In today's episode of Smashing the Plateau, you will learn how to sell your expertise when it’s new to the market and have space for your family. Holly and I discuss:

• How her career evolved [03:03]
• What caused her to focus on product initiatives [04:33]
• Working as an employee vs. an entrepreneur [05:17]
• The hurdles transitioning into entrepreneurship [06:10]
• Finding solutions for financial tracking and staying motivated [06:45]
• How you know when it’s time to get help [07:33]
• Responding to a hefty price tag for help [09:09]
• How Holly realized she needed a method to stay motivated [09:39]
• Using a mastermind to stay motivated [10:13]
• What it’s like to sell your expertise when it’s new to the market [12:05]
• How Holly determined her content marketing process [14:06]
• Where Holly distributes her content and why she chose those channels [14:47]
• What portion of her time Holly devotes to content marketing [15:51]
• What process Holly uses to build her network [16:18]
• What advice Holly has for experts selling ideas that are new to the market [17:40]
• Looking to the future, what Holly wants to be well known for [18:27]

Holly is a former Columbia University research scientist and has spent the last 15 years leading product initiatives at startups, high-growth companies, and enterprises like FalconX, MediaMath, Shutterstock, The Lean Startup Co, Unilever, Capital One, and Weight Watchers. Holly also teaches at NYU Stern School of Business as well as public and private workshops and has spoken about building high-growth products for events such as Lean Startup Summit Europe, ProductTankNYC, Parsons School of Design, and INDUSTRY: The Product Conference. Learn more about Holly at www.productsciencepodcast.com. Thank you to Our Sponsor: The Smashing the Plateau Community https://smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:00

I am a mom of two kids.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:02

And so a big part of my entrepreneurship career has also been balancing work

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:07

and life, and making space for what I want to do at home with my family.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:12

And that's also something that I'm passionate about.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:14

And I want people to know that you can do that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:23

Welcome to Smashing the Plateau.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:26

We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:30

owners build their business after a long career as an employed professional.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:36

We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:39

what you're worth, consistently.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:41

I'm your host, David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:44

Today on Smashing the Plateau, I'm speaking with the Founder and CEO of H2R

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:49

Product Science, Holly Hester-Reilly.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:52

In today's episode, you will learn how to sell your expertise

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:56

when it's new to the market.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:58

And at the same time, have space for your family.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:01

Stay with us to hear all the details.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:04

Are you building your consulting, coaching or small business following a

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:08

long career as an employed professional?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:11

Are you tired of trying to build your business alone?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:15

Come meet other consultants, coaches, and small business owners on Friday,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:19

August 26th at 12 noon Eastern Time.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:24

We're having an Open House so that you can experience a bit of what we do in

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:28

the Smashing the Plateau Community.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:30

You'll have an opportunity to think more critically about your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:33

work, meet colleagues who want to support your success and learn how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:38

a curated community can empower you to make progress toward your goals.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:44

To register for the Open House, go to smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:50

That's smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:55

At Smashing the Plateau, our mission is empowering high achieving professionals

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:00

to do what they love and get paid what they're worth, as entrepreneurs.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:04

Now let's welcome, Holly Hester-Reilly.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:07

Holly is the founder and CEO of H2R Product Science, a product

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:12

management coaching and consulting firm that teaches the science of

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:16

high growth product development and Host of the Product Science Podcast.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:22

Holly is a former Columbia University research scientist and has spent

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:26

the last 15 years leading product initiatives at startups, high growth

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:31

companies and enterprises like FalconX, MediaMath, Shutterstock,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:36

The Lean Startup Co, Unilever, Capital One, and Weight Watchers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:40

Holly also teaches at NYU Stern School of Business, as well as

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:45

public and private workshops.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:47

And has spoken about building high growth products for events, such

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:51

as, Lean Startup Summit Europe, ProductTankNYC, Parsons School of Design,

and INDUSTRY: 00:02:57

The Product Conference.

