Amber McCue Talks How to Clone Yourself and Multiply Your Business Results

0:10
Hello, hello everyone. I’m your host Karen Yankovich. And this is the good girls get rich podcast and I am so excited for the guests we have with us today Mr. McHugh, Amber and I have known each other a long time. We actually met in person, I think one time, but I don’t think more than one time. I don’t know maybe Amber has a better memory than me. But let me tell you a little bit about Amber because you guys are gonna love her. Amber was a single mom at the age of 18 to running three companies that allow her to work from anywhere with her family, from Ethiopia to Chicago to Cote d’Ivoire, to California. Amber has a background in corporate consulting and studied in the Johns Hopkins organization development MBA program, which lends well to the strategic consulting she does with modern CEOs at Amber mchugh.com and the how to clone yourself experience for entrepreneurs, putting all things how to clone yourself to work, Amber’s grew her first business from a side hustle to a multimillion dollar company that operated in more than 26 cities across the US. She purchased her first company and online education company and 2022. And whenever is not working with her clients, she’s enjoying time with her family and friends on an adventure. So Amber, I’m so happy to be doing this with you.

1:17
Oh my gosh, it’s so great to be here with you again. And I think you’re right. I think we did only meet one time. But the time I remember is we were meeting up in Philly. Amy Scott Jessica. Yeah, a small group.

1:29
And Jess was pregnant and her kids now you know, I college maybe no, but like in, at least in grammar school, right.

1:36
The 1112 Maybe? Yeah, it

1:39
was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. So we’ve been at this online business stuff for a while. Oh, my gosh, it’s incredible.

1:44
It’s incredible to see what you have done. And then to like just have memories come up and think about how much we’ve been through. Exactly.

1:53
And how much has changed. I would love to talk a little bit about that. Just how much has changed since since this whole? Or since I started in this whole shebang. But I feel like I was an early adopter of a lot of this stuff, as were you. But tell everybody, where are you currently? Are? You’ve been all over the world. Where are you today?

2:10
Oh my gosh, today, I’m sitting in the Ivory Coast, Cote d’Ivoire, which is in West Africa, which is we’re just like two hours north of Ghana, which is usually a place people recognize more than Cote d’Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast.

2:25
Awesome web, what brings you there?

2:27
My husband works for he’s in the Foreign Service. So we move and follow his job. And then of course, we designed my businesses so I could work from anywhere. And that was strategic. That was by design. It took a lot of time, but it worked out really well. Yeah,

2:44
that’s fun. That’s awesome. I’m at the Jersey Shore, not quite as exciting as Africa. But hence, the background is not my normal background. It’s kind of the dining room at the beach house, but it works for me. And I love that I can kind of work from anywhere. And so we’ll we’ll see how this internet thing goes. We’re having a little a couple little glitches to get started. But hopefully we’ll we’ll get through this and it will all be good. I love so many things about what you do, and the how to clone yourself. But I guess what I want to hear a little bit about because I don’t know anything about this is you purchased a company last year or two years ago. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah,

3:22
absolutely. This was interesting situation, a former client of mine, who is also a Foreign Service family member, wanted to sell her business and the business is teaching us history to children who are in international schools with their foreign service parents. And they’re not getting US history in those international schools. They’re getting a great education, you know, otherwise, right? Teaching Strategies and cool stuff is happening. But they’re missing out on like, core elements of US history. So we teach kids in grades K through eight US history all online. So it’s a model I really understand. I really know because of my businesses and growing my own business, but it’s with kids. It’s so fun. That’s awesome.

4:10
That’s amazing. Well, why don’t you take us back to when we first met, it’ll take us back a few years to, to what you what started you in online business. And I know, I know for you and it is the same for me. You know, a lot of what I do is so that I can fit it around raising my kids. And now in my case, raising my grandkids and I basically, so I wasn’t a single mom at 18 But I was I was a mom at 20 You know and a single mom not too far after that. So So you know there’s, it’s it is a kind of a unique perspective to always have had to be responsible to keep the roof over your head and somebody else’s head right. So I feel like as I’ve gone through the years of meeting so many people in the online business world, I’ve always had the need to make it a real business. Right. I’ve always had the need to make it a real business it needed to always have income coming in. Right?

