Amy Porterfield on why women hold themselves back as business owners

It’s one of the most common things we hear from women –– they want to start a small business or even a side hustle, but they’re scared. Scared of failing, scared of spending money to earn nothing, and scared of what others will think. But the desire is nevertheless there.

We dug in with Amy Porterfield on the most recent episode of Financial Feminist to understand what factors stand in the way of women becoming small business owners.

Feeling anxious about start-up costs? Start with the resources you have

Tori and Amy dived into how often they see financial anxiety as a reason women are so hesitant to start businesses. Their advice? Start small and with what you already have. Tori shares about how she started Her First $100K purely as a blog on the side with a $40 investment: “I chose because I did not have a lot of money and I didn’t want wanna take funding and frankly, I didn’t know exactly what I would pitch yet.

“I started with the limited time and resources I had, and because I wanted it really bad –– it was like, OK, I know this is gonna take probably a couple of years to see any growth.”

Tori consistently shared lifestyle content on her blog and Instagram until she grew more rapidly after joining TikTok. “I started it in late 2016, and then 2019, I think, was our first year we really started to gain momentum. And then 2020 with TikTok, we just kind of blew up.”

In all, it took almost four years for Tori to take her work full-time.

Boundaries are your friend

Sometimes, in an effort to build your clientele, it’s easy to fall into old patterns. Amy talked about a few of her big mistakes she made in the first few years of her business on the podcast, but one that stands out is treating her clients like mini-bosses instead of clients and collaborators.

Amy grew up in a blue-collar home and worked her way up in corporate with all male bosses. “My dad was my first boss, and then I got into corporate, and I had all these male bosses,” Amy shares from her time working in fulfilling but ultimately draining corporate life. “So if you always have had a boss, then you literally don’t know how to be the boss.”

Unfortunately, this continued to be a pattern when she started working for herself.

“I had eight clients, and I would say yes to everything they wanted out of desperation. We’d get off of a phone call. I’d have 20 action items to their zero,” Amy shares. “That was not the commitment, but I just didn’t wanna lose a client, and I didn’t know how to have boundaries.”

Amy recommends watching out for these red flags when working with clients and recognizing when you’re replaying old patterns in your business. You are being hired for your expertise, not to be told what to do and how to do it!

“But someone else is doing this already!”

Another common resistance among potential business owners is the fear of doing something someone else already does. Unless you’re developing completely new technology, there’s likely someone out there doing something you’re doing –– but that’s good news! It means that it’s both working and wanted.

“You just need a 10% edge to get started,” Amy shares.  “The 10% edge is you’ve gotten results for yourself, or you’ve gotten results for somebody else, and now you’re gonna teach people how you got those results. That’s all you need.”

Amy and Tori share more wisdom on moving from corporate to full-time self-employed on this week’s episode of Financial Feminist.

Amy’s Links: 

Website
Two Weeks Notice
Instagram
TikTok

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Tori Dunlap: Our offices could not be more different. I’m like Timothy Chama, cardboard cutout and devotional candle. You’re like pristine.

[00:00:09] Amy Porterfield: it’s so funny. I tend to gravitate toward people that are so different. Like I love so much about you and we could not be more different. You’re totally right and I love that.

[00:00:21] Tori Dunlap: It’s very funny. Yeah, you show up and I knew you would be like made up and beautiful and I’m like, I took a bath about 10 minutes ago,

[00:00:28] Amy Porterfield: That kind of sounds divine though. I’d like to get in a bath

[00:00:31] Tori Dunlap: Oh, no, it was great. I also, I, yeah, you can’t see it. I got a pimple patch on my face. I’m like, you know what? It is what it is. Um, I have followed your work for years and years and years, and it’s so cool, and I don’t know if you know this so much of the business, the actual, like business strategies I built were from watching people like you and Jenna and a bunch of other, like badass women entrepreneurs.

[00:00:57] And so in many ways, like the, the systems we run our business by and the backend that no one sees are the shit that you’re so good at. And so I just want to want to let you know that it’s just like, it’s so cool to watch your business, but also I hope you know that like, like there’s people who are watching you and then emulating some of what you’re doing to hopefully make an impact too.

[00:01:22] Amy Porterfield: Okay. I love that you shared that. I would never have known that about you, and I’m like so impressed with everything you’ve done. So if I get to be a tiny, tiny little part of that, I’m like, holy cow, that’s so cool. So

[00:01:33] Tori Dunlap: how I feel about you. So we always start with like business or entrepreneurship money experts with a question, which is what is your first money memory? What is the first time you remember thinking about money?

[00:01:45] Amy Porterfield: Ooh, I love this question. So I think it would be, I remember my dad was a firefighter. I come from a very blue collar family. My mom was a hairstylist dad, firefighter. And I remember driving to my friend’s house and my dad talking about having to work an extra shift and he, and, and I heard my mom say he’s gonna get $500 by working this extra shift, which felt like so much money.

[00:02:11] And the hustler and me, even young, I was like, why aren’t you doing that all the time to make all that extra money? Which is not the right way to do it. But that’s what my I thought. And then I remember asking him the question. Dad, have you ever had a million dollars? And I remember him saying, well, and we were not millionaires, but over the course of my career, I’ve probably made a million dollars, but I don’t have a million dollars.

[00:02:36] So that was the first conversation that I was like thinking big, and it was really exciting to me. And I didn’t even know, that was my first memory till you just asked, but absolutely

[00:02:45] Tori Dunlap: I wanna talk about That’s so interesting. I think we all at one point might be in theory millionaires, but we don’t have the actual money, right? Like we may have made a million dollars, 2 million, 3 million, probably. Hopefully a lot of us get there over the course of our lifetime. But it’s interesting when you think about, you know, money and business and all of these other things, as unfortunately you might make all this money, but have very little to show for it.

[00:03:11] Amy Porterfield: It’s so true. And that’s the part that I, I got no education growing up about how to make money or save money or invest money. I think that’s the biggest thing that I, I regret how my parents raised me and I, I, you know, they did the very best they could, but there was never a conversation about that.

[00:03:28] There was conversation about saving, but to a point that like made your lifestyle less than kind of like really just, um, sacrificing, but never that bigger conversation around investing and making a lot of money. And so now I have a, I have a son, he is 20, he’s my stepson and we absolutely talk to him about money and saving and investing and all that good stuff.

[00:03:52] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. I mean, we know from our audience that that is the, that is the story for most people. The story that I had, which was parents who educated me about money, is rare and frankly a privilege, and that’s why we do the work that we do. We’re the, the idea of entrepreneurship. Who planted that?

[00:04:09] Amy Porterfield: So this is really weird, talking about my dad being, um, a firefighter. He always worked for someone else. But in California, when you’re a firefighter, you don’t make a lot of money, so they tend to have another job. So he started an air conditioning and heating business, but never in a million years did I think my dad was an entrepreneur.

[00:04:26] We never used that word in my home, and I didn’t even think he was a businessman really. He was a firefighter and so, and he just did this other thing to make a little extra money. That’s how my mind worked. But when I was really young, I remember playing Barbies with my sister, who’s two years older. We’d be on the floor playing Barbies, and he would say, find a way to be your own boss.

[00:04:45] I, I don’t even know what he meant at the time. We were so young. But he’d always say, Amy, find a way to be your own boss one day. And so I’ve never actually talked to him about that, but he knew that that was where the freedom was and that’s where the opportunities were. I don’t think he ever thought I’d be as successful as I am today, and I still think he’s very
confused about what I do.

[00:05:06] But that really

[00:05:07] Tori Dunlap: parents are too

[00:05:08] Amy Porterfield: Right. I was, I was wondering what your parents kind of thought. I loved you. I’ve heard you talk a little bit about your relationship with your parents and I love how you share in total true transparency. But I always thought, I wonder what they think about what she does. Like parents tend to not get it, especially our parents, you know, from our generation.

