The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 101: Creating Signature Methods With Elizabeth Hartke

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In today’s episode we have a very special guest, Elizabeth Hartke. She is a business scaling strategist who has been in marketing for 10 years. I am so excited to dive into how she helps create signature methods to scaling your business and not trading time for money.

Creating Signature Methods with Elizabeth Hartke

By: Melissa Lin

Today, I have a very special guest with me, Elizabeth Hartke. She has been in marketing for 10 years and as a business scaling strategist. After a stint in the corporate world, she broke into entrepreneurship but found herself stuck in the grind! (that's never fun) She knew she wanted to do it differently, where she can create a business model that actually allowed her to have more freedom and passive income. And now she teaches others how to do the same. If you're an entrepreneur in business, and you want to get out of trading time for money-then this is the podcast episode for you. Big loving welcome! We're so excited to have you here with us, Elizabeth.

You’re the best, Melissa! I'm so pumped to be here.

Can you just walk us through how you got started? What got you to where you are today? My audience is going to be so excited to learn more about you.

Yeah. I'm happy to share. And don't worry. I’m not going to take you back to the very beginning, although I did grow up in a family of entrepreneurs. But the big thing that stuck out to me growing up with Mom and Dad as independent business owners was the flexibility of that lifestyle. My mom would always be there to cook dinner, they were always at our ball games for me and my brother, and just so many things we loved because those were values that were fundamental to our family. It was on my heart to be able to do that someday, but one thing that always stuck out to me that I noticed in my parents' businesses (and I have multiple aunts and uncles and grandparents that were in entrepreneurship) was that they had flexibility, but not time freedom. I say that in the sense that although my mom would be there to be able to make dinner and eat dinner as a family or my parents would be at our sporting events, I still remember getting up to go use the bathroom as a little kid at like 11:00 or midnight after I had gone to bed. I would see the light turned on in the dining room and all of my mom's papers spread across the dining room table as she would be “making up for the time that she had missed” because she shifted her schedule to be present with us. Because if she wasn’t working, she wasn't making money. So, she had the flexibility and she had the value systems to prioritize our family. Which gave us the most wonderful life, but it meant that she would have to pay for it later. And because I saw that on repeat, I thought maybe I should just take that conventional path. And that's what ended me in that corporate stint. Prior to that, I had school for journalism thinking maybe I would be a journalist. And when I got one taste of mainstream media and saw how toxic it was, I decided I had to pivot. So I went to what some people might call ‘the safe route’ and went into corporate marketing. I loved what I was learning and what I was doing, but I hated how I had to do it. I felt so stifled in the lifestyle of being in a corporation. Which for some people, they thrive. For me, it was just not the right fit. I'm actually what I thought was a terrible employee because I had zero passion behind it. And I hated that I couldn't tie in my creativity and I just felt like I was being suffocated in that space. So, principally, I started my own business doing some of the things I was doing in corporate for other businesses outside of that space under my own name, but I ultimately ended up creating a trading time for money model where I was once again trapped in the hustle and the grind. I thought if I break into entrepreneurship I would have freedom, totally forgetting what I grew up on all those years watching my mom not have freedom because of how she started her business. So that's when I pivoted years ago and said, you know what, “I know there has to be another way. I know there has to be a scalable business model that exists that could allow me to have that freedom of time to be present for my children, but not have to pay for it later and then I can teach other people how to do it too.” So that's what I've been out there doing for years now and I'm insanely passionate about helping other entrepreneurs make sure that they are scaling their income and their impact in that time of freedom that we all want so much.

That is so cool. I think it's so interesting because I grew up the complete opposite. I don't think I even knew what entrepreneurship was until I started watching Shark Tank 15 years, 10 years ago. My parents were 9-5 and didn't even realize entrepreneurship was an option. So I think it's so interesting because I feel like the story that I was always telling myself in the past, the ones born into entrepreneurship will most likely become entrepreneurs. Like why in the world wouldn't they? So I love that you have a different pivot and come to your own thing before coming back into it. So excited to hear more about all of that.

