
If your business isn’t making the money you thought it would by now, this episode is for you. So many entrepreneurs think they need a new strategy, a better funnel, or the latest marketing trend to finally grow—but most of the time, the real issue is much simpler: they don’t understand the basic ways a business actually makes money. In today’s episode of The Rachel Hollis Podcast, I’m breaking down the four core levers that drive revenue in any business—regardless of your industry, audience size, or experience level. We’re talking about how to increase the value of each transaction, how to create more transactions, how to bring customers back more often, and how to stop chasing tactics before you’ve mastered the fundamentals. Because TikTok Shop, AI tools, and social media trends are just vehicles—the real growth happens when you know which lever to pull and why. If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated by inconsistent revenue, this episode will help you stop gues...
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Rachel Hollis
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Rachel Hollis
applecard.com and the decisions that you make, they have to be based on business. They cannot be based on what the community wants you to do. I freaking love you guys. I. I love this community so much. I am so grateful. I know some of you have been here for years, some of you have been to so many things. You've bought the journals, what you are, how I have taken care of my babies for a decade. Like, I am so freaking grateful for this community. But I also have to make choices. I. I have a team of people who pay their bills because of this work and if I make choices based on only like, oh, this will get me the most likes, well, I'll be liked right out of business. So if it freaks you out to think about raising your rates or charging what you're worth or offering some higher ticket items, you're coming at this backwards. Hey guys, I'm Rachel Hollis and this is is the show where we talk about life, real life. Around here. We cover everything from habits and motivation to relationships, parenting, and what it looks like to build a life that you love. If you're trying to grow, heal, or just feel a little bit more like yourself, you're in the right place. Let me take a guess at what your life as an entrepreneur looks like right now. You are working on this business. You are showing up, you are trying things. Maybe you've tested different strategies. Maybe you're following a bunch of different entrepreneurs online, and you're getting all of these ideas and you try it all. If you're like me, earlier in my career, I would go away to a conference or I talk to a friend who owned a business, and I'd come back to my team with a hundred ideas. And everyone was constantly exhausted because we were always trying something new. But as an entrepreneur, you're constantly trying to figure out the next thing. What's gonna keep the lights on, what's gonna keep payroll happening, what's gonna allow you to take money home to your family. But what happens more often than not, because most businesses will fail, is that we try and we try and we try, but we can't ever actually make enough of a profit to pay ourselves well. Or at the very least in the beginning, reinvest that profit into the business so it can continue to grow. And it is so freaking frustrating, because being a business owner, even if it's small, even if it's your side hustle, means that you are putting your whole heart on the line. Like, I know that there are those, like, older dudes usually who talk about business and they're like, it's not personal. It is personal. Remember that scene in Aaron Brockovich where she's like, no, it is personal. This is time away from my kids. This is my blood, sweat and tears. This is my energy. Definitely misquoting her monologue. But it is personal to us. And we're working so hard and we believe in the thing. And here's the deal, the mission requires money. Whatever it is you are trying to do in this business, with this business, whether it's a nonprofit or you want it to make a million dollars this year, you gotta make money or there is no mission. And I know for a lot of people talking about money freaks them out, or actually saying out loud that they want money is really scary. But what the heck are we doing here? As entrepreneurs, if you are not making a beautiful profit, if you are not taking home a really nice wage, dude, go work for someone else. It is way easier to be an employee where you get to leave work at the door at 5 o', clock, you don't have to take it home with you. And you could just get to have a salary and a life. That is a million times easier than being an entrepreneur will ever be. So if you're going to take this on, let's make it worth your while. If you are feeling frustrated because it feels like you are doing everything you're supposed to do, and you keep wondering like, am I missing something? Or worse, am I just not capable of pulling off this dream? Here's the truth. Most people think that they have a marketing problem, okay? Most business owners think they just need to figure out a different way of marketing. And dude, it is not your fault. Because if you have started a business in the last 15 years, you have been filled with content on social media that's really sexy. Marketing conversations are sexy. Marketing conversations look like, here's how to use AI to build a whole team of people to run your company for you. Marketing looks like, Here are the 19 steps to build your email list. Marketing looks like put your product on TikTok shop or open up an Amazon storefront. Marketing is all of these different channels that you can use to access a customer. And that is amazing. But the problem is as entrepreneurs, when you get freaked out, when your numbers aren't what you want them to be, you don't tend to double down on what you're already doing, which would actually probably help you. You tend to look for the next marketing idea. You go chase something new, but you never even gave the last idea a chance to work. You have this whole generation of people who are constantly chasing the new tools, the new social media platforms, the new ideas. They're taking advice from some random dude they saw on YouTube and they're never understanding the very basic ways that a business actually, actually makes money. I have been an entrepreneur for over 20 years. I have been in a service based business as a wedding planner. I have been in an events business with Rise. I have been in a product D2C business with start Today Journal. I have been inside of major box stores with Start Today Journal. Going into Target. I've done books, I've done podcasts, I've had ad partners, guys. I think I've done just about every kind of business interaction you can do. What I know for sure is that the things that made a business successful 20 years ago, 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, these like foundational things, those still ring true today. And if you've got your foundations intact, incredible things start to happen. So if you are down, I would love to share these really very simple things that you are probably not thinking about. If you're focused on how you get more views on your Instagram reels reel because you think if you get a million views on the Instagram reel, that's going to lead to more customers which is going to convert and then they're going to buy your thing. No, just let me walk you through These four things and see if these are foundational in your business, and if they're not, you're going to have a really clear next step by the time we finish this conversation. If that sounds groovy, let's jump on in. I will start by saying a sort of selfish reason that I am making this episode, which is if you are listening to this in real time, meaning if you are listening to this on Monday, April 27, 2026, this Friday is an event I'm doing in Chicago. It's called Rise Elevate. It is for business owners. It is an all day event at this point for listening in real time. You can no longer get in person tickets, but you can still get a virtual ticket. But the reason that I'm doing this particular episode is this is a page in the workbook. Okay? This is actually. It's two pages in the work of. I'm literally looking at the Rise Elevate workbook, and this is two pages inside of it. But this conversation within the structure of Rise Elevate takes me about an hour. I personally think this is the most important information I could give you as attendees of a business event of mine. I don't think, well, mindset's also really important. We spend about half a day on mindset. But I think that the most important thing in your business is how much money you're making. Like, it is so freaking essential and not enough of you think that it is. And if you're sitting there right now and you're like, no, don't say that I want to make money. Of course I want to make money, girl. Give it. Give me that bag. I send out a survey as part of all of my events, and I say, hey, what are the things that you most want to work on? So for this series of business events that I've done, I've sent out a survey and I ask everybody, tell me all the things. And I read them all. I go through, I read all of your answers, and I look at all the things. The last question in the survey, both in Austin and in Chicago this week, is, what would make Rise Elevate a win for your business? If you walk out the door and you have this one thing, what is that going to be? And there are maybe eight different options to answer. Overwhelmingly, I'm talking 90% of attendees, and this is in person and virtual. In Chicago and Austin, overwhelmingly, attendees say that the number one thing they want to walk out the door with is a plan. They're like, I want to have a plan. For what to do next and for clarity. People who come to rise elevate is every kind of business owner. Okay, it's lawyers, it's doctors, it's hairstylists, it's teachers, it's nonprofit. It's like, I went through the list yesterday. It's so incredible how many different kinds of people are attending every kind of industry you could think of. That being said, I'm like, how is it possible that when asked what you most want, it's a plan? Because the way my brain works always, if you've hung out with me for even half a minute, you know this is true. My brain always starts with the end result in mind. Whenever I'm laying out any kind of goal for myself, I'm starting with the end in mind and I'm working backwards. So if you tell me that you want to plan, I love that. By the way, I'm going to build this whole stinking day around making sure you walk out the door with a plan that you feel very confident in executing. But if you ask me, a plan is step number one. Revenue, More specifically, profit would be the goal that I want to end up with. So it's sort of just like we're thinking about these things in different ways. And there's no shade against wanting to have a plan. Because what I think your brains are doing is saying, I want to have a plan plan so that I can get to the revenue. But I build backwards. So I build from where I want to go. So if it were me coming to someone else's business event and they said, what do you want on the other side of this? I'd be like, girl, how? Tell me how to make more money. Because if I have more money, I can have a more empowered team. I can bring more people on the team. I can do cooler stuff for the community. I can take better care of my family if I make more money. Like, making more money is a really good thing. I don't know a single woman in this community, or men. I gotta. I gotta be mindful because we always have, like, three dudes who come to these events. We love you. We love you guys. But I don't know a single person who is within the Rise community or listening to this podcast or inside a premium or whatever, who wants to make a crap ton of money so they can go, you know, buy a tank. There's nobody in this community who's trying to use money for something negative. Every single person I talk to, all of the DMS that I read, y' all want to be able to take care of your babies. You want to be able to take your friends on a vacation. You want to take care of mom and daddy as they get older. You want to be able to live in a nicer neighborhood. You want to be able to pay your rent on time. You know, you want to be able to go to the grocery store and not stress about whether or not you can afford the groceries. You want to be able to go into Target. This was, like, my huge thing when I was younger, that I had this big vision for my life. And my vision for my life was, I want to be able to walk into a Target store. Because for clarity, I grew up shopping at the Goodwill. And then when we made, you know, got to a place where you could go to Walmart. I love a Walmart. But the ultimate place for me growing up was to get to go to Target. We could never afford that. My big goal in life was to get to a place where I could go into Target and. And not have to look at attack that I could buy myself a throw pillow or some iced tea, you know, or a box of Lacroix or whatever it was. And I didn't have to calculate how much was in my cart based on how much was in my bank account. That was a big goal for me, and I think that's a worthwhile goal. And I know that there's a lot of people like, well, money doesn't buy happiness. Yeah, but money pays your bills. Money pays your bills. And that certainly makes me a lot happier than the times where I was parking my car around the corner because I was worried that it was going to get repossessed or when my electric was getting shut off. I know what it's like to live both lives, and I will choose the one where I don't have to stress about how to pay my bills. So I believe that it's a. It's a worthwhile pursuit to want to make more money in your business. Okay? Don't tell anybody, but we're trying to buy a new house. All right? We're trying to buy a new house. And not only are we trying to buy a new house, but we are buying a house that's, like, essentially my dream house. And it is my dream house because there is more fabulous outdoor space than even, like, I don't even pay attention to what's going on in the house because the outdoors is so much fun. If you love being outside in the spring and the summer, just like I do, we're gonna do a whole makeover on Wayfair. Okay, Wayfair is the place to get all the things you need for every part of your house. But this time of year, most especially to make that outdoor space so elevated, so fabulous, so comfortable, so ready for a little spritz out on the patio. They have filters, they have customer reviews, they have visual tools that help you to actually imagine which items will look good in your space. With everything from seating to grills, lighting and decor, Wayfair is your one stop. Shop for home, get prepped for patio season. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair every style, every home. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I have been going to therapy on and off since I was a kid and I actually just got back from a week long trauma therapy retreat because I believe that therapy is something we do during any part of our life where we feel like we need some extra support. And it just so happens that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which is a really good reminder to check in with yourself and see if you might need a little extra support. The things that I struggled with in my early 20s are very different than the things I struggle with at 43, and they are no less valid than than they were back when I was younger. In fact, I would say they're even more important to get a handle on because as I get older, I don't want to carry these things with me into my future. Having someone to listen to you, to understand and to support you in accessing tools that you will need can make all the difference. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. In fact, you can really quickly get matched with a therapist by taking a short questionnaire to identify your needs. And we love BetterHelp because if that therapist doesn't work for you, you can get matched with someone else really quickly. You don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up to get 10% off. Betterhelp.com Rach that's B E T T E R h e l p.com SL Rach that being said, everyone says I want to have a plan. Great. On Friday we're building a freaking plan. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be gorgeous. You're going to be turned on, you're going to leave, Rise, elevate. Or maybe you're watching it from home and you're going to, like, dance around and be like, let's go. I got the fire in me. I got the magic in me. Let's go do something cool. But my thought was if. If I did a podcast on this today, I don't have to teach it on Friday because I can send it out to everyone who's attending. Also, it means that thousands and thousands and thousands of people can access this information even if they're not able to attend the event. And like I said, I think this is the sexiest info I've got, and it's based on two decades of doing work at very high levels and making really good money, having years in my business where I made nothing, or even having years in the beginning where I lost money all the way up to, you know, mid seven figures. Like, I've lived every single life, but I have been able to support my family in a really beautiful life I could never have fathomed as a little girl for a decade. There's a lot of entrepreneur podcasters who like to throw figures around. I'm not that. I'm not that girl. That's not my jam. I feel like I've grown a lot since the version of me who liked to tell you how much money was in my bank account. It's been a long time since then, but I mention it because I know what I'm talking about. And I think when I give you these thoughts, you're going to be like, well, that's practical. There's nothing crazy there. So here are the ways that you can make more money in your business, starting literally today. And it goes back to this idea of foundations. And now what we're going to dig into today are these four foundations that help you to make more money. But I need to distinguish between foundations and modalities, because I'm going to talk about both. And both are very important in your business. But they are two completely different things. And a lot of you think the modalities are foundations. When I say the word foundation, to me, that is how money is made. When I use the word modality, again, these are my own interpretations. It's how attention is captured. So I think of marketing as attention. How are we capturing people's attention? So foundations versus modalities. Most people think that they are not making enough money because they have a marketing problem. What they actually have is a fundamental problem. It's those foundational levels. All right, I'm going to give you my list, and I'm going to tell you right now, great news. Not One of the items on my list is how to get more customers. Let me say it again. Not one single item on my list of how to make more money is how to get more customers. Because that is way harder than actually making money with your existing customers. Let's start right there. Look it up. Look up the data, look up the research. You will always make more money with your existing customer base than you will by going and acquiring new customers. You always will. Now maybe someone's listening to this and I, like, I, I literally just started my business, girl. Like, I don't have any customers. Fantastic. Then learn these fundamentals right now and bring this into how you treat your business. Let's get into these four things. Here is my list. And then I'm going to go through them in detail and explain to you how to make more doing these things. Four ways to make more money in your business. Number one, increase the dollar amount of each transaction. Increase the dollar amount of each transaction, meaning you increase how much someone spends per transaction. We're going to get into it. I'm going to tell you how. Number two, you increase how many times someone has a transaction with you in a calendar year, or if you do it in smaller chunks, in, in six months, in a quarter, in a week, you increase the number of transactions. Okay? The third way that you can make more money is that you increase your range. To me, this specifically looks like tiering your offerings. I'm going to walk you through it. The fourth way that you make more money this year is you increase your alignment, meaning you pre qualify your customers. You no longer chase anybody as a customer. You get really clear on who your product is for. So each one of the things I just mentioned are levers that you can pull in your business. Whether you are service based, product based, B2B B2C doesn't matter. All of those are LE. What you are more likely to hear about on social media are tools. TikTok, shop, AI, email funnels, ads. Those are all vehicles. And those vehicles can change the face of your business. But you need to have those foundations in place or you're going to chase a thousand different trends and not increase your revenue this year. Imagine that you're in the kitchen and you are trying to cook a really good meal and you're obsessing over whether or not you have all of the perfect kitchen gadgets, right? You need the spiralizer, you need that special knife, you need the cutting board that folds up so it's easier to put the herbs in. You have all of those Things that you got in Crate and Barrel or Sur La Tab. You went out and you're like, I. You. I can't make a good meal until I have every freaking gadget. Meanwhile, my meemaw could serve up Thanksgiving dinner with a fork and some potatoes and a knife she's been using to peel since 1943. In fact, probably a lot of us had grandmas who could throw down in the kitchen. And they had way less gadgets and way less resources and way less access than we currently have right now. You obsessing over every fancy marketing tool, but not understanding the ingredients that will actually help your business to grow is the problem. If you don't understand how your business actually makes money, every new trend is gonna feel like the answer. Every new guru who's talking about, they're gonna be the one that you list. Every new thing is like this shiny new thing that you chase. And I know you're working hard. I know you are. You're working your butt off. But working hard in a thousand directions is why you are not making traction to get to your finish line. Let's talk about each one of these in detail because, oh, I just love it so much. Number one, increase the value of the transaction. Increase the dollar amount of the transaction. You can take this on in so many different ways. And for today's purposes, I think I've got to narrow down a few different kinds of business to use as an example so that nobody listening can go, well, that doesn't apply to my business. So we're gonna do a commercial real estate agent. We're gonna do a local coffee shop. So we've got service, we've got. We're going to say experience, product, all the things a local coffee shop is. And then let's go online retail. You got an online boutique. Okay, so these are going to be our three example businesses, and I'm going to use them as I talk through each one of these things. Increase the value of the transaction. Let's go through a few ways because this is one of the most powerful, and this one thing can change your business right here. Number one, do you charge enough money for the thing that you offer? Product, service, experience. Do you charge enough money? Back in the day, when I started my event planning company, I did not have AI and I didn't even really have that robust of a Google, and we certainly didn't have social media. So I figured out how much to charge by calling every other wedding planner in town and pretending to be a bride. That is how I got pricing. I called 10 different wedding planners and I asked, day of pricing, full planning, give me all your packages. And then I picked the average. And I remember my very first day of package was $1500. I think I did $1500 for day of planning, which included, wait, it was. I was doing an astronomical amount of work for 1500 bucks. And then my full tilt wedding planning was like three grand. It actually made no sense doubling it, it was so dumb. But in the beginning, you just want to make money. You're pumped about making money, so you'll like, you'll do it for anything because you're so excited to be in business. So I called everybody, I asked them what they charged, and that was my rate. And I don't really know where I got this from, but I just sort of made up a rule that every single year I raised my rates. And after a year in business and I had, you know, 32 clients that year or whatever it was, I did the same thing again. I got more information about what people were charging and then I got more aggressive with my base rate. So the first question I'm going to ask you is, are you charging enough money? And now you don't have to be a creep like me and pretend to be a customer. You can go like, chat would be great for this. Go on ChatGPT and ask it. Hey, run me an analysis. Here's what I do. Here's the amount of time that it takes. Here's who I'm selling to like, give it all the information. And if you're not super familiar with how to make AI work for you, the easiest way to get great ANSwers from any AI tool is to tell it to ask you questions so it gets the context it needs. So I'll be like, hey, ask me questions so you fully understand what this is. And then I'll answer them and you can give me a better idea. And then I will literally voice note in my phone so I don't have to type anything out. It takes way too long. Or there's a tool called Whisper Flow, which can capture really great. But yeah, you make a voice note in your phone, have your phone type it all out, and then put that into chat as your answer, just a million times easier.
