Ep. 106 with Holly LaBoda | Founder/CEO - Formula L

You Can Do Anything But You Cannot Do Everything

If your company’s revenue depends on one heroic leader, one star rep, or a handful of “can’t lose” accounts, you do not have a growth strategy. You have a fragile setup that will crack the moment the market shifts or life gets real. Holly Laboda joins us to talk about building a sales operating system that creates consistent results without constant babysitting, and why “system-led growth” beats “hero-led growth” every time.

We trace Holly’s path from global experiences with Emirates Airlines to corporate leadership at CH Robinson, then into entrepreneurship with Luminaries Consulting and her next chapter as the founder of Formula L. Along the way, she opens up about the reality of launching a business while going through IVF, the isolation of miscarriage, and what it takes to keep moving when your personal life and professional life collide. The honesty here is paired with practical insight: you can do anything, but you cannot do everything, so you have to decide what matters and build the systems to protect it.

We also get tactical on what great sales leadership looks like on the ground: strategic rapport building rooted in real curiosity, having tough conversations without pulling punches, and “eating the frog” before it grows teeth. Holly shares how she thinks about pricing, value-based offers, ethical boundaries, and why confidence is often the only thing standing between a founder and the number they actually need to charge.

If you lead sales, run a services business, or you are a mom building something from scratch, this one will give you language, structure, and permission to stop being the linchpin. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share it with a friend who needs steadier growth, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Connect with Holly:

Website: Formula L

LinkedIn: Holly LaBoda

Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:

• Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com

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Credits:

• Editor: Joseph Kirk
• Music: Kristofer Tanke 

Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue! 

Transcript

Welcome And How We Met

Kelly 0:00

Good morning, Holly. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm fantastic. Um, I'm like I said, trying to buck the weather right now. I'm like, when when is when is it actually gonna be spring? We're like almost to summer.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

You know, sometimes we just have to will it into existence. And I feel like that's what you're doing. So thanks.

Kelly 0:21

As I put my sweater on before we hit record, I'm like still acknowledged the effort. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so thrilled. I it's funny. I always say this. I love when I get to officially meet somebody in person. And it's been months since we had our initial conversation and then talked through this and got you scheduled for the podcast. You're just a bright light. And I love your smile. Seriously. I wish I was doing video so everybody could see exactly what I'm talking about. But well, shall we dive in? Let's do it. So I would love for you to share with the listeners how it is that we got connected.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yes. Well, actually, we were just trying to remember because it had been a little bit of a roundabout path. Yes. Um, but uh I was introduced to you from a friend of mine, Kim Johnson, who has been on your show. Yes. Right. And then we just started talking and thought this sounded like a good idea. So I hope we were right.

Kelly 1:17

We I'm pretty sure we're gonna be right. And I'm really excited for the listeners to learn more about you and your story. And one of the kind of pivotal questions that I always like to ask is what came first for you? Was it motherhood or was it the entrepreneurial journey?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Um, for me, it was the entrepreneurial journey. Um, and it was actually it was actually almost simultaneous. Okay. Um, but which is not the way I would advise other people to do it, honestly. Um, but uh, but I was uh a business owner first. Okay. Um so I I spent the la I spent the last 10 years before I started my last business. I'm now a second time entrepreneur. Um, but the 10 years before that, I spent working for a company here, CH Robinson, um, locally. And uh and I was working there, and then um the last year that I was working there, I was going through IVF. Um so I was doing all of that process and like working on all of this, and it was so much. And honestly, I think I think I had like four doctor's appointments a week. Like if anybody hasn't been through it, the amount of time and energy that it takes is wild. Um, but going through all of that, and then finally, I think it was like finally started Luminaries, which is my last company, and I think it was maybe three or four months after we started Luminaries that I finally got pregnant. Wow with my first, which was so so crazy timing. You know, you work for companies for years and years where you could have had so much maternity leave. Yes, and then you just throw it all and you know, throw it all away. But it was it was perfect timing for like it all worked out the way it should. It always does.

Kelly 2:57

Even when it might be bumpy

Launching A Business During IVF

Kelly 3:00

roads, yeah, it always starts to you know level itself out, and so so you when did you start Luminaries? I I made some notes of some of the companies that you've been with, so you've got a really nice bio for your skill. Thank you. I'm like looking through your LinkedIn. I knew about CH Robinson because Kim had mentioned that in her note when she was connecting us, but yes, that's where we work together, Kim and I. Um, but the Luminaries Consulting was your first baby business. I shouldn't say your first baby, but like it was my business, baby. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's so many times where that very testament of like when you start a business is like it's like start having a baby. You know, you're you're hit in the ground running and going, I have no idea what I'm doing here. It's just like when you have a baby, like I have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah, but we're just we're just going. Yeah. We're just going.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Both of those shifts. All of a sudden, everything that you did before just doesn't work quite the same anymore. So you truly have to like re-refresh everything, build a whole new system, everything like that. Um, so it was kind of nice to be doing them at the same time because why not just why not break everything all at once?

Kelly 4:21

Right. Right, exactly. So the Luminaries Consulting, tell me a little bit about what that business was, what you were doing, and then is there connectivity between what you were doing at Luminaries Consulting and then Formula L? Which shoot, I just totally gave away.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

That's okay. I didn't mean to steal your thunder. That's okay. I'm hoping that's not a secret that people will know that. So that's good. That's good. Um, yeah, so Luminaries Consulting, I started uh nine years ago, I think almost now with a business partner. Um we worked together at CH Robinson. We had gone some like different directions. She was working somewhere else, and we wanted to come back together and do kind of what we loved doing uh when we were there. Um we connected at CH Robinson because um we really identified with, appreciated, understood like what we were trying to get in terms of business outcomes. Yes. Um and we were working in the like HR space, I guess, at the beginning of that curve uh that journey in the L and D space, um, learning and development. Um and the most of the folks with that like HR talent background didn't usually speak like the business language with our business leaders that we were working with. So that was part of what how my business partner and I both like kind of worked together, um, started working together and kind of appreciating each other's styles because we were just able to be so much more impactful because we really understood the business to a different level and had this unique skill set that we can add value to the business with.

Kelly 5:58

Can I can I just inject I would like to interject real quick and because I'm curious, you mentioned HR, right? But there is this other component of that business language and the business wording. Where do you feel like that developed?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And I don't, I honestly don't know the answer. I think it's probably just uh For you, I sorry, let me be more specific.

Kelly 6:25

For you and and your business partner at the time, because you said you you essentially wanted to do something different, and you knew that you had the skill sets that maybe some HR some other HR individuals or consulting businesses did not have. So where do you feel like that came from for you specifically?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Like learned or otherwise? I don't know. It's probably there's probably some natural curiosity that's there. And I'm very um, I'm very outcome driven as a person, like rather than like process or approach driven in general. Um, so I think both of those things naturally helped me. But I also did um I have a master's degree in performance improvement. I've like extensively researched strategy and change management, and all of those things help me more directly connect to um what what is the shift that we're trying to make? Like let me understand that business outcome and then the behaviors that drive it so I can better impact the outcome. And it's just it's not it's not rocket science. Like no one will disagree with whatever I just said right there. But I just I found that it's um it's not always present in every kind of transformation we're trying to make in the business

Dubai To Minnesota And Career Turns

SPEAKER_00 7:45

world. I love it.

Kelly 7:47

Help the listeners understand your journey from I'm gonna butcher. I is it emirates? Emirates, Emirates Airlines Emirates Airlines to CH Robinson and then to Luminaries Consulting. How that flowed.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yes, it was it's I think like most people's career history, it's it's always like a little bit of a roundabout curvy road. Um, so I I worked with Emirates when I was living in Dubai um right after college. I was, you know, grew up in Minnesota and like kind of how we were talking about with your lacrosse background. You just kind of get like the itch when you're 18 and you're like, out of here.

Kelly 8:29

Yeah, get me as far away as possible. I love you, mom and dad. I love you. Yes, I love lacrosse, like it's a beautiful, and I'm sure you can speak to Minnesota the same way. And we were young, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

We need to stretch our legs a little bit, right? Yes. So I didn't stretch them too far with college at least. I went to St. Cloud State. So um, but then after college, I went to Florida for a little while, and then I lived in Dubai for a couple of years, and really just for the pursuing different locations. Yes. Um and so Dubai is it's a it was a big jump. There was a relationship that pulled me there. But but I uh I spent an um I spent a summer in Egypt when I was in college and then like got connected to that area. So I wanted to go back there. But in terms of like places to start a career, Dubai was the best choice in the Middle East at that time, and probably still is. Um, so that was a big adventure. Dubai was very different than it is today now. Um, but I worked for Emirates when I was there. Um, and in it kind of started this journey. Um, I I had studied in college, I got I got a degree in political science, international relations. So not helpful to what I do today. But um during my senior year, I took an organizational development class and I was like, oh, this is it. Like, this is what I was supposed to be learning this whole time. And I was I didn't want to change my major then, but I was like, it doesn't matter. I can still learn this stuff. Yeah. So that's what I started pursuing from a career path standpoint. And I was super fortunate to volunteer in college with a with a big organization that was what I did my Egypt trip with. It was an international internship organization. Okay, but I kind of got to um shadow this really, really smart organizational development consultant that was working with the headquarters of this particular organization in the United States.

Kelly 10:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Um, so I led a local chapter, which meant I was on the national leadership team. So I got to lead these like strategic planning sessions at 19 years old for a national nonprofit session, like under the wing of this really smart OD professional. And I was like, oh, this is this is what I want to do. Yes. So that led me to Emirates, that led me to um C.H. Robinson when I came back to the US, um, I wanted to be a little bit closer to home. So I was looking for different, different gigs, and they had a particular job that was helping this one part of the business understand the global side of the business. I was like, oh, I can help corn-fed Minnesotans understand the international world. So that's that's I ended up doing a lot more than that, but that was kind of what brought me into logistics and then continued from there. Yeah.

Kelly 11:20

So fascinating. I gotta ask this question. Having had that experience over in Egypt and then in Dubai as well, what do you feel were your biggest takeaways in coming back to the States and stuff that I suppose like the differences of living and then how you decided you were going to continue moving forward in your life? Were there things that you wanted to like carry through? Does this make sense? Yeah, I think I'm following you.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Okay. Um, choice-wise, I I knew that I wanted to be a little bit closer to home. When I was um in Dubai, I had a my one of my grandmothers died who was very close to me. And it was like, I just need to at least be within a direct flight of Minnesota. That was my goal. And I ended up coming a lot closer than that. Um, but it it kind of helped me realize like what I was and wasn't looking for. Being closer to family was much more important to me than I realized. We don't think that matters at 18. Even a couple years later, it starts to matter more. Now it matters, of course, even more than that. Um, and you kind of start to appreciate places differently once you leave them. I remember coming home and like driving through like southern Minnesota cornfields in the summer, and I was like, wow, I never realized how beautiful this was because I just grew up around it. But then when you grow up where everything is like one color and desert and dry, then all of a sudden seasons are amazing and green fields are amazing and rolling hills are amazing. Uh so a little bit of perspective shift helps too.

