Ep. 136/ How to Outsource the Household Stuff You Hate Doing with Sage Haus Founder Kelly Hubbell
SHOW NOTES:
Please leave a rating and review for the show!
++++++++++++++++++
After Kelly Hubbell was working a corporate job and did a time audit she realized she was spending another 22 hours managing her household! That realization that she needed to outsource more tasks led her to found Sage Haus.
Kelly is a mom of three and Sage Haus, is her platform dedicated to helping busy parents reclaim their time and energy by building their village and outsourcing the mental load. Her mission is to ensure moms (on any budget!) get the support they deserve so they can feel more present in everything they do—whether it's enjoying time with their families, growing their career, or pursuing personal passions.
Kelly and I have a great conversation about the stigma of the ‘supermom,’ how to truly value our own time, and figure out who we can hire to help us. She gives ‘permission’ to parents looking to lower their stress, have a more harmonious home and has empowered thousands of parents to go from chaos to control, helping them build a village that includes the right family assistant, house manager, or meal prep chef. She also shares the challenges of launching her own business and the pivots within that.
In this episode you will learn:
How she’s expanded and pivoted her business - 8:06
How to run a time audit - 11:52
How to figure out who to hire - 16:08
Giving yourself permission to hire - 19:52
The funny time she shared a NSFW photo of herself to her boss - 30:57
Figuring out how to value your time - 36:21
LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!
Click below to Follow, Review & Give a 5-star rating to Mom’s Exit Interview Podcast.
Bio:
Kelly is a mom of three and the founder of Sage Haus, a platform dedicated to helping busy parents reclaim their time and energy by building their village and outsourcing the mental load. Her mission is to ensure moms (on any budget!) get the support they deserve so they can feel more present in everything they do—whether it's enjoying time with their families, growing their career, or pursuing personal passions.
Kelly founded Sage Haus to share her journey of creating a reliable support system, offering practical advice for fellow moms who want to improve partner collaboration and move beyond the outdated 'do-it-all' narrative. Through actionable solutions and establishing repeatable home systems, Kelly has empowered thousands of parents to go from chaos to control, helping them build a village that includes the right family assistant, house manager, or meal prep chef.
In this episode you will learn:
How she’s expanded and pivoted her business - 8:06
How to run a time audit - 11:52
How to figure out who to hire - 16:08
Giving yourself permission to hire - 19:52
The funny time she shared a NSFW photo of herself to her boss - 30:57
Figuring out how to value your time - 36:21
Quotes from our guest:
“....childcare is a necessity for people who work or for those of us parents who are working parents and what having additional support in our home like a house manager or family assistant does is it frees up the time outside of working hours so parents don't have to run through their chore charts and their checklist and all of the other things that they're trying to do to manage their home, squish them into the other hours of the day, which by the way, we want to be hanging out and spending time with our families and doing things other than working during those hours.” - 05:22
“...the most important thing that I do with a mom who's feeling just super overwhelmed and wants to get things off her plate but isn't quite sure what she would take off of her plate, which I'll just side note this, that a big piece of that is getting rid of the guilt of actually getting things off your plate. I feel like that's the biggest barrier for a lot of us who are like, okay, we think we're ready, but then it's really hard for us for some reason to give something to someone.” - 9:51
“Doing it all, being a supermom actually sounds terrible to me. Sounds like something that I don't want to do. And so I think we're now finally just talking about this. People weren't for so long talking about this, and one of the reasons I started Sage House is because I was so tired of celebrities. They're like multimillionaires being interviewed, how do you do it all? And you're like, well, I outsourced this and I outsourced this.” - 15:10
“What is the value of my time? That is the question to ask yourself, what is the value of my time? And if that value of your time is more than $25 or $30 or $35 for an hour, that's when you know that you should be hiring someone to help.” - 18:30
Get On Camera with Kim’s brand new 7-Day On-Camera Challenge
FREE DOWNLOAD: 10 Tips to Make Better Video In Less Time (To Grow Your Revenue) click here
Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram & Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert
LINKS:
Kim (00:02):
All the stuff you need to do at home, the meal prep, folding laundry, et cetera that you probably hate doing. Well, our guest is changing the way we live by giving us permission and tools to outsource it. Kelly Hubbell is the founder of Sage Haus and she's here talking about how finally, as parents and society, we're starting to acknowledge that we have way too much on our plate.
