Ep.40 What's it Like to Be in the Room with Ryann Dowdy

Reaching the million dollar mark in your business opens a lot of doors and conversations.  However, only 4.2% of women owned business hit a million dollars.  Imagine if we start having conversations earlier.  Ryann is changing the game.

Ryann Dowdy is the founder of Be in the Room, a leadership collective of high achieving women.  She's a community builder, a best selling author and a business consultant.  Listen up as we dive right in to what happens when you surround yourself with women who inspire you.

In this episode, we chat about:
1. Taking messy action to refine your offer
2. The importance of getting it in writing
3.  Ditching the guru status

Go here for full show notes and links!

Resources:  Want to know 7 things you can do today to make leaving corporate easier?  Grab it here!

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Transcript

Ryann Dowdy: 0:00

And that's why I say we don't serve the beginner market because in the beginning, you do need a coach you do need, you do need a step by step guide. I know I did, right. And I know that in my first business, that's how we helped people. There eventually comes a time in your business where it's not another $30,000 coaching program. It's not another certification. It's not another core. It's not another tactic. Right? Right or strategy. It's the people right? It's the perspectives it's the ideas.

Jamie Stephens: 0:26

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Breaking up with corporate each week I chat with everyday women that ditch their nine to five to bet on themselves. We break down their journey into entrepreneurship, unpack the lessons learned and create the vision of how this life gets to be if you're willing to get uncomfortable and step into your potential. I'm your host, Jamie Renee, to time corporate escapee and coach to burnout women looking to plan their escape. Let's go Hello, and welcome back to a another episode of Breaking up with corporate today. I have Ryan dowdy on the show. And Ryan is founder of be in the room a collective of a leadership collective of high achieving women. She is a community builder, a business consultant and a best selling author. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Unknown: 1:17

Hi, I'm excited to be here, Jamie. Yeah.

Jamie Stephens: 1:20

So I just want to jump right into your story that you have got such a collection of things that you're doing now that I want to get started a little bit with the backstory so we can spend more time on what you're doing now because it sounds all kinds of exciting.

Unknown: 1:33

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. So yeah, I actually that 15 year corporate career, I started selling radio advertising Orlando, Florida at the age of like 21 years old. My entire career in sales, really fell in love with sales, sales, training, sales enablement. So started working in the startup space back in 2011. And helped company build companies build sales organizations, right? So we're going to hire a sales team, how do we train them? What do we do with them all that different stuff I never intended to become an entrepreneur, to be honest, any I wasn't sales, right. Like a lot of control of VanCamp. I had a lot of freedom a lot of time. And it wasn't until I landed my dream job. I was the Director of Sales for a digital marketing agency here in Kansas City. I had traveled for years, this job required no travel, I just had a baby, that baby is five and starting in a couple of days. And I went back to work and this this job that was supposed to be amazing. And it wasn't like total come to Jesus moment where I was like, this cannot this caveat like this can't be all that God put me on this planet to do. And at the time, even then it wasn't like start a business, right? It was bigger just needed an industry change, right had been in marketing and advertising in some way, shape, or form for so long. You know, I've been in sales for so long, like maybe there was some other way to do this. And through networking, learned about online entrepreneurship and the ability to take the skills that you have that like people would pay for that now what that's a blink of an eye and united sold marketing to traditional businesses, right to brick and brick and mortar businesses, and all those other things. But it didn't occur to me that like consulting and coaching and like I said, packaging up, you know, your your, your expertise that people would pay you for that. So what I liked about that, I wish I could tell you that like all the light bulbs went off, but it still took me a little bit longer to figure out that like what I was doing in corporate and building a training sales teams very much led to entrepreneur world. And this was before the great resignation had a name. There were women still leaving corporate in droves, but struggling to grow their businesses. Right. And I learned it was because there was Zales issue right. And unlike sales, had a bad relationship with sales didn't know how to do it didn't know how to start conversations with strangers that build relationships and solve problems and all of those things. So my first iteration as an entrepreneur, I was teaching sales to new entrepreneurs. That was wildly successful, a lot of fun. And out of that was born a second business in partnership with my then business coach, where we started teaching sales to sales T and let's for entrepreneurs, so we started a sales training company. And then in the end of 2021, I literally burned everything to the ground, started over launching the be in the room community. And there's way more story than that I gave you the Cliff's Notes version. But it really was an opportunity for me to be like, okay, whatever they want, like I built a business to get out of my job, right? I built a business leveraging the skills that I had, I built a business that my business coach told me to build, I built the business that everybody else was building. And I really got a cool opportunity to say what what do I watch? Like, what do I want this to look like? How do I want to serve clients? And what I learned, you know, some deep inner work and some serious reflection is that for me, it was really about community and connection and collaboration and idea sharing and bringing together smart women. I kind of got burned out being the guru, right? The person who has all the answers, I'm like, that is just not meant to be I don't want to be the person with all the answers. I don't have all the answers. I'm gonna surround myself with humans who have had different experiences and different perspectives. And in talking to women, I'm seeing a lot of that so we launched the be in the room community in January and it's been Just a really cool evolution of what is now what we call a conscious leadership collective where we bring together high achieving smart, successful women to have open honest and vulnerable conversations about the challenges and the successes and the wins and the triumphs of being a badass at what you do.

