Hey. Hey, welcome to the Summit Host Hangout Podcast where you'll learn how to host a high converting virtual summit that leads to your biggest signature offer launch yet. I'm your host, Krista from Summit in a Box, and I'm excited to bring you an episode today that's a little bit different, because here's a trend I've noticed. If you are the kind of person who is all in on the idea of hosting summits, especially if you're on multiple summits, like you are not afraid to put in the work to get results right, you'll do the work. And I think that's good to an extent. I mean, I should right, like I teach summits, and fully believe that they are the most powerful strategy to grow a business. But I think a trap we can fall into easily when we have this kind of tendency is to rely on our ability to work really hard and put in the hours to see growth and sustainability that we want, when in reality, there are other things we can be doing and there's other models and lifestyles we can be at least incorporating a little bit. So today, I brought on a special guest who is a membership mentor and business strategist who teaches women how to rekindle their rhythm and design a business that allows them to be present in their lives. She wants to show women that they don't have to keep trading their time for money and help them build something that runs at impact, not ours. And what a beautiful mission that is. I think a lot of us summit people could benefit by drawing in more of that. So without further ado, let's dive in and talk with Samantha Harris. Welcome Samantha.
Thank you for having me. Krista, so excited to be here.
Yeah, I'm so glad to have you here. And I just think all of us summit hosts just need more of your energy, more of your more of your passion for like, easy, not easier businesses necessarily, but running on impact, not outwards. I just love that phrase. Can you tell us a little bit more about you and your business?
Absolutely, yeah. So I started in business. Gosh, I mean, my very first business was selling lemons from my grandma's tree in a wagon with my brother. But in in, like, real adulthood, I started in business right out of high school. I was recruited into selling life insurance, and that sounds like a very like brutal type of thing, and it was, and I learned a ton from it, and from that, I actually went into the insurance industry. I worked in insurance for about six years, and then I was recruited again to help a friend of mine start a business where it was all about impact, and so I've had this kind of theme about impact and the impact we can make through our work for my entire career. It's always been super, super important to me. So when I left that startup and started Samantha Harris Collective, which used to be called Octus Social. I started that in 2017 and ever since then, I've kind of learned a ton about burnout and overworking. And I think a lot of us, especially if we're Millennials here, if a lot of us have kind of gone through that hustle culture era, right, where it was all about hard work. And I am no stranger to hard work. It has kind of always been. I have a bootstrap type of story. You know, I didn't go to college. I bootstrapped my way through corporate America and startups, and that's kind of how I landed in business. And I noticed that a lot of women, no matter what their education or their career story was, hard work was always a common theme. And yes, you absolutely have to work for what you've got, no matter where you come from, no matter what you're doing. However, doesn't have to be that way forever and ever. And it's funny, because I remember learning that really early on, when I was selling life insurance. You know, it's kind of something that you work really hard in the beginning, so that it will pay off later. And that is always the business model that I wanted. And I just kind of figured out how to create it and then help other people create it too. So like I said, my story is one of burnout, and kind of coming out of burnout with, you know, a business that can be maintained and absolutely thrive and create an incredible impact without it being totally dependent on how many hours you work it.
I love that so much. I think most of the time people's solution to growing their business is to work more hours. Okay, I'm already working 10. Let's just add in a couple more and see what I can do with those extra couple hours. And I just love that you are the opposite of that. Something that caught my eye from the form we filled out for this podcast was that you built a membership to over 900 members and then sold it and like, that's a lot of members, that's a lot of members to manage. And I know the answer now, but I was curious at first, like, is that part of what made you so passionate about this mission of businesses that don't run on hours? You know, like you had, I just picture this membership of 900 members, and you're at your computer all the time trying to do all this. But that's not what it looks like, right?
No, it's, I mean, so I, I like to learn things the hard way, I will say that. So I when I started the membership, I didn't start it as a an arm of my business to be exponential income. I actually didn't even have that phrase coined until I started teaching membership. But when I started it, it was really just a necessity, right? It was like, okay, my audience needs this. I had essentially created five other full time jobs for myself inside of my business, and things were just crazy nuts, so and I decided to go full force into the membership as well. It was kind of like I said. It was bred out of necessity. And so it really, really took off because it was something that was vastly needed in the community. It was, you know, in an era where Instagram was kind of everything for the personal brand owner, the small business owner. A lot of them didn't have the time or space to do these professional photo shoots all the time, but they needed visual content, and so the membership was called Content and Connection, and we would do these in person meetups in nine cities. We were going to launch our 10th city in Charleston, April of 2020, but we all know what happened there. I'll forever be be heartbroken about it, because it was my birthday trip. I've always wanted to Charleston. I was so stoked about it, but it was, it was a sad thing.
