The Quickest Way to Boost Your Business Success: Michelle Hsiao's Tips

Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich

Michelle Hsiao, CEO and founder of Revenue Growth Advisors, shares her extensive experience in retail and consulting to help small businesses thrive. With a background in big corporate retail and a passion for supporting small businesses, Michelle offers valuable insights into driving revenue and achieving business success.


About  Michelle Hsiao:

Michelle Hsiao is a seasoned business consultant with over 20 years of experience in big corporate retail. She has held significant roles, such as Senior Vice President at Macy's, where she was instrumental in launching macys.com. Michelle founded Revenue Growth Advisors to bring her expertise to small businesses, focusing on merchandising, profitability, website strategy, sourcing, and leadership support.


In this episode, Thomas and Michelle discuss:

• Journey from Corporate to Entrepreneurship: Michelle talks about her transition from big corporate roles to starting her own consulting business, driven by a desire to support small businesses.
• Revenue Growth Strategies: Insights into the importance of driving revenue and how Michelle's background in retail informs her approach to helping clients achieve profitability.
• Empowering Small Businesses: The unique value proposition of Revenue Growth Advisors, offering high-quality consulting services typically reserved for large corporations to small businesses.

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on Revenue

The significance of always driving sales and revenue as a foundational strategy for business success.

• Knowing Your Value

Understanding and communicating your value is crucial for entrepreneurs to secure clients and grow their businesses.

• Patience and Persistence

The importance of nurturing relationships and being patient through the business development cycle, which can take several months.

"Revenue fixes almost everything. If you're not delivering sales, you won't be able to do anything else in your business." — Michelle Hsiao


CONNECT WITH MICHELLE HSIAO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-hsiao/
Website: https://therevgrowthadvisors.com/

CONNECT WITH THOMAS:

X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/thelfrich | https://twitter.com/nevbeenpromoted Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hovienko | https://www.facebook.com/neverbeenpromoted
Website: https://www.neverbeenpromoted.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neverbeenpromoted/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neverbeenpromoted
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com

