#155 Kelly Roach

Hala Taha: Hi, Kelly. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

Kelly Roach: I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Hala Taha: Likewise, super excited. I think you're going to share so much valuable information today. So for those who don't know you, you are a podcast or you're an author and the CEO and founder of the Kelly Roach Coaching Company, which is an extremely successful online business. And today we're really gonna focus on your methodology around conviction marketing, which I think is brilliant.

Uh, but before we get into that, I want to take a step back and really talk about your childhood and your upbringing So my team did some research and they told me that you were raised in a family of five. Your family was basically on the poverty line. You were always working to make ends meet you're cleaning toilets to pay for dance lessons.

And after high school, you attended a local college and continued to work while you studied and danced. So let's talk about this because obviously hard work was instilled in you at a young age. So talk to us about the value of hard work and who you are today and how putting in the reps really helped you as an adult.

Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, the number one thing that I learned, you know, in my life is that if there's something that you don't like change it and that hard work makes absolutely any dream achievable and, you know, growing up, I had lovely parents. My parents are wonderful people, but my dad worked for a nonprofit.

And my mom was a stay at home mom because there was five kids. It would have been more expensive to put us in daycare than it would have been obviously to have her home with us. And my dad really had a false belief system that in order to make a difference serving for this nonprofit, you know, that we basically had to struggle.

He couldn't give back and make great money too. And I believe that that was a false belief system. And I decided to set out on a course in my life to both do good and create wealth. And that's what I've done for myself is what I teach other entrepreneurs to do. But, you know, not having a fallback position, not having, you know, Uh, wealth and my family getting a lot of nos growing up actually was the greatest service I ever could have had because it really taught me the importance of not giving up and being willing to work towards goals over a period of years.

You know, I think one of the biggest misconceptions that really. Holds people back from accomplishing their dreams is this perception that success happens quickly or happens overnight. Right? And I always say, you know, every overnight success is 15 years in the making. It doesn't matter whether you've been working towards that particular success for 15 years.

There were so many things that you were working to become as a person that led you to that success. And that's why we have to make sure that we don't get caught up in people's highlight reels. We need to like run our own race. You know, own the lane that we're in kind of thing, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. I love what you said around your mindset around money and how you kind of broke that generational curse that your, you know, your parents had, they meant well, but they just didn't have the right mindset about money. And a lot of people think money is bad, but money is good. You know, the more money you have, the more you can give and, and help the world.

Kelly Roach: Yeah, and I mean, that's not, that's just not a nice saying that you and I are tossing back and forth because we run successful companies. I've actually researched it. I actually own my own philanthropic foundation that I use to give back that I'm able to. Now, I, you know, when I was growing up, we were on the receiving end of charity all the time.

We didn't have any money, so we couldn't do anything to help anyone else. Now I get to be on the other side of it because I've created wealth for myself. And if you research, it's the wealthiest people in the world that do the most good. Why, why is that? Because they're the people that have disposable income that they use to give back and do things for other, if you're using every dollar that you make just to get by, then obviously it makes.

Pretty much impossible to do for others. And so we have to really shift this paradigm around money and we have to really break this, you know, the silo mentality of like you can do good, or you, you know, you can give back or you can have a lot of money. You can focus on being a good person, or you can focus on being wealthy.

You know, I believe that our generation is the first generation that is really showing. These entrepreneurs that are so dedicated to philanthropy, to giving back to creating positive change in the world. But again, the reason why we're able to do that is that we've been able to create wealth for ourselves, which enables us to then serve and give back and, and be, you know, uh, on the giving side of philanthropy.

Hala Taha: 100%. I totally agree. So let's fast forward to you. Graduating, graduating college, you landed a job at a fortune 500 company, and then you quickly rose up the ranks and became one of the youngest VPs of the company or the youngest VP to ever work at that company. So talk to us about your experience in corporate, how you rose up the ranks so quickly.

And why you decided to eventually start your side business, uh, Kelly Roach in Coaching?

Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely.

Hala Taha: Kelly Roach Coacing

Kelly Roach: yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, graduating from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was like, I don't want to sit in spreadsheets. I love people. And I wanted to get into a big company because I wanted to create financial freedom for myself. And I knew I had the work ethic and the hustle I knew I could learn.

So it was like, I'm just going to, you know, join this company. I started in that entry level position and I was literally the first one in and the last one out

Every single day I showed up for work, even in my most entry-level job with no money in a suit, hair and makeup, like ready to take on the world every single day.

And you know, over a period of years, I was promoted seven times in eight years and I ended up building a team of a hundred people. So I started off with one branch with zero staff, zero dataties complete turnaround. Hired one person and then ultimately build a team of a hundred across 17 locations. And, you know, we, we broke every record for growth in the company's history, and I have never claimed and will never claim to be the most talented.

I'm certainly not the smartest. I was like a B student and I tried really hard. I know a lot of cool entrepreneurs are like, I never showed up for class and I was a horrible student and blah, blah, blah. I actually tried. I just, wasn't very smart. I was like in math tutoring and like getting up at five in the morning to study, I just, some people have book smarts, some people have street smarts.

I was always more of a common sense type person, but that has actually served me really well. So. I rose through the corporate range, you know, did that whole thing. My, my big dream was like, I want to be this corporate executive. I'm going to be in the board room and on the planes and, you know, running all the things and, you know, it was an awesome dream.

It was a great ride. Um,

I went through a lot. I had a lot of people that were like, who is this young kid that thinks she's going to come in here. So that was, that was very interesting. It was not, um,

It was not an easy rise. Um,

I went through a lot, including people that I personally like mentored and promoted and really cared for, like turning on me and stabbing me in the back.

