[00:00:00] Hala Taha: Young and profits, are you ready to get on the fast track to earning more than a million dollars? You may sometimes doubt that you have what it takes to be a millionaire, but our guest today believes it's well within your grasp. Rachel Rogers is the founder of Hello seven, a multimillion dollar company that teaches women how to earn more money and build wealth.

Rachel has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes C N B C, and Good Morning America to name a few. She's the host of the popular Hello seven podcast and the author of the recent book, we Should All Be Millionaires. Rachel believes that making money is easy and she challenges her audience to believe that too.

Rachel, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast. 

[00:02:28] Rachel Rodgers: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

[00:02:31] Hala Taha: Same here. I'm very excited for this conversation. So, Rachel, today, you are a multimillionaire. You didn't always start that way. You actually came from humble beginnings. I learned that you grew up in Queens.

You faced a lot of economic hardships. So I wanted to start there. I wanted to understand what was it like for you as young Rachel living in Queens? What was your family dynamics like? How did you grow up and what were the years like leading up to going to college? 

[00:02:58] Rachel Rodgers: Yeah, so I grew up in a low-income household.

There were times where we were like more middle class. Then there were stretches of time where we were more low income, and I just saw a lot of struggle around money in my household. So having the Con Edison, the electric company, come and turn our lights off, just sometimes not having as much food in the house.

And my parents just stressed about bills all the time. They both worked. There were a few periods where they got laid off. Then they had to take jobs where they worked a lot but didn't make very much. They were always hustling, you know, and there was a ton of stress related to money in particular, and just trying to keep their heads above water.

And I just watched them do that. And so I think I got the message from watching all that, that money is pretty important and I need to learn how to make it. So I was pretty committed to that from a very young age. mom used to watch like crime dramas on the weekend or courtroom dramas, and I would watch with her.

I always wanted to be the lawyer that was like representing the little guy and that was like standing up to the man, right? Whatever that was. I loved that imagery and that idea of advocating for people and so that became my vision. I wanna become a lawyer and so I just was very committed to doing well in school, becoming a lawyer, which I did.

So that was the early days, and that was the influence that I had. I also did have, like, I had an aunt who was pretty wealthy, two aunts. On either side of my family. One was probably just middle class, but she seemed wealthy to me. She owned a home, which she was one of the few people that I knew that owned a home and she drove a Jaguar.

And I remember like there was nonstop talk about the Jaguar among our family. That's my dad's side. And then on my mom's side, I had a wealthy aunt who had like a beach house, you know? So it's like I saw wealth, but I didn't have it right in our household. It didn't impact us in terms of there was no money in our house or very little money in our house.

And so because I was exposed to it and saw it, I knew it was there. I knew it was possible that there was another way of life that was possible, and I just wanted to figure out how do I get me some of that. 

[00:05:06] Hala Taha: I have a lot of people who come on the podcast and they're sort of like Antico. But it seems like college was really the avenue for you to break this cycle and really start to get your feet on the ground and make some opportunities for yourself, even though you ended up not staying in law.

But that seemed like the path that you were able to sort of build this foundation. So what are your thoughts on college and how did you actually afford to go to college and set yourself up?

[00:05:33] Rachel Rodgers: Well, luckily, watching my parents hustle taught me how to hustle. And so when it came to college, I went to a state university in the beginning and then transferred to a private school for the last two years.

So that was like my strategy there. And I just lived off student loans. I always had part-time jobs where I was doing at least 25 hours a week, if not more, if I could get it. And so I just kind of worked my way through college. And then when it came to law school, Hustled and I hustled in college too a little bit.

So I would always be going to the financial aid office and you know, they would give you like certain grants or they would give you like a small scholarship. And I'd go back and be like, can you do better though? And so I always was negotiating with the financial aid office, like, I have really good grades, I've also been accepted to this university.

Would you consider giving me a little bit more money? And I definitely used that strategy in law school to get myself a bigger scholarship. For all three years, which was had a big impact, right? I mean, I still left with a lot of student loans, but less than I would've had otherwise, and so it was that kind of hustle.

Plus working either, usually not full-time, but sometimes close to full-time, like 30 hours a week, 20 to 30 hours a week, always. I always had a job because that's how I paid all my bills. I couldn't rely on anyone else to cover expenses. Now, my opinion on college, I think it's totally worth it. I guess it depends on who you are, but there are a lot of things that I took from law school that I would not be here where I am today had I not done it.

So, for example, learning how to be a really great writer, law school will teach you that. Legal writing requires you being concise. You have to be persuasive. You have to know the facts, like the back of your hand. You have to be able to tell a story really well. And you have a word count, right? So you cannot waste any space, waste any words.

So that makes you a really good writer. And then you're learning how to present because you do mock trials and you have to get up in front of the mock jury and represent your client's case. And there are so many different opportunities for that throughout law school. So I think in terms of writing and speaking, I learned how to be a really good writer and a really good speaker in law school in particular.

And just learning how to make an argument, learning how to negotiate, learning how to mediate. These are all skills that I use today, right, that were very valuable to me. So, Knowing what I know now, I would do law school again, even if I was never gonna practice law because of the skills that I took away from it that were so valuable.

 learning what I was good at. The networking that's possible. You're part of a network which helps you to get a job.

I think there are a lot of benefits to college now. I mean, it's not for everyone, but for me, I would not change it. 

[00:08:09] Hala Taha: Yeah. I totally agree. I went to college and I feel like even just the experience getting those skills, getting that discipline is helpful and student loans suck, but hopefully you're able to use those skills and make money.

So you graduated law school in 2009? I believe. So that was like right after the recession. You got a job as a law clerk. Which went pretty well. But then by 20 10, 28 years old, you decided that you wanted to become an entrepreneur. So what made you think about taking that leap of faith? Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

[00:08:42] Rachel Rodgers: Because I didn't like any of the options available to me. So like you say, it was a recession and the options were I could go work at a law firm that I didn't really want to work at, right where it was a grind. So you put in a ton of hours. These were like mostly mid-size firms, not huge firms where you get paid pretty well, but you put in so many hours and then you usually have to put up with very disrespectful, aggressive partners.

