Mimi:
Welcome to the Badass CEO Podcast. This is Mimi MacLean. I'm a mom of five, entrepreneur, Columbia Business School Grad, CPA and angel investor. And I'm here to share with you my passion for entrepreneurship. Throughout my career I have met many incredible people who have started businesses, disrupted industries, persevered and turned opportunity into success. Each episode, we will discuss what it takes to become and continue to be a Badass CEO, directly from the entrepreneurs who have made it happen. If you're renewing your career, dreaming about starting your own business or already an entrepreneur, the Badass CEO Podcast is for you.

Mimi:
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Mimi:
Hi, welcome back to the Badass CEO. This is your host, Mimi MacLean, and today I have my good friend on Michelle Wolf and she's a transformational coach, marketer, wellness warrior, entrepreneur, podcast host, mother of three girls and founder of EmpowHer Purpose, an integrated business and wellness community network of women, which provides tools to elevate women to reach their highest potential. To get your Top 10 Tips every entrepreneur should know, go to the badassceo.com/tips. Michelle, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. So we have known each other for several years now and we've met each other through Beautycounter.

Mimi:
And you are a serial entrepreneur like myself with lots of hands in the pot and you and I were also probably some of the few people that had an MBA doing MLMs, doing our direct marketing company. So there's so many things I want to talk to you about, but first I would love to talk about, because I haven't really addressed this at all on the podcast, about being an entrepreneur and using direct selling.

Michelle:
It's interesting, right?

Mimi:
Yeah. So just quick, I know why I did it and I think it's the same reason why you did it, why did you decide to add the direct marketing component, like direct sales component onto your business?

Michelle:
Well, as first of all, first and foremost, thanks so much for having me on your podcast. I'm so excited. I know we followed a lot of each other's paths through the years and there is a lot of overlap. So for you you're more on the finance side and I'm more on the marketing side, but regardless it's mutual respect. So what I would say is, first and foremost, why did I choose to enter more of a multi-level marketing or direct selling business? It actually kind of came to me as a surprise as well. I was launching my company and I had asked our mutual friend to send somebody from the business over, because I was doing some confidence workshops for girls.

Michelle:
My daughter was the one who mentioned that perhaps I should actually engage with somebody from Beautycounter because girls, yes, it's about an internal confidence, however, but girls relate and would buy in to the concept around clean beauty. And in which case of all the multi-level marketing companies or direct selling companies, I think that Greg Renfro has always done an amazing job of being the premium and bringing the premier. And going back to what you were saying is that Beautycounter attracts highly educated, super interesting driven women. And why is that? It's because, I think it's a purpose-driven company. And so that's probably more about why I bought into the company than it was about adding that to my portfolio.

Michelle:
However, what you and I have talked about before is that I've received a lot of opportunity because of being involved in Beautycounter. And when I left the corporate world years ago, I had always said, like when I went to USD's business School and stuff to work there with all the qualifying MBAs and EMBAs, and every constituent of MBA. I had always said that I wanted to potentially go into beauty. And so I developed this cohort of girls and women that wanted to enter into beauty. And so I was opening doors at Estee Lauder and keels, and Revlon and L'Oreal and all the big guys because I believe now I could look at it and say, "Oh actually, little did I know I had planted that seed and it happened."

Mimi:
But it's interesting because I think going back to direct selling, why? You and I both know having started companies before it's expensive. It takes more time, more money, high risk. It takes of as five to seven years to become profitable. And even at that point, it's only like 20% to make it. That direct selling for an entrepreneur is a great way to start your own company because being a direct salesperson is like being your own CEO of your own company, right?

Michelle:
Yeah. I completely agree with you on that. And I think that that's the misunderstanding that a lot of people and perspective. It really is how do you frame it? Right. That a lot of people don't understand. I think part of that, going back to confidence is like a lot of the women that choose to stay at a certain level within direct selling, don't have the experience we have to understand how to pull out certain parts. Like I was talking to somebody recently at a Clean Beauty Company, and I said, "Our point of differentiation when we launched this specific line, this anti-aging line, was I knew I had these two key ingredients."

