Kat Mclead is the creator of the Stay at Home Mom Entrepreneur: *the* proven framework for creating a highly profitable business that you love while working 2 hours a day.
She started her first multiple 6 figure business 20 years ago, and hasn’t slowed down since — not even after having my son. A fun fact: That business’s profits meant that she had way more money than her husband when they first got married and was able to pay the entire $450,000 down payment on their home. Not that he minded!
In this episode, Kat and I talk about her journey to finding her passion, how to build a successful business while still being a mom first and how to hone in on the skills you have that will bring in the most profits.
Katie (00:00):
Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics Podcast. I’m your host Katie, and today I am so excited to be talking with Kat Mclead. She is the creator of the stay at home mom, entrepreneur, the proven framework for creating a highly profitable business that you love while working two hours a day. So Kat, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Kat (00:19):
Thank you for having me, Katie. I’m excited to be here.
Katie (00:22):
Awesome. So do you mind just telling us a little bit more about yourself and your background and what you do?
Kat (00:28):
I’m a 20 year entrepreneur. I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 22 years old. That’s when I started my first multiple six figure business. I hated it. So in my current business I I value meaning and fulfillment above all else and I marry that with high profits. So at this point in my life, I help pampered stay at home moms, start businesses for just like I told you, fulfillment and meaning and high profit for the time spent while staying mom first. And I use my super power of narrowing your niche. I find the subset of your niche that’s going to be the most profitable and the most enjoyable so that you could work less and share your gifts with others and make high profit.
Katie (01:15):
That is awesome. That is so cool. So I’d love to go back all the way to when you started your first business at 22 what was that business?
Kat (01:23):
I want to give a little background so I don’t just jump into it and shock your audience. I grew up in an extremely abusive household. I was beaten on a regular basis with a bamboo stick. I really truly feared for my life. I thought I would be murdered and when I was in college I started stripping to pay off debt and to have some financial freedom so I could get away from my abusive household. And I moved to Los Angeles and LA. There’s lap dancing. I did not want any buddy man handling me after my father was so abusive to me for years, so I answered an ad to become a dominatrix. I actually enjoyed this job for about six months because I got to turn the tables on the abuse that I was given and act out some different control things and I just, it was different and I had fun with it and then I really burned out on it.
Kat (02:11):
It was not for me. So I decided that I was going to get a quote unquote normal job and only niche down to what I most enjoyed. Slash tolerated. I had no idea about niching at the time. I had no idea about Nisha. I had no idea. I just thought this was a tiny portion of the BDSM life that I most enjoyed. I’m definitely going to have to get a job. So the exact opposite happened. My business exploded. My already high rates over doubled and I found out at the age of 22 that when you niche, you grow rich. I grew a whole different audience and I had multiple six figure business for about five years.
Katie (02:51):
Wow. That is incredible. So cool. So what was that business? Were you selling products? Were you selling services? What was the business about?
Kat (02:58):
It was a foot business and it was services and I enjoyed it. At first it was kind of just like domination, like at first it was exciting and new. I was 20 toys making killer money. I bought my first property in LA at 23 it was, I felt in control and then along the way I was not feeling like I was leading a life of meaning, a life of purpose. I tried to quit numerous times. I was feeling depressed, I had an eating disorder. So even though the money was good, I did not feel good about it and I kept it a major secret. It’s not like I was open about it to people.
Katie (03:38):
So when people that young start a business and they’re really successful very, very quickly, often things happen. Like you mentioned where you get burned out and you’re really not happy. So what were your next steps to kind of move towards something that you felt was more fulfilling and more in line with what you wanted?
Kat (03:54):
I started adding in yoga. So separately I decided to start adding in. Every time I tried to quit cold Turkey I just went back because the money was just so easy. So it was really just taking some mental breaks. So instead I started adding in teaching yoga and practicing yoga and I had a full time assistant at the time and luckily he was very supportive in this and he would remind me that me teaching yoga cause it was such a tremendous difference in money, was actually keeping me mentally ready to keep running my business. So cause it was keeping me from burning out and adding in and at some point about five years in I would just became, I cannot do this anymore. It was like a form line. And my regulars, cause I had some regulars for five years, they could clearly see I was growing increasingly unhappy.
