In this engaging episode of the "Love Your Sales Podcast," host Leighann Lovely sits down with the dynamic Chanel Rose, a seasoned business developer and entrepreneur. Chanel shares her journey from political campaign manager and fundraising director to the owner of an international consulting firm. She delves into her sales background, influenced by her entrepreneurial family, and offers actionable insights on pivoting into profitable businesses, even amidst challenges like the pandemic. Leighann and Chanel discuss the ever-evolving sales landscape and the importance of leveraging relationships and strategic engagement to achieve success. Tune in for practical advice and inspirational stories that can drive your sales strategy to new heights.
Contact Chanel –
Website - ceareagency.com
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/chanelrose
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Sales Rescue – www.rescuemysales.com
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales. I am so thrilled today. I am joined by Chanel Rose. She is a trailblazer in the world of business development and philanthropy with 15 years of experience under her belt.
She's been a powerful force as both a political campaign manager and a fundraising director, and with her skills as a successful business developer and consultant, she has been sought after by companies and organizations [00:02:00] around the globe today. Rose is proud owner of CR agency, LLC, an international consulting firm that specializes in helping businesses.
And organizations develop strategies for growth and long term success. Her wealth and knowledge and expertise has been honed through a diverse range of expertise, including time spent in politics, large member organizations, financial services, and many other industries. But Rose's credentials don't stop there.
She's also is certified in project management and leadership development from Northwestern University in Chicago and has earned a business analytics certification from the Harvard University in Boston. These qualifications combined with her hands on experience, make her a valuable asset to any organization looking to make a real impact.
Whether you're a business looking to expand or an organization looking [00:03:00] to. To make a positive difference in the world. Chanel Rose and her team at CR agency have the expertise and drive to help you succeed with her at the helm. You'll have the confidence charming guide to navigate today's fast paced business landscape and achieve your goals.
This is going to be an amazing conversation with your wealth of experience, your background. I'm so thrilled that you're joining me today.
Chanel Rose: Thank you so much. Whenever I hear my bio, I'm like, wow, that's me. I've been busy. Yes, you have.
Leighann Lovely: So, you know, is there anything that I missed?
Chanel Rose: Oh, well, my favorite thing, I stop everything I do and tell people that I'm from Chicago.
That's the only thing that's not in that bio. Um, that is, you know, that's probably my favorite thing. If you would have asked me. Um, the running joke is like, it's God, Chicago and everything else, right? Like, when you're from [00:04:00] here, it is very much so. How do you describe your personality? Chicago. Um, and I mean that as a joke, but mostly that is the quickest way to describe my background, um, in the most succinct manner.
The only other thing it doesn't mention is, um, yeah, I'm from here.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. Proud of where you are or proud of where you're from and, and who you've, you know, really how that's built you up to be, you know, who you are. And, um, and, and I think it's important to mention you, you are, and I don't know where I read this, but third generation or fourth generation entrepreneur.
Chanel Rose: I am. Yeah. It's in my blood. It's in my roots. Um, so, Ooh, I guess the family started in farming. And up until the late 90s, we had a lumber farm, and then my grandfather was him and his cousin started a transportation logistics company that [00:05:00] grew into both fleet and logistics. And then, um, that second generation is like my mom's generation or the transportation industry.
And then. Right. I'm an entrepreneur. I do business development and sales. So if you were to ask me how I got here, I fought it. There was so much friction for me around landing and entrepreneurship and sales. I thought that. I got hired in corporate America after working, um, in campaigns and fundraising for so long that corporate America was my great hope.
It was my white picket fence. And even in corporate America, I was in sales. And when I got fired, uh, in the pandemic, no less as a top performer, I had to figure it out. And even in the beginning of that, I ran away from who I was meant to be. And when I finally owned the fact that business development and sales at the core, all I do is [00:06:00] revenue generation, no matter where I'm at in any business, it lands itself.
Smack dab on the money side. Um, and so even when I was a kid, I remember my grandfather, one of my favorite memories about him is we would be on the expressway and you know, in the eighties and nineties, there were no cell phones. Uh, they just barely had PC. So personal computers, right? Like that's how long it was.
