Salome Schillack (00:00):

Welcome to episode number 86 of The Shine Show, and today I have the amazing privilege of interviewing one of my fabulous students, Lucy Kelly. Lucy's had her own handmade jewelry business for over 10 years now, and now she specialize in teaching other handmade sellers how to bring their traditionally offline businesses, so selling at craft shows and art fairs, online using simple smart marketing strategies to build a sustainable and scalable business. And Lucy is here to tell us about how she had a small beginning with her online course launch, doubled her results in the second and the third launch, and is set for a big 2021. Lucy is one of my students, and if you want to learn more about how you can become one of my students, to learn how you can double your results in your online course launches, and build your audiences faster and sell your knowledge to them faster, then our upcoming masterclass is just for you.

It's on the 13th and 14th of January, and it is called Three Little Known Secrets To Building Engaged Audiences And Getting Paying Students Faster Using Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Without Wasting Any Money, Selling Your Soul On Social Media, Or Hiring An Army Of Geeks. And you can go to ShineAndSucceed.com/buildmyaudience. That's ShineAndSucceed.com/buildmyaudience, to secure your spot on the class. Now, let's jump into the episode.

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.

Lucy, thank you so much for joining me on The Shine Show today.

Lucy Kelly (02:20):

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really thrilled to be here.

Salome Schillack (02:23):

Oh, thank you. I love having you inside the Launch Lounge and I have had the most ... It's just the most rewarding thing, watching you grow, and watching you grow your business, and every week when we have our calls, seeing you show up with the questions that you have, and then next time you're checking in, you're reporting in, and it's just growing and growing, and getting better. So thank you for being here and sharing that with my audience.

Lucy Kelly (02:48):

Yeah, thank you. It's been a real joy. I think when I look back, this is going to be a major pivoting point to me when I jumped into the Launch Lounge, because I can see and feel the differences in my business. It's definitely a line of delineation.

Salome Schillack (03:03):

Oh, that makes my heart so happy. Hearing that, it's the thing that we hear our mentors say, it's the thing that we hear people say that is the thing that makes them show up for work every day, is when they hear their own students saying, "Well, look what I've been able to achieve." So, for me to hear that, it just really means the world, really means the world, and I wish that for every one of my students, that every one of my students will have students who say, "Look at before I worked with you and now look at after." Because it's amazing. Can you start by just telling us who you are, what you do? I've just looked at your website and wanted to do online shopping all day long, so just tell us about what you do and how you have turned your physical business into an online business.

Lucy Kelly (03:52):

Okay. I'm a talker, it's hard for me to condense it down, so I'm going to do the best that I can. I am a fairly new 40 year old entrepreneur from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the US. I married my high school sweetheart, I have a daughter, Evelyn, who will be five in January, and I-

Salome Schillack (04:10):

That's good. Did you know I married my high school sweetheart, as well? [crosstalk 00:04:13].

Lucy Kelly (04:12):

No, I didn't. I didn't. Yeah, well we haven't been together the whole time. That could be a whole other podcast. I always say it was a heck of a long way to go in life to end up right back where I started. But yeah, back in 2013 we reconnected and got engaged and got married. A minute and a half later I was pregnant, we had our daughter, and the rest is history. I have led, probably feels like 100 different professional lives. I actually have my bachelor's degree in marketing, I graduated in 2002, and like any early 2000s marketing graduate, I had big plans of working for a big agency but what really happened is I ended up selling copiers, which sucks. Just as much as it sounds like it sucks.

Salome Schillack (05:01):

Well, didn't Sarah Blakely also sell copiers? I think if you like your [crosstalk 00:05:06]-

Lucy Kelly (05:05):

She might have.

Salome Schillack (05:09):

Maybe she sold fax machines. I'm not sure.

Lucy Kelly (05:11):

Same thing. I sold those big, it's like a copier, fax machine, printer, all in one. That's what I sold.

Salome Schillack (05:17):

Well, you're in good company because I think that's what she did.

Lucy Kelly (05:19):

Yeah. But I'll tell you, now looking back at that, I can sell anything. I was great at selling copiers. I made a ton of money selling copiers, it was awesome. But it sucks. Then I went on and I was a commercial insurance underwriter, which was slightly less terrible, but I loved the company that I worked for. It was a family owned company, I'm still friends with the people to this day, and it only took me a little bit of time before I realized, "This is really sucking my soul. I'm not helping anybody, I'm not doing anything for anybody. There's really nothing creative about it."