[00:05:25] So he did say that to me a lot. And then I remembered it when I was writing my book recently that I was like, oh my gosh, this is something my dad’s always talked about. But never ever did I ever talk about being an entrepreneur.

[00:05:38] Tori Dunlap: was it something that was deemed a risk in your family? Because I’ve talked, yeah, I’ve talked on the podcast before and I don’t know if you know this about my story. Like my parents, my dad especially always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but never did because he was choosing, you know, this stable option, the 401k, the health insurance, and like I’m very thankful for that because it gave me the opportunities that I have.

[00:05:57] But literally, I again told this story before, but in 2019 I had just been on Good Morning America, like our business was taking off and I literally had my parents calling me and being like, you need to keep your job no matter what. Like you need to keep your job. And I will often joke and I’ll call ’em up and be like, remember the.

[00:06:12] Terrible advice you gave me. Very well intentionally, but like weirdly, when you know, you talk about your first money memory, my first money memory was around, you know, the importance of saving money and making those stable choices. And weirdly, those positive memories end up almost turning negative. When I am faced with something, I deemed so risky and so terrifying, it kept me from quitting way earlier than I should have.

[00:06:35] So like for you, what, what was that risk? Was that ingrained in you? Was that, you know, a feeling that you had because of course, you know, you wrote a book called Two Weeks Notice. It’s the idea of hopefully getting people to quit their jobs and start their own thing, but there is overcoming that level of risk or that seemingly like view of risk.

[00:06:52] Amy Porterfield: absolutely. You know, something I didn’t talk in the about in the book that I should have was this fact that I thought being your own boss was very risky. And dare I say it, irresponsible, like for so long I never even thought about it because that is something that, what if you don’t make enough money?

[00:07:09] What if you can’t save for a retirement? What if you can’t pay your bills and

[00:07:13] Tori Dunlap: Where do I get my healthcare?

[00:07:14] Amy Porterfield: Healthcare. Huge one. Yeah, I do talk about that in the book cuz people stop in their tracks because of that one. And it’s unnecessary as you know. Cause I’ve heard you talk about it before, but, um, I felt like it was irresponsible and I thought, and I liked, okay, so you’ll, you won’t be surprised by this.

[00:07:30] But for so long I like to be the good girl. I like to do the, the right thing and, and do make my parents proud and all of that. And so to go out on my own and not have a stable income. Very irresponsible. And, and so for years and years, I never even thought about it. And as you know, I worked for Tony Robbins and he taught people how to be entrepreneurs.

[00:07:51] But for me, that that was not my conversation. That wasn’t for me. Cause that’s very risk. Until I got to the point that I realized, holy cow, I’ve never had freedom in my entire life. And I wanna experience what it feels like to work when you want, where you want, how you want, and call the shots. But it took me into my thirties before I ever even entertained the idea.

[00:08:11] So yeah, it was very risky and it felt very irresponsible.

[00:08:17] Tori Dunlap: do you feel like that sense of irresponsibility is a, uh, a perspective put on us by society as women?

[00:08:26] Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that, uh, you know, staying in your place, like you, you get a job, you save money, you’re responsible with that. You, um, you don’t make car payments or whatever the stupid stuff that we always hear like you should or shouldn’t do it. And maybe it’s not stupid, I don’t know, but

[00:08:46] Tori Dunlap: You strive for home ownership no matter what. Right? That’s success. Yeah,

[00:08:50] Amy Porterfield: That kind of stuff. I think that as a woman, I think it’s even more put on us than men. So here’s the funny thing. So in the book, I tell this story about my first time that I realized I want freedom, and it was when Tony brought in a bunch of online business owners to talk about their thriving businesses.

[00:09:08] There was not a woman at that table. I sat at a side table to take notes in the meeting and he brought in all these guys and there was not one woman there. And so I didn’t even know examples of women entrepreneurs, and I think it’s because we were never really encouraged to go out and do our own thing.

[00:09:27] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, and I mean, I can’t speak personally for any other marginalized group, but I know it’s the same thing, right? We talk of course about represe representation, mattering, and it’s like if you don’t see yourself as a woman, as a person of color, as a disabled person, as a queer person doing, you know, something that you yeah, either aspire towards or can’t even like fathom because you haven’t seen somebody do that, then there’s the disconnect.

[00:09:48] Yeah.

[00:09:49] Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. And so that’s why I love the work that you do because more and more women and women of color and queer women a are seeing themselves, uh, in, in you, in the people you represent. Like you have so many different people that you celebrate, and I feel like that’s important work. I love it.

[00:10:09] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Yeah. So, so talk to me about the aha moment. Cuz I, I had a similar one where I was literally, and it’s like Oscar season as we’re recording this, I worked for a company that did security for the Academy Awards among other companies. I was literally at the Oscars, I am like the biggest pop culture fied.

[00:10:25] I was there on the red carpet and I was getting a call from the director of HR at this huge company, basically telling me that they were going to fire me the next day. And I remember just feeling that sense of like, utter dread. I ended up not getting fired, but went through this whole HR thing that was totally just ridiculous.

[00:10:41] And I got to the point where I was like, oh, this is awful. Like, I hate it. I can’t do it yet. It took me
multiple years to build a business, to gain confidence, to figure out like what was the actual, you know, uh, the freedom piece between me realizing that and quitting. So talk to me about like the timeline between the aha moment to finally giving your two weeks notice.

[00:11:05] Amy Porterfield: Okay, so I had an aha moment way even before my time at Tony Robbins. I worked at this other organization. I was in marketing and. , I worked alongside this guy that was at like the same level as me. We were both managers and we were both, he was hr, I was marketing, but we were the same kind of role in the company.

[00:11:23] It was a very small company. And I came on before him, I had been there longer and the fax, this is how long ago, uh, ago, it was a fax came through and it had his salary on it. I don’t even know why. I don’t even know

[00:11:35] Tori Dunlap: fuck. Yep.

[00:11:36] Amy Porterfield: And this dude was making so much more money than me. And that was like, what the F is going on?

[00:11:44] Like, why would this happen? And I was so surprised and so naive, like, wait, what? And so I actually went to that, my manager, and said, what’s going on here? And they had every single reason why it was and made no sense to me. That’s when I wish I would’ve said, screw this. I’m gonna figure out a way to make my own money because I never want this to happen again.

[00:12:05] But no, I went on, took another corporate job. And continued through that. And then my aha moment was a little bit of two things. Number one, I had just gotten married, but I had a job where I was on the road all the time. I traveled like crazy and I worked really long hours, never ever saw him. So I’m like, this is not what I thought marriage would look like.

[00:12:26] We had a really first rough year, and I think it was because I was so preoccupied and on the road all the time, so my marriage was a little rocky from the start, which is kind of weird. And then to go into that meeting and hear all those guys talk about freedom, they were making tons of money, major impact.

[00:12:44] They were literally calling the shots. And they all talked about their lifestyles. They talked about vacations they took and uh, how they spent time with their family. And they were all super relaxed and laid back, which I’m, that’s not my personality. And so I’m like, what is happening here? Like, I am doing this wrong.

[00:12:59] So that was that moment that I thought, I want something I’ve never had before. And I often talk about the fact that I’ve. Always had a boss. So my dad was really strict. It was his way or the highway. So my first boss was my dad. And then I went into all these jobs. And here’s the thing, they’re always, they were always men.

[00:13:18] Most, most of the time men, and I hate to admit this, but I wanted to impress my dad so much and he was very hard to impress. So I took that into my corporate world and I wanted to impress these male bosses and I would do anything that they needed to. I wanted them to be proud of me. I hate that part of my story, but it really was so, like I got, I was really good at being a yes girl for a very long time.