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Rachel Hollis
but get information on how much you should be charging, what are the competitors doing in the region that you're in, and at least have some indication of where you are compared to other people. The second thing I'm going to tell you on that is no magical thinking here, babe. No magical thinking. I can't tell you how often I talk to people like, well, I'm charging $18 for a smoothie because that's what they charge at Erewhon in LA. Yeah, Erewhon can charge $18 in Beverly Hills. You opening your smoothie shop in Des Moines, you can't. No magical thinking. And when we don't allow ourselves to have magical thinking, it's actually going to challenge you to get really real about whether or not you have a viable business. I do not want to blow smoke. I do not want to tell you things you want to hear. I want to motivate the hell out of you. I want to inspire you. I want to give you ideas. But if you actually look at the numbers, you may realize this business that you're starting has no chance. Because when you calculate how much time it takes for you to do the thing and then you see how much you're able to make in your local community, you're like, oh, I'll always be upside down. It doesn't matter how many people I bring. It doesn't matter how many parties I book in my space. I can never make enough because my local community can't afford the rates that it would cost for me to turn a profit. And at least if you're facing reality, you can figure out some other solutions. Let's look at this through the lens of am I charging enough money? If we're talking about service based business like real estate, the percentage that you make on the sell of a House, whether you're representing the buyers or the sellers, that's not going to change. Right. I assume that throughout the country there's a certain set rate that all agents make. So you're like, well, I can't change the value of how much I make on house sale. Well, you sure as heck can if you're selling higher value properties. That's number one. Number two, what other services does your real estate office have? This is not gonna be for everybody, but years ago, I bought a house in Hawaii, and my real estate agent in Hawaii I absolutely love, and I've used her more than once. She's great. She is selling exclusively to high net worth individuals who can afford to buy a vacation home in Hawaii. And because she has these individuals as her clients, she has other services that her real estate firm offers that are not like, you know, here in New York, they do concierge services, they can do design for you. Like there's all of these different things. And by the way, I'm sure they're just subcontracting it out. But she's developed this group of vendors who are at her quality, so I know I can trust them. And if Tracy tells me they're great, I believe that they're great. And she has all these other things that she offers along with being a real estate agent. I'm not saying that you all have to go that route, but don't get stuck into an old way of thinking that says there's no way you can increase the value of the transaction. So that's for our real estate agent, for our local coffee shop. Again, you've gotta see what the competitors are up to in your town. And I'll tell you what, living in LA, there were coffee shops where coffee was $8 and there were coffee shops where a coffee was $2. The experience in those two locations was completely different. And as a coffee snob, I would absolutely argue that the coffee quality was very different. But there are ways to increase the value of that transaction. We're going to talk about increasing your range here in a minute. But the simplest thing that I always tell people who own a brick and mortar location is what's by the checkout, Number one, what's by your checkout. Let's say you own this coffee house and bakery. What is near your checkout? That if I'm there and I'm sort of impulse in the moment grabbing coffee and then I look down and see that there's gum, or I look down and see that there's a prepackaged cookie or a cute little sticker? What else is there to increase the value of the transaction? And when I've said this before, people are like, yeah, but if they only spend five more dollars, how is that helping me overall, babe, how many customers do you have in a day? Awesome. How many customers do you have in a week? Even if you get a 30% return on those things being at your cash register, or maybe you get more, maybe 60% of your customers get something else, you're increasing the overall ticket value. Multiply that by the number of customers. Multiply that by a month. Those numbers are real. You're telling me right now you're not taking any money home? What if the money that you took home was the profit from the stuff that you put at the cash register? And it needs to make sense. Have you ever gone to a Sephora? Have you ever stood in line at a Sephora? I know some of you are laughing right now because you're like, yeah, and of course, I bought all of this stuff that I didn't totally need, but it was mini and it was so cute, and I was already buying things and I had my little basket and I was treating myself. And you accidentally end up spending 40 more dollars on tiny little mini things. We all do it. The other thing that I always tell people, again, if you have a brick and mortar store, whatever this looks like for you, you've got to put the stuff by the cash register and you have to train your staff to upsell. This goes for everybody. You have got to train your staff to ask for the sale. Here's what I would do if I own a coffee shop, because I do fantasize about this sometimes. At the very least, I am training every single person who works the register to ask the person getting coffee if they'd like a blueberry muffin. Have you had our blueberry muffin? Like, we run out of them every day. They are literally so good. If you're. I'm just saying, like, you gotta try it, right? It's that kind of thing. You encourage that person who's working the register. Tell them, pick your favorite pastry. You don't have to sell stuff you don't believe in. Pick your favorite pastry from the lineup and. And tell people about that pastry. That is the most basic level. You train every single person as part of their onboarding to do it. If you are a manager, you're working the shift, you don't hear people asking you, remind them to do it. It is huge. You are training your staff that it Is just something that happens. You ever go to the movies? Would you like a popcorn with that? Of course I'd like a popcorn with my diet Coke. Thank you. It's a thing. You have to make it a process to make money. We're not gonna, like, hope for the best. We're not gonna hope that someone comes in and wants to order everything we've got. We gotta nudge them. That's like, basic level. Here's what, like, upper level looks like. If it was my coffee shop, not only would I train the staff to ask people if they wanted a blueberry muffin, I would actually train the staff to notice what the people in line were looking at. Think about it. There's a fantastic bakery in Rhinebeck near where I live, and it's called Bread Alone. It's delicious. They have a beautiful pastry case. And you go in and there's just every single thing. But, you know, there's one or two things that catch my eye. And I just went in there for an Americano. I'm just, you know, like, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna keep on my plan. I'm gonna have my Americano. It's great. But I was eyeing that oatmeal cream pie. You know, I looked at it like eight times. And not every person working the register could do this. But can you imagine if when I get up there to the register, that person is like, and did you also want to add, you want to treat yourself a little oatmeal cream pie? Would that be. Because then they're affirming you. You're like, you see? Yes. How did you know that is exactly what I wanted? These seem like really simple things, but they add up. Okay, so one more, because I promise I'd give you these real world examples. Our third business owner in this scenario, she owns online retail that looks like the upsell that comes at the end. So there are lots of different apps you can use if you're on Shopify. Let's say there's different apps you can use as a pop up. If any of you bought a physical workbook and a virtual ticket to rise this week, you may have experienced this, that our upsell is so funky. If you want the workbook. For a host of reasons that we will figure out later. In a perfect world, you would put your ticket into the cart and then a beautiful pop up would be like, hey, girl, do you want a physical workbook to go along with it? Like, it would be so cool to do both of those things. Anywho, Having this in your mind at the most basic level, increase the transaction value. Increase the transaction value. Increase the transaction value. I'm going to give you another way to do that later in my list. Let's go on to the second way that you can make money in your business, that you can make more money in your business, and that is to increase retention. Retention is. How many times is that customer, that client, that patient, that donor going to do business with me this year? Let's say you're our real estate agent and you have clients who don't. They don't do business with you every year. I would argue that most people, most people may buy more than one house in a year. Let's say not all of your clients do. Let's say you got Mary and Bob over there. They bought that house from you in 1973. They're going to live a good long life there till they go off to heaven. They're not buying another house. Sure. But a lot of times people buy a smaller home. Like if you're like me, let's say the first home I ever bought was a townhouse. That was what I could afford. Bought a townhouse. And then later I got a little bit of a bigger house. And then we had kids. It was a little bit of a bigger house. Not everybody does that. But if I was a real estate agent, I'd bet on it. I'd bet on the fact that these people might come back to me again, and if I do a good job with them, why wouldn't they come back? And by the way, why wouldn't they refer their friends? This is a whole other level. This sort of gets into our modality thing. But do you have a referral program at the very least? Are you asking people for referrals? You know, do you have a way where, like, if you do a really good job for someone as a real estate agent, they're going to tell their friends? Just food for thought. So let's go back to this idea of increasing retention. How many times can I get someone to do business with me in a year? So let's think about our coffee shop owner. Our coffee shop owner, I feel like, has the easiest opportunity to increase the number of times that their customer comes in and wants a cup of coffee. And look, in order to do any of these things, well, you pick one. Don't try and do all four. You pick one and you drill down. You get super laser focused on how, like, what are the 50 different ways that we can increase retention with people who come into the coffee shop. For me, that would look like, do we have the best coffees on the planet? Do we have a staff of people who are nice, you know, that you actually want to be around? Do we have a clean bathroom for people to use? Do we have prices that are competitive with other people in town, but also make sure that we make the margin we need to to keep our coffee house open? Do we have a loyalty program? Do we have those little punch cards? I love a punch card at a coffee house. Do you have a punch card? What are all the things that you can do? Do you have a social media presence? Are you reminding people about what's going on so that they remember that you're there? Do you put out one of those sandwich boards telling people the latte of the season and you gotta come in and try our Valentine's day special? Like, think of every single way you can increase retention, every single way that you can increase retention from the customer. Let's kick it up a notch. Let's kick this into a higher gear for something that you might not have thought about. You know, one of the easiest ways for our coffee house and our online retailer to increase retention to increase the likelihood that they are going to do more business with a customer in a calendar year. Gift cards. Gift cards are amazing. And it also means that you know you're going to have money on the books for the future that you might not have now. Now, you got to be careful with gift cards, guys. You got to be careful because too many people get real excited about a gift card and then don't understand that someone's still going to plan on using that next month. Meaning they didn't account for the fact that they are going to be out the product next month to equate for that gift card. But a gift card is a way to really bet on the fact that that customer is going to come back and do business with you. It also is a way to increase the value of the transaction, which is what we talked about as our first point. Maybe they get a gift card for someone else and then you get to have a new customer. It's so exciting. But increasing retention is like, how can we get really creative about how the customer does business with us? So in my own business, what this might look like is if we have rise events happening, we could do online coaching, which we've done. We could bring back start today products, which we've done. We could do all sorts of different offerings for you throughout the year. You could be part of our premium Podcast community. One of my goals. Again, we're going to talk about this as our next point is I want to have a price point for everybody. I want to have a price point for everybody. But what that also means is that I've got a bunch of different options. So maybe you're not going to come to Rise this weekend, but maybe you'll come to one of our events later in the year because you've seen it and it's cool. And maybe you're going to do premium podcasts because it's only 10 bucks a month and you get that deep dive class. And then later in the year, you might do coaching because you've been a part of another community with me. But if the only thing I offer is, let's say, premium podcast and you have no other way to do any business with us, I'm not going to be in business for very long. And I really want to be careful about this because some people will hear that and they're like, I got to get 50 more products. I've got to get 100 more. No, that is not what I'm saying. And that will actually eat up your profit margin. But do think about what does it look like to increase retention? And you're just gonna try some stuff. If you're an online retailer, you actually will be able to see that. Mary sue came back six times this year, but last year she only shopped with you three times. That's a massive win. Okay. The third way that you can make more money is to increase your range. So what this looks like for me is tiering your offerings. I think that this is foundational because I have been doing this since I first started my business back in. Oh, my word. I don't even know what year that was when I started the events company. But remember I told you that I started with day of wedding coordination. It was 1500 bucks. That was the thing that I offered. I didn't have a lot of other things to offer. And then I realized that all of my competitors had these different options. So they had day of coordination and then they had like full tilt, like, we'll do the whole thing, soup to nuts. And then they would have day of coordination. But you could add on extra things like maybe you wanted. If you were having your wedding at a hotel, one of our add ons was we could go deck out your suite. So let's say bride and groom are downstairs in the ballroom. Our team would go up and fully, like rose petals, candles, cake, champagne. Like, we do a whole, like, Beautiful suite that was something you could add on as a package. Tiering your offerings is great for a psychological reason. If you give people three options, in my experience, they always choose the middle one. They always choose the middle one. So if right now you are offering something at the most basic level, 1500 bucks bucks. It's a day of wedding coordination for 1500 bucks. And then you go basic level, bronze level, then silver level. That one's 3,000. Then gold level, starts at 10,000. People are like, well, I want, you know, I'm not a bronze girl. At the very least, I'm a silver. There's something psychological that happens, not with everybody, but just the simple fact of having more than one price typically will push people into the center. I also love tiered options because like I said, I have a price for everyone. I have a price for everyone because this podcast is free, 100% free. YouTube is free. Any content I put out on social is free. All of my books are available at the library for free. There's so much you can get for free if you want to go up a level. But like, with the littlest, tiniest, baby step, it's premium podcast. Premium podcast is all of your podcast episodes ad free. And once a month, I do a deep dive class. It's an hour long. It's video and audio. It comes with a downloadable workbook. We take a deep dive on a personal development topic, and it's things like goal setting or next month we're getting into how to keep a promise to yourself. So that's for people who are interested but not ready to commit at a huge level or, you know, they need to be mindful, whatever. 