I decided to go back to graduate school, and I got my master's degree in speech and language pathology in 2007, from the same university I got my undergraduate degree from. I was getting closer to the end. I was getting closer to what I was meant to be doing. I, in that life, specialized in pediatric language development, so I worked with kids. I still do that a little bit on the side. It was awesome. I'm helping people and I'm with kids and I'm doing things and it's creative and it's fun. But I worked at a school and the guy that I was dating at that time was ... He was a professor, actually at the university that I went to.

Didn't know him then, wasn't dating him then, but he was always busy, and during the summer he took this big, long trips, and I needed something to do. So, I actually went, decided I was going to take some courses to learn how to make jewelry, to learn how to quilt, to learn how to sew, and to learn how to crochet. The crochet takes forever, so everybody out there who crochets God bless you, because it's an art and it is undervalued and underappreciated.

The sewing teacher pretty much asked me not to return. She said she gave me her best, and it was just not ... She was little this little old lady and she was really sweet but she was like, "This isn't going to be the thing for you."

Salome Schillack (06:59):

That's funny.

Lucy Kelly (07:00):

The quilting class was kind of aligned with the sewing class, so I had a similar result, but the jewelry class, that clicked. That was like, "Okay. I've got color, I've got texture, it doesn't have to be perfect." It just clicked. It was like, "Yeah, I can do this. This is fun." So now I found this hobby and I'm making jewelry and it's 2010, and in Pittsburgh we have a great arts and crafts scene. Huge arts scene, it's wonderful, very supportive, lots of shows and festivals and fairs.

I'm making this jewelry and people start right away asking me where I got it, can they buy it? I'm like, "Oh, this is cool. Sure, I'll sell you stuff. Yeah, sell stuff I make, that's awesome." So, start doing shows, my very first craft show I went and set up my little stuff on my little table and I walked out of there with 160 bucks which was like, "Yeah, this is awesome." Again, 2010, I'm still fairly young and new to this.

That's how the jewelry business started and it just kind of grew. I fell into the niche of upcycling vintage costume jewelry. That's what I came to be known for. I refined my technique, I refined [crosstalk 00:08:04]-

Salome Schillack (08:04):

Whoa, hang on. Upcycling vintage costume jewelry. What is that?

Lucy Kelly (08:08):

Yeah. I take vintage, like mid century costume jewelry, so old [crosstalk 00:08:12], old earrings, old-

Salome Schillack (08:13):

Where can you get them?

Lucy Kelly (08:13):

Flea markets, estate sales, antique shops. Where I live particularly, there's a lot of old people here and they all have jewelry. When they move onto the next phase of the universe, their families get rid of their jewelry, usually at the flea market, so I buy it and that's what I work with. Actually, again, could be a whole nother story, my grandmother had an antique shop and my grandmother who I called Bubbie, like Bubbie is my guiding light. She's been gone since 2011, but I've always really loved antiques, vintage, old stuff. So much history, so much story and I'm so into knowing stories and knowing what people are about, knowing what's behind this.

That's kind of how I arrived. It's like I took this weird trip and now I'm at this place where like I have this degree in marketing so I know how to sell, and I have this degree in communication disorder, so I know how to communicate. And I have this interest in art and creating, so I know how to be an artist and how to create, and somehow all of these things came together and now I built this business, this handmade business, which just really boomed.

Like, I found this niche and I started to get known, and I started to do these great shows, and I was just ... I couldn't make my stuff fast enough. It was really a great thing, and people started asking me, "How did you do this? How did you build your Etsy shop? How did you build your website? How do you sell? How did you build your Facebook page?" So then it's like, "Well, how did I do that? I should teach people how to do that. There's really not anybody teaching people how to do that," so that's how the course idea came up.

I had wanted to create a course for a while. I had a few people ask me if I wanted to be a business coach and my answer was no, because I don't have time for that, and I know that I could never charge what would be fair to me, and it would just end up taking away from my business and then I'd resent them and [crosstalk 00:10:00] course was the way to go.

Salome Schillack (09:59):

I love that you were honest with yourself about to.

Lucy Kelly (10:02):

Yeah. I had to be because it was just ... I know me and I know that I would way overdeliver, and when it came time to bill someone, I'd be like, "Nah, that's okay. You can pay me in soap or something."

Salome Schillack (10:14):

We should make a list of all the funky stuff we've been paid in. I have been paid in jewelry.

Lucy Kelly (10:22):

For me, business is business and my friends all know that, and they kind of laugh at me, but it's like business is business. If I want something from you ... There's one exception. My friend, Jeannie, because she's my best friend, we travel together and stuff. But like if I want your stuff, I will buy it. If you want my stuff, you can buy it. That's how we do it, because then nobody's feelings are hurt, nobody gets mad.