And that's all par for the course. Right. We all go through that stuff, but. You know, I've got to the top and I had met Billy who is now my husband we've been together for 16 years now. And, you know, we really started thinking about like, what do we want our life to look like? You know, what do we want our priorities to be as a family?

And, you know, I, I got really clear, you know, I wanted to have financial freedom. I wanted flexibility. I wanted to be able to travel. And, you know, I wanted to be able to put my family first. And I was like, That's not happening, you know, working in a job right. For someone else. So I decided to really look at what skills that I possess, what was I good at?

You know, how did I feel like I could make a difference? And the number one thing that I had learned during my time in corporate was business growth strategy. Like I really understood better than anyone I had ever seen how to look at a scenario and identify the fastest, most efficient way. To take a losing situation and make it a winning one.

And, and I was really passionate about helping people reach their potential. It was really just those two things. And I was like, I'm going to go and bring this business education. To small business owners, right? Because 85% of businesses still fail. Why did, why did they fail? Not because the business owner isn't working their tail off, not because the business owner doesn't have a great idea.

It doesn't have the energy, the passion, but because most small business owners have no business education and I'm not talking about going to business class. Okay. I'm talking about real world business skills, the ability to understand the mechanics of how well-run. Company operates. And so I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this.

So I went to my boss and I said, listen, As a top performing executive in the company. And I said, Hey, listen, I'm not making enough money here. And I'm going to start my own company. And I said, I'm going to do it at night and I'm going to do it on the weekend. And I said, I'm going to continue to be the top performing executive in the company.

And I said, you can fire me right now on the spot, if you want to, because I understand you have the right to do that. I'm not going to hide anything. But I said, this is what. And he said, okay, so I stayed there, I built my business at night on the weekends. Um, build a business to pretty much the million dollar mark while still working full-time as a corporate executive.

Um, and then, you know, eventually made the leap once the business was, you know, really successful, how to staff and all of that, you know, now we're, multi- big figure company. Um, but so many lessons. I mean, I think the biggest thing is just, you know, for anyone listening. you're willing to work at something over a period of years, you can accomplish anything.

Patience is the number one thing that kills people's dreams. They're not willing to work hard enough long enough at the same thing we expect overnight sensation overnight success. I had someone say to me the other day, um, I've been, I've been working at this thing in my business for, for three months and I'm just not getting traction.

And I actually started laughing was like, And I'm like, talk to me in a year and a half. What are you talking about? Right. And it was one of the things that really shocked me when I entered the business coaching space, because I saw that there were so many people promising to teach people how to start and grow businesses in like three weeks or less, or like six weeks, like my top lifestyle, like, you know, whatever.

And I'm like, I don't think that's how it works. Building a company. Yeah. So it's just a little bit about my story.

Hala Taha: Oh, my gosh. So inspiring. And we have so many parallels to our story. I mean, my audience knows my story well, that, I mean, I also, you know, when the corporate rose up the ranks started my podcast and my business didn't, you know, quit my corporate job until I had 35 employees and was making 80 grand in revenue a month.

You know, same thing, like just waited until there was absolutely no risk and worked morning, nights, weekends. Lunchtime, anytime I could. But the key is, and you said it is that you've got to work both jobs just as well. You can't go start a side hustle. If you're gonna, you know, slack on your day job.

That's not how it works. You've got to do both equally. And to your point, if you're not willing to sacrifice in the short term, it's not going to work out. You're going to have to sacrifice put in the time. If you do want to do. Side hustle route, which is like the lest you know, the least form of risk when it comes to starting your own business.

So I'd love for you to talk about that time sacrifice and how you managed your time working in corporate and, you know, building this huge business that you put together.

Kelly Roach: yeah.

absolutely. And I just want to circle back on your point there really quickly, because you know, there's this huge idea in the personal development world of. Burn the bridges quit your job. Like, look, what's happening right now. The great resignation everyone's quitting and no one has a job and no one has a plan and everyone's going to go spend their life savings and they're going to be broken.

They're going to be even more depressed and they're going to be starting their life over because they didn't put the thought. Into what's my plan. The best thing I ever did was keep my corporate job while I built my business. It's why I have this beautiful, robust, amazing company that I have today, because I didn't have a sense of this desperation that you see in the online marketing world.

I mean, people are so desperate. That's why they can't build a great company. It's like this has to work. This has to, like, I can't tell you how many people I come across that want to come into my programs that are like, and this has to produce. And I'm like, no, No, like, don't bring that energy up in here.

Like you are responsible for setting up a situation in your life that you can sustain. So I just want to point that out because you mentioned that Hala and I think that's really important. Like smart people have a plan, smart people have patience, right? You don't need to go burn the bridges and oh, and by the way, and I'll mention one more thing.

I am going back and facilitating as a guest trainer for the fortune 500 that I worked at for 10 years. They now bring me back to literally do trainings for their entire leadership team on. The east coast from, uh, you know, the most Northern point down into the Carolinas. So isn't that full circle?

Hala Taha: Yeah, totally.

Kelly Roach: don't burn the boat, have a plan be patient, right.

So you asked about how I spend my time. So basically I would do an hour to two hours in the morning before. I would go out in my little Jeep Liberty on my lunch break, and I would literally make my sales calls on my lunch break. And then I would do my client calls at seven and eight o'clock at night, every night.

And then I would work on the weekends and it's the best thing I ever did because it actually taught me how to build a million dollar business while only working in my business about 20 hours a week. And it really taught me to be disciplined, to be focused understand. Where I should, and shouldn't be spending my time and it's really such a gift because now I have a family.
I have a seven year old. Now I run a multiple eight figure company. And I have so much time freedom with my family because I built a business where I haven't you've done our stories are like eerily similar. You have a very large team. I do as well. That is also a Very intentional part of the design of my business and my brand.