5:02
The income situation. It’s interesting. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because now, I finally for the first time in, really all of my adult life and settling into this idea of oh, it’s we’re in a joint partnership. I mean, I’ve been married for a long while. But right coming up and having to grow and build a business while having to maintain and think about, Okay, I gotta make sure we are taken care of. There’s a lot a mindset that comes up there and a lot that is really ingrained. So now I’m like, Oh, okay. Yeah, like now I’m just starting to feel that relief. And, you know, I money mindsets pretty strong. And we as business owners always know how we can figure out a way to make money, but it’s still tucked back there in my subconscious. And just now I’m on entangling it like my oldest daughter is 25 years old. So 25 years later, I’m like, Oh, okay. We’re doing it. Right.

5:59
Exactly. Your money mindset. I love that your money mindset strong. And, you know, as there’s, I wish I could tell you that I never had fantasies in all those years of a paycheck. You know, like, oh, it’s Friday, there’s money in my bank, right? Like, there’s definitely been years where I was like, oh, gosh, remember paychecks? You know, like, so because it is a very different, it’s a very different thing. But one of the things you said, I think is really important, is that kind of like we always know how to make money, which is important in this, I think, in this current business climate. Yeah, no, people are getting laid off. And they’ve never had to make their own money. They’ve always had a paycheck in their bank account on Friday. Right. So now, there there may be faced with having to look at alternatives to that.

6:43
Mm hmm. You know, you mentioned that there are roller coasters and you worry. And you wonder, and I think we are in one of those who, like, it has been an interesting ride. I mean, probably starting in 2020. And then I think we just never got off of it. And some of times, it was great. And sometimes it was like, Oh, my gosh, what is happening? And I think, for a lot of people from what I hear from clients from what I’m seeing and experiencing, even personally, right, like, Oh, this is different things feel different, you know, in addition to the business, landscape changing and how we’re connecting with people, and how we’re meeting and how we’re getting introduced and how marketing is happening. I mean, LinkedIn, look at the evolution of LinkedIn over the last 12 years, right? Looking at things like oh, my gosh, I have so much to learn, right? Because we can’t keep up with all of it. This is why we turn to our experts. But man, it’s rapidly changing. Everything’s rapidly changing. And that pace is sometimes can be overwhelming to keep up with,

7:40
which is why we need to learn how to clone ourselves. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Because it is it can be my vision when I when I when I probably not even sure if when we met but but definitely in 2012, I still had a corporate job. And I was running my business. And I had this vision of quitting my job and having all this time and doing yoga every morning. And, you know, like having like lunch dates with my friends, which I eventually, you know, kind of found a way to do but in the beginning, I was still in my pajamas at eight o’clock at night. Like, there was just no way, you know, there was just so much because at that point, now once I gave up the security of the paycheck, and I didn’t realize what I probably have more security now that I had then, which we’ve learned in the last five years, right. But at the time, I didn’t know that. So I was really working pretty freaking hard to kind of catch up or make up. So you know, it’s so interesting, because there’s, there’s the like Bootstrap mindset, but then also that holds you back. Right? So if you if you really want to make a real living out of your venture, your your entrepreneurial ventures, learning how to clone yourself is important. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah,

8:50
and the idea of cloning yourself is so fun. It’s that feeling that man, I wish I had a clone, I wish there was someone who could help with this, I wish I can multiply my efforts multiply my results. And the beautiful thing is that we you know, well, the technology’s not quite there yet. And maybe this is also a good thing and a okay. But we don’t actually want a clone of you. Because you have a zone of genius, you have an expertise. And that works really well. We want someone to offset, right as we’re building businesses, and this goes beyond just the owner. But you may want clones of your team members as you multiply, scale and grow. But it’s someone who fills the gap in the business who does that thing that you don’t want to do or that you procrastinate or that you’re not great at so that we can fill offset our strengths and weaknesses. You know, I sort of think like, the milk to the cookies, the yin to the Yang, the coffee to the doughnuts, yeah, I find that balance so that we can multiply our efforts without us having to do all the things especially those things that we are not great at. And there’s a great stat in the book business brilliant by Louis Schiff. And he compares the difference between those who stay in the middle Last, and those who move to self made millionaire self made, we know millionaire or billionaire status. And those who stay in the middle class, I’ll DIY I’ll DIY, we keep trying to DIY, those who move to self made millionaire billionaire, we will look for someone who can do that thing better than we can nine out of 10 times, we will share the work.