Salome Schillack (10:43):

But it's great that you knew that from the beginning. Back in the day when I was trying to establish my own value as a Facebook ads manager, I did a lot of trades which did not go well. And I literally worked for a bracelet once. I ran ads for somebody who made homemade jewelry and I got a bracelet, and I love that bracelet. And her ads did not work. I think I was on the receiving end of that one.

Lucy Kelly (11:09):

Well, I've done professionally, and I can't remember now where I picked up this little tip, but you know how you listen to webinars and you listen to things? And like everyone, you get a little nugget, and one little nugget that I learned when I was starting out ... Actually no, I do know where I learned it from. It was Tiffany Aliche. She is called the Budgetnista. When she was trying to build her business, I heard this on her podcast, she I think was kind of doing the same thing, trading for services, but she would tell people, "Can I call you my client?" Like, "Publicly, can I say this is my client?" I picked up that little tidbit because that makes a difference.

Salome Schillack (11:42):

It does.

Lucy Kelly (11:42):

When you're providing a service for somebody, it's like can I ... I had a few of my friends who wanted me to be a mentor, I gave them my course, but I said, "Can I call you my student? Can you write me a testimonial?" And it totally worked. It made me-

Salome Schillack (11:42):

Yeah, it does.

Lucy Kelly (11:57):

... look pro before I was pro.

Salome Schillack (12:00):

You were developing your course, you knew you didn't want to be a coach. Tell me about the journey of selling the course.

Lucy Kelly (12:07):

Yeah. The journey of selling the course is as you know, a bumpy road, because it starts out with, "This is an awesome idea," and goes through several iterations of, "This is terrible, what made me think I can do this? I've now wasted all this money and all this time, and embarrassed myself publicly," then back to, "Wait, this is awesome." I took a course in making courses before I found Amy and it was a total waste of my money. And then I found Amy and did Digital Course Academy.

Salome Schillack (12:39):

Amy Porterfield.

Lucy Kelly (12:40):

Amy Porterfield, yeah. Did her Digital Course Academy, and I decided that when I took that course, I'm looking around and I thought, "Okay, I'm going to go at this because all these other people like the Jenna Kutchers and the Amy Porterfields, these chicks are doing this and I can do it, too." That was it. It's like all these other girls are doing it, I can do it too.

Went through the process, just trusted the process. She said put your launch date down, so I put my launch date down and just never wavered off that. Like, if she said to do it, I did it, because here's the thing. I paid for her expertise. My payment, my tuition to that course was for her expertise. So, it was kind of in my mind, a non-negotiable. Why would I pay for a course and then not take their advice? Because that's a ridiculous waste of my money. I thought, "I'm going to do this thing," so I did it. That's what put me ... I put that launch date on the calendar for January of 2020, having no idea what was coming just a couple months later.

I had childcare issues, the launch was a little bit of a mess because my daughter's preschool was supposed to be opening and it did not open. So, I had an almost four year old at my knee while I'm trying to record, but I did it.

Salome Schillack (13:48):

[crosstalk 00:13:48].

Lucy Kelly (13:48):

I launched the course, I put it out.

Salome Schillack (13:50):

Yes, yeah. And what happened in January?

Lucy Kelly (13:55):

In January I put my course out to the world. I had done my pre-launch, I had a group and I had done the course validation, so I knew people wanted it, I had people interested in it. I didn't really know how to get people into it, so there was a little bit of information on how to run Facebook ads to webinars, so I did that, because again, doing the things that they say to do. I was doing the things that they said to do, and I enrolled 10 students in that first group. I ran my first group for 197 was my beta launch.

I decided that because of the childcare issue, because the course wasn't finished to my liking, I was just going to call it a beta launch and they were going to get a good deal. And instead of saying I don't have my tech library finished, I said, "You get to tell me what things you want to learn and I'm going to make you custom videos for it." And that worked, too.

Salome Schillack (14:45):

Perfect. And they don't mind that. They actually love that, don't they?

Lucy Kelly (14:51):

Yes. They did love that because it gets them involved in the process, and this is what that whole communication thing has really, really been an advantage for me, and the longer I go the better it gets because I realize not just in this, but in everything in life, people just really want to know what to expect and they want to be part of the process. Even if it's an uncomfortable process, even if it's not what they want to hear, they still want to know what to expect. They still want to hear the truth.

So, getting them involved in that got them so interested in the course, and it got them listening to the modules and showing up to the calls, and giving me really good feedback. Like, great feedback. So, yeah, that one I enrolled 10 students, I spent a little over $1500 in ad spend, so I didn't net a ton of money but to me it was a big success. Because I had these students. And now I was like officially on my way to ... I was a course creator, I was officially an educator and I'm on my way now to being legit in the industry, because now I've got 10 people that can [crosstalk 00:15:51]-

Salome Schillack (15:52):

[crosstalk 00:15:52].