Kelly (00:22):
Being a supermom actually sounds terrible. We're now finally just talking about this.
Kim (00:27):
Kelly talks about how we value our time and what we should do next.
Kelly (00:31):
The value of your time is not simply your corporate salary broken up into ours. How else could you be spending your time and what is that worth to you?
Kim (00:42):
She's got tips on how to find the right help, how to figure out exactly who you need, whether it's a house manager or someone to help with meal prep so that you can have less stress and a more harmonious life and know it's not just for celebrities. Amazing news. If you are a coach, a consultant, a founder, or a real estate agent, and you are looking to bring in leads and clients through social media and video, get confidant on camera, get your messaging really buttoned up. My live coaching cohort video bootcamp, the doors are open. This is an intimate small group coaching program. It is seven weeks and it teaches you everything from how to message your value, to how to be confident on camera, and how to make great content that actually brings in leads in clients. My clients over the past year have brought in hundreds and thousands and a few of them millions of dollars in sales, specifically from the lessons they've learned from video.
Client 1 (01:35):
I just got another client 100% caused from taking your video bootcamp.
Client 2 (01:42):
Joining Kim's video bootcamp has been incredible.
Client 3 (01:45):
This course is already transforming my business.
Client 4 (01:49):
Absolutely. Take Video Bootcamp. Kim is amazing. You'll learn so much that will help you take your video to the next level.
Kim (01:58):
It's really fun for me to teach and it's super, super amazing program for you to learn how to finally turn your content into cash. Yeah, your iPhone can actually turn things into cash. So anyway, message me on instagram at kimrittberg.com or just go to kim rittenberg.com and you'll see video bootcamp under courses and coaching, and you can apply there. K-I-M-R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. Thanks. Welcome to the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast, part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.
(03:25):
I'm very excited. We have basically like a fairy godmother here today. Kelly Hubbbell is a mom of three and the founder of Sage Haus, A platform dedicated to helping busy parents reclaim their time and energy by building their village and outsourcing the mental load. Her mission is to ensure moms on any budget, get the support they deserve so they can feel more present in everything they do, whether it's enjoying time with their families, growing their career, or pursuing personal passions. Kelly founded Sage House to share her journey of creating a reliable support system, offering practical advice for fellow moms who want to improve partner collaboration and move beyond the outdated do it all narrative through actionable solutions and establishing repeatable home systems. Kelly has empowered thousands of parents to go from chaos to control, helping them build a village that includes the right family assistant, house manager or meal prep shop. Kelly, I'm really excited to have you here.
Kelly (04:13):
I'm super come to be here.
Kim (04:15):
So Kelly, I feel like the one thing I really love is I feel like you're talking about something that people don't talk about. So talk to me about hiring for your home. What are people doing? What are the stigmas? Open it up for me.
Kelly (04:29):
Yeah, so I mean, if we start to think about running our home like a business, which by the way, we're really good at business, we're very good at operationalizing, communicating, collaborating, and work in our jobs, but for some reason in our homes, it's like a different story. What I'm doing is essentially applying those very similar principles of creating cutter systems and operations and delegation in the home to help busy families who are hanging on by a thread start to reclaim their time, think about the value of their time and get back to really enjoying their life.
Kim (05:06):
What does that look like? So the work you do with someone, so you help them hire someone to support their home, I feel like a lot of us are, okay, I have a nanny or a babysitter, et cetera. Talk to me about what sorts of roles people aren't outsourcing for their home, but they should be.
Kelly (05:22):
Yeah. Well, I think in our society and culture today, people have said to us, oh, if you need more help, you should get childcare. Oh, if you need more help, you need a nanny or you need preschool. Well, I mean, I can tell you from personal example that I have three kids. I had them all in daycare, preschool, and I was still drown. I was still feeling overwhelmed, and I thought to myself, should I be feeling this way? I was honestly asking myself the question of why do I feel crazy when I have childcare? And that's the difference. The difference is childcare is a necessity for people who work or for those of us parents who are working parents and what having additional support in our home like a house manager or family assistant does is it frees up the time outside of working hours so parents don't have to run through their chore charts and their checklist and all of the other things that they're trying to do to manage their home, squish them into the other hours of the day, which by the way, we want to be hanging out and spending time with our families and doing things other than working during those hours.