Kelly 12:56

What a perspective shift for me, too, because I think what a fascinating and cool experience being able to go overseas to these like magnificent places, Egypt and Dubai. I mean, that's like pipe dreams for most people. And so there's also the the other side of that coin, which is it's like it's desert. Oh, yes. Until you get into like city, it's desert and it's like brown. Yeah, yeah. So I forget about that part because I get caught up in like, ooh, Dubai, and like it's so cool, and yeah, and all the colors in the city, and and same with Egypt, and you just think of like the pyramids and stuff, yes, to the point of coming back and understanding there's a blessed life that people live here as well. But when you're in it all the time, you kind of get like, you know, just the the veil pulled over, and you're like, oh, a little bit grumble, grumble, grumble. It's it's supposed to be spring right now, and like it's 50 degrees. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

It's easy to take this stuff for granted, you know. And that was kind of actually to pull us back to this, like um the Emirates to Robinson to Illuminaries to Formula Out. Um, that's part of the reason that this, like, kind of my whole career path has made sense to me, too, is there's so much of this that's built around us. When I when I worked at Robinson, that's a big, it's like a Fortune 200 company. It's big infrastructure, a lot of people, a lot of support systems, a lot of systems underneath it to make doing the business that they did work. Um, and I was part of building a lot of those things. But as I started Luminaries, um, one of my first, one of my most successful pipelines, lucrative pipelines, still is former colleagues at CH Robinson or former colleagues at uh or former clients that worked somewhere and then went to a different company. And it's because people like leaders will make this leap where they step out of this bigger organization and then they move to a smaller one because it's easier to get things done. And um there's there's lots of reasons you move to a smaller one. It's you get a bigger title, you get more control autonomy, whatever it is. But then all of a sudden you get so surprised that there's none of this infrastructure that you expected. And maybe surprise isn't the right word, but because you know some of it's there. But even some of the stuff that you're like, wow, I didn't even think this mattered until I didn't have it. Oh, it's kind of the same idea with the rolling green fields. But part of the reason that Luminaries was created is to give other organizations access to this kind of talent and support without needing to pay for somebody full-time to do it. Yeah. There's so much help that we can give to sales leaders, revenue leaders, because this job is really hard. And I've seen so many people, I've seen it just crush so many

Building Luminaries Then Splitting Amicably

SPEAKER_00 16:00

people. And it doesn't have to be that hard. You don't have to be alone in it. Enter Holly.

Kelly 16:05

Yes, enter Holly. Formula L. Yeah. All right. So the Luminaries consulting, I'd like to just explore the timeline that you had that consulting business, and what was the defining point of making the transition out of that and then starting Formula L.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so Luminaries started in the beginning of 2018 with my business partner, and we were like, this this is the premise that I just walked through. What we wanted to do, take all of this, run our own business, because that's also the other driver that was underneath it is I didn't want to just be a consultant. Um, part of part of the the pro and con of the work that the kind of work that I do is you're always like somebody's right hand. Yeah. You know, like I always say, I'm the sales leader's best friend. Like I'm the one who understands your role more than anyone else around you. Um, you don't have to impress me. I will just help you make it happen, uh, which is great because I've loved those relationships. I like helping make other people more successful, but there's less ownership that you have. Like I also wanted to build something of my own.

unknown 17:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

So this is a way to bring some of those things together so I can build a business and still be a bunch of sales leaders best friends. Sure. So that was the part of the reason for the for the business um launch with Luminaries and just to kind of take that more places. And uh, my business partner and I had a great time doing that. We were building a lot of stuff over eight years and we learned a lot along the way. And I think eventually at some point, actually, I was thinking about this on the way over here. I was gonna say, eventually at some point, I think we stopped having the same vision, but actually, I don't know that we ever made it in the first place. Uh, we just started doing this business. We're like, this is the skill we have, this is the need that's out there. Let's just go do this. And I would say, uh, I kind of like will laugh about this now, but eight years ago, I think our first go-to-market strategy was, how can I help you? Which is it was fine. Like we were we were getting started, and that I I would almost recommend that to any entrepreneur. Just don't spend a whole bunch of time building, like shaping your business. Just go start doing it. Go start selling to people, go start seeing what they value. Um, which so I think that was good, but we should have spent time saying, Great, now that people are willing to pay for this, what do we want to be? Because I think without doing that, what we ended up doing was just having different visions that we never articulated, and then they ended up going different directions. So at about this time last year, we had a real conversation where we're like, we're we're really good friends, we're working together, we have a successful business, but we probably want different things, and that's okay. So why don't we just let ourselves pursue them? And then a year of working through all of that.

Kelly 18:55

But the logistics of how to like split everything off and and do it in uh in this right kind of posture and in an amicable kind of way as well. Did it go okay?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah, it did. And we we were also we we respect each other, we like each other, and we also have clients that we wanted to keep and not disrupt and not make feel like we were anything less than steady. Um, so we were really thoughtful about how we did it, and we'll still hopefully continue to work together on things. We've got projects, we'll pull each other into stuff and that kind of thing. But we'll we'll build what we want to shape on our own and cheer each other on.

Kelly 19:37

That's incredible. I loved hearing you share about a full understanding and scope of who you are as a person and how you can support, right? But you also have this desire to want to be able to do something and build something of your own and have ownership in it. I wrote down um your title from LinkedIn. Chief Growth Officer and Founder. I loved it. I don't know why. I just was like, that's so cool. Cause I kind of feel the same way as I'm building stuff out with a podcast and and then the community that's starting to build and build around it. I'm like, I might steal that from Holly. Chief Growth Officer and Founder. It's so cool. Oh, thank you. So I I don't exactly have anything outside of that, but besides just it was nice to hear you say with full confidence, I know that I want to be able to support, and I and I can do that and I can do it really well, but I want to have an ownership stake and plant the flag for myself as well. And how cool to be able to just have a really firm understanding of that. Yeah. Do you have anything else you'd like to play off of that?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

No, I think I think that's just been it's there's it's always a journey, right? And we're always like figuring ourselves out and then doing it again when it changes, you know. We're and sister. We shouldn't be doing all of that stuff. But I think there's there's just so much clarity, I think that comes, at least for me, being now in my 40s and like kind of just figuring out who you are and almost giving yourself grace to be unapologetic about it. Like I don't have to be X, Y, or Z if I don't want to be. I don't have to be perfect at this or

Identity Shifts And Authentic Confidence

SPEAKER_00 21:30

pretend that I am. I can be really great about this and be confident in saying it. Um so just some of those things that it's nice to be like liberated to do that.

Kelly 21:39

Begs the question then. I feel the same way as I am um starting my 40s. I'm I am 40 now, we'll be turning 41 later this year. And it's there's this shift in identity that started to happen where the older version of my Myself, 20s, 30s, heck, let's take it all the way back to like high school. People pleaser, so concerned about what other people were thinking about me. How were they gonna perceive me? And there's still a little bit of that. That's ingrained in who I am. And it's a lot of unlearning and undoing, and you know, peeling back the onion layers and going, why, why, why, why? Faith has played an incredible role in that. And I thank God for so much in the recognition of some of those things and going, why? Like, who is that serving? It is not serving anybody besides yourself, yeah. Frankly. So talk me through some of what you were just speaking to with like this identity shift as you're in your 40s now, and what that has looked like for you, and how does it play into business too?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm trying to work on being more unapologetically me. And I realize that sounds like kind of fluffy garbage, but here's here's what this means. I think um, in I spent my entire career in a very male-dominated industry, in a very female-focused field, and um kind of fighting against all the connotations that come with that. Um, so I've I remember I like laugh at myself. In college, I used to wear pink all the time. Yeah. And um, in uh as I started my corporate career, I literally stripped it out of my wardrobe because I felt like it was too feminine and people would judge how I would show up if I did that too much. Like, think how how much we just tear ourselves apart as like a 20-something-year-old woman, like, no one cared if I wore pink, but I decided that that mattered to me. Um, so I think a lot, like that shifting world has helped with that. Like everybody is getting a little bit more like embracing themselves. But I learned a lot, and actually it was part of along the way, as I was developing the salespeople and account managers at um at that company, like I did a lot of exploration of vulnerability and um like understanding that being open and being more authentic and making real connections with people actually helps you be better in business. And I truly didn't believe that when I started. Like I used to hate small talk. I would never ask you how you were at the beginning of a meeting or talk about the weather because what a waste of time. We're here to do business, which is so intense, right? But then think about me coming full circle as a sales coach. And I don't, I do not teach people to build rapport with no context, but I teach them strategically to build relationships and that a rapport is a part of that process.

Kelly 24:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

So it's so interesting, almost like my weird way that I interpreted all that stuff is kind of helping me adapt my approach now.

Kelly 24:59

Rapport without context. Don't build rapport without context, is what you said.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Well, strategic rapport building. Like there are ways to build rapport, to build, to have rapport-building conversations that drive a relationship without having it be fluffy, garbagey conversations. It doesn't only have to be about the weather or what sports team I see on the wall behind you. You can do that. And that's absolutely a way to build a relationship. That's what sales coaches have been teaching people for 50 years. Yes. But there are more real, authentic ways to build a relationship. There are real ways to build rapport where, like, like what you just did. Oh my gosh, I saw on your LinkedIn X, tell me about that.

Kelly 25:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

And that is such a more interesting way to show that you are paying attention to something, that you have something to say, and build real context around a relationship.

Kelly 25:53

Okay. I'm starting to realize, and I'm I promise I'm not trying to share this to fluff, like boost myself, but I do feel like this is a superpower of mine. Okay. Hence the reason I'm doing a podcast. And like I have natural curiosity and have continued to build that curiosity. And so I feel like a skill like this comes naturally for me. Now, let me follow that up by asking you the question. I'm a woman listening right now, and I am going, this is the hardest thing for me to do. What is one piece of advice that you would give that woman listening right now as it pertains to this strategic rapport building that drives conversations?