It's just part of the culture. I. They don't treat people well. And so there's that, right? And then I could go into government work or I could go into nonprofit work. And while that, that work was very interesting to me and I was very interested in doing that work, and I applied to those jobs, but there was not that many of them.

And the ones that I did get, they didn't pay well. And so I was just like, you know what? What if I just did my own thing right? Then I could combine that desire to help people to make good money and to like have some autonomy. Get all three of those things, and I was kind of, here was my thinking. I was already broke, right?

I was used to being a student. I had been a student for seven years, so I'd been broke basically my whole life at that point. And so I'm like, if I get used to a law firm salary and get accustomed to certain things, it's gonna be hard for me to be broke again, right? Right now I'm already broke so I could just keep living my broke life and get this practice going.

So that's what I decided to do. 

[00:10:03] Hala Taha: And so that went well. But eventually you decided to pivot to Business Advisory from Law Advisory, and you started Hello seven, which is your company today, which is super successful. So what made you realize that you wanted to pivot from law to business? 

[00:10:19] Rachel Rodgers: I had a team at that point, so I had a couple of attorneys working for me.

I had admin staff that worked for my firm and we had grown it to almost a million dollars. It wasn't quite at a million and. I just realized I really liked getting clients. I really liked the marketing. I loved the sales side. I loved managing the business and thinking about where the business could go and setting goals for us and hitting those goals and work in creating a plan to hit those.

I loved all the aspects of managing and running a business. I did not like practicing law. It was like pulling teeth. So I would always be like up till midnight. Drafting contracts. 'cause it was like I'd spend my whole day managing the business and then at the end of the day I'd be like, oh, there's still legal work to do.

And even when I was, even when I had the associates, right, I wasn't really doing the work. I was supervising them doing the work. But even that, I just was kind of bored with it. I got good at it and then I got bored with it, which is what we do, right? We get really good at something and then we're like, Hmm, let's learn something new.

And then what was happening was a lot of my clients, they were all entrepreneurs. 'cause I practice business law and IP law. And they would say to me like, your business has grown pretty quickly. What are you doing? How are you able to hire people? Like what's your marketing strategy? And so they started asking me about my business, which I would give them advice for free.

And then I had a mentor tell me, you should probably charge for that business advice. So I started to do it and I just took one client and was like, let me test it out and see. And that one client I had just advised her for six months and her business blew up. So I was like, oh, I'm good at this. And so I, I slowly but surely like was transitioning from practicing law to business coaching, and it took probably like a good 18 months to two years still carrying some legal clients, starting to do business coaching.

And then by the end of that two years, no more legal clients totally focused on business coaching. 

[00:12:06] Hala Taha: you started this business and it was based on the things that people would ask you. Whenever I talk to people and they're like, what should I do for my business?

What should I do for my business? I wanna be an entrepreneur. I'm always like, well, what do people ask you about? Are people asking you for fashion advice? Are people asking you to do their hair? What do people always ask you about? That is where you should start with your business. 'cause that's what people think of you as the expert, right?

So, I thought that was really cool. So you've got this book and it's called We Should All Be Millionaires, and this is targeted mostly at women, but really it has useful material for men and women. So I really wanted to focus on the second half of your book, which is really an actionable roadmap on how to become a millionaire.

But first, why did you write this book? Who did you write it for? 

[00:12:51] Rachel Rodgers: The person I was talking to as I wrote the book was my sister. I wrote it because I wanted to codify all the advice that I was giving to my clients all the time and just have it be in a certain place. I also wanted this rallying cry that we are not focused enough on making money, right?

Especially as women, as people of color, people who are more marginalized in our society, I think we think like, oh, I can only make this much, and we create a ceiling for ourselves, or we create limits for ourselves. And this happens for men too, right? We create limits for ourselves. And I just wanted to say like, we actually can make as much money as we want.

Making money is really not that hard. We just need to focus on it. We need to focus on it. We need a strategy and we need to work that strategy and we can have everything that we want. So it was my way of saying, I've done this and I didn't think it was possible. Like when I look at how I grew up, I didn't ever think that I would be where I'm at right now.

And so, you know, if it's possible for me, it's possible for other people. And I wanted to. Give that advice. I also felt like there was advice missing from the marketplace, right? Like most finance or business books are written by white men, and I wanted to share a black woman's perspective on how you can do that and write something that is for.

Everybody, right? For everyone to learn about how to build wealth and like a scrappy, strategic way. This is not a, I'm starting with a big investment and I'm gonna grow my business. It's like I have no money, but I have a certain set of skills. What can I do to build this business? And that's who this book is for.

You have nothing. You don't have a network, you don't have any money to invest. I started my business, this business with 300 bucks, and it's an eight figure business now. So I just wanted to show that it's completely possible and I felt like this advice was missing. 

[00:14:32] Hala Taha: as I was researching you, I found out that only 2% of all small business owners that are owned by women actually break a million dollars a year in revenue.

Do you have any other stats that kind of showcase what the landscape is in terms of women being millionaires? 

[00:14:49] Rachel Rodgers: Yes. The other part of that stat that I think is really important is that over 40% of all businesses in the US are run by women.

So we run a lot of the businesses, but we only make 4%. Of all revenue that comes from small businesses in the us, only 4% is attributable to women owned businesses. So it just goes to show there are way more women entrepreneurs that are making $50,000 or less in total revenue than there are women entrepreneurs who are making even six figures is significant for a women entrepreneur in the us right?

And so I think we need to highlight women entrepreneurs and what's possible. And it's not just women entrepreneurs, it's diverse entrepreneurs, it's black entrepreneurs, it's people of color, entrepreneurs, it's entrepreneurs who have a disability or a chronic illness and are running their business, right?

How do we do it when we feel like we have challenges and other things stacked up against us and systemic issues in our society that prevent us from being able to build wealth? How do we still do it anyway? That's who I speak to and that's who I wanna serve, because I wanna make sure that we can all do it right.