I'm sure with you as well, but like, I start my calls at 11 o'clock every day. Like I can take off when my daughter is off, I go to the beach a couple of times a week with my family. Now I work my tail off. I'm not going to pretend for a single second and I don't want anyone to misinterpret what I'm saying.

I worked my tail off. Okay. But what I'm saying is. I have discipline around where I spend my time, which allows me to be intentional and allows me to put my family first. And I was able to design a business that worked that way because I was working full-time in my job. And because I sustain the position as the number one performer in my company, while I was building my own business, which was a huge integrity thing for me to make sure my results in my full-time job didn't suffer.
Um,

Hala Taha: Yeah. Oh my gosh. So many lessons that you're pouring out right now. The one thing that I really hear is that you sacrificed in the short-term for the long-term and you created freedom for yourself and you still work really hard, but the difference is. That you can decide. I'm going to take a vacation.

I'm going to work here. I'm going to start late. I'm going to go to my daughter's dance recital. You don't have anybody kind of telling you what to do and you're in control of your life. And you did that through sacrifice and calculated risk. You didn't just, you know, jump the gun and just go for it and have no plan.

And also the fact that you built a team, you know, I'm sure even in that side hustle period, you were building team and scaling and figuring all that parts out too. So I'd love to talk to, uh, talk to you about how you built that team, even when it was just a small

business.

Kelly Roach: I started right away. Uh, very much like you, I, I think I had like over 30 team members while I was still working full time. I don't even think they knew. Um, but you know, because I was so structured. So disciplined with how I was doing things like it and just so intentional about it, but to your point about sacrifice so much sacrifice and the thing that's so interesting as people see people like us, I came from a family with no money, you know, nothing.

Right. I came from nothing. Billy came from nothing my husband husband. So we're like this like phenomenon in our family and people look at us and they're like, People change, how they see you, friends, family, colleagues, um, even your clients, as you rise through the ranks and they make these assumptions about what your life is like or what your life must be like.

And, you know, it's funny because I'll hear Billy talking to people all the time and I'll be like, no, you don't understand. Like she was working at five o'clock in the morning, every day for 15 years. This didn't just like happen

Hala Taha: Yes exactly. Exactly. This is 18 hour days.

Kelly Roach: There was no spontaneous combustion. Like this was sacrifice over years and years and years because I had my eye on the prize and I knew what kind of life that I wanted to create and build. And Billy sacrificed too. I mean, he's been home with Madison since she was born. So we've been a one income family.

Um, you know, since Madison was born, because our priority was, we wanted her to be home. We didn't want her in daycare. And it's amazing because even that sacrifice of like him, like really he's, he's a musician. He completely put his career on hold has been totally focused on Madison since she was born.

And the payoff from that sacrifice has been massive because I see her and she is like confident. She is like, she's a leader. She speaks articulately. Like you can just see everything about her being. Yeah, that sacrifice is going to pay off for the rest of her life. So, you know, I just want to encourage everyone that's listening.

Like, you know, it can be terrifying and it can also feel, um, it can feel discouraging to make these sacrifices, knowing that there's no promise of reward in the near term. And the biggest thing I want to say to people is. It, these sacrifices that you make in the short term, the payoff is so much bigger and so much better than you can ever imagine.

Like looking back on my life now at the sacrifices that I made to get to where you are today, I would do it a hundred times over. I would not change a single thing. Every sacrifice was worth it. The times in which it's not worth it is where you start down the path and then you quit because you just throw it all away. And, and that that's what happens with a lot of people. It's like, they'll sustain for the, the short term, but not the long-term. And then that little bit of progress that they had made goes away and it's like, you start over from nothing. Right? So these, these are the distinctions. Like you have to think about your life in the long-term of what you want your life to be like in five, 10 and 15 years. And you have to be making decisions today for 15 years from now, you know, and I know no one wants to hear that, but I'm a truth teller and I'm going to be the one to say, no, you really, you really do because there's nothing you're going to do 15 years from now.

That's going to dramatically change what your life experience is in that moment. Those decisions are happening now that's what we all have to recognize.

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh, a men. I totally agree with that. Um, so let's get into your new book, convinced Conviction Marketing, because I loved your book. I just ran through it. I'm a marketer myself. And so I, when I like marketing book, I feel like it means a lot because I consider myself to be a great marketer. So great job on the book.

It comes out February 22nd. And, uh, what was the Genesis of the book? Why did you decide to write it?

Kelly Roach: Yeah. I decided to write the book actually. And it's so interesting. I started writing this book before the pandemic and things got so crazy last couple of years, actually, that we had to push back the launch like twice. Um, we actually, our company grew up quite a bit over these last two years. And so I needed to really focus on the team and that the organization, everything.

I saw that there was just a crisis going on online with online marketers, like an identity crisis. And I started to see a lot of business owners, just kind of flailing, like just flailing, like not, not knowing how to anchor in, to building their own brand. And that's a really dangerous thing because you'll take yourself out of business, right?

There's a million people that can put up a bio in 30 seconds and say they do exactly what I do. They can do the same with you and with every person listening. And so I saw business owners really falling into these like dangerous traps to try and stand out .Whether it was like copying other people's brands or just following the latest trends and fads that they're seeing on Tik TOK or Instagram or whatever the case.

And, and I really want to emphasize, like there's no right or wrong, like in however you want to do the marketing for your brand. I'm not here to tell anyone do this. Don't do that. What I am here to say is you have a unique calling, you have a unique why don't go position yourself as the second best version of someone else. the only thing you can do wrong is not honoring the DNA of your own business, not honoring the DNA of your own brand. So I wanted to help business owners to understand how they could identify their core belief system, their convictions, how they could really get clear on. Well, how am I different and what makes me different and how do I share that in an authentic and meaningful way that builds my legacy body of work versus doing stupid crap that you're going to regret later, right?

