EP 110: The Secret to Sustainable Business Growth: Sales Strategies with Anjel B. Hartwell Transcript

Erin Austin [00:00:02]:

Hello, welcome to this week's episode of Scaling Expertise where we talk to experts who have scaled their expertise and also provide some tips about how you can scale your expertise. So this week I'm so excited for my guest, Anjel B. Hartwell. Welcome, Anjel.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:00:22]:

Thank you so much for having me, Erin.

Erin Austin [00:00:24]:

Well, I asked Anjel before we started what the bee was about and explain to the audience what the bee Anjel be Hartwell.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:00:34]:

I love it.

Erin Austin [00:00:35]:

I love it. It makes, it makes no sense. And, and also we started with an intention before we started, which is really beautiful, something that I've not had another guest do. And so that is something wonderful that Anjel brings to the table as well. But before I get too far, I'm going to Anjel, I'm going to let you fully introduce yourself to the audience.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:00:55]:

All right, beautiful. Well, I'm Anjel B. Hartwell and I am right now I am the executive producer and host of the 14 time award winning, number one internationally ranked downloading in 127 countries wickedly smart Women podcast. And I am also the executive producer and host of the three time award winning, now downloading in 50 countries top 2020 internationally ranked leading visionaries podcast, which is a little younger than Wickedly Smart Women. We're working its way up and I have been in the personal and professional development space for nearly two decades. Before that, I was in the real estate business. And then I ended up having a spiritual awakening and that led me into the personal and professional development space. And I've spent most of those two decades really consulting with thought leaders and change agents from all around the world.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:01:56]:

My clients worldwide have generated in excess of $100 million in revenues and have impacted millions and millions of people. And I really, you know, focus on, in my consultancy, I focus on supporting people to convert their wisdom into wealth so that they can leave a legacy of light.

Erin Austin [00:02:15]:

Oh, I love it with your time talking my language here. And so when we get started, of course, this is the Scaling Expertise podcast where we'll talk about scaling and expertise. So let's talk about yours. And so how would you define your expertise? And why do people like, when do people go, I need to go talk to Anjel?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:02:38]:

Great question. So I bring to the table this beautiful blend of practical strategy. I mean, I spent 20 years in the real estate business. My last project was 51 single family houses, 56 apartments in an office building with two partners while I was the national chairperson of my trade association. So I understand like foundational things. And in any business, there are basic foundational things that need to be in place. Your offer needs to be in place, because business at its core is literally making an offer into the marketplace, having that offer accepted and then having to serve that offer. It's, like, so simple.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:03:18]:

And it becomes complexified by, all of, you know, the. The choices that we have, the abundance of choices that we have about how to put that out into the world. So. So my practical strategies are also married with spiritual technologies because I did have a spiritual awakening in 2001, and that spiritual awakening put me on a path where I discovered all of these latent parts of myself that I didn't even know existed. My artist, you know, emerged, my author, em written or contributed to almost 30 books. My healer emerged, my hands turned on, and I started to be able to heal. And through that whole period, there was this huge transformation that happened in my own life where I went from one life into this other reality that I didn't even know existed. And then at some point, I needed to bring those two together.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:04:19]:

And in bringing those two together, the calling from my spirit was to serve others, to be able to know that they could potentially leave behind their corporate career and start anew and ground themselves not only in the skills that they've acquired over the years, but in the experiences that they have acquired. Because expertise is not just, you know, I'm skilled at, you know, churning out a widget. I can churn out 27,000 widgets today. Right? That's. That's a skill. But expertise, I think, is this beautiful blend of your skills and your experiences. And so my work really became about helping people to. To be able to do that and to do it in a way that was creating a major impact in the world where they could come back into their industry maybe and bring innovation and bring conscious change, or they could skip over to another industry, bringing all of the gifts and the expertise from their experience in one industry and, you know, laterally moving into another industry and making a big impact and big income as well.

