Momentum Podcast: 250

Be The Change With Carissa Hill

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

Today I’m chatting with Carissa Hill of Wolf Pack Mastermind, she’s so unique in the current entrepreneurial world and I’m so excited to catch up with her. 

In the past year, Carissa’s business has experienced crazy growth, she’s reached her seven-figure goal, but now what? Going forward Carissa wants to help women who are obsessed with business step out of the shadows and own their success. Carissa is a Huntress and you can be too!

Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast. Made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over Bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure we pay attention to their rules, but only so we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat, because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future.

Instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive, human evolution and we always will be.

Today I've had the extraordinary experience of spending a ton of time with Carissa Hill, who flew over from Australia. Carissa is the CEO of the Wolf Pack Mastermind. She leads a group online of well over 10,000 entrepreneurs who show up to literally have coffee with her every day. It's called Coffee with Carissa, if you're interested in checking it out. I'm a member, a lot of the people I know are members.

The reason we're there is, Carissa is this force of positivity, and encouragement, and growth, and she is unique in this world among entrepreneurs. I was joking this morning on my Insta-stories. I said, "I have a one day with Carissa and she's like the human Unicorn." I was joking, but only a little bit because she just has this strength of personality that shows through everything she does.

In fact, my youngest daughter Kennedy who is eight, kind of feels like Carissa is a bit of a celebrity, was our event this week talking to her and came back and told us she was sweating she was so nervous. So Carissa, what does it feel like to be a hero like that to a little eight year old girl who knows you as Carissa Hill? She just thinks you're incredible.

Carissa Hill:

Well, it feels pretty cool.

Alex Charfen:

But it's a little weird at the same time, right?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, it is. Like I just felt like I was having a conversation with an eight year old, but obviously for her, she was a bit excited. So, yeah, it was lovely.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah, so you're aware of the effect you have on people, right? You work with people around the world. They come ... and in the past especially, they come to you. They haven't really known how to put their business together, how to be successful. You very quickly show them how to gain massive success. What is it like to be able to have that level of effect on people, Carissa?

Carissa Hill:

This is, honestly, I really feel like sometimes I don't know what it feels like because to me it's just me being me. I naturally just like helping people. I love coming up with ideas, I love Marketing, I love Sales, I obviously love seeing the results that my clients have. But I still see myself as just me. You know? So I don't like to put myself up on a pedestal or anything, but.

Look, it's really fulfilling, it's really exciting. The highlight of my day is when someone comes to me and says, you turned my life around. Like one person said recently, I was eating two minute noodles before I met Carissa. Now, I'm really successful, making heaps of money, hired people. Yeah, it's nice.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah, it's pretty amazing to have that level of effect on people's lives. In the past year, your business has grown tremendously, hasn't it? Let's give everybody a perspective. So, we're in July 2018, let's go back a year. How big was the business and how many people did you have?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, so maybe like a little bit over a year ago I think we did around ... Well, we had a really big jump. The first year, we did two hundred thousand, then we went to five hundred thousand / eight hundred thousand, and now we're at 1.3 million, so that's over about three or four years. Yeah, this time last year I think I'd only just started hitting up to six figure months. Now, we're doing that consistently, obviously, and they just keep growing every month, so.

Alex Charfen:

What has it been like the past year getting to a million dollars? I often share with entrepreneurs that when we're looking at seven figures from afar, it looks like it's the promise land. But as you approach seven figures, there's a lot of challenges there. It's like everything changes, everything shifts. What has it been like for you?

Carissa Hill:

I actually felt like it got easier.

Alex Charfen:

Unicorn, do you see? Tell us why.

Carissa Hill:

Well, it didn't feel any like what I expected it to, of course. You put seven figures on a pedestal, as you said, a lot of the times and you look at ... I used to look at all these people that were millionaires and had seven figure businesses. I'd be like, "Oh, my God. You're so amazing."

Then, I hit seven figures and it's kind of like, is that it? What next? Like, I reached my goal, now what I do? So, I guess, in a challenging perspective, that's been my biggest challenge. I'm like, "okay, so I have all this cash, everything is going well, I've reached my goal, now what?"

Alex Charfen:

Yeah. Well, and today we spend a lot of time on that question, now what, right. So one of the reasons that you came in today was to get really clear on who you're going to help, how you're going to help them, what's the change you're going to make, then really how you're going to know you're successful. We call it the client centered mission.

But today, we got really clear on that person you're going to help. It shifted a little from the person that you've been helping. But what is that unique characteristic that found today that really gets you excited? I'd love for you to talk to that person right now.

Carissa Hill:

Women that are obsessed with business, that's what we came down to. It's not just female entrepreneurs who want to make more money. It's like women that are just absolutely obsessed. The way that I look at it is though, I'm what I call a born entrepreneur. I made a joke recently, it's like you're starting a side hustle while you're in the womb. But it's true.

Everything, my whole life, even my childhood, I can't help but sell things. It's like I'm just obsessed and everything I do naturally turns into a business. So, that's the person that I really want to help going forward because I know for me, it's been something that ... It's felt so instinctive, it's felt so natural. But I had all of these dreams my whole life and feeling like ...

As a woman, we often feel like we have to suppress them, squash them down, not publicly talk about how successful we want to be or how successful we are. I really want to help women like that to step out of the shadows and step into their life. Own their success and not apologize for being obsessed with business, it's cool.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah, Carissa, we're working on this new body of content and we have been in the past year. I call it the Huntress. It's the recognition of the female entrepreneur who was born into this world and has never even thought about asking for equal rights, but instead has just decided to dominate.

Often, when I think of the Huntress, I think of you, I think of Emily Hersch, I think of some of the clients that we have that ... Layla Hermosie that are like that person. Where they walk into the room and there is no quest free quality. It's like, I'm gonna win. That woman has such a hard time getting permission to be who she is in today's world. Why do you think that is?

Carissa Hill:

I think a lot of it's fear of what people will think or say. For me personally, I've just seen so many other people, like all women out there, that they start to show off their success and someone tells them that they should be humble. Not talk about how much money their making, like they're bragging. So for me, and I said this recently, when I hit a million dollars it felt like a struggle for me to even tell my mum. I felt like it was awkward.

So I think it's just a society expectation thing that women shouldn't own their success that much. I don't know really what it is at all, but I want to break it.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah, you and I both because I think, like what you said, part of that struggle is that there's this expectation that if you're a woman who's successful in business, there's something you should be guilty about.

Carissa Hill:

Yeah.

Alex Charfen:

Right? It's like if you're successful in business, then you should be guilty about your husband, guilty about your kids, guilty about not being a proper woman, guilty about not being feminine, guilty about not showing up the right way. Men don't tend to hide their success anywhere near as much as women because of that guilt factor. Have you felt that yourself?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, absolutely. I was just saying, I live in this amazing house now. I haven't even shown it off on Facebook because I don't want to come across as a showoff. So, but I'm gonna do it anyway. But it's true, it is a real fear that women have. So, me being me, I like to come up with or realize challenges in myself, act on them, overcome them, and then inspire other people to do the same by being the one that sets the example.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah, no doubt. So often, women not only won't set the example, like you said, they hid back in the shadows. They pull themselves back. So this year with the Wolf Pack Mastermind, today we clarified the levels you're going to be putting out there and who you're helping. This woman who's obsessed with business.

So now that you have the clarity that we went through today, how confident are you this year that when women come to you, they can actually create a business. Move through the steps, build a team, and start getting the support they want for the business they've always known they wanted. That's the person we're talking to, right?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, absolutely. So it all makes so much more sense now. Like I had the idea in my head, but I wasn't clear on exactly how to make it happen. Now, it's just crystal clear. I just need to go and do it.

Alex Charfen:

So Carissa, let's talk to the business owners who are out there trying to grow a company right now, to the people who are listening that are trying to grow. Because the last year for you, you've gone from 800 to 1.2 and when the year ends up, it might even be a little more than that. So the growth has been really significant. It's not easy to do that. It certainly isn't easy to do it and make it feel like it's easier. What do you attribute that to? What are the things that you did in your business that brought you that level of clarity and that level of momentum?

Carissa Hill:

I've always been really big on having really clear systems for my team members. To make everything as easy as possible for them to do their job correctly. So that's a big thing that I have always done, and it's a big thing that I teach my clients, as well. A lot of people, I think, they have a team but they expect so much of them that the team doesn't know exactly what they should be doing, or when, or what's a priority, and what the business needs, what the business owner expects.

So I've always made things easy for myself my whole business life because I luckily learned when I was quite young, in my first business when I was 21, that you can't do it all yourself. You have to ask for help. Anytime there's something that causes you any kind of stress or frustration, that's probably something that you shouldn't be doing. If you resent anything that you have to do in your business, then you should find someone else to do that.

