In this new episode, we are joined by the esteemed Jac White, founder and CEO of Honeybees Group, who illuminates the evolving landscape of leadership and entrepreneurship for women.

Jac, a luminary in the field of sales, elucidates her methodology that emphasizes authenticity and relationship-building in the sales process.

Throughout our conversation, we delve into the profound impact of personal experiences, including Jac's journey through infertility and her insights on the importance of financial independence.

This episode serves as a clarion call for women to embrace their potential, navigate the intricacies of business with resilience, and foster a community of support and empowerment.

Our Guest This Week:

Jac White is the Founder & CEO of Honeybees Group and a leading voice in transforming how women sell—with confidence, authenticity, and strategy. With over 20 years of sales and business development experience at brands like The New York Times, LearnVest, and Armani Exchange, Jac brings a rare blend of corporate insight and entrepreneurial know-how. Through her company and her acclaimed Girls Make Bank podcast, she helps women crack the code to sales mastery without sacrificing their values. Her work empowers founders to build scalable, sustainable sales systems that feel as natural as the work they love. A sought-after speaker and advisor, Jac is reshaping the way women founders grow revenue—and own their power in the sales process.

Takeaways:

• Jac emphasizes the transformative power of sales skills for women entrepreneurs, advocating for confidence and authenticity in selling.
• The importance of creating structured sales calls is stressed, as it is deemed vital for business growth and effective communication with clients.
• The necessity of patience in building a sales pipeline is articulated, with the understanding that it typically takes around 90 days to establish one effectively.
• Women are encouraged to embrace their unique qualities in sales, as authenticity builds trust and rapport with potential clients.
• The episode underscores the significance of financial clarity for women entrepreneurs, advocating for strategic planning to achieve business goals without undue pressure.

Chapters:

08:06 Defining Moments: Jack White's Journey

22:05 Empowering Women in Business

28:42 The Importance of Authenticity in Selling

42:00 Building Sales Pipelines and Hiring Sales Teams

Burning Questions Answered:

1.Why are so many brilliant women still afraid of selling?

2.What really builds confidence when you're starting or scaling a service-based business?

3.How can founders create consistent, sustainable revenue without losing themselves?

4.What is the 90-day pipeline rule—and why does it change everything?

5.Why is profit personal, and what does it take to reclaim financial power?

Favorite Quotes:

“Hard is not a competition. What’s hard is hard—and that’s enough.” - Jac

“Confidence doesn’t come first. It comes after you do the thing that’s hard—over and over.” - Jac

“Your ideal clients are out there. They just need to know you exist and trust that you’ll deliver.”

Guest Offers & Contact Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacwhite/ 

LinkedIn Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/honeybeesgroup/

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

Website: https://www.honeybeesgroup.co/ 

Email: hello@honeybeesgroup.co

Six Mistakes You’re Making in Sales (and How to Fix Them):  https://www.honeybeesgroup.co/6salesmistakes 

Follow the #WisdomOfWomen show for more inspiring stories and insights from trailblazing women founders, investors, and experts in growth and prosperity.

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/yja3w7nh

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4tak8ajk 

Amazon Prime: https://tinyurl.com/366syddj 

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/bdhananz 

RSS Feed: https://feeds.captivate.fm/womengetfunded/ 

Coco Sellman, the host of #WisdomOfWomen, believes business is a force for good, especially with visionary women at the helm. With over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has launched five companies and guided over 500 startups. As Founder & CEO of A Force for Good, Coco supports purpose-driven women founders in unlocking exponential growth and prosperity. Her recent venture, Allumé Home Care, reached eight-figure revenues and seven-figure profits in just four years before a successful exit in 2024. A venture investor and board director, Coco’s upcoming book, *A Force for Good*, reveals a roadmap for women to lead high-impact, high-growth companies.

Learn more about A Force for Good:

Website: https://aforceforgood.biz/ 

Are Your GROWING or PLATEAUING? https://aforceforgood.biz/quiz/

FFG Tool of the Week: https://aforceforgood.biz/weekly-tool/ 

The Book:  https://aforceforgood.biz/book/ 

Growth Accelerator: https://aforceforgood.biz/accelerator/ 

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.

We are dedicated to amplifying the voice and wisdom of women in business.

A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voice and wisdom of women leading the way.

I am your host, Kopo Salman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women.

Women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.

So today we have such a wonderful, powerful guest to help us all bring more prosperity into our businesses.

Today we have Jack White.

Jack is the founder and CEO of Honeybees Group and a leading voice in transforming how women sell with confidence, authenticity and Strategy.

With over 20 years of sales and business development experience at brands like the New York Times, LearnVest and Armani Exchange, Jack brings a rare blend of corporate insight and entrepreneurial know how.