I mean, just to be completely transparent and, you know, obviously there's a huge what's in it for me because I teach business owners how to scale their brands online. So I want my clients and my audience to be more successful at understanding how to build a category of one brand. I saw that pretty much everything that people were doing was great for short-term clicks and short-term conversions, but not great for actually building a business.

The substance and significance that will stand the test of time. And so the goal of the book is to give a framework that people can follow to not build a brand that looks like mine, not build a brand that looks like yours to literally walk away from the book like holy shit. Like I have a unique calling, a unique set of DNA, a unique set of beliefs and convictions.

And I can do this my own way without compromise.

Hala Taha: Um, I have to say I was reading your book and I was like, yes, yes, yes. Everything that I was reading, I was like, you are so right. I never thought of it, you know, in the way that you outlined it in your framework, but I agree with everything that you say, and I can't wait to dive really deep on some of the steps, uh, you know, to get to be that category of one.

So let's talk about the five essential steps that you outlined in your book. Can you walk us through them at a high level?

Kelly Roach: Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, let's start at, at the, at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Right. The first thing is, you know, I think you have to. Step away from a copy paste trap, and you have to put yourself in a position to really say, I am going to be the best version of me and only me versus the second best version of someone else.

So I would say like first things first, let's just like set a baseline of like we're going to go to market in a unique way that represents who we are and what we're called to do. And as a part of that foundation, it's really about identifying what your core convictions are. You have to know what you believe in order to make every decision in your business about how you're going to stand out and what you're going to do in order to achieve your financial and impact goals.

And I know everyone listening has money that they want to make and a difference that they want to create. And if you don't know what your anchors are, those, those things that you're going to burn at the state for forearm, you know, it's going to be really hard to do that. So the foundation is identifying and deciding that you're going to build your own brand, not someone else's right.

And then marrying that with identifying your beliefs, your convictions, and, you know, I think then people always have the question right about, um, You know, I don't, there's things that people do and don't feel comfortable talking about online. And so I just want to address that really quickly. I am a hugely private person.

I don't share my opinions about a lot of my personal belief systems online. Um, I don't share a lot of my personal life online. I have a seven-year-old daughter. Um, you know, my family life is like my everything, and I'm not the kind of person who looked like documents my lunch and like does all that stuff.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. But I'm sharing that because I think that when people hear conviction and when people hear beliefs, they're like, but I can, you know, and it's like no, You can have very deep convictions that are specifically related to the way that you do podcast production. You can have very deep conviction specifically about the way that you teach people to position their podcasts.

You can have very deep beliefs about any area of your business. Right. That does not put you in a space of being controversial or being afraid. You're going to get your account shut down or talking about things that you're uncomfortable talking about. So I do want to put that out there, cause I know that's always the question that people have and you don't have to be controversial in order to stand out.

You don't have to be controversial in order to be convicted, but you do need to have a belief system because of the. Why would someone choose to work with you versus choosing to work with someone else? And that's the problem. Everyone wants to say me too. Like every marketer wants to say, oh Yeah.

like everyone in my space is doing this.

Yeah. We do that too. And we do it better. No one wants to hear that. Like, everyone's heard that a million times, like don't me that you do that to tell me what you do differently. Tell me what you do. That is completely unique. Tell me what your thought process is. That's actually different than the rest of your industry.

That makes me say, oh, Hey, like, yeah. I want to have a conversation and check out what you're doing. Right. Does that make sense? Pause there. Cause I know I just kind of covered a lot.

Hala Taha: No. I think that totally makes sense. I feel like a lot of people don't understand that you need to differentiate if you want to succeed and you need to be the solution for what people are looking for. And if you're out there saying me too, then you're just copying everyone else and not really differentiating yourself.

So totally agree there.

Kelly Roach: And then you have to really identify the gap. Right? This is something that I have been teaching for years, and I will tell you that the business owners that really understand how to identify the gap in their industry. They become multi-million dollar successes very, very quickly in every industry, there is a wide open.

Right. The best example that I can give that everyone can identify as the taxi industry, right? The taxi industry was like off the rails with so many issues for decades. No one did anything about it, right? It was inconvenient. You can never get a taxi when you needed it. Right. We can go on and on and on. So in came Uber, they filled the gap and it was just like spontaneous combustion.

Right. And now look at that industry and people are even starting their own private car fleets, where they have their own, you know, two, three cars that they're running out almost similar to like the Airbnb VRBO industry, where they're literally like running out their own cars. Right. Because there's, there's a gap.

And now, especially in like the luxury space, like people want to, you know, they're going on vacation, right. You go to the car dealership. You're like, I don't really want a Jeep Liberty on my vacation. I want like a Ferrari. Right, So that's like an obvious thing. But the thing that's so interesting is that.

There is a gap in every industry. There are big issues that no one has taken the time. No one has taken the concern. No one has taken the money to innovate and create a solution to, I saw it in the coaching industry. I looked at every single one of my peers. And what did I say? They were all running these like massive programs where they're dumping people into a Facebook group.
They didn't have any team to support them. People couldn't get their questions, answered. Someone would post a question in the Facebook group and there would be a hundred comments that just said F I didn't know what that meant. And then I found out that meant following. So it's the blind leading the blind.

No one has any answers. Everybody's looking around. There's no coach to be found. And then we wonder why people are spending a hundred thousand dollars on coaching for their business and they're right back where they started. So what did I do? I said, huh I'm going to build a full-time team of 30 support members. I'm going to have every single person that goes through my program, have one-to-one support.