SPEAKER_00 26:41

I would say find and embrace your natural curiosity. We all have it. It's gonna be different. Like some of us are curiosity to the point of like, it's probably not appropriate, you know. We have to have context around us. There's boundaries. There's boundaries. Right, right. And then sometimes we're just afraid to follow some of this because we don't feel like it's it's it's not it's not appropriate or it's not professional or or whatever, or or we don't take the time to to understand who we're talking to before we walk into it. All of this is stuff like salespeople know, but um, but we're all we're all salespeople, we're all influencers. That's all this is in the in the end of the day. So you can't influence somebody if you don't understand them. And getting to know them by like doing a little bit of research, doing a little bit of digging, and or noticing something in the moment and drawing a real conversation out about it, that's real rapport and context.

Kelly 27:39

Totally. I literally just had a question and now it is totally escaping me.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

It'll come to your 40s. This happens to me all the time.

Kelly 27:49

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It's driving me crazy too because I was like, it was gonna be a really good one. Sorry, listeners. It'll come back. I have to wait. Yeah. Something with sales.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

This is what sales okay, it'll come back to me. I I was talking about influence and selling, and sellers naturally do that. If it helps you. Nope. We'll get there. Nope.

Kelly 28:11

It's like I am sure that there's so many women who are listening right now who can totally empathize with me, and you are too. You're like, oh yeah, it's just sort of a natural part of the process. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Oh, I did say that sellers naturally do this, spending the time to kind of like research and uncovering.

Kelly 28:28

Yes, it'll come back to me. Yes. I know

Miscarriage, Isolation, And Speaking Up

Kelly 28:30

it will. Maybe it won't. Who knows? We'll see. But I do want to, I want to go back to motherhood. Let's let's go back to that point where you were talking about IVF going through that process. By the way, there have been a handful of women who have been on this podcast that have shared their journey of IVF. I have a dear friend of mine who had um gone through IVF as well. And it was tough, like for her and just her sharing that with me. And at that point, I I hadn't even met my now husband. And so I'm like living out in Woodbury in a townhouse with my two dogs who you got to meet. And you know, I'm like, I can't even imagine. And I had no sort of like way to empathize. I could only sympathize to that situation. Um, still the case, but I just remember hearing about the journey and having to take time off of work and how that has such a huge impact, just in in the context of like real like living your life day to day, but then take into consideration the emotional toll that it takes on you, your body as a female, and depending on the circumstances, you know, it it could be on the on the husband as well or the the male counterpart um to that. So walk myself and the listeners through sort of the timeline of when all of this was happening in context to having started the business and then moving through all of that at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yep, yep, okay. Um, so I met my husband. Actually, we met, uh we worked together. So he's still in the industry, he's still at uh at CH Robinson. I'm with you. This is the same thing for us. This is how you meet. If you don't meet in college or at a bar, you meet at work. Totally, totally. Yes. So um, so we met there. Um, but uh we got married, I would say, like a little, I guess, in theory, later in life. I was 32. Um, but I wanted to have babies right away. I knew that because I wanted to have babies and yeah, there's a natural timeline, you think so. We were like, get going. And I am I am a lot of things, but I am not a patient person. If I want something, I want it right now. And I'm there is literally nothing that's gonna stop me from getting it. Do you really love vacuuming? Um gratification. I do actually. And actually, I vacuumed all the time when I was pregnant because it was so calming, which was so crazy. I was like, oh, look at how clean I'm getting this. This is so satisfying.

Kelly 31:15

Little did you know that you were also preparing baby, listening to the vacuum. I'm sure that there was a little bit of yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

My daughter adored the vacuum when she was born. Um, but uh I I totally forgot where I was in the story with that little thing.

Kelly 31:32

Um you were you're a lot of things, but you're not patient.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Oh, yes, yes. Sorry. Um, okay, so we wanted to have babies right away, and it didn't work out that way. Um, so we started doing all of the testing after like six months. Most people wait a lot longer than that. Again, non patient. Um and uh and there's no reason that for we had unexplained infertility, but then we're like, okay, we're gonna do it. I'm again a person that doesn't let like speed bumps don't stop me, um, almost to a fault. Um, but uh so we're just charging through, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do whatever it takes, you know. And uh that was the right thing, and I loved that because I have my family, I have my two wonderful kids. Um, but it was a lot. The the I never I didn't tell anyone about it going through it, and I uh originally starting, um, I would say maybe well, after my first miscarriage, then I started talking about both of those things.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Um, because both of those things are very isolating experiences. And I felt so I felt like I was the only person that I had ever known that was going through IVF. And I felt like the while I knew other people had had miscarriages, I didn't think any of my like best friends had. And then I started talking about both of those things, and oh my gosh, the amount of people that have experienced both of them is crazy. Yes, and I'm I'm not the kind of person that is like, you know, let's tell my life story, except apparently to you, um just like to anyone.

Kelly 33:05

I have a habit of drawing things out of people again. It's just the natural curiosity, yeah, yeah. I think in doing so, there's so many women who are listening right now that are gonna empathize and sympathize to it and need to hear parts of your story in order to like either go, I can do this, I can do hard things, I can move through things, and what are the important things that need to be around me right in order to be able to do that? You're speaking to it right now, which is opening up, being brave enough to open up about it, but that community around you as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yep, yep. And I had to start doing that because I I felt super alone and it was super hard. And the people like during IBF, obviously, my husband is going through all this stuff too. He's super involved. It's not the same. And there's there's a different experience to talking about somebody who's not actively a part of this situation, like you can talk about it differently. Um, so that was really helpful. But mostly I wanted to do it because I just didn't want anyone else to feel as alone as I felt in that. Um, and so even if it's uncomfortable, I'm like, if you've been through it, if you feel alone, like give me a call. You can look up in the show notes. But but you shouldn't uh I don't want anybody to feel that way or feel like it's something they have to hide. It's it's a part of who you are, and and we should be talking about this stuff.

Kelly 34:36

The number of women who have been on this podcast and have um experienced miscarriage is is it's high.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

Kelly 34:44

It really is. Well, it has to be. It's one in four. Yeah. So it is so anytime that it is brought up on here, I just my heart bleeds in hearing it. I again, it's something that I have never experienced myself and and probably won't. Like, we're I'm one and done, and then I've got the bonus boys, and and two dogs, like, we are good. And we also want to retire at some point. Um, but you know, it just is heartbreaking to hear of that and and that loss.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

It's it's hard, but I also think uh never that's I will always bet on a mother entrepreneur because I think there's so much that you have gone through to make um what you've made happen come to life that people that don't have that specific scenario just haven't had to deal with. Doesn't mean that's the only way. There's lots of people that don't fit that scenario that are wonderful people that I would bet on too. But it's a particular set of circumstances that I don't think everybody understands and it shows me what you can do if you can be successful with it.

Kelly 35:55

Talk more about this. Let's talk more about this because I love this, it's beautiful. It there have been so many occasions where I have God bless every single woman that I know who is such a huge advocate for this podcast. And they're like, hey, can I can I like introduce you to this woman who's like working in a in like a kind of higher up corporate position? I'm like, thank you, but no. And I also do want to say, listen, corporate mommies, I know the challenges. Like, I know I have had women on here, and you're one of them, Holly, who has, you know, you've had that experience and have been through that sort of top level of corporate to understand what it's like. And also the challenge, like when you step out of being in a corporate position to go out and do something on your own, you have nobody else to fall back on besides yourself. And my husband reminds me of that pretty pretty consistently. He's like, You have nobody else to fall back on besides yourself for this podcast. He's like, I'm here to support you, but like it's you, right? And so corporate, corporate girlies, can't speak to that, they have a whole other level of like challenges and circumstances. So let's give them the respect that they deserve and stay same with stay-at-home moms. But and I should say, and building a business is hard.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yeah. It is really hard. And I think the you know, one of your questions in prep for

You Can Do Anything Not Everything

SPEAKER_00 37:40

this um was like kind of what what what are some like overarching beliefs that have kind of gotten you places? So I was kind of thinking about that. And um the one that I was coming back to is one that I I've I've stated it as like a core belief for 10 years or more. I remember doing it like 15 years ago in a like a team building exercise talking about this. Um, but one of the lessons that I learned from my mom that I have felt so dramatically since I started entrepreneurship and motherhood, and then um just leaning into it more in the last year is you can do anything, but you can't do everything. So you have to decide. And that's just all that I'm doing all of the time is I'm deciding what matters to me every day. It is running this business, it is being a mom, and it is being a good wife and family member and friend. And if it doesn't fit those priorities, I have to say no to it. And I can't say yes to everything that fits those priorities. Yeah. So I have to decide all the time. You're always gonna be dropping some ball, but as long as it mostly shakes out in the end, yeah, I'm really working on giving myself a little bit of grace.

Kelly 38:54

You know? So yeah. That's really beautiful. I love it. So your kiddos are you have two kids, and how old are they currently? Seven and four and a half. Okay. Beautiful. What has it been like? Are they in activities?

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Yes, they are uh they're in a couple of different sports, and we have just started our first traveling team. So I am now a softball mom. Uh so we're now we're finally getting into like, I'm not quite at the busier, more like grown parent activity level, but we're getting our first taste. So it's a taste. Yeah, it is a whole thing, is what I'm hearing.

Kelly 39:31

Gear up, girlfriend, because it is fun. The hundredth episode that I had, I had um Becky Bulow and um Jamie Guard Chapman on here. Both of them are um coaches in their own respective ways. Like Jamie does um coaching, she has her own business called Guard Performance Academy, so it's all around tennis, it's tyranny Dinah. Becky is um championship culture. Sorry, Becky, if you're listening. Oh my gosh. Anywho, our whole conversation was centered around being business owners, being moms with kids who are in activities and you are navigating how that plays into your calendar. Yep. And the ins and outs of it, and it's wild. Anyways, I I'm asking this question because it does bring in another fold into how we navigate our our calendars. So, what has that looked like for you in building Formula L and having two kiddos that are are now gearing up and in preparation and and traveling? Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's shaking her head listeners.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Right. It's anybody who's been there knows that it's a thing and it's it's chaos, and it feels like you're just trying to like wrangle it as best as you can and then survive it, right? Um, I don't want life to feel that way. Sometimes you have to just survive it, but ideally, that's not the approach. Um, so I have been really intentional over the last six months as I've been really shaping Formula L, or more than six months now. Um, but with how I build my business, so it can run without me babysitting it for every second of every day. Do you have other employees? I don't, which makes that harder to say. Um, so I still have the contractor relationships that we had with luminaries, and I'll pull them into projects and that kind of stuff. It's super helpful for me to be nimble in that way right now. Um, but uh building it so I am creating, even with how I'm building like the client service, like my onboarding approaches and like the packages that I am creating, how I'm selling my services, I'm thinking about how I operate the business. Yes. And I'm thinking about how to make it sustainable. At Luminaries, we had a couple of um, we had a couple of conversations of different companies that wanted to acquire us. And I learned a lot during those conversations. We didn't end up doing any of them, um, but I learned a lot about what makes businesses valuable and um what it would take to sell one and how people evaluate companies like at certain scales and what I need to build for that. So I'm building it differently now. Um, I think that's the the cool thing about the second time entrepreneurial entrepreneurship is you learn so much the first time. And then I've helped a million different companies build their businesses. So I learned from that.

