In this episode: we dive into what it means to live a life that you truly love, and how you can build a successful career that directly compliments it.

Michelle Terpstra is a Fractional Chief Revenue Officer, founder, and host of Revenue Rascals; she has achieved the balance of living a fulfilling life that she loves, while also building a career that compliments that lifestyle. What’s her secret? Michelle makes her own rules - she’s not subscribing to the traditional hustle model, and is on a mission to prove that high performance does not require burnout. Michelle shares how she has been able to set firm boundaries with work in order to spend time with family and enjoy her life and hobbies, when she knew it was time to “quit” and pivot, and how a combination of strong execution and discipline, plus an unwavering certainty in yourself, are all you need to be off to the races.

If you’ve ever felt like your life is not living up to your expectations or feel the pull to try something new, this episode is your permission slip to do just that.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Motivation is overrated—execution and discipline win.
• Fail fast, but know when to stick it out.
• Selling to strangers—not just your network—is the real test of a business.
• Lead with curiosity instead of "always be closing."
• Design your business around your season of life, not someone else's playbook.

“My expectations for life are really high. They're very abundant. I have never told myself I couldn't have something or do it. It's just finding the right way to get there and the path.” — Michelle Terpstra

Connect with Michelle:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themichelleterpstra/

Website: https://michelleterpstra.com/

Podcast: https://revenuerascals.com/

Connect with Teresa

• Join the Becoming Obsessed Playground, the weekly email for curiosity-led women building a life they love.
• Instagram: @becomingobsessedpod and @teresaajean
• Leave a review on Apple or Spotify Podcasts. Reviews are the biggest thank-you, and reviews help ambitious women find the show.
• Website: teresaajean.com

Topics: life fulfillment, business success without burnout, work-life balance for entrepreneurs, building a life you love, redefining success, curiosity in sales, creating a fulfilling lifestyle, navigating motherhood and business, vision boards for goal setting, embracing change in life, adapting business strategies, community, scaling small businesses, self-care in business, finding passion in work, creating meaningful connections.

Mentioned in this episode:

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My life is so full.

It's so full in the most beautiful way.

Am I the richest, most successful business owner you're going to find?

Heck, no.

But am I the richest in life?

Arguably, yes.

And I think that's what I wanted more than the $5 million business.

Like, I'm chilling.

My profit margins are super high.

I pay myself a ton of money every single month, and I have free time.

Why is this bad again?

Why don't we want this?

I would suggest anybody who's like, I'm not excited for my life.

I want to find something else.

I would say just go do something and see if you like it.

And if you don't, then change it.

Welcome to Becoming Obsessed, where curiosity leads you to a life you love.

I'm Teresa Stasny, and after over a decade of traveling the world, working with small business owners and creating a couple businesses of my own, I know a thing or two about playing by your own rules.

It's not always easy, and it's often messy.

It can be hard, especially.

Especially if you're doing it alone.

I've seen way too many incredible women shoot for the stars only to burn.

Out along the way.

Or worse, live on default and never chase their dreams.

We're done with all of that.

Together, we're gonna challenge what keeps us stuck and figure out what it takes to live a life we truly love.

Today, we are becoming obsessed with not sacrificing ourselves for growth or the growth of our company or hitting whatever million dollar number feels like we should be striving towards.

Because today's guest believes that we shouldn't chase growth at any cost.

It's not worth your life.

I'm so excited for this conversation because it's one.

That is why I started this podcast in the first place.

Becoming Obsessed is a place for you to remember that your worth is not your revenue, is not your money is not your productivity.

And I can't wait to get into this.

I'm so excited to welcome today's guest, Michelle Terpstra.

Michelle is a fractional chief revenue officer.

She is a founder and the host of Revenue Rascals podcast, which I just listened to a ton of episodes, including the one with Megan Hale.

That is my girl.

With 20 years in sales and 7 years building her own firm, she's helped over a thousand entrepreneurs turn chaotic growth into disciplined scalable revenue.

She's the author of High Performance Sales Habits and has shared the stage with leaders like Chris Moss.

Michelle flipped the traditional Hustle model on its head, proving high performance does not require burnout.

She's also a wife, a mom of two, and currently collecting animals with two horses and a dog, and always scouting for the next edition.

After moving to Park City to completely redesign her life around energy instead of exhaustion, she now spends as much time outdoors as possible, skiing, hiking, riding trails, and camping with her family.

Girl, I'm here for all of that.

Michelle.

Welcome to becoming Obsessed.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Theresa.

It was definitely, you know, a journey to get here where I am today.

And I'm excited to talk about how I got here, my clients, and, you know, whatever I can say to help people who are listening right now.

Well, with that, I do want to start with your journey, and because I've listened to your podcast, I know a little bit of your story and having this kind of pivotal moment where you started to redesign your life.

So tell me a little bit about the before and then get into that pivotal moment.

Yeah, so I've had quite a few pivots, so I'm going to pick one I feel inspired by today.

And first of all, I should preface this with saying that I have never felt, quote, unquote, normal.

My expectations for life are really high.

They're very abundant.

I have never told myself I couldn't have something or do it.

It's just finding the right way to get there and the path.

And I'm fueled by people telling me, you can't do it that way.

And I'm like, oh, really?

Let's challenge that idea.

Which is why I called my podcast revenue rascals, because I've been called a rascal more times than, you know, I'd like to admit, by a lot of CEOs, but you know what?

They still hire me, and it still works.

So just being wired differently, it really changes your lens on life and your view on life and your desires.

And so I think it's important for everybody to know that one pivot that I want to talk about today was actually, like, my very first one ever.

And the podcast episode you listen to is later on in life, but this one's really juicy and I usually don't share it.