In addition to the group program that they're going through, they're going to have accountability. They're going to have accessibility. I took the whole model, flipped it on its head. My business exploded. There's a gap in every industry. It's not hard. It's just, instead of you saying, how do I replicate what my industry is doing?

You say, what are the issues in my industry and how do I set up to fill them or defects?

Hala Taha: Mm. I love that. So, uh, let's move into your, uh, pyramid if you wouldn't mind, because I feel like it's a good place to talk about so your pyramid is made up of three levels. The first level is how to marketing and then it's hope marketing and conviction marketing.

So from my understanding, the how to marketing is really the foundational piece that you got to start with to command credibility and authority. Talk to us about this, how to marketing and how to do it effectively?

Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. So how to marketing is the most basic element of marketing and it's typically the way that people enter your ecosystem. It's simple. It's easy to do Anyone can do it.

It costs you nothing. Record a quick video on your iPhone, pop it on your stories, pop it on your page, share it across different profiles.

Boom. You're doing how to marketing. This is literally a transfer of knowledge. It's where I'm showing you. Hey, holla. I know how to do something that I know you're interested in in doing. I'm going to be your teacher. So all of a sudden Halla watches my video. She spent two minutes with me. She's like, damn, I like this girl.

She just taught me how to do something. I didn't know how to do all of a sudden. She's like, cool, okay. This is someone that I liked. This is someone I trust, you know, whatever the case. So how has your marketing serves a really important purpose?
Because when people are scanning the airwaves and when they're looking for new accounts to follow and they're looking for new people to learn from, they want click digestible, instant tips. right?

Hala Taha: Yes.

Kelly Roach: Okay. The problem is that's where most people.

Hala Taha: Yes.

Kelly Roach: Now the problem with us is just like people are scanning the airwaves, looking for a quick, easy, actionable tip. They're doing that all day, every day, it's called escapism. Right? That's why people go online and scroll and scroll and scroll it's escapism. So it's kind of like you got the girl, she said yes to the date and now you're like, cool.

I already had a date with that girl. Let me see. Oh, she's really cute over there. Right. and then.

someone, right. So the problem with how to marketing is it's a great way to get people in your ecosystem. It's not a great way to keep them in your eco. And we have to remember what's the purpose of marketing.

The purpose of marketing is to attract so that you can nurture and finally convert people into paying customers. Well, if you miss this middle section of nurture, they never make it over here. And that's, what's happening to a lot of marketers. They pump out this how to marketing, and this is, you know, a lot of people are doing, they're pointing and they're dancing and, you know, they're lip singing and all of those things.

And that's fine. Do you have a way to then bring them through that process and finally get them to convert. Okay. So how to get some in it, doesn't keep them there. We want you to not just do how to, but we want to elevate from, okay. I see you as a credible teacher. I see you as an authority. Wonderful. Now let's elevate.

Let's figure out how are we going to get people to keep coming back? Well, if you notice and the conversation that we're having here today, Hala, we talked a lot about stories, right? We talked a lot about experiences that I had experiences that you had ways that we resonate with each other. We talked about failure.

We talked about setbacks. We talked about patience and sacrifice. What did we just do?

Hala Taha: Bring out emotions

Kelly Roach: Exactly. So the people that are experiencing this show are going to say, you know what, I've only been working at that goal for a year. I think I can keep going. Kelly kept going. Hala kept going. They both run these wildly successful companies.

Now, maybe there's nothing wrong with me that I wasn't an overnight success in six months. Maybe if I stick with it, I am going to achieve my goals after all. Okay. Now we're onto something. Right. And this is why, of course, podcasting is so powerful. It's such an amazing medium for home marketing. So home marketing is the biggest chunk of your parent.

And this is where you really connect with your audience in an emotional and a sensitive way where people are like, you're not just a teacher, you're not just an authority figure. You are my friend. You are my confidant. You are my cheerleader. You are the person that has been in my shoes. You understand everything that I've gone through, you understand everything I'm going through now and you cross the bridge, the other side.

So hope marketing is really about reaching down and grabbing your audience and like wrapping your arms around them and saying like, no, you're not quitting. You're coming with me on this journey. I'm going to support you every step of the way I've been there. And you can get there too. And hope marketing is really, what's going to keep people coming back.

I call it like this venus factor of your brand. It's the thing that really makes people feel deeply connected to you as a person. Not just as a marketer that can give instruction, but as a human being that has feelings that has emotion, that's been through some things. Right. Does that make sense?

Hala Taha: Oh, my gosh, I mean, when I go on a podcast for example, and share my story, that's when I get all these people, like, you know, hitting me up, asking to do business with me and things like that because they feel so emotionally connected, they could see any sort of PowerPoint slides about my results or whatever, but that wouldn't seal the deal.

It's. Liking the person and feeling connected with the person that you want to work with, which is so key. So what are some other actionable ways that we can bring this emotion to our branding, aside from the obvious ones, which is like social media posts and, you know, having a podcast where you tell your personal story.

Kelly Roach: It's literally you've been through it with anything. I mean, you can tell stories. I mean, for me, a lot of times, even when I do like Instagram stories or Facebook stories, like I'm literally just giving like encouragement. It's encouragement, It's it's, you know, it's sharing. It's sharing setbacks that you've worked through. um,

I think one of the things that's most endearing when you're a teacher that, you know, wants people to want to work with you is not, when you just show your highlight reel of all of your greatness and all of your wonderful accomplishments, but instead when you say listen, I failed this and I failed at this and I failed that this, and this is what I learned from it.