Kelly 42:42

Um, but a cool that's so cool. Yeah, it's so cool too. I try to just take inspiration from everywhere, you know. I love it. Yeah, okay. But playing in the the kids' activities and all of that, how let's talk through all of this and how you're navigating

Home Systems That Protect Your Brain

Kelly 43:00

that and and then how you're having conversations in the household as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Yes, yes. Okay, so uh so I'm I'm getting to that part, but Formula L is all about growth systems. Yeah. How do you have systems underneath your growth strategy to deliver the results? I know where you're going. Yes. I'm following this, yep. So all of the systems that like what I've had to do with building like my family and kids and running our lives and all this stuff is build systems for that too. So meal planning systems, calendar systems, systems for household chores, like all of those things are needed. So I don't have to spend the mental energy on that stuff. I can spend my mental energy on running my business and the parts of it that require my brain and not the ones that don't. And spending my time with the people that I love. So that's how that's how I'm trying to prioritize. Anything that doesn't do one of those things, I try to systematize it. I I love this so so it's a work in progress, but wow.

Kelly 44:05

I I think about this and stick with me here, Holly. Stick with me. Okay. I have a dear friend of mine. Her name is Valerie Katie. She is a home organizer. Okay. She talks a lot about systems. Like if you don't have a system in place, you could go ahead and clean out your laundry room, which by the way, she came over, she gave me a consult. We talked through this, and she was like, you can go ahead and clean this laundry room as much as humanly possible. But if you don't have a system in place, it's going to continue this cycle of just messiness. Like you're going to see things start to, and it and it continues to happen. God bless you, Valerie. You are just a godson. But it she talks about what you are speaking to, which is it's the systems and the organization of the systems and having those in place is really important.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

It's really important. And I think this is why I said I will bet on mother entrepreneurs because you can't do both well without good systems. There are so many, like I I was the girl who never studied in high school because I didn't have to. And I was a good test taker. I love you. Like so I never had good systems. But then once I got to college, I was like, oh, that doesn't work anymore. That's an example of pressure changing and breaking a system. And that's that's what I talk about with the people that I work with on the sales side too. And this is why I think mother entrepreneurs that figure it out, I will bet on because once you have the system, like they know what it feels like to not have the system and they've had to build it to be successful. And that's you can you can scale anything when you have the right system underneath you.

Kelly 45:53

Yeah. I think of like that laundry room and the lack of system, the linen closet that's right behind us when you go out into the hallway, yeah, doesn't have a system. And I can organize that as much as humanly possible. But unless I have the system for what it looks like, it's just gonna continue to just dumpy grounds.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Right. They're just really good examples of where these little, little things, and then play that out, apply that to a business. So I work with sales leaders and their growth strategy and their sales teams. And say you have like um, it's you're working with people, not laundry. Um so it's a little bit different, it's more complicated, and then you have all kinds of different choices that are involved. But I always like to say, like, assume assume that everyone that you work with is reasonable and they're gonna be making the most reasonable choice in front of them at the time. Okay. If it's not the choice that you want them to make, then do something about it. Make that not the reasonable choice. Yes. So if you can assume that everybody is kind of on your team is doing, they want to do a good job and they're doing, they're making the best choice with the information that's in front of them, and you're still not getting the results, then you gotta look at your system, which is really interesting because it might sound frustrating, but you can, it can be really empowering. Because when you're working with people, you're like, oh, people are so frustrating. Why can't they just do what I want them to do? Right. I get it. Like people are frustrating, myself included. Um, but when you love that you admitted that too. I'm super frustrating. Um, but if you think about, well, this is a system that I've built for them, and they are behaving reasonably likely within the context of that system, then I have all the power to change the system, which means I can change the outcome, which you can't always do when it comes to people. So it's it's actually super liberating

Peaks, Valleys, And Getting Out Of Bed

SPEAKER_00 47:45

if you think of it that way. Fascinating take.

Kelly 47:47

I love it. Let's talk through peaks and valleys. Where have you seen a lot of peaks as you've gone through not just one but two businesses now? And let's talk through the valleys as well. Because both are important. You can't have one without the other, and vice versa. So where have you experienced those high highs? Where have you experienced those low lows? What has been your deepest, darkest valley that you've had to go through thus far as it pertains to motherhood and entrepreneurship? And what does harmonization look like? And you may have heard me speak to this on other podcast episodes, but I think of it as like a roller coaster, right? Like the roller coaster ride is what it is, and it can be fun. You're gonna have those really high highs, you're gonna have the really low lows, but we oftentimes really enjoy like having sort of like the stability. And so let's talk through what this has looked like on your journey of entrepreneurship and motherhood.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been a roller coaster. And I think part like I share that I'm trying to be more vulnerable and more open, and I think it's really helpful for people to get a real perspective of what it's like because it's not all sunshine and daisies. It absolutely has been a roller coaster. And I think I have been so um as a leader, as a woman, as a founder, as a salesperson, I think you all a lot of times want to show up and like present the best front. Everything's great. I'm always growing, everything's wonderful, my clients love me. And most of those things are true a lot of the times. Um, but it's not always. And I have actually found that when I connect with people like differently, like, oh yes, this market is really hard. My revenue is really struggling right now. How about you? Yes. That's a different conversation than me just being like, yay, everything's good. I'm sorry that you're struggling. Yeah. But yeah. Um, so definitely has been highs and lows. Um, my highest highs have been uh like winning with my customers, like when my customers have achieved something great, and especially if they acknowledge that I was part of that greatness, um, which they usually do, then that is that's the best. Like helping helping my customers win, which also helps my company win. A couple of my babies are happy in this scenario, right? Um, my darkest moments have has probably been like where where the life clashes with the business, right? I already I already mentioned uh miscarriages. My first one was probably my darkest moment in my whole life, um, and including in business. It was after a year of going through IVF, and then you finally are like, oh my gosh, I'm pregnant. Yeah. And then it just disappears and you feel like, and it wasn't just disappear, it was a it was a it wasn't it was a painful one. Um, but you just feel so much, even though there's nobody's fault, like you feel so much of that ownership because it was in your body. Yeah. And then your body's going through what it's going through, and it's just a lot of it's really hard. I think there was uh there was it was like four days where I didn't get out of out of bed. And I've I am not a person that has struggled with depression, and it gave me so much like more empathy over people that do. Uh, where I'm like, if I am a pretty, like pretty resilient individual and this crushed me.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

And if it did that for me, that's also part of why I want to talk about it more. Um, because part of it is just feeling feeling so alone in it. And I don't want people to feel that way.

Kelly 51:45

What did you navigate through in order to go, it's time to get out of bed? What were the systems that you started to talk through in your head and move forward and implement in order to take that baby step and go, all right, let's let's start to come up and out of this?

SPEAKER_00 52:14

I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I think I just I just started doing it eventually. I just started like I stopped thinking about it all of the time and I tried to, I'm a good compartmentalizer. Um, I used to work in nonprofits and in like I would go to volunteer in very in places where there's lots of hard things to see and stuff like that. And I would just have to get really good at putting on a positive face and I'm out there in front of those kids who are struggling and then going back to the hotel and crying about it later. Um, so I just really had to kind of pull on some of those skills and just start doing it whether that's the right way or the wrong way. That was my way. Yeah. Um, so it just kind of started to get easier eventually.

Kelly 53:00

What did your village look like at that particular moment? And I I think that this is a nice opportunity to segue into like move as you moved and navigated through that experience, what has the support and the network around you looked like as well?

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Yeah. Um, you know, I think that was that was probably a moment. I haven't thought about it this way before, but that that really pushed me to be a lot more open because because of this, the IVF journey that we had been on, and my husband and I were so excited um when we got pregnant. And so I had shared that with like at six weeks with um my my mom and my sister and like our immediate family. Um, and I think my mom had like told other people and stuff like this because I didn't tell her not to. That was a lesson learned. Um, but uh I I did the thing that you're not supposed to do and tell people before you're like out of this tricky window, which I regretted afterwards because then I had to go back and tell them what happened. But I'm actually super glad that I did because otherwise I never would have told them because that's just the person that I am. Yeah. I never would have told them and I would have just suffered through it alone. Do you feel like in a way that doing that was a part of the healing process? I think it helped me. I think it's probably I don't I don't think I would have dealt with it if I didn't do that.

Kelly 54:26

So where were you at as it pertains to the business for that because were there two miscarriages?

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Yes, yes. I had two. One before each kid.

Kelly 54:41

Okay. And were you where were you at career-wise was one of those during luminaries and oh yes, both during luminaries.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Okay. Um, and so the first one was, you know, within the first year of luminaries. So all of this is starting to happen. And you're like, I mean, imagine the first year of any business where you're like, oh my gosh, is this gonna work? Like, am I an idiot? And then this is happening too. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that that really I think contributed to the darkness. Sure. Thank goodness for my dog. I swear my dog just sick like pulled me through with that like moment. He is such a sweet thing, and I think he just knew that I needed him, and he was just like on me all day, every day. Like his head in my lap all day, every day. So they know for sure.

Kelly 55:33

What kind of dog do you have? A black lab. Oh, yeah, he's a big, sweet dope. So sweet. I love it. I I swear to all things holy, holy. I should say when, because it's just an inevitable thing. But you've met the two dogs, and I shared that they're my OGs, right? Like I've had them for a while, and they've seen, they've like seen me through so many different hills and whatnot. Like those peaks and valleys. And so Ace is the older of the two. He's the white and caramely colored one, Blenheim. Oof dah. I just I like I you talk about compartmentalizing. I have to like slip myself away from even like what the that is gonna be like. Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Yeah. So you'll get there eventually. No need to think about it too much before.

