We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ellie Kay a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ellie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
I was a best selling author of 15 books and a full time speaker and media personality. Then I entered the spokesperson world and found out I enjoyed the art of the deal. I went to a major conference called FinCon and taught a session called “How to make a six figure income as a Brand Ambassador” and shared the process of the deal from start to finish. Afterward, I had a dozen millennials come up to me and ask if I did representation. They also told me how they were taken advantage of with brand ambassador partners (PR firms and corporations) through scope creep and low balling deals.
I decided to pivot a bit and began representing a hand full of select influencers so they could be protected from predatory partners. One of these was Tiffany Aliche, The Budgetnista. That was 11 years ago and Tiffany did the work to develop her brand and grow. She went from 10k followers on social media to 2 million followers today. She has made 30 million dollars in the last 10 years and I have represented all her brand deals. But more importantly, she’s helped a community of “Dream Catchers” get out of debt, buy their first house and pay off consumer debt. She’s gotten laws changed in New Jersey to have schools teach financial literacy to students. She’s been to the White House to represent her community of black women to be more thoroughly represented through policies and legislation. It’s her success story and I’m grateful to have played a small part in it.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was a born entrepreneur and had my first business at age seven where I got a hand buzzer from a box of Post cereal and decided “I could make money with this.” I charged my classmates for handshakes where they got buzzed by the buzzer–5 cents for girls and 10 cents for boys (because they had cooties.) I made 10 dollars in two weeks. I also learned in church that Sunday that 10% of what we earn could go to help others. I still remember the feeling I got when I gave one dollar to go to developing world communities to buy food and provide education. I’ve never stopped giving.
I continued this entrepreneurial passion throughout my childhood by selling candy bars door to door in the second grade to pay for summer camp. I bought them at a discount store and hiked the price for the convenience of having your chocolate developed to your door. Then in 5th grade I provided an alternative to the pet rock craze and created the “furry critter friends” made of fake blue fur, stuffed and finished out with googly eyes. I earned enough to pay for a trip to Spain to visit my cousins.
By the age of 12, I’d gotten certified by the Red Cross as a babysitter and developed a complete business plan. Customers had to book me a month in advance, if they cancelled less than 2 weeks before the gig, they had to pay full price for the evening. If they stayed out late, rates increased after 10:00 PM and after midnight. If I showed up and there was a second family there who wanted me to watch their kids, too, then the second family had to pay full price as well. I earned enough in the next 3 years to pay cash for a good used car.
When I married a military man in my 20s, he had 40k in consumer debt (in 1988) that accrued from his divorce and we paid 1/3 of his income to child support for his two girls. There were times we couldn’t afford groceries. We also had 5 children in 7 years (for a total of 7 children to financially support) and we moved 11 times in 13 years. I developed a new “business” of saving money and because extremely proficient at couponing,. I was the woman who had a total bill of $125 and after coupons, I only paid $25. I calculated that for a family of 7, this practice saved us 150k over 20 years.
This skill set led to me teaching coupon seminars, which got taped and became a part of the financial education program at 120 military bases around the world. This also led to my first book, “Shop, Save and Share” which became a best selling book and ushered in the modern day “Extreme Couponing” movement. I ended up writing 15 books, selling over one million copies. This lead to more speaking gigs where I got paid 2k times to speak in events as large as arenas with 10k people in the seats. This speaking and book writing also led to media hits where I’ve guested over 2.5k times including GMA, Today, and Fox News. The media led to spokesperson work, which was very lucrative if managed properly. I used to pay a spokesperson agent 25% of my contracts and a speaking agent 20% of my income as well as a book agent 15%. But in those cases, I was catching as many redlines as the agents were and I decided to start repping my own deals where I handled, negotiations, redlined contracts in handled vendor onboarding.
I started losing my passion for writing but loved the art of the deal for representing talent on brand ambassador deals. I’ve now fully pivoted into being a talent agent for 50 top tier talent influencers, speakers and authors and I represent all those kinds of deals. I’m always learning something new and never find it boring or dull. My goal for myself and for my clients is to have them work 1/2 as much for twice as much money. I’ve been successful in not only doing that for my clients but also for myself. I currently run a successful agency by only working 1/2 as much as I did before, but still making my clients a good living.