But yeah, nine cities in the better part of really nine months like it happened fast and furious, and yeah, about 900 members over that time. We ended up kind of, you know, burning out, but from the pivots and all the things we had to do, a lot of my students came to me and said, Sam, can you help me build an online membership? And I said, Well, I can try. I know best practices. I know what's worked and what hasn't. And from that, I was able to do about 20 in, like the first six months alongside my students, and I was like, You know what? I think this is really where my heart is. I want to help people make this big impact on less hours, more money, less time, and reach more right? And so it's, it's, again, all about the impact and not about getting paid per hour. And as Americans, we are ingrained with the idea that we need to make a certain amount of money per hour, right? And I think as business owners, we do try and try and get away from that. But what is it that most of us are guilty of when we first start our business? It's creating a job for ourselves, not a business, and creating a membership is one of the most incredible ways that you can create something that lives on after you and isn't only depending on you and your time and your one on one services, right? So, yeah, that's kind of where the where the flip happened.
I love that. Oh my goodness. And that sounds like an amazing membership. And I'm also sad for you that, yeah, 2020, happened. But something you said in that, something you said in there a couple times, was exponential income, and we just need to talk about that more. So can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by exponential income and where that came from?
Let me read you my official definition of it, because I want to make sure I get it across perfectly here. But kind of where it came from was, I wanted a term that wasn't passive income. Passive income has taken on. First of all, a lot of people think that there's no work required, that it's a get rich quick type of thing, and that you do nothing and you earn all this money. It feels very bro marketing, right? And I hated that. And I thought, you know, we still have to have our work boots on. And so I told my business mentor at the time, I need a term that is passive income with its work boots on. And she's like, I know you're going to come up with it. And so she just kept, like, nurturing it over me, but not she didn't give me anything. She's like, it's in you. The the term is in you. You just need to get it out, right? So I started journaling about it, and I came up with exponential income. And the definition I have for it is that it's income created via one or multiple sources or offers that is not dependent on the hours you work to earn it, but the impact your work makes.
That's really good. I love that last part.
So it's, it can be membership, it can be courses. It can be, you know, digital offers, there's, there's a lot of things it can be. It doesn't always have to be membership, but membership is one of, like, the dominating sources that it can be.
Oh, my goodness. Like where, where was the first place you started to apply that? Was it in memberships? It was in membership for me. That's interesting to me, because, like so many people I know with memberships, spend a ton of time every month creating content, hosting calls, supporting their community, and putting in so many hours. So can you tell us what it looks. Like to run a business, maybe specifically a membership based business that does not rely on all those time consuming things.
There's still going to be work. There's always going to be work. However, for me, I personally, was spending at least eight hours a day in front of the computer teaching clients, one on one. I did start creating an exponential stream of income with teaching groups and doing, you know, group programs, but again, still in front of the computer teaching, and that didn't account for all the time I needed to do the back end stuff, right, the taking care of the business, the the bookkeeping stuff, the invoicing. So the first step that I actually made toward building a business and not just a job, was outsourcing and hiring someone who was better than me at certain things. And then when I created the membership, it was the same. I knew that I needed help. You know, I'd meet with my community manager once every month, and we'd kind of go over, okay, this is what's happening this month. This is what needs to happen on your end. This is what needs to happen on my end to make this happen. So I still continue to do all the teaching inside the membership, a lot of the facilitating, but I've always relied personally on a community manager to do the back end stuff. And again, I really do think that that's an important thing when you're looking at an exponential lifestyle, to employ the type of people that are better than you at certain things, and they can get it done quicker. They can get it done better, and it takes it off your plate again. The work is still going to have to be done, but it's a lot less work for the money, right? Instead of sitting there and, you know, working per hour like I was for so many years in my business, I had started creating something where I knew my bottom line was covered every month no matter what, because I had a recurring stream of revenue that I could predict. And instead of needing five plus one on one clients every month at a high ticket, this covered all five of those, and all of the one on one work I got to do felt so much better for my soul, because I didn't have to do it for money. I did it for impact, and I did it for the love of the game kind of thing, right? It wasn't about, oh, I've got to sell another one. I've got to sell another one. And that's one of the really important things to me about building membership, is that it covers your bottom line and you're not worried about all the other arms of your business.