and INDUSTRY: 00:02:59

Holly, welcome to the show.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:01

Thank you.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:02

I'm excited to be here.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:03

It's great to have you on tell me a little

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:05

bit about your career choices.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:07

My career choices is, was a bit of a journey.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:10

In my early career.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:11

I had actually gone to school for chemical engineering, and then I got involved

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:17

in a startup because my husband at the time had wanted to found a startup.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:23

And I just realized like, oh, I think I can help with this.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:26

I've got good organization skills and I've learned some things about product design.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:30

And I, got involved in that and I just fell in love with tech startups,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:35

and I love the pace of change and learning and the people around me.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:42

And so I, started a career in tech startups.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:45

And how much of your chemical engineering

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:47

education was directly related to the work in tech startups

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:53

Directly related?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:54

Not much, but I think definitely, I think a lot about process design and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:59

I think about the way that we develop products and the process design of

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:04

designing the development process.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:06

We learned things like control systems, which were ways to keep

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:09

an chemical plant from exploding.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:12

But they also involved things like, having inspection points and making

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:16

sure that you've got mechanisms to move a chemical reaction, back

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:22

towards where it needs to go.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:23

I love using things like that in product development, making sure that there's,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:28

inspection points for how the product is developing and mechanisms for guiding

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:32

it in the direction that it needs to go.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:33

So the process part has a lot of yes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:38

And within startups, what caused you to focus on product initiative specifically,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:45

I basically just really was gravitating towards that

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:49

because it was fun and it had a good mix of both analytical and, liberal arts

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:55

skills needed because you have to do a lot of communication, a lot of vision building

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:01

a lot of collaboration with coworkers, but you also have to be analytical enough

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:06

to, talk to the engineers to understand what they're talking about and to.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:10

understand the data and be able to work with metrics.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:12

And so it really used, wide breadth of my skills and that's been really fun for me.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:17

And in your career, how much of your work has been as an

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:19

employee and how much as an entrepreneur?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:21

So I always like to say I've been doing, product for 15

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:24

years and the first five years were early stage startups of less than 10 people.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:29

And so the first one, I was a co-founder.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:32

And that was several years.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:34

And then I became an employee for the second one.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:37

So then I was an employee for about seven years, and then I founded my own company

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:43

and went back to being an entrepreneur.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:45

And I've been doing that, it's been five years since my company was founded

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:48

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:48

And when you were in school, did you want to follow an entrepreneurial path

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:53

versus, career path as an employee?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:55

I wanted to be a research professor

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:59

and a teaching professor.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:00

So I guess I, technically they're an employee, but it's an entrepreneurial

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:04

venture as well, because you're really guiding your research and, you have to go

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:07

out and seek funding and things like that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:10

Interesting.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:10

And what were some of the hurdles along the way about, in this transition

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:16

into entrepreneurship that you faced and maybe were unexpected.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:20

The one that comes to mind the most is like how

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:23

difficult it is to manage finances and stay on top of all of the paperwork

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:28

and things like that that are involved.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:30

That definitely, you know, I was always very organized and I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:32

thought I would be fine, but it was a bit overwhelming at points.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:36

I also think that one thing that sometimes is to challenge is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:40

self-motivating and staying on track.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:42

But, certainly that's not enough of a challenge to stop me.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:45

How did you find solutions for those two issues?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:48

So you mentioned the tracking finances and then staying self-motivated.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:54

So on the finances side, I definitely, read up

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:58

on finances for small business owners.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:01

And then I sought, professionals to do my taxes and to be my accountant.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:05

And that helped the first many years.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:07

I didn't, I did it all myself cause I was trying to save money.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:11

And then after a while I realized like I should pay someone else to do this

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:14

because they'll do it better than I will.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:16

So definitely recommend going for the professional to help you with that, even

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:19

if you're surprised by the price tag.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:22

And then on staying motivated, I think always having something bigger that I'm

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:27

working towards is what really helps me, get out of bed and get to work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:31

knowing that big picture goal.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:33