And Who would be on the expressway and he had a notepad and a pen and he had me in the car and he'd say remember this phone number from this company and I'd have to like memorize the number and like give it back to him and I'd run in the office type it in and he'd call right like he was definitely an action taker and I mean I saw all sides of the business but my two favorite parts were making the money in the payroll right so like providing You know, commission for folks and a lot of them just a lifestyle they would have otherwise not been afforded had they have not been working for my family's company.
And so to [00:07:00] sit here today, you know, starting that same type of business, right? Like sales leaning, but just own the part that I really enjoy. It feels. The most natural
Leighann Lovely: and that's so there's a couple of things that you mentioned in there one, you know, being fired as a top producer that that's a, it's a hard pill to swallow, but so many people experienced that during the pen.
I mean, the, the pandemic shook the core of many people's, you know, lives and homes, and then to, you know, fight fight fight that. I very similar like. I was told to to follow that path. Corporate America, corporate America. Don't don't try to do the entrepreneur thing. I mean, it was that that that that's. A lot of people found themselves in that boat.
[00:08:00] So, you know, 1st, I commend you for being able to finally.
Your brilliance, despite the fact that it, I can't imagine that that was a good time for you being fired. I mean, it's not
Chanel Rose: easy, but here's the weird thing and it's kind of a hard dynamic to really dig into. So. I was a top performer. I hated my job. I was miserable. I was boxed in, ignored, not, you know, recognized as a number, but not as a person and company.
My why? And I feel like I had outgrew my role for a long time. And part of the reason why I was unable to advance is because I was doing so well, right? Like, I was with a good team. And so when it came time to ask, you know, can I get transferred? Right. A lot of times people will get hired within the firm and they will say, Oh, we need six months before we can let them go.
And [00:09:00] the rest of the company would say, well, We have six months, six months, we have six weeks, maybe two months. And so so many people, it would be like, well, if I quit, then I can't get hired. Right. Cause there's like all this stuff, this red tape. And so, um, when I got fired, I mean, I knew, right. So on a Thursday I was on medical leave.
The whole thing is messed up. But really quickly, I was on medical leave, had medically approved. This woman from HR calls me and says, Oh, well you're on unapproved leave. And I was like, no, I have documentation in my, my leave has been approved. She was like, no, well. We looked, and the person who authorized you to go on medical leave is not somebody who actually can't authorize you to go on medical leave.
I was like, but I did all the things. I did the things. And so, essentially, on the Thursday, she said, we have until Monday to come back. And I said, okay. And then she told me on Monday, I got sat down. I said, what can I do? I started with Airbnb, [00:10:00] right? Like in Airbnb, it's a little marketing platform. I lived in a great place.
And I have from Thursday to Monday to figure it out. I used all my money down to 4 cent to pivot it to Airbnb and grew to six figures in like 10 months, less than 10 months. And grew that to multiple six figures in two years. And it started like, I wish I could tell you that Unfortunately, let me frame this a little differently.
It started from survival mode, right? Like it was a pandemic. And really, I was like, well, you know, not even people are just dying everywhere. And this might be the only time in my life that I'll ever get the chance to believe in myself. I'll ever get the chance to trust myself. And My timing is terrible, but I don't, I don't know when the time, right, would be right.
Like, when does it come? How do I know? Does it show up in a certified messenger with a letter with my name on it? Like, and I just felt like. Well, all these other impossible things, like you [00:11:00] couldn't have told me that, you know, there would be the things that happened in 2020 and like in that time. And I mean, I was on medical leave.
I couldn't work anyway. And back against the wall, I literally just used what I had and like at the core of sales and starting a business and entrepreneurship. I wasn't good at Airbnb. I don't know anything about Airbnb. I had, I have my investment licenses, so I wasn't even really on social media. Right.
Um, I'm intelligent though. I worked in politics for a long time. So when you work on campaigns and you win campaigns, you know how to successfully create strategy. And I mean, my goal was just initially, I just didn't want to be homeless. I didn't want to get evicted. I didn't understand like the rent moratorium thing and it was just so much at once.
