Building Your Ideal Tribe with Natasha and Rich Hazlett
This episode of Just the Tips talks with two people who have boldly gone where few dare to tread: starting a business together as a married couple. Natasha and Rich Hazlett had very successful corporate careers, Natasha as an attorney, before deciding to get into the coaching business. And their careers have just soared since then, doing amazing things for their clients and for women entrepreneurs in particular. They are experts at helping clients build communities around their products or services, and creating that elusive “tribe.” This is a really great episode for anyone who’s looking for a little inspiration to make that leap into entrepreneurship, or interested in adding a little good to the world as you’re pursuing your passion.
Taking the leap
While Rich was always something of an entrepreneur, running a car wash business when he was 12, and always pursuing a side hustle while he was working in advertising, entrepreneurship was new to Natasha. She said she was working in her law firm, two years out of law school, and just had an “Oh God” moment where she realized that was going to be her life for the next 40 years and she had to get out of it. And around that time, she’d met Rich and Rich had become interested in network marketing, so Natasha grabbed the bulls by the horns and said they were going to do it together. They stayed at their jobs, but then came home and worked from 7pm to 1am every night to get the business up and running. Why did they do it? You’ll have to listen to this week’s episode of Just the Tips to find out.
The Setback
Rich and Natasha’s network and email marketing business as doing well, but then they got hit with an enormous setback, essentially being told by a compliance agency that they couldn’t do what they were doing anymore. Natasha got fed up and quit, but as she says, Rich “took it like a champ,” and soldiered on, getting the business back online and rolling again. It’s a really fascinating story and shows how many potholes there are in the road, and how deep and dangerous those potholes can be. But then they were able to turn things around, and now they’re helping clients like one in particular, whose now raking in seven times more in revenue per month than she was before working with Rich and Natasha. This may not be a rags to riches story, but it is the story of how working through adversity can really transform a business and business owners.
Build a tribe
One of the things that Natasha and Rich are so good at is helping their clients build a community or a tribe around what they’re doing. And Natasha says something so smart on this week’s Just the Tips: A lot of people want to build a tribe or a movement, but what they don’t realize is they can’t just declare that’s what they’re doing. Other people are the ones who will make what you’re doing a movement. And so what Rich and Natasha do is work with people on building relationships with large groups of people, getting your message out to those people, so you’re not just working each client one by one. You’re creating a community where everyone is helping each other out. And they provide some great tips on how to do just that.
The good kind of manifesto
Rich and Natasha provide some great advice on this week’s Just the Tips episode, particularly in terms of building a tribe or community. The first tip is actually something Dean and I have talked a lot about on this show, which is not chasing after every customer or community member, but finding the right people who are right for what you’re selling and right for contributing to the community. Another important ingredient is community guidelines so you can kick people out if they’re disruptive (so long, Dean) and a manifesto that clearly lays out why the tribe is important. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this episode, you’re going to have to listen to hear the rest of this awesome advice.
Outline of This Episode
- [5:44 How they got started as entrepreneurs
- [10:04] Why they took the plunge
- [11:27] Big setback
- [16:14] How to build a tribe
- [19:11] Us vs. Them
- [23:36] Writing a manifesto
- [32:14] What it’s like to be married and working together
Resources & People Mentioned
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
