McKinzie Bean: From Exhausted New Mom to Successful Entrepreneur

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 McKinzie Bean from Moms Make Cents

It was my pleasure interviewing McKinzie Bean of Moms Make Cents, a popular blog that teaches moms how to build profitable blogs and businesses so that they can have the freedom to stay home with their kiddos.

Check out what McKinzie had to say to my questions!

1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?

I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial bug.

Even when I was young, I had tons of ideas for businesses I wanted to start, but it wasn’t until I became a mom that I put some serious effort into it. Right before my husband and I were going to have our first baby, the company he worked for took a major hit.

Over that first year as parents, his pay was cut by one third, there were multiple rounds of layoffs resulting in a reduction in 60% of the workforce, and there were furloughs for the workers that remained.

To say it was stressful was an understatement.

I’d always wanted to be able to stay at home with my kids. When I realized that was starting to look less and less like a possibility, I researched as much as I could and started my first online business.

Even now, my “why” is still the same. I run these businesses so I can be with my family and give them what I feel is the best life.

2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?

I remember a few years ago we were out to dinner with our friends.

They knew that I had been running businesses online and they joked that maybe my husband would be quitting his job soon.

Little did they know that the business I was doing in the fringe hours had made more that month than my husband made at his corporate job. He ended up leaving that job a few months later so we could work the businesses full-time.

3.  At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?

A couple of years into running the businesses, I was able to retire my husband. We were finally able to move to an area we’d loved for years and bought a nice house that was much larger than the 2 bedroom condo we were living in.

I found myself saying,…

I love this house; I never want to move.

It was also a huge relief to have a more balanced life.

Before, I was working tons, not sleeping much due to a one-year-old, and running three businesses while my husband was working 60+ hours a week, too. When he left his corporate job, I was able to spend time with my family and spend effective time on the businesses.

This allowed me the fulfillment of running my own business, more meaningful time with my son, and finally a good night’s sleep for the first time in years.

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?

I did hire someone early on to help me with my business, but I did have some trust concerns.

In the beginning, I was more guarded with the type of content this team member helped with. She has now been with me for nearly 3 years and I’ve given her more projects as we’ve built up that trust.

Since that first team member, I have hired two additional team members. My main assistant, who I trust wholeheartedly, came as a referral from a close friend in the industry. With my colleague vouching for this assistant, I was much quicker to allow her into more detailed areas of the business and allowed her to work more autonomously.

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 personally try to think of every reader as a friend.

When I write my emails and posts I imagine it is one of my friends or neighbors on the other end.

When it comes down to it, would I recommend that affiliate product to my friend in real life? If not, then I don’t include it in the post.

Using this method has helped me stay authentic and I’ve had multiple readers email me to say that they appreciate my honesty.

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?

I think most people fail because they give themselves too short of a timeline.

In a world where we want everything now, people expect that their business is supposed to be booming in only a few months.

Businesses take time to build.

Many aren’t profitable for six months to a year, sometimes more. During that time frame, many will give up, but it is those that continue on that will start to see results.

In my experience, if you can tough it out and give it all you’ve got for six months to a year, then by that point, you will start seeing results.

7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?

Establishing yourself as an expert in your field is crucial to selling online.

If you are selling your own products, services, or even affiliate products, people want to know that they are purchasing from a figure of authority.

While I do believe that you can have multiple facets of your business and cover topics in multiple niches (as long as they apply to the same targeted audience) if you are selling products, you need to establish credibility in that area first.

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?

When I set my sites on something I go for it 1000%.

When I want to succeed at something, I pour my whole soul into it.

When I’m rocking my baby to sleep at night instead of watching Netflix on my phone, I’m reading an insightful blog post, reading an ebook, or watching an online marketing course.

Because I immerse myself in the business, I’m able to grow rapidly.

I do think this can help me reach new monetization goals as I learn more and more effective strategies to scale my business and revenue.

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?

This became increasingly important as I hired new team members.

To be able to outsource tasks, you need to have a documented process that you can share with that team member.

Over the years as I’ve hired more team members, I’ve refined my systems more and more.

One thing that has really helped is starting to use a project management system. That way I can organize what is going on in the business and keep tabs on what our different freelancers are working on.

We are also currently establishing new workflows in the business where the freelancers communicate with each other and pass off tasks vs. me being the bottleneck and assigning projects to each freelancer individually.

10.  If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?

Oh goodness, so many things!

I would tell myself to focus hard on Pinterest, SEO, and funnels for promoting my products and forget the rest (at least in the beginning).

I also would tell myself not to be afraid of investing in the business.

In the beginning, I was an exhausted young mom running three businesses mostly between the hours of 10:00 PM and 2:30 AM. Knowing what I know now, I would have told myself to hire more help sooner.

Being able to outsource tasks in your business that either you don’t enjoy, aren’t good at, or aren’t hypercritical to your revenue can help you scale much more quickly.

About McKinzie Bean

McKinzie is the serial entrepreneur and blogger at Moms Make Cents where she blogs about how to make more money, save more money and live an abundant life. McKinzie also enjoys teaching other moms how they can succeed online and is the creator of Pin to Profits, the complete Pinterest success system.

Conclusion

Thanks for participating in my series, McKinzie!

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 McKinzie Bean?

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.

Get My FREE Blueprint!

Cheers to future success!