Erin Austin [00:05:38]:

When they want to make an impact and you use terms like being conscious, like, are people, you know, feeling frustrated in their prior roles, where they feel like it is just kind of very transactional and not about, you know, thinking about the impact that they're making on the world. And they. That's part of why they come to you, is that they feel frustrated in kind of how the world is set up these days.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:06:05]:

Well, certainly some people are frustrated. They're. Wherever my people meet me, they're usually at a transition point, right? So they either have been frustrated with what they're experiencing, or they've kind of gone through the frustration, and now they're in the vision stage where they're like, oh, I don't need to be in this frustration anymore. And I have this calling, I have this vision. So I'll give you a couple of examples of people that I've worked with. I had one woman who came to me and she was, you know, she was really already investing heavily in her vision. Right. She was, she was called.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:06:45]:

She had. She herself had been in the real estate business. And she was called to start helping people with relationships. And so here's where expertise is interesting, because expertise doesn't necessarily have to be something that you've been paid to do in the past. Right. And so in her case, she hadn't been paid to do relationships in the past, but she was strongly called to serve and to support people to improve their relationships. And so she had left behind real estate. She started a podcast.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:07:16]:

She had invested about $200,000 in her branding. It was beautiful. And she was spending, you know, her brand, I mean, not just her branding. Like, she had all of the. The bits and pieces set up to make it look good on the outside. And she was spending $2,000 a month to get booked on podcasts. And we met through an app called Clubhouse a few years ago. Yeah.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:07:43]:

And she ended up investing to work with me because she was incredibly. She was frustrated that her business wasn't making any money. And when she invested to work with me, she invested 50 grand to work with me. And the reason why was because she didn't have an offer. And so what I was able to do was help her to craft a five figure payday offer that was aligned with her intention and her calling to serve people with relationships. One of the things I had her do was put her podcast on hold and stop spending $2,000 a month for getting booked on, on other podcasts and so forth. And within 75 days, she had her first $10,000 client. Within 100 days, she had a $12,000 client.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:08:28]:

Within six months, she had a $40,000 month to take and monetize in ways that she had never monetized before. And by the end of, you know, maybe nine months, she cracked six figures. So the investment that she made with me, she doubled that back. And, you know, now has this beautiful offer. And it is structured in a way that is unique to her. So it's her signature body of work.

Erin Austin [00:09:00]:

Yeah, I think it is deceptively difficult to come up with the right offer. I mean, I Think, you know, a lot of us start billing by the hour, so we actually don't just, what do you need done? I know how to do that. I can do that and pay me what I rate for it. But when we do want to kind of get to the next level and we need to structure an offer, the thing that your, your client ran into, why is it so hard for people kind of to make that leap?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:09:29]:

Well, there's a lot of different reasons, Erin. One, some people are still very, very much trapped in the dollars for hours. You mentioned that. Very trapped in that some people are not aware of, that they can transfer value from one place to another. And so I'll give you another example of another client who came to me a few years ago. She had owned and operated. She had actually bought. Owned and operated a $48 million construction company.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:10:08]:

And she bought that 48 million dollar construction company with no money of her own. So this is a brilliant woman. Right. She has got her act together. And when she came to me, she had, had. Had sold that company, had had another company for a little while where she was raising llamas. You know, she just was following her passion.

Erin Austin [00:10:30]:

Yes.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:10:30]:

And then when she came to me, she had like landed in the space where she wanted to begin coaching with people around consciousness, interestingly enough. And so she invested probably about 60,000 to work with me. And she had already again invested with all these other kind of programs, these bigger programs. I'm much more of a bespoke, boutique style consultancy. So she had invested like $20,000 in this program that she went to Puerto Rico for three days and got like literally nothing out of it. And, and the coaches, like the, the big name person had a level of coaches that were part of that big name person's, you know, business model. And the coach was telling her that she needed to get 10 clients at $200 an hour or $200 a session. $200 a session.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:11:28]:

And as soon as I started working with her, I was like, are you out of your fricking mind? You phoned a $48 million company. The reason why you're not getting any clients is because the universe cannot support you spending one second of your time trying to acquire ten $200 a session clients. It's. It's just not even congruent at all, at all. And so we worked together to flesh out her signature body of work. And within months, she had a $12,000 client and stopped frustrating herself with trying to get $200 clients. You know, she. Because it was Just so incongruent.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:12:08]:

So that's how I help people. So, yes, they do come to me frustrated in a certain way. Yes.

