How to Sell Your Expertise and Have Space for Your Family Featuring Holly Hester-Reilly

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:00

I am a mom of two kids.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:02

And so a big part of my entrepreneurship career has also been balancing work

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:07

and life, and making space for what I want to do at home with my family.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:12

And that's also something that I'm passionate about.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:00:14

And I want people to know that you can do that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:23

Welcome to Smashing the Plateau.

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We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business

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owners build their business after a long career as an employed professional.

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We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid

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what you're worth, consistently.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:41

I'm your host, David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:44

Today on Smashing the Plateau, I'm speaking with the Founder and CEO of H2R

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Product Science, Holly Hester-Reilly.

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In today's episode, you will learn how to sell your expertise

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when it's new to the market.

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And at the same time, have space for your family.

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Stay with us to hear all the details.

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Are you building your consulting, coaching or small business following a

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long career as an employed professional?

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Are you tired of trying to build your business alone?

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Come meet other consultants, coaches, and small business owners on Friday,

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August 26th at 12 noon Eastern Time.

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We're having an Open House so that you can experience a bit of what we do in

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the Smashing the Plateau Community.

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You'll have an opportunity to think more critically about your

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work, meet colleagues who want to support your success and learn how

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a curated community can empower you to make progress toward your goals.

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To register for the Open House, go to smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

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That's smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

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At Smashing the Plateau, our mission is empowering high achieving professionals

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to do what they love and get paid what they're worth, as entrepreneurs.

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Now let's welcome, Holly Hester-Reilly.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:07

Holly is the founder and CEO of H2R Product Science, a product

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:12

management coaching and consulting firm that teaches the science of

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:16

high growth product development and Host of the Product Science Podcast.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:22

Holly is a former Columbia University research scientist and has spent

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:26

the last 15 years leading product initiatives at startups, high growth

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:31

companies and enterprises like FalconX, MediaMath, Shutterstock,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:36

The Lean Startup Co, Unilever, Capital One, and Weight Watchers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:40

Holly also teaches at NYU Stern School of Business, as well as

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:45

public and private workshops.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:47

And has spoken about building high growth products for events, such

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:51

as, Lean Startup Summit Europe, ProductTankNYC, Parsons School of Design,

and INDUSTRY: 00:02:57

The Product Conference.

and INDUSTRY: 00:02:59

Holly, welcome to the show.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:01

Thank you.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:02

I'm excited to be here.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:03

It's great to have you on tell me a little

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:05

bit about your career choices.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:07

My career choices is, was a bit of a journey.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:10

In my early career.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:11

I had actually gone to school for chemical engineering, and then I got involved

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:17

in a startup because my husband at the time had wanted to found a startup.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:23

And I just realized like, oh, I think I can help with this.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:26

I've got good organization skills and I've learned some things about product design.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:30

And I, got involved in that and I just fell in love with tech startups,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:35

and I love the pace of change and learning and the people around me.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:42

And so I, started a career in tech startups.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:45

And how much of your chemical engineering

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:47

education was directly related to the work in tech startups

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:53

Directly related?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:54

Not much, but I think definitely, I think a lot about process design and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:03:59

I think about the way that we develop products and the process design of

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:04

designing the development process.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:06

We learned things like control systems, which were ways to keep

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:09

an chemical plant from exploding.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:12

But they also involved things like, having inspection points and making

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:16

sure that you've got mechanisms to move a chemical reaction, back

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:22

towards where it needs to go.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:23

I love using things like that in product development, making sure that there's,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:28

inspection points for how the product is developing and mechanisms for guiding

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:32

it in the direction that it needs to go.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:33

So the process part has a lot of yes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:38

And within startups, what caused you to focus on product initiative specifically,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:45

I basically just really was gravitating towards that

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:49

because it was fun and it had a good mix of both analytical and, liberal arts

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:04:55

skills needed because you have to do a lot of communication, a lot of vision building

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:01

a lot of collaboration with coworkers, but you also have to be analytical enough

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:06

to, talk to the engineers to understand what they're talking about and to.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:10

understand the data and be able to work with metrics.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:12

And so it really used, wide breadth of my skills and that's been really fun for me.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:17

And in your career, how much of your work has been as an

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:19

employee and how much as an entrepreneur?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:21

So I always like to say I've been doing, product for 15

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:24

years and the first five years were early stage startups of less than 10 people.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:29

And so the first one, I was a co-founder.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:32

And that was several years.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:34

And then I became an employee for the second one.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:37

So then I was an employee for about seven years, and then I founded my own company

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:43

and went back to being an entrepreneur.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:45

