Amy Hayes Proves Referrals Beat Social Media Marketing

# Podcast Transcript: Amy Hayes - Building Premium Services Through Relationships

[00:00:00] **Racheal Cook:** Hey there, CEOs. I'm so excited today because Amy Hayes of the Global Creator, global Creator Studio Global Creator Academy is joining me today and we're gonna have an incredible conversation. Amy, thanks for joining me.

**Amy Hayes:** Of course. Thanks for having me.

**Racheal Cook:** Well, I really wanted to have you on today because you and I have been having this conversation over the last few months. For your own business about, you know, the problems we're seeing in the services world in general, but you're in the website and design and branding world specifically. I wanna kind of rewind first so everybody knows where you're coming from and a little bit more about you. Can you share with us a little bit about how the global creator came to be and how you've become a designer who. Feels not just confident to have a higher priced design offer, but you are ready now to share with other designers how you have developed that.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah, absolutely. I always joke that I'm an accidental web designer because I was actually working in travel, luxury travel specifically, and travel media, and I was building my own platforms and writing articles and writing for magazines and doing, social media campaigns. For travel related brands under the name Cree Mondi, which actually translates to Global Creator. And because I had built this platform that was centered around, it was very design influenced because I had gone to school for interior design, but then also very closely paired with travel and experiences and things like that. People were following me and then they started asking for help with their platforms. So I kind of backed into being a brand and web designer just because I was doing it for myself and people liked it. So, that's how I got into the web design world. It's been about a decade now in the online space. And, I do think it's really interesting to see how things have evolved and like when you're really scrappy at the beginning, starting off as a freelancer too. Deciding, this is my business model. This is how I want to work. This is what I'm not going to do anymore. And starting to really mature as a business owner in the creative space. So that's how I got to where I am now and where the name the global creator came from actually.

**Racheal Cook:** It's amazing, and I love that you share, you were kind of an accidental designer because I think this is actually more common than a lot of people realize. Yeah. I think a lot of entrepreneurs kind of stumble accidentally into what they're doing, and it goes from. This is a side hustle, or this is a hobby, or this is just a little freelance gig I picked up to, at some point the light bulb goes off and they're like, oh. This can be a real legit business if I decide to go all in.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah. It's really interesting how many people do, the self-taught route. I was guilty of it too, and I decided, oh, I'm gonna do design. I went to the local community college and I was like, I'm gonna do their graphic design certificate. Not that it was not good use of my time, but it taught me absolutely nothing of what I do in my career today, like in my actual day to day. So there's this like perception that you have to have the degree, you have to have the certification, you had to have gone to school for it had to have worked in an agency or something. Mm-hmm. And there's. A lot of people who had a skill were good at it, started doing something, people started asking for help and are learning more in the trenches and don't have the benefit of mentorship from an established agency or like a corporate scenario in order to grow the professional skills to match the design skills that they seem to have innately or have practiced in in that skill set.

**Racheal Cook:** And I think this is one of the biggest things that can become a trap for any service-based business, but I especially see this in the creative services, is they start to feel like they have to go back to school or they have to get more experience. They have to get something in order to, finally be allowed to take their business seriously and go all in and raise their rates and really. Build the business that they think they want. And I want you to start here because in your process you've been coaching creatives and designers around, you've been talking a lot about your self concept. Can you tell me more about why that is so important?

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah, because I see this a lot in different designer communities, but like let's say they're having a slow period or they're trying to figure out how to differentiate from AI, or, oh, is web design debt or whatever. It's really interesting to see how much focus is placed on the design skills themselves. And you know, okay, learn this, master this tool, that'll differentiate you. But what I see is people

[00:05:00] accumulating more, like they already have marketable, sellable talents and skills, like, and if they just continue to collect, you know, certifications or tools or whatever, that they're good at. They're never learning the actual marketing and sales tool to make that a business. Because that requires them to step out from behind the screen. They can't be back there pushing pixels and like making things look pretty and have that do the heavy lifting for them. They have to evolve as, whether they wanna call themselves a freelancer, small business owner, whatever. They have to continue to mature as the business owner to build relationships. Show up with authority. And authority does not mean aggressiveness or defensiveness. No. It means showing up as a partner. Who collaborates with their clients, referral partners, whatever it may be. But essentially growing up as a business owner and then knowing how they can market and sell the skills they already have, and if they decide they wanna add on to those skills, great. But, gathering more skills isn't gonna fix the client pipeline and the workflow issues, so.