Jamie Stephens: 5:16

That was a mouthful. for a really long time. No, you're good. I just I like I had so many questions pop up, like during the process, but you were just on a float. So let's back up just a little bit. I want to tease out kind of the the part where you landed your dream job. Yep. And did not like it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be? Yeah, so we can pause there for a second. And then I'll get into some of the other stuff that you're doing. How did you know? Like, how did it present itself what was going on in your life to where you're just like, I cannot do this anymore. Um,

Unknown: 5:57

so what it was so at the time, I had an all fairness I had a tiny human in this season of life, but I just everything was a rush. You know, we got out of bed in the morning, we rushed around and we cut up the door. And then you know, at the end of the day, we rushed to pick the baby up, and then we pick the baby up and we rush through generally rush to put him to bed. And then it was like, and it was like Groundhog Day Genie. And it was just, I was like this, this is not like this can't. Right. So for me, it was just that feeling of like, and then every weekend, it was like we gotta grocery shopping to clean house. Gotta get everything done. And, you know, it was like, where's the time for fun. And there were simple things like my my in laws have a property in Florida. And we've never been and they've been there for like two or three years because we didn't have enough PTO to go because I had a baby. And then I had a friend get married, right. And so we had to use all our PTO for all of those things. And it was just like, I felt so stifled all of a sudden, like this was a very sudden thing I was completely fine prior to All right, with my two weeks of vacation and my this and my math. And it was just

Jamie Stephens: 6:55

ABS bring a whole other aspect to the picture to where your time is no longer like the time that you did have for yourself to like decompress and have fun and do all the things like that's not yours anymore. Oh, no, very long season.

Unknown: 7:11

Yeah, and did all of that we had also moved away from a group of friends, the time that I would not have said that I didn't have the words to describe this time. But it was super unhealthy, right? It was super toxic. A lot of just gossip and drama, and just a lifestyle that I really didn't want to raise my kids in. And so I think some of it to me was getting away from that, right? Like it really having some time and some space to think about, what do I actually want my life to look like?

Jamie Stephens: 7:40

Yeah. Do you remember about how long that process took from the disk? At the time you decided this is really not working for me anymore to the time you left and stepped out on your own?

Unknown: 7:52

Yeah, it was about two years. Gotcha. So all of this came about in the summer of 2017. And the reason I did so clearly is we had built we were building a home. And we built that home with my mother for three months. Like I remember vividly, literally, part of it was my commute was really long, and I started listening to audiobooks again. And I listen to Jensen chair as you are a badass, and that's when she started love her coaching and all the other things. And so that was where the seed was planted. I finally hired someone to kind of help me flesh it all out at the end of 2017, a girlfriend of mine who had launched a community says like whatever you're doing, tell me about that. So that was the end of 2017. I tell people I spent all of 2018 getting ready to get ready, right, I did all of the things, none of which made me and money in case you're wondering.

Jamie Stephens: 8:42

I'm familiar with

Unknown: 8:46

that at the end of 2018. I got pregnant with Georgia who is my three year old. And so that all of a sudden put a timeline on things Georgia was due in June of 2019. And I was like, I'm not going back. And so that really accelerated this whole we're just this round thing. It's just a side hustle. We'll see where it goes to like,

Jamie Stephens: 9:05

I'm not coming back. So I've got a plan.

Unknown: 9:07

And so I probably could have latched on to was born in June, I probably could have left March, April, I had replaced my salary, but at that point, I was so pregnant that I was like, I'll just stay here and keep the benefits and the you know, yeah, short term disability that they barely paid me and yada yada yada. I just didn't go back. Yeah. So you

Jamie Stephens: 9:23

just glossed over that. Like it wasn't a big deal. But tell me about replacing your income while you're still. Like while you're still in your job, and mom of littles

Unknown: 9:35

are a little Yeah, for me. I got really good at talking about what I did, right? Like I was really good about talking about sales problems. And I was not eloquent. It was not sexy. It was not like, oh, I have all the slides in this thing. I was a sales coach and I coached anybody and everybody who would hire me to coach them. So what I'm saying is like I worked with a small tech company and building their sales process I worked well I'm on with an insurance agent helping her set up some outreach Seth and I had a hodgepodge of clients. It was not I didn't launch like a true coaching program and sell right around to actually was after Georgia was born with I finally launched our uncensored sales program, which went on to do almost a million dollars in sales in two years. I didn't want that to introduce pause

Jamie Stephens: 10:20

that is so good. Yes, that is.

Unknown: 10:24

So for me, it was just a lot of consulting, I guess, you know, all different types of clients. It wasn't like I had one offer doing one thing. I was working one on one with one woman to, again, build the sales training program was somebody else did you know what I'm saying? Like I just, I became known for sales. It was my thing, anybody who would give me a stage to talk on I talked, I talked to everybody I knew I networked my face off, I told everybody that I could teach sales. And I literally touch any and all plants who wanted help with sales have all sorts of different capacities and didn't really launch a true program until like I said, it was right around, right before GA was born. When I realized that there was an opportunity with online entrepreneurs, I launched like this little mini four week program that I sold a couple of times before week program to a six week program to actually what was eventually my 12 month program. So in the beginning, it was messy. And I'm really painting this picture very clearly for any of you that are sitting in corporate right now thinking that it has to be pretty and it has to be perfect. It has to be a program and it has to be to serve all these clients in the same way. And like for me, that was not the case. Right? One person paying me $1,500 a month, I had one person paying $500 a month, I was selling this little course thing for $197 above, right? Like I was just purely in experimentation of like, I know sales is my jam, I'm good at that. I can fix those problems. I didn't know who I wanted to fix it for. I didn't know what it was going to look like I none of those things, right? I just went out into the world and got dirty. And that's really kind of how it all started. Which that

Jamie Stephens: 11:53

is such an important process. And because that in my own personal journey that has stifled me so much the perfection, the tinkering, but it has to be perfect. It has to be efficient everything in place before I can start, you know, and it's scalable. That's my favorite. Business. How about you make $1 That's about that. Business before we scale a business, let's do, right. You know, it's like the curse of you know, type A personality where you're like, I am 47 steps down the road. I you know, and that's like, Wait, can you just like simmer down and just actually help somebody? Yeah. So how are you doing that? Like, are you meeting with us people after hours on the weekends are you had flexibility because your sales job was you had been there and done the things and autonomy.

