Hey guys, what’s up? I am bringing to you one of my very newest students. So she’s only been working with me for like six weeks. She’s only been in business for about 12 to 18 months. I can’t remember what she said. 12, somewhere between a year and a year and a half. 

She is the CEO and the founder of Cincinnati Breastfeeding Center. So she’s an IBCLC. She’s a lactation consultant. She’s an advocate for breastfeeding moms everywhere. Right now she is fully brick and mortar, but she does plan to bring her business online. 

So she just started working with me six weeks ago, and she had her highest month yet in the last four weeks. She had her first $10,000 month, which is freaking huge. What an amazing milestone. Huge congrats to you. So I want to introduce you guys to Vitalia. She’s going to sit here and chat with me a little bit about what has gone on in her business, what have been the biggest helpful strategies that she’s used to grow this company, and we’re going to talk a little bit about how she feels being inside of my world and inside of The Circle. 

Before we get started guys, the future is freaking memberships. I want to talk to you a little bit about memberships. So I personally have a membership to my dentist. I have a membership to my dog groomer. I have a membership with the people that come and clean my windows. Like I paid them one time. They come every six weeks, right. I’ve got a membership with the mosquito sprayers. I have a membership with my tree trimmers. This is true life. I have so many trees that I have a tree trimmer that’s on a membership. 

I have a membership to get facials, to get my nails done, to get pedicures. I have a membership with my house cleaner. I am on memberships all over the place because memberships are the freaking best for the consumers that are already in. They know they’re loyal. They don’t want to continue to call you and be on your books. They just want you to show up their house and wash their windows. They just want you to show up at their house and do their trees. 

So if you are thinking about having a membership for your business, and guys memberships are successful in every single industry. If you are in the service based industry and you don’t have a membership, I want you to start thinking about it because memberships changed my freaking life. I literally, literally like quadrupled my monthly sales in coaching just by going from handful programs to memberships. All right. 

So if you want to explode your recurring income, and if you want to give your clients the gift of signing up only once for months or years of continual service with you, making your cash payments higher and higher, then you’re going to want to learn how to build a membership. You’re going to want to learn what it looks like, you’re going to want to learn how other people do it, the strategy behind it, exactly how to launch it. If you want to never see a low month again just because your clients are on vacation or on holiday, then you’re going to want to learn a memberships. 

All right, so we’re dropping this class on May 13. Again, you can have the recordings if you miss it or if you’re listening to this after May 13, and you still want to buy it. Only $333. May 13, Memberships That Bank. All you got to do is go over to my Instagram @1beccapike, or you can email us contact@hellyescoaching online.com, and we can get to that link for you. This is episode number 156. I am your host, Becca Pike, and it is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go. 

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Becca: Hi, Vitalia. I’m so happy to have you on. How are you doing?

Vitalia: Good. I’m super excited to be here.

Becca: Good. Can you tell us what you do? What kind of business do you own? What do you do?

Vitalia: I am a nurse and international board certified lactation consultant, and I have my own private practice in the Greater Cincinnati area where I serve moms from birth to about one year old.

Becca: That’s awesome. So how long have you been in business?

Vitalia: It is a little bit over a year. So about a year and about three or four months.

Becca: So you’re pretty new.

Vitalia: I am.

Becca: In the most uncensored, off the cuff way, how has business been for you for the last year?

Vitalia: It’s ebbed and flowed a town. So, I kind of started with not really knowing what I was doing, just kind of ran with it, did a ton of like getting myself out there and introducing myself. Things were really slow in the beginning. I would say starting in January, things have really gotten busy. Things have been much more predictable, but definitely not easy.

Becca: Yeah. What do you think changed? Like what happened in January?

Vitalia: I think it was kind of a couple of different things. I like had started setting myself up over a year. It’s really been two years since I started like networking in the community and just talking with other professionals that I knew I’d get referrals from. Then I invested an SEO team to help me with my website. I think that had a huge impact on things.