That's the whole point of the book. We should all be millionaires. It's possible for all of us if we want it. 

[00:15:58] Hala Taha: Why do you think that men should care about this issue? If most of the millionaires are men, if most of the small business owners who are making, you know, 96% of all the revenue are men, why should they care?

[00:16:11] Rachel Rodgers: Because the world is better when there's diversity, when there's equality, right? We need women's perspective. Why should we only have a man's perspective? Right? We should care about having a women's perspective in courtrooms, in government, in major. Corporations that impact our society in major ways.

They're creating technology. They should be considering half the population when they are doing that. And so there's study after study that had been done by McKinsey and all these different organizations, major consultants that show that when we have diversity in boardrooms and when there is diversity on teams, decisions are better, companies are more profitable, they have a more positive impact.

If you only cared about the bottom line, you should care about diversity. So I think our society is just better when you have a plethora of perspectives and different life experiences in the room making major decisions. And so that's why I think they should care. And also, men have mothers, men have daughters.

Men have sisters, right? Do you want your daughter or your sister or your mother to be oppressed, right? Or do you want them to have the same freedoms and equality that you have? So I think we all should care about all of our. Representation, right? All identities should be represented, celebrated, and have the opportunities that are available in this country.

[00:17:27] Hala Taha: Yeah, totally. And like I mentioned before, all the strategies in your book, men can use them as well. So let's get into the ways that we can become millionaires. One of the biggest problems that people have is just not having the right mindset around money. So can you talk us through some of the big.

Things that people usually need to overcome with their mindset related to money? 

[00:17:50] Rachel Rodgers: Well, one of the most practical things is just like what they think they're capable of. Even just, what can I do in a business? What should I do in a business? And I think people think that they should do whatever's hot right now.

Like, oh, AI's hot. I should get into that. I should start a business related to that. Or, oh, this topic is hot and it's like, cool that it's hot, but are you actually gonna commit. To that hot topic, right? If you don't care about it, if that's not something you're passionate about, if that's not matching your natural skillset, right?

If you hate your job, you're dreading it every day. You're doing the least that you could possibly do every day at your workday. You're not gonna do your best work when you absolutely hate the work that you're doing. But if you love the work that you're doing, you're gonna do it on the weekends, right?

You're gonna be thinking about it even when you're not working. You're gonna be so excited about it, like you're gonna be lit up. I think people rely too much on discipline. They don't rely enough on what am I naturally drawn to. So I think knowing yourself and really looking into doing personality assessments and saying, okay, what does StrengthsFinder say for me, disc kolby.

These are all different personality assessments where you can kind of get a sense of what am I really good at? And it's those things that you were drawn to as a kid. The things that people always asked you, like you said earlier, right? Those things are the things that your million dollar business is gonna be from when we try to like, Force ourselves into an industry that we actually don't care about.

Just because it's hot right now, we're not gonna be successful, right? It's gonna require an enormous amount of discipline. To do work that you're not excited about long term. So I prefer folks to do something that really matches their personality and their vibe, and their ideas and their creativity.

Value that because those ideas and that creativity is worth millions, literally, if you value it and recognize that it has value. I think sometimes we're just like, oh no, everybody else's ideas are good, but not mine. Right? This that was just a stupid idea. No, that's potentially. An idea that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, right?

If you're willing to execute on it. But the only way we're gonna execute is if we believe in it. So I think really understanding what you're good at and do and focusing on that, valuing your ideas is incredibly important. And then being willing to do the work and execute. 

[00:20:05] Hala Taha: One thing that I liked in your book that I thought was really fun, you drew. Some distinctions between million dollar decisions and broke ass decisions, Can you tell us about the difference between million dollar decisions and broke ass decisions and some examples?

[00:20:20] Rachel Rodgers: Yes. So million dollar decisions are expansive, right? They allow you to expand, they allow you to step into abundance. They allow you to create more opportunity for your life. Broadcast decisions make you shrink, make you feel small, make you feel stuck. And so a lot of times our society says practical decisions are often broke ass decisions, right?

Like, oh, I can't spend that money because I could lose it. Whereas if you spend that money, you could also increase it and build wealth through it, but we're too afraid to do it. So it's really believing in your ideas. Taking action on it. Being willing to take a risk, deciding that you're worth your dream is worth taking a risk, investing that money, investing that time, investing that energy, and getting the result and instead of doing the broke as decisions, that's close everything.

Keep your money tight. Don't waste your time. Don't bother. Don't quit your day job. That kind of energy is broke ass decisions, right? Because people who are self-made. People who have built wealth, when they didn't come from wealth, they didn't do that by holding onto every dollar, by saving all of their time and energy by never investing it.

They do it by taking risks and stepping into opportunity and being open to trying things and being open to failing and making mistakes. So that's really million dollar decisions versus broke gas decisions. So for example, you could spend your time cutting coupons and save maybe $50 on groceries a month.

Or you could take that time, you would've spent coupons and spend that time building a landing page to sell an hour of your services, right? And in one client you can make 500 bucks. So that's the difference. It's like what opens us up to opportunity and what's just trying to save every nickel and dime, right?

That actually spends, takes so much time and just still leaves you broke in the end. 

[00:22:13] Hala Taha: I could not agree more. I feel like one of the things that I did differently from everyone else is I always have concentrated on just making more money. Making more money. Now I look at my finances and I'm like, where should I save?

Where should I invest? But in the beginning, all I did was just focus on making more money. Making more money, making more money. I didn't care about, even like doing returns, you know? Yes. Which is wasteful, but it's like, I was like, fuck it. Like I, I could spend an hour. Dropping off the stuff, putting it in a box, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and get my $80 back.

Or I could spend an hour and make a thousand dollars. And then I always choose the alternative. So just talk to us more about why saving isn't what we should focus on. So many people are focused on saving and not making more money. 

[00:22:58] Rachel Rodgers: I know. And it's like, okay, so let's say you make $50,000 a year and you wanna save.

