EP. 41 / How Women Consultants Can Get Paid More + Find the Right Clients with Smart Gets Paid Founder Leah Neaderthal
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Leah Neaderthal is the founder of Smart Gets Paid and a sales coach for women consultants, teaching women how to get more of the right kinds of clients and get paid more for every consulting contract. She’s also the host of The Smart Gets Paid podcast.
Leah has perfected the art of selling without selling. She teaches people how to get more money from their clients by ditching anything that feels salesy and keeping anything that feels good. Leah's story is inspiring and her advice is invaluable.
Plus in our Real Mom Moment, Michelle Lam of Bklynite Media shares how her daughter is practicing her business owner skills at a young age.
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In this episode you will learn from Jamila Souffrant:
-Leah’s biggest tips to help women find clients & make more money
-Why you should price for value not time
-How Leah took a job despite knowing she didn’t want it
-Why developing grit has been key to her success
-How she balances a thriving coaching business with her wife & 2 kids
Show Takeaways:
-Introverts have superpower sales skills
-Position yourself as a painkiller
-When building relationships on LinkedIn, it is important to focus on providing quality content
Quotes:
“Position your work as a painkiller, position your work as the solution to your client's. Number one problem. A painkiller as opposed to a vitamin.”
Use Value-Based Pricing - “Think about the value of whatever you do, the value to the company and then price your work for the value to the company, not deliverables. Not anything else. Just think about how will your client be different or better as a result of their work with you?”
“I like to think of LinkedIn as a relationship platform because think about the people who come to you. They're on the other side of their computer, but they are learning about you and over time they start to come to you for that expertise.”
“Being an introvert is a superpower especially when it comes to getting clients in the sales process”
“Being a mom, if you have a moment to yourself, don't give it to anybody else.”
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Kim (00:05):
If you're the parent of a college bound student, you're properly feeling mixed emotions right now as acceptance letters and financial aid offers arrive, excited and proud of your student, but also stressed thinking about how you're going to pay for it all. Take my advice and check out College A Student loans. They are the emotional support system to guide you through the college journey from start to finish. With College Ave, you'll get free access to tools and resources that make the financial road to college easier. Like their student loan calculator that lets you see how a future loan can work for you and your budget. Plus, every month they give away a thousand dollars scholarship to one lucky family. Entering as fast and easy and winning could have a big impact on your college expenses. Visit College Ave slash exit interview. Trust me, it's a better student loan experience. There's no purchase necessary to enter or win the scholarship. See official contest rules for details@collegeave.com slash exit interview. Are you looking to earn more money as a consultant or struggling with how to raise your prices? You are going to love hearing from our guest, Leah Neaderthal, who Ditch Corporate has been running a company that helps women consultants get paid more. Plus I'm going to share a little with you about fear, how fear hit me and how I grew through it.
(01:21):
This is Mom's exit interview, the show for moms who want to craft the career and life they want. Each episode, you'll meet inspirational moms across various industries and levels who are working and living life on their own terms, and they'll bring you actionable tips from finance to business development to happiness to crushing that imposter syndrome. I'm Kim rit. I was a burnt out media executive at Netflix, US Weekly and in TV news. I wanted a career where I was fulfilled at work but present at home with my kids. So I started working for myself and I love it, but not every day was easy or is easy. I wanted to explore with all of you how other moms were creating careers on their own terms. They're carving out flex jobs, starting their own businesses, they're taking back control. Join me and make work work for you instead of the other way around.
(02:25):
I love when you all send in your wins and so right now I'm going to share a growth moment for myself. I recently did a keynote speech on Overcoming Fear. It was for this incredible group run by Beth Aer, A Z O R if you're interested. It's called the Women's Real Estate Investment Summit and its goal is to get more women investing in real estate and it had women from across the country across different ages and generations and backgrounds all there to learn and connect. It was amazing. So my speech was about how I overcame fears within my own life to launch my own business. Basically after being a media executive and feeling like I made it. When I found myself working from the delivery room, I realized this is not the success that I envisioned, but I had a lot of fears to launch my business.
