83: Michelle Pippin: Creator of Women Who Wow

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners increase the revenue with digital products and automated sales funnels. In this podcast, we tell the stories of ordinary business owners just like you. We talk about their story and how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. And these are discussions with real people who understand what it's like to own an online course or membership business. Before we begin our show today, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by our flagship Course in a Box program which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is available on AppSumo at a special deal and you can learn more about Course in a Box by visiting the link in the show notes. Let's jump right into our show.

And today my special guest is Michelle Pippin. Michelle is the Proud Founder of WomenWhoow.com, the most exclusive association of women business owners in the world. Now boasting members in 50 states and eight countries, Women who Wow has provided a place for seriously driven women entrepreneurs to to create wild success on their own terms. At the helm of wow, Michelle sets the tone for women in business to accept no excuses, especially their own, and to preserve unreasonable goals. But her confidence in being able to make money on your own terms without compromising your priorities is what women entrepreneurs need more than anything else. Michelle, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to delve into your story and to learn more about your entrepreneur journey.

Oh, I couldn't be more excited to be here. I've been looking forward to it all week.

So, Michelle, why don't you jump right in and tell the audience a little bit more about your journey and to how you got to where you are today.

Yeah. So, you know, today I run the coolest online sisterhood of women entrepreneurs in the world. Right. Like, but it didn't start out that way. I mean, I began my entrepreneurial journey as a very young, very pregnant mother and or mother to be. Right. And I'm married to a public school teacher who is my, my soulmate, my very best friend, my greatest treasure on this earth. Right. But neither of us had family money anywhere. We get married. I was a social worker at the time and he, he's a public school teacher. And we decided to have a family and I had this idea that I just wanted to be there for my kids for every little moment. Right. So the idea of like a daycare, even a family day it didn't appeal to me. And that's no judgment on anybody who does it another way, Right? But I just wanted to be there for every moment. And yet I had to bring in a full time income. And so when my oldest was born, I actually took $50 out of our savings. And at the time, to give you perspective, we had $213 in savings. That's like what we had put away. And So I took $50 of that and I bought a roll of stamps and I think maybe business cards, which I never used, but I bought that and therein began my entrepreneurial journey. And in that first year, I made $63,000. This, my oldest is 22 years old, just to give you a little bit of a timeline. And I made $63,000 working from home around a baby's schedule with no business training, no website. I never attended a networking meeting, right? Like, so I was just breaking all of the rules. And I didn't even know I was a success. Success, because in my mind, I was sort of cobbling together an income. I wasn't starting a business, right? I live in a very rural area of North Carolina, and they actually still don't offer a business license. So I never really felt like a business owner. I just was cobbling together an income. And from there I started to finalize things, right? I started formalized things. I started a real company, I guess, where I did hr, provided HR services, and then I went into coaching. And so that's been my journey. Just really gutting, bootstrapping it, going it alone and making it up as I went, right? You remember, if you remember, and people who are grizzled veterans like myself, you know, back in the day, 22 years ago, it wasn't easy to find, say, a business coach. Certainly there was no one out there doing a podcast or, you know, a YouTube station on teaching you how to grow an online business or develop your own courses, right? So people today have it a lot easier in a lot of ways. But back then, we just kind of had to make it up on our own. And today I run Women who Wow. I created Women who Wow essentially because I wanted a place for women like me, right? Like, we're very, very diverse in our membership, diverse in every way, like race, religion, political affiliation. But we're united by two things. One is our drive, right? We think bigger than most other people. We dream and scheme and we intend to reach our goals. But we're also united by our stubbornness. We intend to do things our own way. We're not willing to give up our life in order to make a living. And so I started Women who Wow to create a home really for those women, kind of a one stop shop place where they can have a sisterhood and also a mentor, a library of content, all of that. But also I created it because I wanted to streamline my own work. Right before I started Women who Wow, I was a really high paid business consultant, like strategic consultant I used prior to that I got paid to write copy, like sales copy for people. And so I was making amazing money, more money than I ever thought possible. But I had a lot of appointments and my writing time was spent writing for other people and anybody on here. If you're a creator, a messenger, you know, like you have your own stuff inside. And I kind of felt like boxed in a little bit to a success that I no longer loved. And I just wanted to kind of streamline it to where I could get paid to create my own content and not have to write copy for everybody else. And that's really where my current business in its current iteration was born.