My daughter was, I think, about six months old, and I can still close my eyes and be in this room in this moment, and I can, like, feel it through my whole body.

And I was breastfeeding and rocking, and it was 7 o' clock or something after a whole day of work.

It was just everything around me was so stressful.

And I just looked at her little sweet face and I'M like, why am I prioritizing all that over you?

This doesn't make any sense to me.

Like, what brainwashing had to happen in our world?

And I'm going to, like, poke a little bit of feminism right now, even though I'm a successful, independent woman.

But, like, in what world did we decide that was going to be more important?

And then I thought to myself, well, I'm responsible for half our income, so I can't just be like, peace.

So, okay, what do I do?

And I'm like, well, I've never really followed the rules before, so why do I have to follow the rules right now?

Do I really want to climb this corporate ladder for a Fortune 500 company where no matter what I do, it's just going to be a little bit of a move in their business?

Like, do I really want to spend my nights out, every single night in sales, networking and missing these moments with my children?

Do I want my husband to eventually resent me because I'm gone all the time, and that's what men do, and eventually it will happen.

Prove me wrong.

You can't.

So I sat there as, like, an independent, successful woman and a mom, and I was like, what am I gonna do?

And that was the pivotal time where I was like, I'm building a business.

I'm going to command my own time.

I am more than skilled to do this.

There's no reason I can't replace my income.

And that was the catalyst that started getting me into things.

And it's not about building a business because I was still in corporate America.

But my very first personal development book I ever read was Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In.

And I always feel like a bit of an oxymoron to myself, because I'm like, I love all this superwoman power stuff in the workplace, but I also eventually want to live on a homestead.

Like, I feel like I have two sides of me that I need to be nurturing.

So for me, it's like, I love the consulting world.

I love building programs.

I love building businesses.

And I command and demand certain time in my life to be with my family.

And I had a client last year that asked me to come into their office a few days a week because that's all their executives were in office.

So.

So I did it for a period of time, and then I had to sit down with the CEO and be like, this is ruining my family and my life, and I'm not coming here anymore.

So I'm totally fine working from home with you.

But I know that's not like in alignment for your culture and I don't want to be a leader in your company that derails your culture.

So I think we need to just look at an exit plan for me and I'll help you find my replacement.

His jaw just dropped because he's like, wait, what?

I'm paying you so much money.

You're so good at this.

You're getting results in like you just want to be at home.

And I'm like, yeah.

And so these are just the series of events that have happened that have helped me build the life that I have today.

Okay, can we walk through?

Because I always love when it's, we get the story, we have a realization, and then we quit.

Walk me through what was going on in your mind and emotions as you were actually making the decision and doing the action of quitting and stepping away.

That's a really good question.

And my answer is always, just do it scared and be so committed that there is no other way to than for it to be successful.

And that's it.

It's really that simple.

You just have to do it scared and you have to be a hundred percent committed.

One thing I'd like to say here that's appropriate motivation is the fakest thing in the world.

It really actually doesn't do anything.

And quite frankly, I've seen it do more harm than I've seen it do good.

And let me explain what I mean by that.

Imagine like you're hyped up and excited and you're motivated and you're ready to do all the things you know.

I shared before we started recording, I have adhd, which is why I have all of my support beverages.

And we were laughing about that.

But actually motivation is really dangerous for somebody who is neurodiverse or adhd because it actually charges you to shiny object syndrome, which dilutes your effort, which then makes your life harder.

You're more stressed out and all of these things.

So for me, I have to, whenever I have these grand ideas, I actually have a piece of paper, right?

Write them all down and if I still think they're a good idea a month later and I'll visit them.

But I stopped making all these knee jerk decisions and, and I think that that's really important.

So what it's allowed me to do is to simplify my life and my commitments.

So motivation, great, you get an idea, but quite frankly, it's execution and discipline.

And if you can do those two things to something that you really Want to do and validate the offer.

Please don't sell things people won't buy.

Then you're off to the races.

Yes, okay, that part we're going to come back to.

But as a fellow ADHD girly who totally understands the motivation, lack of motivation, trying to find discipline, making sure I actually execute on the right things.

How has that journey been for you to be able to find ways to stay disciplined, keep executing the right things?

What are some of the learnings, the tools, the strategies that you have in your own life?

So first of all, fail fast and move on.

That's the first thing I'd be lying.

And anyone on the show or any entrepreneur would be lying if they haven't put an offer out there or tried to do something in their business and it was like, oh, okay, well, missed the mark on that one.

So.

So, you know, everybody's done that.

The thing that gets people stuck is they'll keep trying to push something in their business.

It could be a social media strategy, it could be a product, it could be a service, whatever it is, and it's not working.

You're banging your head against the wall.

It's really hard to stay disciplined and continue to execute when you're not seeing the results.

So what I say is fail fast and move on to the next thing that's on your list that's going to grow your business.

And also it's waking up and being disciplined for me to do my hair and makeup for this podcast interview.

You know what I mean?

Just like the simple things.

But I always tell myself, well, if you don't do it, what are you missing out on?

And like, that's the self reflection point for me.

And I'm like, well, I said my goal was to be on X amount of podcasts this year because it's important to grow my own podcast and also share my story on different platforms.

So who am I letting down?

Like, you'd probably move on and find a new guest, but I'm letting myself down and I'm not willing to accept that.

And I'm going to stay committed to those goals because I know that that's what's going to move the needle in my business.

Grow my own podcast and do all these other things.

So for me, it's to focus on just a few things.

So with neurodivergent brains, you can't actually just focus on one thing.

You will go insane and you will procrastinate.

So two or three things at a time has always been like my magic number.

And it doesn't all have to be work either.

