Speaker 1Welcome to your favorite podcast, Cosmic Queen. Get ready to discover soulful selling and marketing strategies, learn how to stop overthinking everything by reprogramming your subconscious mind, and finally level up your business, your income, and your success. Yes, girl, it is all happening right now, so grab your earbuds, light up your manifestation candle. It is time to hack the quantum field, create success that defies logic, and let out your inner alpha. Let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 2Oh, I am so excited because today I have the best guest for you ever. I have Holly McHugh, and I'm going to let her introduce herself, but she is a fantastic messaging and sales coach, and we're going to have the best conversation today. I can't wait. So Holly, please introduce yourself. Yay. Thank you so much, Gabby. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Yes. So what about me? I'm a sales and messaging coach for service-based entrepreneurs, so I help them to really nail their positioning and master their messaging so they can be seen as that no-brainer choice for their ideal clients and create effortless sales without the need for paid advertising. So that's kind of in a nutshell what I do. I love it. I love it. And what I love the most about you is that, I always joke about this, that you are like the niche queen. You're like, nail your niche. Like, find the perfect niche. And I'm like, no, you don't need a niche. And at the end of the day, we are like saying exactly the same thing. And I think you agree just like across the board on the importance of messaging and what you actually need. So today, we're going to talk a little bit about messaging. We're going to talk a little bit about mothering, maybe, because we're both moms of two kids each. I wanted to marry my boys to your daughters until I realized that we were going to have to be like across the world and figure something out because she's an office. You can come into Australia. It's fine. That's not going to work. I know. I'm like, no, you can come to Miami. Oh, my boy, this is too complicated. I hope they never. And what else was the... Oh, we're going to talk about up-leveling, which I'm so, so excited about. So three amazing things. Holly, tell me a little bit about what you do with your clients and a little bit about your velocity about messaging. We were talking a little before our call and I was like, let's stop wasting it. Let's jump on the podcast recording. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, just kind of a bit of context on my background. So I was a brand strategist in my... Previous life. So I worked for a decade at Fortune 500s like Procter & Gamble and Unilever on some of the biggest global consumer brands, which was really exciting. So I very much learned from the best when it came to advertising, consumer insights and innovation and how to launch new things into the world, but also how to stand the test of time, right? So in a competitive space, whether that's online or in a supermarket, which was kind of the world that I came from and really like, how do we stand out from the show? And how do we make sure that people even walk down the aisle? And how do we make sure that we are the ones they always go to and they're not even looking at the other products next to them? So that really all comes down to your messaging, your positioning, what you stand for, the benefits that people see. And we've all ourselves grown up with different brands that we still have such favoritism and advocacy for. And, you know, we've never considered buying something else or even nostalgia. Like there's a lot of people growing up with Disney and things like that. And it's just instantly changed. And it's just instantly transformed us back to that beautiful place of our dreams and fantasies or whatever it might be, right? We have such strong associations to it. But really what this is all about is being seen as that undisputed, no-brainer choice. And the more that we can focus on that, which is really what I support my clients with, is the more you can kind of let go of so many of the other things. So what I typically do with my clients is I'm stripping away all of the extra stuff that is actually just confusing their overall message. And what they want to be saying to the world and who they want to be dialing in. And when we get the fundamentals right, these kind of sales foundations, I call them, you don't have to be obsessive over websites and all these different marketing tactics and shenanigans and worrying about being on every bloody platform dancing like an idiot. You know, we can strip right back and come to the things that make the biggest difference and the things that resonate and strike a chord at the most powerful level. Because when someone feels, as we know, heard and seen, and understood, everything else falls by the wayside. Yeah, I love that. And I think that that's why we get along so much. Because that's like my central philosophy, right? Is that you don't need to be doing all those things. And the more you clutter your business, the more you lose sight of that innate magnetism, which is that, which is your ability to make others feel seen and heard and understood. And also have them understand that you have a solution to their problem, right? 