Our Work at Home Life with Jason and Jami: Online Business | Blogging | Working from Home

In today's episode, Jami tackles how to be a ROCKSTAR affiliate! She covers her favorite tips and tricks to make money as an affiliate, and she goes into several specific programs she recommends.

Join us today as we talk all about Goal Setting. We go into why we do it, how it can help you to grow your business, and some tools we use and recommend to make it easier and more consistent. And we even give some book recommendations on the topic, because of course we do.

Listen in as we break down our work/life routines, both before and after going full time with our business.

Listen in as Jason gives you recommendations on some of his favorite business books, and talks about how reading to develop your business skills is a great idea!

Let's talk all about podcasting, and how starting a podcast can be a great asset to your business! 

Hello everyone! We are back! In this episode we discuss how our business went in 2018, why we had a long hiatus from this podcast, and we go into some exciting 2019 plans!

Welcome to our new show! We laid the ground work in the first 10 episodes, but 2018 is the year of OWAHL and we are going to spend a lot of time this year on what has been our secret to success: sales funnel.  So we are going to take you deep inside our biggest product to date, the product that allowed Jason to quit his job, our annual conferences! 

We've been doing a series lately on the podcast about social media. And the next question we often get is, "how do you launch/grow a blog??" So that's what we are talking about today!  Our Launch Strategy Behind Our New Blog Our main business is Young Wife's Guide. I (Jami) started this blog in 2012 and the landscape of blogging has changed so much since then! So are you wondering how to launch a new blog/business in 2017 and beyond? Here's how we took on the challenge of launching this new blog in the middle of 2017 and how you can do it too! Inside our private Facebook group, many of you have been asking how we are going about our launch strategy. So here's what we are doing: Start with Brainstorming: Jason and I did a lot of brainstorming about this new blog, the goal of it, the purpose behind it, and our mission for it. Before we had a name or a website or a strategy, we spent a ton of time really thinking through what our missions was going to be, how much time we would spend on it each week, what my roles on the blog would be, what Jason's roles would be, etc. You don't want to spend a year in this phase and your goal and mission probably will change over time. But try to think through the purpose behind your new business so you can better know where you are going with it.  Picking a Name: Now, I first want to say that people get way too hung up on picking a name. Yes, it's important. But it's not the most important thing. Don't spend forever on this step and never actually write or launch your blog. You want to be intentional, but in the end, you just need to get going!  When picking a name, the #1 thing you need to look for is if the URL is available. Just go to a domain register (such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, etc) and search for your domain name. You can quickly see if it's available or not. (And even if it's available, some premium domains can cost into the thousands.) RECOMMENDED: You can use any domain registrar that you want. But after trying several (and having most of our domains with Godaddy, we have landed on Namecheap being our favorite! They are easy to work with AND are often the cheapest for the domains). You can search for a domain name here.  Anytime Jason and I are brainstorming a name, we have Namecheap open next to us and we check each name before we get too attached. Because chances are, it's already taken! And a .com website is a must for us. We won't consider anything else. But you could do a .org website as well. Wordpress.org: Every one of our websites is on wordpress.org. This is a big discussion for a different day but if you want to grow a blog or business, then wordpress.org is where you want to be.  ONE EXCEPTION: Our one exception is in fact, this website. For a variety of reasons, we decided to host our store AND our blog through one platform: New Kajabi. I plan on covering these reasons in a future video/blog post so stay tuned. But for now, just know that we've been using Kajabi for well over a year now and are IN LOVE WITH it and highly recommend it to everyone. So Kajabi could be a great option for you as well. (Email us with any questions about Kajabi! I would be happy to discuss your individual situation.) If you are hosting with Wordpress, one important thing you need to note is there is a very big difference between wordrepss.org and wordpress.com. You want to use wordpress.org. Here's a good article that shares the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. What it Costs to Launch a New Blog: Buy Your Domain: Once you've picked your name, you need to purchase your domain name. This will normally run you around $9-12 for a year. So not a huge investment. (With Namecheap, you can often get it even cheaper than that.) Sign up for web hosting: This is the important step if you are using wordpress.org and also the part that most people get hung up on. It's really not as hard, expensive, or confusing as it sounds...I promise!  Most web hosting will run you $6-10 per month. My personal favorite option is SiteGround because they make it so easy. If you are serious about getting your blog up and running, this is what I suggest you do. We have to use a fancy dedicated server thing for Young Wife's Guide now because of our traffic. But if I was starting out again today, I would use SiteGround. (This is after having used GoDaddy, Bluehost, and HostGator throughout the years and never being very happy. Out of those three however, Bluehost is my favorite).  