So for me, that's a huge part of what's helped me to grow so quickly, I suppose and in a way that doesn't feel too heavy. So that's one of the biggest things that I love helping people to do, as well.

Alex Charfen:

Doesn't it make it easier for you to ask for help when you've been ... because I've watched you, I watch how you grow your business. It's hard for any entrepreneur to ask for help, even you. All of us, it's hard. But one of the things that I've watched with you, is you get really clear on what you want first, then you get clear on the process, then it's a lot easier to ask for help because you have a higher level of confidence the person's gonna succeed. Why do so few entrepreneurs do that? It drives me nuts. You watch it in your business, as well, right?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, I do. I think for a lot of people it's fear. It's either a fear of trusting people. A lot of people just think that no one else can do it as well as they can. A lot of people see other people as not caring about their business as much as they do. But usually that's not the case. It's just that they haven't provided clear enough instructions on what they expect. So, I can't remember what we were saying.

Alex Charfen:

Well, Carissa, let me do another question. You have to forgive Carissa, she's been through like an eight hour intense experience to get through what we did today. But you brought up a point. I think for a lot of us, the struggle is huge trying to get help, trying to find people to bring in. Even for you, early on in this business, it wasn't that easy, right?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Then, I got to a point where you encouraged me, I think it was the start of this year to hire an EA, which I didn't even know what that was. Executive Assistant, for anyone who doesn't know what that is. It has changed my life. It's just taken things to a whole new level.

Josie is my Executive Assistant and she just takes absolutely everything off my plate. I can just talk things through with her, daily. I think that's probably the biggest thing. We have full transparency, well the whole team does now. But she's someone who I can just chat to about anything at any time. She reminds me of things because I forget everything if it's not documented.

It's just nice to have ... especially when you can't talk to your partner or your husband about what's going on, or your other team members about what's going on in the business from a CEO perspective or an Operations perspective. Having that person that's like your right hand man or woman, just there constantly to help. She also implements anything that I need implemented. It's fantastic.

Alex Charfen:

Well and this is something that's really important for me because one of the issues I see with entrepreneurs, and you did a little bit of this when you were first growing this business, is that we go out and we contract a bunch of people to help on stuff we do. But then what happens is, we have the business to run, the contractors to manage, and the stuff that's left that we do. It becomes increasingly overwhelming.

But by letting Josie in and by having someone close to you ... like for me, I always recommend entrepreneurs hire someone to help you first. Hire someone to offload what makes you uncomfortable. What is doing that, what is the discipline of offloading where you're uncomfortable and having Josie there to help you? How much more has that freed you up to grow the business and to be what you want to be?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, like insanely. It's changed everything. I can give you an example of something. I'm the content creator, I come up with the ideas, I love teaching, I love making videos, I love creating trainings for my courses, and I love writing Content Marketing posts and things. But one thing that I used to do is, I'd come up with the idea for the new training that I was gonna create, then I'd film the video, upload the video, put it into the platform, email it out to everybody.

I don't know why, but I thought that I had to do that whole thing myself. Until I got to a point where I'm like, maybe I don't. But I don't know ... Josie didn't know how to do it, but then this is my ... okay, systemize it. Then, I just have this theory on just try stuff. Some people are just afraid to try something. It's like, you can always just try it and see if it works. Then, if it doesn't, you don't have to do it again.

But I was like, "Okay, Josie. I'm gonna record this video and then you are going to do everything else." But I always ask people, I don't tell them. That's a big part of it. So I always for my team, I'm like, "Hey, can you please help me with this." She goes, "Yep. Straight on it." Done faster than I could do. Like, sit down.

Alex Charfen:

That's so important, right. We have these processes, these things we do in our business. We think no one can do this as good as I can. Then, almost immediately, you off load something and you find someone who does it better than you do. You found that with Josie, right?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, yeah. She do ... I'm so easily distracted, I've got shiny object syndrome, so even me doing anything, I'm always interrupted the whole time. Whereas, she's such a more focused process person that if I give her a task to do, she gets it done in like ... So that could have taken me an hour to do that job, it takes her like five / ten minutes.

Alex Charfen:

So let's talk to the other Huntress entrepreneurs out there. Here's what I've found and see if this resonates, Carissa, because you work exclusively with women. Almost exclusively with women. What I've found is that entrepreneurs have a hard time asking for help. But when it comes to women, there's almost like a block against asking for personal help.