The cost of living is the cost of living, right? Housing, for example, is a huge portion of everyone's salary these days, right? So like let's say the max you could possibly save is $5,000, and that hurts to save it, right? So that means no fun, no going out to eat, no clothes, no joyful purchases, right? It's all about just living and saving that $5,000.

Cool, right? Then what? Let's say you put it in an interest bearing account, next year you'll have $5,500, right? Or you could take that $5,000, invest it in a training to learn how to become an entrepreneur that sells a certain service or skill or something. And by my client's experiences, like one of my clients joined my program within six months.

She was making a hundred thousand dollars, and then within a year she had quit her job. Was making $250,000 and now she's making over $500,000 two years later. And that was an investment of, I think my program at the time was three grand that she made to learn from me and my membership community how to become an entrepreneur.

Your friends, you know, might say to you, don't spend that. That's a scam. It's never gonna work. Right? Like all of these things about why you shouldn't spend that $5,000, you only make $50,000, right? But like this $50,000 is literally never gonna be enough. have inflation happening. So this $50,000 is actually getting smaller year, after year, after year, right?

So like that's actually not gonna solve the problem. In order to solve the problem, we have to do something wildly different. We have to get new skills so we can get a better job making more money. We gotta negotiate higher pay. These are the things that are actually gonna equal a lot more when you have so little.

And trust me, I've had so little for more of my life than I've had a lot. Okay? Way more of my life has been spent having so little and knowing how to like make a dollar outta 15 cents, right? However, That little bit. There's no saving that's gonna happen when it costs what it costs to live. So that's not the strategy that's gonna help you get outta that cycle.

What's gonna help you is getting new skills, making investments, and learning how to make real money. 

[00:25:13] Hala Taha: I love what you're saying right here. I especially like the fact that you're highlighting that instead of saving $5,000, go invest in yourself and get skills so that you can make money from that instead of just putting it away.

you're young, it's way better to invest in yourself and make more money. So I totally agree. So let's talk about this concept, which I love where you talk about imagining your dream life and then figuring out how much your dream life costs per month.

This was one of my favorite ideas from your book. 

[00:25:45] Rachel Rodgers: Yes. It's literally where I start with every single client that I've ever worked with, and it's called Million Dollar Vision, and I think it's chapter six of the book. But there's a process that I take my clients through. 'cause I'm always like, okay, well what's the goal?

Why are we doing this right? We want things, what are the things that we want and what does it actually cost? Because sometimes we think like, I need to be a millionaire, maybe. Or maybe you could have everything that you want. If you were able to make $200,000 a year. Let's actually look at like what is our next goal and where are we trying to get to?

These are the things that are motivating you right now to try something different, to put yourself out there to take a risk. And so you make a list. So I wanted a bigger house. I had three kids and my house was a two bedroom, small little house, and I was like, I want more space. Okay? But to upgrade my house was $350,000.

And to get a house with more space, it would be a million dollar house, right? So, That's three times the amount of the house that I had at the time. So I wanted a bigger house with more space for my family. I wanted to be able to send my kids to extracurricular activities. I wanted to be able to help out my mom because she was always stressed about money.

So I wanted to be able to like just pay her rent and take that pressure off. I wanted to save, right? I wanted a nicer car. I was driving a minivan for six years. And it was so exciting when I turned that listen and shout out to that minivan, okay? Because that took me a lot of places and took care of my life was made my life so convenient in so many ways with all these kids.

But listen, when I turned that in and got my nicer car, it was a magical moment. But you know, it's like I wanted certain things, right? And so I created a that list and those were some of the things on my list. And when I looked at it, and then I calculated what is the monthly, and I also wanted vacations.

So then I looked at what is the monthly cost? How much would I save every month in order to have a few vacations a year? The kind that I wanted to have, how much would it cost for a million dollar house? A mortgage on a million dollar house at the time was like $5,000 a month. Okay, so I need $5,000 a month.

And just adding it all up, what does it all cost to live that lifestyle? And it came up to like, let's say 25 to $30,000 a month was the number. And at the time I was making like $12,000 a month in my law practice, right? What I was able to take home. So I'm like, okay, now I have a target. I need to make three x what I'm currently making.

What can I do? And so then I started brainstorming what are some ideas that I have to bring in more money? And then one of those ideas was creating a digital product. And that digital product was, you know, I had a lot of people coming to my law practice that couldn't afford me yet. They were new entrepreneurs.

And so I was like, okay, great. What if I just packaged up my templates? And a guidance on how to use them and which business entity to start, and like all those different legal issues that come up when you start a business. I packaged it all together, put it into a product, and then I was able to sell that and I wasn't trading my time for money when I did it.

And the initial launch of that product, I made $80,000. That was one of the things that I did, but it wasn't the only thing. So I just had a list of ideas and not all of them were good. Half of them were probably terrible, right. But the five to 10 that I took action on allowed me within, I think it was about a year later, that I was buying my million dollar house.

do all the extracurriculars, do all the things that I wanted to do, help out my mom, save money. Then once I got there, I was like, okay, well now what's next?

What's the new vision now that I've accomplished all of those things? And so I create a new vision and then I create a new plan, and then I start working that plan. And that's really all it is. It's just getting clear on what do I want? What does it cost, and what am I gonna do to get it? That's really what it is.

[00:29:16] Hala Taha: I think that this is brilliant because instead of getting really overwhelmed by this huge number of what a house costs and what this costs and what is having a monthly number all of a sudden becomes more practical, and you can try to figure out what you need to do to generate that income. Now, one of the things that you do to sort of challenge people to break out of certain limiting mindsets, Is this 10 K and 10 days challenge.

So walk us through this challenge that you do. How many people have went through it? What are some of the results that people have gotten?

[00:29:47] Rachel Rodgers: Yeah. Oh, thousands of people have gone through it at this point on their own. And then also in my community, we do it collectively every summer. And the first time we did it, let's say we had somewhere around 300 people participating in this challenge.

And I told my, someone on my team, I said, we, like, we did a survey after the challenge just to say like, how much money did you make? I asked one of my team members just add it all up. I'm just curious how much we made as a community, all 300 of us, and the number was like $2.7 million. That was made in 10 days by 300 people, and I was like, holy crap.