Then January was about one year of business, I started getting referrals from other moms at that point too. So everything just kind of started to line up. Then come January, February, I knew I needed to change something. I was like I need something to take me to the next level. That’s where I kind of started looking more into hiring a coach.

Becca: I love that. In case I haven’t mentioned this in the intro, Vitalia is part of my world as well. You came in just a few months ago, right? 

Vitalia: Yeah, it’s been like a month and a half.

Becca: A month and a half, six weeks in. So brand new. I’ve got her on the podcast in front of thousands of people. I’m so sorry, and you’re welcome at the same time. I want to rewind just a little bit because you said something very nonchalantly, but I think that we need to highlight on it, which is a lot of times, especially now because business is going online so much that I believe a lot of business owners have forgotten the art or ignore the art of like voice to voice communication going around. 

You said that you go around and you talk and you network with other practitioners. Is that correct? What does that look like for you in your industry?

Vitalia: So, in my industry that looked like reaching out to doulas. So I would set up coffee dates and just reach out to as many as I could to get in front of them, get them to know me and trust me. I would meet with chiropractors and other body workers that kind of helped the breastfeeding mom. [inaudible] is how we call them. 

Really having that connection so that they knew there was someone else in the area that they could refer moms to if it was out of their skill set. That first year, that looked like spending more time having coffee than seeing moms. 

Becca: Yeah, I would agree with that I talk often about how much effort I put into just sitting down with business owners. Not in the very beginning of my business coaching, it wasn’t to pitch them. It wasn’t even, it was just purely to build connection. I spent hundreds of hours that year, that first year, just sitting down with business owners and getting to know them in the community. 

I don’t know. I just didn’t think, I just didn’t even consider not doing it. Like if I wanted to be a business coach, I needed to know a lot of business owners. That year of networking changed the entire trajectory of my life. It’s something that I’m often trying to bring into the eyes and the ears of my clients, which is just like get out and talk to people. It’s so easy to hide behind social media or email, but then expect your social media or your email to blow up and get you 100% of your leads when you’re missing this huge other piece of the pie.

Vitalia: It’s so true. I didn’t even consider like using social media at the beginning to grow my business. I was like that will come down the road. But I was like I need to like meet people that are in the community first. I will say that messaging people on Instagram was the best way to get a hold of them versus email or calling them. But I never like intended on using Instagram to grow the business in the beginning when I was brand new.

Becca: Now how does Instagram play into your business bow? Because you do have a bigger following correct? 

Vitalia: It actually doesn’t play a big role at all, which is something I’m hoping to change. So I have a big following. I have a lot of like education out there. But I would say I get, I’ve had maybe a couple of clients come from Instagram. Most of them will come through other avenues. 

Becca: Yeah. How many followers do you have?

Vitalia: 18,000 and change. 

Becca: That’s awesome. I love that. So okay, so right now your business is almost completely face to face, brick and mortar, correct. 

Vitalia: 100%. 

Becca: But you are wanting to transition to a little bit online. What would that look like?

Vitalia: I want to, I think, either have like a mentorship or a course that allows me to reach more than the Cincinnati area. So my Instagram definitely is not a local following. It’s more US based. I have some like international followers, but mostly U.S. Be able to have that education and resources for moms to access whenever they need them instead of having to wait for like a one on one consult since my one on one slots are like filled up.

Becca: Yeah, you have no trouble with demand in your brick and mortar. That’s awesome. This is something that I really want people to understand. It sounds like you really get it. But if you have a brick and mortar, Instagram isn’t necessarily the best place to put your effort because they have to. 

I mean unless you’re just targeting Instagram followers that are within driving distance of your brick and mortar. So like if you have a hair salon, a nail salon, a physical therapy, don’t spend all your efforts like blowing up your Instagram because these are going to be people from all over the world, and they’re not going to be able to come into your brick and mortar.

So like number one thing immediately is SEO, which you got on board with. Like you said, SEO was like a game changer. SEO will change your life in the brick and mortar world. But SEO in the online world. I mean, SEO in the online world is okay, but it’s not necessarily that you’re trying to just target people that are in in your community when you have an online company.