Michelle:
So having been a former brand marketer and also a product developer, I could basically hone in to people like this is an anti-aging line, it does mirror retinol. Let me show you how? But most people can't make that leap. Don't understand how to tell a story to actually get people to buy in, right? That's the marketing.

Mimi:
Yep. And one thing I learned a lot, I think by doing this podcast and also working with Beautycounter is your self- confidence and how you selling is the basis for everything. And all goes back to how you feel and having that self-confidence. And that's where your business comes in, EmpowHer because you are teaching women this confidence and the story that you're telling yourself inside. And when you get up everyday, because sales is so hard, anything.

Mimi:
Like if it's raising capital for your company, you're talking to a hundred angel investors, VCs, private equity before you get one response. So at any part of aspect of your business, no matter what it is, it's selling and it's-

Michelle:
Absolutely.

Mimi:
... making your skin tougher and thicker so you can get up the next day and kind of overcome the next hill.

Michelle:
Yeah. Thanks so much for mentioning that. So I'm the founder of a company called EmpowHer Purpose, as I'm sure that Mimi will encapsulate on my bio and all that stuff. But my background is actually brand marketing and corporate marketing. I got into coaching and leadership training via the academic route and then did executive coaching for years at many of the major companies across the US. And whether that be on the entertainment side or the packaged good side, or companies that actually overlapped like Mattel or Disney, et cetera.

Michelle:
And basically I got into coaching and leadership training because I wanted to impact future leaders. So when you're in the corporate world so often, you're not trained to be a leader, you're not trained to have those skills. And some of us are lucky enough to be born with them, but others don't have the voice. So when you're talking about confidence, one of the things that I really wanted to do was allow women the opportunity to have a seat at the table, right? If you wanted it, you don't have to have a seat at the table.

Michelle:
And I was talking to somebody earlier and I was on her podcast, and I said, "I was not the person that ever had trouble raising my hand, or challenging the president, or the CEO. I'd be like, "That doesn't make sense. I'm confused." But many people, including men have trouble and become yes people because they're living out the obligation of what they think that leader wants to hear. So for me, coming into leadership training and coaching was about impacting future leaders. Now to date, with EmpowHer what I learned when I left the corporate world was to try to seek out balance, right.

Michelle:
And how to integrate that through using wellness tools and modalities. I mean, you have Lymes disease, right? So there's a lot of alternative mediums that you use to basically help you lead a healthier life. So for me, that journey started almost 20 years ago. I had hired a coach, but beyond that, I had also started doing things like shocker readings and the Enneagram was not mainstreamed back then. When I became certified in the Enneagram, nobody knew what it was. I was certified in Myers-Briggs, because that's what coperations used, because it was very mainstream and cut and dry.

Michelle:
So I like to say that I went first before a lot of my colleagues. So I left, not only because I wanted to have children, but in addition I had a violent allergic reaction to stress and in doing so I had to take a hard look underneath the microscope and say, "Is this what I want?" And that's when my journey into wellness started. So EmpowHer Purpose, which is the full name of the company is basically an integrated business and wellness community. Because I believe you need both to be whole, and gone are the days where we only focus on MyWorkLife. Everything is integrated. We're at home now. People know everything.

Michelle:
When I was just on that last podcast a dog was barking, nonstop. You hear it like... So I think it just depends on what type of person that you want to show up as, and for me, why the integration of business, and wellness and community. Community is one of my top values, but not only that. I want to allow women to achieve at their highest purpose. I see each person at their greatest value. And so that's why I work with so many different female entrepreneurs. And as you know I have a podcast that you've been on, it's called Opportunity Knocks, and opportunities are a mindset. People don't even see them often.

Michelle:
And I think that you and I always come from the lens of creating opportunities, going back to sales, right? It's like how do we take, make, create and evaluate opportunities? They're there. If you want to see them, it's a matter of how do you want to actually move forward within that? And by the way, that doesn't mean don't set boundaries because you should. So.

