155. What To Fix First In Your Funnel

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155. What To Fix First In Your Funnel

10 May 2022 | By Salome Schillack

This week we revisit one of the most popular episodes from 2021. Hope you enjoy this blast from the past.

Feeling like your energy and money is vanishing into thin air? With little to show for all that hard, hard work you've poured into your business?

Stop what you're doing (and double-stop what you're doing if it involves learning a new Reels dance that you're hoping will draw in hundreds of new followers) because it sounds like you have a case of 'broken funnel' on your hands!

Right now, you might be thinking; my funnel is A LOT! Where the HECK do I even start? And how do I even know what needs fixing? Is there some magic pill that can do it for me?

Or maybe you’re just not making money and you suspect it might be because your funnel is not working, but how do you know where to start fixing it?

This week on The Shine Show, I'm putting on my funnel doctor coat and taking you step by step through the funnel diagnosing process that will help you:

  • Pinpoint and fix the problem
  • Reclaim your time
  • Stop the bank account drain
  • Put your energy & resources into the things that will make you more moolah
  • and start growing exponentially!

Now is the perfect time to reset, reflect, tweak and get your funnels in tip-top shape and set yourself up for the most unbelievable success!

XXX
Salome

P.S Nothing makes my heart happier than hearing your feedback from the show. Jump over to my Instagram and message me if you're taking away something from today's episode! What are you fixing first in your funnel? Slide into my DMs and let me know!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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150. How To Show Up As The Expert You Are And Overcome Your Imposter Syndrome

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149. How To Find Your People Online and Finally Start Making Sales

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148. IOS Impact: ONE Ad Every Online Course Creator Should Be Running Now To Get Results Despite IOS

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147. Successfully Navigating The Ups And Down of Starting An Online Business with Fiona Berry

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146. The First 3 Steps To Taking Your Offline Business Online

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145. Using Social Media To Do Good In The World with Rebecca Czapnik

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144. How To Overcome Your Fear Of Tech So That You Can Build Your Audience Faster

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143. How Brittany Doubled Her Email List In 2 Months with Brittany Bennion

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142. Facebook and Instagram Ads Are Hotter Than Ever – Here’s Why

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141. Your Course or Your Email List – Which One To Build First

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140. Rookie Mistakes New List Builders Make and What To Do Instead

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139. Design Your Office To Match Your Dreams with Maria Husch

Hello and welcome to episode number 155 of The Shine Show. Today's episode is called ‘What To Fix First In Your Funnel’ and I'm going to be honest with you we had a tiny scheduling issue this week with the podcast and instead of hustling my face off to fix the mistake I decided we are just going to pull out one of our best episodes from 2021. This episode got the second most highest number of downloads. The one that got the highest was one of the episodes in the three part series on webinars. So I am thrilled and delighted to see that you guys are loving our content about funnels and webinars and all things related to marketing your online course business and your online courses. So I decided today we are going to replay for you and older episode this is ‘What To Fix First In Your Funnel’, enjoy! 

 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

 

Well, hello, my friends. It's so nice to be here with you today. In today's episode, you're going to learn exactly what to focus on when you are troubleshooting your funnels to see what you need to fix first so that you spend your energy in the place where you will make the biggest impact. When you know how to do this, you'll start putting your money into the right things where you're going to get exponential return instead of just throwing spaghetti on the wall. So what I'm going to teach you today is going to save you time. It's going to help you have a little bit more peace in your life because you're going to pour your energy into things that are actually making a difference. And it is going to help you save money and put the money in the important places.

 

Now, if you have been hanging around with me for a while, you may have heard me say that there's a very easy equation to making money online. You only need two things. You need an audience, and you need an offer. So audience plus offer equals money. Audience plus offer equals money. Super simple. It's not quite easy, but it is super simple, and it really is as simple as audience plus offer equals money. So let's unpack those three elements a little bit. Let's unpack audience and unpack offer and unpack money because those are the three levers you can pull. And if you only have three levers you can pull, it automatically makes it easier to start knowing where to troubleshoot your funnels.

 

First of all, we're going to look at audience. Audience has three core elements. Now, you might be grabbing a pen and a piece of paper to write some of this stuff down. I will be repeating a lot of it because today's episode is quite content-heavy. I'm going to be teaching you some stuff. This is teaching stuff here, heavy stuff. This is like the kind of stuff I teach the students inside The Launch Lounge. So grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down, "Audience plus offer equals money." Now, on another page, write down, "Audience," and then let's divide audience into the things that you need to be focusing on first when you are fixing your funnels and when you're trying to make some money or more money online.

 

So here are the three parts of audience that we're going to troubleshoot. The first one is list building. List building is number one. Number two is list nurturing. That is the second thing you're going to focus on. And number three, and yes, my friends, I am putting this one last for a reason, is social media. Why do I put social media last? Because really, social media is the last thing you should be focusing on when you are building your audience, and I'll explain why in a second. So under audience, we have list building, list nurturing, and social media.

 

Now, let's talk about list building. When you are building an audience, the most important thing, the number one activity you should be doing, the only thing you should be focusing on when you get started is list building. I heard the money's in the list. I heard build your list. I heard it 700 million times before I actually listened to it. And can I tell you what the one thing is I regret most in my business? Is not starting my list building sooner. By the time I got around to building my email list, my ad costs were higher, my social media engagement was lower. Thankfully that's about the same time I realized I can run engagement ads to build all those things back up, but it was an expensive exercise, and especially if you're on a tight budget.

 

So don't think that you're just going to use social media. You are going to use social media too, but your number one priority when you start out creating funnels, testing funnels, and building funnels is list-building. You're going to use your lead magnets to build your list. You are going to test your audience targeting. And when you look at your ad results, you're going to look at your link click-through, right? So in other words, the rate at which people who are seeing your ads are clicking on your ads, and you want that to be above 1%. And you're going to look at your landing page conversion rate, and you want that to be above 45%.

 

So if you're just getting started and list building is the first thing you're focusing on, then you're going to create as many lead magnets as you possibly can. You're going to put yourself in your ideal customer's shoes and ask yourself, "What is one small win someone can have when they come and talk to me or work with me?" And you can decide if you want to put that into a checklist or a blueprint or an ebook or a quiz or whatever you want to do. Actually don't do a quiz. Quizzes are more advanced. If you're just starting out, don't do a quiz. If you're advanced, please do a quiz, you can do a quiz, you're allowed to do a quiz. But if you're just starting out, steer clear of quizzes because they are a little bit more advanced.

 

Start building your email list, focus there first. If there's anything you're going to fix first, you fix your list-building first. You make sure you have a lead magnet in place that is actually going to convert. You make sure you have a lead magnet in place that people actually want. And you make sure you have a lead magnet in place that is the start of a conversation with your ideal customer where the next logical conversation is your paid course. In other words, if I'm going to solve a small problem for someone with my lead magnet, I want them to consume my lead magnet and be left after consuming my lead magnet feeling like, "Wow, I just got a fantastic win, and this win has given me clarity for what to do next." And it is that what-to-do-next piece that is your online course then.

 

So my question to you as we wrap up talking about list building is, is your lead magnet the start of a conversation that ends in them buying your paid course? Think about that for your lead magnet. And if you are currently not making money in your funnels, ask yourself, "Was my lead magnet the opening of the conversation that logically led to them wanting to buy my course?" So that's number one. So let's go back. Audience plus offer equals money. We're unpacking and dissecting audience at the moment because the first thing you need to test is your audiences. Under audience, number one, list building, number two, list nurturing.

 

What is list nurturing? Actually, not nurturing your list is the number one reason why people don't build their lists. You can put your imaginary hand up. I'm not seeing you, so put your imaginary hand up, but my hand is going up. Hand up if you have started list-building, started emailing them every week, was consistent for about a month, and then the kids were on holidays or the cat got sick or your job got busy or something happened, or you signed up a few clients and then you didn't need to nurture the list anymore, and then you stopped nurturing your list. Oh-oh. List nurturing is one of the key activities in your business. If you're going to build an audience, if you're going to put money behind ads to build your list, you 100% need to be nurturing your email list.

 

Now, it doesn't have to be something epic. You can just write a personal email, share a story, share a success story of a client or another student or something that happened in your life. Go live on Facebook and share that with them. But add value. Find a way to add value. There's a reason. That lead magnet that you created, people opted into your email list based off of that lead magnet that you created. They said, "I would love to hear from you on a regular basis. Please send me emails." So send them emails and make them valuable. Every single week, send them a valuable email. What are you doing consistently and reliably every single week to nurture your list and give them value? If you're sitting there and you're like, "My funnels aren't working, I haven't made money online," question number one is what are you doing to build your list? Question number two is what are you doing to nurture your list?

 

So now you know what to fix first. First, you fix your audiences. Under audiences, you fix list-building first, you fix list-nurturing second. Now, what is the third thing, the thing that I said I put third on the list for a reason? The thing that is third on the list is social media. Now, we are often tempted to start by fixing social media. Again, hands up if you've downloaded 700 different content planning templates or content calendars or prompts for social media content. I remember spending Sunday afternoons sitting there creating posts for Instagram and Facebook. Maybe back then when I started it was just Facebook. I think it was just Facebook. Sitting there creating posts on Canva and writing all sorts of captions for my social media, thinking that's going to get me closer to making money, but it does not. It doesn't. So don't start with social media. You start with list-building and you nurture your list. And lastly, you move to social media.

 

Social media, you are going to start by choosing just one platform, just one platform. And it's not the platform you like best, it is the platform where your ideal customer hangs out. So if your ideal customer is 65, you need to be on Facebook. If your ideal customer is a 40-year-old female who's into arts and crafts, you're probably on Instagram. If it's an 18-year-old, I think TikTok is where they're hanging out these days. I'm not quite sure. Is it Snapchat or TikTok? Probably TikTok. Is Snapchat even still a thing? I don't know. If it is professionals, then LinkedIn is where you need to be. So choose one platform and embrace it.

 

Start by using content from your lead magnet. Don't reinvent the wheel. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. It's more important that you get lead magnets out than that you create social media content. So take your lead magnet, chop it up into a million different posts, chop it up into different pieces, pull sentences from it, and use that for social media content. And if you already have an email list and you're nurturing that list, you're going to want to promote your weekly content on social media. In my business, if you go to my Instagram account right now, you will see just about the only thing that happens on there is the podcast. I promote the podcast twice a week. So twice a week it goes on the News Feed, and twice a week it goes on Stories. That's all that's happening over there. And you know what? For now, that's enough.

 

I know where I'm going with it. I have a clear strategy and plan. And to be honest, right now, my energy and my resources are allocated elsewhere. So I am not worried about not being on IGTV and not being on Reels and not being on this, that, and the other. And don't even get me started about Clubhouse and all the other things that are brand new, shiny objects. You don't need to be there; do not get distracted. Focus on list building. Focus on consistently adding value to your list. Promote your content on one platform. So I'm curious, what are you already creating in your business that can be repurposed and reused for social media so that you free up your time and your energy so that you can go move higher up in the hierarchy of things that need fixing? Instead of spending an entire Sunday afternoon coming up with all sorts of Reels dances you can do, spend that time coming up with better lead magnets. Spend that time batch-creating your podcast. Spend that time batch-creating your blog posts.

 

Your social media is going to be a hungry monster, but it'll always be there waiting for you. But when you pour your energy and your money into list building and list nurturing, you get a return on investment. And by return on investment, I don't just mean pie in the sky stuff, I really mean money in your pocket return on investment. So now you know what to fix first of the three things. So what are the three things again? Audience plus offer equals money. We fix our audience first because we need a tribe. We need a hungry crowd to feed. So audience is the thing you fix first, and you fix it in the order of list building, list nurturing, and social media.

 

Now let's look at what to fix in your offer. I looked up the definition of the word offer, because I was like, "how am I going to... " When you say offer, there's so many different things that come to mind. Is it my sales page? Is it the bonuses? Is it my course? What is an offer? I think every time, even when you create a social media post, you're kind of making an offer because you're offering people an opportunity to engage with you. So I was like, "How would I define offers?" So I looked it up, and one of the definitions I found was, "to present something to someone to accept or reject as desired. To present something to someone to accept or reject as desired." I think the keywords here is present. Yeah, you're presenting something. You have to present something. So if you've been list-building for 700 years, and you still haven't made an offer, you're not presenting something to people, right? You want to be presenting something to them, and you want to be presenting it to them pretty much from day one because that's the only way you're going to learn what offers convert and which ones don't.

 

And then the other keyword here is desired. They have to desire what you're offering because if they don't desire it, they won't accept it. Instead, they might reject it. And that sucks. It feels horrible when you make an offer and people reject it. My kids do not love broccoli very much. I love broccoli. I can eat loads of broccoli, I love it. But my kids don't, and I just feel like broccoli is a superfood and you need to eat broccoli. And anyone who gets raised in my house is going to eat broccoli. Dammit, you got to eat your broccoli. So when I put broccoli in front of my kids, they can either accept or reject it. So I have to come up with a better offer for them when I'm offering them broccoli. If I take the broccoli and I steam it a little bit, like literally just a tiny bit, because one of my kids actually really like raw food. So if I just steam it a tiny, tiny bit, so it's just almost just warm but still a bit crunchy and I cover it in mozzarella cheese, they're all over it. They eat more cheese than broccoli, but at least they get some broccoli in as well.

 

But what I've learned is if I take the broccoli and I put it in the blender and I fold into spaghetti bolognese, which is one of their favorite, favorite meals, they eat broccoli without knowing they're eating broccoli like there's no tomorrow. And I can triple the consumption of broccoli in my house just with this one trick; by folding it into the spaghetti bolognese. My children need broccoli. They do not want broccoli. My offer has to be something that they want, not something that they need. If I offer them what they need, if I present to them what they need, they can accept it or reject it. And they're going to reject it because they don't desire it. So I have to change it into something that they want so that they say yes to it. And then I may have the opportunity to give them what they need.

 

Your job as a marketer is to understand your ideal customer's desires and to package what they need into an offer that they want. In other words, sell them spaghetti bolognese and give them broccoli included inside. They're not going to want what they don't want. There are three components, audience plus offer equals money. We've already covered the audience. If we look at an offer, there are two very important parts to an offer that I want to talk to you about and that I want to share with you that you can taste and look at to see if it needs fixing. And those things are the promise and the benefits. The promise is the transformation that will occur after they've consumed and implemented what you're offering them. So it is the promise of the desired end state they're going to be in after using your thing, after reading your ebook, after taking your quiz, after downloading your audio, after signing up for your workshop.

 

I have a few examples for you of where we've just taken the promise of an offer and we've just... Well, actually, we've taken broccoli and turned it into spaghetti bolognese. So we've taken what somebody gave us as an offer, and we just asked a few questions about the ideal customer and then came up with a better promise, and that became the offer. So here's an example of a lead magnet. This lead magnet is coiled... called not coiled. It's called Oil Paint Mixing Guide. Oil Paint Mixing Guide. The person who creates Oil Paint Mixing Guide could say, "Well, everybody asks me for a mixing guide. Everybody wants to know how I mix my oil paints. Everybody wants to know how I get that great color every time. Because they asked for an oil paint mixing guide, I created an oil paint mixing guide." And so that goes on the landing page, and then it doesn't convert quite as well.

 

And so we change it to Perfect Color Every Time: A Guide to Mixing Colors for Confidently Painting in Oils. I'm going to read that again because dang, this is good. Perfect Color Every Time: A Guide to Mixing Colors for Confidently Painting in Oils. We're still saying, "Oil Paint Mixing Guide." We're just packaging it up as spaghetti bolognese. What the ideal customer here really wants is they want the perfect color every time. So what they might say is, "Can you show me how you mix paint so that I can paint in the perfect colors as well?" And what you hear is, "I want a color guide." And so what you create is a color guide. But the little bit that you missed or that you didn't include in that is, "I want the color guide so that I can create perfect color every time." So there's a good example for you of the promise and the benefit. The benefit is perfect color every time. Whereas, Oil Paint Mixing Guide does not include a single benefit, it is just a feature.

 

Here's another example from a workshop I recently saw. Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm hanging out with my friends, I've never used the words career reinvention. "Oh, I would love to reinvent my career." That's not how we talk. That's how we were taught to write in school, but nobody says, "I want career reinvention. Oh, can I please have some career reinvention?" The answer is no, you do not want career reinvention. What about Love What You Do Without Sacrificing Family Time: A Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. How's that? "Love what you do." That's what we say when we talk to our friends, we say, "I just want to love what I do without sacrificing time with my family." Love What You Do Without Sacrificing Family Time: A Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. That's much better, isn't it?

 

So the promise is love what you do without sacrificing family time. The benefit is you're going to love what you do without sacrificing family time. Spaghetti bolognese instead of broccoli. Still, you're offering the same thing, but you're wrapping it up differently. And here is an example for you from my own learning and from my own life and from my own business. So here's a course I used to sell and the promise of the course. The Fastest Way to Build Your List to a Thousand People. The Fastest Way to Build Your List to a Thousand People. I thought, "Who doesn't want that? Everybody wants to learn how to build their lists using Facebook and Instagram ads." Turns out they don't. So we sold A-Lister. The very first time I sold A-Lister, we sold it as the fastest way to build your list to a thousand people. When I surveyed the audience, I realized nobody wants to buy... Well, they did buy, but they told me it's a grudge purchase, buying something that teaches you how to build your list. Because it's not sexy, it's not what we want.

 

Instead, later, we turned it into Find Your People Online and Make Your First Sale. That's what they want. They want to find their people online. They want to find people who just wants to buy their thing. And they want to make their first sale. That's what they want. I know that they need to build their list, but I was giving them broccoli. Had to wrap it up as spaghetti bolognese. So when you learn how to make offers to your warm audiences, in other words, your email list and your cold audiences with your lead magnets using ads, then you can move on to fixing the third part of the equation. What is the third part of the equation? Audience plus offer equals money. Money is the third part of the equation, right?

 

So you need a hungry audience, you need a good offer with a clear promise and a benefit, and then you'll make some money. So if you're not making money, what are we going to look at? After we've looked at building your email list, we've looked at nurturing your email list. We've looked at social media to promote your lead magnets and your weekly contents. We've looked at lead magnet offers that has to be inviting and converting. Now we look at paid offers, making money. Paid offers. And under paid offers, we're going to look at three things. We're going to look at the number of people who are in your funnel. Because if you don't have enough people in your funnel, you need to fix that. Then we're going to look at the number of people who saw your offer. Because if you didn't get enough people seeing your offer, you need to fix that. And finally, we're going to look at the number of people who converted.

 

Now, I'm willing to bet that when you started listening to this episode or when you saw the title of this episode, What to Fix Next in Your Funnel, you thought I'm going to start with making money. You thought I'm going to start with, "Why aren't people paying me?" And you can see that we actually fixed that last because before we can make money, we need an audience and we need an offer. So the first thing we're going to fix when we're making money is the number of people in your funnel. Statistically, only four to 5% of the people who are in your launch, so in other words, people who sign up for your webinar or say, "Yes, you can send me this promotion." only four to 5% of them will convert. So that means you need at least 100 people to sign up for your webinar or your challenge or your workshop to make four or five sales.

 

A lot of people are surprised when I tell them this number, because they would build their email list to two or 300 and then invite the two or 300 to a webinar and have a webinar with about 20 people on it and then make one sale. Or maybe they make no sales. And they tell me, "But I had 20 people on my webinar, and only one bought." And I go, "well, that's fantastic. One out of twenty is great." And they're disappointed because they worked so hard to get the 300 on there. What they don't realize is, statistically, that is still a fantastic outcome because if you increase that 300 to 600, now you have two sales. If you increase it more, you have more sales. So I don't want you to feel disappointed when you have low numbers of people in your funnels to begin with, and you didn't make any sales. It is a numbers game. It's online marketing because it's online, and we need to get those critical mass.

 

So the question is, did you have enough people at the top of your funnel to make those sales at the bottom of the funnel? And if you didn't have enough people, what do you need to go back to? What are you going to fix then? You're going to go back to square one; fix your list building. You're going to go back to list-building, nurturing your list, sending them emails, posting on social media, creating an offer that converts, getting them onto a webinar or a workshop or a free thing, making them an offer. Now that you have more people, you're more likely to make a sale.

 

So the first thing you want to fix is the number of people in your funnel. The second thing you want to fix is the number of people who saw your offer. This is another one that we run into a lot. Will say, "Well, I had 20 people on my webinar, why did nobody buy?" And I say, "Well, how many of the 20 went to your sales page?" And then you go and look in Kajabi, and Kajabi tells you you had five people view your sales page. And I say, "Well, yeah, it's not that it didn't work, it's just that you didn't have enough people there." Your sales page should convert roughly around 20%. 20% of the people who come to your sales page should buy your course. So once you know you have enough people in your funnel, look at the number of people who actually saw your sales page and ask yourself if that's enough. 20% of the people who saw your sales page should be converting to sales.

 

If you feel that you didn't make enough sales, look at how many people were on your sales page and see if you had enough people converting from your sales page to a sale in order to know what to fix. If you didn't get enough people on your sales page, where do you start fixing it? You go back to square one: audience. Check that you've got a big enough audience. Check that you are adding value to them every week. Check that you're building your list on your social media. Check that you invited them to the workshop or the webinar on social media. Check that you had enough people in the launch. Check that you had enough people on the sales page. So that's the second thing, sales page. And the third thing is the number of people who converted.

 

So finally, after building our list, after nurturing our list, after promoting everything on socials, after making offers, after making free offers with our lead magnets, after making paid offers, if you've checked that you've had enough people in your funnel and you've checked that you've had enough people see your offer, then and then only do you check if you have enough people converting. A lot of people just look at the number of conversions and they become so emotional about that number that they forget to actually go back and check the data. Today, on one of the coaching calls inside The Launch Lounge, one of the students said, "It is such a beautiful dance between emotion and data. You have to lean into the emotions that you go through as an online course creator, and you have to build that resilience and that emotional fitness to lean into the emotions of the ups and the downs in order to get to a place where you can say, 'Now I can just look at it from a data perspective.'"

 

Because it really is only data, but it also is a lot of big feelings that goes with it. But if you just stop at the feeling and you never move through the feeling to get to the data, you risk staying stuck there, and you risk making the wrong decisions about how to fix it. And I see this so often when I see even... Sometimes I see multimillion-dollar online course creators who have hit a plateau in their businesses, who are not looking at their data and then desperately searching for some kind of an expert, some savior, someone who has some magic pill to come and save them from whatever they perceive to be the problem in their business. And it doesn't just happen to one-man shows, it doesn't just happen to five-figure businesses, I see it in seven-figure businesses. It's a bit scary when you see someone looking for a savior and you know that the savior is you need to be really, really, really honest with yourself about your data. If you stay stuck in those emotions, you're never going to be honest with yourself about your data. And then you're never going to learn what to fix.

 

Now, some people, when they're launching only need three students in a launch to have a profitable launch. Others need 300, and others need 3000. So how do you know if your conversion number is a good number or not? The question is you look at your ROAS. What does ROAS mean? ROAS stands for return on ad spend, ROAS, and it's pretty much a little sum that we use to work out, "Did you make any money?" Because we're putting money into ads on the front end and we're getting money out of our launch on the backend, so we want to know for every dollar I put into Facebook Ads, how many dollars did I get back? The equation is revenue over ad cost. And the idea is that that number should be more than one. If you put in $1 and you got out $1, you are still exactly where you were before you started launching. It would have been better to go and buy a pair of shoes.

 

If you put in $1 and you get out $2, then you have made money. Then your money has grown. For every $1 you put in, you got $2 out. So you made your dollar back and you might another dollar. That's a good vending machine. Now, ideally, we want the ROAS to be more than two because we got overheads to pay. We got to pay ourselves. We go to save some profit. But it depends on your business model how much you need in terms of return on ad spend for it to be profitable. So then if you want to make more money on the next round when you're launching, you need to go back to the original equation: audience plus offer equals money. And in order to make more money, you grow your audience. Then you make better offers, and then you sell more so that your return on investment becomes bigger and bigger and bigger than the money you put into ads. And that, my dear friends, is how simple it is to make money online. It's simple, hey. You think it's simple? Very simple. It's not easy.

 

Today's episode was content-heavy. Now, I know that some of you will be taking notes feverishly, and some of you might be going a little bit like, "What?" Wherever you're at right now with this content, I want you to know that it is exactly where you need to be. If you take one thing from today's lesson, from today's podcast episode, think about what that one thing is. Come over to Instagram, find me on Instagram. I'm salome.schillack. And if you can't spell that, I can't spell it either, just... I don't know, search for Facebook Ads and I might come up. Or just search Salome and maybe I come up. Or go to my website, shine and succeed, and you'll find it as well. Come and find me and tell me what the one thing is that you learned today that you're going to fix first, that you're going to do differently, that you're going to make a change. 

 

I really hope you loved the replay of this episode. I really loved going back and seeing what you all love to listen to. If you love this episode and you're a committed online course launcher who wants to learn how to grow your profits in your next course launch, and you want to know how to successfully scale your online courses business to 7 figures and beyond then I'd love to see you inside The Launch Lounge. The Launch Lounge is the only community online that is dedicated solely to helping you develop every aspect of your online courses business so that you can build your business to scale. With no one-size-fits-all solution just the right education you need when you need it. Coaching from our team of experts in different areas of launching and scaling and the best community on the internet The Launch Lounge is your online course building home if you want profitable online course launches that scale to 7 figures and beyond to get on the waitlist for our next in enrollment season go to www.shineandsucceed.com/launch

154. From Luxury Interior Design To Successful Online Course Creators with Sarah Cates of House Of Funk

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154. From Luxury Interior Design To Successful Online Course Creators with Sarah Cates of House Of Funk

03 May 2022 | By Salome Schillack

What happens when the results don't keep getting bigger and better?

What if.....they start going…..down? 

Is your business over? Did you miss the moment? Is it time to call it a day and head back to the dreary office cubicle?

Don't panic; this is SO normal. And there are so many things you can do to get your online biz back on track. 

Starting right here!

This week on The Shine Show, you'll meet one of my brilliant clients, Sarah Cates from House Of Funk, a luxury interior design firm started by the awe-inspiring Sandra Funk. After testing the waters with online video content, and attracting interior designers with business questions, the team created The Interior Design Standard to help interior designers build thriving businesses. (Check out their awesome business here - warning: you'll encounter addictive, aesthetically pleasing design pics that'll make you want to renovate your whole house).

And it took off!

After 4 amazing launches, things were looking rosy. The future was looking bright. All was well.

…..until launch 5

The figures started going backward!

GULLPPPPP

This was not the kind of funk they wanted to be in.

Rather than panic and run back to the safety of their thriving boutique design firm, Sarah & Sandra put their brilliant marketing hats on and made the brave choice to invest more time and resources into paid marketing.

And it paid off, BIG TIME!

If you're stuck on a results rollercoaster and you’re sick of the up-down-up-down, this episode is especially for you! 

Get ready to be inspired, have your brain sparked by some incredible ideas, and have a behind-the-scenes look at a 6-figure launch! Tune in now and hear Sarah's amazing story for yourself.

P.S. Have your launch results been a little southside as of late? I’d love to hear if Sarah’s story has inspired you to change up your online marketing. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than hearing your feedback. Slide into my DM’s and share your favorite takeaways from this episode!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 154 of The Shine Show. Today's episode is called from luxury interior design to successful online course creators with Sarah Cates of House of Funk. It is such a delight for me when I get to interview our amazing, incredible, successful, ambitious, wonderful women and men who just do big things in this world. And you're going to hear me talk to Sarah about their previous launch, but not just about their previous launch, about how they started, what they've learned along the way and how they're scaling all the way up and up and up to multi six-figure launches now.

Salome Schillack (00:42):
Sarah Cates is the director of operations at the boutique interior design firm, House of Funk. These days, her main focus is running the company's B2B offering, the Interior Design Standard, an online course that gives interior designers a master plan for building their businesses. When Sarah is not keeping House of Funk running smoothly, she can be found chasing her two cats and experimenting with new recipes. So let's jump in and listen to my interview with Sarah Cates of House of Funk.

Salome Schillack (01:20):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show. Sarah, welcome to The Shine Show.

Sarah Cates (01:57):
Hi, thank you so much for having me on.

Salome Schillack (02:00):
I'm so happy you are here. I say to you guys sometimes, I love your business so much, I want to rub my face in it. Really, I love it that much. I am in love with the business that you and Sandra have created. So just tell the listeners really quickly, where did it start? How did you guys decide you want to do online courses as well? And then we're going to unpack where it is now.

Sarah Cates (02:28):
Yeah, for sure. So Sandra had been running and still does run a very successful luxury design firm. So I came on in 2016, and we realized we really need to add video marketing to our marketing strategy. So Facebook Live had just come out recently at that time and so that was our gateway to video. And so my coworker and I were talking and we were saying, "How are we going to get Sandra on camera? Anyone's going to be hesitant to go on video." But Sandra's so charismatic. She's so so good on camera. So we were so lucky that we had a founder and CEO who's just amazing at that stuff. So we had this idea that we would pop open a bottle of wine every Wednesday, because she loves wine too, and talk about interior design, just like for homeowners, how to design your home, the tradespeople you should bring in, just so they could get to know Sandra, and we would bring in more clientele that way.

Sarah Cates (03:39):
Well, within six to 12 months we had interior designers coming to the lives and asking her business questions. So for me I was like, "Okay, cool. All right, moving on." Whereas Sandra, she has entrepreneurship, it's in her blood. She comes from a line of entrepreneurs, and this gets her brain start rolling on ideas. Then she was invited to some conferences to speak about the business of design as well. So she went to this one conference and she had a line of designers after waiting to ask her questions about how she runs her business. So this continues to happen and she comes to us and she's like, "Guys, I think there's something here, we need to think about this."

Sarah Cates (04:29):
And so I'm pretty sure she had the idea of creating the program, the digital course, and this is completely new to us. We had never heard of digital courses. She had done B-School, so that was her only concept of a digital course, with Marie Forleo. And so we started building it. We had no email list. So we pivoted this live show, we call it Design Tips, and started just targeting interior designers and started creating lead magnets, now frontier designers, all while running our full service design firm at the same time. And we launched in March 2020. So we were actually due to launch April 2020, the world flipped upside down and we had designers reaching out saying, "We know you're going to release this program, can you release it now? Because we're going to be home for a few weeks." Not knowing that we're going to be home for much longer. And so we cranked it out. We were running really long nights, but we really wanted to get it out there. And we did. Again, we didn't know anything about digital courses. So our open cart was like two to three weeks long.

Salome Schillack (05:46):
Oh, that would've been exhausting.

Sarah Cates (05:48):
Yes. Looking back, it was kind of crazy, but we've learned a lot of things since then. So we launched to a list less than 1000 and we still hit six figures, welcomed in an amazing class of designers. And it was just such an awesome feeling. Because that first launch, you just never know what's going to happen. And the world was so crazy. But that is how we got into the digital course world.

Salome Schillack (06:17):
That is amazing. I love hearing stories about people who launched for the first time during COVID. And no one could have predicted what a profitable period that would've been for online courses. We all went into this crazy what's going to happen? What is happening to the world? What's going to happen to my business? What's going to happen? Pivot became the word of the day.

Sarah Cates (06:46):
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:06:47] exactly.

Salome Schillack (06:47):
But for our clients, and even I launched [ALISTA 00:06:52], my online course, for the first time in March 2020 as well, not knowing, literally the week when everyone got sent home. And I remember that fear and I remember that uncertainty and everyone I know who launched then did really well. And the rest of 2020 was such a profitable year for online courses. And then in 2021, it became a whole other story with Apple bringing in iOS and all other changes. But so your first launch was a six-figure launch and it was a very successful, and you loved the students that you brought in from a list of 1000 people?

Sarah Cates (07:34):
Yes. Yes. And they were-

Salome Schillack (07:36):
Holy bananas.

Sarah Cates (07:38):
They are our OGs, we call them, our original members. And we were just at a conference where we ran into a bunch of them and just hearing their success stories from implementing our program even to this day is just so awesome to see.

Salome Schillack (07:57):
I love that. I love that. So after that, did you know that there's a lot of things you don't know or how did you unpack that launch and learn, oh, we've got to go and learn all these things, or what came next?

Sarah Cates (08:15):
So we looked at the data and then I think what we started doing, I think I found Amy Porterfield's podcast and started taking as much as I could just from the podcast. Then I found your podcast, started taking as much as I could from your podcast. And so then we launched two more times. So our second launch, we more than doubled our sales from our first launch.

Salome Schillack (08:38):
Wow. [inaudible 00:08:40] hold on. When was this?

Sarah Cates (08:42):
This was fall 2020.

Salome Schillack (08:45):
Okay. All right. Always have to remind me the month. Americans talk in seasons. We don't talk in seasons.

Sarah Cates (08:50):
Oh, sorry, September 2020.

Salome Schillack (08:55):
It's the weirdest thing for me when you guys speak in seasons.

Sarah Cates (08:59):
That's so funny.

Salome Schillack (09:01):
September. Yeah, and I go, "Really? Is it is everybody? Like everybody speaks in seasons?" Okay. September. So about six months later?

Sarah Cates (09:11):
Yeah. Six months later we doubled it. And so I think really it was... Our list grew quite substantially during that previous launch. So we had all these warm leads. Sandra's still going to speaking events. It's still very all organic at that point. And then we launched again in the spring, but that was March or April, we launched again, again, another successful launch. Then we launched again, so our fourth launch, and that is when we saw our first dip in sales. And again, still welcoming in amazing designers. But from a business standpoint, when you see that first step, you go [inaudible 00:10:01] and you're like, "Well, we got to look at what's going on here." And so we were looking at the data and based on my research from just every digital course marketing and what people are saying, you need to grow your email list.

Sarah Cates (10:18):
And our list was not growing enough to keep up the momentum that we were hoping for in our sales. So at that point, I think after the third launch, between the third and the fourth launch, Sandra and I enrolled in Digital Course Academy. And you had a bonus lesson in that season, all about how to set up your first webinar ads. So in the back of my mind during all these launches, I'm like, "We have to add in ads, but it's so incredibly daunting." And I love tech. I've never been scared of tech and Facebook ads scared the crap out of me. So I took your mini lesson, which was so thorough and exactly what I needed as someone who was very scared and fearful of this, you walked us through step by step, exactly how to set up everything up, how to write your copy, graphics that work well. And we implemented that and we ran ads. And I was just happy that we successfully ran ads, but looking back, I could have tracked our data better.

Sarah Cates (11:32):
And coming out of that, as much as I knew, I still felt very ill-equipped as someone also who is trying to run so many other things within the business. So after we had that dip in our sales, Sandra and I both knew we needed to add in a paid ads element. So we went and interviewed a couple of agencies, including a Shine And Succeed, and it was an eye-opening experience. But also one more thing, iOS was coming down the pipe, and that also, I was just like, "Why are we going to try to do this DIY when there are people out there who are so good at it and who could bring in all the expertise?" And Sandra had a moment last year or two within her design business where she was like, "We need to hire the experts. We need to hire the HR expert. We need to hire the strategy and scheduling expert." And I was like, "How can we implement that into our digital course business?"

Salome Schillack (12:40):
I love that she thinks that way. And that's her luxury background. It's just you got to hire the best people if you want the best job done.

Sarah Cates (12:49):
Yes. And we're very adamant about doing our research and getting referrals and just taking in as much as we can. So the ads element was just as important and rigorous as anything else we do in terms of hiring or bringing on a new contractor or agent. So we had done those interviews and I was just so drawn to you and your brand, your mission, and just how welcoming. And I just felt so taken care of when we spoke.

Salome Schillack (13:24):
Oh, that makes me so happy.

Sarah Cates (13:26):
And I had gone through your mini training. I was like, "If this is anything like what she could do for us, if we bring her on to our team and we work together, then it's a no-brainer to go with Salome and Shine And Succeed." And I'm sure we'll talk about how we worked together in this past launch, but that's how we came to the point of wanting to start ads.

Salome Schillack (13:50):
That's fantastic. So I want to just point out something here. Ads, it's like you touched on the tech and how you took the mini course. You took the bonus that I did in Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy. And it helped you enough to be able to know which buttons to press, which levers to pull, how to put the copy together. If Facebook ads was a cake, you had the ingredients for the cake and you had the basic recipe. And so you could do a basic chocolate cake, right? But you don't want to do a basic chocolate cake.

Sarah Cates (14:30):
No.

Salome Schillack (14:30):
You want to become a pastry chef. And learning to do it yourself and learning how to make a basic cake was enough for you to get you to a point where you then went, "But hang on, we want pastry chefs and we don't want to be pastry chefs. We want to hire pastry chefs, because that's the level we want to do it at." And when you get to that point, you realize, oh, okay, there's more to ads than just pressing buttons, pulling levers. There's so much more to it than just the pick, because I'm sure we are going to talk about some of the marketing stuff, but some of the initial conversations we had in the beginning was, okay, well, how do you... If we need you guys, we know you need to build your list. We know you need to build your list, but I'm not just going to whack on a bunch of list building ads.

Salome Schillack (15:25):
I want to make sure if you're putting money into ads, that's going to bring people into your email list, that they're the right people. And so we have to build this foundation right to know that we have the right things in place to track, whether these people actually become buyers in the end, because you guys started building your list like what, in January? And you launched in March, April?

Sarah Cates (15:49):
Yes.

Salome Schillack (15:51):
So there's four months between that. So how do you know the money you spent in January is actually paying off for you? There's some foundational things you need in place. And then also, and we can talk more about this too, is that customer journey, that identifying your most profitable customer journey and being able to go, "Well, is every cent that I put into ads is it actually coming back to me, and how do I know that it's coming back to me? And am I taking people on a deliberate relationship building journey where they go from saying yes to my small thing, my lead magnet, to saying yes to my big thing, my paid offer and being excited about it?"

Salome Schillack (16:31):
So I want to just say kudos to you for taking on the tech, for starting your own ads, and then also for knowing when to hand it off and knowing when to just step away, and then how you guys have been so incredibly open in guidance has just been absolutely phenomenal for me, it's made such a joy to work with you guys. So let's go back a little bit and talk about the marketing decisions we had to make back when we started, which would've been the end of last year. What were some of the marketing things that you guys were wondering about, that you knew list building will help you with but that we still had to figure out as we went?

Sarah Cates (17:18):
So I think the big thing, like you mentioned, was how are we going to get quality leads on our email list? And another thing we realized, that you helped us realize, was we were launching to a very warm list. So whenever we opened our doors for enrollment, we had a lot of people chomping at the bit to get in because they had been with us for a long time. And then it felt like we had launched now to our warm leads quite a bit. And then we saw that dip in sales. So we were wondering what our first ad would be and that's when you were like, "Well, you don't want just any ad, what's-"

Salome Schillack (18:01):
You guys had like 750 lead magnets.

Sarah Cates (18:05):
Yeah. We had so many. It really felt like 750, that is accurate. And there's nothing more relieving than someone saying, "You only need a few really quality lead magnets." So we talked through the customer journey and realized that we wanted to come out with a really killer quiz, followed up with a really awesome guide that is totally related to the quiz. And then that all flows into our free module and our webinar and obviously our program.

Salome Schillack (18:42):
Okay. So we unpacked that kind of customer journey a little bit. And then we started running list building ads and the list building we're going great. Tell me a bit about your style of launching. Do you guys do traditional webinar, video series? Talk a little bit about this so that the listeners can get an idea of what are the mechanics of a multi six-figure launch?

Sarah Cates (19:05):
Ooh. Okay. So I'm not too familiar with the different types, but what we do though is our big strategy is the webinars. So we used to do three, this launch, we tried two in the front of our launch. We open our cart from Wednesday to Wednesday typically. And then we also have a great follow up, email series to the webinar, sales emails for anyone who didn't sign up for the webinar and then a great cart close series. And then we also do a couple of Facebook Lives within that week. And then leading up to launch, we do our pre-launch runway and we go live on Facebook for 12 weeks and we email that content out weekly as well.

Salome Schillack (20:01):
I love that. So you're warming up your list and you're warming up your socials and you're letting everyone else know. Do you guys announce when you go into your pre-launch phase, those 12 weeks? Do you guys announce to them when your court is going to open or when your webinars are going to be? Do you tell them your course is coming?

Sarah Cates (20:22):
So we will, if it comes up naturally in what Sandra is talking about on her show, in terms of just enrollment, she will say doors open again in X, Y, Z, and you can reserve your spot now.

Salome Schillack (20:37):
I love that.

Sarah Cates (20:39):
We don't talk about the webinar until a week before. The week before the first webinar. So [inaudible 00:20:48] once we start ads is when we start talking about it at all. Just so it feels fresh and new and someone doesn't enroll or register for the workshop that isn't for another three months.

Salome Schillack (21:00):
Yeah. And I think the important thing there is the workshop, the webinar is the vehicle to convert them to sales. And we want to be upfront about this all the time. So when we're in that pre-launch sequence, we're not secretively adding value to them with the intent of then sneakily put them on the webinar and sneakily selling them, to which I kind of sometimes feel like people have this sort of judgment that they... "That's why they don't want to sell on a webinar or that's why they feel like they have to teach so much on a webinar."

Salome Schillack (21:38):
And I go, "No, let's just tell them from day dot, we have this amazing, awesome program that you will love if you're here right now and having this conversation with me, the court will be opening again. We will be opening the doors again on this time." And then you just have conversations about whatever the things are that's coming up and bringing them back to the program is coming. And I love that you guys then within a week of it go, "Well, here's the more information about the webinar. And if you want to find out about the program, join the webinar and come and learn so that you know if it is right for you or not." That's so good.

Sarah Cates (22:17):
Yes, exactly.

Salome Schillack (22:19):
And tell me a little bit, let's talk a little bit, one of your best and cleverest, and I just look at that and I go, "This is such good marketing," is the free module. You guys give away a free module of your course, where did that idea come from and which module, how do you choose which module and why do you think it converts so high?

Sarah Cates (22:44):
Those are amazing questions. So we called it the demo module when we were first creating the program. And I cannot tell you for the life of me where we came up with that idea. But I've been feeling it was probably Sandra's idea to show them what the inside of the program could look like. And so what we did is we took one of our most popular concepts, which was... And this is also a presentation she would give at actual events. So we knew it was popular and well received. And so we turned it into this digital presentation and it is how she presents her process to a potential client on the interior design side.

Salome Schillack (23:40):
I love it.

Sarah Cates (23:40):
And so we put that out there and that was the first thing we would start marketing around when we first launched. And people loved it and we called it the demo module. Then years later, we're like, "Demo makes no sense. Let's call it [crosstalk 00:23:57]."

Salome Schillack (23:57):
It's not very enticing.

Sarah Cates (23:59):
Yeah, exactly. We got much better with our marketing copy, so we changed it to the free module. It actually lived on our sales page for a long time too, so they could opt into that. So that was also a big list builder when we were doing organic leads because that just lives there all year round [crosstalk 00:24:21].

Salome Schillack (24:21):
I love that. So instead of saying, "Join the wait list," you're saying, "While you're waiting, get the demo module"?

Sarah Cates (24:30):
Yeah, exactly.

Salome Schillack (24:30):
I love that.

Sarah Cates (24:32):
Exactly. So now we took it off the sales pitch, because we just wanted the one call to action, which was to reserve their spot. But we're thinking of new and different ways to add it into our lead nurtures and to our warmer leads and because it's so so good. And I just looked at our data, over 50% of our members take the free module. And there's like a small cell at the end, like our webinar, so they can see the program and it's also, it lives in our program provider so they can see all the modules, they just can't click on [crosstalk 00:25:16].

Salome Schillack (25:16):
They just don't have access to it. I love that.

Sarah Cates (25:18):
Yeah. But that really gives them a feel of what a digital course is, in case they've never even heard of what a digital program could be.

Salome Schillack (25:30):
Right. And I love how it creates inclusion for them, because now they're already included in your world. They're not on the outside looking in, they're already on the inside and they just need to walk through a few other doors. They're already coming to your house. They just don't have access to the whole house yet. They're just in the kitchen.

Sarah Cates (25:56):
Yeah, exactly. And we also have always been so... Sandra has always been so adamant about giving as much as she can for free. And the standard really came out of designers asking [crosstalk 00:26:12].

Salome Schillack (26:11):
Standard is the course name?

Sarah Cates (26:13):
Yes. The Interior Design Standard, it came from designers were asking her, "Can I get a copy of your contract? Can I get a copy of how you price the services? Can I get your full service process template?" And she built her business very holistically. So nothing... You really can't have the contract about having our process because it doesn't make sense about it. Same way with how we price. And that is the idea of why she didn't come out with just like a $500 contract. She really wanted to equip designers and she knew, if I just get my contract, it's not going to be enough. And so that's where the program came from too, is she wanted to give her entire business model to designers because she really wish she had that same resource when she started out. So through our free content, through our newsletters, the Design Tips, we give and give and give as much as we can. And the tools now to take the strategy that we talk about all year long is the program.

Salome Schillack (27:23):
I love that so much. So this year you started building your list, you went into your pre-launch, you had the free module and your results. Are we back up on where we were?

Sarah Cates (27:37):
Yes. Yes. We're up significantly, back to a few launches ago, we hit our sales goals. So now again, we have hundreds of designers in our membership and just could not be more thankful for your team and your help in... Oh my gosh, I didn't know when we were partnering out that we would be able... That you'd giving us as much insight on marketing in general for digital programs. And so that was just so pivotal along with the amazing ads that your team created and put out for us. So it totally paid off and we are just so excited to dig into the data because we haven't done our team meeting of the post-launch, but we're super excited.

Salome Schillack (28:30):
Yeah, I am too. And I will say, I saw some preliminary results yesterday and we're not done unpacking it because it takes a while to unpack all this data, but I'm very excited to dive deep into it. And you say you're grateful for the marketing insight that we shared and I'm just so grateful for you guys for being so open to learn, because this is our jam. We just love this. And I teach all of the students inside the launch lounge, inside our membership, where we teach all the things that I taught you guys. I teach them that it's like two hands and the two hands have to hold each other because traffic is just per ads, is just traffic. It is just more people. You just bring more people. But more people does not result in money.

Salome Schillack (29:29):
Good marketing, good funnels, good understanding of taking people on a deliberate journey from where you first meet them to all the way where they become your paying student. That is what makes traffic and conversion come together. That is what makes ads and launches come together. And when we get to work with a client who is so open to learning like you guys, it just makes me so excited. And that's why I say I want to rub my face in your business because I feel so privileged to get to play with other people's businesses this way. And my team is amazing at ads, and when we can bring my team and your team together, that's when the real magic happens. So that's fantastic. So now you guys have your whole new student cohort. How long did they stay in your course?

Sarah Cates (30:26):
It's lifetime access. We drip the modules out once a week, for six weeks and they're in a private Facebook group for two months. And then they get merged into the bigger Facebook group with all of our standard members.

Salome Schillack (30:42):
I love that.

Sarah Cates (30:43):
And that's free to them. Well, it's part of their purchase. And then they're in there for lifetime access along with getting the content for lifetime access too.

Salome Schillack (30:55):
I love that. That's fantastic. And what is next for you guys? What's the next iteration of this look like, or are you still holding off on making decisions about that?

Sarah Cates (31:09):
We are. So Sandra's an idea machine. She is a true visionary and it is so fun whenever we go away, we have awesome brainstorms because the possibilities are truly endless. And then we come back to our desk and we're like, "Okay, there's a lot to do." So we can't quite run with that stuff yet. So we are really taking the time these next six months to, A, look at ad performance, look at our marketing performance and general things like that. But also doing a lot of intake with our membership, asking them to provide us feedback, seeing how we can strengthen the standard as a program. We always feel like there's things to better in the program. It's never completed to us. And so we are really just listening, in listen mode, and we're excited to roll out some updates and keep it going.

Salome Schillack (32:11):
I am excited to hear all about that. Well, Sarah, you guys are just a joy and I want to say, I'm just going to put this out there and I will put it out there on the show so that it's public and everyone knows it. But I am looking forward very much to seeing you guys do your first seven-figure launch. And I don't think it's far off and I don't think it is a very unrealistic, I think it's... I have seen it a few times. I have been on the ad side of it a few times and I will tell you, you guys are on the absolute perfect path and on the right trajectory.

Salome Schillack (32:47):
So I'm very excited to see you guys get to seven-figure launches. That would be fantastic. And all those amazing designers that you're helping building luxury business and those beautiful homes, all the beauty you're creating. I love it. So congratulations to you and congratulations to Sandra and your whole team. You guys have done a phenomenal job. You guys are just open to learning all the time and you're just taking in so much. It is so rewarding for me seeing what you guys are creating. So congratulations.

Sarah Cates (33:24):
Well, thank you so much. That means the worlds coming from you. So I really appreciate it.

Salome Schillack (33:29):
Wonderful. And thank you for sharing all of this with The Shine Show listeners. If you have any questions from today's interview or if you want to share some feedback or just if you want me to... If you have any ideas that you want to share from today's podcast, just hit me up on Instagram, send me a DM, and I'd love to hear thoughts about this launch from you as well. And I hope that Sarah's story and Sandra's story really inspires you to know what is possible for you, know that you don't need to know it all to have a six-figure launch. You just have to take action and start somewhere and create something and you can create the success as well. Sarah, can you tell everyone where can they learn more about all of your business, the businesses, Sandra Funk, and the Standard and the House of Funk and all of the things that you guys are so good at?

Sarah Cates (34:33):
Yes. So you can check out our interior design business, houseoffunk.com. And then there's a to the trade tab there, so if you click that button, that'll take you straight to our digital program, which is interiordesignstandard.com. And then we're also on Instagram, houseoffunkdesign.

Salome Schillack (34:51):
And there's some beautiful images on Instagram. And if you are an aspiring interior designer, please go and check them out. Thank you so much, Sarah. I appreciate you being here.

Sarah Cates (35:02):
Thank you.

Salome Schillack (35:03):
Well, there you have it, my friends. I trust that this has inspired you to know that if you started well out of the gate and maybe after starting strong, things didn't quite go as smoothly as you hoped it would, or it didn't grow as fast as you would, I want you to just take comfort in what you heard us talk about today. It's never a straight path. It's also not an up and up and up sequence. It can be an up and up and down and down and up and down and up and down sequence. And especially as we see IOA stuff roll out and the market changing, it becomes even more important to really know how to market your business effectively, not just run ads, but how to market your business effectively. And that's what Sarah and Sandra is so good at.

Salome Schillack (35:55):
If you have any thoughts, any comments, any questions, please send them to me, DM me on Instagram. Let me know what your favorite takeaway is from today's episode. And let me know how you are going to get back up in case you have had a little bit of the case of not so up and up. Hope you have a lovely week and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Salome Schillack (36:25):
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

 

153. Hiring an Integrator. How To Find The Right Person The First Time

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153. Hiring an Integrator. How To Find The Right Person The First Time

26 Apr 2022 | By Salome Schillack

Kinda ready to hire an Integrator but not sure if it's the right move? Or perhaps you’re wondering, Inte-what now???

This week’s episode of The Shine Show is especially for you!

I’m joined by my work wife, honorary psychologist, punching bag, tissue box, life planner, and cyber angel, Integrator Chloe!

Hiring an Integrator was a pivotal point in my business, and having Chloe on my team made things go from stressy to progressy. She is my secret sauce for getting sh!t done!

Every visionary hits the ceiling at some point. Between juggling the systems, the financial stuff, the team, and everything in between, setting aside for your big picture thinking gets lower and lower down the to-do list. 

An Integrator will give you your time back and allow you to do all the dreaming and big picture planning. AKA the stuff you're really good at! Think about what you could create with all that extra time and the relationships you could nurture. Hand on heart, Chloe changed my life!

Today on The Shine Show, Chloe joins me and shares all things Integrator, from what exactly she does day to day (AKA everything) to how you know when you're ready to transform your life by hiring your own Integrator. If you’re looking for a superstar Integrator, but not quite ready to take on a full-time team member, Audacious Empires are your gals! They are the best in the biz, and you can stalk them here.

XXX

Salome

 

P.S Did you find this week's episode helpful? I love hearing your feedback. Jump over to my Instagram and let me know what you think and if Chloe’s wise advice has helped you take the leap to get yourself an Integrator!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 153 of The Shine Show. I have such a treat in store for you today. The episode is called Hiring an Integrator: How to Find the Right Person the First Time. And I am interviewing the lovely Chloe Porter, who has been, not just my integrator, but my sidekick and my psychic, my psychologist, my tissue box, my punching bag, my planner, my work wife, my everything for the better part of just over a year.

Salome Schillack (00:40):
About just over a year ago, the business was growing fast, and I was losing my mind. And I knew what I needed was an integrator, but I also knew that finding one in Australia can be tough, because ... If I was in the U.S., it might be easier, because at least there's a few people who know what an integrator is. In Australia, it was a little bit harder. But, I found Chloe, and she has completely changed my business, and allowed me to create the structures to, not just hire more people, but to hire more people and have happy team, and be productive, and continue to build and grow the business.

Salome Schillack (01:26):
So let me tell you a little bit about Chloe. Chloe is the captain of operations and business integration at Audacious Empires. She is the absolute queen of keeping the Audacious Empires wheels spinning. They're an agency that hires out integrators for hire. She's got the drive, the determination, capability, and care factor to smash goals and manage the Audacious Empire team. She listens to what you want, and identifies what you need to take your big vision and make it a reality, creating more time and freedom for you to do what you love most, and the reason you started your business in the first place.

Salome Schillack (02:10):
When Chloe's not working, she can be found sitting outside, listening to the rain, or out on her boat, with a rod cast in the water.

Salome Schillack (02:19):
I know you're going to love picking Chloe's brain with me today. I know you're going to love Chloe just as much as I do. And if you're considering hiring an integrator, even if you're in America, these girls are based here in Australia, but I can tell you from experience, as someone who works with people all over the world, these girls are so organized. They will organize your life from halfway across the world. And you can find them at audaciousempires.com. And on Instagram, they're @audaciousempires, and on Facebook, they're Audacious Empires. So, have a listen to Chloe, and if you're looking for an integrator, go find Chloe today.

Salome Schillack (03:07):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Salome Schillack (03:41):
Chloe, welcome to the show. You have been my rock, and my therapist, and my organizer, and all the things throughout 2021, so I'm so happy to have you on the show, to share with all the listeners how amazing the work is that you do, and how they can find a Chloe of their own as well. So, welcome.

Chloe Porter (04:08):
It's great to be here. Thank you so much.

Salome Schillack (04:10):
I'm so glad we do this. You are so behind the scenes. The students don't even see you, because you're never in the community or in anywhere visible, except you're visible to me every time something drops on the floor and I'm crying, Chloe's there to pick it up, or when I'm running light with deadlines, or when I'm the bottleneck in the business, Chloe's there to help us.

Salome Schillack (04:38):
So, I just want to tell everyone listening a little bit of the story of how I came to you, and then, we can dive in and talk about the history of what you guys do at Audacious Empires, which is the company that Leanne Woff founded that you work for. And then we can dive deep into all things, being a VA, being an integrator, being an online business manager, and how to hire someone like you, and where can people find things?

Salome Schillack (05:06):
So let me wind the clock back a little bit. It was December 2020. So it was mentally, I want to say, it was a time where 2020 had thoroughly settled in. The initial shock of what 2020 was going to be had worn off. And I think the initial pivot/crazy hustle energy that we all went into from, say, March to about August, September of 2020, had kind of died down, but also started taking a much deeper hole on, I think, everyone's mental health and work capacity.

Salome Schillack (06:05):
And we were at a point where we were seeing that COVID is not going to go away very quickly, it's here to stay. And at that point in time, I had only just launched A-Lister a few months before I'd launched The Launch Lounge a few months before. There were only three other people, other than myself, in my team. It was Hannah, the ads manager, Caroline, the account manager, and Ashley, who was literally doing everything else at that stage. Ash was my copywriter, my designer, my organizer, my everything, my community manager.

Salome Schillack (06:43):
And Ashley resigned because she was pursuing a career in therapy. And so I was left with this fast growing business in the middle of COVID, and I just went, "What is the best thing that I can do for my business right now?" I know I don't need more help in terms of managing clients, because Caroline and Hannah had that down pat, they were nailing that, but I knew I definitely need more help on the courses side on the side where I'm working with students, and launching courses, and putting content together, and the podcast, and everything.

Salome Schillack (07:30):
And so, I remember it was like this really spontaneous moment. I was sitting on my couch upstairs, and I just went, I need an integrator. I need someone who's more than just a virtual assistant. I need someone that I don't want to have to teach how to help me. I want this person to be qualified. And so I remember going to Google searching it and couldn't find anything. And then I went to LinkedIn and I typed in "integrator" and you guys came up, and I went to the website. And everything on your website used all the right words that I was exactly what I was looking for. And I couldn't believe my luck that you guys are actually in Australia as well.

Salome Schillack (08:17):
So I think you and I hopped on a quick call, and then I met with Leanne, and it was literally within a week or two, we had contracts signed, and we were ready to go. And that's how you came on board.

Salome Schillack (08:31):
And I can honestly, honestly say, I do not know what I would've done in 2021 if I didn't have you guys. So for that, I'm so grateful, and I want you to share all the magic you gave me to all the listeners.

Salome Schillack (08:49):
So that was a very long intro, but I felt like I needed to tell the story of where I was and how I was feeling when I brought you in. So maybe you can tell us a little bit of, from your perspective, what did you see when you came into my business?

Chloe Porter (09:06):
Yeah. So straight away I could tell that there was a lot of overwhelm, a lot of, "I need more time but I don't know how to get at it," and quite a bit of, "This is what I want to achieve, but I know I can't do it alone. And I don't really know how to go about it in the best possible way," which is something we say with a lot of people that have really great ideas, but they don't know how to launch them successfully, or how to even plan them properly. Lots of people will jump into action mode before they do the planning, and before they know it, they've jumped into action mode so fast that they haven't actually achieved the end result that they need or that they want. And then they kind of go, "Oh, crap, I should have done the planning first."

Chloe Porter (09:53):
So when you came to us, you had three team members, lots and lots of ideas, lots of good things going, you just needed a little bit more help, and you were growing, in which we started overhauling your organizational structure, your file storage structure. All of those core things that a lot of people don't realize are super important, and they kind of just get left behind, when the reality is that those things matter, because everything you do is dependent on that. If you don't look at those first, you're going to have burnt out team members, overloaded team members, things falling through the cracks, and then stress. Stress and overwhelm.

Chloe Porter (10:42):
So we kind of started with the core things, organizational structure, file storage structure, project management structure, all those things. Then we looked at, okay, what are the things that we want to do, and who do we need to help? And then that's how it came to be the bigger team that we are now, which I think we have, what, about 9 or 10. 10 of us in total.

Salome Schillack (11:04):
11, if I count my husband.

Chloe Porter (11:07):
And every person has a unique role, and without them, the business could not function in the way that it does now. And on top of the launch lounge, now we have VIP, we have lots and lots of students, we just have a lot of things going on. And it just couldn't have happened if we didn't focus on the core things first.

Salome Schillack (11:27):
Yeah.

Chloe Porter (11:28):
So that was super important. And I'm glad we did that.

Salome Schillack (11:31):
I am too. For us creative entrepreneurs who always have new ideas and always could see ... We are so good at seeing where the next big thing is going to come from, or what the next big idea is, or what the next iteration of something is. And we are not always very good at looking back, and seeing that we leave a trail of chaos behind us, as we innovate and come up with new ideas and things. And so, I've always thought of myself as a fairly organized person, but even a fairly organized person when things have grown fast, and the capacity, you literally become out of capacity. That's how I felt. I felt like I was out of capacity.

Salome Schillack (12:30):
And then organization is the first thing that goes out the window. And the irony is, you just end up working more because now you can't find that folder, or you don't know where you saved it, or you accidentally deleted it, which has happened to me multiple times, or it's just you have to do things twice, that if you just plan it, you would've been more efficient, and just needed to do it once.

Salome Schillack (13:02):
So there's this kind of overwhelm that you talked about, that as a creative entrepreneur, you just need someone with a fresh set of eyes, who's not also overwhelmed, and who has the skill to create organizational systems because that's a very unique skill. Is this ability to see the big picture, but also break it down into smaller chunks. Not a lot of people have that skill. And you have that skill in leaps and bounds. You are very good at that.

Salome Schillack (13:34):
So tell me a little bit about the first things that you guys did when you started working with me. I remember we had a call and you guys said, "Okay, tell me everything." And I think I just verbal-diarrhead for about an hour. And then you said, "Okay, got it." And I was, "No, you don't. No, you don't, you don't got it." You were like, "No, I'll come back to you with a 90-day plan." And I was like, "Sure, okay. I look forward to seeing what you produce." And then you came back and you nailed it.

Chloe Porter (14:11):
Yes.

Salome Schillack (14:11):
I was blown away. Nailed it.

Chloe Porter (14:15):
Yeah. So what we normally do is, we hold about a 60-minute to a 90-minute deep dive call, and it's where we just listen, and you just literally start talking. "These are the things I want. These are the things I'm having trouble with." This is the thing I kind of see, but I don't know what to do. This is how I'm feeling. These are the people on my team." Absolutely everything that you can do, we get you to talk about. And then we just take notes in the background, and listen to you because listening is really important too. Anyone can take notes and go, "Okay, I'll just come up with a plan, take your money, give the plan to you, help you with the plan, then leave."

Salome Schillack (14:57):
Yeah.

Chloe Porter (14:57):
Listening is super important to actually help the person who needs help, not just with tasks. So with, "I'm feeling overwhelmed, can you help? I want more time back, can you help? I want my expertise to go into this area of my business instead of where it is going now, can you help?" You've really got to listen to all those things.

Chloe Porter (15:20):
And then from that session we walk away, we review everything again, and then we pull together a really detailed 90-day plan, which is going to get you from A to B, with the biggest impact. So we go back and listen to all of the goals you had, which one is going to have the biggest impact, and what needs to happen to get you there? Because it's never just going to be one, two, three steps, there's always going to be quite a few things.

Chloe Porter (15:52):
And from there we create that detailed 90-day plan, and we take into account who's on your team to help, what bits can we do, and what bits need minimal input from you? Because we already know course creators, and coaches, and things, don't have a lot of time, so we don't want to be putting things on their plate that takes more of their time. So it's, what can everybody else do, and what small little bits do we need from you just to keep the momentum going to reach the goal?

Chloe Porter (16:22):
And then we start assigning dates to things and all of those nitty-gritty detail bits. And then we come together, we review it together in great detail, we tweak whatever you'd like to have tweaked, and then once we're happy with it, then we go into action mode. But in action mode, we also catch up regularly [crosstalk 00:16:42], whether that be phone call, Zoom, Slack, there's always communication available.

Chloe Porter (16:49):
And we just catch up and run through, okay, this is where we're at. These are possibly the blockers we've run into, maybe you've had a change in direction. Like we've seen, okay, we've gotten this far with this, but actually want to turn a little bit, what can we do to now change up without having a massive impact? Because we know that people will often want changes, but what we want to make clear at the same time is we can add those changes in, but is it going to stop you from reaching your end goal?

Salome Schillack (17:22):
Yeah.

Chloe Porter (17:22):
And then we kind of talk about that, because if it is, you don't really want to be wasting, one, money, and, two, time. And we don't want you to be doing that either. And we also don't want you to have 10,000 other new ideas and lose sight of that original goal. So we kind of just keep you aligned with it, keep it in the light, in the forefront, make sure it's all okay, and then we just keep going.

Chloe Porter (17:49):
And as we're going, we might pick up new things along the way, and go, "Hey, I noticed this. There's room for improvement with this. Let's talk about this. This would have a big impact too if it was addressed in this light." And if it's something that doesn't really matter right now, we'll put it on the back burner. We know it's there and it needs addressing, but doesn't have to happen right now, because then when we're done, we can come together again, and talk about these are the other things we've noticed. If we did this, this is the result it would have, and then we just keep going. And before you know it, everything has grown. It's blossomed, everything's running smoothly, and it's great.

Salome Schillack (18:27):
And then people like me, we can just come up with new ideas-

Chloe Porter (18:30):
That's right.

Salome Schillack (18:32):
... to create new chaos for people like you to sort through and organize. And so the spiral continues.

Chloe Porter (18:39):
But it also means too, that now you have the head space, and physical space to be able to give your attention to areas of the business and even team members who actually need you. You're no longer bogged down with checking emails, troubleshooting techy problems, setting up automations, doing all the things that you're kind of like, "Ugh, I hate doing it, it scares me, or I really don't want to do it. Someone else could be doing this."

Salome Schillack (19:07):
Exactly.

Chloe Porter (19:07):
And you can actually go and create new products, and courses, new content, communities, engage with your students, your clients, all those things, and you'll feel happier. You'll feel so much better.

Salome Schillack (19:20):
Yeah. I remember ... So there's so much that I want to unpack with what you've just said. After we agreed on the 90-day plan, one of the things that have consistently changed is our SOP project, right?

Chloe Porter (19:37):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (19:37):
We started a project to SOP, and SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure, and it's just like a step by step guide on how to do anything in the business. I had tried for three years to get everything SOPd. And I've hired, literally, I want to say three other people to do it, and nobody could ever get it done or get it done right, or get it complete ... It was just a nightmare. And when you started, I saw you have a really good system for how to do it.

Salome Schillack (20:08):
But that's one of the processes that have gotten sidetracked many times because either we went into something and saw, well, hang on, this isn't necessarily the best system. We want to overhaul this system, we want to change this system, but we don't have the right person in the right role to overhaul this. So we first need to go and find the right person for the role, and then have that person overhaul how they're going to do this, and then we can record it. So sometimes it was things like that.

Salome Schillack (20:41):
Or sometimes it was things like the podcast, and we go here is the current SOP, and then someone tries to implement this and we go, it's been recorded, but it doesn't make any sense. So let's do that over. So I like what you say, you have to listen, and you have to be able to pivot and change without compromising the original goal.

Chloe Porter (21:06):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (21:07):
I think that is so important. And that's where it's really important, when you have someone in your business who helps you build the structure of your business, that, that person really buys into your vision, and into your goals for your business as well.

Chloe Porter (21:23):
Yeah, it's super important. And then that's where the difference is, between a VA, and an OBM, or an integrator coming to play too. Because lots of people think, "Okay, I need help with this, I need help with this, I need help with this." They go and hire a VA, and they go, "Oh, okay, they can't actually do what I wanted them to do." Because a VA is typically one that can follow a set of instructions to complete a task without looking at the bigger picture, without looking any deeper. It's, "Here you go. Can you please go and create these Canva images and schedule these posts. Here's a really detailed SOP on how to do it and a video, off you go."

Chloe Porter (22:05):
They go and do that. Some bring it back. But they haven't looked any further. So if something else has had an impact or anything like that, you are not going to know until something breaks, or it's gone live, or whatever it is. Then you realize, oh, okay. But the VA doesn't have necessarily the skill or the experience to see that part to do that.

Salome Schillack (22:27):
Right.

Chloe Porter (22:29):
And they usually charge about $30 to $40 an hour.

Salome Schillack (22:34):
I think that's in Australia. I think in the U.S., it might be a little bit cheaper.

Chloe Porter (22:39):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (22:39):
I have friends who hire VAs in the U.S. for about $25 an hour, and in Australia it's probably around $35.

Chloe Porter (22:48):
Yeah. Whereas if you had an OBM or a business integrator, and you said, "Okay, I want to do this. How do we go about it?" They don't just look at that one thing you're talking about, they look at all the things before and all the things after as well, because you could have an idea on how to do this one piece, and it's not until look at the bigger picture that they then go. "That's a really good idea, but perhaps that system you've picked for it isn't going to work because X, Y, Z after, or X, Y, Z before." They look at the bigger picture.

Chloe Porter (23:25):
And they're always looking for improvements, things to improve, things to better help you, better help the business. And they come up with solutions. It's not just, "Oh, Salome, I found this issue. We need to fix it." And you go, "Oh, okay, well now I've got to think about what can you do?"

Salome Schillack (23:41):
Yeah.

Chloe Porter (23:41):
Before they even say anything, they tend to already come up with a couple of solutions, and then they come back to you, and talk to you about them, and then they come up with something together that feels good, and then they go away and implement, whatever it is.

Salome Schillack (23:57):
I love that. And I think, when you think about how an online courses business grows, when you start out, it's just you and you're doing everything, and you're having to figure everything out by yourself. And then when you have a little bit of spare cash, you can start buying back your time, and that's when you hire a VA, and literally is someone ... I've hired VAs to help me publish the podcast, because I had a system, I just have to show them which buttons to press, which levers to pull, when to put what in, where, and you can easily outsource that. I've had VAs to do to publish social media content, publish the podcast on my website. Do what else? I'm trying to think what else have I hired VAs. Send out emails in my CRM. Those are the sort of things that a VA can help you with.

Salome Schillack (24:53):
And then there's occasional VAs that you need like when you have a big launch and you need someone to just be your backup on the webinar, or you need someone to help you schedule mass emails, or something like that. So that's typically when you would hire someone that you pay by the hour, or you pay them for a once off project.

Chloe Porter (25:16):
Yep.

Salome Schillack (25:16):
The problem with those that I found, because this is one of my big frustrations with hiring VAs at that level, is, when you get to that point where you're not making enough money, that you can hire someone to be an employee in your business, but you can maybe ... Let's say you can hire someone for 5 hours a week or 10 hours a week, what's your advice? Because what I struggled with at that level was, you kinda have to take what you can get.

Salome Schillack (25:49):
And it's harder to manage someone in terms of making them live up to your values and deliver work at your standard when you pay them by the hour, and they just have to follow a certain set of instruction. So what's your advice to someone who's just at that point where they have the cash to hire someone for 5 or 10 hours, but they're not yet at the point where they can say to someone, here's job security, or here's at least contractor security for you, in that, I'm going to pay you the same amount every month, and you're going to have a certain number of hours every single week? What's your advice to that person starting out, finding the VA at the hourly rate, find someone who can really match their values, and match their standard? How do you go about finding that person?

Chloe Porter (26:43):
My advice is to, first, really map out all the things that you need a VA to help you with first. Because like you said, a lot of VAs will have set hours, so 20 hours a week, 20 hours a month, whatever it is, so you have to match that. And you don't want to get to a point where you can for the first three weeks and then you're starting to struggle to give them things, but you still have to pay that same rate.

Chloe Porter (27:11):
So look at all that first, and then start looking for a VA, but don't just jump on the first VA you see. Jump on a Zoom call with them, get to know them. What are they about? What do they like? Understand how they think, how they talk, how they feel, all those things, because that's going to build connection. Without connection, they're not really going to care about your business, you're not really going to get the results out of them that you want. So connection is extremely important if you want to find someone that you vibe with.

Chloe Porter (27:46):
So I would advise that, first, look at all the things that you need help with, then go and find somebody, and look at what they're offering too. And also be respectful of that as well. It's okay to feel, I don't want to pay a VA $40 an hour, that's fine, but you don't really want to come off as trying to negotiate with them to bump that down either, because there'll be a reason why they've priced themselves at that. And that's okay. But I would definitely be jumping on a call with a couple, and trying to get to know them, and trying to see if there's going to be a connection there. Because usually you know if you're not going to connect with someone. And that's super important.

Chloe Porter (28:28):
And if you feel like you can give them the job anyway, without a connection being there, you're probably kidding yourself because it'll be okay for the first couple of weeks, and then when issues start happening and you try and address them with them, care factor's not there, the connection's not there. It's all just going to fall apart.

Salome Schillack (28:46):
Yes. And you're probably going to spend at least a month really suffering, trying to figure out, is it me, or is it them?

Chloe Porter (28:53):
Yes.

Salome Schillack (28:55):
How do I bring this up with them? All those things I think about.

Chloe Porter (28:59):
And then that ends up being a really icky conversation, and all of those things.

Salome Schillack (29:03):
Yes. And I think it's important too, that you can tell a VA, even if it's someone you bring in as a part-time contractor for a few hours, that you can tell them some of your core values. And I learned this the hard way because I hired a VA once, and I had about four or five interviews, I gave about two or three of them a test job to do. I never had the conversation about values. And as soon as she came on board, and the funny thing is, I said to her, "Is there anything else I should know that's going to make you successful in this job?" And as soon as she started, within a week, she told me, well, in a month's time, she'll be traveling overseas for three months, so she'll just be working from her computer flexibly while she's overseas.

Salome Schillack (29:58):
And I distinctly remember having the need for someone who's behind their computer during office hours that I can talk to and that we can go back and forth. And I had to let her go literally almost within a couple of weeks of hiring her. And I felt like she had betrayed me, I felt like she had lied to me.

Salome Schillack (30:21):
Now, whether that's true or not I can't remember, because I don't remember at all, but I felt that way, but I don't think I ever specifically said, "Well, this five hours a week, are they in Brisbane local time, or are they behind your computer, or are they while you're traveling?" Because that's a horse of different color. It's just a very different deal that could work very well for someone else but didn't work for me at that stage. And so then you're back to square one. You put yourself back like proper month.

Chloe Porter (30:54):
Yeah, that's right. So that's why it's really good to jump on a call with them, and try and get to know them, and see what do they want out of this, how do they like to work, how do they learn? All those things. Because someone can say, "Oh, I can give you 20 hours a week." And like you said, suddenly that's not during office hours and that's what you needed.

Salome Schillack (31:14):
Yeah.

Chloe Porter (31:15):
It could be that they're doing that at nighttime, and well then you need to give them information, or they need to ask you for something. And then time stops for 12 hours until you are awake again.

Salome Schillack (31:26):
Right.

Chloe Porter (31:29):
So it's really important to [crosstalk 00:31:29].

Salome Schillack (31:29):
And that can work because we have team members who works in different time zones than us, but as long as everybody ... My number one value is be engaged, which means you are on top of your work, and you do what you said you're going to do, and you do it when you said you were going to do it, and you communicate very clearly if anything is going wrong. And that's the only way it can work with different time zones or with different work schedules.

Salome Schillack (31:53):
So one of the things, when I got to the point where I was hiring you guys, I knew very clearly that I don't want a VA. I knew very clearly. And I remember it being quite a weird space for me to be in, because one of the things everybody says is, "Are you still reading your own emails?" And I was kind of like, "I don't mind reading my own emails. I have bigger ... I want someone who can solve bigger problems than reading my emails." And I knew that I need someone who will not require me to teach them how to do the job. So I knew it wasn't going to be a VA that's going to rely on me to teach them how to manage a project, or how to create a system, or how to manage contractors who are on deadlines. So I knew very clearly I need someone who already has experience and already has the skills. And that's why I was so glad when I found you guys.

Salome Schillack (33:01):
So talk to me a bit about, when do you think an online course creator is ready to hire an integrator or an integrator agency? Because you guys are an agency, so you don't work for me full-time again. I didn't have the capacity for a full-time integrator, so I just went with you guys as an agency, few hours a week, but consistent, reliable, and you become part of my business, and you know what to deliver. So when would someone be ready for someone like you guys?

Chloe Porter (33:32):
Yeah, so that's right. First I'll just say, we fully immerse ourselves into your business, so your business becomes like our own. We become part of your team. We build a relationship with you and your team. We know your business inside and out as if we were an actual employee of your business. So when we're interacting with your team, and with you, and with your students, with your clients, it's like we are inside your business, because we are, but we're not. You know what I mean?

Chloe Porter (34:03):
So you'll know if you're ready for an integrator when you start having all of these floating ideas, all these great ideas, but you're not sure how to put it into action, and you need somebody else to help with business decisions. Things like how much should I charge for this? What should I put in it? What should the content be? What systems do I need to pull together to make it happen? How should I promote it? All of those things. So it's not just, "I need somebody to help me set up an automation." It's the entire picture, what course platform should I choose? What's CRM should I choose? What tools should I use from my community? Should it be a Facebook group, should it be slack?

Chloe Porter (34:48):
All of those things you need. When you start having all of those thoughts and you don't know how to pull together is when you go, okay, I need a business integrator, and I need somebody who will manage my team, manage my projects, make sure shit gets done without me micromanaging. You don't want to micromanage anymore.

Salome Schillack (35:08):
No.

Chloe Porter (35:08):
You don't want to do that. So when you realize, I don't want to do that anymore, but I want to make sure things happen, and it happens right, that's when you know, you need a business integrator.

Salome Schillack (35:18):
That is right. And that's exactly how it unfolded for us. I feel for a few months, it was just you and me cleaning up a whole lot of systems, and it was only really from the middle of last year that we went on a really big recruitment drive, and we just added a lot of people to the team because suddenly the systems were able to carry more people.

Salome Schillack (35:42):
And as soon as the system can carry more people, you see the gaps, and then you go, oh, okay. We can bring someone in at the bottom as a junior here because you've created a system that will mean that this junior can learn what they need to do very quickly, or do it from an SOP. So I feel like you hire an integrator when you see the systems become bigger than what you can manage yourself, and when you know that you need someone senior enough who can think through the process, but not so junior that they need to do the process, I think that-

Chloe Porter (36:31):
Correct. So you're thinking, I want to be CEO, not micromanager, I need somebody below me to manage all the things, and all the people, and then all the juniors come in underneath that.

Salome Schillack (36:43):
Yeah. And where do you see ... I mean, I've thought about this a lot, because we often look to other online course creator, businesses to see best practice in our own industry. But I also like to look at corporate, and as much as I despise anything corporate and feel allergic to anything corporate, I do feel like there's a lot that we can still learn from corporate in terms of how to do systems, and processes, and productivity, and a lot of corporate stuff is also very unproductive, but we can still learn a lot from them.

Salome Schillack (37:16):
So I looked at them and I go, "Well, where does a general manager fit in, and where does an operations' manager fit in?" So maybe talk to me a little bit, what do you think about those two?

Chloe Porter (37:28):
So I usually see it as, you have the CEO at the top, and you have the business integrator or OBM. Usually OBM and business integrator are meshed into one.

Salome Schillack (37:40):
OBM stands for Online Business Manager?

Chloe Porter (37:42):
Online Business Manager, yep. But sometimes businesses will have just a business integrator and then an OBM. But that's usually when they're much bigger. So the OBM, her brain has to go somewhere else, not just on project management anymore. But they can mesh, and they usually tend to.

Chloe Porter (37:58):
Then below there is where you are usually really have a marketing manager, or a general manager, or something like that, kind of depends on how broad your business is, I guess.

Chloe Porter (38:08):
And then underneath that, your VA, your junior-level team members and all those things. That's how I see it, but it's very dependent on the business type, your businesses, all of those things.

Salome Schillack (38:26):
Yeah. Because one of the things that I've been thinking through is, the business operations in a business where marketing is the job, there's no difference between the business manager and the marketing manager.

Chloe Porter (38:42):
Correct.

Salome Schillack (38:43):
There really isn't. Because the only thing that, that marketing manager ... The only business piece that doesn't fall under that marketing manager is finance and HR, which is a small piece of what the CEO needs to do anyway. So in my mind I was kind of like, okay, so the business manager and the marketing manager in a business where the job is marketing is the same thing.

Chloe Porter (39:11):
Correct. Yeah.

Salome Schillack (39:12):
Kind of helping me a little bit.

Chloe Porter (39:14):
Yeah. So you just need to look at what's your business made up of? What are the areas, what are the main ... Start with the big chunky areas, and then work your way down.

Salome Schillack (39:26):
And in an online courses business, the big chunky areas is going to be traffic. So finding new people, to bring new people into your community, either via podcast, a blog, or a video, something, YouTube channel, and then social media to drive people to those channels, Facebook and Instagram ads, ACO, anything that brings traffic to you, conversion is the second big chunk. That's your online course launches. It's your evergreen funnels. It's all of that.

Salome Schillack (39:59):
And then retention or customer service, which is your delivery of your program, so you showing up as the coach, you showing up as the teacher, someone building it in Kajabi or in whatever platform you use, and then handling customer service, I guess. So those really or the big chunks.

Chloe Porter (40:18):
They're.

Salome Schillack (40:19):
Yeah. Okay. How does someone into a job like yours?

Chloe Porter (40:27):
Oh, good question. I got lucky. So we were originally Virtual Infinity founded by Leanne. And we started off as virtual assistants, doing general kind of things, research and smaller admin tasks, all of those things. And then I found Leanne, and was super interested in this kind of work. I thought I've never heard of this before, sounds really interesting, and I'm always up for learning new things. And I always have wanted a role where I'm continually growing, like the growth never stops. Yeah.

Chloe Porter (41:12):
And so I kind of landed in her lap that way and we just gelled. We just got on before we knew people, our clients, and friends, and things were starting to think we were actually sisters. We had a client that we had had for, I think about two years at the time, and one night she was talking to us and she said something about sisters. And I said, "What?" And then she's like, "Yeah, you're sisters." And we were like, "No, we're not." And she's mind blown, couldn't believe that we were not sisters.

Chloe Porter (41:45):
And then before we knew it, we were actually doing more than just virtual assistant work. We were making big decisions with clients, helping them create new products, and new courses constantly strategizing with them, finding ways to better streamline their business. All of those things that then we went, we're no longer VAs, we're with something more. And then that's how Audacious Empire came about, and our team started to grow as well.

Chloe Porter (42:16):
We had people with special technology skills, people with strategy skills, people with marketing skills, all of those things. And we just grew. But I remember just doing virtual assistant kind of tasks, and then starting to do the more strategic things, and operations, and organizational structure and stuff, that's when we looked at everything again and went, "We're more than a virtual assistant now." We just grew. Our skills had grown, we constantly invest in training, we're always upskilling, all those things, that's when we went, "We're not a VA anymore." We are online business managers, we are business integrators, without us, a lot of people couldn't be where they are. But that's how Audacious Empires came about.

Salome Schillack (43:09):
Fantastic. That's awesome. So I guess it starts with just learning VA stuff and then like anything, the more you learn, the more you learn, the better you get at it.

Chloe Porter (43:19):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (43:19):
And the more you understand the big picture, the better you'll be able to then serve someone as, not just a VA, but as an integrator.

Chloe Porter (43:28):
Yeah. That's right. So constantly just learning, learning, learning, having experience in things. But being an online business manager and a business integrator, it's not something you can just learn. You do have to have the skill for it. A lot of people will say, "I'm an online business manager now," but then you work with them all the things you're doing, and you kind of like, "Well, are you ..." It's not-

Salome Schillack (43:56):
It's not advanced admin.

Chloe Porter (43:59):
It's not something everyone can just learn, and then go, okay, I have the skills now, I'm an online business manager.

Salome Schillack (44:05):
Yeah, I agree with that.

Chloe Porter (44:06):
Like you really have to pick [crosstalk 00:44:09] part of you.

Salome Schillack (44:10):
There's a passive function. There's a very specific brain function in terms of having the ability to see both the big picture, and be incredibly detail driven as well.

Chloe Porter (44:23):
Correct.

Salome Schillack (44:24):
And I am big picture, will never be able to do the details. So I have absolute admiration for anyone who can do both those things. An amazing skill. It's a rare skill as well.

Chloe Porter (44:37):
It is. And you have to be extremely driven and extremely committed. It takes a lot of brain power, a lot of patience. Some things that we know businesses need, they can't be built in a week, or even a month, or two months, it takes time. You can do it the really quick way, but you're not going to get the high end result that you want. You'll get something that might work, but has 20 bumps in it, and then it's kind of like, well, does it really work?

Chloe Porter (45:11):
It takes time and it takes a lot of patience. And all you need to do is trust your online business manager, or your business integrator to know that they are experienced, and do know what they're doing, because the minute you start trying to micromanage too much or change things without telling them, that's where you're going to get a lot of bumps, because your partners, you need to work together. You need to understand things together. You need to make decisions together. Because if you've got one person working on something, then somebody else working on something completely different, it's all just going to clash. It's not going to work. You're going to have more headaches.

Salome Schillack (45:50):
Yes, you are. Yes, you are. And I hope that I am a good client for you guys, and I hope that I have left you to do your work as you've done incredible work. So thank you for that. So if somebody wants to ... Do you guys actually do VA work as well or do you just do integrator work?

Chloe Porter (46:08):
So we don't offer anything that's hourly. So if someone says, "I need 20 hours a week or anything like that," we don't do that. We don't do reception. We don't do really minor admin tasks and management, social scheduling, all those things. And we don't do that because we know that our audience needs an integrator that can see the bigger picture, and do the bigger picture to get the result that they need.

Chloe Porter (46:35):
We have clients that have had massive results when we do it that way, and therefore, we do not like to do smaller things. Sure, we can help every now and again, but it's not something we like to focus on because you're not going to achieve the big mind blowing results that you would and that we've seen should you have of hired and integrator to do all the other things.

Salome Schillack (46:57):
Yes. And I feel like you guys came into my life at exactly the right time to just work your magic, clean things up, shape things a little bit, and that's just our springboard to the next level. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for-

Chloe Porter (47:15):
You're very welcome.

Salome Schillack (47:15):
... for pouring all your magical Chloe love into my business. Your fingerprints are everywhere. I love it. Where can people learn more about Audacious Empires if they're looking for integrators too?

Chloe Porter (47:28):
They can head to audaciousempires.com. We also have a dedicated online business integrator page, which is audaciousempires.com/onlinebusinessintegrator. And that's where you can learn a little bit more about online business integrators. You can see all of the mind blowing results that clients have achieved, and the kinds of people we like to work with, and it will also tell you how you know if you're ready for a business integrator as well.

Salome Schillack (47:58):
That's awesome. And we have so many listeners in other countries outside of Australia, do you guys work with people in the U.S. and maybe in the UK as well?

Chloe Porter (48:08):
We most definitely do, and we have, and we still do. The only thing I would say that they need to consider is, are you going to be okay with not having that 24/7 contact because of the time difference?

Salome Schillack (48:22):
Yes.

Chloe Porter (48:23):
Is that something we can definitely be okay with that? And we are okay with that, but you need to ask yourself, is that something and you're okay with too, because obviously we're not going to be awake at two o'clock in the morning when you're.

Salome Schillack (48:36):
Of course. And it's kind of similar to the clients that we work with that I have to say, if they're in the UK or the U.S., I have to say to them, "Look, we have dedicated office hours. It is Australian times. And we have such good systems in place because we've been doing it for so long. We do it with our eyes closed. We know it can work, but we've got to plan to work and work the plan. And then it can work." And it's usually the people who like the chaos that it doesn't quite work so well with. And then we just say, "Well, you like chaos, we don't like chaos. Happy travel."

Chloe Porter (49:11):
That's right. That's right. So it can work, you just need to ask yourself, are you going to be okay with it? Can you trust somebody to be able to do things without you constantly looking and-

Salome Schillack (49:22):
Yes. And the nice thing, what I've heard from my friends in the U.S., or from our clients in the U.S., what they've said to me, what's so nice for them is, they wake up in the morning and everything is in their inbox, and then they can work, and then they reply, and they do whatever they do, and there's a little bit of an overlap where they're on and we're on. Especially if you're on the West Coast in the U.S., there's a bit more of an overlap when we're both on, and then we log of, and then the next morning they come in, and it's all sitting in their inbox again for them.

Chloe Porter (49:56):
Yep, yep. And what I used to like doing with a client that did work in the U.S. was, leave her recorded videos, so it felt like we were still looking at each other and we'd reply and recorded videos. Even if it wasn't anything work-related to talk about, it was still nice to go, "Hi, this is my face. Just wanted to see how's your weekend?" Doing things like that, so you still feel connected to.

Salome Schillack (50:20):
Yeah. And I think that is the future. And that's why we can build businesses that work better for us. Because we can balance our time and create more time, freedom, and build businesses with doing jobs that we actually love, and that we feel passionate about.

Chloe Porter (50:39):
Yeah, that's right.

Salome Schillack (50:40):
Yeah. Chloe, thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of this with all of the listeners today.

Chloe Porter (50:45):
No worries. Thank you for having me.

Salome Schillack (50:47):
All right.

Salome Schillack (50:48):
Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoy working with Chloe and having her part of my team every single day. Remember you can get hold of Chloe by going to www.audaciousempires.com or find the Audacious Empires team on Instagram or Facebook at @Audacious Empires. I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll catch you again next week. Bye.

Salome Schillack (51:11):
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

152. How To Instantly Create More Freedom In Your Business

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152. How To Instantly Create More Freedom In Your Business

19 Apr 2022 | By Salome Schillack

Have you really been able to create freedom for yourself in your business?

You gave up that stable corporate job to pursue a freer life….but you're still bogged down by mundane things; you're still stressing about money; some of the people you have to deal with day-to-day STILL suck. 

Where is this freedom you signed up for? 

Let's take a few steps back. What does freedom mean to you? Is your idea of freedom spending the rest of your life drinking Pina Coladas on the beach and doing nothing? 

Sorry to burst your bubble. That ain't freedom!

Freedom in the entrepreneurial sense is waking up every morning and deciding what your world will look like. It's choosing to spend your time building something you love and fuels your fire rather than slaving away and creating someone else's dream. It's deciding how your time is spent each day (and yes, SOME of it may be spent sitting on the beach drinking cocktails).

Tomorrow, if you decided all of this was too hard, you could switch off your emails and head back to your corporate job.

And that in itself is freedom. You have the freedom to choose!

If you're not feeling very free in your business, it's time to delve deeper and understand exactly what freedom means to you. 

This week on the Shine Show, I'm taking you behind the doors of The Launch Lounge, where a beautiful moment between some of our exceptional students took place on a coaching call. Let me tell you firsthand that there is nothing more inspiring than seeing online course creators bonding over the challenges and the joys of building a business. 

I've seen online course creators make a ton of money and still not feel free. Until you properly understand what freedom means for you, you'll never experience the soul-filling, joy-inducing freedom you deserve!

So tune in now and be inspired by this truly magical moment from behind The Launch Lounge doors.

XXX

Salome

P.S I would love to hear what you took away from this episode. It always makes my day hearing your feedback and what you found valuable. Slide into my DMs and let me know!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello everyone. And welcome to episode number 152 of The Shine Show. Today, we're going to talk about how to instantly create more freedom in your business. And today's podcast episode is a recording from a 12 minute clip from a conversation that happened inside our membership, inside the launch lounge. And right after the intro, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about it, and then we'll kick it off. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine. And this is The Shine Show.

Well, welcome to the episode. Okay. Today's is a little bit different. Someone who is a member of the launch lounge, I won't say her name because I haven't asked her permission to use her name, shared quite vulnerably and quite honestly, in the community that she hasn't yet gotten to the place in her business, where her business creates the freedom for doing other things and that kick started a whole long thread. And then, a coaching conversation on one of our live calls about creating freedom for ourselves in our businesses and in our lives. And it challenged me a little bit because I am thinking a lot as I build a business that is more founded on female power, female power structures, maybe I shouldn't say female, maybe I should say feminine. Feminine power structures and feminine ways of building systems. And just a more feminine way of being in the world. As opposed to the status quo, which is the more masculine male dominated, all the male supremacy and things that were invented by the dudes that keep the dudes in power that does not serve the world anymore.

That does not serve women or men anymore. It does not serve minorities. It does not serve anymore. And my way of protesting I guess, is by not protesting. My way of protesting is by creating things the way I want to see them in the world. So I've been reading, listening, and thinking a lot about how we use marketing. How we talk about making money, how we build teams, how we build businesses, how we spend our time, how we spend our money, all the things that are so automatic and come so naturally in a specific way, because it's the Kool-Aid we've been drinking for so long. So I'm trying to challenge myself on that and this conversation about freedom, the question, have you really been able to create freedom for yourself in your business yet? Challenged me. So we had this conversation that unfolded inside the launch lounge.

And I want to invite you in to have a listen, to kind of be a fly on the wall to a semi-private conversation. It is a private conversation whenever we come together in the launch lounge because we're a safe space. I am making a lot of people vulnerable and sharing some thoughts that they shared in a safe space, but I'm sharing it with you because I know it's safe. I'm sharing with you because I believe it will add much value to you and I'm sharing it with you because I want you to see how incredible it is when you surround yourself with the right people and the right community. There's a little disclaimer, little warning sign that I have to put up. I have a potty mouth. I try to keep it clean on the podcast for the most time, because just like I teach my kids not to swear, I also don't believe it's proper to walk around in the streets where people are strangers, swearing.

But when you get to know me and you get to love me, you discover that I am quite fond of expressing myself quite strongly and in a colorful way. And I'm sure if you're here listening to the podcast, you already know that. But when I watched this clip back, I was a little bit like, "Oh snap, can I put that on the podcast? With my potty mouth and my strong opinions." But I'm choosing to do that because you love me. And I love you. And if I'm not your cup of tea, then you can hang out somewhere else. But I did just want to put this little disclaimer on. So if you have little ones nearby, maybe now's a good time to pop the headphones on because there's some colorful language that we have in this clip.

All right. Well, I hope you enjoy this. I would love to hear your thoughts on this conversation. Head over to Instagram and find me I'm Salome.Schillack and it'll be linked in the show notes and come and tell me what you think about this conversation. Enjoy.

Did you guys read post? I was reading it and I thought, damn she has really called me on selling freedom. Who feels like they have freedom in their business? Who would like... Like, Lucy? Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Lauren, a little bit. Yeah, I'll do the same as Lauren.

Depends on the day.

Depends on the day. Depends on the day. [crosstalk 00:06:41]

Not very much. I'm completely tied to the business at this moment, but after the launch, I'll have some freedom.

Yeah. And I also want to acknowledge [Luce 00:06:50], that I think you're naturally inclined to hold things quite loosely. I think it's one of your strengths, you're not an anxious anxiety driven hustler mat. Am I right?

I mean, I have sent out in the last few days, which is a hundred percent your fault, like a thousand video messages. I would say I'm a control freak. I am learning. And honestly, through your tutelage, how to let things, how to just be okay. Because six launches ago, yesterday would've completely wrecked me. I would've been like, "I'm not doing this anymore. I'm just going to pick up more speech students. I can't deal with this. This is too stressful," but I do have definitely a more go with the flow. I'm also the group extrovert. I always said, I think Tanya is the only other one that might be with me. But I'm the group extrovert.

Probably. And can I just... I'm married to the biggest extrovert on the planet and my best friend is always like, I've always attached myself to the biggest extrovert because I'm such an introvert. I'm just like those fishes that attaches themselves under the shark. And I just let the extrovert do all the work and I go with. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. I want to say to this freedom thing, it kind of cut me to the core a little bit because I go, we're in the process of launching [A-lister 00:08:14]. And one of my biggest promises in there is you want freedom. And I think we need to talk about freedom because when I started, I wanted freedom from the decade that I was working for. Do I have that? All day long, I am completely free from being employed ever again.

I can, 100% say I will never be employed by anyone ever again. Completely free. Do I have financial freedom? Yes I do. I make enough money that if my husband stopped earning money today, we'll need to downgrade our home. We'll need to downgrade our spending. We'll need to downgrade our holidays. We'll need to downgrade our luxuries. We'll need to pull our kids from private school, but will we be okay? Hell yes. We'll be fine. We'll be perfectly fine. So there's freedom. Do I feel free every single moment of every day in my business? No, I don't. Sometimes you just got to do things that suck and that doesn't feel like freedom. Sometimes I have to have conversations with imbeciles and that sucks. And I'm trying to imbecile free my life, but I'm not free of it yet. Not free of it yet, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it and I can see myself growing more into it.

So the question about freedom, I will never, ever be as miserable as I was when I was working a full-time job for someone else. That miserability is gone. I don't stress about money. I have enough evidence that I can create money. Honestly, I genuinely have confidence in my ability to create money. I don't stress about money. My husband still stresses about money because he is an employee and he has an employee mindset. And he's like, he has like diseased employee mindset about money. I don't because there's like, "Oh, we want that thing. Okay. I'm going to have to make that money." I can make money. I know I'm empowered to make money and there's freedom in that. But I do want you guys to know that there's the promise of freedom and then there's the freedom that is inside us all along. And those are two different things and you have to be free inside first, but there's also a degree of external freedom that comes. All right. That's my.

Can I speak to that for a second?

Yeah.

Would that be okay? I think that there's... I love this conversation actually. And I think that there's room in there to define freedom, which might help. Because as somebody who's still chasing this vision that I have, I don't not feel... I feel free because I'm doing what I want to do. I'm not trapped in a company. Somebody tossed me a job the other day. She was like, "You know, you might want to apply to this." And I just took a really close look at it and I loved the description and everything like that, but I was like, "How much are they paying these people? Why would anybody do this work for that little?" And the gap was hundreds of dollars. It was crazy. And I was like, "That's just insane." So there's freedom of choice of how I spend my time and what my world looks like. Even if I haven't achieved this other freedom of not worrying about what things cost. That's a freedom. There's a hope for that freedom.

While I live in a freedom of what world, what life am I choosing to live and how am I spending my time and working with the things that I want to, that I feel passionate about and liking my boss. Because my boss is me.

I have that too. I share that feeling that like, do I have financial freedom? No I don't. But did I have the freedom to walk away from something that was not a good fit for me and make a choice that I'm like, "I can always go back to a corporate gig. I can always make $150,000 a year doing some employee job," or-

Working like a slave, you know?

Or you can just sell some more houses. [crosstalk 00:12:53]

I've just said, [inaudible 00:12:54] that.

And it's not about not having crap in our lives. It's about choosing which crap we get. [crosstalk 00:13:04] And having the choice and being able to say no to it.

Being able to choose our crap. Yeah.

We get to choose our crap.

And I want to add another layer to this. When I started my business, I started it because I wanted to be free from a boss and I wanted to make money. I want to make shit tons of money. And I don't apologize for that. And I still do. I don't feel like I make shit tons of money. I feel like I make a healthy amount of money, but I also pay a lot of salaries. And there was a whole new level of freedom I discovered when I started hiring people and you guys know that my thing is, change the way that women work and earn money in the world. I realized very quickly that building a business is not for everyone. That does not mean that those of us that it is for cannot redefine the model of employment. And I don't think I have it figured out a hundred percent, but you guys can see the smoke on Tanya's face. Tanya is employed, but I want to say she's free. I don't know want to say. Tanya brings like Tanya creates her own real.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the freedom for me, which is different than sort of aligned but different. I have my own business that I do around Salome's work and she allows me to be me. That's the freedom that I love. Whereas in my job that I had for... I couldn't color my hair. He complained that my car was too fancy. It was just, he wanted me to fit into a box that I didn't want to fit into. And that's why I left. A bit like Salome's moment with her boss, when she decided to leave, it's just if you're not in alignment, don't be there, but you can create your own world, however you want that to be. If it's a part-time job to get you through or to be part of something bigger, there's nothing wrong with that. Whatever works.

And in the spirit of diversity and creating a more feminine world, we have to shift our thinking from how has it always been done to how can we co-create something together that creates freedom for all of us. And that opens a whole new discussion, which that's a whole nother conversation, but I can also tell you guys that Tanya has... So when I hire people, I look for character, I look for skill and I look for character. And how many hours a week did you work when you started?

About five.

Okay. How many hours a week are you working now?

About 30.

I didn't say, "Oh, oh Tanya, I have this..." I didn't... Do you have a job description?

I just do what needs doing. And actually sometimes, like today I've made decisions you don't even know about.

She has.

You know, we just do it.

Because I trust her. Because we share the same vision. We share the same values and I can see in her bringing her whole self to work, that she has something to add that I can never put in a job ad or a job description. I just have to create the space for that magic to be there. Now, Tanya's very flexible and she kind of works with... She just goes with the flow. Some of the other people in my business are not that much. They need the job description they need, but I know that they need it.

Therefore, I constantly give them reassurance that they're doing the right thing and they're doing the right thing and they're doing the right thing and I'm happy. And I have those conversations, but there's a fine balance. I have to make sure there's a fine balance because people do need structure and certainty. Now I can see my vision come to life of changing the way women work and earn money. And I can start saying, "Well, we are developing some kind of an example here of how people do not have to fit into the corporate box in order to make money in this online courses world, without starting a business." I think that was a delicious tangent. Thank you very much.

I think this would make an amazing podcast or three.

I really hope that inspired you. It was wonderful for me watching it back again and you know how you live through a moment and then when you see it again, recorded like that, there's even more things that you take away from it. And I took away so much more even just after listening to it again. In those moments where we are all having... We're communing, where sharing community and bonding with each other over the challenges and the joys of building online courses businesses. That is magic, that is just pure, pure magic. That's what I live for. It's those moments of human connection we have inside a membership like the launch lounge, where we can vulnerably say that, "Some days I don't feel like I have freedom," and other days say, "Well, I'm so glad I have the freedom to create this thing."

So whatever it is that you took away from that clip today. I mean, there's so much, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a direct message on Instagram, I'm Salome.Schillack and it'll be hooked up in the show notes. Send me a direct message and tell me which part of that clip really got you. Because there are so many, and I know somewhere in there is something that you would've connected with and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful week. Take care. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

 

151. How I’m Slowing Down So That I Can Speed Up

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151. How I'm Slowing Down So That I Can Speed Up

12 Apr 2022 | By Salome Schillack

I used to think, 'once I start making serious money, I'll feel worthy.' Low and behold, the very month that my business made the most profit ever, I had a breakdown in the form of a panic attack (let me tell you, they ain’t fun).

But I managed to turn it into my biggest breakthrough.

Now I look back on this experience, and I am so grateful it happened because it was a defining moment that changed my life and business and forced me to slow down, nurture myself and the things I love. 

Because I discovered that when building a business from the ground up, the challenges will ALWAYS be there.

What you're experiencing right now IS the business experience. And if you don’t slow down, you’ll fall down. So it's time to embrace the journey and learn how to look after yourself along the way. 

That means putting boundaries in place, stepping away from the things that don't serve you (even when they seem to be really good things, like podcasts or audiobooks), staying true to yourself, and focusing on the fire in your heart that got you started in the first place.

You can take some practical steps right now that will help you slow down, find more rest, and work from a place of calm rather than chaos, and I'll show you exactly what worked wonders for me.

Tune into The Shine Show and discover what helped me slow down, find more peace, and enjoy the journey again.

XXX

Salome

 

P.S I would love to hear what you are going to do in order to slow down. Jump over to my Instagram and slide into my DM’s and let me know what actions you’ll be taking today!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 151 of The Shine Show. Today, I'm going to share with you how I'm slowing down so that I can speed up. And I just want to say a giant thank you to everyone who has been part of our successful A-Lister online course launch. I have had a blast doing this with all of you. I thank you, if you've been hanging in there waiting for us to close the cart, so we can talk about some other things. And I want to welcome all of my new A-Listers to our Flapper Club, and to our amazing community. I can't wait to be part of that journey of yours, of finding your people online and making your first sale. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money, and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in. Because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

 

Hello. Hello, everyone. It is so nice for me to just hang out with you today. I hope you're having a lovely day. I hope the weather is as nice where you are at as it is right here for me now. I'm recording this on, I want to say, a lazy Friday morning. The sun is out. I'm looking out my office window and I see the swimming pool, and I hear the birds, and I just have this really warm feeling in my heart, because it's a beautiful day. It's a beautiful day to be alive. I went swimming this morning, and I'm feeling good. I hope you are feeling good too.

 

Have you ever seen Brené Brown's TED Talk? I hope so. I know it was, at one point, the most viewed TED Talk ever, so you probably have seen it. If you're like me, you've probably seen it multiple times. And if you haven't seen it yet, just go to YouTube and Google, Brené Brown TED Talk, or Brené Brown power of vulnerability, I think that's what it's called.

 

So my favorite part of that talk is where she shares about her, what she calls, she says, "I had a little breakdown," and on the slides behind her, she's crossed out the word breakdown, and written breakthrough. I can associate with that feeling a lot. And I've shared with you before about my little breakthrough that I had last year. I would love to talk more honestly about it and share with you, I think, what led up to that. How I didn't see the raid flags. And how, in hindsight, I can see the red flags, but I didn't see them right then.

 

And today I want to share with you a little bit of the things that I've changed in my business and in my life, mostly, in my life. I've changed a lot of things in the business as well, but I think I want to share with you mostly today, the things that I've changed in my life that is helping me really slow down, and turn that little breakdown into a breakthrough. And I hope that you find something that you can relate it today. And that in today's episode, there's something you can take and use in your life right now to slow down and be a little bit more mindful of the journey, and take a bit better care of yourself, because that's what it's about.

 

It's ironic, because last year on the 1st of January, 1st of January 2022, Emil and I, my husband, we went over to our best friends, and we were sitting around a table just having some tea, recovering from our hangovers from the big party we were at the night before. And my friends said, "So what's our theme for this year.' And this is, we're going back the beginning of 2021, we were all still hoping that COVID would go away sooner.

 

And I said, "This year, 2021, is going to be my year of a radical self-love." Man, was I in for it. Should never have said that. You know the little saying, be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Yeah, radical self-love, what I intended when I said, "2021 will be my year of radical self-love," was I intended for that to mean that I am going to take better care of myself. What ended up happening is the world knocked me upside down, inside out, put me in the freaking spin cycle of the washing machine to show me how bad I am at nurturing myself.

 

And it might be a female thing, a little bit. We tend to nurture the other people more than ourselves. And I never thought that was a problem for me, until I got knocked on my head. So I want to share with you a little bit of that today. You know how much I love of learning and absorbing new information. My life is just a series of obsessions, really. And I think it comes a little bit with leaning towards having ADD or having ADD, I'm still mid-diagnosis. I haven't had a formal psychiatrist tell me that I do have it. My psychologist believes I do have it. I believe I do have it, but we'll see what the jury's... the jury's still out from the psychiatrist.

 

They're all booked up until October here in Brisbane. I can't get an appointment at a psychiatrist until October. Man, what a good time to be a psychiatrist. So my life is a series of obsessions. I develop obsessions with online course launching, and with Facebook ads, and with coaching and with personal development. But I noticed over time that I can't have a moment of silence without feeling the need to fill it with more information. And the thing that started doing it for me, that was my drug of choice was audiobooks and podcasts. And I love audiobooks and podcasts, because I can feed my obsession obsessively all day long.

 

And that's where the problem is. I found myself increasing my own anxiety levels with the amount of information I was pumping into my head on a daily basis. And it got so bad that my brain just couldn't cope with processing all the information. I got this sensory overload, where I would be in the kitchen and my husband would sit down and turn on any TV show where there shooting or cars chasing or superheroes with loud action music in the background or the rugby or the Formula One, my senses became so overloaded that I had this auditory overstimulation. Where, as soon as the noise gets to that pitch that it has at a sporting event or the loudness of the car chases and the music that goes with that, I want to leave the room and go lie down on my bed and curl up in a ball.

 

But I never connected that to the rate at which I was pumping information into my ears. And it got to a point where one day I got out of the shower, and, of course, I have a Bluetooth speaker in my bathroom, because that's the best way to blast more information into my ears while I'm getting dressed and putting my makeup on. And I switched on a podcast, and as soon as I switched that podcast on, my heart started racing, my stomach felt like it jumped into my chest. And I started to get that feeling with that severe anxiety feeling where I'm kind of like seeing stars and almost shaking, and my heart starts racing. And all I did was turned a podcast on. Holy cow, that was a massive, massive red flag moment for me.

 

So I made a commitment to myself that I was going to turn the audiobooks off, turn the podcasts off, and fill the moments between the moments when I'm getting dressed, the moments when I'm putting my makeup on the moments, when I'm driving the kids around or driving to pick up the kids or drop the kids off or driving anywhere, I'm going to stop pumping information into my ears. And I'm going to go back to one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things, listening to music.

 

And I just started listening to music again. And it was like, I went, when did I stop listening to music? I have always, always loved listening to music. When did I stop? And it has made me so happy, music makes me happy. Now I can't wait to go into the bathroom in the morning and blast the music, and do a happy dance and sing. And some days it's Beyonce, and some days it's The Greatest Showman, and some days it is Hamilton, and some days it is Ella Fitzgerald, and some days it is country music.

 

I'm listening to the Yellowstone, the music from the show Yellowstone, I love it. There's a version of the song Wicked Game, which is one of my all time favorite songs. There's a story there, because there was a boy that played it for me, but that's a story for another day, the boy and the wicked game. But I do love that song. I do love that song. I don't think he loves it anymore, because he's pretty much told me I was his wicked game. That's a story for another day.

 

The music is blasting in my bathroom in the morning and makes me really, really, really, really, really happy. So maybe you have been blasting your ears with too many podcasts, too many audiobooks, I don't know. Maybe for you, it's something else. Maybe for you, it's buying all the online courses. I've been there. Maybe for you, it's watching YouTube videos or checking out Reels or TikTok, or maybe for you, it's something else. It might not be auditory for you. It might be visual. It might be something else. But I just want to make you aware of your senses, because my senses was screaming at me to slow down, and I didn't pay attention to it.

 

The other thing that has been so amazing for me is for those of you who've hung around me long enough, you'll have heard me talking about my experimentations with meditation for a long time. I actually started meditating around the time I started the business, because I was failing so hard, and everyone kept telling me that it's a mindset issue. And I was like, what is this limiting beliefs everyone keeps talking about? If I can just get over these limiting beliefs. And of course, today, I know that, the mindset people say, "All you need is the right mindset." And the strategy people say, "All you need is the right strategy. And, in fact, you need both.

 

The best mindset is not going to work if you don't have a plan, and the best plan is not going to work if you can't overcome roadblocks, because you don't have the right mindset. So I just find it really hilarious when I now see all the marketing that I fell for in the beginning that told me, "You are not succeeding because you don't have the right money mindset." And I go, "Sure, but that's not the only reason I wasn't succeeding. I also didn't have an offer that converted." Wisdom comes with age. Today, I'm grateful for the three years I failed, because I really, really, really understand the challenge of getting started from the bottom up.

 

A tangent, again, I keep going off on these tangents. Meditation, we were talking about meditation. So my psychologist suggested to me... So meditation had been going on and off for a while, and sometimes I love it, and sometimes I feel like it is 10 minute exercise in just having my brain scream at me. Because I don't know if you associate with this, but I sometimes literally have so many thoughts running through my brain at once that it feels like there's voices screaming at me.

 

And I think when I was getting to the place where my little breakthrough happened, those voices were getting louder and louder and louder and louder and unkinder. Is that a word? They were mean, and they were loud, and they never ever shot up. And so trying to meditate with voices in your head shouting at you, I sound like I'm a little bit cray cray, but cray cray is also normal. I am a little bit cray cray, and I'm also totally, completely normal, which is why I want to have this conversation with you. Because I want you to know that I am completely normal, and I'm also completely cray cray just like you.

 

And so we have to normalize these things. The voices were screaming so loudly. So whenever I would meditate, I feel like it is just an exercise in sitting there and letting the voices scream at me, which happens all day anyway, so what am I actually here meditating? And then my psychologist suggested to me that, instead of sitting there and listening to the voices, and letting them scream, how about we try to create a few buckets? And whenever the thought comes up, just identify which bucket it goes into, and then put it in the bucket. And then go back to just focusing on breathing, and within a second, the next voice will come up, and then just think about that voice for a second and put it in the bucket it belongs.

 

So I ended up with a bucket were to-do lists. I ended up with a bucket for things I have to tell my husband. I ended up with a bucket for dreams, ways that I want things to be. I ended up with a bucket for things I'm worried about. I ended up with a bucket for ideas. There was definitely, I can, for sure say, there was a bucket for client work that I was stressed about. I can definitely say there was a bucket for stress about building my team. My team went from, we were four people at the end of 2020, and today there's, including my husband, who's like an honorary member of the team, we're 11.

 

So my team grew a lot, and I had to make sure I can take care of them. I had to make sure I can pay them. I had to make sure I'm creating structures and processes and a safe space for them. And I had to protect them from just customer service sort of things. There's a degree of protection involved with the team that comes from having templates for emails, and those sorts of things. So there was a bucket for stress about clients. There was a bucket for stress about team. There was a bucket for stress about students. There was a bucket for stress about money. There was a bucket for stress about my kids.

 

I mean you get the picture, right? The nice thing about the buckets is I started to see patterns in the things my brain was dishing up to worry about. I started to see patterns in the beliefs and the self talk coming out of my brain, which were all, when I paid attention to the patterns, it was so much easier for me to then take that to my therapy sessions, and say, 'I noticed, I think a lot about this, this, and this, and it stresses me out because I think I feel I need to please these people. Or I'm not worthy, if I'm not the best. Or I'm not good enough, if someone doesn't value the work we do the same way I value it."

 

There's a lot of worthiness things for me that always comes up. And I'm still in the middle of dealing with it and digging into it. But one of the things around worthiness, if I can go on another tangent for a second, one of the things I also... I think I've said this to you before, I currently have a psychologist and spiritual guides. And I'll bring them on at some point on the podcast, because it's really fascinating for me the parallels between what the psychologist who is very scientific and very educated... Not that they're very educated, my spiritual guides, but it's woo, woo stuff, right? It's more woo, woo.

 

But what I've realized is everything is magic before science proves it to be true. And then it's not magic anymore, then it's just science. So I'm kind of leaning into the whole woo, woo thing, because I don't need science to prove something that I can feel in my heart. And plus, I mean, gravity was magic until it was scientifically proven. They thought the earth is flat until they proved, no, it's actually round and is such a thing as gravity. I think you get what I'm saying.

 

The spiritual guides, we were talking about worthiness, and I've said to you that worthiness is a big, big, big theme for me. And I'm exploring with my psychologist, how ADD feeds into that, because when you get the message over and over and over and over and over and over and over every single day, thousands of times a day. For years and years and years and years that you are not smart, that you are not capable, that you don't understand, that you are late again because you can't manage your time, or forgot about something, because you weren't listening or paying attention. Or annoyed, because someone interrupted you, because you were focused and you were concentrated.

 

There's all sorts of ADD stuff that goes along with... in a world where it is not understood, it gets shamed a lot. And I carry with me a tremendous amount of shame over things like being late, things like forgetting details, things like complete, absolute, total lapses in memory after having... I had lunch with someone and I forgot who they were. And I know it's mostly, because I tuned out for most of the conversation, because it wasn't in line with one of my obsessions. And it's just something that, we just become overly obsessed with certain things.

 

Anyway, I'm not making excuses for forgetting someone's face, but I tuned out. Entertained them because it was socially acceptable, and then I tuned out, and then I forgot them. And then a year later when they came up to me and they were like, "Oh, Salome," I was like, I have no idea who you are. Lots of tangents today.

 

So the worthiness thing, I think you see where the worthiness thing comes in. The spiritual coaches that I was working with helped me understand for the first time ever that the mere existence of the concept worthiness is a complete lie. There is no such thing as being unworthy. Unworthy is a lie, because we are all part of the same thing. We are all made up of the same thing. And our worthiness is related not to our work or to our ability to do something, not do it, achieve it, be it, manage it, get it, attain it, collect it, work at it, achieve it. That has absolutely diddly-squat to do with worthiness.

 

We are worthy by nature, and so therefore unworthiness can't even be a thing. Do you feel it? Do you feel it? I feel it. That realization was huge for me. So meditation, if you are meditating, try putting your thoughts that come up... So it starts with breathing, and I asked, "Well, why does everyone keep going back to the breathing thing?" And my psychologist explained to me that it's because it's one of the only things we can consciously do and subconsciously do.

 

So it's the thing that links our little animal brain with our smart brain, because it's the one thing that we do both automatically and we can do it consciously. So it links both our... I want to say both our brains, so that's the breathing thing. And then when the thoughts come up, put them in buckets, and look for patterns in the type of buckets you're creating.

 

And then the thing that I'm loving is theta waves. So I have an app on my phone called Insight Timer. It's a free app with thousands of meditations, thousands of tracks with different theta waves and different sorts of music you can listen to. And I just love of it. It's free and you use it, and it just really helps me. And now I can sit down, put my theta waves on, and start meditating. And it's uncanny, because I don't time myself. I don't sit there and put a timer on. But now with the theta wives, I go most 20 minutes every single time. It's always within 19 to 21 minutes. It's weird. So try meditation. And remember you are worthy by nature.

 

The other day, my friend, my close friend, she's a dentist, she works Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday is when she works. So Wednesdays and Fridays, she has the day off and we go swimming. She swims with me on a Wednesday and a Friday. She swims with me Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but I swim on Wednesday and Friday with her. And every day I ask her, "What are you up to today?" She's got some radical self-love think plan. Like she's going for a facial or she's doing yoga or she's just staying home and renovating the kitchen or working in the garden.

 

And the one day she said to me, wow, she had the best Friday. She just dropped the kids off at school, and then went to our local coffee shop just around the corner. And she said, she sat there the whole day, reading her book. My first instinct, when she said that was how excruciatingly boring would that have been, ouch. And I thought about the idea of sitting in a coffee shop for six hours, even three hours, sitting in a coffee shop, reading a book. And at my made my skin crawl.

 

That is how over stimulated I was. That is how anxious my nervous system was that the thought of sitting in a coffee shop, reading a book, literally, made my skin crawl. And now I look back at it, and I think, oh, that sounds amazing. And you know what I remembered, when I thought about this, I remembered when I was in my 20s, when I lived in London, my favorite thing to do, my absolute favorite thing to do was to go to what is that big, giant bookshop called in Oxford Street? I can't remember the name of that bookshop. I wonder if it's still there?

 

There was this like four or five, six story bookshop, stories, like you have levels of books and there was a coffee shop. And I would go there and spend every Saturday just sitting in the bookshop, in the coffee shop, devouring books. My obsession with consuming information has come a long way, but it was the most relaxing and wonderful, wonderful thing.

 

And I remember how happy it used to make me. And here I am in my early 40s and my friends says she spent three hours in the coffee shop, reading a book, and it makes my skin crawl. And it kind of made me go, "I have lost myself somewhere in this." Now, I have fiction books. Not personal development, not business, not marketing, not all the things I've been cramming into my brain for seven years straight. Stories, stories. I have read Eleanor Oliphant. And I have read The Vanishing Half. And on our patio outside, we have a hammock, and we have a beautiful view over the suburb, because my house is kind of on a hill, and I have a beautiful view of this green, it's called Mount [Coot-tha 00:31:31]. And it's just this beautiful green hill, with beautiful green suburb. And now I'm lying in the hammock on a Saturday.

 

I've even created a day bed in my bedroom that is just stacked full of story books. And I just lie there and read on the weekends. And it is the most relaxing thing for me ever, reading actual real books, again. Not cramming as much audio information into my head as I can.

 

And the last thing I want to share with you that I have done that is making a difference for me. You already know I swim. So I swim three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I go swimming, just up at the local school. You know I'm not one of the best swimmers already. And you know that in October I am committing to doing the 100, 100 meters, 100 100s. I'm committed to doing it. I'm going to do it. But you know what else I have found that I loved. I bought an Oculus. An Oculus is that 3D thing that Facebook makes that you put on your head and then you are immersed in a virtual reality.

 

And I love it. And on my Oculus, I have signed up for Les Mills' kickboxing classes, and I have done so much kickboxing that I actually injured my neck the other day, and had to go see a physiotherapist to get my neck fixed. And do you think, have you ever seen a physiotherapist laugh about an injury when you walk in, and you say, "I injured my neck doing boxing with the Oculus. I have an Oculus injury." Yeah, the physiotherapist cracked up. I had to explain to him what the Oculus is, because those dudes are out running and cycling all day. They're not screen like me.

 

And then the other thing that I did was I signed up for a running challenge. For my Aussies who know who Turia Pitt is, everybody should know who Turia Pitt it is. Turia is just the most inspirational woman ever. I will link to Turia's website in the show notes, because Turia is someone you should know. She is a marathon runner who got caught in a Bush fire at a marathon, and sustained severe, severe burns to 80% of her body, and went into rehab and was probably in rehab for about, I think, it's two or three years it took her. And now she's running marathons again. And she's just had her second baby, and she's written books, and she's a motivational speaker and she's just the most incredible woman.

 

And every time I think, ugh, running sucks. I hate running. My knees hurt. My feet hurt. I can't breathe. I think about Turia, and I go, "Nope, if Turia can do it, you can do it." So I signed up for this running challenge with Turia, which I have to confess to you, I have fallen off a little bit. We got COVID just as I started. And then I was like, "Ugh, I can't breathe. I don't want to run." So between swimming and the Oculus kickboxing and Turia's running, I will start running again soon, I am doing a lot more exercise. And all of that has really, really, really helped me.

 

Oh, and of course, I'm taking medication, anti-anxiety medication. So I take Pristiq, that's the brand name here in Australia. Hang on, let me look up what the official name is, because I'm sure it's called something else. No, I just looked it up. It seems to be also called Pristiq in the US. It is a Desvenlafaxine, is the scientific name. And it is really, really helping me find balance. So between medication, psychologist, spiritual guides, meditation, exercise, eating, I've always eaten fairly healthy, but all these other things, I am one happy camper, and it is going really well.

 

And so I share all of this with you, because maybe, maybe you can pick up on some of these red flags earlier than I did. Maybe one of these things is a good idea to incorporate into your world. And I will continue need to share with you my journey about how I am becoming more myself, staying more true to myself, nurturing myself, loving myself, really finding what radical self-love really means.

 

So coming back to Brené Brown's TED talk and her breakthrough, I just wanted to share all my secrets to breaking through for a more Zen life with you as we all build businesses together. Because building a business is, it's an interesting journey. I want you to know that what I found to be true is that everywhere I go, there I am. And the mindset struggles I had when I made no money, still show up for me every day. They just have a different tint. They just have a different flavor. There is a resilience that comes from seeing yourself overcome challenges over and over and over.

 

And there's a trust that you build in yourself and in your ability to overcome challenges with time. A business gives you that gift, but it gives it to you, unfortunately, in the way that you have to overcome these challenges. Mindset, mind fields are everywhere, and I'm not here to tell you that there's a destination. That there's a place where we get to where we don't have mindset challenges. No amount of money in the bank guarantees you're not going to have mindset challenges or stress or anxiety.

 

My little breakdown happened at a time when I was making more money than I've ever made in the business, so it has nothing to do with money. It's always going to be there, but it doesn't have to be a breakdown. It can be a breakthrough. And I'm incredibly grateful that I've had that moment now because looking back at it, I can see all the changes I've made in the business, and in my life as a result of it. And I'm really grateful for that. I can see how I am setting healthier boundaries and changing relationships and nurturing things I hold dear more, and saying no to things I don't value.

 

I can see how this is really just the start of new, beautiful things. As I move forward in this journey to build something that comes out of my head, and out of my heart, and something that was born from creativity. And something that makes other people's lives better every single day. And that is my wish for you too.

 

May you have a beautiful week. May you have a restful week. May you be mindful of your feeling and your thoughts. And may you listen to your body, so that you can stay true to yourself, and stay true to fire inside you that is burning to make a difference in the world. Have a lovely week and I'll catch you again next week. Bye.

 

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

150. How To Show Up As The Expert You Are And Overcome Your Imposter Syndrome

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150. How To Show Up As The Expert You Are And Overcome Your Imposter Syndrome

05 Apr 2022 | By Salome Schillack

Ever feel like you're not good enough? Like you're a fraud copying others, and someone will find out at any second?  

If you've ever felt this way, you're not alone. 

This phenomenon is called imposter syndrome, and it's something that most entrepreneurs experience at some point in their lives. Especially the overachieving type (hands up, overachievers…..we seem to attract each other, don't we!)

Often, imposter syndrome comes at a cost to your success in the form of constant anxiety. You might over-prepare or work much harder than necessary to "make sure" that nobody finds out you are a fraud. 

Ooofft sounds familiar, doesn't it! I've been there too.

Here's the thing. If you don't learn how to kick the imposter syndrome to the curb, it has the power to keep you feeling stuck and derail your big, bold dreams!

And your dreams are too world-changing, groundbreaking, and brilliant for that to happen.

Your accomplishments have never been down to luck or external factors. You have gotten where you are today because of your brilliant mind and extraordinary ideas. You are tough, and you can trust yourself to keep reaching new, higher levels of success. 

Success not only for yourself but also for your students and your family. 

We need you here to shape the world into a better place!

That’s why this week on The Shine Show, we're going to take a deep dive into imposter syndrome and learn how to feel confident in your abilities and worthy of success.

Tune in to the show now and learn how to say goodbye to imposter syndrome for good so you can SKYROCKET your brilliance!

XXX

Salome

 

P.S. A-Lister is closing its doors very soon. Next time, I'll be doubling the price as it is packed with incredible value and is seriously changing our students' lives. As part of the Shine & Succeed fam, I'd hate for you to miss out. Join our Flapper Club today and take the next step towards reaching those dream students of yours, fast! Doors are closing in a matter of days, so secure your place now!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 150 of The Shine Show. Today, we're going to talk about how to show up as the expert that you are and overcome your imposter syndrome, so stay tuned.

 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your own line business faster, then tuning, because you are ready to shine. And this is The Shine Show.

 

Hello, my dear friend. Hello, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are well today. And thank you for tuning in to listen to me, and to join me as I talk about a topic that I have not talked about in a very long time, and I'll tell you why. When I started my entrepreneurial journey, way back in 2014, I started by enrolling in a life coaching course. And, of course, one of the first things you start talking about when you create content as a life coach is imposter syndrome. For me, at least, I found procrastination and imposter syndrome were the two topics that showed up the most back in 2014, when I just started.

 

And can you believe it? Every time I talked about imposter syndrome back then, I felt like a fraud, because I felt like, I'm sharing this learnt content, but I'm not sharing lived experience, because I still feel like a fraud. Isn't that funny? That's a bit meta, talking about feeling like a fraud and feeling like a fraud.

 

But today, fast forward, how many years, 2014 to now, many years, I think I can share a bit about imposter syndrome, because I can say that I have looked it in the eyes, and I have confidently told imposter syndrome to sit down. And today, I can confidently share a few nuggets with you. Things that I have learnt along the way. Things that I learnt by exposing myself to people who make me feel like an imposter, on purpose. Things that I learnt by playing with the so-called, perceived big boys. Things I learned by getting in the backend of someone else's business, who makes seven times more money than I do. I'm going to share some of that with you today. And I trust that this is going to be valuable for you.

 

I want this to inspire you. I want this to motivate you. I want this to help you remember why you got started in the first place. And I want you to sit down and really process what we're going to talk about and ask yourself at the end of this episode, what is going to happen for you and your family, if you can continue down the track that you're on now, if this is a track you're on, to abide by the rules of imposter syndrome, or to allow your brain to continue to convince you that you're in some way, shape, or form, not living up to some imagined standard? Or not yet where you're to be, or behind compared to the other students you're hanging out with, what is your family missing out on? What are you missing out on? What is your bank account missing out on? And what joy are you missing out on, if you do indeed allow imposter syndrome to be in the front seat, in the driver's seat of your life and your business?

 

But first let's unpack a little bit of what is imposter syndrome? And if you really want to go geeky on this and academic, then you look towards psychologists, and they would explain it as a phenomenon in which people doubt their accomplishments, where they feel like frauds, despite evidence of success. And I want to add to that, also, imposter syndrome isn't just about feeling like a fraud, despite evidence of success, it's feeling like a fraud when there isn't evidence of success, external evidence of success yet, and then holding back on taking the actions that will produce evidence of success.

 

Because let face it, we're entrepreneurs and most of us are doing something new every day. Most of us are putting ourselves out outside of our comfort zone every single day. And we're exposing ourselves to the opinions of complete strangers on the internet. And I don't know if it's the same for you, but sometimes it's easier for me to brush off the opinion of stranger than it is to brush off my husband's opinion, my best friend's opinion, my mother's opinion, my imaginary opinion that the kids who went to school with me have, moms at school's husband's opinions. That was a big one for me.

 

When I just started, we were back in Perth and a lot of the moms, the school moms, didn't work. And at the time, I felt kind of fell into you the same bucket as them, because I was working from home, trying to get this business off the ground. So I was doing the heavy lifting with the kids and the school and all the things, and hanging out on social media, the rest of the time, making videos on social media, doing all the things, going live. And you know who paid the most attention to, it was the mom's husbands.

 

It was so bizarre. And I remembered at one point kind of catching myself wondering what their opinion is of what I'm doing. How messed up is that? Random dudes. But it was because they were paying attention, because they were curious about what I was doing. I think mostly, because they thought, maybe my wife can be doing this as well. But of course that just triggered a lot of judgment and a lot of imposter syndrome. Especially, because I couldn't show any money for what I was doing at that point. So, because I couldn't show any evidence of making money, when someone asked me what I'm doing, it was kind of like, "Oh, it's just this little hobby thing that I hope to turn into money one day."

 

And then deep inside, I would feel like, "No, this thing is going to make my family financially independent for generations to come. Why are the words that's coming out of my mouth coming out as if I'm like having a sandwich for afternoon tea, like it's not that unimportant. It's a big thing. And just because I don't have money to show for it yet doesn't mean it's not legitimate."

 

So when the psychologists talk about accomplishments, feeling doubt about your accomplishments, even if you have external evidence, I want to say to you that, I think imposter syndrome is even a bigger issue when you don't have external evidence. When all you have is a unwavering belief in yourself, and a deep, deep conviction that there are things inside your head and inside your heart that can be shared with other people that will make their lives better, that will help them solve a problem, that will help them overcome a roadblock, that will in some way, shape, or form add value to their lives, and they can pay you for it.

 

And I think that's the thing that we all... Sometimes I think that is the thing that binds us all together, online course creators. That is the heart of the online course creator. It's this unwavering belief in ourselves, and the gift we feel that was placed inside us, that we want to share with the world. That we know, if we share that with the world, when we share that with the world, and we use the internet to share that with hundreds of thousands of people, we can add value to many people's lives, and they in return will give us value for our lives and our children. And that value is money, in case you didn't know that.

 

Now the other interesting thing that I learnt about imposter syndrome is that this is especially common among high achieving individuals. And I want to share a little bit here, high achieving individuals, hands up if you're an overachiever. Yeah, I guess hanging out in my community, you probably are an overachiever, because you could probably smell the overachieving energy on me. And you were like, "Yeah, this is my girl. We're in overachieving country now." And I love overachiever and I attract overachiever really well.

 

The problem with overachieving is that, as overachiever, and I can say this... I want to say if you think you're not an overachiever, but you're trying to build business online, you're an overachiever. I never thought of myself as an overachiever, because I never realized that I had ADD, and when I started learning about it, I realized, oh, that's why my school achievements were so subpar, it's because I was bored out of my mind in school. I just wanted to do the things I loved, and those things I did really well at. You should have seen me in drama club. I was like, if glee was in my school, I was the lead singer. What's her name? Yeah. I was the one who was belting it out. Not that my singing is that great, but my acting, you should see me act. I was great.

 

Anyway, back to overachieving, if you are maybe hearing the word overachiever, and you think, well I'm not an overachiever, because most things I do are kind of like mine, but maybe like 70%. I'm like a B minus student or a C student. You're probably also an overachiever. If you're in this community and you're a creative person who wants to share your gift with the world. There's something we all have in common. There's some sensitivity. There is some desire to make a difference in the world. That comes from being an emotional person, a person who is able to teach and coach. And so even if that word doesn't connect with you, I think there is reasonable truth in the fact that imposter syndrome shows up more for people who are high achieving, because perfectionism is a double-sided coin.

 

Perfectionism on the one side of the coin, says everything has to be fact all the time. And I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, because I am the flip side of that coin. I am the I don't care, let's just get it out. And it's almost like a dissociation from my own perfectionism, because if I allow the perfectionism to be in the driver's seat, it will completely paralyze me. And so instead of allowing it to paralyze me, I just ignore it completely, which is also not good, which also then results as substandard work that I just want to dissociate from.

 

So I have an amazing team of people who reminds me all the time to pay more attention to the detail and slow down. And between the bunch of us, we have a healthy balance in terms of putting stuff out that is as close to perfect as we can get it, and being very, very kind to ourselves when we make mistakes or when we get it wrong.

 

One of the ways that imposter syndrome shows up for a lot of us is that feeling that we are being judged. And it's more than just the school mom's husbands, it's more than just your mom or your husband or your best friend or your kids or somebody else. There's a natural inborn thing in our brain that looks for comparison all day long. It's that little monkey mind, some people call it the reptilian brain. It's at the base of our brain. It is the part of our brains that have stayed undeveloped. That told us when it's time to flee, because there's a lion coming or there's a bear coming. And so that part of our brain is designed to make comparison all day long. It's a survival mechanism.

 

It's why when you drop the kids off at school, you compare your outfit to the other mom's outfits. It's why when you go to a live event, where there's other online course creators, you compare where you're at in your journey to where they're at. It's why when you sign up for an online course, you feel like you are behind, because your brain is only filtering in the evidence of the people who are making progress. Your brain is automatically showing you where there's contrast.

 

And so if you keep allowing that part of your brain to be in the driver's seat, then it is going to take over. And you are continuously going to be believing your brain, when your brain says, "Hey, you are behind. You're not good enough. You're not here yet. You're not doing it well enough. There's someone else doing it better. Someone's already doing that niche. Somebody already owns that area. Someone's doing that in a much bigger way. I'm not as good as that person."

 

And I just want you, I just, just want you to create awareness of how your brain constantly compares, constantly compares. And acknowledge that your brain's just doing its job. But a wise man once said, maybe it was a woman, I'm going to say it was a woman, wise woman once said, 'We are not our thoughts. We are the thinkers of our thoughts. We are not our thoughts. We are just the thinkers of our thoughts." And I have been really diving deep into meditation lately. I'm having so much fun. I love it. I really actually can say that my six, seven year journey with meditation is now at a point where I'm really enjoying it.

 

What I'm learning is that if we can teach our brains to present us with thoughts, and we can get a distance from that thoughts, so not just accepted as truth. Just kind of look at it and go, "Oh, hello, thought, you are interesting. I wonder why brain dished you up to me today? What's going on there? Okay. Well, let me just put you in a bucket, and I'll pay attention to you or maybe I won't even pay attention to you. I'll just acknowledge your presence. You've been acknowledged. Now go into your bucket, please."

 

That's helping me a lot in just creating awareness, so that I am not constantly on autopilot having my little monkey mind drive my whole life. Because as soon as a thought is presented to us, we can either believe that thought, which is then going to create an emotion, which is then going to create some kind of a reaction. Or we can just go, "Hello, thought. Yeah, you are interesting. I'm a little bit curious about you. Okay, go into your bucket, and we'll unpack that bucket later."

 

I hope that helps you. That really, really, really helped me. And it really, really made a big difference for me, understanding that my brain is designed to offer me up comparisons. Because this poor little brain, it's an old thing. It's an undeveloped thing. And contrast is the best way for my brain to make sense of the world. So next time you go into that online course where you're a part of and you feel behind; or next time when you compare yourself to someone else in your niche, who's already making millions of dollars; or next time you hold back on showing up for your audience, because you feel they're going to judge you, just take a moment, take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out, acknowledge that your brain is comparing, because that's its job, and then show up anyway.

 

And I want to come back to this idea of being born to help people, having a calling. I remember as a teenager learning the concept of a calling, and my brother, who was older than me, who was a little bit of a troubled teen. My mom bought him this book called The Meaning of Life. And I remember looking at that book going, "Ah, there's a meaning of life. Okay. My meaning of life is to make a difference in other people's worlds, in other people's lives.' I knew that from a very, very young age. I didn't exactly know how, what the form of that was going to be. But even to this day, that gets me out of bed every morning. And it is such a drive for me.

 

And I almost feel like that, too, is, it's evolution. It's just how humans are created. And for some people that shows up in power and for some people that shows up in impact, and we're all here because it shows up for us in impact. We all have skills and talents. And I believe that we also have something like a calling. Now that can look different for everybody. And you may not call it a calling. I think that's a very churchy word, but you could call it something else, your purpose, your something else.

 

But I think we can all agree that life is better when we know we can take what we've been given in life, the good and the not so good, and turn it into a way to help other people. Helping other people is really what makes me happy. I have shared before that my personal vision is to change the way that women work and earn money in the world. And I have never doubted my ability to help people, and I never will. I know I can help people. I'm proud of myself for living in that mindset, because I know that I make a difference in the world.

 

I just have to go into my testimonials folder to see the evidence of that. And because I teach my students to verbally express gratitude, often, I get a lot of gratitude, and I also say, "Thank you to them." So I think our students want to work with someone who cares about helping other people as much as they care about themselves. And if you're stopping yourself from sharing your knowledge and skills, simply because someone else does, you are holding yourself and others back by doing so.

 

And I want you to sit down, and maybe next time you're journaling or when you have some time, sit down and ask yourself, well, what got you started in the first place? Why did you do this in the first place? In last week's episode, we talked about your why. We talked about remembering the day you decided to start this journey, the feeling, the potential, the freedom you want to create.

 

Is your why written down somewhere where you can see it? Do you have it in front of you? Can you recall it? Think of the best feeling you've ever had working with a client or a student or someone you were helping, how would you coach your best friend, if your best friend was telling you she has imposter syndrome, and that's holding her back from showing up for her students?

 

And then last, but not least, I want to ask you what will happen if you don't start showing up for your audience? If you don't keep showing up for your audience, your business will stay exactly where it is. Your list will stay where it is. Your bank account will stay where it is. I want you to be making progress and evolving, whichever way is right for you. But I do want you to be taking action every single day to get closer and closer and closer to creating your life, your way.

 

In order to keep up with our skills, we need to keep using them, don't we? And the more we teach and the more we coach, the better teachers and coaches we become. The more we practice, the better players we are. I can see it with swimming. I swam this morning. I'm still in the slow line, but I've moved up from the super slow line. Our coach told me this morning. "I should join a master's swimming." And I was like, "No, thanks." The more we practice, the better we get.

 

If you withdraw and make yourself small, you are not going to experience the joy that performing your zone of genius offers you. You know that high that you get, it's almost like drugs, it's that happy, when you know without a doubt that you've helped someone? That will keep you going. Hold onto that high, anchor it somewhere, anchor it, have something every time you feel that high... I have a little, I don't know if you guys can hear this, let me... No, I don't think you can hear this.

 

I have a little pendulum, a little rose gold pendulum that I bought a while back, that every time something good happens, I just pick up my pendulum and I touch it. And I used to have a little rock on my table. I had a little, well, I call it a rock, but it was a crystal. I don't know where it is. I think my kids took it, and it said gratitude on it. And in the beginning of my business, every time something good happened, I touched my gratitude rock. So I want you to just anchor those good feelings.

 

Now, I want to end this with a quote by Ira Glass, and some of you may have heard this before. I remember it doing the rounds on YouTube a while ago, .but I want to end this, I'm going to read you this quote by Ira Glass.

 

And I want you to pay close attention. And I trust that this quote is going to help you really embrace every part of your journey, and learn to build a more productive relationship with the part of your brain that shows up as imposter syndrome. Okay, so here's a beautiful, Ira Glasses quote. "Nobody tells this of people who are beginners. I wish somebody told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste, but there's this gap. For the first couple of years, you make stuff. It's just not that good. It's trying to be good. It has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this.

 

We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or are still in this phase, you got to know it's normal. And the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work, put yourself on a deadline, so that every week you'll finish one story. It's only by going through a volume of work that you will close the gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's going to take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just got to fight your way through." And that is beautiful Ira Glass.

 

So now that you are remembering that you had it inside you all along, you've been reminded of the fact that you can trust yourself, and deeply connect back into your dream for your life, the impact you want to make in the world, the time and energy you want to balance between your family and your business. And you know that the only way to really make progress you want to make in 2022 is by just doing the thing, just showing up, getting in front of people, getting that list, building ad out there, starting to create a bigger and bigger audience of people you can show up for every single day, and then practice making offers to those people.

 

Practice inviting them to come in to your paid challenge, come in to your paid workshop, come in to buy your paid thing that's on your thank you page. Get your paid video/ making offers over and over and over again, until people say, "Oh, yeah, I want this. I want to hang out with you. You're great. You add value to me. I want to give you my money so that you can teach me this thing."

 

So I want to really challenge you, really, really challenge you to sit down and spend some time today thinking about how you can show up even bigger for your audience. How you can get started building a lucrative audience that is ready to buy from you.

 

And now that you know that, you also know that A-Lister, our foundational course that teaches new online course creators how to finally get in front of their hoards of people online, and make their first paying offer is closing soon. This is the last time that we will be making the offer for people to come into A-Lister at the price that it is at now. I am doubling that price, because I genuinely believe after having three different groups of people through this, that the value in that program is insane. I'm doubling the price next time.

 

So if you're still sitting on the fence, come and join me, go to shineandsucceed.com/yes, and join me inside A-Lister. I would love to hang out there with you, and to help you really build up your confidence in getting run of people and making them an offer. I hope you have a lovely week. I'll see you next week. Bye.

 

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss the thing.

 

149. How To Find Your People Online and Finally Start Making Sales

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149. How To Find Your People Online and Finally Start Making Sales

29 Mar 2022 | By Salome Schillack

Get comfy because we’re going to take things back a notch today. 

There are many unsexy things about running a business—tech problems, EDMs, spreadsheets galore, EDMs, researching, more EDMs, list building. 

And I'm not sure about you, but building a list does not get me excited about jumping out of bed in the morning. 

What does get me excited and motivates me to jump over ANY business hurdle in my way is my 'why'. 

In my heart is a fire that wants to change how women work and earn money in the world. To help them have more freedom, flexibility, fun, and fat-wallets (and yes…. that's including you!)

My 'why' is a secret source of energy that helps me keep moving forward, even when things are tough.

And your 'why' can do the same for you too!

So today, I want you to spend some time reconnecting with your why. The reason you started this whole online course journey in the first place. The unique way you hope to see the world operating one day once you've helped others solve a particular problem.

  • You've got a gift to share with the world.
  • You've got some incredible knowledge.
  • You've been through some pretty significant stuff that will significantly help others.
  • And you've got a desire to get your freedom back.

Your vision is totally possible. The success you dream of is closer than you think. But the nitty-gritty, boring things need to happen to get you there….aka list building.

So let's spend some time dreaming up your big, world-changing ideas and reigniting the passion in your heart that will drive you to get there!

 

XXX

Salome

 

P.S. A-Lister doors are officially OPEN! If you want to put a little rocket fuel on your why and reach your dream students even faster, come and join the Flapper Club and learn the easy way to build a lucrative audience full of dream students. Secure your place at the current rate before prices increase forever. Join the party here!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 149 of The Shine Show. Today, we're going to talk about how to find your people online and finally start making sales. And you already by this time know that we are currently enrolling students in A-Lister. A-Lister is the only online course that teaches you exactly how to build a lucrative audience and start making money selling your online courses to that audience faster using Facebook and Instagram ads. And if you're ready to join us, head over to ShineAndSucceed.com/yes, and become one of my 1920s flappers. Come join us in the flapper party inside A-Lister.

 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster; then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

 

Hello, my dear friend, my dear listener. It is so lovely for me to hit record today. It's a beautiful day here in Brisbane, I'm sitting in my office and the sun is shining, which is delightful because we've had so much rain over the last few weeks. My kids are in school. Yay. There's been so much disrupted school the last few months due to COVID and the rain and everything. And my husband has gone back to the office, so I'm sitting here at home and it's just me and Odie, and he will not stop barking. It's driving me nuts. And I just hope wherever you're listening today, that whether you're in your morning run or your afternoon walk with the dogs, or maybe in the gym, on the treadmill, or in the car driving, or maybe you have a nice cup of chai, and you're settling in on the couch; I hope you're well, and I hope that this finds you well.

 

Today's episode is a little bit different. See, I have been doing so much work with my psychologist. You know I have a psychologist now. It's working, it's really helping me. I feel much better. And I'm also hired a couple of woo woo coaches is what I call them. I call them my woo woo coaches, and I will tell you guys more about my woo woo coaches a little bit later. I've been working with them since November last year, actually, but we are exploring a lot of very woo woo stuff that I never in my life thought I would explore, but I'm having fun with it, and I've decided to just lean into it and go with it, and I'm really having fun. So maybe on another episode, I will bring my woo woo coaches on, and we can have some woo woo conversations, because most of you here are probably more practical and tactical in nature, like I am, which is why we're here, which is why Facebook ads brings us together.

 

But it's not the Facebook ads that keeps us together. I think if you've hung out with me long enough, you'll know that the magic, it's not in the Facebook ads. The magic is in all the color and the nuances that happens in between when our ads goes up and when we connect to our ideal customers and when we create offers for our ideal customers that they absolutely cannot resist.

 

So, today's episode is a little bit different. I'm going to have you really sit and daydream today. So, get comfy. If you are busy multitasking, I want to recommend you come back to this episode when you can really relax, sit down, close your eyes in daydream. Because so often we get bogged down in avoiding the hard parts of building our business, the unsexy parts, things like list building. Ugh. Who wants to build a list? Often my students would say to me, "I'd rather go to the dentist than build my list," and I have to agree. That's why I use ads, because I don't want to build my list. I just want to pay for ads to do it.

 

But I get that when you're just starting out, you're not necessarily rolling in ads money, right? I definitely didn't. But it helps to remember the reason we started all of this in the first place. So, I want to take you on a little in this episode to reacquaint you with your passion and your expertise, and get that fire burning again inside your soul.

 

While this episode is all about finding your people online and finally making sales to them, they're just part of the puzzle, but they're not the reason you started all of this, and there really is a super easy equation for making money online, which you've heard me say 100 times; it's build an audience and make them an offer. Build your audience and make them an offer. Audience plus offer equals money.

 

The reason we started this was not because we wanted to build audiences. The reason we started this was not because we want to learn how to make great offers. The reason we started this was because there was a little fire inside us that said, "I have a gift I can share with the world. I have been through some stuff that can help someone else. I have an education. I have life experience. I have done something. I have mastered something, and I can. I see other people do this, and I can do it too. I can teach people something, and I have this deep desire to get my own freedom back."

 

Freedom that was taken away by the freaking industrial age that created jobs that we have to stay at from nine to five. Freedom that was taken away by this modern society that we live in where we have to choose between sticking our kids in very, very, very expensive daycares or earning money. Freedom that was taken away by a society that tells us it's okay for our husbands to be at work, but it's not okay for us. We know deep down in our hearts that there is something we can give. And when we can connect to that, we can remember why we started these businesses in the first place.

 

So, I want you to take a few moments to daydream. Hopefully you're in a place where you can just sit and then picture yourself. But if you're driving a car, not able to concentrate, just listen. You can come back later and give this your full attention.

 

I want you to go back to the very first moment in your mind when you first decided starting a business was a good idea. Not just a good idea, but a great idea, and one you knew without any shadow of a doubt that you could make successful.

 

See yourself. Where are you? What are you doing? What are you wearing? Who are you with, and how does it feel? Do you feel it in your heart, or maybe you feel it in your gut, or in your head, or all three? Really remember that very moment you decided you were going to give this thing a go. What was your motivation? What was the picture you had in your mind for how you want this to look at the end when you say, "This is successful"?

 

I know that picture is probably underlyingly provided for by money, and maybe you weren't specifically dreaming about money, but you know that it's going to take money to make that dream come true. Maybe your family was in the middle of that picture, your children, your aging parents, or like me, parents who live in another country. Maybe it was reaching a financial goal. I want you to picture that goal, and really feel how that goal made you feel when you pictured what it looks like when you've achieved it. If your goal isn't money, then maybe you are not picturing stack of money like Scrooge McDuck, diving into a big pit of money; but what's the big picture that money can do for you, and how will you feel when you're enjoying it?

 

I want you to come up with one line that summarizes how you feel about your why. My why is to change the way that women work and earn money in the world. That line gets me up every morning. That line reminds me why I'm hiring amazing women to work in my business. That line reminds me why I choose to teach women how to build businesses. And I want to say by women, I don't just mean females. I actually think our men deserve to know this too. I actually think our men deserve to live in a world where we're making money in a more feminine way too, but I will start by changing the way that women work and earn money in the world.

 

And I know it will filter through to the dudes as well, because I'm married to one of those dudes, and every single day I can't wait for the day that I can tell him, "It's your turn to do what you want. It's your turn to not think about the bills. It's your turn to not be the breadwinner. It's your turn to go and figure out what you want to do and how you want to provide value in this world that is not confined to the structures of a job, by a company with a boss and a salary."

 

So, what is your why? I want you to really sit down and write that out. What is your deepest vision for your business and for your life and for the difference you want to make? Say it out loud, write it down somewhere where you see it often. That is the reason why we're building lists. That is the reason why we're making offers.

 

Your why is far bigger than your email list. Your why is far bigger than the number of offers you've made. Rationally we know that none of that success will come unless we build our lists and make our offers, but it's not list building and offer making that gets us out of bed in the morning; it's understanding our why, and then remembering that the pathway to that why is something as simple as list building and making an offer.

 

List building can be hard, and there's a system to follow which makes it so much easier. A big thing we often forget is that we actually need to make offers to that list. I wonder how many offers have you made to your email list in the last year, and does that maybe have something to do with why you're not quite where you're at just yet?

 

You know the age old saying practice makes perfect? That is so true. I think the thing that often stops us is that we want it to be perfect. We think that we're not good enough to do it, and we're scared of failure. And we should be, because we weren't conditioned to be open to failure. We were conditioned to feel shame when we failed. It's a area that I'm thoroughly exploring with my psychologist at the moment.

 

Or maybe you have a fear of the tech stuff, and it's just frustrating for you that you want things to work the first time, and tech just doesn't do that. Or maybe you're worried about wasting money on ads. I don't think any of us wants to give Zuckerberg any more of our money than we should. I agree with that.

 

Or maybe you think you don't have the time. I agree with that too. You are busy. You've got a lot going on. But it's often easier to say, "I don't have time," than to make an actual plan, and to hold ourselves account and to work our plan. All of those feelings are valid, and I've sat in those uncomfortable emotions myself. It's only when you decide that your why is bigger than your discomfort and your fears that you will take action even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's painful, and even, maybe especially when it's certain. Then you'll sit down and start building your list and making offers so that you can get to what your why is.

 

So, where are you right now? Are you in the place that you envisioned you'd be by this time? Are you in the place you thought you'd be with and you started your business? If you are, then go you, that's awesome. Where are you heading, what's next, what's bigger? And if you're not there, then also go you, because you're still here and you're still listening and you're still holding on and you're still dreaming, and you're reconnecting back to that vision, that fire inside you that you can reignite, and spend a few minutes every day remembering that.

 

When life knocks the shit out of you and you temporarily forget, you can come back to this episode and remember. Remember why you started this in the first place. Look at your why, and let that why manifest in your life. Let that why build itself in your life. And I'm not talking about crazy woo woo manifesting. I'm talking about list building, offer making, list building, offer making, list building, offer making. Not how many times, but until. Until you get to where you can honestly look at your business and say, "Wow, I really am making the difference I wanted to make."

 

Sit down and dream and remain your why. That is what I have for you today. That gets me up every morning. And if you want to go on a journey with me over the next few months to help you figure out your list building and your offer making so that you can can get to money faster, then I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister. A-Lister is the only online course that teaches you how to build a lucrative offer and start making money on online faster by showing how to build your email list and make offers to that list, so you can make a bigger impact and get that fire that's in your soul turned into an impact that you make in other people's lives and turned into some nice, juicy, fat money your pocket, ready to provide you with the life you want, ready to provide your children with the life you want.

 

A-Lister is open now. Go to ShineAndSucceed.com/yes, become one of my flappers and join me inside the 1920s party we have going on, and let me help you spread the fire that's inside your heart. Thank you for letting me do this with you. It's an honor every week to talk to you. I hope you have a lovely week. I'll see you next week. Bye.

 

If you are ready to start building a thriving audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses or your membership, and you want a supportive community to hold your hand every step of the way; I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again at the end of March. A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird waitlist, so make sure you go to ShineAndSucceed.com/waitlist, and sign up today.

 

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

 

148. IOS Impact: ONE Ad Every Online Course Creator Should Be Running Now To Get Results Despite IOS

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148. IOS Impact: ONE Ad Every Online Course Creator Should Be Running Now To Get Results Despite IOS

22 Mar 2022 | By Salome Schillack

iOS changes are well and truly here and they are here to stay. 

Take a deep breath; it will be ok. 

Before you press the panic button and call your old boss to beg for your job back, let's unpack what this means, tackling the big question first. 

Are Facebook Ads dead? 

Here's the thing. Inside A-Lister & The Launch Lounge, there's a community of people having unbelievable success right now with Facebook ads. I'm still getting amazing results with Facebook ads. We are still landing 6 & even 7 figure launches for our clients through the agency, because of Facebook ads. It all comes down to how well and quickly you can adapt to change. 

But I get it. It can feel very unsettling when everything you worked so hard for is suddenly impacted.

The good news is you don't have to tackle the iOS changes alone. This week on The Shine Show, I'm going to share:

  • How you can embrace the change
  • The type of ad that will keep leads rolling in (even if iOS changes every 5 minutes) 
  • How to spot the new and exciting opportunities 
  • The mindset that will put yourself ahead of the game by outshining your competitors
  • And how to navigate the latest iOS changes like the boss you are! 

Plus a whole lot more.

Let's get excited about the change upon us. Who knows what incredible doors it'll open for you next. Grab a cuppa and press play! 

XXX

Salome

 

P.S Want a supportive community who will help you to navigate the changes and spot the opportunities when it comes to marketing your online business? Join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again at the end of March. This is the fastest way to find your people online and make that first juicy sale through Facebook Ads. And yes…BONUSES will be given to those on the waitlist so get in quick Secure your place here.

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 148 of The Shine Show. Today, we're going to talk about the one ad every online course creator should be running right now if you want to get results despite iOS. We are going to look at the good, the frustrating, and the way you frame your mind to attack those pesky thoughts about things like iOS updates. The solution is in this episode, so stay tuned. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009.

 

Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show. Hello, hello. It is lovely for me to be here with you today in your ears, and to go on a walk with you or a drive, or maybe you're sitting down with a cup of coffee with me in your ears. Wherever you are, I want to say I'm thrilled and delighted that you are choosing to spend the next 20 or so minutes with me.

 

I still have to pinch myself some days just to know that you're there and you're listening, and you reach out to me on Instagram, and you tell me how much it means to you, this thing that I share that comes out of my head and out of my heart, and that I have spent so many years learning and have spent so many hours practicing how to say it in different ways so that it hits home for you. Just want to let you know that it is not lost on me that you choose to spend your time with me, and I appreciate that, and I love it. If you have any ideas you want to share with me, please reach out to me on Instagram. Just DM me on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you, hear what you're learning, hear what you're loving about what you hear on the podcast, and of course, if A-Lister is right for you, I hope I see you in A-Lister.

 

You know you can shine up at the waitlist for that, and if it's not, if you want to stay here in podcast land for a little bit longer, I get that too, and you are more than welcome. I'm going to keep showing up and keep giving you the best free content so that you can launch your online course and build your business the way that it provides you with freedom, freedom to be the parent you want to be, freedom to be the adult you want to be, just an adult. I just feel like having to show up to a 9:00 to 5:00 job is so disempowering, and freedom, of course, so that you can make the money you want to make, because if you dream about making a million dollars, you should be able to create that, and if you dream about making a million dollars while only working 25 or 30 hours a week, you should be able to do that. It's the beauty of the internet. It's the beauty of what we get to do here.

 

Now, I have a little story I want to tell you. Way, way, way back when I was 23 years young, I can't even ... Sometimes I want to go back to that girl and just hug her, tell her it'll be all right, so 23-year-old me used to love ... Actually, when I was a kid, my dad sometimes on a Sunday, we would have takeaways. Now, you got to picture this.

 

Like this is South Africa in the '80s, so we did not have a lot of takeaway restaurants. We did not have any ... There were no McDonald's. I think McDonald's only really made it to South Africa in the late '90s. We had my favorite takeout place, and my dad's favorite as well was KFC, and back then, it was still called Kentucky Fried Chicken.

 

Who remembers Kentucky Fried Chicken? Every maybe six months, we would treat ourselves, or my dad would treat us to KFC, and he would buy a big family bucket, and we would all eat KFC until our little cheeks were shiny and our hands were shiny, and my mom would complain because she'd say, "That's rubbish. I can't eat it. It tastes horrible. It's so oily."

 

Today, I get that. Back then, I loved it, and I remember standing in the KFC or the Kentucky shop and looking up at the picture of the Colonel and the secret recipe, what the secret herbs and spices, and wondering, "I wonder what the secret herbs and spices are because it is so delicious." I loved the taste of KFC when I was a kid. Then, when I was 23 years old, I moved to London, so from South Africa to London, and between, I lived in Stratford. Not fancy Stratford where Shakespeare's from.

 

Not that one, the common Stratford. This is also Stratford before the Olympics, so when the Olympics came to London, they redid Stratford, and Stratford's actually, I think now a little bit of one of those retro places where it's become cool after the Olympics. I don't even know what year the Olympics was in London, but I left just as they started the construction to prepare for the Olympics, so we're going back many, many years now, but between Stratford Station, where I got off the tube, which is the London underground trains, and the bus stop where I jumped on a bus to go, I think it was the 147 bus, if I remember correctly, where I got the 147 to go to my house that was a four-bedroom house that I shared with about nine other people, and we ended up moving out of that house because the roof fell in on us. We were all dead broke, but we loved it. Between the train station, the tube station in Stratford and the bus stop where I jumped on the bus was a KFC, and so I was very excited.

 

As soon as I started earning some British Pounds, I was very excited to treat myself to some KFC, and went with my friends from the house, the share house, and I walked into the KFC, and it looked the same and it had the same picture of the Colonel, and it had the same poster of the secret herbs and spices. Everything was the same. It even smelled the same, and I ordered my two-piece chicken with mash and gravy, as you do. I'm a two-piece girl with mash and gravy. It's delicious, and I had this absolute anticipation of biting into the KFC, and when I bit into the KFC, it didn't do what KFC is supposed to do.

 

It didn't taste the same. It was weird, and it was different, and it lacked the zing, and it lacked the flavor, and it was just not the way I had remembered it. It was not what I wanted it to be, and I said to my friends, "This isn't KFC. What is this? This is not the same stuff we have back home," and they all kind of laughed at me because they had been in London longer than I had, and they said, "Yeah, tastes different everywhere you go."

 

I was like, "What? How is it even possible, because it's supposed to be the same recipe? It's the secret recipe, the Colonel's secret herbs and spices." That ruined KFC for me, and I have found, since moving to Australia, Australian KFC tastes different again, and I'm willing to bet that if I go back to the source, back to Mr. Kentucky, who probably lives somewhere in the U.S. in Kentucky, I'm guessing, then it would taste different again, so there was something in that spices when I was a kid in South Africa that I just loved, that is just not there anywhere else in the world, which tells me it's not a secret recipe. It's just like the local ingredient's recipe.

 

Anyway, why do I tell you this story? I tell you this story because I want you to play this through in your head for a minute. Just pretend. Just close your eyes and pretend. Don't close your eyes if you're driving.

 

You go to a particular restaurant time and time again because there's this one dish that you absolutely love, and you take your best friend there on a Friday night and you're very excited for your favorite meal, and when they put the plate in front of your table, in front of you, on the table, the dish looks different, and you think, "Well, that's okay, because it probably tastes the same," but when you put it in your mouth, it tastes different, and despite the fact that the menu says it's the same, it is just not the same. It's just not the same thing, and then you see the sign up above the restaurant where the till is, and it says, "We have a new chef," and you're suddenly disappointed, and you wonder if your experience at this place will ever be the same again. Now, some people would leave that restaurant, never come back. Others might realize that, "Well, okay. Maybe my favorite dish isn't going to be the same, but let me try something else, and maybe this chef has something else that is going to be their signature thing that I'm going to learn to love."

 

IOS and the iOS impact on our ads is kind of like KFC. It's kind of like when you go to your favorite restaurant and there's a new chef. It has changed the way that Facebook is able to track our results or track people on the app who takes action, and then feed it back to our news feeds, feed it back to our algorithm, feed it back to the pixel, and it is having a hard time delivering the same level of leads at the same cost, so we have to become comfortable and not afraid of change because iOS is unleashing change. We have to allow ourselves to adapt and to have an open, inquisitive mind to be playful about it, to have fun with it, to explore it because anytime we hold something with a deathly grip, expecting it to be the same it used to be, we set ourselves up for disappointment. We have to troubleshoot our challenges and find ways around our problems. I know with absolute certainty that Facebook ads work really well.

 

They still work really well. They work for me, they work for our agency clients, and they work for our students, and I also know that they work because we have a curious and open mind. We taste and we tweak more often. We play with it. We have fun with it.

 

It's not a life and death thing. However, even though the changes are frustrating and deflating, and this change can be scary, it also brings new opportunities for us. Just like a new chef might bring new, delicious, exciting dishes to your old favorite restaurant, you might find yourself loving it even more, so if you take the time to understand what's really going on and you position yourself really well to harness the potential at hand and seize the moment before your competitors do, you're in for an absolutely wonderful ride. I've just recently discovered something. In 2014, a study by a Harvard Professor, Alison Wood Brooks looked at different ways to cope with anxiety, and if you've been following my journey, you know that anxiety is a little bit of a friend of mine.

 

That kind of peaked around September last year for me when I had a small, little, let's call it an incident with panic, my breakthrough, not my breakdown. Alison Wood Brooks looked at different ways people cope with anxiety. Whereas most people believe that the best method was to try to calm down, what Wood Brooks found is that people who reframed their anxiety as excitement felt more excited, and excitement is a positive emotion, and more importantly, they then ended up performing better. Participants in this study said, "I'm excited for this," actually ended up reducing their anxiety towards the situation significantly and experienced positive feelings instead. I want you to play along with me and say it with me now, "I am excited about the iOS changes and all the new opportunities it is going to bring." Just try it on.

 

If that's a stretch for you, just say, "I am curious about iOS and the new opportunities it's going to bring," or, "I'm interested in playing with iOS to see what the new opportunities it's going to bring." There's your little mindset hack for the day as you approach the iOS changes. What is the one ad everyone should be running if you want to navigate iOS and minimize the impact of iOS on your business? You've heard me say this. I think I'm going to say this on every single episode from now on.

 

How do you make money online? There's a very simple equation for making money online. It's audience. Ooh, I can hear my students. My students are all going, saying with me.

 

Say it with me if you're my student. If you're in A-Lister or The Launch Lounge, say it with me. We're going to say it, "Audience plus offer equals money. Audience plus offer equals money." That is how we make money online in a very simple term.

 

You need an audience, you need a room full of people. I suggest, there's thousand people on your email list, you need an audience, a thousand people on your email list, and you need an offer. You need something that they want that you can present to them in a way that they want to buy it from you. You need an offer. What ads do we run if we want to make money online and we consider the fact that iOS is making ads a little bit more expensive and it is making it a little bit harder to navigate getting started?

 

The one ad everyone should be running is, say it with me, here we go, list building ads. Everybody needs list building ads. Now, the reason we want list building ads is because when you launch your online course or you just launch a PDF for $27, that you can sell while you build your list so you can start bringing in some money and bring the cost of your ads down while you're busy building your online course, then you know already that list building ads is the way to go, and list building ads is the only ad that's going to get you to the money faster. While you are working out your bigger offers, you run list building ads and you make some smaller offers to them, and you practice. You practice making offers to your list.

 

You see what resonates with them. By the time you launch your online course, you have a lucrative email list who's warm and ready, who's already voted with their dollars for the small thing that they want, which gives you a clue as to what the big thing is that they want, and so you never ever end up wasting money or throwing spaghetti on the wall, or just donating your money to the Zuckerberg foundation. Depending on where you're at and how much budget you had, there are different ways to build your list, you know? Maybe you're the person who's going to go straight to the conversion ad because you want the best quality lead and you're willing to pay for it, and you have the cash to do that because your coaching business funds your online courses business. Maybe you're the one who's going to use lead ads because you're not that cashed up, but you don't want to hustle your face off on social media, you'd rather get volume on your email list and add value to them in emails and in your podcast, and in your blog, and send them those pieces of content to warm them up, or maybe you are just starting out, money's tight, and you just need a leg up so that you can really, really make the most of social media, and the time you spend on social media, then your option would be engagement ads.

 

You would be running engagement ads $5 a day so that all the energy you're pouring into your social media results in those people engaging with you on social media actually joining your email list. Three different ways you can go, but all three of them contributing towards building your email list, and if you can build your email list, then you can have an audience, and if you can have an audience, then you can make them an offer, and if you can make them an offer, then you can make money online, and it doesn't have to start out with thousands of dollars with a giant, big online course launch. It can start out with something small, a $27 offer on the thank you page of your list building ad, that helps people say, "Yes, I want to go even further with you. Your lead magnet is so awesome, I want to go even further with you. I'll give you my $27," and there, they've just paid for your ads.

 

They've just reduced the overall cost of building your list, and they've just gotten you closer to a profitable launch. Then, once you have a lovely, big, warm audience, you launch your course to them, you go to your boss, you tell them, "Sorry, mate, I'm out. I have a successful business now. I'm going to have to resign so that I can go spend my time with my kids, spend my time with myself, be in charge of my own future, be in charge of my own ability to create income, and be in charge of my own time and how I choose to spend it. All of that while I'm making a giant impact in the world, teaching other people the awesome thing that I know."

 

Hands up, if that's you and that's what you want ... Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. I thought so. I know, because I used to be you.

 

Oh, it was a sweet day, the day I resigned my job. Sweet, sweet day. All right. Here's the bottom line, don't let iOS scare you off. We have an incredible community of members and students supporting each other and having huge success, thanks to well-structured ads and targeted campaigns despite all of these updates.

 

Let's remain positive. Let's get excited and be open to the chain just beyond our power and put our energy into things we can control by building our email lists, getting those audiences up and running. We never know what incredible opportunities this can bring us, and once you're ready to implement everything you've learned on this episode and you want to take it even deeper, and you want to go even faster, then I would love to have you join us inside A-Lister. You can sign up for the waitlist at shineandsucceed.com/waitlist. Almost as if on cue, telling me to wrap it up, my doorbell rings, and Odie starts squealing at the door.

 

I hope you have a lovely, lovely week. See you next week. Bye. If you are ready to start building a thriving audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses or your membership, and you want a supportive community to hold your hand every step of the way, I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again at the end of March. A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads.

 

There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird waitlist, so make sure you go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist and sign up today. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

147. Successfully Navigating The Ups And Down of Starting An Online Business with Fiona Berry

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147. Successfully Navigating The Ups And Down of Starting An Online Business with Fiona Berry

15 Mar 2022 | By Salome Schillack

“Is all my hard work even worth it, or am I on a one-way road to nowhere?”

Launching an online course isn't an easy ride. In fact, it's the total opposite. It's a bumpy ride full of iOS potholes, failed lead magnet detours, wrong tech turns, you name it.

My friend, it’s time to pull over, take a breather, and tune in to The Shine Show because this week, you'll meet Fiona Berry, one of my incredibly inspiring students whose hard work has paid off….MASSIVELY! 

But her journey has not been a smooth drive. Once upon a pre-pandemic time, Fiona had the dream life. As a music examiner for Trinity College, she traveled the world, stayed in beautiful hotels, and listened to beautiful music until Covid.

Overnight, her work dried up!

Like any well trained musical professional, she knew the show must go on. Determined to crisis-proof her love for working with music, Fiona put her entrepreneurial thinking cap on and began a Facebook group to help adults learn instruments with ease. 

And it worked!

One thing led to another, and Fiona began a membership, wrote a book, made some great lead magnets, and after a long journey of testing, trialing, u-turning....all the pieces of her online business are now finely tuned.

But this didn't happen overnight. Fiona is one of the hardest working students I've ever met. She turns up to every call (even when it means a 2 am wrap up in the UK). She brings questions, she tweaks, she tests, she bounces back when things don't work.

Slowly but surely, it has paid off!

And the same can happen for you too.

If you're struggling to get your online business off the ground, today's episode is the boost of encouragement you need. Pull over, take a breather, grab a cuppa and press play.

 

P.S The solo drive to launching an online course can be pretty lonely, especially when you hit a bumpy part in the road. Joining a supportive community can be the make or break of reaching your destination. A-Lister is opening its doors again very soon. If you're ready to find your dream audience faster and make that first sale sooner, A-Lister is the place to be. Join the waitlist, and you'll receive some juicy bonuses when doors open. Secure your place here -  www.shineandsucceed/waitlist

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 147 of The Shine Show. Today's episode is called Successfully Navigating The Ups And Downs Of Starting An Online Business. And my guest is Fiona Berry. Fiona is one of my A-Listers students who joined a year ago and have just made incredible progress. Fiona is a music examiner for Trinity College London, and through her online membership, Learn Music Together, she helps adults grow and develop their musical skills so they can play with confidence. She recently published a book called Play Music Better, which has received multiple five star reviews worldwide. If you're inspired by Fiona's story and you too want to learn how to find your people online and start making sales to them, we are opening enrollment for A-Lister at the end of March. And I would love for you to get on the wait list because there are some goodies only reserved for those of you on the wait list. And you can get access to that by going to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist.

Salome Schillack (01:12):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine. And this is The Shine Show. Fiona, hello, and welcome to The Shine Show.

Fiona Berry (01:50):
Hello Salome. Thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here and what a great surprise it was when you asked me to come on the show. Thank you.

Salome Schillack (01:58):
Of course. It's always a delight when you come on the live Q&A calls. I want to say, I don't think you've missed a single call all year. Would that be right?

Fiona Berry (02:09):
Maybe just one or two, but yeah, I've been to everything. I think if you invest in a course and you want to get the most out of it, showing up to the live classes is where the gold is really. And I think you need to get in there straight away. I think if you bought something, you obviously had an intention that you wanted to learn something. And too often, I think if you miss those first few calls, then it becomes a sort of, "Oh yeah, I must get round to doing that." The longer you leave it, the harder it gets.

Salome Schillack (02:45):
Yeah. Then you start telling yourself all sorts of things like, "I'm behind and I need to catch up" and all that nonsense.

Fiona Berry (02:54):
Yeah. And I think you meet other people who are like you that way, if you show up, you introduce yourself when everybody's introducing themselves and you get a feel for for what everything's like and grow together.

Salome Schillack (03:07):
That's true.

Fiona Berry (03:09):
I'd say to anybody, if you buy something, buy it with intention and really take action straight away.

Salome Schillack (03:14):
I love that. That's fantastic. And I also have to just tell people, what time is it for you when we do the calls?

Fiona Berry (03:23):
Well, at the minute, it's okay. It's half past 11 at night. Because I'm in the UK, but in the summer it was half past midnight. So yeah, late. And obviously they don't finish until an hour or so later. In the summer it was a half past one, 2:00 a.m. finish.

Salome Schillack (03:43):
Yes. And I just want to say hats off to you and to anyone else in the UK who has joined any of our calls. I try to accommodate the UK. I try to make those time zones like line up as well as I can. And it's just always hard with Australia. I call you guys Middle Earth, because you're like, Australia would be on the right and the US is on the left and then Middle Earth is the UK and South Africa. The Middle Earthers who show up, I admire that.

Fiona Berry (04:19):
Oh thank you. I think I'm the sort of person who seeks out carefully. But if I buy a course, I want to make sure that it's one, good value for money. But I also look at who I want to learn from. And that's important, time zones and things come second.

Salome Schillack (04:38):
Oh, that's [crosstalk 00:04:38].

Fiona Berry (04:38):
Luckily my job, I travel the world anyway. Moving time zones is not something that's unusual to me.

Salome Schillack (04:46):
Okay, well let's talk about your job because you are phenomenal. All right. Tell everyone about your job and what you do and what you've done and why you started a membership and of course. Tell us all the things, please.

Fiona Berry (05:04):
Okay, well, pre COVID I had what you might call a dream job. I examined for one of the world's largest exam boards, Trinity College, London, and I was on the international panel. My job for 50% of the year was to travel around world examining candidates for Trinity College. Piano exams, woodwind exams, drums, singing, you name it. Anybody who played an instrument who did a Trinity exam. I mean, it was a dream job. I spent time in Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, living in beautiful hotels, listening to beautiful music and really loving life. Then COVID hit. And of course you couldn't travel the world anymore. And some of the examining went online, but obviously doing a day a week wasn't going to pay my wages.

Fiona Berry (05:58):
As some of my friends turned to jobs like driving for Amazon, stocking supermarket shelves, I couldn't let go of music. And of course it wasn't like you could go and go back to performing. Because of course all the venues were shut. Being the resourceful entrepreneurial type that I am, I looked at building a Facebook page. Back in March, 2020, I had nothing, zero. And I started a Facebook page just to keep myself occupied. It took off quite well. I invested in a course in that, which led me then to now what do I do with these people? Because I need money, essentially. Facebook page is great, but it doesn't [crosstalk 00:06:45]-

Salome Schillack (06:44):
I wonder how many people accidentally stumbled upon, "What am I going to do with these people?" When COVID hit and they built Facebook groups.

Fiona Berry (06:55):
Yeah. I was like, "Need money." Came through, I don't know, various things into the online world of course creation and memberships and thought, "I'm going to do a membership." I'd had a bit of experience. I kept a travel blog while I was traveling the world. I knew a bit about affiliate marketing and that sort of thing. I enrolled in Tribe, learned from Stu McLaren a bit about setting up memberships and got started from there. That was two years ago. And it's not been an easy ride. Everybody tells you different. Well, they're telling you fibs. You might read stories of people making six figures overnight, but I'm telling you it's not true. Or if they missed out the prep work, the [inaudible 00:07:46] that they've done prior to that.

Salome Schillack (07:46):
They don't tell you the six years before the six months, yeah.

Fiona Berry (07:52):
Yeah. I mean, I think if you get a good idea and you know what you're doing, then yeah, you can accelerate quickly. I set up a membership called Learn Music Together, that everyone talks about niche. And I really struggled with that at first because I wanted to share how to practice, not how to learn an instrument, but how to practice an instrument. If you like, my niche at that point was quite wide because that was like any instrument because I had all this knowledge from examining, I wasn't really narrowing it down to countries because I'd met people who ran music schools and things all around the world, in non-English speaking countries as well. My net was really quite wide. People kept telling me niche down, you need to do just one instrument. And I was absolutely adamant that I wasn't going to do one instrument, but I have niched down.

Fiona Berry (08:45):
I don't even know how it came about. Maybe through a bit of Facebook ads initially by myself, but I've niched it down to retired adults who want to grow and develop the confidence in music. Because as we get older, it gets harder to learn new things. Just our life experiences plants all sorts of seeds in our head about you can't teach an old dog new tricks or technology and things like that as we get older. It's harder. We've not had that training at school and things. I solved one problem. I niched down and created another really, because these people all wanted to learn, but they didn't have the tech skills really to go on my portal and use the system, things like I get emails saying, "My password doesn't work. What do I do?" That sort of thing.

Fiona Berry (09:45):
One of the things I'm really good at, it's hard to say that sometimes what you're good at, but as a musician, I have learned what skills I'm really good at and what skills I need to work on. Things I'm good at, I'm good at explaining and communicating things and creating interesting ways of sharing knowledge. I've worked really hard on that tech side to ensure that my members gain confidence in using the tech and the feedback's been wonderful. They've all said that not only are they learning music and gaining that sort of confidence, but they've gained the confidence to use all sorts of online things. Things that when we're younger, we take for granted like online banking, security passwords and things like that. It's been wonderful and it's growing now. I experimented lots with master classes and courses, as you do, lead magnets and after much trial error, I think I hit on a winner or a winner in the right direction.

Fiona Berry (10:53):
And I put together a masterclass called Learn The Secret To Effective Practice. And it was a three day workshop that then feeds into my membership and people bring to me any piece of music that they want to learn. And I share my methods on how to do that. Because I have a formula that really works. And I think it's important to point out that it's a formula that is especially designed for adults, not children, when it comes to learning music.

Salome Schillack (11:21):
Love it.

Fiona Berry (11:23):
And then I suppose the biggest thing that's happened recently is I took that formula and I took the Learn The Secret masterclass, and I turned it into a book and I did the book in 90 days. I was taking out in another challenge, somebody else's, to create content. And somebody mentioned in there that she was writing a book and I sort of mentioned, "Oh, I'd love to do that." She said, "Why don't you come and do this challenge in 90 days?" I don't know what happened, but I said, "Yeah, all right then. Let's do it." And I'm the sort of person who, if I decide I'm doing something, that's it, I'm doing something. And 90 ... Actually, 78 days later, I published a book which is now selling all around the world.

Fiona Berry (12:15):
Got five star reviews in many countries and is really helping adults make progress. It's called Play Music Better. It's written in an easy to understand, conversational way. Interestingly people tell me it's full of wonderful stories. There's one block that I've had in all of this, when it comes to marketing and selling things, it's I feel I don't have any stories. One of the things that writing the book has really helped me do ... Well, it's helped me do two things. It's helped me write stories just by being, I guess, having more words, when you write a book, you've got space to have more words.

Fiona Berry (12:56):
I've told stories. I'm gaining confidence with that now, but it's also really helped me clear up the messaging. Because again, I think you have more words in a book. You can play around with them. You need to say things in different ways in a book, but many times to reiterate the point, and in that process, you hit on the gem. That's my messaging. That's what I need to communicate in all my sales pages and things. That was literally in December. We're now in January or 1st of February today, and going forward I'm excited this year. Finally, just off the back of the book, I did a free Q&A for the book and I wasn't planning on selling the membership at that point. I just really wanted to connect with people and learn a bit more. But I had decided that I needed a new tier of my membership to make a bit more customer profitable journey as you talk about.

Fiona Berry (14:01):
I had this idea in the back of my head that I'd do some one on one coaching. Well, cutting a long story short, conversations arose. I did four of these Q&A sessions. And out of those conversations, without even trying to sell, I sold seven one on one places which brought in a nice five figures to see me through the Christmas period [crosstalk 00:14:25].

Salome Schillack (14:26):
There is just so much here, so much here that you make everything sound so matter of fact, but I do want to just pause for a moment and say a few things. Number one, you are one of the hardest working people in the group that I've ever seen. Fiona shows up to every call with questions, with new things to look at, new things that she's been working on. And it's not been an easy ride for you all here. There has been days where ... I mean, I think you told me many times, you just don't know where to go now and then next week you're back and you have a new idea and you're working on it. I have to just acknowledge you for that. And that must be the professional musician in you.

Fiona Berry (15:17):
Yeah. I mean, one of the big things that I teach, one of my five stages is called problems and solutions. If you can really find the problem, so not the problem of, "Oh, I can't do that," but really look behind that at what the problem is, then you can look at creating solutions and it is what you do in music. If you've got a concert coming up and you've got a piece that you've got to play and it's got to be done, it's got a deadline, that deadline has to be met. If there's a bar or something that you can't play, well, it's not an option not to play it. There has to be a solution. There's all sorts of creative things musicians do. They might not play everything that's on the page in that bar. You might narrow it down.

Fiona Berry (16:03):
But the important thing is the audience doesn't know. And you still have to communicate your message through that music. And I guess I've taken that not necessarily in a conscious way, but when I've hit roadblocks and believe you me, I've hit quite a few roadblocks where you've been really excited to try something. Maybe it's a challenge. Maybe it's a masterclass and you work so hard at putting everything together. When you've written all the emails, you've done the sales pages, you've advertised it. And then it doesn't go as well as you'd hoped. And of course, like many people who'll be listening to this, it's absolutely heartbreaking when you've been really, really pumped up and really looking forward to doing this course, whatever, and you're hoping the sales come in and then it's like nothing. And yeah, it hits you hard and all I can ever say is bounce back. Bounce back.

Fiona Berry (17:05):
Have a day off. Walk away and then start to unpack it and start to look at what was people's reactions to things? I mean, it's always easy to take the negative on it. "Oh, they didn't buy this. I gave them all this and they still didn't." And I know I felt like that as well, but if you can go past that and look at the why behind it, then that's your problem and then you can start to create solutions and you do have to treat everything I think like an experiment. It's an ongoing process. I don't think anybody ever arrives at the perfect lead magnet, the perfect masterclass, the perfect course. It's an ongoing process. Not only in your own development, but the world changes as well. The world changes [crosstalk 00:17:59]-

Salome Schillack (17:58):
The market changes and Facebook ads change. There is no right way. I'm so glad [crosstalk 00:18:06]-

Fiona Berry (18:05):
There's definitely no right way, but there's also no wrong way. [crosstalk 00:18:10] as well. Little things I can tell you. With the technology side of things, if there's one part of technology that has really ... I've really problems with in the past, it's the CRM, the email systems. Learning how to send emails to certain parts of your email list, or create sequences, schedule them out. Oh, my. I've had some problems with that. I've had emails going to people that should never have received the email. I've had emails that haven't gone to people that should have got the email.

Fiona Berry (18:48):
And I spent ages in those initial days of really going through it, checking it, checking it, absolutely adamant it was all right. Then I'd get an email off somebody and it would be like quite rude like, "Why are you selling me this?" And it used to really upset me, but now it doesn't happen anywhere near as often now, but it does occasionally happen. And now I can just laugh and go, "Oh, well. You're just one person out of how many billion in the world? If you don't accept my apology for sending that. Well, you're not my person anyway."

Salome Schillack (19:24):
Yeah.

Fiona Berry (19:29):
[crosstalk 00:19:29].

Salome Schillack (19:29):
It's cliche, it's a cliche that building a business is the best personal development. But there's a reason why it's a cliche, because it is really teaches us resilience and it teaches us that it doesn't really matter that much what one individual stranger thinks of us. And that technology that you've learned and that you're now passing onto your students, you're also very good at passing that onto my students. You've helped a lot of our students. And I think that's because you have that compassion, which comes from even having to figure it out yourself, but then also helping your students. When I've had a student with tech issues, you've been very eager to jump in and help and take the lead on that. That's been very generous. Thank you.

Fiona Berry (20:16):
Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. I love to teach, that's the bottom line. I love to teach. I love to share knowledge and I hate it when somebody's struggling and I have an answer. I'm a firm believer in the world that the world gives you back what you give to it. I was brought up, my mom used to say, make sure you treat everybody equally from the cleaner to the executive. Everybody is a human being and always remember that. And I have always remembered that. In the workplace, I was equally as good a friends with cleaners, coach drivers, what have you, right up to the people on the board, the people that at the top, they're making the big decisions and that paid dividends. Because [inaudible 00:21:08] back, people help you when you need it. You never know when you need help. And I think with the tech thing, my advice to everybody is slow down.

Fiona Berry (21:19):
Just slow down. Because often when we get frustrated, we tend to react quicker and quicker. And we do things, we start clicking around just out of frustration. And that's when you go down a rabbit hole that's harder to fix. Just slow down. It can wait until tomorrow. I've learned that, learned that it can wait until tomorrow. And I think just go on YouTube and places like that. There's so much out there. Rather than trying to just fathom it out yourself, just do a quick Google because there's so much out there and I think resist the temptation to buy too much software initially. Just keep it small, keep it to what you need.

Salome Schillack (22:03):
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fiona Berry (22:04):
You only really need an email provider and a Google drive or something like that. Then think about for a while, what platform, whether it be Kajabi, Kartra, Searchy. Think for a while what you want out of that software and what you want to do. And I think when you first start out, you don't really know that everybody's purchasing these [crosstalk 00:22:32]-

Salome Schillack (22:33):
Fancy bells and whistles that the big boys have. I know, I keep telling them you're better off putting your money in list building ads than buying all these fancy bells and whistles.

Fiona Berry (22:45):
Absolutely. Definitely. I mean, I just have WordPress. My Learn Music Together site is on WordPress. I now have Searchy to store videos, but for a long time I just had the WordPress and I just had Google Drive and I just had email, and it [crosstalk 00:23:02]-

Salome Schillack (23:02):
And that is all you need because your students don't need ... Can I just psych Kajabi? It's my biggest pay peeve that everybody wants to buy Kajabi. And Kajabi's not that great. It's just not that great if you're starting out. You can literally do it with email. And I launched my very first online course was hosted on YouTube and I delivered it with emails and it went out as like unlisted videos from YouTube and I made $2,000 from my YouTube videos and then it was great. And I just want everyone to know that you are so much better off putting your money where you're building an asset rather than buying fancy tech that's going to make you look smarter than than you think you are when nobody really cares about that.

Fiona Berry (23:50):
No, I mean, money and the balancing of the books has been something I've been keen on from day one and partly because I had a limited pot of money and I wasn't sure when examining will be coming back. At that point, it was a bit of a gamble using savings to go down this road. Yeah, just keep it simple and on videos and things like that, just do it live. Just get a Zoom room up. And people love to engage with people. There's a real asset to being in just a Zoom meeting, which I don't know how ... It's not very expensive, Zoom per month [crosstalk 00:24:32]-

Salome Schillack (24:32):
There is a free version. There's a free version that you can get that I think gives you 45 minutes or something.

Fiona Berry (24:38):
Yeah. Then you can just upload that to YouTube. I mean, I know you can engage on YouTube, but it's a bit like Facebook and those other social medias where you're type in a comment and replying back. The great thing about Zoom is you can see faces, you can really connect.

Salome Schillack (24:53):
That's right, yeah.

Fiona Berry (24:54):
I think that's very powerful. You do a lot of Zoom calls.

Salome Schillack (24:58):
I do. I love it. And I love it for that reason as well is because all the courses I was in, people were doing live Q&As inside Facebook groups. You would submit the question and then you'd attend the live Q&A, but that person's not asking you any follow up questions or clarifying questions. They literally just are speaking at you. And you know how I love talking to my students and asking you guys questions and clarifying and digging in and sharing screens, because that's where the magic happens.

Fiona Berry (25:34):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's eye contact at the end of the day. It's basic things. It's eye contact and knowing what somebody looks like and you can see the reactions on the faces. You can gauge for whether they're understanding something or not understanding something. And of course, for me in the world of music, I needed to be able to play, give examples. It was important that people saw me playing and they could play back. They could say, "This is what I'm struggling with." And sometimes you can't put it into words. Yeah. Zoom has been ... We love Zoom [crosstalk 00:26:15]-

Salome Schillack (26:15):
We love Zoom. If someone had told us, we should have all bought shares in Zoom at the beginning of 2020. If only we knew.

Fiona Berry (26:22):
Two years ago, I'd never heard of Zoom.

Salome Schillack (26:30):
See, I was already using Zoom. I feel like everyone else has started copying me by staying at home and working from home from Zoom. I was onto it first.

Fiona Berry (26:39):
Oh wow. You missed out not buying your shares then.

Salome Schillack (26:43):
Yeah, I did. I did. I should have seen that coming. Fiona, now you have your membership, you launch your membership regularly. Let's talk about your funnels quickly. You have now, after all the work that we've done this whole year, you've landed on building your email list with a lead magnet, right? You have an engagement ad that's running, that's doing well?

Fiona Berry (27:08):
Yeah. I have an engagement ad. I've been very successful with engagement ads and the engagement on my Facebook page. And I have a lead magnet, which is just a practice tips guide, which gives ... I can't remember how many pages, five pages, I think. Eight practice tips. Very simple. I've cut it back. When I first started, it was like 30 pages and I keep trimming it and trimming it as I'm learning less is always more.

Fiona Berry (27:36):
Yeah, they come into my world via an engagement ad. I've got conversion ads running now and I've experimented a lot with audiences. I'm stepping outside my comfort zone more and more with that. They come into my world. I've also learned that people need to be in my world for a little while, probably because they're an older audience, retired adults. Just to build up that trust. They get emails every week. I always email every Tuesday with a tip and then I've got a new ... I took my Learn The Secret To Effective Practice, and after I'd written the book, Play Music Better, I've now come up with a new launch that style. I'm going to try this coming February. It starts on February the 20th and we're going to learn piece Danny Boy together in a week.

Fiona Berry (28:32):
Going to share on Zoom, the lessons live, daily and a practice manual, to really connect with people. What I want to do in that week is really connect with people. And hopefully at the end of the week, they'll then want to stay my world, in my membership and then they might want the one on one as well.

Salome Schillack (28:54):
That would be great. You've gone from throwing spaghetti on the wall, trying to figure out what's working to really doing the work, to figure out what does work best? Is it when you run an ad to them? Or is it when you get them on your list or is it when you spend that time with them? Understanding your ideal customer at that level takes time and it takes effort and it takes resilience. And I really want to honor you for the work that you've put in to get there.

Fiona Berry (29:25):
Thank you. It does take a lot of work. And I've spent many, many weeks where I've worked seven days and one of my goals for this year is to not work at the weekend and cut back. But I think initially to get yourself off the ground, it's hard work. It's hard work.

Salome Schillack (29:42):
You have to put in-

Fiona Berry (29:44):
And now it's time to rebalance, and work Monday to Friday and who knows? This new launch may or may not go well but [crosstalk 00:29:54]-

Salome Schillack (29:53):
Well [crosstalk 00:29:55]-

Fiona Berry (29:54):
... is I'll tweak and I'll keep coming back.

Salome Schillack (29:58):
Correct, you will. And we will keep our eye on Danny Boy, and I hope that Danny Boy goes very well for you. What would you say to somebody who's thinking about joining A-Lister?

Fiona Berry (30:10):
I would say if you are wanting to grow a online business, whether that be a membership or a course, and you're looking, maybe you've tried Facebook ads and they've not gone so well, I would say A-Lister is for you. The one thing I've done, like everybody in this world, I've done several courses in various places. The one thing that's totally different about A-Lister is Salome holds live calls every week, but she gives you the one on one help, and that is the key to success. It's not a case of taking a handful of questions, and then you have to apply that to your problem. Salome will take your problem, she will unpack it, hold your hand, guide you through, and together you'll grow because when you get that one on one help, it instills confidence and trust. And that's so, so important.

Fiona Berry (31:09):
And I think that's missing from a lot of the big courses that people take. It's definitely that one on one guidance and that trust. And you'll also meet some wonderful people. Salome has a wonderful group of A-Listers and they'll be there as well. They'll support you on this journey. You can hop in Facebook group and ask questions and because it's not ginormous, you really do form connections. If you're wondering about A-Lister, don't. Just get out there. It's one of the few courses I'd say, definitely buy. There are others that I would say just hold fire and hang back on. But it isn't A-Lister.

Fiona Berry (31:51):
Grab A-Lister because I've learned so much from Salome and I'm still learning. I've just progressed now from A-Lister into Launch Lounge to continue my learning. And I learned something. To be honest with you, I learned something on every single call, not just for me, but just from what other people are doing. Now I feel I grew to the top, if you like, in A-Lister. I felt as I've really, really grown and now I've moved into Launch Lounge. I'm like the little fish again in the big pond. There's so many other wonderful ladies, a bit further on in their journeys than I am. And I'm really looking forward to getting to where they are. It's inspiring. It's encouraging. And it's exciting.

Salome Schillack (32:36):
Oh, that makes me so very, very happy to hear that. I'm so proud of the work you've done. I am so thrilled that you've been part of the A-Lister journey and that you have, like you said, graduated A-Lister, and now you're ... You have graduated A-Lister. And now you are back in being one of the small fish in the big bond, being in the Launch Lounge. And I'm so excited to see how the other ladies, and there's a couple of gentlemen as well, inspire you to do even bigger things and to teach even more people, to learn to enjoy music and to practice the music in a way that empowers them and makes them feel good. Thank you so much, Fiona. Where can people learn more about you?

Fiona Berry (33:22):
On my website, which is www.LearnMusicTogether.com. Whenever you're interested in the membership, just add /membership. The book ... Can I give a quick plug of my book?

Salome Schillack (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plug your book away. Your book is awesome.

Fiona Berry (33:42):
That's at PlayMusicBetter.com. You'll find it on Amazon. You'll find it in all the major bookstores to order online and it's on print on demand. The one thing in Australia, you can actually get a print copy without it costing an arm and a leg because, because [crosstalk 00:34:01] America, so it is available worldwide, at PlayMusicBetter.com. If you go there, it'll point you in the right direction to wherever you want to go.

Salome Schillack (34:09):
That's fantastic. If you have considered playing the musical instrument again or learning again like me, I'm an adult learner again, then consider joining Fiona's membership. Fiona, thank you so much for being here with me. I'm so glad I get to share you with the listeners.

Fiona Berry (34:26):
Oh, thank you so much for having me and allowing me to share my story. And I hope it inspires anybody who's listening, who's struggling with getting off the ground. Come along, join us in A-Lister, we'll hold hands together and together we'll make progress.

Salome Schillack (34:43):
I love it. Thank you. If you are ready to start building a thriving audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses or your membership, and you want a supportive community to hold your hand every step of the way I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again, at the end of March. A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird wait lists. Make sure you go to ShineAndSucceed.com/waitlist, and sign up today. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

 

146. The First 3 Steps To Taking Your Offline Business Online

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146. The First 3 Steps To Taking Your Offline Business Online

08 Mar 2022 | By Salome Schillack

.Newsflash: If you have successfully been able to sell to someone offline…. you'll be able to sell to someone online. 

Even if you’ve only known bricks & mortar.

Even if you’ve only ever done one-on-one in person consulting.

Even if you’re a creative person who brings beautiful crafts to life.

Sure, your audience may look a little different, and it is a learning curve that can feel intimidating.

But the potential is ginormous! 

Going online means tapping into an audience of millions, rather than the few who happen to stumble upon you offline. It's a complete game-changer. Not to mention the benefits….AKA being in charge of your own schedule, controlling who and where you work, plus, hello making more sales on autopilot (yup....even while you sleep). 

Many of the students I work with were initially skeptical about venturing into the cyberworld, from artists who only sold commissioned pieces in real life to interior designers who spent their entire careers working on high-end projects. And Lucy (who you'll hear more about on the podcast) who was lugging her beautiful crafts from market to market and had zero control about what type of customers turned up on the day (not to mention dealing with the freezing cold outdoor weather - heck no!). Now she is running a thriving online business from the warmth of her own home, has time to be there for the school pick-up, and is changing the world with her brilliant ideas. 

And it can do the same for you, too. Taking things online is one of the best investments you can make in your future, business, and life. 

But where the heck do you start?

I'm so glad you asked because this week on The Shine Show, I share the three first steps to taking your business online....sharing some epic hacks that start from as little as $5 per day that will get thousands of eyeballs on your fantastic ideas. 

Just imagine, three months from now, you could be living a completely different life. The potential is HUGE, and I am so excited to show you the ropes to get you there faster. I know it can feel scary, but I'm here with you every step of the way to help you get a taste of that sweet, sweet online success.

XXX

Salome

 

P.S. Wanna fast-track your way to the online world? The doors to A-Lister Flappers Club are opening again. Join other online course creators who transformed their 'impossible' offline business into a thriving online success and have never looked back. Discover how to find thousands of people who want what you have to offer. Get on the waitlist to receive some juicy, juicy bonuses! It's going to be huge. Head to www.shineandsucceed.com/waitlist

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 146 of The Shine Show. Today's show is called The First Three Steps to Taking Your Offline Business Online. The reason I created this episode is because I know a lot of you out there have interior design businesses, or you're music teachers, or you teach crafting, or you're a coach, and in this episode, I want to show you how you can fast-track, bridging the gap between having only a local audience and getting started with building your business online, so I'm going to share some secrets and the three steps to taking your offline business online. Before we get into that, I want to remind you that if you are ready to start building your audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses and memberships, and you're looking for a supportive community to help you every step of the way as you learn, I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister. We open for enrollment again at the end of March.

A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird waitlist, so make sure you go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist, and sign up today. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show. I have so many favorite students, but one of the things I love most is when a student of mine has a successful offline business or a successful local business like Lucy, who had handmade jewelry.

She turned her handmade jewelry into a business, where she teaches others, jewelry makers or people who sell jewelry in markets how to take that online. Then, there's Shelby, who was a successful artist until COVID hit, and then she had to very quickly pivot and take her business online, and I'm thinking about Debbie, who is a successful interior decorator, and she's pivoting to moving her business online, and there are so many others. One of the funniest stories is the story that Lucy told me about how she ended up making the decision that she needed to take her business online. She said she had a pile of stock ready, and each one was packaged and boxed, and she lugged it to and forth, back and forth from her car. She had to set up an all-weather stand so that she can differentiate herself from others in the market to attract her ideal client, and she had absolutely no control of the type of people that came through to the market, that came to the stall that she had set up.

After one of many just unpredictable days in terms of sales, because she relied on market organizers to bring the crowd, she decided to pack it all in, go back home, and figure out how to take her business online so that she can be in control of how many people find her business, and she can be in control of how they buy from her. Now, for a while, she said she wanted to stay warm indoors and be in control of her time and create a system that resulted in stable income. She also never wanted to pack or unpack a car full of market stock ever again, so Lucy decided to take her business online, learning how to use Facebook and Instagram ads. Eventually, she understood her sales patterns and what works in terms of her marketing strategy, and now, Lucy has very successful online business, and she has learned so much, and she is graciously teaching so many other students in both my community and in her community how to do that for themselves. She makes a huge difference to everyone who comes across Lucy and who finds her there, and I'm just so proud of the progress that she's made.

It's not just Lucy, there are many like Lucy in my community, in our student groups, in our beautiful A-Lister Flapper club where we all hang out and pretend it's the 1920's, and we talk about Facebook ads while we pretend it's the 1920's. Her story became one of her most powerful selling tools because she used to be her ideal client. She was the person who was lugging the stuff around from market to market, and then she figured out how to take her business online, and that's been a very powerful way for her to be authentic and to help her ideal customer really find her and stand out from the crowd. That brings me to what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about three things you need in your business when you are wanting to take an offline business online, and the first thing that you need is you need to identify who your ideal customer is.

Just like Lucy, and just like all of the other students, there comes a point where you kind of have to ask yourself, "Well, if I've been able to sell successfully to a certain type of person offline, what does that person look like online, and where do I find this person online?" It's often, there's a bit of a learning curve that needs to happen here, because if you imagine somebody buying from you offline, they've probably made eye contact with you. They've probably been referred to you by a friend. They have probably maybe been in your shop, or maybe they've seen what you make or they've seen what you sell, and maybe they have seen you do the thing that you're good at, so maybe somebody who was working in one of the other stalls at the market saw how well Lucy can sell, or they saw her website, and then said, "Hey, can you teach me how to do that?" I think the first step to really taking your offline success online is to understand your ideal customer from the inside out.

I know that all of you already know your ideal customer for your offline business really well, and I also know that if you're listening to this, you probably want to figure out how to understand your ideal customer even better so that you can find your people online and get them to an offer so that you can start selling to them. My best advice to you, in trying to find out who your ideal customer online is, is just start somewhere. Just sit down and write down everything you know about your offline customer, and if they're the same customer as the online customer, just look for similarities. See what both of them have in common. See what they don't have in common, and see what, most importantly, what their most pricing pain points are and what the implication of those pain points are.

What I mean is if I want to hire somebody to do the ironing, iron my washing, the problem that I have is I have a pile of washing that is just growing and growing by the day, and I don't have time, or frankly, the desire to stand there for hours and iron it. That's my immediate pain point, but the implication of this is I have to give up my Sunday afternoons to iron clothes so that my husband can wear a ironed shirt to the office, or that my kids can put on their beautiful dresses that requires ironing, or for me to put on my favorite dress that requires ironing. The pain point is bigger than just ironing the clothes. The pain point is giving up my Sundays, giving up my Sunday afternoons, having to choose between downtime and iron time. You can see, that is just one example of where your ideal customer might have an immediate pain point, which you will know is there when you have an offline business because they come to you already knowing that they need help solving this problem, but you might need to uncover that when you're going online because online, when you use ads to reach people, you'll be interrupting what they're doing.

You'll be catching them while they're in the middle of watching Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I mean, hello. Don't interrupt me when Mrs. Maisel is on, except if you can solve a giant, big problem for me that I really, really desperately want solving, then I'll allow you to jump into my newsfeed while I'm scrolling. That's a little bit just of the deeper level that I want you to uncover them. I want you to listen really closely to what they say they want, and this is different to what you offer them.

Often, I would ask a student, even clients, I'd ask them, "Well, what's the biggest problem you solve for your client?," and they immediately tell me what they do, and that's not the question. The question is, "What is the biggest problem you solve?," so just think about how it goes a few layers deep, and then listen really closely to how they verbalize the problem, because different people verbalize things differently. When I did coach training, I learned about visual people, auditory people, and people who kind of need things, really like cerebral, I suppose. There's a word for it, and it escapes me now. For the visual people, you're going to paint a picture. You're going to say, "I'm sure you can see that doing this, this and that is going to help you see a new future."

There's visual people who needs to see the picture, and then there's auditory people who need to hear you speak about it for a while. They might all verbalize their problems in different ways, and your job as the marketer is to pick up on all those different ways that different people verbalize the same problem, and that takes a little bit of listening to what they say. I always suggest getting on a call with them, and then transcribing that call, because even the words they're going to say in a call, if you're just trying to remember it, you're still going to filter it through your language, and when you write it down, it's going to come out as interpreted by you, but when you have a transcript of that call, you can literally take a highlighter and highlight their exact words for how they describe their pain point. The other thing you can try is really ask them, "Why does this matter to you now? Why does it matter to you, and why does it matter now?"

That's going to get them thinking about this implication of the problem. It's going to get them thinking about, "Well, it matters to me right now because I'm really desperate to rest on a Sunday, and I don't want to iron anymore," which is different from, "Oh, it matters to me because I just want to get the ironing done," or you might say, "Which really matters to me now because my children are growing up and I really don't want to be lugging things around to different markets anymore." You might have different examples of this, but figure out why it matters to them now. Then, if they've bought something from you, you definitely want to know what made them buy, and if they didn't buy, you want to know what made them choose not to buy, because those are the most important two, little pieces of information that you can have, because the person who tells you why they bought, well, they're telling you exactly what the offer is that worked, and the person who's telling you why they didn't buy, well, they're telling you, they're kind of pointing you in the direction of figuring out why your offer hasn't worked. The very first thing that you need to do when you want to take your offline business online is you need to identify your ideal customer, and figure out, "What is the pain point that they have?," "What's the implication of that pain for them?," and then how you solve that pain point.

The second thing that you need to know in order to successfully move your offline business online is you're going to need to start to create some social media content. Now, I'm sure this does not surprise you. However, if you are a local business and you have been posting online diligently, you might have figured out that if you want to sell an online course, you're going to need a bigger audience. Now, I'm the first person to tell everyone who come my way that you do not need to turn into America's next best influencer, or Australia's next best influencer, or the UK's next best influencer. No, thank you.

We are not doing that. Inside A-Lister, I teach a very simple $5 a day strategy to help you increase the engagement on your social media, because let's face it, organic engagement is dead, and you want engagement, don't you? I know you want engagement because you are a serious online course creator and you want people to engage with you on socials, not just because it feels good, but because that shows you how you can connect with them, how you can bring them into your world, and most importantly, it helps you to get them on your email list. Social media is such a good place to test your message. When you post something on social and nobody responds to that, that is also not going to work when you run an ad to that, but when you post something on social media and people freak out, and they share it, and they comment, and they say, "Oh, you nailed it. It's like you're talking to me," then you know you're onto something.

Social media can really kickstart your audience building, which helps you build engagement, it helps you build your email list, and it starts to build an audience for you of people that shows them that you can actually impact their lives and what their lives would be like when they have that absolutely incredible outcome that they dream about that they would only have if they sign up for your course or sign up to learn from you. Now, I know that you want to fast-track your list building, so you will love the $5 a day engagement strategy. I've also talked about that many, many times on the podcast, so if you want to learn a little bit more about the $5 a day engagement strategy, just go to shineandsucceed.com and find the podcast page, and scroll back through the 140 something episodes, 146 episodes, and look for Engagement Strategy or $5 A Day Strategy. There's plenty of content there. I have shared a lot about it on Facebook and Instagram, and there's plenty of information about it on the podcast.

However, inside A-Lister, I teach it to you pretty quickly and easily, and my students get those $5 a day ads up in about a week, and we start running them, and suddenly, their social media just explodes with engagement. If you're ready to fast-track your social media engagement and build your list a lot faster so that you can get to actually making some sales to the people you find online, then you are definitely going to want to take the second step, like start running $5 a day ads to your audience. The third thing that is the third step, really, towards taking your offline business online is to build your email list and make them an offer sooner. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean, when you have an engaged audience on social media, you should be inviting them to download your lead magnet.

You can create any lead magnet you want. When I got started, my very first lead magnet was an eBook, and I think the eBook was called Seven Secrets To Success that for Women something, something, Seven Secrets of Successful Women, something like that. It was a bit of a life-coaching book that talked about overcoming overwhelm, and procrastination, and taking responsibility, and living with gratitude, and it was literally just the first thing that I could come up with. I think 70 people downloaded that, including some people who went to high school with me, very random, and including some moms from my mother's group and daycare, and my child's daycare, so not my target audience at all, but hey. I grew my list by 70 people, but what I want for you is to grow your list with only your ideal customers. If you're in that phase where you're not really sure what lead magnet to create, just create anything.

Just get started, and start when you're building your social media, just start sharing that on social media, because you're going to see if people take you up on it or not, and at least that way, you start building your list. Then, when you're ready, you're going to move to introducing ads on your ad account as well, and at that point you will have, of course, been running engagement ads for a while so your conversions will be nice and low, Mark Zuckerberg will reward you for all the delicious engagement you have because you've been running ads and you've been posting regularly, and it's going to make your list building so much easier, but I also want you to make an offer to people as soon as they opt in for your lead net. I want you to make an offer to them either on the thank you page of your ads when they've given you their email address or I want you to make that offer inside an email sequence that comes at the end of, or that's kind of serves as an introduction to you and what you do, and then you sell them something. You sell them something valuable that will make a difference to them. When you do this, this is going to help you bring down your lead costs significantly, so that means you're going to spend less money on ads to get more people onto your list, and you're going to have an email list where you can taste different offers.

The more offers we can taste, the faster we will get to money. It really works that way. I don't know if you've heard me say this, but I say this in my student communities all the time, the secret to making money online is audience, plus offer, equals money. You're already on your way to building an audience because you have engagement, you're building your social media, and you're building your email list, and now you start practicing making them an offer. As long as you're building your email list, you just keep making new offers, until people take you up on those offers.

That's a really safe and easy way to test different offers and to get people to make that first purchase from you so that you can eventually say to your offline clients, "Well, actually, I'm no longer taking any local business clients because my online business has exploded, and I'm being such an inspiration and a success around the world selling my online courses and helping people change their lives." Wasting money on ads is just not something I love, and these strategies really will help you prevent wasting money. You want a big list. You want a healthy list and you want a lucrative list, a list of people that loves your content that you send them every week, and when you're inside A-Lister, I teach you exactly how to make offers to people on your email list so that you can start making those money. Now, not everyone has considered that their business can be taken online.

I'm hoping this episode gets you thinking about the potential to have more freedom in your day, to have more time freedom because you don't have to be anywhere in-person in order to sell to someone. I hope it has gotten you thinking about the level of control you can have over your own life, where you don't have to settle for letting someone else bring their audience to you. You can literally create your own audience, and I hope you are seeing the potential here in creating a consistent, reliable income stream from your online business. Now, regardless of your business type, the principles are the same. Think about your why, focus on your ideal customer, build the systems that suit both you and your goals, as well as your ideal client, and then make offers to them that they will buy.

I might make it sound simple, which is, of course, it's not always simple, but with the right support and guidance, you can definitely take your offline business online, and in less than three months, you should be able to start selling to people your offers online. I've seen it so many times, and we can teach you all of this in-depth in my foundational Facebook and Instagram ads course, called A-Lister, and I would love to have you join us in there. If you want to get on the waitlist to find out about all the goodies that's in there, go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist. I will see you again next week, and I hope you have a lovely week. Bye.

If you are ready to start building a thriving audience and fill it with people who are ready to buy your online courses or your membership, and you want a supportive community to hold your hand every step of the way, I want to invite you to join me inside A-Lister when we open enrollment again at the end of March. A-Lister is the only program that shows you how to finally find your right people online and make your first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. There are also some juicy bonuses for those that are on the early bird waitlist, so make sure you go to shineandsucceed.com/waitlist, and sign up today. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week, and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.