(03:12):
I had to overcome a fear of failure, a fear of judgment, and a big fear of the unknown. But since launching my business, I've had so many successes. I've had five awards seriously, like little Gold Trophies on my bookshelf. I've got national press in business magazines like Business Insider and Fast Company, which really helped crush the imposter syndrome I had about being a business owner and I have new revenue streams that are also personally gratifying. I get to help business owners grow their income, their leads and their visibility through video and podcasts. And the program that I won those five awards for it was to help an LGBTQ plus nonprofit. So it's just been an amazing thing. On top of that, I'm living the life I dreamed of, which was more time with my kids and more flexibility. So on top of that fear, I'm going to tell you I was afraid to launch this podcast.
(04:09):
It sounds like it might not make sense because my business is making podcasts and videos for companies like I've made videos and podcasts for People Magazine video, us Weekly video. I worked at Netflix. I was a TV news producer. I launched a podcast for People Magazine. I helped launch a podcast for entrepreneur. Anyway, basically sometimes our fears are not rational. I felt self-conscious and afraid to make the podcast. I was afraid to put myself as the voice and the face of something because so much of my career was being the voice behind a brand I wrote for a TV news anchor. So it was her voice and her face, it was my writing, my sense of humor, but it wasn't me or my point of view, both in news and in branded content. Obviously as you know, the podcast is going great. It's gotten great feedback.
(04:55):
It's rated in the top 100 for careers and I get your amazing letters on how this show is helping you. You think about your life differently and how you're getting inspiration from the amazing guests. So after I gave the keynote, women came over to me to say how inspiring my speech on fear was, and within the speech I offered a four point process to overcome the fear and these women were saying they were planning to use my tips to get over fear in their own life. One woman said as she heard me speak, she was sweating. It felt so palpable, just women saying how motivated they feel and how much they're going to tackle new business challenges and do things that they had put on the back burner. I was so moved, I'm getting goosebumps even saying it now. I was so moved that I could help inspire other people because I really work through a lot of fear in my own personal life and honestly, I'm really enjoying the life I'm building.
(05:49):
And the very last compliment I'm going to share is that one person said, I reminded him of the Marvelous Mrs. Mazel, the comedian that show. So that was very flattering. Anyway, it was an amazing experience and I just wanted to share that with all of you. A quick blog before we start, speaking of what I just talked about, if you're looking to grow your business as income leads and credibility with video and podcast, shoot me a note or grab my newsletter. I spent 15 years at Netflix. I launched US Weekly News's video unit and I was a TV news producer, so I merged my media journalism and marketing experience to help you grow and we have a lot of fun. So if you want to get my free download, clicking the show notes or go to kim rit.com, R I T T B E R G and you guys are in for a treat today.
(06:35):
I'm really excited to have you hear from Leah. So I met Leah Neaderthal in college, but I hadn't seen her in years. We ran into each other in New York. When I heard what she did for work, I was like, I absolutely need to learn from her. I attended some of her events and follow her newsletter and man, I cannot wait for you to hear her tips. Leah Neaderthal, a little more background. She's a sales coach for women consultants and she's the founder of Smart Gets Paid. She teaches women how to get more of the right consulting clients and get paid more for every consulting contract in her program, which is called the Academy. She's also the host of the Smart Gets Paid podcast where listeners go behind the scenes into her actual sales call with clients where Leah is tackling their biggest sales challenges and they can learn sales strategies that they can use in their business before starting Smart Gets Paid. Leah built, grew and sold three businesses. Let's get into it. Alright Leah, this is going to be so fun.
Leah (07:30):
Yay. I'm so excited.
Kim (07:33):
So I already mentioned this to the audience, but Leah and I went to college together and we have reunited in New York and basically I was like, wait a second, Leah helps women consultants make more money. I need to talk to Leah more. And since then I've been following Leah on LinkedIn. I read her newsletter, I listened to her podcast, I went to a holiday party that her academy through and basically it was like all of these amazing women helping each other grow and make more money and share secrets and I was like, yes, yes, a hundred percent. The mom segment interview community needs to hear from Leah. So that's part of my intro. Thank you for joining us.