So let me ask you this. So 23 approximately years ago, was that in 97 or 98 when you took out those?

Yeah, that would have been 22 years ago. So that would have been in 1999.

1999. So you took $50 out of your savings account which only had dollar in it and said, you know, I'm going to create this income for, for myself and for my family, to support my family. And you started initially, you said providing like HR services type thing. What, what, how did you go out and find clients right then? And what exactly were you Tell us a little bit more about what you were doing.

Oh yeah. So that first year I lovingly refer to as my anything for money tour. Right. So, so if I could do it from home, around my kids schedule and it was like almost legal, then I would do it. And I didn't start the HR business right away. My first year I was essentially, I literally called myself an at home secretary because the term virtual assistant hadn't been created yet. So I did everything back then that first year from writing resumes for people, I wrote water reports for U.S. embassies overseas. A side note, anybody who travels to U.S. embassies overseas, don't drink the water. I, I basically, you know, I wrote up, I made created sales letters, I created thank you letters from political campaigns mean literally anything that I could do on a computer back then with mainly fax or sometimes email printing stuff up and mailing it, that's what I did. How did I get those first clients? That first year, I wrote a one page letter that I printed at my aunt's office using the printer in her office, and I printed that and I mailed it. You know, I just, I had been married not long ago, right at this time, and so I had like our wedding list and I mailed a one page letter to anybody who might know me or my parents or my husband and his parents and essentially said, here's the deal. I am working from home, and if anything can be done on a computer or fax or email or phone, then I can do it. But I didn't mail all of the 100 letters out at one time. I mailed them out. And I don't know where I got this idea. Just, it made sense to me. I mailed them out 10 at a time. So it mailed the first 10, and then I would spend that week connecting with those 10 people, following up on the direct mail piece with a phone call. Hey, did you get my email? Can we talk about what's going on? And that's how I mailed those letters out. I instinctively knew I wouldn't be able to follow up with all 100 at once. So I mailed 10 at a time and called 10, mailed another 10, called 10, and I just started, you know, asking them what they needed done, whether it was personally or their, their company that they worked for. And so that's how I got those first clients.

That's fascinating. It reminds me of just like getting on the phone and just calling people. You don't, you don't do that as much today. So. So take us through the next five years. What. How did your business evolve from there?

Yeah, so the next five years, honestly, it probably didn't evolve by that much. I did start curating the work that I did because I realized once I realized, like all this work from home thing can work, I was less desperate. Right. I had kind of proven the concept to myself. So I started curating the work that I did. I would, you know, not. I wasn't on the Anything for money tour anymore. I would, I would do almost anything for money, essentially. Right. But you know, those first five years, I can honestly say at that time then I had three kids, right. So my kids are stair steps and I had three kids and they were all at home. I would end up later homeschooling them, so they stayed home and. But I can tell you, I mean, something I'm not really proud of, but those early Years were marked by a feeling, like a constant feeling of, you know, being broke, right? Like a constant thinking about money. Like, you know, I'd wake up in cold sweat, like think about how I was going to pay my student loan bill that month. It was. And, and it's funny because sometimes we think it's the rich people who think about money all the time. And in my experience, I've, I've had money and I've not had money. It was when I didn't have money that I thought about money all the time. It was, you know, back then I had to wait on paper checks in the mail and so. And then you had to cash them and they might hold the check or whatever or God bit. It might not go through. So, you know, those five years, I feel like we're marked by some financial insecurity. Even though I never made less than $63,000 a year, right. Like it always grew, however it was still I felt insecure a little bit. Right. Like I was, I was always waiting on money. It kind of felt a little bit like feast and family. And, and so it was, it was during that, probably towards the end of those five years that I got super deliberate and I just decided that things had to change, that I wasn't willing to live, like nervous about money, checking the mail, checking the PO Box, all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, I hate to say it, but those first five years, and it doesn't have to be that way, if you're in the beginning of your business, you don't have to put in five years of servitude to anxiety and stress. I started to learn things that allowed me to do more of what worked, to bring money in and to charge higher prices and all that. I started to let go of things that were just BS in the industry and it really, it helped me curate my, my business in a way that led to just more of what I wanted, which is income impact and influence.