Yeah, having the big picture goal is really important.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:36

I actually want to do a little deeper dive on the, what you mentioned with regard

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:40

to getting help for the financial issue.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:43

How do you know when it's time to get help?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:45

I think when you realize that you're

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:47

struggling to do it yourself.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:48

So when you're, especially if you get to a point, like, I, I actually

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:52

got to a point where I was feeling ashamed at how much I felt like I was

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:56

struggling with managing, independent business owner taxes and paperwork.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:02

And, once I felt like it was hard for me to put my attention towards

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:06

it, I realized that I needed to get someone else to do this.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:10

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:10

It's interesting that you mentioned being ashamed of how you were struggling with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:15

something I think that is actually a common feeling that yeah, that many of us

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:19

have, particularly when we're going into entrepreneurship after doing something

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:24

else and entrepreneurship is a new thing.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:27

There's I don't know if you feel the same way I do, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:30

I think that there's a, this sort of a part of our culture, is the expectation

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:36

that we should know how to do these things, particularly entrepreneurship.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:41

And it there's nothing that's farther from the truth.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:44

It's I have yet to meet an entrepreneur who has built a successful business

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:48

on her or his own without a team or without some kind of help.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:51

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:53

But there is a lot of pressure in our culture to feel like you're getting things

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:57

done by yourself and, to be independent.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:59

And so I definitely find that the more we can spread the word and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:04

help people feel comfortable with getting help and leaning on a team.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:08

The better.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:09

Let's talk a little bit about that, what

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:10

you mentioned with regard to the price tag what are your thoughts?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:13

Getting help where there's a hefty price tag.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:15

I think that it's hard to make that decision about

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:19

whether you should, pay that price, but it also usually is indicative

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:24

of the value that they're going to provide and the skill that they have.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:27

And if you're paying a tax lawyer and they're, charging you, four

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:32

figures and, but you realize that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:35

you need that skill and that's why they're able to charge that much.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:37

And so it, you have to overcome that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:39

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:40

So now let's talk a little bit about the self-motivation, how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:42

did you realize that you needed some method of staying motivated?

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:09:47

That's a good question.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:09:49

I probably applied my own processes to my own work.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:09:52

And so I, realized like, okay, if it feels like things are slipping or I'm losing

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:09:57

track of the big picture or I'm not, getting work done because I'm not feeling

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:10:03

motivated that I probably need some kind of inspect and adapt process that's

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:10:08

going to be looking at what's happening.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:10:09

And then giving me a way to nudge, in one direction or another.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:13

And do you have a structure for staying self-motivated?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:17

I have the mastermind

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:20

. David Shriner-Cahn: Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:20

Why don't you share a little bit about that?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:22

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:22

So I've been part of a mastermind with, David leading us.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:26

And, I had brought together several other people who are in a similar

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:30

field to me, or a similar position to me, which was basically entrepreneurs

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:34

that are selling something that is relatively new to be sold as a

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:39

consulting contract type of work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:41

And so we have another product consultant and a program management consultant.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:45

And we get together once a week.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:47

And with David's help we check in on each other's businesses and what our plans are

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:52

and what we're doing to move it forward.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:53

And why is it helpful to be doing this on a consistent basis?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:58

and with peers?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:58

Well, because it gives me that inspect touchpoint, that

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:02

place where it's okay, no matter what ever else is going on, no matter how much

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:07

client work I have at least once a week, I'm going to stop and I'm going to think

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:10

about the big picture and what am I moving forward outside of just the client work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:14

And that's really helpful.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:17

And doing it with peers is really helpful because we can learn from each other,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:20

but also we can support each other and provide validation of, why things are

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:26

difficult or share different things that we're seeing in, out in the wild.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:30

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:31

And I've, I'm also in a group, a similar group that, I find very helpful for

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:37

the same reason, the once a week check in and, and the accountability and the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:41

feedback and the support from peers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:43

