Ep #162: We Should All Be Millionaires with Rachel Rodgers

You are listening to the Design You podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 162.

Welcome to the Design You podcast. A show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth and Rachel, here’s your host, Tobi Fairley.

Hello friends. Are you ready to be a millionaire? You’re like, “Duh, Tobi, I’ve been wanting that for a long time.” Well, if that’s on your goals list and that’s one of your dreams you are in luck today because I have the fabulous Rachel Rodgers on the show today. Rachel is the founder of Hello Seven, a multimillion dollar company that teaches women how to earn more money and build wealth. In fact she teaches women to be millionaires.

And the cool thing is she has a brand new book. And by the time you’re hearing this; her book has been out probably two days. And it’s called We Should All Be Millionaires. So Rachel is so exciting, so fun, so easy to talk to and we had the best conversation.

And I cannot wait to share it with you because there is a reason she’s been featured in Time, and Forbes, and Entrepreneur, and Fast Company, and NBC News, and all the places. Because she’s on this mission to teach women, especially women of color how to end cycles of overworking, and under-earning, and financial stress once and for all and become a millionaire.

So I’m going to be quiet. I’m going to let you hear all the amazing things that Rachel has to say. And then I’ll remind you where to get her book and where to find her because you’re going to want more time with Rachel Rodgers. But here we go. Here’s my interview, enjoy.

Tobi: Hey Rachel, welcome to the Design You podcast. I am so glad you’re here today.

Rachel: I am so excited to talk to you.

Tobi: So I just finished telling you for 10 minutes that I’m basically a really friendly stalker of yours, all roads lead to Rachel apparently for me, yet we’re just meeting. But apparently we have loads in common. But why don’t you, in case anybody’s been living under a rock and they haven’t seen the amazing things you’ve done lately, why don’t you give people a little insight into who you are and what you do.

Rachel: Yeah. So I am a mom of four and wife. And I live in North Carolina on a 50 acre ranch. And I run a business. I’m the CEO of a company called Hello Seven. And what we do is help women entrepreneurs and other marginalized folks build wealth and become millionaires. And usually when I say that people are like, “Tell me more.”

Tobi: Exactly. I love it. I love it. And I love talking about money and so many people are afraid to talk about money and your whole job is to just talk about money which is so cool, right?

Rachel: Yes, it’s so much fun. And I think we should be talking about money more. We need to exchange ideas. You know how even when I got a book deal it’s like, “You’re not supposed to say.” I’m like, “Listen you all, I got a six figure book deal I need you all to know you all can ask for that, you’ve just got to push.” I’m a first time author. I share it because I want people to know what’s possible and how to do that. And I think we as women especially need to exchange information about money more often.

Tobi: I agree. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this whole episode which is so fun. So you have a book coming out, once this podcast goes life, a week from now your book will have been out for a couple of days. But I got to read it early, I’m so lucky. But there’s so much about this very thing, money mindset and our thoughts about money, that’s the whole premise of your book which is the exact title, We Should All Be Millionaires, is that right?

Rachel: That’s right; We Should All Be Millionaires, yeah.

Tobi: Which we should, so let’s start there. What’s wrong with our money mindset and especially as women, what’s the problem?

Rachel: Yeah. Well, I think the problem is twofold. One, we are getting messages all the time in the media, within our government that we are bad with money, that we are not good at investing, that we need to stop buying lattes, stop being shopaholics, cut coupons. It’s all contract and get smaller. And there’s nothing really talking to us about, even in the personal finance space nobody talks about earning more. And I’m like, “Hello, there’s so much earning potential out here for us”, that within ourselves we have so much earning potential that we don’t tap into.

So I think we’re getting messages and the fact that women couldn’t even have credit cards until relatively recently, it was the 70s. We had to have co-signers on bank accounts. So for people that have only been allowed to really control their money for a couple of decades I think we’re doing pretty well. And I think we could be doing better. So I think that’s a piece of it.

And then the other piece of it is the stories we tell ourselves as a result of what we’re seeing, what we’re told in our environment, especially women of color. Because of that we believe we’re not good with money, we hang out with people who are tightfisted or who are like, “Well, you need to keep your nine to five and who do you think you are having big dreams like that?”

And then also we have our environments, so the community we hang out with, the story we tell ourselves, the government, our environment, if we live in a broke ass environment we cause ourselves to make more broke ass decisions. So there’s so many things that we’re battling when it comes to money and I think it’s important to acknowledge our part in it and also to acknowledge the world and the messages we’re receiving every day.

Tobi: Yes, 100%. There’s so much in there that’s so good that I want to leap on. One of the things that when I was reading about, of course I knew, but was being reminded about how for so long women couldn’t even get their own loan or do a lot of different things. And I started checking my own mindset because I’m pretty bold and independent. But I was like, “Are there areas where I still feel like I have to ask my husband to make a big decision? Would I ever just go buy a car with my money? Or would I be like I need his permission to do so?”