Unknown: 12:45

I had a lot of flexibility. I did do a lot of nights I did a lot of art. I did like coffee. It was like coffee and lunch coffee was kind of a damn it when you know, meet a client at 8am. I would take a lunch with the client. I did a lot of work virtually in the evening, I did do some virtual work in the evenings with people. Yeah, so it's kind of all over the map, I did have a lot of flexibility. I was very lucky in that way. As far as you know, I was not chained to a desk so to speak, I have the ability and numbers and all the other things, right. That made my life a lot easier. But I worked. I mean, I worked in the morning, I worked over lunch, I worked in evenings, I worked on Saturdays. I mean, I worked a lot. And I know that there's a lot of people who are very anti hustle culture, and I get it. But in the beginning, I I don't know another way to do a little hustle. And I don't mean hustle and burnout and then like work 80 hours a week and work until you die. Like that's not really what I'm proposing here. I'm just saying, if you're working 40 hours a week, and you want to grow a business, you have to assume you got to put in the time, you know, that you're gonna probably have to plan you're gonna have to put in 10 to 15 hours a week, because even if you had clients, even if it wasn't sales activity, right, like when you have clients, you have to serve those clients, whether you're a copywriter or coach, right, like you seem to find a time to do the work. So I mean, you are putting in the hours, and I did put in the hours, wherever I could find it.

Jamie Stephens: 14:05

So tell me about your community. It's not a paid community, or is that like a free community? How does that work?

Unknown: 14:12

Yeah, so the other room, we have a free Facebook community. So we pour a whole lot of knowledge and value into the world on Facebook, and Facebook or copy of the rooms. And then we also have a paid cut mastermind so I don't love the word mastermind because in all honesty, I feel like the online coaching world has ruined the word mastermind. masterminds don't actually have like leaders or gurus or blueprints or how to use right masterminds or little of that, like the way Napoleon Hill designed a mastermind was like the meeting of the minds. He broke together with different experiences and different perspectives, different skill sets, because when you put those minds together, right, like, that's where the magic happens. So it is a true mastermind in that way. So it is a paid community. We host weekly live events. We do small group masterminds, everybody's in a small group of four. We do a lot of disability for our clients. We have a strategic advisory board. So we serve the middle market really well. Most of our clients have businesses somewhere between, you know, 150, to 150,000 to 1.2 million are our corporate friends, director and VP level traditionally, so they're kind of that middle market. So we've got our strategic advisory board of multi seven figure business owners, and, you know, C suite executives and stuff like that. So we've created that. But it's really about pure collaboration, I'm more so that's exciting,

Jamie Stephens: 15:29

because I know that that is something that I like, since leaving corporate is something that I really, really miss, of being able to just kind of have somebody to bounce ideas off of, to where it's like, you don't necessarily want a coach, you don't need somebody to tell you what you just said, to kind of hash it out and have somebody else's perspective and like, be able to do that. And I feel like that's such a space that is needed whenever like for online business owners, because it's like, typically a group of hard working, you know, really smart people that are doing this, or it's just like, or, you know, in their areas, and you know, to be able to supplement. I mean, that's just that's really cool.

Unknown: 16:10

Thank you. And you and you nailed it. That's the thing, like, and that's why I say we don't serve the beginner market, because in the beginning, you do need a coach, you do need, you do need a step by step guide. I know I did, right. And I know that in my first business, that's how we helped people, there eventually comes a time in your business where it's not another $30,000 coaching program. It's not another certification. It's not another core. It's not another tactic, right? Right, or strategy. It's the people, right? It's the perspectives, it's the ideas that really are like, Oh, in that industry, they're doing it completely differently, or Oh, and, you know, in the corporate world, this is how they're doing it. And that's really where the match. So that's what we wanted to create. Because what I was finding Jamie is so many women were continuing to stay in coaching programs, not because they needed the coaching, but because of the community. And I like, that's cool. I did that. But a lot of those coaching programs are 3040 $50,000. And at some point in time, it's like, the person's out, right, like 50 grand to be in real life, you know? Or do you want to, you know, hire somebody to do something for you and your business and still have that community. So, you know, you know, we wanted to create that space that didn't come at that price tag, but so brought together a really cool people. Yeah,

Jamie Stephens: 17:17

now I love that. Let's backtrack just a minute and talk about your first course that you launched after you had your baby like how you said it started out as for we kind of walk me through that process, like what you did, how you promoted it, all of those things, because you said it ended up being like a million dollar in revenue course. So I thought that was

Unknown: 17:41

a program. So I had hired a business coach, who then became my business partner. Her name is Kelly wrote, she's the founder of the live lunch method. Unfortunately, our business divorce did not go well. So unfortunately, I don't know what she's doing these days. But at that time, she had a program called The Unstoppable entrepreneur. And she taught people how to launch and she she trademarks, the words, I think, live launch method. And she taught this like nine day strategy on how to launch and so I joined that program in January of 2019. And I launched like two or three times and sold nothing. And I feel like it's really important to tell people, because so many people will try something once they'll do a launch, they'll do a webinar, and they'll do something, and they won't sell anything. And they're like that strategy didn't work, right. It's not necessarily right. So I first wanted to do that. Second thing I did is I had a Facebook group. And I drove everybody to my Facebook group. It was like, that's all I talked about on social media. When I did speaking engagements. This is a pre COVID world, like it was the place to be I met somebody in a Facebook group, and I said, Oh my gosh, you should come hang out in my Facebook group. So I grew a Facebook group, that Facebook group by the time we retired, it had about 7000 people in it. And we only spent about 15 grands and ads total that entire time. So we built a lot of that organically, through marketing through outreach through using my personal profile as a tool like I Facebook was I was all in on Facebook. I'm kind of all over the map and like it's all coming back to me of it. No, it's all good. So Facebook was my thing. So So I launched it, I did launches to sell that like couple 100 bucks, that was all pre GA and I did I did some version of like the nine day Launch, to launch that. I don't recommend doing a nine day launch to launch like a 299 product to that it's terrible. But I did it a couple of times it did teach me a lot about launching. So that's good. So I did that a few times. And then the whole thing and in my coaches program at the time that she taught 12 month programs, she was like honestly, you know, for somebody to really learn something new. Get to know it, figure it out, perfected you know, the whole idea of like mastery takes 10,000 hours. So if you're teaching somebody a strategy or tactic or a skill, you know, they need 10,000 hours, right so so 12 month programs were a great place to start. So I turned that person in that that course into a 12 month program so the course lived inside of the program and then we coach live If we did like one on one, accountability causes a really robust and fun program. So we live launched that program. So pre pre GA, I had just launched that little mini course for a couple 100 bucks, they sold it to about 10 people. And again, got a lot of insight, a lot of information, what clients like, what questions are, they asked that I hadn't really included or didn't think I'm sorry, helped me really flesh, like flesh out my frameworks and how I wanted to help people and all of that. So yeah, I knew I had had it already. Pre GA, I have a baby. And I knew I wasn't lined up back after my maternity leave. So I had scheduled a line watch for at the end of July. So she's probably like six weeks at this time. Like I literally launched it like with her at a baby carrier. And how did we promote it? I mean, it was our Facebook group at that point in time probably had between 507 100 People at it. So we marketed and marketed and marketed. And I mean, we DM to everybody. I mean, we just did our face that and that's what I was taught for three weeks prior to launching the market. The workshop, like we market your face off for three weeks. That's what we did. I don't remember how many people were registered. But when we launched that program as a 12 month program and launched it for $99 of us. And we had 20 people locked. And that was like when my mind was blown. I was like holy, it worked. It's working. It's working like, you know, $99 a month, it's $1,200 a year I sold it to 30 people, I'm better now. But that was $36,000 in sales in a week. Yes,

