Episode 55: Growing Your Wealth Mindset with Natalie Bullen
Transcript Episode 55
Stephanie Skryzowski
Welcome to the 100 Degrees of Entrepreneurship podcast the show for purpose driven entrepreneurs who want to get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone. Expand it to your purpose and grow your business in a big way. I’m your host, Stephanie Skryzowski, a globe trotting CFO whose mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers to grow their impact and their income. Let’s dive in.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Stephanie Skryzowski. Today I have joining me Natalie Bullen. Natalie is a wealth and money mindset coach from Mobile, Alabama. As the owner of Unapologetic Wealth, she teaches financial literacy, money mindset work, and sales training for introverts, so they can step into the wealth they deserve and desire and anti hustle and pro abundance coach. She shuns traditional personal finance values rooted in shame, guilt and fear, and encourages followers to dream bigger, increase their prices, and magnify their gifts.
So if you couldn’t tell by those three sentences that I just read, Natalie and I are kindred spirits, we are totally on the same wavelength when it comes to money, when it comes to building an abundant life. And we had such a good conversation. I feel like I say this with all of our guests, but I really couldn’t have talked to Natalie for hours. She is just a breath of fresh air when it comes to personal finance.
She’s also a Certified Financial Advisor, and so she knows money. So we talk about all the things, you’re gonna love it, you’re gonna love her. And let’s get right to it.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship. I am super excited to have with me today, Natalie Bullen. Natalie, welcome.
Natalie Bullen
Thank you. Thank you.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, my gosh. So I’m really excited to talk to you today because I feel like in a sense, we’re kind of kindred spirits. We’re all about money, and wealth, and all the things really all the things having to do with money and grow your wealth. So we’re both finance people. So tell me a little bit about your business, your career journey, what you do.
Natalie Bullen
Yeah, I own Unapologetic Wealth, a coaching and consulting firm that helps women, especially women of color, step into the wealth that they deserve, and desire, and a coaching businesses. And I also crazily own Unapologetic Wealth Management, a soon to be financial advisory firm, where I’ll be able to work with people one on one as their financial planner, to actually give them the tactical steps to grow and protect their wealth. So super excited about that.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, my gosh, I love that. And so you’ve been working as a financial advisor, right? And so now you’re kind of stepping into this journey of being full time entrepreneur. Yeah. That’s super exciting. Have you felt nervous or scared about that leap at all? Are you like, nope, this is my path.
Natalie Bullen
You know, I had been working 40, 50 hours a week at my job, and then working another 40, 50 hours a week in my business. I was coaching clients at six and seven in the morning and to be on my conference call for work because the market’s open, right. So I had to be when the market open, call over, talk to you later, the market’s open.
So talking to people before stock market open and then work and then I was coaching people on my lunch break. And it just yeah, yeah. So I haven’t really had time for my brain to slow down and process, because I have so much going on. I think I’m too busy to be nervous.
Stephanie Skryzowski
I kind of love that. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s just like, yeah, the trains moving and we got to stay on it. So there’s no time to be worried or stressed or whatever I do. That’s amazing. Yeah.
Natalie Bullen
That’s kind of where I’m at… And I’m naive as a person, just in general. So it’s hard for me to see the bad things that could happen because I assume the good in people. I’d be terrible in the fraud department.
Stephanie Skryzowski
I think it’s a pretty good quality to have. Oh my gosh, I love that. So Unapologetic Wealth, your company. So what does coaching look like? What do you do? What is the transformation that you help people to gain in your work together?
Natalie Bullen
Ultimately, I help people gain confidence, confidence in themselves, that they can be visible and nothing bad will happen. That they can sell, they don’t suck at sales. And selling things to people isn’t harming them in any way at all. They want to spend money, okay, with a negative savings rate in the United States. For every 100 bucks somebody earns they spend 101 by the use of credit.
So not only are they spending money they’re spending more than they have. So the idea that they don’t want to give it to you is ludicrous. They don’t give it to you, they’re giving it someone, so might as well be you. And I give women confidence that it’s fine to be the breadwinner, it’s okay to earn more than your husband, it’s okay to earn more than your mom.
These benchmarks of comparison are keeping you small, especially when you’re comparing yourself to old data, and what you used to do, and who you used to be, and what you used to earn, and who you used to date, and what your mom did, all that’s old data. And I wouldn’t build a new business on old data. So giving them the confidence to create some new data, some primary data for themselves.
And that generates the money, and once they start making money, the coaching is really easy, because then it’s like, okay, what are you going to do to protect and preserve this money.
And that’s why I refer them to CFOs like you, which is a different work than financial advice, and a different work than accounting, and a different work than bookkeeping, which is probably a story for another day. But helping people to curate their financial dream team is important to me as well.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, I like that, the financial dream team, one of the early episodes of this podcast was explaining the difference between all of those people because people get so confused and they think their bookkeeper is going to tell them how to invest their money and they think their accountant is going to give them strategy to grow their business. I’m like, nope, those are very, very different thing.
