go. Hey fastlaners, what's up? Ryan here from capitalism.com today I am going to be chatting with Sylvia hall, longtime listener, first time caller who built a seven figure business using a combination of a few of our courses and a lot of our free content. She does a really cool thing at the beginning. She talks about all the resources that she used that have been featured on the podcast, which is really, really cool. So if you're starting out, there's a whole lot of resources here for free@capitalism.com and Sylvia has a really fun story of how she solved a problem for herself, then released it to the market and was able to take that to a seven figure business. In this episode we talk about how to partner with influencers once you've got some traction. We also talk about whether or not she should go into retail and we talk about some of the pitfalls in keeping relationships with high level people when you're an entrepreneur. And sometimes this can be a lonely game. So we talk about how to build a base of relationships that keep you on top of as you are scaling your business. Hey, if you like this kind of format where I'm just taking questions from somebody who follows us. One of the things I've been experimenting with is just posting on Instagram when I'm taking calls and then dialing people, randomly recording them and then taking clips of them. And we're thinking about putting those together as some episodes. So make sure you're following us on Instagram. I'm @ryandaniel Moran and I'd love to hear your feedback on this type of a format. Until then, let's go chat with Sylvia.

Sylvia Hall. I feel like we have been, we've known each other for some time because you interact so frequently with my emails and social media stuff. But I'm excited to chat with you for the first time. Tell me what's going on and how I can help.

Well, Ryan, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here it's been a very long journey of getting this opportunity because frankly, I've been following your stuff for quite a while.

What's quite a while?

So I tweeted you two years ago and said, hey, just signed up for your biz Builder Boot Camp. Would love to be your next million dollar brand. Let's go ahead and get it scheduled. Which was pretty audacious, which is kind of my style. But you very kindly responded like, hey, get it started and then we'll do it.

And here we are.

Here we are. So that feels pretty awesome, if I must say so myself.

That's great.

We love the brand Builders Bootcamp. We love the tribe. We really enjoyed learning so much from that. But additionally, we've gotten a lot from your free content, too.

You've had a lot of really great guests on the podcast, and I kind of listed off some of these things that we've actually taken advantage of based on your recommendations. We went with Wealth Factory and helped get our finances in a row. We've used sellers funding to be able to leverage our cash in a better way. We've used Buyer launch. We've used Pay Per Click, Entourage, ppc, Entourage. And then last but not least, this one's my personal favorite. My husband found his current mentor, Jesse Elder, through your show.

Well, hot damn.

I know, right? Like, that's like the Ryan Daniel Moran lineup right there.

Well, thank you very much, Sylvia. I'm so glad it's been beneficial for you. You never know who you're impacting behind the screen, and that just makes my day. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you all. Good stuff.

Great. Well, tell me a little bit about the business and what you're trying to accomplish.

So I love to say that Lifted was an overnight success that only took me 10 years of entrepreneurial failure. And I use that word failure loosely because every single thing I ever started as an entrepreneur was a stepping stone.

I actually like to also say that I waltzed out of the womb an entrepreneur, never really being a very good employee. Let's just be honest about that. Luckily, my husband has been an excellent employee, and so he's been able to kind of be supportive of me and these entrepreneurial endeavors while I stayed home with our kids and kind of played around with different businesses. But about two years ago.

Well, it was probably about three years ago that I got the idea, but actually, the timeline is really iffy because, frankly, I was struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety after my second child, and that kind of led me down the path of the gut brain connection. And I realized there was a product I was looking for that did not exist. That's the money spot right there. Because as an entrepreneur, we love when we think of things that need to exist, that don't. And so that led me down the path of finding a manufacturer and all of those things. But somewhere around that timeline, too, I found you and your resources, and I was thrilled to just throw my money your way and say, help me do this right. Help me. I mean, seriously, There was someone else I was kind of following, but they didn't have a program, they didn't have an offering, and I was ready for a little more hand holding. And so your offering was exactly what we needed to learn how to grow a brand.

That's great. So you had postpartum.

After you became a mom, and you were looking for product, I'm assuming, a supplement that is now lifted your brand. And so you were looking for a specific combination of ingredients or a certain blend that didn't exist, and so you built it. Is that basically right?

