It can be hard to think of growth during this time of pandemic when we’re all just focusing on surviving. However, this episode’s guest has managed to figure it all out, growing her business even now. Keri Murphy is joined by The Business Catalyst, Kelly Roach, who is helping elite business owners become game-changers in their field and achieve million-dollar breakthroughs in their business. In this conversation, Kelly drops a number of truth bombs about starting and growing a business that could change your life. She taps into the imposter syndrome, the power of social media, and more. Follow along to this conversation as Kelly shares important insights and advice that helped her create multi-million dollar business breakthroughs.
Listen to the podcast here:
How To Create Multi-Million Dollar Business Breakthroughs With Kelly Roach
I am excited to bring you my girlfriend, Kelly Roach. This woman is one of those women in business you must follow because she is having million-dollar months and growing her business at a time where most of us are closing our business or downsizing. This global pandemic has changed things up, but she has figured it out. In this episode, she is sharing many truth bombs, it can truly change your life. She is the CEO of The Unstoppable Entrepreneur company. She also has a company she started called Give Her Courage. She’s a bestselling author. She is seen in media outlets across the country. More importantly, she has an incredible heart to serve women and men in business to grow and scale their businesses, to create the lifestyle that you desire and see for yourself. Get a pen and paper because this episode might change your life.
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Kelly Roach, I’m happy that you’re with me because you inspire me truly every day.
You inspire me. I’m starting to learn how to do my makeup. I’m glad I have you in my life because I need training. Women need to support each other. We have to come together.
We could talk so much about your career, your business and what you’ve accomplished in your life. I want to go back to when you weren’t Kelly Roach, as you are now with The Unstoppable Entrepreneur and what you’ve grown with Give Her Courage and what you continue to grow with your business. You had a successful corporate career. I feel a lot of people jumped ship from corporate and move over to entrepreneurial land. How was that for you and what was it that made you abort ship?
I spent almost a decade building my corporate career. I climbed the ladder quickly. I was the first one in, last one out every single day. I was the girl that went to work every day, full suit, full hair and makeup. You would appreciate this. I was ready to be the CEO of the company when I was 21. In my twenties, I became the youngest senior vice president of the company. I was leading a team of 100 people. I was managing seventeen different business units, seventeen different locations around the US and I learned so much. I value my time there. It’s funny because that’s one of the biggest mistakes people make, and I’m sure you see this with your community too, they discount their past experience. They’re like, “I hated that job. I hated that experience. That wasn’t my dream.” That’s one of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make because in discounting that, you lose the value of everything that you had to learn through to become who you are.
I was Kelly Overton then. I was not married. I was single. I was trying to figure out my way in the world. That’s where I learned leadership, coaching, sales, marketing and business strategy. I couldn’t be who I am now without that experience. I got to the point where Billy and I want to get married, have a family, travel the world together. We have all these big dreams and you can’t do that working 60 and 80 hours a week in a corporate environment where you’re on planes, trains and buses all the time. I was like, “What do I love and how do I think I can make a difference?” I knew that statistics of 85% to 90% of small businesses fail. It’s crazy because these are the hardest working people on the planet.
If you’re going to go work for 80 hours, you might as well work for yourself.
Most people that start their own businesses are good at the thing that they think they’re starting a business. What they don’t recognize is that being a business owner, being a CEO is 85% leadership, operations, strategy, all the other things and then that little tiny percent you’re doing the thing that you do. I run a coaching company. I coach maybe three hours a week. The rest of my working hours are running the business. I wanted to bring sales and marketing to the space so that more people that start their dream as a small business owner, get to complete their dream as a small business owner and have the tools to do it.
I love the passion we both have and helping entrepreneurs grow, flourish and create impactful, inspiring brands. Brands that create wealth, brands that give back, brands that allow them to have the freedom that they went into business for. I want to scooch back a little bit because when we were talking about discounting our past, I want to talk about that. One of the things I hear so much with the entrepreneurs that I work with, and I’m sure you do too is this imposter syndrome, “I’m not ready to put myself on camera. I’m not ready to share. I’m not ready to do this bigger thing because I don’t have the experience,” but they forget what got where you are, is everything that you’ve done in your past. We have to remember that. You get to crown yourself the expert based upon your experience and in integrity with that. Bring the skillset. I find that is something I hear so much is this imposter syndrome.