I am an adult learning how to ride horses.

That is a major commitment.

And I have my business and my kids.

So you just have to don't overload your plate.

But if you are listening to this and you're ADH, one thing a time usually will not work.

Yeah, I love this because now I feel like we have two sets of advice that are sound advice, but they're kind of contradicting each other.

And so I want to talk through how to understand when it is like, okay, you need to do something long enough to see results, but you also need to fail fast and keep moving.

These are both things that, like, at a different point, depending on the person, we're going to be like, go fast, move on, or like, give it time to work.

How do you identify that with your clients and help them identify and work through which of these kind of sound advice to take?

Yeah, that's a great point.

I'm glad you brought up that observation because you're right, they can butt heads.

So you have to know which ones to drop and which ones to stay consistent on.

First of all, it depends what you're staying consistent on.

So, for example, my podcast, Revenue Rascals, it started in October.

I cannot judge that podcast and its success for a year.

Can I work every quarter to improve it and to see what we can do to grow the show a hundred percent.

But you cannot fully judge a podcast for a year because that is the nature of that channel.

It's not like the Fast and Furious.

It has a slow grow.

So having someone in your back pocket, a mentor, a coach, a consultant, somebody to say, hey, if you're going to go all in on X, Y, Z, this is how much time you actually have to dedicate to it and for a period of time to see if it works or not.

So that's the one test.

Okay, the second test, and I'll give you an example of where I just failed fast, is recently I was going to do an in person workshop on my high performance model to prevent burnout and to increase revenue in your business, or even if you're an operator within someone else's business.

And it's a lot of information and a huge process.

So.

So it takes about 10 hours of time to get through it.

And so I broke it up into two five hour segments and it was gonna be in person late afternoon, which in my logical brain was like, perfect.

Who wouldn't be able to come to this?

But you know what?

I missed is how freaking stressed out everybody is.

Everybody is stressed out right now.

Like, it's just the environment we're in right now.

And no one is willing to cut that much time out of their life in order to work on in what their mind feels like a luxury.

So, okay, cool.

Like, I'm not going to go spend all this money and time if this isn't the format it needs to be delivered in.

So just canceled it.

I refunded people and I was like, over it.

Not enough people for it to make sense.

And I'm going to now create it in a different format that's more digestible.

Like probably a playlist on my podcast or something to get the information out that makes sense for the person receiving it.

So I promoted it for about 45 days, got some people in it, but it wasn't enough for me to want to do it.

And I'm like, over done.

And you know, what it does is allow space for me to do things that are bigger, better, grander that will help me and others.

Was that like a validated offer that people had bought in a different format, or was it the first time that it was you were delivering this information?

So I have delivered it specifically for salespeople because that is like a specialty of mine.

And that's why I have the workbook online.

I went broader, and I didn't exclude salespeople, but I made it broader to founders, CEOs, operators, and not just to salespeople.

And when I think about it, it's like salespeople have the most flexible schedules, so maybe it's easier to do that for them and yada, yada, yada.

So, yeah, it has been taught, but it was not marketed in the same way.

I love hearing that because with business specifically, it's almost like you're saying the world is so, so crazy and overwhelming right now, but also we're on the back end of COVID coaches and so many people who are like, I did this one thing, it worked for me.

Now I'm teaching it.

Or I learned it from somebody, and now I'm teaching it.

And there's just so many ways to do something that we feel like we have to do them all.

And so I love hearing you get into more of the weeds of, like, this is what I did, didn't work the way I wanted it to, scrapped it, changed it.

And actually walking through more of the context of making that decision, we saw this, and I actually haven't talked about this on the podcast, but when the online coaching and business World got so alarmed with Amy Porterfield and Jenna Kutcher, the courses in the podcast and ending them and everyone being like, oh, it means this thing is dead.

And it's like, no, they've just made success to not have to do it anymore.

They don't want to.

And it doesn't mean that that is anybody else's path or that that's the way of the market.

It's just what worked for them and their business and their season of life.

Yeah, I think that's really important.

I've had so many different offers in my business based on the season of life I'm in.

And you know, if I had the following of Jenna or Amy, probably people would say the same thing.

What is she doing?

But for me, I am path of least resistance and highest profit margin.

That is what I guide myself through.

And those are the things that are the most important to me.

So when I've gone from I did, I started with one to one coach coaching, then I had a group coaching program for probably four years and then I went back to one to one consulting, not coaching, which is very different.

Everybody.

I went into consulting for larger organizations and that's how I went from CSO to CRO and where I am today.

So I have a handful of clients per year.

That's it.

That's it.

And you know what that means is that I spend a lot more time working with my clients than I do marketing, to be frank, because I don't have to.

If you are an Amy or a Jenna selling volume courses, you have to do so much marketing and that's just how the numbers go out.

So you just have to figure out what does your season of life support.

And I went from California to New York to Utah in four years and I was like, I cannot be a consistent high volume marketer so I need to figure out what I need to do.

So that's why I switched and did what I am doing now.

And it's awesome.

Now I will tell you, because this is how I am, is that I do have an itch to go back to a membership model for a certain profile of clients that I'm used to serving.

And so that'll be in the works.

So I guess people will see my face more.

Cause I'm gonna have to market more.

I love listening to you talk about your own business.

You do it in such a great way and have really thought through what you're doing.

So it's like I wanna know because you've actually thought through it very intentionally.

Is that why you're focusing more on the podcast and created the podcast?

How does that fall into your marketing?

So for me, I like to create things I like to use.

I attract people in my business that are pretty similar to me.

Men, women, doesn't matter.

But like, at the end of the day, they're driven kind of by the same things and hold the same values.

And so for revenue rascals, I was so tired of the bad advice.

