Natalie Franke
Today on the podcast, we are talking to Tori Dunlap. She is a financial expert, The New York Times best selling author of financial feminist, and an incredible creator on platforms like Tiktok. And Instagram. In this interview, we talked about how she turned a single tick tock video into over 100,000 email subscribers, what the systems look like behind the curtain behind her business, and some money myths that you might be telling yourself that we need to debunk immediately. This episode is packed with information that frankly, you need to know because so much of the time we see that top of the iceberg as I say in our conversation, and not what lies beneath Tori shares at all, and I can’t wait for you to dig in and learn a little bit more about everything that she has built on her first 100k Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.
Natalie Franke
Tory, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Tori Dunlap
Thank you so much, Natalie, for having me. I’m so excited to see you. Oh, well, I feel like
Natalie Franke
I see you every day because you’re on my FYP every time I open tic toc. And every time I’m hitting that like button as fast as I can. I absolutely love it. And when we were chatting a little bit before jumping on the recording, you know, I said one of the things I love about you is that you Yes, you’ve built a massive online community, you know, you have over 2 million followers on Tiktok, you have such an incredible presence on Instagram, among other places. And yet, I know having watched even from a distance and getting to know you, especially with the past couple of weeks and months. It’s it’s like an iceberg, right? Like what people see is just the 20% at the top of the water that you have cultivated that community by providing so much value behind the scenes. And so my hope is in this pack is like I’d love to peel back the curtain a little bit, I would love to kind of peel back the curtain into what does that really look like to build a business that, you know, again, business owners fall into this trap of thinking, if I just build a following, I’m going to have a successful business. And I say Trump, because I do I think it’s a myth. But to actually build a strong business to build funnels that provide value to build systems that enable you to really serve that community. Well. Can we peel back the curtain a little bit? Like, what does that really look like for you? And what has it been like truly exploding and growing your business? On tick tock?
Tori Dunlap
Yeah, you just summed up entrepreneurship in the perfect metaphor, which is an iceberg, like, I think there’s so much that happens behind the scenes that no one knows. And especially not if you’re just like a general follower of somebody that you have any idea what’s happening. And like how much goes into, just like the naming of a podcast episode, or like the Hulk gonna like one video that you make? And then oh, spoiler alert, you’re making three videos a day. So yeah, there’s there’s so much work that happens. I think one of the myths that new, especially new business owners fall into is they think, okay, I can grow on social media, by selling my products. Like, I can create a community and that word gets thrown around a lot. But like, I can create community, I can grow my following by selling my products. And I would say 99 times out of 100. That’s not true. My biggest business ethos is that you need to serve before you sell. And that service means providing value to people in order to build a community, but also in order to build trust and credibility and a relationship with somebody. And then when they feel like oh, this person is credible, this person is offering me value, I feel like I can trust them, then they will buy from you. But people do it in the reverse order. They’re like, Okay, I’ll just create a product and then I’ll sell the product and then people will follow me because they like the product. And like, maybe Nike can do that. But like Nike already has, like, you know, the brand and the trust behind the brand. And Nike has been at this for a really long time. And I think that’s the other myth, in addition is that everybody looks like an overnight success because you discovered them last night. And the amount of people who are so kind and they’ll follow me and they’ll be like, Oh, I’ve never heard of you like Where have you been in? Oh, you’ve been blowing up and I’m like, Yes, but I’ve been at this for like seven years like we started on Tik Tok in mid 2020. And a lot of people especially since you know, Tik Tok is our biggest platform people are like, Oh, so you just started on Tik Tok? No. Like, no, I had a business for four years before we like blew up on tick tock. And that meant I knew how to structure a video that meant I knew how to serve people. That meant I knew what my business ethos was, what were our secret sauce was and how to present that. So I think that is the other misconception is It’s like somebody discovers somebody, and they’re like, oh, that, you know, they must have just blown up. And I’m like, no, like, typically, we’ve been at this for years cultivating our brand, cultivating our voice cultivating why we are different, like our value proposition versus somebody else. So I think that those are a couple of the things that I wish people talked about more. I know we’ll get into this. But the last thing that I think is so tantalizingly, sexy is morality. And people think, oh, I want my post to go viral, right? I want to go viral, and tick tock, I want to go viral on this platform, right. And virality is great. It’s happened to me countless times. However, virality, with no systems in place to take advantage of that morality is a huge wasted opportunity. virality is not the thing you should be chasing virality is the thing that with systems builds your business, and you have to cultivate those systems and plan for something way before you’ve ever like, created and posted the viral video. And I know we’re going to talk about that. So don’t chase morality, just for morality sake, like it’s fun, to go viral and to like, see all the notifications come in and to get pressed and all of those things, but that will fade, right? Probably in days, maybe even hours. So you need to take advantage of that. virality. And that’s in the systems that you’re quietly building in the iceberg right down below the water that nobody sees.
