Elaina Giolando on Making millions, Managing Money and Skipping the 6 Biggest Mistakes EVERYONE Is Making in Business!

Woa mama this is SUCH a great interview where my special guest Elaina Giolando shares how making millions can unfold naturally when you put the right things in place and avoid the common pitfalls so many fall into. 

In this week's episode she shares:

💸Its so important to get good at converting new clients from the people who are ALREADY in front of you BEFORE going wide and spreading yourself too thin over multiple platforms.

👭How she scaled her team down from many people to just 2 key team members and significantly increased her profit margins.

🤓 How energetic abdicating is one of the biggest money leaks and how to take full responsibility for every part of your business.

📈 What has changed in the coaching industry in the past few years, how she has adapted her business model and what she wished she had focused more on when was as starting out.

👛 Her feminine-friendly approach to funnels that’s not complicated – and how to avoid the top mistakes people make that waste time and money when it comes to building consistent-cash-generating funnels.

🤑 She shares her theory of “First-time millionaire syndrome”… the mistakes she’s made, and what she has changed to cultivate more grounded and intentional money stewardship since becoming a millionaire.

Get ready to get schooled on some life-changing business advice to help you grow your cash-flow as a heart-cantered creative entrepreneur. Comment PODCAST and I'll send you the link 🔥

Write a sales post to attract your soul mate client using you astrology chart with my FREE 5-part training series! 

When you book my Cosmic Sales Intensive, You’ll walk away with a full, clear, compelling, sales page for your high ticket offer that will attract ready to buy clients and that you can continue to make sales with for years to come.

 Clients who have been through this offer have sold out a high ticket relationship coaching mastermind & had 20 applications within 48 hours of publishing.

https://withsarahmac.com/cosmic-private-intensive/

Chapters

• 0:00 Elena's Journey to Multi-Millionaire Coach
• 11:11 Top Mistakes New Coaches Make
• 18:06 Scaling Mistakes After Six Figures
• 24:17 Feminine-Friendly Funnels That Convert
• 31:55 Mastering Money: Beyond Millionaire Syndrome
• 37:16 Financial Wisdom for Six-Figure Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:43

What's up, this is Sarah Mack, and welcome to Creative Magic Club. Together, we'll discover inspirational stories of creative entrepreneurs living out their dreams, doing the work they are most passionate about, and building wealth in magical and fun ways, while building a six-figure income. As a writer and coach, helping other women to launch their dream businesses, I've connected with so many incredible people and seen it proven again and again that you can thrive financially doing whatever it is you are passionate about. I am here to share life-changing strategies for mindset, making money and reaching more people with your work in a business and life filled with creativity, freedom and fun. Hi, everyone, welcome. I'm so excited to introduce my special guest today.

Speaker 1: 2:33

We have with us Elena Giolando, who is a business strategist for entrepreneurs in the coaching and online personal branding space. She started her own company at Xero and became a self-made multimillionaire in just three years. She's also the author of Becoming Self-Made and the host of the Intimately with Elena Ray and Kingdom Builders podcasts. Elena specializes in million dollar messaging, offer development, high ticket sales, scaling strategy and mindset and management skills for accelerated business growth. She teaches solid, proven seven figure strategies with no fluff and has helped hundreds of coaches to grow six, seven and eight figures over the last six years. Hi Elena, thank you so much for joining us. Hey Sarah, thanks so much for joining us. Hey Sarah, thanks so much for having me. So I'm really excited to talk to Elena.

Speaker 1: 3:20

I have been following her for a while now and I read your book and it was kind of a funny moment for me because there were so many really random things that we had in common. Like I feel like you went through a bit of an eat, pray love kind of thing with, like Bali and I don't. Were you in Bali? Well, yeah, you Bali and you were. You were in Rishikesh and I was like, wait, this is so weird. This is exactly how I started my coaching business.