Last week we discussed how to develop a social media strategy. I did an overview of how I handle social media on my main blog, Young Wife's Guide.  Today I'm back to discuss how you can use Pinterest specifically for massive growth! Pinterest is an amazing way to build up your community and reach a massive audience. And Pinterest doesn't have to take very much time at all.   How to get traffic from Pinterest We get traffic from Pinterest in two ways: 1) Through my own personal Pinterest account for my blog. This is where I pin my own content and other people's content. I typically follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of what I pin is other people's content, 20% is my own. Althought sometimes this shift on Pinterest is more like 50/50. 2) Through other people pinning my blog posts. This is the beauty of Pinterest! As long as you've got good pictures (see below) and have some strategy when it comes to Pinterest, other people will start pinning YOUR content and you will get traffic from Pinterest without ever being active on Pinterest. Although being active yourself certainly helps. (HINT: Here's the Wordpress plugin I use to install a Pin it Button ON MY BLOG, very important!!) Making Your Posts Pinterest Friendly The best thing you can do to increase traffic from Pinterest is to make your blog posts more Pinterest friendly. When someone lands on your blog and finds your blog post interesting, make it easy for them to "pin" it to Pinterest. The biggest thing you want to do is create long graphics to have in each blog post. Each blog post doesn't have to have a picture with words on it, but I always do. Here's a good example of a blog post with a tall vertical image at the top with words on it. How to put words on your images: Please note: When I recorded this podcast episode, PicMonkey was a FREE option. However they have no moved to a subscription only service so you need to pay to use it. I think it can still be worth it, but it will cost you $3.99-7.99 a month now. Canva is the free option I now recommend.  PicMonkey is a free, really easy to use tool that allows you to put words on your pictures. Canva is another excellent free website that gives you even more options (but can be a little more complicated to use).  I personally use Photoshop and have for years but this definitely has a learning curve to it. If you are not a techy person, the first two options will work beautifully for you. With Adobe Creative cloud, you can get access to the full newest version of Photoshop for just $9.99 a month (which is now almost comparable to PicMonkey)!  Where to Find Images to Use on Pinterest: You need to be very careful about where you find images to use on your blog. It is illegal to just go to google and pull any photo you find (EVEN if you link back to the original source). It has to be a royalty-free photo, which means the original photographer or artist has given permission for it to be used on your blog. There are some places to find free photos, but I caution you to be very careful about these free stock photo places because many of them have fine print that means you can't crop, add text, change, use for commercial use, etc. So just be careful with any stock photos you find (free OR paid for). I personally have used 123rf.com for years. Their photos are usually $1-3 a piece and have been very affordable for me. But ask around because there are some other good sources out there. However I haven't purchased a photo on there for a long time now because... Taking Your Own Photos I do still use some stock photos, but I'm moving more and more to using my own photos. I was hesitant to do this for a long time because I am NOT a photographer and felt like I just didn't have the time. But now I'm realizing that that authenticity IS worth the time.  But now when I plan out a blog post, I set aside 5-10 minutes of time to snap some photos of my own. They may not be professional quality, they may not always be the best lighting but I have found that they show more about my life. My own photos help my readers connect with me on an even deeper level. Moving forward, I plan on spending FAR more time doing my own photo. Even if they are not great. NOTE: If you are a recipe/food blogger, your own photos are a MUST! Here's a good example of my own photos. I wrote this blog post and asked Jason to spend 5 minutes following me around the house taking a few photos for it. (You can notice a difference with one of my earlier blog posts using all stock photos. You can connect a lot more with the one with all MY photos.) Pinning Strategically Now, when pinning to your own Pinterest account, it's important to think strategically about it. Pinterest now runs on an algorithm which means they no longer show your pins in chronological order. Like Facebook, Pinterest now watches its users to see if you are pinning high-quality content. If you consistently pin things that other people find interesting (i.e. get a lot of pins and click-throughs) then Pinterest will show your pins to more people. So it's more important than ever to be strategic about what you pin and to pin fantastic things!! QUALITY over QUANTITY now! This means when you are hunting for things to pin, watch for those that have been pinned hundreds or thousands of times. I pin about 60 times a day on my account (or my social media manager does). And of those 60 pins, 20% of them are my own pins from my website and the other 80% are pins from other people that I know will serve my audience well. Using Tailwind to Strategically Pin and Grow Traffic I know that might sound like a lot, but we use a website called Tailwind that helps us to schedule everything. We've been using it for about a year and LOVE it. I schedule inside it as well as my social media manager!  This is the only social media website that I pay for to schedule things so it makes it really worth it to me. I schedule my Facebook posts directly in Facebook and I don't schedule Twitter or Instagram. Most social media schedulers are $50-70 a MONTH. So $9.99 being my only cost is well worth it to me!  You can sign up and try a FREE month of Tailwind to see if it's right for you, which is what I did. And then it's only $9.99 a month after that. It's highly worth the investment in my opinion as Pinterest is our #1 source of traffic year after year. Download Our FREE Social Media Worksheets I know it's overwhelming to try and keep track of your social media and work on growing it. That's why I created these social media worksheets for you! Keep track of everything from your social media numbers to what you post and schedule and even track your growth from quarter to quarter.  You can download your social media worksheets for FREE HERE! 