Natalie Franke
Yes, I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s so much to be said for the sexy parts of business, right? Like what we see. And we think, Oh, if I just have a viral Tiktok i I’ll be successful books are also Yeah, anything 100%. But I think there’s so much that goes into it even around Yes, the systems and why are you going viral in the first place, like I had videos pop off that didn’t actually move the needle at all, because they weren’t about something that my core audience really cares about. They popped off because I was talking about Paw Patrol. So like, Yay, all the toddler moms, like like myself, love that video, millions of views. But how many of them realistically run independent businesses? Right? Maybe not so many. So, you know, I think that that’s also something to take into account, I think it can be alluring, and really exciting. Yay. But you’re 100% hitting the nail on the head here. If you don’t have the systems, you’re basically just letting that veracity go to waste entirely and losing the true business opportunity that exists. So let’s double click in and talk about those systems. You know, I touched on early early, kind of in the the onset of this interview that people want to build a following, right, like they want that following. But so many business owners that I’ve seen, kind of stopped there. Like they’re, they’re basically renting land from Tik Tok and Instagram and all the platforms, and not building anything that they actually own. And so they’re leasing it. And then anytime an algorithm changes, you know, we’re beholden to that limitation on our reach, or that shift rather than growing something that we own. And so I would love to know from you, what does that look like? What you know, once someone does follow along, what’s the next step for you? Once they discover you on social? What are those systems behind them?
Tori Dunlap
Well, and before I even dive into that, I want to highlight the importance of what you just said, which, if you have been following along a business or entrepreneurship podcasts you’ve probably heard before, but it may be if you haven’t, that’s news to you. If you are trying to build a following on Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook, I don’t know Reddit, right? Twitter, all of these platforms are borrowed land, and Elon Musk can buy them and take the stock price tomorrow, right? The algorithm can change, you can get banned for no reason I’ve had multiple friends get banned on Tik Tok for like, stuff that makes no sense like that didn’t really violate, like, use user terms. And the thing about doing that right is yeah, you are building an audience that could hypothetically disappear tomorrow. Now that doesn’t mean don’t do it. It just means you need to diversify where your audience is and how they interact with you. So again, this might be news to some people, this might be redundant, but a funnel is the thing that I’m always thinking about. And we call it the customer journey funnel, right? It’s like, pretty obvious, but where are people moving? How are people discovering you first and then how are people moving from point A to B to C to D, right? And various points in that are conversions. Conversions can be defined as simply like they’ve clicked follow on an Instagram or they’ve signed up for my email list, but they can also be they’ve bought a product or they have renewed a subscription, right? That might be like number G or Are letter G on the funnel, right? So, when I am thinking about creating content on Tik Tok, when I’m thinking about creating content on Instagram, the primary use of that content is to see as many to get into many as many eyeballs as possible. But the really the, the point now, because we do have a substantial following is actually to get that following to give us their email. So, if I can get them off of Tik Tok, and I can get them subscribed to our email list, I can control an email list right that is building on my own land, because you know, everybody’s gonna get an email, whether they click right that’s that’s a different metric, different conversation about how to create emails where people click, but I’m getting them off of tick tock and onto land that we own, and that we can control in a way that we can’t wait tick tock or Instagram. It’s actually really funny. We were talking as a team about this. Literally, we’ve had just in the past week, like four people comment, oh, my God, I had no idea you had a book. I the books been out for six months, I feel like all I have done is yellow word book really, really loudly. It’s a New York Times bestseller, right? Like I feel like all I have talked about is the fact that I wrote a book. And yet, because of the algorithm, there are still people who have no idea that I have written a book, they have no idea and are just discovering almost six months later that I wrote a book. So that’s that’s the idea is right? The algorithm is showing maybe 3% of people your posts, and we want to get them off, right, the the, you know, tick tock hamster wheel where there’s just endless scrolling, and into a place that you control. Now, how do we do that? I was talking to you before you kindly messaged me, and you were like, hey, what do we want to talk about in this interview? And one of the things that I’m really proud of that, frankly, is still shocking to me. When I think about it. Back in 2021, I created a video on Tiktok. That probably took me all in from filming to editing 10 minutes, 15 minutes, maybe I was in like no makeup, a sweatshirt on the couch. The lighting was terrible. And I talked about how I was as a 26 year old going to retire with over $6 million. That was the hook. That was the like, you know, I will retire with over $6 million. And I’m only 26. Let’s talk that was the hook. And then I talked about like the common misconceptions of investing. Like you think you need a bunch of money? No, actually, you need time, right? You need as much time as possible to get started up, you need to be rich. Nope. That’s how you get riches investing. And then I did a really, really incredible thing if I do say so myself in the caption, which is I wrote, take the free quiz linked in our bio for personalized resources. Now we were