Jamie Stephens: 21:27

thank you. I was like sitting here trying to do the math in my head. Because my let

Unknown: 21:31

me like a little less. But you know what I'm saying? And I was like, No, it works. And the model was what my coach taught was that you launch every six to eight weeks. And so every time we launched, we would raise the price. So we went for $99 a month to win 19 amounts to 149 a month. And then it was 202 50. By the time he actually retired that program, it was $750 a month. So it's $9,000 a year to join that program. And we launched every six to eight weeks. And we did it the same way we sell Facebook group made the heck out of the workshop for three weeks. And we launched it. And we did it over and over and over again. And when to roll any enroll anywhere from I'd say like 12 to 20 people at a time into the program every time. So we put I think the final numbers were like 200 and change women through that program in some capacity. So from July of 2019 is when that started. We retired that program. We launched it for the very last time in February of 21. So a little less than two years. And this is

Jamie Stephens: 22:29

basically teaching everything that you were doing in corporate like your sales.

Unknown: 22:35

Yep. And my ceasing sale all of the Yep, we talk sales to new entrepreneurs. It's called the uncensored sales program. And our tagline was we help high achieving women leave their nine to five and build profitable businesses, which is why I love the name of this podcast so much. That's the toughest conversation because that was my thing I found I worked really well, with people exiting corporate again, that was my thing. I was side hustle, I had a limited amount of time, I had to be extremely, extremely diligent with my time and spend the time on the right things, which is what I found. I know that's what stumped me for years. I spent a ton of time but it wasn't on the right things, right. So that's what we taught was sales. And we did we had a mindset coach, we have a copy coach. I mean, it was a very robust program at that time we retired it, it was incredible. Our our clients got really great results. And ultimately, I decided to retire that program when my business partner came to me we had so when we launched the second business, she was gonna run her business, I was gonna remind, we're gonna launch this together, it got very big, very fast. My business coach, you know, ran an eight figure business had, you know, a really huge audience. So she was the audience, I was the execution of that model. And it got really big, really fast. And she came to me and she was like, for this thing to really be what we want it to be. Somebody needs to run it. And it was very clear that somebody was me. And I took that opportunity to cause big picture vision for me. I want to write books, I want to speak on stages. I and I want to inspire a lot of people. And I knew that if I was teaching sales to entrepreneurs I could get so far but like No, no company is bringing me into like their corporate keynote to talk about sales, if I'm encouraging people. You know, so for me, it was it was bigger reach it was bigger impact, right? If I'm teaching sales, I love women, and I love women in sales. And I was like this is just an opportunity make a bigger impact. So a lot of people asked me why I said yes to that. That was why it was impact. It was I could reach more people teaching sales that I could teaching sales to entrepreneurs. Yeah. So we retired that, at that time, was what we shut all that down. And so is that the partnership that didn't end? Well?

Jamie Stephens: 24:31

Yeah. Yeah. So can you speak freely about that? Or maybe not really, but can you

Unknown: 24:40

say, you know, we did gosh, almost a million dollars in sales in about 10 months in that business. It was really a values misalignment with my partner. It was one of those things honestly, Jamie, I got a peek behind the curtain and what I saw was not what was being presented on line one, and two, it was very much one of those like, that's the cause I'm not willing to pay it. Meaning if that is the cost of an eight figure business, that's the amount of hours the size of team the stretch, knit parkpass. For me. Yeah, so once the seed is planted, at least in my brain, it does not go away. So I wish I could say that, like, I saw the red flag and I was smart. I'm not it took me a while, figure it out. And just to realize it was just a really large values misalignment. And I was proud of what we built, I was proud of the clients that we were serving, I just knew that I just knew that it was not a good match. And so I went to my partner, and I said, this was not a good match. And at first, it was fine. But her when I said, I don't think this is a good fit, her answer was okay, well, let's shut it down. I don't have the bandwidth to take it over. And I have the team to take it over. So let's just be done here. And I was like, oh, gosh, I think I just put my job I didn't need to like I was drawing a salary out of that business. And what I launched being the real not I want to say I don't want to say because I didn't have a choice, but like I did have to eat like I had to do something. And it didn't make sense to shut down one sales training business, and then start sales consulting, you know, so I'm like, I have to, I have to, there was no pivoting here, like I had to totally reinvent. And so we launched to be in the room community. And that apparently set off a series of events. Or tip the dominoes if you will, which led to a very fun legal battle. And a lot of very gross accusations mismanagement of company funds, intentionally running the company into the ground ceiling leaves stealing content. And again, I can legally say all those things, because I have those things in writing all of those accusations, obviously, none of which were founded or feel like a lawsuit would have been filed. And then we finally were able to resolve everything in April of 2018. Here's the thing I will tell you, anybody who's like, okay, good business partners avoid that. I got anti business partners, isn't when I ever have a partner again, I would partner with somebody who had an opposite skill set of me, right. She and I had very similar skill sets. We're both salespeople, right? We were both dynamic face, right. And she wasn't in the business, right? I was the managing partner, she was technically on paper, like in our operating agreement, a silent partner in the business. She didn't make decisions or any of those things if she couldn't legally do any of those things. And that I think was the problem, right as I was running the business day to day, and I had this partner who had a lot of opinions, and a lot of experience just a lot of things happening. And so we were never on the same page. Yeah. And that was the part that I think was really challenging. So I'm not if anybody's like, okay, don't ever do that. I'm not, never say never. I'm not saying I would never have a partner, I would just be like, if I were to start something again, it would be difficult in the business. We both work here, we both have responsibility for the growth of this business, right? Because for me, my paycheck was coming out of that business. Right? Versus Right. Right. It was distribution. Like it was like whatever that profit makes me split it right. And so her she didn't have the investment that I did in the business. So that was the part of partnership that was really hard for me. Yeah, for anybody listening, I don't want to discourage you from partnerships, I see a lot of wildly successful business partnerships. I think there are some partnerships that are completely unnecessary, because we don't have the skills that we need on our own. For me, those were the mismatches.