So I used to talk about the four finance professionals, bookkeeper, accountant, CFO and your financial advisor, but I added another one and like a finance coach, or money coach, because I feel like that’s a lot of what you do. And it really is different than all those other four
Natalie Bullen
It sure is completely different. You know, I waver between, I won’t say which one’s more important, but which one you enjoy more, you know. Being a financial advisor is really stuffy and really regulated, and you can’t use testimonials. And there’s a lot of things you like, can and can’t do once you get in bed with the SEC as a person who’s been in bed with FINRA, not really looking forward to my new bed made as much but I know it’s an important work.
But the money coach, the finance coach, the wealth coach, whatever you want to put it is an integral piece, because your bookkeeper and your accountant, super important, because they’re giving you raw numbers and categorizing your data and giving you information to file your taxes. And that is paramount. It’s got to get done. There’s no way around it.
So I feel like that’s the foundation like there’s a Maslow’s hierarchy of finance. There’s like Natalie’s hierarchy of finance, like accounting and bookkeeping is the foundational piece, you should not move forward in business without that block. So either you need to be proficient or you need to hire someone who’s proficient ASAP. No questions asked.
And with new low cost solutions like collective, I just can’t understand why anybody would say I can’t afford a bookkeeper. Like if you don’t have $200 to $400 a month for a bookkeeper, I’m not so certain you should be in business just yet. I know it’s controversial but you’re gonna dig yourself in a hole and the cleanup getting somebody caught up two, three years in QuickBooks is 10, 20k.
Like, if you can’t afford it month to month, you’re never going to be able to afford the cleanup and now your taxes aren’t straight, but your bookkeeper is not going to give you a pep talk if you have a low sales month or write a projection of what you should be doing next quarter, or sales advice because you don’t have any leads.
I think people just come in and think this one person is going to solve all of my money woes. Now will you need an accountant who might have a firm that offers bookkeeping and offer CFO services, quite possibly. But anyone who tells you they’re gonna file your taxes, do your books, be your CFO, be your coach, be your financial adviser, sell you life insurance, you should run for the hills, that person is nuts.
And if they are selling all those things, they’re not selling them all well. And you should be wary of anybody who pitches themselves as like the magic bullet to your money.
Stephanie Skryzowski
100% I honestly think that the work that you do around helping people grow a wealth mindset is kind of the foundation to all of this because if you’ve got weird feelings about money and feeling like you’ve got mindset stuff that’s really holding you back, the rest of that is pointless. And it’s not really you know, you’re not going to achieve what you want to achieve if you’re still battling mindset issues around money.
So, you know, for anybody listening who feels like, oh, I hate money. They may not be listening to this podcast if they don’t like money because we talk about money a lot. But for anybody out there who is listening, who they’re like, yeah, I feel like I need some work on my mindset to grow that wealth mindset. What are a couple tips that are a first place that they can start exploring how to improve their wealth mindset?
Natalie Bullen
I think the first thing I would encourage that person to do is ask themselves, do I actually want to become wealthy? That’s a real question. And that is not a yes for everybody. It’s almost like marriage in this country. We’re very marriage oriented. Even the IRS incense you for getting married, right? You pay less on your car insurance if you’re married, right.
This country incense people financially, socially, it rewards them for being married. But that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to get married or that getting married is right or wrong. So when I meet single people who languish over it, I ask do you actually want to get married? Because if you don’t, then like tethering all of your hope, and feeling bad and wavering, and dating the wrong guy, you’re in it for the wrong reason, if you don’t actually want to get married.
So I would ask the person, do you actually want to be wealthy? Is having a lot of money a goal post for you? Is it important? Does it matter? And if the answer is yes, we’ll proceed. If the answer is no, then go do whatever the hell it is you want to do. Enjoy your life, be fine within. Don’t let people convince you that you have to have a lot of money to be happy, like, let it go.
But if you do want to be wealthy, next, ask yourself, how do you feel about wealthy people? How do you feel about Elon Musk, how do you feel about Bill Gates. how do you feel about the richest chick? Monarch? How do you feel about some guy in Saudi Arabia with diamond straight dollar, how do you feel about Zuckerberg, how do you feel about billionaires, how do you feel about Warren Buffett?
What’s your first instinct? How do you feel about Oprah? How do you feel about Sara Blakely of Spanx, how do you feel about rich people?
Most people dislike every person that I have named. Maybe not Sara Blakely, probably because they didn’t know she was a billionaire until that sale. They didn’t know how rich she was. But all those other people, you know, they’re rich, right? How do you feel if you villainize rich people? If you believe that rich people have stepped on the backs of the poor to get where they are, will you actually ever become wealthy? Like if you think being rich is a character flaw? Like a moral degradation? Would you ever actually pursue it?
So if you want to be wealthy, you’re gonna have to shift your perspective of how wealthy people are. You’re gonna have to realize that while some of them are bad, and evil, and whatever, poor people can be evil as well, there’s no nobility in being poor. So maybe you could be the wealthy person that does different things.