There's like this wall about asking for anything that will make your life easier. So much so, that when I observe a lot of women entrepreneurs, it almost looks like they're trying to make their life harder because they keep all the crap themselves. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Carissa Hill:

I have an example of that. I have had a client recently, [Dierdra 00:17:54], who she said to me ... she came to me, she's like, "I'm so busy in my business, but I want to make more money, but I can't." I'm like, "Well, what are you doing in your personal life? Can you free up like cooking, cleaning, laundry?" She's like, "But I like ironing, but I like cleaning." I'm like, "Do you really? Or do you just think that you like it? Are you trying to talk yourself into it?"

It came out that she feels guilty about outsourcing her housework. She thinks that's her responsibility as a woman. For me, it's not. I just don't do housework, I never have. But some people do do it, if they're that kind of person. Fair enough, she might enjoy ironing. But she got to a point after our conversation where she was like, "Look, I just realized that I've spent three hours doing my housework. Doing my ironing, do my thing, and I haven't even touched my business today. I could have been doing my marketing, I could have been booking people in, I could have been taking sales, I could have been servicing clients."

Making so much more money than the $20.00 an hour or whatever you'd pay someone to do your ironing. So that was her tipping point where she was like, right. I said, "Why don't you just try it." You can always go back to not doing it, but try it. It doesn't ... For her, she got it in her head that if she was going to do something like that, it had to be a permanent change. Whereas, just try it. Now she's just like, "Why didn't I do this years ago."

Alex Charfen:

Well, that's what I find, too. But I think, something that you just brought up and the words come up again, is that feeling of guilt. Something I want everyone listening to think about is, when you feel that feeling of guilt, I want it to be a trigger for you to ask yourself am I talking myself out of getting help. What happens so often, especially for women, but sometimes for men, too. We feel guilty that we're not doing enough and what we really should be feeling is we're not asking for enough help, and we're not getting enough leverage, and we're not offloading enough so that we can do more.

So you talked a little bit about what it felt like to have Josie come in. How that's freed you up. But tell us a little bit about what it's done for you as a mom, as a wife, as just a person. To have that person who is there, supporting and helping you, Carissa.

Carissa Hill:

Oh, my God. So much help as a mum. It's like I have an idea or I think of something that I have to do and used to, I would used to just get into this state of like, I have to go and do that. I'd go to my computer and I'd sit there for like two hours and do the thing. Now, I'm just like, hey Josie. I just thought of this thing that I want to do, can you get this done today, please. Then, she'll be like, yep. On it. Then, I can go spend two hours with my son and play outside, so it changes everything.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah. Do you find that not only time frees up but even focus and your ability to be present. Your ability to be there. Is the time you're spending with Jayden and with Travis more valuable now?

Carissa Hill:

Yeah, it is. It's more meaningful. I know and trust that the work is gonna get done and it's gonna get done the right way. Even if it's not, then you just review it and change it a little bit. But, yeah, it's like you can't ... well, you can buy more time. The only way to buy more time is to outsource things.

Alex Charfen:

Yeah.

Carissa Hill:

Yeah.

Alex Charfen:

Awesome. Well, Carissa, this last year has been amazing, I think, of working with you. We started in July of last year, so this is our year anniversary. It's pretty awesome. I think with what we did here today, this next year is going to be ridiculous. I can't wait to see it. You always surprise me in the most amazing ways. For anyone who's listening to this, besides Coffee with Carissa, your Facebook group. Where's a good place for them to go to get more information about you, find out about you? If there's any women listening in the audience who are in the service business and they want to know how to grow and get more clients, where should they go?

Carissa Hill:

I guess, just to my website. That's the home base of everything. It is carissahill.com.au. But if you look up the Coffee with Carissa Facebook group on Facebook, all the information is in there on a pinned post, so. You can find it there.

Alex Charfen:

Awesome. So, check it out. Go to carissahill.com.au, it's an Australian website. Coffee with Carissa, as well. You will not be disappointed that you did. If you're sitting there right now thinking you'd like to have more time freed up, more time for yourself, be able to create more momentum, it's really a question of are you asking for enough help and do you have the systems in your life that allow you to do so.

Thanks for joining us today and I look forward to talking to you again tomorrow.

Thank You For Listening!

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With gratitude,

Alex

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