Right. And so when that salesperson kicked in, it was like, Oh, I could just sell what I have. Well, what do I have that I can sell? You know, this place that I live in. And I mean, again, [00:12:00] going back into default mode, right? The road most traveled. I know people say it's the road least traveled, but it's the road most traveled.
Right. It led me where I needed to be.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And now, so now I'm going to go back to something else you said initially you, you had, you That experience with your grand because I love the story about being in the car with your grandfather. So I want to, I want to pull that out for a 2nd, because I, I too grew up in a sales family.
Not not, you know, I don't have those types of, you know, I had real estate parents, parents in real estate. Sitting at the dinner table and talking about this deal, and you could always tell the mood. In the room when they would walk in, it was like, Oh, something's falling apart right now. But you're the story of your grand sitting in the car and having that, because I remember, you know, the eighties, the nineties, the, you know, you didn't have a cell phone where you're like, Oh, okay, let's quickly call this.
Yeah. Nails have [00:13:00] changed so much, but let's talk about what hasn't it's that, that drive that you're talking about.
Chanel Rose: Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: it's telling you to write down that number and it's the actions that come next, right?
Chanel Rose: Yeah, it's that
Leighann Lovely: write it down. Go back because you don't have cell phone. You know, you're going back into the office, right?
Yeah. So I'm going to guess, you know, this, this ingrained. You know, I guess it's almost like a muscle movement that you learned from what I think you referenced at one point, like eighth, eighth grade, ninth grade, where you are already learning this muscle movement of this is how it works.
Chanel Rose: Yeah. And so I want to make sure I highlight my grandmother.
Cause my grandfather's cool. But like my grandmother's really the star of the show. So as a kid, my grandmother was the executive director of a nonprofit. And a grant writer. And so I think [00:14:00] I learned my hardcore sales, getting the boom, don't take no for an answer, negotiation strategies from. You know, my grandfather's just blind belief that he deserved everything that he wanted, um, and my, but my grandmother was an executive director.
She was, you know, a standout leader. She has her master's degree. Um, I don't know many women today in their 70s that have a master's degree, right? It was a master's degree at the time she was going to University of Illinois here in Chicago. It was one of the best social work programs. In the country, right?
So here my grandmother was this, you know, four times single mother from originally from East St. Louis, Illinois, had moved to the South, had been in Omaha, Nebraska, and made it to Chicago, big old Chicago, small town girl made it to big old Chicago. And she was at the helm. She [00:15:00] was the boss. And, you know, in her office, there were So many different types of people like this is diversity for diversity was diversity like she just believed in talent and that for me is probably the strongest foundation and like when times get hard.
You know I got I have the grit I can make the calls I can do the emails but like. You burn out, right? So my longevity strategy is relationships. It is, you know, she was a grant writer. I was writing grants in high school when I remember getting the commission from my grandma, my grandfather from like, if I would help him figure out how to close deals with people, or I will make the calls and the messages and they will call back and I would answer calls at the office.
But like when my grandmother, my grandmother had this white collar role. Um, and I just remember. You know, watching her write grants, like, multi million dollar grants and getting them and, you know, giving people raises and, you know, in a community, [00:16:00] I always say, like, she took them from the basem*nt of a church in the projects to a high rise in downtown Chicago.
Like. That is what her discipline, consistency, relationship, understanding, and back then, remember, like, if you were getting grants, right? Either you had to know somebody who was writing the grants, or you had to, like, go to these meetings and go get this list and print it out and bind it and do all these things.
And she's doing this as, because, you know, when you're the executive director, um, you are also the salesperson and responsible for fundraising and funding. Right? Right, right. We're simultaneously dealing with, you know, the fallout of the crack 80s and the gang 90s here in Chicago, and you still have to provide the highest quality services while doing this work and go ahead.
Leighann Lovely: So I just want to so we're not we're talking about writing a grants during a time. Now, this was in. The eighties and nineties.
