Welcome to the Rich Coach Club, the podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and you're determined to start making more money, this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt, and I'm psyched for you to join me on this journey.

Oh hey, coaches. Hey, listen, do you constantly feel like you don’t have enough time for all the things you want to do? Do you constantly feel like you’re running late, behind on projects, missing deadlines, unable to fulfill commitments you’ve made because you’re way behind, and you feel like you need an extra 40 hours in every day?

Listen, that used to be me, big time. Back when my kids were little, I used to feel like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I was constantly hitting snooze on my alarm clock and oversleeping, constantly running late, constantly feeling behind, feeling like I was a bad mom, and just a hot mess.

But my attitude towards time has changed significantly since then and I’m stoked to share my time tips with you. So today, we’re going to talk about how to create plenty of time for the things that matter to you; time to work on your coaching business, time to take a course and gain new skills and grow as a coach, time to rest and take care of yourself and savor life.

Because, no matter how much money you’re making, even if it’s $100 million a year, if you have no time to enjoy your wealth and enjoy your actual life and enjoy time with the people you love, then what is the fricking point? Are you ready to become a time creator? Alright, keep listening. Here we go.

Okay, so if you’re one of those people who feels like, “I never have enough time,” then I’ve got some tips for you. Step one, when you notice you’re feeling stressed and time-crunched, check in with yourself. What’s happening in your mind? Eavesdrop on your own thoughts. Identify a low-quality thought.

And it might be something like, “I am so slow. I never finish anything. I have too much to do and not enough time. It’s hopeless. I’m fucked.” Step number two, change the channel. Switch from a low-quality thought to a high-quality thought, “I have plenty of time.”

That might not feel true for you right now, so choose a high-quality thought that feels energizing but also truthful, like, “I’m learning how to become a time creator. I’m learning how to say no more often and clear up my schedule. I’m learning how to manage my time differently and things are improving. I can be creative and create the time that I need.”

Once you’ve chosen a high-quality thought, already you’re probably feeling a little better. Your stress levels drop, your shoulders relax. You can think more clearly.

Okay, great, next step three, edit your schedule ruthlessly. I guarantee that 50% of the things you’re doing are non-essential activities. Audit your calendar, every single item, and ask, “Am I legally or contractually bound to do this? Do I really want to do this? Does this activity need to be done by me specifically, or does it just need to be done by someone? Could I outsource it? Could I delegate it? Does this activity bring me money, energy, or joy?” If not, bye. It does not belong on your schedule.

So, to recap, when you feel stressed about time and feel like you don’t have enough, step one, identify the low-quality thought that’s causing you to feel stressed. Step two, switch to a high-quality thought. Step three, edit, edit, edit, delete, delete, delete, get creative to clear your schedule and free up some room to breathe.

So, maybe this week, you can make a few small changes, delete a few things from your schedule, say no a little more often and delegate a few chores, and boom, you’ve just freed up five extra hours. Yay. That’s five hours of space you didn’t have before, and that’s how you become a time creator. You find creative ways to create time that you didn’t have before.

Another thing I want to say – and I’ll talk about this later in the episode interview is that it’s not so much about the amount of time that you have. It’s the energy and output you bring to the time that you have.

So often, we get really fixated on a specific number of hours that we have when I know, when my output is high, when my energy is right, I can produce a week’s worth of work in a day. So, yes, you want to find creative ways to create actual time, but you can magically become a time creator by taking care of yourself so that you’re bringing your best possible energy and creating more output during the time that you have.

You can do this. Maybe you create five hours this week, eventually 10, 20, limitless hours, you really can create all the time that you need by focusing on your output as well. Pep-talk complete.

Now, we’re moving into the part of the show where I give shoutouts to you; shoutouts to listeners and clients and all you lovely people in my business community. And today, I want to give a shoutout to Tiffany. So, Tiffany titled her five-star review Better Than Coffee.

She says, “When I’m having a lull in my workday, I can rely on Susan’s podcast to get me revved up and dig into my workload. Her positivity is life. Thank you, Susan for your beautiful mind. Sincerely, your fellow girl boss.”

You know what, Tiffany? That made my day. Thank you so much for taking the time to submit that review on Apple Podcasts. And hey, if all y’all listening, I give out prizes to people who leave me reviews, so go in there.

Go wherever you listen to podcasts; Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher. Leave me a review and you might hear your name on a future episode. I love giving shoutouts to and prizes to people in my community, so holla at me. Thanks for the love, I love you right back.

Today’s guest is Kellyann Schaefer. She is an amazing coach and consultant that specializes in training personal concierge business owners. She’s someone who definitely, through her long career as a nurse and as her career transformed into becoming a personal concierge and then training personal concierge business owners, she’s somebody that has to understand how to manage her time, how to be efficient, and how to create time.

You’re going to love hearing her story and you’re going to hear how she talks about the ABCs of business that she learned from being a very busy nurse. This is one fascinating interview and I can’t wait for you to learn from the amazing Kellyann.

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Susan: Alright, welcome to the show, Kellyann Schaefer.

Kellyann: Hello, hello.

Susan: So, I love talking with you because you are a client that gets stuff done, and I’m always loving talking to about time because that seems to be such a big hurdle for so many entrepreneurs, is the belief that if they just had more time, if they could clone themselves, they could really get what they wanted out of their lives and their business.

And I thought about you for this particular episode because your whole business, you really train and help personal concierge businesses scale. And when I think of a personal concierge, that’s somebody that has to practically have a good concept of not just how to be efficient, but how to make the most of their time.

Kellyann: Absolutely.

Susan: And so, when you think about being a time creator, so you’re a mom, how many kids are you over there taking care of?

Kellyann: Well, I’m a mom of four. I technically take care of two and a half. And they always pop those texts in when you aren’t expecting them.

Susan: Yeah, for real. I have to turn my cellphone over when I’m teaching because my almost-20 and almost-22-year-old will just stealth bomb me with, at the most inopportune times, you know, something that they need. So, let’s go back, before we get into talking about your business and what you’re doing now, I recently had the privilege of hearing some of your personal story and part of your story is that you became a mom at 15 and managed as a single mom to raise your daughter, go to college, and also work fulltime. Am I right?

Kellyann: I did. I worked night shifts. I would leave at like 7:30 in the morning. I didn’t have a car. I would hop on the subway. I would go to school. I’d be in college all day. I would come home, be as good of a mom as I could in the gaps of hours, take a nap in the afternoon, and repeat. And I did that for four and a half years.

Susan: Right, and you became a nurse.

Kellyann: Yep.

Susan And so, what happened that caused you to go from being a nurse to doing what you do now?

Kellyann: So, it’s funny how the universe always kind of provides these signs for us. And so, I think it all started – so, the reason I became a nurse is because I have a love and passion for people. Like, I love the humans. I say that all the time. I love the humans. I love people. I like taking care of people. I like being around people. I’m obviously a people person. And I’m a good caretaker. And I have empathy and compassion.

So, I went down the route of becoming a nurse. And then, while I was a nurse, my youngest son was born. So, he was my fourth one, and so somewhere around early spring 2006, and I was literally grocery shopping, and I had one in a snuggie in the front, I had one in the cart inside the carrier to try to tie her in, I was pushing one shopping cart, pulling the other shopping cart.

And my son at the time, I think he was maybe six and a half and he’s hanging on the front of the cart, literally grabbing shit off of the, you know, like, “We need this, mom.” I’m trying to run down the aisles as fast as possible and he’s just grabbing shit and throwing it in the cart. And I had this, like, “Oh my god, there has got to be a better way.”

And so, that memory kind of stayed with me for a while. And then later on, in nursing, I just kept getting this pull, like your soul knows. Your soul knows when it’s time to go. And I resisted and I fought and I pushed it aside for a long time. And I kept noticing a couple things in my sphere.

I was noticing, one, I kept sending patients home who did not have people at home to help them with things that they needed done around the house. So, I would send somebody home after a discharge, and they might have a nurse come out for their post-op care. But their biggest concern was who was going to be able to bend over and change the litter box, right? The things that we don’t think about.

And all this just started to just add up in my brain. And when I was ready to leave, I kept saying to people, “I don’t know what else to be when I grow up. I only know how to be a nurse and take care of people. I only know how to be a nurse and take care of people.”

And I look back on that now and I really laugh. And so, it was like, all of a sudden, I literally started my business with this desire – and you’ll appreciate this – that I was just going to do some shit for some people. Because I was really organized. I had four kids. My house was always neat. I can run a really well-oiled machine in my household and maintain a job. And then I realized that not everybody was hardwired like that. And so…

Susan: No, oh my god, I bet most people listening are like, “Is she kidding?”

Kellyann: Yeah, like I would have friends texting me frantically at, like, midnight Christmas Eve wanting to borrow tape. And I was like, “Oh, that shit should have been wrapped and packed…”

Susan: Why was this not done at Halloween?

Kellyann: I know. Like, “You don’t even have tape?” So, it was just funny. So, I ended up building a business, my own personal business, which became a personal concierge business, where I was able to then do these things for other people who naturally were not hardwired to get it all done. And that’s how it all began.

Susan: So, like, typical entrepreneur. Like, you notice a need, you fill the need, and it’s something that you’re really, really great at. So, at what point did you decide, “I don’t want to be the one actually bending over and changing the litter box. I want to train people to do it.”

Kellyann: So, I stayed in the business for two years before I hired my first part-time person, and then gradually for the first five years, I started – and this is really a great learning point for any entrepreneur, for anyone realizing that they’re losing time. I just kept reevaluating the things that I was doing, even the services that I was still providing to our clients. What were the things that I enjoyed doing the most?

So, I stopped doing certain things and then I stopped doing grocery shopping and let somebody else do the grocery shopping, and then I was only working with our seniors or organizing people’s homes. And then I slowly took out the organization. And then I slowly took out the seniors. It was like this evolution over time.

So, it’s kind of like the whole unique brilliance quadrants. I was finding where my uniqueness, I just kept rising above and then delegating to my team the clients that they could easily serve, which then allowed me to also step into the CEO visionary role of my company. And that took me about five years. And then, at that point, I stopped being a service provider and I was literally just the visionary and the marketer for my company.

And then, that’s when I stepped in, to start helping other people build their businesses in my industry successfully, because 75% of all people who do go down that route of starting a personal assistants company make less than $25,000 a year.

Susan: Well, and if you look at any entrepreneurial endeavor really, I would say any industry, whether it’s real estate, insurance, life coaching, there are lots of people that are really gifted at what it is they do. But marketing and making money at what they do is a totally different skillset, which is why this podcast exists and I’m interviewing somebody like you.

You went from being the doer to marketing a system, marketing a methodology that you have where you help personal concierge businesses scale, get clients, and do well. It’s so interesting to think about this because from the time you were 15 years old, you were managing your time pretty diligently. Would you say that nurses have to be efficient?

Kellyann: Yeah, it’s more than just efficient. Nurses, by training, you have to keep people alive, honestly. And I worked in inner city hospitals that had very complex patients; 10, 12 patients. This is back before they started putting standards in place and so forth. And so, I would come in, and for the first 45 minutes of my shift, I would be getting a report from the nurse before. And now, I have these 10 to 12 people who require me to literally keep them alive, keep them pain free and medically managed and prepared for all of their treatments and prepared to go for their testing and all the other things.

It’s literally called ABC. It’s airway, breathing, circulation, like who needs you first, who needs you second why needs you third? And then everybody else kind of falls sort of to the bottom. So, you really do have to understand how to put that into play in my own business. Where’s my airway, where’s my breathing, where’s my circulation of my business?

What are the top three things that are going to make my business grow that I need to make sure that those get my attention first? All the other shit can sit there and wait. And then, as things pop up, then I’ll start picking those pieces up as well.

Susan: 100%, I love this so much, the ABC. Because I was actually just talking to my mastermind and we were talking about this great book I’m recommending to everybody called Deep Work. And part of the book, he’s talking about what he calls the shallows and how do you drain the shallows, which are things that distract you from doing the deep work you need to be doing for your business?

And one of the things he talks about is email because that is a huge time-suck and distraction for so many people, so many of us. And I was basically talking about how I sift, and if you’re a paying client, you get answered first. And if you want to give me money, you get answered second. and then, like, everything else.

And there may be things that I don’t answer, period, because they don’t require – like I didn’t ask you to email me that thought you were having in the middle of the night, like if you’re not a paying client or not somebody that’s a friend or whatever.

So, ABC, though, in terms of managing your business, isn’t that so true? Like, having the understanding, when you look at time and when people say, “I don’t have enough time,” I often think, number one, I think about – we think time is linear and defined and there’s only so much of it, but it’s really like the energy and the output quality that you bring to the time that you have. But all that aside, with this task at hand, it is critical that if you’re going to maximize your time, to understand that ABC. What is going to get you the furthest? What do you need to keep your business going? What do you need to do? I love it. So, say it again, ABC, airways, breathing…

Kellyann: And circulation. Those are the top three things when it comes to saving a life, basically. So, there are ABCs of your business. So, for example, in my local business, we always had Monday morning huddle. And it always went through, you know, what are our KPIs? Where are we showing up? Where are we not? Who do we reach out to? And that focuses the work for the week, and then everything else is actually secondary.

Susan: Right, I love it so much. What do you think, other than ABC, is there something else that really grinds your goat, where you’re like, “You don’t need more time. You need…” what?

Kellyann: Actually, more structure. So, it’s structure and planning. So, the problem that most people have, and even my people – and the people that I coach have a bigger problem because they’re balancing and managing other people’s lives in addition to their own life and their own business.

They have to be both the marketer and the technician of their company. And we go into that in detail and they need to segment out when they’re wearing their marketer hat and when they’re wearing their technician hat, with would be, you know, you providing your service.

But if you do not block out the time and you do not carve the time and put those important things onto the calenda, then what happens is you wake up every day unprepared for your day and you go, “What am I doing with my day today?”

And that is one of the greatest thieves of time, is just lack of preparation. It’s just like going to a grocery store without a list. Wandering the aisles…

Susan: Letting a six-year-old put Lucky Charms in there.

Kellyann: Oh, my god, and all the candy bars. Never put your kids in those little shopping cart, like, car things because they’re right at the level where all the candy bars are. You would not believe how many times I left the grocery store with oodles of candy bars in that little car cart because I had no idea what my kids were up to.

Susan: Oh my god, I know. I remember when my kids were little and my mom was visiting one time. And this was back when I was like – it was kind of my breaking point before I became a coach. And I remember, she was like, “I’ll keep the kids for a couple of days and you can just do whatever you want for fun.”

And honestly, the first thing that popped into my head, which is so sad, was that I could go grocery shop by myself and not have them throwing all that crap in the cart. I’ve grown. I know exactly what I would do with two days to myself today.

So, let’s talk just for a few minutes about the program that you have right now. You have an amazing mastermind, digital program, both. Like, talk to us about it.

Kellyann: So, I have a few different programs I have what’s called the Concierge Starter Kit, which is a starter kit. It helps people understand and people who are considering getting into this field, because honestly, it’s one of the best things to do if you’re looking for flexibility of time and financial freedom as well, especially people – believe it or not, a lot of people who have already retired love doing concierge work. And they’ve got the life skills. They have all the life skills.

So, we have a Concierge Starter Kit which answers all the start up questions about niching and services to offer and the insurance that you need and all the fundamental pieces. We do that. That helps people get up and started.

And then, I have a program, it’s a digital program called Fully Booked. And I go through all of the top core marketing from networking to referral programs, how to set up a referral program, your website, how to use social media, not just to be on it but to use it to get clients. So yeah. And then, we have higher level for people who have been in my sphere for a while and want to work with me more intimately over a one-year period.

Susan: This is actually something that my older sister Terri, like, I’m going to send her this episode. She really needs to buy your starter kit because this is something that I always tell her, if we lived in the same town, she would 100% be my fulltime personal concierge because she’s so efficient. She’s so good at all that organizational stuff. She loves, like you were talking about, she loves caretaking.

And she would do it. It’s not like I would just force that upon her as her little sister. But I think she could really make a business out of this. Anyway, that’s a side note.

Kellyann: Yeah, and there are so many unique niches that you can get into. Two of my students just today, one, she is going into, you know, for lack of a better word, end of life concierge. She wants to be with people during their end of life time. I mean, there are so many unique niches that you can do in addition to it.

Another student, she’s going to be – she finally decided she’s going to be a maternity concierge. So, there are so many different niches. It goes beyond just being a personal assistant to everyone. There are so many beautiful niches and not everybody in the world is hardwired like us, like you.

People like, did you say your sister? Yeah, so she’s hardwired for service and love and caretaking and doing. And that is the thing that fills her up. And that’s what it is for the people that are in my community. You don’t know how to turn it off.

Susan: That’s amazing. Now, ABC structure, any last sort of tip for Rich Coach Club listeners who are like, “Okay, I’m going to really take this ABC to heart. I’m going to get more structured with my time.” Anything else that you would say is, like paramount for somebody trying to leverage their time better?

Kellyann: Our motto is always, you know, let go of the things that you don’t know how to do, get frustrated doing, or really quite frankly don’t want to do, right? So, when we would onboard new clients, one of the best things that we did for them is we would literally give them checklists of things that we could take off their plate. And told them to keep a list running for an entire week.

So, as you’re doing things, as you’re building your business, as you’re doing things – and when you do them and it is a time suck and it hits you in the gut and you’re just like,  your shoulders go down, you’re like, “I don’t want to do this,” like me with technology and me with, like, Canva. Somebody asked me the other day, “Canva?” I was like, don’t even give me that because that’s not my jam, right? I would rip my hair out.

And then, you just write those things down on the side. And then ask yourself, how much more could you make in your time doing what you do best and let somebody else do that? So, if you’re wasting five hours a week on email but you are a coach, and you can obviously make more money coaching others and make a bigger impact with what is your mission compared to going through email.

Susan: I love it. stay in your zone of genius and hire that shit out.

Kellyann: Hire it out.

Susan: So, Kellyann, where can people find you? What’s the best way if people want to hang out with your awesome self?

Kellyann: So, the best way for them to find me is theconciergeacademy.com. And we have all sorts of free resources and our starter kit is there, access to our Facebook group, all the things.

Susan: You have a free Facebook group they can join?

Kellyann: We do, it’s called Concierge Connections.

Susan: Okay, awesome. Well thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I’m super-stoked for people to learn about you. Go check her out. Have a beautiful rest of your day, Kellyann.

Kellyann: Thank you.

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Oh hey, before we say goodbye for today, two quick things. First, a while ago, I released another podcast about time because stressing about time is a major issue for busy hardworking coaches. So, it’s worth discussing on the show more than once. So, go back and listen to that earlier episode for even more tips on how to improve your relationship with time and feel calmer.

It’s Rich Coach Club Podcast episode 86 and it features the fabulous Jill Farmer as a guest. So, go back, find it, listen. If you enjoyed this episode, you’re going to love that one too.

And secondly, I want to recommend a book to you called Deep Work: Rules for Focus Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. A colleague read this book and raved about it, and so then I immediately got a copy too.

Listen, people, this book will really challenge you to assess your habits at work with a critical eye and make some really important changes. Little things that seem like no big deal, like checking email every hour or browsing the internet for entertainment during a break, these little habits really mess up your brain and make it difficult to concentrate and work deeply.

And therefore, you’re less efficient and your workday becomes longer. You’re working for 10 hours instead of five because your brain’s just not operating at its full capacity. So, go get this book. It’s called Deep Work. Read it. And you might feel compelled to set some new policies for your day, policies that allow you to do better work and do it faster.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode. I hope this episode has inspired you to shift from being a time chaser into being a time creator. Being a time creator means you find ways to create all the time you want or need.

This week, I challenge you to make a few small changes. Cancel one unnecessary project. Delegate one errand. Hire a helper to clear a small task off your plate. Skip social media for three days. Make a few tiny changes and boom, now you’ve got three hours of time and space you didn’t have before, or five hours, or 10. Start there. Keep going. You can create so much time, more than you think. So, have an amazing week and see you next time.

Thank you for listening to Susan Hyatt's Rich Coach Club. If you enjoyed today’s show, please head over to susanhyatt.co/cash where you'll find my brand-new money magazine. Now listen, we designed this magazine to be entertaining, educational, and help you make serious bank.

So you can download the magazine, there’s a money quiz inside, there’s an interview with one of my favorite clients who went from making no money and being served eviction papers, to making over six figures in a very short amount of time. So the magazine includes that feature, lots of resources to help you do it, lots of resources about creating wealth and investing money.

It’s pretty robust, y’all. So head over to susanhyatt.co/cash to get that magazine. And you’ll also find a link to join my free Facebook community, especially for coaches called Rich Coach Club. So bring your coaching practice and your income to the next level at susanhyatt.co. See you next week.