Amber Hurdle is a teen mom turned powerhouse businesswoman who has worked with international celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, and women in business worldwide. Whether she is empowering female entrepreneurs, teaching them out of the box business strategies, or energizing and educating leadership within an organization, Amber’s straight-shooting “velvet machete” and warm personality never fail to motivate others to strategically up their game in business and in life.
Find the book and all of the amazing bonus resources at thebombshellbusinesswoman.com
Find Amber’s Bombshell Business Woman podcast here.
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Transcript
Andrea: Well hello, Amber Hurdle, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.
Amber Hurdle: Hey Andrea, thanks for having me. I’m very excited to get to chat with your today.
Andrea: Yes, I am too! And I’m really looking forward to diving into your book, your new book. It’s The Bombshell Business Woman book, and I’m really looking forward to that. But before we do that, why don’t you give the influencer listening just a snap shot of who you are and what you’re doing right now?
Amber Hurdle: OK, well I am probably like a lot of your listeners, a very busy woman, because I play a lot of roles in life. Professionally, I’m an ICF certified coach. I do brand consulting, both with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, looking up for brand from the inside out. And also with small businesses more of creating their visual brand or their brand messages or even rebranding so that’s the professional side.
But I’m also a mother. I have two children and a step daughter. My step daughter is married and has two children, who are my grandchildren. My husband and I are very involved. We have lots of friends. I’m one of six kids. And so I’m sure like a lot of the people who are listening, I kind of go full tilt all the time and everybody will tell you like “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Andrea: Yes, I think Bombshell is a perfect word for you and the people that you’re serving. That’s awesome!
Amber Hurdle: Well, the Bombshell phrase, you know, I made that. I redefined that term to be a Bold, Brave Female Entrepreneur because I saw a lot of women out there like me who was just going all the time and running like crazy and yet they still always felt like they weren’t great businesswomen, or they were letting their kids down.
But they always found that one thing, an area that they could pick on themselves and I thought “No, we’re changing that.” Instead of saying “Look at this one thing I can get done today.” Let’s look at all the things that you did to impact your world uniquely. And so yeah, I refined that term and I hope to embody that most days, some days better than others, right?
Andrea: I love your definition of the Bombshell. It’s like somebody that’s got all this energy and passion and drive, and at the same time a very successful maybe even. But at the same time like what did you say was like one of the examples you gave was questioning the paper plates.
Amber Hurdle: Paper plate mom?
Andrea: Yes. OK explain that real quick.
Amber Hurdle: I have found that for those have gotten the privileged copy of the book, they have been emailing me or text messaging me saying “Oh my gosh, I’m a paper plate mom.” And so I just want explain what that is real quick. So you know, you’re a woman, you’re taking care of your family, you’re taking care of your business, or your employees are counting on you. You’re providing this income for your team which then they get to go home and take care of their families and participate in their community.
You are a community participant. You’re a friend to many people and then you go to your kids’ class party for the first time in a while because of course you have to run your business during the day. And you know, Suzy’s mom comes in and she’s got like these cupcakes and it’s like on a three-tier platter and there’s like crystals and there’s the school mascot on it’s all in the school colors and then your kids signed up for the paper plates, like again.
And so in that moment you break down and you’re like “I’m not a good enough mother.” “Look at those cup cakes.” “My kid is going to be scarred for life. I’m gonna have to pay for therapy because I’m a paper plate mom.” And that’s so ridiculous. I mean your kid, I promise and especially with a boy who does not care that they brought the paper plates. Like they’re just happy that you’ve got to show up to their party and probably they’re just happy that they get to have a party and they’re not working on schoolwork and they’re not thinking about the fact that Suzy’s mom brought cupcakes and you brought paper plates.
Get over it. Think about all the amazing things that you’ve been designed to do that you get to do because of your position and because of the zest that you have for life and what did that look like to your children. They get to watch you do that. They get to watch you become be the best person of yourself through you living out these gifts and serving other people. They don’t care about paper plates.
Andrea: Such a good word. You know, it’s so tempting to do that comparison game. And really, it’s not just about comparison because we can compare all we want. The question really is are we judging each other based on our comparisons? And I think that happens a lot where we do judge ourselves or somebody else based on a comparison. And so one of the messages that I heard you talked about a lot is the importance of encouraging each other and being on the same team. Why is that so important for women in particular to have that mindset when it comes to business?
