My Journey with Rachel Minion: From Side Hustle to Six Figures

Brandi Starr [00:00:34]:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Star and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Rachel Minion. Rachel is a force to be reckoned with with a bold, un alloped, un unapologetic. I can't talk. Today founder Fractional CMO and cancer warrior who's made a career out of cutting through the chaos. She speaks directly to overwhelmed small business owners offering a no nonsense marketing strategies that turn inefficiencies into impact. She's on a mission to help 100 businesses double in the next five years, all while empowering cancer warriors to reclaim their power.

Brandi Starr [00:01:24]:
Rachel, welcome to Revenue Rehab. Your session begins now.

Rachel Minion [00:01:31]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to come to the couch.

Brandi Starr [00:01:35]:
Yes, I am excited to have you. When I saw your company name Rockstar and moon with two Rs in star, I totally felt like we were kindred spirits that we had to absolutely talk. And then I dug a little deeper into your background and your story and I definitely was compelled to hear a bit more about your experience. So I'm really excited to have you today.

Rachel Minion [00:02:05]:
Awesome. Thank you so much.

Brandi Starr [00:02:07]:
So before we dive in, I like to break the ice with a little woosa moments that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Rachel Minion [00:02:23]:
I want to be done with tofu, bofu and mofu. Like, I just want to throw out the whole funnel scenario, the way that marketers talk to its prospects.

Brandi Starr [00:02:36]:
Okay, you have me over here clutching my virtual pearls because middle of the funnel is. That's our specialty. And I truly believe in some of the strategies related to the funnel. So why is it that you want to get rid of these?

Rachel Minion [00:02:56]:
Well, first, other than it sounds like lunch being cussed out, I really hate the idea of it. In learning from Dr. Flint McLaughlin. He's the person who started marketing experiments in Mac labs. What he says is gravity isn't working for you, it is working against you. And in every step. You know how we have the typical funnel. Think of it, that this isn't how it works because people are not falling into your funnel, they're falling out at every single step.

Rachel Minion [00:03:31]:
And you need this force of these micro yeses to get them through step by step by step by step. So absolutely, you have the different strategies for the middle of the funnel, but think about the funnel being inverted and you have to help them climb all the way up with micro yeses to that macro. Yes.

Brandi Starr [00:03:53]:
Okay. I, I, I can, I can take that. I definitely have debated the, you know, the graphic, like, and to me, it's less about the graphic. You've got the funnel, you've got the infinity loop, you've got the bow tie. There's all different frameworks in terms of, you know, how you visualize it. And I definitely agree the visual is less important. And I can see flipping it in because it is, I do agree it is getting them to continue moving in the direction of making that commitment. So climbing as opposed to falling.

Brandi Starr [00:04:36]:
I was going to say, I can live with that. But whatever shape it is, the middle's still. The middle can still be the middle.

Rachel Minion [00:04:44]:
With full of the micro yeses and micro commitments. And like, in theory, if we think about what our job is as marketers, it's bringing the power of that force. Right?

Brandi Starr [00:04:54]:
Yeah, I know we talk a lot about micro conversions. And so that is micro yeses is another way to articulate that. And it's so funny that you talk about lunch being cussed out. That is the thing I love about tofu, mofu and bofu is kind of like restaurants, how, you know, they all, like, play on the name. I am totally tickled by that. So I love all of the, like, plays on, you know, mofu and, you know, we pull in, you know, Samuel Jackson's favorite word and things like that. But for at least for this conversation, we will leave tofu, mofu, and bofu out of the discussion. As painful as that is for me, now that we've gotten that off our chest, I asked you to join me here on the couch as a part of our My Journey series.

Brandi Starr [00:05:53]:
And the series is really set up and designed because there is so much that we, as leaders can learn about the paths that other people have taken in their careers and how they've made the decisions that they've made and had the successes that they've had. Because I think we all, you know, we all are in charge of our own destiny, have to make the decisions about where we go next. And that path is not always the typical linear path, doesn't have to go in one direction. And so I love having these conversations with people who have, you know, kind of taken different paths to see what I, as well as Our listeners can learn from that. And so I'm really looking forward to diving in. But before we do, I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it lets our audience know what to expect. And so what would you like people to take away from hearing about your story?

Rachel Minion [00:07:02]:
That you can always make something from nothing. It was one of those things that I learned and unfortunately it happened in kindergarten. They took us all, instead of going to snack time, they took us into a big assembly. I just wanted my snacks. Instead they bring a magician up, he's on stage, he's doing his thing, and I just want snacks. And this is the end of his performance. And he says, everybody raise your fist. And I want you to say with me, nothing.

Rachel Minion [00:07:33]:
And move your fist forward. So we all say nothing. And he said, okay, do it again. Nothing. He said, now at the end of this, we're going to go nothing, nothing. And then you're going to go crazy. You are gonna just go wild and we're gonna scream something altogether. So everybody ready? Nothing.