Mimi:
Yeah, no true. So, okay, with your company, you also kind of creating like a brand, your name brand and you have a very big Instagram following and now you just started the podcast. So I would love for you to just talk briefly to anybody else that's creating a personal brand, any tips or things that you have learned as far as social media or now with the podcast and what's worth it. What's not.

Michelle:
So I think that whatever you choose to step into, first of all, I think that you need to be seen on a platform. It's interesting. I was just writing a blog post for next week and it's actually around social media. And I think many women in our generation are averse to getting involved in social media. But what I would say is that I've found an extension of a community network out there that supports me in a different way than some of my closest friends. And I think that as far as like how would you establish a brand?

Michelle:
I think first and foremost, there's some very core, right? You need to define what your product is. Like my product is transformational coaching. I'm a top 1% transformational coach. I do workshops. I do retreats. I do the podcast. I work with female entrepreneurs. Those are very specific things. So all my messaging goes into qualifying me as a coach that people would want to hire and engage with. Secondary to that, there's a lot of people out there that do coaching, right? So I have to look at what's my key point of differentiation?

Michelle:
For me, there's a lot of executive coaches and a lot of woo- woo coaches, but you actually don't see a lot of coaches that integrate business and wellness. So I'm certified in yoga. I'm certified in reiki. I'm certified in, like we said earlier, the Enneagram. I also do meditation and breathwork. So there's that part of me. But then because I came from the business world and I was a marketer for years, and I use marketing every day in marketing myself and my business. It's the integration of both. And so that's truly like a point of differentiation because you don't find a lot of coaches that have both of those things.

Michelle:
And then I would say also once you are clear on what your point of differentiation is, it's messaging, right? So when I got started on Instagram, it was before the algorithm changed and my goal back then was like 10,000 followers, because then I could do this swipe up, right? Well, now that's gone away. So it was very uncomfortable for me. I had a Facebook account but I only, I never even was on it, just to be clear. But it was the only free-form of advertising out there. And when you're a marketer, you're like, "Okay, well how am I going to get my message out there? And I'm an entrepreneur. I don't have a big budget." So I came from the corporate world where you have millions of dollars to invest in advertising. I didn't have that.

Michelle:
So I was like, "Okay, this is the way I'm going to get my messaging out there." You can argue with the medium that I work in. Perhaps I should have actually spent more time on LinkedIn. But that was really like, if I want to work with companies. My goal was actually to gather women's groups. You could also argue when I first started on Instagram, most people were actually younger. It was a younger demographic because TikTok wasn't quite as formed four years ago, Snapchat was really just a more of a messaging tool for teens, younger people or whatever. I'm sure it's more than that of course, but I'm just generalizing.

Michelle:
And so you could argue that, but I had to find my demographic and audience. And so I really decided that I wanted to be really good at one thing. So I decided to really invest my energy on Instagram and then I would push things out to LinkedIn. I would push things out to YouTube. I don't have a huge following on YouTube, but that was the thing. But the other thing is when you become an entrepreneur, it's about owning you and being clear about how you want to show up. So I remember having conversations with friends that are senior level executives and they're like, they've never been an entrepreneur and understand the risks that it takes, like it's easy to spend other people's money?

Michelle:
And they would say, "Michelle, you're not the doctor. You're not the professor that wrote the research." Because I would sometimes cite statistics around success or whatever it might be on specific things that would help people move forward, right? They're like, "You're really funny. You need to actually show up as you." And I'm like, "Huh, well, I feel very uncomfortable then I'd have to own myself." And we were taught in our generation that you don't show all parts of yourself outwardly to people. It was like your work person and the other person. I always did kind of blend both, but to come forward and do videos like that online and show that part of me.

Mimi:
Very scary.

Michelle:
Right. Yeah, it was a very vulnerable experience and I had to learn to be okay with it. And so what I would say is wherever you start is your starting point. And if you go through my feed from the beginning of the time that I actually launched EmpowHer to date, the feed has changed. So has thus my messaging and my offerings during that time.

Mimi:
Like when you started doing these videos, did you have your husband and your kids being like, "Mom that was so dumb?" Like you-

Michelle:
Yes.