#SmallBusiness #RevenueGrowth #Ent

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Never Been Promoted podcast and YouTube channel. I am Thomas Helfrich, your host, and, we are on a mission, a mission to help a million or more entrepreneurs get better at entrepreneurship, get better at life. We're doing this through micro mentoring in the form of, the journeys and conversations and the lessons learned, failures, all of it from other entrepreneurs. This is how I've been, I think, successful. My entrepreneurship is learning, like, little things along the way from other people, from what they did good, what did bad. And we continue that journey, you know, today with with a new guest. If this is your first time here, thanks for coming, and I hope it's the first time, you'll come back. It's the first of many. And if you've been here before, collect your dad points. Dad points are free. Spend them anywhere if you can figure that out. That'd be great. But today, let's meet our guest. It's Michelle Hsiao. She is the CEO and founder of Revenue Growth Advisors. You know, she's for small business consulting thought leader. She's the entrepreneur to 100 award winner, which I'm not sure what that is, but she's gonna explain. But lots of great experience, and, the conversation is gonna be quite fruitful. So, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on today. Oh, thank you, Thomas. I really appreciate you, inviting me to join you today. Well, you know what? I'm gonna learn. So I I this is the best part of the podcast because it's mine. I get to self as she learns first. So anybody, anything you're gonna learn today as a as a listener, I've already got a couple months probably jump on you since we recorded it. So this is this this is why I'm doing this. It's it's it's selfish reasons only. Not true. Alright. Let's start with a little icebreaker question. Okay. If you have oh, I yeah. Let's just let me say it differently here. What is your go to? Even if you don't do it though, what would be your go to karaoke song?
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Oh, good lord. Well, you know, it depends. It's it depends on, I guess, how many drinks I've had, and or, you know, different points in my life. One of them was, Careless Whisper by George Michael.
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And another one was WAM. George Michael. Wait a second.
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Oh, you're right. You're right. It is WAM. You're right. And, and then another one is, I know. And then another one that was, like, a classic back in the day was, Pat Benatar, hit me with your best shot. So I like you know? So it's a little bit of a little bit of the romantic and yep. Yeah. Go ahead.
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That's very good. So we got a slight delay on the, on the recording today. So if we step on each other during this podcast, it wasn't intentional. It wasn't us being rude to each other. It's only because of technology. Blame technology or the Internet. Bill Gates. Is it Bill Gates? No. It's probably Eric Al Gore's fault. Alright. So here's my follow-up question.
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Yes.
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You have to do one verse or one chorus line of that song. Go.
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Oh, God. Tonight, the music seems so loud. I wish that we could lose this crowd. Maybe it's better this way. Heard we heard each other with the things we want to say. Okay. That's it.
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I can't believe you did that. Thank you so much. That was awesome. That was so helpful. I do expect to ask out of that. Thank Notice I did not notice I did not even remotely attempt to actually sing it. Actually, I think the rap version was better. I was even better,
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Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So Anyways
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Let's dive into a little bit. Once you start with kind of, you know, high level, your current endeavor, we'll dive into that a little bit more in the show. But just kind of what are you doing today and and give us your backstory of how you got there.
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Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So I come from big corporate retail. Spent 20 plus years working in various roles with I was at Macy's for a long time as a, senior vice or a group vice president in digital merchandising. So that just means that I was part of the team that really kind of launched macy's.com back in the day. And I was, I was a senior vice president with another $1,000,000,000 retailer. I was a chief merchant and head of ecommerce for a marketplace startup. And so all of that kind of brought me to a place of making some decisions, and starting something new for myself, which we'll certainly get into more detail on that. But, my company is Revenue Growth Advisors, and we are a business consultancy that services and provides results to small businesses. I we work with businesses everywhere from 0, meaning pre revenue, pre pre launch, all the way up to about where the federal government, maxes out on the small business scale, which is about $50,000,000 in annual revenue. And, our services are really much very much aligned with what I did for so many years for big corporate retail, which is merchandise assortment strategy and profitability improvement and impact, website strategy, domestic and international overseas sourcing and manufacturing. And then also really working with entrepreneurs and business owners in terms of support for them and their leadership and their empowerment and really understanding and impacting their businesses. So that's what I do. That's what my company does.
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Well and and it I mean, you know, revenue is everything. It fixes a lot of problems in an organization. You know, it fixes the ability to hire, invest, gets you to the word called profitable at some point Mhmm. Hopefully. In your kind of journey, though, how have you kind of defined entrepreneurship for yourself?
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Well I think that for me a lot of it came down to you know and and there's pivotal moments for everyone in kind of their professional journey For me, it was in the middle of 2020. As we know, that was a pretty impactful year for so many of us and so many different ways. But, I was in the midst of, I had just I had honestly, I had gotten laid off. Retail just got hit so hard. And so, so many of us were losing our positions. And so I very quickly got involved with fractional work and consulting work. I was working. I was volunteering for a nonprofit that supports small and minority owned businesses with free and low cost business, business consultancy. And all of that really, like, informed me to a place of, you know what? I've gotten to this place in my career, and I wanna do this in a different way. I wanna do this to support small businesses. I wanna do this in a way that empowers me and empowers the people that I bring along on this journey. And so I just kind of over the course of about 2 years through the through consulting on my own and fractional work and the nonprofit work, I just really made this decision that I was gonna do this on my own, and I was gonna I was gonna do it the way that I wanted to do it. So that's what kind of drove this.