Jamie Stephens: 28:14

Yeah, just going in with like, eyes wide open, who's doing what, how are making sure you're not gonna get resentful, like all of those things. Because once that kind of start,

Unknown: 28:24

yeah, and having an exit plan, have an exit plan written into your operating agreement. Write that one down. That was something there were like, who did what was in our operating agreement that like what the exit plan was, was not very clear. So that that's what led to such a long legal legal battle, is those steps were not clearly documented. So what I mean by that is, like, if one partner wants out option was to sell their shares to you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not well documented, it was like, so those types of things. One partner wants out what we do, right? That sort of stuff. Whose responsibilities are what put that in

Jamie Stephens: 29:03

here? So for people that are just getting started, maybe they're interested in doing a partner and all of that sound or having a partner all of that sounds a little overwhelming. Is it fair to say that you can wait till you actually start making money before you do that? Or is it something that needs to be like course hashed out beforehand? Because sometimes you just need to go in and figure out what the hell you're even doing. I would not start

Unknown: 29:27

a business with a business partner without it hashed out ahead of time, when you're when you're doing it on your own. For those of you that are like, I'm doing this all by myself, go do get dirty experiment. I told you the beginning of my journey, right? But like, if you want a part, I feel like it all has to be hashed out in the beginning, because and I watched this happen with one of my clients. She partnered with somebody, they had an agency, she was the offspring, the other person was the creative brain. And it was a match made in heaven they were making between 15 and $20,000. But like their goals of where they wanted to take the business were very different. Right, like my client, the observation one is like, let's take it to the moon. The green one is like, I'm good, where we're at, we can make decent money. I don't work that hard, you know. And that was a problem. And they didn't have everything documented ahead of time. So there was a lot of honestly, there was a lot of drama, they were able to part amicably. But there were a lot of things that have those things, but departed ahead, like decided ahead of time, it would have been easier. So I would say any partnership, hash out as much as you can ahead of time, even if you're like, we're just experimenting, I don't care, right, because like I said, inevitably, somebody schools may shift, somebody might get presented with a new opportunity from the outside, like all of those different things, I think are really, really important.

Jamie Stephens: 30:38

Yeah. No, I love that. It's all great advice. So on your community, I mean, I know a lot of times we end up creating the things that we need for ourselves. Yeah. What is it that you've been able to get for yourself out of the community? Share some of that?

Unknown: 30:56

Yeah. For me, it's so funny, you say that. You're very intuitive, my friend. That's what it was. So my whole story was in July of 21. I was like, I had reached peak burnout, like, on the floor in my shower, crying like cannot do this anymore. I'm managing a team of eight, my payroll is huge. Like, that's if anybody remembers that. And how about the like, that's when the iOS update happened. And Facebook ads went crazy. And the launch strategies that were once effective or ineffective anymore, like it was, it was pretty epic. And there was nowhere for me to go, to have this conversation. Because all of the communities that I had, I was the leader of right, so even my old community of new entrepreneurs, right, they saw me as a thought leader, my other mastermind community was run by my business partner, and all those people were potential clients. So it was like, there was nowhere to talk about what I was experiencing. And I felt alone and isolated. And I felt like I couldn't like admit to anybody. And I felt I went through the whole process, like feeling like a failure, and all of this all by myself. And then once I started talking to people, because eventually I, you know, got up off the floor and dusted myself off and went to work and start talking to you. But I realized I was not alone in that there were a lot of people, maybe their experience wasn't as dramatic as fights, but they were feeling a lot of similar feelings, frustration, overwhelmed burnout, wanting to make changes in their business, etc. And not knowing how feeling very trapped. A lot of that I was not alone in that. That's really where a lot of it stemmed from. It also stemmed from I get to because we did six feet, Arabs or we did seven figures last year between my business and the partnership as we did 1.2 million. And so it got us into a lot of rains, that I would not have otherwise been in that you had to be at the million mark million dollar mark to get into. And I realized that waiting that mall to have those conversations to create those spaces was counterintuitive. Yeah. Right. The statistics are that only 4.2% of women owned businesses hit a million dollars. Imagine if we wound like started having conversations earlier, right? These types of content? How do I avoid burnout? Right, like

Jamie Stephens: 33:12

to the up to that mark and support them before? Right? Yeah,

Unknown: 33:16

that's exactly what what so much of that was that it was that space, were labeling the gap. It was still a big gap. But then also like I got into these rooms with these people making a million dollars, and frankly, my 15 years of corporate cracking more business acumen than 80% of the people in the room because of my corporate career than just because somebody could run a million dollars through a funnel, like being able to run a million dollars through funnels does not make a business owner, right? Does it make a business strategist? Does it make a business? Frankly, it's a marketing funnel. So for me, I was like this, this is silly, right? First of all, these people don't know anything that most of us don't know, right? And so why did we wait to do this? And it's really where it temper. I was like, this is really silly. I started having these conversations, you know, again, in our first management job in the corporate career, instead of leading to our executives, right? Or if we started having these conversations with our businesses, or making 150,000 to$200,000 a year, instead of waiting until they're a million dollars, and they're huge, and they're bloated, and we have a team of eight and hate it right? What if we have these conversations way earlier, it's a hate be mindful of this, or this was my experience, or I did this and this is a huge mistake, he should do it this way instead, like, imagine if we started having those conversations earlier. So that's really what it was, was creating that space of watch out for the pitfalls, right? This is what I noticed, or this is what I learned or this is what worked really well for me or did it? If we start having those conversations earlier on. We're not unwinding these horrible messes that $1.5 billion.