Through her company and her acclaimed Girls make bank podcast, which you have to listen to, she helps women crack the code to sales without sacrificing their values.

Her work empowers founders to build scalable, sustainable sales systems that feel as natural as the work they love.

A sought after speaker and advisor, Jack is reshaping the way women founders grow revenue and own their power in the sales process.

Welcome, Jack.

Thank you so much.

Wow.

That I'm like blushing.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, I'm so happy to be here.

I love what you're doing amplifying women.

It's.

You speak my.

My love language.

So great.

Right?

And Jack and I met through a common community entrepreneur.

I think we're probably in a couple communities.

We have a couple.

We are, yes.

Yeah.

We met through entrepreneurs.

We met through entrepreneur right here in my.

It was a wonderful moment to connect.

Now I love having the Wisdom of Women show because I can continue those conversations and we continue to work together to help more women find their place, their voice, their wisdom and grow their businesses and prosperity.

That's what it's all about.

And I feel like we have the same mission.

We come at it from different angles, but the idea is empower, educate and let women build their businesses the way they want to.

I love it.

So Jack, as you, I always start with the question, what is one book written by a woman that has significantly influenced your life?

Okay, so I am an avid reader.

I have been an avid reader my entire life.

So I did not even think about this question because I thought, oh, this is going to be a no brainer.

And then this morning I Sort of woke up in a panic because I was racking my brain through all of the books that have made an impact in my life.

And they were all written by men.

Every business book, every self help book, every book that even you think was written by a woman, a novel or whatever.

And I was like, I don't want to come on Coco's show and talk about Twilight.

Like that is not like, yes, Twilight has made a bit of impact on my life, but that's not what I want to talk about.

So it really made me grasp how much we need women writing more books.

So thank you for bringing that to the forefront of my mind.

And then the book that I have is, FYI, Fashion Guidebooks.

This is a book that I helped create and I interned here.

There's a woman, Tara Loewenburg, who created this book.

It was sort of like Zagat for New York City clothing stores.

This was an internship my senior year of college.

And not only am I so proud of the work, like the content that is in this book, it was such a great experience seeing firsthand what it was like building a small business.

And this is like almost 25 years ago.

We worked out of Tara's apartment, we hit the streets and took the subway all over to do research.

So not only am I proud of this book, it maybe is a non traditional answer about how it has made a profound impact on my life.

Yes, from the content, but really from the experience of being a part of creating this book sort of helped me understand the power of small business and the grit and the tenacity that it takes to create something and put it out in the world.

Oh, I love this.

And so FYI, Fashion Guidebook.

Yes.

It's not in print.

It's not in print.

I wish, I wish it was.

Maybe we should bring it back.

But of all the fashion blogs and everything, I've never found anything quite as good as this.

Well, I love that you had to sort of pause and reach.

And that was really the reason why I have this question at the beginning of every Wisdom of women show is because 10% of all the books that are, that are put out are, are that make the New York Times bestseller list.

Only 10% are women.

And more than 50% of the books that are created are written by.

So it's a real problem.

Yeah.

And, and this is one of.

To me, this just reflects upon how important it is to do the work to find the books.

But it's not just books, it's everything.

Because women founders are out there leading their companies and we can find whatever it is that we want to procure if we care about it.

It doesn't just have to be women.

It can be whatever it is, it's important to you.

But if you just go and take whatever's off the shelf, you are not always thinking consciously.

Right.

And the voice of wisdom in business, I think it's unique.

It is.

And it's true.

I mean, to have to, to, to think about that.

It's with books, it's with VC funding.

Only 2% of all of VC capital goes to women.

Women are creating 47% of all new businesses.

How many women CEOs do you see ipoing?

It's a big deal every time they do it because it's so rare.

And I know you just joined Carrie's exit whisper group, which is amazing.

I love that women are creating their own spaces in this way to support each other, to educate.

Because it's not just about the support.

It's about sharing your experience and getting people to understand how to navigate it so that they get a better outcome.

I love that and it's so true.

We're here to support one another and we do things differently.

I would love to talk about you and your life.

And so much of our journeys tell so much about who we are.

And there are moments that shape who we become.

I'd love to hear about three defining moments or experiences that that has brought you to where you are.

And sometimes those things are bold opportunities.

We say yes to moments when you say, no, I won't take this moments where you overcome a heartbreaking loss or times when you feel proud of something you accomplished.

And sometimes it just comes like a gift out of the sky.

What are three of those moments for you?

I'll go in chronological order.

Sometimes these moments, you don't actually know how profound they are until much later.

And then you sort of look back and realize, oh my gosh, that was a moment.

For me, one of the first profound things is like many people, I'm a product of divorced parents.

And so my mom dropped out of college to marry my dad.

She had five kids before she was 30.

She never built a career for herself.

And when I was about 7, my parents got divorced.