Amber Hurdle: Well, we’re a little bit behind the eight-ball as it is. I mean, statistically, we create a ton of jobs and we have a ton of businesses but unfortunately the men are the ones who are making all the money. And that could be for a variety of reasons. I mean just disparities and access to learning and education to mentorship. You know they’re different things and I was like to point out, I’m not picking on them. These is just we’re here right now and I don’t think there’s any conspiracy that men are trying to hold us down or anything. It’s just historically, we’re behind and we’re just not there yet.
So why, if you’re already in such a small percentage of women who are creating revenue and running a successful business, why would you take that little energy you have to tear somebody else down when you can in turn say “Hey, how can I help you?” Like even if you’re on the same business, what it would look like? For example, I’ve got one Bombshell who might have to many massages booked that week at her saloon and spa.
So she will call her competing spa and say “Hey, do you have any openings? I’d like to send one of my customers over to you so that they can be taken care of?” It’s in that moment that the customer comes first that there’s a camaraderie and a support system between two women who are fighting like crazy to make a way from themselves and their family and there’s no drama associated whatsoever.
They’re not looking at each other like “Oh well, she does the same thing as I do so I’m gonna talk poorly about her and hope that she fails so that I could win.” It’s like “Hey, let’s win-win together. You’re gonna make some money this week. My customers are gonna be taken care of. They’re gonna be more loyal to me because I did that.” Like what’s wrong with that situation? And I think more women need to have that mindset of looking for the abundance and the opportunity instead of like closing their hands in scarcity and looking for ways to just double down and shut people out because of fear.
Andrea: Yeah that’s really good. I know that you do a lot of work outside of targeting or encouraging Bombshell women. I know that you’re working with companies that of course have both men and women working in them and for them. Why did you decide to focus your podcast, I didn’t mention that yet that you have the Bombshell Business Women podcast, and now this book on women, why women?
Amber Hurdle: I have always had a heart for women. Probably, if I had to pinpoint to two areas; one, I was a single mom and you know just going back to my teen mom story, it’s a different experience to be a woman because while I was clawing to just find a way to provide for my daughter, it was all on me. There was nobody there to bail me out. There was no real consequence for other people who should be doing what they’re supposed to be doing but weren’t, and so it all fell on me.
You know, I was asking my mentor and actually the gentleman who wrote the foreword to my book, I asked him the other day when we’re just talking about things, “Did you ever worry if your son forgot his lunch that day or not? Was that a stress for you during the day?” And he was like “Never.”
So I think women put so much more pressure on ourselves to be everything to everybody, whereas a man can kind of compartmentalize a little bit more. I mean, it’s just how we operate differently and I’m speaking in generalities and nobody, you know, email Andrea and say “Amber is being one way or the other.” I’m just saying in general. That’s kind of how things work. So I think there’s just having a perspective of being female, being a teen mom, or being a single mom.
And then the second part is I have worked in higher education and so the gals who were in school would see me and they started reaching out to me just looking for advice and mentorship. And then eventually, when I worked at Cumberland University started the Women’s council for leadership and philanthropy. So I paired professional women in business, I’m talking about high ranking women, with female students who aspire to be in a career like them. And we had events and we had guidance and facilitation of how their mentor-mentee relationships go. Those female students are still in my life and they still stay in touch with me and I get to follow them now.
So I saw firsthand the power of a woman investing in another woman and that forever changed me. So I’ve always continued to have a student that I’ve either you know paid to be an intern or that I’ve taken into my wing to mentor and so many women have done that for me over the years. Now, I just have this huge platform. I can do it in such a greater way than one at a time.
Andrea: So let’s go into a conversation more about voice for a little bit because we actually met in a training about the Fascinate Assessment and I absolutely love the Fascinate Assessment and its ability to take the personality and describe how it’s relate your voice, how you’re expressing yourself through that. What is your Fascinate Archetype and the advantages that make that up?
Amber Hurdle: Well, I am a catalyst, so that is a combination of a primary trigger of passion and a secondary trigger of innovation. When I am communicating with other people or at my highest level of influence, the things that can help me be more powerful in that massaging is by making sincere emotional connections through that passion trigger and through thinking of out-of-the-box strategies through that innovation trigger.
Anybody who knows me would be like “Oh, Amber doesn’t even know where the box is, like she didn’t even know a box was in the equation.” So I feel like it was very spot on. I love that test because it’s not psychologically how we perceived ourselves. It’s a very good assessment of how other people see us at our greatest.