So what about your business? Can you dive into your business a little bit more? We know who you serve. How are you serving these women? Are you helping them really scale with the time and the freedom? How are you actually doing this? Like what is a day in the life working you look like?

So, it’s shifted over the years because of how I now structure my business model. So to have a scalable business, you have to develop it in a way that creates passive income streams. You know, you can scale in many ways. You can bring more people in to do the work that you're doing or you can expand, but one of the ways that I like to teach for online business (or even people wanting to bring your business online) is how can you take your expertise, knowledge, or what your already offering and break them up? Chunk them up, extract your wisdom, and call it mining for gold. Take out all that goodness and then create a scalable business model from that. So most of my time goes into creating content because I already have the well-oiled machine of my Mastermind operate (my maverick mastermind). So some of my time goes into nurturing the entrepreneurs within that group. But a lot of that is front loaded in the sense that I create the curriculum that they get access to. So it doesn't require a ton of my time. The biggest thing that I want to coach entrepreneurs on is how can you extract yourself from the situation and still be able to earn. Yes, you're still present in your business. Yes. You're still there to mentor your people. But your paycheck isn't totally dependent on you being physically present or virtual or whatever it might be. So some of my time is going into mentoring my one on one clients, my high ticket clients, my mastermind members. But over 50 percent, if not 60, 70 percent of my time is in the content creation space because that allows me to have things that live ongoing even after I've created it, that can continue to make that impact and can continue to draw an income through multiple streams within my business model. And love that so much love. I love it. You know, trading hours for money is no fun. And a lot of people are doing it.

I know. And there's other ways and I'm so excited for you to really help show other people that it doesn't have to be this way. Doesn't have to be the hustle, hustle, hustle: working 20 hour days as an entrepreneurship because it's not fun.

So we are going to dive into crafting your signature offer. I know it's definitely a sign of genius for you as well. What are some of those first steps in wanting to create your signature offer?

This is where people can go from being one of many in a space- another business coach, another social media strategist, another influencer or whatever it might be- to someone that's known for what they do. So when you go from, let's talk business coach, for example, I'm a business coach. I help people grow their businesses. It's so big. It's so general. And there's no methodology behind it. There is no roadmap of how you take someone from where they are pre-transformation, where they don't want to be right, where their experience, their biggest pain points, their biggest struggles through a process that is proprietary to you, your own signature method, and that you can outline for them and that they can see, wow, if I work with her, she knows that I am going through this struggle and she's going to walk me through this methodology and I'm going to come out the other side with this transformation based on the promise that you make based on your offers. So for me, this the power behind creating a signature method takes you out of the amateur game where you're just one of many, and into the expert game. Here, you're becoming known for what you do and you're becoming super specific and niche down and how you do it.

So step one for me is always a brain dump. I have a really great freebie option that I'm happy to share with your audience that outlines this process, because I'm a really visual learner. And I found that I was walking people through this process and realized you need to just put this in. But the first step to me is a brain dump. And the best way to extract your signature method, in my opinion, is to think about if you were coaching a high ticket client. Someone hires you one on one. Let's take a weight loss coach, for example, and they're going to hire you to help them lose weight. That's the promise at the end of the transformation. You want to think about how you would walk this one individual person through your process. So I want you to brain dump out all the different things that you do with that individual person to help them get to that goal. So you think about, well, I always make sure that I'm helping them clean up their cabinets and get their kitchen optimized so that they're making the best choices. And I teach them how to shop for success. So when they go to the grocery store, they know what aisles to avoid.

And I'm teaching them how to read nutrition labels. And then I'm walking them through a lot of mindset stuff because I find that I could give them all the strategies in the world to lose weight. But if they don't believe it's possible or if they're not in the right frame of mind, none of it's going to work for them. And then I help them create a personalized nutrition plan. And then I work with them on their calendar of how to come up with a fitness routine. So you start brain dumping just like willy nilly on a piece of paper, all the different things that, you know, that you ultimately work with someone on when you're coaching them and something. Then the next step is putting it in order because this starts to become your process. And I love this part because this is where you're starting to breathe life into it. You're starting to see whether you come to me and you need to lose ten pounds, or you come to me and you have emotional struggles with food, or you come to me in your postpartum, generally speaking, I'm going to personalize it based on you. But I still have my process that I'm becoming known for.