I saw my mom with 5 kids under 10, with no education and no real work experience, have to navigate life now.

I was a kid, so you know, my perception of this situation was like from this mind of a seven year old.

But what I quickly realized how important money is because we had a situation where we had some Money.

And then we were in a situation where it felt like we didn't have any.

And so at a really young age, I realized the importance of money.

And I realized that I wanted to always be able to have money and make money, not because I needed to buy a ton of things, because money gave us choice and freedom and a level of comfort that even at 7, I realized I wanted to have in my life.

So that is sort of like defining moment number one.

That probably took me years of therapy to truly dissect and understand.

But I realized at a young age how important money was.

The second thing that really sort of changed the trajectory of my life.

I grew up in South Florida, and I come from a big, loving, overbearing family, and everybody is still in south Florida.

At 18, I decided to move to New York to go to fashion school, which was wild at the time.

I had never been to New York City.

I had never visited the school that I applied to.

And it was basically my mom and I getting on a plane.

We each had two suitcases, and I moved here to go to college, and I had no idea what I was doing.

I was scared out of my mind.

And I realize now that it was one of the bravest and best decisions I ever made, because I could have always gone back home.

It showed me that some decisions where you go in on blind faith and you just have intuition and, you know, this is something you want to do is, like, do it.

Take the chance.

And also, it taught me that the decisions we make when we're younger can change the trajectory of our life.

A lot of people talk about, like, don't get focused.

Yes, have a good time when you're young, but be willing to take the chance and put yourself out there when you don't have a lot to risk because it can end up being one of the best things that ever happens to you.

And so that I think, would be, you know, at 18, when you're kind of, like, not serious about much, that was a decision that really has.

I still live in New York City.

I met my husband here.

We build our businesses here.

This is a place we call home still.

And then the third defining moment is not an exact moment.

I would say it is a series of moments.

It was a journey, which is also something that probably a lot of people relate to and is something that we never talked about.

When I was at the early stages of my infertility journey, I've been married 22 years, and so 20 years ago, there was not a conversation around infertility.

Child loss that there is now.

It was a long journey to getting our family here that included fertility treatments, miscarriages.

Finally we got our son, who was amazing.

And six child loss.

It was really a long journey that I am so grateful I don't speak about it publicly enough.

I'm so grateful to the other women who talk more freely about their journey because it makes me feel less alone in my own experience.

I'm grateful that there are so many resources available now because I didn't feel like I had that in the beginning of my journey.

But going through that experience is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness.

It's the strongest point of vulnerability I have.

But it also, especially with the loss of our daughter who lived for two and a half days, makes me.

She is my superpower.

When you live through something like that, you realize that you can live through absolutely anything.

So those are the three things that I think, really, and they're all based on family or, you know, sort of taking chances, but there are three things that I carry with me closely that impact me every moment of every day.

That's amazing.

Thank you for sharing your journeys.

Wow.

So this was 22 years ago, you said when you.

You said your daughter was your biggest strength and your biggest weakness.

Yes.

So she was born during COVID So.

Which is wild.

But our.

But our.

We've admit.

But our infertility journey started 20 years ago.

Got it.

Wow.

And you said that she is your superpower.

Can you say more about that?

Sure.

I think when you have.

We had a prenatal diagnosis and.

And knew at a certain point in her pregnancy that she would have a short life, which is the most devastating thing any parent can experience.

I don't wish it on anybody.

When you live through any traumatic experience and you come out on the other side, I think it really shows you what you're made of and what you're capable of.

And for me at least, because I don't want to speak for everyone who goes through something like this.

It made me so clear and so focused.

It made me realize that throughout a lot of tough times in my life, that is when I get the sharpest and the clearest around what is actually important and what the next steps are that need to be done.

It doesn't mean you don't fall apart sometimes.

But she helped me realize how tough I can be and how strong I can be.

And she also helped me prioritize what's important to me in my life.

Things roll off of Me like never before, because I just can put things in perspective where I'm having the worst day, and I'm like, this isn't that bad.

I can do this.

This is hard.

But it's not that hard.

Let's figure it out.

Let's get on the other side of this.

I don't want anyone to have to experience that, to have that kind of superpower and perspective.

But it does show you that when things are hard, let it be hard for a second, and then figure out a plan and put your plan in place and know that there's going to be a brighter day sometime down the road and work towards that brighter day.

Whether it's in business or something in your life or something with yourself that you're struggling with, there will be a brighter day.

Figure out a plan to get yourself to that better day.

What a gift.

I mean, it's obviously not something you would ever want to go through, but.

And thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that with us.

Thank you.

I do think that what you said about those hard moments sharpen us and our clarity about what is important.

We're.

We have hard days.

Yeah, absolutely.

That hard, right?

Yeah.

Still really hard.

Right.