Mimi:
... didn't care?

Michelle:
Well, I didn't care because what mattered more to you is the same thing like any entrepreneur will tell you, right? What's it worth to you? So for me, I have such resilience and determination. I was like I'm going to make it go and this is... It was my coming out ceremony. I had a women's group for 10 years that I was incubated. I had this incubated idea that I kept small. And when my mom got really sick, I decided to bring it big. And I was like, "All right, no more playing small, show up."

Mimi:
I love that. [crosstalk 00:17:06].

Michelle:
He needs to show up. It's time for you to show up.

Mimi:
No, it's true. With the book I wrote, one of the reasons why? And I would love for you to comment about this, how only 1.7% of women who are entrepreneurs hit a million dollars in sales. And I was trying to dissect that. And one of the reasons why? I think is, I don't think women think big enough sometimes, right? They make the candle company and they're selling it at the farmer's market, but they don't like to think, I need to go raise money and I need to make it big. And so I think that's what you need to show up to make it bigger.

Michelle:
Yeah. I agree with you. And I think my question for you is, are they not showing up because they really don't have self- confidence or believe enough in themselves that they're capable or do they not have somebody championing them or a community of people that basically can help them get to the next level? Are they not showing the vulnerability of the difficulties of what it's like to hit a roadblock? We all hit roadblocks. And it's just a matter of like, how do we continue walking through doors to make sure that we get to the other side and continue growing? If that's what you choose doing. I mean, we all hit plateaus but different.

Mimi:
Yeah. And I think there's probably all those reasons, yes, yes, yes. But another reason I also think is guilt, right? And I think one thing is both of us are super busy with our kids. And I think a lot of women don't follow their dreams or think big enough because they feel like, "Oh, I need to make my kids lunch or I need to make perfect homemade dinner every night." And you don't realize, no you don't, right? Those two hours that you spent making lunch, get your kid to make the lunch box in the morning.

Michelle:
Yeah, exactly. If we are encouraging our children to actually be a leader themselves or encouraging our children to be independent, then yes. At a certain age they should be making their own lunches and when they get home from school, make a snack for themselves or give their own water or whatever it is. And I think you're talking about letting go. And I think that it goes back down to, what's important for you? For you, I think we've talked about this before. You love doing the driving around with the kids and taking them to their activities and all that. You'd prefer to do that, then you would make their lunch or whatever-

Mimi:
Whatever it is.

Michelle:
... it is. And I have to say, I feel very similarly. Like when I chose to really launch into EmpowHer and make it bigger. And frankly, no matter what it was that I ever took on it comes with choice. If one thing comes in, another thing has to come out and my husband will say often, like you just keep bringing more in. [crosstalk 00:19:43].

Mimi:
I know that's my problem. My husband used to be like, "You got to just pick one thing." I read that book one, whatever. I did not like that book. I'm like, "This is not me." And I was like, "No." I would say to my husband, "No, I want to be Jack Walsh." Jack Walsh owns an investment bank. He runs GE. He's running all these different companies. Like he's got his hand in all these pots. This is way before. Things change. But so I'm like, "There are people who do a lot and can make it work. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out." But it's true, I think.

Michelle:
I believe there is a way to make it work. And I think you need to ask yourself the question as to like, what is it worth? What's the net that you want? What's the game you want? And how are you planning on creating a plan that is workable for you? Not for anybody else, because you're going to get so much outside noise from people that what you should be doing? What you could be doing? How you should be doing things? It's really about what do you want to bring forward? And it's not for us to make that choice. We could give guidance or advice, but that's not true coaching. True coaching is really about finding what the person wants.

Mimi:
Yep. So you mentioned it before, but you were named the top 1% transformational coach for, was it financed Google?

Michelle:
Yahoo Finance. Yeah.

Mimi:
Yahoo Finance. And then also you were named in USA TODAY.

Michelle:
It was top eight transformational coaches for USA TODAY. Yeah.

Mimi:
That's amazing. It's big, right? So did you do that on your own? Did you hire a PR firm? What would you say got you selected?

