Meet Your Mentor - Kim Orlesky
We’re excited to introduce you to our Mentor of the Month, Kim Orlesky. As an international speaker and leading sales coach, Kim teaches entrepreneurs and businesses how to embrace the sales cycle through powerful conversations that drive results and income.
This month Kim will be leading us through a series of lessons designed to help you improve your sales skills! It’s called Become a Sales Knockout and you’ll find it exclusively inside the Hatch Tribe Members Circle. Check out Kim’s story & then join us for a month of learning & mentorship that’s guaranteed to impact your bottom line!
Are you an Early Bird or a Night Owl?
Early bird. I can rarely stay up past 10pm. I am the type of person that would rather be at the gym at 5am, wake up at 4am to do a proposal for a client, or take a first phone meeting at 6:30. The early bird catches the worm!
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
Check my phone. Then depending on the day head straight to the gym, or make a coffee or tea and sit down to read or write my third book.
What are you reading now?
I have many books on the go at all times. Right now I am ingesting Scaling Up. It's giving me a lot of great things to think about since I've just hired my fourth team member. How do I continue to grow and measure this success?
What's your favorite podcast or YouTube channel?
Don't do either. But I have seen a couple episodes of Noah Kagan. I like his authenticity.
Favorite place to getaway from it all?
Anywhere with a beach! Living in Canada the winters are long and cold and I crave beach and surf. In the summers we have a beautiful cabin in the Rocky Mountains and that's where most of my creativity stems from.
If you could get an extra hour today, how would you use it?
Reading. There's not enough time to take in more knowledge.
Do you consider yourself more of an Introvert or extrovert?
I'm an ambivert. I can stand on stage and work a room, and then I want to be Netflix and chill. Turns out the best salespeople are ambiverts because we know when to talk and when to shut up.
What's your favorite food?
I would love to live off the diet of a four-year-old: pizza, ice cream, and fries. But if I lived off one, it would have to be vegetarian pizza.
I'm on a mission to...
help 1,000,000 entrepreneurs by 2030 become more empowered to sell more. faster.
How did your awesome business come to be?
After coming back from quitting my life to backpack around the world solo, I realized I wanted my life to have so much more meaning. Through iterations of starting my own business, being a meditation coach, a work/life balance coach, and life coach, I came back to what I was really good at sales. I decided to help a few solopreneurs learn how to sell, and eventually decided I wanted to turn my passion into a business and not just a well paying job. I convinced a couple of businesses to buy a sales training program from me, and then freaked out because I didn't have anything developed yet. But I knew to always sell it first, create it later. I developed a program and then use that same program for the hundreds of entrepreneurs we help and teach today.
Who inspired you to pursue entrepreneurship?
My mom was my first entrepreneurial inspiration. She started many different things throughout the years we were growing up, but nothing really took off. My husband is a great support and when we first met he continued to push me to make my business bigger, dream bigger, and take massive action. If it wasn't for him my business wouldn't be where it is today.
Have you ever had a mentor? And how did they help you?
Yes, my husband. He's one of the most successful business people I know. He kept me in check and ensured I was focusing on the right thing as I was building my business: revenue. I wanted to help a lot of people and didn't care too much about the money at the time. He was the one that taught me that it's not about the money, but what the money can do to help even more people. If you want to help a lot of people, it takes a lot of capital, and unfortunately, most people will determine your value based on how much you cost. And I'm okay with that. I now position myself and work to help position my students, as the premium service at the premium price.
How do you define success for yourself?
Success is being able to spend time with my family without having to worry about finances. Right now I define the success of the team. Are we getting amazing video testimonials? Are we connecting with more people? Are people raving about how the advice we gave helped them grow or change their business? And when all of that is taken care of, can I go on vacation with my husband and boys, turn off the cell phone, and know that my life will not just be the same, but better than ever when I return.
We all love failure & flop stories! Tell us about something you tried in business that didn't work, and how you moved beyond it.
When I first started my business I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but knew I was passionate about meditation. I spent 6 months learning how to do it on my world backpacking tour, that it was something that I knew would impact so many other people's lives. I labeled myself as an executive life coach and wanted to teach oil and gas executives how to find work-life balance. It was a major flop! I forgot the cardinal rule of business. Have a market. Most of the people in these roles didn't want to learn how to meditate. It wasn't until I was at a conference and chatting with another business owner and telling him all about my history. He said that if I would have told him I was a sales coach he would have hired me in a second. That did it for me. I changed what I focused on and never looked back.
What is a recent success that you're super proud of accomplishing?
When I started my business I knew that I wanted it to be a business and not just a job for myself. I knew that a business would have to be scalable and that also meant that services were being delivered by someone else, sales were being brought in not just by me, and the company could become an independent entity. When I came back from maternity leave in September 2017 my company was just me. Today I focused on what I needed to do and we are now 4 people strong. I love that I am not just affecting the lives of my students, but now my team is too. We are helping the world a little bit at a time and it's starting to make massive ripples.
What is your superpower?
Being able to turn on my excitement in an instant. It comes in handy when I am speaking on stage or making calls to prospects. People want to deal with those that are enthusiastic and love what they do. And despite how tired I am, I can dig deep and turn it on.
What is the least sexy part of your job?
Managing people. I do my best to be a leader and empower people to be independent and entrepreneurial, even in my business. However, sometimes I need to play the tough role and remind people that if one person doesn't perform the whole team doesn't perform. There's a lot riding on the growth and success of the company, and one bad month could potentially mean someone (or more than one) doesn't get paid (on time). I am fortunate to have a great team that is all willing to do what it takes. But the hardest part is having those tough conversations that payday will have to happen a day or two after expected. Hopefully, that will be the only time I ever have to have those conversations.
What do you hope to learn from this community of your peers?
As I scale my business I would love to learn the successes of those that have successfully scaled online. We have a great format of online classrooms, but I have not been able to master the inbound leads conversation from webinars, facebook ads, and other online platforms. That would be the next step in my business.
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TO CONNECT WITH KIM DIRECTLY JOIN US INSIDE THE TRIBE! BECOME A MEMBER TODAY AT WWW.HATCHTRIBE.COM/MEMBERSCIRCLE.
To connect with Kim visit her website or Join the Tribe! This month’s course, Become A Sales Knockout, is live now and the lessons can be accessed as soon as you become a member! Plus you’ll have the opportunity to engage with Kim & ask questions throughout June inside the Members Circle. Mentorship made easy!