[00:13:44] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. We can talk offline about this cuz there’s the, i, a lot of that rings true for me, but I started realizing, um, how much my parents valued obedience over like anything else.

[00:13:55] Amy Porterfield: Yes,

[00:13:56] Tori Dunlap: and that they saw obedience as respect and that if you were disobedient, it didn’t, for me, it didn’t mean I did not respect them.

[00:14:02] It was more just like, no, I have a different opinion, or I’m gonna do something different. And I’ve had to really work personally to start to understand, okay, I can respect somebody, but also disagree, and if they interpret that as disrespect, that is on them as opposed to me constantly feeling like I have to make a certain decision to basically not piss anybody off.

[00:14:24] Yeah.

[00:14:25] Amy Porterfield: What I’m jealous about is you’re a lot younger than me, and you learned that so early on. Where? Here I was in my late thirties, like learning that, and so I, I

[00:14:35] Tori Dunlap: It’s something I battle against every day though. It is

[00:14:38] Amy Porterfield: though, how’d you do that?

[00:14:40] Tori Dunlap: well, uh, I mean therapy

[00:14:42] Amy Porterfield: I love it. Amen.

[00:14:43] Tori Dunlap: I think that, um, you know, I am, you know, we are, are you a millennial? Like I’m trying to

[00:14:48] Amy Porterfield: No, I’m 46.

[00:14:51] Tori Dunlap: Oh, drop the skincare routine. Amy, what? I thought, I thought you were late thirties,

[00:14:58] Amy Porterfield: I feel every, every bit of it, but I

[00:15:01] Tori Dunlap: Oh my god. Okay, so holy

[00:15:04] Amy Porterfield: younger than me.

[00:15:05] Tori Dunlap: I had no idea, Amy. Okay, so I think that actually does explain then for me, I think millennials and Gen Z even more, there’s like a certain amount of um, like if we see something that is value-based that pisses us off, like there, there becomes like a ticking clock immediately.

[00:15:27] It is not like, um, oh I just, I need to do, you know, I need to do my time. Or like, this is just what it is. Like our sense of justice I think is really, really powerful.

[00:15:36] Amy Porterfield: yes.

[00:15:37] Tori Dunlap: And so I think I got to a point. , you know, I was especially, you know, I graduated college when Trump got elected, and so I was coming into womanhood like realizing like, oh, what kind of person do I want to show up as and how might that be different or, um, you know, more elevated maybe than what I grew up with.

[00:16:00] So, you know, my, my parents are not overtly political. We can’t have con conversations about politics and not because we disagree on everything, but just purely I get so passionate like, it’s just, it’s so ingrained in me from like a values perspective. And so I think that’s part of the reason why I think your work is so appealing is that, you know, people do get into that first corporate job much like myself and be like, oh, this is awful.

[00:16:25] Like this is awful. This is not what I want to do. I don’t wanna make somebody else. I don’t respect rich.

[00:16:30] Amy Porterfield: Yes. Amen to that. And I think you know my book definitely. I have readers
from all different ages, but because I’m in my forties, I think that a lot of people that are in their thirties and forties that have been in the corporate world long enough, they’re finally realizing like, Oh hell no. This is, this is not going to be how it’s gonna be.

[00:16:47] And I think Covid really helped that. So here we all went home, started working from home, but also all of our values seem to be totally shook up, changed around what we valued then we don’t value now. And so there’s this like big recalibration of what we are willing to do. And many women, okay, so during Covid, tons of women left the workforce to go home to be with their family, which again, that just about kills me right there because it was like, not a question, the women went home, but then they’re like, I don’t know if I can go back to that.

[00:17:22] So there’s a study that’s out that, uh, I don’t remember who was from, but more and more women are getting into entrepreneurship than we’ve ever seen before. 

[00:17:30] Tori Dunlap: The recurring theme we’ve realized of like this year of the podcast is this idea of comfort being a negative thing, and that with all the love and empathy in the world, it’s very easy to get into a relationship, a job, a state of mind that’s just like, okay. It’s fine. It’s fine.

[00:17:52] And then you go to bed at night and you have the, you know, five minutes, maybe an hour before you fall asleep and you’re, you’re like, I don’t know, soul intuition, whatever you wanna call it, is like yearning for more, you know, you’re worthy of more, but you’re like, that is gonna be too uncomfortable. I don’t wanna deal with it.

[00:18:10] And any time for me that I have existed in that discomfort, all of the cliches are true. Like when I existed in that discomfort on the other side of that was something that like set my life on fire.

[00:18:25] Amy Porterfield: Okay.

[00:18:26] Tori Dunlap: that with entrepreneurship. So talk to me about that

[00:18:28] Amy Porterfield: Yes. Okay. This is a huge focus on my book, this idea of getting uncomfortable, and I talk about the fact that just because you’re uncomfortable, you’re not going to die. And I really do believe, yeah, and I agree. It’s cliche in the sense of. Com being uncomfortable is where the growth is. If you feel stuck, if you still feel unsatisfied, if like what you said, like it’s okay, you’re, you’re with it.

[00:18:52] Yeah. You’re in a relationship and you’re like, we’re fine. We never have sex and we, we kind of don’t like each other, but we’re fine, we’re fine. Like that kind of stuff. That is because you are comfortable and that is where you say stuck and unhappy and there’s low vibes there. So I’m a really big fan of getting uncomfortable and I gotta tell you, so I launched this book for five months and I’m gonna guess your experience of launching your book was different.

[00:19:15] Cause I talked to Jenna Kutcher about that. Her, her experience was very different, but I was uncomfortable for five months. I’m not really great at live interviews. They make me nervous. Um, talking to people I don’t know, makes me nervous. I’m kind of an awkward person behind the scenes. And so I did tons of stuff that made me so uncomfortable and someone asked me, well, why did you do it then?

[00:19:35] Why did you live five months of being uncomfortable? Because I freaking wanted something bad. I wanted that book to be a success. I knew what I wanted. And so that’s the secret, getting really clear about what you want, and if it doesn’t light you up, you’re gonna stay comfortable. You are,

[00:19:50] Tori Dunlap: Yep. And I want to quickly define, we mean comfortable, where you’re not satisfied.

[00:19:57] Amy Porterfield: I

[00:19:57] Tori Dunlap: Not like comfortable as you know, cuz like, you know, I can feel comfortable in a relationship and that means I’m safe. That’s different than like, yeah. Than feeling like deeply dissatisfied with some aspect of your life. Uh, I think that’s one of the things that holds people back from entrepreneurship or building a side hustle or pursuing something that they want.

[00:20:19] What else holds us back besides, you know, the obvious systemic oppression, lack of money, all of those, you know, systemic issues.

[00:20:27] Amy Porterfield: Okay, so you say lack of money, but I wanna talk to you and I, I was looking forward to talking to you about this. One of the biggest things that holds people back, this is why I need you to come on my podcast, we need to talk about this too, because one of the things that holds people back from starting their own business is money, anxiety.

[00:20:43] This fear that they won’t make enough or even make as much as they’re making in their nine to five job. So they, they literally do not do it. And so in the book I talk about different things that they can do to get the courage to leave, even though there’s no guarantee they’re gonna make as much money.

[00:20:59] But when people come to you and they wanna do something different or something big, like leave a job and start a business, and they’re really afraid about the money, what, what do you tell them? What do you.

[00:21:11] Tori Dunlap: you’re asking me. Um,

[00:21:13] Amy Porterfield: would wanna know you’re the money expert and I’m so curious.