And this is who I became, and this is why I'm successful today. And these are all the things that you can skip over that you don't have to go through because I did. And I'm going to tell you what to do instead. So I think it can be in podcasts. It can be in, in live streams, it can be in videos. It can be an email.

It can be in posts on social media. Stories, right. It can be from the stage. It can be from behind the microphone, anywhere that you connect with your audience, it can be in a, in a book, right. And you know, in a any way you want. But the bottom line is it's going from transaction, which is not emotional, and it doesn't have staying power to relational, which is what wants, creates that desire, that stickiness factor in the brand for people to want to stay with you.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And then I think there's another mistake that people make in all this. Is just focusing on hope marketing alone and not doing any of the informational, how to stuff. So talk to us about that.

Kelly Roach: Amen. And hallelujah! Yeah, yeah. All the time. And it, well, and that's why I wanted to actually give the illustration and the exercises in the book about the pyramid, because it's not about swinging the pendulum from one side or the other. It's about understanding how these things work together. Right?

There's so many people that it's like their entire brand is just fluff. And it's like, what do you even do? Like, whoa, why are we even like, get out of my face? Like what, why are you even here? Like, what is this? I don't understand what the context of the soft, like just fluff is all the time. So I completely agree with you.

Like there has to be an intelligence, to your rant, like, what is it that you teach? What is it that you do? There's a lot of people that go so deep in the wrong direction that literally you don't even know what their business is. Right. If I go to your social media and I don't even understand what your offer is, what your business is, what it is that you do.

Like that's a problem, right? So again, the pyramid is about, you know, think about it. Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Like you work your way through the pyramid. You don't say, oh, I'm going to pull out this one piece of the pyramid and that's going to make me happy and fulfilled. No. Right. Each of the pieces of pyramid go together.

So I'm really happy you brought that up Hala.

Hala Taha: Totally. Uh, one more thing about how to marketing that I think is important. If you're going to do how to marketing, isn't it true that you should really focus on a couple of things and not just do like how tos about everything in your industry, because then nobody's going to know what you're really about.

Kelly Roach: thank you for bringing that up. I mean, this goes back to what we were talking about, you know, at the beginning of the show where this lack of patience is the number one savator for small business owners. I mean, I see so many businesses that one day they're marketing this and then the next day you see them marketing something that has nothing to do with that other thing. So now you're expert of nothing. You're literally expert of nothing. The more that you keep changing your messaging over and over and over again. We'll talk about this also with the conviction, the top of the pyramid. But if you keep changing what you're talking about all the time, and you're doing how to marketing on things that have nothing to do with the core anchors of your brand, of course, that's going to create a confused mind and a confused mind always says, no, right?

So that's a great point.

Hala Taha: I totally agree. She is dropping bombs right now. I would advise everybody to go rewind that part back. And now we're going to move to the top level of the pyramid, which is like the elite level. You can't get to it until you finished steps one and two, how to and hope. And then you can be, you know, a top of your field, if you can get conviction marketing.

Right. So talk to us about what that definition is and what that is.

Kelly Roach: Yeah, it's absolutely true. So the way that you want to think about it is at the bottom of the pyramid. You're a teacher, right? You're, you're giving tips, you're giving strategies. You're giving how tos you are demonstrating that you have knowledge and expertise that your audience does, and therefore you're in a position.

In the second category. Now you're their confident, you're their friend. You're someone that they want to hang out with. They want to have a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, you know, they want to have a beer with you. There's someone that you like, so they know you now and they like you. Right. And, and you're kind of like that cheerleader, that friend that they kind of want to stay connected to.

But let's talk about how we get from the friend category, right. To the mentor. The trusted advisor had agree because your interests going to give your friends money. Right. You're going to give your money to the mentor that you believe is going to change that. And when you asked earlier about the people that are just focused on hope marketing, that's a big problem.
That's why a lot of people struggled to convert because they literally put themselves square in that friend category. You're not going to go buy from the person that you like the most you're going to go buy from the person that you think is going to change your life. That's going to solve your biggest problem.

That's going to make the biggest difference that you're going to get the biggest transformation from. So conviction marketing is about stepping into that role of trusted mentor. It's about stepping into that role of your greatest adviser, right? When you think about the category that you're in, you want to own that word in the mind of your audience.

You want to own that category in the, in the mind of your audience and conviction is the only thing that's going to do that for you. Conviction is what's going to lead to conversions. I would write that down conviction equals conversions. What does it mean to be convicted? It means to be so strong and so powerful in a set of beliefs, right?

It's about beliefs. And when you think about conviction, why is conviction in coordinate? Why do so many marketers struggle to convince. Because they're not convicted because they're so worried about what everyone else is doing. And the things that they're saying, aren't really their authentic message.

There's someone else's message that they're trying to make their own. It's very difficult to have conviction when you're saying things that aren't grounded from like your heart and your soul. That aren't a part of who you are, that aren't so deep in your belief system, that every area of your business.

Your messaging, your marketing, the way that your offer is delivered, the way that you service your clients, the focus of your programming, the result that you provide conviction marketing is about taking a set of core beliefs and infusing them in every single element of your brand. So that when anyone interacts with you, they understand that you believe above all else, that these elements must be present and that they expect a certain experience.

They expect a certain result. They feel confident that they are going to achieve a certain outcome. When they open up their wallet and give you their credit card because you are so convicted. You have such a high level of belief about the result that you're going to provide and the why of how you provide that result.

And this is why in the book, we start off with identifying your belief system and then talking about how that materializes in your brand, identifying the gap in your market. Really getting clear on how you're going to fill the gap in the market. Like these are actual exercises that you do in the book, because you might have to do a little self work to do this.

