Kathy Goughenour, Founder & CEO
THE CLIFF NOTES:
When Kathy walked out of her career in a Fortune 500 company in 2001, she didn’t even know what a Virtual Assistant was – and neither did the rest of the world. Now, she’s a global leader in the industry. She’s the queen of Expert VAs® and Virtual Experts® and built her empire from the ground to nearly $1M. She reigns with sass, grace, heart, and a whole lot of damn good business acumen that she wants to bestow upon her mentees, so they can fast track their success and don’t have to hurdle through mistakes and failures like she did.
Her big why: by empowering women to have more wealth and growth, we spread more love around the world.
HOW THE STORY BEGAN: “She laughed and smiled too much.”
The corporate world didn’t know what to do with Kathy’s energy. She “laughed and smiled, too much,” they said and they certainly didn’t value her range of capabilities. She had a lot more to offer than generating mass amounts of Excel reports.
So, when she walked out of her J.O.B., turning her back on the boss who criticized her and who told her she would never make her salary amount anywhere else, Kathy promised herself she would double it. And she did. Within her first three years, she earned six-figures, crushing the salary she had made. (She still likes to imagine that boss picking his jaw up off the floor.)
By 2008, Kathy had not only experienced repeated success with her VA business, but she discovered she loved training other women to also attain their goals. A series of events led her down the path to creating the Expert VA® (now Virtual Expert®) Success System. Her first group of trainees totaled 8 and two of them are still active within the community (Coach, Joyce Wright and, Head Coach and Director of Sales, Mary Hanley).
WHERE SHE IS NOW: On the cusp of $1M
Nineteen years later and she’s on the cusp of earning a million dollars, has over one thousand members in her closed Expert VA group, 150 Alumni in her private group, thirteen coaches leading the troops, and new students enrolling in the program every day (with fourteen at Diamond’s level and six at the top-tier mastermind).
In 2019 she was featured in Forbes. Kathy participates in several women’s masterminds. She rubs elbows with some of the best and most brilliant leaders, thinkers, and visionaries across the U.S. and within a variety of industries, working to matchmake them to their perfect Expert VA® and Virtual Experts®.
SHE’S ALSO HUMAN: A tiny home and tons of tiaras
While Kathy runs her virtual empire, she’s actually living in a tiny home in the middle of the Missouri, Ozarks, wearing PJs (not gowns). But the crown is a very real part of her ensemble. Kathy can be found sporting a tiara 98% of the time. Yes, you got it. PJs and tiaras because that’s the type of kingdom she’s ruling. And why not? She gets to make the rules.
Apart from loving the business she created and the life she’s made, Kathy’s also a big fan of her family, her golden retrievers, Thursday’s off to enjoy going into town for self-care activities and lunch with girlfriends, mystery novels, and romantic comedies.
AND SHE WHOLEHEARTEDLY BELIEVES IN YOU
The most important thing you need to know about Kathy is that more than anything else, she believes, sees, feels, and models that what one woman can do, another can do. And if you talk to anyone in the program, they will agree. It’s true. They’ve seen it. They’ve become the “another woman” Kathy talks about. The other thing she believes is that together we rise.