(06:31):
So that's sort of like the difference is to me, there are two different things. They're separate lanes.
Kim (06:37):
Yeah, I love that. So I want to get more into what it looks like, and I do agree very much the idea of how much money is your time worth? And I think people get tripped up when they're like, how much money is my time worth calculating it because you're working? So that's a rate, but we're not calculating our free time. So I feel like the one time when I was younger, I thought about it this way. So I was working during the week in media and on the weekend I had a jewelry business that I was selling, and I've always personally hated cleaning. I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it. So that was a luxury that I could barely afford to chip in with my two roommates for a cleaning service. I could barely afford that, but it was important to me.
(07:19):
I hate cleaning. I'm not going to do it. Forget about the toilets. I'm just not good at cleaning in general. I don't enjoy it. It's not peaceful to me. There's lots of other domestic stuff I like. That's not it. So there understood that idea because I really didn't have the time, and I think we all as parents today, we don't have the time, but we find the time and then we're just stressed and it just eats at us. So talk to me about what it looks like to a figure out, okay, well time is money. How much money can I really allocate to these things that in theory I can do, but in practice, if every single night I'm meal prepping or I'm folding socks or I'm running errands, I have no free time, that is actually free time just for me. So talk to me about how do you figure out what is my budget for this additional thing besides childcare?
Kelly (08:06):
Yeah, you bring up a good point, which is the value of your time is not simply your corporate salary broken up into hours. The value of your time is how much is it worth to you to be able to spend an hour going to your favorite workout class or spending an afternoon with your kid. It's the alternative or how much more time? I mean for those of us who are entrepreneurs or growing a business or building business, what is the trade-off of your time being spent working on something that requires your brain power and something that only you can do? You are unique to being able to grow your business and create content, do things like that. Whereas the other stuff doesn't necessarily require that you do it. Does it need to get done? Yes, laundry, dishes, things like that need to get done, but they don't necessarily need to be done by you. So it's like reframing, thinking about how else could you be spending your time and what is that worth to you.
Kim (09:14):
Yeah. Well, since we've met, I feel like I've had friends and I'm like, you should call Kelly. You should talk to her. So talk to me about figuring out those things. I think we all have those things, right? I mentioned before, I hate cleaning. There are folding laundry is okay to me. I don't love it. But talk to me about the things that you recommend someone outsources. So you have a mom who comes to you, they're at wit's end and they say, I need more help. What are the things that you help them outsource and how does it work? What does it look like for that person?
Kelly (09:51):
Yeah, so first I think the most important thing that I do with a mom who's feeling just super overwhelmed and wants to get things off her plate but isn't quite sure what she would take off of her plate, which I'll just side note this, that a big piece of that is getting rid of the guilt of actually getting things off your plate. I feel like that's the biggest barrier for a lot of us who are like, okay, we think we're ready, but then it's really hard for us for some reason to give something to someone. But once we're past that, it's about figuring out, almost doing a time on it of what are the things that you're spending time on? Because there are so many two minute tap that moms are doing every day and they think to themselves, oh, it's just do it. It'll be quicker if I do it or whatever.
(10:38):
They make up this, oh, I'm better at it. But really those things add up and all of a sudden you have spent an hour or two of your day doing things that someone else could have done for you while you, meanwhile you're wondering, why didn't I work out today? Why didn't I take care of myself today? And so I think they're those things. So when I meet with them all for the first time, I'm like, okay, what are some of the systems in your home? And then people are like, wait, what are you talking about systems? I'm like, how do you create routines and schedules for your family around things like feeding the family around laundry, around what are the daily, weekly, monthly things that need to get done in your home to keep it smoothly running? And those are the things that I work with with them.