Now, what people don’t know, Bill Gates created a foundation and a pledge for billionaires, and they had to sign that they agreed to give away half of their wealth, and he had over 50 billionaires show up and pledge to give away half of their wealth. What Bill Gates writes in one quarter in a tax check is more than I’ll ever pay in my life, statistically.
So it’s interesting when I hear people that wealthy don’t pay tax. How do you know that? What wealthy person do you know that doesn’t pay tax, personally? I actually don’t know any billionaires now. So how can you make this judgement, right? That’s where we get, so I would say, challenge your belief system, or at least suspend it. Suspend your belief system about wealthy people, and then educate yourself.
Most of us fear things we’re ignorant about. So maybe it’s not that you really are afraid of wealth, maybe it’s that you don’t understand the stock market. I get that a ton. That’s the number one request video people want. How do you get started in the stock market? People are terrified of the stock market, they think it’s gambling, they think they’re losing their money.
They think it’s a Ponzi scheme. I mean, they they’re so petrified about losing $1 in the stock market. Now they will go on style, see and book an eyebrow appointment with a woman in Florida that they’ve never met, and let her put a blade to their face and pay for it. But buying one share of Apple stock is just out of the question. Oh, you have to challenge what you invest in.
But I think that third step is key in the education. Now that could be reading, taking a course, hiring a coach, hiring a professional, it could be throwing it up your hands and say, you know what, let me just put $10,000 in a Schwab intuitive investor account, put an intelligent portfolio and let them pick something for me. Whatever that looks like. I think that will be the third step.
So one, a self assessment. Two, suspending your belief about wealthy people and rewriting that belief if necessary. And three, educating yourself so that wealth can happen for you.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, my gosh, your first question kind of blew me away because you’re right, that comparison to marriage is so mind blowing. You’re right, like we are set up from the beginning to feel like we should get married. That’s just what you do. I’m using air quotes. And the wealth thing as well, like, we should have a lot of money but you’re right.
And I’ve actually even seen some posts in the Facebook group that we’re part of, we should all be millionaires. I’ve seen some people say, I don’t really want to make a lot of money, I don’t need a lot of money. I don’t want a lot of money. And so you’re right, we kind of are programmed to think like more is better.
But for some people, that may not even be a true desire, like we need money to live, right? Like, let’s not pretend we don’t need any money. But being wealthy is not necessarily a given.
Natalie Bullen
It’s definitely not my husband’s goal in life, I can tell you that, that he has zero interest in becoming a millionaire.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That is so interesting.
Natalie Bullen
I mean, but it’s not important to him and his parents weren’t wealthy, but they have lots of love, and trust, and they were married until they passed away. His mom managed money, his dad made the money. The system he grew up in worked for him. So he really doesn’t have a reason to create a new system.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That’s interesting.
Natalie Bullen
And that’s different for me. I want all the money.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, so how does that work? What kind of conversations are you all having at home?
Natalie Bullen
You know what, I like to lead by example. I understand that my money story is if you don’t have money, you don’t have choices. My grandfather was a school teacher, his mother, Mary was a school teacher. My mother, Annie Mary was a school teacher. Mary’s mother was a school teacher and Mary’s mother’s mother was a slave.
So from the onset, the Campbells had been school teachers in Alabama, and they’ve been low paid. So what I saw growing up was if you’re a teacher, you will be poor.
And you will have to make hard decisions like groceries or prescription drugs, and you will have to drive a car that sometimes breaks down, and you will have to make sacrifices, you won’t be able to put your child in a private school if something happens if they’re public school, and you won’t be able to pay for their college, and they’ll have to take on student loan debt.
And you’re going to have bad decisions you have to make in your life if you’re poor, if you’re a school teacher. That’s why I’m not a school teacher because that story, I couldn’t see a plan out for me. Now, is there wonderful joy to teaching children? Absolutely, and if I lived in Switzerland, where they pay teachers like attorneys, I’d a teacher.
But my money story is that if you don’t have money, you don’t have options. And you will be stuck in a profession you don’t like, with children who are rude and disrespectful, in a home that needs repair. That’s what’s gonna happen to you if you don’t have money, Natalie. So for me, not having money is not an option. If that looks like picking up a second job, a third job, a business, two businesses, all the clients everywhere, all the social media, all the visibility, and that’s what I’ll do.
Dave grew up with parents who were born in Panama. Do you understand the wealth in Panama? No, not a wealthy country. Not for most people. And so he grew up seeing resilience and resourcefulness. If you don’t have money, you barter. You don’t have money, you borrow. If you don’t have money, you partner with friends, you move in with each other.
You come you, that’s what you do, you lean on your community, when you don’t have money; you don’t have money, you’re gonna be okay, someone in your neighborhood will feed you. That is how his parents grew up, and that’s what they instilled in him. So see, when I see you don’t have money, I see you don’t have options, you’re screwed. When he sees you don’t have money, he goes, well, then you need to lean on your relationships, and your resourcefulness.
So he has other tools in his toolkit other than money to get what he needs to do. I for one, don’t believe I have those tools, or at least I haven’t cultivated them in a meaningful way.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That is so interesting. And I would really encourage I’ve done this myself. Kind of explored my feelings with money and how my upbringing kind of contributes to that. And it’s, yeah, the messages that we receive as we’re, when we’re children, we may forget them, as we grow up, but when you think about it a little bit more and kind of dig deeper.
It’s really interesting how those messages that we have received as little kids have grown into how we feel about money as an adult. And so I know, one of the things that you talk about a lot is generational wealth.
So what does that mean? You just talked about some of your family history and your husband’s family history. But what is generational wealth mean and how can we be thinking about generational wealth as business owners?
Natalie Bullen
In short, generational wealth is wealth that will outlive you. That’s the basis, okay. So, where most people lose money, especially in black and brown communities, especially, is an inefficient tax strategy and absent or poorly planned estates. So we lose money every year to the IRS and to the state because we didn’t hire an accountant, we didn’t hire a bookkeeper.
We didn’t file it all. Penalties, taxes, were in a sole prop, we should have been an S corp, etc, etc. So we’re losing it throughout our lifetimes and then when we die, we lose it all at once because we didn’t have a will or we didn’t have a trust or we didn’t have an estate plan, we didn’t have beneficiaries on our bank account and gets a sheet into the state.
So those are the two key points that I glob on to when I started talking about generational wealth. Improving your tax situation and getting your estate plan set. Because those are the two biggest, those are the detriments those are the thieves. Those are the thieves of generational wealth. You lose it throughout your life in inefficient tax planning, and then you lose it all when you die if you don’t have your estate put together.
Is it two in five? I think two in five Americans don’t have a will, which is baffling to me. Because that’s saying that 40% of Americans think that the state that they live in is a better judge of where their assets should go than themselves. That’s what they’re saying and that’s very bizarre to me. Not having life insurance is a sticky topic, I stopped selling life insurance for this reason because I fell out of alignment, begging people to buy it, but I knew that they needed it.
And I was too emotionally invested to sell it without bias anymore. So I actually stopped selling life insurance because I would get angry when people wouldn’t protect their family. Like how selfish are you? Like, what are you talking about? They’re like, well, I’m poor, I can’t afford. It’s even more reason why you need it. If you’re poor, when you’re alive, what do you think is gonna happen when you die?
You think your wife is gonna magically get rich because you die? It’s wild. So those two things are important. How you keep generational wealth is having conversation with the generations. Are you talking to your parents and grandparents? You know, one of my clients, Demelza, teaches that generational wealth actually starts in the past.
So most people think generational wealth is passing wealth down to your children. But she teaches that it actually started with your grandparents. And it’s been trickling down throughout. So why isn’t grandma had a house and mom had a house? But you started with an apartment? Why didn’t that wealth move down? Why is it when your grandparents die, you still have nothing?
Your great grandparents die, your grandparents got nothing. Grandparents died, your parents got nothing. When your parents die, will you get something? And in black communities, that’s usually not the case, every generation starting back over at zero? So like, how can we break that cycle? And I think it’s communication. I don’t have children, I’m not planning to have children.
Who knows I’ve been married like seven minutes. But I do plan to have a legacy plan in place. For charities, for communities, for people. I want to benefit my godchildren off of the wealth that I have built up. My alma mater, I wanna have a scholarship in my name. And I want it to be funded annually from the proceeds in the trust. Well, how do you create enough money to have a scholarship go on indefinitely after your death?
You have to generate it, but high income doesn’t equal wealth. And there’s a disconnect somewhere. And if you want to know where it is, just watch lottery winners. It’s impossible for a person to act out of alignment with how they see themselves. So if you see yourself as a poor person, you will keep coming back to that poor person, it doesn’t matter how much money someone gives you. So again, it all starts with that mindset, and how you’re able to create generational wealth.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh my gosh, so many good things. I just want to say, so I never really, I guess I was part of that group of people that thinks high income equals wealth or equals generational wealth. And I know now that it doesn’t. But I hired a financial advisor and I basically wanted them I was like, I’ve got some money in savings.
What do I do with it? And I was feeling a little bit frustrated because they’re like, actually, we’re gonna start by looking at what insurance you have. We’re gonna look at what your will looks like. And I was like, really? Like, this is so boring. And I was like, oh my gosh, can’t we get to the fun investing stuff?
Natalie Bullen
Absolutely not.
Stephanie Skryzowski
You’re right.
Natalie Bullen
You pass away a month into our work together. And you don’t have a will. That’s all just going to get plaster on the internet. Did you know that she hired Natalie as her financial advisor and Natalie didn’t tell her to get a will? Did you know that one of Natalie’s clients died intestate? You’re gonna put my business out of business.
Oh, no, ma’am. The first meeting, not the first, the first meeting is a get to know you. And the second meeting is a sales presentation, right? The first client meeting, the get organized meeting, do you have a will? Upload it in the client portal, I want to read it. Because people will say they have a will and then they can’t produce it. Fancy that.
So I want to see it. I want bank statements. I want to see who’s POD, I want to see your broker statements, who’s your TLD, your transfer on death, and I want your life insurance policies. And we ain’t booking our first call till you get it.
So the ball is in your court. I’ve had to get firm on people because they don’t want to talk about it. They want to but I want to get in stock market. Ma’am, ma’am, we haven’t invested a penny. Your money will earn .01% net savings account the rest of your life if you don’t tackle first things first. And if you have children, what’s more impactful, you die and your child get a million dollar term policy tax free or you die and you got three days of gains on Apple stock in the stock market?
If you don’t like it, this is no comparison. It’s just again, it’s the financial foundation. And as a life insurance agent first, that was my first foray into finance, was selling Primerica term life insurance. So I would be re-missed to let my clients be under-insured and without a will. And if I don’t make them do that first, they just won’t get done.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, it was really interesting when our financial advisor looked through all of our insurance policies, they’re like, you have like the bare minimum car insurance. So if something happens, you’re kind of screwed. And I was like, really? I had no idea.
Natalie Bullen
I really like your financial advisor, really. Like, I would love you as a car. But I really like your financial advisor, because he’s spot on. And it’s the least of things you don’t think about. And I know people are like, what the hell a kind of financial advisor looks at your car insurance policy. A good one.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, yeah.
Natalie Bullen
A good one because if you get in a wreck, and you’re only covered for the minimum, and now you’ve got to come up with 30k. What good was the plan that I just spent weeks and weeks creating, like the plan, we might want to ball it up and start over?
Because unless you have immense liquidity, you know, 100k liquid, which most Americans don’t, even the ones who are making 3-400k a year, ask me how I know, still don’t have 30k liquid, 50k liquid, then we’ve got to liquidate stocks. Now we got to have a taxable event. Now we got to tap your husband’s 401k. It’s really is less than ideal. So better we get all the surprises and insurance is the first stop.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah. So for anybody listening, who you’re like, yeah, I want a financial advisor, I want to invest in the stock market, like you have some foundational work to do first, which I admit, I was completely surprised. I did not think we’d spend all that time going there into our insurance plans. But it’s so important. And it really is. I mean, it’s kind of boring, honestly. But that is the foundation for generational wealth.
And I love the example you gave it’s like, okay, if you died, your kids are going to get a million dollar life insurance policy, or they’re going to get a couple $1,000 into Apple stocks. Like that makes no sense. So yeah, it’s huge. So if anybody’s thinking like, okay, what are the first things that I need to do? First of all, talk to Natalie.
But yeah, you get a financial advisor that is going to go through all of these things with you, because it’s not all about just putting your money in the right stocks in the market. So oh, my gosh,
Natalie Bullen
That’s probably the smallest part of it, to be honest with you. Because the market’s not going anywhere. And most advisors are going to tell you to do dollar cost averaging or some variation where you put a similar amount of money in the market every month, regardless of what the market is doing. Time in the market is more important than timing the market.
And so three months of gains, six months of gains on a 32 year old woman who’s married to a 34 year old man, when they turn 65 is negligible. But being under-insured or over-leveraged, some people have used debt a little too copiously. And so their cash flow is not right. Again, who’s gonna pay this debt if something abruptly happened to you. So I like to look at the insurance and the will first, no leeway.
I don’t even want to talk to you, I will make an appointment with an attorney for you to get the will done. And then looking at debt management, and then I look at retirement planning, and then we get on the cusp of okay, let’s look at what your investments are like and make sure because retirement decades out. Like my clients are Gen X, Gen Y.
Predominantly, I don’t have any 60 year old financial advising clients. So they’ve got a long time horizon, it’s better that we we mitigate risk. Now, if you serve an ultra high net worth client or 60 year old clients, 55 year old clients, it’s different. I would pray they’ve already got that. But they also probably don’t have small children in their home that are dependent on their income.
They don’t have a mortgage. So you have to really be careful with where you are in life and get with somebody who is willing to give it to you straight and not just do what you ask them to do. Because they don’t have boundaries. You cannot circumvent my process.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, you’re so right. You’re so right. So don’t be impatient and just trying to go for the sexy thing because at the end of the day, generational wealth is so much more important than you know, like you said a couple extra months of the stock market.
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Stephanie Skryzowski
I could talk to you forever. I think we’re definitely of the same mindset when it comes to your money when it comes to building wealth. But we talk a lot about building businesses on this podcast. And so I would be remiss if I did not ask you, what is your marketing content, social media strategy? Like what’s your game?
I need to know because I see you all over the place. And I love it. And it makes me feel like I know you even more than I do. I want to support you, I want to work with you, I want to do all the things because I see you everywhere. I know you’re on Facebook, you’re on clubhouse, you’re doing all the things. So what’s your strategy? How has it worked for you?