Some of the most common questions I get are about social media. Which social media you should be using, how this fits into the larger picture in your business, etc.  Social media is constantly changing and so is my strategy. But in today's episode I am going to briefly share my own personal social media strategy for our full time business over at Young Wife's Guide.  My Social Media Strategy Facebook Facebook has over 1.8 billion monthly active users. If you are looking for an audience to reach, they are on Facebook! Yes, Facebook organic reach has been down but if you are strategic with it, you can still reach your ideal customer or reader through Facebook. Difference between your Facebook profile and a Facebook page This is one question I've received several times. Your Facebook profile is your personal Facebook account that you set up. My personal profile is just for my friends and family that I know in person. I don't add anyone else to this account. This way, I still have privacy online. I can share posts about my kids, local places we are going, etc. It's where I personally keep up with my friends and family. It's personal, it's for me! I rarely, if ever, post my blogging stuff to this profile. (Not that it's wrong to do so, but I don't want to spam my friends and family. That's not the purpose of that Facebook profile.) But my Facebook page is where I do all my business stuff. This is at: Facebook.com/YoungWifesGuide. This is where I post all my blogging stuff and where my "fans" can follow me. You want to set up a Facebook page.  Our Facebook strategy: My strategy on Facebook is to build community and generate new leads. I want my Facebook page to be a bright spot on Facebook for my readers and I want to provide quality content and things I'm sharing. So I follow the 80/20 rule (for the most part). 80% of the things I post on my Facebook page are other people's content. Blog posts and articles that I find interesting and that I know will be helpful to my readers that someone else wrote. These are NOT links back to my own blog. 20% of what I post are blog links back to my blog or a product I'm selling. We tend to follow a schedule of posting 6-10 times a day. Typically about every 2-4 hours throughout the day. I know this might sound like a lot, so if that takes way too much time right now, then just start out with posting 2-3 times a day. The key is, Facebook rewards consistency. So post consistently. Don't post 10 times today and then not again for a week. Post just once a day if that's all you have the capacity for, but try and keep it consistent. Another helpful tip: We schedule all of our Facebook posts inside of Facebook. We do not use a third party scheduler (like Meet Edgar, Buffer, or Hoostuite). Facebook wants you to stay inside Facebook so they reward you with more views if you schedule directly inside Facebook (and hey, it's FREE)! Pinterest Pinterest has 110 million monthly active users and is growing daily. As a woman (and especially as someone who blogs about homemaking related topics), Pinterest is the place to be! Side note: Yes, Pinterest organic traffic has heavily reduced the last two years or so and I no longer believe it to be the best or more reliable source of traffic.  It is consistently our #1 source of traffic and has been for years. Pinterest is not a platform however where I am trying to build up it's own community. It's more of an extension of how I can serve my community. I think of my Pinterest account as a place where I can curate and collect all the very best Gospel-centered homemaking tips, tricks, articles, tutorials, recipes and more for my readers.  Again, I follow the 80/20 rule. I certainly pin a ton of my own blog posts but I also try and pin other people's content about 80% of the time. Our Pinterest Strategy: We use the TailWind App to schedule a ton of our pins. We've been using it for about a two years now and LOVE it. It allows you to schedule pins, see analytics of what's working well, find other pins that are popular that you can pin and more. You can try out a FREE month of TailWind if you sign up through my link. This is what I did. I tried out a full month, really committed to using it and was hooked right away. If you decide you love, it's only $9.99 a month after that. This is extremely affordable compared to many social media schedulers that are $49.99-79.99 a MONTH! This is the only social media scheduling website or app we pay for, so $9.99 a month isn't too bad of an investment! It saves us hundreds of hours over a course of a year and has really helped our Pinterest engagement.  Usually we schedule about 60 pins a day to go out. However, there have been a few times over this last year that my social media manager has been out. So during those times, I decrease that down to 20 pins a day since I'm doing it all on my own again! I also try to do 5-10 minutes of live pinning each day if I can make the time (I've been really really bad about this lately and my Pinterest numbers reflect that). Pinterest is the same as Facebook, they want to know you are actually live and using Pinterest yourself. So try and do some hand pinning when you can (as opposed to pre-scheduling everything). Instagram Instagram is the #1 platform I am concentrating on right now for growing a community. It's where I personally spend the most time and where I am the most commenting and interacting with everyone. Instagram is where I show my personal life, share my story, and really connect with my readers. I do all live posting, I don't schedule anything in Instagram. I typically post on Instagram 1-3 times a day. I try and post at least once a day because Instagram likes when you are active and will show your posts to more of your followers when you are consistent. I don't have a very big following on Instagram, but my readers on Instagram are very engaged! You can hop on over and see my Instagram at instagram.com/jamibalmet Twitter I honestly don't have much to say on Twitter. It's my least favorite and least used of the social media platforms. I just don't get it and it's not my favorite. Twitter is a little different as it limits you to just 140 characters. Twitter is HUGE for certain niches and markets, but I've found that largely, my readers are just not on Twitter. But that leads us to the next discussion:  How to Choose WHERE to Spend Your Time Okay, are you feeling overwhelmed yet? I know this is a LOT of information. But I want to encourage you that your social media strategy doesn't have to be over complicated. My social media strategy has grown over the years as my blog has and as I've been able to hire a social media manager to help me manage it all. When you are trying to decide where to spend your time when it comes to social media, I want you to take some time to think about what YOUR favorite platform is. Where do you naturally want to hang out, what are you already using? For example, if you are like me and you HATE twitter...then leave it alone for now. Go pick a platform that you already know, what you get, and that you like to use. When it first came out, Pinterest was my very FAVORITE. I had been waiting for something like Pinterest for years and threw myself into learning it, to playing with it, to experimenting and was able to build up a decent following because of it. Now, my focus is Instagram. I'm playing with it, developing strategies for it, and spending most of my time there. So pick the one or two platforms that you want to invest in first and don't worry about the rest. Best Way to Increase Engagement on Social Media Think of your reader first. Don't think about what you can get out of it, or how many clicks you can get, or how you can sell to your readers. Think about THEM first and what they need.  What are they on Pinterest searching for? What would be encouraging for them to come across on Facebook? How can you BEST serve your readers, even if that means posting things that are not your own! And then be authentic. Be yourself. Be you. Be REAL. Reader's don't want to connect with a blog, they want to connect with YOU! So don't be afraid to let your personality shine through that.  Download Our FREE Social Media Worksheets I know it's overwhelming to try and keep track of your social media and work on growing it. That's why I created these social media worksheets for you! Keep track of everything from your social media numbers to what you post and schedule and even track your growth from quarter to quarter.  You can download your social media worksheets for FREE HERE!   

Question: "My husband and I would love to entertain the idea of entrepreneurship. While his job is sufficient in providing for us financially, it leaves much to be desired in regard to family life. However, we feel completely stuck at the moment. In addition to a dependable salary, his job also provides excellent insurance coverage for all five of us (dental, medical, and vision). He has a 401k and retirement account that has been funded since he began with the company over ten years ago. There is a lot to fund financially, and these are all just the basics! How is this done while pursuing entrepreneurship? Are people (entrepreneurs) able to get on top of all these in ways we've yet to discover beyond dependency on a corporate job? Or, are people just going without the future being funded? Furthermore, how do you fully learn about the local, state and federal regulations and requirements? Registrations and taxes are required of a business. These are the kind of entrepreneurship questions that are generally not addressed. Having started and managed several successful businesses yourself, what has been your experience in these areas? Have you found any resources that have been particularly helpful? Again, please don't feel obligated to answering anything that may be too personal since these questions do pertain to finances. I appreciate your time in reading and responding to this message." Getting Started All this little stuff IS the overwhelming stuff. It's what holds you back. It feels huge and impossible and so scary. And a lot of it we are still figuring out along the way!  If your husband (or you) works a corporate job with a good income, it can be really really difficult to leave. We gave us all of those things when we took the plunge to be self-employed.  Years ago, the security of a corporate job made us feel safe. We needed that. Now we've embraced the freedom in being self-employed AND we've started to view our life as a lot more secure, since our business is up to US, and not a huge company or bosses that could change our fate with a pink slip.  It's a slow process. We built things up on the side first. Jason didn't quit his job on day 1 and then day 2 we tried to figure out an income stream. We tested things out, we built up side income, we knew that with more time and attention dedicated to the business, we could make more money. So yes, there is a LOT to consider and a lot of different pots that money needs to be funneled into, but those things are simply coming from a different income source. At your job, medical, dental, retirement, etc all comes out of your paycheck. It's just all done for you, BEFORE you see the money and somehow that feels a lot less painful.  So these are all things to keep in mind when considering the jump! But it is doable. Millions of people are self-employed and figure it all out :)  Taxes & Regulations Personally, I think this was the biggest headache trying to figure out. We had to figure out taxes, what kind of company we needed, did we need a business license, what forms need to be filed, etc.  LegalZoom.com was a huge help to us in the beginning! Because every state (and country) is so different on taxes, regulations, and companies, it's impossible for me to give any advice on how to get started with this.  They have sections that explain all the different companies you can form from an LLC, to a partnership, to a sole proprietorship and more. We landed on needing to form an LLC and then we were able to file the paperwork with LegalZoom! They help you to file the correct file for your state and everything!  Our next negotiable suggestion: Hire a CPA in your state. We have an amazing CPA who specializes in small business and we don't know WHERE we would be without him. When we get a tax form, or want to try something new, we run it all past him and he tells us what to do.  For what we do, we need someone who is very familiar with online business and our forms of revenue. Our CPA is amazing he helps us with all of that. Yes, it costs a little bit to have him handle all of our taxes but it is WELL worth it. He has walked us through everything.  Medical, Dental, and Vision Yes, this is another headache. And again, this depends on what state you live in.  We ended up with a sharing company. Medishare.  Dental and vision not worth it. So we pay out of pocket.  Savings & Retirement Accounts These are all totally doable, but you just need to do a little work to get them set up. We are actually in the middle of setting up these accounts. But again, a good CPA can help with that! 

On the podcast this month we've been talking all about product launches. We covered the big picture overview of how to launch a product, how to work with affiliates to help sell your product, and creating a free offer for your product launch.  If you haven't worked your way through those episodes yet, then back up and go through those. They will give you a very solid grounding before heading into this episode.  Today we are going to be covering Launch week! You've done all the prep work to launch your new product, now it's time to actually launch it! Here's everything to need to craft a successful launch week.  Launch Your Product A typical launch period for us is 5-7 days. Anything shorter than that and it's hard to build momentum. Anything longer than that and it's hard to keep up that momentum.  If you listened to episode #4 and are creating a free opt in offer for your product, then a good option is to be in "sales" mode for one month. Spend 2-4 weeks spreading the word about your free opt in to boost engagement and get new readers, and then actually launch your product in 5-7 days.  A typical sales week:  We've played with this schedule and tweaked it a lot over the years. It will probably keep changing as we learn and grow, but here's what we typically do in a launch week.  Day #1: Cart Open On day #1, the first thing you want to do is check all sales pages and links, a couple of times. The worst thing to happen would be people showing up to your page, unable to check out! So check, check, and double check that it's all working properly.  Then once you know it's all working, you can send out your initial CART OPEN email! This can be short and sweet and simply let people know that your new product is for sale.  I'm a fan of doing a short and sweet email for this (although you can do a longer sales email with all the info) because I think people are initially interested and will pop over to see what it is.  At this point, I would also publish a full blog post with all the details to share on Pinterest, Facebook, social media, those who follow you via RSS feed, etc.  I would also consider doing a Facebook/Instagram live video. The first day is so full of excitement that now is a good time to jump on and share that your new product is live and available!  Through your week: using evergreen content to sell I know that not everyone on my list or in my audience will be interested in buying this thing. So while I do want to push the sale hard, I also want to acknowledge and not burn out that audience that has no intention of buying this product.  Evergreen content is simply blog posts, podcasts, and other content that is related to your product but that will still live on once this promotion is over. For example, if you are sharing a brand new cooking course, then doing some evergreen content revolving around your favorite cooking accessories, or simple meal planning tips can become great content to spread around that also includes a pitch for your product.  Bonus: It gives you a really good non-salsey excuse to reach out to your audience, share on social media, and send follow up emails! You are simply providing more good, related content!  Throw a Facebook Party I do about 2-3 Facebook parties a year. They do a couple of things: 1) it raises awareness for my product launch 2) it helps boost my Facebook feed all week and 3) my audience LOVES it and is an amazing way to build up my community. I get requests all year asking when my next FB party will be!  Here's how to throw a Facebook party:  1) Set up a FB even on your page Set this up and start inviting people to the party 1-2 weeks in advance. Ask them to RSVP on that event page so they get notified when the party starts.  Share about the party on other social media, your blog, and via email.  2) A typical party My typical party is usually 2 hours long. I do mine in the evenings because most moms can participate better when kids are in bed. I tend to post every 5-15 minutes through out the party.  I usually have 6 giveaways throughout the party, 3 each hour. I usually give away a few digital giveaways but I try and make them physical products as often as I can because people get more excited about physical items.  My focus in the party:  My focus throughout the party is on serving and loving my readers rather than selling. It's a time to build up community!! So I giveaway a ton of free digital goodies to all attendees and focus on giving more than I am taking!  I focus on my readers having a BLAST and then I also mention the sale. I want to do a video soon so you can see exactly how I structure my party. I will work on that soon :)  Other ideas for launch week You can try and line up guest posts on other blogs. HINT: This is a great thing to do before your launch and share about your freebie then get people on your email list to sale.  Podcasts are another great idea! Reach out to podcasts in your niche and see if you can be a guest on their show.  2-3 days into the launch Something I've just started doing in the past year or so, is resending my cart open email about 2-3 days into the sale to all unopens. I change the tagline and try to do a different angle. This results in a lot more opens to that initial email. Be warned: This segment of your audience tends to not be as responsive, so I end up with a higher percentage of unsubs from these emails typically.  Bonus tip: Don't neglect your email list the weeks and moths leading up to your big launch. The best thing you can do is stay consistent and engaged with them leading up to your launch!  Final day of your sale Typically you will see up to 50% of your sales on this final day! So if your launch week has been lack luster leading up to this, it's easy to slack on the last day. This is a HUGE mistake. Stay consistent and follow up, it's worth it!  Email On the final day, I send 2-4 emails to my list. Yes, this is a lot. And yes, I was terrified to do this at the beginning. So start out sending two emails that final day and work your way up to what works for you and makes sense.  1st email is early in the morning and is just a quick "sale ends tonight" or "doors close tonight". Remind them of the urgency!  2nd email is my long email of the day. This is my last chance to make a big sales pitch. I typically do a FAQ email where I will answer all of the common objectives to purchasing. This email tends to do VERY well. I usually send this in the early afternoon (around 10 or 11 am).  3rd and final email is a 5-8 hour reminder. This is another quick email reminding them that the sale or promotion ends soon! I will usually take a paragraph or two to highlight a feature that I haven't yet that day and then just leave them with a link to the sales page.  I have sent out a 4th email before with a 1 hour left. But this results in a TON of unsubs for me. I think it's probably because most people don't get it that night and end up opening it in the morning and by then, they obviously don't care. But I do know people who do this. I don't think it's all that effective for my audience, so I've stopped doing it.  Other hints I would strongly consider doing Facebook ads. We've been playing with Facebook ads the last couple of years and just in the last 3-6 months we've started putting more significant time and money into Facebook ads with GREAT success.  Countdown timer Nothing drives urgency like watching a countdown timer ticking down, down, down. Motionmail is a FREE website that allows you to create a countdown timer that works in blog posts AND counts down live in emails.  I add a countdown timer to every single one of my sales emails. This is the last episode (for now) in our launching series. If you have more questions about launching, please leave us a comment! And make sure to download our FREE launch checklist to help you keep tracking of everything.  Download our FREE Product Launch Checklist!  I know this is a TON of information! So I distilled it all down into a handy printable product launch checklist for you. All you have to do is fill it out for you next product launch and you are well on your way to a successful launch.  To download the FREE checklist, simply sign up here and download right away!  

On the podcast this month we've been talking all about product launches. We covered the big picture overview of how to launch a product and how to work with affiliates to help sell your product.  Today is my favorite episode yet. We are going to be talking about how to create a free opt-in offer that leads to the sale of your product. So let's jump in!  What is a free opt-in offer? This comes under many names - a freebie, freemium, lead magnet, opt-in offer, etc. But they are all essentially the same thing. It's an awesome piece of content that you giveaway for free. Your readers sign up for it with their email address.  It's an amazing way to grow your audience but it also provides incredible value for your readers. My readers are always thanking me for the awesome free content I give away!  Benefits of creating an opt-in offer Grows your email list This one is obvious. This is usually the #1 reason why people giveaway an opt-in in offer. They want to build up and grow their email list. This is great, but if you combine it with an email sequence and a product in mind, it can really push the needle!  Nurtures cold subscribers before selling to them A free opt-in gets people onto your email list. And it also nurtures them from cold subscribers into raving fans. Throughout your free opt-in offer and a subsequent email sequence, these new readers really get to know you and build that trust.  Great to share on guest posts A free opt-in offer gives you something extremely valuable to share on other people's blogs as guest posts. You COULD be a guest poster on someone's blog and share your product. But you probably won't get very many sales.  Those readers don't know you from Adam, they don't trust you, they don't yet love you. But GIVE them something awesome for FREE and they get to know you.  Affiliates can share very easily This is usually my #1 reason for creating a free opt-in. My own readers know me pretty well by now and know if they want a product I come out with. But my affiliates audiences don't know me. Creating an awesome free offer that is easy for your affiliates to share, helps you gain a new audience to sell to AND your affiliates can sell more easily.  Easy to push really hard and then do the actual selling over email It's so easy to push a free offer insanely!! You can share it on your blog, Facebook live, all over Instagram, in your emails, guest posts, etc. No one gets tired of hearing about a great free product!  So you can push this really hard without feeling like you are selling! And then you can nurture them through an email sequence where you sell hard.  Examples of our freebies: Finding Joy in Your Home Free eCourse This is by far our most popular free offer. It's a mini-eCourse called Finding Joy in Your Home. This has become my main free offer for my blog and eventually leads to a sell of our academy, My Homemaking Mentor.  This works well because MHM is our most expensive item. So giving them a full course as a FREEBIE works well. Plus, the academy is video based. So giving them a free PDF wouldn't be nearly as effective as a free video series so they can get used to me on video and how I teach.   14 Days of Praying for Your Husband & Marriage This is a freebie that we launched at the beginning of this year. It's a card set that is designed to be used over 14 days. It has a scripture and a prayer topic on each card. These were super popular!  They lead to a marriage bundle of resources and are the perfect lead in to more printable products!  5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day The meat of this freebie was an in depth PDF that I put together that was essentially a mini training manual. I wanted to include a video component however, so I took that training and turned it into a video. So the reader has the choice of reading it or listening to it. It also includes a few bonus printables. This was our free opt-in for the 2016 homemaking conference. Here are some other freebie ideas If you are a photographer: Create a checklist of essential newborn shots to get If you want to launch a natural home course: Create 5 homemade recipe cards and a bonus video If you want to sell an essential oils eBook: Create an essential oils cheatsheet that they can hang on their fridge The free opt-in doesn't have to be big, long, or complicated! Just make sure that it is related (the same subject and the same teaching medium (i.e. video, audio, book, printable, etc). as the product you want to sell.  How to deliver your freebie: If your product is a simple file (one PDF, an eBook, etc.)  ConvertKit - Email Service Provider Our email service provider is ConvertKit and they make it SUPER easy to deliver a simple file. We use this to deliver all our single file freebies like a printable pack or PDF.  ConvertKit is the #1 email service provider that we use and recommend (after trying out several others). You can try them out here. Amazon s3 Hosting If your email service provider doesn't offer an easy way to deliver simple products, then I highly recommend Amazon s3. You can easily upload files and then grab a link to share.  And the beautiful thing: You ONLY pay for how many times people download the file. So you can have 100 products store in there, but you only pay every time someone actually downloads that file. And it's a few cents per download so it's not bad! We have dozens of products hosted in there and we pay a few dollars a month (but this isn't our MAIN storage mind you).  Leadpages If you use Leadpages for your landing pages, they also offer simple lead magnet deliver. I used Leadpages for about 2 years and like them for what they do: very simple landing pages.  But we have since moved all of our landing pages to ClickFunnels and have been very happy. We've been with ClickFunnels for over a year now. If you want to try it out, you can get a 14 day free trial. DO NOT JUST UPLOAD TO YOUR BLOG PLEASE do not just upload simple files to your blog. It's very easy to do but it's NOT what you want to do. For 1) Every single time someone downloads that file from the link on your blog, it takes bandwidth. This can significantly slow down your blog or even crash it! Plus, if you use too much it will cost hundreds of dollars a month to up that bandwidth amount. And 2) Those links are all public and searchable. So someone could just search in google and find that link without having to sign up.  Even though it takes a bit more work, please find another way to deliver your simple files.  Delivering Courses & Training:  This is where things get a little more complicated. If you want to deliver a freebie that isn't just a simple file to download, you need something more advanced.  What we use: Kajabi We have been using Kajabi for about a year and a half now and it's the VERY best solution we have ever been able to find. I am in love with Kajabi!  Kajabi is a system that allows you to create a website to deliver all your free and paid content. We really needed a place where our customers could log in and access everything they've ever purchased from us - all in one spot!  Kajabi gives us that plus everything we need. It IS expensive, but if you want to develop a library of resources like we have, then I highly recommend it. You can check it out here.  Our Work at Home Life is built here on Kajabi and you can see how we use it with our other business, Homemaking Ministr Teachable  Teachable is another popular option. It does not have all the bells and whistles that Kajabi does so it doesn't work for us and I do not like it as much as Kajabi.  However, it has a lower barrier to entry because you can start off cheaper. They have a limited FREE plan where you pay per sale you make and a basic plan that starts at $39 a month.  For the long run, I prefer Kajabi. But if you don't have the funds and want to just try something out, you can always start with Teachable and then change over later. It's not that big of deal!  Thinkific Thinkific is another popular one but I don't know very much about it beyond that I know some people use it. But they also offer a limited FREE plan. So if you are tight on funds, this is another one to try out!  Plugins for Wordpress If you run a Wordpress website, there are some plugins you can purchase that can allow you to turn your website into a membership site so people can log in to view the courses or videos.  I will warn you though: We've tried many of these in the past trying to come up with a good solution and it IS a lot of work! If I were starting over today, I would head straight to New Kajabi, Teachable, or Thinkific. I think there is very little reason to host it on your own website.  BUT if you want to explore that option, here are a few we've tried in the past: Course Cats Wishlist Member Zippy Courses My personal favorite: Optimize Press So what's next? Now that you've got your free opt-in and you are sharing it with your readers, what now? Set up an email sequence Now you want to set up an email sequence. You start out with a "welcome" email. Then over the course of a week or two (or three) you deliver great content and casually mention that you've got a new product coming. The entire time your goal is to provide more valuable content for your readers.  Then when your product goes on sale: Email them like crazy! Again, make sure your focus is on helping your audience and providing more value. But nows your time to make a strong case for your new product.  If you have a standard 7-8 day sales week, then I suggest emailing them 2-3 times during that week. And then 2-3 times on that final day! Trust me: I know that seems like a lot of emails but it works!  In the next episode we are going to share all about launch week of your product! Now that your product is created and you've got an email list ready from your free optin, what do you do during launch week? Episode #5 will cover all that and more! NOTE: We do all of our email sequences in ConvertKit, it's one of the main reasons we switch to it from ConvertKit (as well as the ability to do advanced tagging. Here's a preview of setting up an email sequence in ConvertKit, they make it so easy! Download our FREE Product Launch Checklist!  I know this is a TON of information! So I distilled it all down into a handy printable product launch checklist for you. All you have to do is fill it out for you next product launch and you are well on your way to a successful launch.  To download the FREE checklist, simply sign up here and download right away! 

One of the best and most exciting ways to make an income online is by launching your own products. Earlier this week Jason and I shared a big picture overview of how to launch a digital product.  Today we are going to share how to take that product launch to the next level by working with affiliates!  A big focus of ours in our won business in 2017-2018 is expanding our affiliate base. We have around 100 active affiliates right now but only a small portion of these make any significant sales.  A good rule of thumb when thinking about brining on affiliates, is to launch your product first without affiliates. Do a launch, get comfortable with it, make sure the product works, and then bring affiliates into the mix.  How it works with affiliates: People who are interested in sharing your product can sign up for your affiliate program. Once approved they will get their own affiliate links to share your products.  If someone purchases through those links, that affiliate gets a percentage of the sale. Typical commissions on digital products are 30-50%.  How to run an affiliate program: Running an affiliate program takes a little bit of technology. I know it can be scary, but there are several different options that can make it easier.  The most common option are Wordpress plugins. Here are a few that we've used.  iDevAffiliate This is my #1 recommendation if you are using wordpress. It's not actually a plugin, it's an addition you add to your site. It's a little wonky to get set up but once it's set up, it gives you SO many tools. This is an affiliate program you can grow with.  We started off using iDevaffiliate for our digital products and used it for a long time before we had to switch where we host our digital products. Now we use iDev for our product store. It's not the cheapest option out there because it does offer so many features. But it is very affordable compared to make other big programs. I think it's a great happy medium.  Find out more about iDevaffiliate here What it costs: Cloud option: $39 a month and includes a TON of extra features. If you need a FULL affiliate suite (which most people don't need when just starting out), this is an incredible deal!!  Standard: $199 one time fee. This is very important: a lot of the more robust programs are monthly fees. The standard version is what we have had for several years and it was $199 one time!  Make sure to come follow us on Instagram: Our Work at Home Life!   Woocommerce Integration If you already use Woocommerce then there are a couple of plugins that are already integrated with woocommerce. It's not necessary to use one of these plugins if you use woocommerce. After all, we run Woocommerce in our product store and yet we use iDevaffiliate as our affiliate center.  I have not used either of these and do not know how easy/hard they are to get up and running. I do like the idea though that they integrate with woocommerce.  The two options they offer are Affiliate WP ($99 a year) or Affiliates Pro ($59 a year).  LeadDyno The other robust affiliate program that I have been very impressed with in the past is LeadDyno. We used it for a short time last year when we were trying to figure out some fancy things. Ultimately, we ended up moving our affiliate program to Clickfunnels but for different reasons.  Overall I was very impressed with LeadDyno. It was easy to use and offered a TON of advanced features that you can easily grow with. I will need to wrangle Jason into doing a comparison video one day of LeadDyno verses iDev!  Find out more about LeadDyno here.  What it costs:  $49 a month for the starter plan (which is all you need for a while!) Be aware however: The more traffic you have, the more it costs! Overall, iDevaffiliate IS cheaper over all.  What We Use:  We moved our entire digital product database to New Kajabi in 2016 and we haven't looked back! Kajabi comes with an internal affiliate program which works great for simple products and simple funnels.  However we desperately needed some more advanced features to sell our online training academy and annual online conferences. So I did HOURS of research and found another website that would integrate sales into Kajabi: Clickfunnels.  Clickfunnels is expensive but it runs our entire affiliate program and all our sales pages and funnels. It's a HUGE and amazing program and we totally love it. If you want to try it out, you can get a 14 day free trial.  What it costs: $97 a month but this is for the landing page and sales funnel aspects only. This is what I recommend over LeadPages. I LOVE IT!  $297 a month gives you access to the full affiliate suite AND an advanced email service provider. (I told you it was expensive!) How we support affiliates during a launch: 2 - 4 months before your launch:  This is your time to recruit your affiliates and let all existing affiliates know about your upcoming launch.  (Honestly - I'm not always the best at communicating this far in advance with our affiliates. I need to work on it.) 1 month before:  Now's the time to do some affiliate training if you want. A great idea is doing a Facebook live training, recording a YouTube video, publishing a quick start guide etc. When in doubt when working with affiliates: Make the promotion VERY plain and very clear. People are busy! Even if you think you've already mentioned things several times, mention it again! 3 weeks before:  At least three weeks before is the best time to give your affiliates early access to the product or give them the opportunity to purchase it early.  The best way to have affiliates who sell, is to get them in LOVE with your product! So make sure they have access to it!  2 weeks before: At least two weeks before, pass out all promotional material. Give your affiliates access to ads, banners, sample emails, Facebook posts, etc. Give them the tools they need to be successful!  During The Launch: Email the affiliates everyday with simple, easy action items. Email your affiliates and give them a sample email for the day. Or give them one simple action item they can act upon within 5 minutes.  Share your own promotional material with the group so they have some ideas to work off of.  Be in constant communication with the group, let them know what's working, what's not working, and any ideas you come across.  I know this was a brief introduction to working with affiliates. So please let us know what other questions you have about this process so we can make sure to address is in future episodes.  In episode #4 of the podcast we will be sharing how to create a free opt-in offer for launching your digital product. Episode #4 might be my favorite one yet - stay tuned! Download our FREE Product Launch Checklist!  I know this is a TON of information! So I distilled it all down into a handy printable product launch checklist for you. All you have to do is fill it out for you next product launch and you are well on your way to a successful launch.  To download the FREE checklist, simply sign up here and download right away! 

How to Launch a Product - A big picture overview - OWAHL #2 Last week on the podcast, Jason and I shared how we make a full time income online.  In that episode we broke down our different sources of income but throughout the years our #1 source of income has remained to be our very own products. Today we are going to share how you can launch your very own product and the steps you need to take.  In our Homemaking Ministries store, we currently have around 20 products for sale and that number is constantly growing. In the past two years, we have fallen into a good rhythm of doing about two big launches per year (our conference and our academy) with lots of little mini launches throughout the year.  How we got started launching our own products My very first product I ever launched was my eBook, Apartment Gardening in 2012 for $5.95 and I was so crazy excited to make $6 here and there. I think in our first year of launching that, we made several hundred dollars and it was amazing.  That was actually our first taste of making a little income online and realizing it was possible we could make a part-time income doing this! (We didn't even dream at the time that this would turn into our full time income for our family.) Since 2012, we have launched over 20 products. Some have been huge successes and others have been total flops (we will have to share our biggest flops sometime)!  Our Secret Sauce when it comes to launching If we had any "secrets" to share about launching - it would be in scheduling. Over the years we have refined our launch schedule again and again, each time honing it more and more.  Now, we plan at least 6 months in advance of any of our big launches. 6 months might sound crazy, but it gives us plenty of time to fit everything in to make a successful launch!  (Note: The 6 month plan is for our large products. If you want to launch a little product or get it out there for sale, you don't have to do a big launch like this.) Download our FREE Product Launch Checklist!  I know this is a TON of information! So I distilled it all down into a handy printable product launch checklist for you. All you have to do is fill it out for you next product launch and you are well on your way to a successful launch.  To download the FREE checklist, simply sign up here and download right away!  The Schedule: 6-12 months before: Plan out the initial details including: Date(s) of launch, name of product, URL if needed, etc.  2 - 4 months before:  Plan out the big picture for the launch: What the product is, what it will contain, how you will deliver it, etc.  Plan out the free opt-in: Start planning now what your free opt-in for your launch will be. Is there an eBook, course, video, email sequence, etc that you can set up to share for free to get people interested in your product coming up? (We will cover launch opt-ins coming up in episode #4 of the podcast.) Plan out your schedule: At this point, at least start planning out your schedule for the launch. Think through things like: What day will it launch? What day does the sale end? Will you do any live workshops or Facebook parties? When will you start offering the free opt-in, etc. Now is also the time to invite affiliates to your launch if you will be doing that. Let them know what your product is, how much their commission will be, when they can promote it, etc. Coming up in episode 3, we will be covering how to work with affiliates on a product launch. Jami Here: This is unrelated, but if you are looking for a good planner, I did a review of all my favorite planners: You can check it out here.  6 - 8 weeks before: Set sales goal: Set some realistic, but high goals for your launch. And then create mini goals within that. So for example, if you want to make $5000 from a launch, how many overall sales is that? What does that break down to each day? How many do you need to sell each day, and so forth.  If you are working with a designer, now is the time to get started on your ads and banners for the product. Or if you need anything done for the actual product, eBook cover, video templates, etc then now is the time to get on that as well. Be aware that some designers have a very long lead time on getting started on new projects, so make sure you negotiate that from the beginning.  Plan out your promotional material: Along with getting your ads and banners created, now is the time to create your sales video, any sneak peek promotions, Facebook ads set up, line up podcast interviews or guest posts, etc. 4 week before: Four weeks before is the perfect time to launch your freebie! The basic sequence goes like this: make a free offer (a PDF guide, a video, a printable pack, etc) and share it on your blog and social media. Once readers subscribe for that freebie, you can enter them into an email sequence to get to know them more - which eventually leads to the sale of your product!  So spend this month focusing on traffic and sending lots of people to your free offer.  You will also want to spend this time collecting all your promotional material (ads, banners, videos, etc) and distributing them to your affiliates. If you have a large amount of affiliates, now is a great time to set up a training for your affiliates as well to help them know how to best advertise your products.  2-4 weeks before: Now you are getting down to the wire! Nows the time to set up your sales page, test out your sales links, and more sure everything is working well.  You will also want to make sure that all final tweaks to your product are DONE. The last thing you want to do is to be working on your product right up until the minute you actually launch it - believe us - we've been there and it's difficult!  If you can get ahead of this stuff, this is also the perfect time to write out all your sales emails for your launch week. This allows you plenty of time to work on perfecting these emails and planning everything out ahead of time.  If you are going to throw a FB or Twitter party during your launch week, about a week or two before hand is a great time to invite your readers to the party and start spreading the word.  NOTE: Make sure you are in constant contact with your affiliates during this time!  Launch Week: Now it's time to SELL! Don't worry - if you can plan things out a little bit ahead of time then you can take a lot of the stress out of launching.  When launch week starts you want to kick things off with an email to your entire list letting them know that your item is for sale! Get excited with this announcement email - don't be afraid to let your own personality shine in this email.  After this, you will want to send 2-4 more emails this week to your audience! Try to come up with different angles or features you can talk about. Don't just keep saying the same thing over and over again. Mix it up and keep it fun!  On your final day: Send up to 3 (or 4!) emails! I know that sounds like a lot. I used to be scared to send 3 emails in a week. But the final sales can will make up to 50% of your sales for that week. So start with 2 emails that final day and work your way up during your next sale.  You will want to throw your FB/Twitter party during this week (only if it makes sense for your audience).  And of course, you will want to make sure to monitor all customer service emails and issues during this week! Make sure to keep everyone happy while they are trying to get enrolled/buy your product!  Your Next Steps:  I know this was a TON of information. My intention with this was to give you the BIG picture overview of what it takes to launch a product. But you don't need to tackle all of this at once.  On your next launch, add one or two new things in. Make a simpler version of this plan. But important thing is: to plan ahead!!  Trust us after dozens of product launches - it MAKES A DIFFERENCE!  And don't forget to download our FREE product launch checklist to get going right away!  Designing a Life You Love Through Online Business!  Do you want to discover how to make an income from home with a blog or a small business? Or maybe you are ready to take your blog/business to the next level?  Sign up for our FREE 3 part video course on getting started. It's FREE!  

Welcome to our brand new podcast: Our Work at Home Life with Jason & Jami. Each week we are going to bring you these mini-training sessions with practical hands on resources for growing your own blog or online business! This podcast has been a LONG time coming, and Jason and I are both so excited to kick it off. Today we are going to be sharing a little bit about our story, how we came to work from home full time, and how we make our money.  If you are curious about how it's possible to work from home full time running an online business (and how you can do it too!), then this episode is for you. Then make sure to head back for our next episode. We are going to be jumping straight into our training sessions when we chat about how to launch your very own digital product.  Our Story I started my very first blog back in 2009. I fell in love with blogging and then in 2012 I started our main blog, Young Wife's Guide. I had no idea at that time that it would become our family's full time income in just three short years. The very first thing we made some money on was an eBook on gardening that I sold for $5.95. I was making like $20 here or there and it was SO exciting!! Later that year, I was approached by a friend to put my book in this brand new eBook bundle she was putting together. That year my gardening book was in the first ever Healthy Living Bundle and I made a few hundred dollars! I think this was a turning point for us. We realized that I could actually make a little income from this.  So my goal was to be able to build this up a little bit to have a small side income for when we had kids and I stayed home. Slowly we started working on this blog and building up a bit of side income.  And then in December of 2015, Jason quit his full time job in sales to be able to come home and run our businesses from home.  We've now been running our online businesses full time for over 18 months and I don't think we could ever go back! This business and running it from home has become such a blessing to our family.  How we make money One of the biggest things that people ask us is how we make an income from home. They hear that we run a blog full time and people assume we must run ads on our blog.  But in reality - we actually don't run ANY outside ads on our blog. So how do we make money? Here's the breakdown (these numbers are approximate):  20% of our income comes from affiliate sales & sponsored posts 80% of our income comes from selling our own products: digital items, courses, conferences, our academy, etc.    Breakdown of 20%  These are the percentages for 2016. These seem to be holding true for 2017 but there are still a lot of months in the year left, so that could change.  Affiliate Sales Being an affiliate for companies is a wonderful way to start making a little bit of income. It's easy in some ways because you don't have to have your own products or anything.  Basically you sign up for an affiliate program with some business or product you already love. They give you a special affiliate link which you then share on your blog, social media, etc. Then whenever anyone purchases something through that link, you get a percentage of that sale.  So for Young Wife's Guide (a homemaking blog), that means that I've been an affiliate for natural cleaners, a meal planning website, amazon book recommendations, and more.  Sponsored Posts I also work with companies on a VERY limited basis to do sponsored posts. What this means is that a company will pay me up front to promote their business or product to my audience.  I do these on a very limited basis and ONLY ever do it for companies that I 100% believe in and would recommend their products anyway. One thing for 2017 we are exploring more is podcast sponsorship for my homemaking podcast: The Homemaking Foundations Podcast.  Breakdown of 80%  We've done a few things in our business life that has made all the difference!! The first thing was starting our online conference 4 years ago, and the second thing was starting an online digital store. Here's some more details: Homemaking Ministries Store I've been creating digital products for years. The more products we added, the more we realized that we needed a central "store" for all our products. I DREAMED of having a library where my customers could log in and access everything they've purchased from me under one login.  So we paid for an expensive custom website which ended up not working and eventually landed on using New Kajabi for our store (which is what this website is also now run on). And we are in LOVE. It's not perfect and still has a few minor things we would change, but overall it has everything we need! (And don't worry  - we plan on covering Kajabi in depth in the future and breaking down everything we love about itOur Conference The other thing that has had the most impact is launching our first every online conference in 2014! We had no idea what we were doing, figuring out the technology was a NIGHTMARE, but here we are on our 4th year and still going strong. Our conference has opened up the door to working with other bloggers and ultimately creating our online academy: My Homemaking Mentor!  The vast majority of our income comes from selling those two products: our annual conference and our academy. The other smaller products help to fill in the gaps. Every $20 here and there really adds up and helps us pay our bills!  Our Next Big Project:  The next big project that we will be turning our attention to is our physical store. We have started an online store with physical products. So far we have t-shirts and Scripture memory cards in the store, but we are slowly working on adding more items to that.  Our goal by the end of the year is to have 15-20 items in the store!! This has been a really fun new adventure into the realm of physical products, shipping, and sending things out.  You can see our store here: Homemaking Ministries Store. And then make sure to stay tuned next week for episode #2. We are going to be talking about How to launch a digital product - a big picture overview!