The bad advice, the COVID coaches, all of these things.

And I'm like, no, if you have not been an operator inside a successful business, please shut your mouth.

I am so done with the theoretical application that I'm like, you know what?

Podcast it is because I listen to podcasts every single day.

So for me, I'm a huge podcast consumer.

And the reason why I love it is because I can multitask.

So I can plug in and listen to a podcast while I'm at the gym, while I'm waiting in car line for kids, while I'm on a trail ride with my horse.

It's so functional versus me sitting down to like watch some webinar or some other thing or whatever it could be.

So I felt like, okay, this marketing feels really good for me and in alignment with my own values for it.

And I also wanted to start doing some more traditional marketing.

So, like, I bought billboards, which is like, really fun.

So I'll let you know how it goes.

I bought billboards at Tesla charging stations.

So if you're sitting there, what are you gonna do?

Listen to a podcast.

So in my mind makes great logical sense.

So I will come back and tell you how it went.

It was a four month commitment on these billboards, so we will see and you bet your booty.

I am tracking through a isolated QR code so that I can see who clicks and all of the things.

It just felt like it was my way to reach people.

And then also one of the big things for me, I'll just give you a little bit of a sneak peek of what's coming down the pipe.

But since I've moved to Park City, there's something really special about Utah and their business community.

Everyone supports everyone.

Everyone's basically an entrepreneur.

There's a very small percentage of working professionals.

It's like entrepreneurs everywhere.

And clearly there are professionals that work inside all these companies.

But it's just this really beautiful entrepreneurial community and I love local brick and mortar businesses.

If I can shop in person, I will, and I will avoid everything online if it's Readily available.

Last night I went to run a quick errand, saw friends on a patio of a restaurant, just stopped and like went in.

If it wasn't for this beautiful local business, I'd miss that connection point with my friend who lives on the other side of town.

So what I'm planning to do, which I'm so excited about, is to start to serve that brick and mortar community and take everything that I have done for scaling startups to reach 50 million, distill it into what really matters and allow them to experience the same growth mechanisms that I've been helping these scaling startups with.

And I'm really excited to do this.

I've already helped a doggy daycare, a barn and a specialty gift store.

So I'm just like checking the boxes and I'm really excited to do this work.

And you know, this applies to all those home services companies too.

Your gardeners, your landscapers, the people who come wash your car.

So that's like what really has me excited right now.

But the margins on those businesses are not like a scaling startup.

And this is where my practical brain comes in.

And this is how you can tell I'm not a Covid coach because I'm building an offer around a population and I understand their profit margins.

So we're going to do it in mid ticket membership model.

That's about 200 per month for a company to come and join and to use my frameworks inside the membership in order to be successful.

So I'm really pumped on that and it's gonna make a big impact and I'm very excited.

I've been in the creative and online business space for a decade now and it's so funny to me how even in I'm an Omaha, Nebraska girl, how I'll go to a marketing event and it is like all of these brick and mortar small businesses or media businesses and they have no idea about all of the strategies and all of the people on the online world and the education space.

And so I love that you're like, no, let's go to them instead of having them try and come find me.

Yeah, so I'm going for it.

I'm just like so excited.

And my goal is to have 250 businesses participating in the first year.

They'll also get a listing on my marketplace as well, which I'm going to run traffic to.

It'll be part of my podcast.

So it will be a beautiful ecosystem and I'm really excited for it.

That's amazing.

Are you targeting more local businesses like local to you or kind of all over the place.

I think my natural poll will probably get more Utah based businesses right away just because that's where I live and work and do all of my things.

But no, this does not matter where you're at.

What I'm teaching in these frameworks needs to be in the hands of every small business owner in the United States.

I'm so excited for that.

I'll be watching to see.

I do know a handful of local business owners in Omaha.

So my best friend's boyfriend actually owns two men's clothing stores and it's just like what you're saying, margins way lower and one of them is a vintage tee and streetwear consignment and then another is like a men's tier designer.

They love it.

But the business side is really hard and a struggle.

And again, I am always like, you.

Don't know these people.

Who are you listening to and watching to like help you figure this out so that you have better systems and you have better revenue management because it is the margins there are so small.

So I definitely when you have this launching, I'll be sending it to a few people.

Michelle, thank you, I appreciate that so much.

And clearly I'm a business owner.

I want to make money from it.

I would be silly if I didn't say that, but at the end of the day I'm choosing to go all in on this because I know what a huge impact it is and I love my country and I want communities to be stronger.

I'm here for that.

Okay, I want to talk a little bit more about the podcast and almost giving a peek at the topics you're talking about because I've listened to a few episodes and I love the way that you talk about making sure that you're selling is like ethical, sales is self care and making sure that again we're building for our own nervous systems, not building the business that somebody else has been successful with.

So I'm not giving you a direct question or topic here, but give us an idea of what to expect on the podcast.

So when it first launched back in October, the initial vision was to do basically a lecture on a very important principle around sales and growth, revenue, customer retention, all of this and then have my coaching corner.

My favorite thing in the world world is to get asked real life questions and actually respond to those versus like theoretically creating concepts in my head.

So thank you to everyone who has been submitting questions.

Then I'll have my Coaching corner.

And the reason why I wanted to do it that way is essentially it was like free courses, but with coaching on the back end.

And it felt like I was giving a lot and it felt really, really good.

So I still do a lot of that.

Then I also have guest interviews as well with really interesting people that can help my listeners in one way or another.

And just like we're talking right now, it's very conversational.

I have a few questions I ask every single time.

But other than that, it's free flow.

It's interesting.

It's for the curious minds that just want to hear two people having a great conversation.