Kat (04:43):
I mean I was only 27 at the time and I was feeling super, like you said, burnt out. So one of my regulars, I was honest with him and he offered me a job at his company and I grew a division of his company. I did extremely well in corporate. It’s kind of surprising with no corporate background. However, being an entrepreneur and a self starter and being able to run a mini empire easily translated to corporate and I was able to grow that com, that part of the company for him. I ran conferences and put those together and it was again a fun at first cause it was different. However, I am an entrepreneur. I do not like having a boss mom. He was a nice person yet he was micromanaging. I mean I had to be in an office all day. It was not the lifestyle I wanted for myself so I quit that job and entered graduate school for psychology because during this entire time I did a shit load of therapy to get my head on halfway straight and I will generously say halfway straight to deal with my eating disorders, my depression, all this, all the abuse that I suffered and that’s why I went back to graduate school as my second year project.
Kat (05:55):
I chose helping women transition out of the sex industry as my second year project and that’s how I accidentally became a business coach 13 years ago.
Katie (06:05):
Wow, that’s so cool. That’s such a cool story. And so business coaching, I have interviewed quite a few business coaches and I always find it so fascinating the background and how people got there. So through your psychology degree, did you get some kind of certification for coaching or did that just all kind of fit together?
Kat (06:21):
Therapy and coaching are two different things. So after I got my master’s in psychology, I actually got certified for coaching from a separate program there. There are two different things. Not that I don’t use some of the tools that I learned from my masters in psychology into my current life. But your master’s doesn’t certify you.
Katie (06:39):
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I always like to ask, cause people always kind of want to know the nitty gritty, like the certifications, the trainings, all that kind of stuff. And so is that business that you started the business coaching what you’re doing right now?
Kat (06:51):
It is not. At that time period, I was helping women transition out of the sex industry. I opened up my practice, so at that time I was taking men and women and it was kind of new at the time. Life coaching business coaching is 13 years ago, was relatively new and I took a really big variety of clients, like all over the board and I met and married my husband. I was going to say current husband, but my only husband and I chose to become a stay at home mom. So when I married my husband, I had 10 times more money than he did. He’s nine years younger than me. No one rescued me. However, he is an extremely high earner now, almost a decade later. And I was going to be a pampered stay at home mom indefinitely. When my son entered preschool and I had me time for the first time in years, I grew restless, I was irritable, I was spending hours a day on the internet like reading stupid gossip sites and I just was going crazy. So luckily for me, I had an honest conversation with a mom. I knew. She told me she was going crazy too. Both of us were just going stir crazy and I came out of retirement and helped her start a business that she enjoys that she makes high profit for. That’s still popular to this day and I did it for a buzz. It was fun and I coached her for free.
Katie (08:19):
Yeah, that’s great. I have a question now. This might be a little personal, but I’ve talked to a lot of women who are very successful entrepreneurs but also have a lot of limiting beliefs around money and about making more than their partner. Did you have any issues where that or was that just something that never caused any problems?
Kat (08:36):
Well, I have really, I feel like I have great money mindset. We’re millionaires. We have created a really good life for ourselves and I feel like I have good money mindset. Yes, I still have limiting beliefs and it’s funny that you brought that up. That is a limiting belief that I’ve had to work through. So when I married, my husband had 10 times more money than he did. However, the last eight years of me being mom first and wife and mom first, he definitely out earns me by a great amount. So that’s just actually not something in my sphere right now that I would even think about yet. I have done work around it cause it, it feels a little bit scary to have that even though we started our marriage that way.
Katie (09:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I always, I find that topic has come up more and more in the podcast, so I’m always curious to hear people’s opinion about that. And so after you had kind of been focusing on being a mom and a wife and a little bit out of the business world, how did you jump back in? Did you have your website first? Did you do any branding work? What were those first steps?