And so it’s interesting how much creep things or you’re sneaky that are kind of in our mindsets that we don’t even notice, that we’re believing all the time.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. Even those of us who are – I was talking to a friend about this earlier today about no one would ever say that I am not owning my power, or not putting myself out there, or not making bold decisions. And yet, and still, I still have places where I struggle and I notice that mindset creeping in and I have to attack it. And that’s the thing, if you’re environment is constantly repeating these messages. I mean this shows up in movies we watch, and in Instagram accounts, and ads we see. That sort of sexism with women and money is constant.

And so it is something you are battling, you are definitely getting those messages every day no matter who you are, or where you live, or where your experience is. And so it’s something that we have to counteract no matter what and always. It’s not like it’s, okay, we’re done, we’ve done that work. No, it’s an ongoing thing that we’re always having to evaluate for ourselves.

Tobi: Yeah, totally. So the other thing I was thinking about is how speaking of mindsets, I work with interior designers and a lot of people listening are designers or creatives. And we are the epitome of the starving artist, just the kind of our whole identity that we assume kind of comes from that, I can’t put a value on my worth or it feels so uncomfortable to put a price tag on me or my services. And I see that a lot. And you talk about that quite a bit in the book, I think even under the section about imposter syndrome and charging your worth.

So is that one of the big mindset, one of the biggest ones that you see is around people charging? Because I think your motto is no matter what you’re charging right now, go ahead and double it instantly, just double your price because for sure I know you’re too cheap, which I love. But I think people have such a hard time especially in service industries or when it is like in art, something like design and putting a price tag on that. What do we do about that?

Rachel: So I find this so fascinating too because interior designers by and large are working with affluent people, usually the people buying interior design services. And it’s becoming more common, more people middle class are participating because they see the value in having their spaces really curated. But yes, you’re working with an affluent population and yet still feel like you have to be cheap. And I’m like, “What?” You don’t have to worry that your potential clients can’t afford you, they absolutely can.

But I do think that, first of all we all suffer from imposter syndrome, we all have it, especially as women. In the book I talk about how Maya Angelou and Michelle Obama have shared stories about how they have imposter syndrome. And we’re like, “What, you’re the most amazing woman in the world.” But I think it’s a very natural thing and I think that’s fine but we have to counteract that. And some of it is mindset and some if it is just like we have got to take action.

So even if you’re like, “Well, I’m worried that I’m not worth it or I’m worried about whatever.” Okay, great, cool, you’re allowed to worry about that. And go ahead and just raise those prices and let’s see what happens, let’s be open to it. And it’s so funny, in the book, I’m an attorney and so I like evidence. And also I have an objection section to a lot of the different chapters of the book because I’m like I can already hear you, I know what you’re going to say when I tell you to double your price. So let’s just deal with that now.

And we just have to be open to it because we’re afraid that I’m going to lose all my clients or people are going to think I’m a snob or whatever. We come up with all of these reasons.

Tobi: Nobody here charges that amount. You even talk about that, no, no one here charges that amount.

Rachel: Right. Let me be the first, lead the way for all the other women.

Tobi: Exactly. I always tell people. They’re like, “Well, kind of the going rate.” And I’m like, “The going rate is called the going out of business rate because you don’t even know what those people’s books are and they’re probably barely hanging on.” And then you’re going to go match their price and they might be out of business in a month. But here we are looking around like you said, for evidence of what I’m allowed to charge. Yeah, and I love that part.

So you talk about in the book how we can start to shift from instead of that going rate concept to more not our value or what we believe we’re worth but what we’re worth to the customer.

Rachel: Exactly. What is the result that you are providing for people? And remember, what is the highest and best results of your services and using that to gauge your pricing rather than what other people are doing or rather than your time. It took me three hours. That’s lovely but if you get better at this and faster, what if it takes you an hour and a half are you going to make less because you have more experience? That makes no sense.

So if the result is, you know, let’s say you’re designing an office and the result is your client has this beautiful space to bring higher level clients to, they feel more confident during their meetings. And as a result they’re making more money, great, charge according to that. Or you’ve designed a beautiful space where families are able to spend more time together, have more quality time, feel better every day, as they walk through their home, feel more confident, charge according to that.

Why are we talking about hourly rates? That’s not what your customers are paying for. When your customers hire you they’re thinking about what is the end result that you’re going to get me to that is different from the experience that I’m having right now. And it’s a transformation, it’s a massive transformation.

Tobi: Yeah, a lot of times, yeah, they’re buying how they’re going to feel in that room. And how do you put a price on, I mean that’s priceless depending on the feeling that you help them create, right?