But now as I'm pivoting into more of the brick and mortar side of things, I am going to be pivoting into talking to more of them.

I'm getting them on my show so that we can do the same thing that I was doing before.

That was more generalized business.

And now getting it down to the brick and mortar side of things.

But at the end of the day, I'm just being a good marketer.

The information applies truly to any business.

There is not one business in the world that shouldn't have a loyalty program.

Just gonna say it.

There is not one business in the world that shouldn't care about lifetime value.

There is not one business in the world that shouldn't be marketing.

So it applies.

But because I myself am a good marketer, I'm gonna make sure that it really hits the brick and mortar community.

Okay, now a very pressing question because we've been talking about sales in your journey and how people can think about it a little bit differently, change their perspective on it.

But really I want to get behind all of that and say, why?

Why sales?

Why is that where you really solidified your company and how you help people is with the revenue?

Why?

Why is that the path forward?

So first of all, the honest answer is I've always been great at selling.

I've been amazing at selling my whole life.

And not just like hardcore, like real deal selling, but like gaining buy in on concepts, ideas, moving people to take action.

I remember in college, I sold spring break trips so that I could go for free.

And then I also got paid commission off all of them.

And plus, it was like, awesome.

Cool.

I get to go on spring break with all of my friends too.

I even got people who didn't drink alcohol to go to Mexico on spring break.

So I'm just, just saying really good at this.

And then I think about when I was a club promoter in college.

Like, I'm just throwing myself back into the heyday.

And I loved it.

So my first day was my 21st birthday.

Like, it was hysterical.

So I threw myself a huge party on my 21st birthday, but got paid commission on all the alcohol sales.

So I was like, you know, pretty good at this.

This is working well.

That, you know, I did some really unique things.

There was this bus that would take kids from the college town to downtown.

It was called Bill's Bus.

And I was like, well, wherever Bill drops off is where everyone's just gonna run in.

So I went to Bill and I said, Here's 200 bucks.

Can you drop off in front of my bar instead of the other ones?

And he's like, keep it coming.

And I'm like, cool.

And these are things that I think are really important for people to hear, like social media and being online and funnels and digital marketing is literally not the easiest way to sell in so many ways.

You don't have to only do that.

You can just be creative in your local community.

And so I think about that.

So then I went into tech sales.

I was selling consulting.

I worked for Fortune 500, and I just noticed myself having a different approach to selling than a lot of the people around me.

So I ran into the old guy who would just take you to the golf club, and, hey, if you want to keep coming, you have to use me for X, y, and Z.

So not my thing.

Then you had the hardcore seller who was like, I have something to prove.

My childhood was really hard, so it's just like the prove it.

And so I'm like, I don't want to be either one of those people, and I certainly don't want to use all of these psychological tact that are manipulative and untruthful.

So I created basically my own method.

And my method just starts with curiosity.

So I always say, always be curious instead of always be closing.

And I really felt strongly about that.

So when I started my own business, I was like, well, my most natural way of going into consulting or coaching or all this is to teach what I taught myself and created myself.

By the way, there's 4,000 different selling techniques out there, and the way that I do it, it probably overlaps with a bunch of other ones, but it's uniquely me in all of the steps.

There's only so many ways that you can work with somebody to sell something.

So I just realized how well it worked for me, and I was somewhere in between the two of these.

So that was a really Easy decision for me in the beginning.

I'm gonna go teach remote selling.

Here we go.

Because I was getting burned out on knocking on all the doors all day.

So I literally bought my own Zoom account back in the day that the company didn't even pay for to see if I could convert remote sales week because I was so sick and tired of it.

And it worked.

And so I went to market.

My first thing was selling remotely.

So when I went to market with that, not knowing what was going to happen in the world, Covid happened four months after I started selling remote selling.

I mean, the wind had my back on this one.

And it worked.

I remember I joined this program to learn about paid ads and webinars.

And part of the program also taught you how to do one call closes, like paid in full, Visa, MasterCard, that like, bro selling stuff.

And I was like, oh my God.

I was so appalled.

This is not what needs to be taught.

And quite frankly, it also causes buyer remorse.

If you sign someone up through that sales process, then they're already traumatized by it, and so they're going to expect more from you.

Like you're a miracle worker or something.

When you come into a program or a course or anything, they will not be happy.

And just like in this case, they're going to come back, they're going to charge back, class action, lawsuit, complain, spread bad things about you.

And so I have a hard, fast rule of I won't buy from anyone.

If the sales process is off putting.

I won't.

And the reason why is not because I'm on my high horse of how you need to sell.

It's because I know my experience on the other side is going to be 10 times worse if the sales process didn't feel good.

And so this is a really, really important piece of the puzzle.

And so that's why I went into teaching this, because 10 years, almost, almost since I guess I started, when I was still dabbling nine to five and all that stuff.

But no one was teaching what I was teaching.

Everyone was teaching the hardcore, manipulative bro selling.

And so it felt really good for me to help people find another way.

Yeah, it's like bro marketing, bro selling.

It is really just numbers based.

My best friend does tech sales.

She actually just got at a new company.

You would be appalled if I told you these stories like it is, is oh so bad.

Probably be like, yep, you'd probably like,.

Yeah, I've seen it.

But it really was.

I don't want to give too much away, but there is just people like straight up lying.

And it is like fear tactics.

And like you said, that is not going to build longevity in your company because it's going to be terrible to work with everybody on the other side of that.

And if we go back to this whole point, which is like, build a life you love beyond the business when you are so almost like in fight or flight because everyone is now expecting so much from you, they're already mad at you.

You're starting off on the wrong foot.

And so I love that you're like, yeah, let's lead with curiosity.