10 bucks a month, right? Versus if you come to Rise Elevate this weekend VIP. VIP ticket, which is the full day, all of the programming. You get a VIP gift bag, you get a mastermind lunch with me and all the other VIPs. We sit around a table, literally go one person at a time. You tell people what you're struggling with. You get my input, you get all of these other incredible entrepreneurs, like we did in Austin. It was so freaking awesome. You get signed books, you get pictures of it. VIP is a whole thing. VIP is $1800. There is a massive swing from $10 a month to $1800. And VIP is not for everybody. A live event is not for everybody. I literally. It was so funny right before I was going to record this with you, I was like, the universe is wild. I saw this comment on the Rise Instagram and this woman said she commented on one of our videos about virtual tickets because for the first time ever, we sold streaming access to our event this week. We have never streamed a live event. We've done online conferences. Very different thing. We've never streamed a live event because I feel like the magic of a live event is what happens in the room. I don't think it's possible to experience the pure magic of rise virtually. But so many people are emailing and DMing people from other countries, people with new babies, people who couldn't afford the travel. They're like, please, please, please. And we've seen an overwhelming response to those tickets. It's actually going to go down in history as one of the better business decisions that I've made is deciding to do that. And not only that, but I really feel like it opens up a whole world that I was not considering. I really was not considering the virtual aspect of the live events. And now I feel like, oh, there is an appetite for this and people really want it. So in any event, we had posted this video talking about virtual tickets and this woman said, $300 for a Zoom session. This is wild. And that I'm the inflection is my own, obviously. And then she's like, didn't she used to do events for way less than this? And then another woman was like, yeah, during COVID she did, like way less. And there is a version of me that would have been destroyed by that woman's comment. And if you think I am exaggerating, you think I'm way more of a hard ass than I actually am. I 5 years ago would have been decimated by someone being snarky about how much it costs to come to one of my events. And I have done so much therapy, you guys. And I was truly so triggered by what she said. And I went into like five different patterns. I'm upset. It makes me feel scared because I'm like, I don't want anyone to be mad at me. I'm a people pleaser. It makes me mad. I want to lash out. Like, do you know how long I've been doing this? Do you know how hard I've worked to build to this level? I wanted to go into a whole monologue about what the men in my industry charge for access to their events. And nobody's getting mad at the men. All of these things. And then I very calmly responded to her and I said, hey, just for clarity, the ticket costs 199, not $300. And it's 199 for six hours of programming. Six hours of programming plus a 60 page workbook that you can download and print off so you can follow along with what we're teaching. And let's remove the workbook for a minute, which I think is incredibly powerful. Let's just do six hours of programming for $199. That equals $33 an hour. Specifically 33. 10. I did the math. At $33 an hour, this is worth so much far and above that. But I very calmly explained to her, hey, when we've done events in the past that are focused on life coaching and life stuff that tends to be more wide open and more general, we can't go as deep and we certainly don't go as tactical. When it's business stuff, we do go deep and we do go tactical. And it is an investment of money. But the investment for business owners, we see that as a greater roi. If you come to this event, you should use the information that you get. I hope that just in this free podcast episode you realize you got more value than the cost of a ticket to the event. But for a business owner, we're willing to invest in those things because we know that the knowledge helps us to grow our business and make more money. And I was like, I totally get it if it's not in your budget. I had to save up for years before I was able to afford my first business conference. And I was like, hey, but if you really want to go and you can't swing it, send us a dm. I give out scholarships all the time and I do. People send me notes. They're like, I desperately want to do this and I can't afford it. And I'm like, I got you, girl. But I don't put that on social because I'm not trying to get attention for giving scholarships. But like, I know what it feels like to want to go to something and you can't. The reason I'm saying that to you is because you are going to feel a certain kind of way about having higher ticket items or having higher tiers or charging more for the blueberry muffin with the streusel on top of than you would for the basic blueberry muffin you were selling two years ago. And you're going to feel weird because you don't want someone to call you out on it. But it will happen. If you are a business owner and you had to raise your rates at all in the last year because of tariffs, I'm sure you felt all kinds of ways about that and probably your customers or your clients, they felt ways about that too. This is the reality of doing business and you don't have to be mean about it. But what I was so proud of in that interaction was like I used to be, I would have been in a spiral for like five days. And now I was proud of myself because I like, I just told her the facts. This is what it is. There is nothing more expensive that we do than a live event. Let me just blow your mind because I said this in Austin and people could not believe it. The Rise events, you saw the conferences, three day conferences, 5,000 women in Dallas, 7,000 women in Florida. Those did not make money. They didn't lose money. They did not make money. Just think of what it would cost. An arena means there's nothing in it. You got to build the stage, the lighting, hundreds of people on staff, security, bringing in the gift bags, the lanyards, the food, the pop up tent, the, you know, going out and having lunch with your girlfriends in our, in our lunch spaces, the flying solo lounge, all of the beautiful backdrops to take pictures in front of. We did not have to go that hard. There was a cheaper way to do the event. But I want y' all to have a good time. I understand that for so many women, coming to Rise is like the one thing you're gonna do for yourself, maybe for like years. It's the one thing that you're gonna do. And so I want it to be beautiful and I want you to feel pampered. And that means we're not gonna make a profit off of it. You know, the one event we ever did in the history of this company where we made a profit. Rise business. And do you know why? Because you have more content and you go deeper and you get tactical. And business owners are willing to pay for that experience because they take that information and they take it back to their teams. When we did Rise business conference, those of you who are there, you know, and I still get emails from people about how transformative it was. Our lineup was unbelievable. We had like 10 of the greatest speakers at the time talking about it was so freaking awesome. And the tickets were more expensive. That was the only way that we ever made a profit. And even then, guys, it wasn't huge. I am telling you that because I want you to understand I want to be able to do the things I want to be in business. I also want a business that is successful. There is a reason that I started with business based events and it's because so many People were asking for it and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to test this out. I'm going to see if there's still an appetite for rise and I'm going to figure out what this looks like now, and I'm going to offer the knowledge that I have that is worth more money. Truly, I think that my purpose on this planet, my icky guy, if you know what that term is, is the work that I do with y'. All. And we talk about life and we talk about how we're gonna show it better for ourselves and how we're gonna get our mindset right and how we're gonna get our health right. That is the most important work that I do. But the mission requires money. So if we are going to do events, we've gotta start from a place of knowing that we can make a profit. And I'm really proud. Both of the rise elevate events have been profitable. Even this one, we're not done selling tickets. It's already profitable. That's what it is to be a business owner. Would people prefer it if I did an online conference and it was 49? Yes, of course. I would love that. I would love that. And that's something that I can look at doing in the future. But we have to make smart decisions now. And the decisions that you make, they have to be based on business. They cannot be based on what the community wants you to do. I freaking love you guys. I love this community so much. I am so grateful. I know some of you have been here for years, some of you have been to so many things. You've bought the journals. You are how I have taken care of my babies for a decade. Like, I am so freaking grateful for this community, but I also have to make choices. I. I have a team of people who pay their bills because of this work. And if I make choices based on only like, oh, this will get me the most likes, well, I'll be liked right out of business. So if it freaks you out to think about raising your rates or charging what you're worth or offering some higher ticket items, you're coming at this backwards. You can have a hobby, you can absolutely start a side business as a hobby and just break even every year. But if you want to have profit, that's the money. Like, either if you choose to, you could reinvest it, you could hire some employees to help you out, or you could actually have more money that you take home. Wouldn't that be amazing? You have to start with the end goal in mind. And I know that not everyone