This is the process I walk you through. So you want to start to put those bullets into order so that you can see, all right, this is the natural progression through which I'd walk somebody. And the fun part from my marketing brain is naming your method. So a lot of people will say, oh, well, this is my weight loss process. But if you can come up with a proprietary name for it or even some trademark, now, all of a sudden there's another way that you're becoming known for this thing. And the ultimate goal is to get some of this transformation and have them go to that next person who's saying, man, I really need to lose this last twenty pounds. And their mind immediately goes to, oh, you want to work with you know, "You want to work with Melissa because she has this X, Y, Z method and it works so well." So you want to become known for that. So you name it. So instead of like, here's my weight loss method or my weight loss "FreeMarkets, Lean Body Blueprint," or you come up with some name, it's catchy and a good way that people would remember it and remember you for being the person behind that process.

I love that. That's always the funnest part of creating the name. That's always my favorite part. But also for me it takes the longest. Like, oh, it's got to be this perfect name that really resonates with this ideal client that's also so fun.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. And you can go deeper with the naming, too, because after you name the overall process, then you want to get into creating the pillars beneath that process. So you have this brain dump of like, let's say, 30 different things that you ultimately do with someone. Some of them are big things. Some of them are really little things and more granular, big pictures. Some are really niche’d down. Now you want to create maybe three to five big pillars that make up the teaching method. And you want to give each of those pillars a unique name tier that's in alignment with your brand and your offer. So, for example, I kind of threw out some of those bring up ideas for a weight loss coach. So maybe one pillar believes it's possible. And under the belief it's possible Piller, you have things like mindset. And positive affirmations. And breaking through your limiting self belief. And then you have another pillar that's like prep your home, and under the prep your home one you're talking about how to grocery shop, how to get your kitchen ready, what to throw out and what to keep.

And then maybe you have another pillar that's like abs are made in the kitchen. And under the abs are made in the kitchen pillar, you're breaking down specific nutritional principles and recipes and different things like that. So you're coming up with your main teaching pillars. And beneath each of those pillars are your buckets. Right? Like the individual things, the more granular things that you're actually teaching. So like I just mentioned, like under the belief it's possible maybe you have a PDF with affirmations you want them to walk through each morning. Or you have daily mindset practices, or finding your support system. And it's a video teaching that or it's a PDF teaching that. Depends on what you're actually creating because of the signature method, it can be turned into a course. It can be the curriculum that you teach in your group coaching program. It can be the guidelines and the framework for your master mind. It can be the thing that you break down into multiple different courses or your monthly membership site. This just becomes the hub of your entire business. This is like what you build tons of different offers off of using this methodology.

Amazing! So, I mean, you've helped so many entrepreneurs go through this. What are some of the mistakes that you've seen, maybe beginner entrepreneurs or any level entrepreneur kind of making or crafting some of these signature methods?

That's a great question. I think a big one is having too many pillars, right? So that's like my fifteen pillar methodology in weight loss. It's the person receiving it. Right. Another, I would say one of the bigger mistakes, and even the example I used is a good example of the mistake is being too broad. You're not just a weight loss coach, right? You're not just creating the lean body blueprint for anybody. Who is it for, specifically? Who do you coach or who do you teach or who do you sell to specifically? Postpartum moms in the first six months postpartum, Right? You want to get super granular as to who it is these frameworks are for. And what I've learned myself in my own mistakes I've made and in walking so many people through this process is that when you are getting more specific, it's really scary for people. Because they can't help but think of all the people that they're weeding out by making it for postpartum moms instead of all moms. Well the thing with that is to become an expert, to become known for what you do, you have to be a specialist. People do not pay generalists. They pay specialists, right. They pay big bucks to have somebody who is incredibly well versed in this one specific thing.

