Kathryn Binkley:

I'm really excited to bring Haley on the show to chat with you all. Hayley is the founder of Profit Planner and the host of CEO Vibes podcast. There's so much that she does. I'm going to let you tell everyone a little bit about what you're all about.

Haley Burkhead:

Yeah. If you are an overworked, emotionally drained entrepreneur, I am for you. Really, what I help a lot of entrepreneurs do is create stress free, consistent income by just eliminating the Unprofitable hustle altogether. That's what I'm known for. That's what I do. That's what I love. That's what I teach. And I think that, there's this movement online that is rooted in what our parents a lot of our parents have taught us, which is success happens when you work hard.

Haley Burkhead:

So we have this identity of if I work hard, I am a successful person. So whenever you feel like, like, I get a lot of feedback from me because I'm challenging your beliefs, And that ego of wanting to be a successful person gets a little bit butt hurt, and, you know, we're doing some challenging work here, but I think it is important to not just work hard, but work in a very specific profitable way because, you know, business owners, you're not an employee of your business. Like, you're a freaking business owner. Right? And so, you got to treat it like that. If you are a profitable entrepreneur, then you know that, one, you need to figure out all the profitable tasks that your business is making, and then, 2, all the tasks that aren't making profit so we can trash it. So that's what I teach. That's what I do. Love it.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. That's I mean, I think that should be the goal for everyone, not just to I like to talk about a business that lights you up. And my goodness, if having a more profitable business owner by working less doesn't light you up.

Haley Burkhead:

I don't know what will. Right. And your light may be a little bit odd over there. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. So that's incredible. I'm curious. So, you probably see a lot of things that people spend a lot of time on. Oh my gosh. Yes. What's one of the biggest things that you see people spend time on that does not lead to profit even though they think it does?

Haley Burkhead:

Okay. I'm just going to like, I feel like this is like a, prepare yourself to possibly be offended, but content creating content. This is huge. So many people online are saying you got to create content if you want to create profit because it establishes yourself as an industry expert online. We all heard that. Right? And what I want to challenge is that creating content is not necessarily creating new profit, and the reason why is because if you're sitting over here and you're like, okay, Haley. I want a profitable business. I want a business that allows me to have consistent income without having to work crazy hours.

Haley Burkhead:

And so, if that's what you really want, I'm assuming you're listening to blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, right, that are telling you about marketing because you believe that at the core of your being, marketing is the problem, and the solution is more marketing. And so content marketing is just pushed down people's throats. That was a harsh picture. Lovingly pushed out people's throats. And what ends up happening is... Just let me tell you a story. There's this person named, let's say, Sallie Sue. So, Sallie Sue homeschooled her 3 kids. She wants to be present with her children, And Sallie Sue also does not feel like she's in control of her time and money right now.

Haley Burkhead:

It's not a great situation to be in. Sallie Sue is very sad, a sad Sallie Sue. So, what Sally does is she's listening to all these things like I talked about, and she took this online quiz. And this online quiz told her, oh, you need to start a blog. Blogging is just going to fit your personality. So then because she took a quiz from this online expert that told her to blog, she starts spending over 10 hours a week blogging. And she doesn't look she doesn't look at how many sales she's getting from that. She's, like, checking off her boxes, and because Sallie Sue believes, because her parents taught her that the harder you work, the more money you make.

Haley Burkhead:

She feels like she's making more she feels, that's the key indicator, feels like she's making more money because she's working harder, and that feeling keeps driving her to keep working harder because she's checking off that vanity checkbox of, well, I've worked over 10 hours today, so I'm a successful person even when what you're working on. Is it actually profitable? Now all that to say, if you create content and you love it, it's fine. I'm not saying don't blog. I'm not saying don't create content. I'm saying that Sally Sue hated blogging, and Sally Sue is a real person, guys. She was actually at my event, and her name is not Sally, but she was sitting in the chair, and we do the SOA method, which I teach in the free training that we'll talk about at the end, but the SOA method stands for systemize, outsource, and automate. We use post-it notes for this. So, if you follow my Instagram stories and you see post-it notes everywhere, that's what it is. It's like a part of my brand.

Haley Burkhead:

So, we did post-it notes, and she had blogged on a post-it note, and I said, Sally, do you enjoy blogging? And she said, well, no, but I have to do this. Right? And I said, then stop. And I took the Post it notes, and I threw it on the floor. And what ended up happening after we went through our post-it notes, and I threw so many things on the there was a lot of Post it notes on the floor, guys, and then she, like, almost started crying, and she said, what do I do with my time now? Like, you focus on making sales, Sally. You focus on selling and you got to quit hiding in this content comfort zone, and there's this content comfort zone online that you're going away from sales because sales, you people might reject you. There are so many mindset things around sales. It's hard. Right? And you're telling yourself that it's hard, so you're making it even harder for yourself.