Oh yeah, I love this membership that covers the bottom line. And as you were saying that, you know, it sent me back to thinking about my one on one days and how much pressure there was around that, like you said, and I remember, like, just the straight up fear that would come when a project was winding down, and I'm like, I don't know where the next person's gonna come from. And I'm so, so great, not that, not that. I think you know, if you're here listening, and you run a one on one on one business, I don't think that's bad. Just like, for me, it was. And, yeah, just like, what you're talking about with other, these other options, and this idea of exponential income, it sounds so much better to me, and I also love that, like with the one on one work, our impact is limited. We can't give any more of ourselves be, you know, above and beyond a certain number of clients. But when it's a membership or, you know, there are other models as well, like you the limit on your impact is not your capacity, because more people can always come in, you can always hire more team members, and that's so powerful. I'm also guessing there are people listening to when you were saying, find team members who are better at these things than you. I remember thinking when I would hear people say that that's not possible. Like i i am really good at this, you know, oh my gosh, I am so not good at things. I thought I was good at things until I started hiring team members. Kate, she is so much better than me at customer support, at all our tech stuff. Elli so much better at a lot of the pieces of like positioning a summit and helping people with her copy. Mel gives people in our community, our clients the best answers to their questions. And I'm like, Huh? I don't even think they need me anymore, almost like I'm just gonna go hide under a rock, guys, because...
...the idea, right, is like building a team that helps your business run. And I think, you know, we're a little bit self deprecating when it comes to creating these personal brands that are, you know, they're our babies, right? We have nurtured them, and we have loved them, and we have built them. And it's, it's really hard to think about bringing other people into it, because it's always like, no one can ever love my business as much as I do. No one will ever work as hard as me, right? And I think that's where we need to flip it. It's not about hard work. It's about quality work. It's about impact, right? And it's about, at the end of the day, it's about dollars. What makes the most dollars and cents? Is it going to be for you to do this forever? Because, like, if you're a parent, no, you are literally selling your time, right? And if you can get the best return on your time a. Especially as a parent, you've gotta do it right. And I see membership as such a tool for moms, like such an incredible tool, where there is nothing else, honestly, out there that compares to where they can come into something, they can make an impact, and they can make the income that they would make working full time or better in I don't want to say no time at all, but a fraction of the time they would spend commuting and working a job.
I mean, yeah, the mom card always works on me, because nothing else is worth my time. You know, I used to be so I would work literally, like I'm not exaggerating. 5am I would wake up, I would go straight to my computer, and I would work till nine because no one cared. You know, my husband would just grab his computer sit next to me, we he'd play video games happily, and I'd work. Then the kids came on. I'm like, oh, yeah, no, this isn't it, you know, and, and now I only work a few hours per afternoon, and I homeschool my kids and hang out with them in the morning. And said I never would have thought I would be that kind of person. But, yeah, exactly, the script flips a little bit. Okay, so I, yeah, I'm obsessed with this exponential income phrase that you coined, and just love everything about it. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one. But what should someone do if they have a business or even a membership that does rely on hours, and they're kind of like, Oh, dang, what do I do now?
Oh, good question. Go watch my section of the summit we did together. There's a there's a lot of strategies that you can employ, but off of the top of my head, just kind of a couple out there that you can start with right away. First of all, take an audit of how you spend your time just like when we have health goals and we have to sit down and be really honest with ourselves about how much we eat or exercise, you need to do the same thing with your time, because you might think that you are so, so productive. But if you have ADHD, which a lot of business owners do, or if you have any issues at all with time management, or you just know it could be better, which is probably 100% of people listening to this podcast, it could always be better, right? Is to take a hard look at how you spend your time, and basically you're just going to journal that over a normal five day work week, right? Okay, I got up at this time, I went straight to my phone. This is how much time I spent scrolling. I got ready that took me an hour, or that took me two hours, because I stopped to feed the kids, and I did this and that. And there's nothing wrong with that, because you might actually want to be spending that time with your kids, right? So the goal there is intentionality. Where do you want to be intentionally spending your time? And where are you spending your time? Where you're like, Okay, this is wasteful, this is silly. This is not where I want to be, right? And so it's all just kind of about putting it into perspective. And so that is, like, the number one thing that I think that you should do. The next thing is, is to look at what you're offering in your membership. It's not always about more features. More features, most of the time, are going to overwhelm your members, right? They're going to feel like they're missing out on something. It's always, always about more impact, though. What is going to help them move the needle? Whatever your membership is about, right? Maybe you're running a membership for moms who are trying to conceive. Or maybe you're running a membership for women in business with ADHD, or maybe you are running a decluttering membership, right? Whatever it is, how can you spend the most intentional time helping them move the needle? Because not how. It's not about how many times you show up for them over the month, right? You could show up every day and get no one to join you, because it's overwhelming, but if you showed up once or twice or once a week, whatever that means for you, and it was super impactful, and people were actually experiencing transformation there, that's the game changer. That's where the testimonials come from. That's when your membership starts selling itself, right? And so I would say again, refocusing your intentions on your time and the features in your membership to make sure that everything is there for impact, not just busy work.
