Expand Your Fempire Podcast #47 Transcript

Managing Multiple Revenue Streams with Holly Porter

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

00:00:25] Hello. Welcome back to the Expand your Fempire podcast. This is Caterina Rando again with another fabulous, amazing guest. Today we have Holly Porter. She is going to give you some ideas to shift whenever you need to shift to continue to thrive in your business. Holly, welcome welcome.

[00:00:51] Holly Porter: [00:00:51] Hey! Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:00:54]Caterina Rando:  Holly, we met at, I believe it was the Limitless Women’s Conference and you were coming into the restaurant area. I was already with a table full of ladies. You were so bright, your face was so lit up. I said, “Oh, would you like to join us?” And make room for you at the table. Because you looked like somebody that I would want to get to know. And  I did get to know you and I am so happy that I did.

[00:01:25] Holly, I always like to ask our guests, tell us how you got to entrepreneurship. What was your entrepreneurial journey like?

[00:01:35] Holly Porter: [00:01:35] Oh, wow, it probably started when I was 12. My dad hired me to do all the grunt work at the office. He was a mason and a big one in Las Vegas. And so that honestly, after working for him, I was like, “I’m going to figure out a way I can do this on my own.” And so I was always, you know, figuring out little fundraisers and anything I could, I did lots of babysitting, really young. I’m from a family of nine kids. And so, you know, I had that experience. And just from then on, I always had my own businesses probably from about 17 on, I started just doing my own thing.

[00:02:09]Caterina Rando: [00:02:09] Now I have a question, your father, you said he was a mason. Did he have his own business?

[00:02:16] Holly Porter: [00:02:16] He did. Yeah. So my father was an entrepreneur. My mom, she did it. She was an interior designer, but before that she catered weddings. So there were many weekends that we, you know, we got to do the flowers, the tablecloths, the wedding cakes and all that. And so I was raised really by two entrepreneurs.

[00:02:33] Caterina Rando: [00:02:33] Oh, that’s beautiful. Because I think often people don’t get into entrepreneurship because they don’t really have entrepreneurs in their family. My mom and dad, my dad was an engineer for the city, my mom was a school teacher. The thing is though they both had entrepreneurial endeavors on the side. My dad had a laundromat and my mom did Italian t-shirts for Italian festivals. “Luckiest people marry Italians” on the t-shirt “Sicilians are sensational” like that. Tell us more, what came next?

[00:03:12] Holly Porter: [00:03:12] Yeah. Well, I was going to say, you know, I think as an adult and as a mature adult, now, one piece of advice, I would give people that are looking into that, it’s fine to have your side gigs, but you know, always have the cash cow that’s going to pay the bills.

[00:03:26] So if you have a spouse or significant other, it’s very wise to have one person that does have that maybe JOB or something that’s very secure so that you can either pursue those endeavors or that’s your secondary. Because I’ve made that mistake many times, you know, where I’ve had several companies at the same time and just your time and your energy is so divided. And so, you know, you go to pursue something and you’re cash cow now, you let that go. I’m just saying that from experience of now, you’re like, “Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. That was actually paying my bills while I was building this.” And so I think it’s smart, you know, as my husband and I are looking more into retirement, we’re both entrepreneurs.

[00:04:06] And so it’s feast or famine, you know, you’re either doing really well or neither is doing well or only one’s doing well. it just depends on the times and figuring out how to make that shift in your businesses for sure.

[00:04:17]Caterina Rando: [00:04:17] Well, it sounds like one of the things that you do, Holly, is you have multiple streams of income. And that is something else as entrepreneurs, while we’re getting our things started, we could have some other revenue streams. Could be a JOB, or it could be, I know you’re very big with real estate. I love real estate.

[00:04:38]Holly, you have, then had an entrepreneurial lifestyle. And there are a lot of people listening, perhaps  who were not raised in a house with parents that either had side businesses or were entrepreneurs. What would you say to those people that are thinking about entrepreneurship?

[00:05:00] Holly Porter: [00:05:00] Well, definitely do it for one thing, but figure out the best way and what it’s going to work for you. I do a lot of personality profiling. And so I think learning about yourself first and figuring out what makes you work and how you work.

[00:05:13] Like I know that I don’t like details. I can’t stand them. In fact, I just bought this little side table for my new office and I opened it up and I didn’t even finish opening it because I could see it had all these little parts to it, for instance. I don’t want to put that together.

[00:05:27] Now, my husband likes that kind of stuff. And so you bet he’s going to do it cause I’m not going to do it. And so I think figuring out like how you are and what makes you work and what kind of people you work with. So I always say hire your opposite type of personalities when you get like assistants or anything like that, because they’re going to pick up the pieces that maybe you’re not so good at.

[00:05:47] And always, always look for people maybe smarter than you. Like, there’s nothing wrong with that. I want smart people on my team because they make me look good.

[00:05:59] Caterina Rando: [00:05:59] Absolutely. I would say everybody on my team is more detail oriented than me. Yeah, which is great. More detail oriented, more organized. Yes. For sure. For sure.

[00:06:12] Holly, let’s tell everybody now, you know, we’ve known each other for a few years now. You have shifted from what you were doing last time we talked, you’re doing something totally different, which we’re going to talk about.  Talk about your shift and talk about your ideas for others when they see that it might be time to shift. Still staying in the entrepreneurial zone because we want you to stay in the light. We don’t want you to go to the dark side, stay in the light. Okay? And sometimes a shift is necessary. Go ahead, Holly.

[00:06:46] Holly Porter: [00:06:46] Yeah. So, what I’d like to share is figuring out what works in the time. So just a little bit of history. For instance, I’ve had nine startup companies. When my kids were younger, I had an in-home daycare, I made very good money doing the in-home daycare. I did that. And then I had a children’s preschool and then I had a children’s clothing store. You know, and so as my kids grew up, we have eight children between my husband and I. We just figured it out. Then I had a beauty salon and then I made it a spa and then it was the only salon and spa in town.  And then we did like a fundraising company and then my kids all got to be part of that. So as they did sports and we raised money. So as they just grew up, I just kept shifting into whatever was working to make our lives better all the time.

[00:07:31] And so when last year happened and all of us probably made lots of shifts last year, just before everything got shut down, we were in the middle of selling our home and we were moving and I just had a gut feeling. I’ve been a real estate broker for 15 years. I’ve had several companies with that at the same time because I help people get multiple streams of income and how important that is because to me, your cash cow might be paying your bills now, but maybe when a recession hits now they flip.

[00:08:01] And now all of a sudden your passion project and your cash cow are opposite. You know, your cash cows not making your money anymore. So I think you just have to figure out what’s going to work at that time in your life. Most millionaires have a minimum of seven streams of income. I don’t know if you knew that.

[00:08:18]Caterina Rando: [00:08:18] I did not know that that is very interesting.

[00:08:20]Holly Porter: [00:08:20] Seven streams of income. So if you think about it, they’re not doing all the work. They’re hiring the right people. They’re figuring out a way to divide their time and figure out what’s going to work and where’s their best time spent, you know, with money-making projects.

[00:08:37]That’s been probably my biggest challenge that I’m learning. Stay in your lane, do what you’re good at and hire out the rest. And I know that’s really hard to say when you’re in it and you’re like going, “Wait, I can’t even pay myself. How am I going to pay someone else?” But if you free up that time of paying someone else to do that job, and you’re better at the sales piece or whatever that is, then all of a sudden you’re just going to feel that freedom, because now you’re in your lane, you’re doing your thing. You’re letting someone else do theirs and it’s just going to work so much better. So that was probably my key takeaway from today that I could just do is just stay in your lane, do what you’re good at.

[00:09:15] But, when everything happened last year, we sold the house and we moved and four days later we got emergency custody of a five month old baby and a 10 year old grandkids in crisis. And all of a sudden, you know, my baby’s 26, we have eight kids, but he’s 26. Like we’ve been empty nesters for awhile. And that freedom just went poof.

[00:09:36] And so just before that happened, I just had a gut feeling: you need to build your real estate business in your own backyard. I had really let that go for about five years, I had just done a little bit of real estate here and there. And I was like, “No, now’s the time.”

[00:09:50] Well, I’m a publisher. And so I was thinking I’d always wanted to do a magazine and this is the time. This is a great lead generator. I always try to think, “What could be different? What would help me stand out from everybody else that not everybody else is doing?” That’s just kinda my thing.

[00:10:06] And the magazine was it. I thought, you know, there’s companies that publish and throw a real estate agent or lender, whatever on the magazine, and then they can send them out. But I’m a publisher. I know how to do this.

[00:10:17] Well, I didn’t know how to do all this. I had to figure it out and I had to shift quick because it took a lot of time, energy, and money out of my own pocket. It was like starting a whole nother company and all of a sudden. And so, I’m working and doing that, I have these grandkids, I took over a brokerage as a broker. And then started in a city an hour away as another broker. So I had two companies, I was brokering for somebody else, taking care of these  grandkids, working on starting this magazine and the new podcast show that we’re putting up.

[00:10:47] And I just thought, “What the heck am I thinking?” and I know in my gut, even now we don’t have custody of the kids anymore. I had them for six months and it was the biggest blessing. And it was probably one of the hardest things I ever did. But I know I made a difference in their lives. And during that time, we also fostered, we  went through the whole foster classes and all that. And that was a whole nother thing because everything and every organization we were working with during the pandemic had their own rules and stuff. I mean, it was just nuts. So there was just like so much that I didn’t even feel like there was a pandemic going on because we were in such our own bubble of changes that it was like, what? What’s that, you know?

[00:11:25] And so we’re glad that’s all behind us now. Our magazine so far super successful we’re on our third issue will come out July 1st. And that’s really just what I want to say to people to just figure out, when something changes or it’s not going the way it should be, just step back for a minute, take some deep breaths and just say, “Okay, what, what can I do to change this? What’s in my wheelhouse? What skills do I have? What do I need? Who do I need to maybe mentor with?”

[00:11:53] You know, there’s so many things that can change. And I know that’s a lot, I’ve just said a lot, but really honestly it’s just breathing into everything and realizing it’s going to be okay. You can figure it out, everything you can figure out and you just need to figure out.

[00:12:10]Caterina Rando: [00:12:10] Yes, you can figure it out. Holly, I want to jump back and I want to say two things. One is that I want to give you a big virtual hug and kiss and send you love for taking on fostering children. Because I used to work a lot with foster parents, teaching them different things and foster parents get a bum rap because of course there’s always a few bad apples, but most of the people that I’ve met in my interaction with foster parents, it’s their ministry. You know, it’s their mission in life to give love to children that don’t have any and have been abandoned and neglected. You getangel wings for that.

[00:13:01]Holly Porter: [00:13:01] Thank you.

[00:13:02] Caterina Rando: [00:13:02] The other thing is that in the midst of that, you started your next venture with your magazine. And that would have been an opportunity for lesser women to say, “we’re going to put that on hold.” To say, “well, I’m not going to do that now.” To make an excuse. And this is something that separates high achieving women from regular women, is the ability to manage multiple priorities at the same time.

[00:13:38] And I’d like you to speak to that a little bit. Because these are like big things that are happening all at once. And when we talk about shifting, you know, there’s never a right time, right? And so you could say, “Well, I’m not going to do that because I’ve got these grandkids now.” Yeah, well, you did it anyway, said, “How can I?” instead of, “I can’t.” Speak to this, my friend.

[00:14:01] Holly Porter: [00:14:01] Yeah. And it was challenging because I couldn’t even let anybody else watch them for awhile. I mean, there were so many rules, you know, with foster that I like felt so trapped. And the magazine kind of came more at the end, after we got a few things handled and things were a little bit better.

[00:14:17] And that being said, I think it’s just knowing in your heart, like the magazine I will speak to that has probably been one of the most things, when people say, what keeps you up at night?

[00:14:29] I always thought that was the dumbest question ever. I’m like, what keeps you up at night? Are you kidding? I’m so tired when I go to bed, I’m in the middle of a sentence, talking to my husband and I’m snoring already, you know? What keeps me up? Nothing keeps me up. I’m going to sleep because that’s what you do when you go to bed, you know?

[00:14:44]And honestly the magazine, I know now that is what kept me up. Because I would wake up just so many thoughts in my head, I had so many ideas and had so many things that I wanted to envision for it. But then again, it was that sales piece, which is what pays for it, you know? So it was a lot of money out of my pocket.

[00:15:02] I mean, tens of thousands of dollars at this point, and I’m still working on that piece being handled. But I’m just saying that fear when people talk about, I mean, I’ve coached and I’ve consulted for years. And I’d never really, really felt that. Like everything I ever did, every business I ever did I have the gift of knowing. So I just knew it was right and I would do it, you know? And people were like, “but how do you know?” Okay because I have the gift of knowing, like, I’m sorry, I that’s one of my gifts. And I just would do it.

[00:15:33] This piece though. Oh, wow. I just, I remember just feeling that, wanting to throw up like, “Oh my gosh, am I doing right thing?” And I can remember my first issue, when I went to go to print where our goal was to get to 10,000 pretty quickly. Well, from 5,000 to 10,000 magazines was like a thousand dollars difference in the printing. Right? So I bit the bullet and I just created, you know, 10,000 of these.