Chanel Rose: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: So during a time when we're not, we're not sitting down and emailing this, [00:17:00] we're talking about the old days, typewriter, finding it, hand delivering it. I mean, we're, we're talking this, this was not, and I remember, I mean, I remember when I had to, and this was dating myself, but when I had to write just a proposal and then we went and had to bind it and I mean, that is, that's That's a process.
Chanel Rose: Yeah. Yeah. So when you, when people see me and I'm so passionate about sales and you know, shameless plug, if you see me on Lincoln, I'm always telling people like sell your products, sell your services, tell people what you offer, articulate your value. And it's literally because, you know, I watched, um, you know, my, my grandfather who was this, you know, I talk about legacy a lot, but just to get help people understand.
You know, he was from the South. He had an absolutely awful, terrible, not even suitable for TV childhood. And for him to [00:18:00] grow from that into the successful entrepreneur who had multiple offices, like dumbest, like we're talking about like real deal office, two offices in Chicago, an office in Atlanta, um, two offices in Charlotte, an office in Alabama.
It is all like. Came from monetizing an idea, you know, like somebody who decided to believe in themselves. And so as an entrepreneur today, I mean, certainly, I guess you probably could do things on a typewriter, but I would argue that I think the crushing back then was finding opportunities, right? Like trying to find a room to get into needing to know somebody to know somebody to know somebody at a conference is coming up.
Right. And in 2024, I feel like there is information overload. Right? Like I tell my clients all the time, you know, you go on LinkedIn because I'm a firm believer in that any business can find business on LinkedIn. And so I, you know, I think about [00:19:00] like those trucks passing by. And when you're on the interstate, it's hundreds of them.
Right? Which one is it? You got to find one, pick one, get the number. Right? Right. The internet, our scroll feed is very similar to that. And I think the reason why I don't find it intimidating is probably from those same lessons I learned, you know, from him and from my grandmother is that like, you got to know, so he would go to truck stops, right?
Eventually we would do, um, we would ride on expressway a lot, but we would go to truck stops, right? Like get in front of your people. So if you're an entrepreneur getting started, you know, find your truck stop, find your people, right? Because. Really quickly, you need to think about truck stops. I might, I don't work for a while.
I'm advocating hanging out at truck stops, but. This is even playing field, right? It's the same thing with politics. You can apply this in any, any business, right? You're looking for people who have what you have, who can give you real time information, who can provide you with resources that otherwise wouldn't be available to truck stop, right?
So yeah, we would ride on the [00:20:00] expressway sometimes, right? A lot, because we were out doing things, but we would also go to different truck stops because he knew that, and eventually he got so good at it, he knew based on it. The type of parcel, the type of the time of day, they may be either gassing up like taking a break.
And so he would pick different ones because he would know which routes they would go on. Right. And you have to be that intentional about your business. Right. So like, An example of this would be like Facebook, right? Like, maybe a lot of people say you get on every platform, private platform. Maybe I tried that right?
But if you get really good at one platform, right? And that becomes your metaphorical route, right? And then you create your truck stop, which is your page and your community. Then you can duplicate that process over and over again. But a lot of people are just like, you know, we would do the highway [00:21:00] thing, right?
But that's like that quick cash that fidget spinner thing. And it worked, right? We would do that. And those memories are there. But I also remember we would drive around the truck stop and he would write down a business name. And if he saw the trucker, he would get their information because we offered, um, Employment for truck drivers, right?
And so then it would be like, Oh, well, you can come work for us on the side. Yeah. So the, the business grew from just like literally finding his truck stop. If that makes sense.
Leighann Lovely: It absolutely makes it, it completely makes sense. And, and Chanel, this is so wildly interesting because you bring so much.
Together, because over the years, you know, sales has changed. It's changed in a sense of, you know, obviously, during the pandemic, we weren't going to in person networking meetings anymore, right? You're no longer being able to get in front of. The people that you would create those long term relationships with and, and, and I, I remember the days where [00:22:00] I'm, I'm knocking on doors, I'm, I'm driving through business parks.
You knocking on doors saying, Hey, I'm here. I'd like to drop off some information, try to gather the informant, get past the gatekeeper that all went away.