Rachel: Exactly. And I think we can and we should put a price on it, that my service is enabling you to feel good in your home every day. I think about, I just had my bedroom designed. I haven’t had a finished bedroom in three years, probably more than that, maybe ever. I have always bought a couple of pieces myself. I never have dealt with the window treatments. So I have light coming in waking me up every morning for years. Or just not having a nice sitting area where I can be away from everyone else in the household if I want to and have a little bit of alone time.

Or even having a quality mirror, my interior designer, Kara Cox laughed hysterically when she saw the mirror in my closet. She was like, “Is this your mirror?” And she just could not stop laughing. And I was like, “Stop making fun of me.” And then she got me the most enormous fabulous mirror ever in my room. And so now I have this beautiful four poster bed, every night I get into bed and I pull my faux fur throw covers up over me and I’m like oh my God, I did something right in this world.

I just feel, it makes me feel fabulous. It makes me feel successful, all of those things. And I get a better night’s sleep. What is that worth? That is worth a lot.

Tobi: Yes. I love how you say that, it’s so interesting. And I think that leads us right into this concept which you talk a lot about of making million dollar decisions versus broke ass decisions which I want you to tell us what that is. But I love that you already gave everybody listening that permission to charge a lot because that to you is a million dollar decision. You made yourself feel like a million bucks with that four poster bed and that fur throw. And you’re going to feel more confident to go out and make tons of money and sell things.

So why would we not connect the dots there? So if that’s an example of a million dollar decision what are some – tell us about a million dollar decision, what it is, what’s the difference in that and a broke ass decision? And where can we start looking for these opportunities in our life to make it the better decision?

Rachel: Right. And we can start making million dollar decisions today. And why I call it that is because in order to become a millionaire you need to start making million dollar decisions, that’s how you get there. The road is paved with million dollar decisions. We can’t make broke ass decisions every day and expect to become millionaires. It’s not going to happen.

And so million dollar decisions are the kind that cause you to expand, they’re expansive, they’re leading you to what you want. You’re following your desires. They’re making your life bigger. They make you feel joyful and happier. They make you feel good about the way your time is being used. You feel valued as a human. And broke ass decisions are the opposite. So they cause you to contract and get smaller, and get tighter. And they cause you to steer away from the things that you want and make yourself feel bad about the things that you want.

And so sometimes we think a good financial decision is all about saving money. I cut these costs, I did this myself and I cut the cost. And it’s like, no. So a perfect example that I love to use and I think it’s such a great gateway drug to this world of living in abundance, making million dollar decisions is laundry.

So many of us, I mean I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs I’ve talked to who are making even $500,000 a year, sometimes more. And they spend all weekend doing their own laundry. And I’m like, “A drop off service is literally 50 bucks. Somebody will even come to your house and pick it up and go do your laundry, bring it back and drop it off, even put it away if you want to.” And for a drop off service maybe you’re spending $50-70 for somebody else to do it and you get your weekend back so that you can either rest and restore or work on the projects that you want to work on.

You can have space in your life so that when you go back to work on Monday you are ready. Instead of feeling bedraggled and exhausted, you’re ready to take on the world, ready to make some money, ready to just take full advantage of your earning potential. So that’s a decision where spending that $70 is a million dollar decision. It’s not all about cutting costs. And that’s just one example but there are so many.

Another one that’s fun, my client who lives in Puerto Rico, she was running this very profitable growing business making a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year. And literally her car broke down three or four times in the three months that we were working together. And I was like, you know, and another time. So she’s calling the mechanic again.

And I was like, “Sister, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go to the car dealer, trade this jalopy in or whatever, whatever’s going on with this car, get it out of your life, buy a new car and stop worrying about this. This is literally slowing you down, preventing you from being at meetings, preventing you from being able to pick up your kid on time. It is not worth the stress, get a new car and move on.” And she did it and it was such a revolutionary, she didn’t even consider the idea of getting a new car. And I’m just like, “What is happening here?”

So these decisions aren’t just about what you can afford, it’s really about what we think and whether we think we’re worth it, worth the investment.

Tobi: Right, absolutely, yeah, because define afford. I mean and you even talk about in the book which is kind of a different topic we can talk about too if we need to about how we decided debt is bad. And we’re not saying everybody should get into debt.

But I even see people having a certain mindset about how much they should keep in savings. And they’re driving the old car and breaking down yet there’s money sitting in a pot somewhere that for some reason their belief is saying, “No, we can’t touch that. We should just suffer every day and keep that money safe over there. We can’t touch it.” It’s so fascinating.

One of the other things I’ve noticed and I’m interested if this also comes up with your clients and if you’ve thought about this. You probably have. When I notice people not investing in themselves I think they have a harder time asking for a lot of money for their own business. So I think about it and I’m always talking to people and I’m like, “Well, are you investing in a housekeeper, a realtor, an interior designer? Do you pay a lot of money to get your hair done? Do you have your car detailed?”