100%. Because it really does get to be so easy. And I think we forget. And what I love about you too, and I always feel, a little bit similar, right? Is that we've had a lot of experience before coaching. This is a world that we transitioned into, but like you have experienced marketing. I was a lawyer and I worked in finance. And I think that we have this awareness that like, like you said, it's not just like building the fastest coaching business possible. It's like wanting to build something that's going to stay on the chest of time. Building the skills that when you have the sales and messaging skills, like you can take that and build anything you want. Yeah. Yeah. How I work with my clients is, you know, I really try to teach them the art and science of what I call magnetic selling. And the idea is that, you know, when you get those pieces, right? Don't really need to sell. The sell kind of. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. That's what I say. I'm like, come like, that is my whole thing. You know, if you're selling, like you're missing out on what I think is like 90% of the puzzle. You know, if you have to rely on sales, sales should be really like the easiest part of what it is that you do. 100%. And I think so many people are focused on the pitch they're focused on. You know, what do I say or. That's what a lot of sales coaching and teaching is showing people to do as well. It's that whole mapping out the script or whatever it might be on that call. But really, that just puts us in the energy of persuading, convincing, educating, rationalizing, justifying. Whereas if we have done everything right in the lead up to that. Yeah. That person already knows they want to work with you. They're already a yes. And it's just a case of, you know, which package, which option, which offer is the best fit for me. And that's what we want. And that's really what we mean by magnetizing. And it used to be a fast-lung dream for me, too, to have literally ideal clients in my inbox saying, how can I work with you? And now it's a daily, weekly occurrence. Yeah. And that's not by luck or chance or coincidence. It's not even by the number of years I've been in business. It's by design. Yeah. And it's a deliberate design that everyone can also apply in their own businesses, too. Yeah. I so, so agree with you. And what we were talking about before, too, which I was so excited because I was like, this is kind. This is kind of like a really interesting thing, right? Is that I think so much of the conversation about messaging and sales gets written off as a beginner thing. Yeah. And people assume that once you're at a certain level that you actually don't need that anymore. And what I found is that when I was like growing my business and we were kind of talking about that in between, right? What do you do in between when you're like 10, maybe 20K months and 100K months, right? What does that in between look like? And the truth is that at that in between, it's like about that self-expression. It's about releasing more and more and more of you and like getting bolder with your messaging. Yes. Spreading out those edges a little bit. And then what I found is that when I got to like 100K is that I went backwards and I went back to the fundamentals because then you kind of go back and you tidy up. So it's really interesting. It's like the messaging, like the role that it plays in your business just shifts, but it's always there, you know? And I think sometimes we overlook it. And I think that that's kind of like a drawback. Right. What about you? Oh, my gosh. There's so much I can say on this. I'm there too late. It's juicy. The first thing I would say is the self-expression piece. And I think this is the piece that a lot of people, I mean, it's kind of a rite of passage because when we start just getting into the practice and the flow of sharing content online full stop, which is like a major thing when we first started business. I suddenly, all eyes are on us. You know, I've worked with people who are wildly successful in sales in corporate, but online business representing themselves as their own personal brand. Whole other ballgame. Oh, right. And it's so hard. I think at the beginning, just the practice and act of sharing anything is like a win. But we've got the trap of reposting other people's content, right? For ages, I was just posting other people's inspirational quote. And yes, that has value. And sometimes they just say it in a way that it needs to be said best. But really, that piece around self-expression is what is your opinion? Oh, it's just terrifying. But that's terrifying. Yes. Yeah. It's terrifying. To start sharing like your actual opinion. And you're like, is everybody going to hate me? And with my clients, I'm always like, what's the thing you want to say? And they're always like, but this is so controversial. And I'm like, you're going to put that out there. And you're going to be so disappointed because nobody is even going to notice that you said that thing. It's going to be so anticlimactic. Like, go ahead and drop this bomb that you think is going to shake up the whole Internet. And they're like, it's going to go viral. Yeah. And they're like, oh, it got like three likes. And everyone was like, great. Oh, I agree. And I'm like, yeah, you're like most controversial opinions are not that controversial most of the time. Yeah. And I think the only way to kind of be seen as an authority, which is ultimately the space