You know, when I left corporate America, um, it was, you know, shortly after, well, I worked for a little while in corporate America after the pandemic, but even after that businesses just started locking their doors and never unlocked them and it, and it became, okay, how do I find my truck stop? How do I find my audience?
And I preach that and I'm sure you do to your clients all the time of, well, do you know where your audience hangs out? Have you, have you even created your, you know, your ideal? Audience, have you even figured out who they are? And once you do that, figure out where they hang out because you can't, it's not as [00:23:00] simple as just driving to a truck stop these days and being able to go, okay, here's all of the businesses, business names.
And depending on the industry, obviously then, you know, you, you have to shift in, but that metaphor is beautiful because it's truly, if you, if you understand it, that is how you would implement that in almost any business. Real estate.
Chanel Rose: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: I mean, print magazine. And I think you referenced a couple of different industries that you've been, you know, newspaper subscriptions, magazine ad space.
I've I've also sold magazine ad space.
Chanel Rose: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: How do you find those people and figure out how to get in front of them, you know, on a mass scale, if you're looking for that, you know, is that a trade show that they all go to that would be interested in the magazine and then obviously, sprinkling and cold calling there.
Those who believe cold calling is dead. I'm not 1, [00:24:00] it's, I mean, you at a very young age, figure it out. Wow. Okay. Okay. This is how, this is how my grandpa gets in front of his audience, because that is the only way that you could at that time. Right. Well, I mean, network, network meetings weren't booming
Chanel Rose: at that, not in transportation, not, I mean, not for, at the time it was him and his cousin, he lived in Atlanta, the offices of Chicago, they had an office in Charlotte.
Um, I mean, my thing is always like ABT, always be testing ABT all the time. Right. Right. Right. And so you're looking to get in front of your audience, I think in the beginning, people tell you to niche down. And so my concern about niching is that there's no aerial view in niching, right? If you're trying to niche down, it's like the opposite end of a funnel, right?
So like typically a funnel is, you know, the big, big, little, right. And I think if you try to start at your niche, it's this [00:25:00] very laser view into trying to cast a wide net. And, and that doesn't promote. I mean, quite frankly, it doesn't promote confidence. It doesn't promote flexibility and part of being a leader, right?
If you're going to be an entrepreneur, you need to know that you're a leader. Even if you're a party of one, you have to lead, you could have to lead yourself to your desk when you don't want to, you have to lead yourself away from one to say comments to people who are not very kind to you. Right. Um, and so I always recommend when you're getting started, which of your talents or skills do you want to use to make.
Other people's lives better, have less risk, make more money, whatever, what you do provides to a business. I always say it's two things, either you're making money or managing risk. You got to fall in one bucket, right? And ultimately whatever you're doing to help them manage risk in turn should buy them back some time and in turn show up on their bottom line.
But either you're like straight up sales or [00:26:00] you're straight up service. But if you're in the service industry, it's almost always. Again, going back to the sales or managing risk. And so I think in the beginning. Talking to people like data is, listen, it's cashflow because in the beginning, um, and I'm not talking about just like market research zooms.
I think people are a little worn out on those. Um, I mean, it's literally asking people, I do a poll on LinkedIn at least once a week. And I ask anything I ask people like, what day of the week should I have an event? Where should I go? Like what time of day should it be? And I'm getting votes and I'm making sure that the people Who I would want to come to my event are responding to my polls, and if they aren't, I'm deeming them.
I'm asking questions. I think there's so often people talk to you and they tell you to post, right? So you made it to this point. You're in the podcast. You're like, but she didn't say post. Well, here's the thing. Post. Congratulations. But [00:27:00] if you post, a lot of times, That's not when the engagement really happens.
It's a relationship. Sales is a relationship. So could you imagine being in a relationship with a guy or a girl or, you know, just a non binary person and you were never able to speak. All they would do was talk. That would be exhausting. That's the equivalent of you just posting and not talking to people.