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Yeah. I mean, you you're in in in, you you know, that's, you know, my kind of entrepreneurial spirit's always been in me, and COVID definitely the COVID time period, definitely vaulted some of that forward for many of us. I think a big part of that is the mindset and, you know, you know, you know, kind of what is your secret sauce from the mindset perspective to stay resilient, adaptable, if that's how you think about it? But, like, what is your mind what is your take on mindset as a as a, you know, involves entrepreneurship?
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Yeah. Well, you know, I come from, you know, the way I say I how I grew up and what I mean by that is, like, professionally is I again, being in retail retail, you're judged and you're gauged in terms of your success on a daily basis. You have it back in the day, and I think still today, they everyone calls it the daily flash, which was you knew every morning when you came in how much you sold the day before. And that was really kind of determining what you were gonna do that day, whether that meant that you were successful the day before and whatever you were selling and how you're promoting it and how you're marketing it. It was it was successful, meaning you sold a lot the day before or if it didn't work. And so what are you gonna do about it today? And so coming from that kind of background of constantly constantly assessing your assessing your success, on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, and being held to that, it really imprinted upon me in terms of always looking for results, always looking for something that can ring the register for lack of a better word. And so that's really that as you as you as you mentioned, Thomas, like the first word in the name of my company is revenue because revenue first of all, revenue fixes almost everything. If you're not if you're not delivering sales, you know, and whatever it is that you're selling, then you're not gonna be able to do anything else in your business. So revenue first and foremost. And so that kind of background and that kind of mindset of, like, always being focused on revenue and always being focused on the sales results, really was instrumental for me in my professional career in corporate, and now it's the same thing for me and my business as well as for my clients.
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Well, absolutely. And, in your own kind of journey, right, and and you see it with others too, like, you know or or you can take your own journey or what you're seeing with some of your customers you're working with. What do you think is some of the most successful types of skills that you're going to need in business and in entrepreneurship in particular?
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Well, you know, one of the things that, you know, I've really come to fully comprehend and like fully embrace is this idea of knowing your value. And so knowing your value is so important. Honestly, it's important. I don't care what your role is. You could be, you know, a low level employee of an of a company. You could be an entrepreneur. You could be, you know, the CEO of a $1,000,000,000 organization. Doesn't really matter, but like knowing your value is so important because you everyone brings their own kind of unique set of experiences and and knowledge and wisdom and insight. And so being able to recognize how valuable that is and how valuable of an asset it is to, you know, whether it's your organization, whether it's your clients. It's just so important. And I think that having that kind of perspective, it also helps to inform you in terms of deciding to do something on your own. As we both know, like, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. You know, if you're not if you it takes a lot. It takes a lot to, you know, whether you wanna call it gumption, whether you wanna call it, like, some other words that we're not gonna say on the podcast, But, like, it takes a lot. It takes a lot to to make a decision to recognize a need, you know, a niche, being able to figure out how to address that, you know, actually deliver it, it takes a lot. And so being able to constantly keep in mind, like, what your value is and what you bring to the table and and the value that you serve to your clients or your customers is is just so essential. And I think it's it's really honestly that from my perspective, the first the first kind of stepping stone. You can't do anything successfully if you don't know your value. You can't walk down the street in terms of, like, making steps towards this new initiative for yourself without recognizing and understanding your value.
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What, what keeps you up at night?
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What keeps me up at night? Well, right now, I have a 6 month old puppy. So, you know, he he, he kinda keeps me up at night sometimes. So, but other than that, you know, as far as business is concerned, I think that, you know, I, as I'm sure everyone else does, like I, you know, I have various ways of like kind of capturing ideas that come to you in the middle of the night or, you know, or concerns that come to you in the middle of the night. And honestly, I would say 9 times out of 10 for me, both for me as my, for my business and my journey, as well as for my clients, 9 times out of 10, it's not keeping me up with night at things I'm worried about or things I'm scared about or things I'm, you know, that I'm, that is causing me stress. There are things in terms of like opportunities. There are things of like, oh my God, I've got this amazing idea of what I want, you know, this of how I'm going to help this client Or, oh my gosh. I have this amazing idea. There's amazing, like, you know, just like light bulb moment of something I wanna do for my next, you know, social media post or whatever it might be. So that those are the kind of things that keep me up at night is is, again, like, more of, like, the positive side or more of, like, the the the positive kind of aspects of entrepreneurship than it is than they are the the negative.
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That I mean, that's great because, I mean, a lot of people is the worry of, oh my gosh. How am I gonna find revenue? And and I think at some point, that changes because I think when you're first starting, you have lots of ideas if you have revenue or you have some kind of, you know, nest egg in place, but when money gets tight, that takes over your your your evening, keep you up at night of how you do this. And I think some of that mindset helps of staying focused on execution and driving revenue because you don't know what else to do in the day, go drive revenue, go go do business development. Go find a way to get a new contact. And know those are gonna hurt, and you're gonna talk to a 100 people, and maybe 99 will have absolutely nothing to do with you. The one might, and you have to go do it again. That's Right. That's some of the, that's some of the drivers to do that.