This is about slowing down and peeling the onion back a little bit. And I think that, you know, and I know I felt this way when I first started in the online space. I felt a little scared to lead with conviction because I was no one and I had no clients and I didn't really know how the heck am I going to get someone to want to buy from me when I'm a, nobody, when everyone else in my space is over here talking about this and doing this, but it actually doesn't work that way.

Like it actually works. When, when people interact with you, the number one thing that they're saying is, do I believe this person. Like, do I believe this person, like, do I trust you? Do I trust that linking arms with you is going to make my life better? Do I believe that by giving you my money, this result is going to happen.

It's all about believability. So if it's all about believability, you better know what your convictions are, and you better be able to say those convictions with a level of confidence and certainty. That is going to go from this warm and fluffy brand that people think, oh, I learn a lot from this person.

Oh, I really liked this person. They've been through a lot. They really inspire me to know this person is pretty certain that they're the best in the world at what.

they do. And I believe them. So I'm going to pull out my credit card and spend my money to work. Right.

Hala Taha: Yes. Oh my gosh. So what keeps floating in my head every time, like, while you're talking is that if you're going to move to the convinced conviction, marketing, you really actually have to be an expert of industry because it doesn't allow you to not be an expert. I see too many people, for example, trying to like make it in the podcast industry and they don't even know how the podcast industry works.

And I'm like, how are you even trying to succeed in this industry, if we don't even take the time to understand it and to your point, understand the gaps and how you would fill them. So it forces you to really know your industry and really know your stuff. Whereas the other things you could get away with, like learning one little thing and like seeming like, you know, your stuff, you actually need to know your entire industry and the ins and outs of it to be good at conviction marketing.

And then I think a lot of people, if they are experts, they might go about it in the wrong way. Where they just keep shouting from the rooftops what's wrong instead of shouting what they should be doing to make it right. So talk to us about
Kelly Roach: that

I want to peel that back a lot, because those are really great points. So, number one, this is what I love about conviction marketing. You can't do convection marketing if you're not an expert. So you better either become an expert or you better get yourself into a business where you are actually an expert.

I mean, just like you said, you see that with podcasting. I see that with business strategies, there's like teenagers that teach business coaching now. Oh, God help me, but it doesn't worry me because when you're talking about using this pyramid to create marketing, that leverages all three of these capacities, you simply can't execute on what I'm talking about If you don't have the skillset to do it, it will show through it will be so obvious. Right? So it's beautiful because it forces you either to get by. Or to understand why you are a better right. One or the other, what are the other, you've got to do one or the other. So I definitely agree with that. And then, yeah, I did address that. in the book and I, I do have a concern about that.

You know, I see a lot of people kind of get bitter about, you know, the competition in their space or about what they see going on with other people or about trends that they see in their industry. They kind of have a lot to say about like, what's wrong. And you know, I talk about this in the book. There's a whole chapter about this, but like this isn't about like complaining and like shouting from the rooftops about what's wrong.

This is about like, get off your butt and do something about it. Like, this is about calling you out. Okay. You believe it can be better. You believe it can be different. How are you making it better? How are you making a difference? What are you doing? That's addressing those things. When I saw the coaching space and I was like, this isn't fair.

And this isn't right, that these people think they're going into these coaching programs and their life is going to change. And then they get in there and they're totally. There's no one accessible. There's no one available. There's no one to help them. I didn't start creating all this content talking about like the coaching industry sucks and there's no support for people.

And I didn't say a word. I literally was like, here's what I'm doing about it. And I did it. And then I sold what I was doing and our business exploded. So this isn't about pointing out or calling out what other people are doing wrong. This is about identifying, well, what do you think could be done better or different go and do it, and don't run your mouth about it, you know, share what you're actually doing.

And so it is not critical thinking and it is about going the extra mile. And I say this all the time of the extra mile is so not crowded. It's crazy. Like it's not crowded, so it's really, really busy down here. But like, as you climb the ranks, it becomes easier and easier to stand out because people are like, there's nothing that compares because most people aren't willing to go the extra mile.

Right.

Hala Taha: Mm . I totally So, okay. Let's talk about how to actually come up with our convictions and talk about some actionable strategies to do that. Because from my understanding, it's really about identifying the gaps and then figuring out what's wrong and then reframing that to how you're going to make it better.

So can you kind of just walk us through some steps we should.

Kelly Roach: Yeah. The first thing to do is to really take yourself all the way back to the beginning of when you decided to get into business. And the most important thing is, you know, hopefully you are a consumer in your own space or have been at some point, right? So go all the way back to the beginning of your experience, doing what you do and really ask yourself what was the thing that compelled you more than anything?

To kind of throw your hat in the ring and say, I'm going to start a business doing X. Right. Typically when we decide to go into a certain. There's something that we believe to be true. There's something deep that's driving us that makes us feel that we can do something better or different, or at least that can compete with all of the millions of other people that are doing the same business we're doing and in their own way.

Right. And so it's really going back to the very beginning and saying, well, what compelled you to even start this business? What made you decide that you were going to dedicate your life? To doing this thing that you're doing. And that's a great place to start because there's usually a pretty deep why there for people, but what happens is we get into our business and we're like, starry-eyed, and we're so excited.

And we're so optimistic and we have all these big ideas and we have this grand plan for what we're going to do. And then life hits us like a map truck, right. Because we realize, oh my gosh, this is hard. And when, when we realize this is hard, that's when key people start to push aside, They're their deep passion and their deep conviction.

They're big why? And they start scrambling to kind of like keep up with and do what's being done already because they want to be competitive. So you need to kind of like, almost like clean your palette. Now I'll say, let go of those things and return to the very beginning of what compelled you to get started in the first place.