So I will post. And then I spent at least an hour a day. I know they say 15 minutes, but I spent at least an hour a day off and on all day on LinkedIn commenting on other people's stuff. And like, I'm all over and not just people who I'm connected with. I look up my keywords, right? So I'll look up leadership development.
I will look up sales. I'll look up training. I'll look up, um, employee resource groups. I'll look up insurance sales or real estate sales or whatever. Right. And I look up posts within like the last week. This is my secret sauce. So hopefully y'all pay attention. Right. [00:28:00] And then I started commenting on people's stuff and almost always right.
They will come and look and see my page. So now my page, after I made my post is going to get more looks, it's going to get more impressions and it'll get, it'll promote more engagement. And in case you missed it, get off your front porch and go out and talk to people. So yes, Keep your lights on in your house, but go see your neighbors.
I think that's too important and we miss that, especially in sales.
Leighann Lovely: I love that. Get off your front porch, but leave your lights on. That is, that is absolutely, you know, and when I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, they're like, I don't even know where to begin. And I'm like, well, where do your people hang out?
And they're like, well, but I don't get out a lot. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I mean. I'm like, when was the last time you looked up a hashtag on LinkedIn or on Facebook to see what is happening on that page? [00:29:00] You know, what is you need to utilize not only those hashtags, but you need to go and see what is happening over there.
Like, if you utilize a hashtag that you think is cool, but there's only, you know, 400 people following that. That may not be where you want to go. You need to look for, like, the. You know, 2. 5 K or the 100 K or the, and then see who's there and then see what they're posting and engage with them and actually put an effort in.
Chanel Rose: And they
Leighann Lovely: go, Oh, I'm like, if nobody is posting or nobody is responding to your posts, you need, you need to switch it up. Like just because you post doesn't mean people will come. This is the whole, like, if you build it, they will come. No, I'm sorry. That doesn't work that way. Like, right. You, you actually have to actually engage in the audience to get them to engage back, to get them to.[00:30:00]
Go back to your page to view you to find interest to, and, and that is the, the thing where people assume like, well, if I go out and post people will, will read it and they'll like it. No, no, they won't.
Chanel Rose: No, no, no, they not. I think that the other demystification, if you will, I like to implore people to do is that.
If you're using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, I need you to start a new page. Here's why. If you're on Facebook, first of all, marketing on Facebook without starting a new page is hustling backwards. Because you're gonna be like, oh, let me post. Oh, look at my niece, she's so cute. Oh my God, the neighbor's dog died.
What is this terrible recipe? And now you 45 minutes in, right? And you wedged in between the girl from high school who has polarizing views and underneath there, there's some other drama that has none of [00:31:00] your business and you're. Three hours into a doom scroll and none of these people who you want to work with.
And also it is a self defeating action to try to sell in front of your friends and family for two reasons. One, they're not your target audience. Right. Um, and, and, and two, they're not going to support you because they aren't your target audience. But then we expect for our family to repost our stuff, comment on every post.
And then like, quite frankly, do you want your mother to be the only person posted on your business posts?
Leighann Lovely: It's great, like, and it's awesome that, you know, you get some likes, but. It doesn't it means nothing and somebody 1 said to me a popular if you want to win a popularity contest. That that's that's great go and post on your personal Facebook page, your friends and family will go and say, oh, that's that's really great.
I'm happy for you, but we're not here to win a popularity contest. Period and somebody 1 said that to me and I went. Oh. [00:32:00] Right. And so they actually, and this was a long time ago, they're like, if you have a tick tock page that was dedicated to something unrelated to your business, shut it down and restart it because all of your followers, they're following you for something totally different.
You need to start it for the business. And find the people you want to follow you. And I went, Oh,
Chanel Rose: I would make
Leighann Lovely: sense
Chanel Rose: today. I would argue that today. And I would even go further to say like, um, it's like in my business, I was going to name it like Chanel robes. And then I was like, man, if I ever sell my business.
I have to sell the rights to my name. And so then, you know, I do public speaking, I do all kinds of trainings and I've licensed in my work to people and the impact of that, like, I mean, obviously, you know, I'm manifesting selling my business, but even from the beginning, I thought to myself, you know, sales focused, this is not what I want.