Speaker 1: 3:47

I ended up in Bali for a job with a friend. Then I like randomly ended up in Rishikesh and I was like when I remember, when I was in Bali, I discovered Pray Love and I watched the movie and I'm like what is this weird phenomenon that people just get like sucked into Asia to kind of like be reborn and find their purpose? But I loved reading your book so much and so I'm super excited to talk to you. So why don't you tell us, for everyone who doesn't know you? How did you get to doing this work as a coach? What's what's the what's the story?

Speaker 2: 4:19

Yeah, so I have a corporate background, and I say that because I think there are certain people that come into entrepreneurship from a corporate space and there's certain people that come into entrepreneurship and have, like, never had a job ever and, if you know, they're kind of different transitions. But basically I was doing international traveling to all different countries. I've been to 75 countries. I lived in Africa for a year, all over Europe, south America, working for the companies that I was working for, and so my coaching business actually started as this byproduct of living in Mongolia and living in Nigeria and being in these really off the beaten path places, doing really cool work with the job that I had and sharing about it on a blog that I called Life Before 30 and inadvertently kind of became a career coach. I was getting published on Business Insider, on Fast Company, and this was back in the day when you couldn't pay for that kind of publicity, you had to actually contact the editors and earn it, and so people discovered me from that and I realized pretty quickly people were reaching out for career advice and I was like, wait a second, I could monetize this, and so I started monetizing it on the side of my corporate job and then really, that gave me this taste of the international jet setting life, the, not just in the hometown working for a paycheck, and I realized I could never go back because I loved that lifestyle so much and that's what really launched me into well, the intention and growing a business is not to become a millionaire and not to have this following and not to really do anything except make enough money to buy the next one way plane ticket. And so I traveled the world on my own, quit the jobs, and I remember traveling through Bali in like 2016 and thinking to myself man, if I could really figure out how to make a living from my laptop, like all these people I see in the jungle, I want to come and live here because that's so cool. They get to live full time in Asia.

Speaker 2: 6:21

And, long story short, I wound up getting fired from my last corporate job in New Zealand, from Uber, because I was just done. I sabotaged that. I was like I don't want to work for anyone else anymore and so, by force, that part time thing I was doing, with some one off sessions and just like what whoever came to me from the blog had to become my full time thing all of a sudden. So that is a different transition into entrepreneurship than some people who really, you know, set out to do that for a long time, and that kind of rude awakening forced me to figure out things I had no idea about. I didn't know how to market myself, I didn't know how to sell, I didn't know what a niche was or how to make a business model around this stuff.

Speaker 2: 7:06

But one of the big parts of my journey was actually going to a place I was first in Berlin and then in Bali where people were living that lifestyle, and so I got around them, started to become friends with them, forged relationships and community with people who had figured that out. And then, before you know it, I met my first business coach, because I was really at a point where I was either going to need to go home, because I'd been trying for a year year and a half at that point in Bali to trying to figure out how to do this and, yeah, actually hiring a coach, investing all of my remaining life savings not something I would recommend everyone to do by any means I got two more jobs to be able to pay her and to pay for my life and have stability, which is also something it's kind of a controversial opinion that I have that I recommend a lot that a lot of business coaches wouldn't recommend is they do recommend for people in the early stages have a job. Don't force your business to provide when it's not ready to provide, like when you don't know how to market and sell. Have a steady paycheck and learn to do this gradually on the side. And when you do that, you grow responsibly, and I think I entered that stage of growing responsibly studying marketing and sales from someone who really got it.

Speaker 2: 8:15

I built a life coaching business first and then later transitioned into business coaching in 2020 because people were really proactively asking me like, hey, I see you selling life coaching packages and doing pretty well, that's something I would like to do, can you teach me? And so, by invitation really, I stepped into the marketing and teaching what I had learned and really quickly figured out that I have a gift for that, that it comes very naturally to me, and people just started to really, really explode and I've been doing that full-time since yeah, I mean full-time since 2019. I quit my hustling jobs towards the end of 2019, so I've been a full-time coach and never expected to literally make millions of dollars and never expected to have the kind of success that I've seen, and I think that's a testament really to the systems and how well they work and how well the messaging work just works, that I didn't have to push for it and like try and strive and obsess about it to get to seven figures. It just really unfolds naturally when you put the right things in place.