So how did you, what changes did you make? And walk now, you know, you know, fast forward to like 2010. I'm assuming you started using social media and you had, there was just more in the market tools at your disposal. So what did you do differently then?

Yeah, to be totally honest, I'm kind of a slow adopter. So I remember my assistant at the time, very, very part time assistant that I had hired, she basically begged me to get on Facebook and I was like super reluctant. Right. So I really didn't use social media. I continued to use direct mail. It's a Proven thing. If you look up any like the, you know, Inc. 5000, they're all using direct mail in addition to social media. But I'm very much an analog kind of person. So it wasn't the social media or the new tools that came on board that changed. But honestly, I just decided to think differently about my business. If you remember, when I went into business, it was 22 years ago and so you heard rumors maybe of women working from home, but you didn't know anyone personally. There were no mentors you could find if you read articles about women working from home, they were licking envelopes or something. So I just decided that I would stop looking at my business as like this way where I would be, oh, so grateful to make ends meet, right? Like, and I was, I was totally. I was always grateful to be able to make money on my own terms, even though I didn't feel like it was enough money or it wasn't secure enough or whatever. But there was a moment that I just decided I would stop thinking in terms of making ends meet that I decided to go for more, right? To ignore the rules, do it my own way and just push forward. Right. And a big part of that was admitting what I really wanted and was going after. Like, so when I grew up, I grew up on a little farmet and, and I, I'm from a family and my granddad, my grandparents on both sides were sharecroppers. I, you know, grew up in a very working class environment. I, you know, work is noble where I come from, right. Like, and for my kids too. My kids are now, they're will be 19 this summer, but 18, 20 and 22. And people say like, how do you get your kids to work like this? And I'm like, well, it ain't multiple choice in my house, right? Work is noble. But I grew up in a way where hard work was noble. And so to be a young mother and to be thinking big, like I wanted to go national at the time, never intended to go international. And I really don't ever hold. I still don't hold that out as a goal, but, but like it just kind of happened. People move different places or whatever. But you know, I started to think in terms of what I really wanted was, which was national influence. I wanted to change the way women viewed work. I wanted to empower women to make a living in a way that made them proud and also allowed them to be the mother and wives that they wanted to be. Like, I just started embracing what I really wanted and then I went after it, as if my life depended on it, which it kind of did, right? Like, I never. I don't want to die with my music still in me. I know that I'm given this one life. I'm 44 years old as we're recording this, and I just went after it. I decided I'd do whatever it took for as long as it took, until I finally felt like I was achieving my own potential. And that was a deciding moment in my business. And I actually just wrote about this recently for one of my online courses. But I feel like sometimes women in particular play coy with their potential, right? They play coy with their goals. They often don't admit the grandeur of what they really want. And I didn't either, though I was very held back by that. So the day that I decided I'm no longer interested in making ends meet, that's a given. I'm no longer interested in some local business. I want national influence and impact. I'm going to go after it. I'm going to be on major stages. And as soon as I decided that, it was like, you know, the world opened up to me. At the same time, full disclosure, my husband back. You know, he's still my husband, but back then, he was really, like, he was nervous about me flying. And I remember around that time, he picked up one of my. One of my business books by Dan Kennedy, and he said, he read the beginning and he said, you know, everything this man is saying, it describes you. And he kind of like, he didn't give me permission. It's not the way our relationship works. But he kind of released me a little bit. He's like, wherever you need to fly, like, you just need to. You need to go wherever you need to go. And it was funny because. Because as I decided what I wanted, everything started falling in line. And I've had, like, Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, come and speak at my events. I've shared the stage with. With Susie Orman and, you know, and tons of other big names, right. And it just. It just sort of happened when I decided, when I stopped playing coy and started admitting what I really wanted.