10:21
Right? Right. Right. It’s so true. I remember when I first hired my first VA, I was so nervous about it. And I gotta it was the it was at the time, it was like you didn’t pay upfront, you got to build the end of the month for however many hours use and I was so worried about it. Yeah. And then I’m like, wow, because she could do and so much less time, what I could do, right. So even though I was giving her stuff, it was happening so fast. And I felt like her hourly rate was high. But she was so fast that it didn’t matter. And then I’m like, Alright, let me see like, and then I just started dumping on her and giving her more stuff I didn’t want to do and I don’t think I ever paid her more than $1,000 in a month. You know, and she was, you know, a regular, you know, US based VA, it wasn’t like I was paying somebody, you know, overseas rate it was, but it was so freeing. It was so freeing, because not only does it take free of your To Do lists, it frees up your brain, right? You can sit down at your desk with creativity not oh my gosh, let me bang out this 10 mile long to do list before I can get creative. Yes,

11:19
you are spot on. And the way that you’re getting leverage, right, you are able to share that work. someone’s doing it faster. Yeah, maybe the rates higher, but you’re getting an ROI. And we always want to look for that ROI, of course, and you’re getting the ROI because you’re able to focus on better leveraged activities for your business. Exactly,

11:38
exactly. And it was even even things like I learned, you know, as an entrepreneur, certainly not before that. I learned as an entrepreneur, how even just the things I pay for around my house, contribute to the success of my business, right? Like I want to, you know, a cleaning person or a housekeeper or somebody that you know, whatever. Like all the things that I thought were kind of little luxuries are really not they’re really they allow me to be where I want to be to grow to be successful in my business.

12:07
Yeah, it’s so true. I am so bad dishes are one thing that I’m grateful my husband, they bug him. They do not bug me. I like somebody, I’ll get to him later. He’ll get to them later. Because they drive him bananas. And then laundry is the other thing. Although I impressed myself in COVID I was awesome at laundry. I don’t know what happened in that window. I’m like I’m home. I can, you know things are unwinding. But otherwise laundry is the other thing I’m not so good

12:36
at. Yeah, I have a laundry I like I have a laundry problem. I practically pulling socks off of my family’s feet when I need to do a load of laundry. So my laundry is caught up and I love like just things like you can walk into the kitchen and see that the stove probably needs a cleaning and you’re like, Oh, she’s coming tomorrow we can sit there till tomorrow, like that kind of thing, right frees me up to go back frees up my brain and my time. Right? So what brought you what made you so good at this at this clone yourself stuff? Like what brought you to doing that kind of work? You

13:05
know, it’s funny, I think I naturally developed a knack for this because I was a single mom, I had to juggle a lot, right? You know how it goes, We’re I was in I was in college, I had a single daughter like, Okay, this is a lot to balance and that I was working in college with a daughter. So I naturally sort of came to this, but also incorporate my experience was really well lined up. I worked on talent management, internal operations, at a talent based consulting firm, a people consulting firm, then I went to apply and run operations, and keep things smooth running at a large database marketing company, then I’d stepped into a client facing marketing role. So as I’m stacking all of these things up these skills experience and like, Oh, I know how to we know how to run a business and keep things moving smooth. And I was partnering with leaders to do this. And it was when I started my own business. I was working in the photography business. And I was messaging with a friend, another colleague who was working on her business from another part of the world at the time. And she said, Amber, don’t you ever just wish you could clone yourself? It’s like, oh, my gosh, that’s the only way I am able to do all of the things I was doing. I know how to clone myself. This is something other business owners need to know how to do. So ever since that, I mean, that was 2012. Maybe ever since then we’re always integrating this idea of how can you clone yourself, multiply your results, multiply your profit, multiply, you know your outcomes without you doing more and they’ll so much of that comes through being able to run your business well, because it’s one thing to be able to market and deliver a service once. Okay, I did it. All right. How do we make these things repeatable on repeat that’s when you start to get leverage and scale? Right freedom? Yeah, right.