**Racheal Cook:** Exactly. Yeah. I just saw on Instagram, I was scrolling as you do, and. Somebody posted a really great analogy for this, that they were a photography coach and they had this person who insisted all he needed was to go out and buy like the top of the line, most expensive camera, and then he would get the high end clients. And I think that's a very tangible. Kind of analogy here where I think we're focusing on the wrong thing being what drives prices. Yeah, because there's plenty of amazing designers out there and amazing photographers out there, and amazing copywriters out there, amazing creative people who. They don't have the best computer or the most expensive software, or you know, X, Y, Z. They don't have all of those things, but they're charging premium prices. Mm-hmm. And so I think somewhere the messaging gets confusing to people. They think they need. All of this fancy stuff in order to go out there and finally command a high rate. And there's just so much more. And I love that you said yes. It starts with that self concept. It starts with you. Taking yourself seriously.

**Amy Hayes:** It's the identity, right? It's like I am a professional, I bring this value to the table, and I know this value is going to help you do X, Y, and Z. Even the fancy, like CRM or project management software doesn't give you the confidence to show up in the client relationship that way. So it's much more of an embodying of energy, of being the partner, not the creative gun for hire, as I say, like taking orders and just turning out deliverables. Yeah, but how to show up is that I'm your strategic partner, I'm gonna help you get this way. And one of my favorite ways of positioning is like, and you don't have to think about much like we can do the fun parts together and all the messy parts you give to me and I organize them for you. Clients love that. And that's worth way more. I mean, I know I have a portfolio online, but I swear there are a number of clients that ask me for my website or ask me like, can you send, they don't even ask me for examples of my work 'cause it's all referrals. But it's like. A lot of creatives think that enhancing their portfolio, like if they just focus on their portfolio or they just focus on the fancy camera, you know, whatever it may be like that's gonna what be what makes them look legit. But that is the outside solution, not the inside solution.

**Racheal Cook:** Correct. And again, this translates into so many other businesses because I've seen this so often with women entrepreneurs in general where they feel like. Until they have the perfectly updated website and the brand new photo shoot and it all becomes like excuses for why they can't go out there and build those real relationships. Like I can't start marketing myself. I can't start meeting potential clients or meeting referral partners until. Everything looks a certain way or everything feels perfect, and I think Amy and I are here to tell everyone. It doesn't have to be perfect. Y'all stop. Yeah. Creating more work that's not necessary. Yeah. And let's shift your focus a little bit into the things that actually drive results and will actually get you those higher end clients.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah. I mean, you know, high-end clients, you're solving high-end problems. And so much of that, and this is why too, like with tools like ai, like they're fantastic. They make workflows more efficient, but. Humans are confused by nature, especially when it's their own stuff. So like being able to come in and be that partner being the brain that they can bounce ideas off of being able to organize the stuff for them and not that, okay, you can ask chat GBT to spit you out a business model and things like that. But humans like to change our minds because as soon as we get

[00:10:00] past. The like, okay, it told, we set up our website, we set up our funnel. Now you actually have to go talk to other humans and do that relationship building part and the marketing part. Well, it's far more easier just to go back and tweak our thing or, oh, what if I build this training? Or what if I, like, there's a million things that our squirrel brain will want to go do that keeps us hiding really. There are excuses to not go out there and, pursue the shortest path to the result that we're trying to create.