you're shifting into in that between stage of really up leveling and owning your brilliance, they like to say, but also being known for what that brilliance really is. That's where your opinion is the only thing that matters in your voice and your messaging. And that is how you are going to magnetize the app. suit perfect match people for you, not by regurgitating other people's people's messages which so many people are doing or even taught to do with kind of their more cookie cutter approaches like when it comes to what you need to put on your sales page and again it's where we need to strip away what's the authenticity that's really desiring to shine through yes because when that does shine through it's literally like and then everyone's just like flooding in like your people like I'm here I'm here your voice is so beautiful I was so worried I saw you open your mouth to do that and I was like oh my gosh but something I literally just posted today on social was do not confuse popularity with potency I saw that and what are we really gunning for here like what are we really like we all talk about being a change maker being a trailblazer having an impact having a ripple effect if you really genuinely are here to do that then you need to be focusing on potency and not wanting to be a change maker and not wanting to be a change maker and not wanting to be a change maker and not worrying about popularity yeah absolutely and I feel like there are so many nuggets there there was something that I was going to grab on to at the beginning and I forgot already but let's talk about potency right oh I remember I was going to say that most people I think that that's why people you know want the funnel right there like I want to do this because it feels like it's going to be easier than sharing your actual voice and unleashing this like potency and magnetism that's not the way that it works and I'm all for be where you're at at the earliest stages we need to be where you're at and we need to be where you're at and we need to be where you're at more of the frameworks right like when it's the first time of doing anything yes a script can be really healthy as a reference right 100 but then we get to a point where it's like that's the framework right if the framework starts restricting you holding you back limiting you and you're like I really want to say this today but it doesn't fit into the acronym that I'm supposed to be using or the five point post structure that I learned well screw it because then you know you've actually outgrown it and expanded beyond it and you're ready to shine oh my god I'm getting covered in points but you know like we all need the training wheel we all need them so be where you are at and embrace that but recognize that if those training wheels are starting to feel tight or cumbersome or slowing you down or you're just resisting these things then you're probably ready for that next up leveling yeah yeah and so let's talk about our second thing up leveling we said that we were going to talk about I feel like this is the perfect segue because I think that we both have like up which is so fun and we're talking about this beforehand right how you know it's not that it's lonely and it's not that it's harder but that there's a different level of cheerleading when you're making it to this 20k or 30k months versus when you're more of an established business owner and it's like you have to be prepared for that while what we say is not controversial it can't be polarizing and it does turn people off when we show up as the real us and for both of us I think are like very nice people at our core that really like other people to like us yeah it is a little bit uncomfortable yes it is and um I mean I think they end up holding us back once we get to a certain place where we then kind of stabilize again right so yeah hit the high income months and then you're like I just need to kind of solidify cement stabilize ground yeah I think that's important for lots of reasons but also I think it's that oh but I also don't want to open myself up necessarily to what also can come in when we're doing quote unquote too well but yeah other people's liking and it ends up triggering and then it just brings that rush of memories back from when you were excluded at school or like you know girls didn't like you for whatever reason and yeah yeah you know it's going to bring on whatever yeah whatever like your core trigger is you know if it's not belonging it's going to bring that up if it's like you're selfish or a bad person it's going to bring that up if it's I always hurt people it's going to bring that up and all of those things are going to come up when you're up leveling and it does feel very uncomfortable sometimes like it feels like you're like almost outside of your skin I think that you described it perfectly right where it's like you need to go in and ground a little bit and just like recenter yourself and remember who you are and what you're here for and I think also talking about the messaging like that's where that comes in just we're always going back to that center of me like what is it that I want to say what is it that I actually do right not getting caught up in success for what people think of me for good or bad because sometimes when people are like you're the best but also it's not great you know because it's like ideally we want to get that validation from ourselves and so how has your experience with that been do you feel like your messaging has like changed at all oh it started out yeah and it's yeah yeah and I think that's the thing like it's at its core is probably the same guiding philosophy right so my philosophy from pretty much day one in my business has been all around rewriting the rule because that's entirely how I started my business I actually didn't intend to be an entrepreneur at the very beginning I just wanted to do coaching I just qualified as a coach I was like coaching coaching coaching the best and then I moved from London to Sydney and I was like I'm just gonna get a job in coaching and everyone's like yeah but you see we said marketing so no and the only way I could do the work that I wanted to just explore because I could see how other women are struggling in the way that I had after my quarter-life crisis and my corporate career I'm hardly burnt out was to start my own business and so I negotiated a part-time role in my fortune 500 company as a senior brand strategist unheard of at the time so that I could have a precious day to focus on building this business and just seeing what could be of it and then over time I dropped that to three days in a job share and had two days on my business so from the very beginning it was about rewriting the rules and to this day that's how I sign off my emails to rewriting the rules for your success because guess what it's entirely personal we have all version of success might be totally different to mine and both are right both are equally valid right and so I think that's never changed like that guiding philosophy of why am I in this work why was I called to it but this specific messaging has shifted tons of times because I've actually evolved my niche three different times in that period because again we start where we're at right where that was I knew the corporate world I knew professional women I had no freaking clue about entrepreneurship in the online space and it took me years and I need years to call myself any semblance of a business coach because I'm not I just needed to prove that I knew what I was doing for myself and for others despite a decade of working in business and a master's in business it was totally different ballgame yeah so yes my message has evolved many many times and it's so interesting because I just relaunched my signature program magnetic selling and just 12 months ago I was so happy with that sales page yeah and I thought I was just going to rinse and repeat it and just make a couple tweets like hell no I have to rewrite the whole thing because I have evolved so much in that place that it no longer felt like me and I'm like I'm going to do it again and I'm going to do it again and I'm going to do it again so there's the permission slip here that just because you're getting laser focused on a particular positioning niche messaging right now doesn't mean that you're wedded to that forever in a day but what we do need to recognize as the constant is that it is your message that magnetizes client yeah it is your message that sells so to not focus on it yes you're missing out on a massive opportunity and really it is the only thing that makes all the difference especially I mean you have as well we're not really used paid advertising like me yeah we neither of us have massive followings or audience writers built our success on what on the basis of a message that resonates for the people we're most looking to attract at its core that's what we have done successfully yeah and we've been highly highly relevant to those people and those are the things we get skimmed over all too often in favor of tiktok videos and fancy websites and logos and whatever else that people are getting caught up in yeah and they haven't first nailed that piece yeah and you're you're just gonna start talking about the things that you've always been doing and portraying yourself as that person and so I think that that's always for me like because I know that I've experienced that when I'm changing I'm it's so uncomfortable to be like I'm a human being who is changing sometimes it's really nice to be in a box and you're like oh sales and messaging coach and everything is perfect everybody understands me now you know and then suddenly you're like but wait yeah I need to come out of this bar oh this is comfortable again yeah I just this morning I had a call with my mentor and I was like I'm feeling like I need to actually do something around this piece and it's like oh that's uncomfortable because I've got everything already in place and now I have to print you know but equally you know it's just as metamorphosis that we all go through right it's just change is uncomfortable but what comes from change is incredible and beautiful that's what I was going to say because that's how you stay plugged into success is by always evolving and always changing and always adapting and I think so many people today want like the plug-and-play business that they're just going to keep like writing forever and it's like it doesn't work like that we're growing all the time our businesses are growing all the time what we're doing is changing all the time and so I have a question about something that you said so when you talked about like this little rebel side of you I'm like I did not know about that and I was also an accidental entrepreneur and so I never really relate to like those people that were like I knew that there was no job that was going to hold it out you know like I knew I was going to be an entrepreneur since I was five and that was not me I was like oh man I can't wait until I'm a grown-up and I get told what to do and then once I was there I was like this is true terrible. This is not what I want, you know? And then I had Levi and accidentally started my journey into entrepreneurship. And now here we both are. But do you feel like, was that something that you always kind of knew that you wanted to do? Or was it a part of you that you feel like you unlocked just kind of by chance? So a lot of this comes also down to like my purpose from human design perspective, that I was actually made to break rules apparently. And yet I've always tried to abide by them. And no wonder for most of my life, I've felt a real sense of inner conflict in so many different scenarios and contexts that I'm not quite sitting in. And yeah, just like, so I'm a manifesting generator. And interestingly, my conscious sun gate is 26. So I literally am. And part marketing. And it goes back to like what we were saying too, because that 26 is the city in the gene. Of invisibility, because I have it too. And so it's like, we're here to actually be, you know, because we were talking before about how sometimes it can be uncomfortable not to be like the loudest person in the room. But that's actually what we are here to do is to not be the loudest. And I think you've just absolutely nailed it on its head because I am not an extrovert by nature. I'm like far more introverted. Like I love teaching online, doing podcasts, but then I have to go lie down for like a while in a dark room and have no one talk to me. I need to rejuvenate kind of like, again, ground and just kind of, I love my own time. So I've never been the person that was ever going to dance on the tables. I was never going to be the person who could shout the loudest in a room. And I think growing up, it was the louder voices got the things they wanted. And, you know, so often I got overlooked for things or not picked as we talked before, you know, and then I came across basically my director in the UK when I was working at marketing, who ended up being my manager. And she was like this softly spoken Irish woman who literally just, we wouldn't notice. Yeah. Right. And she wasn't a big, bold character. And yet she was the head of the whole UK and Ireland. She was wildly successful. She was in the press all the time. And when she spoke, everyone leaned in and yet she was almost inaudible. She spoke so quietly and it was just this massive like reframe and huge permission slip of, I don't have to be allowed to make an impact. Yeah. I don't have to be something I'm not. To be an impact. Like she don't care what she looks like. She didn't care. Like she just did it her way. And so that was like a massive moment for me of just recognition that I can do things my own way and still be successful. Yeah. And that's like rewriting the rules. Like that's what it's all about, you know, rewriting the rules of success. It's like, you don't have to be this like hyper masculine, go, go, go extrovert loudest person in the room in order to be really successful. I think that's another beauty of the time that we're in, you know, when we talk about parenting, that's like, that is. And so shifting, I think from here into like more parenting, because one of the things that I love about you the most in terms of rewriting the rules is that you work part-time in your business and then you are with your kids. And I think your kids are probably, they're starting school now, right? So everything kind of, not being quit. No, not too little. How old are they? Two and four. Okay. So when they start school, will you keep like the part-time schedule or do you think you'll, I mean, probably as like a planning day and stuff? Yeah, I haven't really thought that through. I mean, Olivia is obviously a number three years away from that. She's just two at the moment. But yeah, I mean, look, I think I've only ever been part-time in my business. So what does that mean today? That means I have three days a week of childcare. It means at 4.30 PM in the afternoon, I have to wrap up shop because they are at home and they are crying for me and they want dinner and a bath and bed and all the tantrums. So it's very much a part-time capacity. The weekends are out because I'm with them. So I think, you know, sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm going to be a part-time. I'm going to be a part-time. I'm going to be a part-time. It was so good to have like four days, five days, and I'll do all this other stuff. And maybe I will. But I think it's also amazing to know that I'm actually building a business that doesn't require full-time focus and capacity. I'm proving that now. And even later down the track, if I want to do more, I can, but it's very much going to be a choice and it won't be a have to. So sometimes I've been like, really like, oh, you know, I wish I'd started this earlier, or I wish I had more time, or I wish I had more, whatever. And other times I'm like, no, I'm building the exact kind of model. That is actually going to support the future vision of what it's all supposed to be about. Like the freedom, the flexibility, how I spend my time. There's no, oh my gosh, there's nothing more valuable to me than choosing how I spend my time. That's what it's all been for. It's what it's all about. I started this business for a family I didn't even have at the time so that I could be there for the moments that matter. I love that. And in the last podcast episode that I did, I was talking about hitting income milestones and what it meant in the context of how they were hit. Right. How this was born, like my business was born out of necessity, you know, was born out of people telling me for so long that like you could either make money or you could be a mom and really just looking at that paradigm in the eye and just being like, I'm not going to choose either one. I'm going to do this my way and I'm going to have both. And I'm going to be able to be the mom that I want to be and be present and available. And I'm also going to grow business or achieve what I want to achieve. Right. And I just think that that's so magical that we get to do goals. We are in just the most amazing time in the world, I feel. Yeah. For choices, like, and to be able to rewrite the rules. So yeah, I think like I knew in the core, like I only wanted that corporate job. That was like what I wanted from university. Like I'm going to get an amazing job. And I literally did. I landed my dream job. I had a view of the mountains in Switzerland when I first started. I was working on multi-million dollar major campaigns. I was like tick, you know. And then I was miserable not long after that. And it was this real sense of, I know I'm meant for something. I'm meant for something more. And I think that's what it means for me to rewrite the rules is just how can I make things work on my own terms? Like, I know there's more out there for me. And it's scary when we don't always know what that means. And it's really scary when we don't know how exactly to make it happen. Yeah. But it's really about committing to your cause. And as I said before, where your core philosophy doesn't really shift, your cause doesn't either. The messaging, the specific offers, what you're launching at any given moment, that's going to change constantly, potentially. Yes. But, you know, I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to commit to the cause. So what's that unshakable beliefs and what you are truly here to do and what, you know, you're meant to share with the world, with the people that are waiting to hear it and the impact and that ripple effect that you're literally destined for. When we stay true to that, then we will always figure out the other pieces. Yeah. It's like sometimes I'll watch lives that I did from way before, even before I was coaching, when I had old stationary business. And I was like, I'm still saying all the same thing. Yes. Like my business looks totally different. The offers are so different. People probably look at me and are like, oh, she's done so many different things since then. But like the core message and the core foundation is still exactly the same. Like the thing that I do better was how to create a career of your design. And now I'm like, yeah, now you're like how to create a career in your own design. You offer. Exactly. Seriously. So I love that. Thank you so much, Holly. It was awesome having you here. You are amazing and just such a good friend. And really, I wanted to start off this podcast by saying that a lot of people that talk about supporting other women and supporting each other. And I think that nobody does it as beautifully as you. And I've known you now for a very long time. And I really, really appreciate that you are the person who is always cheering other people on. And I think that that's such a beautiful thing about you and such a testament to like the kind of person that you are. And it's hard to have people like that level of humility. And I think that's such a testament to like the kind of person that you are. And it's really, really nice. Gosh, Gabby, you literally brought tears to my eyes saying that. Thank you so much. I don't think anyone could say a more beautiful compliment to me. That means the world. Thank you. And I 100% share that back with you. Like, I love our friendship. I hope we 100% get to meet one day and have a cocktail somewhere. Someday, but we're keeping the kids apart. But we don't want this transatlantic romance going on. Oh, thank you so much for joining me. And please let everybody know how they can find you because I'm so excited to be here. And I'm so excited to be here. And I'm so excited to be here. I know that you're going to want to get in your world after this. Absolutely. So I'm on Instagram at Holly McHugh. I also have a free Facebook community called Empowered Entrepreneurs Connect and Inspire. And I also have a really cool five-day sales success challenge, which is just bite-sized 10-minute videos of the strategies that I love to teach direct to your inbox. And that's completely free if you'd like to sign up for that as well. So, so good. So thank you so much for drawing in. I'll put all of that in the show notes too, so that people can find you and get in your world. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1for having me. If you loved this episode, I guarantee you are going to love hanging out with me. So come over to my Facebook group, ready for more, change your thoughts, transform your life, and let's keep this party going.
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