In the process of becoming a financial expert (all my books were on finances) I founded a NPO called Heroes at Home where my team of 4 speakers traveled to 6 countries to do 55 events at 35 bases. We toured 4 years and had adventures along the way with our audiences including riding in an F15E Strike Eagle, an Apache helicopter, jumping from an airplane (skydiving) and going down into a nuclear missile silo.
I also raised a bunch of Kay kids and made sure that all of them graduated from college debt free. I taught them daily about financial matters and today, none of these young adults have consumer debt, student loan debt or car debt. They have all married like minded partners and continue to save money and share with others in need. We also have 14 grandchildren.
I have the margin to travel the world for both business and pleasure and am grateful for my business that allows me to do that kind of travel.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I married a military man, he was a fighter pilot and a captain. But he also had 40k in divorce debt, plus 30% of his income went to child support. We had an additional 5 children in 7 years (a total of 7 children to financially support) and we moved 11 times in 13 years. I had been a broker before I married, but that kind of work wasn’t possible with all the moves and all the kids. So I pivoted to become an author, speaker, media personality and spokesperson. I also homeschooled the kids for 7 years because of all the moves. In the middle of all this activity, I was awarded the Mary Walker Spouse Award by the Army for my 20k hours of cumulative volunteer hours in helping military families with their finances.
I was often a single mom with a husband who deployed a lot and traveled far from home in his work as a pilot. It was just my life and I knew nothing different of having to care for all those kids, homeschool and launch a homebased business. Looking back, I had the energy of 2.5 people and was grateful for how the kids grew up and the fact they all graduated with at least a Bachelors Degree and debt free. The kids attended Columbia, Stanford, USNA, USAFA, USMA, UTA and Moody Bible Institute. They all went where they were called and followed their destiny. They all have job satisfaction in what they do for a living and they all married great like minded partners. My main reward for being resilient is a 37 year marriage, 14 grandchildren and the ability to travel to destinations on my bucket list. I also love the adventure that comes with my work, a ride in an F15E Strike Eagle, skydiving, bungee jumping, hydrofoil racing, roller coast riding and ziplining. Life is a wonderful adventure when you focus on what you DO have rather than on what you DO NOT have. Color me grateful.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I was raised in an evangelical Christian community and raised my own kids in the 90s and early 2000. While I’m still a Christian today, I’ve only recently realized that a lot of the teaching I had in my early marriage was detrimental to my mental health. I used to teach my kids “other first, myself last.” But then I realized that when you are briefed on an airplane, in case of an emergency you put on your own oxygen mask first, then help those next to you. I wasn’t one to take care of myself and my own needs in my early years as a young adult.
I was taught that everyone else’s needs mattered more–my husband’s, my children, my friends and my military community. I didn’t draw boundaries and say no nearly enough. Since then, I’ve learned to protect my own mental health and that “no” is a complete sentence. In counseling, I’ve learned to be able to draw boundaries with myself and others and am in a much healthier place by unlearning some of the toxic elements of evangelical Christianity. For example, I was taught that men mattered more than women. My husband’s needs were more important than my own. Women couldn’t preach in church. I didn’t have to be fulfilled if he was. Submission meant that I lose myself in favor of my husband. I had to unlearn all of these things and I’ve been grateful to sort through the baggage to find my true self. Today, I’ve preached hundreds of times in churches and other venues–unlearning the idea that women can’t preach.
This new learning helps me give others and myself more grace and keeps me from judging others in favor of really listening to their stories. this also has led to me learning about other cultures as well and today, I have a DEI agency where 85% of my clients are women, black, brown and Asian influencers. I attract a DEI clientele and I believe it’s because I had to learn to how really listen, embrace other cultures and become a defending of my clients who need representation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.elliekay.com
- Instagram: @elliekay1
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellie.kay.39
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliekay1
- Twitter: @elliekay
- Youtube: elliekay2631
- Other: https://www.heroesathome.org
Image Credits
Brocade jacket by fountain used with permission from Nikki Bacon Photography