**Racheal Cook:** Well, and this is where I wanna go next, is talking about relationships because I think, mm-hmm. A lot of small business owners get caught up in the laundry list of I should do these things in order to find clients. And it actually, in my opinion, starts to create more unnecessary work, but also more distance that's between people. And you're a perfect example of this. You shared with me when you were working on. Your 90 day plans inside of the collective, your goal was going to attend events, talking to a certain number of people. And so often people wanna come to me and have like a list of, oh, I'm gonna create all this content. They overcomplicate it. They make it less about. Building relationships and more about creating a bunch of new stuff. So I want you to share your experience, 'cause you're a decade into this business. Mm-hmm. And it's built on relationships. And I think hundred percent, this is a commonality between a lot of service-based business owners who have real longevity, is that it is built. Based on relationships.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah. That's the irony that I find is that there's always this pressure to kind of gate keep ourselves like as the business owner, as the creative. Like we wanna put these, you know, places like so that we're qualifying people before they gain access to us. And I kind of find it ironic because you spend all this time either creating content or showcasing your portfolio or da da, da, that takes a ton of time and energy so that you can protect your time and energy by not actually talking to people. And I've done the exact opposite. Like I do have, like I show up on Instagram for the coaching, but my studio Instagram, I don't even know, I think I have a Facebook page. I'm not even sure. The Instagram is just a static grid, and then when Instagram changed the dimensions, it's like, it's still, it's all wonky. But you know what? I don't get my clients from there. I spend zero time on social media for any of my web design related things. It's all spent, like, I would rather make myself more available for a high touch relationship because that gives me one, it's way more fun. Two, like it gets you outta the isolation of constantly being alone behind your seat. Yeah. And three, it's allowed me to build my business a hundred percent through word of mouth and referrals, collaborations with other creatives, repeat clients coming back for more projects and additional work coming from referrals from those existing clients. So like I spend very little. Of my time marketing to new people and way more of my time. Like it feels like catching up with friends because I've worked with them so long and so intimately. So, you know, if you're looking at how you wanna spend your energy, it's like I could post portfolio related stuff six times a week, or I could go have two conversations. And then I always find that even if it's not like a direct, like I, I talked to this person and they gave me a referral. It's interesting to notice, and I train my brain to notice, like if I go to an event and I make new connections, does an email from a past proposal show up in my inbox within a couple of days? You know, so all these kind of like, it feels like the universe delivering on like what I'm, the energy that I'm putting out there, like the openness to connecting with people and then it opens the channels for them to then come connect with me. Pretty much it does every single time.

**Racheal Cook:** And this is something I think about so much because I think in the days before social media and all of the online marketing hoop law where everybody wanted the 47 step funnel, you know, this is how businesses were built. It wasn't about always going out and finding new people. It was about building real relationships, building your own ecosystem. Having amazing clients who then had such a great experience with you that they go tell more people having referral partners that. You're working together, whether it's directly working together and partnering on projects, or it's like, I know this great copywriter you should work with. I know a photographer you should work with, and you just keep sharing business with each other. This is how we end up building businesses where we're not constantly having to hustle harder because the relationships. Build trust. And when people trust you and they know that you can deliver results, they know that you are gonna take great care of their clients. That's a game changer. It really reduces, a lot of the upfront work that goes into marketing yourself. It does take time to build those relationships, don't get me wrong. Yeah. And it takes time to maintain those

[00:15:00] relationships, but. Over 10 years, suddenly it's like now you know lots of people you could reach out to and be like, Hey, I have space for a project coming up in the fall. And yeah, you easily start to fill those spots.

**Amy Hayes:** It's diligently planting seeds and then nurturing the seeds and not pulling them out like after a week to see if they've sprouted roots yet. Like that's not, that's never gonna grow you a garden. But this is where too, like the pricing and the self-concept also come back very closely intertwined because yeah. In order to show up at that high touch level, like you can't be a commoditized asset to your clients. Yeah. Like you, it's a high touch experience from start to finish. And that's where the pricing comes into play because I like to price to cover some downtime in my, like if I'm, you know, quoting out a project, I'm like, all right, well I think this will take me X amount of hours just to make sure my bases are covered for my rate. But I know that if I build in margins Yeah. In my space that anytime I am showing up to a client project, I can produce much higher quality work with less time. And so they're getting better results because I've protected some space for me to even, even if I'm just like trying to brainstorm creative solutions or something like I cannot. Give my best to my clients if I'm booked back to back to back working nights and weekends and trying to turn out 10 hour days or, you know, whatever. So, I bake that into how the value of whatever solution I'm proposing for them.