Leah (08:13):
I am so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Kim (08:15):
I just think what you do is so amazing and important. I'd love to bring the listeners so much of your value in just a few minutes. I want to first hear about how did you start running your own business? What were you doing before and how long have you been doing it for?
Leah (08:30):
Yeah, so I have been running this business for about seven years, but I left my last corporate Jobby job about 10, 11 years ago. Oh my God. Wait, no, it's 13 years ago at this point. What year is it even? I
Kim (08:44):
Always say that. I'm like, I don't know, it's 2044, right?
Leah (08:47):
Yeah. Basically my background is in corporate marketing. I got my start in large advertising agencies in Chicago and then I went in-house to an small or a mid-size tech company. In 2010, I quit my job to travel the world with my then partner. We had planned this whole year long trip around the world, backpacking, et cetera. We'd saved up all of that and we started backpacking and if you're listening to this, if you've, and you've ever been backpacking, I don't know, in your twenties or whatever, you know what a crazy whirlwind it was and after three weeks we were exhausted and had not really even seen the things that we wanted to see because it was such a whirlwind. So at that time we decided to, I think it was somewhere between Nicaragua and Panama, we decided to stop slow down and instead of trying to fit the entire world into a year and then go back and live the rest of our lives working for somebody else under fluorescent lights, we were going to start a business that would allow us to live anywhere.
(09:44):
And so we did. So we started a business that was a marketing and website development firm development agency, and we slowed down our travels. We would spend weeks or months in places instead of trying to fit every single country into the whole world. We ended up cutting our trip short after about eight months so that we can come back to the states, get some clients and continue to travel. And as soon as we touched down on US soil before that point we were traveling, we were going on the money that we had saved any sort of clients that we had had that was bonus money. It was like play money. But when we got back to the us, all of my corporate conditioning, all of my family conditioning really just kicked in and I was like, where is my 401k? Where is my, where's my health insurance?
(10:36):
Where is my every two week paycheck? Even though our only job at that time was to get clients for our business so that we could then keep traveling, I could not do it. I just was paralyzed, freaked out, just couldn't do it. So I ended up getting another job. First two weeks I knew that was I, that was a mistake, but I was in it for six months and I ended up leaving because I knew that I wanted to run my own business. I knew I wanted to live this life on my own terms, but I also knew that if I was going to do that, I had to learn how to get clients. And so I dove in, I read every single book I could get my hands on. I turned into 65 books. I tried every single strategy with my own clients. Anything that felt salesy, I ditched anything that felt good, I kept and I developed essentially a method of getting clients that started working for me because I mean, I'm a total introvert. I'm not going to shake a million hands, and it started working with working for me using that methodology. I have a 92% win rate and I have sold 3 million in work and that now is the methodology that I teach other women for how to get clients into their consulting businesses, everything. It's a long journey. I never would've expected to be here, but here I am and it's been seven years of running the coaching business in this format.
Kim (11:58):
I love that story. First of all, I resonated with so many things like the traveling, I actually backpack for a year around the world by myself after college and I'm like, you were so avant garde. I feel like over a decade ago, not everybody was trying to be digital nomads, so you were like the original digital nomad.
Leah (12:14):
We were very digital nomad.
Kim (12:16):
Talk to me about, okay, you sort of perfected the art of selling without selling and that's basically the crux of you teach people how to sell without selling and how to get more money from their clients, basically all of that stuff. And before that though, the clients you were getting, were you doing marketing work for them when you were just a client before you launched this coaching? Were you doing marketing work for those clients?