14:59
Well And then you’ve also developed you’ve also kind of, I’m gonna say morph dip, but maybe it’s completely separate, like kind of morphed it into also this concept of the modern CEO, right? Because it’s so interesting because I have, you know, I born and raised in New Jersey, I still live in New Jersey, so I have a lot of business friends in New Jersey that are premise based businesses, right, or accountants or whatever, right? Things like that. And there’s a difference between people that are comfortable dealing with brick and mortar businesses, and, and online businesses or even just modern businesses, right. And I remember having a business session one time with a colleague of mine, a friend of mine, who is a money person, and we were sitting down with and she was asking me things like, what’s his Ontraport stuff for, like, $300 a month? And I’m like, you know, like, that’s the, that’s it like that. That’s the engine that runs my business. She’s like, well, that’s crazy. And she didn’t get the how important that was. And it’s not that she wasn’t good at that. But she wasn’t a modern, you know, with a focus on modern businesses, right. So I love it. So and a lot of people don’t even realize there is a difference, you know, talking about like business valuations and stuff like that. It’s almost like there’s still two separate mindsets around brick and mortar businesses and virtual businesses. So I love that you’ve, you’re kind of stepping into being a modern CEO, and how you can be profitable all the way to your million dollar business. So how did that how did you morph to that, then from the cloning yourself,

16:26
oh, man, well, the how to clone yourself model as we originally designed, it included systems, team building training, and routine training, oh, and then, like prioritization, like if and all these things I need to do what goes to systems, let’s go to training, and then navigating that time element. And it was looking at that whole engine, like, Oh, we got to streamline everything. So if the modern deal became, these are your running of the business systems, we’ve got your sales systems, we’ve got your client success systems. And yeah, at some point, you’re going to need team. So we rounded out the full sort of modern SEO element. And you’re so spot on, as we think about brick and mortar, like my photography, business, brick and mortar, right, you have to be in person, right? We basically had to go shoot in, but we’re using everything modern to make that work. Because if you don’t, we will get left behind, right. So you’ve got to be able to connect with your clients where they are showing up, right, they’re a laundry service, actually, new laundry service, they’re marketing their services by an app. And you know, you can pull through the app, and you can order services through the app. Now, certainly, when I was getting my laundry picked up and dropped off in Long Beach in 2017, there were there was not an app, I would place a phone call, right. So there are these elements of oh, we have to step forward. And all of those elements, there are a lot of automations, there are a lot of things we can put in place that are going to make even running a brick and mortar business, so much smoother. And then I think in online business, we miss out a lot of like, oh, what brick and mortar brings because being brick and mortar brings that personal connection, which we lose online. So there’s this blending in this merging that some things are better. Some things are like, ooh, arguably not better. But how do we bring them together so that your business runs? Well, you can actually get some of that freedom that you were looking for when you started going down this path, and your clients are still really well taken care of.

18:31
Right? Right. So important. And you know, it’s so it’s so many people, especially now, especially in this, you know, post pandemic world, if that’s what we’re living in now, where people maybe have lost their job, maybe they’re entrepreneurs for the first time. They may be really, really good at what they do. They may be worth $500 an hour as a consultant, but they do not know how to run the business. Right? They do not know, what are you know, good, what’s good debt, what’s not good debt, what’s expenses, what you know, how to get that support, where you can clone yourself, what you you know, what you should do? And, you know, I think it’s even more important now that we understand that, how could you know that like, right, just because you’re really good at teaching yoga? How could you know, if you’re not a successful yoga studio? It’s not because you’re not a great yoga teacher? It’s probably because you haven’t really embraced the business owner mentality. Yes, the CEO mentality.