But it was just so incredible to see the collective power of just being focused and deciding you're gonna make something happen. And so 10 K in 10 days, it came out of just saying, okay, now I've taught you all these things. Now it's time to take action.

Because just knowing things ain't gonna help you. You gotta turn it into action and put the work in. And so I wanted to give people a quick way to try something and I wanted to show people making money is accessible to you. It is available to you right now. Wherever you are in your life, you could sell things in your garage.

You could walk your neighbor's dog. You could babysit somebody's kids. You could mow their lawn. You could take the skills that you learned around marketing in college and turn that into a marketing consultancy where people can pick your brain about marketing for an hour and pay you 300 bucks or something like that.

So whoever you are, maybe you're really good at cooking or you're really good at knitting. You could sell the things that you make. We all have skills and we can turn those skills into money. Or we have stuff lying around the house that we can turn into money. There's all kinds of things that we can turn into money, and so I really wanted to challenge people to get creative.

And if you had no choice but to make $10,000 in 10 days, what would you do? What are your opportunities, right? When we take our team through this, and in the book as well, I give a list of here's some different opportunities and options, and here's some stories about clients of mine who have done it right, and here's how they did it.

And just by doing that, they get some ideas. They try it. And so for 10 days, it's like you have some prep time where you're like, okay, what are my different things? I'm gonna try to make $10,000, and everybody doesn't do 10,000. Some people set it at 5,000, some people set it at more than 10,000, if that's exciting.

To them, it's like, what's the number that would blow your mind if you were able to make it in 10 days and challenge yourself to really do it. For 10 days, once they have their plan in place, then for 10 days you're gonna put yourself out there. You're gonna send emails, you're gonna call people you know in your network.

You're gonna post about it on social media. You're gonna try all of these different cold email people, pitch yourself, all these different strategies. You can try to get the word out about this thing you've created or this offer that you have, and ask people to buy it. And people shock themselves. They're like, this is never gonna work.

This is not possible for me. And then they do it and they're like, what in the hell? My favorite story is one of my clients, she had like a knitting course that she was like teaching people about how to knit and all of that. And she had like all of this yarn lying around, leftover yarn from like big batches and she was like, I'm just gonna sell this random yarn.

So she just put the random yarn into like these packages and sold yarn and made thousands of dollars selling just like the yarn she had lying around her house. And I was like, this is my favorite story. Another client of mine just went back to old clients who never paid their bill, right? Or like there was some part of the bill that they still owed her money and she kind of forgot about it or never tried to collect it.

And I'm like, go get those debts right? And so she collected from past clients and then she did a massive garage sale. She had recently gotten divorced and she got rid of all of her ex-husband's stuff. She made over $10,000 in 10 days with those two strategies. So the stories are just hilarious and so fun.

It's just so exciting to see people trying something, believing in themselves and giving it a shot. Now, does everybody hit 10,000? No, but everybody makes something. We've had a few people make nothing, and even the people who make nothing, they're like, I can see it now though. First of all, half the time they're just too scared to pitch themselves, so that's why they didn't make anything.

They didn't get brave enough until the last couple days, but then they were like, I see it. I see that it's possible, and if I just tweak my strategy this way, I'll be able to do it. So the 10 K in 10 days challenge is magical and I love seeing people do it. People dmm me all the time on Instagram and they're like, guess what?

I did the 10 K in 10 days challenge and this is what I did and I made all this money. My mind is blown and it's my favorite. 

[00:34:17] Hala Taha: It's so great because I think the struggle that a lot of people have who aren't these like natural entrepreneurs who can just like, get shit done and, and go after it. They can't get started, that's their problem.

So this is like forcing them to get started and get some momentum and $10,000 is not anything to sneeze on that will change your life if you make $10,000 in 10 days. So I love it. So you talk about five main shifts that you've gotta take in order to be a millionaire in the second half of your book.

The first shift is about recognizing your true value and what you can offer to the world. We talked about that a little bit, but do you have anything else to share in terms of recognizing your own true value? 

[00:34:57] Rachel Rodgers: Yes. Part of it is something that I talk about in the first half of the book, which is around boundaries.

Treat your time differently. If you wanna make something happen, then value your time. You know, if your workday ends at five o'clock, end it at five and go home and work on that side hustle. Say no to like watching binge watching Netflix or spending your weekend doing your auntie's taxes, right? Or joining the P T A.

That takes up a ton of your time. Whatever those things are, we have to carefully protect our time so that we can spend it on these money generating activities that are possible for us. But yes, it's all about just believing in yourself and looking at what am I actually naturally good at? And then just try it.

Because I would've never known I was good at business if I didn't have a law practice first. I would've never thought I wanted to go into business. I had zero desire to be an entrepreneur in the early days. So when you try something, even if it doesn't work, the beauty of it is you're gonna learn something about yourself.

You're gonna learn something about what works and what doesn't. So you're either gonna learn something or you're gonna win one or the other. So you might as well try it. 

[00:35:59] Hala Taha: Another concept that I wanna go over is pricing, right? So you recommend to shift to value-based pricing rather than hourly compensation.

And you also tell people that immediately, and I love this, that they should double their prices. Yes. I think this is genius. So talk to us about why we should double our prices and also what are the pricing mistakes that entrepreneurs typically make? 

[00:36:22] Rachel Rodgers: Well, it's totally connected to that, right? Valuing yourself.

We undervalue what we can do. We undervalue our skillset and therefore we usually priced ourselves way too low, which is exactly what I did when I was practicing law. I would do register trademarks for people and one of my friends told me, you're charging way too low for this. And I'm like, mind your business, right?

I got offended. I think people get so caught up and like so worked up about money and like what they're charging and. They're like, well, it took two hours of my time and therefore if I charge X amount for time, like it should be this amount of money. And I'm like, what the hell does time have to do for it?