And what year was that, Michelle?

That was right around, I would say, 2000. 2000. Well, 2008, my business started really taking off my business coaching and copywriting business because all of the sudden my $50 investment in business seemed really attractive because in 2008, people's credit dried up, right. If you remember the recession. And so my kind of bare bones, bootstrapping Thing became really attractive. So my business really took off then and I would say around 2009, 2010 is when I really started holding events in different cities around Century and you know, then maybe started to get a little bit into social media but you know, started started traveling more, speaking more and that it was right around 2009, 2010.

So walk us through, you know, obviously, so that's been about 12 years ago or getting close to it. So walk us through what changes happened in your business after that. I know now you have online courses that you offer. Walk us through when you decided or why you decided to add that to your portfolio and kind of the rationale behind that.

Yeah, so I've actually been doing memberships probably since about 2011. I started my first membership which I called the Coaching Gym because I am super creative like that. Right. So I called it the Coaching Gym. And the benefits were you got to call in and talk with me once, twice a month. And you reported in via E. Coaching via email once a week. And the tools I used were email and a MagicJack phone, if you remember. Like it was like a little jack that you plugged into the wall. And so I would plug in a phone to that jack during call in hours. And the way it worked, nobody had appointment setting software back then, or at least I didn't know about it. So people would call in and if it was busy, they'd call back. That was the whole system. But honestly it was I think $97 a month. It was grossing about 10,000 doll every month. And so quite a successful little membership. I had just very, very basic back then. And so I just decided that at the time. So between 2009 and maybe 2012, I was traveling a lot. For me, for me that was like once a month. And sometimes I would have a month where I traveled twice. And I honestly am a homebody. I am like a step above a recluse. Right. I love my home, I love my family, I love my dogs, I love my office. So I was feeling kind of like I was getting. Becoming ankle chained to a success I didn't love. I didn't love the. It looked, it looked glamorous and it looked fancy. And to be totally frank, I mean that did grow my brand, but I didn't enjoy it. And so I decided that I would just replace all of that travel and speaking on other people's stages with having my own events, like continuing to do my own events. Smaller, more intensive and more expensive mastermind kind of live events and digital programs. And it was just another iteration. Like, you know, from the very beginning, that first year when I was on the Anything for Money tour, to where I started curating a little bit more about the work that I did, right. Not taking on any kind of job to where the HR business came in. I've always been curating what I do, how I make a living, and I feel like it's an ongoing process, the same way we work on ourselves. Right. It's like as I get new ideas or inspiration or you know, like right now I am an empty nester and so my life looks different. So my hours change a little bit. And my husband is a teacher, so he has been home since March of 2020. So we're both working from home. We're living our best life ever. But yeah, it's just been a constant process. And I encourage people always to don't get locked in to even like what you said you were going to create. As new options present themselves to you, you know, really follow that blueprint that you have inside, follow your inspiration, because that's the only way to create a business that's a perfect fit for you.

So you talked about the membership that you had, the coaching gym, and then how you transitioned to kind of doing also your own events. What are your products and services look like today now that you're an empty nester, all the kids are out of the house and hopefully at college and maybe even your husband's going back soon. What are you doing today in your business?