Leah (12:38):
Yeah, so we were doing marketing and website development. So now what I do is I teach women how to get clients into their consulting businesses so that they can run more profitable businesses. In our world, that means getting more of the clients you love and getting paid way more for the work that you do so that you can live a profitable life and have a profitable business, profitable in terms of money and in terms of your time to do the things that you want. So yeah, this is a method that I teach women. So we had this marketing and website development firm and our clients were nonprofits and social enterprises. And what was interesting at that time is my background is in marketing. My then partner's background is in nonprofits. We're like, let's just make a marketing firm for nonprofits. How hard could that be? And what we discovered in the first five minutes is that it's a lot harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone. Why? Even though we both had the skillset, I could not do the selling, everything felt super uncomfortable to me and that's what I knew I needed to overcome.
Kim (13:38):
What you teach people is so valuable. I really want to jump into the value right now because I'm so excited. I'm like, well, speaking of that, talk to me about your biggest tip for helping consultants find the right type of clients.
Leah (13:51):
I want to just call out the exact question you answered, find the right type of clients because what I teach is about attracting the right clients into your world about leading a sales process, about getting paid for your value, not your time, writing proposals, et cetera. But it starts with finding or being seen by the right clients. The biggest tip that I can offer and the biggest mistake I see a lot of women making is not describing your work in terms of the value you provide. What I teach my clients how to do is how to position your work as a painkiller, position your work as the solution to your client's. Number one problem. A painkiller as opposed to a vitamin, which is a vitamin is something that's nice to have, but clients can get away with not having it. Everybody knows they should take their vitamins, I should take my vitamins, but if you go to the drug, the drugstore and you forget to buy vitamins, it's like whatever, you'll get 'em next time. But if you have a pain, if your knee hurts or you have whatever pain you're going to go and you're going to buy that thing because that thing is going to solve your pain. So positioning your work in terms of value, that's is really what opens the door to finding, really finding the right clients, but more importantly, having the right clients find you because they can immediately see the value that you provide and how you'll help their business improve.
Kim (15:15):
I love that because I know a lot of people focus on their statement of whether it's LinkedIn or Instagram, you basically have to say what you do. And a lot of people are like, I do this, I help people with video, but it's not really that. It's what's that person's biggest challenge and how do you solve that? So I love that you're saying painkiller versus vitamin. That's a great quote.
Leah (15:36):
And I think what's crazy is people actually right, people don't care about what you do. People only care about what you do in as much as it will help them. We start with their painkiller because I can teach you how to lead a sales process. I can teach you how to get paid for your value instead of your time, which what we see is it in helps you increase your rate from anywhere from two x to five x. I can help you write proposals that get a yes, right, that don't just sort of go off into the ether but can't do any of that if you're not talking to the right people and if you haven't established value,
Kim (16:09):
It is such a good point because I think sometimes people be like, oh, no one's buying. I'm like, you don't even want the people to buy who are following you right now. You actually want totally different audience. So I agree. I think that number one, who are you helping? And number two, be in the right pool if you're trying to sell to high-end people, but you're going to the Motel six, that's not your right audience, so don't be at the Motel six. I
Leah (16:29):
Was going to say who is listening and who is also selling at the Motel six? Because I'm not sure that what you're selling is maybe legal, but whatever.
Kim (16:37):
By the way, I was put up in a Motel six once for a TV show I worked on and I was like, I thought I liked this job. Now I'm at a Howard Johnson in Nashville. I don't like this. But anyway, sorry, that was a weird aside. I've been hearing my friends stress about college for their kids. It brings me right back. I remember the confusion and stress that comes with paying for college. I now have a way to help college bound families breathe easy with college AV student loans. College Ave is here to help you take the stress out of paying for college with loans designed to fit your unique budget and goals through a simple three minute application, flexible repayment options and helpful tools. This is your shortcut on the road to college. To learn more, visit college ave.com/exit interview and enter to win their thousand dollars college scholarship.
(17:26):
There's no purchase necessary to enter or win the scholarship. See official contest rules for details@collegeave.com slash exit interview. All right, we're working on, we have our painkiller statement. We know who we're pitching to, we know who we're trying to find to bring into our thing. I like your idea. How do you grow your business when you're an introvert? And then I you to, I really want your tips on how to get more money for those engagements. So I think that's something that people struggle with. They feel like they're at this rate and they don't understand how to get to another rate, myself included. So talk to me about how do you grow your business when you're an introvert, something that you admit to being a thing for yourself, and then secondly, once you have those clients, how do you get that better rate?