What is the value that you provided? So if I protect somebody's trademark and they then go build an empire that no one else can step on because they've got that trademark protected, that brand protected, that's hundreds of thousands of value, right? Even more millions of value potentially. So to charge $5,000 or $10,000 for that is nothing, right?

Like that's totally worth it. Particularly if you want it done right and you don't want it done by LegalZoom, which is absolutely doing it wrong, for sure. Just so y'all know. So thinking about your price, not based on how much time you spend, guess what happens when you price based on time, you get better at something, which means you get faster at it.

Now you make less 'cause you're better at it. That'll make sense, right? So if I charge a hundred dollars an hour and it takes me five hours in the beginning, but then seven years later into my career, it takes me one hour to do it, I'm only gonna make that $100. Right? Whereas earlier in my career, I was making $500, right?

If it took me five hours. So I. That's not the way to go. We have to value it based on and price based on what is the value that the person is providing? How is it going to change their life? Benefit their life, right? What's going to happen on the other side of this and charge accordingly. And most people, underprice, especially freelancers, new entrepreneurs, side hustlers, we absolutely undervalue ourselves.

And so start by doubling. So like if you're like, oh, you can get your hair done by me for $50. Double it to a hundred and see what happens. I remember when my style is, she was charging, I think it was like $50, and she was like, I'm gonna raise my prices. Here's what it is. And she was all nervous about telling me, and I'm like, okay, what's the new price?

And it was $60. And I was like, who caress? She could've charged so much more and I would've happily paid it and not thought twice about it. I think we tend to put our worries about money. On other people. So we're worried about other people's pockets, right? So I always tell my clients, don't worry about other, you know, O P P, other people's pockets.

Worry about your own pockets, right? And making sure you are making enough money. So don't assume how much people are willing to pay or how much is too much, you don't know. Double it and see what happens. And that's one of the things that I did. It's just double it. And also too, you don't even have to announce that it's doubled, just the next prospect that you talk to, the next potential client that you talk to.

A doubled price and see what happens. And if they shrug their shoulders and pay it, then that's the new price. 

[00:39:21] Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. And I always say if you're closing more than 30% of your clients, you're probably priced too low. Like it's okay to get nos and have people say, no, this is too much. 

 Exactly. So you talk about. Not going alone. You're a big proponent of getting a personal assistant not being a solopreneur. So give us some stats, first of all, of why being a solopreneur is actually not to our advantage. 

[00:39:48] Rachel Rodgers: Yes. Most studies show, and even VCs like, and investors typically do not invest in a solo founder because once you run out of energy, you're done.

There's no protection there. So it's really important that you have a team, and in order to build a successful business, you need a team. Most companies that are under $250,000, even beyond that, at the $250,000 mark, is where you should absolutely be hiring people. If you haven't hired people already at two 50, that is like the limit that you should be hiring people.

At that point. Most women entrepreneurs don't because we're trained by society to basically do all of the work. Even eldest daughters, they help their parents with everything. It's a societal thing. And so it's important to hire people, and I think men are better at this than women. Male entrepreneurs I think are better at recognizing, oh, if I had more help, then I'll double the output that I can have.

Then I'll make more money and they can do that math. So doing that math is incredibly important, and I think that's why our businesses, particularly women entrepreneurs, businesses stay so small is because. They really take forever to hire that first employee. And I say always hire that first employee by $250,000 a year or before, because the sooner you do it, the sooner you're going to see significant growth and you have the labor of two people making something happen.

And also you have somebody to bounce ideas off of. If you are bad at one thing and good at another, you can hire someone who's good at that thing you're bad at. Right? And now, now you've got all of those skill sets within your company, so. Delegation hiring people. It is essential. And of course, pay them.

Well pay them as well as you can, and even if you can't pay them that well, offer them remote work. Offer them other benefits that they can enjoy if you can't pay as well. Some people are willing to take a pay cut to get other life benefits. 

[00:41:46] Hala Taha: I think a lot of my listeners know my background story, but something in case you guys don't know, I started my company with interns and vass from the Philippines.

Now it's like a really big company with 16 employees all around the world. But literally in the beginning I had like a team of five people. Some were just getting stipends, us interns, some were getting 500 bucks a month to work full-time for me, and they were happy with that salary over in the Philippines, you know?

So it doesn't mean that you need to invest a lot, but try to be creative to get the help, because when you're first starting. Maybe you can offer teaching people and train. Like that's what I offered. I trained my interns and they wanted the experience. Right? The VAs in the Philippines, there's a different cost of living out there, so you may wanna look at overseas talent.

Something that piqued my interest is that you recommend to get a personal assistant, not a business assistant. Can you tell us why you recommend getting a personal assistant? 

[00:42:42] Rachel Rodgers: I think everybody's first employee should be a personal assistant. And this is my philosophy on scaling businesses, period. When you have a really great employee, you hire them an assistant, now they can go further and do more.

Now you're getting double the output out of that person and what is possible for them. And you're your first great employee, and so you should be the first one to get a personal assistant, and that should be your first hire. And so all of those things that keep falling to the bottom of your to-do list, That's the stuff that the personal assistant can do.

So for me, I had kids, right? So getting help with birthday parties and keeping on top of preschool emails and helping out with all of those household things, running errands, getting groceries. I get all that time back that I can then focus on my business or rest so that I'm energized when I am focused on my business.

In addition to that, my assistant was in my inbox responding to inquiries. 'cause that's what was happening. I had incoming people saying, I'm interested in hiring you, and I could not respond fast enough. 'cause I was doing the work that had already been hired to do. And so I was losing money by not having somebody in that inbox responding to those inquiries immediately.

And so having a personal assistant who could do those other things and also be in my inbox and also manage the scheduling so I didn't have to. Do the back and forth email, dance over scheduling, letting her do that, letting her answer the phones, calling people back, all of that. That was huge for me and immediately enabled me to take on more clients.

Right? Which means I can make more money 'cause I'm not doing any of the administrative work for my personal life or. For my business. So I always say start with a personal assistant. Even part-time, even if all you could afford is five hours a week, you'll get some stuff off your plate. You'll get that five hours back.

