How to Build a Business You Can Actually Sell (or Step Away From) with Maria Fontana

[00:00] Welcome & Introduction
Karen: Welcome back to Good Girls Get Rich: The Conversations! I’m Karen Yankovich, your host — and this is one of our special Conversations episodes, where you get to be part of the show. We go live on LinkedIn so you can jump in, ask questions, and actually be part of the conversation. That’s exactly why I started this format.

After 370-something solo episodes of talking at you, I figured it was time to mix things up. The original show isn’t going anywhere — we’re layering this in so we can dig deeper into topics together, and I get to bring some of my favorite people along for the ride.

Today I have one of my absolute favorite humans with me — my good friend Maria Fontana. Maria is a fellow Jersey girl, a truth-teller, and honestly? The conversations I have with her are so good that I’ve started texting myself notes mid-conversation so I don’t forget anything. I just saw her last weekend and I literally said, “Text me that — I need that exact statement.”

Maria is powerful on Substack right now, and what she focuses on is reinvention, refinement, and getting ready to exit. A lot of our audience is at a stage in life where these topics are incredibly relevant, and I am so excited to have her here. Maria, hey lady — how are you?

Maria: I’m always so happy to see you — live or on Zoom!

[01:49] Meet Maria Fontana: 38 Years of Business, Hair, and Hard-Won Wisdom
Karen: Maria’s background is in hair styling — and I say that with the deepest respect, because I drive an hour and a half for her to do my hair. Not just because she’s incredible at what she does, but because the time we spend together is genuinely some of the best business thinking I get all year. Maria, tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you’re up to these days.

Maria: Thank you so much — I love that introduction. So here’s a little background: I opened my first salon at 19 years old because I could not conform and work for other people. Since then, I’ve owned 11 salons, spas, tanning salons, a cab company, a recycling company, a beauty brand, and a few other businesses.

Right now I have three active companies: a brick-and-mortar organic salon, the Salon Business School — an online academy where I teach hairstylists how to hit their first six figures and beyond — and Maria Fontana Consulting, my advisory firm focused on reinvention, refinement, and exit strategy.

I share all of this because so many people think you can only do one thing, or they’re afraid to own their full identity. I know where I started, but I never knew where I’d end up — and that’s the whole point. It’s all part of the cycle.

[03:48] Real Business vs. “Fake” Online Business — The Money Question
Karen: Maria and I actually met in an online business group a couple of years ago and then discovered we lived near each other. We met for lunch and this friendship was born.

What we really connected on — Jersey Girl to Jersey Girl — was the frustration with the online business world where everyone’s talking about their branding and their website and their Instagram aesthetic… and no one’s talking about the money.

I’m a Reiki master, and I’ll use that as an example: becoming a Reiki master didn’t teach me how to run a Reiki business. It taught me to channel energy. A lot of brilliant people are missing the “how to actually run a business” piece. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve talked to over the last 10 to 15 years who walk me through their whole business — the branding, the website, the social media — and then I ask, “Okay, where’s the money?” And they say, “Oh… that’s the problem.”

That’s so frustrating. If you’re not making money, what are we doing? Maria, what’s your take?

Maria: Because I come from the brick-and-mortar world — rent, overhead, real stakes — when I entered the online world, I genuinely thought, What is this? Are these people serious? That was about 16 years ago when I was getting started online, and at first I doubted myself. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching programs, funnels, all of it. And I did learn things. But I think a lot of quick fame and fast money during that period created a lot of fake businesses. That’s not shade — it’s just the truth.

[07:10] The Power of Simple, Foundational Business Strategy
Karen: Maria and I are both here to help businesses make more money. We’re not here to throw shade at people who are struggling — we want to help you. So what’s your take on what actually works?

Maria: What I came back to was old-school, foundational business strategy. Things like relationship building. I still send handwritten notes to people. Everyone thinks it’s ridiculous, but I close more business with handwritten notes and phone calls than with million-dollar funnels.

I’m not saying funnels don’t have a place. But I think we’ve gotten so skewed that we’ve forgotten what real business looks like. Real business is foundational. It’s about knowing who your client is, knowing what you’re actually selling, knowing what people genuinely need — and then building relationships and closing deals from a place of service, not desperation.

I’m a think tank. I’m a thinking partner. It’s like, “Hey, I have a really great solution for you” — not “I need to sell you something.”

Karen: Yes! And that’s exactly how I work too. The very first thing I do with anyone I work with, at any level, is ask: “What’s your big fat juicy offer?” I’m not inventing something new for you — I’m finding the thing you already do brilliantly and figuring out who will pay you well for it.

If you make the best pens on the planet, I’m not the person to help you sell one pen at a time. But together we can land you a distributor who wants 100,000 of your pens. That applies to every industry.