And I've been doing that, it's been five years since my company was founded

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:48

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:48

And when you were in school, did you want to follow an entrepreneurial path

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:53

versus, career path as an employee?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:55

I wanted to be a research professor

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:05:59

and a teaching professor.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:00

So I guess I, technically they're an employee, but it's an entrepreneurial

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:04

venture as well, because you're really guiding your research and, you have to go

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:07

out and seek funding and things like that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:10

Interesting.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:10

And what were some of the hurdles along the way about, in this transition

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:16

into entrepreneurship that you faced and maybe were unexpected.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:20

The one that comes to mind the most is like how

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:23

difficult it is to manage finances and stay on top of all of the paperwork

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:28

and things like that that are involved.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:30

That definitely, you know, I was always very organized and I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:32

thought I would be fine, but it was a bit overwhelming at points.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:36

I also think that one thing that sometimes is to challenge is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:40

self-motivating and staying on track.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:42

But, certainly that's not enough of a challenge to stop me.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:45

How did you find solutions for those two issues?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:48

So you mentioned the tracking finances and then staying self-motivated.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:54

So on the finances side, I definitely, read up

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:06:58

on finances for small business owners.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:01

And then I sought, professionals to do my taxes and to be my accountant.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:05

And that helped the first many years.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:07

I didn't, I did it all myself cause I was trying to save money.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:11

And then after a while I realized like I should pay someone else to do this

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:14

because they'll do it better than I will.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:16

So definitely recommend going for the professional to help you with that, even

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:19

if you're surprised by the price tag.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:22

And then on staying motivated, I think always having something bigger that I'm

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:27

working towards is what really helps me, get out of bed and get to work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:31

knowing that big picture goal.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:33

Yeah, having the big picture goal is really important.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:36

I actually want to do a little deeper dive on the, what you mentioned with regard

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:40

to getting help for the financial issue.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:43

How do you know when it's time to get help?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:45

I think when you realize that you're

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:47

struggling to do it yourself.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:48

So when you're, especially if you get to a point, like, I, I actually

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:52

got to a point where I was feeling ashamed at how much I felt like I was

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:07:56

struggling with managing, independent business owner taxes and paperwork.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:02

And, once I felt like it was hard for me to put my attention towards

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:06

it, I realized that I needed to get someone else to do this.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:10

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:10

It's interesting that you mentioned being ashamed of how you were struggling with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:15

something I think that is actually a common feeling that yeah, that many of us

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:19

have, particularly when we're going into entrepreneurship after doing something

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:24

else and entrepreneurship is a new thing.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:27

There's I don't know if you feel the same way I do, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:30

I think that there's a, this sort of a part of our culture, is the expectation

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:36

that we should know how to do these things, particularly entrepreneurship.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:41

And it there's nothing that's farther from the truth.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:44

It's I have yet to meet an entrepreneur who has built a successful business

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:48

on her or his own without a team or without some kind of help.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:51

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:53

But there is a lot of pressure in our culture to feel like you're getting things

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:57

done by yourself and, to be independent.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:08:59

And so I definitely find that the more we can spread the word and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:04

help people feel comfortable with getting help and leaning on a team.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:08

The better.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:09

Let's talk a little bit about that, what

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:10

you mentioned with regard to the price tag what are your thoughts?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:13

Getting help where there's a hefty price tag.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:15

I think that it's hard to make that decision about

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:19

whether you should, pay that price, but it also usually is indicative

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:24

of the value that they're going to provide and the skill that they have.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:27

And if you're paying a tax lawyer and they're, charging you, four

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:32

figures and, but you realize that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:35

you need that skill and that's why they're able to charge that much.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:09:37

And so it, you have to overcome that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:39

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:40

So now let's talk a little bit about the self-motivation, how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:09:42

did you realize that you needed some method of staying motivated?

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:09:47

That's a good question.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:09:49

I probably applied my own processes to my own work.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:09:52

And so I, realized like, okay, if it feels like things are slipping or I'm losing

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:09:57

track of the big picture or I'm not, getting work done because I'm not feeling

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:10:03

motivated that I probably need some kind of inspect and adapt process that's

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:10:08

going to be looking at what's happening.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:10:09

And then giving me a way to nudge, in one direction or another.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:13

And do you have a structure for staying self-motivated?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:17

I have the mastermind

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:20

. David Shriner-Cahn: Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:20

Why don't you share a little bit about that?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:22

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:22

So I've been part of a mastermind with, David leading us.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:26