Business, yes. So and I, for the record, I don't want my husband to go back. I'm basically begging him to retire every day. Right. I love him being home. And so, yeah. So what do they look like today? So I, the core of my business is the women who wow membership. And so that is really like, I call it a container membership. Right. So people join, they either pay quarterly or they pay annually. And when people join, they come to women who wow as a place to begin, belong and become. Right. So we're all up to something. So the core of my income really is that women who wow membership. I also have a higher level mentorship program called Women on a Mission. And so those are for women who are after that national, international success. They are interested in national media like that kind like they're just at a different. They're at that moment where they're like, this is going to happen, going to happen. Right. So they get, they, they kind of hop out of women who have membership and into more of a direct mentorship with me. All along though, I feel like I want to share this with you guys because I've created a way that I feel like is so incredible to make money. So within membership I do weekly trainings, right? So that's one of the benefits of membership. Well, a while back I decided like, why am I creating like weekly trainings for my members and then like, like outside online courses for other people. So I started to do what I call intensives within membership. So as an example, our last intensive we just wrapped up the end of April was. It was called, it was called called like for women who are called to more, right? And so it has a bunch of different trainings and you know, monthly. One of the member benefits is the entrepreneurial espresso. It's served up hot and fresh every morning. It goes out via email. And so that whole intensive was focused on the woman who feels called you. How do we bridge the gap between, you know, our purpose and our need to make money right now? How do we put more of ourselves into the market? All of that was the focus right now here's the deal. I no longer just do those things within membership. What I do is I will launch an intensive to the outsiders, right? To people who are not within. Wow. They think they're joining just a digital course, a digital program, right? But when they join that they are following along with the women who wow members. And then I get to invite them to continue the relationship and join women who wow. And a very high percentage of them do. So now it's like I almost double dip, right? So instead of saying, hey, join my membership, join my membership. Which frankly is really kind of a hard sell. Memberships feel not as urgent, right? So it doesn't have a start date, doesn't have an end date, that kind of thing. And so now I'm like, I don't even really mention membership as much. I promote the next course that goes live in the membership. And then people kind of join without knowing, right? They join the program and they get to, they're asked if they want to join to be, you know, to get the additional benefits of membership.

So I want to ask a couple of questions there because I just want to make sure that I understand, because I think, I think I understood your model, but correct me if I misunderstood anything. So basically what you're doing, you're. It's an intensive, but basically it's a new course, right, that you're offering to the market. So that's what you're promoting. And then if somebody joins that, they're Automatically in the membership or so. Okay, tell me how you work that.

Yes. So they actually, they will join, they'll get the live trainings and of course the recordings. They will get the, the daily like kick in the pants, which we call the Entrepreneur Espresso. So they get all of the content when they join the online program. Right. But they could upgrade and get all the additional benefits of membership. Right. So they'll buy, let's say they buy the course for $247, right? They buy the online course and that is an amazing deal. They get the content, they get the live Q and A, they get the, the, the daily kick in the pants, they get all of that. But you know, if they were members, one, they'd be paying less. Even if they paid, you know, by the quarter they'd be paying less. But they'd also get one on one time with me at their annual members. They'd also get the co working space which is kind of like a, it's a four hour like virtual co working space at the end of every month where we are really like, we're coaching each other, we're mentoring each other and we're also just getting stuff done. So there's a lot of benefits that they're missing out on by just buying the course.

Okay, I love that, I love that launch strategy. And you've been doing this for a while so you, I'm assuming, making the assumption here that you probably have a pretty big email list, but how are people finding you for these launch intensives? How are you marketing it?

Yeah. So for anybody starting out, I'll tell you, like this mindset that, that has been really helpful to me and also for our members. Whenever I put content out there, I assume that no one, including my mother, is going to see it. Right. Like a lot of times we will go out to social media and we will focus on getting our social media numbers up. I do not do that because I've worked with too many people with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram or whatever and they just not making the money they deserve. So I don't put a lot of focus there, but I do, I put my content out, out on a regular basis. I show up in content every single day. Right. I believe if something's worth doing, it's worth doing daily. And I mean to lead this industry. And so I don't think it's too much to ask to show up and converse with this industry on a daily basis. So what I do is I create content and then I make sure, it's seen. So I create content for my own purposes on my website and on my Facebook page. I do daily resources for the women entrepreneur, but I also have a weekly commitment to be published elsewhere. So I'm publishing, published in business.com, i'm published in Authority magazine, I'm interviewed and published on various podcasts. So I have a big commitment to media and I'm not talking about big media. So I have a media event every year and we have the Rachel Ray show there and the Drew Barrymore show there and we've got Dr. Oz and all that big media. But what I found is not only easier to get into but also much more profitable is to find niche industry specific media and go to them, provide content if you're a writer, be interviewed if you're not a writer. But that's really been my strategy is I call it, you know, other people's stages and pages. Right. And, and so it's been something where people will say, oh, I feel like I'm selling to the same people all the time. I feel like I need new people on my list, but they're continuing to produce content for those same people. I have a weekly, I mean, at a minimum once a week I show up on somebody else else's stage and page.