(11:21):
And they're either at the point where they're like, wow, okay, I really do need to create this playbook for my home so I know what I'm doing. I know how much time I'm spending, and then I can hire somebody to help me do these things and take off five or 10 or 15 hours a week. Or I meet with some parents who we're like, this sounds amazing. I need this yesterday. Can you please find me a house manager or family assistant? And I'm like, sure, I'd love to do that for you. So those are some of the things that I help busy parents with.
Kim (11:52):
But talk to me about this. And then by the way, I do feel like it's funny because we have a nanny and for some reason I'm embarrassed to acknowledge we have a nanny. I don't know why I love her. She's the best thing ever. And I think one of the funny things is there are to the time audit, I have an unusual relationship with time in that I'm an optimist and I always think I could fit more things in the day. So my husband will be like, why did you think you could run that errand before our date night? You obviously couldn't and now you're late for dinner. I'm like, you're right. I'm sorry. I try to put more things in the schedule than what fits. So I definitely definitely feel you on the time audit of like, oh, I could just do it myself.
(12:34):
It's a same, I try to put too many things in and then you're over your deadline, you're past the time that you wanted to be doing that stuff. So I totally see that. The one thing I wanted to ask, so when you're talking about I'm going to take things off of your plate, Hey mom, Donna, I'm giving you Donna. Hey mom. Hey Barbara. Hey Robin. I dunno why I gave them seventies names. Hey mom, I'm going to help you take things off your plate. What does that look like? Because if you really need someone just to put the dishes away or just fold the laundry, that's not that many hours each week and how do you schedule it in? And I think that's where people get caught up with, who am I going to bring in the laundry is at random times or the dishwashers each night? How's someone going to come in? How do you structure it that a bunch of the small things can get put together so an outsider can help?
Kelly (13:17):
Yeah, I mean I think this is all about creating a schedule that's custom to you and your family. What I love about house manager family assistant type role is that they are really, really flexible and that's what makes them very desirable roles for a lot of people out there who want these jobs. And so it's all about batching things. So sure. Does the laundry have to get done by 5:00 PM Not really, unless someone has something they need to wear to a game or something. But there's certain things like laundry and dishes, they just need to get it done. So what you can do is you can basically consolidate all of those things into two or three or four hours in a day. And as you start doing that, what I find is people start thinking of all of these other things. They're like, oh yeah, well, I guess maybe the dog could get walked at that time and someone could sort through the mail at that time and then, oh gosh, all of those vegetables could totally get chopped for dinner too.
(14:16):
And then all of a sudden you're like, wow, I really couldn't use someone to help me a couple hours a day in the middle of the day while I am working or spending time with my kids. Whatever it is you're doing so that you're not constantly multitasking and living in a state of high cortisol levels and stress and anxiety because you're doing a million things at the same time. I just think that we are, like you mentioned, we all think that somehow there are magically more minutes than we think in the day, but there aren't. Our time is finite and we need to harness this power of delegation. And that's what I love about where we are right now. I feel like we're in this huge movement in society where moms are finally saying, I don't want to do it all. Guess what? Doing it all, being a supermom actually sounds terrible to me.
(15:12):
Sounds like something that I don't want to do. And so I think we're now finally just talking about this. People weren't for so long talking about this, and one of the reasons I started Sage House is because I was so tired of celebrities. They're like multimillionaires being interviewed, how do you do it all? And you're like, well, I outsourced this and I outsourced this. I'm like, can we double click on that? What do you mean? What do you, you outsource that? What do you mean you get that? What do they do for you? Where did you find them? How do you budget for that? There's so much behind this curtain that I feel like we're finally just pulling it back and people are reasonably realizing like, oh, that person has a village. That person has support, they have family, they have a nanny. I'm like, by the way, that's okay.
Kim (16:03):
So it sounds like Kelly, are you giving us permission to outsource things?
Kelly (16:08):
I'm giving you permission to outsource, to hire your village, to absolutely be in your privilege and get the help that you need and that your family deserves.
Kim (16:22):
Talk to me. You just mentioned celebrities, so I want to ask you, what kind of budget do you need to have an additional person working anywhere between, let's say it's like five hours to 10 hours and up a week. Is this only for people who are, I guess what we would consider affluent or super affluent?