Speaker 1: 9:20

I love that so much and I am curious because I know you. Obviously you've worked with so many people and you've helped so many other coaches and practitioners to grow their own businesses. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people making that are getting in the way of them having the kind of success that you've had?

Speaker 2: 9:39

Oh great, how much time do we have? I'll try to do like three main ones, reel it in a little bit. One that just came to mind is people get really stuck on their niche and they really obsess about it and they really kind of approach it from the wrong angle and then get stuck there where no niche is good enough and nothing is fitting, and then they never start making money and never get off the ground because one you know, one day they want to be a self-mastery coach and the next day they want to be a mindset coach and the next day it's something else. Truly, what I say is there is there is a kind of a of a spectrum here of expression and market utility, and the people who make the biggest mistakes with their niche. They're trying to be in the self-expression bucket. They're making their business about themselves, when our businesses are about a service that we provide for others. And it doesn't mean you don't self-express in your business, but probably not through your niche. It's going to come out in your content. It's going to come out in your content. It's going to come out in your messaging and your storytelling and all these other parts of your business. Don't get too caught up in trying to express all of the many facets of yourself in your niche or it's going to become too convoluted and no one's going to understand when they should hire you.

Speaker 2: 10:46

I figured out very quickly life coach, career coach, business coach just do something that's useful in the market and then put your own flair on it as you go. Second mistake I see a lot of is people cannibalizing sales by selling too many things from the starting gate, like your zero to six figure strategy should be really good free thing, really good high ticket offer. And I have seen people when they master those two things, you just go from one to the other. A lot of newer people, they'll go. Well, I should have a one-off session, I should have a two-day intensive, I should have a group program, I should have a course and it's like no, no, no, because your audience, they'll naturally just go for what's the cheapest, easiest way I could get this transformation. And if some product presents itself as if they could get the transformation of a six-month program with $97, you'll just make the $97 sales and never really build stability in your business.

Speaker 2: 13:06

And the third piece let's see strategically going like wide on marketing and focusing on platforms and being in all the places and going broad, thinking that new people and new audiences are going to buy from me.

Speaker 2: 13:22

The fact is, if the people right in front of you like in your immediate friend group, in your Facebook circle, like the people you went to fourth grade with if you're not offering something that they need or know someone who needs it and get what it is and actually want to buy it or at least opt into your free things, it's not going to work. Just you getting in front of more people there's not like magical, like new, fresh audiences where some offer that's not really landing is suddenly going to start selling. So I tell people focus on one platform that you like to hang out on, that your ideal client is also there. Start and go deep and focus on the messaging. Focus on the quality of what you're talking about, the quality of the types of content that you're putting out, and don't try to do the YouTube channel and the podcast and the book and the Facebook and the TikTok all in your first year of business. That's like a five year marketing plan for your business and you can do that all, just not all at the same time.

Speaker 1: 14:14

So good? Yeah, definitely relate to feeling all of those things at some stage. Okay, so my next question for you is what? Same question, but for people who have, like, already been successfully selling their high ticket offer, maybe already got to six figures what are the main mistakes people make when it comes to scaling beyond that?

Speaker 2: 14:36

oh, this is good. One would be not believing that they can transition into a scaled offer, like really hesitating around the idea of a mastermind, because maybe their process up until then has been very customized and very tailored. And that's great to get your business to six figures and to work with a certain amount of people. But if you do want to actually you know everyone talks about impact like, well, if you want to make more impact and reach more people, you've got to back up and have an intellectual, have some intellectual property, have a process that you understand, that you could actually teach to someone else and they could go and get results for your people by following that process. And that is something that some people are going to go oh no, I can't do that. It's not possible with my niche. I promise you. I have seen everyone in every possible niche be able to do that when they've made that decision. And why not? A lot of people get to seven figures or beyond. Six is because they don't make that decision. They don't actually get on board with okay. Well, I need to adapt. I've done it one way and now I'm going to have to do it a different way if I want to keep growing and so people either come up against that and they really decide well, I guess I'm just going to be a six figures and just do private coaching for my career and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not the growth path.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Second thing would be bleeding money honestly, like when people start like buying and hiring so many different people and spending so much money on team. I speak from experience. At some point I had like 10 people on my team and people look at me and they're like well, you've made millions of dollars, you must have such a big team. No, now my team is two people. I've scaled down. I mean we spend maybe 5%, 10% of our revenue on cost of running the business. That's a gift of being in coaching is you can have really low overhead. But I know a lot of coaches who get above six figures and suddenly 30%, 40% God forbid, 50% of the income that they're bringing into their business is going to a social media manager and an OBM and a funnels person and ads person and all of a sudden you are literally bleeding money on things that don't actually move the needle and are non-essential. And then you wind up feeling like you're working for your business because you have to report to these people and like give them instructions or approve things, and there's actually a lot of management that starts to happen. So I really discourage my clients from hiring people on monthly retainers, from signing up for agencies, signing up for COOs and stuff like that. The leaner you can keep your business actually, the better that you're going to grow.

Speaker 2: 17:04

And that goes along with the third mistake I would say, which is kind of this energetic abdicating of like well, that's not my zone of genius, so I don't want to do it, I don't want to know about that, I don't want to look at it. Systems are not my thing. Ew, I'm allergic to data and, honestly, that mindset doesn't breed a millionaire, doesn't breed a seven-figure CEO. The seven-figure CEOs and I know many of them, many friends have been behind the scenes in seven and eight-figure businesses those CEOs are the least entitled people you'll meet.

Speaker 2: 17:33

They are so humble, like let me get my elbows in. Oh, we got to set up a funnel. I know how that works and I've got certainly an expert that's going to help me with that. But oh, we got to set up a funnel. I know how that works and I've got certainly an expert that's going to help me with that, but if they needed to, they could do it. There's so many technical aspects of my business that if I needed to, I could do it, or if someone's sick, I can pitch in and like I'm not too big to serve in those areas of my business, and so it's very much like an attitude that promotes just being actually going from just a coach to being a business owner and being a CEO, and that's a definitely can be an adjustment period.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Yeah, I love these so much, especially number two, because I know my first business before my coaching business was a copy agency and I was, like you know, doing my money mindset and being like I want to scale my income and work less, and so obviously I realized that I had to do less of the writing for my clients. I hired a team of a small team of writers and then very quickly I saw how more of my time was like managing them and like project management and I was like this is even less fun than just writing and that's kind of what inspired me to shift and launch my coaching business. And I think, inspired me to shift and launch my coaching business and I think, yeah, like so many of us, there are so many examples of people with, you know, very profitable businesses, like you say, with huge teams, and I think it's so amazing to hear examples of people who are making a lot of money with small teams, because I think, especially for people in my audience, like when you're like a creative and you're like a creative and you're a heart-led entrepreneur, you know, yeah, obviously self-expression is like a big part of what appeals to us about business, but also actually the work and the impact and working with clients and doing the things that we're really good at and, you know, having these really meaningful relationships. So recognizing and I'm sure you know meaningful relationships with team is also something that can be like very fruitful and collaborative and creative and enjoyable as well. But I know that that's definitely been something that I've kind of gone back and forth with in my head of like, yeah, do I want a bigger business or do I want to keep it smaller? And, you know, have these really amazing intimate relationships with clients and what am I willing to change and evolve? And so I love that.

Speaker 1: 19:46

And wait, what was the third point? You said, oh, yeah, the. I definitely had that early on in my business and I think because part of the message there's always such contradictory messaging in business. You know like people are always saying one thing and then the other thing and you you always hear like, stay in your zone of genius and don't try and do the other things, and but you do. You know that's also. I think one of the most enjoyable things about business is that you're constantly growing and you are constantly being challenged and learning new skills and you know we we have to adapt and evolve, because nothing ever stays the same. So I think these are such valuable insights and empowering wisdom. And that leads me to my next question, which is what would you say has changed over? You know, in the way that, like the coaching industry is now and the digital landscape is like, what are the major changes that you've had to adapt to in your own business over the last couple years?

Speaker 2: 20:42

Yeah, great questions. I've actually gone the route like at some point there was this yeah, scaling up with support coaches and team and trying to create this thing where I was kind of like, up here and a lot of, if you want to hire a multi-step and figure coach, a lot of them like they're not even going to get on the, the mastermind call, they're not even going to be present maybe once a month. There's like those kind of structured businesses and I found as I grew I didn't need to do that in order to be very profitable and be doing well. And actually in fact I've gone in the direction of I want my business where people do get access to me and where we have like one-to-one relationships. I don't have other support coaches on my team. People get me and only me. I've added more one one-on-ones back into my containers that people are investing highly and I want to really take care of them and not be like, oh yeah, join my 20k mastermind and then you don't even get one-on-one time with me, which a lot of coaches sell these days. So for me personally, I saw that kind of attitude of people like removing themselves, removing themselves from the coaching experience because they were money driven and, you know, focused on scaling, and I saw like, hey, something I can offer in the market is to not do that Actually, like really roll up my sleeves and be with my people and like answer emails and attend to them and love on them. So I think that is part of it Whenever you see a market trend, you can do something different, innovate, to stand out.

Speaker 2: 22:09

I've, in a lot of ways, my business model has really been the same, though, and I look at, okay, what has fundamentally changed in the product suite. I would say people seem to want more live attention than before. Like, at one point, I had a lot of courses and passive products and things that were selling and and they were doing great, but I saw more of a shift in the marketplace of people being like but I want to come hang out with you. I'm a brand new. Where can I hang out with you for three months and actually get your eyes on this and not just follow these modules? And so I've actually felt really energized by shifting into yeah, the one long-term mastermind. Most of my Sapphire clients, which is my main program, are with me for 10 months. A lot of them re-enroll and I've had some people for two, three years now, which is wonderful.

Speaker 2: 22:58

So I love having a product suite that has that stable, consistent, long-term we're in it. We get close. The closer we get, the better the coaching gets, the better their businesses go as like a baseline offer in the business and then everything else rolls up into that or down into that and then shorter spurt things to really get people into our space. So, like two month things, three month things, I've done a number of like four week accelerators that people have loved that I just wouldn't have offered maybe three years ago. That seemed to really thrive. So those are a couple of the things I would say have shifted.

Speaker 2: 23:37

I also see people moving more in the direction of YouTube or podcasting, areas where it's evergreen and they're going to have the search engine optimization working in your favor. You're creating content that's going to last instead of the constant churn of social media, and it doesn't mean don't do social media. I just see a lot more people going okay, I'm going to put some of my eggs in this basket and start growing this thing that, like five years later someone could be searching a video and my YouTube video pops up with a link to a funnel that's been set up properly, really good. If I could actually go back, I'd probably have done more of a YouTube strategy from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Yeah, so good. Thank you for sharing all of those. And can you speak to your approach to funnels? Because I know, obviously, like it makes so much sense and and it can seem I think you know the concept of funnels can be like, oh, you just set this thing up and then it's done forever. Like what is the reality of the level of complexity and the level of maintenance that's really required to have successful funnels that make you money over the long term?

Speaker 2: 24:48

Yeah, whatever you do, listeners, don't go hire the guy for $20,000 who says he's going to build you a funnel and it's going to make all this money like. It's a complete lie. You funnels are not complicated. I teach an approach to funnels that I call like feminine friendly funnels. I have a little course on that and that's like my approach is. They're actually very simple and streamlined. We don't do these convoluted, like you know 20 email sequences with all of these if then statements and other products and all this complicated stuff. What actually is important is having a good, having good sequence of products, making sure that's really dialed, making sure the messaging is really dialed, making sure you have a free thing that is messaged well to capture people's attention and actually be something that they want. I've not seen meditations, audios, pdfs, little workbooks convert at all whatsoever, quizzes maybe just to get emails on your list. But what I teach my clients is video masterclasses, long form freebies and that are structured in a very particular way. That's also a really important component for people that if your top of your funnel is a freebie and it's not structured according to good marketing psychology and you're not talking about the right things and you're not making the right offer, it won't convert. You'll maybe get email addresses, but they're not going to buy. So there's so many components that go into it. And then yes, I love that you brought that up because there is a maintenance. There is actually looking at data and going OK, who's opting in? Who's responding to this messaging? Looking at data and going okay, who's opting in, who's responding to this messaging? What emails are producing click-throughs and results and what other parts of the business are we seeing people engage with? So we could put that in the funnel and not just use.

Speaker 2: 26:27

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is using templates from other business practitioners who are like this is the ultimate funnel and you just put your product and your name and this thing in here. It's like no, that's that's not gonna work. It has to be totally customized to who buys from you and why do they buy and where do they buy, and really building it in a very personalized way. And then also understanding that funnels are not just this like email sequence in your business that you set up once, but funnels are really the layers of marketing that you have overall. So you have form, which is on Instagram or social media, these posts, quick things where people can, you know, watch you for 90 seconds, or you know, swipe a little graphic and and get some value. That's like your top of funnel and those should all direct into your email funnel as well.

Speaker 2: 27:11

But then there needs to be and I find this is an area that a lot of people are lacking because they just go to the bottom of the funnel, which is the offer itself, and so they're doing like short little video, swipey post, buy my $10,000 thing. And there's actually a really important like middle of our marketing funnel. That is, these places where people can go and get to know you more and it is free and you provide value, not necessarily like completely educating for free, but they really get to know your values and your story and your approach and your success stories and build a relationship with you, just like you're doing on this podcast. Podcasts are a great middle of funnel. I do a lot of live streams on Instagram. I have for many years, so people know to go there to hang out with me a bit more, and so those parts of your so-called funnel that, like overall structure of your business, are so important to have dialed and if you have one without the other, you'll find it hard to sell.

Speaker 1: 28:03

Amazing, thank you for that. So I know you love talking about money and I can see that you know your conversations around money have shifted as you've kind of got to different phases of business. So I'm curious like what are the main ways that your relationship with money has changed throughout the different phases of you know your milestones that you've met as an entrepreneur?

Speaker 2: 28:25

Yeah, I think there is definitely like a first time millionaire syndrome that I've worked with many clients who have, and I had it because if no one's taught you how to be with money and then all of a sudden, yeah, your high ticket sell strategy works, your funnel works and you're starting to make a lot of money, very often like you don't know what to do with it, and people blow through it. You know, I know that I kind of blew through my first million and made mistakes with it that I didn't make on the second million and then more mistakes happened and then I got better by the third million and we're like constantly improving. And then I got better by the third million and we're like constantly improving. So I think a lot of people put off oh, I don't want to learn about investing or I don't know about you know how to save properly or do my taxes properly or manage the difference between my personal and my business finances and do things with this like high degree of professionalism. I don't really, you know, want to. I can't think about real estate right now. I can't think about learning the stock market. I'll just hire someone to do that later. But what they miss is number one. People you hire for that completely rip you off and can take up to two thirds of your wealth. If you just do an abdicating little like I'm doing the hand flip where you're just like I don't want to think about stocks and bonds, so let someone else do that oh, they'll take you for a run and by retirement you won't have enough money to retire, even if you have millions of dollars in there. So it's something that you actually do need to take a high degree of personal responsibility over as someone who's holding wealth and prepare yourself before you make all the money to have these skills set up Like I.

Speaker 2: 29:56

One of the most gratifying things I've done all year is to run a personal finance course for entrepreneurs. That teaches the nitty gritty like very practical things that very often people are like well, once I have money, then it'll make sense for me to take that course. But the really smart business owners are the ones who go oh, I should have a savings plan, I should have an investment plan, I should know how to manage money. I should have a savings plan, I should have an investment plan. I should know how to manage money. I should make sure I'm legally protected in my business by choosing the right entities and doing my taxes properly. I should educate myself on what a real estate business is and how I could acquire assets way sooner than I even think is possible, because what I see in those people and that's something I had to get on board with then the money actually really does start to show up because you know how to steward it. You really does start to show up because you know how to steward it, you know how to be with it, you have a plan for it and it is multiplying. So you're not just focused on where's that next high ticket sale going to come from.

Speaker 2: 30:46

But you know, okay, I made a $15,000 sale where every dollar of that $15,000 is going to go, because very often people are like, oh, I made a high ticket sale, I'm just going to spend on this thing and this thing, and you know, two purchases later, the 15K is gone, where the steward, the CEO, who has this preparation, her personal finance, you know is empowered in that way. She knows, okay, this is how much goes to my taxes, this is how much goes to, like, down to the penny. What is budgeted for the business, what's budgeted for her personal life, what is savings. What is she giving or tithing Then?

Speaker 2: 31:18

What is the investment plan Exactly? What stocks and bonds is it going into and what's her rate of return that she's going to be seeing in 30 years? And what is she setting aside for her future business, her future wedding, her other big purchases in her life? She knows how to buy houses and cars and invest strategically in her business because she's been taught to do that. Well, I mean, I didn't know those things and I just bought houses and cars and then it was like oh, people who know what they're doing with money don't do that. So I learned from a lot of my mistakes. I think that's what, also, when I teach finance is so valuable, because I'm teaching from like hey guys, I fell on my face, I had the millionaire syndrome. No one taught me this stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Here's the stuff that would have changed my life if I knew it five years sooner. Okay, well, I think we need a second book from you called the millionaire syndrome, because I want to read that book first time. Millionaire syndrome um, yeah, I just published, um, my first book and it was the six figure creative and it's really like the awful, awful money mistakes I made on my way to my first six figures and I think I think people, you and it's really like the awful, awful money mistakes I made on my way to my first six figures and I think I think people you know it's so valuable to know. It's like the money just went out as fast as it came in and I was like wait, you know, I remember when I had my first 20k month and I was like I'm rich forever, I'm never gonna have to use a credit card ever again.

Speaker 1: 32:34

Like I thought I just like made it and but nobody talks about this stuff. You know, especially women and, I think, a lot of creatives. You know, yeah, there's a lot of gaps in the conversation and that's like the conversation that I'm trying to have with my book, but I'm curious, like what you would say to people who are kind of on their way to their first six figures in terms of, you know, stewarding the money that they do have like what's the most valuable investments for them to make at that phase love this question and congrats on your book.

Speaker 2: 33:10

That's such a big deal to publish your first book and thanks for the idea for the second one. I that I think it might be something around finance. We'll see. Please, I think they need a budget, everyone needs a budget, and not go oh, that's scarcity, oh, that's this or that. I want to live in abundance. No, you'll be delusional, you'll be totally out of touch with reality.

Speaker 2: 33:35

Like good business owners, like the millionaires, I know we live on a budget, I budget, I live on a budget. Yes, I make a lot of money. I know what I spend, down to the penny, and I'm sometimes like on the phone going like chase, I got this extra. You know duplicated charge for $25 and I'm like taking time to make sure that no dollar is going wasted, because in the past I was so frivolous with money I'd be be like, oh, it's fine, I can afford it. I'm making millions Extra charge for this, like extra shipping for that, and it was just careless.

Speaker 2: 34:02

So being careful and intentional with your money is not restrictive. It actually gives you the freedom. Once you know a lot of entrepreneurs, I'm really surprised can't tell me hey, last month, here's exactly what my life cost me. Here's exactly what my business cost me. Here's how much debt I'm in. Here's the plan that I have to get out of debt. So having those things super, super important, not going crazy in debt. There's all this like abundance stuff about like, oh, just put it on your credit card, it'll come in later. No credit cards. 78% of people who have credit cards have credit card debt like consistently and don't get out of it and it's you know as much as compound interest goes up like this. Credit card debt tanks us. So really being mindful that, yes, having access to a line of credit as a business owner is kind of a necessary thing sometimes when you're going to have expenses or just have that access, but not to depend on that and not to, you know, just purchase, purchase, moving at the speed of cash is often best and that's why I recommend have a second.

Speaker 2: 35:01

I had a second job, I had a third, I had like three jobs until I made it over six figures. I knew that I don't want to put myself under this financial pressure. My business isn't going to grow if I'm scared about paying my rent or covering my bills. I'm going to make sure that's coming in from a stable source and that's another. I my bills, I'm going to make sure that's coming in from a stable source, and that's another. I give a lot of advice. It's unpopular, but it's like if you guys want results, if you want the thing to work like, I want that for you. So some of this unpopular stuff is really what works.

Speaker 2: 35:27

And then saving 15% of your income for retirement and not having the mindset of like, oh, that's so far off, or you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm not going to need to retire, I'm always going to be. Nope, we need, everyone needs to plan for retirement. 15% of your paycheck has got to go there and I recommend giving 10% of your paycheck to charity, generosity, whether, like I'm Christian, so I give 10% to my church, 10% like secularly. Just studies that you know, people who don't have any kind of faith necessarily, but who give generously, everyone across the board prospers. They actually can correlate and not waiting until a later stage of business to you know, quote, unquote do philanthropy, but making it a part of the business and the values.

Speaker 2: 36:09

And then, guess what, you are so much better off with that remaining 90%, or when you take out the 15% for the future, that 75% of your money that's left. You're going to be so much more careful and wise and considerate over that percentage of your income. It'll actually start to multiply much faster. So those are just a few things that again there's overall. It's the mindset of people thinking I'll just do that later, I'll invest for retirement later, I'll give later, I'll do this later and truly, if you put it off until later, you're not going to get your results until later. Do those things first, the results will come faster and then you'll be multiplying the whole way.

Speaker 1: 36:46

So good. I move at the speed of cash. I've never heard that, but I love it so much. Oh, my God, so many gold nuggets in this conversation today. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your time and wisdom. I hope everyone's taken notes. I hope everybody's goes and implements these, these amazing nuggets, and please tell us like what have you got going on at the moment for people who want to learn more about you? Where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 37:09

Yeah, well, I hope I didn't drop too much stuff on you guys. I get going. If you give me the floor, I'm like, all right, let's go. I got some things to say. Please reach out to me on Instagram my handle is heyelanagialando and share if you got a takeaway from this. I would love to know that. You could also go to elanagialandocom. Slash free gifts and I've got free messaging and marketing trainings, one of them called Inbound. That's absolutely incredible about getting more inbound inquiries into your business, and I have a how I teach new coaches to start selling fast training. So if you're totally brand new, that's a great place to start and kind of like everything in between. And my main program is my Sapphire Mastermind that launches twice a year so you can just reach out at any time. Sometimes I take one-on-ones, I have VIP days, many different ways that we can work together, and I'd love to meet you.

Speaker 1: 38:02

Amazing. Thank you so much, elena. Thank you everybody for listening. Please share this episode with anyone who you know would benefit and we'll see you next week. Bye, bye, guys. For more inspirational content, head over to my website withsarahmackcom, and please support.