19:24
Yeah. And we are taught to be great employees, right? Well crank it out productivity. I’m gonna have a mindset of like me coming up early in my career and like, I can get a lot done, like that vision, amazing. leaned over the computer, hands on keyboard typing, typing, getting lots of typing done, and getting a lot of work done. So we’re taught to produce, but when we step into that CEO level, role and owner role and to really get the freedom, you got to stop the high levels of productivity, and you’ve got to shift how you get productivity and think about the future. have that creative time vision create, especially in a changing landscape like this. If you don’t have time, if you’re just producing all the time, on an old way of connecting with clients on an old way of doing things, man, we’re gonna get left be Hi. I mean, if I say we because same thing for me I have to be very strategic and like oh man, landscapes changing landscapes changing, I have to carve out time to think through, how is my customer showing up now? How are they connecting? Now? Is this the right way anymore? It’s the thing I did 10 years ago, still the right thing? Maybe some of it, but probably not all of it. So you really got to have that time to think, or people are going to be going speeding past you, which some people probably have felt an experienced recently, I’m sure because it’s rapid right now. If I read something, technology, you know, rapid advancements used to be made about every 10 years. And then it’s closing to every three years. And I it’s going to the gap, I would imagine in the last year, it’s moved to like every year, there’s a rapid technological advancement that changes how we do everything.

21:12
Yeah, you know, I was thinking as you were talking to, I read something recently, and I really, this is probably the third time I’ve mentioned this in the last two days, so probably need to find this thing that I keep mentioning, but it’s something about that, you know, back in the, you know, the horse and buggy days or whatever, when the when the nine to five, Monday to Friday, the 40 hour workweek came about it, you know, there was not as much there was not as much. There wasn’t as much information coming at us all the time. So it’s so what we’re experiencing now is, it’s not even the hours that we’re putting in, it’s the amount of information that’s coming at us in those hours. And it’s too much like our brains can’t process the amount of information that’s coming at us for 40 hours a week. So it’s, it’s not about being lazy or being or not willing to do the work. It’s about fit, like our brains are not meant to take in this much information and to process through and bang out, you know, like it used to be go on vacation, you come back now you go on vacation, you come back and it takes you to your next vacation to catch up on your emails. Right, like so that is it’s a new thing. And I think we have to understand that is a thing and learn to adapt to it and learn to modify it so that we can continue to be successful.

22:22
Yeah, I think you’re right, I’ve seen the data on that as well. And it is wild, I wish I had those numbers also off the top of my head. Because yeah, the amount of what we’re taking in is out of control. And when it comes to vacation, we recommend you do a vacation test. So if anyone could relate to what you just said, like I go to vacation, it’s as much work or more to catch up. But boy, I really want to take a vacation. But with the vacation tests, what I invite people to work towards is you or a high performing team member, a key team member that you have should also be able to pass the vacation test in their role. But the goal is that you go on vacation, and you don’t get any phone calls. You don’t get any pings, everything’s kind of taken care of. And then you come back and you do not have to dig out of a month long hole for a one week vacation. That Oh, things are taken care of. I can just ignore Delete. It’s done. So there’s this element because actually sounds

23:23
like everybody that’s listening needs to take modern hit her modern CEO course. So we all know there’s we

23:28
got to redesign something. Yeah. Because I this came up because a team member kept every time she’d come back from vacation. She’s like, Oh, I have to catch up on all of these notifications. Like, what are you talking about? And for her? I was like, Megan, I got a shortlist for you. Everything was fine where you were out because we made sure it wouldn’t be fine. We hand it off. Well, we have things streamlined and systematize. Like I think if you do these two things and hit read on the rest of your notifications, you’ll be fine. Oh, a game changer. Game Changer. That’s because we have the systems and the structure in place. And then it’s mindset is the final frontier. The final step is okay, is it really okay? It’s really okay. Yeah, once you get your

24:09
systems in place. Yeah. So important. So important. Oh my gosh, yeah, it is it is I’ve started taking what I’m calling halftime vacations. Where I’m because I want to be, you know, I mean, obviously I want to be able to be where I want to be, I want to be able to if I go to, let’s say I want to go to Florida for a month. I’m not not working, right. But I also want to have more time. And it’s so interesting, because as I get older, I love what I do. I’m not looking to leave what I do anytime soon, but my friends are also getting older and they’re retiring and they’re saying, what do you do on a Wednesday, Karen, we’re going to Broadway to see a show and I’m like, huh, I got calls all day Wednesday, you know? So even though I love what I do, and I’m not really looking to stop doing what I do, I’m finding that I do want to have times in my year outside of vacation that I want to have, you know, I want to be able to call them like halftime vacation. So I’ve been expelled We’re moving with that a little bit so that if I’m, you know, if I am away, and I, you know, like, we’re, I’m going to California for a couple weeks this summer, and those will probably be half that there’ll be a few true vacations, there’ll be some vacation time. And then there’ll be some, like halftime vacation time so that I, you know, because I, I do want to continue to do the things I do. So it’s just an it’s an interesting issue, I guess, I guess it’s an issue because I can work from anywhere. But that doesn’t mean I want to work from everywhere.