Lucy Kelly (15:51):

... they can bring ... Right. They've paid me and the course teaches handmade sellers how to bring their offline businesses online. Meaning, people who sell at art fairs, craft shows, vintage markets, stuff like that, getting them online.

Salome Schillack (16:04):

Yeah. Sorry, I want to jump in here, and I just want to point something out, because this is where your mindset is so good and so positive, and so strong. When I first launched my first course, I also made $2000, because you were selling at 197 and you sold 10, so $2000. And I packed up and called it a giant failure, and went back to my day job, because I thought, "All this hard work for $2000 isn't worth it." And in hindsight, I wish somebody shook me. I wish that somebody had just called me out on my BS for feeling like that's not enough. And for feeling like just because 10 people bought instead of 100, like all the stories I hear on other people's podcasts all the time, that I'm somehow not worthy.

I want to commend you and I want to ... I know there's a lot of people listening who may have also done $2000 launches and called it a failure, so I want to point this out here, and I just want to commend you and I want to say that attitude, taking that ... I had to learn how to change that attitude the hard way. Cost me a year of working for an asshole before I could come back and say, "Oh hang on, maybe I should appreciate the small things before I'm going to get the big things." I just wanted to acknowledge you for that.

Lucy Kelly (17:30):

Well, thank you. I think it was almost like charmingly blind. I was not going to consider that it wasn't going to happen. Yeah, it's like the first sale, of course, is the most exciting. Because it's like, "I sold one" and yeah, yeah. I definitely felt like it was a success. Maybe not so much of financial success, but I didn't lose money so there's that. And also going from ... Not going from, because I still do this, but when you have a business where you have a physical product, there is this constant push to create, create, create. And when it sells, it's gone. It's not there anymore. And you have to make new.

And when you sell a digital product, now of course there's always refining and updating, especially when you're dealing with tech and things like that, but there's this like amazing you make it, and then you just keep selling the same thing. It's great. I don't have to make anything, I don't have to ship anything. It's fantastic.

Salome Schillack (18:26):

It is fantastic.

Lucy Kelly (18:29):

Yeah. So then COVID happened and every art fair, every craft show in the world got canceled. And now one of the strategies that I teach in my course is email list building at shows. Because that's how I built my list and that's how I built such a big online business, because they saw me at the show, they met me, they bought from me, and it's like a white hot list. Well, that wasn't happening. So, I had to change a little bit of my approach on how I taught that, and then I opened up when I was not ready, for the second time in April of 2020, because that's when shows were starting to cancel and artists and craftsmen were really facing losing their business.

Because that time of year, here in the US, is when all that stuff starts. And these people make and make and make all winter, and then they're not making any money and then they go to shows and they sell their stuff. It was weird because I was kind of like in the right place at the right time, except it was like for such a terrible reason, you know?

Salome Schillack (18:29):

Yeah.

Lucy Kelly (19:32):

The second launch I put out in April. Of course, I had all the information that I took from my first launch and it was great that I learned these lessons, so I put it out there. I upped my price a little bit because I knew that I was going to up my price. I definitely had more people, I spent more money. Where I went wrong, and this thing, even though I got students and it was an amazing learning lesson for me, I got the wrong students in my course.

I shouldn't say the wrong students. I'll go back to I'm good at selling stuff, I'm good at communicating, so I have a lot of people that connect with me, and this particular group of people required a lot of support. Because they were not ready. They had no idea how to sell online, these were people that were a much older demographic than what I was expecting. They needed coaching and very basic things like the difference between sending an email from your Yahoo email and sending an email from an email service provider. Or setting up a business Facebook account, or things that ... They really didn't have anything online. Like, nothing online.

That was a lesson to me in being clear on who my target audience is, being clear on who I'm targeting in my advertising, and then being clear on how I'm communicating what I offer in my course when I get to [crosstalk 00:20:53].

Salome Schillack (20:52):

Yeah. And not being afraid to put people off. I'm doing the same thing. I have to be clear that this is not for eCommerce sellers or MLMers or anyone who wants to learn how to build a list. Like, we have to be very clear about who it's not for.

Lucy Kelly (21:13):

Yes. Although, I have to tell you, I use your teachings in my eCommerce business but it's because I know how to do it and I know how to translate it. I actually ran some ads-

Salome Schillack (21:21):

Well, I'm glad you can convert my teachings into what works for eCommerce, because I know nothing-

Lucy Kelly (21:21):

I did.

Salome Schillack (21:27):

... about eCommerce.