I love that strategy, Michelle. And I think it's, I think it's a powerful message for all of us. So tell me, what do you see as next steps in your business? You pivoted all over the years, so.

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm a one trick pony, right? So like more of the same for me, right? More of the same. Bigger audiences, a bigger reach, a deeper focus. Actually that's where I'm going now. Like I'm in the middle of an online course right now called Naked A Business Devotional. And it's all about, it's all about putting yourself, you know, more of yourself out there, honoring who you are as part of your success plan, you know, not doing things that start to ankle chain you to a success you don't like, like really building the business around you. So I, what's new for me and continuing to evolve is I'm all about the strategy, right? I'm a very practical, pragmatic person. So I'm all about the strategy. But I've also gotten much more into just honoring myself as part of that process. I'm listening by intuition, being more vulnerable online. So I think there's more of that. What's coming up for me, I've got Some pretty huge opportunities and some pretty fun and exciting stages and pages that I'm going to be on in 2021. And so yeah, it's just more of the bringing more and more women entrepreneurs under this umbrella where they can create their a wild success story on their own terms. And for me, that's what lights me up.

So my closing question is, Michelle, you've been doing this for a while, ever since you pulled out that $50 from your checking account when you only had 213 in there.

Savings account. Savings account, yeah.

Oh yes, the savings account. Same thing. What advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

Yeah, you know, I think I would, I would have, you know, three pieces of advice. The first is to remember that there is an 80 plus percent failure rate. And my philosophy on this is that they are all following the wrong advice. You know, these four out of five that people that fail and constantly have to reinvent themselves and start a new business and a new company and all this stuff like, like they, they're listening to each other, they're following each other's advice, they're cheering each other on on the treadmill of business. They only realize they're not getting anywhere, right? So, you know, the first advice is ignore the shoulds of your industry. Ignore them. They are leading to a way too high failure rate. Right? So that's the first thing we should question the rules and shoulds and norms of our industry, particularly if you want to break those norms income wise. The second piece of advice I think is to just do it right. Like don't wait until you have a certain number of people on your list. I think my first real digital program was born in, I don't know, like 2006 or 2007. And I maybe had 400 people on my list. My first live event. I mean, I maybe I don't know If I had 200 people on my list, right? And I still made, I think I made like $1,800. Not, not a huge amount. But just start right where you are. Ignore what people say you have to have up front if you have something that you want to offer people that will definitely help them offer now, whether it's a course, an event, a program, whatever you're thinking, start now because you are going to wish later that you had started earlier. And the third piece of advice is to honor yourself as part of the program. You know, like build this business around you. Burnout is not about the number of hours that you work. Burnout is about doing the wrong work. Work drains you versus energizes you. So do it your own way.

And I think that's some great advice. Michelle, can you let people know where they can find you?

Absolutely. You can find me at tribe of driven women.com tribe of driven women.com and actually, I'm going to, I'm going to look that up really quick because I'm now I'm wondering if, yeah, I was thinking it was going to be maybe the Tri the tribe, but it's not Tribe of Driven Women. And that will give you all of our free stuff, where to Find me, my podcast books where I show up daily, all of that stuff.

And I will make sure, Michelle, that that link, that specific link is in the show notes so they know exactly where to find you. And thank you so much for joining me today. I loved hearing about your story and, you know, the kind of the twist and the turns and the different things that you have done all over the years. And I know a lot of people can appreciate and relate to what you've gone through.

Through. Awesome. Thank you for having me. It was so amazing. Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you love the show, we'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.