And I’ll say it: men don’t have a fear of going after bigger business opportunities. They don’t hesitate to build relationships and then ask for the big contracts. Women need to do more of that — so we can create more wealth among the female population of the world.

[09:39] You Don’t Need Permission to Charge Big
Maria: You know me by now, Karen — I always do what people tell me I can’t. I started as a hairstylist. I was damn good. But my inside wanted more. I wrote my first book, and almost no one supported that. What I quickly learned was: you have to be your own cheerleader. You have to make your own rules. You have to celebrate yourself — and then surround yourself with people who are doing, or have already done, what you want to do.

And real business isn’t about having a ladder with a tiny offer at the bottom. It’s about doing whatever works for you and what aligns with your life. There’s no one-size-fits-all business model.

Karen: Exactly. If you’re a young mother, your business model looks one way. If you’re at a different stage of life, it looks another way. How lucky are we that we get to build businesses that support the kind of life we want?

I want everyone listening to understand that you can do the same thing. I’ve had times in my life where I worked a regular job, got a steady paycheck, had benefits. I was a single mom with four kids. Those choices made sense then. But if you’re listening now, know that — especially with LinkedIn and online tools available to you — you can reach the same audience that a Fortune 100 company can reach, without a Fortune 100 budget. That’s extraordinary.

[13:05] Flip the Funnel: Start with the Big Stuff First
Karen: Here’s something I call “flipping the funnel.” Start with the big, high-ticket offer first. Because if you want to build out a funnel later — the low-ticket stuff, the memberships, all of it — you need money to pay the people who are great at building those things. Sales pages, landing pages, upsell sequences — that’s a lot of work.

I love geeking out on this stuff, but I’ve learned to let the experts drive while I steer. I can do that because the high-ticket work funds the build-out of everything else.

And so many people feel like they have to start with the low-ticket stuff — especially if you’re transitioning out of corporate. You’ve never had someone hand you money directly. You feel like you have to earn your way up. That’s BS. You’ve been doing this for 20 or 30 years. We’re just repackaging it.

Maria: Exactly. If you have a solution, and you can do that solution with your eyes closed, you don’t need anyone’s permission. You have a solution. It’s really just about structuring your business correctly so it fits your life and feels aligned — and then putting it out there.

“You have to get over giving a rat’s about what anyone thinks about you. If you want a sustainable business and lifestyle, you have to get online and talk about what you do — because no one’s coming to a party they weren’t invited to.” — Maria Fontana

[16:13] Visibility is the Real Currency for Women Right Now
Karen: More than I’ve ever seen in my decades of doing this, the women who are building wealth right now aren’t necessarily the smartest women in the room. They’re the women the market can see. They’ve created a visibility plan with a clear, consistent core message behind it — not “I’m a jack of all trades, what do you need?” but a focused: Here’s who I am. Here’s what I do. Here’s who I serve.

And I know that feels counterintuitive, because as women we want to be everything for everyone. But when you pick a lane and become the expert in that lane, two things happen: you can charge more, and it’s actually easier.

I remember when I was trying to keep up with Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all of it. Now I focus only on LinkedIn. I’m the expert. I charge premium prices. And premium prices don’t mean overcharging — they mean being such an expert that every dollar someone invests comes back to them tenfold.

Maria: It really comes down to authenticity. I talk to CEOs, senior leaders, and founders all the time who reach a crossroads and say, “I feel like I need to shift. This doesn’t align with me anymore.” It always comes back to the same conversation: be real with yourself, show up honestly, and create a business that aligns with your values, your lifestyle, your mission.

What do you believe in? What does freedom mean to you? For me, it’s having time with my family, the ability to go back and forth to Italy, the ability to keep my brain stimulated. Build around that.

[19:17] What Maria Had to Unlearn to Build the Business She Has Now
Karen: Let’s go there. What did you have to unlearn to get where you are today?

Maria: A few things come to mind.

First, I had to unlearn the need to do everything myself and be a control freak. I had to step into being the CEO — but that means having clear SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures — your step-by-step business playbook) so that things run without you micromanaging everything.

Second, I had to accept that hiring and delegating is a skill, and I was going to make mistakes. In my experience, I go through three or four wrong hires before I get the right person. That’s just part of it. You live and learn.

Third, I had to learn to change with the times. Just because “we’ve always done it this way” doesn’t mean it’s still right. I had a younger hire recently challenge my thinking, and I had to ask myself: What if they’re right and I’m wrong? Sometimes they are.

And the biggest one — a mentor taught me early on: start every business with the exit in mind. I thought that was ridiculous at the time. But if certain things aren’t in order, your business is worth nothing, no matter how much money you make — because it’s not sellable.