Lucy Kelly (21:28):

I ran an ad for ... I did an online event for my VIP people and I partnered up with a friend, and I ran an ad, and I helped her set up her account and I was like, "You can't tell Salome because she doesn't think she teaches eCommerce people, but she does." Surprise.

Salome Schillack (21:41):

I'm not comfortable with anyone saying they pay me to teach them eCommerce, because they're going to want their money back.

Lucy Kelly (21:50):

You know what? It comes down to, for me ... Between this second and third launch, between April and the third launch which was in September, was where ... I knew of you from Amy's Q&A calls, Amy Porterfield's Q&A calls, and I don't know if you recall but when you were going to be on there, I was going to be on there. I slid in first thing. I made that priority one.

Salome Schillack (22:13):

Yeah, I think I remember you being on a call when I was traveling in the US. I think we were ... Where were we? We were in a city in the US. I remember. Because I had to take those calls while we were on holiday in December last year. I can't remember where we were, but I think I remember talking to you for the first time on one of those calls.

Lucy Kelly (22:33):

Yeah. Because you know what it's like when you can ... I've taken a lot of Facebook ads courses. I've heard a lot of people describe it, but you were the first one that I was able to really understand. Like, when you explained what the ad set is, blah, blah, blah, I finally connected so I'm like, "Yeah, when this lady's on, I'm going to be on because this is an opportunity." So then I found out through my pod, my DCA pod, or my Momentum pod, I found out about your memberships. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm siding in on that."

Salome Schillack (23:03):

Yeah, which was also a [crosstalk 00:23:05] launch. You also came in as a, "Yeah, you guys are going to help me build this thing because I don't know what I'm doing."

Lucy Kelly (23:12):

Yeah. It was amazing. I mean, without a doubt, I would say the best ... I wouldn't have found out about you if it wasn't for DCA, so I'm going to put DCA and the Launch Lounge together in the number one spot, because these are the two programs that honest to God have-

Salome Schillack (23:30):

Well, I will be compared to Amy Porterfield, I'll be compared to Amy Porterfield all day, any day.

Lucy Kelly (23:34):

You give her a run for her money, I'll tell you that.

Salome Schillack (23:36):

Oh, I would love [crosstalk 00:23:38].

Lucy Kelly (23:38):

Learning about ads and learning about targeting my audiences and learning about all of the steps of warming up your audience and the steps of that ad funnel, that was when the light went off. That's when it's like, "Oh okay. That's how this works. That's how these people do this." I listened to everything that was in your courses, and attended all of the calls, and that's when I had my third launch in September. That one, let me see, how many students did I enroll in that one? In that one, I enrolled ... Looking here at my notes, because I want to say it was 24 and I don't want to misquote it, but yeah. That one, 13 at a full pay, four a three pay, four ... 24 students, yes.

24 students, a little under $8500 in income, so like a huge, huge jump over my first two launches. And the first one that I felt completely prepared for. I felt like I targeted the right people, my ad spend was $3000, so for this third launch i spent a little bit less than I spent on my second launch, and made twice as much. So [crosstalk 00:24:43]-

Salome Schillack (24:42):

And this time you got to put the money in your pocket.

Lucy Kelly (24:45):

I did. I did get to put the money in my pocket. I'm launching the big course again for the fourth time in January and now I have this tiny offer. Teeny, tiny offer. It's a $7 offer, which is soon to become a $17 offer which will then subsequently become a $27 offer. It's Canva templates. I decided to take a bonus that I had created for my students in this last launch, and I thought, "Well, this is a valuable little bonus. I'm going to see if I can squeeze some bucks out of it" and I have. I've squeezed 1500 bucks out of it.

Salome Schillack (25:17):

That's fantastic.

Lucy Kelly (25:19):

Selling this tiny offer just on a, "Hey, ads are working so let me try this thing," has made me more money than my entire first launch.

Salome Schillack (25:28):

How much is it? $7?

Lucy Kelly (25:29):

$7, yeah. 225 people for 1575.

Salome Schillack (25:33):

I love it.

Lucy Kelly (25:35):

225 students who paid me money, who now I might be able to get some of them to buy my full course.

Salome Schillack (25:40):

Of course. Because if they've spent $7, they are far more likely to then spend the other money for your course. And is this little tiny offer paying for your lead magnets for your list building ads? Are you breaking even [crosstalk 00:25:53]-

Lucy Kelly (25:53):

We're coming close.

Salome Schillack (25:54):

... making money on that.