And yeah, I feel like you just have such a service, like the way that you come across is so service oriented. We’re in a couple of the same Facebook groups and tell me all the things because you are killing it. And I see you everywhere.
Natalie Bullen
It is, sales is service. And so I think here’s where people go wrong. People get in business and they think, oh crap, I have to make money. I have to sell someone something. Okay, who’s the someone and they flesh out their ideal client avatar. And then they find the client avatar somewhere out in the wild on the internet and then glob onto them.
They start sending these DMs with cold pitches. They start liking 20 of their posts in rapid succession freaking them out. They’re poking them, they’re following them on LinkedIn, they’re sending them videos on Instagram. They’re just obnoxious, right? And all of their content is buy for me.
Hey, I sell this lotion. You look ashy. Don’t you want some lotion? Hey, I could have like your hair, your hair looks unhighlighted, let me come highlight your hair. Hey, your skin looks kind of alligatory, I have a fear on that.
You know, like it comes off desperate. To me what most people are doing on the internet, and it’s because they’ve got a script running in the back of their head. And the script is, I need the money. I need the money, I need the money, I need the money. I’m in business, I have to make money. If I’m not making money, I’m not in business. Oh my god, I’m not making any money.
And it’s the 12th of the month, and no one has bought for me and oh my god, it’s the 15th I’m gonna hyperventilate and I haven’t had a sales call. And you can see the panic on the internet. I’m like, super chill on the internet. So chill, y’all like I’m present? She’s right. I’m omnipresent. I’m the first person to comment. It is incredible. It’s like a bat signal.
I am right there. But I’m offering a service. Most of the people I comment to on the internet are not my ideal clients. In order to qualify for my coaching, which starts at $5,000. You’ve got to be making some money. You got to already have a signature coaching program. Like you got to have something going right. But I’ll help people who are brand new who don’t even have an idea yet.
Why? Because they deserve help as well. And I got help when I was getting started from people who had a genuine service part that didn’t ask me for a penny and that is my give back. I also think that when women are empowered, and when women are wealthy, that the world is better. So I’m much more inclined to help woman for any reason for any amount of money. Just because we need to tip that scale back.
Did you know that the pay gap is actually wider when women are entrepreneurs and set their own prices than it is in corporate America?
Stephanie Skryzowski
I did not know that. But I 100% believe it, yeah. Oh my gosh. So tell me more.
Natalie Bullen
So the idea that we price ourselves even lower than the patriarchal corporations. Cool. So if I can be that cheerleader that encourages somebody to raise their prices 20% I have done the world a service whether I got paid or not. And because I am service focused, it attracts people.
I don’t have to cold DM and run people down to get their money. I attract them. They go what are you doing on the internet? You’re so interesting. I don’t think I’m interesting. I think that I think about wealth what everybody thinks about wealth. I’m wrong. I’m 100% Wrong.
But everyone thinks they’re boring and mundane and normal and simple. Nobody really thinks they’re a savant. Not really. Kanye West maybe but like normal people think that everyone thinks what they think. Make ourselves humble, right? That’s what people think.
I have decided that whether I think it’s interesting or important or engaging, I’m gonna post it anyway. I’m gonna stop having this pie lofty, it has to be perfect, it has to be coiste, I have to hire a copywriter, I have to follow a content calendar. Would you believe, my social media manager will cringe, I did not follow a content calendar at all.
Now she does want me posting 42 times a week, I think that’s very aggressive. But that’s really only three times a day and I’m probably already doing that. So I decided to suspend my belief, because my initial belief was no one wants to see me 42 times a week. That was my initial gut reaction. No one wants that.
So I had to suspend that belief, because I don’t know what everyone wants, because I haven’t talked to them. So I suspended that belief and I did it anyway. And I have gotten an outpouring of support. And like, this morning, I just posted one little quick question. I think it was, what business expense was more than you expected?
It’s already got like 30, 40 comments on. It’s just a simple innocuous question. It doesn’t have a beautiful photo, it doesn’t. I think people should be who they are. The biggest mistake I see on social is that people aren’t present at all. People don’t use their personal profile on Facebook for the selling mechanism that it is, your banner should be your business.
You don’t have one, you don’t know how to do it, go on Fiverr pay a guy 50 bucks. It’s what I did. Get you a banner that has your business name and your logo and who you’re about, change your occupation to founder, owner of and the name of your biz, put your social links, put your website. That way when you get tagged and stuff, you have some credibility, because I’ll be honest, that group we’re in and people will say, oh, this person does social media.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah. So I’m on your personal Facebook page right now. And I mean, you get like 20, 30, 50 comments, like hundreds of likes on posts that you post about your business, but on your Facebook page, or just simple questions. I mean, you’re like, strategy that’s kind of not a strategy, except just being present is amazing.
And it’s working. And I would assume that you’ve made money because of the organic work that you’ve done on Facebook.