Haley Burkhead:

And so if you blog, no one can reject a blog post. Right? And you feel like you're being productive, and you're not getting straight up rejected. And I think this also let me just keep being opinionated here for a second. I think that people are afraid of sales because they've been listening to this advice, charge what you're worth online. That's a bunch of BS. Because if you should never ever let me add another ever onto that, ever charge what you're worth because you are worth everything. But your product or service is only worth what the market is willing to buy it for, right? And so, you should be charging what the marketplace tells you to charge, and then pricing is flexible too.

Haley Burkhead:

So, as you start getting more customers, keep increasing the price. Until the market says, oh, nope. Too high. Great. Stop there and then scale it, outsource it, automate it, streamline it. That's how you need to start running a business and thinking more like a serious profitable business owner. And so, if you are charging what you're worth, selling is way scarier because then if someone rejects your price, you feel like they're rejecting you. And so, you sit over here and you're blogging and you're YouTubing and you're podcasting and you're putting out all this content that's not making you sales, but you're working really hard, but you have no idea why you're not making sales.

Haley Burkhead:

That was a really long explanation, but I just I think that this is the unprofitable hustle cycle, and it's the cycle that we just keep it's like you're stuck in this dryer machine, and you can't find the door to get out of it. That's a sucky place to be. When you're sitting here working really hard and not making money, that dryer machine is not a happy one to be in. Right.

Kathryn Binkley:

Well, and so there's also this cycle of, like I look at it like a roller coaster as well. It's this feast and famine cycle with your income. And if you're just focused on creating content, content, content, and no sales, then guess what? I mean, you're at the bottom of that hill. And then all of a sudden, you realize almost out of desperation, like, gotta make some money. So you go into this sales mentality, and you focus just on sales and nothing else. And all of a sudden, maybe you hit the top of a hill Before you crash again. And you're just going up and down, feast and famine cycles, as you're trying to figure out how to create this consistent, steady business and yeah. It's a pattern.

Haley Burkhead:

It's totally bad, and it's a sucky pattern. And, you know? And I'm not, like, saying everyone sucks online that gives advice. I think that a lot of people that give content advice, they have people that they can outsource to. They have a lot of streamlined stuff in their back end, and they already know who to make sales to. But, like, if you're scared of sales and you're content because you're afraid of sales, which on a on a conscious surface level, you may not realize it, but on a subconscious level, you are. So dig deep on that One, please. Yeah. But, like, let's say you are doing that.

Haley Burkhead:

Well, because you're so afraid of sales, you don't even know who you're selling to, so your content's not converting because you're shying away from the thing that you need to be doing to begin with. Right?

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. And I think that oftentimes what I've seen is people start at, so they think you and I were chatting before this about the buyer's journey, and they look at their potential client and where they're starting now, and they look at how they're going to interact with their business, and they start with the first thing that their client's going to interact with. The problem is that when you start with that, oftentimes, you are going to start with content. And, I mean, listen, we all need content, but not for content's sake alone, and that's exactly what Haley is saying. You got to have a clear plan. So, when you start with just the content with no plan for what's going to follow, That's the mistake. So, Haley, I think what I'm hearing you say, and I agree, start with the sales and your plan for the sales and work backwards for what's going to drive people to that profit. Right?

Haley Burkhead:

Yeah. Because, I mean, if you're a photographer and you have a blog, but you're over here and what's actually making you sales is your clients referring you, then you start paying your clients to keep referring other people to you and rewarding them for that and creating a system around it. And I think what a lot of entrepreneurs get immediately when I say that, if you thought, well, how do you do that? That's another problem. Yeah. If you always think of the how, you will paralyze yourself because you're making so many decisions. The show is the easiest part, but it's the part that so many people get caught up on because they're afraid of what, after they get through the how, what that will bring. And what I want to challenge you to think about is say, okay. This is what I need to do.

Haley Burkhead:

The how is going to be easy, and then make it easy. Like, what I realized in business is that a lot of answers are actually inside of yourself, and we're searching for so many different things, like the one size fits all strategies that don't actually work for everybody. It might work for, like, 20% of the people that join the program, and that's why I refused to build a program that was a one size fits all box. Like, I refuse to do that, and so if you go through what I sell, it's literally a filter. So if Kathryn over here goes through and creates a profit plan. That's going to look a lot different than my profit plan because Kathryn's business and strengths are way different than my business and my strengths. So, yeah, I think there's so many factors to this, but I think that's another big one.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. Haley, you're speaking my love language. I so agree with you. There aren't this one size fits all approach, and too many people are out there Searching. My listeners right now, you're out there searching for the one thing that's going to help you break through in your business, and you're copying other people based on what you see or what you hear. The problem is if you go and you listen to every podcast, read every book, Hire every coach. You're going to get contradictory, actually, advice. Yeah.

Haley Burkhead:

A one size fits all advice sells too.

Haley Burkhead:

Because people want a step by step. They want you to hold their hand, but and that's why, you know, my stance is, like, I'm going to challenge you. Like, this isn't going to be I'm not going to hold your hand. I'm going to love you, and I'm going to be an embarrassing mom on the sidelines cheering you on with insane color pom poms.

Haley Burkhead:

But I'm not going to hold your hand while you're running your business because I believe that you don't need me to hold your hand. I believe that you don't need Kathryn to hold your hand. I believe that you need support, and I believe that you need love, and I believe that you need encouragement, but you don't need, like, a one size fits all approach from me. You don't need to know exactly step by step what worked for me because it's going to be different for you. And I think, you know, it took me a long time to realize that specifically, like, years because I, had the story in my mind that I was the dumb one because in my family, I was. Like, I was the dumb one. And so, when I reached a point in my business, I mean, we went from using profit We went from 0 to $36,000 a month in half a year. Like, who freaking does that? And then at the end, it didn't even acknowledge what I had done.

Haley Burkhead:

And I sat there, and I thought, oh, if I want to get to the multimillion point, I need to hire an expert because I truly believe that I was not smart enough to get me to the next level. If I and instead of investing in my brain, I invested in someone else's brain That I mean, honestly, it wasn't a great fit culturally, and it ran on business from the ground. And so that's why I, like, preach this at the top of my lungs and, like because at the top of my lungs. At the top what however that phrase goes. That was not correct version of the phrase, feel free to laugh at me while you're driving or wherever you're to. But, like, that's why I proclaim this so loudly is because I needed someone to support, love, and encourage me and say, you are sworn enough, Haley, and so and that's what I mean, think being a profit planner, like, Being part of Kathryn's audience is all about is knowing you are so smart and so like, you are going to make such an impact on this world, But if you don't change how you run the day to day of your business, you will never do it. Like, that's just the fact.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. You're so right. And I did an episode recently. And if you if you didn't catch it, then go back and listen to it because I talked about 3 myths around hiring a coach. And one of those is that you someone to tell you exactly what to do. And I'm not the CEO of your business. I think it's because there's this myth that there's a right and wrong. Way to do things. And there's only one way that's going to work, one right way, and it's just not true. There are so many different options that can work, and the bigger thing is committing to 1. Sticking to 1, really. Not trying to do all the things, which is right. Yeah. It goes right back to your approach there, Haley.

Kathryn Binkley:

So good. So, 1 question that I love to ask that I haven't yet is what lights you up in your business?

Haley Burkhead:

Yeah. I think it's been a lot of creating a business that allows me to have space in my life to work on myself. That's been huge. I think so many people have businesses and are creating these businesses that consume their lives, and whenever they're not doing it, it still consumes their thoughts. And, you know, that's natural. It it's I don't think you should ever be ashamed of that, period. But I do think you need to recognize and then say, am I actually able to create full space, though? It's okay if you're always thinking I think that it's okay if you're always thinking about your business as long as it's not in an unhealthy way, as long as it's in an Inspired way, not an anxiety ridden way.

Haley Burkhead:

So for me, moving from an anxiety ridden to inspired thoughts about my business, huge shift. And then from that, my team I've structured my team in a way that allows me to have space to work on myself. So, like and I'm super open about this on my podcast, but, like, I went through this whole emotional eating thing. It got really intense, and then I hired a nutritionist, And I was kind of an entrepreneurial recluse for 2 months, and that it was so, God, it's such a breath of fresh air and because I needed that. Like, I needed I needed enough space in my brain to really dive deep into, okay, why am I binge eating? Why do I have this weird thing around food? Like, what childhood, like, all that like, digging deep. Like, that's a lot of work, and it is exhausting. And so I took I took, like, 8 weeks off. Not 8 weeks completely off because I feel like if I'm not somewhat working on, like, Passion projects around my business, I become a very uninspired person.

Haley Burkhead:

So, I think the sorry. This this is a little bit off in another tangent, but I as I was saying that I think that a lot of us demonize work too. There's, like, 2 extremes to where we say if you work at all, like, Bad. Like, you're a workaholic or, like, you're working to you know. And for me, it's more of, am I working when I'm inspired and because I'm happy? And if I'm working like, it doesn't matter if I work 10 hours a day or 2 hours a day as long as I'm inspired and happy. Soon as I become uninspired, I stop. Like, I literally stop. And I have a schedule that's super flexible and allows me to do that. But that has been huge.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. So, working because you want to, not because you have to.

Haley Burkhead:

Well, that was a great way to boil it down. Exactly.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. You love efficiency. There you go. I do. Okay. So, you know, there's just 1 more point that at least I want to bring out as you talk about a couple of things on the personal side, and that is, you know, especially as a business owner, as a CEO of your own business, you can't it's really hard to separate the business and personal. And when you're struggling with something personally, it's going to impact your business and vice versa.

Kathryn Binkley:

And it's okay to recognize that, and I think that's what's so great about the method that you teach is it actually gives you the space. To give yourself that room when life isn't going to go No. Quickly, no matter what you're dreaming of. I mean, we all wish we could promise that that's going to be the outcome, but there are going to be things that happen. There are going to be struggles, and you need that space for your business to keep running. Yep. I mean, because even though you said, you know, you continue to work on the things that inspired you during that time, but you also were able to take somewhat of a setback and deal with it - deal with the things that you needed to deal with and kept the business going.

Kathryn Binkley:

How does that feel? I mean, that's what that's what you're all about.

Haley Burkhead:

Yeah. It was scary. The reason why I say that is because a few years ago I do talk about this some in in my brand is that I went through something and then I got so scared to be by myself, and so I became a workaholic literally to avoid myself. So, I think there's a lot of different stories around why people become workaholics, and I definitely think that's a thing, like, addicted to work. And I became addicted to work, 3 years ago when I was trying to avoid being alone and alone with my thoughts because my thoughts scared me, and I am an Enneagram three, which means we like to avoid emotion. Kathryn's the same way. Sometimes, it can become robotic. Like, when it's very unhealthy, I can become very robotic with my emotions and literally shift my emotions into a certain part of my brain and shut it down completely.

Haley Burkhead:

And what I've realized is that I can't do that. And after years of pushing everything down, I had to face the fear and learn how to actually love myself. And that it's very it's hard. It is so hard, when you are telling yourself stories about yourself, and, you know yeah. But it's crucial. And at the event that we were at, we said, or I think Kathryn said, your business growth can't outpace your personal growth, and I was like, oh my, yes. And I, like, I knew that that's why I had to take that 2 months off. I knew I had to get through that if I wanted to push to the multimillion level because and I have to push through so many different emotional things.

Haley Burkhead:

You just like, you have to. Thoughts and mindset are so powerful.

Kathryn Binkley:

They are. I mean, your thoughts create everything. Yeah. Right? So good. There's so much more that we can talk about. Thanks for sharing a lot of your personal side of this business and not just the front end of things, but a little behind the scenes. So it's really good because that's the part that people I feel like, you know, as much as we need strategy, we need to hear what's going on behind the scenes. Definitely. Thank you for sharing that. Any last parting words, and then where can people find you?

Haley Burkhead:

I think that I really want people to know that you are worth so much and you have all the answers inside of you. Like, that's what I want you to know. And It's a scary thought because trusting yourself is scary, and there's so much that goes into that, but I just want you to trust me to trust yourself. And aside from that, I would love to keep hanging out with you. If you're, like, raising your hand after listening to this and us chatting together, and you're like, okay. I really want to create consistent income in my business, but I don't want to have to work crazy hours to do it. I put together an entire free training. I go over the 3-part profit plan system, which it's going to be challenging.

Haley Burkhead:

I'm not going to lie because I'm going to challenge you to think about business in a completely different way during this class, but you can sign up at profit planner.co/grow. So just go to profit planner.co/grow. And, of course, I'll give Kathryn the link as well so she can put it in the show notes. But if you want to keep hanging out, I seriously would love to talk to you in that class. And I also respond to every single DM on Instagram. So go to at profit planner. DM me. We can definitely chat. I respond to every single one.

Kathryn Binkley:

Love that. So glad that they can find you and connect with you. Yeah, if you're listening to this, know that you know, if you feel like you've enjoyed my approach, then Haley's going to be just another incredible resource for you. We have so much that's in alignment. I love her and our time together. So, thanks for showing up here today, Haley, and everyone go check her out.

Haley Burkhead:

Thank you.