Erin Austin01:08

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the hourly to exit podcast. I am so excited for today's episode. I have Leah Neaderthal with me from Smart Gets Paid and, there's so many things we could talk about today. And so I'm gonna let Leah, uh, introduce herself, but you know, it was one of those happy problems going,

what am I gonna talk with Leah about? Because there's so many things on the Hourly to Exit journey that we could talk about, but first I wanna let Lee introduce herself and then I wanna dive in today. Today's topic

Leah Neaderthal01:40

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me today.

So I'm Leah Neaderthal, I'm the founder of Smart Gets Paid, and I help women run profitable, predictable consulting businesses. And in my world, that means being able to attract more of the right kinds of clients into your business and get paid dramatically more for your work so that you can run a profitable business and have more time for yourself, and you are running the business instead of the business running you. And I do that through some programs that I work with women on. I have a podcast called the Smart Gets Paid Podcast where I'm sharing strategies.

But you know, you and I have a very similar goal. We go through it in different ways, which is how can we help women run the businesses that make them money and make them happy and, uh, help them also grow as business owners and as people?

Erin Austin02:29

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I have followed you Leah for some time and I've also worked with her in her programs. Obviously there's the very practical stuff of, increasing our revenues. But one of the things that I really connected with Leah about is kind of this softer side and some of the softer skills of, running a business and being a woman in business and so,

I absolutely wanted Leah to be one of the first guests on the podcast and I was thinking about what we would talk about. And then Leah wrote a newsletter at the end of March, uh, where she addressed the expertise dash humanity scale. And so basically that is, you know, how do we show up in the world, like in public and social media, speaking in our writings, uh, with our clients, you know, are.

More on the expertise scale, like, what we know, we're the expert versus the humanity scale, like who we are, you know, outside of our expertise. And then she confessed that she's, you know, had some trouble over there hanging out on the expertise side. And it really resonated with me cuz I have struggled with this mightily and I was struggling with it,

absolutely, when I, when I met Leah and so, you know, for me, I graduated from law school in 1992, which is yes, 30 years ago people.

Leah Neaderthal03:47

It was just yesterday.

Erin Austin03:50

yeah. Well, I'll tell you how long ago it was, you know, it was back when name partners were still alive you know, and so the firm I was at, old school, law firm in San Francisco and yes, literally one of the name partners were still alive.

He was like 90 years old smoking a cigar and you know, you weren't supposed to smoke inside anymore. I had to wear a suit with a skirt and panty hose and the whole thing and, casual Friday meant a pantsuit. Did not mean, you know, GS and, you know, very frequently I was the only woman in the room.

I was almost always the only person of color in the room. And I was absolutely always the only black woman in room. And not any part of my humanity came with me. Let's just say it was all on the expertise side. And I have pretty much stayed on that side. And it's been fine, you know, my decades is a lawyer. But it's really became a problem when it carried over into this transition, as I'm working with female founders of expertise based businesses is still trying to hang out on that expertise side. Which is why I really

wanted to talk about this, and I had a conversation about, exits and, you know, I'm thinking, you know, multiples and, you know, valuation, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, well, you gotta think about, you know, the way people feel about I'm like, they care about that? I'm like, yes, they do.

And so, it has, affected my voice, you know, kind of trolling vis and you know, my love affair with MacKenzi. And, um, but I'm still, it's still pretty scary for me. I still self-edit a lot, like just this week or something, I'm like, I ain't posting that. So I really wanted to, dig into this today with Leah, cause I know if I'm struggling with it.

I know other women are struggling with this as well. So tell me about that, newsletter post. What you were struggling with, how we got here.

Leah Neaderthal05:43

Yeah, totally well. And I have to credit, a coach that I worked with. So there's a woman named Jessica Zweig, who's a great, a brilliant branding strategist. And she wrote a book and has an agency and all of that. She was a client of mine to learn how to sell and how to, you know, increase her revenue, get better clients, et cetera.

