Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!
If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.
This is the series description:
You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.
Interview with Susie Moore from Susie-Moore.com
It was my pleasure interviewing Susie Moore of Susie-Moore.com, a confidence coach based in New York City that helps a lot of business owners become confidently more visible in the media to get their message out there in a far bigger way. She helps people get featured in places like Oprah Magazine, Business Insider, Forbes, Marie Claire, and more. Susie feels like it’s her job to help people get their message out there, make an impact with their mission, and be really unapologetic about it.
She also built her email list to 29,000 subscribers in 9 months by guest posting.
Check out what Susie had to say to my questions!
Watch the Video Instead
If you’re on the run and would rather listen to Susie and I chat about:
- Business Growth
- Hiring From Inside Communities
- The Importance of Knowing Your Numbers
- Systemizing Your Business Inside and Out
- Hosting a Live Event
You can listen to the video!
It’s just an audio recording with a background image, so don’t feel bad if you can’t watch it.
If you’d rather read the transcript, it’s formatted below like all my other interviews.
1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?
Well, I initially didn’t start my business online.
I started as a coach, coaching one-on-one in person, which I really enjoyed.
We’re all very lucky being alive in this day and age with the internet at our disposal and I knew that I could just impact a lot more people easily being able to do it using the web.
There are so many amazing free platforms and tools available and I wanted to really be able to reach as many people as possible and impact as many humans as possible.
Having a business allows you to do just that.
In your course, Five Minutes to Famous, you mentioned how you had first gotten featured on MindBodyGreen without experience and how that opened your eyes up to something that you could do.
That’s right.
I lost my mind when that happened.
I believe my husband and I at the time were just checking the comments in the shares like every few seconds and we just could not believe it.
That was in 2014 and I’ve been doing it every month since.
2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?
I’m a little unusual but I thought that my business from day one was taking off when I had my very first customer.
I knew that I had to really believe in myself because the world would respond in kind to me and how I was feeling about my business.
I felt confident as I started creating my online programs.
Then, when I was putting out different media features with evergreen links to various funnels, being able to see the PayPal pings when I come out of the shower was great.
Guest posting always has your content in circulation and I knew that once I kind of have more and more content out there that people will just find me organically.
That’s a very nice feeling because people don’t need your time; they want your knowledge. When you make it available in an easy way and you have the credibility or authority, I think you can’t really help but take off, ya know?
3. At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?
I think I wanted to all my life essentially, but, in my business, I think it’s when I just kind of realized that I could schedule my day how I wanted.
I didn’t have to take on clients that I didn’t want to.
I was kind of making enough money and doing well enough that I could welcome any projects that were meaningful to me.
Having no alarm was kind of a really big marker of independence and doing it your way.
Are you still a part of the 5:00 A.M. club?
I’ve been taking a little bit of a break.
I set my alarm and my body’s like…
“Man, who are you kidding?”
4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?
Great question!
I think that you have to trust them.
If you’re paying them, if you’re giving them all this information about your business, then you have to trust them.
I think it’s just a mental block more than anything else and you have to remember that no one gets far alone.
If you…
- Want to go fast
- Want to go far
- Build anything of any substance
Then it’s really up to you to drive your business and to be at the forefront of new ideas and new projects, not collecting payments, responding to social media comments, and so forth.
There are other people who can do that better than you.
I have a great assistant. I have different contractors.
They’re so much better.
Why would I tie myself up doing things that way?
When it comes to finding the right people, I think it’s great to find them through connections.
For example, we use a specific software called Ontraport. I find people through that group. I’d love to just ask friends and you know people often refer great people to each other.
Quality attracts quality.
I know that to be a very successful business owner, you have to trust you have to delegate a lot.
Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, said that the best thing she ever did in her business was hiring out her weaknesses.
One time somebody said to me…
“Imagine you’re on a plane and then the pilot comes out and serves the coffee. That’s not how it’s meant to be; you got to drive that plane of yours and everybody else has to support you.”
Not only do you create a great team that way but you can you’re kind of free to do the rockstar stuff that you were born to do.
5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?
I just teach something I know works.
Just be driven from your heart.
6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?
First of all, there’s nothing like running your own business.
I think it’s the greatest privilege that we have in this day and age.
It’s never been easier and if you feel cool to do it, then it’s possible for you.
It’s really possible for anyone who’s willing to commit to something.
I think people are afraid to spend money on their business.
You really do need to invest in it…
- People
- Software
- Ads
There are things that require upfront costs and you just have to be willing.
I think that a lot of people are just so scared to do that and when they have more money, they’ll spend it, but it works the other way around.