Kelly 56:29

We had so when my husband and I we merged our respective families together. Um, he has the two boys who are now 11 and 9, and he also had a dog. And her name was Penny Lane, and we had to put her down last February, and I s I it just was it shook us in a really interesting way. It was tough because we made the decision she was not living the life that she should be, and um actually had somebody come here and do it here in our house. Yeah. So that we didn't have to like go somewhere and yeah, it just it was beautiful and terrifying and sad and horrifying, all like all of these emotions. But my whole point is that you know, even dogs can help in a healing journey as well. And I love hearing that that was a part of your healing process. Yeah. So thank you for sharing that, and thank you for allowing me to kind of go down this like interesting rabbit hole with dogs and for sure. How they help our mental state of mind.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

They do, they do. And you know, I work from home. My dog is

Networking That Actually Builds Pipeline

SPEAKER_00 57:50

my he's my coworker, he's at my feet every day. Yeah.

Kelly 57:52

So okay. That I thank you for sharing that you work from home. There's so many, I mean, this is the very circumstance that so many um mompreneurs, as I like to say, experience. They are working from home. What does getting out and networking look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Yes. Well, my first eight years, my first entrepreneurial round, um, I didn't place a lot of a focus on it. And I think it was because of um, well, let me let me revise that. I did not place a focus on networking outside of my ideal customer base. Uh I built network in my industry with my contacts. Like that has been really important. That's a big part of how I go to market. Um, but because I had a business partner, I didn't really build, I didn't focus as much on like a network locally, like with people to bounce ideas off of or other entrepreneurs or other anybody that wasn't like actually going to produce pipeline. Yeah. Um, and part of what like this kind of uh partnership to sole proprietorship transition that I've been making over the last year is um being really intentional about that. Because not only is it really helpful with me and my like kind of keeping my energy up, like it's it's um it it gives you a little bit of a boost of of energy and drive when you connect with with like folks, but it's also even talking about very different businesses, like it sparks ideas and insights and connections for me.

Kelly 59:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

Um, so it's it's really helpful and really important.

Kelly 59:30

Are you a part of any um groups? No, there's business building or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

There's um there's one that I've been going to networking events for that I haven't um I haven't joined officially. It's like a like a go-to-market group for like sales and marketing kind of folks and local networking events that they do at school marketing, which is a really cool place in Hopkins. Okay. Um and then there's like industry groups that I'm in, which has been really helpful. And actually, it's my my bonus piece of piece of advice for anybody who is in has a business where they're selling anything. Um, if you can be in an association where you are sitting on a board with, in a volunteer committee with, or anything else alongside your ideal customer, it is the most powerful position to be in because all of a sudden you're on the same side of the table, you're working together on the same issues, and you're building a real relationship that isn't about selling. And it's just been such a powerful part of our strategy. So I'd recommend that to anyone.

Kelly 1:00:31

Give so I love this piece of advice. This is incredible. It's kind of different than advice that have I've asked. It's it's usually a question that I ask towards the tail end. And so we'll get there. Oh, I'll still ask you a few of those questions. Can you give me like this is exactly what I'm doing as it pertains to that advice that you gave?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Oh, like how I'm how I'm employing it? Yes, yes. So almost, almost around the time that I started Luminaries, I immediately got involved in um an association, the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association, that does a like they do conferences and all of this kind of stuff. But it was all of my people that I was trying to sell to, which were sales leaders in logistics, that would go to these conferences. And I got a connection in with them. I went to their conferences, we started doing like speaking engagement with engagements with them, but I also started volunteering on their education committee.

Kelly 1:01:34

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

So I could have gotten into the speaking engagements. I did speak at the conference before I got in the education committee. But being on the committee let me have non like it let me have business but non-selling conversations with all the people that I need to be talking to. And in a lot of the cases, when they weren't actually my ideal customer, because a lot of them are in marketing and that's not the part that I sell to. They know the person that is, and they're still like, I'm actually learning about the industry, which helps me do my job better too. So it's not just the connections. It's how can I add value to you in this conversation? How can I build connections that help us all get better? And how can I learn from you and help you? Like, let's all improve. It's it's so powerful. And I think it's the most under-leveraged like go-to-market strategy for this kind of work, especially if you're doing B2B sales.

Kelly 1:02:25

Such a unique perspective and piece of advice. Wow. Thank you. That was so cool. No, I I'm like circling it. Like, yes, this is incredible. Nice. So um talk to me a little bit more about navigating motherhood and business, some of the challenges that you've experienced with that. As you're, you know, you've let me back up. Yeah. Because it's so cool to have somebody on who, and this has been only in the past what six, seven, eight years, eight years. Eight years, eight years between luminaries and now Formula L. Yep. And also bringing children into the world, and you're building in both respective areas. I am just so curious what that has looked like for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

I swear, one makes the other better. There's so much natural alignment and there's so much of the same, like you learn the same lessons. So I remember one of my um, this is the bonus of having kids later-ish in life, is that like my friends who had kids in their 20s are like, oh girl, I got you. Let me tell you all the stuff, right? So somebody told me a lot of these things. I'm with you. Right? So great. But I remember talking to one of my friends, and I was telling her some story about my second, who was a terrible sleeper, terrible. And I was describing like this middle of the night experience that we had had. And she was like, Yeah, most of motherhood is deciding between what's easiest right now and what's best in the long term. And they're usually different choices. You're gonna, you're gonna, like, it doesn't matter which one you make, just think about that. And I was like, oh my gosh, what a perfect like summary of like literally everything in the world. But like business, like it's all of that. It's all a choice between what's easiest right in front of you and what is best for long term.

Kelly 1:04:36

Oof da. Give me an example of what you have experienced yourself with all right, I could I could press the easy button right now, but is that actually gonna plan in the long term? I know in my head, but I'm curious to answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

I want to hear, I want to hear your examples too. Like the first, I'm sure I have better ones, but the first one that popped into my head is like I I have some self-imposed ethical boundaries, right? We all do. Like, I don't wanna, I would never recommend a solution that's not gonna lead to good impact for a company. I don't, I don't like trash talk my competitors, even if like they go there. You know, there's just some things that I won't do. But those I think are examples of like there's times where I could have pushed a very lucrative project engagement and made a lot of money on it, but it won't have delivered the outcomes that that company needed. Yeah. Or there's times where I know that I have been going up against a competitor of mine in the sales process, but I won't, I won't disparage their work. Yes. And I just don't think it's a good look. Um so there are moments like that where I was like, well, I just cost myself something, but in the long term, it was the right move. How about for motherhood? Um, well, the example that that this friend gave me that in was like overnight sleeping, and where, you know. I was like, oh, it just he just falls asleep in my arms, and I know I'm making a terrible choice, but like otherwise I'm like laying on the floor until he falls asleep, you know? Yes. Oh, so it was that most of the time I chose to not have him fall asleep in my arms, but just sometimes you just had to, because that's what you were just dealing with in the moment. She's like, it's okay. And actually, it was, it was almost when I said that before, that like right at the moment versus right for the long term, it was, it could be seen as like almost like a judgment. Like, don't choose the easy thing for right now, but it wasn't. That's not how she positioned it. And I don't think it has to be that way. It's sometimes it's okay to choose the right thing for right now, to choose the easy thing, but you have to just be aware of what you're trading off. Yes. And that that awareness and that insight, like it's it's again powerful. It's game-changing. It puts you in the driver's seat of all of these things.

Kelly 1:06:55

I have seriously just loved these last call it five, six minutes of our conversation. It's just been so not enlightening, but maybe for lack of better words, in this current moment, it's like there's so many light bulbs that are going off, and I'm going, yes. And then there's this like realization of having these moments where it's like, how do I want to react in this situation with our daughter?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:24

Right.

Kelly 1:07:25

Like the boys are are pretty self-sufficient now. They're bathed already, yes, yes. They've already, they've already had to go through like consequences also. And there's just some tough um roads that we're navigating with Maddie and how she's disciplined versus how the boys were disciplined, and there's differences, and they're starting to catch on and go, hold on a second, dad. Oh, kids are the best at calling you out for fairness and inconsistencies. Yes. And I mean, I'm not even joking you this morning. We were having conversations, my husband and I, about fairness and equality and the discipline between the boys and Maddie, and there's clear-cut differences, and he's starting to go, we gotta make some changes. Yeah. Because this isn't working with Maddie anymore. I know Maddie will end up listening to these at some point. And so just honey, no, we love you so much, but you're a little, a little challenging.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

That's what I say about my daughter, my seven-year-old is very challenging. She's very spirited. She's very, she's very much like me. You know, spirited. I like that. Just spirited. These are all the pots. She's spirited, she's theatrical, she's like all of these things. Um, but she's very much like me. Like what she wants when she wants it. And if she can't get it, it's the worst thing in the world. And like everything's big. Yeah. Um, and I remind myself in these moments, I'm like, hard to parent, but it will serve you well one day. I remind myself of that. You know, it's just you gotta see the forest for the trees in this, but yeah.

Kelly 1:09:04

Yes. I am literally like hitting my forehead because it is just like I I am paralleling with you so much in my circumstances

Formula L And The End Of Hero-Led Growth

Kelly 1:09:15

with her. It's been hard. It's been hard. Yes. Um, okay. What are you learning as you're growing Formula L? And can you give us like your 30-second elevator pitch on what Formula L is so that the listeners have a full understanding of your business?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

Yep, yep. So Formula L exists to make a sales leader's job easier. So it is a sales operating system. And I mean that in the way that we were just talking about systems, like a set of processes. This is how we do our work, not a piece of technology. Um, so it is a sales operating system, meaning if you have all of these things working well all of the time, your sales function will deliver the results that you want. If your strategy, your processes, your leaders, and your teams are all moving in the same direction, you will get the results.

Kelly 1:10:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:14

Sounds super easy, is very hard because those things that we were talking about before, that like pressure break systems, yeah, guess what's changing all the time? Pressures. So your strategy changing, the market changing, tariffs being levied on all of your products, like all of these things dramatically change the pressures that are under your system and it will break your strategy and it will stop delivering for you. Or if you never built it to deliver in the first place and you have it strung together on duct tape and grit and hope, then I help you build an actual strategy that can an actual system underneath your sales team that will deliver that result. Um, so that wasn't 30 seconds, but it was beautiful though.