Kelly (16:39):
I think yes and no. It depends on where you live. Just like everything in life, Turkey sandwich costs different in different places, but what I would say is especially for two working parents, if you are making the decision to continue on with your careers and work, you've thought about that in terms of childcare, you're willing to pay for childcare so that you can continue working before your kids are in school. This is no different than that budgeting for having more support systems in very insane, crazy, chaotic seasons of life are just part of what you need to budget for. And that's what I say to working parents is I'm like, yeah, does it feel like you're stretched a little bit, but can you make a budget? Yes, you can. And that is like a hundred dollars, 200, $300 a week. Outsourcing things actually brings people a lot more joy. So what I would say is yes, this is certainly for people who are bringing in money or making money, a lot of working parents. But I will also say that I work with families who have decided that one parent is going to be the breadwinner and the other is going to raise children. Well, guess what? Running a household wasn't incorporated into that. So stay-at-home moms work with me because they are realizing that they can't do it all in those hours of the day and they also need more help.
Kim (18:03):
Well, I mean, I feel like I'm a working parent, and there are those days where the kids are off from school and our nanny's off and I'm home with them or a vacation and I'm like, wow, if you're with your kids all day, you really don't have any time to yourself. It makes sense that why wouldn't you hire out for X hours a week? My question. So someone who's considering doing this, what's the first question someone should ask themself when they're thinking about how their household is running and if they should try to outsource some things?
Kelly (18:30):
What is the value of my time? That is the question to ask yourself, what is the value of my time? And if that value of your time is more than 25 or 30 or $35 for an hour, that's when you know that you should be hiring someone to help
Kim (18:51):
You. I like that. I'm going to add onto that. Going to, I hate this phrase, corporate phase plus one that I'm going to add onto that and say, what are the things each week you're doing that make you hate your life? Yeah. I have friends who I love other moms, and I could see it in their face. I'm like, you shouldn't be doing that task. You hate that.
Kelly (19:14):
Yeah, you hate meal prepping. Get somebody else to do it.
Kim (19:16):
We have to ask someone else to do that. There are certain things also I hate, and I say to my husband, I'm like, you need to do this thing. It's going to take me seven hours and it'll take you one. So I can't do this mostly financial related, but that's okay. But it's all those things. It's the things that I'm not good at, I don't like. It's not worth my time. And I think also I have a different sense of it now. I'm running my own business and it's going really well, and I actually can equate hours to money and I'm like, wow, I'm really going to, it's the same thing, like you said, if I hire a house manager, I'll keep layering on things. If you give me a good virtual assistant, I will layer on things upon things, upon things upon things. I just gave my assistant more hours.
(19:52):
I need it. They're great. I'm very appreciative, and I'm like, I need these things to happen and I don't have the time to make them happen, and I trust you. So great. Let's do this. But I think it is easier in the business context when you're actually looking, I look at a budget, I'm like, okay, X in X out expenses, revenue, blah, blah, blah. So I can say, can I hire this virtual assistant because it will bring in X dollars? I do think that people have in their head, it's not a money making enterprise your home. So it's really about mental health, physical health, stress, relationship. If there's a rub, probably for you, you probably hear on the calls, it's that I either don't have the money or I do have the money, but I feel like should I spend it, should I? And so I like that you're giving us the permission to do that. I like that.
Kelly (20:37):
And we haven't even gotten into speaking of relationships and how this absolutely saved my marriage. And so many people that I've worked with are like, oh my gosh, I have been spending money on marriage counseling, therapy, and I didn't realize that we were just talking in circles about you did this and I did this. And we were keeping score about the equity and division of labor. And then they realized that instead of pushing things onto each other's plate, if they could just set a third plate and a boat, put days on somebody else's plate and take them off there. So it opened up so much. Basically, they allowed people to release their resentment for their partner. And because now someone else who's helping and responsible and doing a lot of that household management, which by the way, and what I always tell my clients is even if you are two highly executive functioning, educated, willing, full of good intention partners, there still are not enough hours in the day to do everything. Even if you're both superstars, there just aren't enough hours in the day to do.