Yes. Yeah. So I was going to the store and buying all these different combinations of probiotics and prebiotics because all of my research led me down. It's not just in your head. It's so in your gut. And serotonin, that feel good, chemical neurotransmitter that we all want. It's not just something you just take and put into your head. It all starts in the gut. And so that led me to that research, and I was then finding specific strains and species, putting them together in this concoction. I wanted a prebiotic, the specific kind of prebiotic, and I wanted a specific strains and species of probiotic, and it just didn't exist. And so here I was pouring. The prebiotic was from a sachet, like a packet. I had to pour it into something. And then I was taking, like, 10 of these junior probiotic capsules that had just the right strains and species I wanted, and I started to feel a difference. That's the other kind of benefit to being super hypersensitive like I am is that I use my body kind of like a guinea pig machine. I was like, hey, I'm feeling different. I'm feeling better. I think there's really something to this. And that was definitely where it all started.

That's great. So you're creating supplements for the brain or for the mood that go through the gut. What I love about that is nerds like you and me know that that's where a lot of the research is going, but there's not a lot of supplement brands that focus on that. There's general probiotic brands, but there's not a lot of. I really like your different spin on the market, so that's really cool.

So tell me where you're trying to.

Go next and how you'd like some help.

Well, yeah, so the other thing that's kind of interesting too, the different dynamic that I bring to it. As I mentioned that we had about 10 years of kind of stepping stone failures along the way. One of those was actually as a coach. I was growing a coach team practice. So I went through a phenomenal coach training program and I learned all about the mind and all about how our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive our actions and our actions create our result. That's the coaching model from Brooke Castillo. She runs the life coach school and I would say it's one of the best coaching schools. As you may or may not know.

Brooke is world class.

Yeah. So I studied under her. And so I just think it's kind of cool to put together this, this business where I'm sharing kind of these key insights, but weaving it in with the physicality of your digestion and the gut brain connection. And I really do believe that Lifted is a totally different company because of that unique value I bring as a coach who decided I no longer wanted to trade hours for dollars. And once again, the 10 years of learning the difference between being self employed and being a business owner. So the great news is I've broken through that and I now know there is a profound difference and I'm dancing in that realm. So once again just kind of setting ourselves apart. I feel like that was a big part of the lessons that we learned from you as far as speaking to these people that they don't just want a quick fix. They don't just want a medicine with a bunch of side effects. They want to experience change on every level. And so that's what we really try to do. So back to an area that I could use some support. So we've grown the business and now I feel like what's gotten us here won't get us there. I am really happy with where we are, but I know we can reach so many more people and we've just kind of made a little tiny drop and we could change so many lives. We can help so many people, but they need to know about us. And so I would just love kind of to play around in this area of knowing that it's a disservice not to get my amazing products in front of more people. What is the best, the best way to scale? Should I look into retail? Should I just consider doing my online marketing differently? I would love to just play in that realm.

Yeah. So for you, this is custom to you. I think you should be doing a lot of Instagram swipe up ads. Here's why I do not give this advice to everyone, but for you it feels right because you have a very clear differentiating factor that you can communicate in 15 seconds. And because of that, your ad writes itself. Because.

Most people are walking around with a low level anxiety and depression. It's why they're scrolling aimlessly through their phones.

Or is why they're scrolling or is that causing it? I mean, that's a whole nother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We could go down the rabbit hole there for quite a while. But your message is really, it starts right away with the reason why you're depressed is because of imbalances in your gut. Research after research after research is showing that the happy chemicals are made in the gut, not in the brain. And that's why we have higher levels of depression than ever before. Boom. Opening move. You have my attention.

That opening move would work on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and so you might want to record a minute long version of that ad, chop it up for the different platforms. I think Instagram is going to be your winner because it's where people scroll the most aimlessly.

And I would run that as, I would test it as.

At least in story or as a swipe up ad and as a in feed ad on Instagram and I might test it on YouTube as well. And then they both go back to a lead capture page on your website that sends them over to either your store or to Amazon. So to me, I think you have such a clear differentiating factor that you need to be doing video ads. And I have a feeling that that message would work very well.

Well, and kind of hearing you say that, sending them back to either our Shopify store, which we have, or our Amazon store, our presence on Amazon, that's the really tricky thing with our ads is that when we throw money at the ads, people even tell us, yeah, I clicked over to it and then I figured I'd check on Amazon and there you were. So it's kind of hard to balance and measure that conversion. And I know I can't be the first person that said that.

You're not. And to me the solution is to measure it on opt ins.

Okay.

So it's really Hard to measure that spillover to Amazon, but you can very easily measure the cost per opt in. And then after that, I don't care if they buy on Amazon or my own store.

Yeah, me neither.

I legitimately don't care. So I just want it in their home.