**Racheal Cook:** And I think this is again, that maturity that comes over time, having. Maybe run into those walls and made those mistakes of, you know, underpricing and not giving yourself that space. It starts to create a lot of chaos in a business. It does. When we don't build in the buffer time, when we don't build in the time off, and if we're only creating offers and pricing, those things based on. Everything being perfect that I can crank it out in exactly the eight hours I quoted or whatever it is, and that's not realistic. I think this is one area a lot of people get stuck is they plan as if everything's going to go exactly to plan, and that's not how creative work is. That's certainly not how clients are. They're going to run into challenges or ask for more things like it's a relationship you have to now navigate and manage and. As a small business owner, especially a service-based business, you really have to be able to set clear boundaries and be able to show up in your leadership the whole duration of these agreements. Can you talk a little bit about that, because this tends to be another big roadblock I see especially creatives and service-based businesses run up against is the boundaries and the client management.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there's a lot of pressure too to like, you know, just price high and the higher you price, the more the client will value you work, and the more smoothly the project will go. And while that's true to some degree, like I'm never looking at, trying to manipulate my clients through my pricing or my processes. Like I know that I cannot, but the, the only thing that is a hundred percent true a hundred percent of the time is that you cannot control clients. You can't control people. Exactly. So. Stop fighting that like it's creating more friction and more headache and more annoyance when you try to fight this universal truth that applies to every single business, every single human, every single relationship in the entire world. If you kind of set that aside and you can't fix it by controlling your clients, like, how can I show up in this engagement in such a way that one. The relationship is the most important thing. Like, how can I show up? And that doesn't mean that I allow, you know, scope creep and you know, time. I mean, sometimes timelines go way over, but anytime I'm faced with enforcing or setting a boundary, I'm always asking, how can I do this in a way that's beneficial to the relationship? Yeah. Because clients, they are like, especially in creative fields, and in, you know, any. Service driven, like expert led field. Your clients expect them to be like toddlers. They don't know your field. That's why they hired you. It's oftentimes their first rodeo. They don't know the rules, they don't know how it works. Exactly. It's your job to guide them. And that's a give and take process. That's not setting a boundary and then getting annoyed with them because X, Y, and Z. So in a premium offer one of the main, benefits of how I position my offers is I try to give my clients as little homework as possible. Yeah. 'cause chances are if I send them a questionnaire, they're gonna be late getting it back to me. It's gonna be like two sentence answers, and I'm still not gonna have the information I need. We do zoom calls, we do loom videos, we do things that are higher touch, but it actually saves time because I'm getting what I need. You have a richer conversation. Sometimes new ideas spur up, you

[00:20:00] know, bubble up in those conversations. I learned this from my journalism days when I would do profile pieces, like you never know which way the conversation was gonna go, and you could accidentally stumble on some goal, like, oh, we need to incorporate this. And I like to have that flexibility. This is why those margins and project proposals, I wanna have those flexibilities, those margins built into the package that's not scope creep. Like if we're like, okay, well actually it works out much better if we organize it this way. Like that is included in my like strategy phase. Like, okay, here's what we're doing. Like I know. It's gonna be a five page website or it's gonna be this, but I like to have room for some back and forth and some collaboration and not have really strict, itemized deliverables in certain cases so that I have room for that collaboration in the relationship to feel, um, more connected. Because, and yes, sometimes it, it, you know, projects bump up against like, well, I estimated this many hours and we took up all those hours, so it's a little less profitable. But those clients come back for more projects. They send more referrals that like we have a strong relationship and I've saved all that time marketing. So I'm looking more at like, how profitable was this project? I don't care if it was a $300 project, if it only took me 30 minutes. Like sometimes like the high, when you're talking about the premium, they want high price because they think that's gonna make them more money. But you gotta look at like. What the margins are, what energy it's taking, what it's saving you in marketing or whatever it may be like, is the project mutually beneficial? And then I consider that a good project and a good client.

**Racheal Cook:** And so what I'm hearing from you is there's a lot of nuance to this high and services conversation. Mm-hmm. And this is where I think a lot of people are kind of missing the mark on this because you can't price high end. Without really taking into account that high-end means high touch. Yeah. Period. And I'm seeing so many people who wanna say, charge high-end prices, but then their focus is so transactional and they're like, you do this exact workflow for every single person. And they just start churning things out. And I'm like, you're missing the point. People don't want. The transactional relationship, if they're coming to you for a high-end service, right? They want you to not just like you said, uh, they don't just want a survey and then you crank out something on the backend. They want someone who's gonna take the time to actually dig a little deeper into really understanding what their needs are. Because often when clients come to you, especially as an expert, especially as a service-based business, like you said. They don't know what they don't know. Mm-hmm. So if they're just filling out that initial intake survey and you're building it based on that, they didn't know to dig deeper, they didn't know that you could really help them showcase. Their business or showcase their brand at this next level. If all you got was two sentences in a response, and when you have the time built in, when you're building that real relationship, that's where the value really is. You're gonna get somewhere that you couldn't get in a super transactional. Process. Yeah. And I think that's what the high end conversation has really been missing out. It's been about, well, let's charge high prices, but then still be super transactional.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah. It's like, automate this, da da, da. And you know, some people they function really well when they have their clickup workflows and they like to do, you know, that sort of, that's fine. That's an internal system and process like. I also don't expect my clients to learn tech because that's why they're coming to me. Exactly. 'cause they're not exactly lucky. So, um, it, it's really like looking at the high-end services, the number one priority really is the high-end relationship. And people think that, or there's a, perception that if you make yourself really available for your clients, they'll be calling and emailing you all day long. And I have never found that to be the case with the. With the projects that I've approached in this manner that happens when I've been more in like, well, I better lay on this project and I've gotta price it as a favor. There's a lot of, lot of, um, sub subconscious pricing. No, can't do that in a favor. Those ones come back to bite me and I can 100% trace it to who, how I was showing up from the discovery call proposal and if I was, hustling a bit to land the project, I will have a hustling experience with the project. But when you shift that dynamic and it's a mutually, like I said, mutually beneficial relationship, I'm available to my clients like. They can call me. Some of them have my phone numbers, they can email me. And honestly, in a three months, you know, whatever project, maybe we hop on a call five times. Like it's, and I don't really have to be pre-scheduled because

[00:25:00] I've built my calendar in a way, especially knowing that I need margins. Like I'm really only producing work like two days a week. And the rest of the time I'm thinking, or I'm doing, you know, more, um. More of the, uh, like strategy, strategy work, something like that. But to actually sit down and build or design or something like that, I know that I need days in between the time that I'm sitting at the computer working on the deliverables, and then I have a break, then I show up fresh the next day. And so it's, my days are not filled with unintentional client meetings or, you know, things like that, it's not filled with producing marketing content because my clients are bringing me all my new projects.

**Racheal Cook:** Exactly. It makes me think of. You know I've shared on the podcast before, both my parents are entrepreneurs and it's funny 'cause if you're around people who've been in business for decades, if you go to them and they have built referral-based businesses, they always have a guy. That's what I think. My dad always has a guy, right? Yeah, you need this. I got a guy, you need this. I got a guy. And same like, I got a gal. I got a gal for everything. And I think that's what happens when you really build. Referral based and you build relationship based things is those people come to you more easily and you might invest more time on the front end. And here's the thing I think about when it comes to these types of relationships. Like you said, they come back to you. They come back to you in terms of referrals. They come back to you for repeat business. They come back to you for more work that they need done, and. So you do invest more time on the front end building those relationships. Mm-hmm. But then you're their guy, you're their gal, right? Like they, yeah. They don't even think about it anymore. They're like, no, I just go back to Amy or someone says, I need this. And they're like, just go talk to Amy. Like you're their go-to because you invested in that relationship. And when you have that level of trust with somebody. And they trust that you're gonna take the time to really get to know them and really deliver what they need. You can't buy that mm-hmm. With marketing dollars, right? Yeah. You can't, you can't build that trust. On social media the way you will by investing in relationships. It's a whole different ball game, and I think that's what I really wanna get a across to people, because this is why I still have clients who worked with me 10 or 15 years ago who come back. Yeah. And do I spend more time on the front end of each one of those relationships, getting to know them and learning all about their business? Yes. But then even years later. They come back and it's, we can, it's kind of like great friendships. You just pick up where you left off. Yes. Right. You already know their personality. You already know how they work because you've been invested in them as a human being. You, you following what they're doing and so you're kind of up to date a bit about what's going on for them and why they need support again. So much more fun. So it just feels more aligned in so many ways. Yeah. Compared to this chasing, hustling for the next client.

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah, and I think that it starts to get a little transactional as well when there's a lot of messaging around, like minimum price of packages, whatever it may be. Again, if you want, if you're trying to sell high ticket offers. But then I find for myself the, um. Sweet spot alignment is also not rigidity in only selling that package. Yeah. So okay. I've got like a signature website, package platform, build your foundations. Every once in a while I get people that come to me that just don't need that level of a platform and they need something smaller or just a starting point. And based on my schedule, if I have some availability or I want to, I say sure. Those are situations where boundaries are more important because it's not a package price often. Yeah. But sometimes actually oftentimes that leads to repeat work, more referrals. So it's kind of again, like paid marketing, even though I'm doing, a little something for somebody, like a flyer or whatever it may be like, yeah, it kind of felt like it. I knew it wasn't gonna like. Break my schedule or anything. And I think having some, what's the right word? Like when you're tapping into that service energy too. Yes. Versus like, oh, well this is just a small project. It's not worth my time. Or, oh, they're not ready for me yet. They're below me. Or whatever it may be. 'cause their budget isn't there or their needs aren't there. Like that does nothing energetically to serve you as a business owner or somebody that people wanna work with.

**Racheal Cook:** So yeah, it comes back to the thought of, you know, this is the delight energy of Yeah. Yeah. Once people are in.

[00:30:00] Your world. Right? They've already worked with you. Now it's like, yeah, we're not signing this big thing, but our relationship is established. Yeah. And I'm here for you 'cause I'm your person. Yeah. In this context. And so I, I think that's great. There's a great, I don't know if you watched The Bear, have you watched The Bear? No, I haven't yet. Oh my gosh. So. Anybody who hasn't watched The Bear, it's a great series, but I was just watching the latest, season of it. And they're big on delight. If you've ever gone to like a Michelin star restaurant, to the point of they know people coming into a restaurant, and this show is such a great example of this. I love pulling inspiration from completely different industries, but they have this episode and the new season of the Bear where a family is coming in and I think somebody had just. Overcame cancer, and they were in a special trip to Chicago, but they had mentioned somewhere that they wished they could see snow in Chicago. What did the guys do at this restaurant? Well, they figured out how to make fake snow. So this person who just overcame cancer could have, like, they gave her hot chocolate and snow and took her outside as a, a complete delight thing. Did they charge for that? Yeah. No, it was just one of those things where if you wanna understand high-end services, know that Michelin Star restaurants know all of their clients and they're looking for opportunities to delight them. Uh, if you, yeah. Ever go to like a really high-end resort. They're looking for opportunities to delight you. I think there's a really great book from the, people who develop the experience at the Ritz and they talk about this all the time. And I think this is where, again, in a world that's become super transactional, it's you have to be willing to put that down. And remember, like if you wanna offer a high-end service, you have to really understand it's high. Highly relational. Mm-hmm. And that delight factor, that willingness to say yes to the small in-between project, because you're their person, you're their gal, you're their go-to gal for design, or you're their go-to gal for coaching or you're their go-to gal for photography. It doesn't, you know, those are the little things that keep people loyal to you. And there's a lot to say for that in a world where. People are bouncing around everywhere, going from, hiring designer to designer or trying template. Like at some point people get fed up with the transactional stuff. Yeah. Especially when they're ready to be serious about whatever they're trying to build and they want someone they can trust to be that partner. That's what I really yeah's the partnership.

**Amy Hayes:** That's really the, when you're building partnerships with the people you're working with, then it becomes such a richer experience with a richer result and more memorable, you know, all the things depending on who you like working with, again, like you don't have to say, I only sell $20,000 branding and website packages. If that's all you wanna do. Perfect. You're gonna spend a lot more time building relationships, but if you decide you like working with startups, there's nothing saying that you are wrong for charging $2,000 for a package or, or whatever. Those are the situations where you, you look at how, how you can. Streamline your processes, make it profitable for you, super enjoyable for the client. Great result, good foundation. So when they're ready to grow, they come back to you, you know, like you said, for the smaller projects or when they're ready to build a much bigger plat, whatever it may be. But it's, there's, there's pressure to like. Not price yourself low because you're undervaluing your work. But if you can get things to a level where maybe it's a $2,000 website, but you're doing the package in four hours and like two hours of client meetings, that's a highly profitable project. I'm not mad about selling those. So yeah, I mean it's all, this is where the context and nuance is just so, the context and nuance. Exactly. And you can still Yep. Build a really, engaged relationship with a client that does not have the budget for a five figure package and still have it be a really rewarding experience for both of you. So you, yeah, you don't have to, if you choose that you wanna work with more beginning businesses or people with smaller, but whatever it may be, that doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong or you're playing small or whatever. It just means you're gonna be working more on your boundaries. You are gonna be streamlining things. Yeah. But you can still do it in a way that's profitable and sustainable and fun.

**Racheal Cook:** And I think that's the key. It's all about that intentionality. Going into it, if you're constantly winging it, especially as a creative, and you're letting. Those potential clients kind of dictate the terms of what you do and how you do it, and the price point you have, someone else's is running your business and they're not even the expert in what it is that you do. So yeah, that's how we end up in those pickles where the projects aren't profitable or the boundaries have been, you know, walked all over. I think it requires that

[00:35:00] intentionality in making these big decisions.

**Amy Hayes:** It's the proactive approach versus the reactive. And so often now we all have client, you know, projects that went off the rails like, well, that was a learning experience. Correct. But if we're not proactive, those, those are learning in the trenches. Those are part of the real life MBA. But if you're not proactively, then updating, really, I find it all comes down to a communication, like letting people know, not being afraid, like, you know, or like you're gonna irritate the client or they're gonna go with somebody else. If you say, all right. We can do this, but these are the deadlines. If it go, you know, whatever it ends up being to make that project profitable for you, a good experience, whatever it may be. Then like there's a self-concept that needs to be developed in order to uphold that and force it and be proactive versus the reactive, like, oh God, the client's late, or, oh God, I got, I'm late on it, whatever it may be. Like a lot of us, because we're so busy in the trenches Yeah. In the, the weeds. Doing our service that we've sold, default mode is reactive rather than this proactive intentionality.

**Racheal Cook:** Absolutely, and I think this is where, circling back to your journey, you've made this huge leap into now offering coaching to creatives because I feel like this is where the next level comes in. You have to ask for help. You have to ask for support because if you've not navigated client relationships. And you're finding yourself triggered a lot and you're finding yourself very reactive and you don't feel in control of your business. That means there's an emotional maturity skillset. There's a relationship skillset that needs to be built, and it takes a lot of practice. And it takes some support because none of us woke up knowing how to reign in a client or tell them like, I actually have to add on a fee in order to do these things. Like, these things are massively uncomfortable. They push you to your growth edge. So share a little bit about this journey for you, because you. Also made this transition yourself, like you're talking from experience, this experience of I knew I needed to level up, so I hired a coach. Yeah. And what does that look like?

**Amy Hayes:** I haven't ever since I've. Dabbled in any sort of business of my own, I have always invested in outside support because one of the most confusing places to live is inside your own head. So Correct, yes. And when you're behind like the screen and you're just doing this, like it's very easy for things to get blown out of proportion or to feel like. This is happening to you, or there's nothing like, oh, I have to blow up my whole business because it's controlling me and I, I resent all the work and I, all my clients are running all over me, whatever it may be. So getting the outside support of people who have also experiences this, who can have compassion, but then also come at it from a neutral stance. Identifying points where actually you do have more control than you are telling yourself. You do not in controlling the clients, but in how you show up. It's like nobody's gonna be late on a deadline to Oprah if she tells you she needs your bio, whatever by Thursday. Like you're getting it to her. So it's like, uh, but then, you know, we're constantly chasing down content or you know, whatever from our clients. It's like, where can we show up in such a way that our, it. Subconsciously influences how our clients are showing up to the relationship. And so you're really holding space. It's just, it's like parenting. Like if the, if the toddler's going to do something and they're doing it the wrong way or they want another candy bar, it's like you're not gonna get all mad because a toddler's, being a toddler, you're gonna calmly parent. Show up in the situation, influence through not only your words and actions, but the energy behind them. And it's the same concept really. I grew up working with animals, so it was more training animals who can't talk back, but you can get so much more influence when you're paying attention to all those intangibles. And it's so much more about like how you're showing up then, like what you're actually saying or what's in the email or whatnot. Um, so, but learning how to handle those. Having like getting into rooms where there's examples of other people who are, had more business maturity, like how are they handling things, um, what are their practices, you know, things like that, like just getting exposed. It also allows you to gain access to examples of like, yes, it is possible to build what I wanna build because so and so did it and I'm. Learning from their example. Um, so I think getting yourself in the right rooms where you know it's going to propel you forward. Especially like if you've been self-taught or you've been freelance. Like for me, coming from freelance for basically my whole career and not having the benefit of built-in mentorship, you have to actively seek it on your own. Um, yes, it's also really fun 'cause you get to choose the sources.

**Racheal Cook:** Exactly. Yeah. Well you have been with us inside of the collective, the CEO collective now for Al, I think almost two

[00:40:00] years coming up. Yeah, yeah. In a few months here. I'd love if you would take a moment and share a little bit about your experience. 'cause I remember you came first to one of our CEO retreats. Yes. Then you jumped right in and we were so excited to have you. What has the last two years been like for you inside of the collective and what results or shifts have you seen?