Kim (21:56):
And that third plate is like a buffet plate from Red Lobster. If you're telling two people to give all your extra stuff to someone else, that plate is really heaping. That's a really heaping pile of plate. Question for you about relationship. Oh, talk to me about, you were saying it was almost a demise of your relationship. Is that what led you to start Sage House? Talk to me about what were you doing before Sage House? How did you get into this? What was your breaking point that made you say, I need this for my family and now I'm going to replicate it for others?
Kelly (22:24):
So I mean, St. House was absolutely just born out of my own experience. And so when I was working in my corporate role, I spent over a decade in software sales selling various kinds of cloud-based technologies. And I was working, I was traveling for work. My husband, who is a small business owner, was growing a business traveling for work, and we were having kids and wanted a home and all of those things that make for a really full life. And we don't live close to family. We very intentionally chose to live in Portland, Oregon. We love living here, but it's far away from support systems. And I hit a breaking point after we had our second, because I was managing the entire household on top of my full-time job. So what I did was I made this huge spreadsheet of all of the things I was doing.
(23:15):
I allocated time to each of those tasks and frequency. And I am such a nerd. I'm saying this out loud, but this is what I did. And I realized that I was spending over 22 hours a week managing my household on top of my full-time job. So what I did was I took that spreadsheet, this is no joke. I poured two glasses of wine one night. I got on my Apple share, I projected onto the television, my spreadsheet, and I was like, Hey, honey, this is all the things I'm doing to run the household. And he looked at it and he said, this looks like a job description. And I said, that's because it is a job and we need to figure out in our budget how to hire someone for 20 hours a week to help me manage our household or else, or else I am going down a path to burnout out here. I'm like, this is not sustainable for me.
Kim (24:10):
How old were your kids at that point? You were working and you were doing 20 hours of work around the house?
Kelly (24:15):
Yeah, my daughter was almost one, and she's my second. So I had a three-year-old and a yearold and a dog and a house, and I just was at a breaking point. My husband said, okay, let's find somebody. And so then I set out on a search to who is this person? What do I call it? I didn't know. No, no one had ever said, oh, you need a house manager. Or like, oh, because again, my kids were in daycare. It wasn't like I needed a nanny I needed and I had cleaners. I was like, okay, I have cleaners. They come every other week. I don't need someone to deep clean. I have that. So I ended up posting a role calling in a house manager. I found this amazing person, and within two weeks of hiring her and onboarding her, my life completely changed for the better.
(25:03):
So much so that I was a different person. I was a new person. I was a revived human being. I was seeing my friend more, and I was out with my friends saying, my life has changed. I'm so much better. Here's why. And I started talking to friends about it and they said, oh, you need to talk to my So-So my friend, I have a friend who needs to talk to you about this. She's working. She's overwhelmed. So I started taking calls from mother, mom, friend who were in my same boat, and they were like, wait, you found who? What did they do for you? How did you find that? What does your job description look like? All this stuff. And finally, after taking too many calls one week, I was like, I need to just get this out in the world. So I created a digital course that was the beginning of stage house where I basically just put all of this information together so that busy moms have this playbook to work from to go and find and hire house manager, a family assistant, a meal prep chef to offload the mental load.
(26:00):
And that was the start of stage job. So I was running it for a long time as a side hustle when I was at my corporate job.
Kim (26:06):
And people were already paying you for it?
Kelly (26:08):
Yeah, they were. I mean, it was just organic. People were finding me organically. I was on social media and they were buying my guides. And then people started saying to me, your course is great, but I don't have time. Busy moms are like, I'm a CEO at a tech company. Can you find me a house manage? I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. So then I started doing that. It's just been listening to the demand, figuring out what people want, and then I had a bunch of other mom say like, Hey, I need more help transitioning my current nanny to a house manager. How do I do that? Or how do I set up better systems to delegate? So then I started doing coaching cohorts to help moms figure out what they need help with. Step one is create your system. How does your house work? And then giving them the tools to then go and hire and use my hiring method to go and find the right person.
Kim (27:04):
I love that. And then talk to me about the different ways so people can work with you in those different ways. They can hire you one-on-one to actually do the staffing for them. They can sign up for your cohort. Tell us about the cohort as well, because I understand that's coming up soon.