[00:33:00] Um, and that same vein, I would have to turn over all the intellectual property of the business as sales. And so if my brand is Hello Chanel Rose, right, and I'm marketing my business under Hello Chanel Rose, I have to turn over Hello Chanel Rose. And so a lot of what I've been working on is stepping away from being the face of the business, um, being the spokesperson and not the product.
Right. Um, and my pages now, I could care less if I have to let them go today. Right. Um, and the, the important thing I know is that when I started to sell a product, it got a lot easier. The problem for me a lot was. I didn't want to be the face, right? Because selling stuff makes you so much money than selling yourself.
Like I use this example, Kim Kardashian, right? I know you're about to say something really quick, like Kim Kardashian. So when Kim Kardashian was Kim [00:34:00] Kardashian, she was doing club walkthroughs and sitting front row at fashion week. And by all means, listen, that's not a bad way to live, but you know why she's a billionaire, her cosmetics company and hers, her skincare and the game.
And I'm sure there's a whole bunch of other stuff, but I'm obviously not here. She's not paying me. But what I'm trying to articulate is that promoting things, um, May have so much money, more money than her being in the room,
Leighann Lovely: right? And that, and to your point, is that an entrepreneur who understands that like, yes, they, in the beginning are the face.
In order to, for you to scale and become more of that, you have to be willing to step back and allow it to grow beyond you. If you are an entrepreneur who is too self centered to be able to step back and let that animal or that morph [00:35:00] beyond you, you're never going to be able to scale. If you want to continue to always hold onto that and have it all be about you, And there are some entrepreneurs who, who want to keep it small.
They want they want to be 100 percent the face. They want to be that person. Who's the business they want to sell themselves. Unfortunately, they're not going to be able to scale in order to scale. You have to be able to take a back seat and allow others. To step in eventually and become more than what you are.
And that's that's the also the most successful people understand that they have to hire other people to do what they can't do to and and level them up to be. Um, to stay in their area of genius Chanel, your area of genius is sales is now I'm going to guess that, you [00:36:00] know, and I shouldn't guess mine. I'm going to just point out mine instead accounting.
It's not my thing. In order for me to really grow and have somebody sit down and go, okay, here's what your numbers mean. I have to, I have to have somebody sit next to me and go, here's what your numbers mean. Here's what all of this stuff, because I know that's not my working genius. And
Chanel Rose: you, and you have to stay in your lane, right?
Like, I know people always say like, you have to take, I see a lot now about taking the road, less traveled, and you got to have some losses to have some wins. And there's like all this fluffy crap about sales out there. And the reality of it is that like, lean into what you do well, and let other people lean into what they do well.
And find some synergy, right, like find some synergy around how you all can promote one another, how you all can help one another. And like, for me, I'm not good with technology. And so I really want to grow an [00:37:00] agency for people to like, you know, do their CRM stuff, especially for solo open doors. It's like a one stop shop.
And my biggest concern is that I'm not a tech person, so I don't want to fiddle with the things that don't work. I don't want to answer tech questions. I want to be able to, like, sell the product. And so, what I've been working on lately, right, because, you know, you iterate. We didn't talk about that very much here, but, like, as an entrepreneur, you iterate.
Like, where you start is usually not where you end. Jeff Bezos started off selling discount books. Hello. Here we are, what, 20, 30 years later. And I mean, I imagine Amazon still sells books. I couldn't tell you they have a Kindle. Um, but that is not their primary source of revenue, but the thing about him and how you can be in your business is just to get smarter and smarter at what's working, get smarter and smarter about what the base needs are, get smarter and smarter about how you can deliver it better, faster, smarter, and ABT [00:38:00] always be testing, um, And
Leighann Lovely: that goes back to the, the book, good to great, you know, where, and I don't know if you've read good to great, but they really do, you know, they really studied businesses and the businesses that really with.
You know, the, the people who are running the businesses were very not, they were not focused on, on the arrogance of them being great. They were focused on the businesses being great and really honing in on what they, the business itself did great. And that, that's the whole point. That's how you scale.