[21:25] How to Exit Profitably (Instead of Just Closing the Door)
Karen: Let’s talk about that. Most women close the doors. Most men sell the business. How do we exit profitably instead of just walking away?

Maria: Here are the non-negotiables for a sellable business — the meat and bones of it:

Clean SOPs — Your business has to be able to run without you.
A functioning team — The business cannot be you.
Two years of clean financials — What’s coming in, what’s going out, clear and simple. No mumbo jumbo anywhere.

And “exiting” doesn’t just mean selling outright. There are so many options:

Sell outright
Stay on as a consultant — I did this with one of my practices. I sold it and then they paid me to coach and support them for a year as part of the deal.
Keep equity or profit share — Maybe someone else owns it, but you’re still the CEO and getting a piece.
License your intellectual property — Which is what I do with one of my companies. I sell corporate licenses to access my methodology.

“Your intellectual property — what comes out of your brain and your intuition — that’s your methodology and your magic. And it’s all packageable and sellable.” — Maria Fontana

I’m currently working with a client who has a large medi spa she wants to sell in about 18 months. The first thing we’re doing? Building her SOPs. Because the backend is a mess, and no one can buy what they can’t understand.

Karen: I love the mindset shift of thinking of your business as an asset in your life — not just something that pays some bills and keeps people employed, but an actual line item in your portfolio. That’s a small mental shift with enormous financial consequences.

[25:31] Packaging Your IP and Structuring for Scale
Maria: Here’s another angle — your intellectual property. Everything that comes out of your brain and your experience becomes your methodology. And that methodology is licensable. I sell corporate licenses for access to my frameworks. That’s ongoing, recurring revenue that isn’t tied to your time.

Karen: That’s incredible. And this is why I love Maria — she’s always thinking about the next layer.

Maria: And that’s the core of what I do: reinvention, refinement, then exit. But here’s the thing — “exit” doesn’t always mean stopping. Personally, I know myself well enough to know I’ll always need to keep my brain stimulated. Even if I’m technically retired, I won’t be. I love creating new things and helping people.

[26:31] Karen’s Business Rebrand: Real-Time Reinvention in Action
Karen: Okay, a little behind-the-scenes for everyone. I texted Maria yesterday — “Do you have five minutes? I need to run something by you.” Because I was having a bit of an existential business moment.

I’ve been looking at everything associated with Karen Yankovich — Good Girls Get Rich, She’s Linked Up, Up Level Media — and it wasn’t clicking together the way I wanted it to. I spent time with ChatGPT asking, “What if there was a parent brand, and Karen was the CEO of that, and each show and offer lived underneath it?”

And suddenly, everything clicked. The official announcement: this podcast will become Good Girls Get Rich, a Linked Up Collective Podcast. Nothing changes in terms of what I deliver — but the structure finally makes sense, and it sets me up to build something that can eventually run without me in every single seat.

The reason that matters? Because real life happens. Yesterday, mid-content-creation, I got a call from my mom. She needed a ride home from the nail salon. I dropped everything and went. That’s going to keep happening as our parents get older. I need a business that can run without me — even if it usually doesn’t.

Maria: I was at my mother Francesca’s house this morning from 8 to 11. She just got home from rehab after breaking her hip. We’re helping her shower, get dressed, taking turns. So yes — let’s build businesses that are not bottlenecks. A business that’s entirely dependent on you is beautiful until life happens. And life always happens.

[39:28] Building a Self-Sufficient Business Empire
Maria: This conversation is for the woman who wants to build what I call a self-sufficient, self-led empire — something that is an asset, something you can leverage, sell, consult for, or pass on. There are so many different ways to do it, and none of them are complicated. Remember, I started as Karen’s hairstylist. You can’t be afraid of change. Simplicity wins every single time.

Karen: Yes. For sure. Alright, Maria — what’s next for Maria Fontana and friends?

Maria: Right now I’m refining my businesses, working on a real estate project in Italy — a little Airbnb — and growing my team at the brick and mortar. I’m focused on helping more people reinvent and refine. I only take a few strategic advisory clients per year, so if you’d like to have a conversation, head to mariafontana.com and apply for a call. We’ll chat.

Karen: You absolutely want to do that. And if you know a hairstylist who’s struggling, send them to SalonBusinessSchool.com.

If you’re listening live, join us every Wednesday at noon Eastern on LinkedIn. If you’re on the podcast feed — this episode goes up about a week and a half after the live recording — please share it, tag me and Maria, and let’s keep this conversation going. When you share it, your audience gets to see you too — and that visibility? That’s the whole point.

Rate us, review us, and I’ll see you next week. Bye, everyone!

Maria: Thank you, Karen. Support each other and follow us on social. Thank you!