Kelly (27:17):
Yep. I've got a cohort kicking off in February. It's six weeks. We meet for one hour a week, and it's basically twofold. So it's setting up those home systems. What is our system in our home for feeding a family for laundry for all of our daily, weekly, monthly checklists, seasonal chore chart, what is our agenda to meet weekly? We your partner about the house. So we do that. And then in my cohort, all of the templates, job descriptions and employment agreement, we talk through where to post a job, how to interview somebody, how to look for the right candidate, and then how to onboard them successfully in your home. And I feel like that's where a lot of that's people, especially agencies sort of drop off. They're like, yeah, we'll find you someone. And then they lap on a nanny or else manager. I'm like, here, there's a person, they're great.
(28:07):
But then people are like, okay, now what do I do with you? So a huge part of what I work on in my cohort is like, how do you successfully onboard someone, which then that ties all the way back around to the systems. We've already bought this through. How do you onboard somebody and train them to do things like the way you want to do that, washing laundry on coal or walking your dog at certain hours of the day, I don't even, whatever. It's, and having that person really come on and into your home and knowing what you want and how to do it is so important.
Kim (28:40):
Yeah. No, I love that. It's such an amazingly incredible thing to understand what do I need? How do I put it off? Take it off my plate. Talk to me about your, I made you submit a funny question, a funny story that I'm going to get to, but I'm going to wait for a second for that so people can set up for the cohort and then I'll make sure to drop the link in the show notes to make sure that they have that. So those are the ways that they can work with you. And what has been like for people who were struggling with doing it, what's been the biggest transformation for them where they're like, oh my god, Kelly, this happened?
Kelly (29:14):
Gosh, I've had so many moms reach out to me after my cohort or my course, or just after I've hired a house manager for them, and they've just said, I think the biggest is people are like, I didn't realize how much I was doing, and I had a mom reach out to me a couple of weeks ago and just say, our morning routine has absolutely completely changed. And instead of running around chickens with our heads cut off and just the full chaos and stress of the morning, we have a smooth, calm morning routine because our house manager comes in at seven, she gets the kids ready, she takes 'em to school, she cleans up breakfast so that these parents can take an East Coast hour calls and work. And it makes me feel so happy for them. I know how it feels. I know that it's just so overwhelming and it's like, we don't have to live this way. I don't know who needs to tell you this, but you don't need to live that way and you can get more support so that you can live a calmer, happier life.
Kim (30:14):
Yeah, it is interesting. I find it interesting that there's such a stigma against doing that stuff because I think to your point of we buy those jeans, we buy those bags, we buy those shoes, but there's such a stigma against using that money in a way that probably the cost of one pair of jeans would meal prep for you for several weeks, and I'd way rather have a meal prep person than a pair of jeans. And I do like the framing of that. It's like we somehow make it, we're supposed to be embarrassed that we have money and then embarrassed that we're spending money on a way that is still for ourselves and our home and our family. And so I love that. Okay. I want to get to your funny story. Talk to me, Kelly, tell me about your funny story from work.
Kelly (30:56):
Oh my gosh. Where
Kim (30:57):
Your boss saw a photo of you?
Kelly (30:58):
Yeah. Oh gosh. You're reminding me now what I wrote. So I had my first baby. Like I said, I was in my tech job, my tech sales job, and I had my baby in November, and I decided, because after you're your first, you're like, as a working mom, I don't know, some people feel this way, but I was like, I'm going to be a super mom. I'm going to go right back to work. I don't need time off. I don't need maternity leave. So I flew to my company. I mean, I had my son November 26th. I flew to our company sales kickoff meeting in January, and it was my first time away from him, so I was pumping every two and a half hours and didn't know how to pump on this airplane trip to Raleigh, North Carolina from the west coast. My boosts were bursting. I, of course, as one does take a picture of my bursting boobs to send up all my girlfriends because it's hilarious that you're, I don't have boobs. I'm a very flat chested person. And so the fact that I have these porn star boobs, I was like, my friends need to see this. So I took a picture and sent it to my friends, well,
Kim (32:10):
Totally naked or in a bra,
Kelly (32:12):
In a shirt? No, in a bra. In a bra. And sure enough, the next day I see my VP of sales at the sales kickoff, and he's so happy that I'm there and that I made it to see me like, oh my God, how's your baby? And I was like, oh yeah, he's so great. Do you want to see a picture? And you know how when you just pull out your pictures, it shows you the last one you took. Okay. Well, I was like, oh, you should see this picture. And I just pulled it up and the picture we saw was the one I sent to my friends, not like my cute little baby one, my old baby,
Kim (32:46):
It was you, Anna Bra
Kelly (32:49):
Selfie myself with veins popping up,
Kim (32:54):
Perfection.