Kelly 1:10:58

I have two follow-up questions for you. Uh actually, one follow-up question, and then one is more of a comment, and we can talk about how you got to the name of your business. How so who is your avatar client? Like, if somebody's listening right now and they're trying to decide, am I the right person that Holly needs to be helping? What what's that niche? Like, give it in its exactitude. Is it like a number of employees in in a in a company?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

Or let's talk through that. Yeah. So I most of the time I'm most successful with um sales or revenue leaders. So had a revenue, sometimes a CEO, if it's a small enough company, whatever it is, sales and revenue leaders at mid-market logistics and distribution companies. So very niche, which is also advice I would give to people that are building companies. I resisted niching hard for the first couple of years, and it is it's where it's at. You have to niche down. Um, so very niche. Um, but it's these leaders who are who want to deliver a certain outcome, and it's just not consistently delivering. And I can figure out how to do that with you. Um, and usually there's always somebody you can blame. And a lot of times when I talk with leaders, I talk about system-led growth, like we have been talking about, versus hero-led growth. And hero-led growth is um is resting your strategy or your success on any one or small number of things. So a lot of times it's the leader. And like, think about this back into our like mom conversation is a lot of times this is the position, this like martyr position in the family that women put themselves in. Everything is on my shoulders. If I get sick, the wheels fall off the bus. Like that, that is like this, this is hero-led growth. Yeah. And you are not doing yourself a favor by putting yourself in that hero-led position. If your family or your business cannot run without you, I know I'm giving myself a I'm getting chill. Um, if your family or your business cannot run without you, and you don't want them to, right? But you you absolutely cannot be the linchpin. Like, congratulations, you've made yourself really indispensable.

Kelly 1:13:28

Now figure out how to bring other people up. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

If you want to take a vacation or have a nap once in a while, like you can't live that way. Yeah. So so many like will get out of the mom world for a second and back up into business, is actually just on a broader scale, so much of our business is built on heroes like this. And the hero can be the sales leader in my sales world that I live in, can be the leader, it can be a star salesperson, it can be a couple of customers that carry your whole budget. It can be the market being in a certain position or the economy being in a certain way. If your growth strategy depends too much on any one of those things, it's not a strategy at all. You have a hope. And uh that's the most famous quote: hope is not a strategy, but you got to get those heroes out of your growth strategy and build a system.

Kelly 1:14:21

I am sure that there are some women listening right now that are going, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:26

Well, we all are in those positions. I was in those positions when I realized I can't take maternity leave because my business won't run if I am not doing something. Or I can't, you know, take off and go to my kids' softball game or the other way. I can't go to this customer thing because the world will fall apart if I leave home. Like none of those things are sustainable ways to live your life. And guess who's got to fix it? You, the person or the leader or whatever. And and leaders in the back in the sales world, they can do this, they do do this, they do it all the time. But it doesn't have to be that hard and you don't have to figure it out from scratch. So that's that's what Formula L is. How did you get to the name of Formula L? I worked with a really, really smart, uh, smart um friend, entrepreneur, another mompreneur that I love. Her name is Jill Schmig. She runs a marketing um business out of Naples, Florida. Okay. We've worked together with like we we share customers sometimes. So uh so she worked with me and we were, you know, she knew kind of the we worked together almost the entire time. I've been at Luminaries, we've been on this board together, we knew each other pretty well. She knew what I was doing, and she knew the exp what I was trying to do. Make it easier for sales leaders to win, like, and you know, make this business that is just running a little bit smarter, produces revenue more consistently, delivers results more consistently. Um, so she knew all of that and we just started working together on it. It's like I need to kind of just bounce this off of somebody. And I didn't want to do like the slow ramp up build that I kind of started with when I started Luminaries. Um still bootstrapped, I haven't taken any dollars for any either of these businesses, but I'm like, I need to come in with a little bit of a splash, like I need to show up established this time, second time entrepreneur. So I started talking with her about that because I knew I needed the model and the marketing and the website. And um, and she's like, I think we need to get this foundation right first. And so what we did is we started talking about all of the things that have made my most successful clients at Luminaries, like the ones that really knocked it out of the park results-wise, what was it that we did with them that made such a difference? And we started figuring all of that out and then distilled that down to a model, which I'll take, I'll take the like the marketing spin off of it, and it's your your strategy, your processes, your leaders, and your teams. And that's not rocket science, actually. If you've studied OD, it's like an adaptation of a model called the star model. Um but it is uh it's just packaging it in a way that is specifically for sales leaders and their success. Um, and I think the part that we never had nailed at Luminaries really is the leader piece of it. So a lot of leaders would have us come in and be like, hey, I need I need you to come teach my team how to do discovery. They're terrible at it. I'm like, okay, great, let's do it, let's talk about it, let's have a great program. And then they would get up and talk about some incentive that would be pulling them in a different way, or they would start to coach this role play that we'd just done in a very different way than I would have coached it. I was like, this is never going to last once I leave this room. Like once this whole group leaves this room and you've kissed this money that you've spent with my company goodbye. This skill won't last unless it is being installed, like systematized, operationalized into your business and your leaders are coaching to it consistently. That is the only way you're gonna get the ROI on this stuff. So that's the Formula L was really like bringing all that package together and making it, it's it's not optional. Like this is the only way we'll do it.

Kelly 1:18:14

Were there moments where you were helping companies leaders and you knew you just knew they're not grasping this? And you could feel it in your bones, like this is I don't know if they're gonna be able to sustain. Because you were just speaking to that, and I'm like, oh, I gotta ask this question.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:40

Yes, yes, there are, and it's it's those examples where I was where like I hear something in the moment that directly conflicts with it. And that's one of them. Um, I just had another one happen where I was like, it was again discovery for some reason, but I was working with with a group on these, like, follow your curiosity, ask great questions, understand the impact. And then we're going into a role play, and the sales manager's like, make sure you get ready for your interview with your customer. And I was like, This is not an interview. This is directly against uh what we're trying to do here. But anyway, just little examples of these things, and they're all done. Like these are all smart, well-intended people. Yeah. But the what I've learned over my 20 years of doing this is that um that it's that's not what it's about. It is not about how smart or well-intentioned you are. Any one of these things, like anything you want to achieve, requires like it has so many tentacles into your into your business and into your world, and you have to make sure that it's all connected, or reasonable people will not make the choices that you want them to make.

Tough Conversations And Eating The Frog

Kelly 1:19:50

I like that little tie back in. Okay. This has me thinking about this is what's coming to mind tough conversations. How you have had to have tough conversations with some of these leaders and coaching them through. What has that looked like for you? And can you can you talk the women who are listening right now through the importance of having tough conversations? You strike me as somebody who's you're like, let's do this. I'm gonna have the tough conversation. I'm not gonna shy away from it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:24

I'm gonna dive in. Yeah, yeah. And I am that way. And I would say that is 100% what like if I could attribute my success or whatever it is to anything, it would be almost all to that. So you eat the frog. Yes. A lot. Yes, a lot of the morning. Because you have to. Um, I mean, some of it like discipline-wise, I still have some work to do on eating the frog, but um, but conversationally, I think that is also part of, you know, I was talking about that when I was working at Robinson and all the leaders and all this stuff, and like felt a little bit different, kind of working with me. I think that's part of it. And how I how I was often described there, which I don't know if your reputation precedes you all over the place, but I remember people saying, Oh yeah, Holly, she doesn't pull punches. Like, if I if I have a thought, I'm gonna tell you. Yes, and I will do it in a way that I think um I'm really thoughtful about like people, people are good. People are trying to do the right thing. Um, and most people are trying to make the right choice based on the information that's in front of them. So I would approach it like respectfully and say, hey, this this is a choice that you can make. You can make whatever choice you want. You're a leader, you've got a business, you're you're an autonomous individual. You can make whatever choice you want. What I am here to do is point out the potential repercussions of those choices. And I can say, yes, you can you can say this in a team meeting. Here's what might happen. Let's talk about an alternative. You make the choice, you know? And so it's not like I never was combating anyone. It's almost like this little therapist on your shoulder to just help you think through the consequences or a potential different strategy. Oof dah. It's fun. I love this stuff.

Kelly 1:22:10

So I do think that there are a lot of women who are listening to this part of the interview and going, How can I do more of that? How can I thoughtfully think through what eating the frog looks like on a daily, weekly, monthly basis as I'm continuing to build my business to the way to the place that I want it to be at?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Yeah.

Kelly 1:22:39

And it's I'm sort of coaching myself through this because I think that this is something that is tough for me is like eating the frog and just picking up the phone and having the tough conversation and realizing it's not as bad as we play it up in our head. Oh, for sure. It's almost always worse in your head. Always. Yeah, like almost, almost always. And then there have actually been the times where I've gone into a conversation thinking, oh, it's gonna be just fine. And it ends up being horrific, and you're like, that was not what I was expecting. And so um, where I'm going with all of this is it's something that I've had to navigate through. And vulnerably speaking, eating the frog has always been very tough with me. I remember um, so before my husband and I joined forces and went into business together in real estate, I was in mortgage. When I started in mortgage, uh, shout out to Allie Massa, who was my original branch manager at Wells Fargo. She was like, read the book, Eat the Frog. Oh like read it and like read it and keep reading it and keep reading it. She's like, You need to eat the frog. Yeah, I'll never forget it. Yeah, you know, it was like my introduction to mortgage, and I had this baller branch manager who's just like, This is the way. I mean, that is like a she's a sales phenomena. Like, shout out to Allie. So eat the frog. The point in all of this is like it's not, it's not as bad as you think it's going to be. And even like having a tough conversation about um, what's another example I can give? You know, like right now I'm talking through sponsorship for events, and it's a world that I have never had to navigate, fundraising for an event, talking and having like, hey, talking big numbers for sponsoring an event.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:48

Woo!

Kelly 1:24:50

You know, picking up the phone and going, what do you think? Yeah. And pausing. And it almost always is it goes better than I I anticipate that it will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:02

And you know, you just have to do that. I remember I worked with like a sales coach when I was starting, um, which was it was kind of hard for me to do because I had coached sellers before. I'm like, now I'm getting a coach. What is this about? But selling your own services is very different than selling something else. It it there's like so much more confidence that needs to come with it. And the value is you and what you do versus a product that has cost to it. You know, it's there's it's a different, different kind of thing. Um, but part of what I had learned is exactly what you just described, like being very confident about my value, not being afraid to put a big number out there. And I kept going up until, you know, I was testing the market with that. Yeah. Um, but I would just, I, I would put it out there like it was reasonable because it was. And sometimes, especially depending on what kind of buyer I was talking to, I would even say, like, you might be surprised at how reasonable this is, which is really interesting. Cause I think if I didn't say that, they would have heard it differently. And then after I would just say the the prices, and I always give options and different value levels, and there's lots of good stuff in there that I would recommend to people. Um, but then I would just say, how does that sit with you? Or what do you think about that? Yes. And you don't, there's no apology, there's no like this or that, there's no qualification of it or trying to defend it. This is just what it is. Yeah. And if you can, if you are confident enough in your value, then other people will be too paralleling.