What I've realized is hard is not a competition.

Hard is not a competition.

What's hard is hard.

It doesn't have to be more hard or less hard, but something else to still be hard.

That's right.

And so, you know, entrepreneurship is incredibly difficult.

There are very low moments.

There are also brighter days that if.

You can overcome something like that and you can have brighter days in that context, then certainly you can with just about anything else.

That's brilliant.

And, you know, other things I wanted to reflect upon is what you said and how it's helping me see why you do what you do today, helping women build confidence in selling this idea of importance with money.

Because sometimes we as women like to downplay that money is important.

We have each of us, our own relationship with that.

Do you want to say more about that?

Yeah.

And I think a lot of us grew up thinking that money was bad or that it wasn't polite to talk about or it was greedy to think that money was important or to want money.

And I think all of that could be true depending on your attitude.

But like anything, it's how you approach it.

Money is also necessary to live, and money allows you to have choice and freedom.

I think it's important to help women understand money and help women to make money.

I have the most amazing husband and partner, a great, supportive Husband.

This isn't about like, you know, nothing.

It's not a man bashing thing.

This is about empowering women.

And I think sometimes people get that message confused that you have to like, you know, in order to lift one person up, you need to push another person down.

That's not what this is about at all.

We know that women tend to not understand money.

We're not taught money.

There's a whole bunch of societal reasons why we don't feel good about it or don't like selling and valuing our worth.

Women still don't make the same amount that men make for the same role.

So we're already at a disadvantage when it comes to saving for retirement.

Women mostly are the ones that take time off from a career or take a step back from a career.

If you're raising a family, that puts us at another disadvantage.

And right now, what I see, and this is not just my perspective, there's facts around this is 47% of all new businesses are started by women.

That number was 29% before the pandemic.

So we know during the pandemic women took a brutal force hit to the workforce and we had to leave to care for parents, to care for kids.

Now with people getting called back to the office, maybe our family has moved away.

That doesn't work for us anymore.

So there are a ton of reasons why women are at a disadvantage when it comes to earning and making money.

I want us to have the opportunity to make and earn and contribute in a way that feels good.

We also know that women are great investors and that when women have money, we pour our money into, into our families, our communities, causes that we believe in.

I wasn't going to bash men, but let's just look at the billionaires out there and how and where they spend their money.

Look at the male billionaires out there that hoard wealth, that use it to manipulate politics for their own advantage.

And then look at women billionaires who are giving it all away and lifting up communities with their investment.

And they're not doing it willy nilly.

They're doing it pretty damn strategically.

And so I think men and women think differently about money.

And I want women to have the ability to make an access and use their money for ways that align with things that are important to them.

Yeah, I love that.

So, so talk to us about.

I just want to say one more thing before we go into the other piece.

You're South Florida, 18, moved to New York City.

I was an Iowa girl that moved to New York City.

So I know about.

Yeah.

And I believe that people who make these kinds of brave choices, like you, you will always have control of your life because you always able to pivot and do things.

And like you, you're getting to live the life of your dreams.

I just find that wonderful.

The early choices matter.

Blind faith.

Sometimes you just have to do it.

That resonated so much for me.

How much of that is in the DNA of most founders?

At some point you have to take.

Your business idea and put it into action.

Yep, that's true.

That's an interesting correlation.

Yeah, you really do.

Or leave a corporate job and go out on your own even when you have babies, if that's what you decide to do, to step back.

As you said, those are moments and sometimes what happens is we step back and then forget how to step forward again.

I love the way that your business is helping women step forward again.

So I know you've helped women learn about sales and the importance of sales.

What is fueling you to help women with becoming comfortable and confident in sales?

So I spent my whole career, 20 plus years in sales and business development.

Big companies for startups.

I call myself a recovering CEO of a VC backed startup.

I know how to sell and how to put deals together.

What I saw happening over the past few years, I talked about it a little bit with COVID So many women moving out of the workforce, so many of my friends in their late 30s, 40s, 50s.

Right now in companies there's a whole level of management that's being eliminated that is not coming back.

There are men and women of a certain age who are making healthy six figure salaries that do not have job opportunities.

Right now the jobs are not coming back.

You have all of these women who in my opinion are at the top of their performance game.

Mid, 30s, 40s, 50s, like you know your stuff.

You are peak performance and there are no job opportunities available.

So what are you doing?

You're starting your own consulting firm, you're becoming a fractional, you're building a little agency and you are so good at what you do, but you don't know how to sell and you don't know how to build and run a small business because you never had to do it.

You are always a W2 employee.

So over the past couple of years I've seen a bunch of my friends in this situation and they have hired coaches or have paid to do these programs or they've signed up for all of this stuff that is not cheap, that has preyed on their emotions and I'm like, so what did you get out of it?