Because if you’re not spending money with other people I find that a lot of times it causes people to be more hesitant to charge. They’ve already decided that their own prices are too expensive or they’d never pay for that. And they’re not paying for stuff in their life. What do you think about that, does that play a role?

Rachel: Yeah. I mean it makes a lot of sense that those two things would be connected. And again it’s like we’re learning a lot of, I mean every book that has millionaire in the title is typically written by an older white man who does not have the experience of being a woman and receiving these messages constantly. I also think that a lot of the personal finance gurus out there they’re all about what to do with your paycheck, how to divvy it up after you’ve received it. And there’s just no discussion about how to earn more and what it really takes.

And in my experience, and I mean I grew up low income, I started with nothing. I actually started with a negative net worth, I was six figures negative. It was my net worth. And now it’s completely different and what made the difference is choosing to invest in myself, believing that I was worth it. And not even just in hiring help, which was important, hiring a team for my business, hiring help in my home with my children.

It wasn’t just those things but also investing in things like getting a haircut, buying slightly nicer clothing so that I feel really good so that I’m more willing to do videos, and go live on Instagram, and put myself out there, and ask for the sale. All of that is playing a role. And we just don’t think about it but it really does affect our earning potential. So I think it’s important that we need to be doing those things and take care of ourselves at a really high level. And that is what creates more money in our lives.

Tobi: Yeah, I love that so much. So a couple of things there I want to touch on. I want to in a minute spend a good bit of time on building our teams because that’s so important and you have a lot to say about that. But before that, let’s talk about this idea you just mentioned that a lot of the white old men that are telling us what to do with our money, one in particular that I just like so much I won’t even mention his name.

Rachel: I have a feeling I know who you’re talking about.

Tobi: Because I don’t want to taint our interview. But the whole message is always save, and suffer, and scrimp and maybe one day in the future you’ll finally have enough money to be a millionaire. And in your book you even say if you’re going to save your way to millions. That takes 32 years. 32 years, we’re not thinking 32 years when we’re like I can do this for a minute or a year or two or whatever.

And so one of the things that you talk about that so speaks to me because it really kind of makes me mad when people tell me to save, I don’t want to save my money. I earned it for a reason. And I’d much rather just go earn more and you talk about that. And I love it. It’s so refreshing to say, “Instead of focusing on pinching pennies, what if we focused on creating more revenue?” And you have such great ideas.

So can you talk to us a little bit about that because I think a lot of times we don’t even know where to start with setting a money goal and just breaking it down and deciding how am I going to go create this revenue?

Rachel: Exactly. I mean this is how I’ve run my business; especially in the beginning there would be a conference that I want to go to, to learn more about marketing. Or a retreat that I want to go to, to do the amazing networking that’s available and I wouldn’t have the money to do it. I mean from the very first coaching retreat that I attended which was $2500. I had $500 which was the deposit and nothing more. And I was like I don’t know how I’m going to make this investment but I’m doing it. So I put the $500 down and then I went about like okay, I need to sell another contract.

I was running my law practice at the time, so I need to sell a contract. I need to find a new client who wants a business entity, go back to a client who I did their business entity and I know they’re ready for other things now. And just wait and talk to clients and sold my services and put myself out there and marketed myself and I made more money. And I didn’t miss a single payment. And not to mention I went to that retreat and learned a bunch of new things that I then applied to my business and was able to turn that $2500.

I literally have made millions from that original $2500 investment because of the connections that I made, the networking that I did that continued to pay dividends for years. And I talk about that in the book. So I think we have to be willing to make those investments and to think strategically. And I also think the reason why that works is because we’re motivated by our why, if we have a strong reason. When I wanted to buy a house, I think people think you only even think about buying a house if you have 20% in your bank account plus enough for repairs, plus buffer, plus this, plus that.

And I’m like, “Let me tell you something. Out of everybody that I know you do everything that you can to pull together the amount of money you need and you’re motivated by the fact that you want to buy that house.” And then you buy that house and you empty your bank account to do it. And then you’re in there and you’re broke for a couple of weeks but you’re thrilled, or even a couple of months. And waking up in that fabulous environment every day takes you to a new level.

You start making more money and then before you know it, it’s not even a problem to make that payment every month. It’s not even something you think about. I think we pretend that we always have it together and you never think about this unless all of these things are perfectly in place and I’m like that is just not real. My friends and myself and everybody that I know that’s buying property. Listen, you do what you’ve got to do to make it happen.

Tobi: Yeah. You take the risk and you don’t know. Your brain is also still saying, “Well, what if.” And you’re like okay, well, yeah, but that can be any time. I hear people like you’re saying and they’re like, “Well, not only do I need all that in the bank, I also need to know that I can keep making the payments for the next whatever many years.” How can we possibly know that? Yeah.