Kelly 1:26:34

Yeah. Like this is exactly the same thing with the sponsorship levels. I'm like, these are this is it, you know, like, and here's your value add with each one of those levels. Yep. And do you believe it's worth it? Yeah. Which one works for you? Yeah. And if you believe it's worth it, then it is. Oh, 100%. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:52

Yeah.

Kelly 1:26:53

This has been so good. I I again, I had a follow-up question and now it's completely escaping me. I think I'm just getting wrapped up in the emotions because I think it's so cool what we're talking through.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:08

It is a lot of fun. But this is the okay.

Raising Prices With Confidence And Ethics

SPEAKER_00 1:27:10

I got it. I got it.

Kelly 1:27:11

I got it. Let's talk the women who are listening through, who are listening right now. Let's talk them through. Like amping up what their dollars are.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:28

Oh my gosh. Yes.

Kelly 1:27:29

Like my services cost this initially, and now I'm gonna change the price and I'm gonna go up. I want because you've been doing this. You were just talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

Yep. Let's coach them through it. Yes, yes. Okay, so I'm gonna give a couple caveats to this because I run a service based industry.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:48

I don't run anything where I have a menu of prices published anywhere. Um, so if that's the case for you, like it's gonna be a different story, right? Um, but I also So, I mean, I've talked about some of those like self-imposed ethical boundaries. Part of that is um, well, it's also just I think good business is the industry that I work in is small. And when you think about it, most of them are. Um, so the people like my customers know each other, and my customers will go like go to another business and bring me with them. And I want to keep doing that because that's another great, great uh avenue for growth. Um, so I will never charge somebody something that I wouldn't want them repeating to a different one of my customers. Um, so there's there's that built in there. Um, but so most like I don't gouge anything, but but most of it is about just like naturally elevating as your value increases. And if you can stack enough value into your offers, uh you can charge anything you want. Um, I mean, like again, not like a gouge thing, but it's all about value. And if somebody is buying it, then they're getting value for it. So as long as you figure out your message, figure out the package that delivers the value, figure out how to message it appropriately so that value is clear, you can charge the sky's the limit, basically. Um, I also started when I started out, um, I read a lot of stuff about like million-dollar consulting and value-based pricing. And Alan Weiss was one of my gurus that I followed originally. Um, and uh, and I've never charged a per day or an hourly fee. I think if you get into trading time for money, you never get out of it. So if you can, I mean, I don't do full value-based pricing because that would be like, okay, this this project will deliver a million dollars, so you're gonna agree to give me 10% of that. I don't do that. Okay. Um, but I do say typically this delivers this kind of value. So this is the ballpark that this will be in, like that kind of a thing. Interesting. Um, so yeah, it is it's different.

Kelly 1:29:59

How did you know when it was time to start to shift away from where pricing was at and going up in your pricing?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:09

I mean, really, most of the time it was about um about like capacity. So we can't like at one, at some point, if we are busy, like we are too busy to take on more, yet not hitting the revenue threshold that we need, what can change? Right. You gotta pull one of those levers. Right. Um, and then also we've we've just been evolving our business model over the last, I guess we all the time, but over the last nine years of being a business. So your offerings continue to get more valuable as well. Um, so your your time gets more scarce, your offerings get more valuable, people will pay more for it. So you just continue to elevate it. And I think that most of what I see is not people not being able to charge what they want, it's their confidence of being able to ask for that number, is what's holding them back.

Kelly 1:31:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:03

Thank you.

Kelly 1:31:04

Yeah.

Self-Care Routines That Are Sustainable

Kelly 1:31:05

Talk to me about self-care, the importance of it, what that looks like for you. And um, have you seen any shifts in how you view self-care in becoming an entrepreneur? I shouldn't say becoming you've been an entrepreneur, but um how has that looked for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:26

Yeah. Self-care has gotten a lot more important. Um, I know that it's like it's a thing, it's very important for motherhood, but it's also a thing that everyone's talking about right now. And almost, again, sometimes I feel like it's coming a little bit of a shameful way, like if you're not prioritizing it, like you know, yeah, um, you gotta spend more money on yourself, like kind of a thing. And that's not what it's about.

Kelly 1:31:47

Self-care is it, there's so many different forms of self-care. And so I always like to pose the question because of that very reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:57

And so, yeah, yes, but entrepreneurhood and motherhood, I think both elevated the importance of it because of all the things that we were just talking about, is all of a sudden it's all on your shoulders. And what happens if those shoulders aren't as strong anymore? And like in the non-literal sense, but also sometimes is you know, if I if I have a medical problem that stops me from working, my family suffers. Like there's no net. I do have insurance and stuff like that. Um, but the safety net of having a broader company or leave packages and stuff like that isn't there. So the very, like the very practical reason to start having more self-care as an entrepreneur is there. And the same way that it's there as a mother is that like if you don't, there's a reason they say if mama's not happy, ain't nobody happy, right? There's they're so critical. Like you're the nucleus of that family. And if you aren't your best self, how can your family be? Preach. Yeah. Preach. It's hard to do. Like it's easy to say, hard to do, but um, but you have to, you have to build that in. And that's it's also part of what I systematize um in my life, is I I made sure I was struggling to fit in workouts, you know. And I was like, I work from home. Why don't I take a walk every day? Because you just don't. Because you just start working and you don't schedule it and whatever. So then I had to change it. I've never been a morning person, and now I do 6 a.m. Pilates because there's the only time I can get it in, you know, and I love it. And now I've become a morning person. Same. So yeah, yeah, same. How long have you been doing Pilates?

Kelly 1:33:36

Um, I think for two years, pretty solidly, and I love it so much. Nice. Yeah, I do enjoy, I've got a system in place for myself. It's it's five o'clock in the morning. Sometimes it's six o'clock in the morning, but um, I know that that is literally the pretty much for the most part. There are times when I can sneak it in at noon, or I'm like, uh like last night. Yeah, I did it at I I did my strength training after dinner. Yeah. Maddie was there, and I was like, honey, you want to do a workout with me? And she was like, sure. Yeah, like she's not actually, she's three years old, so she's not actually doing the workout. But I was like, it it was also getting over this hump of thinking, oh, I have to be um, I have to make sure Maddie is taken care of or everybody else is taken care of in those, instead going the boys, right downstairs, they are they are very self-sufficient. It's okay. And Maddie is also very self-sufficient, too. And so it was like, wow, I just kind of like went over a mental hurdle for myself in doing this workout while my daughter is literally right next to me. Yeah. And kind of like mot and then going, oh, I'm kind of like modeling for her right now. Absolutely. She's never gonna see me at five o'clock in the morning because she's sleeping. Right. But how cool is it that I can go, oh honey, look, I'm gonna like here's another rep. Can you do it? Can you hold? Can you try this? Yeah, cool. Yeah, absolutely. It was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:09

But I love that. And there's that's that's a way of not having to make the either-or choice, is sometimes it's an and.

Kelly 1:35:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:16

And I actually learned that one from my mom too. I remember she was babysitting once, and like she just had, I came home and she had like both kids out on the deck. She was sitting having a beer on my deck, and both kids were like washing my patio table with like a bucket of soapy water, and they were having a great time. And that like wasn't her job to do, but I was like, oh, they actually, if it's the right job, they actually think that's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:41

So how can I like Mary Poppin' style, spoonful of sugar something? And just like, what can it like? What's actually a job that they will have fun doing? We're still spending time together. Yeah. And sometimes it's going for a walk, sometimes it's like pulling weeds, watering flowers. Like those are all tasks that somebody has to do that I can do my kid can do, or I can do with them.

Kelly 1:36:02

Yes. The incorporation. How how old were the kids when you started having that incorporation? And like this no longer needs to fall on my lap as mom, wife. You know, like I can have the kids start doing this stuff too.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:23

Uh if your question is when did it get helpful? Um that might be like just now. Um it's starting to get helpful. But I think I've I've been doing it for a couple of years. Like you start to get more, like you can involve them in more things down the road. But I even like I've been trying to instill this in my husband, and he started to pick it up. Like, yes, it will take longer to pull the weeds from the garden if they're with, but then they're with you and you're not getting frustrated and they're involved and they're learning and you're bonding.

Kelly 1:36:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:55

One of my one of my kids' babysitters, uh, or her his daycare teacher, he always she always says that her mother used to say, um, I would be so much more efficient if it weren't for all my help. And I was like, this is just a great way to describe this. It's like sometimes it is it is not about the outcome. Yes.

Kelly 1:37:19

Oh my gosh. I feel this in my bones, and I'm laughing and and nearly crying right now because uh honest to goodness, there have been times in the years now that I have been in the boys' world, and they've always been helpers. And to your point, it's like you got you doing stuff. And let's talk about how hard it is to not do that. Yes. It really is, and it was something that I needed to work through myself, and then also I might have gotten a couple of swift kicks in the butt, proverbially, like by my husband, who's like, Kelly, they're trying to help. Yeah, Kelly, they're trying to help. At least they're helping. I'm like, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. So thank you for sharing um what self-care has looked like and how it's evolutionized

Faith, Community, And Managing Pressure

Kelly 1:38:15

for you as well. Faith, talk to me about what faith has looked like for you navigating entrepreneurship, going from corporate into having your own business twice over now. Yeah. And same thing with motherhood.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:34

Yeah. Oh, it has been a journey and a roller coaster. Um, I had uh, I would say I had as a kid, especially in like high school, I had a really good, like strong faith connection. I was involved in young life. I did a lot of like the church camps and the groups and all of that kind of stuff. And then I think like in college and then in my 20s, you know, I was always faithful and like I believed, but it wasn't a part of my life so much. It just kind of like got busy. I moved to places where there weren't so many churches, yeah, like that kind of stuff. And then you also don't have like your group, yeah, like every church is so different and that kind of stuff. And some of their messages I actually don't believe in. Yeah. And you know, so so you have to kind of like figure out your path again. We're always constantly figuring ourselves out. Um, so that that's been a more recent like revisit journey after I had kids. I wanted them to have that experience. It was really important for me to give them the ability to make that own that choice. Um, but they have to they have to understand the choices to be able to make them. So I couldn't expect them to find faith later in life if they wanted it, if I never showed them the path in the first place. So I did um when I was pregnant with with Sadie, my oldest, um, I started going around to like all the churches and our new community because we were only a couple of years into our town then, um, and just like checking out their messages and how they if they baptize or if they don't, and like all of this stuff. And I finally found one that was like a great fit, and both of our kids got got baptized there. And the part of the reason I chose it is they had a lot of activities for youth, like the camps to go to and the mission trips, and that was such an important part of like how I connected with serving others. Um so I wanted to build that, and now we have a great community that we're a part of, and I love like we've even gotten pulled into teaching Sunday school, which is like if my 20-year-old self could see me now, but yeah, yeah, it's pretty cute.