Jamie Stephens: 34:37

Yeah, no, that's brilliant. And I can tell that you are and it's such a passion of mine too. But like empowering women is like in my bones. You know, I mean to where it's just like I just want all the women to just step up and claim the power that they have. Make the money make the decisions. Yes, and get things right with this world. I mean, good lord. So all of that is like very at the forefront of what I want to do with my business as well. And, you know, obviously, I'm in those very beginning baby stages. Sure, but it's like, knowing even that this type of community is out there. And that, you know, there's there's some hand holding, or not hand holding, but collaboration, I mean, because that's like the real use of stuff, because it's like, it's amazing what comes up whenever you're just in a room or in a space with all of these people that have all these different experiences, but are all working towards a similar goal. So I love that mission. I love all of it. It's really exciting to me.

Unknown: 35:44

Thank you so much. And thank you for seeing it. Because, you know, I don't, I never, I never set out to be a disrupter, right? Like, that was never really something I did intentionally, I just happened to like, it's my business brain, like I could walk into a business. And I can tell you where the sales process is broken immediately, like, within like, 20 minutes, right with a conversation with somebody. I think that's kind of what it was at the business side looking around, I was scanning the landscape of spaces a collaboration and and all this other stuff. And I immediately saw it, I was like, this is the problem, right? It's either a million dollar mastermind, or an executive coaching retreat, or it's a $30,000 coaching program for newbies. Or there's a lot of networking organizations, which I'm a fan of networking, right. But networking organizations to me represent open hands, not open hearts. Right. And, and so that's what I saw on the landscape. And it was like instantly, like, this is how we fill this gap. Women who are like, no, no, it's not another coach. So what are the strategies, some other tactic, it's another degree, it's not about, you know, because of what I mean works, women spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars on those things, and still not really get the result that they want. Because so much of it is an inside job, right? And they stopped building stuff isolated, they still feel frustrated. And so that's what we're really looking at.

Jamie Stephens: 37:01

So how are you reaching these women? Like, what are you doing to really pull them into your network into? Let me ask you this for clarification, because I don't I've never been in a mastermind or like something like this. So I'm not exactly sure. But everyone contributes right? How do you make sure like people are qualified?

Unknown: 37:27

Yes, there's two things we do everything is an application. So we make people apply, there is no Buy Now button to our community on the internet. We do that very intentionally. And it's also our price point, you know, our meds$5,000 for the year, which is by no means the most expensive, right? Like, you know, I've seen million dollar masterminds, you know, the $50,000 point and the 60. Me, so we're by no means like the most expensive option. But if you pay $5,000, you're gonna show up. If you pay$5,000, your business is probably where your career is, at a certain level where that level of investment makes sense for you. So we have literally use price as one of our biggest qualifiers, in addition to that application process. And there has been two reasons why Jamie, we have told people No, or not, no, that told them no, but not really need an invitation, one people who are still too new, where they're at that place where it's like, No, you really do you need coaching. Yeah, that's what you need. Because we don't provide that and I don't want anybody to be frustrated, or have their cash tied up in investing and be in the room, when that $5,000 easily could have gone to a coach that maybe would help them get there faster. So that's important to me. And then to the people who are really looking for our Rolodex, meaning the people who are like, I just want to join this group and see how much money I can make out of it. Again, I want to be really clear, our women are doing business together. I do business with men, you know, like that is happening. But that's not. That's not the point. Yeah, right. So there's been a couple of people that were like, well, I don't really know if I'm gonna get an ROI from that community. And I'm like, getting back to those had been like the two biggest reasons that we have, DQ anybody. As of right now, we have about so we started about eight months ago, we have about 40 members, and all of them are people that I know in some capacity. So we had not really gotten into cold traffic yet. My thought process was for this first year, like, I've spent years building these giant audiences, like, Let's go talk to these people first. Yeah. Before we try to go build a new audience, right? These people, they already know me, they've already seen me. Some of them already. Trust me in some capacity. Maybe they bought something from me in a different space. So like for 2022, it would like head down, connect with the audience and actively have we soar. We start building cold traffic. So we've also been very fortunate that 98% of the people that have applied to be part of the community are all women. I know. Yeah, that's fortunate. So we have a very clear code of conduct that we have all of our people sign. And honestly, and this is for those of you that are starting businesses, I have a fantastic attorney. They wrote a really good client service agreement that basically says if you break the code of conduct or the agreement that I can kick you out and I hate to say that because nobody's like, I'm joined to be kicked out. But I, it felt so important to me that we protect the integrity of the community, I would rather refund somebody their money and send them on their way, then let them infiltrate the community, you know? Yeah. As we grow, I have a lot of ideas, Jamie, as to how we're going to, to police that, right, because there will come a point in time where it's obviously not all people know, or to the point where I can't get my arms around everybody. But like, right now, everybody gets a personal onboarding. I think in the film of my program director, she walks him through everything. So right now everything is very high touch. But we have a lot of plans and ideas as to how we're going to put those parameters in place as we grow. And we can't do as much like manual touch on everything.

Jamie Stephens: 40:40

Yeah. So what kind of team do you have in place now?