And when I wanted to focus on my brand, I knew exactly who to go to. So I went back to her and she's the one who introduced me to this concept of the expertise, humanity scale. So, the newsletter that I wrote was about how I went to visit my parents. After two years of, you know, the pandemic not having visited them, I'd seen them, but not, you know, flown with my son and my wife to see them.

And now that I was back, as it always happens you are flooded with like nostalgic memories and all of this stuff. And, uh, while I was there, we, you know, we went in the middle of the week. So I had planned to do a LinkedIn live on that Thursday, as I often do on various topics related to.

Selling. and I thought to myself, well, you know, these such cute pictures of me from growing up, I mean, I was a pretty cute kid. and so what if I just like showed one on camera? Right? Like little baby picture of Leah. And so I did, and I, you know, I, I, I don't remember exactly what I said on the live, but I was reflecting afterward thinking, wow.

I mean I was giving myself a little credit for coming further, along on the expertise, humanity scale towards the humanity side. So you're right. The expertise in humanity scale. Imagine like a, you know, on one side of the scale is just pure expertise being known for what you do. And What you do in your business, what you did in your career.

Right. And on the other side, the complete opposite side is humanity, right? Like who you are, how you feel about things, just who you are outside of your business. And, like you Erin, like I had spent all my time on the expertise side. Right? I felt super, super comfortable there because, I'm a total like type a overachiever,

right. Think about starting in school, right? You do good work. You get good grades. That's how you unlock opportunities, right. And then in our careers, we put our heads down. We do great work. Unlike the way men are conditioned, right. We don't toot our own horns.

We don't have to go out and shake a thousand hands to like build our, prestige. We do great work and so that serves us really well. I mean, to some degree could be argued, right. But it serves us fairly well in a corporate world. But, when you start your own business and people are hiring you, not just for your skillset, but they actually have to like, know you a little bit.

And I had to really try hard to pull myself off of the pure expertise side, and so I sort of, vacillate between sides, but it's a journey, right? But it's absolutely critical if you are gonna run a business as a woman founder.

Erin Austin08:41

Yeah. And you do help women have visibility on LinkedIn and use LinkedIn as a outreach tool. So when we think about LinkedIn and I know. certainly, you know, the changes in the word count in the last year, so people are putting a lot more content on there. Um, people understand the value of it and are doing more, this is definitely my struggle is that balance between the expertise side and the humanity side.

Is there kind of a rule of thumb about like where we fall? What's too much? You know, if it's a professional network, what's too much?

Leah Neaderthal09:14

Yeah. That's a hard question to answer, let me sort of look at it in a different way. So a lot of us, especially when you first started at your business, you are getting clients through referrals, right? Probably people that you knew in the past, or maybe you worked with, or they've gone on to different companies, or, you know, what have you, people who you have some type of relationship with.

And that lasts for maybe 18 months to two years. You know, you can, with a lot of effort, you can keep that going. But if you think about it, when you start your business and when you're running your business, you no longer work with a lot of people in an office who get to know how good you are at what you do,

right. And, so there's just a limit to like the number of people we can have a career with, especially when we're not having a career in a big company. And so you have to find a way to replicate that same, getting to know you. Right. Some people really like to do that at events.

Of course, we haven't had any events over the past few years, but like doing that through networking or, what have you, but a lot of us don't either like to do that or can't do that, or just are limited, in what's available to us or we wanna take advantage of.

So I think about LinkedIn as not just like a social network or a professional network or whatever, but LinkedIn, if you have a strategy to get visible on LinkedIn and know what to say and how to say it, LinkedIn essentially replicates that process of we get to know each other,

I know that you're good at what you do, we have some type of like friendly relationship. It replicates that at scale. So you're having that with a lot more people who are reading your posts and following along and understanding the value you provide and who you provide it for.

So if you look at it like that, then you have to have a mix of that expertise in humanity. Imagine if you worked with somebody who never let you see any part of themselves, like it was only about the numbers or it's only about the strategy or the documents or whatever. Right. And never mentioned anything about, well, you know, what did you do this past weekend or. Anything personal, it would be really hard to have a relationship with that person, even on a, cursory level.