[00:21:16] Tori Dunlap: I appreciate you asking. I think that, um, It depends on your situation. I, I think you know this about me, we kind of joke with her first 100k this 4 now 4 million dollar plus business started with 40 bucks. Like I signed up on Squarespace, like I bought the domain and I like bought a website. Basically like that was the $40 and that was in 2016.

[00:21:38] And I actually literally just gave an interview about this this morning. I have this theory that like for a business to succeed, you either need a lot of money or you need a lot of time.

[00:21:46] Amy Porterfield: Ooh.

[00:21:47] Tori Dunlap: and it’s like you either are throwing money at it, and I see a bunch of usually straight white men start startups this way where they just get a shit ton of money from venture capital and they just throw money at a problem.

[00:21:58] And sometimes it succeeds. I chose because I did not have a lot of money and I didn’t want, wanna take funding. Um, and frankly, I didn’t know exactly what I would pitch yet. I just started with the, the limited time and resources I had and because I wanted it really bad, it was like, okay, I know this is gonna take probably a couple years to see any growth.

[00:22:19] And it did. I started it in late 2016 and then 2019 I think was our first year we really started to gain momentum. And then 2020 with TikTok we just kind of blew up. But like I was doing a minimum amount of like monetary investment, but I was
putting, you know, the, the blood, sweat and tears into it. And so I think that there is this common misconception of.

[00:22:41] Oh, I, I need to have all of my ducks in a row before I do anything. Right. I need to have the brand color, and I need to nab the logo, and I need to have the slogan and, oh, the perfect name. The name of my business has changed, my colors have changed, my logo has changed. It’s gonna change again in about three months.

[00:22:59] Like, there’s so much difference in, of course, a 2016, you know, her first hundred K that didn’t even have that name versus 2023. But I learned that by doing it, and I think the, I learned it by doing it. I had to learn by figuring it out. And I think the same thing is, is with money is, um, I didn’t ask the business to support me before it was ready to, I was growing it on the side and I didn’t become resentful.

[00:23:29] I, I couldn’t become resentful of the business because it wasn’t the thing that was keeping the lights on. It wasn’t the thing that was paying my rent.

[00:23:36] Amy Porterfield: Okay, love that. I gotta break this down a few things. Number, so essentially you started a side hustle.

[00:23:41] Tori Dunlap: Yes. Yeah. Her first under K was a side hustle until 2019 with the, you know. Yeah. Yep.

[00:23:46] Amy Porterfield: Okay. So that’s one thing that I tell my students. So that if you wanna start a business and you’re afraid of the money, especially, or just, uh, another reason why people don’t start businesses, they don’t think they’re qualified enough, especially women.

[00:24:00] I’m not good enough, right? I’m not good enough. I’m not ready. They’ve done

[00:24:04] Tori Dunlap: or there’s

[00:24:04] Amy Porterfield: things

[00:24:05] Tori Dunlap: there’s a million people doing what I’m already doing. And we had a lovely, uh, we had, uh, incredible woman who runs, uh, yo Carro Dero, who she’s, she goes, is this great metaphor. She’s like, go to the fucking bread aisle. How many like loaves of bread are there in every different form? Like, okay, you wanna be a photographer?

[00:24:24] Yeah. There’s a bunch of photographers out there. You can still be a photographer.

[00:24:28] Amy Porterfield: That’s another one that comes up. Everyone’s doing what I want to do and I’m like, who cares? When I came on the scene, I used to teach social media. I do not do any of that anymore, but that’s how I started. And there were people, everyone in their brother was a social media manager 14 years ago. And so if, if I could cut through that noise, I feel like you could cut through anything at this point.

[00:24:48] And so I agree that one, everyone’s doing it. Who cares? Don’t pay attention, put your head down, do it your way. And then this other one that like, I’m not smart enough, or I’m not ready. It’s funny, um, not to pick on the guys, but I’ve worked with so many men who are not qualified to do what they do and they could care less.

[00:25:07] They’re like, I’m just gonna fake it till I make it and watch me. And they do really, really well. Where then I’ll work with some women and, and they’re like, integrity is so high that they’re, they’re like, I can’t teach that until I have five success stories behind my belt. And I, I teach this thing called 10% edge.

[00:25:24] You just need a 10% edge to get started. Action creates clarity. I’ve gotta get you into action to get more clarity of where you wanna go. The 10% edge is you’ve gotten results for yourself or you’ve gotten results for somebody else, and now you’re gonna teach people how you got those results. And so that’s all you need.

[00:25:40] You just need a starter idea. And coming back to that idea of a side hustle, I’m all about it. So two weeks notice doesn’t get into side hustles, but I always say this book could be used for a side hustle or a full-time gig and just starting while you’re still in that nine to five job. I’ve never heard someone say it the way you said it, but you didn’t rely on.

[00:26:00] That side hustle to make all the money. So you didn’t resent the business that you were starting. You actually got to enjoy it, and you got to have some time to make it work. And I love that way of building the business.

[00:26:11] Tori Dunlap: I literally was opening up my, my desk drawer because I need to take notes and I’m gonna forget. The other thing I hear, and I want your perspective, is this idea of I’m afraid to fail.

[00:26:24] Amy Porterfield: Oh

[00:26:25] Tori Dunlap: And I think that this is two parts. One, Elizabeth Gilbert has this amazing quote I say all the time, which is that perfection is fear and stilettos.

[00:26:33] And really what you’re doing is you’re, you’re afraid of not being perfect. And again, all of those barriers you’re putting in your way, the brand color, the perfect name, the whatever. Oh, I don’t know how to build a website. Like you are scared of failure and so you are lading. Perfection is the good thing.

[00:26:50] I also think, and I literally just had, um, a friend write a piece about this for Fortune the other day, is, um, we do not, uh, deal well as a society with anyone who isn’t a straight white man failing or like we do not give grace. two people who aren’t straight white men. Straight white men can start a business and fail and get four more opportunities to start a business.

[00:27:15] I do think there is a societal element that like there is a higher risk of like failure without redemption for someone who isn’t a straight white male founder. So can you talk to me about that?

[00:27:29] Amy Porterfield: Yes, I, I can see that I’ve never thought of it that way, and I actually can see that in terms of, well, I think part of that though is that, uh, uh, the females that I work with, we make it mean something bigger than it needs to mean, and so, If, if I was gonna put it back on myself, if I were to fail in those early years.

[00:27:52] And I did actually, when I went out on my own the first year I launched my first digital course, and those of you who don’t know me, that’s my bread and butter. I teach people how to create and launch digital courses. And so I didn’t know how to do that 14 years ago. So I put something together, it was kind of a mess, and I made a whopping $267 and I thought I’d make like a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:28:14] So I made this $267, cried for a week. I was totaled to myself. I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur, I’m gonna have to grovel back for my job. And I made it mean that I am not meant to be an entrepreneur. And so I think yes, society, when a woman fails, I think it looks very different than a white cis man that fails.

[00:28:35] Absolutely. But also I think we’re taking from that and then putting it on ourselves, I literally made it mean I was less

[00:28:41] Tori Dunlap: It’s an identity. It’s not just a thing that happened, it’s your identity.

[00:28:45] Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. And and it literally, if I didn’t have my husband in my life to say, knock it off, get back out there, this is ridiculous. I think I would’ve asked for my nine to five job back.

[00:28:54] So this idea that you’re not allowed to fail is ludicrous because we all are going to crash and burn. Like Absolutely. And I don’t think we talk about it enough, and I don’t even know one male that is like building this huge business that hasn’t had crash and burns. So it’s just funny that we feel like we can’t have them.

[00:29:16] Tori Dunlap: Well, it’s, it’s a necessary, it’s actually necessary to the growth of a business because Yeah. There’s many times that I have made a decision and it’s backfired, and I’m like, okay, we learn and we grow and I hope that, you know, my team and our community has grace for that as long as, you know, I own up for any failures.