I’m happy and that’s what I was alluding to. Most people think that when they start a new business, they’re starting from zero. I hear this all the time. They’re like, “I’m starting over. I don’t have any experience. I don’t have any clients. I haven’t done this. I haven’t done that.” I’m like, “What did you do for twenty years? You have all of the experience. You have all the testimonials.” Even when you’re starting a new program, if you need to bring in character witnesses from other walks of life of other projects that you’ve done of other careers that you’ve had, that’s fine to say, “This is a brand-new program. You’re the first person that I’m inviting to work with me in this program but let me introduce you to Keri, who I led and taught sales and coaching to for fifteen years or whatever. She accomplished ABC and XYZ.” We need to change that mindset. Especially you ladies, that when you start a business, you’re not starting from zero. You’re starting from decades sometimes of knowledge, wisdom, experience, that you’re now simply applying in a new way.
No matter where you are in business, there’s always a little part of you when you had this big dream and you have this big vision of like, “Why me?” I hear so much, “Why should I be on camera? There are a bazillion other people who are doing the same thing.” I love you so much because I remember sitting around this table with other 7 and 8-figure women business owners, which we need more of in the world. You said something to me and I chuckled. At first I was like, “What is she talking about?” Now since I’ve applied this, it has changed my business. That is your motto of training like an athlete. I’ve been a cheerleader my whole life and yet you have this mantra. You have this way of running your company that I find very inspiring and like, “I better get mashed together because Kelly Roach says train like an athlete.” What do you mean by that in business?
First of all, it’s having a commitment to mastery. As social media has become a bigger part of our lives, we are trained to seek instant gratification that we no longer seek the fulfillment. One is mastery. I see a lot of people get frustrated and overwhelmed and want to quit their businesses, or pivot their businesses constantly because they don’t feel like they’re getting paid what they’re worth for the time that they’re putting in. They feel like they should be further along than they are. They’re not satisfied with how quickly things are moving.
The idea of training for your business like an athlete trains for sport is all about number one, committing to never-ending improvement. It’s believing in the mission and the vision that you say that you’re here to create in the world, which is not about, “What have you done for me lately?” but “What is your lifetime body of work? What is the legacy that you’re leaving? How do you treat every day as an opportunity to learn, grow, improve and develop more mastery of being the CEO of your business and also the leader to your market and to your clients?” That’s one piece of it. The other piece of that is running drills. The biggest mistake that keeps entrepreneurs broke, stuck, overwhelmed, stressed out, burnout is the constant entrepreneurial ADD. It’s an impatience, it’s getting bored and constantly wanting to do change things.
I want to make sure you’re reading to this invaluable advice. It’s like master something. I say shift from generalists to specialists, getting known, get good at something, and then you’re talking about being consistent. Not aborting ship, bright, shiny object syndrome that most entrepreneurs suffer from and then they’re saying, “Why aren’t I getting results?”
I’ll give the perfect example. We were chatting on the Millionaires call and we were talking about changing focus for launches. I was sharing with the group. I’ve been doing the same launch every 6 to 8 weeks for two and a half years. It’s the same content. I went from doing launches, and you know this because you know my story, where I was losing money or breaking even literally spending a month and thousands of dollars to maybe get seven sales tops. We had our million-dollar month in our business. It is because we committed to the follow-through and the execution of the fundamentals over and over again. Everyone always wants to know what the magic secret is, “What’s that special thing that you’re doing?” I’m like, “No. We’re just so committed to the execution of the fundamentals over and over again.” It’s not the market that gets bored. It’s you. When you commit to following through your whole life, your whole business, everything changes.
This show might have changed your entire life because what Kelly is dropping here is truth bombs galore that we learn 10 or 8 years into our business. When you’re starting out and you’re starting to grow, if you would take this advice, be consistent, master a skill, don’t abort ship too early and stop taking advice from every single person on the planet. Find your coach, find your tribe and stick with something. What happens with social media is there are all these trainings, launches and classes. I can’t tell you how many times I hear someone said, “I invested in this and it didn’t bring me anything. I’ve made a bad choice over here.” I’m like, “All choices lead to a choice that gets you to where you are.” There’s so much out there. There are many options for people.