So, to me, it’s like the brick and mortar business owners that are bending over backwards to get this massive following. To me, that just feels like you just want to see the numbers. You just want to see the follower account grow. 

But now you’re set up perfectly, because you are going to do this online launch in the next year or so. You’re going to have the online following to support it. You have built that before you even go into it. So the fact that you’re doing SEO, beautiful for your brick and mortar. The fact that you have built your audience on Instagram, beautiful for when you go online. That’s going to be super helpful.

Vitalia: I’m excited. It definitely like, I enjoy Instagram. I have fun with it. I think that’s why it’s grown. But I never in the beginning even intended for it to be a source of revenue. Now I’m like I’m kind of stupid if I don’t leverage it at some point. So it is, it’s going to be an exciting shift.

Becca: Yeah. I love that you said you have fun with it. That is the key. What’s your mindset when you get on there, and when you think about posting?

Vitalia: So most of the time, it’s like I’ll have some consults, and something will come up multiple times. I’m like oh my gosh. Other moms need to know this. Like, I’ll cover something three times in a day. I’m like okay, I need to like share this. So it’s all like spur of the moment. I’m like okay, this needs to change. I’ll just go ahead and post something. I don’t plan content. I don’t like batch it. I’ve tried. I lose the fun in it when I do that. So it’s all organic in the moment education.

Becca: Yes, that is the best. That’s the best. Okay, so where do you see your business in, I don’t know. Let’s say five years from now, you have just been compounding your results, compounding your clients, making really big moves. Where do you see your brick and mortar and online business? Like where are you wanting to take this?

Vitalia: So I see kind of a women’s wellness collective that is able to serve primarily moms in their like childbearing years from breastfeeding to like pelvic floor services and having a nurse practitioner that also is able to see them. So kind of like a one stop support system for women struggling or not struggling with any sort of wellness concerns. I’d like to kind of step out of the practitioner role and more into the training role and be able to help IBCLCs come into private practice instead of me being the one that runs all the visits. 

For Instagram, I’m not really sure where I see it, I go back and forth every day. Some days, I’m like I want to be the source of education. Some days, I’m like I want to be the source of education for other practitioners. So I think we’ll just kind of see what I have the most fun with. Because if it’s a source of stress like in my business, I don’t need it. Stress needs to go.

Becca: Yeah, I’m totally in my era of I’d rather burn everything to the ground than hate my job and my career. I think it’s coming through in my coaching as well, which is like when people come, and they’re stressed. It’s like why are we even doing this? Why are we doing this? The whole point of the business is to grow the business and love our lifestyle and to support our lifestyle. So I love when I attract students that are on the same wavelength.

Vitalia: That’s so relatable because you go into business to love the business and the work you do. So if you’re creating something you don’t love, you’ve got a pivot. Your whole life ends up being your business. Like it’s such a big part of you. 

Becca: Yeah, yeah, I love that. So you just started your business not very long ago. You’re already seeing success. I mean, you’re like waitlisted. You don’t have any problem with the amount of demand that you have. Now we’re working on scaling your business. What do you think has made the biggest improvement? What is a thought or a mindset shift that made the biggest improvement in your business that allowed you to grow where you’re at right now?

Vitalia: Knowing that I don’t have to be like, the solo practitioner, like that doesn’t just have to be the default. I think I went into private practice thinking like I’m just the one that’s going to run this forever and ever. 

Having the mindset shift that it doesn’t have to be that way. Like there are better ways to go about it. You can scale, and you can have a successful practice with multiple people has really given me like the mental freedom to take the next step because I was like, really struggling with I’m just going to be the one that does this forever. 

Becca: Yeah, to me, the only way to have a life as a practitioner is to have other practitioners. Otherwise, what are you supposed to do? Just like stop your life every time you want to go on vacation, like stop your income? Every time you want to go on vacation, every time your kid gets sick, every time you get sick? 