Kelly (32:55):
And then I think I blacked out. I don't even remember what happened, but I think then I somehow followed and found a picture of my baby and tried to recover, but nothing was ever the same again. Oh my God,
Kim (33:07):
That is amazing. I wanted to ask you before we go, what has been the hardest part about launching your own business?
Kelly (33:13):
Oh, man.
Kim (33:15):
I feel like you made it sound like, oh, it was organic because you were doing this thing for your house and you decided you would go all in on it. But it's a big thought. Obviously it's a big decision to leave corporate and build your business. So had you always wanted to, what's been the hardest part?
Kelly (33:28):
No, I tried to make it as long as possible in my golden handcuffs. I think I was at a point where it was just like, gosh, I really believe in this, and by the way, nobody else is doing it. I said, there's a bazillion nanny agencies out there who are like, oh, you need a nanny, but there's nobody out there who's really focused in this space. So I feel like there's a gap in the market that needed to be filled. But I was say that it's so much harder than I thought. I am wearing so many hats right now, and it's hard to know how to prioritize your time, and that's coming from me. I feel like I'm pretty good at prioritizing my time, and that's really, really hard for me because I feel like I'm trying to do marketing, and I haven't even started down the route of advertising, but how do I do that? How do I think about spending money before I'm really profitable and all of those things. So I just think it's hard to wear marketing and sales and product hats all at the same time. It's just tough.
Kim (34:29):
Yeah. I was just talking to someone today. I was saying the first year that I spent really, before switching from basically consulting projects into coaching, I had one year where I was investing in my website, investing in my branding, investing in my photos, investing in my podcast. I mean, it was a really rough year. Income wise,
Kelly (34:46):
It's a lot of investing,
Kim (34:48):
But you have to do it. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't, couldn't have what I have now. But it does take that however long it takes, six months, a year, 18 months, whatever. It's hard. I talked to another founder, Monique, who has this great beauty brand called Iota Body, and she and I worked together and she was saying her biggest advice was, you have to go all in. You have to go all in. But I have heard, I dunno if it was heard, someone else saying, you need the side hustle money or You need to have enough savings for enough time that you could float yourself. It's a while. It takes a while to make it profitable. I thought that was interesting. Of course, I'm now misquoting our guests, but she knows I love her, and she did say, you have to go all in. Kelly, you want to do very, this is be the first person that I'm asking to do this on the show, but I've been wanting to do this for a while. Okay. I want to get your exit in five words, so your exit from corporate into launching your business, which helps moms balance their life and outsource your exit in five words. It could be what you exited or what you entered. Five words. That's it. You're going to be in my test balloon. You're going to be in my test balloon.
Kelly (35:48):
Oh, gosh.
Kim (35:49):
It could be like haiku. It doesn't have to be like a sentence. It could be like a haiku.
Kelly (35:53):
I mean, the only thing that's coming to me is like I believed that I could. Yeah, I don't know. I think that it just takes so much self-confidence to make the jump, and it's a big leap and it's just a big leap of faith, but you've got to just manifest it.
Kim (36:16):
Oh, manifesting. I love it. Okay, Kelly, where can people learn more about Sage House?
Kelly (36:21):
You can find me on Instagram at My Sage Haus. House is spelled HAUS, and same, my website is my sagehaus.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, Kelly Hubbell, and I would love to hear from you got a lot of really great free resources too, for those people who are just interested in understanding the value of their time, for example, or learning how to start talking to their partner about the mental load. And so those are all free resources through my Instagram. So yeah.
Kim (36:53):
Awesome. Kelly, this was such a great chat. Thank you so much.
Kelly (36:56):
Thanks for having me.
Kim (37:01):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg.