Natalie Micale - CEO, Oh Hello Agency
Natalie discovered a passion for storytelling through her early start as a TV reporter, and built on that passion with Oh Hello, a creative agency helping businesses become brands. By leveraging the power of virtual assistants, she’s been able to scale her company where she now leads daily operations and client management, while simultaneously running sub-brand, The VA Revenue Generator, and side-hustling as a spin instructor. She balances it all through dedication to delegation, self-care, and betting on herself, every single day.
The Basics:
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Current city: Lincoln, NE
Alma mater: Nebraska Wesleyan
Degree: B.S., Political Communications
Very first job: TV News Reporter
Hustle: Owner, Oh Hello
The Interests:
Babe you admire and why?
One of my best friends and a fellow entrepreneur, Jessica Loseke. She’s the co-owner of Midwest Barrel Co., a national barrel broker, and she’s just wicked smart and a strategist who always makes me think about doing marketing differently. She’s building an experience-based brand that focuses on delivering an excellent product with a great story. She’s tenacious, never stops asking Q’s and learning every single day. It's what makes her able to lead a phenomenal team. We’ve worked with her at my agency and she just raises the bar of everyone she’s around.
Top three favorite places to travel to?
Barcelona, Cancun, New York
Favorite pump-up workout song?
“We In This B*tch” by Iggy Azalea
The Hustle:
Tell us about your hustle.
I’m the CEO of Oh Hello, a company I started three years ago to help brands tell powerful stories that can change the world. Our creative agency focuses on helping companies become brands through strategy, web design, messaging, and campaign creation (digital advertising, SMM, etc.) My role includes business development and leading our team in daily operations and client management. Every day, I spent around 60% of my time building new relationships and finding more people who are ready to turn their customers into loyal brand advocates. The other 40% of my time is spent working with our team on streamlining our processes and operations to ensure we deliver excellence, and leading brand strategy and content development for our clients. The VA Revenue Generator, a sub-brand under Oh Hello, teaches small and mid-level business how to hire virtual assistants, and how they can craft, with virtual assistants, a marketing strategy and overall profitable business.
What has the evolution of the agency been like since you created it? What was the most important piece of your vision for it?
When I started Oh Hello, I saw so many companies spending thousands of dollars on digital marketing campaigns without any brand strategy behind them. They had no idea who they were talking to, how to communicate what problems their company solved, or even how to really talk to their customers in a way that was relatable. I use storytelling as an integral piece of everything that we do at Oh Hello, and we have a framework that helps our clients discover how powerful storytelling can be for their brand. As an ex-TV news anchor, storytelling was definitely the most important piece of my “why.” I started this agency three years ago with two other partners and I’m now the sole owner (as I bought them out when we decided to go in different directions). Translating passion into a career is something many people aspire to do, but very few have the drive, motivation, and bravery to achieve. How did you decide that you wanted to create your own business and what’re some early steps that you took in order to accomplish your goal? I knew that I wanted to create my own business after I watched other entrepreneurs and worked for other people who did it successfully. I know a lot of people say 'just jump in head first,' but I truly took pride and joy in learning from people who are smarter and more successful than me. Taking the first 10 years of my career to humble myself and work for other people gave me a perspective of what a true leader needs to be. Some of the other early steps I’ve taken to achieve my goal included seeking out a female entrepreneur who served as a mentor to me and helped me set up financial projections, think about my exit plan from my job at the time, and set ambitious revenue goals.
Was there ever a time when things were more challenging than you’d expected?
When I started Oh Hello, I wish I’d delegated more, as I was trying to do everything and living in scarcity. I felt I just HAD to do everything because we “couldn’t afford to hire out help”—at least that’s the story I was telling myself—and to be honest, I was putting myself in a victim mindset. The second I started delegating, I grew exponentially in my business! We probably could’ve grown a lot faster if I’d just focused on sales and marketing, changed my mindset, and tried to figure out how to delegate things to other people on our team early on. I overcame these obstacles by joining a mastermind and learning how to leverage virtual assistants and online specialists to get more done. This honestly changed my life—so much so that we built an entire course helping other entrepreneurs do the same thing.