By the way, Michelle, my new tagline for becoming obsessed is where curiosity leads you to a life you love.

So thank you for fitting the bill so perfectly.

I've had two sales calls for my marketing agency in the last week and I'm like, I'm not even trying to sell you something.

Let's actually figure out what your real problem is.

And then if I have a solution that can help it, great.

But I'm not trying to fit your problem to my solution.

It needs to be that other way.

And the whole concept of like selling is just helping somebody make a decision.

It's not.

You have to say yes to me.

It's okay.

Can we help you actually say yes to the right thing and if it's not a real fit, say no.

Great.

Get out of my pipeline.

I'm happy to have you out of my pipeline if that's not a fit.

100%.

And email marketing, correct?

That's your agency.

Yeah.

So there's really specific things about that of who you're going to take on because they won't see the ROI unless there's a certain list size.

If they're not growing it consistently.

Like, you're not a magician.

You can't turn nothing into something.

There are so many prereqs for somebody to hire an email marketing agency.

So I love that.

For me it's very much.

You have to have a proven offer.

If you're not selling something, then email is not going to make you money.

Money.

You have to have something to sell or I can't make you money.

The true test of a validated offer is a stranger buys it from you, not somebody who's in your personal network that wants to buy from you.

The brand leader.

I love that you just said that.

I mentioned Alyssa is one of our mutuals and I just recorded with her as well.

She's also in the selling space in a similar philosophy to like make it feel good for you and make it Easy and nervous system and all this.

And so I was talking to Alyssa and she was talking about, like, Instagram stories and finding maybe warmer hot leads in your stories.

Like, who watched your stories?

And I said, you know what?

It's my friends, and I don't want to sell to my friends.

That's why I've, like, never built a business model that I needed to, like, promote in a certain way.

It's always, I'm going to have a real conversation with you.

If it comes up that you need help that I can provide, let's do it it.

But I'm never going to pitch a friend.

I have for the podcast this fun 30 days of active rebellion email series where it's like every day, one little perspective shift in your inbox to help you really live a life you love without having to make a huge change or jump off the deep end.

And I've been talking about it in my stories, and then it's all my friends that see it, and I'm like, nope, I don't like it.

I'm gonna run ads to it.

I don't want to sell to my friends.

You don't have to buy it.

Don't give me money, guys.

But it's like, I need to get strangers to buy it.

And that's how I know that it's now something I want to push more.

And then maybe I'll sell it to my friends and they can hop on if they want, but I don't want them to be my beta.

Like, you can have it for free, friends.

You can get on it for free and then tell me your feedback.

I know it gets hard.

It gets hard.

So I actually have a prereq of if I was to take on a client as their chief Revenue officer.

Sometimes people want a fractional CRO before they're ready just because it is aspirational.

Like, if you get there, it feels really good and you want that.

So I have to tell quite a few people that's not the right fit right now.

Let's do this instead and then revisit that.

What's important about that is, like, I have a prereq.

One of my prereqs is, hey, founder, out of your own network.

So people, you don't know how many people have bought from you.

And if that is not higher than all my friends buy from me, then we need to figure out your marketing, your messaging, your positioning way before you are ready to scale the CRO.

And that is a really big thing, because when a founder creates something, they have the ability to probably create around a 5 million business of just their network.

So you can get to 5 million with people you know and people who know who you know.

Okay.

If you double down on it, you can a hundred percent do that.

However, if you are the scaling startup that wants to go towards 50 million, that is a huge gap in your network work.

Unless you are the most famous person in the world, he's not going to do that.

So we have to figure out how to sell to strangers.

And that is a really important piece of the puzzle.

And a lot of the founders, like you were saying, are like, I don't want to sell to my friends and all things.

I'm like, great.

Then the only way to find strangers is to go to events that you know no one or to run ads or to double down on social media.

But you got to find people you don't know and try to sell to them.

And that is the biggest thing.

That's one of the wrecks I have similarly for you for email marketing agency girl.

I've never heard that before.

I've been around and I have never heard somebody say that before.

That is piping hot tea for one.

And I think a lot of people listening are going to feel that in their body when they ask themselves that question.

Yeah, it's huge.

It's huge.

I mean, I've helped people who have, you know, a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars services.

And if you do the math, how many of those do you need per year to hit an ARR of 5 million?

Not that much, actually.

It's really interesting, like numbers game.

And it depends if you want to fulfill on a $200,000 offer because, you know, expectations are high when you charge somebody $200,000.

Yeah, that's where I literally feel myself shrink back.

I'm like, nope, I don't want to.

I'm like, I'm not there yet.

One day when a company's out like 100 billion or their enterprise and you charge them $200,000, that barely even hits the P and L. So it just depends who you're selling to.

And because I've always played in like both fields of helping the small businesses and also those who sell to enterprise, it's like I'm living a social experiment similar to raising a boy and a girl at the same.

I also feel like I'm living a social experiment.

Half my brain is boy mom, the other half is girl mom, and there is nothing that overlaps.

That's another podcast I need to have.

Yeah, that's another podcast episode.

All I know is I'm raising two kids who are adrenaline junkies, dopamine seeking adventurers, who are hyper independent, who drive me crazy, but I love them.

So, that being said, let's get into our final series of questions because I know that you are an outdoors girl and hiking and horses and camping.

So in that realm of things, what are you currently obsessed with?

Oh, my gosh, my life is so full, Teresa.

It's so full in the most beautiful way.

Am I the richest, most successful business owner you're gonna find?

Heck, no.

But am I the richest in life?

Arguably, yes.

And I think that's what I wanted more than the $5 million business.

Nope.

I'm cool.

Like, I'm chilling.

My profit margins are super high.

I pay myself a ton of money every single month, and I have free time.

