Jan 26, 2021
Elyse’s guest on She Sells Radio this week is Ticia Dempsey. Tricia transformed her own career from a 7th-grade schoolteacher to an 8-figure CEO. She’s the founder and CEO of Thrive-Her and is on a mission to help female entrepreneurs create purpose-fueled businesses and lives they love. Today, she’s sharing with us her journey to success, how she overcame challenges and fears, and how she trusted her instincts the whole way.
Believe it or not, Tricia’s sales journey started as a school teacher before she transitioned into sales--which wasn’t as easy as you may think. At the time, sales companies were hesitant to even hire a woman out of fear of “keeping the peace” when a man and woman traveled together. Regardless, she landed a job and it took off from there. When she had a child, she realized that the hours she was working didn’t feel good to her. When that happened, because of her work ethic and her sales skills, she was invited to start a company with her former boss.
But even then, the stresses that she felt weren’t in line with where she wanted to be. So, she made the move to start her own business and play by her own rules. To do that, she really needed to trust herself and know she had her own back. For Tricia, as corny as it sounds, finding someone who “did it” and studying how they “did it” gave her the resource to visualize herself “doing it.” A pitfall to avoid is the opposite mentality--thinking I will never be able to “do it.” The truth is, find your own version of what they’re doing and grab onto that! Be authentic to yourself and live in it.
Tricia’s original mindset was “this has to work. If it doesn’t, what are we going to do?” And that was incredibly stressful. It also acted as a distraction from the health problems her family was experiencing. When she shifted her mindset to a “creating” one, things shifted again--this time for the positive. When she was able to create relationships and build advocacy in her network, success and revenue came easily.
Part of building her business was sharing brand equity. When Tricia served on a board for Women in Technology, she attached her brand to that--thus elevating both. This gave her an additional point of reputation that she could leverage to meet people. Also, she made it a point to build authentic relationships through establishing a community. Her mindset is that of understanding what’s in it for them. Why should they care?
Tricia’s big tip to maximizing the growth of your business is rooted in one on one conversations: CEO to CEO. It’s a simple strategy, but emailing or reaching out to individuals can be as effective or more effective than mass marketing. It’s authentic. Start with a place like LinkedIn to build the start of a conversation and adjust your messaging based on the individual. Talk to people--find out what they need--help them.
The difference from 0 sales revenue to 6 figures was reaching out to people Tricia already had relationships with from former positions. Again, super simple, but as effective as can be. From 7 to 7 figures, her strategy was based on expansion with the same strategy. She found herself in seats on boards and made connections organically. Find some way to make a deposit in their bank account first. 7 to 8 was based on teaching people the simplicity of what she has done to scale to that size.
Tune in to hear Tricia’s final top-tip for women in sales looking to scale the way she has!
LINKS