And once you become known for it and you kind of got your chops and you've really built up that credibility in that space, it gives you the launching pad to be able to talk about more things and to become more broad. Similar to the people that we see on social media who started as something really specific, but then they grew their brand to a place where now they can talk about pretty much anything and they get traction. But they had to kind of pay their dues and becoming known as the expert in something before they can be known for everything. So that's a big, big red flag I see is when people are saying really broaden their marketing or really broaden their methodology because they're like, well, this could help men. So I'm going to keep it like that instead of talking about something specific to women, I'll just talk to everybody so that my weight loss methodology can work for anyone. Well, now you've lost the opportunity to truly speak into the soul of people who need exactly what you have to offer. And you're likely going to you're not going to get the same level of traction and credibility in what you're doing.

Yeah, something I truly believe is when you're speaking to everybody, that you're really speaking to nobody. You've got to really catch them on. Amazing. So you've got the signature offer created. What's next for someone? They've got the method. They've got that. What's next? What would you usually recommend them craft next or expand into?

I think the biggest thing, the answer to that question is dependent on really my first pillar in my methodology is walking people through the visionary exercise of their business. I've had clients don't work with me who have been in business for decades, and I've had people who are brand new to business. We do this process no matter where you're at, because we come into entrepreneurship with one vision, with one dream of these goals, and we get moving and we find that we've somehow gotten off course. So we do this when I call it a recalibration session, where we are getting back in touch with what the true vision is, what our values are, and how we're ensuring that we're building a business and setting goals that are in alignment with that original dream. So to answer that question, I would need to know where I would recommend the person I'm working with get super clear on what that vision is, but then what the stepping stone goals are going to be or the milestones are going to be to get you there. So if you have this big vision of retiring your spouse from the job that they hate working in and they never get to be home with the kids, but you're going to go take this signature method and develop an offer that's at a low price point and is not going to generate much cash flow into the business in the beginning, then something's out of alignment. So I would say if you can take that signature offer and you can create any offer like an actual offer with a price tag on it, but you want to make sure you're crafting something that is getting you to where you want to go in serving your audience really well.

So, for example, some of my master mind members right now, some of them financially, money is a big goal for them. Of course, we're teaching them how to to generate money while serving their people really, really well. It's not just about money, but you don't want to create something that's not going to make this business sustainable. Right. And the other side of the spectrum, I have people who are like, you know what? My business is thriving financially. I have no passive income streams, but my goal is PR and reach and visibility and impact. What we would create for each of those two people might be totally different based on what their needs are and what their vision is and what their audience needs. So, for example, if you create a course and it's ninety seven bucks and you're all fired up about launching this course, how many courses would you have to sell to get to a thousand bucks versus if you had a higher ticket group coaching program that still maximized your time because it's in a group setting that you're selling for a thousand bucks a month? There's a lot more income opportunity there versus the course opportunity, so I would say take a look at your signature offer, can it be turned into a multitude of offerings and do it based on both what your people are asking for and what the appropriate next step is in pursuing the bigger vision for your life.

Yeah. One hundred percent. I love that I'm such a high ticket girl. I always push towards the higher tickets. It is really interesting to see because I have so many clients who come to me and they want that lower ticket. I need something. My audience is asking for it. They learn very quickly. It takes just as much of your time to sell that ninety seven offer as the thousand dollars per month offer.

So thank you for going through that.

Now, creating the business where you're not hustling, hustling, hustling means we get to add in more passive income at the end of the day. So what are some of your favorite forms of passive income and use in your clients or that you have in your own business? I would love to hear about that. I'm sure I would give my audience so many ideas for kind of what's next for them.

Sure. So I like looking at having a bunch of income streams. That does not mean a bunch of personal offerings, but some income streams should be passive. Some should be scalable. Right. There's a difference. So passive is like maybe you launch a course once you're a couple of times, you really nail it down. You figure out what your people are asking for and then it can live evergreen. That's a more passive income stream versus scalable income stream where it's like you take your one on one coaching program and then you leverage it and turn it into a mastermind. That's thirty five thousand dollars a year for people to participate in. Now, you've taken that signature offer that you were using just under one person, and you're bringing it to a group at a higher price point. You've just scaled that offer. So you have offerings like that. Then I also recommend having things like affiliate relationships, both for your own stuff they're launching, but more importantly, affiliating for other people and building that referral base with other people for their businesses as well. Because now when you didn't have to go create the course or put all the front loading effort into developing the offer, but it's something you stand behind that's not in competition with you, that you can launch with that or have it live evergreen and you have that affiliate link to bring in additional income streams. You can get ad dollars into things like your podcast. You can have speaking opportunities both virtually and in person.

So some of those things are scalable. Some of those things are evergreen. Some of those things are passive. You kind of have a multitude of streams coming in and now you have that security and that strength in your business versus having a one trick pony business where you're like, oh, I have this one course I offer or I have this one, you know, one on one coaching opportunity. But then I'm capped and the amount of time that I can spend doing that. I also love the membership site model. That's a great way to serve your people really well. I always recommend if you run a membership site over deliver, if they're expecting three videos a month, give them six. If they're expecting no contact with you, create a group where they get contact with you, find ways that you can up level that. And then to what we talked about on my podcast with you, Melissa, is the idea of having ways to bring in more income out of whack? Right. You have upsells, downsells, and you can raise your prices. So if you're I like the whole looking at the whole picture and encouraging my entrepreneurs to bring in all those different facets, not just go create a ton of different offers, find ways to leverage what you already have, and to create those multiple income streams, some of which are passive so that you are generating residual passive income even when you're not necessarily working.

I love that so much. My clients always get so excited when I tell them, because they create their signature offer, their method. They create all of these training, these video modules for your group coaching program, and to give them that permission slip to take part of that and turn into an ever growing course. It's an additional income stream. People are blown away by that. And it's so cool because you get to make up your own rules and create whatever it is you want in your business. I thank you for sharing. I love all the different income streams that you love to have come in right there with you. The more income streams, the better. However, with intention, right. Not just creating some random things every single month that's going to burn you out.

And you can have smaller products, too, that are probably more likely to sell without you being involved, like when you have higher ticket items. It's a little tougher if you're in a two thousand course, it's less likely to sell just because someone saw an ad running on Instagram or Pinterest. But if you have trip wires, masterclasses, or some smaller things that are of great value to people, that you can sell continuously through your email list and through social media, and ads, and different things like that that generate natural traffic or it lives on your blog or you advertise it. I run my own ads on my podcast for my own products. So that's a great way that you're more likely to have things people buy them on repeat versus we're only really high ticket things where it would either involve a sales call with you or a little bit more nurturing on the emails before they'd be willing to purchase.

Yeah, I think that's going to say we have a pretty low ticket, like thirty five dollar offer where it’s always on our podcast, usually a commercial, and then Pinterest and those two platforms alone generates income for us completely hands off. So there you are in your time back, you're able to get some income coming in 100 percent. Amazing. So what is the number one piece of advice that you would give an entrepreneur today if they are just starting one? Is that one piece?

I think the thing that's been, like standing out to me more than anything lately, and I think it's I think it's relevant no matter the time that we're in in the world, no matter the type of business or industry that you're in is; at the same time that you're nurturing these things that we're talking about in business, that you're nurturing your skills and leadership and critical thinking. Because you can sit on strategy all day, but if you don't have the ability to critically look at something and be able to make decisions in the moment that are decisions that a leader would make, your business could only make it so far. Your income is only going to grow so much and you're only going to sustain those levels of success for a point. The people that I've worked with over the years that have nurtured those elements as much as they've nurtured their marketing strategy or even more than their marketing strategy, their offerings, their products suite, all those things are the ones that are my seven, eight figure earners. So it's so fundamentally critical to be a critical thinker, to be an independent thinker, to nurture the leader within you. On top of nurturing the CEO, the business owner, that's behind the strategy and the business itself. I love that.

It's such an incredible piece of advice right there and I'm a hundred percent right there with you. It’s so big and I think it’s something that a lot of entrepreneurs kind of forget about so many are the hustle. They're always in the hustle, always hustle, hustle. Im so thank you so much for that. Now. I know you’ve got this incredible Mastermind the Maverick Mastermind. Can you share what that is? When does it run? What does it look like inside in case and go to my audience would love to get more details about it.