Andrea: So I know that in your book you talked about the fact that you have used this phrase or other people have used the phrase “velvet machete” about your personality. I love it and when I first heard it, I loved it. Please tell us about what it means and what this looks like in your conversations?
Amber Hurdle: Well actually, I was given that term way back in the day when I was a personal trainer for a short stint. And the person who dubbed me the “velvet machete” basically said that I said what needed to be said. I didn’t hold back but I did it from a place of love. It kind of stung a little bit but they knew that it was really because I cared about them and I wanted them to meet their goals. And so as soon as it stung, it kind of like also felt good.
So what that looks like in my coaching or my consulting or even when I’m speaking is I just shoot straight. I’m not going to sugarcoat things. I’m not going to dance around an issue. We’re going to dive right in because that’s the time. Time is money whether that’s small business or big business and we need to find solutions quickly so that we can change the trajectory of whatever problem I got brought in to solve and start making progress.
So I think not all people are for me and that’s okay. And I think that’s one of the things that Sally Hogshead talks about when she’s talking about the Fascination Advantage® Assessment, you have to find your people and my people want that. My people don’t have time for niceties and not that I’m not nice. I hope you can attest to the fact that I’m nice but a lot of people might tear around something. I’m just going to say it and then help whoever it is that I’m helping find the solution and take action towards fixing that problem. I do it out of love.
Andrea: You know, I’m thinking about how really it plays out in the structure of your book, because in chapter I, you kind of described what the Bombshell Business Woman is and say yeah, that’s me. And then you take us back in chapters II and III to your story, your story as a teen mom and the struggles that you had. So you sort of softening not in a manipulative way but to prepare us for the fact that you’re going shoot it straight through the rest of the book.
Amber Hurdle: Right.
Andrea: And I loved it. So you cover such a wide range of topics from your own story to company culture, to branding, and to how to work with vendors. Why did you write this particular book with that particular scope?
Amber Hurdle: Well, I didn’t want to do a deep dive on one topic because what I have found is that my Bombshells need a lot of help in a lot of areas to go from where they are to where they want to go. And let me explain that a little bit. My clients tend to have been in business for three to five years. They typically have at least three employees, oftentimes they can have several employees or subcontractors especially when you think about like a law firm or spa. You know, how many massage therapist and hair stylists and, you know, institutions you might have.
So what happened was they were a part of another person’s company and maybe they found out “You know, I’m really great doing hair and my book of business is full and the only way that I’m ever going to make more money doing this is to open up my own shop and to have other people underneath me.” Or maybe they just want the freedom or maybe they just have always dreamed to being a business center.
And so they left that company and started their own because they were good at their trade but they never really slowed down to lay the foundation of a healthy and successful business. They never really created a company culture. So ultimately, they struggle when they’re trying to market consistently because they can’t communicate those core pieces of their business that are so important to them that is basically left up to interpretation to every graphic designer or website designer or whoever they try to hire to help them.
And so between putting processes into place and teaching how to put together a basic business plan, goal setting, networking, and all these things that maybe they never slowed down to put a plan behind, this book is for them. Now, well I deep dive in the future? That’s left to be seen. Probably so, I definitely know I have a leadership book coming next because I have neglected my corporate clients this year in favor of really deep diving with my Bombshells. But I think you know just to address wide and tell my story first because you cannot compartmentalize business from life.
Your life is the owner of your business and so those things just merged together and we all have stories. You know, yeah I was a teen mom and now I have an amazing life. That’s the short version of it but I’m not special because I did that, like there are so many stories out there. There are so many people who have overcome many things and sometimes people use that to fuel them and to inspire them and even sometimes say like “I’ll show you world.” And other times, people allow that to drag them down or they say, “Well, I could do this if these things weren’t true.”
So I felt like it was important, just kind of part of my velvet machete that I say “OK, let’s keep it real. This is what happened.” And that was a hard story to tell. It’s been a long time since I was a teen mom. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to think about you know waking my dad up and telling him because my mom was like “I can’t know when your dad not knowing.” You know and looking my parents in the eye and explaining “Hey, I know I’m in charge of all these things at school and I’m a leader in my high school, but guess what, everything is about to change.”
And you know having to unload that on them and then also to re-experience the love and support that they returned to me. I mean, that was just very overwhelming, so I feel like it gave me a little bit of an opportunity to go back to a place that many Bombshells are right now. And it also gave me the opportunity to say, “So whatever it is that you’ve gone through or you are going through, there is no excuse. Now, let’s get to work. Here’s what you need to do. We have to work through these things. You have to find a therapist. You have to journal. You have to do whatever it is that you need to do.”