The same thing happens on LinkedIn. If you're only talking about the work or the strategies or the tips or whatever, and you're not showing any part of yourself, then people will know that you are very good at what you do, but they may not have that personal connection, that personal affinity. So, back to your question, is there a rule of thumb?

Not really, but, you have to make an effort to show a little bit, you know, start with, let's say if you're posting three times a week, start with one post every other week. Should be about the personal and really there are ways to drop in personal hints throughout. So I always tell people start small, right?

You don't have to talk about your biggest trauma in your first LinkedIn post, but can you share a little bit. Within the ?Context of some expertise. How did you start to weave that in?

Erin Austin12:22

For me, it was mostly about wealth in the hands of women can change the world. And I had a lot of resistance even around declaring, you know, working with women is that not just from a niche perspective, but from a, is that

antagonistic perspective. Right. And so, will I turn people off? Will they be offended by it? And so, that was kind of my first step. And I will say, I'm trying to think if I've ever done anything that was kind of borderline vulnerable.

I, I don't think I have actually. That's still part of my, my journey there.

Leah Neaderthal12:57

Yeah, I think it's a part of everyone's journey. I think the biggest hurdle that I overcame, I think it was my newsletter that became a LinkedIn post or whatever it was that was the biggest mental hurdle for me to overcome was I posted something about, it was like when I got married, but I got married to a woman, which is like you don't see that every day in a professional context.

And I was worried. I was like, I'm gonna get trolled. I'm gonna get doxxed, right. Everybody's gonna come for me or whatever. All my clients are gonna hate me. And so I put it out there and everyone was so excited, supportive, you know? I started hearing from people who had been getting my newsletters, who either, were a member of the LGBTQ community, or they had family members or.

Whatever right. And it was a signal for me that not only should I do stuff like that, right. I should do more of it. And I just realized like, if people didn't spark to that or they had a problem with that, then they're gonna hate working with me. And it's just best that they unsubscribe,

right.

Erin Austin14:04

Now you work with women. I mean, you specifically focus on women. Do the same kind of parameters apply when you're not focused on women? Is this something that is specific to a female audience to wanna talk to them in a more vulnerable, personal way?

Leah Neaderthal14:19

That's a good question. So I work with people who are primarily selling into companies, right. But even if you're selling into a company, you're selling into a person at that company. And sure, if you provide a little bit more, you know, life color, right,

a little bit more humanity, I don't think it's gonna hurt, you know, if anything, people feel like they have some type of relationship with you, right. Even if they're watching from afar, what we call lurkers as you know, in pack your pipeline parlance, but people who are just in re only mode. But at worst, it'll make you more memorable. Right. And no matter what you're in, there's somebody else who does it too. Right? You're never the only person who does what you do. So if the only purpose of the humanity is to be more memorable as your clients are evaluating you over other providers, that still contributes to success in the sales process.

Erin Austin15:15

I like that. Think of it being more memorable.

Leah Neaderthal15:18

And I just wanna offer that as you have been working with me and following along and, you know, noticed more of the humanity coming through, I would say that I practice controlled vulnerability. Right. That's uh, how I'm sort of referring to it in with my team and, You don't have to show everything just because you share something doesn't mean you have to offer everything.

And especially if it's more comfortable, like it is for me to take the humanity and wrap it in some expertise or vice versa,

right,

let there be a lesson there. How can you tie it back to the work? All of these things.

Erin Austin15:56

I like that. So have you noticed any changes during the pandemic? I mean, I know, you did your post about going gray during the pandemic. And so like, has that resulted in a little bit more of people's personality and humanity coming out? Okay.

Leah Neaderthal16:10

if you're listening, what she's referring to is I did go gray. I stopped coloring my hair, which I had done for years. And not only did I go gray, I had to, in a process of, you know, taking all the color out and replacing it with gray so that I didn't have this crazy transition of hair,

I accidentally had a crazy transition of hair because I was blonde for like four months. So, I can't hide all the time, so I just may as well talk about it. And actually I talk about so many things related to selling about referrals and lead gen and pricing and messaging.