And, I had brought together several other people who are in a similar

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:30

field to me, or a similar position to me, which was basically entrepreneurs

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:34

that are selling something that is relatively new to be sold as a

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:39

consulting contract type of work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:41

And so we have another product consultant and a program management consultant.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:45

And we get together once a week.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:47

And with David's help we check in on each other's businesses and what our plans are

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:52

and what we're doing to move it forward.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:53

And why is it helpful to be doing this on a consistent basis?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:58

and with peers?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:10:58

Well, because it gives me that inspect touchpoint, that

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:02

place where it's okay, no matter what ever else is going on, no matter how much

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:07

client work I have at least once a week, I'm going to stop and I'm going to think

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:10

about the big picture and what am I moving forward outside of just the client work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:14

And that's really helpful.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:17

And doing it with peers is really helpful because we can learn from each other,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:20

but also we can support each other and provide validation of, why things are

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:11:26

difficult or share different things that we're seeing in, out in the wild.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:30

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:31

And I've, I'm also in a group, a similar group that, I find very helpful for

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:37

the same reason, the once a week check in and, and the accountability and the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:41

feedback and the support from peers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:43

And in my career, I have been in such groups on and off.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:48

And I find that it's way more helpful when it's on than when it's off finding

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:52

the right mix of people to spend time with on a regular basis, whether it's

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:56

once a week or whatever the frequency is, it takes a while to get that to jell.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:01

But once it does, it can really be magical.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:03

So thank you for sharing that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:05

I'd love to talk a little more about what it's like to sell

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:08

something that is new to the market.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:11

Particularly when it is like knowledge or idea based.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:15

And so you're selling your expertise, but it's something that is relatively new.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:19

What, what are some of the challenges that are that go along with that?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:24

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:24

So one of the biggest challenges is just that the buyers don't

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:29

have established buying processes.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:31

They're not used to buying this.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:33

And so they don't know how to evaluate whether they should

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:38

trust me with the contract.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:40

And they typically have hired consultants or contractors for something at some

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:44

point in their career, but they haven't hired them for product management is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:49

often the case and they have this pervasive belief that you need an

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:12:55

in-house person who's dedicated to the job, dedicated to the company and seeing

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:00

the holistic picture to do this work.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:03

And it was definitely an uphill challenge at the beginning of my

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:07

time with my business, figuring out how I convinced people that they

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:11

should trust me with a contract and then I'll, deliver results for them.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:14

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:14

so how do you.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:15

Social proof is definitely a big part of it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:17

And content marketing is a big part of it and network and the strength

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:22

of my network is a big part of it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:24

So by social proof, being able to say things like I teach at NYU Stern,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:28

or, I've spoken at this conference and that, helps build credibility.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:32

And then quite a lot of my work comes through my network.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:36

And so somebody else that they trust or who has, more cache than I do is

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:41

telling them you want to work with Holly.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:43

And so that's, definitely a big influence point.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:48

And then in the content marketing is really how I got my name out there and,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:52

built up some of these relationships that send me the referrals by engaging

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:13:56

with other thought leaders in, social media and, Occasionally at conferences.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:01

So there's a connection between the content

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:03

marketing and the networking.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:05

Yes, definitely.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:06

How did you figure out your own content marketing process?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:11

I've read a lot of different people's guides on

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:14

content marketing and how to do it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:16

And then I made myself checklists.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:18

So I have, a Trello board.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:20

Or a, now it's on notion, but, a, kanban style board that has the different faces,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:26

like ideas in one column and, things that are being drafted in another column.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:30

And then, a phase for the editing and review.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:33

And I give myself checkpoints like that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:35

So that if I'm doing a written article, I try to make sure that I, get some

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:39

feedback from people before I publish it.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:41

And then I have an SEO checklist and, things like that, that I'll use to

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:45

just go through the whole process.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:47

Where do you distribute your content?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:49

What channels.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:50

So my primary content is my podcast.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:54

And so that I distribute, I use anchor.fm to distribute it through all the

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:14:58

places that podcasts are listened to.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:00

And then for written content, I email it out.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:03

I put it on my website and I often post it on Medium as well.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:07

How did you decide, like what channels and what methods you

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:11

were going to be using for distribution?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:13

Like why a podcast, for example?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:15

So for me, the podcast made a lot of sense because,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:19

one of my skills is talking to people and getting them to share, interesting

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:24

insights and stories from their lives.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:26

And it's a thing that I love to do.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:29

So it's also a lot of fun for me and I'm able to do it much faster than I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:33

can write a good article, because, I spend an hour recording the podcast.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:37

I spend a little bit of time doing research to find the podcast guests and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:40

a little bit of time after the podcast to put together the show notes and

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:44

pick the title and things like that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:46

But all in all that adds up to a lot less time than what it

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:15:49

takes me to write a good article.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:51

What percent of your time would you say you

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:53

devote to content marketing?