Unknown: 40:44

Great question. I have two team members, two full time team members. So I have a marketing manager. And then I have a program director. So my marketing manager anything pretty that we've ever done on the internet, just as a pretty over the years. And then Valerie is kind of she does kind of ops, some VA style work, and really anything operationally because I am a full fledged visionary. That is the team and then I have I work with a couple leave a few bas that help us with audience growth. So I don't know if you were asking about that early. I think that's where we started to go to question and then he pivoted. So most of our conversations that are being started online, right now we use a couple of different outreach software's. And then we have the ace that ran a lot of app for us. Those are bas that I've hired through agencies that I work with. So we have a handful of of people who support us in that way, helping us grow the Facebook group, and again, using our existing audiences. But I think I have 13,000, LinkedIn followers, LinkedIn connections, and I was like, I'm not gonna go DM all those people. So we, you know, who does that outreach baits, those people to our communities, those types of things?

Jamie Stephens: 41:50

Yeah. That's really cool. Thank you. So tell me, you said, your eldest is about to start kindergarten in a couple of days. How has your life changed? Since you decided I'm done with this? I'm not going back? What is opened up for you, your family? Like all of the good stuff?

Unknown: 42:10

Yeah. Thank you so much for asking that question. I love that, though. Um, so for us, it was my husband left his job in February 2020. To pre pandemic, apparently, somehow I was able to time that were you that he needed to get out. So Kevin has been home and then obviously, which was a huge blessing. When daycare closed and everything closed, he was able to keep the kids home with him, which was really amazing. So my husband, my husband is at work, which has been really fantastic. We lovingly joke that Kevin is the project manager, and I am a project. Now, that's that. And then we bought, we bought our dream home in July of 2020. So we had built, we built an app. And finally back in 2017, you built a property, uh huh. And then got to know kind of a new area, you know, it was like, Oh, we build this house, and you get to that area you're living in, and we found this community that we were just really obsessed with. And I had a five year plan to buy a house in that community. I also happen to have a girlfriend who's a very overzealous real estate agent. She's like, I had your plan. I know, somebody was actually, the timing was a credit, I

Jamie Stephens: 43:21

was gonna say perfect timing with the whole real estate market, she did do a solid,

Unknown: 43:26

she did a huge solid. So God bless her for that. And so that was gonna be how that so you know, and we've just, we've been able to travel, we've been able to make a lot of cool choices in life, you know, we got to decide public school versus private school, right? It wasn't a financial decision, it was what's best for a family decision. You know, we travel often, as a family of four, we're able to pick up a go whenever we need to, or want to, it's really lovely. We actually just booked a cruise for January of 23, in which case, we're able to take my mother in law, and do some really cool stuff like that. So my our love language is travel. And so for me, that was the biggest thing if I wanted the freedom to be able to go, which was part of the reason why my husband needed to quit his job because he was like, as long as you have a job tied to that PTO. Not okay. You know, and that's why I told you before we hit record, like my thing is always if I want to travel, how can I turn this into a business opportunity business to pay for the travel? So we do we do a lot of that, like we're going to Denver in October, I'm going to host an event with my mentor while we're there and you know, all those different things and meet with a couple of plants that girlfriends that I have out there. So I tried to do as much of that as possible and having the freedom to do that because my husband's not stuck in a job. House nearly luckily for us.

Jamie Stephens: 44:46

I know there's lots of benefits to having him home. Have there been challenges and adjustment. Things that have happened like gender role type, things like that you've had to overcome so not

Unknown: 45:00

So much gender role because when my husband and I met I've always been the breadwinner, right? Like it was before. Before I ever became an entrepreneur. I always made more money. He was always the more patient one. He was always that he wanted to be a teacher like anybody was staying home with our kids. It was him, right. Like that was never a question for us. So I don't think we went through like that power struggle that I think some couples you maybe that was a predetermine. So that that did set us a little bit further ahead. But the things that I have had to personally learn as somebody who did like I was bearing the financial burden of our family, and then also still managing our family. And so when he quit his job, I had to let go, right? Like, I had to let go of like the way he does laundry. Shouldn't thing on the planet? I mean, what are you doing with your life? My water bill is $4 million, because you do so much laundry, but you know what, Jamie? I don't have to do does a laundry. Nice. Little things like that. Right? Like the grocery store that you guys three different grocery stores. And he I might not efficient. And I just had to learn to let go and not ship like double check him on things like, again with Dave is starting kindergarten? Is he registered? Like do we know what's going on? Like, a year ago, I would have checked it double checked. And did you do it? Right? I just had to let go. And sometimes things fall through the cracks. And I just had to be okay with that. So for us, it was really about like, if this if his his role in our family is to run this house, I have to let him run the house the way that he wants to run the house. Right? And I can't tell him I want you to run the house. And here's how I would do it. That does not work. Right. Right. You're both working or not. Right. So it was really just coming up with those agreements. Like randomly, he'd be like, it's Sunday afternoon. He's like, I'm gonna go mow the lawn. I'm like, No, that's fine. You don't work. So you don't mow the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday, yeah, you know, but he was like, Oh, I didn't That didn't occur to me, right like that. So for me, I was like, but no, like, the weekends are a family time. I don't work. The kids are home. Like, let's go do that. So when you just really had said work through it? Are we perfect? No. And the gender role piece really only comes out externally. Right. So out socially, or meeting new people, or unconditional love your husband do it right? Or, you know, we live in a golf community and my husband golf's a lot. And people are always like, Hey, man, what are you doing? Like I am a stay at home dad. And so I think he actually did more drama with it than I do. There are still days where I'm like, are doing it wrong. Like what do people think am I emasculating him because of this. And we just, I mean, we talked about it, we talked about a lot. And you know, like I said, it's never perfect, but it's good. I've always wondered

Jamie Stephens: 47:33

that because I mean, my long term plan is to make a lot of money. That's gonna affect the dynamics of my relationship.

Unknown: 47:43

My My best suggestion for you and for anybody listening to like, start talking to your partner about it now, right? I told my husband in January of 2019, that this business was going to make millions of dollars, right. But I and in the beginning, he was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Right?