But to be honest, like the, the stuff about going gray was the stuff that people really had a connection to, uh, more than anything else. So that was also a signal to me. Right. Have I seen a change? Absolutely. A woman I used to work with said I guess we don't all have to pretend like we don't have personal lives anymore.

You know, so whether that meant dogs at home barking or children who needed attention or whatever. Right. And so I think a lot of people are finding it not only easier to, share more of the humanity on that expertise, humanity scale, but it finding it absolutely necessary, not for some strategic reason, but because we need.

Right. We need it for each other and we need to have that connection. at least reading about somebody or sharing about yourself when you can't have that connection in person.

Erin Austin17:33

Hmm. Yeah. For me, the pandemic has been a real game changer in terms of how networking works for me. And I live in a rural part of Northern Virginia, like the ex-surbs of Washington DC. And going into the city, which is like, you know, that was a day trip. Like you can just go for lunch or go even getting into town just to go for a drink, was like, forget about it.

And so I just didn't do that stuff. And, and since the pandemic I've been able to participate in a lot more things that have gone online and then also like get more involved with LinkedIn. And so, yeah, I definitely feel that there's like getting personal online. Well, whether it's in writing or via zoom or like has become normalized, I guess, you know, like we're just much more comfortable going there, um, than certainly I felt like I was, you know, a couple years ago.

So if there's any silver lining, I guess there's,

Leah Neaderthal18:26

Yeah,

Erin Austin18:27

we're more connected in that way.

Leah Neaderthal18:29

Well, and I've also noticed not only are people sharing more humanity, but I think the type of humanity they're they're sharing has changed. You'll see a lot more people posting about, things like this is really hard, or I am struggling. Or I am burned out or things are happening in my life that are difficult, right.

Whether it's an aging parent or a child who's having trouble. And it's really nice in my view, to, especially as somebody who like puts a ton of pressure on herself to do everything right and be perfect and overachieve, right, like I'm sure a lot of your listeners do, but we know that that's not how real life actually is in our world, but we don't see that in anybody else's world,

right. Seeing that now, seeing people talk about it, seeing that, other people struggle too. And, it's not just the highlight reel anymore, is what we're seeing on social media. And, I think that that's been really nice. I mean, for me personally, and for a lot of the women I know to say we don't have to be perfect.

We don't have to pretend to be perfect and let's just show up as ourselves.

Erin Austin19:40

Yeah, I agree completely. And, uh, yeah, I've been very, moved by the things that people have been sharing on LinkedIn and in other places. And, and it is, it really makes you feel more connected. And, and I do, I appreciate that.

So I imagine women. Don't self-identify as having this expertise, humanity scale imbalance. So what is it like, but I'm sure there is a connection between the work that you do with women and them having some of these mindset issues. So what are they struggling with when they come to you and how do you work with them on some of these mindset issues?

Leah Neaderthal20:16

Great question. So, a lot of women come to me because their consulting business is doing what they would call okay, but they know that they wanted to do better. Up to this point, they've gotten clients through referrals but they're worried that that's gonna go away, or they know that will go away,

cuz it always does. And, they wanna finally learn how to actually get clients. Women come to me because they discover what I discovered when I first started my consulting business, which is that it's about a thousand times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell or promote somebody else's, maybe what you did in your past career.

And, this is just a skill gap that they know they need.

So I teach them how to get in front of the right clients, track the right clients, fill their pipeline, lead a sales process, charge and get paid way more for their work, write winning proposals, the entire sales process. Because unless you were in sales, you don't have

a sales background, right? So like I didn't, but you discover that, you know, even if you don't like the selling part, you can actually learn how to do it, do it really well, feel comfortable, and get paid very well for your consulting work. But in the context of that, I see this expertise, humanity scale.

It's like, yeah, nobody's walking in the door being like, I have an expertise, humanity scale problem. Right. But. Once they become aware, then. You know, nearly everyone. I talk to acknowledges that they feel a lot more comfortable on the expertise side. And in that respect, the expertise, humanity scale itself, isn't a problem.