What was your big, why, what made you say I'm going to dedicate my life to doing this thing that I'm doing? That's your foundation.

Hala Taha: Beautiful. So I want to move on to the third step of your framework, which we haven't talked about at all, and that's building your tribe. Uh, so I know we only have about 10 minutes left or less. So tell us about building your tribe and, and what are the components.

Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. So when you think about stickiness, which stickiness is the only way that you're going to get from the attraction all the way over to the conversion again? So what's the point of all of this? The point is we want to help you to be more effective at attracting attracting people in your area.

And ultimately converting them into paying clients. We want to help you make your dreams come true. That means that you need to be really good at creating a stickiness factor because it can take people sometimes three months, six months now. A year, a year and a half, uh, to, to work their way through your ecosystem.

Some people are going to buy in a day. Some people are going to buy after studying you for years at a time, right? So there has to be a stickiness factor. The stickiness factor a lot of times is the tribe that you created the community. It's the brand. And this is about having common beliefs, common language, common ways that you think about the world.

Common values. Right. Which again, of course go back to conviction. So you want to think about how are you creating community? What is the belief system of your community? What's kind of the code of ethics. How do you interact with each other? What's the language that you use? What do, what do you believe in your community and what are the pillars of this community, right.

And when you think about that, usually in any really tight knit community, there's something that people are raging against and there something that people are fighting for. Right. And so what you want to think about is what's the common language that you're going to create, that you're going to get everyone to kind of use and operate with.

So it's like we have this thing between us that is common and sacred. What is it that you're going to be rallying against? Um, what is it that you're going to be fighting for? And again, we're not rallying against people. We're not discouraging other brands. Right. We're playing nice in the sandbox, you know, but, but you have to understand what it is that you're trying to create a distinction around.

You have to be really, really clear. When I launched the live launch method and I started teaching that what I really was rallying people against was the complexity of technology. I said, look, I'm going to teach you how to launch from your phone with no tech tools, no slides, no outside tech team. No, pre-recording none of that stuff.

You're gonna throw it all out the window. And you're just going to show up live for nine days and you're going to convert a million dollars. And that's what we were rallying people against. This, this complexity that was standing in the way of people being able to actually focus on connecting with our audience, which is why they couldn't convert because they're managing web slides and pre-record, and doing all these other things.

So again, this is we're going to keep it coming. Okay, we're going to keep it clean. You always want to think about building a legacy body of work that you'll be proud of 5, 10, 15 years from now, but you have to understand the operating reality of your people. What are you fighting against and what are you fighting for?

Right. And make that a common language and it common energy and, you know, get everyone in a space where they don't want to disconnect from you. And they don't want to disconnect from your community because they feel a sense of belonging. They feel a sense of shared values. They have common language and again, they feel like their life is going to be enhanced as a result of staying connected to this community.

Hala Taha: Um, could you just give us a few examples of this, the language aspect that you're talking about? Because I just want to make sure that's clear.

Kelly Roach: it can be anything. It can literally be anything. So like for me, I picked the word unstoppable and I literally defined the word unstoppable and like, people will refer to me and they'll say, she's the unstoppable girl. Right? Because I started so many years ago talking about this word unstoppable and I defined it as, you know, you're unstoppable.

If you're a person that despite setbacks and challenges and chaos and turbulence, and every reason that you could make an excuse to fail. That you decided to keep fighting for your dreams anyway, and you don't action until you accomplish them. And I literally talked about this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times I wrote a book named unstoppable.

I build the names of my groups around I'd built the name of my program around it. So it literally created this tribe mentality of people that suffered set backs went through the challenges when through all these things, but believes so deeply in their goals and dreams that they're making them come true.

Anyway, you can pick any word. You can pick any language, you can pick anything you want, but again, this is about taking a setback and not trying to be, or do or compare or compete with anyone. It is literally. What are the words that you want to build your ecosystem around? What is the mentality that you want to have as a shared mentality amongst you and ultimately your clients?

What do you want that relationship today? Right?

Hala Taha: Yeah. And I think it also kind of makes it like exclusive because it's like only if, you know, you know, like for example, all my listeners are called the young and profiters And so it's like, you only know that if you listen to the show and all the other young and profiters is know that they're young and profiters is, you know, so I feel like it's also that common language that kind of bonds everyone in the community so that it really feels like a tribe.

So whether that's like some framework that you came up with that has a specific name or. Uh, so I totally agree there. Even your word conviction marketing is, is like one of your tribe words, I So we don't have time to get into steps four and five of your framework. So everybody out there make sure you go grab conviction marketing February 22nd.

Is there anything you want to round out before we move on to the last question of the

Kelly Roach: No, I would just say, yeah, absolutely. If, if standing out and becoming a category, one brand is important to, you know, that there's a framework to do it. It's going to take a little courage. Right. But it's accessible to everyone.

Hala Taha: Love it. Okay. So the last couple of questions that I ask all my guests is first. What is one actionable thing we can do today to become more profiting tomorrow?

Kelly Roach: Oh, gosh, um, connect with a human being about your business. I have too many times to ask business owners that tell me that they want to grow and I'll say, well, how many prospects did you actually get on video? Or send a message to, or connect with this week? And it's like zero. So just go talk to another human need.

Hala Taha: Love it. Great advice. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

Kelly Roach: Alignment it's doing what I say I'm going to do and acting in alignment with what I want to experience.

Hala Taha: Very clear crystal answer. Thank you so much, Kelly. I loved this conversation. I admire you. Thank you so much for your time.

Kelly Roach: It was an awesome conversation and you guys can get on the waitlist for the book at conviction, marketing.com. Thank you so much for having me Hala.

Hala Taha: Thank you so much.