talking about before, like virality is great, but you have to plan for virality. About four months before that. My team and I had spent time building what we call a money personality quiz. It is a free lead gen on our website, right? It is six questions. It’s like do you feel like you your values align with your purchases? Do you wish you had a new job? Are you are you in your dream job? What is your number one like stress about money right now? Is it I just don’t know where to start? Is it I have debt is it I want to start investing. And then in exchange for all your money personality, we ask for your email. So we get you to subscribe to our email list. And then we send you resources based on your needs. Right? It helps us serve you better, but also just from a business side. I’ve just gotten your email, right and I can send you a funnel of things that I know you care about because you filled out a quiz for me. Right? So I had spent with my team weeks building this. We have it in place. This video went viral by the way in 2021. This quiz still is working for us two years later. So I built this quiz with my team a couple of months prior. I had in the caption of this video said take the quiz. It’s free links in our bio video pops off. We got probably three or 4 million views in a week. Which is incredible. That’s the virality part right that was sexy and exciting. We got a bunch of followers we got a bunch of people commenting on the video and asking questions right we got people sharing the video. I had BuzzFeed reached out I had CNBC reached out I had CNN reached out I had all of this press that happened from it. So the virality was amazing. But the really cool part is that that one video in one week. Got us 100,000 email subscribers. Like that’s not that’s not a thing. Like I have a background in marketing. I could not believe that number. It like skyrocketed our website traffic. We weren’t even in Canada and that’s all organic. I did not pay a dime for that. Crazy. Now Wow. I have not seen similar I will say this has been a big asterisk. We have not had a video do similar numbers since then. Like that was the that is still our most bye URL video, but to again two years later, we are still seeing the impact of that one video that one time. One, I’ve reshard that video, it’s done similar, not as crazy numbers, but it’s still done good numbers, we still have those email subscribers, right, we still have probably 80% of them a good, you know, 20% may have unsubscribed at some point. But we have a good chunk of them who are still around two years later, we can continue to promote our podcast, my book, the product offerings, we have our affiliate links, right, we can continue to drive people to the things that we’re trying to promote, because of one video that did well, but really the systems that supported that video. So when you’re thinking about like, again, how do I grow a following? How do I make content that goes viral? That’s a great question. But I need you to ask that question after you’ve built systems to support that morality. Because yes, a viral video that just got a ton of views and a ton of followers and got us a ton of press would have been a win. But it was like a quadruple win. Because we sent so many people to our website, since so many people to convert to give us our email and for us to be able to serve them best.
Natalie Franke
This message is so needed, this message is so needed, I cannot tell you enough how often I get asked questions in regards to growing a following showing up on video creating, you know, a social media platform, which are great, they’re great questions I very rarely ever get asked about the most important part, which is what happens once someone comes
Tori Dunlap
because it’s what happened. Natalie isn’t it’s not sexy, it’s not exciting. Like we are literally her first 100k is a team, we have a team of 12 people. And that’s the thing a lot of people don’t realize they think it’s just me, which is crazy. But we have like literally this time this year, we’re recording this in June 2023. This is actually a time where we’re doing so much internal building that no one will ever see until we launch it. And unless you’re watching really closely, you won’t figure out we’re doing what we’re doing right like you won’t understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. So like we’re building these funnels for every single paid product that start with a free webinar, the free webinar is I run it live twice, people come in and they get value, even if they never decide they want to purchase anything, right. So they have a good experience, we get their email regardless, in order to have them sign up for the webinar. Then if they come into the webinar, at the end, we do a promotion and a discount for one of our paid products that we’re trying to drive people to, they either sign up or they don’t. And if they don’t, they go into a 30 day email funnel that tries to get them to subscribe. And then if they still don’t after those 30 days, well, I have a book. And that book has pretty much anything you need to know about money on the one on one level. So if you’re not willing to pay the $300 for the paid product, cool, we will down sell you the book that still puts money in our pocket and still makes an impact for people. And we are planning on doing that for the rest of the year doing one webinar or one free workshop every single month. Now we’re using social media to drive people to that, right, we’re using our Instagram and our tic toc and our existing email list to drive people to that. But we are spending time, so much time I email marketers spending so much time building emails, right? We’re spending so much time putting a landing page together, this isn’t the non sexy stuff. That ultimately is the reason you’re able to build a foundational sustainable business that isn’t dependent on an algorithm or isn’t dependent on one brand, or one client or one partner. So it’s the non sexy stuff. And it’s paired with the sexy stuff, right, you get the exciting things like creating content that hopefully does well and does numbers and makes an impact for people. But you have to pair it with the stuff that like nobody wants to talk about. Because it’s not sexy and fun.
Natalie Franke
I love this so much. And I’ll say to for any of the service based business owners that are listening to this, I want you to know that this applies to you as well. You don’t need to have a digital product or a book to have an email list. I think that’s a huge myth that I also come across, you know, I’ve seen some really profound and innovative strategies being done. Like I’ll use the wedding industry, for example. If you think about client acquisition in the wedding industry, I’ve seen really cool things like photo booths where, you know, if you’re at a wedding attending a wedding, and you go into a digital photo booth, you enter your email. And then you basically are opting in and there’s a little thing Oh, you opt in to get access to the gallery when it’s done. And you get access to you know, whatever other value again, like like Tori said value first, like leading with value, what am I going to give you in exchange for this email, but you have to remember, if someone’s attending a wedding, they’re attending a lot of other weddings, and when someone that they know is getting married, and they’re like, Hey, do you know anybody that does photography? Or do you know, they might even say, oh my gosh, you’re getting married. My friend had this photo booth at their event that did slo mo video of people and now they just have to pop into their inbox and find you or even better you’re top of mind because you’re sending out Different types of materials for them. So there’s so much value in understanding the power of email marketing for service based business owners to. I’m curious for you, Tory though how did you come up with the idea of a quiz as a lead capture option? And are there others that you’ve seen work well for your business or that you’ve explored?
Tori Dunlap
I stole it.
Natalie Franke
I still tell me more. I tell him, I
Tori Dunlap
will contextualize that. What is it? I think there’s a book right or something that’s like the best artists steal or something like that. It’s like Steal Like an Artist. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. There it is. This is the thing. Oh, gosh, I did a LinkedIn post about this a couple months ago. People who run successful businesses are giving you an MBA about how to run a business just by running their own business. Like if you watch people you admire, like, maybe I’m one of those people that you can learn from, you can watch what I do. Like, it’s very clear what my strategies are if you start looking. So when I started building a business, like four years ago, I started watching the people that were really smart, and that I saw who were converting people, people like who’s now a friend, Jenna Kutcher, roommate, Satie. Like, these were people who were really, really smart email marketers. And then I thought, Okay, well, I’m getting their emails, I get a lot of value from their emails, what happens? How did they get my email, and then what happened? And I went to Jenna kutcher.com. And she had this quiz. And I was like, I took that quiz that because I was interested to see what my personality was. And I basically did that is I contextualized it for personal finance. And for the offering that we had, I had some friends who I work with, who are business partners of mine build it, we worked as a team to like create the content, create the landing pages, and then we launched it, like, watch other people do the things that you want to do. Now, that doesn’t mean directly copy them. Right now, I’m not taking remote safety’s copy and like directly implementing it here, right. But I am taking the the systems and the things that are effective for them. And I’m like, Oh, how can I duplicate their success for me? And that’s what I did. And I’ve told both of them. I’m like, hi, we have a quiz. And we did that because of you. And they’re like, Great, yeah, it works. So like, it’s not anything new or novel. I’m just watching other people do really cool things and going okay, cool. How can I do that? Same thing with webinars, I’ve been in webinars, I’ve been in workshops, I watch the system that happens. I look at myself as the user, I’m like, okay, cool. If I want to attend this thing, I have to give them my email. Interesting. Why don’t they ask for my email? Oh, probably, so that they can market to me later or provide me more value. Okay, that’s really interesting. Oh, when I’m in the webinar, and you know, the thing pops up on the side that offers, you know, a discount for a paid product. I can purchase that, then. Oh, and I see that they’re making, they’re putting like a time stamp on it. Or they’re putting like a ticker on it. And that this discount only lasts for a certain period of time. Oh, they’re incentivizing me to get this discount. They’re motivating me with this countdown clock. Right? Interesting. Oh, after the webinar is over, I got an email that like said, Hey, you were there? Great. Here’s a reminder. And here’s the link. And here’s exactly where to go. Like, I can watch people do this by just being a consumer. And especially when I was growing a business and didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was watching other people smarter than me, and then figuring out how I could apply that for my own stuff.
Natalie Franke
Yes, I say all the time, I would much rather work with someone. And I’ll flip this and even say, the people who are successful are more likely to have, you know, a master’s in Google than they are to have a master’s from Harvard. And well you’re describing is why? Because it’s the idea that if you are curious enough, you’ll figure it out if you’re willing to watch how other people are doing something if you’re willing to do this work, because when I’m hearing Tory is like no one handed you here’s the here’s the roadmap to the success. You did the work of asking yourself questions and analyzing I mean, you that’s what that does take a lot of work. But in the pursuit of that you basically are self like that’s, it’s the self taught level of marketing expertise that led you to and say, Okay, I’m seeing this, this resonated with me. I’m going to I’m going to iterate on that. I’m going to iterate on that for my business model and see if it works. And then from there, take those learnings and improve it. And then now your team is doing your own like, kind of rebuilding of certain systems and it’s that ability to ask hard questions. Stay kind of with that lens with that lens of learning. And leaning in.
Tori Dunlap
Listen to the podcast, right, like you being here is is the is part of that. And I think for service based businesses, for anybody listening. Think about the content that connects with you right or think about again, like for me, it was like, I took Jenna’s quiz. Why did I take it Oh, because it was motivating and it was pretty and it was exciting. And I was like, oh, what what personality am I? And like I trusted her enough to then I actually give her my email when my quiz results were ready. Because that’s the other part, right? It’s, it’s like, if I don’t trust that person, if I don’t connect with that person, if I don’t understand how that person is actually going to serve me, then I’m going to complete the quiz. But I won’t give my email because I don’t care enough because I’m like, Man, I don’t really care. I don’t want this person to have my email. But if you can figure out like, why, as a user, did I like that photo? Did I interact with that content? Did I give that person my email, you can start to bridge how you can then do that for yourself and for your own business, right. And back to original point. None of this works, if they don’t trust you, none of this works. If you’re not providing value, none of this works, if you’re just trying to sell them both, because it’s going to feel icky for you, it’s gonna feel icky to sell all the time, it’s not going to feel good, and at least it shouldn’t feel good. And that’s not that’s not how good business is done. That’s not how that’s not effective, right? So build the systems. And also understand like, if you are not serving, if you are not bridging, you know, this, this relationship of trust, it’s not going to actually matter. You can build the sexiest email funnel ever. But if people never actually give you their email, because they don’t trust you, or they don’t know what your business does, or you don’t have a clear value proposition, then it’s not going to work. Oh,
Natalie Franke
I love this so much. I was at a festival a couple of years ago. And I remember, there was a photographer there who was walking around taking photographs of people at the event. And like if you wanted to photo like, call them over and come take a photo, and I was chatting with him, like, Oh, how did you get this opportunity? Like, how’d you get hired to do this? And he said, Oh, I’m just like, I’m volunteer. I volunteered. And I was like, Oh, so you’re working for free? And he corrected me. He says, oh, no, I’m not working for free. And he pulls out his phone, and there was a QR code. And he goes, I’m working for your email, like, if you like, I’ll take a photo of you, I will, you can have the photo, you know, and here’s like, the LP where I would just like pop into my email address, like, here’s who I am. And as soon as the gallery is ready, you get access to it. And I wish I had had time to just ask this man, so many questions. But sure enough, gallery comes into my inbox. 48 hours later, there’s the photo of me at the event. And immediately I’m like, Oh my gosh, who is this person. So then I go to his Instagram, and now I’m engaged. Now I’m like, This person just gave me something for free. He just gave me something, he gave me a gift. And I bet that day, he probably interacted with 100 plus 200 300 people and took an opportunity that was just sitting there and turned it into potential business. Now, I never personally booked him for anything. But I wouldn’t be surprised if other people were like, Oh, I met this photographer. The photo he got was incredible. Like you have to check out his work, so on and so forth, all of it to say like, sometimes are these opportunities where when we lead with that value, and we’re willing to think like our customer, like our client, and in the case of Jenna’s quiz for you like you are her target, like your her target market, I’m her target market, you know, she is has always been someone that has been teaching others how to build businesses, and she shared so much of her own journey. And so in your business, it’s the same thing. Think of your client and ask yourself, like, what is the value that they want? What would get them right to hand over their email, and you’re going to provide value in the process. And I absolutely love that. I want to take a step and oh, my gosh, I could talk to you all day. I really could I could talk to you. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. I wanted to like take a step into talking about some money myths. If you’re down with for with me, I talk about 20 minutes, because let me tell you something, they are out there they are out there. And I don’t know if you have some money that’s top of mind that you just want to debunk for us. But maybe we start there because I know I have some but I want to hear if there are some from you like business owners listen up. Are you believing some of these money myths? And can Tory debunk them for you on the independent business podcast?
Tori Dunlap
So I spend the whole first chapter of my book talking about the emotions of money and the psychology of money. And we actually spend the first part of that chapter talking about the myths you’re believing almost every single chapter has like the myths you’re believing about debt or the myths you’re believing about investing. So just general money myths. Okay, first off, we’ve all heard the talking about money is taboo. Right? I can’t talk about money. It’s impolite. It’s not professional. This is a myth meant to keep you underpaid and overworked. It is a patriarchal myth meant to keep you broke. It’s meant to keep you broke. Because if you don’t know that Chad, who got hired two years after you is making 20% More than you because you’re not talking about money. You don’t know that right? You don’t know that your other friends are also in debt, but you feel so isolated and lonely and ashamed. You don’t know as a business owner that things are really hard and that it’s really hard to figure out your profit and loss every month and to navigate that if you’re not talking with other business owners like you that talking about money is one of the easiest things we can start to do. So that radically changes every part of our society. It not only, of course decreases wage gaps and wealth gaps, but also just makes them more equitable world, like makes it more equitable, you know, entrepreneurial landscape and makes a more equitable workplace, it makes our relationships better, it makes everything better. Money is the number one cause of stress in romantic relationships. Money is the number one cause of stress just in Americans in general. And we are more likely to talk about any other uncomfortable topic, death, sex, politics, religion, before we’ll talk about money. And so one of the easiest things you can do is start talking about money. Now, it doesn’t have to be me going to Natalie and being like, exactly what did you make last year tell me, it can just be like, Hey, I saw you’re working with this one client, and they reached out to me, and if you would be willing, I would love for you to share your numbers. And we can compare. I literally got asked to speak at a conference. I was internet friends with the other person that was on the panel. I messaged him, I was like, Hey, what are you getting paid? If you don’t mind me asking. He was like, I’m getting paid this. And I was like, Cool. I’m getting paid this. Great. We knew and especially for me, as a woman, I was like, I want to know what that guy’s getting paid. But I had a bigger following than he did. So I was able to get more money. But like, that’s the kind of that’s the kind of relationships you want to build, right? Me reaching out to a friend and being like, Hey, I’m really stressed about my student loans. Can I just talk to you about it? Like that’s a conversation about money. So start talking about money. We’ll talk about anything else before we’ll talk about money start talking about money. It’s an stupid narrative meant to keep you underpaid and overworked. Second money narrative or money myth is the frivolous spender. Is that the reason you can’t build wealth is because you frivolously spend. Okay, frivolous decoded. That word is extremely gendered, frivolous spending? Yeah. frivolous spending is the lattes or the manicures or the purses or the designer dresses. It is not the NFL season tickets and the golf clubs. Right? It is the latte which is like innately feminine and it’s the Gucci purse and it’s the the you know, the shellac pedicure. It is not boxy, it’s at, you know, a Seahawk game. Like that’s, that’s the interesting part is that we are shamed for our purchases, but uniquely as women, the things that are called frivolous are the things that are innately feminine. The reason you can’t afford a house is not coffee. Like the not only does the math not work like it’s systemic oppression. It’s like rising housing prices and stagnating minimum wage and a trillion dollar student debt crisis. That’s the reason you can’t afford a house. It is not. I bought a coffee. It’s not that at all. And you’ve done the
Natalie Franke
math. I saw the tick tock, oh, massive,
Tori Dunlap
we’re gonna link it. We’re gonna link that tick tock in the show notes. The math is performing tiktoks Yeah,
Natalie Franke
no wonder it was on my FYP. But truly, like, that’s why I saw it. I was like, Oh, wow, that’s not even a quarter of a mortgage payment. You don’t even like I saw it. And I was like, wow, but but how quick we are to believe something like that. When we hear it circulating like, well, you can’t buy a house because you’re buying a coffee at your local independent coffee shop every week or whatever. But that’s not the case. Keep going Keep going.
Tori Dunlap
Like if coffee is something that you’re just buying out of habit, or you don’t like it or it’s, it’s you’re just completely like it’s a mindless purchase. Right? Yeah, we’re gonna stop doing that I walk you through in the book, like how to evaluate your purchases, and if they actually bring you joy, but that’s not necessarily coffee. That’s a bunch of things that it could be right. If you love your coffee, great. That’s not the reason you’re not rich. Okay, other narrative is that I will be rich if I just work hard. Also known, of course, is the bootstraps narrative, this is a very American thing is it’s just like, you know, if you work hard, you will be a millionaire or you will be rich. And of course, that’s not true. There are plenty of people out there working way harder than I am and single mothers who have three jobs and cannot make ends meet. And that is not a lack of hard work. That is a lack of social safety nets. And again, minimum wage increases. And there are many, many, many things that have a much bigger impact on your day to day finances and how hard you are working or not working. And it gaslights you too, because then when you’re like, I’m working hard and I I’ve been doing this for years yet I can’t, I can’t save anything. Like I literally I just can’t save anything. And that’s not like a willpower thing, or that’s not like a I still have a Netflix subscription. But like actually, I’m living paycheck to paycheck, you then are like, Okay, I need to just work harder. That’s not you. The problem is not you. It’s all of the problems around you. And I would say finally, just in general, again, my entire book has is about really how All of our work is about how women and money just like money affects women differently and how that relationship is different than like a straight white man. But in that kind of vein of like frivolous spending, right? One of the other things that happens is the money advice for women compared to men is very different. The money advice even in 2023 for men is make more money, right? It is expand it is play bigger it is negotiate your salary, it is start investing, it’s diversify your revenue streams, what is the money advice for women? shrink? Right? Spend less money, right that Dr. Pepper saying it you cow, right? Like that is that is the narrative that is the that is what we’re told is like, you know, coupon clip, and find five meals to make under $5. And like, shrink yourself, right? The advice to men is expand to make more money, which is great advice. But the advice to women is, spend less. And the thing about earning potential is, in theory, your earning potential is infinite, right? Like you can make more money. At some point, you can’t not like you can’t not spend money, right? Like if you get down to bare bones, you still have to pay your rent, you still have to buy groceries to stuff to feed yourself, you still have to go to daycare, right and take your kids to daycare, like you still have those expenses, right? So I think that’s the other difference that I really want people to be aware of is, especially for women, business owners, there’s the shame and making money, there is the shame in doing well, there’s this shame in having something that is successful. And I need you to call a complete and total bullshit on that. There is something actually that is so liberating, and is a form of protest for people who are members of marginalized groups to be financially whole and stable. That is a form of protest in a society that does not want that for you. In a society that demands you play small in a society that that expects you to limit and shrink and be controllable, because that’s the thing about money is it makes you uncontrollable in the most beautiful way. When you have money, you don’t answer to anybody you don’t answer to a boss, you don’t answer to a partner, you don’t answer to a client, you don’t answer to anybody you answer to you. And when society gets a whiff that, oh, she’s no longer controllable. They’re no longer controllable. They will try to shrink you it will tell you making money and you being rich is actually really unflattering. That’s a real, that’s a real thing people have told me that’s a real thing is it’s like you would be a lot more palatable. If you didn’t talk about how much money you made. And I’m like, Yeah, I’m sure I would be I’m sure you would be able to stomach me better. That’s not the point. The point is not for you who feel threatened by my independence, to be able to stomach me better stranger on the internet. That is not the point. The point is to live in expansive life that serves people. And so I can be rich and have great things like that’s the point of life. So all of these narratives around money, especially if you’re a member of a marginalized group are there to shrink, you keep you playing small, and for you to like shame yourself. And if we start breaking out of that shame, not just as business owners, but as individuals. The entire world starts to change. Rant over.