It's a symptom of a problem, right? It's a symptom of a problem, which is, I don't feel comfortable showing up. I don't know how to position my work for value. Um, I don't know how to lead a sales process and, you know, to sort of take control and guide my clients. And I certainly don't know how to price my work for value and get paid what I could be getting paid.

So it's actually kind of a diagnostic tool, just as much as a messaging framework.

Erin Austin22:24

That's great. So one of the things about you, you have sold a business. And so when I have a woman on the podcast who has sold a business, I would be remiss if I did not ask her what that process was like. And if you could share a little bit about tips and what you might do differently the next time.

Good.

Good

Leah Neaderthal22:43

Oh my gosh. Well, I'd say the first thing I would do differently is call you first. So I ran a few businesses with my former partner, who was also my business partner and romantic partner. And, when we split, it was time for me to walk away. And like, walk all the way away.

And the reason why I should have talked to you is because I probably made every mistake in the book. Both of us did because what did we know? And I think also, you know, it was to just let let's acknowledge that there was a lot of emotion wrapped up in this, you know, when you break off an engagement and walk away from the business and all of that stuff,

right. So, you know, we didn't have the right iP protection. I learned a whole lot, and first thing I learned is I need to call somebody like you. And now that I know you, that's the call.

Erin Austin23:34

Well, they do say that, I mean, to be prepared cause you really don't know when the end will come. I mean, they say, I mean the business will end eventually. So with, or without you, whether you're ready or not, they say, I think there's the four Ds. There might be a fifth one that I'm not thinking of, but like death, disability, divorce, and dissolution.

And so are you ready for what will happen under one of those circumstances to make sure that you're best positioned to not be harmed at minimum, do no harm, right. And hopefully be able to also take advantage of the value that you built in the business to date. So

Leah Neaderthal24:09

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And one of the businesses that we co-founded is, uh, still around, still doing very, very well. Um, I don't see any of that because. Of the sort of poor way that we went about it. but yeah, no, mine was a mix of like, not divorce cause we were three weeks from getting married and we broke off our engagement, but it was certainly some disillusionment

Erin Austin24:29

Yes. Yes. For

Leah Neaderthal24:31

So I had one and a half of those of those items.

Erin Austin24:34

Well, thank you for sharing that. Uh, so, you know, this is the hourly to exit podcast. And so we, uh, talk about building a service based business that can hopefully be sold someday. And so part of the elements of that are one having exclusivity in our businesses so that we have assets that we own, like our intellectual property that we have protected or, and we have a unique market position.

And also that we have predictability in the business so that an acquirer knows that the business can run independently of us and that they can trust those financial projections. And so when we think about kinda the smart gets paid process, like where does that fit into creating a business that is scalable and hopefully saleable.

Leah Neaderthal25:17

Yeah. Oh, I love that question. So where I play in this world, I mean, there are a lot of like business coaches out there, right, and they're doing all kinds of the businessy business stuff. Um, the part that I really focus on is helping women get paid dramatically more for their work and running a profitable business. If you're not getting paid enough, if you're working yourself into the ground, if you are at the mercy of your clients and their needs, and you have no boundaries and you're constantly overdelivering, then that's not a business that is sustainable, much less saleable, right? So teaching women how to do client acquisition

so that your business, has revenue, You have income, you have predictability on that front so that your business becomes sustainable and attractive.

Erin Austin26:12

Absolutely agree, 100%. So this is a very meta podcast. You know, I'm a female founder of an expertise based business that I hope to sell someday. And so you are a female founder of an expertise based business. So. Are you, are you gonna go again? You gonna try this again? Are you building to sell someday?

Leah Neaderthal26:31

I'd like to, yeah. I think what I understand about my business now that I didn't in previous businesses is the intellectual property that I'm creating. And I have a much greater appreciation for that. So yeah, protecting that, building a platform helping evangelize what I do. And probably a number of things that I'm not even thinking about that you would have an eye towards.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm building it to help as many people as possible and then building it to sell.