What’re some steps that you’ve taken as a CEO to create an environment that empowers women?
We have a lot of women on our team, and I really focus on reminding them that they should initiate, drive projects forward, and take up space in meetings in the most powerful way. To empower women means to mentor women, provide constant feedback and affirmations to make them know that their voices should be heard—but also teach them how to use their voices, too. When it comes to empowering women outside of my agency, I’m always looking for opportunities to amplify voices within industries like construction, where they often get drowned out. I specifically look for client work where we’re truly partnering in the creation of a brand that’s run by a female CEO in an industry that they’re choosing to disrupt. I also coach women on how to run their sales funnel, delegate effectively to people like virtual assistants, and build badass brands.
How have your past professional and academic experiences and lessons prepared you for the work you do today? How have they not prepared you?
I discovered my love for storytelling when I was an anchor and reporter. When I looked at my next career step, it made sense to go into the agency world and help brands and companies powerfully position themselves and tell great stories about how they help their customers. I started working at a digital marketing agency called Evol Empire, and it was there where I learned all the basics of agency life, and to leverage my storytelling abilities to drive sales forward as a Director of Business Development. Doing sales there and learning from the CEO was the best preparation for learning how to run a company and drum up business. I would say working in a television newsroom truly taught me how to wake up everyday and go get it, because in TV News, if you’re not bringing it 100% every day, you’ll never succeed at your job.
How did you build your clientele? Have you discovered any tips and tricks throughout your career?
We built our clientele by doing great work and giving 110% customer servicing our clients every single day—even when we don’t feel like it. Other growth hacks have included regular and structured sales trainings, leveraging virtual assistants, fighting for what we want, and utilizing coaching. Julia Pimsleur, one of the most badass humans I’ve ever worked with, is helping us find new ways to sell and drive revenue forward. When you invest in a good coach, you ultimately level up your game.
How has being a woman impacted your professional experiences? What can we collectively do to support and empower women in your industry today?
Female founders like me can continue to educate fellow women on how to raise their prices and be more aggressive towards sales. Men have that piece figured out, and female founders really struggle with raising prices and showing value. We need women to be comfortable talking about money, and the only way to do that is to, well, talk about money.
How were you first introduced to spin? What makes you passionate about it?
Five years ago, I walked into this studio called Fly Fitness and I fell in love with the soulful journey of the class. I joined as a member and only a year in, started teaching. I truly stumbled into this studio in Lincoln, Nebraska and now I’m a master spin instructor with thousands of hours of training under my belt. I’m absolutely obsessed with tapping it back on a bike! It’s different because it truly feels like a concert or a movie for the client coming in. The lights, the instructor, the energy of people moving together on a bike, all of it creates this dynamic experience where the energy and magnetic feeling makes every rider feel unstoppable. And guess what? They really are.
What’s one thing you’re proud to have accomplished in your career thus far?
After parting ways with my partners, I had to figure out how to run this agency on my own. I’m really proud of the work that I’ve done to scale it back up, grow our revenue and our team, and most importantly, bet on myself every single day.
How do you maintain your mental and physical health while juggling so much? How do you balance it all without burning out?
I learned to take weekends for myself. I make plans with friends so I have something SUPER FUN to look forward to, and I make sure that I really do unwind. This also might seem high maintenance, but I take a 45 minute nap every single day and my personal mantra is, “Treat yourself like the talent.“ I rest a lot. As far as not burning out, my workouts definitely saved me from that!
Who are some women in your field that you look to for inspiration?
Jasmine Bina is the owner and brand strategist at Concept Bureau. She’s always inspired me with her abilities. We actually brought her in when we started the agency for consulting on building our brand messaging framework. It was life changing. She’s one of the best brand strategists in the game. Another person who truly inspires me in the marketing world is Jenna Kutcher. She has a podcast that has really great tactical marketing strategy tips!
Career and/or life advice for other babes?
Stop procrastinating and start executing. It’s really that simple. Also, a lot of people talk about doing it, they just never actually do. If you want it bad enough, you’ll execute.
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