Yeah. I'll even have people ask me, like, they get really passionate about helping the brand, and they're like, but you make more money on your site. I'm like, but if you're paying for prime, please get your package in a couple days.

Okay.

Cool. So I would measure it on opt in.

Okay, great.

And you know, if you're getting leads for two bucks or less, you're doing pretty darn good.

Okay, well, we actually did a quiz opt in, which was really powerful. And it was like, which probiotic is best for you, or would a probiotic work for you? Unfortunately, they were like, we were getting them so fast and so cheap and so. But we felt like they weren't fully gauged or vetted. And so I just was like, okay, I don't need thousands of people to send emails to that aren't opening them and don't really care. Don't really know who we are. So that was kind of a little bit of the balance. But I know. I was just listening to one of your shows where you said, just give them a coupon and see. Yeah, who wants that?

That's exactly right. So what you just said, what you just outlined is a common frustration that people have when they're optimizing just for analytics and numbers, but they're not getting the people. It's such an oversight that we as marketers do or are guilty of because we see the numbers should be right. It's great to get these cheap leads, but are they the right leads? Are they framed the right way? And what matters more in your case is.

The blend in their belly.

Is their brain being optimized? And that's what that. That's ultimately what we need to measure for.

Mm, yeah, that sounds great. And I mean, we've done some of that ad stuff, but the swipe up, I think that you're right kind of targeting that. What comes to mind when you think of, like, influencer strategy? Because that's something I've put a little more time in. I've had my VA reach out to some people, and then I just kind of almost get so scattered where I'm just sending bottles out and then kind of not following up as good as I should or actually, this is really cool. So we went and Saw JP Sears and got a picture and a hug and whatnot. And I just kind of was like, you know, love you so much. Here's some probiotics. And I kind of threw him his way and they were in his cabinet, which was really cool because we saw a picture of it on Instagram and we were freaking out and then we didn't do anything about it. And I'm like, what do we need to do? I know it's like we're kind of making these steps, but it's also new to us. And how to like, better utilize the influencers, or do you think that is something that would be good for our product?

So there's a couple approaches here. I'm gonna start with the example you just sent me. You know, JP is one of my best friends.

Cool guy.

If you wanna lasso a JP Sears, you have to offer points in the company.

Assuming that they like the brand. Right. So if you wanna lasso somebody who's got a really big following, then you need to take a page out of Brian Lee's book and reserve part of the company for giving to influencers. The way that I do it is I'm carving out usually between 9 and 15% of the company for the right influencer or group of influencers. So, for example, I have one deal where the influencer can have as much as 10 points in the company assuming certain metrics are hit and assuming that metric is really just time, do we stick together for a certain amount of time? And then I reserve a few points for that person to bring in their friends. So do you have five people that you want to work with? Okay, cool. Then bring them into this business and we'll give them a point each. So if you want to go top tier influencer, that's the direction that you should go at your level. You don't need to go that way if you don't want to.

Well, so far we've been intentionally very strategic about not having any investors. I mean, this is my husband and I's thing. So it feels a little scary to be like, here have a part of this amazing, beautiful beast that I know has so much potential, but I'm not saying I wouldn't. It's just so far it's been really nice to not have. I mean, we move really quick with new products and new ideas because it's him and I just bouncing around the best ideas and the numbers and who we can help.

Yeah. I need to find a way.

To talk about.

The romanticism that entrepreneurs have over Equity.

I don't like. I understand it, but I need to find language that makes people see that they're not giving anything up. They're just the same way that they're trading time for dollars or they're trading dollars for an employee's time. Sometimes you trade other assets for something that's going to be much more. But all this to say, you don't have to do that approach if you don't want to. The other approach is instead of just throwing bottles here and there and all over the place, pick five to 10 relationships that would be meaningful to you, that are on a smaller scale, that they're people who either follow you or you follow them naturally. You're not trying to build new relationships. You already follow them. You might have already had some interactions. There's like the iron's warm but not hot. And you can open up a conversation with those five to 10 people and love on them as your inner circle. So it may not be the person with 2 million Instagram followers, but it might be the person who runs a blog and they have 10,000 email addresses.

If you have this tiny little ragtag team of micro influencers and micro, I really mean medium tier influencers, that is more than enough to do damage. You come out with a product launch and you give it to five people each with an email list of 10,000, you'll do just fine. So that would be the, that's like the tier one approach. And then coming out of the gate swinging is partnering with the influencer and giving them points in the company.