Leah (18:07):
Yeah, so I'm a total classic introvert, like classic introvert, and for many years I felt like that was a hindrance that was going to hold me back, especially as it really relates to getting clients in the sales process because again, I didn't want to go shake a thousand hands. I hate networking, all of this stuff. What was really key for me was realizing that actually being an introvert is a superpower, especially when it comes to getting clients in the sales process. Introverts tend to be really good listeners. We listen to what's, not just what's being said, but what's meant. We read between the lines, we, oh my God, I have a whole list of these things.
Kim (18:46):
No, I love that though because I feel like sometimes people think such a negative sensitive to also, I think people who are sensitive and people who are introverts think it's a negative, but I love how you're positioning it as a positive.
Leah (18:58):
Totally. One thing that everybody's afraid of is being too salesy, being too out there in their face. I mean, introverts have no problem being definitely not that. The opposite of that, there's no risk that an introvert is going to be too salesy and too in your face. And so I think really what it is is about finding an approach that's right for you. That's why my methodology, what worked for me, I remember thinking, well, I know that there are other women out there who are struggling with this who don't want to go to 85 networking things, who don't want to shake a million hands. And so that's why I went to LinkedIn first of all as my platform of choice. And I have a method. I have a whole system, the pack your pipe pipeline system on in LinkedIn, which is like how do you get visible and bring the right people to you? Because I think what scares introverts also is having to go out and find the right people. And so how do you stand up, plant your flag and essentially have the right people coming to you because that's that what we want anyway, just I want people finding me for my expertise, not having to go out and knock on a bunch of doors.
Kim (20:04):
And what are a couple of tips to get that? And I know that I'm going to definitely share out all the information that people can connect with you after. What are a couple tips that you can share about Packer Pipeline, about how an introvert can use LinkedIn in a way that doesn't feel salesy?
Leah (20:18):
One important shift around starting to show up and using LinkedIn, especially as an introvert, but when you're running a consulting business is that we think about it as a promotion platform or a visibility platform or what have you, but I like to think of it as a relationship platform because think about the people who come to you. Let's say you start your business and typically what happens is you get that first wave of clients who come to you because they know you. They worked with you in the past, somebody referred them to you, whatever, but basically they already know how you think and that you're good. That wave usually lasts the first 18 months to two years of your business and then it starts to slow down and you have to think of something new. We call that moment. People are getting into the messy middle, the messy middle of their consulting business when that first wave is sort of ending and they have to actually get clients on purpose.
(21:05):
Now, if you think about why those clients came to you before, it's because they know who you are. They know how you think, they know how you work and they trust you. They did that because you worked with them very closely. Now then you start your own business and you don't have those colleagues. You don't have those people that you've been working with for 3, 5, 10 years or whatever. But you can start to use LinkedIn to essentially replicate that relationship by showing them who you are, how you think, how you work, and that they can trust you. And so if you can think of that as the starting point for LinkedIn, then you can start to share your expertise, share information, share high value content that answers those questions over time, sometimes very quickly. Sometimes over time people are building a relationship with you. Now you might not see it because they're on the other side of their computer, but they are learning about you and over time they start to come to you for that expertise.
Kim (22:03):
I love many things about what you just said. I think it's obviously totally true about the first few years. Yeah, you're like, Hey guys, I work for myself and you get some business and then you're two years in, you're like, oh, those engagements, those consulting engagements are over now and you have to dip back in, either try to recontact people or what's next. So I love that. And then that you're in the messy middle. I have a question though. So building that no one trust, which we all are looking for, but we all have it with our people, we actually know that we have that. So trying to build out no one trust with new people on LinkedIn, how does it basically for people who are learning and they're like, I want to do this. Can you show me some examples? What are some of your clients experiencing in terms of basically fresh clients that came from LinkedIn?