[00:15:58] And I was like, “okay, we’re going to get this done. We’re going to do it.” And you know, every time we do it there’s pieces, we’re adding to it, but we always have a theme. We always have a full philanthropy piece that we do in there. And you know, and so there’s so many things in there that I want people to know they can look forward to. But I remember that going, “Okay, now’s the line in the sand. I could keep this digital, my first one and I can just, we have an app that’s what’s different and they can go on there and get it, you know? Right there.”

[00:16:26] And we can just do that. And it was like, “No. No, we are doing this. We are printing and we are printing 10,000 of them.” So I can remember that just like want to throw up feeling. And I really don’t remember experiencing that before. And so my advice would be, when you feel like that, that’s probably the biggest reason you should be doing it.

[00:16:47]Now there’s also that gut feeling I want to throw out because you shouldn’t be doing it too. And I think figuring out what your body is telling you is when you feel that and you know how you are. And it was just like, the second issue. It was like, “Gosh, should I only do 5,000 this time?”

[00:17:02] Like I said, I just bit the bullet and I did it and I know it was right. Like I looked back and I go “Oh, I got a lot of debt from this and I hate that.” That is me. I was like, “Oh, this is not where I want to be.”

[00:17:14] But I know where it can be. And the other thing I will share,  with the magazine, I never did it to make money. I did it to get leads for real estate. Because everybody wants to live in Southern Utah right now. And we are a great place to, and if you don’t know about it, look it up because we have national and state parks everywhere. It’s fun, the weather’s great. So it’s just such a great place. And I’m like, “Oh, I’ll get these new people.”

[00:17:37]And so my thing was that just like you doing something different, and I still feel like it is different. Of course, I’m not going to allow any other real estate agent to be in there especially after all the hard work, they can go create their own if they want. But anyway, I say, you just do it, do it, do it,

[00:17:55] Caterina Rando: [00:17:55] Holly, as you know, I used to have a magazine for two years, We published a magazine and I understand about staying up at night and not being able to fall asleep because it is a huge undertaking. I have great admiration for anyone, and you’re doing both print and digital and an app. So you’re doing three different platforms. My hat is off to you and I’m glad that your magazine is doing well.

[00:18:23] And yeah, the other thing about it is when we have different platforms that we’re being visible on, those all support, not only the other platforms, but they support the revenue as well. I am thrilled to hear that you’re doing well with your magazine.

[00:18:40] And for me, if I can say, I got clear that, you know what? I like the speaking stuff. I like the podcast I like Clubhouse. Of course, I like to speak, that those are my platforms. We have a great app where people can also watch videos. The thing is that the magazine showed me that, you know what? This is great for someone else because I’m not that detail oriented person. And even when we used to publish books,  it was a lot of stress.

[00:19:13] And even though we generated a lot of revenue, it was very lucrative, I think it’s important for us to all get clear about not just what makes us money, where our bliss is. And for me, my bliss is everything that involves people rather than products.

[00:19:32] And for you, it sounds like you, I mean, I know that you’re not detail oriented either, but it sounds like this is bringing you more people for your real estate and you’re building a lot of influence in your community. And so that’s making it really a good decision for you.

[00:19:50] And I’m sure you have a great team because I know that you’re good at going out and creating partnerships and, and selling, I’m sure. And you have other people doing the details. Is that right Holly?

[00:20:02] Holly Porter: [00:20:02] Yeah, we do. I have about a dozen on the team. I still don’t have the greatest sales team yet. That is one piece. But what I did figure out was that that needed to be me because I want to build influence and a good reputation as the go-to person for Southern Utah, then I need to meet these people.

[00:20:20] And how am I going to do that if I’m not pounding the pavement myself? And it’s just a different thing and a different way of looking at it. But when I figured that out, that was why I was having all those challenges.

[00:20:29]Caterina Rando: [00:20:29] you’re always going to be the best rep for your company and the best sales person for your company. And I think that’s true for most women entrepreneurs because we’re the one with the passion and the vision.

[00:20:43] I will say for me, I’m looking now at adding a sales person or a sales team to help me because there’s more fabulous ladies to talk to than we’ve got time to talk to them. And if you want to scale your business, if you want to significantly grow your business, you know, we always talk about building your team and having a team for many of the things in your business.

[00:21:08] And at some point this is also a place where you want to have team is with sales, so that you can focus on the CEO stuff and all the other important things that have to happen. You know, I like to say speaking, selling, serving, strategy, and self care, and I would say if any of those have to be taken off your plate, that it would be sales. Because you still have to be, like you were saying, the face of your company, right?

[00:21:40] And the, the representative, if you have a service business. Of course you have to do the strategy. Of course you have to do the self-care. Now other people can be of service, but you still have to be the overseer and the decision maker when it comes to how you serve your clients.