And this, what do you charge hourly, right? Like what is, what is an hour of your time worth? What is the value of that? Right? And so then that's the money that you make back when you pay. If you pay an assistant, you know, a hundred dollars for five hours a week, what's that a hundred dollars worth to you when you're selling your services?

Five hours of that. So that's how you wanna think about it and make that investment, and you can always dabble with it. Just try it. That's what I always tell people, even with investing, try it in a small way and just see what happens. Right? Try it even for one month and say, I just need assistance for these two weeks, for 10 hours.

Is someone interested in a short-term project? And just try it out and see what happens. And you're gonna see, you're gonna free up so much mental space, so much time, so much opportunity for you to go pursue clients, market yourself, make more money, and then you're gonna be like, okay, will you take a full-time job?

[00:45:11] Hala Taha: Yeah. And some of the most low value tasks have to do with the household, That can waste a lot of your time. Folding clothes, for example, that's something I'm like outsourcing, please. I don't wanna spend any time doing any of that, right? 

[00:45:23] Rachel Rodgers: Uh oh my God. All of those things I make my clients outsource laundry immediately, even beyond the personal assistant.

Like before you get it, just do a drop off service at the laundromat where you drop off your clothes. Then my clients will be like, oh, I don't want anyone folding my underwear or like seeing my underwear get underwear. And I'm like, exactly. Get more committed to financial freedom than you are committed to people not seeing your underwear.

Okay. It's not that serious. 

[00:45:49] Hala Taha: I'm glad we're on the same page. So, Rachel. Last January, I went to one of your events, and so one of your major revenue streams is hosting these amazing conferences. And so I went to the R O I Millionaire Summit. I was actually speaking about LinkedIn 

And so I wanted to ask you about this revenue stream that you have with events, and I have a couple questions about it. So the first one is how do you monetize, and you know, this is for people who have no experience. What are the ways that you're monetizing your event?

Are you getting sponsors? Are you just selling tickets? Are you getting memberships? What are the ways that you're monetizing your event? 

[00:46:28] Rachel Rodgers: Yeah, well, I've been doing events for years and R o I, the Millionaire Summit is the biggest one that I do. And that you were there for the first one that we ever did, we're doing it again.

I love it. So with smaller events, it's really inexpensive and I highly recommend it. 'cause if you wanna get in front of customers and really bond with them and have them understand how you can help them, there's no better way than a live event. And so you do the live event, you teach some things, create networking opportunities, create a great experience, and then you know you can sell your services, sell your packages, have people sign up right there at the event.

That's kind of the model for R O I, the Millionaire Summit. That is a big investment. It is a multimillion dollar event. It's one of those things that's not gonna make a ton of money in its first year. It's one of those things you have to invest in and it's a slow burn. And because my company is an eight figure business, we're now in a position where we can make that kind of investment and we don't have to get it back immediately for us to still be okay financially.

So that's a piece of it. Big conferences are expensive and I paid for it out of pocket. However, this year we are working on getting sponsors and we've hired a consultant to help us with that. 'cause I don't know anything about getting sponsors is I don't have sponsors for my podcast. I'm basically like scrappy and I earn everything.

Right. 

[00:47:42] Hala Taha: So Rachel, you do know I am running the number one business and self-improvement podcast network, so if you need sponsorships, we gotta talk after. Okay, yes, 

[00:47:50] Rachel Rodgers: let's definitely talk, let's definitely talk. I think sponsors is an important part of the model, but basically, We sell tickets to the event. We basically break even on the tickets.

So we don't make money from the tickets. The tickets just cover the cost of doing the event. Hopefully in the first year they didn't, but this year they will. And then when you're at the event, you can sell your stuff, right? Whatever your products or services, you sell your packages and that's how you make money from it.

And even on the first year, while we definitely paid out of pocket for the event itself, we were able to sell $3 million of our. New program. It's a business coach certification program. That was pretty significant, right? That you can make $3 million at one time. I mean, it could took a year of planning to plan that event, right?

But at that event, it allows us to make a lot of money at one time, and that's money that's booked. It's not necessarily all coming into your pocket, but it's booked and it's like recurring revenue for the whole year. And so that's a little bit about the model and the economics behind it. 

[00:48:51] Hala Taha: And the brand awareness that the event brings is probably so huge.

It's like you're there. You've got all these people who know your name, that you're in charge of it. Even if they don't buy now, they're probably gonna save up to buy later. So I think it's really great. The other expenses, I guess, would be flying out speakers, paying speakers, but then you can also get speakers to probably speak for free if you allow them to sell.

Right. Any other thoughts in terms of what you need to coordinate, what you need to do to put on an event that might not be obvious? 

[00:49:22] Rachel Rodgers: Well, I mean, what we did was hire an amazing company to be our event planners and partners because my business, I have a lot to do already and I did not wanna try to do it myself.

So the reason why it was so well coordinated is 'cause we hired someone who's expertise. Is event planning and experiences to do it. And that agency is, their name is Verb, they're amazing. They don't do small events, they do big events, like big conferences. They actually do, you know, all of those air, like the Barbie House for Airbnb?

Airbnb is one of their clients. They're the people behind that. So they do activations and experiences and so hiring a partner who knows what they're doing is key. Even with sponsorships, I don't know a lot about sponsorships. I'm hiring someone to help me. So whenever you have this area, you don't have to like study for the next year to learn something, right?

Hire someone who knows how to do it, who can make it faster and easier. So that's one piece of it. We pay all of our speakers and we treat our speakers really, really well because we want them to be encouraged to come back next year. One of the best things that happened too is the user generated content.

The it was thousands of. Different impressions on every social media channel, all these different videos, reels, posts about this event that really helped to spread the word to your point about brand awareness. So I think that's really key too. And I think you can definitely do creative partnerships with speakers and really have a point of view.

I think that is the key. If you're gonna do a live event, Why are you doing this live event? What's missing from live events that are available for whoever your target market is and how can you come at it with a different angle? 'cause I think that's what really gets people, piques their interest and gets them to come out.