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Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree with you. You know, I mentioned it a moment ago and and and as we were talking and I'll say it again is, you know, many, many years ago, someone who was one of my vendors when I was with when I was, as as as a buyer. So it's many, many years ago. And he said to me, always, always be ringing the register. So meaning like, you know, if you think of like the proverbial cash register in a store, that's what was that, that that's what demonstrated your sales. You know, if you sold something, you rang it up in the register. And so it's that same mindset of, like, like you said, if if all else fails, if you're frustrated, if you're feeling dejected or if you're feeling like overwhelmed or whatever it might be in terms of the entrepreneurial journey is the what you can do in terms of driving revenue today, driving sales or driving business perspective business for yourself today. It'll give you a sense of, like, accomplishment and also give you a sense of, like, I did something today. You know, we have days when we feel like I I didn't do much today or I didn't accomplish much today. But if you maybe maybe it's like reinitiating a contact with, you know, a prospective client or or maybe it's, you know, you know, some interesting, you know, idea in terms of a social media post or maybe it's a new a new, you know, starting on an article for your newsletter, whatever it might be, something that ultimately is gonna drive revenue for yourself, I think is is is, is is a really good kind of, really good use of your time.
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No doubt. And and maybe in your own journey, let's dive into your kind of, path a little bit. You know, which kind of what's your proudest moment? You you know, it's kinda helped shape your entrepreneurial career path.
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My proudest moment. Well, I think that for me, I think about the fact that, you know, probably about a year ago is when I made the decision to start my own company, And that was a journey. It was a journey to get me there. You know, I mentioned it a couple, you know, a few moments ago. You know, I had I had been laid off from my last corporate big corporate job, about two and a half years prior. And did a lot of great things, again, like fractional work, you know, consulting work on more of kinda like a word-of-mouth, more less formal way. And I was doing volunteer work. I actually, crazily enough, I ran for elected office in my town. Like, I was doing a lot of things, but I made this decision. And then I was also talking to people about full time positions and but around about this time last year was when I said, you know what? I'm really excited. Like, I'm really, really excited by the volunteer work I'm doing for these small businesses. And I'm really excited by the idea of being being, like, in charge of the destiny of my for myself and my company and what I'm doing or, you know, for myself. And and that was just, like, making that decision to, like, making that big step and deciding to launch my own company. And so for me, that was that was a big step. You know, that was as it is for everyone, but it was it was a big step for me to go away from being in big corporate for so many years and then saying, you know what? I'm gonna do it my way and under my name and, you know, with my experience with, you know, a team of people, and I'm gonna do it the way I wanna do it. And so that was definitely, it was a big that was, you know, I was just just making that decision, I think, is a big accomplishment for anyone.
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Yeah. It's that's a huge proud moment. Another one that kind of tags right along with that. How good did the first paycheck even though I'm sure it wasn't as big as paychecks you were doing in corporate, but how good is cashing that first check of something of your idea that you created? Do you want to try to take an attempt at describing that feeling?
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I know. I know. It's absolutely true, Thomas. You know, I'll tell you. So, when I officially launched my company, you know, like, officially, like, you know, turned the website on, you know, put it on social media, you know, just kinda put it out there into the into the universe that this is what I was doing. This is what we were doing now. I was very fortunate. We got our first client within almost 2 weeks. And we and it was a rough it was a it was a networking conversation that turned into a, hey. You know what? I should connect you to someone. And before I knew it, we had our first signed client. And and it was obviously, there were things that led up to that. It's not as if it just magically happened. Like, I did work to get to that place of being ready for for that client. But when we like you said, when we got that first one and then when we got that contract signed, I was so excited, you know, because, you know, anyone can say anything like, oh, we'd like to hire you. Okay. Are you ready to sign the contract? You ready to give me a deposit? Like that was that was that was an exciting moment. I was really, it was very, it was a great day. And that just, it really felt like if if you're as an entrepreneur, you're you're you're you know, you believe in yourself and you believe in what you're trying to do and you believe in this business you're creating. But to have affirmation from outside and affirmation is not just about, like, you know, someone that knows you or likes you is saying you're doing a great job. No. Affirmation is is a lot of it is about the money. It's about affirming my worth and my value via you hired me. And so that was that was a huge, you know, that was that was an amazing thing.
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You you know, to take that one step further, I I will say there's one thing to eat your first check, and you talked about this earlier, so I love to come back to kind of, like, you know, lessons learned as we have these conversations, is your value. And I remember the first time I we sold a deal. It was like maybe $600 a month. Well, that same deal and value structure today is closer to 5,000 a month. And and and with the first time we sold one of those deals, I was like, alright. Great. And And I'm thinking, man, this like, I'd love to repeat this. Well, then we turned around a few months later and and added a few more values and went to a new kind of a bigger company and a bigger client, and we sold it for 14,000 dollars a month. And now you're starting to get into, like, big boy numbers. Right? Like, you're Right. And that affirmation that, hey. People will pay really good money in premium for something that they don't even see as as expensive because they see the value. Yeah. That changes where you look at business. And so from an entrepreneurial lesson, I'll tell you, you're going to start off lots of times individuals and smaller companies because that's where you think you need to play in it. And honestly, it is to kind of figure out where it is. But if you find something that's good value that helps even smaller midsize companies, go after a big one because you might have something that's not being offered by bigger companies because they've gotten fat. They've gotten lazy, and you're coming in with more value, more offer. They will look at you if it's there. And so take that risk because you don't have to you don't get there without going there. And I don't know if you've seen that the same type of experience in your journey. If you have, please talk about it. But I think that's an important lesson to