What I would say to everyone that’s reading this is there’s one thing in business that supersedes everything else and importance. You found your mentor, Keri Murphy, because presence and consistency being on camera is the hinge point of every aspect of how you need to be focused on building your business, whether it’s on a podcast, on a live stream, whether you have your own TV show like Keri does. I would say for everybody reading, this needs to be the only show that you are reading to, because if you haven’t yet mastered on-camera presence and conversion, then you’re building a house without a foundation. That’s why I think you and I always connected so much because I’m like, “Keri gets it. She understands that this is one of those fundamental building blocks that no entrepreneur can be without.”
It’s something that they’re scared of. I constantly say, Kelly, you are such an incredible example of this. Being on camera is not about you. It’s about you showing up with your tribe and help your tribe. We all have bad hair days, days that we don’t want to be on camera, days we don’t feel good and yet, Kelly, you are resilient. You show up consistently in your business. I’m always admiring what I see. I know what I see is a glimpse because you’re not on camera as much as people think you are. You have teams and systems, which we’re going to talk about at the Brilliant Event when you come, which I’m so excited about. In a time where people are closing their businesses, they are downsizing team, you had a million-dollar month. You are up to 23 employees now, which could very well change tomorrow. Can you please share it with us? Is it because you’ve been consistent and you’re feeding that beast, that funnel? Why are you having this incredible amount of growth when many businesses are struggling?
The number one thing is embracing imperfect action. I can’t stress that enough for everyone. Embracing imperfect action is not like this fluffy platitude. I know everybody says like, “Imperfect action.” It feels like a marketing terminology. It’s exactly what you said. It is such a commitment to follow through that you do it on the bad hair days. I’ve had launches where Madison’s running in and out, climbing on me and I keep going. I’ve had parents in the hospital and I’m on the phone closing clients on the way. It is getting so anchored to your body of work, the legacy that you’re building, your commitment to your family.
I’m a family first girl. You don’t see me out there driving around in a Ferrari, but you’ll see me at the playground with my daughter. That’s what matters to me. I’m building our future as a family. I know you’re very much the same way. For us, we’ve committed to the fundamentals and we followed through, we’ve stayed focused on imperfect action and we’ve not worried about what anyone else is doing. That I think is the number one thing above all else. Years ago, I unsubscribed from every competitor’s email list. I stopped consuming online content. I said, “At this moment in my career, I cannot be influenced by anyone else in my space. I cannot have my perspective shifted, care or have concern about what my competitors are doing.” It’s one of the best decisions I ever made.
I cannot love you enough. People ask me all the time, “What do you think about this person? Have you looked at this coach? Have you heard what this person’s doing?” I’m like, “I have no idea.” I don’t know anything because I’m so focused on what we’re doing. I don’t have time to be looking at what everyone else is doing, looking at their emails, that comparison critic. I don’t have time to talk to her. This is vital, especially when you’re growing and you’re committed to scaling. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and stop comparing yourself to false metrics on Instagram and Facebook and stay in your lane. Stay committed to serving people. We can get so wrapped up on that comparison critic analysis paralysis that, “I’m not doing this. I don’t have this.” We all start with us. I remember starting out doing videos many years ago and they were crap.
My husband, who loves me more than life would say to me, “You’re going to put that out?” I would be like, “Yes, I’m going to put that out. I spent three hours on this two-minute tip. I recorded this bad boy seventeen times.” I’m not getting any better. I wasn’t good on camera. It wasn’t that the recording was bad, I just wasn’t there.
On a personal note, you’ve been able to retire your husband and to say that is special. I know that brings up a lot of stuff for people. How does your dynamic work? How does he fulfill in his role as dad and husband when you’re the one who was bringing home the bacon?
First of all, it was the best decision ever. We’ve been together almost for many years. When we started dating, we decided that we didn’t want to put our kids in daycare. We didn’t know at the time whether it was going to end up being me home or him home, but we both agreed that someone would be home. In that span from the time that we were dating to the time that we ended up getting married and then started planning to have a family, the business was growing and growing and it made sense. It’s been the best decision of our lives. It’s the freedom that we have as a family.
Think about it, as an entrepreneur, even if you build this wildly successful business, but your spouse has to go to work every day, what’s the point? You want to enjoy that time with them. That was our whole goal. For us, that’s been everything. He’s a family guy. He’s been home with Madison since she was born. He’s also a musician like your hubby. When we met, he was out playing shows every weekend. He was on radio stations. He was opening for national acts. He was doing all this stuff. He took a step back for the last years with music and focused on Madison. Madison is back in school. I got him to start an Instagram page.