And they're like, oh, I'm going to create some Instagram reels.

And I'm like, girl, you are a lawyer.

You can't sell your services on Instagram.

What are you doing?

And there's this whole trend about like, I'm going to teach you to sell without getting on a sales call.

And it's made that, you know, makes seven figures in your sleep.

And that's just not realistic for me or the types of businesses I see my friends building.

We are building brick by brick, service based businesses.

Maybe we want to get them to seven figures, but that might not even be our goal.

That might not even be our goal.

And so I just burned my business down because I was so angry by what I was seeing happening.

And I said, I'm going to build a program for women to actually teach them how to build a business and how to sell and feel good in their business so that they can be in control of their own career, basically.

And I want you to at least replace your corporate income.

And if you want to do more, let's build for more.

You need to be able to support yourself and you need to be able to support your family and provide for a retirement because you have at least 20 to 25 years left or more.

I never plan on retiring if that's what you want to do.

And so, you know, there's this fear around selling because you don't identify as a salesperson.

But what's different is when you are a business owner, you are a salesperson, you're responsible for bringing revenue in.

And so there's a mental shift that goes along with owning a business that I think is challenging for a lot of people, especially women.

And that's what I'm trying to shape and evolve.

So what is your approach?

How do you help women make that shift from the discomfort and the resistance to actually taking the steps necessary to do it?

I kind of work backwards.

I think that the confidence comes from doing the hard thing and sucking at it at first and then over time getting better and seeing better results.

That's where the confidence comes from.

And so I make people do it.

And I have a group program called the Honeybee Sales Circle.

It's a community of women, small business owners and service providers.

And we are building sales funnels, learning how to do sales calls, learning how to follow up with people in the right way, learning how to get the right kinds of new leads.

It's uncomfortable.

People are like, I don't want to do this.

This doesn't feel good.

And I'm like, you're right.

This doesn't feel good right now.

But you have to do the uncomfortable part before you start to see the results and before it starts to feel comfortable.

When you start seeing the results, you get more confident.

And then you want to do sales calls and then you want to go to networking events.

The confidence comes from doing the work.

I think being uncomfortable is what holds a lot of people back.

We don't want to do things that are uncomfortable.

We don't want to do things that don't feel good.

But you have to.

In this case.

Yeah, it's uncomfortable to not be able to pay your bills.

Right.

And there's a different, you know, or even just not having the feeling of success.

That's a discomfort.

Absolutely.

So it's almost like reminding yourself that you are already uncomfortable.

Oh, that's a great.

Yes.

I love that framework.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, we think that we're not going to be great at sales, but selling is a skill and we learn new skills all of the time.

Human beings are designed and built to learn new skills.

We've been doing it since the day we were born.

But somehow we think of sales as this magical thing that you either have or you don't have.

And that's the other thing I like women to know, is that you can become a great seller no matter where you're starting from.

It doesn't matter if you're an introvert or an extrovert.

It doesn't matter what you do for work.

You can learn how to sell just like you can learn anything else.

You're not going to be a master at it on day one.

I think we put too much pressure and expectation on ourselves to be good at it on the first shot.

But you can get good at it over time.

And that's why this is a year long membership.

Because I want to really work with you through all of those steps of not feeling good, needing to tweak, wanting to optimize.

It's a process, it's a skill.

You don't hire a physical trainer for three weeks and then think you're in the best shape of your life.

It takes time to do that.

Exactly.

And I'm curious, how is it different for a woman and how is your approach unique to women?

Yeah.

So I'm not sure the sales technique should be different for men and women.

I think that's more like personality and sort of nature versus nurture.

But what I Saw when I looked around at all of the sales training and coaching out there is, it didn't resonate with me.

Yeah, it felt very aggressive.

It felt very win at all costs.

It felt very manipulative.

And that's never the way I've sold and I've always been successful doing it.

I think the reason women don't like selling is because we see this and say, I want to be the opposite of that, so that must mean I can't sell.

And so I take a very relationship driven approach to selling.

I teach women to above anything else, be curious about your prospect because you are building a relationship and you need to find out.

Selling should be the byproduct of understanding what your prospect is going through to see if you're the right fit.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves.

Like every sales call has to end in a sale.

There's so much emotion pent up around selling that I really want you to focus on building relationships and being of service, learning about your prospects and then deciding if you're the right fit for them.

If this is even somebody you want to work with, then you have the right packages and pricing and all of that.

I flip it on its head where you don't go into the conversation like, okay, I'm gonna close this one.

I think that's a very masculine way of selling.

That doesn't feel good for a lot of women.

But when you go in to the conversation and you're curious and you want to learn and you want to make sure that you can be helpful and provide value to this person, the selling part feels a lot better.

Yeah.

For both people.

Totally.

And I'm curious too.

You said you can be an introvert, you can be an extrovert.