Okay, I'll definitely chew on it. It's just, it's new. It's a new concept of. And I definitely can see why you would say we romanticize this idea. It almost feels like when someone publishes a book and they're like, it's my baby. And sometimes these products do kind of feel like that, but it's not that. It's actually business and not personal. And so, yeah, moving to the next level might require that. Which kind of brings me to my next point that I just wanted to mention that I feel like other people might not even fully recognize, which is. Success is really actually kind of uncomfortable. Turns out.

Tell me more about what you need.

I mean, I love it. I'm. I'm truly manifesting this amazing business where I'm this close to bringing my husband home from his job. So we can work on this. Yeah, it's really awesome. It's been such a wild ride. But it's really uncomfortable to reach these newer levels. Of success that I've never really seen anybody do. It requires getting out of your own way in a way that if you're not self aware and willing, you will sabotage yourself again and again to keep yourself stuck.

I have nothing to add.

I know this is that coach in me coming out that I throw that hat on every once in a while because it's just so wild as we reach these different levels, levels of success, like, I just can't even quite put it into words, but it's almost like that silly, like, oh, it's lonely at the top, or more money, more problems, but I don't feed into any of that. Instead, I just feel like it's really fascinating to see the business grow, to know that it's going to grow so much more. And I'm changing at this pace that, I mean, for instance, I told you I'm mama bear and, and all the things I've been doing around our house, like, it's, it's comes to this place where it's like, that's not even smart for me to keep doing this.

Good.

And yet. Yeah, I know, but it's just this wild ride of getting out of my own way. And I think so many people would say, no, I really want the success. I'll be uncomfortable. But then it comes to making that pitch in the podcast. Oh, my gosh. Before I even sent this pitch to you, it was on my to do list. And I waited and I waited and I was like, I feel like I was going to throw up. And then finally, the discomfort of not doing the thing I said I wanted to do was big enough. And so that's kind of my invitation to entrepreneurs who, who know they can create bigger success than they're doing right now is to recognize how the discomfort of not creating the success you want is actually the worst possible scenario. Not the yes that you'll get if you get it, not the no or the rejection, but just that discomfort of playing smaller than you were meant to be.

Yeah, well, my working theory on the world right now is on a biological level, our brains are not wired to make us happy. They're wired to keep us, us safe. And so literally, when we do something new, part of the brain thinks we're going to die.

Yeah.

And so of course, change is going to be difficult because the brain is saying, well, this, like, I haven't survived through this yet. This is dangerous.

So the hack to it is to just constantly be surrounded by people who are normally doing what you think is impossible.

Yeah, that's on the next list, like, the brain loves to normalize. And so if you. And I think that that's kind of our challenge, and that's one of the reasons my husband loves going to Jesse's events, is because he gets around these people that are thinking different and thinking bigger. And so that's kind of one of our challenges as a couple is, like, we want to be around people who are passionate, ambitious, but spiritual, AF and like, you know, it's hard to find those people sometimes. Do you have any tips on that?

Where do you live, Sylvia?

We're in Kansas City, Missouri.

Okay. So it's not like you're in the middle of nowhere.

There are plenty of places to get plugged in. In my experience, it has usually started by going to events where I know those people are drawn.

And those are usually put on by people I follow, people that I admire, people that I know. So you at least can get your yearly dose of it by going to events where you know that type of person is gonna be there, and then it's networking from there. I also do regularly keep a list. Like, I can pull it up right now. I'm looking at it. My list of relationships that I will move heaven and earth to prioritize. So my mentor Travis, my best friend Mark, members of my team, and certain friends that I've just decided, for whatever reason, I'm on your team. And the reason I tell you that is because in today's world, it's so easy to be connected and lonely at the same time, where we have all of these shallow relationships and shallow friendships that we're starved for depth. There's just a lack of depth. So the only way that you can do that is to choose who you're gonna go deep with. It's to choose who your inner circle is gonna be. And that takes time. But most of us never choose. Most of us are just managing these surface level relationships for the majority of our lives. So I've made the decision to just prioritize a handful of relationships within the Austin, Texas area and then a few people that I would travel to see, and then also keeping a warm circle of more people that jive with what I'm about. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, for sure. And it kind of brings to mind the idea of urgent versus important. It's not urgent to find these people, but it's really important. And as a business owner, it can be tricky sometimes to not catch yourself in the path of doing all these urgent things, but yet it is really important. To spend time with people that bring you closer to who you know you can be. That's great. Let's see. One more question and I would love to hear just your thoughts on this idea of retail and no retail. Right now we are only available on Amazon and our online shop.

You're pacing about a million dollars, is that right?

Yeah, a little above.