We’re going to enjoy that journey together and I’m going to get to be a part of helping him awaken his passion again and refocus on it now that there’s a little bit more time and space. For the readers, if you’ve had that pool, I would say it’s the best family decision you will ever make. For us, especially going through the pandemic and everything, the amount of stress that it relieved for us to be able to have him home full-time. There’s so much.
It’s been quite the year. It’s a beautiful thing. I love that it’s somewhat unconventional. I know many successful women entrepreneurs where their husbands are either coming to work with them or they’re staying home. Here’s the thing, we get to create the life that we want. One of my best friends sold her home. She and her husband are both entrepreneurs, they took their two boys and they are nomads. They travel the world. It was like, “It’s so unconventional, who does this?” She’s like, “We chose to do something different with our life. We get very stuck in what society says is appropriate. The whole point of having a business is freedom.” Yet many of us own the job instead of a company. It’s this shift that you’re talking about and training like an athlete, doing the sprints, being consistent on camera, in your message and who you are. It’s not an overnight success. No one will tell you who’s built a brand. It is a marathon, but you have to be consistently running for you to get to the destination. You have to keep going.
I started my business in 2012, and we built the business initially with one-to-one consultations. We started off doing social selling on LinkedIn. We hadn’t figured out the launch process yet. It took us a very long time to figure that out. Finally, we did with the live launch and all of that. We’re at a point where I did my schedule for the New Year. I’m taking a week off each month. I have two companies. I only work three days a week in the coaching company. I have a leadership team and I have a staff. I can do that and the business will still grow. It’s no longer me. There’s a separation between me and the company, and it is possible. I want to remind everybody of that because in the beginning, you’re grinding. Trust me, I haven’t forgotten because I have a new business and I’m in that grind with the new business. I want to let everyone know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It probably will take you a little longer than the idea and vision that you have in your mind when you started.
It’s like building a house or designing a home. It always takes longer.
It’s worth it. I would do it over again 100,000 times. I would never choose a different path. You’ll get there. The only thing that takes you out of the game is quitting.
I hand-select the 5 to 6 speakers I bring to Brilliant every year. I’m always like, “Who do people need? What is it going to be?” There are many people that have great advice and businesses out there that they’ve grown. I invited you for a couple of reasons. One, everything that you’ve said, how you show up in this space, how you show up as a leader. The fact that you have built an eight-figure business, you’re having million-dollar months, and yet you still remember the grind. What I love so much about you is like, “How can I help? Ask me anything. What do you need?” You come from that abundance mindset. As women, sometimes when we reach a certain level of success, we’re like, “I don’t want to share my secrets. I don’t want people to know.”
That’s why I invited you to Brilliant because our speakers are like, “Let me tell you exactly what I’m doing that’s giving me these results.” You have conquered, crushed this Live Launch thing that you’ve written a book about. You’re going to be talking about it. We adapted it right before the pandemic. We were in growth mode. We were busy doing our in-person events if we had not implemented this and you’re like, “Keri, you have to do it.” Here I am someone who’s on camera all the time and I resisted. We do six-figure launches. We’re going to get to that seven. Will you share with us a little bit about what that is and what we can expect to learn from you at Brilliant?
I’m excited to be a part of Brilliant because I know the people that you attract and the amazing, incredible community that you’ve built. It’s going to be magic. Thank you for having me. I’m going to dig in and teach you guys the Live Launch Model. What I always say, and I say this to my team every day, I’m like, “I want to remind you all that our clients are coming in one month and they’re generating multiple six-figure launches. It took us over five years of launching to get to our first six-figure launch.” That is the framework of the model that we’re teaching. I wish I had this when I was getting started because I did it the hard way, but now we have that formula. That’s why I want to scream it from the rooftops and teach people how to do it. It’s understanding the power of bringing together, leveraging social media and combining that with on-camera presence. Making a huge difference, serving and giving a massively simplified way to get your message out to the world in a way that gives people what they need to say yes and make a buying decision very quickly, even if they’ve never heard of you before, even though they’re discovering you for the first time. The process is fun and easy.