A lot of what you write about is that you can be yourself, be authentic, bring your own skills, your own unique genius to the table.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Maybe some examples of how that has played out with some of your clients and where you can become yourself, like.

The more you are, better it is.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mostly work with service providers.

They think what they do is truly unique and different and they're the only ones that do it.

And that is almost never the case.

Why people are working with you is not because you're the only health coach in town or you're the only web designer in town.

It's because they like you and they trust you and they see the work that you deliver and they believe that you can get results for them.

I encourage women to be themselves and to share what they do, how they do it with their prospects.

Because that's what people are purchasing.

They're not just purchasing a commodity where it's like, oh, I just want this thing that I can get anywhere, therefore I'm going to the lowest price that it's available.

They're purchasing a service and they want to make sure that you are going to deliver for them and that you're going to be a great person to work with.

This is why I think we have to interview each other apart.

Right.

It's because especially when you're service based business, whether you're working on project basis or retainer basis, you're in a relationship with this person.

There has to be a personality fit, there has to be a vibe check that matches.

I encourage women to be themselves because there is somebody out there looking for someone like you to help them do whatever it is you do.

This has actually been one of the hardest things as I've pivoted my business.

I've always been very personable, but pretty private.

Opening up and sharing more about myself and my perspective on things opens you up to criticism and feedback and not everybody is going to agree with you.

And that's hard even for me.

I'm doing the uncomfortable thing that I tell other people to do.

I think it's important to be yourself because that's where the connection happens.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so one of the things tell us a little bit about some areas, some specific areas you see founders in particular making with sales.

What are some of the mistakes you see entrepreneurs make and how do you help them?

Course correct?

Sure.

I'm really big on sales calls.

You can call it whatever you want.

A connection consult call, an intro call, a spark call, it's a sales call.

And I think they are vitally important to growing your business.

I think it's the fastest way to get to revenue, especially when you're a service provider.

You can get so much market research on sales calls because you get to ask questions about what are you doing, what are you looking for, what have you tried before, who have you worked with, how was that experience?

You can gather so much rich data on sales calls.

Don't want to do sales calls, so they avoid them or they use sales calls as an opportunity to give a presentation, which is not helpful.

Right.

Or they don't go in with a plan a lot of times.

And that's the biggest one that I try to combat.

Like it's easy to say don't give a presentation.

It's easy to Say you have to do sales calls, but most people feel like they can wing it on sales calls because they're so, so good at what they do or they know what they do that they just come on and kind of like wing it.

And I think that's a big mistake.

Having a structured format for sales call, knowing who you're talking to, doing 10 or 15 minutes of research on the person you're having the call with before you get on the call goes a long way.

Knowing what questions you want to ask and having a flow that to the.

I call it the sales call flow because it is like think about a flow you want to move like with ease and grace and get to the final destination.

It takes practice and it's uncomfortable at first.

I encourage people to do a lot of sales calls, to record their calls, to listen back, which is the cringiest thing ever.

It's so awkward.

But you learn a lot and it's a way to get better.

Especially now with Fathom and Otter, a lot of people have stopped recording calls and they're just getting text readouts.

I think it's a big mistake because you're missing all of the nuance in the voice, in the questions that people are asking, how they're asking them, in the body language of watching a video back.

So I think they're great and it has a time and place.

I encourage people to record their sales calls and not just record them.

Watch and listen to them in a playback.

Wow, that's really powerful.

You've given us some really specific things that everybody can do.

And one other question I have again, I'm thinking about this person who has started their business, this service based business or portfolio career perhaps, and they're looking for their clients and they're thinking sales calls.

Well, how do I get a sales call?

Yeah.

And this is hard ways in easy ways or no?

Yes, easy.

There's harder ways and easier ways.

Yeah.

I think that every business should have at least two sales funnels.

One of the things that overwhelms small business owners is we think we have to show up everywhere, all of the time.

And then you don't do anything.

You don't have to be on every social media platform.

You don't have to be doing all of the things all of the time.

It's important to figure out who your target is.

That's number one.

Get really clear on who your ideal customer is and then find one or two places where that person hangs out and be there consistently.

And then build a mechanism to get them onto your email newsletter list.

And everyone should have an email newsletter list.

Everyone in the honeybee sales circle has to start an email newsletter list.

And we pick one other funnel because that is your constant communication with your prospects.

It takes 90 days to build a sales pipeline.

One of the things I see people do, which is tragic, is they give up too soon.

They think, okay, my Target is on LinkedIn.

I'm going to post on LinkedIn.

They post on LinkedIn for two weeks, don't get any leads, and think LinkedIn doesn't work.

I'm going to go to Instagram.

And they post on Instagram for three weeks and nothing happens.

And they think Instagram doesn't work.

It takes time.

So it takes 90 days to build a pipeline.

Might not take all 90 days, but it takes 90 days to build a healthy pipeline.

So you need to give things time to work.

And we don't, you know, we're not patient, so we don't want to give it a lot of time.

We need leads.

Now.

Pick one or two places where your customer is and then hang out there for three to four months.

I love this.

So you've given us again, some really specific instruction.

First, who is my target?

Second, find one or two places, not a dozen places where they hang out.

And the goal is to help them get on the email newsletter list and then start to farm that list.

Yes.

And then it takes 90 days to build a sales pipeline.

So, okay, give us an example of a business, an example of what a real target market is, where that company or person might go to hang out, what that looks like, and what do you do to get them on your email list?

Yeah, great.

I'll use myself as an example.

I work with female service providers.

Some of my clients have been in business for 20 years.

Some of my clients have been in business for three months.

They are all looking to build consistent, sustainable, predictable revenue in their business.

And so that's what I'm all about.

They are primarily or they're in a lot of places, but I primarily find them on LinkedIn or in communities like what we talked about.

Entrepreneista.

And not every place your target customer lives needs to be on a social media platform.

It could be a local small business group, it could be an online community, it could be a Facebook marketplace group.

Right.

Depending on what you do.

Think creatively about where this decision maker is.

And it might not be an obvious place.

So I show up on those places.

I do free workshops and webinars and I have freebies that I Offer people.

I show up and create content and comment on other people's things and then get them onto my email newsletter.

I communicate with them on a weekly basis.

I also have a podcast.

And so I promote my podcast in my newsletter.

I make sure to give great free content and resources or low cost content and resources to build authority to get them in the right mindset to be able to start to work with me.

Because that's the other important piece I talk about.

People have to be ready to buy the thing that you have to sell.

And sometimes you have to prep them ahead of time, depending on what it is you do.

The other thing that I see people do that's a mistake is it takes 90 days to build your pipeline.

Then you start to get clients and you think, oh, I know what I'm doing.

And then you stop building your pipeline.

That's when you get this situation where your revenue is up and then your revenue is down, and then your revenue is up and your revenue is down.

You have to consistently be building your pipeline in order to consistently have revenue in your business.

And so even if you feel like you have a ton of leads and you're signing on a lot of clients, you can't take your foot off the gas on your pipeline and on building new leads because eventually people cycle out and you need to bring new people in.

And so that's the other like thing I just want people to remember and realize is there's ways to dial up and down your pipeline.

You don't have to be on full force all of the time, but you don't want to push the brake either.

Do you ever have.

I'm curious because I'm thinking about founders as they're scaling.

A lot of our founders are growing their teams over time.

Perhaps some of those.

You know, you start out being the seller yourself, and over time you might need to hire a salesperson.

Yes.

And do you ever have situations like that come up?

Absolutely, yes.

And so that's something I help companies do, is find and hire those salespeople.

I think that's where your systems become really important.

As the founder, you are often doing a ton of things and you're not creating a process or creating a system.

It all lives in your head.

And so I big on documenting and creating a system, even if it's just you.

So that when you hire that team, whether it's a salesperson or anybody else in your company, you can onboard them and get them up to speed as fast as possible.

That's really important in sales and so, you know, as the owner, I think owners should always stay close to sales because that's the lifeline of the business.

Your revenue is the lifeline of the business.

You can hire a sales team as big as you want.

You always need to stay close to it, because also, as the founder, it's your brand, it's your company, it's your product.

You know, there's a lot of people that kind of outsource lead gen and all of that.

I've seen it work to varying degrees of success, but I think you always need to stay close to it.

The other thing I would say about hiring salespeople is vet them really carefully.

Like any hire, if there's a red flag, don't hire them, because that only.

This is like, general hiring practices.

It will only exasperate as like, it's there, and if it's not working, cut it quickly.

When I had a team, there were people I knew were not the right fit, and I tried to make it work and coach them up.

You don't do anybody favors doing that.

They end up not feeling good.

The employees around you see that you're not, you know, being a good leader by making the change.

Ultimately, you have to make the change anyways, and you're just wasting time and money.

That is true for any position, but especially sales, because to not have a strong salesperson, it's directly affecting revenue, and it could be costing you potential clients if they're not interacting with your prospects or your current clients in the right way.

I love that.

And it's.

I couldn't agree more.

And as a founder who has made the mistake too many times of holding on to people for all kinds of reasons.

Right.

You know, it's not going to work.

And the sooner you can replace a person or even just let them go, usually the better off you are.

And sales is too critical.

It's.

You know, you're facing your company if it's not the right culture.

Right.

You know, you.

You want to make sure that face is representing your organization.

That's right.

Level.

That's right.

All right, so as we.