Rachel Minion [00:07:57]:
Nothing. Something. And from that moment on, I always knew I could make something from nothing.

Brandi Starr [00:08:06]:
Very interesting. I love it. I thought you were gonna say you opened your hand and everybody had a snack in there.

Rachel Minion [00:08:12]:
That would have been designed.

Brandi Starr [00:08:15]:
That's one heck of a music. A magician. So let's fast forward a bit from kindergarten. And I know you went from having a side hustle to turning that into six figures. So give me a little bit of your background in terms of where your career started and how it progressed into you having a side hustle.

Rachel Minion [00:08:43]:
You know, sometimes life just throws you into a really bad moment. For me, it was when my parents business collapsed. We were printers. And when that 2008 recession hit, all the government contracts stopped. And just like that, all of our printing clients were gone. They were paying in 30 days to 60 to 90 to, they were closed. One of our biggest clients, Ritz Camera, they went bankrupt. So no printers, no clients, Nothing.

Rachel Minion [00:09:12]:
And by 2010 we closed. I was trying to find a job and it was unbelievably hard. No one believed that I had the skills because it was my parents company. They didn't think that I could be running that for a decade. They didn't think I could be doing the estimating, the production management, running a press, getting into binary. So I was completely overlooked in every way, shape and form that there could be. And it really sucked. I poured everything into something and now I'm unemployed and pretty much homeless.

Rachel Minion [00:09:47]:
I had to move into my summer beach house, which was a small apartment shared with eight people that was only expected to be for the weekends. I had to be there full time. It was a moment, it was great. We were at the beach but at the same time eight people in a small three bedroom, two bath apartment is a lot. We were living behind the bottle and cork and every night I'd hear these killer bands play. I'd sit there, I was taking it in. The music, the salt air, the stars. It was unbelievable.

Rachel Minion [00:10:24]:
But I realized I need to create something that was mine that I could grow my skill set that nobody could doubt. So what can I do? I can do marketing. Not only can I do that on the side, but it'll help supplement my income and it'll help show all these incredible things that I could actually do that there's never going to be a doubt about. And that's how Rockstar and Moon was born. Under the stars and the Moon with rock music blaring in the background. And just like you, the two Rs at the end of Star got created.

Brandi Starr [00:10:57]:
So that is such a beautiful story in terms of what led you. I mean it's very non traditional in terms of how you got into that and the name. I definitely, I'm like that, like just talk about a name with some meaning and so tell me, you know, going, obviously you had lots of background in running a business which quite often when people try to become an entrepreneur, you know, that's the hardest part. There's so many aspects of business that don't tie to where their talents lie that they can struggle. But having run your parents business, you know, you had some of that. So talk to me about that initial process of really getting started and getting Rockstar and Moon moving.

Rachel Minion [00:11:51]:
The nicest thing was that every client that we had in the printing industry still needed something to be done on the side of marketing. I may not be doing their printing anymore, but I called up a few of my smaller clients and said, hey, I can do your social media, I can build you a website, I can do email campaigns. All the things I was never set up for at the printing company I can now bring on. And a few of those clients came on board almost immediately. And I was so lucky for that that they gave me the chance and as I was growing that I also got a full time job finally about a year, year and a half after the business closed, after all of that applying, interviewing. So I grew the business as a side hustle. I was doing it nights and weekends in between lunch breaks. You can imagine Doing everything that I can to show that I could not only grow this, but that these are the things I can do and help grow my clients businesses.

Rachel Minion [00:12:58]:
And over the years, I grew a few more clients. I kept it small intentionally. And then I found the gig of a lifetime, or so I thought. I was running marketing for a division of Ticketmaster as my full time gig. Like, how cool is that? I got to spend my time traveling back and forth to LA and San Francisco, sometimes New York. Then my hours were longer. I put projects on hold. I was still communicating with my clients.

Rachel Minion [00:13:25]:
I wasn't trying to grow. But it was that huge debate, do I stop the business? Do I not? What do I do here and how do I make this happen? But I didn't make that choice. I was just waiting to be pushed. And then the world stopped. Not only did we have a pause on everything in the world, but there's no events, there's no tickets, and so there's no Ticketmaster employees that were needed. We were brought all onto a Zoom and 80% of us were furloughed all in that moment. And while almost everyone had that oh, now what? That was my jumping point. So I was done killing myself to make somebody else richer.

Rachel Minion [00:14:09]:
I wanted to impact small businesses more. So I called up every single one of my clients and the very next day I went full time.

Brandi Starr [00:14:16]:
It's really interesting how life will continue to push us in the direction that we're supposed to be going. And I know the majority of our listeners are, you know, leading a revenue team in small to large all sorts of types of organizations. And entrepreneurship isn't necessarily the direction that everyone wants to go. But I think the life lesson in terms of determining a path in your career that I take away from your story is really looking at where the universe is pushing us and doors will open when we are moving in the direction that we're supposed to be. And you know, although sometimes we feel like, especially when we're doing something outside of the norm, that's not the typical. You know, if you think about our generation and past generations we were all raised on, like here were the careers that were acceptable. Like you graduate, you know, you go to college, you get a good job, you think about retirement and pension and all these sorts of things. And if anything that you desire to do doesn't fall within that path, there's this natural inkling of I can have my passion project, but I gotta do this other thing.

Brandi Starr [00:15:44]:
And so I really love that you had what to most would seem like an amazing role, but you still felt that pull to be doing the thing that you were most passionate about and how, I mean, I hate that 80% of, you know, those were, were furloughed. And, you know, I'm sure it had some negative impact for a lot of those people. But that push of life for you to put you in the right position to continue to do what you're passionate about, like, there's a lot that I take away from that. Even as someone who has gone down the entrepreneurship path, like, I also had a side hustle consulting firm and recognized that as much as I love consulting and was amazing at it, I did not want to own my own business. And I, you know, there were a number of reasons for that. I just wanted to do the things I'm amazing at and let someone else do the other things. And so, you know, we all go through that phases. There are some people who move up the ladder and realize they don't want to be a CMO or they get to CMO and the next logical step is CEO and they're like, I don't want to be a CEO, you know, and there, there is this pull of like, what's the right next step? And sometimes we do get pulled in that direction of this is what's expected of me, or this is what's considered good.

Brandi Starr [00:17:15]:
And so when you, when you made that decision, how did that change? Or should I say when that decision was made for you, how did that change how you approached your business since you were then officially full time? At that point?

Rachel Minion [00:17:34]:
I think all of the back and forth that was in my head, can I do this? Can I not do this? I didn't have a choice anymore. And so that gave me confidence. I liked the idea that, okay, this is what I am supposed to be doing now. This is that path. Let's move forward. Let's go give this a real shot. And it was really cool. It gave me a moment to go test and experiment because I don't think there's anything that we know for sure that we're supposed to be doing.

Rachel Minion [00:18:07]:
We kind of fall into the right pieces, we get on the right path, and then that's reassuring that we're either on the right path or we need to make a change. And shortly after I started full time, my husband said, there is no way you're going to ever make money at this business the way that you're going and that we can grow it like this. How about I join you? Let's get processes and systems in place because I'M the creative one. And he is the logic. He's the technology. He is the one that is like, hey, let's get from A to B in the shortest, fastest way. Here's how we do it. So he came on board, and together we've been able to not only grow our business, but implement my why, which is I just want to help the small businesses in the world.

Rachel Minion [00:18:55]:
Because if we're impacting them, they're helping their families, their communities. And that is really the backbone of why all of us are here. They're supporting the little little Leagues. Right. And getting T shirts for that. They're doing the fundraisers for school, whatever that may be. And I think it's such a huge impact that we can create just beyond ourselves. Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:19:15]:
And I think that's another good life lesson that I take away from your story that I have always believed in, is that the why is truly the most important thing. Because if you don't believe, you know, if you don't have a why, or even if you're in a company and you don't believe in that organization's why, you're not going to be happy, you're not going to give your all. You're, you know, you wake up and. And going to work is a thing that you dread, you know, as opposed to feeling, you know, energized and engaged and excited and so really leaning into that why. And I love that your husband was able to not only recognize where there were gaps and potential pitfalls in your business, but be able to lean in to support that, which is also another great lesson. And not that we all have the opportunity to work with our spouses, but to make sure that you are able to recognize those gaps in your own skill set that could be holding you back and actually bring people in and allow people to come in. Because, you know, there are some people who would hear that, and even though it was said with the right energy and the positive spirit, would have just heard, you're not going to make it or you don't have what it takes by yourself, and would have reacted to that differently. And so, for a lot of us, especially women, I would say that it is important to remember that you can accept help and that that can allow you to get to where you want to be by allowing other people in.

Brandi Starr [00:21:06]:
So I love hearing your story. I'm taking away so many just general life lessons.

Rachel Minion [00:21:11]:
Well, the best part about it is at the same time, it's kind of that horrible 360 evaluation that none of us ever Want to do or ever want to get with your spouse who knows you better than anybody, and having to hear it, sit with it, not fight it, or tell him where to go, it was amazing. But the difference is also the things that I am great at, he's not. And the things he's great at, I'm not. And what we found is it's a much different working relationship that we have because he is the calm, the patient, the logical. And my energy bouncing off the charts. Let's go here. Let's go here. Oh, let's try this.

Rachel Minion [00:21:58]:
And it's a neat way that we can balance each other and have a really interesting working dynamic that just flows versus the alternative of me trying to do this on my own and him looking from the outside, staying silent, not guiding, not. Because at some point that's coming out.

Brandi Starr [00:22:20]:
Right? Yeah, no, that. That is a. Another really good point in that concept of the 360. And I think when you do that as well, like, even as a leader in thinking about hiring, this is places where you're able to hire for your gaps, you know, and it's so a lot of people fall into the trap of sameness in wanting to bring people into their team that are like them and can relate. But what that does is really just create an even bigger blind spot. And, you know, it's. It's great. Obviously, you want to have vibe and gel and all those sorts of things with the people that you work with, but you also want those people, as you said, you know, where the dynamic is, you and your husband, where they are great at what you are not.

Brandi Starr [00:23:13]:
And so that allows you as a leader, to really be amazing in the space where you're amazing and allow others to do the same, which in turn then fills those gaps in the organization. And I can remember early in my career, the very first time I had to hire someone, my manager, telling me to really think about where I struggle and look for those as strengths in the right candidate, you know, in addition to somebody who can do the role, has experience, you know, but. And I remember it was like, you know, the best leaders hire people they can learn from. And I think, you know, in this case, you found it right at home, which I'm sure your hiring process was a whole lot easier.

Rachel Minion [00:24:03]:
I wanted to see some references, and he wasn't pleasant about that.

Brandi Starr [00:24:10]:
But, yeah, like, that is a really key point that I think all of us can be reminded of, is we do have to have people around us who are good at the things that we are Not. And so if you.

Rachel Minion [00:24:26]:
If we think about it, hiring for what you're bad at is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do because you know what you're not great at. But then how do you judge if somebody's great at it from just interviews? Because we don't necessarily want to do projects. We don't want it without paying and those types of things. And it's interesting where you can find in the talent pool those that are so great at all those things that we know that we're terrible at.

Brandi Starr [00:24:56]:
Yeah, it's definitely hard, and it is one of those things that I do believe is possible. But it does take a bit of effort to, you know, really be able to find those people and to trust that they're going to be good in the gap where you're not. And so my last question that I have for you is really around lessons learned. And I will frame this less about the business lessons because I know, you know, not everyone wants to go down the entrepreneurial path. But thinking about yourself as a leader, and I know you've done fractional CMO work, so you've, you know, been a leader in all types of organizations, what is the biggest or what are the biggest lessons learned that you've had as a leader through your journey?

Rachel Minion [00:25:53]:
I think the answer is start before you're ready. Everybody looks to be confident. Everybody you look at, they look like the most confident people in the world. And they're people just like you and me, and they're doing it. And if we're starting before we're ready, whether it's starting a business or putting out copy for something or testing a campaign, there's always time to adjust and change with whatever that data comes back and shows us. But if we're going to keep it inside and try to make everything perfect, there is no such thing. And it'll never happen.

Brandi Starr [00:26:28]:
Ah, I love that. Start before you're ready. Yeah. And it kind of goes to the done is better than perfect. Like, I think it's something that people struggle with is, you know, just being able to, you know, hit the go button and just, like, get started even when you don't feel confident. So, Rachel, I absolutely love that talking about our challenges is just the first step. And nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue Rehab, we like to flip that it's on its head and ask you to give us some homework.

Brandi Starr [00:27:10]:
And so for those that are listening and feel like your story has resonated with them. What's your one thing? What would be the one thing you would say they should do coming out of listening to this episode?

Rachel Minion [00:27:27]:
I'd love if we could form a habit. And the habit would be waking up every morning asking yourself, how can I make an impact today? It's just that simple. It reframes how you take on the entire day. It reframes how you approach most conversations. It's just, how can I make an impact? It can be in your personal life, it can be in business. It can be in any of those things. And I think that if we're all trying to make an impact, we start off on a better foot.

Brandi Starr [00:27:58]:
I am. I'm a post it note person. I'm totally going to put that on a post it note on my mirror. How can I make an impact today? I was gonna say, well, I think that is a great way to end. I have so enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience, how can they connect with you? And definitely do the shameless plug for Rockstar and Moon.

Rachel Minion [00:28:27]:
Well, thank you. So you can connect with me@rachel minion.com or rockstar and moon.com is the marketing agency. We are the premier B2B small business marketing agency that can act as a bolt on marketing team, act as a fractional CMO and grow your business.

Brandi Starr [00:28:46]:
Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn as well as Rockstar and Moon. So wherever you are watching or listening to this podcast, check the show notes so that you can connect with Rachel. Rachel, again, thanks so much for joining me today.

Rachel Minion [00:29:03]:
Thank you.

Brandi Starr [00:29:04]:
Thanks everyone. I hope you have enjoyed my conversation with Rachel. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time.