How a decade spent as a political organizer, including knocking on doors and making hundreds of calls, helped this business coach grow her own company to 6 figures in just 2 years

• Elaine Lou Cartas is a career and business coach focused on women of color, but before that, she was a political organizer for Democratic campaigns and a fundraiser for keeping low-income students enrolled in community college.
• She credits those efforts for helping her launch her coaching program, which garnered more than 200 clients and $100,000 within two years, without paid advertising.
• Important lessons she learned were keeping a close list of contacts, reminding clients of the cause, and working with people in person.
• She also said expressing gratitude to all involved keeps clients invested.
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Turns out motivating political volunteers has a lot in common with motivating customers.

Listen to the Bernie Sanders of the world and it can seem like business people and grassroots organizers exist on the opposite ends of the spectrum of motivation and approach. Organizers are all about mission and community. Business leaders are all about money and the bottom line.

But if you ask business coach Elaine Lou Cartas, that's bunk. Before starting her work as a career and business coach focused on women of color, Cartas spent a decade making calls and knocking on doors, first as a political organizer for a variety of Democratic campaigns and then as a fundraiser searching out money to keep low-income kids enrolled in community college.

Speaking to Business Insider, Cartas insisted that her work as an organizer was actually pivotal in teaching her the skills she needed to win more than 200 clients and make just over $100,000 with the launch of a single product, a bundle of coaching services she dubbed her "mastermind program," all within two years of setting up shop. And all of this was with no paid advertising.

Low glamour work with a high pay-off

Cartas is the first to admit her backstory is not glamorous. The child of first-generation immigrants from the Philippines, Cartas graduated in 2010 into the teeth of the Great Recession. With very few job options, she took a gig on the very lowest rungs of the political hierarchy, rustling up volunteers for a state-wide race in Iowa. She made 300 calls a day and knocked on 15 doors an hour while living on the couches of campaign supporters.

"I'll be transparent. I hated it. I cried," she said of her first days in the field. She stuck it out, growing better and happier in her job, but after five years she was burnt out. She returned home to California and took a job as a fundraiser at Pasadena Community College.

It was a meaningful move for Cartas, and she thrived in the role. "My mom went to that community college when she had three kids under the age of five, which included me," she explained. "She couldn't finish. But when I got the job I told her, 'I know you couldn't finish college but I want to let you know that I'm helping other people like you.'"

Cartas raised over $1 million in six months for scholarships, but eventually realized she missed the hands-on, personal nature of organizing (if not some of the personalities in politics). She decided to make a change that at first seems out of the left field: She decided to start her own business coaching company.

What qualified her to do this? As Cartas set about figuring out how to woo clients and help them succeed, she quickly understood that her background in organizing actually had huge overlap with her new venture. The skills she mastered trying to get Iowans to make calls on behalf of her candidate actually served her incredibly well in her new career.

Rolodexes don't exist anymore, but 'Rolodexing' is still powerful

When a campaign would call up Cartas and ask her to round up 100 people for a town hall meeting in less than a week, she would freak out. Then she would start 'Rolodexing,' or working her way through her contacts to start to make it happen.

When she started her coaching business a decade later, paper Rolodexes were only to be found in design museums and landfills, but she still started just where she would have in her organizing days - with Rolodexing.

"Let's say your niche is woman of color millennials, which it is for me. What I did was I looked through my phone, my Gmail, my LinkedIn, my Facebook and Instagram for anyone who I thought met that criteria. Then I put a list together and just started messaging like, 'Hey, I want to get your feedback.' I started mobilizing people," she said.

Is that sexy? New fangled? Fun? No, but it works. "I did unsexy things like phone calls and door knocking and I continue to do unsexy things. Something that I've learned and also teach my clients is I might not be able to control how much money I make, but I can control how many conversations I have," Cartas said.

You can get people to do nearly anything for the right cause

Once you've worked that (virtual) Rolodex and connected with real, live humans, how do you motivate them either to help your candidate or sign up as your customer? According to Cartas, both often come down to the deeper meaning behind the everyday ask.

"Who wants to do phone calls for an hour or two? That's not glamorous," Cartas said of her days trying to convince ordinary people to volunteer for campaigns. The key to overcoming resistance, she added, is "reminding them, 'Hey, this person represents pro-choice. This person represents equality for all.' Really understanding what their issues are."

"If I translate that into the business world, as a coach, when I would talk to, for example, moms, I know that you want to get out of your corporate job because your goal is to walk your child to school every day," she said. Keeping an eye on the 'why' behind a decision - be it to join a movement or buy a product - works both in organizing and selling.

It also gives you resilience. "My parents and the generations before them didn't have that life of choice, but I do. And for me, I feel like just living my dream, which is having my own business, is honoring their legacy," Cartas said. That sense of purpose keeps her going when things get hard.

Cartas teaches her clients to focus on the deeper reasons for their struggles. "Psychologically, when we remind ourselves that it is something bigger than ourselves, it helps us push forward when you get rejected. Like for a mom, your three kids are more important than getting rejected from two phone calls," she said. "It's getting to the root. Why are you doing this in the first place? Something deeper than, 'I want money.'"

In-person community is incredibly powerful

Much of business happens online these days. Thanks to her time in politics, Cartas has seen the limits of the all-virtual approach. That's why, when she was gearing up for the launch of her mastermind program last year, she organized free monthly get-togethers for women in the demographic she serves, calling the gatherings the 'Color Your Dreams Movement.' More than 1,200 people registered for these events over the course of the year based off only organic social media advertising and outreach to her mailing list.

To Cartas, that speaks to an untapped thirst for offline contact, which business people can use to their advantage. "I sound like a politician, but at the end of the day, it is about building community," she said.

"Community is so important because you don't feel so lonely. You know that you have issues and problems and fears and doubts just like other people. You know that you're not alone and that anything is possible when you have the right support. You don't have to just Google all your answers" she explained.

Gratitude is everything

Volunteers are, by definition, not paid, so campaigns know they need to appreciate the heck out of them or they're not going to stick around.

"What I learned from grassroots organizing is the first time they come is for the candidate. The second time is for you," Cartas said. "And what I've learned in my own business is that if you focus on making sure your current clients are happy, they'll continue working with you."

"Whenever I have clients, I'm expressing gratitude. That's a huge thing. So I send thank you cards to people. I ask for feedback. How else can I best serve you? And making sure I take action right away," she continued. That's why 51% of her business comes from repeat customers.

We all recognize mission, community, communication, and the simple numbers game of connecting with as many of the right kind of people as possible as the backbone of politics. Cartas's impressive success in her first few years as a coach reminds us that they're also the backbone of effective selling and brand building. Building a movement works for politicians, but it might just work for your business, too.