So we run the Maverick Mastermind. It's a 6-month program and it's for entrepreneurs who are looking to scale their income and do a lot of things we talked about today, a lot of strategy behind that. They’re really an impactor and entrepreneurs. They’re not just in it for the income. They really are driven by their missions and their vision for their lives and in the lives of the people who they get to work with and the lives they get to touch. Specifically their time freedom because I want more people around the dinner table with their families and not having to pay for it later. That's something that I am deeply passionate about. So it's a 6-month program. We actually, at the time of this recording, we are mid-july. We're going to be closing up this session at the end of July and we are accepting applications for the next round of the Mastermind which will officially kick off right in the start of September. So people are able to apply up through whenever this podcast episode launches and we have given in person retreat with that Mastermind will be bringing special gas huge power behind the experience of the Maverick Mastermind. A big reason I created it and named Maverick Mastermind is because I love working with people who think differently who really are those independent thinkers who were willing to put in the work to make their dreams become a reality and what I’ve seen Blossom over the years of running. This is the relationships that are formed within the group professionally. People are affiliating for each other. They’re helping each other create additional income streams. This person might have an Incredible strength in relationship building and PR while this person over here might be amazing at social media strategy and they all help one another.

And they’re so quick to support the relationships that they build to the group. It’s unbelievable and they all get access to our scaling up your business curriculum, which is my methodology and the pillars that I walk people through to scale their business because I want people to feel all those areas in congruent with what means most of them in their lives. That way they can become that specialized expert and make that amazing ripple effect in the world. And we’ve actually recently by popular demand stripped out of the curriculum of the Maverick Mastermind and we were launching our scaling up your business course. So people can you do the Mastermind if they want to fast-track it and they want those relationships with it or they can walk through it own their own. So that's something that lights me up every single day and is no matter how much free time I build into my business model. It keeps me coming back for more because I like what I do.

That sounds like an amazing Mastermind. We will definitely have the link in the show notes for you ladies. If you want to check that out. Now, it’s something I like to do to end the podcast episode is go through some fun favorites because I'm a little bit more about you. So I've got just a few first things that come to mind. Are you ready for it?

Okay awesome. Favorite book right now or in the past?

To Kill a Mockingbird and just anything about true justice.

I love that. I love that. I think your the first person to answer with a book that isn’t necessarily business- related. Love it!

Okay, favorite TV show?

Well, I gave up TV a while back, but you mention Shark Tank. Shark Tank is a big one. And I Love Lucy.

Favorite artist or band?

I’m a Bruce Springsteen girl all the way and if not Bruce, I would say the Beatles.

Favorite travel destination?

We went to Bora Bora for our honeymoon and I would be back in a heartbeat. And I also still have a lot of family in Italy. So that’s a close second for sure.

I cannot wait until COVID-19 ends so we can start going to do all the traveling. Italy’s beautiful. I was very lucky to get to Italy pre-corona. I was only there for a few days. Okay, favorite self care?

Hmm. Well, I’m a big bath girl. And no phones are allowed in the bath. I take an Epsom salt bath and I either read or listen to a podcast. We also have a infrared sauna in my house and I take at least one sauna a day.

Awesome! Both of those sounds so great right now could definitely go for one. Awesome Elizabeth. Thank you so much for hanging with us today diving deep into signature my audience get in touch with you if they want more.

You’re the best. I love being on, this conversation was so awesome. You can come over to my website. And if you want to learn more about the scaling of your business course specifically you can go to ElizabethHartke.com for scaling up wait lists, but I'm always on Instagram or my podcast. So any of those places and if you are interested in the course, send me a DM on Instagram or an email to reach out to my website any of the above.

Amazing, we are going to have all of those linked to the show notes for you right now. Thank you again Elizabeth. So exciting having you. My audience; if you love this, let us know your biggest takeaway was in your Instagram stories, take both of us and we can't wait to see you in the next episode. Thank you again so much for hanging out with me today.

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