When you invest in yourself, you are learning the kind of systems and structures that you need.
In the beginning, I think that it’s important to trust and know that the money’s gonna come.
You need the support and to even hire before you maybe even need it just so you kind of get used to it and you get used to spending the money.
It’s all about recognizing your needs and if there’s something that can meet that need and save you a lot of time and money in the process, you know that’s something that you should 100% do.
7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?
I speak a lot about confidence in my work.
I know this is a universal problem, with a general lack of it and self-doubt of leading the show.
When it comes to publicity, really anyone can use it if you’re a human being doing business with other human beings.
I feel as if niching is something that I’m still learning, but I’m open to getting better at it.
8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?
I know publicity is a huge part of my business growth. I don’t really have any formal qualifications for it, though.
I’m getting more and more confident with it.
I know I would have had even more growth spots early, but I just kind of thought each time it’s okay. Don’t be frightened or afraid to keep pushing in uncomfortable areas.
The people who I see succeed commit and they’re not afraid to take risks.
We’re going to have our third Pitch Please! event in October and people are coming back.
When it comes to live events, it’s not about the host, but for people meeting each other. When I look back at when I was getting started, live events were a huge game changer for me.
I have friends still now who are in my life because I met them at live events.
Human connection is a basic need that we all have and seeing people who you’ve helped is amazing.
Giving those people a microphone makes me feel alive.
9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?
Oh my gosh, I love this question!
Systemization is not music to my ears, but my business coach says…
Making money is boring and making a lot of money is really boring.
What he means by that is that it’s not like going out to parties, being glamorous, and making connections.
It’s about the boring behind the scenes stuff like having landing pages, funnels that work, links that are always working, and having upsells.
You also need to manage your audience targeting, be strategic about the media placements that you’re getting, understand audience sizes of places that you’re writing for, and always kind of optimizing and tweaking different landing pages different copy.
It’s always looking at your numbers, your click-through rates, and the totally thankless jobs no one sees you doing.
I feel like sometimes I’m growing old looking at my Ontraport numbers, for example. A higher open rate results in more conversions.
You look at your numbers week-to-week, month-to-month, and you just keep optimizing.
In fact, we have a couple of different sales pages.
One’s a lot newer and we found that the older sales page was performing better through split testing, so we switched it back, even though we spent money on this sales page and it’s got a lot more bells and whistles.
Don’t run away or put your head in the sand when things get difficult.
I’m lucky that my husband works with me as my COO and he’s very good at this job.
You need to be a parent and you kind of want to always understand what’s working so you can double down on what’s gonna make you more money.
10. If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?
I love this question because I was speaking to a friend of mine that always journals on her birthday.
One of the questions she said was…
What would I say to myself five years from now?
It’s always great to kind of look back and see we would tell ourselves. My business, I’d say, is around five years old because when I started guest posting and side hustling, that’s when things started to really take off for me.
What I would say is that there is nothing to be afraid of.
You have nothing to prove, you shouldn’t do it to impress anyone or for the accolades.
Do what drives you and don’t be afraid to really be seen and go big.
About Susie Moore
Susie Moore is a New York-based confidence coach and author. She’s been featured on the Today show, Forbes, Oprah.com and more. Sign up for her free Overnight Rockstar workshop at getrockstarpr.com.
Interested in Learning From Susie?
Susie’s flagship course, Five Minutes to Famous, teaches you how to guest post in major media outlets like Forbes, Business Insider, Oprah, and more.
It’s designed for people who…
- Want to get featured in major media outlets
- Know that guest posting can help you build your email list
- Coaches, bloggers, and entrepreneurs looking to increase their digital presence
If this sounds like you, then Five Minutes to Famous might be the course you’re looking for!
Susie is incredibly supportive and helps you reach your goals.
I loved the Zoom calls with her when I first started the program and she really understands this market well.
She’s got connections everywhere and I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know.
As a result of the strategies in the course, I’ve been featured in:
- Business Insider
- GoBankingRates
- MSN
- Yahoo Finance
- The Penny Hoarder
- Student Loan Hero
- Clutch
- Best Life Online
And more!
If you want to guest post for the biggest publishers in the world wide web, then you need to learn from Susie.
Conclusion
Thanks for participating in my series, Susie!
As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.
Inspired by Susie Moore?
Now, it’s your turn!
I assembled the Scaling Blueprint to show you how to…
- Outsource Effectively
- Systemize Your Business
- Shatter Your Revenue Goals
After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.
Let me help you start scaling successfully.
Cheers to future success!