was happy that I started with business conferences and I know that there are people who can't afford it and they're super bummed out. And I know there are people in Toronto and Oregon and Arizona are like, please come here, please come here, please come here. Come to our state, come to our city. I know. And the people pleaser in me wants to do all the things, but the leader in me is going to make smart choices. All right, my last bit of advice. We are now over an hour shout out to all the entrepreneurs who are still here. My last piece of advice on making more money is this idea of pre qualifying your customers. How I would say this is increasing alignment. So one of the questions I asked on the survey for the event this week is who is your ideal customer? And then they fill out this whole paragraph and they're telling me all the things. My ideal customer is this, this and this. And then I'm like now tell me who your actual customer is. And because I can see the revenue, I ask everybody their revenue, it's anonymous, right? So I'm like, what is your revenue in your business? I can tell you without question. Like I got the data to back this up. The people who say this is my ideal customer and this is my actual customer, they're the same avatar. Those are the people who have higher revenue, period. Period. The people who are sub 50,000 a year and there's no shade in that. We all got to start somewhere. The people who are not making the money that they want to make, they say this is my ideal customer. And then you say who's your actual customer? And it's a completely different thing. So an example of this is one of the surveys I was reading yesterday was a real estate agent and she said my ideal customer, I'm making this up. But it was like essentially like a high net worth individual. They're this, this and this. They live in this area. They're bl. It was a great avatar. And then it was who's your actual customer? And she said, well my actual customer tends to be first time home buyers. They actually don't have the money to buy a house so ends up taking about six months for them to get to a place where they can pre qualify or get a co signer from one of their parents. It's a very long process. And because they're first time buyers, they're buying homes that are smaller. So the percentage that I'm making is not very much. And what I would even add to that is, not only is the percentage going to be lower because they're first time home buyers, but also if you amortize the percentage that you're making over how much time it took you to work with them, let's say six months, I think you'd be pretty bummed at the answer that you're getting because you'd realize, oh, wow, I just worked for these people for six months. I showed them 22 different homes and this is what I have to show for it. If you understand this idea of pre qualifying who's coming in the door, it will save you so much time. And there's a bunch of ways that you can do it. The first, my most favorite way is something I realized when I was a wedding planner. At the end of the year you could do this right now with your existing customers. But at the end of the year I wrote down all of my clients and how much money I had made off them. This was before I understood the difference between net and gross revenue. So I was just like $10,000 when that is not what I actually made. But my point is I wrote down all the money that I got from each client and then next to that amount, I wrote down where the referral came from. And at the time I was paying for advertising on the not K N O T which was really expensive, but it was like the place to advertise for wedding clients. And I thought that all my customers were coming from there. But at the end of the year when I laid it all out, I realized that only one client actually came from the Knot. And not only that, six of my clients had come from the same referral. And it just so happened that all six of those clients were my highest ticket clients. And all of those clients came from a photographer named Susan Bordelon. I don't know if she's still working. She was amazing. She's one of my favorites. But Susan had referred six different clients to me. And because Susan was a high end photographer, she was expensive, it meant she only had clients who had money. I don't want to be obnoxious, but if you're getting referred a client by someone who is high dollar, they're going to have high dollar to spend with you. And that was the year that I canceled my not membership and I started doing everything I could to cultivate a stronger relationship with Susan and with the other vendors. Like we ended up working. A lot of us worked on the same weddings together. So you would already like people, but then you knew like, oh, that's A high end vendor and they would send me business and I would send them business and it was amazing. And it was way less expensive than advertising and way more effective. So increasing alignment can look like where are the referrals coming from? Is the kind of ideal customer or client that you have, are they going to come from the place you're actually advertising? Are they? Or is it possible they're going to come from this totally different route that you haven't even considered yet that's shockingly easier to come by. It looks like. How are we pre qualifying the other thing that you can do? This is so simple. Let's say you offer services, put your freaking price on your website. This is so annoying to me. If you're high end, at the very least you need something on your website that says our services begin at xyz. You don't have to give away your price but if you do not have some indication of what it costs to work with you before before you get the email you are going to waste so much time there like no shade to people who cannot afford you. But every single time you are distracted from the bigger work you need to be doing by answering that email, responding to people, you go back and forth three times. Oh my gosh, it's so exhausting. Don't do it. In fact you could automate that even more. Let's say you have something on your site that says our services begin at $3,000. Fill out this form if you want more information and sister friend fills out the form and she sends it to you automatically. She should get an email back with a beautiful one sheet. You can design it on Canva that lists out your actual pricing. Here's option. Remember we're tearing our options. Here's option number one. Number two, number three would love to talk to you more. Here's my calendarly link to set up a call with me and you've pre saved in the app where people can book with you. And this is not an ad. I've just like it's a thing I've seen people do. So you automate the whole process so someone is pre qualified before they ever get on the phone with you. I've also seen people do this where they'll put together a video like maybe it's like a 10 minute video explaining the services. Here's what we do, here's what we're all about. Again so you never get to the one on one moment if they don't understand who you are and what you're about to pre Qualify. You can also pre qualify with the language that you use. Right. Think about a Motel 6 and a Ritz Carlton. Do you think that they use different words to describe their brand than the other one does? Is Motel 6 talking about we'll leave the light on for you, like, are they going to talk about staying at the Motel 6 in a different way than the Ritz does? Is the Motel 6 going to use words like luxury, quality? No, they're going to use words like affordable, easy. The language that you use, the visuals that you show are going to denote a certain kind of. Now this all being said, you better be able to back it up. If you tell people you're a high end wedding planner and they go meet with you and you're like, yeah, let's meet at the Starbucks and you, you show up in flip flops and your roots are showing. You just wasted a whole bunch of time pre qualifying. When you don't, you're not actually at the vibration to take care of those clients, but whatever level you are currently at, you want people who can meet you there. And if you have a hard time, like right now, if you're getting a lot of clients and customers who are coming into your experience, into your coffee shop, they're coming on, they're, they're going on to the retail and then they're bouncing. If price is a big issue, it's because your ideal customer doesn't understand who's supposed to be in the room. There is a spot for every kind of person. I am not telling. You need to be high end. I don't think a chick fil a as high end and I think that they absolutely crush it. They dominate in business. You can have whatever kind of business you want, but you need to know what that is. So increasing alignment, I'd say think about it in reverse. If someone's like super bougie high end and they're hungry and they want, you know, a beautiful farm to table at least one Michelin star dinner and you take them to Taco Bell, that's. The reverse will also not work. You need to make sure you got the right person coming in your door based on all of the information that you're putting out. Save yourself time, pre qualify the customers. I also want to add one more note. This is not one of my foundations, but this is a phenomenal piece of advice. I'm just going to say it. I have a dear friend who is a wedding photographer and she is booked. This is not Susan, this is a different person. She is booked. Solid. Always. Every time I check it, how are you doing? She's like, oh, girl. She's so tired because she's a phenomenal photographer. So, so tired. Too many weddings. I lose all of my summers. I don't get to spend summers with the kids. It's so exhausting. She loves her job, but she's book solid. What a blessing. Book solid. And every single time I tell her the same thing. And I'm going to say it to you. If you are someone who has so much business, this is for you. You are not charging enough money. If you are booked solid, raise your rates. Raise your rates. Raise your rates. Raise your rates. Raise your mother effing rates. If you are constantly booked up, Masseuse, hairstylist, raise your rates, guys. And people freak out. They're like, no, that'll upset clients. And then maybe they won't book me because I raise. Yeah, that's the point. The point is, let's say my friend does 50 weddings a year. Next year she raises her rates. She does 35. She makes as much money, if not more by raising her rates, but she does less work and her quality of life goes up. Being, you know, booked, busy and blessed. Like, yeah, that's amazing. We're not trying to burn out over here, guys. I am a huge believer in this idea of, like, aligned ambition. You can be ambitious, you can wanna build something big, and you could wanna do it without destroying your nervous system in the process. You can do it while still having a beautiful life with your family or while still experiencing that vacation with your girlfriends. There are seasons in business. Yes, you're gonna have to sprint. That's what it looks like to be an entrepreneur. But there are also seasons where you can take a break, where you can step back where it doesn't have to be that hard. It is not supposed to be a sprint all of the time. And if you're constantly sprinting, my instinct is it's because you are not making enough money to cover the times when there are slower seasons. I really hope that some advice I gave you today, I hope it wasn't too intense. I hope you got a ton out of it. But I hope if you are like, dang, this girl knows where it's at. And I want to hang out with her for six hours for $33 an hour because we figured it out. You will check out the virtual access to Rise elevate this week on Friday, May 1st in Chicago. It's going to be so fantastic. I'm so excited for those of you who are coming in person. I'm so excited. For those of you who are watching online, we're going to do something really special and dive super heavy into mindset, which is so huge. You could have all the tools and all the modalities, but if you can't get yourself over the obstacles, if you can't motivate yourself when you don't want to do it, if you can't get past your fear, if you can't get past your insecurities, if you can't find your confidence, all the tools in the world are not going to save you because the success or failure of your business starts in between your ears and with that thing that's pumping inside your chest. And we're going to dig in in a big way. On Friday. I will be back, as always with more conversation for y' all later in the week if you like this. Will you. Actually, will you do me a quick favor? Will you make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss an episode? Because these are always going to be available for free. And if you have a friend who's an entrepreneur or small business owner, will you send this to them? Be like, hey, these are some good ideas. Okay, guys, until next time. As always, I love you and I'm rooting for you. The rachel hollis podcast is produced by me, rachel hollis. It's edited by andrew weller and jack noble.
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Date: April 27, 2026
Host: Rachel Hollis
In this episode, Rachel Hollis delivers a passionate, tactical, and experience-driven lesson for entrepreneurs who are struggling with profitability in their businesses. Drawing on 20+ years as an entrepreneur in a diverse range of industries, Rachel challenges common beliefs about what leads to financial success and offers four foundational strategies—all focused on maximizing revenue from your existing customer base, rather than endlessly chasing new ones. Her tone blends humor, real talk, and compassion for the entrepreneurial journey.
“Most people think that they have a marketing problem, okay? ... But the problem is, as entrepreneurs, when you get freaked out, you don’t tend to double down on what you’re already doing ... you tend to look for the next marketing idea... never understanding the very basic ways that a business actually makes money.” — Rachel Hollis [06:30]
Rachel underscores the reality that sustainability and growth require profit—not just passion or likes.
“The mission requires money. Whatever it is you are trying to do in this business, with this business, whether it’s a nonprofit or you want it to make a million dollars this year, you gotta make money or there is no mission.” [07:25]
She takes a stand for making money as a good thing, enabling entrepreneurs to provide for families, teams, and themselves.
Rachel’s four “levers” are universal—applicable to product, service, B2B or B2C businesses.
Are you charging enough? Don’t set magical prices (e.g., don’t charge LA prices in Des Moines).
Examples:
"Have you ever stood in line at a Sephora? ... you accidentally end up spending 40 more dollars on tiny little mini things. We all do it." [34:53]
Focus on getting current customers to return more often, not just getting new ones.
Examples:
"If the only thing I offer is ... premium podcast and you have no other way to do any business with us, I’m not going to be in business for very long." [44:10]
Offer different levels/packages to capture various budgets and customer segments.
Psychology: Three options? Many pick the middle.
Rachel’s business examples:
Don’t be afraid to charge more for premium experiences.
"If you give people three options, in my experience, they always choose the middle one." [50:34]
"You’re going to feel a certain kind of way about having higher ticket items or charging more... But it will happen." [54:13]
Know your ideal customer, and design offers, language, and marketing to attract them—don’t waste time or energy on poor customer fits.
Use analytics: Where do best referrals come from?
Be upfront with pricing. Automate initial inquiries with pricing/FAQ.
Use brand language and visuals that resonate with your target demographic.
"The people who say ‘this is my ideal customer’ and ‘this is my actual customer’—they’re the same avatar. Those are the people who have higher revenue, period." [62:51]
"You need to make sure you got the right person coming in your door based on all of the information that you’re putting out." [70:46]
On Entrepreneurial Emotion:
“This is my blood, sweat, and tears. This is my energy. It is personal to us... And here’s the deal, the mission requires money.” [07:07]
On Business Reality Checks:
“No magical thinking here, babe. … You may realize this business you’re starting has no chance ... At least if you’re facing reality, you can figure out some other solutions.” [31:08]
On Raising Rates Without Guilt:
“If you are booked solid, raise your rates. Raise your rates. ... The point is, ... she makes as much money if not more by raising her rates, but she does less work and her quality of life goes up.” [72:30]
On Aligned Ambition:
“You can be ambitious ... without destroying your nervous system in the process. There are seasons in business ... but there are also seasons where you can take a break.” [73:44]
| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Why most have a business—not a marketing—problem | 03:30–07:30| | Mission requires money, not just a plan | 07:10–13:50| | Survey says: everyone wants a "plan" | 12:15–16:00| | Intro to the four money-making foundations | 19:20 | | 1. Increase transaction value (with examples) | 22:45–39:41| | 2. Increase retention—customer frequency | 39:41–46:28| | 3. Range/tiering—different price points | 46:28–62:02| | 4. Alignment—prequalifying your customers | 62:02–71:15| | Raising rates when overbooked | 72:30–73:44| | Rachel’s closing encouragements and mindset note | 73:44–75:40|
Rachel’s episode is a master class in shifting your entrepreneurial mindset from hustle-for-likes to making foundational moves for greater profit. She urges listeners to adopt a grounded, numbers-first approach. Her advice: pick one lever, go deep, and systematize before obsessing over new tools.
“I want to motivate the hell out of you. I want to inspire you. I want to give you ideas. But if you actually look at the numbers, you may realize this business ... has no chance. ... But at least if you’re facing reality, you can figure out some other solutions.” — Rachel Hollis [32:12]
For ambitious business owners who want to stop barely getting by, Rachel’s four foundational strategies offer both the wake-up call and the practical roadmap to create a healthier, more profitable business—starting today.
Note: Ads, intros, and outros have been omitted for clarity and focus on actionable content.