25:25
Exactly. It’s so true, we got to put it down, I feel the same way. I take a good bit of vacation per year. And I can take, I could take my work anywhere. And we we go home, we go back to the states for about six, we’re gonna go back for about six weeks this summer. And I have some college days, but I won’t have big projects, big deadlines, big deliverables. So I don’t have that pressure with me. And you’re right. I don’t want to work everywhere. either. I do love what I do. But I’ve also redesigned my life in a way that I’m like, Oh, I really love my wife. And I want to go on those adventures. And I want to be doing things for family and friends. And I want to be present for my kids when they come home. But it’s still working hours for a little bit in the US. So it’s balancing and redesigning all of these things. But when we get intentional about it, we really Oh, okay, how could this work? Let’s set up framework structures around it. It is possible, it is so possible, and you’re doing it this is a perfect example. I got to redesign some things. So halftime, halftime vacations, more halftime vacations.

26:30
Yeah, so that’s kind of my that’s about it. That’s, that’s something I’ve been experimenting with this year. But, you know, it is important, I think, you know, I’d love to get your idea. I’d love to get your take on this. Because, you know, when we I think we probably met when we both took the school back in like, I don’t know, I took anything like 2012 Right. So it’s an online course, all videos, you know, Marie Forleo, shows up for some group calls, but it’s a lot of online course stuff. And over the years, I probably have many gigs worth of online courses in my hard drive somewhere. And I’m kind of over that, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think I think that the landscape is changing, and people want more, one on one support they want, they want you to help them with this, they want to help, which I think is great, you know, help get some get some out, like, let’s sit down and actually figure this out instead of, you know, taking that taking the course and and and knowing how to do it. And with B School, it was mostly like it was really broad, right? You got all this marketing stuff and all this other stuff. I love but there wasn’t a lot of how do you run a business? Right? There wasn’t a lot of how do you run a business. So I love that you’re tackling that. Because I think as we are shifting into whatever it is we’re shifting into, it becomes even more important. The How do you run the business stuff becomes more important, right? So that the business can keep running as you may have to shift? What you’re delivering how you’re delivering things and and who you’re delivering them to.

27:53
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s funny, I got great insights and met great people in B School. And people will say to me, this is the follow up, like the modern CEO is the follow up like that, because it’s a lot of marketing. And there’s a lot of content creation, and it’s gonna get you going. But then you’re running a business.

28:15
What the heck, right?

28:18
And what does it really look like? And what do I do? And how do I spend that time where I’m being visionary. And so we we go through a lot of that. And I think it’s so interesting, I think what I’m seeing Karen, and I’m not sure if this is real, or if this is just what’s coming up in my feeds. I am seeing a tremendous number of like micro courses like micro lessons at lower price points all the way through to the high end. Yeah, like done for you. Let’s just get in and do this. So I’m seeing a wide variety of things. But I do think it’s important that as we’re shifting, and this landscape is shifting, when people need help, we need it now. And waiting, there used to be like a B school enrollment, or when we sort of started walking down this path. It was a lot of like enrollment once a year, twice a year at certain times. I think there’s a definite shift in consumer buying behavior to I need this help now can someone is this it? And I certainly I like I don’t like watching video courses. So I’m the same like that is going to sit on a shelf. And that’s why we deliver all of our training in multiple formats live. And we we take a more consultative approach than we do consulting, because if you’ve had something happen in your business, let’s talk about it. Like I’ve got a framework that I need to modify that for your business because you do business different and you have different goals and you have different right cash flow requirements, etc. There are all sorts of things that we need to look at you work differently. So you’re you can’t take my role description and just plug that in. We need to adapt that. So we go through those customizations with people One of my favorite things in terms of how we deliver the experience is we have something called the hotline, where people can message me video text or audio, anytime. And I will send them a video text or audio back. And it’s private. It’s not in a big group. And I think there’s something there too. Like, I love groups, they can also be distracting. So I sort of go like, ah, keep people like, get sticky and keep people engaged in community or go go to your business. We’re here, we’re here for you. Right? These Right, right, right.