Erin Austin [00:12:15]:

So you've mentioned body of work a couple times with the two different clients. Also, you refer to highly monetizable frameworks. You know, obviously, I'm an intellectual property lawyer, and I like to talk about, you know, creating assets so we have something to sell other than our time. Tell me how you look at the terms body of work, monetizable frameworks. Do you. Sometimes I feel like intellectual property is like, I don't want to use that word because it starts to send people in a kind of a direction. Like, how do you look at all that?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:12:48]:

I love ip. Okay? I came from the real estate business, so. So let me just preface how I look at it by saying how much I love ip, because when I got into the. And how much I understand ip, when I got into the podcasting space, originally, my first podcast was after I had gone through a cycle in my own life in business, where I had had kind of like a life rupture. I had been working primarily with women for the first 10 years, selling, you know, 10, 10,000, 12,000, $50,000 packages to these women, mostly helping them feel great, speaking and powerful, asking for money. And then I had a life rupture of the. We're not going to get into the depths of that story today, but let's just suffice it to say everything fell apart. I put that business in the fire, and out of that, I got the calling to start working with men, executive men for a window of time.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:13:49]:

And so that's when I got into podcasting. So I started my first podcast. It was called Men on Purpose. And I, within four months, had my first $50,000 client from that podcast. About a year in, I decided to start Wickedly Smart Women, which I mentioned in my opening. And about three months into running both of them, I realized at that time I was just, I had overextended myself. And I also felt complete with the Men on Purpose podcast. And so I decided to put it on hiatus.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:14:24]:

Three months after that, the show was still running because I had episodes in the bank. Three months after that, though, was right before, right literally, when Corona shut everything down. I was at this event and there was a guy who was part of the panel that I was on, and we had a mastermind after the event, and he was saying, I just want. I just want to serve men. I, I, he had his own. He was a host of a podcast, but he didn't own it. Right. He was.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:14:53]:

He was a paid host. And I want to have my own thing. I just want to serve men. I just want to help them to be on purpose. And the idea came into my mind, gee, I wonder if he'd be interested in buying my purpose podcast. So I was actually the very first that I know of podcaster to sell my podcast. And so intellectual Property and I are friends.

Erin Austin [00:15:17]:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to dig into your history with podcasting just because I find it interesting. I've been podcasting for three years, I think, but you obviously kind of predate this era where there's a, you know, million, you know, kind of third parties will help you get it done and help you get it distributed. Like, how did you get started? Like, what did you need to know then in order to get into podcasting?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:15:44]:

Well, so how I got started with podcasting was I just kind of told you the story of that. Where I had. Had spent 10 years, you know, in my business, had this life rupture, and then got the calling to start to serve men. And when I got the calling to start to serve men, the woman that I was working with at the time, who was helping me with the brand building, she was thinking that we ought to do a TV show. And I was thinking, yeah, no, these guys are executives. The people that I was thinking of serving, these guys are executives. They're. They're listeners.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:16:22]:

They're not watch. They're not watching a YouTube.

Erin Austin [00:16:25]:

They're.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:16:25]:

They're driving, you know, they have a driver, maybe. You know what I mean? It's. They're in the back end of a limousine, or they're running in the park, or they're working out at the gym or whatever. And these men want to be listening. They don't want to be watching. They don't want to be tied to something. And so that's what inspired me to start the podcast, the first podcast. So I do want to go back to the question that you asked before, though, which was about, we were talking about intellectual property.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:16:53]:

We were talking about body of work and frameworks, monetizable frameworks. So the body of work piece is really much more comprehensive than the framework. So a framework is kind of like a step by step process or system or blueprint that you can take people through that will give them the. Give them the experience of learning and potentially transforming through the thought leadership that is the body of work. Right. So the body of work is more of like an umbrella thing, whereas the framework is the Process through which people are able to pass in order to absorb that body of work, absorb that thought leadership, and potentially make a life transformation as a result of going through the framework.