Kelly 1:40:42

I have some parallels with what you're speaking to. Um, faith has been a journey for me as well. I would say it has grown and become a lot stronger in the last few years. Um, I can think at our church, we have different programs. I'm sure you have similar um aspects as well. There's like mom, like the equivalent of mom co. And then there's also discipleship, and then there's like um, there's all of these different sort of avenues you can go down that sort of plays into the larger scope of okay, we've got church on Sundays or Wednesdays. This is, you know, my community, but then I also have these like vines off of that. If we're gonna play off of the Bible, right? And I met this woman by the name of Pam Evans, and she talked to me about discipleship. And so I've been discipling with her. She's like early 80s, Holly, and I see her Monday mornings and have been consistently short of like either not feeling well or being out of town or it's a holiday for two years. Okay, and so it has allowed me to mature in what my faith looks like. But when I was younger, we would go to church in 20s. I went to um St. Mary's University, which is it's a college that has that faith undertone. Yeah, and I never sh I think maybe one time stepped into the church there on campus. But I've always been a believer in the message and and Jesus and God. And so it was like it's there, right? It's not not there, and then it just has continued to grow.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:42

Yeah.

Kelly 1:42:42

And really when faith or sorry, when family became a thing for me. So when I was introduced to the boys, and then you know, my husband and I got married, it was like this is so important.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:58

Yeah, it just kind of raises the stakes, doesn't it? It does. It's not just about you anymore, it's about like the health and well-being of everyone in your life.

Kelly 1:43:08

It's yeah, I wrote down self-care slash holistic health, right? And I think spiritually speaking, that that plays into your self-care.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:17

Yep. For sure. Yep, absolutely. So much of it is about managing emotions and stress. And if you have anything that you can come back to, some grounding factor, or it kind of sounds um like a higher factor. Um, if you can have anything that you can come back that lets you take a little bit of that pressure off of your own shoulders, and you're like, okay, here I am. This is this, this is my center, this is where I feel safe, this is what I can trust in. That that will help

Advice, Favorites, And The Magenta Hue

SPEAKER_00 1:43:50

you, whatever that is for you. Yeah, thank you.

Kelly 1:43:53

That was really beautiful. We're gonna start to land the plane. Yeah, this has been so fun, so enlightening. Just the deeper level of the sales aspect I really enjoyed. So thank you for kind of honing in on some of that stuff. You spoke some major gem diamonds into the world. So thank you for that. I would love to hear a piece of advice you would give a younger version of yourself, knowing all that you know now.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:27

Um, gosh, I think I would tell myself to um I I've said this before when people have asked me this question, but like, don't be afraid to be yourself. But I would have to make that a little bit more tangible to my younger self because I'm even like it's hard to kind of figure out that what that means when you're 20. Um, I think I was, I spent a lot of time being really too concerned about how I showed up and how others perceived that. And there is a lot of that that you need to do. You have to be thoughtful about your perception and and that kind of stuff, because that is your perception is effectiveness. Um, but I think I I think I stressed about things I didn't need to stress about and actually like polished some of the uniqueness off of myself that I've been like bringing back um in, which is so funny. Like actually writing a little bit with like AI and doing some work with that. It's like, um, anytime you write, you sound like a robot, actually. Like my whole personality, I like strip it away when I try to write professionally, which is it's stupid. Like that's like show up as you. Um, and so some I just learned this like last week that like taking the little folksy things I say out of my out of my terminology when I'm writing is silly. Like this is this is how I show up. This is what people keep coming back for. Um, so be yourself. I love that so stinking much. Oh my gosh. Like, I'm still learning it, but if if I could have learned it at 20 years, if I could have started that journey 20 years ago, I'd be further along now.

Kelly 1:46:12

What's a piece of advice you'd give a woman listening now who is struggling in the sales department? Like they know they've got the skills and they just need a little what's a piece of advice you'd give them?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:29

It would depend on why they were struggling. I'm famous for giving non-answers to things, but I will give you I will give you a real answer in that I'm going to assume that part of the reason that a lot of people struggle is the like um the self-servingness that kind of comes along with selling and that you're pushing and you're always getting rejected and like all of this kind of stuff. I think the best salespeople, how I approach selling in a way that matches like my spirit, I guess, of that feels good to me is anytime all you're doing is you're trying to help somebody solve a problem. And if I can talk to you and understand enough, this is about that natural authentic curiosity. If I can figure out what matters to you and what's standing between you and whatever result you want, and if I can figure out how to be that bridge, I'm not selling you anything. I'm helpful. I'm helping you. And you can decide whether you want to take that or not. It's it's uh one of the other gems that I took from this original coach that I was talking about from sales. She said, You're not asking, you're offering. I am offering to help you. I'm not asking you for anything. You can you can say whatever you want, but it's just such a different, it's a it's a script flipper. And you can just say, Here's what I'm offering. I know it's valuable. I'm unapologetic about that. It might not be for you, and that's okay. It's gonna be for somebody else then. So what's your Enneagram? Um yes, I think I haven't done it officially. I've done like the online quizzes.

Kelly 1:48:03

I think I'm an eight. Okay. I would have pegged you as a three. I think I'm an eight with a three, but I forget what they are. So yeah, I do too. Um, but I've done the Enneagram and I'm like a two. I've got a three mixed in there. I think a seven is also, but like two is my it, it's it's all about like pleasing people. Yes. And there's pros to that, and then there's cons, right? So, anywho, um, my husband and I are in real estate, which we've talked about. I am I've been asking this question because as I am touring through houses with our buyers and then having conversations with our sellers, there's always a favorite room in the house. And I'm curious, where is that for you in your home? Oh, such an interesting question.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:58

Um I think it changes. I think right now my favorite spot is uh there in our living room. It's like uh we have like the the house that has like the family room and the formal living room that nobody ever uses, right? Um, so it's the formal living room that nobody ever uses, where we have like our table has like all of our family games inside of it and stuff. But that's all that's in that room are two couches and a table with these games and like a lamp and crap. Um, but I love to sit there in the morning because it gets the best morning light, and there's almost like it's so simple, it's almost serene in the room. And then I just sit there quietly with my cup of coffee on my non Pilates days and have my like morning to myself. And then that's where like I catch up with my kids in it after school. We play games in there later. It's just a very peaceful space, and it used to be the most useless part of my house.

Kelly 1:49:51

I love it. Yeah. Do you have a favorite book, favorite podcast, or favorite TV show that you? Are you watching or listening to right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:03

Um, I I am reading about seven things at once all the time. Same. Seriously. It's an issue. Yes. I have physical books, I have like ebooks, and I have audiobooks, at least one of each all the time. It's an issue. I'm shaking my head like this is a problem. It is an issue. So that like it's hard for me to recommend one. I definitely have favorites. It depends on what you're into. So we've I can my favorite genre is historical fiction. Um, but so I definitely have lots of books. I am a I am a I'm a classic person with TV. My favorite show is The Golden Girls. I guess if you call that classic. But is that yours too? See? I knew we had an underlying connection here. I actually have like, I'm surprised you didn't see it when we had a Zoom. I have a picture of them like right over my shoulder in my office.

Kelly 1:50:56

I had to have noticed. I had to have noticed. I I am not, I have to share this with you, Holly. When I was growing up, so middle school, um, I think it was middle school, I would in the summers, I would get up early and I would watch Golden Girls and Three's Company.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:19

Uh-huh.

Kelly 1:51:20

And I was just like, these are the coolest shows ever. I like, who are these people? They are two great shows. I just like I was like, this is the best thing ever. Like waking up super early, my mom would be like, you can sleep in. And I was like, nope, gonna watch Golden Girls and Three's Company.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:38

Oh my gosh, yes. So I loved oldies when I was a kid because um because I couldn't sleep at night. So I would be up at night, like as a teenager, watching Nick at night to go to sleep. And so it was like Bewitched, and I love Jeannie, and I love Lucy, and like that was my what I watched in high school, which is so funny.

Kelly 1:51:56

Oh I'm an old soul. I am getting so much nostalgia right now. Oh my gosh, I love this. This is so cool. Okay. Wow. I have so thoroughly enjoyed this. There's been so many fantastic moments. This has been this last part has been my favorite. Just talking through

How To Connect With Holly

Kelly 1:52:15

steam. I know. We we certainly did. Well, if I'm listening to this right now and parts of your story have just really spoke to me, or I'm ready to work with you, Holly. How can how can this woman connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:34

Yeah, I'm really easy to find on LinkedIn. I'm on there a lot. So find me there, Holly Laboda, um, or at my email, Holly at formulal4.com. Um, and I am always open to a conversation and I always try to make it anytime, like I always start with kind of a casual conversation with any prospect or any connection, and we just try to make it valuable for the sake of it. So even if we're having a conversation like you and I just did about whatever goal you're trying to achieve and what you've tried before and what is or isn't working and what you might want to try next, sometimes a lot of that is just me giving you a couple of ideas and then you going on your way. And then sometimes we start a partnership together. Um, so I try to make it valuable and enjoyable no matter what. I love that.

Kelly 1:53:20

I do have one last question. Yeah. So the name of the podcast is called Reclaiming Your Hue. We might have talked about how I came up with that name. So I came across this concept of flamingos. There's a lot of science behind flamingos when they have their babies, they lose their coloring. So, you know, they're normally there's some flamingos. Okay, so some people who are listening right now could go, there's some flamingos out there that are white and their wings are pink, like little this is metaphorically speaking, okay. But they lose their coloring and then they start to regain that color back. And I am curious, what color or shade of pink do you think you are? What kind of hue are you? Magenta.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:10

Woo! Tell me why. Um, because it's like it's it's a bold pink, like it's a strong pink, it's not soft. Um, and it stands out. And I maybe it maybe I'm not magenta, but I want to be magenta. I aspire to be magenta.

Kelly 1:54:28

I think you're magenta. I think I think you are. This has been so fun, Holly. Thank you so much for carving out the time and um coming here and just dropping so many diamonds for the women who are listening right now. And so I'm pretty confident that there's probably somebody who will be reaching out to you, which would be fantastic. And that's what it's all about is building this community. And with that being said, I want to welcome you to the flamboyance. You can look that up. Okay, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:00

Thank you. I had a blast.

Kelly 1:55:01

Have a great day. Thank you.