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value. Yeah. Yeah. I you're absolutely right. And and one of the things that sometimes people misinterpret the word value, meaning like providing value to our client or providing value to your customer. They misinterpret it as being like the lowest price and that's not in any way the case. Value is value is off is providing a service or a product at a at a price that is aligned with what the results are that the customer or the client will get. Okay? So it could be a car for a $100 or it could be a car for a $100,000. And the question is, what kind of value are you getting from that? If the $100 car last year for a couple weeks or a couple months or a year or 2, that might be an incredible value. You know? So it's just it's thinking about it like that. But I think but I think that, you know, one of the key one of the key learnings for me, and it was from a conversation I had with someone that I have, a deep level of respect for, because it's my it's my father. My father was or is a serial entrepreneur. And very early on in this journey I'm glad you didn't say serial killer. Just No. No. No. No. No. I was like, what what what's the next word I was hanging on? I know. Right? You're like you're like, where the heck is she going with this? Exactly. But, anyways, he had told me, you know, very early on, he you know, we were talking about this, about me launching this and, you know, and and how do you figure out how to price? You know, it's one thing to to price a thing. Like, you know, I'm gonna make pens, and let's figure out how much pens should should cost. But when you're an entrepreneur in terms of a service that you provide, it's really important for you to understand the market and who your competition is and what their pricing strategy is. And, and one of the things that he had said to me was, look, you need to do your due diligence, figure out how you come you know, how your experience and your value compares to the other people out there that are doing this, what their pricing is, etcetera. But then you also need to remember, don't ever discount your service. Don't ever just discount at price. And what what he meant by that and what I've definitely taken, and I think that is very valuable for entrepreneurs to think about is, look, you can provide value, meaning, like, offering like, giving giving more than they expected. So maybe and, you know, maybe, for example, if they sign a contract for a longer period of time, maybe you give them a better a slightly better price. Or maybe if it's a product that you're give that you're selling, instead of just giving them 2 of those things, maybe you give them a gift with purchase on top of that. But they're not but you're not discounting your price because, basically, what that message is sending to your customer or your clients is that your price was too high to begin with. You didn't you didn't know what the value of your of your product or your service was, and now you're having to discount it just in order to get to get the deal. And so I've really taken that to heart. So, again, I have I have different ways of providing value to my clients, you know, in terms of, like, for example, the length of service or the, you know, the depth of the project or, you know, whatever that might be. But, you know, you figure out what the price is that you need to be at, the rate you need to be at, and then you really need to stick to your guns on that. Again, it goes back to this idea of, like, knowing your value.
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100%. No doubt. What do you think the biggest challenge you faced, and maybe you in how'd you overcome it or if you didn't overcome it along the way? Besides maybe the COVID piece, maybe past that. So, like, unless that is the biggest challenge, but I have a guess there's probably one that hit you a little harder than that either. Yeah. I mean, you know, look, you know, you know, COVID certainly certainly impacted all of us, you know,
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in in so many different ways but, but I think as far as, you know, I guess and something that I've learned that I didn't I didn't understand, going into this, and I've learned it. And it's, you know, and something you just have to, like, lean into to under you know, to to just kinda it's part of your business strategy is that when you're selling a service, when you're selling a professional service, so whether you're, let's call it, you know, a business coach, whether you're a consultant, whatever, you know, whatever that service might be, The business development cycle, the kind of the the the timeline in terms of business development and and new client acquisition is tends to be longer. And so, for example, I have a client I'm working with right now. We started working together, gosh, maybe about 2 months ago. So let's call it, like, January or February. I started talking to her back in June of last year. And, you know, and it wasn't that it wasn't that she didn't recognize my value. It doesn't it wasn't that she didn't know that she needed our services. It was just that whether she wasn't quite ready financially or she wasn't quite ready logistically, but that she was we weren't she wasn't ready to sign a contract at that point. And so for me, it was about continuing to kind of kind of nurture that relationship and nurture that potential relationship, But and being persistent and being passionate about the value that I think that we could provide for her, but for the for the client. But it also was about this idea about being patient. Professionally, I I would not say patience is one of my virtues. So I think that that's been a big learning for me, and it's big been a big learning in terms of in terms of needing to be patient and understand that this that the business cycle can take it can take 6 to 9 months. And that's not just my experience. That's from a lot of people that I know in this kind of professional service space is, you know, there's people I talk to. They're like, gosh. We, you know, we have a client right now. It took us a year, you know, to get to finally get them to sign with us. And so I think that that was a big learning for me. And I think it's as as, again, as as entrepreneurs yeah. And I was just gonna say as entrepreneurs, you know, I think that there's just you need to kind of understand that and also and also embrace the idea that that it's not in any way a reflection on you, on the quality of who you are, on the quality of your potential work. It's not about that at all. It's just just because you have a timeline or, like, a goal in mind, it's not necessarily the same as your potential clients. That's all it is.
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You're you're spot on. The business cycles, you know you know, there's a big difference between buying and selling. If people are gonna buy from you, they'd usually do because you've invested and you've shown your expertise. And, also, when you're in that cycle, let's say you met somebody last June and they just signed, and we have lots of examples like this as well. I've also improved my services, and I've kept in touch with them. Like, hey. We're doing this now. This pretty cool. Hey. Are you trying this? And I'm I'm telling them what we're doing to improve, and they're also like, oh, is that included in the price? I'm like, yeah. That's our new offering. And they're comparing to maybe where they had gone or what the and and one day, they're just gonna like, a lot of times, what happens is, like, yeah. I don't feel like my current thing I'm doing is working, And then they're there. And you've you've already there's no they're not out there hunting. They've already known that, hey, I've gotten familiar. That is business development. And I think if the longer you can kind of keep that game together for yourself and you continually evolve your services and your value and you keep in touch with people without trying to sell them, you know, you close them up. And so I do want to keep going forward here. I want to hear about your company now. So, give us the 2 minute pitch of why people work with you and who works with you a little bit.