(22:51):
Because I basically had this experience where I just hosted my first online course and I was like, who's going to buy from me without knowing me? I don't really understand this in theory, but actually I got three new clients right off a LinkedIn webinar and I got three more clients from an Instagram live because I was sharing value, sharing information. And I also think in lives, especially people can really get to know you, but can you share with me some of your clients' wins? How are they building that no one trust with completely fresh people on LinkedIn?
Leah (23:19):
Yeah, I have to say at least once a week, one of my clients says to me that somebody reached out to them and said, I've been following you for months. I've been reading your stuff for months and you know said X, Y, Z, and we just have to chat. I have clients who, for whom this is a really good one. They get referred by people they don't even know. They get referred by somebody they don't even know because that person was following along and they refer out to somebody. So they'll even say, they'll either say, this just happened to a client of mine in the academy, I referred you to so-and-so. They're copied here. I'd like to connect you my client. She didn't know either of those two people, but this happens all the time. This is what happens when you start to activate what we call activate your broader network. I have a guide called Referrals on Repeat where I talk through how to start doing this, and one of the most important things is activating that broad network. When you activate that broad network, then you start to get referrals and you start to get clients from pockets that you didn't even know.
Kim (24:16):
It is really interesting. I actually recently just had some new people connect with me and one person's like I wanted to connect because I could be a potential client or something, and I was like, wait, who is this? I was like, I don't even know who this person is. It's on my calendar to follow up and be like, Hey, would love to set up a time to chat. But it was an inbound completely blind person. I'm sure I could find who's in common, but I don't know them and they've never commented on my posts before and I've had, what I think about LinkedIn is that it rekindles old relationships. And that's something I tell my clients sometimes. It's fresh new relationships, what's what you're talking about, which I think is awesome, but I also think it's rekindling those old relationships because truly we've actually met thousands of people in our life. We don't think about it, but we actually have college, adult life, high school, childhood, your parents friends, your colleagues, friends. We actually all have huge networks, but maybe it's somebody who met once at a party. Well, who knows who needs a consultant for exactly what you're doing. It could be exactly this moment, and if you're showing up consistently, they think of you, you're top of mind, but if you haven't been showing up, they don't remember you from 10 years ago.
Leah (25:16):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's true. A lot of women out there are just out there being quietly. Awesome. Actually, I'm glad you said that because that's one of the first things that happens is people come out of the woodwork. So I worked with a woman, we worked on her painkiller statement as the first step to a longer refining her sales process, et cetera, and she changed her LinkedIn headline to her painkiller statement, and within about two hours, somebody that she knew from 12 years ago reached out to her and said, oh my gosh, you're doing exactly what I need. Let's set up a time. And that happens all the time because how many times, I mean, just think about it. How many times have you scrolled through your LinkedIn or you're just clicking around and you see people and you're like, oh, they should hire me, they should hire me. They should, whatever. But you know what? The internet does not hear you click. You have to show up. You have to communicate your value y and communicate how you think so that people have an opportunity to even work with you.
Kim (26:14):
A hundred percent agree with you. I've started saying to people, I'm like, don't be the world's best kept secret. Someone asked me recently, wow, you're really showing up. You have all these speaking engagements. I'm like, yeah, two years ago I have the world's best kept secret, and now I don't want to be the world's best kept secret. I want to be the worst kept secret. I want every single person to think of me when they think of someone who can help grow their visibility, help them be a thought leader. I want them to be like Kim Richberg, she's so knowledgeable and she's really fun and she's a great personality and makes you feel really good about yourself and is going to help you grow your business. Don't be a secret. I think that we're all, a lot of us women especially are like, oh, I don't want to peacock. I don't want to show off. It's, I like your LinkedIn strategy because you also don't have to be showing off. You can actually just be bringing people inside your business, sharing your opinions and sharing your stuff. Although I would advocate for when you have successes and awards to share those too.