Like, I remember having the aha moment because it had never even occurred to me that you could make money when you’re not working. I just wasn’t from that type of family. I just wasn’t around that type of conversation. It was you work your ass off, you make the money, and you’d be happy about it, and you shut up. That was it. 

So I remember my brother-in-law asking me well, what are you going to do if you ever get sick? Like, what are you going to do if you want to go on vacation? I remember just being like, that’s a dumb question. Like, I’m just going to not get paid that week. I’m going to save up so that I can go on vacation. Duh. But then it just sat with me for weeks. I remember thinking but like, why did he even asked me that? Is there another option? Why would he say that?

It started getting my wheels turning on oh, you can have other people that come in and that work for you. Again, I will never, ever forget the day that I went home. I had hired someone, and they were still at the office working. I trusted them. They were trained. It was exciting. I left I went home. I poured a glass of wine. I thought to myself by the time I drink the last of this glass of wine, I will have made $45. I wanted to cry right then and there. Of course, since then a beast has been born. 

But yeah, there’s no other way to set yourself up to have an actual lifestyle where you get to just be home, get your kids off the bus, home for dinner, home for bedtimes, home to, I don’t know, take your kids to school, go on field trips, be able to get sick, all of that. It comes from scaling. So that is the journey you’re on. I cannot wait to see what happens in your scaling journey. Because I’m like I am here for it. I am ready. 

Vitalia: I’m excited. 

Becca: Do you have any advice for anybody that is also new to their business and is kind of in the beginning stages of scaling?

Vitalia: Don’t be afraid to like put yourself out there and network in person. I think that has to be like one of the best things I did in the early days. Then the next one is invest before you’re ready to invest. So like investing in SEO last fall seemed like a big step and like changing my website and all of that. But it was like the best thing that I did to set myself up for success going into 2024. So sometimes like those scary investments when you’re really a new business and don’t have a lot to invest can feel really nerve racking, but they definitely pay off. 

Becca: Yeah. Then you invested again in The Circle and you went straight to VIP as well. How has that been? What has your journey been like inside of The Circle?

Vitalia: It’s been great. It has really helped with the mindset shift too. Especially I hired my first contractor right at the same time that I joined The Circle. So there’s a lot of lessons that I was able to take in as I stepped into more of that like CEO role versus just the solo practitioner and helping me with switching my mindset and like knowing okay, I need to have all this stuff set up for training and just having the community of other business owners doing things too. Because you get in your own world. You just feel like you’re the only one in your business world, and that’s just not true.

Becca: Yeah, absolutely. You came in. I don’t remember what the exact date was that you came in. But I think the only class that you’ve taken in The Circle so far live is Take My Money, is that right? 

Vitalia: That’s correct. 

Becca: So we have Memberships That Bank is coming up. Are you interested in that? Do you have a membership? Or are you thinking about putting one together?

Vitalia: I don’t have a membership. I’ve thought about putting it together. I honestly just have no clue how to structure it. So I’m really excited to kind of see how I can take it and implement it in my business. 

Becca: The world of memberships is crazy. You’re perfectly set up for a membership, especially because you’re having women that are coming in before they even have their child, right?

Vitalia: Yeah. 

Becca: Then you could put them on some type of one year membership that is breastfeeding for a year. Holy shit. Yes, I’m ready to set that up with you. Okay, awesome. Before we go, I always ask everyone this what has been the hardest thing that you’ve had to get through emotionally in your business? Maybe this is something that has lapped over into your lifestyle, into your marriage, into your family? Maybe it’s not. What is something that you’ve had to overcome, and maybe you’re still overcoming? 

Vitalia: I would say firing my first person that I hired. It was probably the hardest thing. Like navigating training. It was really eye opening and just having the knowledge that as a business owner, that’s part of the journey. It’s okay to like separate all those emotions, and that you’ll be able to overcome things from there. That was definitely the hardest thing. 

Becca: Did you officially let her go? 

Vitalia: I did. 

Becca: You had just hired her, correct.

Vitalia: She’s been on for about a month. 

Becca: Okay.

Vitalia: Or was on for a month.

Becca: Yeah. How did it go? 