[00:29:32] But like, I think that there is the element of like, oh my God, I, I, I have failed, so therefore I am a failure.

[00:29:39] Amy Porterfield: Exactly. That’s where you need to be. Very careful. Anyone listening right now, I have failed, therefore I am a failure. That is bullshit and that is not true. And that is a story you’re telling yourself.

[00:29:50] Tori Dunlap: So we were talking about, you know, these kind of blocks that we put in our way. Like, you know, one of the biggest ones is like financial of like, oh my gosh, I got the startup costs. But as we’ve kind of talked about, I think it’s a lot more of like a mental block than it is a literal one. So what are some of the ways women who are stressed about the financial implications of starting a business, what are some ways that they, they can kind of ease into that?

[00:30:15] Amy Porterfield: Yes. Okay. So the first one is what we mentioned. That’s that, uh, side hustle. I think if you are stressed out about money, but you really wanna start your own business and quit, start a side hustle now and give yourself six months to build up that side hustle while you’re still getting money from your nine to five job.

[00:30:32] So exactly what Tori, Tori said, you don’t have to get nervous that that side hustle has to make money right away. Allow a few months of it not making money. So that’s one thing. Another thing is what you did in terms of, did you say you started your blog, right?

[00:30:46] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, so her first under K was a blog. It was like a blog for 20 something women. This is like circa 2016. You know? This was the whole thing where you were like, basically take a Tumblr blog and make something out of it, you know?

[00:30:57] Amy Porterfield: I love, I love scrappiness. And so that’s another thing, get scrappy. So you can start a podcast, a blog, a video show while you’re still in your nine to five job to start building an audience, because I teach people how to grow an email list. When you have an email list, you can make money.

[00:31:12] I can email my list. Any day right now, and I will make money by tonight. And so to have that, I wish. This is the biggest mistake I made. It took me about two years to grow an email list while I was out on my own, whereas I could have started that when I started my side hustle in my nine to five job. So starting to build your audience with content creation, TikTok counts, podcast count, blog, all of.

[00:31:35] Do that now because you’ll start to get some momentum and you’ll start to find different pockets of ways to make money while you’re still in your nine to five job. You might not see it as a side hustle, but there’s affiliate ways to make money with all of those different content creation ideas that could absolutely blow your mind.

[00:31:51] And so that’s another thing. So side hustle. Content creation. And then also I think it’s really important that you flood your mind with the right kind of content to empower you. So, I know this might sound a little fluffy, but I always had something in my ear. I’m not a big reader of, um, sitting down reading a book, but audio books.

[00:32:13] Yesterday I called it Books on Tape. Talk about my age. I was, I was actually talking to

[00:32:17] Tori Dunlap: to books on tape.

[00:32:18] Amy Porterfield: and I was, okay, good. Cause I was like, I got this book on tape. I’m like, how old am I that I just said that. But Audible, totally, uh, was in my ear every day. I, I listened to books about entrepreneurship, people building businesses, women doing amazing things.

[00:32:31] I had to be inspired cuz I was terrified of leaving. So that’s something that might feel a little fluffy to some No. Fuel yourself with the right kind of stuff. Listen to it every day or read those books.

[00:32:44] Tori Dunlap: I don’t know if you saw this. So I posted on LinkedIn probably about two months ago, and I tagged you, Jenna. There was a couple other people. Tiffany Aliche. Yeah. So I, I was actually talking about, um, how business owners give an MBA every day that it’s accessible. , like business owners who are doing the things that you wanna do are literally giving you the mba.

[00:33:05] And I had told you right off the bat in the start of this interview, right, like you, you gave me an MBA on how to start a business. Right? I think that hopefully in many ways we’re giving MBAs about how to start a business if you watch. Right? And I remember like very specifically like going to like remit safety.

[00:33:22] I don’t know if you

[00:33:22] Amy Porterfield: Yeah. I love her

[00:33:23] Tori Dunlap: platform. Yeah. He’s incredible. And now he’s a friend and colleague, which is crazy.

[00:33:26] Amy Porterfield: That is

[00:33:27] Tori Dunlap: going back 20 16, 20 17 and looking at his website and being like, oh, interesting. He has a quiz. And when I take the quiz, he asked me some questions and then I have to give my email, well, why do I have to give my email?

[00:33:40] Oh, so you know, he’s gonna give me all this free stuff. And also he is getting my email so that he can email me later. I can opt out whenever I want. But that is a very smart way, you’re providing value and in exchange you’re getting somebody to sign up for your email list. We created a quiz that over 700,000 people have taken where we

[00:33:58] Amy Porterfield: gosh,

[00:33:59] Tori Dunlap: It’s crazy where we got, you know, their email if they completed it and it’s like, I watched him do that and went Oh, interesting. Okay. And like didn’t copy it word for word. Right. But took the strategy and implemented it for us a
nd it’s worked great. So like people are giving you the steps just by existing in their own businesses if you watch closely enough.

[00:34:21] Amy Porterfield: absolutely. First of all, that number blows my mind. I’ve never

[00:34:24] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. I think about 400 peop, 500,000 people actually completed it. 700,000 started up.

[00:34:29] Amy Porterfield: What? Okay. That’s

[00:34:31] Tori Dunlap: TikTok numbers. We’ll talk. It’s

[00:34:32] Amy Porterfield: I It’s the tick. You, what you do on TikTok kills me. I was gonna say the TikTok. Oh my gosh. I need to check myself. Okay, so what is my problem today? But I love that something you said that, and the word we haven’t used yet is curiosity. You had so much curiosity about how someone’s doing something and I don’t think we value that enough.

[00:34:52] Like you could literally dissect people’s businesses just by getting in their funnels and doing the things exactly what you did or You’re right. So many of us, I am literally telling you guys exactly how I run my business. On my podcast, I did a podcast with a woman. Recently and she asked me to dissect my pre-launch strategy.

[00:35:11] And I have to tell you, I, I was excited to be on the show. I prepared for it and I dissected the whole way. I do a pre-launch before I sell anything. I told her numbers, I told her strategies, and I felt uncomfortable at the end. Cause I’m like, I literally just gave away my business right there. But then I think that’s what we need to do.

[00:35:29] I think the people that went before me that did that for me is how I got here today. So pay attention. People are doing it.

[00:35:37] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Um, couple of common questions we got from listeners about starting a business, and I would love to chat. You have so many. My favorite part about the book is like very specific scripts, and I’m such a script girl. So talk to me about two of the big ones. I’ll start with the first one.

[00:35:54] How do I get more followers or customers? How do I do that?

[00:35:57] Amy Porterfield: Yes. Okay. So this one comes up all the time. And when someone says, how do I get more followers or customers? I first have to say, okay, first we gotta talk about the followers, then we’ll talk about the customers

[00:36:08] Tori Dunlap: Thank you. Not the same

[00:36:10] Amy Porterfield: not the same thing. So we gotta break those up. So the followers are the people that I, if you look at followers, you might think of social media.

[00:36:17] So TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, the people that follow you. I don’t want more followers, I want more leads. And so you gotta ask better questions. How do I get more leads into my business? And the way you do that is essentially what Tori was just talking about where. You create something of value that people really want in exchange for the name and email.

[00:36:38] And so we call it a lead magnet, but you’re gonna do a guide, a checklist, a cheat sheet, a 10 minute audio training, a quiz, whatever it might be. You’ve got to create something that people think, holy cow, this is free. I, I want this. And so that is the first step. I think everybody who’s building a business should have an email list.

[00:36:57] You start an email list with a lead magnet, some kind of freebie. So that’s how you get followers into leads. 

[00:37:04] Tori Dunlap: So I know why an email list is important. Tell someone who never built an email list. Tell us why an email list is so important rather than a vanity metric. Like a hundred thousand followers

[00:37:15] Amy Porterfield: I’m so glad you asked. So I always say if you rely just on social media and you build up a huge Instagram following, you are building your business on rented

[00:37:25] Tori Dunlap: land.

[00:37:25] Amy Porterfield: Yep. You do not own it, mark Zuckerberg, or if you’re on Twitter, Elon Musk can change that algorithm and boom, the way you did business can change.

[00:37:34] Or God forbid the whole account goes down and there’s nothing you can do about that. And so you need social media in order to grow your leads, but it’s not the end all be all. It’s almost like the first. So I love the idea of building up your social media. I mean, look what it’s done for your business.

[00:37:49] It’s incredible. But you took it to the next level with the quiz. So why do you want an email list like the quiz, getting people on your email list, you own your email list, you control it. Nobody can take that away from you. And when you build relationships with those people on your email list, they are going to be your buyers.

[00:38:07] An email converts four times better or higher than any social media post when done, right? And so if you want security in your business, if you wanna be more confident that you can make money consistently, you grow that email list, that is the end all, be all biggest asset in your business that will make you money.

[00:38:24] Tori Dunlap: Yep. So followers into customers. The email list is the transition

[00:38:29] Amy Porterfield: That’s, that’s how we do it. So we use social media to get those followers. And, and I’ll back up a little. How do you get those followers? It starts with the content. It’s back from the podcast. The, the blog, the video shows. You’ve gotta be creating weekly original content. Anyone listening, follow what Tori does.

[00:38:46] Like look at how much content she is churning out. That is no mistake. Like I don’t even know how you do it, but now that I

[00:38:53] Tori Dunlap: a team. It’s their team.

[00:38:55] Amy Porterfield: okay, that’s great. I love that you give your team credit for that. But you start with a lot of great, valuable content. Then you lead into the email list, and then you use your email list to sell.

[00:39:05] To me, that’s the best business model.

[00:39:07] Tori Dunlap: Totally. Um, completely agree. Okay, second question. How do I ask for more money? I have this freelance contract. I am asked to speak. I like, how do I ask for more money?

[00:39:21] Amy Porterfield: Okay, so let’s like use an example if someone wants you to speak on stage. I actually just had a, uh, conversation with a friend and they offered her $6,000 and she’s been paid $30,000 to speak on stage. So what’s interesting is one of the things she did is she learned more about the audience. She asked if she can get everybody’s email list if, cuz they weren’t gonna pay her more, but she didn’t wanna say n
o right.

[00:39:44] She said, is there a way to get email list, uh, the email list from this event that is valuable if she uses it? Right? She asked if they would do an additional book buy cuz she had a book, so she was gonna add more value to that. She asked if there was like a breakout session that she could actually sell a program into that breakout session.

[00:40:02] So it might not mean that you’re gonna get more cash up front, but there are so many great opportunities. So number one, you could just flat out say, this is my fee and I feel like this is something you would do. Nope, my fee is I’m making this up $30,000 and that’s what I get paid. If it works for you, great.

[00:40:19] If not, I totally understand. You could start taking that stance and I think is really powerful. But at the same time, there’s other opportunities that are coming your way from the email list to selling on stage to getting in a specific room with the right kind of people. So you find out what you want and you’re gonna put it in front of them.

[00:40:36] But just saying like, Um, can I have more money? We’re, we’re not gonna do that, right? We’re gonna, we’re gonna be a little bit more proactive than that.

[00:40:45] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, I, um, I, I, I kind of equate it to a nine to five. Like, you have your salary and then you have all of the benefits in theory that come along with that salary. You might not be able to increase your salary, but maybe you can get a 401K match, right. Or maybe you can get flexible time or maybe you can get health insurance covered or whatever that looks like.

[00:41:03] So I’ve done that where I’ve either, it was a value thing for me, like I’m speaking at Chicago Public Schools in a little bit and it’s way under my normal fee, but like, that feels like morally a great thing to do. So, like, good with that, or it’s like, like you said, okay, what are other ways that we can be compensated that might not be monetary?

[00:41:23] I also do turn down a lot of things and I say, I say that, um, it would be against my values of what I teach women to advocate for what they’re worth if I accepted less than I.

[00:41:34] Amy Porterfield: Oh, damn. That’s good. That’s good. I love that.

[00:41:37] Tori Dunlap: That is my, uh, fuck. You pay me in a polite way.

[00:41:41] Amy Porterfield: exactly. And how could anyone argue with that one? So that

[00:41:44] Tori Dunlap: And I especially do that for like non uncompensated things where they’re like, come speak for free. And I’m like, mm-hmm. No, I know you have a budget. What are you doing? Yeah, totally. Um, can we talk about the big business mistake you made in that first year? The story of like one boss versus eight? I think it’s super common for a lot of business owners, so talk to me about that.

[00:42:06] Amy Porterfield: In the book, I talk about this concept of unbossing. So if you’re anything like me and you’ve always had a boss, and remember I said my dad was my first boss, and then I got into corporate and I had all these male bosses. So if you always have had a boss, then you literally don’t know how to be the boss, and you shouldn’t know how.

[00:42:24] Well you’ve never done that. So there’s a concept that you have to embrace, which is unbossing yourself. unbossing yourself is this concept of making decisions and not asking for permission, messing up, but knowing that you can get back up and figure it out. Not asking for everybody’s approval or opinions or insight.

[00:42:43] That’s what you need to start doing. And the crazy thing is you can start doing it when you’re still at your nine to five job within reason, not knowing everybody’s position. But there’s some decisions you can make and you don’t have to ask everybody else what they think. Collaboration is one thing, not having the confidence to like move forward and say, I’m gonna figure this out as another.

[00:43:01] So there’s, there’s a fine line and you gotta figure it out. But when I went out on my own, because I didn’t know about this concept of unbossing, I started consulting for small businesses or doing their social media one or the other. And all of a sudden, instead of having one boss at my nine to five, I literally had eight bosses.

[00:43:18] I had eight clients. And I would say yes to everything they wanted out of desperation. I was afraid, what if I lose a client and I won’t be able to make enough money? Or what would it say about me? Or I’ve gotta build this business fast and all these stupid expectations I put on myself. And so I’d get on a phone with a client.

[00:43:35] I was doing their social media, but they were responsible for certain things. There’s no boundaries. So I said yes to everything. We’d get off of a phone call. I’d have 20 action items to their zero. That was not the commitment, but I just didn’t wanna lose a client and I didn’t know how to have boundaries.

[00:43:52] I didn’t know how to be my own boss. So what I wanna encourage everybody to do when they’re thinking about going out on their own and start exercising that muscle of stop asking for permission and start getting some boundaries in place, what you will and will not accept. I feel like I, it was something that took me very long to do, and here’s the worst part.

[00:44:12] Okay, so, Fast forward. So I didn’t know how to emboss myself. I had these clients, they walked all over me and I hated the business. I started, I literally had to retool my entire business model because I didn’t like doing what I was doing and I was able to do that, which is great. But fast forward a few years and I got a business partner.

[00:44:31] This is the story I didn’t wanna tell in the book. I got a business partner. He was a guy much younger than me, super smart, super strategic. Basically we were in a mastermind together and one day I asked him if he could help me with something in my Facebook ads cuz he was crushing it in his own business.

[00:44:46] And he said, I can do one better. Make me your partner and I will help you grow this business. Now, at the time, I was three years in and I had hit $950,000 in my business. I had almost a million dollar business. And in my mind, cuz I didn’t un boss myself, I thought I can’t do it alone. And the worst part about it is I thought, I need a man to help me.

[00:45:08] Like you can take all those things you did in nine to five, easily into your entrepreneurship if you’re not careful. And I did. So I would like to tell you, Tori, that it took me weeks to decide if I was gonna give this guy 50 50 of my business. I’d like to tell you I consulted with lawyers and friends and all that. sleep. One sleep. And I told this guy yes. And he became a 50 50 partner in an almost million dollar business that I had created from scratch and blood, sweat, and. Now after that, our business exploded. He’s really smart, really strategic that what happened was all my fault, so I, I got him into the business.

[00:45:45] We started doing big things and my business really exploded. The next year was multimillion
dollar business, and we took off about two or three years in. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, didn’t even recognize who I was. I was a shell of a human being and I was this guy’s employee. There is no doubt about it.

[00:46:00] I did everything and it was not his fault. I actually do not hate him or fault him or anything. I allowed this to happen and so I started to say like, if the business wasn’t doing well, I’d look to him. What do we do? Or should I do this or should I do that? We’d get on calls, 20 action items to mine, zero to his, and I realized I need out of.

[00:46:22] now in the book, I’ll give you the punchline. It took a year for me to get out of that and fully embossed myself. But when I finally figured out how to get out and it was really bad, I almost lost the entire business. I talk about it in the book, but we got out of the partnership. I went from 5 million to 16.5 million in a year because I finally embossed myself and figured out how to make decisions on my own and stand in my own power.

[00:46:47] That is why I’m so passionate about helping women do this. I know that we are capable of it, but I know that so much can hold us back.

[00:46:55] Tori Dunlap: Fuck. Yes. Yes. Uh, I think the, we are often looking to people to give us a permission slip that we already know, we already know.

[00:47:10] Amy Porterfield: we do.

[00:47:10] Tori Dunlap: we already know, but we want, I do this all the time in my own life too, still. It’s like, it feels like we need to be validated, right? And, but we either don’t trust ourselves or we haven’t learned literally this entire season.

[00:47:24] This, this show this year is just like getting outside your comfort zone and listening to your own, like validating yourself. Um, it’s just so funny how the recurring themes keep happening, but the, yeah, the sense of like, I don’t need somebody else to validate me. I don’t need somebody else to come in and like save this thing.

[00:47:39] Oh, I know what I need to do. But it’s really scary to trust yourself, especially when you’ve had society or people tell you in your life, like, no, you shouldn’t trust yourself.

[00:47:49] Amy Porterfield: Yep. Exactly it. And when we’ve heard it long enough, when those around us, that’s another thing that comes. Uh, when those around you do not believe that you can do this or do not want you to do this again, it’s risky. It’s irresponsible. If you don’t have a lot of encouragement, of course you’re gonna doubt yourself.

[00:48:05] So that’s another thing. You’ve gotta find your community. You’ve gotta find people that are gonna believe in you and trust you and encourage you because it likely it’s not gonna be family members. For many of the women I work with, it is not their spouse. That’s the sad part. Their husbands don’t want them to do this, or their partners don’t want them to do this.

[00:48:23] But I always say, you do it anyway, cuz you will regret that partner if you don’t.

[00:48:27] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. One common question that I have to ask you. So many people come to me and they’re like, I have the entrepreneurship spirit. I want to do this, but either I have a ton of passions and I can’t pick one, or I just don’t know what to start. What do you have to say to them?

[00:48:45] Amy Porterfield: Okay, so I get this all the time and I developed this, uh, framework, it’s called the Sweet Spot Formula. And it’s just to get a starter idea going, that’s all you need. Like you even said, the business you started looks dramatically different than the business you have today. It doesn’t even have the same name, same colors, same brand, whatever.

[00:49:05] And you’re gonna change it even again. So you’re allowed to change things as you go. So we just need a starter idea to get going, to get that side, um, hustle going and to get you out of that job you don’t wanna be in anymore. So I’m gonna take you quickly through it, but I go through it in detail. In the book.

[00:49:19] There’s four quadrants. The first one is, where have you gotten results? What are you good at? What do people tell you? Like, oh my gosh, how do you do this? What could you do in your sleep? Let’s start with something easy just to get things going. So either in your personal life or business life, where have you gotten results and how can that translate into consulting, coaching, a course, a blog, whatever it might be.

[00:49:39] Number two, what problem are you going to solve? So once you think about what you’re good at, what could you solve? Or what desire can you meet? And typically that means like, who do I want to serve and what are they struggling with? But we’re gonna think about that cause we need alignment between what we’re good at and what we can solve.

[00:49:54] The third quadrant is what are people paying money for? So if you say, Amy, I’m really good at meal planning and I could teach moms how to meal plan for an entire week. What, what, um, tupper were to use, how to go grocery shopping, how to save money, all. Great. Do people spend money on that? You gotta do some research.

[00:50:11] You gotta make sure that there is, that’s where it’s like, if someone else is doing it, ding, ding, ding. That’s a great validation that they’re making money on it. So can you. That’s when you’re gonna really benefit from someone else going before you. And then the fourth one is, what lights you up? Now notice I didn’t say, what is your life’s mission or passion?

[00:50:28] That is not what we’re looking for in a starter idea. It’s just what gets you excited? What’s gonna get you outta bed when it gets tough, what are you gonna keep going with? And so if you look at those four things, and again, I go into a more detail in two weeks notice, but that’s your starter idea. Let’s just get going.

[00:50:43] And action creates clarity. You’re gonna figure out what you ultimately wanna do.

[00:50:48] Tori Dunlap: and I wanna call out something really subtle you did that people might not realize is even that example you gave it was, I want to help moms meal prep. Two things. One very specific task or thing, and two, a very specific audience. It wasn’t like parents or everybody who eats dinner because that’s everybody, right?

[00:51:12] I always say trying to be everything to everybody makes you nothing to nobody. You have to be so clear about who you’re serving. If you don’t like the word Feminist, , I’m not the girl for you. Like you’re not gonna have a fun time here, and that’s okay. But the people who do are like such brand evangelists for what we do.

[00:51:33] And so I think that that’s the other part that I see people get stuck on is when they start a business, they’re like, and I did this. Oh, I need clients, so I’m just gonna be everything to everybody. And Oh, you need that? Okay. I, you said jump, I ask how high, as opposed to what is the specific need that this specific person has?

[00:51:52] And you did that so beautifully, even in just your e
xample.

[00:51:56] Amy Porterfield: Yeah, I’m, I’m really big on that. I mean, you’ve heard it, the ne the riches are in the niches and I really do believe the more specific you can get, the better. And talking about cutting through all the noise online. Like a lot of people come into my world, I work with mainly women, and they’ll say, I wanna empower women.

[00:52:13] I’m like, no, that is way too general.

[00:52:16] Tori Dunlap: you’re like, great. And yes, and

[00:52:19] Amy Porterfield: yes. So it, it happens a lot and I know people are scared to, to niche down and get specific because they think they’re gonna be leaving everybody else out. And the magic thing about when you get specific about who you serve and how you serve them, people that might not.

[00:52:32] Fit perfectly into that. But if they just like the way you teach and they find value, they’ll still come along for the ride. You don’t have to worry about that. People will self-select as they see needed, but you have to get specific like that.

[00:52:44] Tori Dunlap: Yep. Yep. Couldn’t agree more. Um, talk to me about two weeks notice. Who is it for and why for you? Was this book so important?

[00:52:56] Amy Porterfield: So, you know, I’ve been doing this for 14 years and I’ve been thinking about writing a book. As an entrepreneur, we think about what is the book I’m gonna write? And I never really knew what I wanted to do until I started to realize how hard that journey was for me to transition from a nine to five job into entrepreneurship.

[00:53:10] I was so freaking clueless and I didn’t know what to do, where to start, or how to do it. And I doubted myself at every turn. And I know that the journey doesn’t need to look like that. Sure, it’s gonna have bumpy roads and challenges, but it didn’t need to be so hard. So when I realized, wait a second, I really do believe my life’s work is to help other women realize there’s a whole other world out here that you don’t even know how good it can be.

[00:53:35] Like I have this vision that someone’s walking through the. She’s a mom of like three and she’s going to another stupid business meeting that she doesn’t wanna be at. And she’s so mad that she’s on the road again and she sees my book and she realizes, wait a second, there might be another way to do this.

[00:53:52] And if I could introduce her to that, I’ve done my work. Because when I had that one meeting where all those men were at that table, I didn’t know what online business building even looked like. I didn’t know how good it could get. So I wanna do that for more people. So that’s why I wrote the book. This book is for any age.

[00:54:09] It’s, uh, primarily for women. I wrote it for women, but men can still find value in it. And it’s for someone who knows, it’s like what we talked about earlier. You’re comfortable but unsatisfied. You know, there’s something bigger and better waiting for you. You’re scared, you’re freaked out to take the leap, but you want something more.

[00:54:26] This is your guide.

[00:54:30] Tori Dunlap: I didn’t plan on asking this question, but I think often people will come to me and they will say, okay, Tori, I love the entrepreneurship thing.

[00:54:39] Like that works for you, but I’m not interested in doing that.

[00:54:42] Amy Porterfield: Hmm.

[00:54:43] Tori Dunlap: Is there parts of, um, the entrepreneurship experience. Someone can take into a nine to five job to better their experience working for somebody

[00:54:55] Amy Porterfield: Ooh,

[00:54:55] Tori Dunlap: that make sense what I’m asking?

[00:54:57] Amy Porterfield: I’ve never been asked this question. I love it. Absolutely. I don’t actually believe entrepreneurship is for everyone. I have a sister, she’s two years older than me. She’s a school teacher, and she looks at my life and thinks, no thank you. I’m fine with my steady paycheck and my insurance and my benefits and all that.

[00:55:14] However, there. There’s pieces of entrepreneurship, that spirit of freedom, of calling the shots, of being a leader, of setting boundaries and building a lifestyle by your own design that you can absolutely take into your nine to five job or the lifestyle you’ve created working for somebody else. But one of the secrets to that is find a job that they celebrate that kind of freedom and spirit like I think you and I have businesses that we do this in my business, we do a four day work week because I want people to actually enjoy their job and not be burned out every time they come into our virtual office.

[00:55:52] And we do things like unlimited time off because I don’t want the women in my business to have to always ask for only two weeks in the year. So there’s businesses out there, and I’m seeing this more and more, that they celebrate having more of a beautiful lifestyle instead of working your life away. So you can have that entrepreneurial spirit even in a nine to five job.

[00:56:13] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, and I think one of the things that I’ve really tried to do, because this was my experience, is I think every single person on our team has some sort of like side project.

[00:56:22] Amy Porterfield: Oh, that’s cool.

[00:56:23] Tori Dunlap: that they’re also passionate about. And I think plenty of, if they were honest with me, I’m sure plenty of them eventually want to start their own thing full-time.

[00:56:30] They want to do what I did. And I think a lot of them, it’s just like, no, I love doing this on the side, or I want to explore this. And like that’s something that we, I really value because I was in companies that saw that as a threat or saw it as an issue. And I’m like, as long as I am doing my work and showing up, well, it shouldn’t matter what I do on the side as long as I’m, you know, not using all of your information to like build a competition or something like

[00:56:54] Amy Porterfield: Totally. We have this clause in my company that we are totally supportive of people having side businesses. It just can’t directly compete against what we’re doing. It gets a little weird, but Absolutely. And I have the same thing. I know that I’m going to lose some employees for doing their own thing, and I have to celebrate that I have to, uh, get excited for them or I’d be a huge hypocrite.

[00:57:15] So, yeah.

[00:57:18] Tori Dunlap: For women out there knowing it’s time to give their two week notice, but they’re feeling scared or worried. Any words of encouragement before we go?

[00:57:25] Amy Porterfield: I’ll tell you this, if you could just trust me on this one, you don’t even know how good you can have it.
There’s a whole world waiting for you where you get to be more creative. You get to call the shots, you get to bust through the glass ceiling, and you get to figure out what you’re made of. Here’s the thing about entrepreneurship.

[00:57:43] So much of it is personal growth. I didn’t know that when I started. I’m a dramatically different person than I was 14 years ago when I started. You have to look at the good, bad, and ugly of yourself when you’re calling the shots and you’re making things happen, and I feel like that is so powerful to grow in that way.

[00:58:01] So if you’re looking for personal growth, if you’re looking to call the shots, and again, bust through that glass ceiling, at least give it a shot. At least pick up the book, start exploring it. Maybe do your side hustle. You never know where it might.

[00:58:15] Tori Dunlap: I needed that, Amy. As you know, we tried to schedule this when you were launching your book and I was off, and I took a month off after my book launch, both because I realized, I, I was like, okay, I’m really tired. I just need some time. And coming back now I realized I didn’t just need time to recuperate for, for myself.

[00:58:33] I needed perspective on my business because. I’ll say this very vulnerably. I don’t think I’ve been the best leader the last six months. I don’t think I’ve sh yeah, I don’t think I’ve shown up in the way I wanted to because, um, and I don’t really fault myself, but like, I was laser focused on this one thing,

[00:58:50] Amy Porterfield: Oh, I get

[00:58:50] Tori Dunlap: release the book.

[00:58:52] Right? Like, ha, hopefully have a be a success. New York Times make a big impact, right? And we were in such like treadmill go mode that it was, I was just kind of like, Nope, we gotta get it done. We gotta get it done. And I was less focused on teaching people how to do it and more just like, Nope, we don’t have time.

[00:59:09] We don’t have time to do that. We have to just, I’ll just give you the answer. And one of the, the big challenges now that I’ve realized is I have an opportunity. To get back to, in many ways the leader, I think I was a couple years ago, where I was like, I could be generous with my time. I could be more patient even when it was challenging and I could have the opportunity to have my ideas challenged in a really healthy way where it’s like I don’t have all the, the answers all at the time.

[00:59:38] And so the fact that you just said personal growth was such, is such a good reminder for me because it’s so easy to look at all of these, you know, public headline professional accomplishments and be like, cool, that stuff is great. But the different person I am every single year in running this business, I think is, is absolutely amazing.

[00:59:58] Amy Porterfield: It is pretty cool, right? I I think I love that part of entrepreneurship.

[01:00:02] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Amy, tell us where people can find you. Tell us more about the book, where they can check that out. Plug away.

[01:00:08] Amy Porterfield: Okay, so I’ve got two weeks notice book.com. That’s where you can go and learn about bonuses when you get the book and where to get it, but it’s everywhere. You get books online. So two weeks notice book.com. And I have a podcast called Online Marketing Made Easy. So if you’re building a business and you want help with list building and digital courses and memberships and funnels and all that good stuff, I talk about it every single week on my podcast Online Marketing Made Easy and thanks so much for asking.

[01:00:34] I am so excited that I got to be on your podcast. I love your podcast, I love you, and I just think that you are killing it and I’m impressed with you every single day. So thanks so much for having me.

[01:00:45] Tori Dunlap: Thank you, Amy, for being here. And truly, I, you sent me a copy of the book. I think it’s so incredibly valuable. Um, and yeah, if anybody is even dallying with the thought of maybe I wanna be a business owner, I think that it’s, it’s such a necessary resource. So

[01:01:01] Amy Porterfield: Thank you.