Carly Ries
Martha Krejci was an exhausted mom working a 9 to 5 corporate job when she decided enough-was-enough. So she turned herself into a multi-million dollar brand and worked from home so she could be there for her family. She's been featured in Fox, ABC News CBS News, Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, Shape, and Huffington Post.
Martha's story is surprising, inspirational, and informative and definitely worth a listen.
Looking for a way to be more productive in your business? The LifeStarr App is launching July '22 and is designed for solopreneurs like you. Click here to be the first to know when it gets released.
What You'll Learn In This Episode
- The preconceived notion that moms have about working from home that are wrong
- How can solopreneurs and mompreneurs break through limiting beliefs
- How to find your genius
- How to use affiliate marketing to get started
- Tips for working from home
And so much more!
Resources Mentioned In The Show
- Visit Martha's website.
Favorite quote about success:
"If you are not willing to learn, no. one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you." - Zig Ziglar
Episode Transcription
Martha Krejci (00:00):
The video that I got was literally my daughter taking her very first steps. Devastating is not even the word. My world went into turmoil in 0.2 seconds. It was like, everything just crashed down. I went into a panic attack, I thought I was having a stroke. My left arm went numb. Everything started happening. I'm like, what on earth? And at that point I knew that I had to quit. I wasn't gonna miss these things
Intro (00:33):
Bigger. Doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person business podcast, where people who are flying solo in business, come first specific tips and advice to find success. As a company of one, here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries.
Carly Ries (00:52):
Welcome to the One-Person business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries,
Joe Rando (00:56):
And I'm Joe Rando.
Carly Ries (00:58):
And we have quite the treat for you today, as we will be chatting with none other than Martha Krejci. Listeners, do you know anyone that has gone from being exhausted and undervalued mom in the corporate nine to five to a multimillion-dollar personal brand in the blink of an eye. Now let's add, without a college degree and without ads. Well, now that you're about to know Martha, you do. Martha is a high vibrant mama, wife, business coach, growth strategist and social media marketing powerhouse, who has literally taken the internet by storm. She's featured in Fox, ABC and CBS news, Oprah magazine, Fast Company, Cosmo, Shape, and Huffington Post among other places. You know, those small publications. Her intuitive marketing expertise has helped her change the trajectory of her family's life in no time. Using a strategy she teaches openly through courses, group coaching, and other tried and true resources. She now also writes for Entrepreneur and Forbes magazine and is on the Forbes business council. From finding your passion to building a personal brand from nothing, she teaches it all to anyone that's ready. And while Martha has expertise in many areas, today we're going to specifically discuss being a successful mompreneur, since so many of you are working moms trying to balance it all. So Martha, welcome to the show.
Martha Krejci (02:12):
Hey, thank you so much. I'm excited.
Carly Ries (02:14):
So as we discussed offline, I am a mompreneur. And so I'm curious, what are some preconceived notions moms have about running a business from home that are completely inaccurate?
Martha Krejci (02:26):
<laugh> that it's gonna be easy <laugh> That all you do is start it. And then everybody just loves you forever and shows up and wants to buy all of your stuff. I mean, it's what gets us going. And the dream always needs to get us moving. And so there's a purpose for that. You know, the vision and everything, but then reality sets in. I really feel like a lot of mompreneurs, they see the reality set in and they feel like that's the reality only for them and not for anybody else. And so then they feel like they're a failure and they quit. And there's all of that. Right. But I think the biggest thing is just thinking that, you know, I've got a good thing here that everybody wants and I'm gonna be able to sell it easily. And it just does not happen that way.
Carly Ries (03:11):
Absolutely. It's all about mindset too, right? <laugh>
Martha Krejci (03:14):
Oh, a hundred percent.
Carly Ries (03:15):
So how can mom solopreneurs, breakthrough limiting beliefs and achieve success from home? Because like we said, it's a mental game a lot of the time.
Martha Krejci (03:23):
Yeah. Well, I think first of all, I'm a big proponent of surrounding yourself with people that are going to, and I call it speaking life, over you and with you. So surrounding yourself with people that are also doing the same thing as you. Maybe some are ahead in the game, maybe some are not in the game at all, but they just love you so much and they want to encourage you and things like that. I think that is the most important thing, because that is what's going to get you through the days where you're just not sure if you can keep going or not. Because those days absolutely happen. They get fewer and further between, which is a good thing to look forward to. But in the very beginning they happen so often that you need to make sure that you've got people on your side and that are also doing the same thing. So you can get encouragement from them. You can get vision from them but then also they can call the gold out in you and remind you of who the heck you are, and how capable you are of this on those days where you're like, man, what am I even doing right now?
Carly Ries (04:30):
And you have to be so selective on who these people are, cuz there are so many naysayers too. Or, people that are kind of pretend supportive, but in the background are like, yeah, let's see her do this
Martha Krejci (04:39):
<laugh> yeah, yeah. Those people exist. Right? Most of the time, unfortunately they are the people closest to you that are actually that way. But yeah, you do definitely need to be selective. Sometimes it's not even the people that you've been friends with forever. I saw a meme or a quote once and this is a terrible thing to even bring up. I can't remember what it said. But it was something <laugh> about, some of my best friends are online and I have never met them in person. And that really, in this world, in this day and age, that exists. And so get yourself in those groups of people where they just cheer you on more than any friend you have ever had. You may have never met them in life, but get those kind of people in your court.
Joe Rando (05:32):
Hey, I just wanna make a point. You know, Carly and I have never met face to face.
Carly Ries (05:36):
Never. We've been working off and on together since 2016 and I've only seen him on FaceTime
Martha Krejci (05:44):
Oh my gosh. How awesome is that?
Carly Ries (05:47):
It's awesome. It's a new world. And it's so funny cuz I talk to Joe more than so many of my other contacts . I hope I could recognize him in an airport. <laugh>
Martha Krejci (05:55):
Right.
Joe Rando (05:57):
We had the plan that we were gonna meet up at Inbound this year, but then Carly went and you know,
Carly Ries (06:04):
Pregnancy, what do you do? <laugh> Well Martha, something that you talk about in your content quite a bit is finding your genius. So can you explain what exactly that is and how moms can go about finding that?
Martha Krejci (06:19):
Yeah. So, your genius, you probably have an inkling as to what it is or what it's about in some capacity. But really there's our genius, and then there's who we're here to serve. And I really like to start with who we're here to serve and then allocate our genius to them. And so what I mean by that is there's a little activity that I have people do that I think I could just do over voice or audio here. If you were to grab a piece of paper and turn it sideways. So like landscape, I think is what the artsy types would call it <laugh> but if you turn it sideways, then what I want you to do is to draw a line from one side of the paper to the other one and put a little arrow at the end on the right. What that signifies is your entire life thus far.
Martha Krejci (07:13):
On the right you've got your arrow because it is not over yet. Right? So there's more. What I want you to then do is I want you to think about every single time that you really needed someone's help. So someone's help to get through something. So, if it were business related, somebody's help in growing your business or maybe you found out that your kids have bad allergies, well, you needed somebody's help to help you figure out how you going to do life in your family with these allergies. Or, I just wanna open up your mind to all of the different things they could be. There's little things and there's big things. Go ahead and put a notch in that line, that timeline of your life, for every time you wish that you had had somebody to help you do a thing.
Martha Krejci (08:03):
And a lot of times that looks like times that you spent until two or three in the morning on Google trying to research these things. A lot of the times, that's what it's gonna look like. And so go ahead and put a notch in for each of those times. Then whenever you're done doing that, what I want and you could do this later, obviously this is a little fast, but you go up and I figuratively, you go up 30,000 feet, right. But you go up and you look down at this timeline and then you pick one. So you pick one version of yourself that you're gonna serve one version of yourself, that man, like, if you could help that person forever and ever Amen. That would just fill you up. So that is your impact driver right there.
Martha Krejci (08:46):
And you know that person more than anybody else knows them because they're literally you, but you are a microcosm of an entire audience of people out there in the world that are precisely like you. And so in order to find your genius, I want you to find that place in your life, that version of yourself. So for me, that version was me sitting in.. I worked at GoDaddy for a little over five years in leadership, and I was sitting in my carpeted, cubicle smelled like the sixties. And, <laugh> I think we all know that cubicle, right? And you're like, I don't know if I should be inhaling this right now, but then you just keep going because you're getting paid. And so I was sitting there in my cubicle and I got a video. You guys, the video that I got was literally my daughter taking her very first steps.
Martha Krejci (09:39):
Oh my gosh. Devastating is not even the word. My world went into like turmoil in 0.2 seconds. It was like everything just crashed down. I went into a panic attack, thought I was having a stroke. My left arm went numb, everything started happening. I'm like, what on earth? And at that point I knew that I had to quit. I wasn't gonna miss these things. The thing that just, there were a couple things that went through my head. The first one was not right or wrong, but are you okay with this? You okay with missing these things? And then of course the second thing that went through my mind was I'm not okay with missing this. I've gotta go now. Like I gotta get outta here. I've never felt like more of a caged animal in my life. And so that was one of my notches on my line.
Martha Krejci (10:28):
So to give people some perspective around what those notches look like, that was a notch of me needing to get out of where I was. I was like, why did I even have a baby if I'm not gonna be around? And so that was a thing that I was concerned about. But in being able to leave my job, then I had to figure out how to be able to build a business. How was I going to make money from home? And that is where I really needed the help. And so that is now the person that I serve. That's precisely them on that timeline. To give more, I guess, color to what that is, as people are putting their notches in their timeline, or as you that are listening right now or putting the notches in your timeline, it can be things like that. It's things that you researched and you're like, why can't I find a flipping answer for this? Like, why isn't anybody directly answering this thing? But then the thing is, is you've gone through your life and now you've moved past that. And you can answer this thing that nobody was answering. That is the finding your genius and also knowing who your person is at the same time.
Joe Rando (11:39):
Hey, Martha, I gotta explore this a little bit because there's an interesting implication here that I don't think you've said, well, I guess you've said it, but it isn't necessarily obvious to people. And that is that you're basically saying that in order to find kind of the things that you should be doing, it has to be, or you really think it should be something that you've struggled with. And that makes sense, but it's not necessarily obvious. There are obviously oncologists that have never had cancer, right. And there are birthing coaches that have never had a baby, but yet your point is that it really takes having lived through the struggle to really find something that's gonna resonate. Is that correct?
Martha Krejci (12:24):
A hundred percent. Yeah. And to address the other two that may not have directly had a struggle. Sometimes that struggle is actually somebody that was close to you. So sometimes it's you bearing witness to a struggle. And a lot of times birthing coaches that have not had children themselves, it's because of somebody else that they know. And oncologists, I'm sure that unfortunately, everybody knows people that have been sick before, but it is about the people around you as well. Now, if you can find one and it makes sense for you and it feels right for you in your own life, that has happened to you directly. That's great. And then if you can't, if you have to do something else, then you would just go to people around you. If you're having a hard time finding something for yourself,
Joe Rando (13:16):
Just a quick point. Everything that I've done has been related to my own struggles. So you're right on the money with me, but I just never thought about it that way before. And I think that's a really interesting perspective. Thank you.
Carly Ries (13:27):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and actually, so to piggyback off of that, let's say people find their genius. Then what's next. Like you left Go Daddy and then what? What are the first steps aside from hiring you as a coach Of course, what are next steps they can be doing to make their business a reality?
Martha Krejci (13:46):
Yeah. So, it depends on what your business is like first steps. I love a first income stream because I'm a big fan of many different income streams. So you don't have to be stressed out about just one and making that one work. The first income stream that I would suggest is actually affiliate marketing. And I'm not sure how many people are familiar with it, but it's been around forever, but more companies are doubling down on it right now. Affiliate marketing is really just where you share a link of something that you use. And whenever somebody clicks on that link to buy the product or service that you're offering, or that you're suggesting to them, then you get a kickback. And sometimes it can be a really good kickback. Regardless, if done right, you could run that as your only income stream ever if you want to.
Martha Krejci (14:37):
But really all you have to do is create content around what these things are that you are offering or that you're suggesting. They should already weave in with the way that you serve your community. So if we were to go back to like a gluten free. Say some mom had a kid in her family that found out had celiacs. So they had to, it wasn't just a suggested thing. It wasn't just that they wanted to go gluten free, but it was like they had to for medical reasons and they didn't really know what they were doing. What you would do to support your people is you would give them checklists, you would give them systems and processes to have within their home that are going to make going gluten free, easy. Well to weave in, you could have gluten free cookbooks that you have an affiliate link maybe to Amazon affiliates, which is a really easy affiliate thing to join.
Martha Krejci (15:40):
Then whenever you are talking about a recipe that you're making, maybe you do like a short video or a short social media post, or maybe even a blog post. You talk about this recipe that you're making and you're loving it and blah, blah, blah, and then just put a link to where you got it from. So it's just, it's these little, oh, by the way, things that then almost make you become a really good content creator just by proxy because you're doing it. Whenever we do things over and over again, we get better at it. So it's making you a good content creator, but also you're creating income while you're doing it. From a work at home perspective, a second thing that I would do is I would break down the easiest way that I went from A to Z.
Martha Krejci (16:33):
So in the gluten free thing from A to Z would be nothing in my home is gluten free. I have no idea what I'm doing, Essentially you're working from where your person starts. And then the Z is okay, now I've got systems and processes on autopilot. I've got stuff delivered to the house. I don't really have to think about it anymore. Life is easy. Gluten-free life is easy. From that, you create your system. So how did you get there? You walk somebody through the same process with the same benchmarks that you went through, and that's just creating a course and it doesn't need to be expensive courses. I know anyone exists online for two seconds and all you see are high ticket coaching and high dollar courses. And how do you sell these? And that's fine.
Martha Krejci (17:27):
There's nothing wrong with that. But for me, I really like things to be impactful. I really like to have massive impact in the world. To me, the way that we do that is we allow people to be able to access it and to afford it. That's how they would be able to access it. And so even for myself, I had a course at one point that was $67 and was bringing in six figures a month. So it's not like you have to have a really expensive course. You can have a low dollar course provide incredible value to people and really become a superstar in your world. You just have to choose. You just have to choose that's what you want, and then double down.
Carly Ries (18:11):
I'm so glad you put together that framework, because I think the first thing people would think is, well, I'm not good at creating content. How do I do that? But if you have this framework and you're passionate about it from your genius, then it'll just kinda roll off the tongue.
Martha Krejci (18:24):
Yes, exactly.
Carly Ries (18:26):
Yeah. I am so glad you set that up. So you mentioned something about like working from home and I know a few minutes ago we've had dogs barking on the podcast and that is just reality of moms working from home. So any tips for managing stress that can come along with that and setting boundaries so that you can separate work life and home life.
Martha Krejci (18:45):
Yeah. I got some! <Laugh> So, it gets very, let's use the word hectic, and also maybe use the word chaotic. It can get crazy at home. I think the first thing is to set the expectation of the life that you're choosing. So if you're choosing a life that you spend more time with your family, let's not pretend that your family is going to be the perfect family all the time. You're choosing to be able to spend more time with them, but it doesn't mean that they're not like I have a seven year old right now. And she's a crazy lady and she's awesome. But she'll end up outside of my door, looking at me as I'm trying to do an interview and just stare at me. So there are all sorts of things that happen, right.
Carly Ries (19:36):
Joe knows this. The second I hop on a meeting, my daughter wants a snack. It's like clockwork. <laugh> like the second the zoom meeting turns on, "Mommy. I wanna snack." And I'm like, argh!
Martha Krejci (19:47):
Right. That's what happens. And so I think just setting the expectation that they're not going to be silent and they're not going to be the world's version of perfect. But they're our version of perfect and let's just make it work. Let's give ourselves grace and let's just make it work. Not get mad that things aren't perfect because that's where you're gonna get yourself into a quick stalemate. Things just aren't ever gonna be perfect. And do we really want them to be ?
Joe Rando (20:22):
Absolutely not. Yeah.
Carly Ries (20:23):
I know that's where the fun is.
Joe Rando (20:25):
I mean, Katie popping in on a zoom meeting just puts a smile on my face. And I gotta be honest, there's nothing better than little kids to cheer up a day. So you roll with it, but I think some people don't have that attitude. I think your advice is fantastic. It is what it is and just find the joy in it.
Martha Krejci (20:47):
Yeah. Well, if we were to go on to Instagram, we see the Instagram moms, God bless 'em with their little cherub babies that don't ever make noise. They don't color on the wall and they don't have lunch on the floor outside of your office. You don't see all of that stuff. But in reality, that's the stuff that happens. And maybe if we roll with it and we have fun with it, then those are the things our kids are gonna remember. And that's what means everything. In my opinion, us working from home as parents is a smidgen about us and mostly about our kids. It's mostly about, let me show them something different. Let me show them life doesn't need to be what the world shows them.
Martha Krejci (21:41):
Let me show them that we can think outside of the box, that we can create lives for ourselves. That's the stuff that matters. But if we make it so uncomfortable for our family, then our family doesn't want to do that. They don't want to think outside of the box, cuz they're like, man, that was not a good time. But yeah, it's just important to pay attention to our own kids' perspective. And then so far as setting boundaries is concerned. What I say to my girl is I'll just be like, okay, mommy has to go do a video. I tell her exactly how much time, because she's that kind of kid. She needs to know what time I'm gonna be done so she can keep looking at the clock. So I say, okay, well I'm gonna be done in 30 minutes.
Martha Krejci (22:26):
That means it's going to be 2:30 whenever I'm finished. And whenever I'm finished, I'm gonna come back out here and we're gonna snuggle or we're gonna watch a show or we're gonna go for a walk or whatever. So I do what I'm doing. She knows she's part of the team. So me and daddy and her are all a team is that's how we frame all of this. And so I say, here we go with teamwork. I have to go here. I need you to be quiet until this time. At this time I'm gonna come back out and we're gonna do, whatever it is and set the expectation for something fun to happen afterward. But it's always coming down to the fact that she's helping in all of this.
Carly Ries (23:07):
That also helps with the guilt that some moms feel of being like, okay, you have to be quiet because I have to do this. You almost feel like you're neglecting your kid at that point. Which comes with a lot of guilt. You were mentioning like affiliate marketing as an income stream, that wouldn't necessarily take away from time with your family? No. Do you have any other streams like that, that you would recommend?
Martha Krejci (23:28):
Yeah. Courses are like that. The course that I was talking about, you make that course, you make it once. I have an entire content strategy around being able to weave together a bunch of income streams. It's never like you have these individualized random spinning plates. It's rather like they're all in a braid together and you just make one social media post and you're spinning the flywheel so to speak. And so they all kind of work together. So a course is like that. One on one coaching, if people wanna do that or group coaching, if they wanna do that, that's another one that you could do. Another one is the whole book writing thing. So writing a book, I know it's not beginner stuff. And people are probably like, what did she just say? But it's actually also not as difficult as people make it out to be either. Those are the main ones that I talk about because those are the easiest. And then of course, network marketing. If they're into that sort of thing, that's another really good one to weave in
Carly Ries (24:28):
Such great ideas. And you yourself have been so successful by implementing all of those streams. So question for you. What is your favorite quote about success?
Martha Krejci (24:37):
Oh, my favorite quote about success is... <laugh> if you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. That's Zig Ziglar.
Carly Ries (25:00):
Ooh. Zig Zigler. I feel like I could just have a wall of his quotes. Yeah,
Martha Krejci (25:03):
I know. Right.
Carly Ries (25:04):
Be inspired every day. <laugh> it is wild. Well, Martha, this has been so wonderful. I was a fan of yours before you hopped on and now I'm an even bigger fan. So where can people find you if they wanna learn more learn about your coaching and all that jazz.
Martha Krejci (25:17):
Thank you so much. My website is withmartha.com. We made it easy on people and left my last name out of it. That's the hub for everything. You can find my social media from there and all that. It's just, if you look for me on social media, it's The Martha Krejci and that's not because I think I'm a big deal. It's because there's literally another Martha Krejci<laugh>
Carly Ries (25:40):
Fair enough. <laugh> you do not think that. Well listeners, she has so much valuable content on her site, so be sure to truly check it out because it would be a game changer. Martha, thank you so much.
Martha Krejci (25:54):
Thank you for having me.
Carly Ries (25:55):
We really appreciate it.
Martha Krejci (25:57):
This is awesome.
Carly Ries (25:58):
That wraps up another episode of the One-Person business podcast. Be sure to visit Lifestarr.com/podcast, to listen to past episodes and subscribe. Or, you can find us anywhere you listen to your shows. We'll see you next time.
Closing (26:14):
you may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a One-Person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At Lifestarr, we're creating a One-Person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com