Michelle:
It's an interesting question how these things happen, right? I think PR has changed a lot from the time that you and I were at large corporations. I think that PR was not as big of a constituent in the marketing mix when we were younger. I mean, it was important of course to get written up. I think what happened in that case was that I had a few people, I do not have a PR firm. I have thought about it through the years. And I remember when I first started EmpowHer that somebody came to me that had a PR background and offered to do some free PR for me.

Michelle:
And I turned it down because going back to your point about women owning themselves, I was like, "Well, let's just wait till we're up and running." And then I would feel more comfortable that, yeah. And I could kick myself, honestly. Looking back I'm like, "That was the stupidest thing. You should have accepted it. Why were you being so humble? Number one. And what were you worried about? You Michelle would show up 150%." And I don't have a firm. I was approached by Yahoo Finance and I was approached by somebody else who was putting together a list of top eight transformational coaches for USA TODAY.

Michelle:
And they asked me to be included in on that. And I was honored to be selected. It did have an interview process. So I was screened, and I feel really grateful because I feel like it was being acknowledged for my gifts, and I feel like there were so many years that I was... I'm like, "Wow, there's a million coaches out there." You know what I mean? But what's the difference? And I think one of the things about me that is different also beyond the wellness and business component, I have a gift of intuition, but also a gift of connection. Like I connect to people and build trust in a way that is very, I hate to use the word authentic because it's so overused, but it's very real.

Michelle:
And I think that's one of the reasons why people buy into me, is because they know that I'm not going to, I'm not a charlatan. I'm not going to tell you things if I don't believe it. If I don't think your concept's good, I'm going to actually share with you how I think we could refine it. And I'm going to also help you, bring tools to you through people that can help refine. If I don't have the answer, like what we talked about earlier, I'm not a finance person. So I'm going to find the expert for you that's going to get you the best possible results that will help your business move forward. Yeah.

Mimi:
Okay, good. So to end, I would love for you to give some tips or advice. If they're listening to this right now and they're at a low, what would you tell them?

Michelle:
Well, I think it's important to acknowledge where you're at, right? And that might be different than what other people may say. But I think it's important to sit into that and acknowledge where you're at and build in time for reflection. But don't sit there for too long. Come out the other side and know that if you really want to make your concept go forward, you can. It just requires asking for help. And some women are not great at asking for help. We need each other. We really do, like why do Mimi and I work with one another because we like to look to another strong woman to say, "Hey, how did you do it? Can you give me the keys? Can you tell me what my next step might be?"

Michelle:
My transition out of the corporate world and into coaching and leadership training, I didn't know anybody in the industry, zero. I asked my network for help. I asked my community for help. One thing that people know about me, I'm super loyal and I will always show up for people, if you need my help, no matter who you are by the way. But the reality is that if you ask people for help, you have to be clear. It's like using smart goals, right? You have to have specific questions. You don't want to waste people's time, right? So it's like have a specific question with a specific timeframe, with an achievable outcome that you're looking for.

Michelle:
And don't be afraid to be vulnerable and tell people that you really need help to move forward. If people truly know that you are looking to grow and you want to apply what you're learning, there's very few people that will say no, and don't be afraid. Don't be afraid because the reality is every day, you and I Mimi, to do what we do, whether be it being a mother or running a Beautycounter business, or running our own platforms and businesses, we don't have all the answers. Everything's a risk. We don't have the budget to apply millions of dollars to things.

Mimi:
Right. And you know what? I love that you just brought up because I really want to highlight this too. If someone does call you, if you make it to the other side and you become an expert or you're super successful, if someone does call you say yes. Give that hand back down. I know you said that you're very good at this and helping people out, but just pay it forward, especially to other women. Because I tend to feel like sometimes women don't do that. I think sometimes it's easier to ask a man. I think women are overworked because they have their families, their kids they're running around.

