How to Find Your $10,000 Hour: Prioritizing Time & Nailing Pricing with Kara Smith Brown, founder LeadCoverage
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"If I’m spending time on a $10 task, I’m stealing $9,990 from my business" Kara Smith-Brown, LeadCoverage
Kara Smith-Brown, scaled a 7-figure business by year 3 and is now on a path to $10M.
Can you guess what she attributes her success to?
SALES.
I know we sound like a broken record but I swear we don’t plan it this way. It just happens that 100% of the people on our podcast have scaled successfully through founder selling early and often.
What’s that saying? If it ain’t broke don’t…..
Are you stealing from your own business?
If so, no worries. We gon' learn to stop that s**t today and sell, huni!
What we'll brief you on:
Where women business owners are getting stuck resulting in only 1.7% of us ever achieving $1M in revenues.
How to figure out the $10,000 hour by prioritizing your time & nailing pricing
How picking a specific box led the company from $250k to being on a path towards $10M.
How to slay your #1 job is as CEO.
How they grew 60% YOY in the middle of the pandemic when they thought the market would fall
How to Find Your $10,000 Hour: Prioritize Your Time & Pricing
Founder: Kara Smith Brown | Company: LeadCoverage| Location: Atlanta, GA
Receipts before LeadCoverage
At 25, Kara was the 12th employee of Echo Global logistics. The company grew 3000% in 3 years while she was there and was on a path to going public. Prior to going public, they asked her to figure out what they needed to do to go public. She literally grabbed "How to IPO for Dummies". #NoJoke. Fast Forward - The company is now public and her name is on the IPO release. It’s giving receipts and we are here for it allllllll!
Here's the tea...
Problem-solving
"Someone told me that less than 2% of women founders will ever break $1M. And I said - challenge accepted." After the IPO of Echo, another company recruited her to help with an IPO but it imploded. She knew that she only had 3-6 months left so she and her husband decided to move to Atlanta and have their 2 kiddos. During this time, Kara was helping friends with email marketing to convert leads.
Solution
She launched the B2B only lead generation shop for Hubspot for companies specifically in supply chain and heavy industrial space. Kara already knew this market from previous experience. You'll learn why this type of focus matters in a min!
Where women business owners get stuck.
"Women are creating jobs for themselves in their businesses." The biggest barrier for women entrepreneurs is revenue. Kara finds that women are struggling from Moving from creating a job for themselves to small business owner to scale. Kara breaks this down into 3 phases: Phase One: Making yourself a job where you don’t have employees. Phase Two: Putting together a small team and starting to put processes in place. Phase Three: Scale. Getting into the millions with multiple employees. Learn how you can get unstuck to get on a path to scale.
Pick Your Specific Box
"One of the things that helped us go from $250k to we’re looking towards $10M now is that we have chosen a very specific box." Y’all have heard me say it before and I’m got’ say it again, and again, and…. Niche is SEXY! Early-stage founders get stuck in the clouds by failing to get focused on one segement that creates iniital momentum early on that leads you to the big vision. One way to conquer this is by getting focused on what we call your "Hell Yes" customer. You don’t need to convince them of your value and they’re willing to pay a premium for what you offer. Speaking to everyone means you're solving for no one. Learn how to refine your box to grow.
Your #1 Job as CEO - Finding Your $10k Hour
"My job as CEO is to set strategy and keep cash in the bank. There are 4 types of hours: You have a $10, $100, $1000, and $10,000 hour. It’s your responsibility as the owner of the business to free yourself up for the $10,000 hour. If I’m spending my time on a $10 task, I’m literally stealing $9,990 from my business" Figure out your $10k hour here.
How to Get & Stay Focused
"People are trying to solve problems they know nothing about." Some of the BEST companies are started by people solving problems that A. They’ve experienced and found the solution or B. They have industry-specific expertise. Kara mentions that in order to make this happen you need to first figure out what you are the best to solve for. More importantly, she mentions that it does NOT need to be sexy. So many founders are chasing trends instead of solutions. Some of the most lucrative businesses don’t mention AI, VR, Crypto, or whatever the hell is the buzzword today. They tap into a feeling by telling you what solution they’ll solve for their customer. Get the playbook on how to get and stay focused here.
What if You’re a Solo Entrepreneur or Have a Small Team?
"I will sacrifice almost anything to sell. I will not show up for meetings. I will ditch one-on-ones. The highest priority and the highest best use of my time is selling" Das it. That’s Kara’s advice. However, she acknowledges that this is super hard for women because we’re natural nurturers. We want to touch every employee, be at every game for the kids, etc and she says there’s no shame in that. However, Kara mentions that you have to decide whether you want to have a job or build an empire. Neither is wrong but it is a choice. Figure out what choice is best for you here.
Scale Major Keys - Pricing & Confidence.
"Sir, I think we’re too sophisticated for you at this point." This is exactly what Kara said to a lead who tried to nickel and dime her on price. Major BVE (big vagina energy) It’s key to nail your pricing and have confidence that what you’re offering is worthy AF. Once you get pricing down - scale happens in retention. Therefore, figuring out what in your business can generate recurring revenue is critical to creating your flywheel. Learn how to nail pricing & be confident in asking for what you deserve.
Prioritizing Your Time
"It takes me just as long to close a project-based client at $20k vs. a $120k retainer client." You’ll hear a lot about sales but what I love about Kara’s breakdown is she gives you the run-through of how she utilizes her time. From who she hires, to what sacrifices she makes, to her content planning frameworks. For example, they closed a $25,000/mo deal just from 1 LinkedIn post that she worked with a ghostwriter on while batching content. Learn how you can better prioritize your time.
Where You Can Support Kara?
If you're a company using Hubspot and want to level up your leads and sales funnel, connect with Kara.
TRACTION TOOLS: How to get it done...
Here are some tools that will help you get to your $10,000 hour, get pricing right, and prioritize your time<3
Get the Breakdown on the math behind getting to your $10k hour here.
Have you mastered the 80/20 rule? If not, get the guide on high leverage time management.
Maybe you never learned pricing? That's ok! We hear this often with founders. It's never too late to get started. Check it out Startup Pricing 101.
Check out the 7 different pricing strategies startups use here
Ready to develop your pricing hypothesis? Learn how to map it out here.
How Pricing Drives 20-30% of Top Line Growth: Get Sh!t Done Growth Ally & Founder of Pricing Tool, Accrue lays it out below.
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