Erin Austin [00:17:57]:

Got it. And so most people that come to you, they have that body work, they just don't know how to channel it into a framework.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:18:04]:

Is that sometimes they have the body of work, sometimes it has to be teased out. It's not always. Sometimes they do. Sometimes. I have a current client who's written a New York Times bestselling book. So the body of work is there and even, even potentially the framework is sort of there. And my work with him is really actually being more strategic about how we're going to leverage the body of work and leverage the framework so that he can build a business model that will allow him more freedom, that will, you know, extract him from the process and will allow his body of work and his framework to potentially live on after him. You know, like he's, you know, close to retirement age.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:18:52]:

He wants to pass this on to his son. And so our work together is to, to look at how can we leverage the body of work and the framework that he's already kind of crystallized. Some people come to me and they, they have huge expertise. I've got another client I'm working with right now who's been in the med Spa business for 20 years and she's like off the chain, like top 1% of all Med spot people in the whole planet. And so she's got this vast, vast knowledge of all of the aspects of both the business side as well as the operational side of, of that industry. And she's got a vision to create multiple arms for her expression of, of her thought leadership. Right. And so we are spending a lot of time, you know, frameworking and preparing her offers and getting her out into the market so that she can monetize and she can, you know, she has, her offers are half million dollar offers to start.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:20:00]:

Right. So she's transferring from being a full time operating kind of person at the top of her industry into now becoming a thought leader who is influencing the industry. Make sense?

Erin Austin [00:20:14]:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you do remind me, you know, certainly that the client right before that who wanted to have something that he could leave a legacy and have his son. And I do hear about golden, I think they called golden handcuffs, where you have this fantastic business and income or revenue, but it all depends on you being the genius in the room. And how do you ever retire or leave it to a family member or excel it if you are required to be the genius in the room and so that people come to you with those questions.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:20:52]:

Correct? Correct. Yeah. And in fact I'm applying that in my own business. So just like. And, and this is where we get into intellectual property and the value of intellectual property and building the assets so that the asset has value on its own without you. So one of the things I've done with Wickedly Smart Podcast because I know I could sell weekly Smart Women tomorrow to the right person for the right dollar amount, right. Somebody would happily take a 14 time award winning podcast and, and grow it, right? Take it to its next level. So one of the things that I've done with Wickedly Smart Women is I created a book franchise out of Wickedly Smart Women.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:21:32]:

So we had our first book, it was a 17 CO authors, it was five time award winning number one new release in six categories, 34 different distinctions. So we made this book Wickedly Smart Women Trusting Intuition Taking Action, Transforming Worlds. And I can see a volume two, volume three, volume four, volume five, volume six. You know, like Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's a book franchise, right. But it's connected to this brand, Wickedly Smart Women. And it doesn't need to have me, right? It doesn't need to have me. Now Wickedly Smart Women is standing on its own.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:22:06]:

The other thing I've just recently done and we're just now opening enrollment for is I've created a framework, a body of work called the Wickedly Smart Women Smart Start Intensive which is in designed and intended to help people women, Wickedly Smart women who are in corporate or maybe the government, you know, high level, high achieving government or corporate women who, who are ready to leave their corporate gigs and start their own consulting business. And so the Smart Start Intensive, you know, lays out the strategy for them to do that. And so now I'm, you know, we're gearing that up to start enrolling in that and now that's, you know, a monetizing asset that once it's, you know, right now I'm going to have my hands on, right. But once it's up and really rolling, it doesn't need to have me. Right?

Erin Austin [00:23:02]:

Right.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:23:02]:

Right. Yeah.

Erin Austin [00:23:04]:

And so when you have scaled, when you have, you know, it's not just Anjel and you have team and how have you thought about making sure that the value and that high touch feeling is stays even though it's not always you and that you're using a team?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:23:23]:

Well, so the most important thing is when people are paying you that they're Getting. They're getting their value, right? And so the main focus is on the client is always on the client, whether it was doing the book or whether it's, you know, the Smart Start Intensive or whether it's doing consulting. With me personally, the main focus is on client satisfaction. If the clients aren't satisfied, you don't have a business. Right? And so, you know, we strive to make sure that our clients are being well served. And if they're not, then that team member needs to be given some support and empowerment to be able to focus in that direction. And my job as the CEO and the founder is to maintain that, you know, vision from. For all of what I've got going on, Right? Because I'm building leading visionaries off on the side over here too, right? So for me to maintain the vision of the satisfaction of the people who are actually providing money to make this whole engine run, right? In exchange for what we can offer to them, that's the top priority.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:24:34]:

And then every other team member is in service to that larger vision of making an impact, making an income, and making sure that we have a high level of client satisfaction. And then things sell themselves. Right? You know, Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich is long dead, but Think and Grow Rich is still creating impact, and it still has an organization around it, a corporate organization or a business organization around it that is perpetuating the mindset, the value set, the intent of the original author of that book. And so, you know, as creators, our intent is very powerful. Our intent can actually carry, you know, past our lifetimes.