Erin Austin27:03

I mean at the end of the day, what we can do with our businesses, one, there's the income to take care of the people we care about now, and also to support the causes that we care about. Right. There's more than one way to have an impact. And, uh, and also someday, no matter how much we love our businesses, we'll be ready for another chapter.

Just like when we raise a kid, we're ready for the kid to go and do something new eventually, and same with our business. So yeah. Having a plan for our next chapter, cuz there will be one, you know, so, so we wanna make sure that that we're are ready for it.

Leah Neaderthal27:35

Yeah. Having an eye towards that, you know, I think is really a, a constant practice, right. Because I'm having fun in this

Erin Austin27:42

mm-hmm yes, yes.

Leah Neaderthal27:44

I am. And I'm, I feel, you know, when I see the women that I work with have, an incredible win or they're increasing their prices, you know, five X and they're signing new clients and they're, or they're taking every Friday off, or they're taking a three week vacation and they come back to assign proposal or, you know, all of these things.

That's, that's really fun for me. And so if I can also, I guess let's make up a new scale. It's the running the business now scale and the running the business for the future scale. So I have to bring myself from the, having fun now, a few steps closer on the, um, preparing for the future scale.

Erin Austin28:20

Yeah. Yeah, it is a balance, but you know, the things that help you create a scalable business are the same things that make a saleable business. So we can, we can work on both of them.

Leah Neaderthal28:30

Yeah.

Erin Austin28:31

So as we wrap up, I have a couple of final questions for you. As you know, at think beyond IP, we believe in creating an economy that works for more of us.

And I personally believe that wealth in the hands of women can change the world. So I'm wondering if there is a personal organization who is doing work that you admire to help build a more equitable society.

Leah Neaderthal28:52

You know, I love this question. I, a few years ago, Around. Well, this is like before George Floyd and you know, all of this, I think this was around like Trayvon. Um,

Erin Austin29:04

Yeah, George Floyd was at the beginning of the

Leah Neaderthal29:07

yeah. And Trayvon is like a lot earlier, but, um, I started reading this story about national women's bailout, and it's a very simple concept coming from a lot of complicated factors, right.

And systemic factors, but, a lot of people are incarcerated for the sheer reason that they can't afford bail, which to me seems like such such an incredible injustice, right. And sort of criminalizing poverty. And so, this organization pays bail. Right. It's simple enough.

And so, it's always one that I keep coming back to because the promise is so clear, the impact is so direct and it makes such a change, right? Like an immediate change in the lives of so many families.

Erin Austin29:51

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. We will absolutely have that in the show notes. So is there something exciting happening in your business that you'd like to share with the audience?

Leah Neaderthal30:01

So the thing that's the most exciting in my life, which will absolutely impact my business is that my wife is expecting. She's pregnant with our second child, uh, and due this summer.

Erin Austin30:13

Congratulations.

Leah Neaderthal30:14

Thank you. Yeah, we have a toddler. Uh, my, our son, I carried him and now she it's her turn to, to carry our, Next child. And it's funny because I'm reflecting on how I prepared my business last time and how I'm preparing my business this time. And it's so different because I know so much more about how to have a baby, uh, and what life with the newborn is like. But yeah, that's definitely the thing that's the most exciting and, uh,

it's it's

Erin Austin30:42

Fantastic. Fantastic. Congratulations.

Leah Neaderthal30:45

Thank you.

Erin Austin30:46

And finally, where can people find you?

Leah Neaderthal30:49

Yeah, so. you can always find me on LinkedIn as you know, Erin I'm, uh, posting all the time. You can find me, just look for Leah Neaderthal on LinkedIn. If you are a podcast person and I imagine you are, cuz you're listening to this podcast, uh, check out my podcast at the smart gets paid podcast on apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And of course my website at smartgetspaid.com.

Erin Austin31:13

All fantastic resources. Thank you again, Leah. This has been absolutely a joy. I've enjoyed having you so much, so much wonderful information you've shared with us today.

Leah Neaderthal31:23

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Erin Austin31:25

thank you.