Natalie Franke
I’m fired up now. I have fired up to expand No more. No more clipping coupons for this one. I know I love and it reminds you love that. But like maybe you love it, you go for it. I’m thinking my friend Jess, my friend, Jess is such a good coupon clever. But yes, the the whole premise of just like the difference in advice. And I remember, Tony, like, when I started my business, I just remember one of the things I struggled with was the concept of sometimes you have to spend money to actually make money. And even something as simple as that, where other I have friends that they’re like, of course, like how did you not know that? So there’s even this like, you know, sort of like rulebook or knowledge base of information that’s just withheld. And I was one of the ones that just didn’t grow up hearing about it hearing it talked about. And so I’m grateful for spaces where we have these conversations about money, where we’re able to actually talk about it. And so segwaying into our final question, because I could keep you all day, but I do I do want to get you back to impacting others and helping them to grow their own wealth. I asked everybody this question on the podcast and I’m really curious to hear your answer. But Tori, what do you think differentiates the businesses that succeed from the ones that fail? Oh, there’s no right or wrong answer.
Tori Dunlap
Oh, I just had I had like six answers. It’s immediately gonna have an asterix on it. But this is the easiest way I can say it. be controversial. Like have something to say. I don’t mean controversial and like say racist stuff. That’s not what I mean. I mean, like, have an opinion especially in 2023 Do people expect you to have an opinion and people also expect to either connect with you and understand what your business is or or not, I will use a tick tock trend to explain this, the girls that get it get it and the girls that don’t don’t like they will either get what you’re doing or they won’t. Trying to be everything to everybody makes you nothing to nobody. I say that, again, trying to be everything to everybody makes you nothing to nobody. That is the probably biggest thing that I see. A general like anybody entrepreneur tried to do is they’re like, Okay, I need, I need to get clients and I need to get money. So I am just going to offer everything and I’m going to offer it to everybody. When I like went viral for the first time in 2019, I had a piece go out in MarketWatch, which is like a you know, financial publication, but it blew up it got like a million views in I think like a week for like a news article, which was pretty substantial, especially for MarketWatch. And the interesting thing was, is that 95% of the comments on that piece were vitriolic. They hated me. They did not like me. They were men in their 60s named Steve, who were like, I don’t get her Why does she have to make this a gendered issue? Why can’t you just talk about money? And I have this really interesting choice then, which is, Oh, am I doing something wrong? Right? Am I don’t mind doing something wrong? Should I shift? I clearly I don’t appeal to these people. And I’m losing potential followers or clients. But then I realized, actually, I’m doing something right. Because if they don’t get it again, girls would get it get at the girl. So don’t tell the people who understand what we do at her first 100k become brand evangelists for us. If you are turned off by the word feminism, you’re not going to follow me. And then you never were going to follow me you were never going to be somebody who wanted to be part of this community. Right? So yes, if you follow Dave Ramsey, if again, you don’t like the word feminist, you’re not going to like me, great. There’s plenty of other people out there. There’s also literally 10s, probably hundreds of millions of women, people who love what we do, who are very aligned in terms of our customer persona, who will 100% get it, because we have opinions because we are speaking our mind, because to some people we might be deemed slightly controversial. And I put that in quotes. So trying to be everything to everybody makes you nothing to nobody, I need you to pick the person, the thing you’re trying to say. And understand that not everybody is going to get it. And that actually means you’re doing something right. Because the people that will will tattoo your brand on their forehead, like they will love it and come back and be so excited to engage with you. And that’s the people that you want, just from a business angle. Those are the people that purchase from you and keep purchasing from you. Those are the people who like everything you post right. The people who are fairweather followers are people who are like, Yeah, I don’t really get it. You don’t want those people anyway. So especially when you’re first getting started, and I think anybody at any stage of the business really important to remind yourself, have the people in mind, don’t try to be everything to everybody understand that you have to connect with the people you’re trying to connect with. And they should immediately understand if this is for them or not. If it’s not cool, they move on if it’s for them. That’s that’s the time to start nurturing. Whoa,
Natalie Franke
what an episode Tory before I’m just on fire, I’m like I am fired up. Before we go. Though I have no doubt that listeners are going to want to know more about your podcast more about where they can get your book will obviously link everything in the show notes. But go ahead and let us know where we can connect with you further.
Tori Dunlap
Thank you, I am at her first 100k on all the socials H ER FYRST 100 k.com. If you want to see the kind of systems we’re building and engage with them yourself, and maybe also give us your email her first 100 k.com/quiz is the place to go. So you can copy it right off of that. I have a book called financial feminist. I have a podcast that Matt was kind enough to guest on also called financial feminist. So yeah, if you Google me if you Google her first 100k you’ll find me.
Natalie Franke
Amazing Tori, thank you so much.
Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.