Jamie Stephens: 48:01

When Jason was saying, like,

Unknown: 48:04

so it's like, ease them into it. And that was really for me, like, we talked about it. I talked to the business. I, I no longer talk to him about this. But early on, I did. So he felt included. He knew what I was doing. You know, when I was working when I was working my casts off. Sorry, Milan, say that? Yeah. When I was working so hard, after bedtime, and all that other stuff. Like, I felt the need to include him. So he knew what I was doing,

Jamie Stephens: 48:28

right? Like, you're not just not avoiding you have a vision.

Unknown: 48:33

And so, in the beginning, it didn't even when it started to take off. And I was able to quit my job. Like I told him, like, this is what I did say, these are my clients. So what's going on? This is what I do. And I included him in things. And like I said, at this point, it's kind of like, you know, what else? I don't as much anymore as I once did, but I mean, it was I wanted him to be like he was part of it. And he understood it. So what I was like, No, we make enough money for you to not work. He was lit like are you sure you know? That in all those different things? So I would say for any of you who are still in that corporate job, or maybe just left or building a side hustle or whenever like start including your partner now and those conversations if you have those goals? Yeah, it was okay to not have those goals. Can we just normalize like, hey man, I want to make like 80 grand and not go to a job every day like yeah, that's 100% Okay, please don't make people on the internet make you feel bad about that. Right? But if your desire is to build an empire like that's cool too but I just my mind that was like I talked about it from the beginning. And so when it happened, it wasn't like what what do you do? Like see was so aware of it when I quit my job. You know, all of those things. Were decisions made together and like so this point in the game and we really don't talk about it that much. But in the beginning, we talked about it a lot. Yeah.

Jamie Stephens: 49:49

My husband has made it very clear that he is perfectly fine to have a sugar mama.

Unknown: 49:55

No funny story. I will tell you this as we wrap up. My we are family we In the car, in the Outer Banks, my mother is one of 10 children. I know it's wild. So I got to spend time with like my adult cousins that I hadn't seen probably since I was a teenager. Right. And so, we are out having drinks one night, and one of my cousins has talked about, he doesn't love his job. And this, this and this, and of course, you know, my entrepreneur, great brain flips on I'm like, What do you think you know, your job? Like, that's ridiculous, like, what's wrong with the world? And so like, what did you want to do? You know, it was like, Well, you know, to be honest with you, cause it's like Kevin's got the scabbard up. Like, I kind of want to golf, he was like, I can take care of kids like, I can do that. Like it. It was so funny. And I for me, it was like a really, you know, a moment, I felt really proud. Because like you said, there's the gender roles. Your wife makes all that, you know, and this kid was like, trying to figure that out. Nice way six, right? Yeah. But he was like, how did I get that gig? And it was just really funny than and I love that people are just being more open minded to it. Yeah. At events. I don't know, to actually pull it off. But I thought that was good.

Jamie Stephens: 51:01

I love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ryan, I've had such a fun time. I mean, the time has just flown by, do you want to tell people where they can find out more about you start following you all of those things? Sure. Absolutely. So we've a Facebook group, and it's called be in the room. So we'd love for you to join us there. Our

Unknown: 51:20

website is be in the room.org. I'm a very avid networker on all platforms. So you can feel free to connect with me. I spend most of my time on Facebook and LinkedIn. And it is Ryan with two N's dowdy. And I love to connect and meet people and talk to

Jamie Stephens: 51:34

people. Great. I will link all that up in the show notes. So thank you so

Unknown: 51:38

much. Yes, thanks, Jamie.

Jamie Stephens: 51:40

What a fast and fun conversation. That was. I cannot tell y'all how lucky I am to get to do this podcast. It's like my very own mastermind. Getting to ask all of the things of such amazing women like Brian, her growth is definitely admirable. And as always, I'm excited to learn from her. Some of the highlights from our conversation include, number one, what do I want, you've built the business everyone else was building, you've built the business your coach told you to build, but go inside and do the soul searching and ask yourself what do I want. Number two is this Groundhog Day, running from one thing to the next day after day on repeat can give you the sense of Groundhog Day. When you notice that you have little to no quality time for yourself, you can recognize this as an opportunity to make some changes in your life. Number three, start with what you know and take the messy action. When you're first getting started. You don't have to have everything figured out to talk about your expertise, how you can help and take money from anyone that'll pay you things will start to become clearer with who you want to work with and how just let it be messy. Number four, respect the hustle. Listen, I know that hustle has gotten a bad rap because it's very much linked to burnout. However, if you're starting your business alongside your full time job, you have to put in the hours to make it work, you will be busy, you will work a lot but it does not have to be forever. Number five, try and try again. When you go to launch a new product course program service or whatever your thing is, just plan on doing it over and over again until you start to see success. Launch, observe, tweak and repeat. Number six align your values. If you're considering having a business partner, make sure there's an alignment of values. How hard do you want to work for how long? Who's doing what what are the costs, the size of the team, the amount of hours, get alignment, and a written agreement on all the things you each value or find a better fit and at the very least get an exit plan. Number seven, ditch the guru status. When people are looking to you as the expert or you're in a community with potential clients. Finding a space to be vulnerable and talk about the problems you're facing in your business can be challenging, create or join communities where you can talk about these things with experts in different areas so you can all learn and grow together. Number eight, fill the need. If you're looking to start or expand a business, take a look at what you've overcome your expertise and what you wish was available to you. Create what you wish you had. And number nine, share your vision with your partner. Whether your vision is to replace your corporate salary or build an empire. start having conversations with your partner so it's not a surprise, ease them in and share what you're working on. Share your goals and create that comfort level so they can support you. Okay, that is it for this week. Thanks to Ryan for joining me on the show and big thanks to you for tuning in today. You can find all the links in the show notes and if you're feeling like a rock star, go ahead and send this episode to a friend or leave a review so more women can find the show. Until next week. Find me on Instagram at Jamie Renee. Bye bye