And I’m not ashamed to say, I spent seven years in my 20’s in therapy. Seven years, OK? So I didn’t do all this figuring out of life on my own and I still don’t, like I still don’t have everything figured out. It’s a journey, but it’s a journey that I’m willing to accept because I’m not going to let the actions of other people or decisions determine what my future impact on humanity in serving other people in this world is going to be.
Andrea: All right, I love it! If that’s not inspiration, I don’t know what it is. I think that one of the things is that you really accomplish in any of us. Accomplish by sharing the story of our struggle especially our struggle starting out is that it turns into a redemptive message when we’re able to do something with it and we’re able to show people that “Yeah, you know what, it doesn’t have to stay like that forever.” Just like what you’re talking about and I find that to be incredibly inspiring and powerful in bringing people out of the woods and having them look around and say, “You know what, I can make a path through this.”
You really did have me, in one page, I cried and then I laughed and then I cried again. In one page and it was the page about you telling you that. All right, so on page 21, I’m going to just quote you “Once you design your plan for your unique business, you’ve done the heavy lifting for good. From there, you can tweak the essentials as your business evolves and grows. Once, you build the foundation, everything else starts to fall into place.”
I think this is a really great point and you’ve already touched on it a little bit, but would you take us deeper into why this is so important to design a plan, to understand your company culture, and brand message and all that from the foundational start of your business?
Amber Hurdle: Well, unless you want to run around like a crazy woman for the rest of your life, you will have to at some point delegate responsibilities and tasks to other people. If you are super clear on who you are as a business, like who you serve, how you do things uniquely then you can teach other people that. So they’re very clear on that. When you know the brand essence that you have, the way that you want people to think about you, the type of experience that you want people to have when they do business with you then your employees can help you communicate that experience and create that experience to your customers and that’s going to help your customer service. And that’s going to help your repeat business and that’s going to help your word of mouth and make your marketing more clear.
And again, I touch on vendors earlier and the most recent episode of my podcast at the time of this recording is my rebrand with Renae Keller Interior Design. And I did get into a lot of these into the show notes because we had to hand off her culture and her brand messaging and her visual brand guide. We started with the graphic designer who helped us create the visual side of things but then we had to hand it off to the videographer. We had to hand it off to the website designer. We had to hand it off to the person who was helping her create marketing materials. We had to hand it off a magazine that she was being featured in all immediately.
So Renae could have started from scratch and explain what her business is all about to all of these people and hopefully set it kind of sort of the same way so that it will have a cohesive and unifying effect. Or she just did all the heavy lifting and she literally hands over all her documents and says “Make this happen.” And they get it because everybody is reading the same song with the same instructions and the same essence. And so falling down helped you enable other people to elevate your brand that it also helps keep your sanity because there’s nothing more frustrating than just trying to take stabs blindfolded at what it is that you’re supposed to be doing.
If you don’t know what goal that you’re moving towards in terms of your company mission or even your annual goals, like in 2017 what are your goals? Well, mine was to publish this book. My publisher said, “Well do you want to be in the October sales catalog?” This is in January that’s probably a bit of stretch “Or do you want it to be in the January catalog?” And I said “Well, at the end of last year, what are my Glamour Goals,” which is the process I teach in The Bombshell Business Woman, “Was that my book would be published in 2017.”
So I might die trying but let’s make it happen and it did, because next year’s goals are going to be impacted by whether or not this book is published. Last year, starting my podcast was a huge, huge goal because that enabled me to really get even further clear on the content of this book. So everything builds on each other and if you aren’t clear on your foundational elements then like what are you even doing other than going crazy.
Andrea: And probably driving everybody else crazy around you.
Amber Hurdle: Oh yeah, especially your employees, like you want to see an employee quit. And I know not all of your listeners have employees and I certainly have plenty of listeners and people who are in my audience who are thinking about starting a business or it is just them. And so these concepts are transferable.
Again, a lot of my one-on-one clients have employees and so you want to see an employee run the opposite direction from you and your brand and all the time that you’ve invested them in terms of training and all that kind of stuff. They’ll run away if you seem uncertain. Because if they don’t know where they fit into the big picture, they’re going to go find a place where they can make sense of their life.
Andrea: So how do you handle that if you’re a business and maybe you do have a business or you play a leadership role in a business, a major leadership role or some sort of an ownership or management that you know that you probably need to get more clear on some of these foundational elements. But it’s so hard to take time away from, maybe you’re super busy and you don’t even feel like you need it. I mean, why is it important to still put the time and effort into that?
Amber Hurdle: I think it’s an issue of sustainability. You might be busy and that’s typically, you know, my typical client is insanely busy and you know the very first thing that I do with them is map out their calendar for the entire year. We talked about busy season and the lighter season and when realistically you’re going to get stuff done.
But you will never be able to create the margin that you need to have a sane life and to actually next-level your business so you can create even more revenue because now you have space for creativity or to even delegate things to let you operate more as CEO or as the genuine general manager and not as the person who’s going in and delegating and popping in to fix things because nobody really knows the direction and you are personally a required element to keep things going.
And some of us want that in our business like obviously my brand is Amber Hurdle Consulting, so Amber is going to be doing a lot of the work. But if I wasn’t able to hand things off to the team members and the vendors that I have in place for me to able to do only the things that Amber can do, there’s no way. I mean, I would just hang it up. I’ll just sit by the pool every day and be thankful for the bliss life that I have. There’s no way that from a sustainability standpoint, anybody can maintain a level of joy and fulfillment from their work if all they’re ever doing is chasing their tail.
Andrea: Oh yeah and if you’re spending all of your time, if you’re spending so much of your life in that business, in that job then why wouldn’t you want that.
Amber Hurdle: Yeah and I’m just going to say like for real you can miss one episode of The Bachelor to sit down for an hour and work on some of this stuff. And it might take a few months for you to get it done but that time invested is like one minute of planning, saves 10 minutes in execution. I think it’s how that works. And I’m a psycho planner, probably too much sometimes if I was being real. I like to plan and so I understand that’s natural for me and that’s not natural for other people. But find resources like my book or find a time strategy system that works for you. Keep trying until whatever works naturally for you, a system you will actually use. And I talked about time management versus time strategies in my book as well.
I think time management is a misnomer. There’s no way you can manage time. You can only be strategic with the time that you have ahead you. Those are key things that I think in our Snapchat, microwave world, we forget that we can slow down and we can be present with a bigger picture and not just that exact moment and the selfie before us.
Andrea: Well, when it comes to you know, creating this foundation, you make a distinction between company culture and the brand. Would you share with us what distinction is and why it’s important to understand it?
Amber Hurdle: Absolutely! So your company culture is like the family rules of your business. It’s the essence of who you are and so that would entail things like your company mission, your company vision, so like why are you a company? What do you aspire to be as a company, your value. So again, the family rules. I mean, what’s most important to you? How do you make your decisions? How do you understand how you’re going treat each other? Is that integrity? Is that an example of excellence?
I give examples; I believe American Express who I use to talk about these values and then also your service standards. Do you always expect your team members to smile? Let them know that on the front in, like that shouldn’t be a rule that should just be understood, follow up or have ownership of problems. Those are all service standards that you can establish.
So at that point, you can be consistent with your decision making whether you have to make a hard decision like letting go of an employee. You can point to “Well, you know here’s what we agreed to on the front in when you became a part of this work family. These are the ways that we live here and this is just a non-negotiable and so I’m afraid at this point, we’re gonna have to part ways because I can only have people who are going to live out this culture in my business.”
In the same way, you can praise somebody in front of everybody if that’s something that they enjoy or drop them a note if they’re more of a private person. And say “You know, in this particular situation,
you exemplified this particular value.” Or “I have yet to see anybody uphold this service basic so intentionally.” And so it gives you an opportunity to encourage and edify your employees as well and it also helps you make decisions if it’s just you. If you don’t have any employee, is this opportunity a good one for me?
You know, somebody reached out and they want strategically partner on this particular project, is this fit for me? Will you go back to your culture? Does it fit your vision? Does it fit your mission? Like what’s the expectation is that your customers have of you in your business? Is it going to distract from those things or will it strengthen those? So that’s like your ruler. That’s your company culture.
What do people believe about you? What do potential customers and customers think about you?
So when you think of Apple, what do you think of? They’re very specific of tangible things that we attached to a white apple with a bite out of it. That’s their brand but there’s a huge culture of innovation behind it. And everything that Steve Jobs created in this culture of excellence and you can’t mess with their phones. You can’t change the programming on it because they believe that simplicity is the most important thing and that will create a better end-users experience.
So because of that cultural belief, it then became a part of their brand that some people hate that. They’re like thin Android. I want to be able to do whatever I want to do with my phone. I love open source and so, good. Now, they’ve eliminated those people. They’re appealing to the people who think that elegance is simplicity and they just want their freaking phone to work or their computer to work you know. I mean, it differentiates you.
And then at the top of this business success pyramid that I talked about, you create that culture and you create the business brand that at each individual in your company, whether it’s just you or whether it’s lots of different employees or subcontractors. Everybody has a personal brand too and that’s where I know you’re an expert in. So I’ll leave that to your future episodes. But you know, what the people say about you as an individual and how does that fit into the business brand to strengthen up brand while honoring that culture.
Andrea: Thank you so much for that distinction. I really believe in that idea of understanding who you are so that you can express it accurately and I think it’s so often gets lost. We think we know who we are but can’t really quite articulate it.
Amber Hurdle: Yeah. But that’s why I test like the Fascination Advantage Assessment are so helpful because you know, we’ve lived with ourselves every single day of our entire lives, so it’s hard to see what other people find value in what it is that we do and how we interact with people on a daily basis.
Andrea: OK. So I love the red lipstick analogy in your marketing chapter. I think it’s super powerful and even if you’re a man listening right now, I think that you can get a lot out of this. So what is red lipstick marketing?
Amber Hurdle: OK, so my friends used to tease me that I would not even go out to my mailbox without a pair of big sunglasses on and some bright red lipstick, because I like to be very polished no matter who saw me when. And so I could have been like absolutely no makeup on, but I would put red lipstick on and it gave the illusion that I had pulled myself together. Not so much anymore. You will see me running all over running in Tennessee with a top knot in yoga pants and no makeup on, so like manager hopes if you ever see me _____.
But anyway, back then that matter a little bit more I guess in my 20’s. And so when I was trying to describe this to a one-on-one client a long ago, I told that story because I’m like “You’re over thinking this. Like you don’t have to put a full face and makeup on, just put on some red lipstick and do the one thing that’s gonna create the most amount of impact.” So in today’s world especially, oh my goodness, between these traditional marketing strategies that have been around for forever and then pairing it with new marketing strategies like digital media and content creation.
I mean, we weren’t thinking about producing podcast 10 years ago, like that wasn’t a thing. I mean, it was a thing but not in masses like it is now. You know, I just broke it down to three categories. So you pick just a couple of things out of your active marketing strategies, a couple items out of the passive marketing strategies and a couple items out of the keep-in-touch marketing strategies and then you do those things. And you do them well and you don’t worry about all the other things that you could be doing or everybody says you should be doing on every blog and every social media post that you’ve ever seen. Focus on these things for at least three months. You measure them. That’s very important. Is this working and how is it working?
At the end of that three-month period if it’s working, do more of it and fine tune it and get better at it. Be more strategic in how you’re doing it. And if it’s not working then ditch it and do something different. Or if it’s maybe just a onetime thing then you replace that onetime thing with maybe another flexible thing. But just put on the little red lipstick. Stop trying to like be Kim Kardashian with all of this extra shadowing and contouring and false eyelashes. It doesn’t really add any value to your business. It just keeps you busy in front of the makeup mirror all the time.
Andrea: Thank you for sharing that. I think it’s very impactful. You know, Amber, this is been such a fun discussion and you have given us so much. And yet, we barely dip our toe in all of the information that is in your book. So the influencer listening is dying to buy book now. When does it going to come out?
Amber Hurdle: Well, it launches officially on October 1st, so you can go to thebombshellbusinesswoman.com and there’s a link to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Books A Million or wherever it is that you like to buy your books. And you can preorder it before October 1st. But importantly go back to thebombshellbusinesswoman.com and then opt-in for the bonuses because for a limited time, I am also giving you a 40-page workbook that goes along with the books so that you can write all your notes and everything that I tell you to do in the book is actually going to also be in a workbook. You don’t have to write any margins in the actual book.
Remind me, Andrea, and I will send you that as well. And then there are 30-day affirmations so you can keep up your Bombshell journey with a daily positive sound bites to set your intention for the day. If you are a Christian or even not a Christian and just want to have some encouragement and something inspirational, there’s a seven-day biblical truths for Christian women in business. A seven-day devotional that are _____, just drawing on verses that have helped me remember like who God made me to be and to keep focused on that instead of beating myself up, like so many of us love to do at times.
And then we also created a book study guide. So there are two options there. If you wanted to do like a onetime meet up with a fellow fempreneurs. We described that to you and give you a facilitator’s guide. Or if you want to do a four-week weekly meet up, maybe you go to a girlfriend’s house, you meet at a coffee shop. Everybody brings their books and talks about how they’re implementing the strategies and you help each other and you mastermind. And really, I would love to see groups of women coming together to work through the Bombshell experience together because that is where the power really lies.
And so we are going to share like all different kinds of things, like what should you serve, or who’s house should be at and then we tell you if somebody’s monopolizing of the conversation, how do you handle that. So nothing has been left uncovered. So there is no reason to hesitate. You know, just go to your local Chamber of Commerce, or if you’re in an online group, you can maybe create a private Facebook group and work through this together. You can meet on Skype or Google Hangouts.
So many different online ways that you can meet in person and not physically be in person to walk through this with your fellow sisters. Women supporting women is probably one of the biggest messages that I have. And if we want to create a powerful financially sustainable business network, we have to start helping each other.
Andrea: Hmmm and all this for the price of one book.
Amber Hurdle: $14.99, I know. I tell people, I’m like “I’m giving away the farm.” This is what I feel called to do and there are not enough of us out there. I mean, there definitely other women speaking to female entrepreneurs. But in comparison to the number of men who are doing it, it’s a very small group. And so I just want to do everything I can to help people who are willing to invest in themselves and be successful.
Andrea: Awesome! OK so go to thebombshellbusinesswoman.com and get those bonuses, order that book, and order four or five of them because you’re going to need to do this with your friends.
Amber Hurdle: Well, I’ve got little secrets too. I mean, I called them my Bombshell boys. I have men who listen to my podcast. They take my advice. They email me and say “This is what I learned and this is how I fight it,” and they take my Bombshell Business Bootcamp. I mean, this is a book that speaks directly to women but a man can obviously find value in this. And even women or men in leadership and companies because we’re talking about hiring and firing and leadership and all different kinds of things.
Andrea: All right. Well, thank you so much for all of the value and wisdom that you brought to us today.
Amber Hurdle: Thank you, Andrea! I appreciate being a part of this and also for all that you’re doing to your listeners.
Then came a tragedy that Gus had to overcome! He suffered a horrible farm accident at the age of 9. The question was “How would he respond?” Could he turn this setback into a comeback?
And the Human Trafficking Institute is actually going in and doing a few simple things. One is helping government establish specialized units so they can actually have people freed up to work these cases and then take them through an academy where they learn not just some sort of two or three days at a hotel conference room with Power Points but they really learn the way adults learn which is by digging into material over an extended period of time. It takes these specialized units through and advanced to county.
John: Absolutely, and I think where there’s hope we can come up with a plan. And when we can clearly identify what the problem is and we believe that a solution is possible, we can figure this out. I think the hard part is that you see a problem, even clearly see a problem but if you think “there’s nothing I can do,” it’s not really going to make a difference. And that causes people to give up and move on to another structure or another project.
The students are nominated and then they take entry exams to be admitted to the program. In fact, there are 10 academic areas in the entire SHP process. The number of students that I had in the program varies between about 10 to 14, which was perfect for small group discussion but yet doing teamwork. And so I was able to do that with great success in working with these wonderful, mostly rural, bright, articulate, and talented high school students. And for example this year, I focused on psychology and I like to get into that a little bit more later on in our discussion but one of the keys of the program was a very intense structure that I had students seven and half hours a day.
I will tell you what I’m getting ready to do this fall, I’m working with the school system in which they listened to me, and we’ve been working on this process for several years and they finally agreed for us to go into a school system with two high schools and three middle schools to begin to introduce the concept of understanding self in design as part of the regular curriculum. And so we’ve committed ourselves to a five years research study to be able to do this in the school system and so I will start training the core group of 24 teachers in these three high schools and three middle schools.
Naomi: Sure! So I feed store is where farmers and ranchers come to buy mineral, salt, or protein. I sell dog food, cat food, and stuff for their animals so that’s what a feed store is. Our feed store is a little bit unique because I also sell tack for horses like saddles, bridles, and stuffs of that nature. I sell a little bit of women and men’s clothing. I sell boots, so yeah we’re kind of all around kind of a western kind of a store.