Kat (09:39):
I never planned on jumping back in all the way. I only took clients from my immediate area in my inner circle. I never took more than one client at a time at the max in the last four years it was two. So I was always mom first I have, I completely had a mom life, like play dates every single day here where I live, we only have half day kindergarten. So I was picking up my son at 11:40 AM and besides that it was preschool where I was picking up him at 12:30 PM so we’re talking limited time and in this limited time I love to have fun. I love to roller blade on the strand. I love to go walking or jogging with my friends. We love to go class, we’d love to go brunch. So I still had a lot of me time so I was only doing one client and like I said, or two at the very most in my circle or right outside of my circle. I just started scaling my business when my son entered first grade. So I just started scaling it online in June.
Katie (10:39):
Oh very exciting. So this is this super exciting time for you and your and your tagline. You mentioned that you help women scale and create profitable businesses for only working two hours a day. And that caught my eye. I was like, that sounds pretty good. So how does that work? Exactly?
Kat (10:56):
That boils down to narrowing your niche for the subset of your niche that’s going to be the most pleasurable and bring in the most high profit. I honed that skill because when I was helping sex workers transition out of the sex industry, they were used to making it multiple hundreds, if not thousands of dollars an hour. Moving them into a business or a job or anything that was going to be very limited pay for the time spent was just not going to happen. That’s how you, how people in the sex industry, like myself and some of my colleagues and friends kept slipping backwards. So that’s, I really had to hone that skill on what was the skill that they had that could actually get, that you could could actually be profitable. And I totally believe in being mom first. So none of my clients work more than 15 to 20 hours a week. That’s full time in my eyes.
Katie (11:49):
Yeah, definitely. And that is one of the reasons I started my own at, you know, I was maybe 24 25 thinking ahead that I wanted to be able to work and have a business but also be a really present active mom as well and so I’m, I’m sure there’s some unique challenges and also some great things that come with being a working mom. Have you seen anything across the board that you notice coming up again and again with stay at home moms at wanting to start a business?
Kat (12:15):
The number one challenge I think I face, I mean that I see over and over again is them believing that they don’t have a business idea, that that could be a viable business idea. That they truly don’t feel like they have a skill or a gift that could be turned into a profitable business.
Katie (12:33):
Do you go through any exercises with them or any kind of tools to help them kind of realize what actually could work as a business?
Kat (12:40):
Yes. I take all their current skills, gifts, passions. I have them ask their partner, their mom, their kids, their best friend, about all of the things that they admire in them. And we break it down step by step. And then I just use my expertise. I am currently trying to hone down what I do in my brain and putting it into a program. So I’m currently doing a beta on that group program so I can make it systemized and not have to go through my brain. But currently it goes through my brain.
Katie (13:12):
Right. Gotcha, gotcha. And when you, you’ve mentioned having a really specific niche, which I agree, I think that’s super important, but a lot of people listening might not really understand how niche down you, you probably should go. Do you mind kind of explaining that a little bit?
Kat (13:26):
Sure. One, my first client that I was talking about, she made beautiful cakes. She learned this skill from her mom. She truly didn’t think like this could be a viable business idea. It could be like an hobby on the side. We niched her down to gluten free cakes for children’s birthday parties and baby showers. The reason being is her mom and sister both have celiac disease. Gluten free is a big thing here in coastal Southern California and people will pay a premium for that product. So none of her. So before she was pricing her cakes at like $50 and now none of her packages are underneath $300. And that is like the most basic package. That’s just one example. One of my clients in my area, she was a lawyer for the city of Los Angeles. She has three kids. A Brigid schedule is making her miss out on raising her kids. So we niche down her law specialty into one subset of immigration law and that’s all she focuses on. And she can work two days a week and she makes more than the American average income well above that.
Katie (14:37):
Wow. That’s so cool. That is so cool. And I was reading through your biography or your work with me page and you went through a great example just like you did with the woman who is making cakes about mommy bloggers and just how they’re a certain amount of day and how they can really start scaling that. But you did mention the multilevel marketing, which is a hot button issue, especially where I live, Utah, it’s like all over the place and I swear I get probably 60 to 70 friend requests from strangers a day. It was people messaging me out of the blue. So what’s your opinion on those multilevel marketing companies?