I would hold off.

Okay.

And the reason I'd hold off is because there's too much. You're too close to hitting 3 or 5 million before you make that plunge. Retail is great awareness and great distribution, but it's a bitch and a half. Whereas you can really double down on what you're doing now and see three, five, even 10 times what you're doing right now. When you have one ad hit, when you have one influencer connect with you, when you have one product go semi viral in a specific group of people. Like I have, for example, I have, I have a friend who runs a little food company who found a raving audience in the Weight Watchers community. Wasn't targeting them, but now they're his like raving fans. So you're too close to gold to go wide. So I would continue to go down.

Diving deeper into the customers that you have and your most raving fans right now before I would spread out and go really wide. My experience is that that can be a really great ego boost and if you don't have the infrastructure for it, it can totally crumble, which is the opposite of an EcoBoost. So I would I double down on where you're focused right now and wait until you're at at least 3 to 5 million and you can afford to have a proper team in place to go retail.

That makes sense. And then let's chew on this idea a little bit. Given that I'm not going to put that attention there and I am going to put the attention on these 15 second to 1 minute videos. I currently am very much the face of our company. My husband is very much the detail oriented finisher and I'm kind of the visionary starter. And so we work together pretty good and kind of tapping into those gifts and appreciating each other for what we can and can't do. But I've currently, like I said, been the face. Like, do you think that it's beneficial for me to continue to be that face and to put it in my own words, or do you think that having a more diverse actor that targets different people is what we should look into?

So that was not the direction I thought you were gonna go. I thought you were gonna ask me, is it okay for me to say the face, or should I switch over to, like, corporate? Like, more of a brand than a person? Let me just answer your question directly. No. Do not hire an actor, okay? The conversions will plummet and it will lose its authenticity.

Okay?

It does not need to be you, but it does need to be someone who authentically cares about the brand and the direction of the company. Right now, you are the best person for that role, okay? So I would not change anything about that until further notice. So. I don't even like that. Capitalism.com's content always depends on me, but I just haven't found anybody who cares as much as me about the message of the business. So until that changes, it's going to be me, and until it changes for you, it's going to be you. And you can address that as soon as the financials and the.

Vision of the business warrant that. But I don't think that's right now.

Okay, cool. I'll keep being the face. I'll tell you what, though, there's some creepers on the Internet, so I've noticed.

I mean, I've had people talk about my feet and things that don't even have anything to do with probiotics. Okay, Your feet?

Oh, that's. I haven't gotten that one. I've gotten some pretty creepy messages, but never about my feet.

You gotta toughen up out there if you wanna, you know. But the good news is I'm laser focused on what I'm doing, and so I can handle the comments about my feet or my hair or whatever everyone thinks they need to comment on. So, yeah, I'll keep you in the face. That's fine to take that.

Well, Sylvia, I'm enjoying this conversation. So do you have anything else you want to run by me?

You know, I've been checking off my list all sorts of really great insights, so I really do appreciate that.

No, I think that I've got lots of great things to work on.

All right, great. Well, I think I will give you a shout out next time I see Brooke Castillo. And I so enjoyed this conversation. Thanks so much for building a business that matters. I should probably give you the same accolades you gave me. I didn't know that there was a Hall family behind the screen who was following all my work so closely and taking my recommendations. And you probably don't recognize all the people that you're impacting as well. So keep on changing the world, Sylvia.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

If you enjoyed Sylvia's story and you're sitting there thinking, hmm, I wonder what my cool idea is. We have a couple of resources for you that will help you identify what product you should sell in your business. If you go over to capitalism.com start, you can download a guide that we've got that is all about how to identify when you've got a winner and when you're ready to pull the trigger. You should go through our 21 day challenge inside of Million Dollar Brands. We don't always have this publicly open, but Million Dollar brands is a 21 day challenge to help you outline those three to five products that'll sell 25 sales a day and which would mean it was a million dollar business. So if you go over to capitalism.com brands you can see if it's open. And the cool thing about that is when you complete the training, which is, you know, it takes a few minutes a day, it's free, we give you your money back, you just gotta actually complete it. So it takes a few minutes a day for 21 days, you'll have your business outlined and then you are off to the races and you even get your money back. So that's@capitalism.com brands. Special thanks to Sylvia for being featured on the show. It's an honor and a privilege to hear from success stories. So if you've got yours and you want to be on the show, write to us. I'm ryanapitalism.com or if you go over to capitalism.com fflpodcast you can apply to be on the show. It's a privilege to speak with you guys. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode.