“Name it until you claim it." with Expert Katie Hahn
Hello everyone! Today we are excited to share a powerful and very honest conversation with Katie Hahn – business strategist, CEO, coach, and scientist by training. After “drinking from the fire hose” in her early CEO days, Katie turned years of hard-won experience in business operations, consulting, and sales leadership into a clear framework: her 5-step CLIMB method.
Her background spans IT, finance, marketing, and education. She has led tech integrations, restructured academic programs, and driven multi-million dollar growth – but what really stands out is how deeply she cares about helping women entrepreneurs and coaches move from chaos to clarity and build businesses that truly fit their lives.
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- From Fire Hose to Framework: How CLIMB Was Born
Katie didn’t plan to “get into business.” She started dabbling in sales, then suddenly found herself in a CEO role when her business partners left – with just 15 days to figure things out. She didn’t even know if she was supposed to sign checks or if she had the right keys to the office door.
Out of this pressure and trial-and-error came a pattern. Every time she took over a new business in a new industry, she noticed she was following the same sequence. Over time, this evolved into her CLIMB framework:
C – Clarity
L – Leveraging
I – Implementing
M – Measurement
B – Benchmarking
What started as “learning the hard way” became a method she now uses to help others grow and stabilize their businesses in a much more intentional and strategic way.
- C Is for Clarity: Know Who You Serve and Where You’re Going
The “C” in CLIMB stands for clarity – and Katie is very clear: this is the foundation.
Clarity means answering questions like:
– Who are you really talking to?
– Who is your ideal client or persona?
– What is your messaging?
– What is your business model?
– How do you actually plan to grow?
Without these basics, everything else becomes noise. Katie also connects clarity strongly to young professionals and first-time founders: the earlier you understand what you want, where you’re headed, and who you serve, the easier it is to take smart career and business decisions.
Her advice: get strong foundations in business if that’s your path, then find your passion and pair it with those skills. It doesn’t have to be a straight line – but you do need a direction.
- Leveraging, Implementing, and Thinking Like a CEO
Once the fundamentals are clear, the next steps in CLIMB are all about how you show up and how you use your resources.
L – Leveraging
For small businesses especially, leveraging is key: automations, other people, and your own time. You cannot be the only one doing everything. Systems, tools, and support free you from the daily grind and create room for growth.
I – Implementing
Implementation is both about putting systems into place and about “implementing yourself as CEO.” Many women, Katie says, call themselves “business owners” but don’t see themselves as CEOs. That mindset shift is crucial.
When you think like a CEO – whether you’re one person or you lead 120 – you stop being just a cog in the wheel. You step back, see the big picture, and orchestrate instead of only operating. That’s when growth becomes possible.
- Measurement, Benchmarking, and Growing Without Losing Yourself
The last two letters of CLIMB focus on making better decisions.
M – Measurement
Once you’re in a CEO mindset, you need data. Katie encourages using KPIs and metrics to validate (or challenge) your gut feeling. Do you want a lifestyle business or do you want to scale? What do the numbers say you need in terms of systems, team, or business model?
At some point, what got you here won’t get you there. You may outgrow your tools, your structures, or even your offers. Measurement helps you see this before it becomes a crisis.
B – Benchmarking
Katie recommends regular “CEO meetings with yourself.” Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, quarterly business reviews help you benchmark where you are, check whether you’re still on the right path, and course-correct if necessary.
Sometimes that even means intentionally “going smaller” again – returning to a lifestyle business when your life situation changes. As a mother of a 17-year-old and two children under five, Katie knows how quickly seasons of life can shift and how your business has to adapt.
- Switching Industries, Starting in Sales, and Advice for Young Professionals
Katie’s career path is anything but linear – and she’s proud of that. She has moved across industries and used sales as a powerful learning field.
Her advice to young professionals:
– Learn business fundamentals – they are transferable across industries.
– Start in a role where you talk to customers (sales, retail, food service) to build confidence in human interaction.
– Use sales as your “gold mine”: listening to clients tells you exactly what they need and how markets work.
She also emphasizes that career growth is rarely a straight upward line. Sometimes you step back to move forward. Sometimes you take a role primarily because of what you’ll learn. The real question is: does this opportunity move you closer to the kind of work and life you want – now or later?
- Being a Female Founder in a “Man’s World”
When Katie started, she was working in tech, selling to professional service firms – mostly men, mostly much older than her. She often felt like the granddaughter in the room, assumed to know less.
Instead of fighting this head-on, she used one of her biggest strengths: listening. By being genuinely curious and asking, “Tell me more,” she learned from male CEOs of multi-million dollar companies while also gathering the exact insights she needed to close sales and grow her own leadership.
One of her strongest observations: many women cap themselves by calling themselves only “business owners,” not CEOs. That identity difference can limit their mindset, ambition, and strategic thinking.
Her message to women:
– Stop putting yourself in a smaller box.
– You get to be the CEO.
– You get to lead and design your business around your life – not the other way around.
- The CEO Scaling Scorecard: From Chaos to Optimization
When Katie takes over or supports a business, she always wants to know one thing first: in what phase is this business?
She created a CEO scaling scorecard to identify whether a business is in:
– Chaos
– Stabilization
– Optimization
“Chaos” is not just a feeling – it’s a stage. Each phase has specific steps that will move you forward. Without knowing where you start, you can’t design the right path.
Every new client begins with that scorecard. It gives instant clarity, and then a conversation: do we work together, or is there another expert in Katie’s network who is a better fit? For her, surrounding herself – and her clients – with the right people is just as important as her own expertise.
- Two Mottos of Katie
When asked for a quote or motto that drives her, Katie shares two:
“Garbage in, garbage out.”
For her, this is true in business systems, sales, data, and even in life. If you feed your CRM, your processes, your mind, and your environment with “garbage,” you can’t expect great outcomes. Quality in, quality out.
“Speak what you seek until you see what you said.”
If you want to be a CEO, start saying it – and acting like it. The more you speak it, the more you align your behavior, decisions, and opportunities with that identity. Over time, you become what you have consistently claimed and worked towards.
9. Final Takeaway
At SalesPro4U, we deeply connect with Katie Hahn’s message. Her CLIMB framework shows that sustainable success is not an accident – it’s a combination of clarity, structure, data, and a strong CEO mindset, especially for women.
Whether you are a young professional starting your first job, a coach trying to stabilize your business, or a founder ready to move from chaos to optimization, Katie reminds us:
Don’t cap yourself with an invisible ceiling.
– Learn the foundations.
– Keep listening to your customers.
– And give yourself permission to be the CEO of your own journey.
Do you need support from an expert like Katie Hahn? Or are you looking to join the expert community at SalesPro4U? Feel free to reach out at expert@salespro4u.com.
Stay tuned for more inspiring episodes of “The Expert Talk”.
Until then, take care!
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