Rachel: Right. And I’m like, “You could be fired the day after you close on a property.” There’s nothing guaranteed in life and so – and for that reason let’s not take 30 years to become millionaires. Let’s be motivated by the things that we want, by the what we want to create in the world, what we want to leave our children, whatever motivates you. Let that motivate you, come up with that, what is that next number, what is that next finite amount.

So if you’re starting out or you’re trying to get to let’s say $10,000 months what are you going to do? How could you make $10,000 in a month? Brainstorm, come up with 25 ways. Probably half of them will be terrible, but the other half will be worth trying. And you might try some things and realize that really worked, I’m going to do that again. And that’s how you figure it out. And that’s the problem.

If we won’t even be open to our own desires, if we won’t even allow our inner thoughts to speak. If we can’t even be allowed to dream, how can we get to that place where we can attach a value to that? I could have that dream if I can make $10,000 more a month. Okay buddy, now let me go imagine what are some ways that I can make $10,000, let me go think about it, let me go try it and see what happens.

I had a girl friend do this recently. She’s been an entrepreneur for years making around $150,000 for 10 years and brilliant. I mean well known, brilliant, exceptional at what she does, has worked with really high level people. And when I found out she’s making $150,000 in total revenue I was shocked. I’m like, “What? Everyone talks about how amazing you are. Why are you only making 150k?” And it’s just because she had settled for that. And then she read this book and one of the things that we do is challenge you in the end to take a 10k in 10 days challenge.

And we talk to you exactly how to do that and all the details. And so she decided to do it and she was like, “I’m going to see if I can make a 100k in three months instead of a year.” And she did it and she made a 150k in three months just by focusing on what could I do to earn more.

And that’s what I’m saying to women, let us focus on our earning potential and really think about what are some ways that we can make more money because that’s what we’re not doing. And if we start doing that we’ll start seeing all of these different opportunities and all these different ways that we’re leaving money on the table.

Tobi: Yeah. And before you even mentioned it I was going to also bring up this indoctrination and even habit of our own to tamp down our desires. And you talk a lot about that. We’re not even allowed to want stuff. And I think that when we bump up against that discomfort of pushing ourselves to go make money I think it’s so easy for people to say, “Well, no, I don’t really need that or I don’t really need that house, or I don’t really need those shoes, or I don’t really need those, as you say, $5 lattes or whatever every day.” How do we really start to get in touch with letting our desires be okay?

Rachel: Yes. And so one of the exercises, there’s a chapter in the book called Million Dollar Vision in which I walk everybody through this process of starting to really capture your vision, starting to think about what is the thing that you’ve always wanted ever since you were a kid. What is the thing that’s motivating you right now? It could be as simple as, one of the things that has motivated so many of my clients over the years was just having a backyard for their kids. They’re like, “I want to see my kids running around a nice backyard, that’s all I want.”

Or, “I want to send my kids to a really great school.” Or, “I just want to work with a personal trainer. I’ve always wanted to do that but I can’t afford it.” It doesn’t have to be this profound thing. Sometimes it’s just some really basic thing that we really want, that we see somebody else has.

Or, “I want to go on vacation or my dream has always been to go home to visit my relatives in whatever country. And it seems like such a far off thing.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, how much does that cost? Let’s go find out. Go do some Googling, find out how much it costs. Okay, great, now you have a number, awesome. So if it costs $15,000, what are we going to do to make another $15,000 in the next 30 to 90 days?” And there’s a reason why it’s 30 to 90 days or 10 days because if we make these goals.

I think what people do is they’re like, “Well, my goal is to own a home in the next five years or be able to hire my first executive assistant in the next three years.” And I’m like, “Why is it so far away?” We’re not motivated by things that are a decade out. We want it today or as close to today as possible. And I talk about this, there are studies in the book that show that wildly, almost improbably goals are much more motivating and we’re more likely to hit those kinds of goals than mediocre goals that we’re like, “Let’s try it, whatever.”

Tobi: Exactly. Or I’ve got plenty of time, I’ve got three and a half more years before I have to pay for my executive assistant. So we’ve got time to sit around and procrastinate for a while.” It’s so good, yeah.

Rachel: So I think we need to set bigger goals in shorter timeframes, and also too, everything is impossible. When I was growing up, low income the idea of me being a multimillionaire to myself, my family also impossible, and yet here I am. So clearly we can do impossible things so we should go for it and try it and see what happens.

Tobi: I love it, yes, I love it. Okay, so let’s talk about the squad or the team. Actually they’re two different things, there’s a squad which is your people that surround you. But what I really want to talk about is the team because you were talking about executive assistants. And one of the things I see people do is not hire or like you said, wait too long to hire or even if I do see people hire, I see them not hire that even personal assistant to help them take care of themselves.

It’s like, “Well, I can hire an interior design assistant to pick out more stuff that we can sell to people but I can’t hire somebody to help get my clothes to the cleaners, or make sure my kids have food, or pick them up from school, or anything like that.” And so I think this was such a huge part of your book and there was even – I wish I could remember exactly how you said it right now because it was one of my favorite parts where you were saying that waiting to hire those people.