Kat (15:14):
So those are my, what I call online low profit businesses. I don’t believe that starting a blog, starting an online business like a YouTube channel or starting MLM is the road to success. And I bring up the stats on the blog to show why there’s a half a billion blogs right now and the average blogger. So that 80 something percent of bloggers make less than $105 a month. And that is working so many hours of churning out content. A blog can be part of a successful business and without a monetization plan, it is not in itself a successful business. And several of my clients have come to me after a year or two of unsuccessfully monetizing blogs. MLM, I just don’t get into because people can make money off of it. I’ve had clients come to me after being successful in MLM, so they can, I just don’t, I, I’m not an MLM person. I help my clients start businesses that with their current skills, I don’t help clients sell other people’s products. And then the last one were the online, like the YouTube channel. You need 10,000 subscribers to even monetize, to even make your first penny. It takes a lot of content, a lot of effort to get 10,000 subscribers and I believe in working with the skills, the gifts, the talents you currently have, something maybe that you learned from a job, something that comes naturally to you, something that is a hobby of yours and monetizing that.
Katie (16:44):
Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. That’s really interesting and I would love for you to kind of talk about your, your online Facebook community. I’m a huge advocate of Facebook groups. I think they’re amazing for networking and also finding clients and networking with clients. So can you tell me a little bit about that group?
Kat (17:01):
I started the fulfilled high stay at home mom entrepreneur group. I technically opened it in January but I didn’t add any members to it until I think late April. I just opened it and, and put it on the sideline while I was still a mom first. My son was only in kindergarten at the time. And it’s just the community where I’m in every day. I am supportive of my members. It’s a supportive community. I like to have fun in it. I do trainings in it twice a week on all things business using my 20 years of expertise in the business world. It is geared towards moms. We do have one goat mom in the group that I accepted cause you know she asked and she’s a mom, goes through the rest of us are all moms and we’re all in business and there’s just trainings on all key steps of starting your ideal business, which is nailing your right business idea, crafting the right offer, the one that’s going to make your clients take notice and say yes pricing to yourself.
Kat (18:00):
Right? I believe in pricing us busy moms as boutiques and definitely not like a Walmart where you need tons of clients to make any profit. And on a side note, I just did a live about that yesterday about pricing. Walmart has been their profits been going down year after year after year. If you look at their chart, which I showcased in my group. So these are just the little things that I do in my group and then how to get clients. And I showcase how my clients are getting clients and what they’re doing to getting to get those clients.
Katie (18:27):
Fantastic. So if someone’s listening and they’re really resonating with everything they’re saying, how could they start working with you? What are some of the things that you work with people? One on one
Kat (18:37):
One-On-One? I the my lowest package is a strategy call. So that’s an intensive and I will work with you one-on-one to nail your niche. And during that time we will take everything we just talked about, your current skills, your gifts, your talents, your past job experience, anything that feels really good for you. And we’re going to break those down and find the subset of that niche that’s going to produce the highest income for the time spent that you feel good about. And then I support you for the next couple of weeks as we test that right idea to make sure it is your ideal business idea. And then my bigger package is my one on one package. It’s currently $5,000 to work with me for four months and I walk you from zero to paying clients. So I walk all of my clients to pain clients and I do this without fear because I’ve never had a client not get clients.
Kat (19:35):
So one of my current online clients, she paid for my services in two clients in under two months. So everything now all the work before us and she’s been getting clients easily have been pure ROI on her part and she just told me she’s going to sign up with me for another four months cause we’re scaling her business to a multiple six figure business and I have the path for her and another one of my clients online, she actually got her first paying client the day after our first call. Now this isn’t usual so we nailed her right idea. She had been online for months so she already had a presence online. She just wasn’t nailing her idea. So her clients didn’t like her potential clients. It was falling on deaf ears. We really need her down and she was really scared about it but she was willing to try it. And the very next day she got her first client. Within two weeks she got two and within three weeks she had three clients and she’s now full because that’s all she wanted and she wants to stay mom first to her two kids.
Katie (20:37):
Wow, that’s exciting. That’s very, very cool. So is there anything coming up in your business that you’re super excited about? Any big goals that you’re working towards?
Kat (20:46):
My main goal is exactly what I already shared, which is breaking down the process of nailing your niche, the subset of your right idea that’s going to produce that pleasure and income, that really good intersection into a do it yourself course. I’m still refining that. I’m doing beta programs, small group programs right now to refine that process and to really work out that process on a bigger scale with people so that I can eventually offer it as a DIY course.
Katie (21:17):
Fantastic. And I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for that and we’ll, and we’ll share it when it comes live. So is there anything out there that you found to be really helpful or inspiring, whether it’s a book, a podcast, or course, anything really in your personal life or your business life that you would recommend to the listeners to check out?
Kat (21:34):
I have been listening to Gary B. He’s a little out there. He has a lot of words of wisdom in his out, their illness. I love entrepreneurs on fire. That is an amazing podcast with really high level entrepreneurs and for books. I have currently been reading the big leap by Harville Hendrix and as you move up in the business world and you bring in more money and you start creating that dream life for yourself, we hit something that he calls upper limits and this can cause some people to self sabotage, which we’ve all seen. We’ve seen like movie stars do this or successful people do this. So this is a way to integrate all of the good that we’re bringing in our life and being able to stretch in our ability to feel good so that we can keep creating that higher level of dream life for ourselves.
Katie (22:28):
Fantastic. I’ll definitely link to all those in the show notes. If you had a piece of advice to give to moms stay at home moms who are really feeling that kind of stir crazy feeling and want to start thinking about starting a business, do you have a piece of advice to them that you would give?
Kat (22:43):
Absolutely. Start with 30 minutes a day, usually 30 minute hyper-focus model. That just means 30 minutes a day. It’s without fail in your calendar. You sit down and you work on what’s going to move your business from maybe zero to launch or if you’re on the roadmap from a to Z. If today is D to eat, you sit down and you do from D to E. If you don’t know where you’re going and you’re spending countless hours on YouTube trying to figure it out, watching endless webinars, watching all of us do our lives in our Facebook group, I encourage you to on the lowest end, pick a course and actually finish the course. The problem with courses is there is a single digit completion rate because there’s no support and accountability, but be a self starter, complete that course and the best way is to hire a mentor or a business coach like myself that you really resonate with, that you feel like will get you your outcome that you want. Hire them and get on that track. Just make that consistent action, decide on success and take consistent action every day and that’s how you’re going to get there.
Katie (23:52):
Awesome. That’s fantastic advice. And I always like to ask this question because I’m, I know as an entrepreneur I tend to like work a little bit more than I should. Sometimes I, I get burnt out other times. So I’d like to really focus on keeping these things that have nothing to do with business in my life to kind of refresh and revive. So do you have anything in your life like that, TV shows, activities, things like that that’s just kind of keeping your mind off business and letting you rest a little bit?
Kat (24:19):
I have so many things of that in my life because I truly believe in having a pleasurable, balanced life. And I have, I still am mom first. So I love rollerblading along the beach with my best friend. I love running along the beach or walking along the beach. I take my dog for a 30 minute to an hour hike or walk around the area every day. I live in a great area with great weather. So we go bike riding, we go to the spa once in a while. We, I exercise daily. I love doing talking walks with friends. I love drinking my coffee. I love watching the sunset. There’s, there’s so much I love. I’m plugging. It’s so important, especially when you’re building a business and everything to bring in that pleasure in your life so that you’re not building a business from zero energy in a place of exhaustion. Make sure to keep filling yourself up with all of the stuff that makes you feel good.
Katie (25:14):
I agree. I absolutely love that and I know people are going to want to check you out and follow everything that you’re doing. So can you tell everybody how to find you online?
Kat (25:21):
I can be reached@sahmentrepreneur.com that stands for stay at home mom, entrepreneur. It’s S a H M entrepreneur.com. There is a link to my community that Katie was talking about, and on the front page there is a training and it goes over the four key steps in more detail than I did in this podcast. And there, if you feel called to work with me, we can set up an appointment on the work with me page to see if we’re an amazing fit. I only take dream clients at this point in my business.
Katie (25:53):
That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It’s been so nice to chat with you.
Kat (25:59):
It’s been a pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you.