**Amy Hayes:** It has been just gaining so much more clarity on, especially like I spent a lot of time on the vision and values, which I think is one of those, it's easy to overlook when you're really busy and that's really where when I first discovered the CEO collective in the retreat, like my calendar was full, I could get clients, no problem. I could fill my calendar, but. I would, it was very start and stop. Like I would get very busy and then I'd get really tired and then I'd actually want all my clients to go away. 'cause I was too tired. It was like, if what a person asked me for something like I was in, I was, I couldn't quite get myself out of that reactive, like, feeling like my business didn't control me. Um, but then coming into the collective and spending time building the systems that you teach and the frameworks and really narrowing down where I was spending my time. Helped my web design side of my business really. Almost run itself now. I don't discount the fact that all of my clients come from referrals and word of mouth, and I've built systems on how I continue to make connections and nurture the connections versus saying, oh, that's not a sustainable business. Like word of mouth dries up, referrals dry up because I'm 10 years in and it hasn't dried up yet. So I stopped telling myself I was doing it wrong. Because there was examples inside the collective of people doing the exact same thing as me. And um, like as far as like the business growth referrals are exactly still the lifeblood of Yeah. The vast majority of businesses. But there's this myth. Yeah, that drives me crazy that it's not sustainable or it'll dry up and I'm like, what do you mean it'll dry up? There's 8 billion people on the planet. There's so many people Yeah. Mean I know somebody can help. Yeah, exactly. And so like helping, like really releasing myself from the pressure of like, yeah, building a funnel or whatever it is for high touch services. Like I don't need volume, I need just a handful of the right people and the right relationships. And so I really let go of a lot of on that side of the business model. And then I was really. Exploring my vision for the future, and I enjoy design work and I enjoy working with my clients, but when I was really looking at like what do I wanna be doing in the next five, 10 years and also into the future, I was like, it really is supporting creatives in getting out of the starving artists paradigm and into. Having sustainable lifestyle businesses, especially for those of us that don't have any interest in building an agency and managing a team, but still wanna be able to go on vacation without our laptop, you know? Yeah, exactly. So that's a different, intentional business model that again, gets poo-pooed on. 'cause if you wanna grow, you better scale, but there's people that aren't interested in that. And so when I was really spending time and like the vision and the values, this kept coming up over and over and over again. And then having the. Experience of implementing the framework for the studio, I was able to go back and start and, and constrain myself to select strategies that I could implement sustainably and build out the client growth engine that you speak about. Um, so well, and make so much sense in my head. Um, but start building that out for a brand new business model.

**Racheal Cook:** It's been awesome to watch that evolution from you. And I think one of the things I love the most is once people get into the 90 day rhythm with us through the CEO retreats, you start to see the. The plan every quarter actually becomes kind of the same. But what starts to also happen is then the time off becomes more regular. You recommitted to, you know, your health and wellness, you were enjoying your life more. And that to me was like, that's the signal that things were working because then you started to create the space for what was gonna come next.

**Amy Hayes:** Well, I had to take the space otherwise I like, I was too in the doing. Yeah, to be able to take a step back and be like, wait, but why am I actually doing it and what am I doing it for? Yeah. And you're absolutely correct. Like my 90 day plans now are very similar. There might be like one project or something that I'm working on, but the notable difference between my very first 90 day plan, from my first retreat and from the most recent one, I'm doing like a third of the stuff that I thought I had to do. Yeah. Like it's so much more constrained and it's just about repeating. Actions like consistently. And then it really doesn't take as much actioning to get to your result or start making progress as we all think we need to do. We think we need to do all the things. But really just picking, like you said, three weekly top, you know, top priorities and just focusing on those really does move the needle in a much more sustainable way.

[00:45:00] **Racheal Cook:** I love it. For anyone who is listening to this conversation, what would you say it has meant for you to promote yourself to CEO?

**Amy Hayes:** Freedom. Like I, I'm not afraid of my inbox. I travel, I go skiing. I, you know, go places where I'm not readily available. My business isn't gonna, crumble if I'm not, I instantly like responding to emails or whatever it may be. Like I. I've definitely moved way more into the proactive energy instead of being in the reactive energy thinking that everything outside me needed to change in order for me to feel better and feel like I enjoyed my business again.

**Racheal Cook:** That's huge because we have no control over the things outside of us. Yeah. All we have control over is ourselves and the energy we show up with. So thank you Amy, so much. Where can people follow you online and connect with you and learn more about the Global Creator Studio or the Global Creator Academy if they're looking for coaching and mentoring?

**Amy Hayes:** Yeah, I've been, uh, challenging myself to show up more on Instagram lately these days, so you can find me at the Global Creator. I'm working on making some stories, some reels, answering dms being available and putting the social back in social media. So yeah, come say hi over there.

**Racheal Cook:** Yes, please put the social back in social media y'all, if you were intrigued by this conversation, I encourage you to reach out to Amy 'cause she's just an awesome person. It's been so awesome to spend the last two years supporting you and getting to know you and your business even more. I can't wait to see what happens as more things ha, you know, unfold with the global creator overall. So thank you for joining me today.

**Amy Hayes:** Thank you.