As we're starting to come to a close today, Jack, you've given us so much, and, you know, I love that we started with your story and got to hear about you, your bold moves and your discovery about money, your challenges with infertility and motherhood and all of that.

And.

And then, you know, giving us this really important toolkit skill set to become more confident and go out and be able to build revenue and livelihood and business, regardless of whether the world wants to hire us again.

I feel like you've really given us so much.

What is a final word of wisdom you would like to offer to women leading high impact organizations?

Yeah, I think give yourself grace.

We are our own worst critic and we hold ourselves to very high standards.

I think if you're trying to do something new or learn something new or get better at something, give yourself the time to actually learn it and get better at it and stick to it.

Think about improvements over time.

Be gentle on yourself.

It doesn't mean you can't set high expectations and set high goals, but also realize that we're leading very full lives and there are seasons for everything.

So always improve.

Always try to be learning new things, but also give yourself the grace that you deserve.

We all need a little gentleness and grace in our lives.

And so tell us about how our listeners can become more in touch with you.

And I really want to hear more about your Honeybees sales circle.

I mean, I'm imagining what it would be like to be part of a process in the community of women where we're all taking the risk together over an entire year.

So we really have time to get through that.

90 days of building a funnel and then, oh my gosh, what could happen after that?

And where could we be a year from now?

I mean, yeah, it's, it's amazing and we, it's great.

So find me on LinkedIn.

I hang out there a lot.

Connect with me, message me, let me know that you found me from Coco's podcast so I can, you know, give you a special.

Hello.

I have an email newsletter so you can go to Honeybees Group Co and sign up for my email newsletter.

The sales circle is a year long membership, so it's sort of like Mastermind meets community meets coursework and coaching.

I took a look at everything that was out there and tried to pick the best pieces and create something really special.

And it is a group of supportive women on a mission to build businesses for themselves.

And it launched in February.

I'm blown away by what has already transpired in the group and we're just going to keep building and helping women build businesses that make strong profit and money.

Feel free to talk to me about that.

It's also on our website, HoneybeesGroup Co SalesCircle.

And then I have something that I would love to offer your listeners called the Honeybees Profit planner.

One of the things that I see people do when they are starting their business or planning for their Business is they pick an arbitrary revenue number that they want to hit.

A hundred thousand, 250,000, a million dollars.

And they don't actually think about how much money they need to fuel their life and how that revenue number translates into money in their pocket at the end of the month and at the end of the year.

So I built this thing called the Profit Planner which walks you through step by step, how much money you need in your life.

And then we work towards building your business financial goals, taking into account profit margin, taxes, any saving or investing that you want to do.

And then from there we actually start to build your products and your services and your pricing to help you get to that revenue goal.

I'll send that to you and include it in the show notes.

But I am happy to provide a discount off of that mini course for people who are just getting started or who are actually ready to take their business to the next level and need a little bit of a reset financially.

I think it's a great tool that helps people think about how to plan for revenue in their business.

And I feel like that's so valuable.

Oftentimes we underestimate how much we would need to create in terms of top line revenue.

Yes.

Yeah.

To cover the cost of the business, to cover the costs of, of growth and sales and whatever activities.

And it's not to put more pressure on yourself to have to sell more.

It's being able to create the space for true prosperity to emerge for you as a human being.

Yeah, it's right.

It's about having a plan.

It's like when you know where you want to go, that's the biggest thing is the not knowing or the not having the information makes you sort of spin in circles.

You have to know.

I love how you said creating the space, knowing what you want and having a clear goal that's based in reality and not a number that sounds good allows you to create a plan towards working towards that.

And that's what the Profit Planner does.

And I appreciate the work that you're doing, just lifting women's stories and helping to provide such valuable information to people as they're on their journey.

And we're all on our own journey.

But there are similar lines that go through each of our journey.

Thank you for giving people like me a platform to talk about what we're so passionate about and help support your listeners and your community.

Thank you, Jack.

I want to also make sure everybody knows to go listen to Girls Make Bank.

This is Jack's podcast.

Remember we started the journey of our conversation today around money and why money is important and all the the intricacies of of money and women and and how we can make more of it and feel good about it and feel confident that we can always take care of ourselves and our families and contribute in whatever ways and also build prosperity.

Be sure to check out Jack's wonderful podcast as well.

So and that'll all be in the in the notes as well.

You'll find them in the notes here in the podcast description.

So thank you Jack.

Thank you so much for being here.

We love you having you share your your wisdom and voice with us.

For everyone listening, be sure to like, follow and share the wisdom of women.

Show on whatever your favorite listening or viewing platform happens to be and to infuse more wisdom into your business, be sure to take the Growth Readiness Assessment at aforceforgood Biz Quiz and uncover where your insights are most needed to propel your growth so the world is made better by women led business.

Let's all go make the world a better place.

Cheers.