Mimi:
So it's easy to say no, because we're so stretched then. And then also I think that a lot of women, it was really hard to get to where they were at. So you're kind of like, "Wait, I'm not going to give you too far of a reach down because I crawled and dragged, and fought to get where I am, and I'm not going to make it easier for you." So I just-

Michelle:
And I think it's important to celebrate the small wins too, that wherever you are today is not where you will be tomorrow, right? Or wherever you are in this moment, this is all we have, right? And so when we leave this call, it's a matter of taking these nuggets and using the of tools. Not just actually listening, but actually taking notes, DMing the two of us and asking us for support. You can't be afraid for those things. How do you think we create opportunities? How do you think we get people on our podcasts or generate more leads for more coaching clients or whatever it is. Is only by asking.

Mimi:
Yeah, put yourself out there.

Michelle:
Yes, absolutely.

Mimi:
And that one thing I've learned for anybody who is trying to grow their brand or whatever, is that list, that a hundred list of list. The hundred people you want on your podcast, or the hundred people you want to be on their podcast, or the hundred top investors you want, or the hundred top customers you want. Like whatever it is that you're trying to attain make a hundred your dream-list. Your Dream 100 List. And [crosstalk 00:27:48].

Michelle:
Yeah, I totally believe in dream-list and I believe that your dreams are completely possible. Anything is possible. Whatever you want to put forward, you can completely do. It's just a matter of how you want to get there. I remember actually being in the corporate world and my boss actually telling me when I was like 25 years old, I can't remember. But he was like, "You need to use so and so as your role model." And I was like, "Oh, you want me to be a kiss ass?" And he was like, "That's not what I said." I said, "She's fine. She's this. She's that?"

Michelle:
And I said, "Here's what I'm going to tell you. It might take me 10 years longer to get where I want to go, but I was me when I got there. I wasn't somebody else. And I certainly wasn't adopting somebody else's style to fit what you want." And this is long before I became a coach. So I do think it's interesting that people will often try to emulate others instead of bringing their own gifts forward. Because we all have beautiful unique gifts to bring forward, right?

Mimi:
Yep. We'll close on this, but you have a membership. Your membership that's normally filled is going to be opened up on February 16th. So I just want to let people know about that. And then you have a retreat coming up, but I don't know if it's really even how many openings or if it's sold out.

Michelle:
Yeah. I haven't actually announced it yet. I have announced it to my current membership community. So the difference also with EmpowHer Purpose is that we're very high touch. And especially since the pandemic, I don't have huge events with 50 to a hundred people. Fifty's probably the cap. So my membership is actually a monthly, it's an annual membership, but we meet monthly. So I come on live once a month and then we have expert calls, anywhere between marketing or specific categories on wellness or business for that matter. Like a finance person might come in or maybe Mimi comes in and she's talking about angel investing, right?

Michelle:
So the membership is a nominal fee. It's only 195 a year, but we do that because it's truly about women supporting women. And we want to help provide you with a network, a support network of women that basically will help you catapult or even get started. And then I also do workshops. I have a get grounded workshop that is coming because we did it for nine months during the pandemic. People have asked us to bring it back because people are feeling a little out of sorts again, because we're still in a pandemic. It's not quite as drastic as it used to be. But the other thing recently in working with a lot of my clients is I realized that people know how to actually say their goal out loud, but they don't know how to back into a goal.

Michelle:
So we're actually doing a goal setting workshop. And then Mimi mentioned the retreat. The retreat is women's retreat, which will combine some wellness and some business. The wellness component will be like equine therapy, yoga meditation. We'll also do wine tasting because that's very fun. And then I'll have a couple experts come in and talk about entrepreneurship and how to grow your business. So again, that'll be only 20 women that I'm limiting to. So it's going to be going live in the next couple weeks where we will be announcing it on Instagram. So love to have you there. And I'm just so grateful for you inviting me on your podcast.

Mimi:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Michelle:
Yeah. Thank you so much.

Mimi:
Thank you for joining us on the Badass CEO. To get your copy of the Top 10 Tips every entrepreneur should know, go to the badassceo.com/tips. Also, please leave a review as helps others find us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. So email me at mimi@thebadassceo.com. See you next week and thank you for listening.