Lucy Kelly (25:54):

Yeah. We're coming close on it now. I think ad costs kind of went really wild here recently. So-

Salome Schillack (26:03):

Yeah, it's Christmas time. I mean, yeah, Facebook's currently saying we need to be spending 30% more than we normally do to be able to still compete. I don't openly say that to everyone because it sends everyone into a tizzy, but yeah, right now it is more expensive.

Lucy Kelly (26:19):

Yeah. What I decided to do on this, because I do want to increase the price and because I am opening my course, the doors open January 15th, and I'm going to start ... I had planned to start my ads January 4th, but now I'm wondering if that's actually too early for a webinar fill up. But-

Salome Schillack (26:37):

When's your webinar, the 15th?

Lucy Kelly (26:39):

Starts the 15th.

Salome Schillack (26:39):

I think the 4th is a little soon. Don't go more than [crosstalk 00:26:44].

Lucy Kelly (26:43):

Yeah, I might be a little bit early. I am taking your advice to do a much shorter cart open and I'm going big on the webinars. I'm putting my money into the webinars, I'm putting my efforts into the webinar ads, so you'll be seeing in our coaching calls, my ads-

Salome Schillack (26:59):

I'll be there.

Lucy Kelly (26:59):

... that I'm wanting feedback on, but my strategy with all this, because everything was going crazy and my numbers were going up and going down, so I decided I'm going to ... I stopped that. I started [inaudible 00:27:09] engagement ads. I'm going to up my price on my tiny offer to $17 and then go back through my buttons and my blog posts and everything and make sure that everything says 17 and not 7, so I don't get any weird, "You said it was 7 but you're charging me 17" and then I'm going to get it back up again the week between Christmas and New Year.

That little teeny tiny offer, yeah, making me more money than my first launch did. It really is because now I know one, I know who I'm targeting just as an ICA, but in the world of Facebook and knowing who my audience is, and knowing how to target them and retarget them, and just getting a much higher quality interaction and a much higher quality lead. Before I was just throwing it out in the ether. My ad sets, or my target audiences on my ads were like tens of millions. One of them was like 90 million people and I look back and I'm like, "Oh, geeze." Now I feel really good about what I sold, because I was really throwing spaghetti at the wall there.

Salome Schillack (28:13):

Well, what I so love about this is how you take your small wins and build on them. It's easy to feel often that we need to create these giant courses and have these giant webinars and do these giant things, and that's where people become very demotivated and lose a lot of their momentum. Because they're spending their days slaving away on social media, and then they throw the Facebook ad spaghetti on the wall which ends up wasting, becoming a spectacular waste of money, and in some cases then people give up, which just drives a stake through my heart. Because that is who I was, that's my story.

And if I can prevent someone from going that track, I would. What I love so much about your story is you just build on your success. And then you build on it, and then you build on it, and you don't spend exorbitant amounts of money on ads, and you don't run ads that don't work. You just keep learning what works and keep scaling that. And soon with this tiny offer, when that tiny offer goes to $17, you are going to have an unlimited marketing budget because it's going to be free for you to build your email list on Facebook.

If I told you you have an unlimited marketing budget, and you have a proven funnel in your course, what is possible for you at the end of 2021?

Lucy Kelly (29:41):

Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, mindset is definitely just to circle back to that, it is definitely an important thing here. Because it is really easy when things don't go the way you want them to, to slip into that. One thing I've learned about myself is I get tired. Like I said, I'm 40 now, and I get tired. When I get tired, I'm like a cranky old lady. And I learned that I really have to pay attention to myself as much as I'm paying attention to my audience.

I have to pay attention to these signals that I'm sending myself. Sometimes they say, "You need to step back" but yeah, wins are wins. Who am I to not accept a win? I mean, somebody else gave me money for a thing that I made, and that's as awesome today as it was when I made that 160 bucks back in 2010. I'm still amazed by that. Because people work hard for their money, for them to give me money, not even for a thing, for my opinion on things, for an education.

Salome Schillack (30:38):

Yeah, isn't it awesome?

Lucy Kelly (30:40):

It really is. It really, really is. And there's so much. If you pay attention, people tell you everything. Like, they're telling you everything. They're telling you what they want, they're telling you what they don't want, they're telling you how to advertise to them, they're telling you what they'll buy. People will tell you everything you need to know. You just have to listen to it.

Salome Schillack (31:00):

Yeah. And you have to get over yourself and pay attention to it. That's what I love so much about your thing. What has been a surprisingly hard thing for you about building this business?

Lucy Kelly (31:14):

Surprisingly hard thing? I think for me, keeping up with my content creation. Putting new content out there weekly. Not because I don't-

Salome Schillack (31:24):

[crosstalk 00:31:24] blog posts?

Lucy Kelly (31:24):

Yeah. I send blog posts, and actually for 2021, a YouTube channel is what I'm ... I'm not going to be moving to, but I'm going to be adding it. Because I had considered podcasting because as you can tell, I'm a talker, but so much of what I teach to my students and so much of how we as artists learn is visual, and there's lots of ... Like, someone will ask a question and I do a quick screen grab, and I was like, "Oh, if I put these on YouTube, I can build a YouTube channel, because other people will find it."

I'm running this challenge right now for December, for my students as part of my pre-launch, or my audience as part of a pre-launch, and every now and then there's a little video showing them, like I wanted to show them how to find their Instagram stats. And all of a sudden my YouTube followers jumped from nine to like 100. It's like oh, how about that? How about that?

Salome Schillack (32:18):

[crosstalk 00:32:18].

Lucy Kelly (32:17):

That content, the keeping up with the fresh content has been challenging for me, not from a creation standpoint, but from a time management standpoint.

Salome Schillack (32:25):

Yeah. Are you planning to batch things?

Lucy Kelly (32:28):

Yes. I was doing great at batching things. I was doing really great at batching things, and then life just kind of happened. My mother got COVID and that was very ... That made me crazy and everything here.

Salome Schillack (32:41):

Wow, that's very scary.

Lucy Kelly (32:43):

Shrunk back down again, so my batching ... And then we came into the holiday season here, so I also had like ... I was making and I was featured in Country Living Magazine, which was amazing.

Salome Schillack (32:55):

Yeah, [inaudible 00:32:55].

Lucy Kelly (32:56):

My website was flooded. What was working well with batching fell to the wayside because I had to turn around and sit here and make jewelry, instead of sit here and type. So I'm getting back on that and I'm actually I'm the process of finding a VA that will help me with ... I can batch create, but if I can get a VA to maybe schedule some of those things out for me-

Salome Schillack (33:17):

That was one of the first-

Lucy Kelly (33:17):

... that's [crosstalk 00:33:18].

Salome Schillack (33:18):

... things I did, too. That's one of the secrets to consistently creating content is you've got to be the person who gives birth to it, but once it leaves your body, someone else needs to raise that child.

Lucy Kelly (33:31):

Yes. And that's hard. You want to know what's hard? Hiring someone, that's hard. Hard.

Salome Schillack (33:35):

Yes. But you are skilled in communication, so you will figure that out, too. It's the same skill as learning how to manage students and learning how to sell to students. It's the same skill. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, you will find your life changes when you learn how to batch, and I will also say that batching is not ... I have had periods where I've had a lot of content batched, and then life happens, things happen in the business, and you fall behind again, and you get back into that reactive mode, and then it gets too painful, and you get to a point where you're like, "Right, we're batching again."

And then you block off the time and you batch, and then you're like, "Oh, the freedom." I've had a few ups and downs with it, whereas I'm now at the point where I would say fairly consistently batching at least a significant amount of content. But I also have someone who helps me with it. Fantastic. What has been a surprisingly easy thing for you in building a business?

Lucy Kelly (34:43):

Selling. If I can get people live, and I know that's such a crappy answer for people who are like, "Oh, thanks lady." Which maybe selling's not the right word, because I haven't ... Getting people into my community, I'll say that. Not selling, getting people into my community. I love talking to people and I love hearing their stories, and I get emotionally invested in the things that they say, and what they're doing, and I see people, they're creating things with their hands. That's so special, and we get so attached to these things that we create and we make.

And it's so scary to put it out there in the world, and so many artists get stuck between creating and selling, because if somebody doesn't buy your thing, that's like saying your baby's ugly. It's like saying, "Oh, I'm not going to buy that." It's easy for me to bring these people into my community because I kind of have this ability to make them feel like safe and comfortable. I am I think good at setting boundaries, so within my group, we are very good at ... I have a free community group. We have about 3000 people in the group, and right off the bat I set the rule. Like, this is a group that talks about craft as a business.

We're not talking about crafts, we're not talking about your work, you're not showing pictures of what you've made, we're talking about the business side of it. Setting those clear boundaries and setting those clear expectations has really allowed the community to grow with the exact people that I want. And then it gives me a ... It makes it very easy for me to be able to say, "Well, you should do this, this, and that. You need to start here. You need to go there. This is what you need." And then they get results.

And then they're like, "Oh, I didn't know that I had to have a business Facebook page. I thought I could just post this on my personal page." Small things like that that seem so simple, but they're so big when you don't know them. That has been something that has been surprisingly easy for me, is how I can get people into this community and get them moving along the path.

Salome Schillack (36:42):

Oh, that's fantastic. It's amazing when we can discover the things that we're good at that we didn't even know that we're good at. It's like earlier when you said to me how I explained Facebook ads to you. I discovered through my students, that I'm really good at seeing big picture. Pretty good for your self-esteem when you go, "Yeah, I've heard numerous people tell me I'm good at that thing and it makes it easy to build."

Lucy Kelly (37:09):

Yeah. I mean, gosh, Facebook ads, I remember being ... I sat with people from Facebook who explained to me what a campaign is, what an ad set is, what an ad is. I'm like, "Why do you call it the same thing? This is a ridiculous way to name it." And then you said one day, I think you said, "The campaign is the filing cabinet and the ad set is the drawer, and the ad is the file." I was like, "Oh." That's a much better way to describe it, and you have a way of personifying things, explaining them in real life terms that everyone can understand.

Salome Schillack (37:09):

I use ridiculous metaphors.

Lucy Kelly (37:45):

Yeah, but I learn in ... I like to talk in metaphors. That's how I learn. That to me, that makes sense. Campaign, ad set, ad, what? I don't know what that means. I have a degree in marketing. I have no idea what that ... That's ridiculous to me. But when you broke it down, it's like okay, that all makes sense. In learning from someone who speaks your language, boy, that'll really open doors.

Salome Schillack (38:09):

Yeah. And for you, it's opening doors because you're creating connections with people, which is easy for you. If someone's listening and they are in your shoes, where you were a year ago, two years ago, 10 years ago, what would be your number one piece of advice to them?

Lucy Kelly (38:30):

Don't marry that first guy. He sucked. Nah, I shouldn't say that. I didn't marry him [crosstalk 00:38:35].

Salome Schillack (38:35):

My piece of advice, not the first one or the second one or the third one. Just go back to the high school best friend.

Lucy Kelly (38:43):

Don't get so stuck on the things that you think are supposed to happen, and the way you think they're supposed to happen. Like, it never goes down the way you think it's supposed to go down. It just doesn't. If it does, then either the bar's too low, or you're really lying to yourself. Just pay attention and grab opportunities as they come up. Because everything that I have gotten, every place that I've gone, every big opportunity that I've gotten, it's not that ... A little bit of it is like being in the right place at the right time, but really it's recognizing an opportunity and taking it.

For me, seeing Salome's going to be there at 6:00 and being the first one to slide in that meeting. It's understanding that, "Oh, this magazine's taking a submission for a feature" and sending your stuff. It's recognizing that there are opportunities and taking them. Not thinking that you don't deserve them, or not thinking that you don't stand a chance, because the only way you don't stand a chance is if you put yourself on the sideline.

Salome Schillack (39:46):

I love that. I love that. That is something that I can really see in how you're doing, so thank you for sharing that.

Lucy Kelly (39:46):

Thank you.

Salome Schillack (39:52):

Well, that has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that journey with us. Where can people learn more about you?

Lucy Kelly (40:00):

You can find me online at BloomByBelMonili.com, which is a little bit long, but I'm sure you can spell it out in the show notes. And I have a free community group, it's a Facebook group, if you go to BloomCraftGroup.com, it will take you to my Facebook group where you can join my community of handmade sellers.

Salome Schillack (40:18):

We will link to your website, but just say it again, because they've got to go there and check out your beautiful flower necklaces.

Lucy Kelly (40:25):

Oh, my jewelry website is BelMonili.com.

Salome Schillack (40:27):

BenMonili.com.

Lucy Kelly (40:29):

BenMonili, yeah.

Salome Schillack (40:30):

We will link to all of that in the show notes. Do check it out. Those beautiful flower necklaces are awesome. Thank you so much, Luce. I appreciate it so much and I look forward to seeing you in our calls.

Lucy Kelly (40:43):

Yeah. I'll be there. Tomorrow night, right?

Salome Schillack (40:45):

Tomorrow night. Yeah, tomorrow night. I'll see you then. Have a lovely day. Thanks, bye.

Lucy Kelly (40:49):

Thank you so much.

Salome Schillack (40:51):

There you have it, my friends. Isn't Lucy amazing? And you can also learn how to get results just like Lucy, double your launches, build your audience, and sell your knowledge to them faster, by joining our upcoming masterclass. You can go to ShineAndSucceed.com/buildmyaudience to secure your seat on our upcoming class called The Three Little Known Secrets To Building Engaged Audiences And Getting Paying Students Faster Using Facebook And Instagram Ads, Without Wasting Your Money, Selling Your Soul On Social Media, Or Hiring An Army Of Geeks. That is ShineAndSucceed.com/buildmyaudience if you want to secure your spot. I will see you guys again next week. Have a fabulous week. Bye.

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