Do you remember the part I’m talking out of the book? And you were talking about how it really holds you back or keeps you stuck in your current money situation instead of taking the leap to hire them which will move you into that higher earning potential. So how should we start to think about teams? Because I watch people wait on this all the time.

Rachel: For sure. And they think that when I make more money I will hire this person. And the reality is when you hire this person then you will make more money.

Tobi: You will make more money, yes, exactly, that’s it.

Rachel: It doesn’t work the other way unfortunately, we wish it did, but it doesn’t work that way. And one piece of advice that I heard years ago that I highly practice in my own business which is if you have a really great employee get them an assistant and it’s like having two of that really amazing high level employee because now they have so much support and their output and their productivity will be even better. And so guess who is your current most amazing employee? It is you, business owner. It is you founder, or you interior designer.

And so get yourself an assistant and you will see the output of two designers. And that is what’s true. And the other thing too is an assistant is the most obvious way to increase your income. And it’s a more affordable role. We think if I’m a lawyer I need to hire another lawyer. If I’m a designer I need to hire another designer so that that person can do the work. No. Hire an assistant. And when I did this, which I definitely procrastinated when I was running my law practice years ago, I learned all of these lessons the hard way.

And so I waited way too long to get the help that I needed, but when I finally did I instantly made more money. And one of the simplest reasons why is that she just responded to the potential clients in my inbox a lot faster than I could. So I’d leave a lead sitting there for a week because I was just so busy with other things like serving clients I already had. And then I’d go back to them and they’re like, “Well, I found somebody else,” at this point where they don’t even respond.

Whereas somebody comes into the inbox and that day she’s like, “Here’s how you can hire us, here’s what you need to know.” She gets on the phone with them. She’s talking about how amazing I am. And then they’re immediately hiring us and we’re making more money. So it’s scheduling, management, all of that admin stuff that we are doing that we don’t need to be doing and then we can spend more of our time thinking up ways to make more money for the business.

Tobi: Yeah. And we feel guilty giving that to someone else and don’t realize that there are people who actually like doing that stuff and are good at that stuff.

Rachel: Oh my gosh. First of all it was someone on my team who lives for Excel spreadsheets, she’s like, “Give me a spreadsheet. Give me a bunch of data so I can make a spreadsheet with all of these calculations built in.” She absolutely loves it. And there are so many far more organized people than me who love organizing, even I had someone who is a friend of mine recently say, “I want to become a house manager. I love nurturing people. I like cooking. I like taking care of people. I feel like that would be a really fun role for me.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you probably would love it.”

So we just assign our own thoughts about particular jobs to other people and that’s not true. And one of the other things people say all the time too is, “Well, I don’t want to exploit other people.” And then I’m like, “Well, then don’t. Pay them well. Respect them. Find out what are their hopes and dreams and see if you can be a part of helping make that happen for them. And pay them a living wage, respect their time. Don’t make them work late every day and be a great boss.”

Tobi: Yeah, I love that, it’s so good.

Rachel: You don’t have to exploit people for other people to work for you. We’re not Amazon. We don’t have to behave that way. We can do things differently.

Tobi: Yeah, so good, I love it so much. And yeah, I do think that we do. We’ve decided that we don’t like it or we assume kind of like we were talking about money earlier that for example, if I’m going to hire a housekeeper, housekeepers don’t get paid very much. So I feel sorry for them, instead of just going. “Well, my housekeeper can get paid as much as I’m willing to pay her.” If I want to pay a 100 grand for my housekeeper and I can afford it then I can have the best housekeeper relationship on the planet.

But we’re close minded and thinking what’s the going rate for a person who helps me at my house.

Rachel: Exactly. And I make the floor, I don’t hire people for less than $20 an hour because I think that’s the minimum really anywhere, and probably in some cities it should be a little bit more. But even if you hire someone just five hours a week to start, to start to get that support and start to get that help and it makes such a difference. And or the people that work for me or that help me in my home they get profit sharing.

Tobi: Very good.

Rachel: So they get health insurance, they get paid time off. They have a 401(k) that I contribute to even if they don’t. So one of the things that I am so excited to do and I think that we should be as business owners is we can provide the workplace that we never found. A lot of us became entrepreneurs because we couldn’t find a job we liked. And so this is my dream environment. This is the environment that I hoped that I could work for, so I can provide a remote setting.

I can provide a setting where people’s ideas are heard and it’s not just the Rachel show. Where they can become leaders and advance and where they can get amazing benefits.

Tobi: I love that so much. I haven’t even really thought about, because in some ways I have a lot of people that help me but I kind of have it necessarily combined like the people who help me in my sort of personal life with my actual team. There’s some separation there and I want to go back and look at that. That’s so interesting. And I love that it’s just a reflection of your values. What matters to you and so why are you not thinking about that in all these roles that people can support you? It’s so good.