That's how you become, you know, the ones that thrive, the ones that do become sellable from that single entrepreneur who had a great idea and decided I'm going to go out on my own. I'm going to give a, you know, I'm going to give it a run for its money. That a [00:39:00] girl that, uh, you know, shot and, and, and see, you know, what happens.
And, you know, there is a great deal of, um, it's a, it's a fine line between somebody who can be an entrepreneur. Because there is a little bit of arrogance in us because we're like, yeah, we, I can do this better than anybody else yet in order for us to truly succeed, we have to have the humility. Yeah. Yeah.
Chanel Rose: Yeah. Yeah, a flexible leadership is something I talk about all the time. Um, so I, especially when I talk to women, I try not to talk about humility and being humble and no, like, and trust. And the reason why is that it's been stuffed down our throat. I've never seen a podcast TV show or anything geared towards.
Men and masculine that tells them don't buy coffee. Listen, if coffee and a vacation is stopping you from buying a house, coffee and a vacation is not [00:40:00] what's stopping you from buying a house. Because we're talking about, and I read this somewhere, um, years ago, and it was like, if you stop buying a fi, like $20 a week is what?
20 $80 a month, which ends up being like a thousand dollars a year. If you need $20,000 to save for a house, it would take you 20 years. And if I listen, I'm not a mathematician, so nobody correct me, but whatever. Right? The point is that like, if all you're doing is seven $20 a week to get you towards a house, babe, rent.
Sprint, right? Luxury rentals exist. Billionaires rent all the time, right? Like, don't let somebody else's idea of the white picket fence and the dream trick you into thinking that success has to happen one way. We're not monolithic. And the same thing like inside of your business. As soon as you can, invest in other people.
As often as you can, invest in other people. As fast as you can, offload tasks. Because ultimately the goal, the biggest, best companies in the world, they have figureheads, right? Like, [00:41:00] There's no scenario where, you know, pick a CEO, they're like, how much does a general make in the, in the building. I mean, from a perspective standpoint, they might know, but they don't, they're not gonna be like, oh, that's Leighann.
Right. We're me and you can both be generous. Lizzie Leighann makes. 1. 12 an hour and Chanel makes 1. 12. 2 because she's been there a week longer, right? No, no, right? Like you have to be the spokesperson. You have to be, you know, a focused, flexible leader and that flexibility comes from confidence. And I know I'm confident the more people I work with, right?
Because I'm constantly being able to basically, for layman's terms, right? A factory. Right. Right. Right? So, I'm excellent at what I do. You're excellent at what you do. I'm not coming over to tire manufacturing when I'm on handles. Right? And if I do, it's going to take me a long time. I'm about to start [00:42:00] from the training and go through and go through and go through.
You can't do that in your business. You cannot get excellent at everything. You won't ever get go to market.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And this conversation has been amazing. And we've actually, I can't believe how much time has gone by. So, um, I want to one, um, uh, Your grandmother is, I didn't get a chance to say, um, it is amazing the time period in which she was living in to have a master's.
Did you say master's degree? That is, it is phenomenal. I love to hear about powerful women having powerful roles. So that is awesome. Um, I want to give you your 32nd shameless pitch before we wrap up.
Chanel Rose: Okay. Um, well again, my name is Chanel Rose. If you are looking to pivot into a profitable business, I'm your girl.
Um, I help high achieving freedom seekers start businesses so that they have a soft landing into entrepreneurship. I'm not somebody who will [00:43:00] tell you to quit your job. I believe in duality. So you can be excellent for Google and excellent in your own company. Most of my clients are Typically mid career looking to leverage what they know and turn it into a profitable business.
So if that sounds like you, um, definitely reach out. I'd love to help you, you know, I'd love for you to be my next million dollar story.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And Chanel, you are clearly a very powerful woman, a woman following in your family footsteps. So thank you so much for joining me. This has been just a fabulous conversation.
Chanel Rose: Thank you. for having me. It has been so fun. It went by so fast.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, it, it always does when we're having a great conversation. So I agree.