Leah (27:03):
But absolutely,
Kim (27:04):
It doesn't have to be. Not everybody feels comfortable doing that. It doesn't have to be like that.
Leah (27:08):
No, you have to show up. And I think that, and I got to say this has been a huge journey for me. Many of us, I worked really hard in high school, college, all of that heads down just getting good grades, whatever. I got the best job I, I worked really hard at it. I got the next best job I could. Worked really hard at it. And I think as women also, we are conditioned so that you work hard and you are rewarded or promoted or what have you recognized for your hard work, and that works really well in education. That works pretty well early in your career. That works actually terribly as you advance in your career and it works, not at all. When you are running your own business, nobody's there to see you, nobody's there to pat you in the head. That was a really hard lesson for me because I'm much more comfortable in the background.
(27:57):
I mean, it might surprise if you're following me on LinkedIn or you've listened to my podcast, the Smart Gets paid podcast, it might surprise you to learn that I'm actually much more comfortable in the background. So this has been a huge journey, even in that first business and the subsequent businesses that my former partner and I ran was so in the background. It was only when I really stepped out on my own as a coach to teach this methodology to other women business owners that I realized that I had, I had to stop using this as a crutch and I really had to put myself out there. I
Kim (28:29):
Wanted to ask you, what for you, launching your own company, launching your own coaching business, what has been the biggest struggle? Is it the mindset part? Is it that it, all of us, we feel we have to do everything perfect on the first try, and truly when you're a business owner, there's like a hundred iterations. What's been the hardest part for you?
Leah (28:48):
Oh my god, if you had 18 more hours, I could tell you all the hard parts and all these part things are coming to my brain.
Kim (28:54):
I'll just call your therapist and she'll send me the recordings.
Leah (28:56):
Great. Yeah, you do that.
(29:00):
What's been the hardest part? I will say that of all the things that are coming into my brain, I think a lot of it boils down to I had to learn grit. I had to learn grit. I am, and I, Kim, I've shared this with you in other conversations, I come from a family that was very academically minded. I am actually the only person in my nuclear family who does not have an advanced degree private school, K through 12 Ivy League University, best job I could at a multinational advertising agency. I have the, I guess credentials or whatever if you want to call it that, but I was very book smart and I've always been told I'm book smart, but what I didn't have and what I didn't realize I didn't have is grit. I've always been allowed to quit. Somebody asked me one time if I played an instrument growing up and I was like, oh yeah, I've quit all the best instruments.
(29:50):
And so all of the struggles that I, and the hardest parts of running my business, especially now when it's just me as this coaching practice that I've had for seven plus years, the struggles that I've had around trying things that didn't work and the mindset piece and all of that, I think it really boils down to I've had to develop grit and the success that I've had over the past 10 years-ish has been directly related to going from, if you're familiar with that fixed mindset versus growth mindset, but my success has all been tied to the degree to which I have grit and my tolerance for grit.
Kim (30:26):
That's such an amazing perspective. You and your wife have two children under three, and you're both busy working hard. Do you feel like you have balance? And if so, what does your week look like? Where do you feel like you do have balance, and what advice would you give to other working moms looking to find more balance?
Leah (30:46):
Well, I think this is such a charged question because my kids are both under three. I felt like now that we have two, it's like I had it all down with the first and then the second was born. So it is a transition. I think it always, maybe always is and always will be. Do I think I have balance? I think I have better balance now than a few months ago and a few months before that. And again, because it is a transition. I mean, the things that help give me balance are I was working from home and now I'm in an office. Having that space is really important. I will share though that the biggest tip I got about balance, it's not a time management tip, it's more like a, and I have to say the shift from being a business owner that did not have kids to being a business owner with kids was really hard for me.
(31:31):
Really hard. If you have the option I, I just work all the time. And so of course you can't do that when you have children. And so that was just an evolution for me and my type A overachiever personality. But the biggest tip I got about balance is I got from a friend of mine from college, and because I was at her house, and you know how we hadn't seen each other in a long time, and even though we couldn't spend more time together at her house just chilling, I was like, you want to come grocery shopping with me? Because that's random, but it's still time together. I was leaving her house, the husband and children had left and she was going to be at home alone. And she goes, you know what? No, because the best thing I learned about being a mom is if you have a moment to yourself, don't give it to anybody else.
(32:16):
And that just blew my mind wide open. So we said goodbye. I went to Whole Foods. She stayed at home doing, having her own time. And that's something that I really have brought into my business too and into my life because it's hard as a mom to find time for yourself, to find balance, to find whatever sort of gives you and you alone energy versus taking that energy and giving it to other people. And so yeah, if you have a moment to yourself, don't give it to anybody else is, I would tell any mom, any working mom, any business owner, mom, that
Kim (32:53):
Your biggest tip for helping women to get more money during a consulting engagement,
Leah (32:58):
We use a pricing technique called value-based pricing. So think about the value of what your services, whatever you do, think about the value to the company and then price your work for the value to the company, not ours, not deliverables, not anything else. Just think about how will your company be, how will your client be different or better as a result of their work with you?
Kim (33:26):
How do you figure that out? So let's say I'm consulting a company. I do digital marketing, social consulting. Let's say I'm like, you will get more leads, but I don't know how many more leads they will get. I don't know if those leads will bring them 50,000 or $500,000 in business. What's like a helpful tip to be like, all right, I can estimate you'll get blah.
Leah (33:48):
So we like to think about it in terms of directional outcomes, not necessarily percentages or numbers. So Kim, in your example, you don't know how many leads, but you will teach somebody, you will give somebody the ability to get leads. And the ability to get leads is actually more powerful than any particular number of leads. So when my client, for example, does HR consulting and she can teach a company or help a company retain their people, fill their talent pipeline with higher quality candidates, avoid litigation or all the things that she does, what is the value of that? That's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so for us to sit here and be like, well, you know, how many hours or whatever is really selling herself short? And I would add that value-based pricing is not something you calculate. It's something you decide and you decide it because you hear it from the client how your work will make them different or better.
Kim (34:45):
You provide so much value in your content. So how can listeners connect with you? How can they work with you and where can they find you?
Leah (34:53):
So the best place to find me is on LinkedIn and at Leah Neal, just search for me. I also, I'd love for listeners here to check out my podcast, the Smart Gets Paid podcast, where you go behind the scenes and listen in to my actual calls with my actual clients where we're solving their challenges. And then of course, you can find me on my website@smartgetspaid.com where you can find resources and also learn about my program the Academy.
Kim (35:18):
And I will say, I follow all of Leah's content and is so much value, and I love seeing the transformation that the people who work with you get. For more on Leah, visit smart gets paid.com. Here is when we feature a real mom life in its happiest, funniest, sweetest, or grossest moments. And if you want to submit yours, visit moms exit interview.com. And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter. Now you're going to hear from Michelle Lamb who launched Brooklynite Media in 2019, and she provides public relation services. And that's Brooklynite, B K L Y N I T E Media.
Michelle (35:56):
Hi everyone. My name is Michelle Lamb and I have a beautiful six year old daughter who loves to crash all my business meetings and especially virtual ones. She'll come in with her big reading glasses notebook, a beautiful sharpened pencil that she calls it her hollow kitty note taking pencil. And she would ask questions, she would answer questions for me and pretty much take over my entire meeting. That's my bundle of joy and our future leader, so proud of her.
Kim (36:30):
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to drop a review, and if you want to send in a real mom moment that will share on the air, check out mom's exit interview.com. And if you're a professional or small business owner looking to grow your brand through amazing content with no silly dances and with no burnout, check out my website kim whitford.com and you can hit contact to chat with me. And thanks for listening. Like this is the most amazing community. You guys send in the best feedback, so share it with your friends. Let anyone know who you think would appreciate it. And this is Mom's Exit interview. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim rit. The show is produced by Henry Street Media. Jillian Grover edited this episode, and Eliza Friedlander is our editorial producer and publicist. I'll see you next time.
(37:23):
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