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Yeah. Yeah. So, as I said, revenue growth advisors, we focus on small businesses. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't know that that was gonna be our focus in the beginning. You know, when again, when you when you come to this, when you first come to this, whatever it is that you do or you make, you think you wanna be everything to everyone. And what ends up happening is that you're nothing to everyone. They're nothing to anyone. So so I had to recognize the fact that you have to find somewhat of a niche for yourself. And for me, that was what kind of brought me to that space was in in big business and big, you know, big $1,000,000,000 corporate America, you know, including retail. There are a laundry list of incredibly powerful, successful consulting firms. Okay? I'm not gonna mention their names. I'm not gonna give them a free plug. But, you know, when I was with Macy's, when I was with other other retailers, we worked with these guys. But the reality is that they're too expensive, and they don't wanna work with small businesses. Okay? So if you're a $10,000,000 company, you can't you can't hire these these consulting firms, but you need that high level of quality service that's really about driving business and driving results and actions. Anyone can consult. Anyone can tell you this is what I think you're doing wrong. But are they gonna tell you what you should be doing right? In other words, how are you gonna fix that? And and, oh, by the way, to actually help them get it fixed. So, again, I can give you here's the sheet of what you should be doing. You know, here's the recommendation of what you should be doing, but we're actually helping you do that. So whether it's actual website implementation, whether it's, you know, find you know, vetting and finding manufacturers for this thing that you wanna make domestically. Like that, we do all of that. And so, again, this idea, what makes us really different and special and unique is the fact that we do it for small business. We do it we do it exclusively for small businesses. And number 2, my and and my team's background comes from big corporate. So bringing those kind of disciplines and profitability focus and results focus from our, you know, collective, you you know, decades of experience is something that's very unique. We're not just telling you what you should be doing. We've already done it, and now we're helping and sharing and and, you know, those results and those actions with our clients.
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Yeah. You know, it's in in I I wanna you know, I've worked for some big consulting firms. So the some of the ones I'm sure you're you would mention if you were there. What happens, and I think when you take some people who are from industry, let's say retail or somebody who's from consulting, and they become a boutique provider, you're getting the same thought power at a fraction of the investment. And so your value proposition goes super high because now you're you're getting someone who's really vested because you are an important client to them. If they lose you, you know, they have less things in their life, less savings. They have a longer trajectory till retirement. So so if you're out there and you're like, man, I don't know who to hire ever, that's why you look at boutiques. And and when you do your marketing as a boutique, if you're not leveraging that story, you know, to entrepreneurs, and I'm talking to the entrepreneurs out there. I'm sure you you know this, Michelle. Is I you know, you you should be because it's it's a big part of what you you you do. It also leads me to the next question that I'd love to see how your answer, which is what do you love the most and dislike the most about your your current endeavor?
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Oh, God. I guess what I dislike the most, I'll start with what I dislike the most, is, is kind of the administrative stuff. You know? I mean, but it is what it is. You know? I'm a small business owner. I'm an entrepreneur. So, you know, sitting here and, you know, creating an email template, It is what it is. Like, that's what I do now. You know, invoicing, that's what I do now. You know? So and, of course, I have people that support me, you know, on the back end of But, but, you know, so that's not the that's not the most fun part and but it's a necessary part because, you know, that's that's the reality of of, you know, the operations and and logistics part of being an entrepreneur. As far as the best part, you know what I really, really love, Thomas, is this idea of really, nurturing and supporting in terms of my professional network. So beyond the client work, beyond, you know, the, you know, the thought leadership and speaking and and writing and that and all of those things. This idea of really investing in my professional network is very, very important to me. And when I say that, I mean, not just not just, you know, a former colleague, you know, not just someone who, you know, I think maybe could help me with something or introduce me to someone that's a potential client. It's about it's about getting on the phone or having coffee or making a referral to someone that, that my expertise or my connections or my advice can really prove prove valuable to. And I that's been I've been doing that for a while. You know? I I I honestly to be perfectly honest with you, I didn't do it as much, you know, when I was with big corporate as I probably should have and wish I had. But certainly for the past few years, it's been in a in a very important element of who I am and what I do. And when I started my company, I made the decision that there were certain ways that I was going to behave and certain actions I was going to bring in to kind of my, like, daily life that were about nurturing and supporting and really kinda giving value to my network and the people that I meet in a way that, I think is is is really very, it's it's good business karma, if nothing else.
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Yeah. That's great. I love that. And the the human element is what I think is coming back around in, this day and age where everything's so technical and, you know, post, and it's so inflated. I think that's that's actually, people always come back to people. What do you think is, you know, maybe just kinda moving forward here a bit. What is the one
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go ahead. No. Please. Yeah. Go ahead. No. No. Just a, just a really quick story. I went to, I went to a shopping event over the weekend and I walked into this shopping event and I was just struck by there were, let's call it, like, about 50 different, you know, vendors, exhibitors. And I was just struck by so many incredible stories of people that were, like, taking a chance that decided that decided for some reason to launch something for themselves, to make something. You know, whether it was someone that was making this, that was making, like, this custom, what do you call it? Sunscreen. There was another person that was making, like, new jewelry. There's another person making, like, you know, brownies. Like, there was so many but there was so much excitement and passion and so much commitment to, like, their vision. And I was just struck by that. And so one of the things that I said I said I was with one of my friends and I said, you know what? I'm gonna post about these people. And not just like, oh, I had a great time. I went to the Sipshop and Eat event and da da da da. No. I'm gonna spotlight. And so I found there were about 6 or 7 people that I just was so impressed by their product, by their story, by their presentation. And so I'm spotlighting them. I'm spotlighting them on my my LinkedIn. You know? I don't have 30,000 followers, but I have 3,000 followers. And and so I'm I'm featuring one of them, you know, every day or 2. And to just, like, you know, I'm not getting it. What benefit do I get from that? I could just it makes me feel good, but it's about, like, giving, you know, paying it forward, good karma, whatever you wanna say. And, like, there's there's something to be said for, like, supporting other people around us who are who are aspiring entrepreneurs.
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No. I I love that. You know, that's the point of this whole podcast community, that I'm I'm setting up with never been promoted is to help entrepreneurs get better. Like, honestly, entrepreneurs early stage aren't for instantly relevant, the always a good fit, and that's not why I'm doing this to go build marketing money. I'm doing this because I truly have a passion for entrepreneurs and what the risks we take. So I I am a 100% behind what you're saying, and that's what you should do and and do it. And, this goes my maybe this will be it, but maybe not. Let's let's pretend you're you're a magical maybe you are a magical wizard. We don't know. But let's pretend you are with a crystal ball, and someone comes up to you and they can use that crystal ball of yours to give one powerful tip on the golden nugget for entrepreneurial success. What is your what's your entrepreneurial tip you give them?
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Oh, god. Well, I, you know what? Like, entrepreneurship is, as we both know, is like it's a journey, and it can be a slug sometimes. But I think really just maintaining your focus in terms of what what was like, what was it that inspired you to do this to begin with? You know, whether it was just you didn't wanna have to get a paycheck from someone else anymore. Whether it was so you could be home with your family more. Whether it was whether it was you found this thing and you decided to, like, make a business out of it doesn't matter. But the point is, like, just really keeping, like, whether you wanna call it your north star, whether you wanna keep it your your your motivation, whatever you wanna call it. But, like, just keeping that in mind and keeping that, like, so close to your heart and so close to like, just always in terms of your, like, your motivation, I think, is just so important because what you what inspired you to start something, it doesn't go away. Yes. The execution can be a challenge sometimes, and sometimes the results aren't what you expected or not what you hoped for, especially not as quickly as you had hoped for. But I think just maintaining your focus in terms of what got you to this place. Why why did you start this? I I think is is really just so paramount.
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Yeah. Tying that to a bigger purpose will carry you through the rough days. If you're, you know, you know, I I got I'm not from a marketing background. Mine's from AI and intelligent automation. I found a problem with marketing in in over cost and how they were doing it, not using technology correctly. And so, you know, you talk about impostor syndrome being out of your element. I felt that way. But I also knew that if I got super focused on something that says, hey, this should help businesses and people that are trying to grow a business do this. That is the focus. And how we deliver that is certainly involved. Every 90 days, we look at it and go, I think we should evolve it further. I think we should change the names of our our our processes for LinkedIn and the system we built for getting leads. That is an active piece, but it still serves someone to grow their business. And I think having that still differently will keep you from going insane or marrying a bad idea. So I'm gonna I'm gonna put a hammer in that nail. And so but, yeah, if you'd like to respond, please do. But I I think that's that is the tip that you're describing is bigger purpose. I love doing this, but how I do it will
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change. Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, there's a great book out there, which I mean, I've read it years ago, but I have it is, like, just, like, stuck in my head, and I I reference it, if not every week, I would say at least once a month. And it's a book by, Marshall Goldsmith. It's called what got you here won't get you there. And it's an incredible like, it's just an incredible motivation and an incredible kind of, like, game plan for, you know, where you are today. You got to buy a certain set of kind of actions and thoughts and processes. But if you wanna get to the next level, whether that be in your business, whether that be in your personal life, there you can't just continue to do the same thing over and over again. So you've gotta switch it up. And so I think that that idea of, again, staying true to who you are and staying true to what your business strategy was to begin with, but always being open to new ideas, always being open to new strategies, new new new methods. You know, that's I think where really we're kinda like where, you know, the rubber hits the road in terms of who's successful and who's not.
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100% agreed with that as well. Man, I agree with a lot of things you're saying here. Oh, well, thank you. I I say that just because you yeah. Because sometimes I do disagree with guests. But, let let me just fast forward here. So looking ahead, you fast forward a year, you're about a year into it. What have you accomplished in the next year?
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What have I accomplished in the next year? Well, I mean, you know, I'm certainly I'm I'm so happy to be able to say that in gosh. I don't know what it is in about 2 months or 7 weeks or whatever it might be. I will have reached 1 year in business. And as we both know, the statistics to reach 1 year in business are are not favorable in terms of US entrepreneurs and business owners. So, that's a huge accomplishment. And anyone that has reached that should be, like, applauding themselves and, you know, and and just really just leaning into that. So so I'm I'm excited for that, and I'm excited to continue to grow in terms of, obviously, our impact with our clients and and new work. You know, I'm really, you know, I've I've been very fortunate to have some opportunities in terms of, you know, thought leadership and industry expertise. So, you know, I'm continuing to look, you know, for that to to expand. You know, and another big part of it is just, is just, again, like, continuing to just because you reach a certain place in your career doesn't mean you stop learning. And so for me, every single client I have, every single interaction that I have with someone kind of in the professional space is about learning and taking something away. And, you know, I I take feverish notes on almost every, you know, networking conversation I have. And, you know, gosh, if you read this book or, gosh, have you looked at this, you know, this group and, you know, there's an event coming up or or, you know, just a nugget that, like, kind of helps and informs me. So, I'm I'm excited to continue to, as I like to say, like, kinda like feed myself feed myself in terms of my my knowledge and and my, my expertise.