'cause it's a big lift. You're asking people to book a plane ticket, book a hotel, buy the ticket to the conference and show up. It's a big lift. So you gotta have really something exciting that you're offering. And for us it was diversity. It's putting speakers on the stage of every different background.

And just having different perspectives shared and really amazing speakers and really practical speakers on practical topics like LinkedIn marketing, right? Or like how to market yourself on TikTok, or how to hire your operations manager, right? Like really practical training that's really valuable and tangible, including inspiration and big keynotes as well.

[00:51:37] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I would imagine that people should really do work building their community and doing networking before you try to put on even a small event, right? So it's like, first you've gotta build the foundation, the community, then you can move on to something like that. Okay. So Rachel, I wanna be respectful of your time.

I know we're running out of time here. So my last question to you before we close this out is what's upcoming for you? I know you have a podcast. You've got the R O I Summit coming up again. Talk to us about where people can find you and what's, what's new with you. 

[00:52:07] Rachel Rodgers: So I have literally five books coming out, which is bananas.

Whoa. Four out of the five are done. I still have one that I'm halfway through that I'm working on. But yes, the success of the first book led to a lot of books. So I have a deal with Audible, so I have some audio books coming out soon that I'm very excited about. This fall I have the workbook for We Should All Be Millionaires Coming Out.

Then book number two, which is really practical, step-by-step on how to build a seven figure business. So those books are coming out and I also have the kids' version of We Should All Be Millionaires is coming out soon to teen and young adults. So I have those books happening, r o i, the Millionaire Summit is happening again in Puerto Rico, so I'm very excited about that.

I'm launching a new podcast with Nathan Berry from ConvertKit. He runs that software company. So we are launching a new podcast. We still don't have a name yet, but it'll be coming out soon. And then I have a new newsletter that I'm launching as well, called the SH Money Newsletter. Talk about money earning, money, keeping money and life as an entrepreneur.

So launching and doing lots of things. I just feel like it's that season of like, it's back to school energy. It's like, let's, let's put some new stuff out there. 

[00:53:17] Hala Taha: Yeah, that's a lot of new stuff. Five bucks, man. I'm writing my first book and I'm overwhelmed with just one, so kudos to you. You are superwoman.

Okay, so I end my show with two questions. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:53:36] Rachel Rodgers: What I encourage you to do is make an offer, reach out to people, and just come up with something that you can sell. Reach out to somebody that you know in your real life who already knows you, who already trusts you, and just pitch yourself, pitch whatever your thing is, even if it's just an hour of your time to pick your brain on a certain topic that you're really good at or you have an expertise on, and just see what happens, right?

Just start making those offers and pitching yourself. And I think once you do it, you get more comfortable doing it, and you can start to see that, oh, making money is totally within reach. I just have to try things I've never tried before. 

[00:54:08] Hala Taha: What's your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond just building wealth.

[00:54:13] Rachel Rodgers: I think it's really taking care of myself, having a hardcore self-care process. So going to therapy, I get up at 5:00 AM I go for a walk, I go do weight training every day, and I just really, really prioritize what's important to me. So taking care of myself is key. My mental health, having lots of time with my good friends, I'm always.

Getting on a plane like at least once a quarter to see my good friends 'cause they don't live near me. So like making sure I'm just enjoying my life. I think that's a part of it. Have more fun because that's the stuff when you're having fun and you're laughing with friends, that's when you're like, oh, I just got an idea.

That's when they come. They don't come when you're like nonstop in front of the computer. So give yourself breaks. Enjoy your life, celebrate your wins, however small, because otherwise we just work, work, work. And that's depressing, right? So make sure you're enjoying those moments. And I think that's what fuels me and that's what gives me material for whatever the next thing is that I wanna create.

[00:55:12] Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? 

[00:55:17] Rachel Rodgers: Follow me on Instagram, I'm Rach Rogers, e s q, Rogers with a g. And check out Hello seven.co. You can find my podcast, my book, and our membership community, the Club. 

[00:55:28] Hala Taha: I love it. Thank you so much, Rachel. This is such a great conversation.

[00:55:31] Rachel Rodgers: Yes, thank you. I.

[00:55:33] Hala Taha: I absolutely loved this conversation with Rachel, and I admire how she's taking the gospel of money making to a wider community while also making money herself doing it. Here are some key takeaways that I had from this discussion. First, the importance of executing on what you truly believe in. To truly succeed and flourish, you need a business that matches your personality, your passions, your curiosity, your creativity.

Your passion may be worth millions, but you're not doing anything about it. You have to execute. And the only way you're going to execute is if you believe in it. Another key takeaway, diversity is valuable on multiple levels. When there's diversity on teams, decisions are better. Companies are more profitable and they ultimately have a more positive impact.

If you care about your bottom line, you should care about diversity. Rachel also talked about million dollar decisions, about focusing on growing your earnings. People who have built wealth didn't do that by holding on to every dollar and by conserving their time and energy. They did that by investing, taking risks, trying new things.

Also, a good way to keep your goals in view, your million dollar vision as Rachel calls it, is to imagine your dream life and to put a monthly dollar figure on that. Figuring out how much your dream life costs per month is one of the best ways to make it tangible and attainable. Finally, make sure you're valuing yourself correctly.

We tend to undervalue our skills and capabilities and to price ourselves too low as a result, especially if we're freelancers, entrepreneurs, or side hustlers. And also value your time. Make a professional assistant your first hire. Free yourself up to do higher level things. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast.

If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the amazing Rachel Rogers, then please share this episode with your brother, your sister, your mother, your cousins, your friends, your co workers, whoever you think would find value in it. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something, then why not drop us a five star review on Apple Podcast.

We have more than 4, 500 reviews because we have such incredible listeners like you, and we would love to get your feedback on the show. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. And if you want to reach out to me, the best way to do it is by messaging me on Instagram.

That's the fastest way for me to find your message. I also want to shout out my amazing production team. You guys are awesome. Thank you for all you do behind the scenes. This is your host, Hala Taha, signing off.