Erin Austin [00:25:27]:

I think about what you do because you said you had a calling, and when you work with, you know, team members, are you looking for people who also, like, is it just, again, their skills or their whole expertise or, like, how do you look at that?

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:25:43]:

Well, team is one area where I'm still, you know, it's my growth edge. Team is my growth edge. And I've had quite a number of different team members who were all served their purpose in the way that they serve their purpose through the course of time that we work together, I am becoming clearer on my own communication into life about what I'm looking for with team. And in order for me to do that, I had to get clearer within myself, right? And so just articulating what I'm articulating with you right here, right now gives me even more clarity. Every time I speak, I get more clarity. You know what I mean? Every time somebody asked me a question like this, like, oh, yes, this is the direction we're going. And so as the visionary, as the leader, as the founder of any organization, our job really is to be, you know, really clear on what our vision is. Really working to articulate that vision as clearly as possible, both out into the world and internally into our business.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:26:54]:

And then at the third level, like really being willing to reflect and to review and to, you know, assess how things are going. And if they're not going the way that our vision and our intention and our communication is intended to make them go, then we need to revise. So, you know, it's like those three things. We're the voice and face of the brand. I'm the voice and face of the brand right now. Right. Of all of my brands right now. But ultimately, when you're working with a brand and with intellectual property, the real goal is to get the brand and intellectual property to be its own voice, which we've already talked about.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:27:40]:

And then from there, you know, obviously you need to ensure that there are structures in place and expectations in place and boundaries in place that say this is what we stand for, this is where we're going. This is what we expect our team members to show up like. And in my case, my team members, the more that they feel called, the better off we are, you know. Right. It's not just a, you know, again, coming in and just doing the task, transactional kind of thing. And at first, I'll admit it, at first in my business I just was like, so. Because visionaries can often be, have this vast vision, I was so like, I got to get this out there. I was so called that I didn't necessarily treat my team members in, in a culture building way.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:28:40]:

And you know, there were results from that that I had to look at and address in myself.

Erin Austin [00:28:47]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another area that is deceptively difficult, building a team. And it doesn't mean that we don't like them, they aren't good people. But it doesn't, isn't always the right fit. And, and, and it can be us too. Not, not setting those boundaries and those expectations. Absolutely. So what would be one tip, like high level tip? Maybe it's a starter tip other than, you know, signing up for your start smart.

Erin Austin [00:29:18]:

But one tip for someone who is struggling with articulating their vision, like what something that they could do.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:29:27]:

Right. Well, first you actually have to believe, you know, that's the first step and I'm just going to take it right out of my be heard by millions solution book. Right. I have a book Be hurt by millions And Live youe Destiny. And the first step is to believe, right? A lot of times we might get a calling and our own self doubt is what sabotages the whole thing. So really strengthening your belief in your vision. And the stronger you can make your belief, the more energized you are, which is the second step in my be heard by millions solution. Because your belief and your energy, those two things are, are the things that you have the most control over.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:30:17]:

You absolutely have the most control over how strongly you believe in something that you're seeing and you're guided to do and how much energy you're willing. Are you all in or are you half assing it? If you're half assing it, it's going to show and you're not going to make the money and you know eventually it's going to fall away. So you've got to be really super devoted to putting your life into it. This is my. I'm putting my life into this, right? You're putting your life into this, right. And so at the when we're facing the eternal dirt nap, are we going to look back and say we gave it our all or are going to say, oh yeah, I kind of half assed that. So we want to believe, we want to be energized and then we absolutely want to have a clear message. And that's step three in my be heard by millions solutions.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:31:04]:

So I do have a gift for the audience. My book. Yeah, you can have my book which has all of these steps. There's actually seven steps in the be heard by millions and live your destiny solution. And you can get that at beheard by millions.com. it's the whole book, it's in PDF form, so fantastic.

Erin Austin [00:31:22]:

We will absolutely make sure that is linked in the show notes. This has been a fabulous conversation. Thank you so much, Anjel, very much appreciate your time and sharing your wisdom. And I know that the audience got a lot out of today's episode.

Anjel B. Hartwell [00:31:38]:

Thank you so much for having me, Erin.

Erin Austin [00:31:40]:

Thank you.