Rachel: For sure. I mean one thing that’s happening and it’s happening right now for one of my team members. But when my team members are buying a house, or moving to a nicer place, or having babies and taking a nice maternity leave that we are happy to provide as a company. I am delighted. They get to have this amazing life and we get to be a part of that story, a part of making that happen for them. And that brings me so much joy.

So I feel like we always think about, well, it’s really hard to manage people. And it’s too much work. And it’s too expensive. But it’s so rewarding to hire people and to provide a great workplace.

Tobi: I know exactly what you mean. And a lot of that motivation we’re looking for to go out and sell and make more money can come from those people. And we know we’re helping somebody else put their kids through college, or buy that house or whatever. That’s a whole other level of motivation to want to go make a lot of money, so good. Well, before we wrap up let’s talk a little bit about a scalable business. We touched on this you and I before we started.

And I was telling you that it’s something that I teach designers. But I think it’s something that a lot of people in, you know, that are used to one-on-one service industries or things like design. We just can’t fathom how we could have a scalable product or service. And that’s when we really can start creating millions of dollars because it doesn’t take our time. We’re not trading those dollars for hours as we know that term.

But can you speak a little bit to that? Because I know that people hear me and they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, Tobi, but, that’s just Tobi.” And I want them to hear it from you because I know you’ll probably say it even better than me or in a different way. And I want people to keep hearing this message of how they can scale their business.

Rachel: For sure. And this is what I’m always talking to folks about especially my clients. I’m always talking to them about how can we look for, it’s the same way that I’m saying to every person whether you’re an employee or business owner, lean into your earning potential. It’s the same question. So what we need to do when we have established businesses is really look at it and say, “What is my scalable opportunity here?” What is something that I could sell a lot more of?

And so I think it’s mainly one of two things. Can you sell something that can be one to many that isn’t a one-on-one service? Or can you hire a team to help you deliver? Those are the two ways to scale, the two most obvious ways. And so we can, especially as interior designers you could have lifestyle products that you create and sell en masse, which we’ve seen designers do that very successfully.

You can sell, one of the things that I think is a really untapped opportunity is we were talking earlier about how interior design is really something that mostly affluent people participate in. It’s really hard to afford or I think people who are middle class don’t understand the value that they get. You waste a lot less money when you’re buying furniture pieces and you realize it doesn’t fit, I didn’t even measure. It looks terrible but I’m going to keep it because I can’t return it. Do you know what I mean?

Instead of having a beautifully designed space that’s curated and intentional and there is a trade discount being passed off to you etc. But I think one of the untapped opportunities is really bringing it to the middle class, interior design. And so there are a lot of ways to do that.

One example is that I’ve seen is doing a VIP day with clients and saying, “Okay, we’re going to look at your space.” You could do this virtually or physically. “It costs $5,000, we’ll come into your space. We’ll measure. We’ll tell you what our recommendations are. We’ll create a list of here’s the products that we would recommend that you purchase and here’s how to put it together, 5k, done.” And you could hire a team of designers who could be delivering that every day, that you could be having four different designers.

You can be making $20,000 a day selling that. And so I think too we have to kill our darlings. Sometimes we’re sort of obsessed with the way people have always done it. Or we’re like, “Well, I love this part of it so I don’t want to give that up.” We need to make sure that we’re thinking about where is the opportunity? What are clients looking for? And how could we solve this problem for clients faster? How could we give them a solution that would work for them? And so I think there’s different, and that’s just one example but there are so many more.

Tobi: And I love that you said 5k because a lot of the mindset of interior designers would be something like, “Well, I only have charged $100 an hour myself and I could do that in six hours. And so that should be $600.” And absolutely not, it took you years to come up with all that, [crosstalk]. And like you said, what’s the value to them at the end of the day?

So I love that you randomly picked $5,000 because that number is going to make a lot of people listening feel uncomfortable. But that’s exactly the type of price that you should be charging for that, yeah.

Rachel: Yeah. I would pay that and my mother-in-law who is not affluent and she’s working on some spaces in her house. And she was choosing things and I was like, “Oh, this isn’t going well. This is about to go sideways; I can already see it. So I’m like, “Let me stop you right there.” And I went and looked for VIP day kind of services for her. And that’s what I would expect to pay is around $5,000 for something like that. And I think that would be totally reasonable. And I think she would be down for it to have a finished space that it’s not wasted.

And you’re getting your genius eye, I think sometimes we think well, it’s just a formula or I just have the software. I’m just doing x, y, z. I’m like, “You’re really undervaluing your skill set.” I lack this skill. I am not good at making spaces pretty. I’m not good at doing my own hair. I’m not good at dressing myself, knowing what looks really good on me. And so I pay other people to help me with that because that is not my skill. What I am good at, speaking and teaching, and those things. I’m going to make more money doing what I’m great at so I can pay the people to do the things that I’m not great at.