Natalie Bullen
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Because it’s one, it’s obviously genuine. See, that’s just it. People show up when they want to get paid, and that is disingenuous. I show up all the time. So if I decide today that I want to launch a six week beta program, I can easily feel it because people like oh Natalie’s been giving finance tips and and tax help and estate planning.
And you know when Prince died, when Patti, was it Patti LaBelle? Aretha Franklin, sorry Patti. When Aretha Franklin died, both of them had Massey probates. Aretha has a special needs child and didn’t have an ABLE account or a special needs trust. And Prince’s estate is still going on out there.
So I just made a comment. I said if you’re private in real life, the worst thing that you could do is go through probate. Probate is a public process. Do you want people to know as much about you as I know about Aretha Franklin right now? We need to talk. It was shocking because one people didn’t know that Aretha Franklin and Prince did not have their affairs in order.
Chadwick Boseman, who died from terminal cancer who knew he had terminal cancer still didn’t have a will. That’s shocking to me. I could not believe that. And so he had been dating a woman seven or eight years and then they got married. I presume he thought that by marrying her, it would make her the de facto heir to his items. But not in every state, not in every situation.
People could have come out the woodwork and say I’m your child, I’m your aunt. It still could’ve got ugly, a will would have been better. So I got awareness to people. So if I want to have an estate planning basics workshop with an attorney, people believe me because they’re like, hey, I remember what she said about Aretha Franklin. I did not want that to happen to me. I am private in real life.
And I don’t want people in my business or I do need to prioritize this. I think just my transparency and honesty when things don’t go the way that we thought they were gonna go. I hire an estate planning attorney, and it hasn’t been this smooth. I’m just being honest, it hasn’t been like I have the experienced but I’m doing it. But now I’m feeling what my clients must feel sometimes.
And I’ve never been on that side. I’ve never been on the consumer side of the finance table because I’ve either been in finance, in the bank or in finance in my business. But when I was working, I didn’t earn enough to have a financial advisor. I never had a financial advisor. Personally, I even have assets to manage. So this has been humbling. Like I’ve been online publicly going.
Okay. If you don’t have time to fill out that 20 page questionnaire, I feel you. How about you just do one page a day, and you reschedule it for next month. And that’s actually what I did. I rescheduled I have one for next month. And I’ve committed to completing one page a day. So I think just the transparency, the honesty, and again, the algorithm doesn’t show you everything.
So unless you go, if you go on my page, you’ll think I’m nuts because you’re like, holy crap, there’s like 100 posts here. In real life, you don’t see me more than once a day, even though I’m posting several times a day, because the algorithm wants to show you things of interest, not bog you down with the same content. So you have to remember that people don’t see all your content.
It’s like a sieve like when you strain spaghetti, you don’t get all the water out. So it’s important for people to understand, you got to sprinkle the content all over the place in hopes that people will see it. But hey, the strategy of visibility is working because most people are hiding. And not only are they hiding from people who could help them, they’re hiding from money.
I am not the only financial planner, or money coach in that group. But I’m damn sure the most popular and that makes a difference when it comes time for referrals. My name floats to the top of the list over and over again, not because I’m the best or the most tender, I might be neither of those things. But I’m the most active, the most present and the most known.
A lot of us are academic. And we’re too busy thinking about being the best and the smartest. I gave up being the smartest person in the room. There’s no value in that. I want to learn. So I put myself in the position to be a learner and be a sponge, and not feed my ego by knowing more than everyone else. And that shift alone has put 200k in my pocket.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Gosh, that is so good. I love that your strategy is not fancy. Your strategy is visibility. And service.
Natalie Bullen
It’s so easy. People are like I don’t believe that. How did you get that? I’m like that and friending strangers? Out of 4200 friends I have I might know 800 of them.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Wow, that’s even a lot still. That’s a lot.
Natalie Bullen
Is it a lot?
Stephanie Skryzowski
I don’t know, seems like a lot.
Natalie Bullen
I like having opportunities. And I like hiring people that I’ve been able to vet to a degree. So we’re friends on Facebook, I can kind of see how you are like, do you always fight with your ex husband?
Do you use a lot of profanity all up and down your face? I can kind of see how you really are because I’ve hired people, and then found out who they were outside of their business and weren’t crazy about who they were as a person. So what I like about Facebook and Instagram you kind of vet out people are as people before you give them your money.
So if I’m thinking about hiring you, the first thing I’ll do is to shoot you a friend request and see, will you accept it? Are you going to instantly try to pitch me? Do you put content out there that is valuable? Or do you only start with a blog when you have a launch? If you’re the latter, then we’re just not aligned.
And then I’ll just I use friendfilter.io. So it can unfriend people for you. It’s kind of cool, like people who don’t engage with your content.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t know that at all. So like I said, I feel like we could keep talking all day long. But I have two quick questions before we wrap up today. So my first is what helps you disconnect from work?