Vitalia: So it did not go down the way I wanted to, which was really disappointing. I had every intent of doing it face to face. She decided not to show up when she said she was going to for some visits. I was like I can’t let this go on for the rest of the week until she comes next. 

So I ended up doing it over text, which felt really icky. But I was kind of like handed an unfortunate series of cards in her text messages to me. I just told her straight up. I was like. we’re not in alignment. It’s time to kind of end the relationship.

Becca: What’s funny is the idea of wanting to let someone go because they haven’t been trustworthy and showing up, and then they don’t even show up to get fired. 

Vitalia: Yeah.

Becca: Sometimes you got to do stuff over the phone. But anyway, I’m glad to know, especially just knowing your entire background and coaching you through all of this. I’m glad to know that it’s done. It doesn’t have to be that hard. I’m sorry that you had such a hard time your first round. But statistically, that means your next one won’t be. So hopefully, we can get right back on the horse and let go of some of the PTSD that happened from that one. 

Vitalia: Yeah, it just wasn’t a good match at the end of the day. I think I realized that halfway through, and I was just trying to make it work.

Becca: A lot of times people will keep staff members on in order to save themselves energy because they’re like oh, it took so much energy to get them on-boarded. So I’m going to save the energy by keeping this person on. 

Vitalia: I was 100% doing that. 

Becca: Yeah. It’s like well okay, it took two weeks of energy to get them on boarded. This is for the average person. I know yours took longer, but it took two weeks to get them on boarded. You’re going to keep them on for another two years. That’s like staying with a boyfriend for five years that sucks because you went on like three dates with him. You’re like well, I can’t start over. I can’t do dates again. That would be crazy. But yeah.

Vitalia: That was the same analogy that I use to my husband. I’m like it’s like when you know you need a break up with someone but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. I was like I just have to like end this. It’s just not a good fit. 

Becca: It’s like that Dane Cook skit that’s like I want to get out of the relationship, but I can’t because all of my CDs are in his truck. So I’ll stay for another six years because my CDs are in his truck and now I can’t get all those back. Did you ever watch Dane Cook? 

Vitalia: I haven’t, but that is very fitting. 

Becca: Oh my God. One of the funniest comedians of all time. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for Vitalia for coming on. I cannot wait to continue to work with you throughout the entire year. If you guys are looking for more breastfeeding support, Vitalia, where can they find you? 

Vitalia: They can find me on Instagram at Hey Empowered Mama or my website is cincinnatibreastfeedingcenter.com.

Becca: All right, cincinnatibreastfeedingcenter.com or Hey Empowered Mama. All right, thank you so much for coming on. I will see you soon.

Vitalia: Thanks for having me.

Hey guys, this podcast is the blood sweat and tears of a lot of different people the planning and the preparation of each episode is extensive and my team and I are really proud to bring you this free and abundant content each week and we hope that you’re loving it and if you are the very best thank you that we can receive from you is a review and to share when you share this episode with a friend or leave us a five star review. It is like pouring a little bit of magic into our podcasting bucket. It is what gets our work recognized okay, it’s what gives us energy and keeps us going truly not one share nor review goes without recognition from our team. As always, we fucking love you here at Hell yes coaching Have a beautiful day. Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode. If you’re looking to get more clarity and momentum for your business visit hell yes coaching online.com See you next week here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast.

Hey guys, this podcast is the blood sweat and tears of a lot of different people. The planning and the preparation of each episode is extensive. My team and I are really proud to bring you this free and abundant content each week, and we hope that you’re loving it. If you are, the very best thank you that we can receive from you is a review and a share. 

When you share this episode with a friend or leave us a five star review, it is like pouring a little bit of magic into our podcasting bucket. It is what gets our work recognized. It’s what gives us energy and keeps us going, truly. Not one share nor review goes without recognition from our team. As always, we fucking love you here at Hell Yes Coaching. Have a beautiful day. 

Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode. If you’re looking to get more clarity and momentum for your business, visit hellyescoachingonline.com. See you next week here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast.