387 From Accountant to Seven-Figure Exit: Building a Business That Works Without You
The Real Journey from Service Provider to Seven-Figure Entrepreneur (And Why It's Messier Than You Think)
Episode 387: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Stacy Millard, CPA, Founder of Thrive Accounting
From Accountant to Seven-Figure Exit: Building a Business That Works Without You
Episode 387: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Stacy Millard, CPA, Founder of Thrive Accounting
Quick Summary
Stacy Millard shares her journey from burned-out accountant to seven-figure business exit and back to entrepreneurship with Thrive Accounting. This conversation dives deep into the realities of scaling a service business, the identity shifts required to become a true entrepreneur, and why community and human connection are more critical than ever in our AI-saturated world.
In This Episode
The pivotal hospital room moment that changed Stacy's entire business philosophy
How to remove yourself from your business without losing quality or control
The real difference between being a service provider and being an entrepreneur
Why Stacy sold her successful firm for seven figures and what happened during her year "off"
Building Thrive Accounting: Creating a values-aligned business the second time around
Balancing personal brand building with actual business growth
The referral strategy that brings in multiple clients from single sources
Why the future of marketing is community, not algorithms
The biggest money mistake entrepreneurs make (hint: it's about gross margin)
How to talk about money openly without it being weird or salesy
Key Takeaways
Remove yourself early: Building systems that allow your business to operate without you isn't just about scaling—it's about creating a sellable asset and protecting your mental health.
Service provider vs. entrepreneur: There's a massive identity gap between "I do great work" and "I build businesses that do great work." Recognizing this shift is crucial for growth.
Do what you say you'll do: The foundation of referrals isn't asking for them—it's consistently delivering on promises and overdelivering when possible.
Lead with value: Whether it's coffee chats, networking events, or social media, always ask "how can I provide value?" rather than "what can I get?"
Community over content: In an AI-generated world, genuine human connection and community are becoming the most powerful differentiators in business.
Memorable Quotes
"I've never been as depressed as I was in that year off. I thought it was gonna be freedom and it was not at all because I no longer had a way of using my gifts and contributing." — Stacy on discovering that contribution is core to her identity
"Your personal brand really has to coincide with what you're doing and be more about sharing what you're building than simply being about building you. It's gotta be about a business." — Stacy on integrated personal branding
"We cannot do business if we're not talking to people. Period. End of story." — Kelsey on the non-negotiable need for human connection
About the Guest
Stacy Millard is a CPA, entrepreneur, and the founder of Thrive Accounting, a firm dedicated to helping entrepreneurs experience more joy and freedom in business through strategic financial guidance. After successfully scaling and selling her first accounting firm for seven figures, Stacy returned to entrepreneurship to build a values-aligned business focused exclusively on serving fellow business owners. She hosts the Small Business School podcast and is passionate about community, financial transparency, and helping entrepreneurs understand the real numbers that drive business success.
Connect
Instagram: @stacimillard
Podcast: Small Business School
Business: Thrive Accounting
Resources Mentioned
Book: Making Money is Killing Your Business
Book: 10x is Easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan
Book: The Almanac of Naval Ravikant
Vanessa Van Edwards - Body language and networking expert
Carly Ottaway / Web Awards - "Document, don't create" philosophy
Small Business School Podcast (Stacy's podcast) - Episode on gross margin and pillars of profit
About the Host
Kelsey Reidl is a marketing strategist, business consultant, and host of the newly renamed Rain or Shine podcast (formerly Visionary Life). With over 350 episodes and seven years of podcasting, she helps entrepreneurs build sustainable marketing strategies while navigating the ups and downs of business ownership. She's also a speaker on topics like ranking on ChatGPT, a course creator, and a mother balancing it all with her signature "rain or shine" philosophy.
Connect
Instagram: @kelseyreidl
Website: kelseyreidl.com
Subscribe to the weekly newsletter: kelseyreidl.com/newsletter
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Kelsey: Stacy, welcome to the Rain or Shine podcast. I'm so excited to sit down with you today because we actually recorded for your show about two weeks ago, and I feel like it was kind of like a getting to know each other interview. We realized that we share a lot of the same core values in business and a bit of this no bullshit mentality and just kind of like tell it like it is. So I'm excited to flip the script today and to have you on the show. So officially welcome and I can't wait to dive in.
Stacy: Thank you so much for the invite. I'm equally as excited to always hear everything that you have to share as well.
Kelsey: I love it. Well, we're gonna have some fun today. We'll keep it casual and I kind of want to kick things off because you started where so many of our listeners are as a service professional. So you were working as an accountant and I'm curious, the jump from being an accountant to going to a seven figure exit and then becoming an investor, to me those are totally different human beings. You have to have a different mindset. You have to think differently. You have to approach your whole life differently. So can you kind of take us back to the moment or a series of moments when you knew as an accountant that you actually wanted to make this leap into a brand new identity as an entrepreneur and somebody building something so much greater than yourself?
Stacy: Oh my gosh. That's such a good question because for so many people, I think the answer would be the same—you don't realize until you're actually in it. I was several years in, and there were some defining moments for me. At one point I was like four months pregnant. My dad had an operation for cancer in the middle of April and ended up on life support, and I worked from beside the hospital bed for seven days in tax season. I was like, I can never do this again.
To kind of paint a picture, I started an accounting firm because I wanted to do better. I watched accountants that I worked for not really care about the clients, not care about the team. And I was like, this is so out of value alignment for me. I'm gonna create a firm and just start helping clients. I just had this desire to help, so I'm like, I'm gonna just get down to the helping. And so that's what we did for a number of years.
And then this moment where I'm in this hospital room and I'm like, I can't be the only one responsible, despite the fact that in accounting, we have our names on the walls. I cannot be the face of this business anymore. These people can't be calling me all the time. I was pregnant with my second daughter and I'm like, this is gonna be a huge wake up, but I can't be everything to everybody and I'm gonna have to make this bigger than myself.
And then through that quest of figuring out, okay, well even though I went to business school, what's it really gonna take to grow this business and remove myself? I read a couple great books. One of them was called Making Money is Killing Your Business—such a good book—talking about how do you remove yourself. And the more that I got into that, I realized the identity gap between people who start small businesses, right? The hairdresser, the massage therapist, or the product-based business owner who's like, I just wanna create this product, and the businesses that we see maybe on Shark Tank or Dragon's Den or the Fortune 500s that are having exits.
I understood then the gap between the two and I was like, oh, this is fun. These systems and how you show up and how you get everybody working together to create this really great thing is so fun. It's for me, it was so freeing too, because I'm like, wow, I don't have to be here every day. I want to be here. I need to give input, but if I got sick tomorrow, this would still have impact. And so my desire from like, I just wanna do great accounting to, I want to create a business that does great accounting, really shifted.
Kelsey: Hmm. That's so inspiring and I love what you said about the, I want to do better because I think that there's these pivotal moments in all of our lives. Maybe it's while we're working a corporate job and we're like—and I know this for me specifically—I was sitting in a marketing meeting and I just thought that the campaign that they were launching was so stale. And I just remember feeling this internal pull and it was like, I want to do better for the world by launching better campaigns. And it was like this moment where I knew that if I didn't go out on my own or didn't do something differently, then I would always be bound by somebody else's version of good. And I really didn't like that thought of having to just show up for someone else's definition of what was okay or mediocre or good. And so I think that's super relatable about that tug to want something better, but then to actually go out and start building it too, which it sounds like you did.
I'm curious, what were some of those first steps you took as you expanded your vision and started to build out a team? What did that actually look like boots on the ground for you?
Stacy: Yeah, it actually looked like me getting a contract that provided me—I could earn more per hour, significantly more per hour on a contract. So I found a company that needed my help cleaning up all their books internally. And it provided me the safety net. And then I literally started with a Kijiji ad.
I think that businesses, sometimes can put—service-based businesses, product is totally different—but service-based businesses, we undervalue how easily we can get started. Find people who need your help and offer to help them. That's the basics of it. Right. And I put up a Kijiji ad that was like, oh my God, 13 years ago, not the same now, but I did some work.
And the one thing I would say that really led to the success out of everything was just connecting the desire to help. But I knew how to tell people how I could help them. And I always give credit to my marketing friends who are great at copywriting because that's essentially what you're doing, right? In marketing, you're connecting how somebody can help to what somebody wants. And I think I knew that people wanted easy, they didn't want gatekeepers, they wanted to understand their taxes. And I was like, Hey, I can do this for you. It's not gonna cost an arm and a leg. You can trust my work. I'll back it up. I'll explain things to you. Those are all natural to me. I love them. But that's what people wanted. I heard them saying, here's what it is. And so there was this massive growth in there.
But I had the safety net that gave me the ability to show up in a way that was about possibility instead of fear and scarcity. So I was like, okay, how good can this get? And then I'm like, wow, it was so busy, so fast. So it was like, how can I hire somebody? And that took a whole new skill set because I think that people think like, okay, I'm a great accountant, so now I can teach great people to do great accounting. But leadership is not at all doing the task that you have to do, it's actually an entirely different skillset. So I spent a lot of years honing leadership and what that meant and how to motivate people and how to encourage them and how to create culture. Which I think was so important. And noticing that culture, not only served our team well, but it served our clients well because they really got to know what we were about and values.
Kelsey: I love it. Well, it sounds like first of all, you took a very humanized approach to building your business. You really were willing to sit down with people, explain your services, tell them that you're willing to get your hands dirty, versus feeling like you had to have your guard up and build all these fancy funnels. You really brought yourself into it, which I think is so appreciated. And I think that in this day and age, sometimes we can rush to these fancy tactics of like, okay, I need to set up a Meta campaign and then I need to build this massive list when it's more so what you're saying of just be super clear with what problem you solve, what you offer, and tell as many people as possible.
I know in listening to you speak on other podcasts, you often talk about your services in more of an aspirational way. Like, yes, you say we can help you with your books and help you save money on taxes and all that, but I often hear you talk about we wanna help you live your life and learn to reinvest your money so that you can have more freedom and more time back. Is that strategic? How do you balance the practical wording around what you do with also these major outcomes for your clients—they're able to take their family to Disney World and you know, do things that maybe they never thought possible. So I'm just curious how you look at messaging and more on that day-to-day practical level versus the aspirational.
Stacy: Yeah, I think that's really interesting because it actually came naturally to me, but then the more that I learn about marketing, I'm like, oh, these dots connect. This is genius. I'm like, well, but it just came from a place that I'm like, I don't want to just file taxes. If you've ever sat down in a meeting with someone and you're like, Hey, so here's your taxes, they don't get excited about it. I actually don't think that grows businesses either. I worked for a firm where we just did taxes and the inspiration wasn't there because all we did was tell somebody once a year where they stood. They didn't like us, they hated coming to see us. We didn't really help them grow their business.
And I'm like, I love community. I'm such a born helper and contributor. If I'm not doing that—probably a different story—but when I sold my firm, I had a year off and I've never been as depressed as I was in that year. Really. I thought it was gonna be freedom and it was not at all because I no longer had a way of using my gifts and contributing. And so I really lacked that, and that was depressing for me. So the contribution is in me, right? I wanted to help and I'm like, taxes don't light people up, so what does? Growing their business does.
And where are the biggest pain points for business owners? I experienced them, but my friends in business do too. Being a slave to the business, having to work constant hours. And so everything that I would learn along the way, whether it was through books or coaching or my own experience watching—we had access to hundreds of clients and what worked and what didn't. What made people feel good and didn't. I was like, okay, how do we just get everybody in this place that there's just so much joy from business? And then it worked well from marketing, of course. And it's the energy behind it all.
Kelsey: So you scaled your tax firm, but then you sold it and started Thrive Accounting. Can you kind of walk us through what happened in that timeframe and why you decided to kind of relaunch a whole new set of services under Thrive?
Stacy: Yeah, I mean, I think like every major decision, selling a business has multiple layers to it. So I never grew that firm expecting to sell it. I thought I was going to work forever. It was gonna be mine forever. The one thing I'll say is that that moment in the hospital room with my dad really actually did set me up for a sale because I started removing myself from the practice, or not removing myself, but I made it be able to operate without me. Which led to a sellable business.
And there was one day, I mean, the sale happened in 2021, so you can imagine it's like post COVID, there's a lot of stress through COVID with tax updates would come out and somebody would be calling me while this press release is happening. I'm like, I'm watching the same video as you. People's money stress—I'm pretty good at holding people's emotions, but when you have hundreds of clients who are experiencing that for that long prolonged amount of time. Oh my gosh. And holding a team, you know, a 10 person team who's all having their stress and their spouses and their children's stress, it did become a lot.
So there's that coupled with a misalignment. So that practice was a traditional accounting firm. We did personal taxes, we did business taxes. We did something that was sort of similar to an audit and I didn't love doing all of that. I really just, the more I learned about entrepreneurship and growing my own business, the more that I just loved helping entrepreneurs. And so having this practice set out that way, it's like, you know, all this stress coming out of that particular season. Plus I'm like, I don't enjoy half of this work that we do.
And it's funny because I think a lot of times business owners are told like, well burn it all down and create what you want. And I was like, well that is just stupid. Why would I let go of 50% of this? I'm gonna have to lay staff off and all these things. This firm realistically works the way that it does. For somebody who loves accounting, it would be perfect for them. I just don't love this anymore. And so I listed the firm for sale. We had seven offers in under a week for an amount that I thought was obscene. That was not a number I ever grew up imagining would be possible for me. But the math, the math was there.
And so we ended up selling. At the time it really felt like the best option. It was a win-win. The people purchasing really looked like they were gonna be a win-win for everybody and actually provide a better service for my clients. So then I was really excited about it. And that led me to taking a year off. My family had some mental health challenges. My dad has been sick. I needed some rest. I have two young daughters and I was like, I'm just gonna lean into this for a little bit. And I did.
But on the flip side, I realized how much contribution was important to me. So I went back to consulting with a financial background. Everybody has the finance questions, so all the clients that were coming for coaching or consulting, it all led back to the numbers. And we started trying to, or I started trying to outsource to accountants and there was so much resistance. It was like, numbers are wrong. They weren't ready on time, and there was so much resistance.
But it's really funny because presale, there was this day I was sitting in Mexico with my family and I wrote down—this is before I listed the firm—and I was like, if I created this firm, if this firm could be what I wanted, what would it look like? And I drafted it all out and how drastically far we were from that story is what led me to the sale.
So, you know, fast forward a couple years, I'm doing this consulting and coming up with all this pushback. I can't really find anybody to provide these services and I was like, oh my God. This is the moment. We could do this that I dreamt of two years ago when I wanted the firm to look different and we could just provide really great service. So now it's all about the entrepreneur, their experience. We don't do personal taxes if you're not a business owner because it's about your whole life as a business owner and how you get to experience a business and prepare for taxes. How can we take out a lot of the fear and scarcity of cash flow? I'm so lit up by it.
But it's funny 'cause there was a time from, this is what I want. Okay. I'm gonna sell. Now I'm doing nothing and all of a sudden I'm like, wow, I'm back here. Life has that way of coming full circle, I think.
Kelsey: Do you almost think it had to be that way? Like even rewinding, I'm like, oh, wouldn't it have been great if you just knew the first go around that you wanted to build a values aligned business? And if only someone had told you that. But do you feel like it had to pan out the way it did for you to get to the place you are today?
Stacy: Undoubtedly. Because even just who I was back then. Even starting out, I was an accountant. I love doing accounting. And now I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur. I love growing businesses. And thank God we can just give ourselves permission to change and to never look at something like what you did, building a firm that maybe felt a bit out of alignment, never looking at that as a failure. It's like that was such a great experience and it really drove you one step closer to realizing the type of business that you did want and making sure that your core values as a human being and as a business owner were integrated into this next version.
And I think by nature of you launching Thrive, you have now attracted the type of dream client that you wanna work with in part because you put yourself out there as that type of person. Right? And I even noticed on your Instagram you posted something around the fact that more photos this past year have been of you and your family than ever before. And you kind of mentioned something around the fact that what a testament to what we are building. Right. And it just shows that that through line is so important and you are living this out and giving your clients permission to live this out while also giving them really sound strategic financial advice. But yeah, it must just feel so much different this time around.
Stacy: A hundred percent. And I think it's so interesting because sometimes you would think it was easier and there are easier moments and there are harder moments, which I love when you talk about the name of your podcast, because it's like there is rain and there's shine, and there's always both, right? Every thought, every feeling is fleeting. There's always gonna be something next. And so I think there's easier parts. And then there's also things that are harder because the goalpost moves. Right. So now I know it's possible, but so now the goalpost is different and now it's challenging me to level up in different ways.
I was gonna say, so the first time I grew, I was an accountant. And so I loved accounting and that's kind of the mentality that I grew with. But now this time I'm like, oh, I'm an entrepreneur and I love growing a business. But everybody that I know that's sold something and then started another one, there's this identity crisis because you're so used to having the systems dialed in and the team, and then you're back to startup and it's a very interesting time. But I never planned that. I never would've imagined that that would be hard.
Kelsey: Yeah. I think what we know is possible expands as we move through the steps and we have to literally walk the path in order to see what those next steps can even be and get around the right people, which I know you're passionate about. I know you mentioned the challenges are different and one of the things that I'm assuming has been an interesting journey is now you're not just building a company, you're also building your personal brand, right? You're a podcast host, you're a community builder. I see you out at events. You're kind of a thought leader. I don't know if you would call yourself that, but I'm kind of curious, how are you navigating building your company and building your personal brand? It's like this simultaneous—they both could be a full-time job. So I'm just curious how you see both of those things. Are you doing it intentionally? Are you kind of building the personal brand on the side? Yeah. What's your philosophy around that right now?
Stacy: There's a couple of things that I think I live by in that, because I easily could get swept away in the thought leadership and the personal brand because it is fun, right? I love podcasting. I love being at events. There's so many things that I could just do there, and then I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's come back. What is it all for?
And one of my friends, I think you might know Carly Ottaway from Web Awards. So Carly always talks about document don't create. And that is one of the things that from a personal brand perspective has made things easier. And so I'm always looking at the easiest way to do things. So on social it looks like just sharing about client meetings, right? I don't have to make it complicated.
So I think that has been an interesting process distilling what I want for it because there's so many ways that people are taught to build a personal brand. And I think you could get caught up in almost building something that doesn't have a return on the investment. When they talk about build a personal brand, the return on those investments is opportunities, but you still have to have the time and the capacity to make those opportunities into something. Right. So from personal brand, it's like maybe it is investment opportunities, but then we have to have cash to invest in those, or it might be clients. I have to have a business that takes those clients on. Right.
So you can't just build a personal brand unless you're just gonna be an influencer or a content creator. Your personal brand really has to coincide with what you're doing and be more about sharing what you're building than simply being about building you. Like it's gotta be about a business.
Kelsey: You're right. I feel like it has to be integrated as part of your strategy towards driving clients because otherwise, I almost feel like it becomes this machine that you can never stop doing, right? Because people just want more from you. And the moment you start producing vlogs and podcasts and sharing every single day, it almost feels like you can never stop, and it starts to slowly detract from—couldn't I be spending all that work doing strategy for my company instead? And I don't really have the answer for this, but I'm kind of like, at what point is building the personal brand too much and actually distracting me from the real work, and do I have time to fully commit to both? And who am I serving with each of these strategies? So yeah, I don't have the answer on that one.
Stacy: Well, and I think it's interesting because you actually can see—for our clients who kind of get caught up in that energy that you were talking about of oh, more and more and more personal brand—because people, we love to be entertained on the platforms that we're showing up on. And also they're created in ways that gamify it, so our brains are actually excited to play that game. Right. Of more views on YouTube. And so, but I watch clients and if they don't have a strategy of how that work supports the business, you can watch the numbers tank because it's like they took on a part-time job or a side gig. Yep. And their focus is not there anymore.
So when the strategy is integrated and it can be about, you know, showing your kids and your life as a mom and some things like that. Because people want to see the whole you. They really wanna get to know all of you. So it's not that you can only show business, but it does have to somehow involve something that has that return on investment. And that's something we talk to our clients about all the time is how does this give you a return on investment? And by return, I mean is it making you more money? Is it giving you more time freedom? Do you really just love doing this? Why do we wanna do this? Right? And how does that fit into the bigger picture?
Kelsey: Yeah, so interesting because I feel like over the last decade I've navigated both extremes. So I've had marketing and specifically social media strategies that have felt very rigid, and I show up as the marketing expert and I'm just in my little buttoned up pantsuit, whatever. And then I've also had the other end of the extreme and as of recently, I found myself just posting random shit about life with no bridge to what I was doing. And it was stimulating the most generic conversations. And I'm like, oh, nobody's booking my services off of this.
So lately I've tried to find this happy medium and even just sit with myself of why am I posting things? And so now I really look at what are the things that I do that I can bridge into storytelling about marketing and strategy. And so if I'm baking sourdough bread and it flops and it doesn't rise properly, I'll kind of say that not every experiment works out. And here's a recent marketing experiment I tried that didn't work out, or with mountain biking, I'll kind of share you know, I got this climb last week, but I didn't get it this week. And this is similar to sending an email with a subject line that works and then one that doesn't.
And so, yeah, it's, I think every business owner who's also building a personal brand, it's finding that happy medium because we want to humanize our companies and bring that more relatable side, but sometimes I think we can feel like, what's it all for if this is not somehow bridging to what I do or to the problem that I solve. So yeah, it's something that I think a lot of us maybe on a quarterly basis just need to check in and be like, why am I doing all this? 'cause we spend so much time creating and being on this content hamster wheel that we feel like we can never get off of. So the question that you ask your clients, I think is so sound of what's the ROI and if it's joy, that's a good ROI too. Keep it. And perhaps some things need a financial ROI too, so.
Stacy: Well, and I think that there's balance too, right? But the word balance or harmony or whatever, I think it shifts. It's not the same all the time. So I love how you said we need to check in because during some seasons I feel so lit up to be on social and it just comes naturally. It's in flow and I'm like, I just wanna put all this stuff out. And then other seasons I'm like, man work's busy. And so I feel that contraction. And so I think there's some of that.
And then, you know, the flip side of the coin is anybody would tell you, you can't be on the rollercoaster. If we got clients solely from social, it's like being on social then off social, then on social. You can't give your audience whiplash. It's like, well I, thankfully that's the last place we usually get our clients from. We grow through referrals, but if I stop doing the things that lead to referrals, we would suffer. So it's kind of having that balance and it's not just asking yourself a question. And I think there's multiple aspects to review of what's our biggest goal right now? What are the challenges ahead of us? What are the next right steps? How does all of the things that I'm doing fit into that, right? Not even just marketing, but how am I showing up as a leader? Do I have the right team members involved? And how am I creating the good life?
Kelsey: Hmm. I love that you mentioned something that you get most of your business through referrals, and I know a lot of the listeners, they would love to have more passive leads come their way through referrals. And you mentioned you're doing things to encourage those that you can identify as a reason. Maybe you got some recent referrals. Can you break down for us, what are the things that you do or that your team does either strategically or just baked into your service that tend to drive referrals. And you even told me before we started recording that you've been getting a lot of them lately, sometimes multiple referrals from single sources. So what is driving that?
Stacy: I think the very first thing is that we do what we say we're going to do. And so when we are telling somebody about a service that we provide, we often will say what we dream of doing for them. But I am religious about we have to do what we said we're gonna do. And so, even my team knows, we have no room on these specific things that I sell consistently on a call with a prospective client. We have to hit those. We like to over deliver and we don't really ask for referrals now. We have the benefit of a lot of people need an accountant, right? So I think there's that, but you can ask for referrals. You can say, I—and I like to do it gently. You know, it means the world to me that you have identified that we've given you a great service. If you know of somebody else who wants that, I promise you I'd deliver the same. I'm not like, Hey, do you know six friends who want my want accounting? Right? I don't like that, but it's just like that reminder, please keep me in mind if you hear somebody talking about needing accounting.
So I used to do that more now. I feel like we don't have to do it as much, but we would reach out and also just say thank you for the referrals. Yeah. People want to feel appreciated for it. So it's like we deliver consistently. We try to overdeliver, and if I was starting out again, which I actually did this time as well, but I just, I was less concerned about making money and I was more concerned about showing our expertise. So we did do a fair bit of free work upfront of just like, Hey, you have a financial problem. Let me help you with that. And then they become clients. Right. And we would get results for them. So very much focusing on how do we get the client wins. So it's strategic, but also genuine because we actually get them to win very quickly. How do we get the win quickly? So I think those lead to great results. But yeah, I think it's underrated providing value.
Coming back to also the topic of value. So back when I restarted, coffee conversations were more popular. I don't know if you do them anymore, but everyone's like, wanna grab a zoom? Virtual coffee. And you could be on virtual coffees all the time. And they felt so awkward 'cause they had no purpose behind them other than to get to know each other. And a lot of times I felt like I don't wanna ask for clients. That's not genuine for me. I like helping. People wanted to ask me for clients. I'm like, I don't even know you. And so those felt misaligned.
But so now I love looking at how do I provide value? So even meeting you, I'm like, oh my gosh, let's podcast. I can provide you something. I can get you social content, which you need. I can highlight you. I'm so excited for people to hear our episode together 'cause you're a genius. I can share about your work, but I wanted to provide you value. I'm like, if I'm gonna ask you for coffee—I mean, we're not drinking coffee while we're podcasting—but I wanna highlight you. Right. So it's like, I'm always looking at how we get a win-win.
Kelsey: Hmm. So you said something that I wanted to ask you about, and I think now is the time. I forget where I pulled this from. I was on your Instagram just kind of digging up some interesting nuggets. And you had this reflection on why entrepreneurs fail. And it said not having the perspective of what it's going to take to make money. And even just hearing you speak about you know, giving yourself to virtual coffees and traveling around to events, and literally giving value anywhere you can. That has always been one of my biggest things of this is what it takes to make things work. Starting a business is not easy. Sit back, make money while you sleep like it's been sold to us. And I do think that we have to test a bunch of things and give away value and show people that we are people of value who offer great services in order to make it work. But I am curious what you meant by saying that. You think what contributes to failure is not having the perspective of what it takes of what it's going to take to make money? What did you mean by that?
Stacy: Yeah, so I think that there's a few pieces involved. One of them is that sometimes I'm seeing there's a group of a fair number of people that leave corporate and they come at business from a way that I would call kind of needy. They need something from the business right away. Oh yeah. They haven't saved up any money to pay for anything. They're actually willing to invest very little time and energy. And so they're trying to take more from this business that's brand new than what it has to give. The narrative at that stage is like, well, this is what I wanna offer, which is important, but you need a customer, so you have to be valuable to a customer.
So it's all these micro things that add up to what does it take to run a successful business? It takes visibility if you're not going to want to be visible. And you're not gonna wanna sell, you're not made for business. Because that's part of it. Right? And not selling in, I'm not trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner at the door that I know is gonna break in a week. It's like, I want to help you with my services, but if I can't talk about that visibility, right. People who aren't willing to be visible, they're too shy or too closed off to wanna do that. People who don't understand the financial runway, they haven't looked at it before they started to say, what are the expenses? Can I afford to not get paid for a couple months? What about the time? How am I gonna have to spend the time?
I've watched so many business owners that start out doing the wrong things, right? They start with the website, and that's cool if you're doing it on the side when you're in corporate. But if you're a service provider, it's like your website doesn't sell you. You have to send people to the website. So who are you sending to the website? Right. And so all those micro pieces of what does it really take to have a successful business. And a couple core pieces of that are visibility. You need to deliver on your promise. Then how do you afford the time to get there doing it? I think those are the things that I'm like, people don't understand that. They're just focused on like, I'm an accountant. I'm gonna go do some accounting. If I'm good at accounting, I'll get there. It's like, no, you can absolutely fail a business as an accountant if you don't know how to get in front of the people to do the accounting for, how to deliver a great service to them and how to pay your own bills as you get to the point where you are having clients pay you.
Kelsey: You definitely incorporate events and networking and kind of getting among community as part of your strategy, or would you say that's part of your strategy, and if so, why is that important to you at this stage of business to get out in rooms full of other entrepreneurs?
Stacy: Kelsey, but I'm pretty sure that you said this—the future of marketing is community on my podcast, and I stand by that business. So I started a business and I had the Kijiji, but I'll tell you, I—we were bringing in clients and that was great, but it actually still felt very unfulfilling. And I noticed even though I was very nervous to go, I think it was a chamber event locally that I went to, but when I got to meet people, I felt like I was a part of something bigger. And so that really mattered to me.
And now more than ever, that was 2013. So that would've been pre days where you really needed even a—well, I don't think Instagram existed back then. And so looking at it now, I'm like, if I only chose to show up maybe online and serve clients, I would feel disconnected. I wouldn't feel like anybody understood me. I wouldn't know what's going on that people wanted or didn't want or what's going on in life. Right. And so I think it is so fun to show up in places where you can have the human connection and the human experience while growing a business.
Kelsey: Hmm. So true. And I even had this experience the other day, I opened up this email in my inbox, and it was by this creator I had never heard of before selling some sort of CEO course. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. I went to the landing page and I was kind of leaning in, like as if I was just gonna drop 350 bucks or whatever it was to buy it. And then as I got to the bottom, I had this jarring feeling that this person was AI generated. I could see the links of who the landing page belonged to, and I followed it and I was like, oh, this is not a real person. This is an avatar selling a course positioned as someone who's a personal brand who's going to mentor me on an AI topic, and I had this moment of realizing that the marketing and the sales of the future, it has to have this humanization because we no longer know if people on the internet are actually real human beings, which is why I really return to this idea of the importance of community and the importance of getting out to events.
Because if I've never met you in person, Stacy, and I've never had a Zoom call with you, I've never learned from you on a webinar. If I just see a static social media image, I go to a website with these fancy photos. That could all be AI generated. And it is in some cases. And I think that that's why this return to boots on the ground, genuine connection in rooms of people, whether it's virtual or in person, I don't think it has to be in person, but it's like that's maybe the only way we can truly trust people. And yeah, I just think this is kind of the direction that we're going back to, that we can only trust people within our immediate circle again, after a decade of outsourcing everything to random people on the internet. So, yeah, I think it's so valuable, what you shared of it fuels your soul, but it also just gets you in rooms of people where referrals happen, where learning happens, where growth happens, and as a byproduct, business growth happens as well.
Stacy: Well, and I don't dispute the fact that you could probably, you know, show up as some AI generated avatar and sell a course. But I think even the course specifically, course creation industry has had massive changes where people want office hours. People want the connection. We realize we don't just want to show up with me in a screen every day, and I think that goes back to literally as human beings in our DNA is community, right? We needed community to survive for millions of years. And so I think that's actually a part of all of us.
And so when we're creating businesses, I think we need to reflect on that more. And for a long time it was passive income, do little, and I think that narrative probably just came because the world's feeling busy. I'm a millennial. We never used to have the internet. It was dial up and now there's more and more and more. And so I think people got enticed by passive income do less and things like that 'cause we were tired. And now I think we're realizing that none of that had any effect. It didn't bring more joy or more happiness or more positivity to our lives. So now we are looking for more connection and we're noticing that getting in the room feels so good. Seeing somebody—seeing your face and sharing a hug and a smile, and it's like, how are you in real life? That feels good. And it's like, okay, I wanna feel good while I do business.
Kelsey: Yes. Bringing the heart and soul and feel good vibes back. And even if I—I mean, I'm definitely not employable ever again—but if I did take a job, imagine just sitting here and maybe just doing some data analysis every day and only ever talking to somebody through email. There's a mental health crisis for a reason because we're not connected and that is in our core being. So it's like I think that whether we're designing our businesses in a way that interacts with people or we're looking at how we're designing our own lives, I think we need to factor in more human connection.
Kelsey: Absolutely. And I give my clients a challenge of talking to at least four new people a day. And they always look at me like I have my head cut off or put on sideways. And I'm like, no. You literally need to go get a coffee and talk to someone new in line, tell them about your business. And then when you're at your kids' soccer practice, talk to the person who's watching the practice beside you or send off an email to somebody you haven't connected with in a while. We cannot do business if we're not talking to people. Period. End of story. And I think so many of us have been caught up with I'm just gonna create and create and make a new course and switch from Thinkific to Kajabi and make my website better. And it's like you're not doing anything. You're not building the relationships required to plant the seeds required to harvest and hopefully have a very fruitful client load in the future. So yeah, it's something so simple that we actually have to remind ourselves to do it again, but the confidence that's built by even just being able to say hi to a stranger and saying, how was your day? There's so much confidence in that.
Stacy: Yeah. And then I think if you—I'm neurodivergent so I felt like I needed to understand this better. And so I read some books on it and all of it said is just be more interested than interesting. And it's so easy, right? So a lot of the time what's holding people back is that fear, right? Of what would I say? And it's like, why do you have to say anything? Ask people about themselves. But so you start asking people and then it's like the confidence that comes, you're like, oh, wow, I can do that. Surely I can take this sales call. And you show up differently. The trickle down effects are massive.
Kelsey: So true. I used to put so much pressure on myself to get the first word in or know what to say and be interesting. And now recently I went to a networking event and I was nervous. I always get nervous walking into a room full of people I don't know. And now the only thing I do is remind myself to show up and smile because everybody's feeling nervous. And if I am someone who walks into a room and I literally just smile awkwardly at someone, somehow they come up to me and say hi, and then they usually have the first sentence. But I just try to keep my shoulders open and just smile. It's like we make, we put so much pressure on ourselves, but I think just being an open vessel for conversation, you don't have to worry too much beyond that because the rest will kind of unfold naturally.
Stacy: I don't know if you follow Vanessa Van Edwards at all either, but she is brilliant. She's on a ton of major podcasts. She has a couple different books about body language and stuff, but I feel like she's the introvert's secret weapon. Because I love that, you know, it's like calling out when you feel scared too. Where of like, so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm just gonna introduce myself. It's so awkward coming to these events and not knowing anybody. I love that. What's the person standing there gonna say to you like, no, sorry. Right? They're like, yeah, that totally is. They relate. Or Vanessa, in one of the books that she has, she's like, stand by the food. Everybody goes to the food. Right. So instead of standing in a corner and then you get in your own head and you're like, nobody wants to talk to me. So true. It's awful. And then you're in this downward spiral. I was like, just go stand by the food. And people will be there.
Kelsey: So good. Yeah. So anyways, it's like little—great. Yeah, I'll link her social media 'cause I don't know her, but I'll put it in the show notes. Stacy, we're gonna wrap up with some quick little rapid fire. So let's make some quick answers and get some final juicy entrepreneurial nuggets out of you. So first off, what's the biggest money mistake that you see entrepreneurs making?
Stacy: Yeah, not understanding gross margin. And if you don't know what gross margin is, it means what you're selling less what it costs you to deliver that, whether it's a product or a service, everything that goes into it. How much do you make off of that?
Kelsey: For the person listening, I'm going off the rapid fire for the person listening who's like, oh my God, I need to figure that out. Should they just call you? What should they do if they're like, I don't know that.
Stacy: Yeah. And I don't know the episode number, but Small Business School is my podcast. I've done episodes on here's what the pillars of profit are and how to find that.
Kelsey: Okay, we're gonna link that in the show notes as well. You seem to be a reader and a learner, so what is either one business book you love or a podcast that you're currently binging?
Stacy: Mm. Love Dan Sullivan. 10x is Easier than 2x. Also love the Almanac of Naval Ravikant. Yeah. Yeah. Those are two favorites.
Kelsey: Perfect. We'll link those as well. What do you wish that more entrepreneurs talked openly about?
Stacy: Money. I love it. Of course you would say that. But it's always the thing that everybody's hiding from, right? And so I feel like there's so much posturing when we don't know. It doesn't have to be, you're not going to a networking event you're like, hi, this is how much profit I made last year. But having an open group that you can talk about it 'cause the only way in anything, any problem is addressing the problem to solve it. Right? So I think we underperform 'cause we're hiding from the problems.
Kelsey: Do you think it's taboo for entrepreneurs to disclose how much revenue they bring in each year? Or who cares?
Stacy: Men do it all the time. Oh, you're right. Women do not. Yeah, I don't know what my opinion is because I see people shouting or like, we had a X figure month, and I'm kind of like, I guess it's, it's what's the intention behind it, right? Like if you're talking to a friend, it's great to be able to share openly, but if you're posturing on the internet, maybe it carries a different energy.
Stacy: Yeah. I think you're referring to people shouting out specific numbers in order to sell something, which I am not at all a fan of that. Yes, because I think there's so much that goes into the context of those numbers that they're often taken out of context. Ooh. And yeah, 95% of the time people aren't doing as well as they say that they are when they're using numbers to support it. But I mean talking to your friends about it, like how much are you guys spending on marketing? Do you feel like those ads worked well for you? How much are you paying your team? How did you decide compensation? You know, did you set a revenue target? Why did you set that? Right? So, oh, I love that. That's what I mean.
Kelsey: Yeah, it's, I love that you say that 'cause I have a small group of trusted girlfriends. It's myself and two others, and they're the only ones that I'll really share those things with, and they tell me, it's like, oh, I spent this much on marketing and this is how much I'm paying my team. And it is so nice to just have that space where we can be like, well, that launch bombed and here's how much I lost. Yeah. Or, oh, this went really well and here's how much I had to spend to get those results. So I would definitely encourage everybody to find that peer group who you can kind of just be open about these things with 'cause it's really comforting in the end.
Stacy: A hundred percent.
Kelsey: Yeah. Stacy, this has been so much fun. People like your vibe. If they wanna learn more, if they wanna work with you, where are all the places they should connect with you?
Stacy: Yeah, I'm Stacy Millard, S-T-A-C-I on Instagram and then it's got links to Small Business School podcasts, Thrive Accounting, all the different things.
Kelsey: Awesome. Yeah, we'll link all of that. Thank you so much, Stacy, for being on the Rain or Shine show, and we wish you all the best.
Stacy: Thank you, Kelsey.
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