Natalie Bullen
Probably hanging with my husband. He’s a photographer. He’s also a sculptor, and a painter and a musician. So he’s like the creative Trifecta other than singing, like, I’m a newlywed. So talking to my husband and being able to detach and look at his beautiful photos or, you know, go to the ballet or go see live music, just something creative that we can both enjoy.
It’s great. Honestly, almost all of my friends are work friends, like new work friends, like entrepreneur friends, like there are people that I met in the course of doing business. Even when I go on clubhouse, it kind of turns into business, but like, I enjoy speaking and I love talking about money.
So if I’m not working, I’m on clubhouse, but my coach will tell you that when I’m on clubhouse, I am still working.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, yeah. Well, I love that I love that you connect to that creative side and to your husband and to your love of the arts and things like that. I think that’s awesome to disconnect. I feel like I need more of that.
That’s why I asked this question because I want tips for myself. So I love that. And then my last question is, I don’t know if you’re a reader, but if you are a reader, what’s a good book that you’ve read recently? If you’re not a reader, like something else cool that you’ve discovered recently?
Natalie Bullen
I am an avid reader. I read 52 books a year, every year. That’s not true, COVID year I actually hit 82. That was great. Well, because we got I won’t say lay it off at the bank, but we got reduced hours at the same pay so I have more time. I also lost 40 pounds the years ago. So like I use the time to my event. I flipped it back up, don’t you worry.
I reread Atomic Habits, I read it at least once a year. It’s good for my brain to remember that small progress is still progress. I enjoyed this little mini book, it’s a bridge don’t have to look up who, who actually wrote it. It’s called How Millionaires Think. It’s a good book for mindset. And it’s like, it’s a bridge.
And so for people who don’t use these ridiculous words, I like to use tertiary and a bridge. It’s short. It’s really short. And it talks about, it just gives mindset shift. So one page will say how the poor thing, the middle class thing, rich people are evil, and then how wealthy people think money gives you options.
So it just shows you like a flip of the coin on one page and one page like that. I think it’s important for people to read books authored by black women, especially if their faces on the cover of those I think people should read Get Good With Money by Tiffany Aliche. They should read it, they should read it. They should read it.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes
Natalie Bullen
Because it’s important. I think they should read, We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachael Rogers. And I think when I come out with a book, unapologetic wealth, your guide to the wealth you deserve and desire, you’ll see my beautiful black face on the cover. And you just read that too. I think it’s so important.
When women are in male dominated industries, you read those books, you buy them for your book club, you buy 20 of them, you give them as gifts, and you disseminate that information. I actually buy books for my clients. So that’s a really good way.
And it also gives them information. I actually did that on social. You remember when I did the book giveaway?
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes!
Natalie Bullen
I think it was Christmas. And I’m gonna tell you a secret. Pretty much everyone who come in at one. Like I didn’t actually have a system of choosing people. So I just decided I was gonna spend 300 bucks at a bookstore. And then I was just gonna give away as many eBooks as I could up to that number.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oh, my God. That’s amazing. I love it. And that is just another example of how Natalie is here to serve. I love it. Love it. Love it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I totally agree with that book by I forgot what Tiffany, The Budgetnista.
Natalie Bullen
Yes, The Budgetnista. Yes.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, it’s on my list. I follow her on social media. And obviously, I have read Rachael Rogers book and I’ve given that out like many times as well. It’s on all my lists of favorite money books. So oh my gosh, okay.
Well, Natalie, we have to wrap up because this has been just a great conversation. After all this talk about you being all over social media. Where can people find you like where do you want them to go to find all of the Natalie goodness?
Natalie Bullen
Yes, they can follow me on clubhouse at Natalie Bullen, they can check me out on Facebook, friend me, I have 782 more spaces. I’d love to fill them so I could be at capacity. Yay! I’m actually gonna do that I’m freaked out about not being able to friend new, exciting equal.
I’m Natalie Bullen on Facebook. On Instagram, I am @unapologeticwealth. That is where my social media manager forces me to do reels. So you will see me in unflattering positions, pointing to things.
Stephanie Skryzowski
And dancing.
Natalie Bullen
No, absolutely no dancing. If you will only hire a financial advisor, if she’s a dancer, you won’t be hiring me. For now people can go to unapologeticwealth.com if they want to learn more about what I do or book a call that will be rebranded to nataliebullen.com soon. Super excited about all the changes because I am breaking off into two brands, one for the coaching and the speaking.
And then that pesky you know, SEC situation you want to sequester the financial advice. You want to put it in the corner so that it doesn’t get busy then want to have fun with the others.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Got it. Awesome. Oh my gosh, Natalie. Well, thank you so much for all this. The wealth of knowledge that you have shared with all of our listeners. Thank you so much.
Natalie Bullen
You are welcome. Thanks, Stephanie.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Thanks for listening to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. To access our show notes and bonus content, visit 100degreesconsulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on instagram @stephanie.skry and I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here friends, and I’ll see you next time!
Transcript for Episode 55