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Yeah. Keep growing. Keep learning. Now I got 2 questions left, and one of them is gonna be how to get a hold of you, any offers you have, etcetera. The other one is if, if if if I missed a question today or is there something I should have asked you, what what was it?
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If there was anything you didn't ask me there's nothing that really comes to mind specifically You know, I think it's I think we had a good conversation. I and I think that, you know, there's there's again, like, for all of us, like, we need to continue to grow and to learn. And and, you know, like, a lot of times people ask me, like, well, why do I go to so many networking events? And why am I a membership member of this, you know, membership community? And why do I why do I do all that? And it's it's honestly, it's to feed myself in terms of, you know, content and information in terms of this industry. But it's also just like it's a way to continually, like, replenish myself in terms of my inspiration and my motivation as far as entrepreneurship is concerned. So I I highly, you know, recommend that people, if they aren't already, you know, find a community that really resonates with you. You know, joins, you know, join whether it's a community within your industry or within your, you know, wherever you live, or if it's, you know, female business owners, whatever it might be. But, like, find a group that really, like, you feel connected to and can invest in, invest your time in, because that's gonna serve you well in terms of your business results, but it's also gonna serve you well in terms of continuing to to be strong in your vision for entrepreneurship and your commitment.
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Love it. Absolutely love it. How and so, listen, like, you this your you know, I've always called the shameless plug part, but how do they get a hold of you? Who should get a hold of you? And, indeed, if you have any offers or anything like that, you know, go ahead and, you know, the floor is yours.
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Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Thomas. So, I would say 1 of 2 ways. Either please, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn. So my my, my LinkedIn is Michelle Hatch, h a t c h, and Hsiao, h s I a o. So Michelle Hatch, Hsiao. But you can also email me directly. My email is michelleh@revrevgrowthadvisors.com. michelleh@revgrowthadvisors.com. And then as far as as, an offer, I would love to, Thomas, offer anyone who is part of the Never Been Promoted podcast or is watching is watching our podcast, I am happy to extend, a complimentary 30 minute business consulting, say, conversation. And it's not this is not a networking conversation. This is not a it was nice to meet you conversation. This is a true business analysis conversation, and real results. So I'm happy to extend that to anyone that reaches out to me, through the as a result of our pack our conversation today.
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Wonderful. I thank you. Thank you so much, Michelle, for coming on the show. I really enjoyed the conversation a little bit about it. I I really appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, focusing on revenue growth and, you know, and and just your your approach to actually how you do this. And so if you're a small business out there, I would get ahold of her and see what she can do for you to help, you know, do this. I'll leave you with one more thing and maybe just as a bonus here before we say goodbye. 30 seconds. Best success story so far?
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Best success story so far. Well, you know, I mentioned a couple of things, you know, like, true business results wise that have been that have been, you know, very very, great successes. But I will tell you one that's, like, kind of this, like, you know, personal side, but is the fact that my daughter who's 9 years old introduces me now, like, to her friends or talks to me about her friends as my mom who's a CEO and owns her own business. And I love that. It gives it's like, you know, that's and, of course, she doesn't really understand fully what that means, but but I just think that's so cool. Like, sitting in the front seat, you know, driving her and her friends, and she's like, well, my mom owns a company, and she's the CEO. You know? I just think that's so cool. So that's that's a pretty good success story. Like, my 9 year old
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yeah. My 9 year old did the same thing. And and she says, oh, my daddy has his own company, has his own channel. And and so we we did a 100,000 subscribers pretty quickly. You know, we got a little I always love showing something cool with my company. Amazing. Amazing. Gold plaque. So so when that happened, my I I was, you know, in the moment, she keeps asking me for a Stanley, and I was like, it's $50 cup now. And so, I I said, tell you what, when we get to a million, I'll get the whole family, you know, 5 of engraved, customized Stanleys for us. And she's like, okay. So every day, I didn't realize that she was watching it and she was watching it and she's watching it. Now, the black's coming in 6 AM on a Sunday. I got a text from her when I was on a golf trip that said, time to start ordering. So that's why the family has now customized Stanley's. Oh, I love it. That's amazing. Promise. Yes. Absolutely. That's a great story. She thinks she's so cool at school because she's like, it's a family that's got the little logo on it.
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Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And she's she and she's your own little, you know, like, marketing guru, marketing supporter for yourself. So that's amazing. Yeah. So I'm trying to market to those 9 year olds and then
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Michelle, thank you so much for Thank you. I appreciate it. Coming on the show today. That's great. This has been fantastic. If hey. Listen. If this is your first time, at Never Been Promoted, I hope you enjoyed the conversation and learned something. If you're gonna get ahold of Michelle, we'll put it in the show notes. If you've been here before, once again, thank you. Take those dad points. Double them down. You get double for making it again. And until we meet again, get out there. Go unleash your entrepreneur. Go help somebody else unleash their entrepreneur. Cut the ties to the things, you know, you you don't like in your life, the excuses you made, anything that holds you back, any way of thinking that really roadblocks you from becoming the entrepreneur you want to, I want you to get rid of that and and make it happen. But until we meet again, thanks for listening. It's your host, Thomas Helfrich. Once again, thanks for the the the time with us. I've never been promoted podcast.