Why is this bad again?

Why don't we want this?

So I am queen of white space.

I absolutely have white space on my calendar.

It helps me creative and all these things.

But what I'm obsessed with right now is.

So my daughter is nine.

She's been horseback riding in lessons programs since she was like four.

We found one place that would take her when she was like, could barely hold onto the horse, and she's just always loved it.

But we lived in New York, and a place that we lived in New York, it was all English writing.

Not really my thing.

I'm like a girl of the west.

So when we moved back to the west coast or like the mountain west and now in Utah, it's like, oh, this is so fun.

So my daughter was like, hey, mom, let's do lessons here, but let's do like trail rides or western or rodeo or something like that.

I was like, okay, that sounds fun.

So we started on this hunt to find our barn, our environment, all these things.

One year later, we are now proud owners of two sorrels.

My daughter is entering her first summer of barrel racing, and I'm training my horse to do mounted shooting.

And mounted shooting, if anybody doesn't know, it's a rodeo sport.

And you basically shoot a gun that it's packed with powder, it's not bullets, and you shoot the balloons in like an obstacle course on horseback.

It's like full on Annie Oakley.

And I think it's gonna be so fun.

And I also do advanced trail rides, overnight camping with horses, and stuff like that I really love.

So I'm probably, I mean, 20 hours a week with my daughter.

20 Hours a week is like another job essentially.

So I've created this space and it's really intentional and I'm not going to violate it.

So that's a big thing I'm doing with her right now.

And then my son is 13 and he's into motocross.

So I've got a horseback rider and motocross.

It's like two different horsepowers.

Yeah.

Literally, they just like to go fast.

Go fast.

So that's more something my husband's doing because I couldn't even tell you how to ride a motorcycle, so I spent a lot of time doing that.

And then I love building community.

Park City is a small full time community.

There's a lot of tourists, but there's only 8,000 full time residents.

And we live on like a perch, like the top of a mountain.

So although we're 30 minutes from salt Lake, it really doesn't overlap.

It's a little bit of an isolated place.

So I'm just really enjoying helping local businesses grow, spending money with local businesses, being part of my community.

We back up to BLM land.

And what that is for anyone who doesn't live on the mountain west is basically public land.

And anyone can do anything they want on public land.

So I hike with my dog every morning and we run into probably 20 other dogs all off leash, living their best life.

And then like when it's warm here, we're at the lakes, paddle boarding, boating, all the things.

Like, I have such a full life and I think that it wasn't until I got here where I don't have to vacation from my life.

We actually didn't even budget in big vacation budget this year for our family because we're like, like, why?

Why would we do that?

I just didn't want to go back to the horses camping.

Like, why would I leave?

Yeah.

So our season of life right now is just enjoying where we live.

And five years, maybe that will change and we'll want to do more exploring and stuff.

But it's interesting where we chose our money to go this year.

And you know, you mentioned Megan Hale earlier and I just love that episode.

One thing we talked about was just what are your goals?

Because, Teresa, your goals are probably not the same as mine.

And so what are you actually going towards?

Maybe you do want to go and live in Portugal for a month maybe.

That's on your.

I have no idea, girl.

I've done that.

Cool.

See, I just like pegged you for that.

I was like, okay, here we go.

You called me out.

I called you out on that.

I'm actually really good at that.

And like, right now I'm like, I need a horse trailer.

So probably not on your list, but it's on mine.

So, you know, I think just like build it around that.

Usually at this point in the pod, I really keep it on my obsession questions.

But I have another pressing question that I want to ask because you are living a life you love, and I really want.

Want more people to be able to show up in their life and say, I love my life.

I don't need to escape it doesn't mean it's easy all the time.

But I have really built something that I love and I want to be in.

When did you start to envision this is your life?

Or did you kind of do the like, I'm gonna sit down and write out what I want my life to be, or did you just say, you know what, I want more of this, so I have to do less of this?

Like, how did you start to, in your own perspective and mindset, be able to just say, like, this is what I want and this is beautiful and I'm going to give more to this to build this life that I truly love?

Yeah.

So let's put business aside and kind of decide personally what lights me up, because I feel like those decisions were slightly different.

So for me personally, I just tried a lot of things and I think that's a really important piece of the puzzle.

So as a mom, So I have 13 and a 9 year old, so I've been taking care of people for a long time, and that's like a big part of that.

And I think for me it was like, there's a lot of out there that raise kids and think they have to pause their whole life while they're raising kids.

For me, I refused that as a reality.

I'm like, why?

And also, I want my kids to see me living my life.

When I'm living my life, like, I don't want to wait for this.

So for me, I just tried a lot of things over and over again to see, like, what really made me super excited about life.

My mom, for example, she's like, you're really good at reinventing yourself, but I feel like reinventing is actually like the wrong word.

I'm like, mom.

No, it's more like finding myself.

It's just taken me a bit of time to figure out what lights me up.

So I would suggest anybody who's like, I'm not excited for my life, I want to find something else.

You're always daydreaming about Something else.

I would say just go do something and see if you like it.

And if you don't, then change it.

But then once you start to feel like you're in the groove, something I do every single year with both my kids, kids and myself.

My husband still refuses to do it, but he has to listen to all of ours.

So I think mentally he's doing it.

We create these vision boards.

I mean, I like a little woo woo, but I'm more like science driven.

So the way that I created is based on the science of the mind.

And I'm going to show you something and you're going to freak out right now.

So this is my vision board for this year.

Okay.

And right here, what do you see here?

I can't tell.

What is it?

Okay, so it is a white trailer with two sorrels, which are red horses.

Horses.

And we just bought our horses like three weeks ago.