[00:21:57] Holly Porter: [00:21:57] Yeah. And there’s one thing I thought of when I was saying that is a pattern, you know, when I was talking earlier about your companies, maybe shifting. When I started it, I didn’t start it to make money off the magazine, but anyone right now knows how the real estate market is.

[00:22:11] I mean, I have millionaires I’m working with,  they have cash and I can’t get them under contract. Like it is so crazy. The offers are so crazy there, anywhere from five to 10% or more above asking price. So that being said, I’m doing three, four or five times the work in real estate as we used to, they’re cutting our commissions. Don’t ask me why that is also becoming the norm. People aren’t wanting or needing us, they think, even though we can serve them the best.

[00:22:40] But now the magazine, the way I see it, if I get like experts I’m putting in there and just different ways I’m partnering, especially with the restaurants can get on there.

[00:22:49] They can get in the magazine, they can get on the app, they can have the menus on the app. So there’s all these things we’re building with it that shows lots of value. But now all of a sudden I can see the magazine being a very good other source of income all of a sudden.

[00:23:04] Caterina Rando: [00:23:04] Beautiful

[00:23:05]Holly Porter: [00:23:05] Before I thought, “Oh, I don’t care if I break even, I’m happy now.” I’m like, “Whoa” actually. And after the real estate last couple of weeks, the work I put into that for nothing. You know, you just got to figure out that balance and what’s going to work. But if you have multiple streams, like I said, at different times, it’s going to shift.

[00:23:23] Caterina Rando: [00:23:23] That’s right. And I, I see that even in my own business, sometimes retreats are doing better. Sometimes group programs are doing better. Sometimes everybody wants to work one-on-one. There’s different things that are more effective depending on the time of year, depending on the market. Beautiful. Okay.

[00:23:43] Holly, let’s first, any final thoughts? But you want to share about shifting thriving in business, expanding your fempire?

[00:23:53]Holly Porter: [00:23:53] I have a free gift for everybody.

[00:23:54] Caterina Rando: [00:23:54] Yeah, that’s my next question, that’s good.  Okay, so let’s jump to it. How do people get in touch with you? How do they find out more about you? How do they subscribe to your magazine? Now, they have to be in your area to subscribe to your magazine?

[00:24:07]Holly Porter: [00:24:07] Yeah. You can get ahold of me at holly@hollyporter.com if you want to email me and you can find me on Facebook, Holly Porter. And then, the app, if you want to go check it out, it’s sure. So S U R E we brand everything under The Sure Team cause we’re Southern Utah Real Estate, is what that stands for. So SURE. And then BIZ, surebizapp, app.com. So surebizapp.com. You can go check that out. It’s just web based, you don’t have to download anything, which the people like.

[00:24:37] And then I have one of my books right here. So this one’s for the women, “Inbox, Outbox, Unbox, Nobox: Four Steps to Delete Your Box Thinking.”  And I have a PDF of that. It’s just a short read. I’ll do like a half an hour, but what’s fun about it is this will help you learn about yourself, shoes style. I call it.

[00:24:56] So you take a little 13 question quiz about if you were shoe, what kind of shoe would you be? And then it teaches you four steps in that particular shoe style of how you step out of your box because there is no box.

[00:25:08] So it’s all mindset, shoe set, whatever you want.  I’d love to know what shoe style people are so that you can email me there. And.

[00:25:18]Caterina Rando: [00:25:18] How fun.

[00:25:19] Holly Porter: [00:25:19] Yeah, it’s fun. That was one of my first books I did. And it’s the fun one. Thank you.

[00:25:24] Caterina Rando: [00:25:24] Well, Holly, thank you for your insights today. Thank you for being a model of a woman who’s doing a lot and getting the job done and building influence in your community. I love that you have an app. You’re the only other gal I know with her own app who’s also an author and everything else that we do.

[00:25:46] My friends, please connect with Holly, hollyporter.com. She uplifts every room she walks into and she’ll uplift you. And everybody, take the ideas we’ve discussed here, apply them to your own fempire building because the more you thrive in your business, the more you get to uplift more lives.

[00:26:08] You remember that you have massive value to bring. By the way, if you are not a member of our Facebook group, Thriving Women in Business, please join us. Please check out caterinarando.com and you can also find out about our upcoming workshops.  I always have a free workshop every month that you can attend.

[00:26:30] And guess what? If you are on Clubhouse, please join us in the Thriving Women in Biz club. We have rooms every week that you can jump into and I’m here to support you to build your fempire, expand your fempire, thrive and bliss everywhere in your business and your life. Talk to you again soon.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.