Oh, I like that. I'm having this conversation with a couple of our accelerator VIP clients right now, where they are thinking, like, well, I want to get rid of this, this certain piece of membership that takes a lot of my time, but I'm worried everyone's going to leave. It's like, okay, like, let's actually look at what people are saying, what the numbers are, what the show up rates are, what it's actually worth to you, like, and like, in some cases, your health to make this happen. And, yeah, you can't make those decisions without looking at where you're spending your time and like, taking a holistic look at what those offers are. So I love that those are good starting points. And I know you have I'll ask you, kind of at the end, where else people can go through like Sam, help me out here, because I'm drowning. I know a lot of people need that. But I feel like you've just really opened our eyes to different a different way businesses can be run. I'm curious if you have, like, a biggest takeaway you'd like listeners to get today?
That's a great question. So I think the biggest takeaway I would love for people who are listening is that you can do it all, but not in the way that you think. First of all, it's not all dependent on you and your time, right? It's dependent on your time in the way that you can choose how you want to spend your time, but you don't have to be the one to do it all. And I think a lot of people get scared about expanding or hiring. Oh, am I going to make enough money? I want to tell a little, just quick story. I trusted the process, and I trusted when I hired my first assistant, and at the time, I was stuck at like 5k a month, which which was great. In my first six months, I was making 5k a month like that was amazing. I had more than doubled my salary at my startup job, and I was so happy with that, but I was spending a lot of time doing back end stuff. I you know, I didn't even really have my website functional. There was just a lot of stuff that was preventing me from getting stuck or preventing me from moving on, and I was just stuck at that 5k and within a month of hiring my assistant to help me get everything, you know figured out, get everything running properly, do the back end stuff, take care of billing, get things automated. I had doubled my income, and my assistant only cost me $1,000 a month. So it was a huge change, right? So if you're worried about hiring and you, you're you're scared like, oh, I don't want to spend so much money per hour. So I'm going to hire from another country. Or I'm going to, you know, I'm going to try to be as cheap or as frugal about it as possible. Again, you have to make sure, if you're going to hire someone, you're going to let them into your business, that they are better than you at whatever it is they're doing. You don't want mediocre here, because mediocre is going to get you mediocre results, going to get you mediocre income. And so I think the biggest takeaway is that you can create a life that you love that is powered by and nurtured by the business that you love. You can do both. You just have to be smart about the way that you build it.
Mic drop. That's so good. I want to go down so many rabbit holes, but I'm just gonna let that be. I'm gonna let that simmer. That was so good, Sam, I know I have gonna have people here who want to hear more from you, want to get in your world. Want to know where they can go to to get started, even beyond those first couple of steps that you gave us. So where can people go to learn more about you and what you offer?
Yeah, so I mostly hang out on social. I'd love to get to know you. I hang out on Instagram. I'm not as active over there as I used to be because, you know, burnout, but I would love to get to know you there. So I'd love to meet you. Send me a message, let me know you. Listen to this. I'm at Samantha harris.co, and then, you know, I'd love to help you take things deeper. And so if you're curious about how your membership is, can be better, and all those fun things. So at the link in my bio, I've got something called the membership prep worksheet, and it's a nice audit. No matter if you started your membership or if you're 10 years into your membership. It'll kind of take you through the like, the best practices of, what am I charging for this? How much time am I spending here? What did my launch look like? You know, it's kind of gonna make you sit down and have a hard look at everything. And is this performing the way that I want it to, or will it perform the way that I want to? So that's a great like first step to just kind of see where you're at. And I love to see the results. Send me a picture of it. Get in my DMs. I want to talk to you about it, because sitting down and taking a hard look at things, your schedule, your membership, how you're spending your time in your business, and if that could be better, they're all so, so important to your livelihood in the long in the long term, and in your health.
yes, yes. And I want you to keep loving your businesses too, not Yes, petering out and turning it into something you face, because that's no fun.
Something you're obligated to like. How you felt about your job. Why'd you leave?
Exactly! Man, yes. Thank you so much, Samantha for being here. This was so great. You gave us so much to think about. And thank you everybody for tuning in for show notes and resources and links to everything she mentioned in this episode, head to the link in the episode description. We will have everything for you there now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual Summit.