We've been riding a long time, but we were leasing horses.

We didn't have our own.

And so I built this January 1st.

Guess what color horses we bought?

Red Sorels.

And right there.

And quite frankly, if you look close enough at the photos, even the expressions of the horses match Reba and Gus.

You're like, that photo is probably of those horses.

Yeah.

Like, it's crazy.

And I stare at this thing all day, every day, and I am chipping away at everything on here.

And so for me, it's a really simple old school way to stay committed to what it is that I actually want.

And it's reminding me so that when the shiny object comes around or somebody starts moving the carrot, I'm like, well, no, this is what I want.

This feels good.

And this is what I'm committed to.

So maybe that'll work for your listeners, maybe it won't.

I actually have an episode on how I do it on Revenue Rascals, a vision board episode.

If.

If anyone's curious, I certainly did not invent vision boarding, but I have found just a way for it to feel good for me when I love the science and not as much of the woo woo.

So for me, this feels really good and powerful.

Oh, I love that so much.

I'm going to also say, reiterate, if you are listening right now and you're like, I don't even know what to put on my vision board.

I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want my life to look like.

It might just be because you haven't discovered it yet.

And like Michelle is saying, just Go try something something and let it kind of lead you.

And if you hate it, amazing.

That is such a good thing to know.

But just go try things.

Especially if you feel like you don't know what you want yet.

One last question.

One last obsession question.

When it comes to education entertainment, I know you said you love podcasts.

Who are you listening to?

Watching, reading.

Okay, so from an educational standpoint, not for fun, because for fun, I'm watching every single Taylor Sheridan show right now.

So that's that one.

If you don't like Landman, I actually don't think we can be friends anymore.

So, anywho, who am I learning from right now?

So that's a really good question, and I'm going to give you an answer that maybe you're not going to love.

But it's true.

I put the brakes on information collecting.

What I realized is I've been doing this for so long and I have so many things I can do that I need to just focus on what I need to do instead of learning more things.

So I will share that.

That is the season of my life right now, however.

So where am I spending my money in my business to grow and all of that.

I'm hiring people who know how to do really cool things to help me grow, like sell sponsorships for my podcast, for example.

I don't actually want to sign up for some course to teach me how to do that.

And could I sell sponsors?

Yeah, I could.

I'm quite good at selling.

Do I have the time?

No.

Okay, well, let's just find a person to do it.

So for me, it's like I have switched over to people helping me in my business versus me going out and information gathering.

So that's like a really big thing for me right now.

So I am on an information intake, like, hit the brakes.

However, I still love listening to podcasts.

I'm just committed myself to not taking a lot of action on all of the things.

Things.

So I will share with you some of my favorite podcasts right now.

I love Diary of a CEO.

The next thing is I'm really obsessed.

I told you in the beginning, one day I would love to be like, on a homestead or live with all my friends on giant property or something like that.

So I love this podcast called Discovering Ag and it's super good.

It's two women.

One is a cattle farmer and one's a dairy farmer, and they're hysterical.

It's pop culture meets agriculture.

I still like my first million, even though you have to be careful.

Not to try to implement everything they say every week or you'll go crazy.

The next one I love is the Neuro Experience.

And I'm in my mid-40s, and just like everyone in your mid-40s, you start thinking about perimenopause, menopause.

And so she studies actually dementia in women, and her show is all these health experts, and I find that really fun.

When we moved from New York to Utah, I lost 20 pounds and I'm in like the best shape of my life life.

And I'm 100, like 15 pounds and can push almost 300 with my legs.

So I'm kind of obsessed with this stuff.

I also like all in from just kind of staying on top of political stuff.

I like to be informed that way.

Yeah, those are my favorites right now.

Love.

I know I got some good little rooks in there.

Yeah.

And of course, Becoming Obsessed.

Hello, Becoming Obsessed, your favorite podcast.

How can somebody connect with you and just get into your world?

Yes.

Okay, so I know this sounds crazy because a lot of people would never do this, but just email me and say hi and introduce yourself.

It's hello, michelleterpstra.com if you could add that to the show notes, that would be awesome.

This doesn't need to be formal, but if something I said resonated with you and it feels good and you want to tell me that or you have a question, like, I would love to hear from you, you.

So please, please, please.

And then other than that, you can go to revenue rascals.com and you can find Revenue Rascals on all of your favorite podcast platforms.

And I will say my highest growth channel Right now is YouTube video podcast for life, baby.

Michelle, I'm obsessed with you.

I want to just talk forever.

There's so many other things that I think we could go on, but if you're still hanging out with us and you're listening, like Michelle said, go send her an email.

Let us know what Connect did with you on this episode.

Maybe something that you're like, yes, finally somebody said it.

I know I felt that way a couple times.

Or maybe something that felt a little bit sticky for you that you're not quite sure how to take.

You felt a little bit called out.

I think a lot of us are going to feel that way when it comes to sales and when it comes to not just trying to go after that next shiny object.

And I really want to know, know.

So find me on Instagram at Becoming Obsessed Pod.

Send me a dm, a voice note.

I listen to all of them and then send this to a friend.

Send it to your business bestie or the person who could use a little bit of encouragement.

And if you rate and review, it helps us get this show out even further.

And you know, we're on a mission to help more people build a life they truly love.

Okay, y', all, let's go get obsessed.

You're still listening, which, which means this episode connected with you and I want to know how.

Send me a DM on Instagram at Becoming Obsessed Pod.

Then send this episode to a friend.

If you know someone who is building a life that they love or they're feeling a little stuck and might just need a nudge, send this to them.

Then rate and review because it also helps us get the word out.

And as you know, we're on a mission for more people to live a life they truly love.

All right, let's go get obsessed.