Hitting 7 Figures Is More Than A Number: Lessons we’ve learned in our journey to dismantle the systems that keep women down

A lot can happen in four years.?

Back in 2018-almost-2019, Holly Conti and I were work wives at an agency where we didn’t make what we were worth and didn’t feel valued for our leadership potential.

Today, we’re next level work wives – co-owners of Full Swing Public Relations , a seven-figure business. We've got a team of badass marketers working together to uplift the voices of under-recognized leaders.

We love our jobs, and we love our lives.?

In early 2022, we set out to make $1 million, something only 2% of women-owned businesses do. Even though women start businesses at much higher rates than men, and women of color start businesses at a higher rate than white women, women struggle to scale their enterprises (and no one tracks queer entrepreneurs at all).

Making a million dollars became our feminist challenge.

Part of our mission at Full Swing is to change who controls the media narrative, and like it or not, who holds money and power often dictates who holds the mic. We wanted to believe that we could shatter this glass ceiling without compromising our values, including what we pay our team and the benefits we offer our staff, and we did it.?Hitting seven figures is our way of building a legacy, not only for ourselves but for the people we work with and work for.

Hitting this milestone is our first step toward changing who holds power in the media. We’re showing our children, our employees and their networks that women can be powerful, women can change the narrative and that women can be unapologetically ambitious. This is our way of building a legacy, not just for ourselves but for the people we work with and work for.

We’re showing our children, our employees and their networks that women and queer folks can be powerful, change the narrative and lead with unapologetic ambition, even when it’s scary and there are few role models out there.

One thing that is still hard for us is celebrating our wins. Even though we doubled our revenue from 2019 to 2020 and tripled it in 2021, and hit $1.1 million this year, it’s easier to keep our heads down and work on the next goal rather than look up and look around at what we’ve accomplished.?

We’ve noticed this is a challenge many of our clients and friends face. It makes sense. It’s easier to keep our heads down and work on the next goal rather than look up and look around at what we’ve accomplished.

Please join us as we reflect on 2022, and in the meantime, create some space for you to celebrate your wins too. Before you set that next goal, promise us (and yourself!) that you will pat yourself on the back for what you’ve already accomplished.

Here are a few things we learned over the past 12 months.

1. Create, Iterate, Repeat.

Constant change can be massively stressful, even when you are adaptable by nature. Change can bring out our “shadow” sides – the sides ruled by fear that prevent us from taking the risks necessary to grow. Figuring out the right way to package your offer so that people will buy it seems simple enough, but it’s actually a lot of seeing what sticks through time and testing.

Halfway through the year, it didn’t look like we were going to hit our goal of $1M. We had created and launched a couple of products that we were super excited about, but when they went online… crickets.

Instead of giving up, we dug into client research by talking to people in our target audience and asking what they needed and wanted to learn from us. What results did they expect from PR? Did they even understand what PR is and how it ties in with other types of marketing to drive sales in general??

In this journey, we cut our pay more than once, but we never didn’t pay ourselves. That’s not an option when you’re a single mom (Caitlin) or the primary breadwinner (Holly). We also tapped our line of credit because it turns out, that’s a totally normal thing to do at this level of business and growth (hat tip, Kim Shappee for the reassurance).

Why are we telling you this? Because women are socialized to be more risk averse and pick the safe option, one most likely to benefit the family or team. Men tend to have more role models leading companies, and they are socialized to “go head first into battle." Many of them don't think twice about a working capital injection or taking out a loan to grow. Cash flow issues don't necessarily mean you’re failing; it can mean you are growing. Sometimes you have to take big risks to get the payoff in the form of upleveling your business (and your life) in a major way.

2. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.” – Jessie Potter

Doing what you’ve always done doesn’t get you where you want to be. We Should All Be Millionaires author Rachel Rodgers , who is also our business coach, taught us that your business is like a kid. It should be outgrowing its clothes because it is growing. It takes a totally different skill set to hit to six figures than to invest in yourself and your team and reach seven figures profitably.

Hiring an operations person remains the single biggest game-changer taking us from mid-six figures to seven figures. Dani Wasia , our Operations Manager recently promoted to Client Services Director, helped us build the systems we needed to decrease costs, increase productivity and grow our revenue.

A couple of weeks after we promoted Dani, she announced that she and her husband were buying a house.?

We asked her: “Did you get the confidence to buy a house based on your raise and your promotion?”?

She told us: “Absolutely, without a doubt, yes!”?

Hitting seven figures changes the lives of those who choose to spend their days with us as team members. It’s one thing to create jobs for yourselves, but quite another to become a "job creator" capable of building wealth for others.?

3. Small Wins Ramp Up to Big Wins

We believe that small wins can be just as meaningful as big wins. Most people are obsessed with making national news without understanding that, unless you’re a one-hit wonder viral TikTok-er, you need to establish your credibility through local news first. For some brick-and-mortar businesses, local news may even be more impactful since you’ll be speaking to an audience that can actually use your products or services.

Take a second and write down at least three wins from your year. They can be big or small because every win is important. But seriously, write them down right now and thank yourself for all the hard work you’ve done!

Here’s a list of some of our favorite wins from 2022:

• Led communications for an independent campaign that defeated white nationalists in the Idaho Republican primary.
• I was featured on Kate Kelly’s Ordinary Equality podcast about the abortion policy we implemented after Dobbs was leaked back in May.
• Landed a client on the Inc. 5000 list.
• Scored our highest-paid one-month project yet.
• Helped clients work through their ops and automation so that their PR actually can fully complement their marketing and lead to sales.
• Systematized our SOPs (standard operating procedures) to help onboard new team members in the future.
• Were interviewed for Rachel Rodgers's Hello 7 podcast (stay tuned – it drops in January).

4. Invest In Your Team and Yourself

If you’ve set your sights on hitting seven figures or beyond, you cannot do it alone. Maybe you could, but it probably won't happen as fast or be as fun! You need a coach (we've had at least one since the beginning) and a community of people at your level or higher to help you expand your vision and make decisions from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. You don’t know what you don’t know.

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs, especially those of us who have been told all our lives that we shouldn’t be leaders, is believing in ourselves. Perhaps one of the most significant lessons we have learned is that we don’t have to be experts in everything. We can hire out what we don't like or aren't good at.

We are so thankful for our team. We would not have hit this milestone without them delivering top-notch work to our clients, and freeing us up to work on the business instead of always being in the thick of it. Our team really is Full Swing at this point, not us individually.

Looking to 2023

We are incredibly excited to carry this momentum into the new year. Our next goal is to hit $2.3 million while growing our profit margin. We’ll implement better systems and expand our team so we can reach this goal with more ease. I'm working on a book proposal, and we're launching a podcast.

The podcast will teach underrepresented leaders, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ folks how to define the universe they want to shine in. People think PR is all about making people famous. Full Swing is motivated to help people who are interested in building a platform to help people make positive change. We are less concerned with getting clients a bunch of press that goes nowhere than we are targeting quality wins that translate into sales that can scale.

We’ll keep you posted on the journey. And thank you, our community. Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for hiring us or partnering with us this year. Thanks for sending good vibes our way. Thanks for believing we could do it.