It feels good because people are excited. At this time, whether we’re going through a pandemic or not, I need it too. The connection I feel with my community through Live Launch makes me feel good. It’s like that buzz, the adrenaline rush or pressure.
I’m going to break it down. I’m going to give a lot of specifics. We’re going to have probably 45 minutes or 1 hour together. My goal is that anyone that attends Brilliant, literally can leave the event and go do a Live Launch. For you guys that are thinking about getting a ticket, get your ticket because you’re going to walk away with something that you can use it to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business. You’re going to get the full breakdown live. It’s going to be awesome. We’re going to have fun doing it. I’m one of many incredible sessions, incredible people and great teachings that are going to be there.
Taking all these insightful high-end in-depth conversations that we have around a table and bringing them to other women, we need that. We need more women creating wealth. We need more women giving back to the world. Let’s talk about giving back. Let’s talk briefly about Give Her Courage. Tell me about that.
I started Give Her Courage many years ago with my best friend for many years. She is a corporate leader and has been for many years and sales trainer. We both recognize that exactly what you said that there are not enough women that are sending the elevator back down for the next generation. Our goal in starting Give Her Courage is to reach out to girls at that critical age. We know that between ages 8 and 9 essentially, girls’ confidence drops by 85%. Those formative years are going to make or break her self-worth, self-confidence and vision of what’s possible for her.
Our goal is to capture girls before that moment hits and instill courage and confidence in them in such a level that they have these massive goals, massive dreams, big beliefs about themselves so that they can deal with the peer pressure. They can deal with the challenges of social media and they can navigate the bullying and all the insanity that these poor kids are being subject to. We know we can’t prevent it. It’s going to happen. What Amy and I are trying to do with Give Her Courage is equip our girls with the tools to be able to navigate it and overcome it since we know we can’t prevent it. It’s going to allow these girls, when they see that going on over there, they’re going to be like, “I have such big dreams. I have such big goals. I’m not getting involved in that. You guys kill each other over, I’ll be over here. You guys do your thing.”
We run an Academy. It’s called the Courage Academy. It’s designed to teach girls all of these principles around self-worth, self-confidence, leadership, effective communication, being on camera, all of these things. Then we have the fun part, which is we have a retail store. We have a retail line with some fun, cute trendy stuff that gives people an opportunity to wear something that has a message of courage and power. Coming back to this idea of women empowering women, women lifting each other up and that’s the message that we’re trying to get out in the world.
We’ll be sending Lauren through that as well. She’s five and it’s interesting. I studied Quantum Physics and NLP. When I found out that between 8 and 12, the critical factor in your brain is being developed. That is when you start feeling self-doubt, lack of confidence and ego comes in. Before seven, that’s not developed yet. This program at this age can truly change the trajectory of some of these young girls’ lives as this critical factor is being developed. They’re starting to feel all those feels as a kid.
That’s what we’re hoping. That’s the vision. We need more strong women leaders, but we also need more women that are linking arms with other women. The hope and the goal is that this starts a movement and impacts the next generation significantly.
I’m going to help you with this movement as much as I can, Kelly. Tell me, what does inspired living mean to you?
It’s living in alignment. Inspired living is living a life that you feel allows you to channel your passion. Be who you are. Use your gifts in a meaningful way and to do it without feeling like you have to fit in a certain box, be a certain way, compare a certain way. It’s being on purpose.
Kelly, thank you so much. I cannot wait to have you at Brilliant. Even though it’s virtual, it will be as amazing and transformational. We’re going to link arms together and we’re going to continue to help women grow and scale their businesses. If you want to join us, go get your tickets. Stop thinking about it. Go to TheBrilliantEvent.com. Come join Kelly and I and an incredible lineup of women who have built 7 or 8-figure brands from the ground up through their passion, their tenacity, their drive, mistakes and great successes. I hope you will join us for Brilliant coming up September 13th through the 15th, 2020. Kelly, what is your number one piece of advice?
Be the best that you can be in everything that you do. That means challenging yourself to do it scared, do it to overcome the imposter syndrome. Do it when you’re not feeling courageous. Be the best that you can possibly be in everything that you do and answer the calling. We all know what’s inside of us and it’s answering that calling and being true to who you know you’re being called.
You’re not given the vision without a way to make it happen. Kelly, I love you. Thank you so much. We’ll see you soon.
