Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with great shows like a business infrastructure.

Today we'll be focusing on the balance how having two kids under the age of two change Alexandria's Ellicon business and how she three extra annual income through the process and to drop these

I was I brought Alexandria Harrelson into EO fire studios Alexandria built a multi six figure company in five years after losing everything today her and a team of 12 are passionate about supporting companies worldwide missions through innovative marketing and consulting strategies and today fire nation we're going to talk about how things changed when Alexandria became pregnant.

We're going to talk about how so many people want to scale immediately but there's a couple things you can think about and do before you even think about scaling and a couple mistakes that we can also avoid when growing our business and so much more when we get back from thinking our sponsors.

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Alexandria say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

Hey everybody super excited to be here today.

Okay so I have.

Oh I've been thinking about this one and you know what it really boils down to me is we have a mixed bag here I know some of you are going to say a lot of people don't think that's a lot of people do but the hustle culture that so many of us fall into that hustle trap thinking that we have to be on 24 seven to have a successful business when that is just not true you don't have to do that or that fear of oh I can't do X Y and Z because I have to be working on my business if I don't do this my.

Business will fail that that trap that we get into that so many people kind of we're all in it together and we keep sharing that that is the number one thing I have learned personally that is just not true you don't have to do that you don't have to hustle hustle hustle all the time and fire nation that's why this podcast episode is aptly titled the balance and this is all about how Alexandria had two kids under the age of two and she also changed her.

Change her outlook at the same time and 3 X her annual income in the process and let's just start off at the beginning because what the heck made you do something crazy and launch a business in the first place tell us that origin story oh my goodness I will give you the Clifnets version I promise but it all boils back to cows.

I can't believe that one my family had a farm and dairy and literally my dad ordered this box one day it came from a different place and he's like hey we should start in dropshipping business and I'm like okay dad let's do it and I I was in college I was a sophomore at the time and I had no idea when I was getting myself into what so ever spend about six months just teaching myself everything about website design graphic design copywriting.

I'll goodness you should see my first graphic designs they were awful but you know I was learning it all at that time and over the next several years it was my journey into entrepreneurship that was my first taste of it and it was a product based business it was dropshipping which is is a beast in itself.

I got married and kind of looks at my husband was like I don't want to go down and I don't want to go get a nine to five I don't know if that's me being a little bit priceless I just don't want to do it. I've been doing this business I left the farm and dairy supply said I won't be a virtual assistant whatever this is and learned what that was and every door just started opening up and then all of a sudden here I am five years later next week will be five years in business have a team of twelve where I'm working.

I'm a marketing agency now it has been it's been crazy but what started it was on is the extra cash that's how I am here which is crazy and itself to even say out loud.

I will say having been in the business for ten years now myself launching entrepreneurs on fire back in 2012 I've seen a lot of my friends a lot of my peers go through transitions where you know they actually like launch their businesses was just maybe them or maybe them in their partner and whoever it is but then life does change and you know maybe kids come into the picture and stuff and I hear a pretty common theme a lot of them say what the heck did I used to do with my time because I feel like every spare second now is still.

I'm a very spare second now is taken up you know by my child or by my children now and I just came and picture a remember what it was like to not have their responsibility like did I just sit around watching Netflix all day like this is crazy so you are running your business when you became pregnant with your first child so talk to us about the shift that you went through during that life moment.

It was terrifying actually I was virtual assistant at the time just me was doing it all of myself and I was in that hustle trap that I that I mentioned earlier I really thought you know what I have to do it all if I'm not going to be on all the time my business is going to fall apart I built this amazing thing and I got pregnant with my son and it just hit me I was like oh no I have nine months what am I going to do it was like this time bomb was going to go up and I said you know what everybody

has been telling me that I should hire help so I'm going to hire a team and I'm going to hire some some people and I'm going to do a V.A. agency and blah blah blah I made so many mistakes but what happened was I learned so much through that and I in September my son was born in December so

in September I was like I'm going to hire all these people didn't try them that didn't really interview I mean it was like text book opposite of what you're supposed to do when you start hiring a team and I had my son had ppd really bad there was the

issues with the delivery it was really rough and the business the team that I had put into place it just wasn't working whatsoever and I took everything back myself and I kind of fell into that trap again of complete stress I was so overwhelmed I was so scared of losing what I had built and I

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