And in my career, I have been in such groups on and off.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:48

And I find that it's way more helpful when it's on than when it's off finding

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:52

the right mix of people to spend time with on a regular basis, whether it's

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:56

once a week or whatever the frequency is, it takes a while to get that to jell.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:01

But once it does, it can really be magical.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:03

So thank you for sharing that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:05

I'd love to talk a little more about what it's like to sell

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:08

something that is new to the market.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:11

Particularly when it is like knowledge or idea based.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:15

And so you're selling your expertise, but it's something that is relatively new.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:19

What, what are some of the challenges that are that go along with that?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:24

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:24

So one of the biggest challenges is just that the buyers don't

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:29

have established buying processes.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:31

They're not used to buying this.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:33

And so they don't know how to evaluate whether they should

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:38

trust me with the contract.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:40

And they typically have hired consultants or contractors for something at some

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:44

point in their career, but they haven't hired them for product management is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:49

often the case and they have this pervasive belief that you need an

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:55

in-house person who's dedicated to the job, dedicated to the company and seeing

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:00

the holistic picture to do this work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:03

And it was definitely an uphill challenge at the beginning of my

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:07

time with my business, figuring out how I convinced people that they

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:11

should trust me with a contract and then I'll, deliver results for them.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:14

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:14

so how do you.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:15

Social proof is definitely a big part of it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:17

And content marketing is a big part of it and network and the strength

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:22

of my network is a big part of it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:24

So by social proof, being able to say things like I teach at NYU Stern,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:28

or, I've spoken at this conference and that, helps build credibility.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:32

And then quite a lot of my work comes through my network.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:36

And so somebody else that they trust or who has, more cache than I do is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:41

telling them you want to work with Holly.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:43

And so that's, definitely a big influence point.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:48

And then in the content marketing is really how I got my name out there and,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:52

built up some of these relationships that send me the referrals by engaging

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:56

with other thought leaders in, social media and, Occasionally at conferences.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:01

So there's a connection between the content

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:03

marketing and the networking.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:05

Yes, definitely.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:06

How did you figure out your own content marketing process?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:11

I've read a lot of different people's guides on

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:14

content marketing and how to do it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:16

And then I made myself checklists.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:18

So I have, a Trello board.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:20

Or a, now it's on notion, but, a, kanban style board that has the different faces,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:26

like ideas in one column and, things that are being drafted in another column.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:30

And then, a phase for the editing and review.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:33

And I give myself checkpoints like that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:35

So that if I'm doing a written article, I try to make sure that I, get some

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:39

feedback from people before I publish it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:41

And then I have an SEO checklist and, things like that, that I'll use to

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:45

just go through the whole process.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:47

Where do you distribute your content?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:49

What channels.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:50

So my primary content is my podcast.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:54

And so that I distribute, I use anchor.fm to distribute it through all the

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:58

places that podcasts are listened to.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:00

And then for written content, I email it out.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:03

I put it on my website and I often post it on Medium as well.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:07

How did you decide, like what channels and what methods you

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:11

were going to be using for distribution?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:13

Like why a podcast, for example?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:15

So for me, the podcast made a lot of sense because,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:19

one of my skills is talking to people and getting them to share, interesting

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:24

insights and stories from their lives.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:26

And it's a thing that I love to do.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:29

So it's also a lot of fun for me and I'm able to do it much faster than I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:33

can write a good article, because, I spend an hour recording the podcast.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:37

I spend a little bit of time doing research to find the podcast guests and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:40

a little bit of time after the podcast to put together the show notes and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:44

pick the title and things like that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:46

But all in all that adds up to a lot less time than what it

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:49

takes me to write a good article.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:51

What percent of your time would you say you

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:53

devote to content marketing?