30:35
Oh, my gosh, we’re so aligned, we’re so aligned on that we’re moving more to some of what you just described as well, because I think you’re right, like, even coaching, like we’re even I’m even taking a as I’m saying this, it’s kind of brand new. So if you’re hearing me say this, and you’re interested in this, reach out, and I’ll let you know if I decided to do it or not, but like, even coaching, like, you know, like, once a week, or once a month, or however often we meet, like what happens in between all of that, you know, I know you’ve got access to me, but I think about myself, I think, well, I’ve got a call on Wednesday, it’ll wait till Wednesday, but it doesn’t. And then those calls on Wednesdays are just like, I agree with you, I think there’s a more of a need for and I think also me as a, I don’t consider myself a coach as much as a consultant. But yeah, I think I work better when people hit me with things when they’re happening. So I can help them with it at that moment, instead of trying to recreate it four days later, you know, and, and trying to do it, and I think that it solves it solves the issues and helps people move more quickly forward with their business. And I here’s the thing, like the the things that I’m assuming the modern CEO solves based on what you’re describing, and even some of the things that that that we work on. These are expensive mistakes. And I think that’s a lesson it took me way too long to learn as an online entrepreneur. You know, I remember when I first hired like, a real money person in my business, I was like, it can’t possibly cost more money than I’m spending and interest and fees and all the things you know what I mean? Like, like, it was almost like a wash, while the time it, you know, went by the time that it happened, right? So, so we’re overpaying for things because I didn’t know what I was doing. And I’m really good at math, I can balance a checkbook. That doesn’t mean I know how to run the finances of my business, you know, but understanding that I needed to help get help with some of these things and learn some of these things. They were expensive mistakes that when I thought I had to know this stuff, you know,

32:24
that’s a good point, it is expensive. And once you have this visibility and the lay of the land, even if you don’t know all of it in and out, like you’re still gonna bring in experts for things. But as a business owner, you need to understand how these things are connected, you know what to look for. So you know what questions to ask your experts. So you can start to see, oh, this is how my marketing impacts my cash flow. My financials. And this is the ROI calculation. I mean, yeah, it all pulls together. This is a great point. And it’s pricey. It’s pricey.

32:57
Yeah. And I would rather pay for help than pay for mistakes, I don’t know. But again, these are lessons we all learn, which is why we’re here right? To try to help people from you, we’re gonna make everybody listening is gonna make mistakes, like you’re gonna make mistakes. It’s okay, but learning that it’s okay, and that we can pivot and adapt is really what is, I think, the makings of a successful business owner, which Yeah, we all want to

33:22
there’s another great story out of that book business brilliant that he tells the story of the JetBlue CEO, who there some of you may recall this there was lots of news around it when JetBlue grounded a flight in a snowstorm in I believe New York, I’m not sure which airport. But big snowstorm flight was grounded for a long time and people were not happy. It was not a good situation. Big, big mistake. Were big mistakes were made from a leadership perspective in that situation. And they’re gonna happen no shame. I mean, there’s probably somewhat happy people out there, but from a leaders that like, okay, no shame. And what did the leader do? He’s like, Ah, I’m gonna go run an airline that doesn’t operate in snowstorms. He’s like, I don’t want to deal with this again. So he went, I think to somewhere and worked for an airline in South America. It’s like, we, we’ve got to have people to talk to when we’re making these mistakes. You’ve got to tap in and get connection, and then we’re gonna pivot. There’ll be another strategy another way, but we’re gonna learn through it. But if we can save you some money or save you from some of those mistakes, and accelerate your growth curve. Yes, I am. Yeah, for that. Thank you. Yeah, mind and freedom faster. Yes.

34:37
Yeah, same. So what’s on deck for you what’s happening in the rest of 2024 and beyond?