Tobi: Yeah, so good. And something you touched on real quick too was the earning potential even for people who work for someone else. And I remember, it reminded me of the story in the book when you said you were starting to hire a person that was really, really talented. And you had a number in your head. And they were like, “No.” It seems like you wanted to pay 50 and they wanted 150 or some number, and yeah, I don’t know, some big number, yeah, three times, yeah.

Rachel: I think I wanted to pay 70-80 and what I wound up paying was well over 100 and almost double.

Tobi: Yeah, double.

Rachel: And I mean I’m showing them, even from the employer side, you have that negotiation potential, even as an employee you can negotiate. But again, you have to be thinking about what is the end result? Are you just talking about what you want and how your expenses have gone up? Because I can tell you right now, your boss does not care. What your boss is going to care about is how is paying you more going to make them more money, going to make their life easier, going to save them time, going to serve the company well. Talk to their needs and what they’re looking for.

And that’s the thing too; I think sometimes we lower our prices because we’re scared to sell. We’re scared to put ourselves out there and really showcase the value. And you know what? When you have a higher price point, and if it is higher than everybody else’s, great, and that’s your job is to educate people on the value that you provide and then they make whatever decision is right for them, and if the decision is no, okay, great, bye. Yes.

Tobi: So good. It’s so good. We don’t have to have everybody, it’s okay you all. We can have a seven hour talk. We’re going to wrap up but we could have a seven hour talk on this book because even that, even being okay without having people like you, or being a disappointer. You talk about that, being okay with people being disappointed. All of that is part of making million dollar decisions. Because if we go around having everybody like us and always saying yes to our prices and never disappoint anyone, we’re going to be broke. We’re totally going to be broke.

Rachel: That’s correct. And that, I mean that is the state that women as a collective are in right now. So let’s change it.

Tobi: So good. Well, any last words? And can you tell people besides your book, what do they need to know to find you, to hire you? You have so many ways that if this really connects with them or the book connects with them then they can work with you to really start dialing in these million dollar mindsets and million dollar bank accounts.

Rachel: That’s right. So if you’re looking for me I’m at helloseven.co is our website. If you want to learn more about the book and the different offers that have going on. We’re doing a virtual book tour, it’s helloseven.co/book. And we have a club also called We Should All Be Millionaires, so that’s where folks can work with us and my team of coaches. And you can also follow me @rachrodgersesq on Instagram.

And so the last thing that I will leave folks with is I really hope when they read this book, when they listen to this interview, when they interact with my work that their belief shifts to making money is easy and that they truly believe it and see it and then can take action on it. Because it is true, making money is easy, we really overcomplicate it. We make it hard. We have so many stories in our heads. So just really start to make that your mantra and look for examples, look for places where that’s true so that you can reinforce that belief within yourself and start making money a lot easier.

Tobi: I love it. It is easy. I told you when you came on, I’m making you some money because you’re going to make me some money because a week ago or so you sent out an email. And you’re like, “We have this Latte Spots and this other program we do called The Incubator.” And I’m like, do I want her to help me double or triple my millions? I think yes, I’m signing up. So I cannot wait. I think it starts in maybe June or whenever. And so this will be really fun. I’ll report back to everybody later and see what really changed.

Because like you said, it’s just the mindset, and whether you’re stuck at, like your friend that was stuck at a 150 for years or for me. I’ve been hanging out in the one to two million for years. I’m kind of tired of hanging out in that spot. I want to go to a different location. Yeah, let’s go somewhere else. So that’s going to be really fun. So I can’t wait for that. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the book, it’s genius. And I just can’t wait for everybody else to learn more about how to do this, so yeah, super grateful to you.

Rachel: Thank you for having me. This was a blast.

Alright, are you ready? Are you ready to sign up and get that million dollar mindset and get money flowing to your business? Well, I hope you are. Rachel’s the lady to do it. She is phenomenal as you just heard. And I just encourage you to pick up her book, get it yesterday. Get it right now. I’ve read it as you’ve heard and it is fantastic. And I highly, highly recommend it. I can’t wait to hear from you and what you think.

And truly go follow Rachel. Her Instagram alone is just full of truth bomb, and nugget, and piece of wisdom after piece of wisdom. I mean honestly just following her on Instagram I get so much. And if you think that’s amazing then wait till you read the book, okay? So thanks for being here. Can’t wait to hear from you soon when you put these million-dollar ideas to work in your business and I’ll see you back here next week with another great episode of the Design You podcast. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for listening to the Design You podcast, and if you are ready to dig deep and do the important work we talk about here on the podcast of transforming your mindset and creating a scalable online business model, there has never been a more important time than right now. So join me and the incredible creative entrepreneurs in my Design You coaching program today. You can get all the details at TobiFairley.com.