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:15:56

That's a good question.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

: 00:15:57

I would say off the top of my head, 5 to 10%.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:02

That's pretty good.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:04

It is.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:04

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:05

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:05

That sounds very efficient to me.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:08

Yes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:08

Cause I can tell you, I probably spend way more than that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:11

You produce more content than I do.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:13

Oh yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:14

I guess there is a relationship.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:16

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:18

Going back to the networking part.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:20

What system or processes do you use to build your network?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:27

I definitely in the early days of running my own

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:29

business, reached out to, favorite past colleagues and just asked them to go

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:35

out to coffee or to put me in touch with somebody who might be in a buying

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:38

position to go out to coffee with.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:40

And just to talk to other people, whether they were potential buyers

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:44

or they were, maybe people who'd done something like this before as well,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:48

or even just, Mid-career people who might not have the power to buy, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:51

could give me insight into how product was working at a different company.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:55

So I did a lot of coffees in my first couple of years to the point where I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:00

started having to be like, okay, maybe sometimes I should just meet somebody for

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:03

a walk, cuz I'm drinking too much coffee.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:06

And then from there, people introduced you to other people and then, you talk

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:11

to them and then at a certain point, it snowballed to a, a tipping point

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:16

where now, I have this network and I feel like I have to invest in it, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:22

it also is just paying dividends from the investment that I made years ago

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:26

To have patience, perseverance and be consistent.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:32

Yes, absolutely.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:33

It's incredible how much, work I get today that is related to something I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:38

did two, three years ago in networking.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:40

That's actually really great advice.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:43

Holly, what advice would you have for somebody who is in the early

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:48

stages of a consulting business, trying to sell something that

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:54

is relatively new to the market?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:56

I would say, do your discovery work, you have

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:00

as many informal conversations, you don't have to always be selling.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:04

You can just be learning.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:07

And I think in the early days, when you're trying to figure out,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:09

what are the problems I can solve?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:11

What are the things that my buyers have done before to

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:14

try to solve those problems?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:16

And what do their purchasing processes look like?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:21

Just being a detective and learning as much of that as you can help you

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:25

put together a plan that will work.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:27

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:28

And when you look forward to much later in your career, what would

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:32

you love to be well known for?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:35

I would love to be well known for providing a process

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:41

with really tactical, tangible impact that has helped product managers build

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:50

good products earlier in their careers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:53

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:54

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:56

share before we close out?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:58

This is maybe not so related, but I am a mom of two kids.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:03

And so a big part of my entrepreneurship career has also been balancing work

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:08

and life and making space for what I want to do at home with my family.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:13

And, that's also something that I'm passionate about.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:15

And I want people to know that you can do that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:18

I love that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:18

Thank you for sharing that, Holly, I want to thank you so much for taking the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:21

time to join us today on Smashing the Plateau and share your story and your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:25

insights and be so forthcoming about how you have built a fabulous business.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:30

My guest today has been the founder and CEO of H2R Product

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:33

Science, Holly Hester-Reilly.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:35

Thank you again, Holly, for joining us.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:37

Thank you, David.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:38

It's been a pleasure

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:41

When you visit the Smashing the Plateau website at

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:44

smashingtheplateau.com, you'll find a summary of each episode, along with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:49

the links we mentioned on the show.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:51

On today's episode with Holly Hester-Reilly, we learned how to sell your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:55

expertise when it's new to the market.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:58

And at the same time, have space for your family.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:01

Are you building your consulting, coaching, or small business following a

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:04

long career as an employed professional?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:07

Are you tired of trying to build your business alone?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:11

Come meet other consultants, coaches, and small business owners on Friday,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:15

August 26th at 12 noon Eastern Time.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:19

We're having an open house so that you can experience a bit of what we do in

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:23

the Smashing the Plateau Community.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:26

You'll have an opportunity to think more critically about your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:29

work, meet colleagues who want to support your success and learn how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:33

a curated community can empower you to make progress toward your goals.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:39

To register for the Open House, go to smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:45

That's smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:49

At Smashing the Plateau, our mission is empowering high achieving professionals

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:54

to do what they love and get paid what they're worth, as entrepreneurs.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:58

I'm David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:00

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.