34:42
Oh, my gosh, we got a couple of things. In late May, early June. We have actually a modern CEO. Free event will be hosting and enrollment for the modern CEO and then in the fall, every fall, Karen we host the annual planning event of the year.

34:58
I have been Part of that have several times I was thinking I was wondering as you were talking, I’m like I want I think you did it last year. I think you’re still doing it. Yeah.

35:05
over 11 years the plan Athan. So the plan is on.com. If anybody wants to get on the waitlist for that, that’ll come in October, because we got to stay way away from the election. That is, usually we host it like that first week of November, late October. But since it’s an election year, we’re gonna adjust a little bit there. And then those are the big things we have Shay, so

35:28
you and me so we can put a link to your your free event with a modern CEO in the show notes, you’ll get me that so I can absolutely put a link to look for it in a show notes. Because you you definitely want to take advantage of any free events that Amber is running,

35:41
she’ll I got you there, we do host some highly interactive, engaging events we try try and personalize, try make it fun, because to our point before, like, Alright, I’ve got to carve out the space for learning. Okay, we gotta we got to stay there, we got to get there. So we try to get you the most bang for your buck and make it engaging.

36:00
I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much. And people can find you at Amber McKee. Is it Mr. mchugh.com? Right. I’ll also put in the show notes. Where do you hang out online? Where do you mostly hang out online? In online?

36:13
You and? And ever wiki.com? Yeah, I gotta get my LinkedIn game where you said,

36:21
I felt you knew somebody that could help you with that. I know.

You know what, at the end of the day, all these other platforms come and go. But you know, one of the things you said earlier that I think is important to maybe kind of wrap this with what you talked about, like, you know, the difference between in person like, like the brick and mortar and the online, a big part of what I’m committed to is helping people understand that LinkedIn as much as it’s considered a social media platform, and I guess it is, it’s really about building human to human relationships and bringing that, that that human, you know, we’re still virtual, right, we’re still doing a lot of the stuff virtually, like, with me, Zoom meetings and things like that. But bringing your real self to those zoom meetings and bringing your real self to your online game. And that is where, you know, if you ask 100 people, where they got their biggest opportunities from 99 of them are going to say from a referral. Right, so So referrals are happening on LinkedIn. So that’s one of the reasons why. And really, I work really hard to help tailor what we do to make it as timeless marketing as possible that you know, like, it’s yes, we’re using, we have these beautiful tools like LinkedIn that can give us all this insight and help us really show up with our brand and in these really positive ways. And lets us utilize all that and remember that we still need to meet people, right. And that’s, that’s really where the the biggest the bigger opportunities land. So yeah, we can let you know what we’re learning, right? We’re learning how to do both. And I think the pandemic taught us that too, right? Like even though we’re not tech, the world’s not virtual, we realized how powerful virtual can be. If you remember that. There’s still humans on the other side of the zoom mic connects to the zoom camera. And

38:05
I think that’s why I hear people talking about LinkedIn and YouTube even more because it’s deeper connection. And you’re there for more time, you know, YouTube hanging out, as well as LinkedIn. And the quick hits stuff. People are realizing, man, this is not doing it. This is not doing it for us on so many levels. Yeah, this is part of one of those evolutions. We were talking about change, man, we are in it. We are in some we are

38:29
we are interesting, and I’m wondering if it is because it’s an election year. You know, if people are just going like, yeah, I don’t know, I gotta figure out. I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. Right I guess we’ll see. But but as we change you know, there’s we can pivot and I’m here for that your Amber’s here for that. So reach out to either of us. We got you. And yeah, thanks so much for being here. Amber,

38:48
you’re incredible. I love catching up with you. Thank you.

38:51
Yeah, let’s catch up when you’re here in the US, or wherever you are. And for those of you that have that are that are listeners, if you love this conversation, make sure you take a quick screenshot of this, share it on your social media tag me tag Amber, we’ll both share it with our audiences. So we can kind of spread the wealth, share the love, rise all the boats, do all the things. And if you’re looking to get some additional support on many different levels, we have shifted a lot of things this year with how we deliver our services. Karen yankovich.com/call get you to our calendar. There’s links below for that too. I’d love to see your name there. And we’ll see you back here again next week. Thanks for being here. Amber. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai