We were lucky to catch up with Holly Haynes recently and have shared our conversation below.
Holly, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.
I started my business when I was 41 after a 22-year corporate strategy career. There are 2 things that I think contributed to our growth (and replacing my corporate salary in 18 months) that are really simple to implement.
1) Have a vision that is more than money. Seeing 6-figures on a whiteboard does not wake me up at 5 am. But having the mission to put my kids on the bus and pick them up without moving mountains, or help 100 women leave their corporate job to spend more time with their family is motivating. Make it real.
2) But the most consistent person in the room. Consistency trumps talent. You don’t have to be the best at the game, you have to stay in it. 50% of businesses fail in their 2nd year because they don’t see results, but if you just stick with it a little longer, success is just around the corner. By staying consistent you are already beating your competition.
Holly, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m Holly — a business strategist who loves a good plan and flow chart. I’m crazy passionate about teaching women like you how to build your dream job and scale to 6-figures without sacrificing your weekends or priorities.
As an ex-fortune 500 business consultant, I teach you how to make strategy simple and reach your multiple 6+ figure goals in 8-10 hours a week.
We built our business in less than 2 years during a pandemic with multiple offers, products, and now a Top 100 podcast while I was working full-time and raising twins.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
I never in a million years thought I would own my own business. It was not even on the radar. But as my kids started to get older and my hours in my corporate job started to get longer, I started asking myself this one question.
Can you keep doing what you are doing for the next 10 years? The answer. No.
So we very slowly as a family started to pivot. A key turning point in our business however and eventually leading me to leave my corporate career was getting my family involved in the vision and the mission of my business. I took my husband to business retreats, my girls helped me ship and pack our planners, our company schedule is hanging on the wall for our whole family to see – and they helped me put it together. We map out family vacations and experiences first and then build our business around that.
When you start to communicate your dream, it truly starts to come to life faster!
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
One of the workshops we teach is called “Anti-Social School”. Not that we are not social, but I truly believe you can build a very full-time business without being dependent on the social algorithm.
I also had to come up with a way to have a “Client Attraction” strategy that was not on social all day long because when I was building my business I was also working full time. So quite frankly, I didn’t have the time to post 17 times a day.
As if the universe was watching and agreed with my philosophy, we lost our IG account of 14K followers. The best part about that experience however was the fact that our business doesn’t run on social. 95% of what you see is repurposed. So when it disappeared, we just kept going. And didn’t miss a beat.
I think it is important to know that you don’t need to run your business like everyone else. And to slow down to really think about where your audience is at and how you can serve them best.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hollymariehaynes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehollymariehaynes
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollyhaynes/
- Other: I would love to share my “Ditch the Social Drama” Podcast Series: https://www.hollymariehaynes.com/social You can also share my podcast: Crush the Rush https://www.hollymariehaynes.com/podcast
Image Credits
Ariel Kuhn https://arielkuhn.com/