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:15:56

That's a good question.

Holly Hester-Reilly:

Speaker: 00:15:57

I would say off the top of my head, 5 to 10%.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:02

That's pretty good.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:04

It is.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:04

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:05

Yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:05

That sounds very efficient to me.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:08

Yes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:08

Cause I can tell you, I probably spend way more than that.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:11

You produce more content than I do.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:13

Oh yeah.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:14

I guess there is a relationship.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:16

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:18

Going back to the networking part.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:20

What system or processes do you use to build your network?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:27

I definitely in the early days of running my own

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:29

business, reached out to, favorite past colleagues and just asked them to go

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:35

out to coffee or to put me in touch with somebody who might be in a buying

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:38

position to go out to coffee with.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:40

And just to talk to other people, whether they were potential buyers

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:44

or they were, maybe people who'd done something like this before as well,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:48

or even just, Mid-career people who might not have the power to buy, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:51

could give me insight into how product was working at a different company.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:16:55

So I did a lot of coffees in my first couple of years to the point where I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:00

started having to be like, okay, maybe sometimes I should just meet somebody for

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:03

a walk, cuz I'm drinking too much coffee.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:06

And then from there, people introduced you to other people and then, you talk

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:11

to them and then at a certain point, it snowballed to a, a tipping point

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:16

where now, I have this network and I feel like I have to invest in it, but

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:22

it also is just paying dividends from the investment that I made years ago

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:26

To have patience, perseverance and be consistent.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:32

Yes, absolutely.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:33

It's incredible how much, work I get today that is related to something I

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:38

did two, three years ago in networking.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:40

That's actually really great advice.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:43

Holly, what advice would you have for somebody who is in the early

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:48

stages of a consulting business, trying to sell something that

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:54

is relatively new to the market?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:17:56

I would say, do your discovery work, you have

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:00

as many informal conversations, you don't have to always be selling.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:04

You can just be learning.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:07

And I think in the early days, when you're trying to figure out,

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:09

what are the problems I can solve?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:11

What are the things that my buyers have done before to

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:14

try to solve those problems?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:16

And what do their purchasing processes look like?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:21

Just being a detective and learning as much of that as you can help you

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:25

put together a plan that will work.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:27

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:28

And when you look forward to much later in your career, what would

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:32

you love to be well known for?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:35

I would love to be well known for providing a process

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:41

with really tactical, tangible impact that has helped product managers build

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:50

good products earlier in their careers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:53

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:54

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:56

share before we close out?

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:18:58

This is maybe not so related, but I am a mom of two kids.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:03

And so a big part of my entrepreneurship career has also been balancing work

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:08

and life and making space for what I want to do at home with my family.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:13

And, that's also something that I'm passionate about.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:15

And I want people to know that you can do that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:18

I love that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:18

Thank you for sharing that, Holly, I want to thank you so much for taking the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:21

time to join us today on Smashing the Plateau and share your story and your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:25

insights and be so forthcoming about how you have built a fabulous business.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:30

My guest today has been the founder and CEO of H2R Product

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:33

Science, Holly Hester-Reilly.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:35

Thank you again, Holly, for joining us.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:37

Thank you, David.

Holly Hester-Reilly: 00:19:38

It's been a pleasure

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:41

When you visit the Smashing the Plateau website at

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:44

smashingtheplateau.com, you'll find a summary of each episode, along with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:49

the links we mentioned on the show.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:51

On today's episode with Holly Hester-Reilly, we learned how to sell your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:55

expertise when it's new to the market.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:58

And at the same time, have space for your family.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:01

Are you building your consulting, coaching, or small business following a

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:04

long career as an employed professional?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:07

Are you tired of trying to build your business alone?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:11

Come meet other consultants, coaches, and small business owners on Friday,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:15

August 26th at 12 noon Eastern Time.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:19

We're having an open house so that you can experience a bit of what we do in

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:23

the Smashing the Plateau Community.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:26

You'll have an opportunity to think more critically about your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:29

work, meet colleagues who want to support your success and learn how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:33

a curated community can empower you to make progress toward your goals.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:39

To register for the Open House, go to smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:45

That's smashingtheplateau.com/openhouse.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:49

At Smashing the Plateau, our mission is empowering high achieving professionals

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:54

to do what they love and get paid what they're worth, as entrepreneurs.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:58

I'm David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:00

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.