Podcasts about brilliant business moms

Beth Anne Schwamberger is the founder of Brilliant Business Moms. She's passionate about helping women to build their businesses in the margins, so they can spend more time with their families. She loves teaching Facebook Ads and providing quick and easy tools like sales page and ad templates to make life easier for online business owners.In this conversation, Beth Anne explains how Facebook Ads are a powerful tool used for reaching potential customers. She shares success stories from her students in various niches who have used ads to quickly get in front of their ideal customers and ultimately grow their businesses. Beth Anne also explains the potential of ads for teachers starting online businesses and the ability to create products that cater to individual needs. If you're curious how Facebook ads can be a game-changer for business growth, don't miss this episode! Connect with Beth Anne:http://brilliantbusinessmoms.com/Join the Brilliant Ads Bootcamp!teacherbiz.com/adsKey Takeaways:(03:00) Beth Anne's backstory of starting the Brilliant Business Moms podcast(06:05) The power of ads in reaching potential customers(07:45) The control and speed of results with ads compared to organic strategies(17:10) Using organic social media to test content for ads(18:45) Starting with a small ads budget(21:20) Investing in ads instead of buying more courses(23:00) Brilliant Ads Bootcamp(25:45) Having time to pursue new passionsConnect With Heather:https://teacherbiz.com/about/https://instagram.com/teacherbiz

On today's episode, Beth Anne talks to Ellie Cole of ScentfulWax.com about scaling her E-commerce store using ads. Learn how she's changed $1k months into $15k months! We’re so glad to have you here! Your messy, creative, scattered, joyful, every-day, inspired, crazy life is normal here. We’re with you in the trenches. We’re balancing babies and business, preschoolers and purpose. The balancing act is a struggle, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. This is a place where you can find not only resources and information to help you grow your business, but also community and support. We’re not about information overload or spouting off 100 things you must do today or else! We believe that small steps over time can still make a big difference. We’re about persistence, and celebrating the small wins along with the big ones. Welcome to Brilliant Business Moms!

On today's podcast episode, Beth Anne talks with Jessica Principe of AllGirlShaveClub.com about how she has surpassed her business goals without an outside investor or ad agency! We’re so glad to have you here! Your messy, creative, scattered, joyful, every-day, inspired, crazy life is normal here. We’re with you in the trenches. We’re balancing babies and business, preschoolers and purpose. The balancing act is a struggle, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. This is a place where you can find not only resources and information to help you grow your business, but also community and support. We’re not about information overload or spouting off 100 things you must do today or else! We believe that small steps over time can still make a big difference. We’re about persistence, and celebrating the small wins along with the big ones. Welcome to Brilliant Business Moms!

On this episode, Beth Anne talks with JoAnn Crohn of NoGuiltMom.com about building email lists and using Facebook Ads to do it! We’re so glad to have you here! Your messy, creative, scattered, joyful, every-day, inspired, crazy life is normal here. We’re with you in the trenches. We’re balancing babies and business, preschoolers and purpose. The balancing act is a struggle, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. This is a place where you can find not only resources and information to help you grow your business, but also community and support. We’re not about information overload or spouting off 100 things you must do today or else! We believe that small steps over time can still make a big difference. We’re about persistence, and celebrating the small wins along with the big ones. Welcome to Brilliant Business Moms!

Today I’m chatting with Beth Anne Schwamberger of Brilliant Business Moms about how to prepare for your first product launch. She has launched everything from a physical planner to digital classes to a Facebook Ads Intensive. Beth Anne is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to planning a successful launch. In this episode, Beth Anne covers everything from giving yourself enough time to plan, the phases of a launch, and the different types of content you should create to engage your audience. Show Notes - pimpyourbrilliance.com/84 Important Links: Watch the FREE digital products workshop - pimpyourbrilliance.com/workshop Follow me on Instagram - @pimpyourbrilliance Learn more about PYB - pimpyourbrilliance.com

Wondering how to get started with ads in a way that doesn't feel intimidating?Want to know a secretly used ads strategy that basically lets you build your list for FREE (and fast)?Interested to hear what DOESN'T work when it comes to paid ads?We are covering all of that - and more - on today's episode of The Passive Project Podcast.Beth Anne from Brilliant Business Moms joining us on the show! After starting her first business as an Etsy shop owner, she became a Podcast Host and then eventually starting teaching other mom entrepreneurs business strategy. She is now a bonafide FB ads and launching expert and helps her students grow and scale their sales using ads (all during the naptime hustle!). Tune in to today's show where we talk about Beth Anne's own business story, how she got started with ads, her favorite trick for using ads as a FREE list-builder, and the ad strategies that completely flopped for her.Hands down, one of my fave interviews we've done on the show before. Don't miss it!  52 Prompts:How would it feel to have an email list full of superfans who always opened YOUR emails? All it takes is 20 minutes a week. 20 minutes to craft an incredibly valuable and engaging email that will turn those subscribers into your superfans.That's why I'm offering you instant access to my 52Prompts and email marketing strategy!Get it here: https://thesweetestdigs.lpages.co/52prompts/Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast if you like what you hear: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-passive-project/id1470482672I love sending out emails to my peeps with helpful tips, inspiration, and free stuff I create and use in my own business. If you're already on my list, you'll see that I'll also be sure to alert you to the new episodes as they come out. If you aren't already on my email list, well babe… what are you waiting for? I can't wait to be BFFs with you and learn more about your business and goals and life.So make sure to get your cute butt over there. You can head to: https://gemmabonhamcarter.com/bestiesMake sure you go ahead and forward it to your biz BFF. Leave a review on iTunes. Share it on your instagram and tag me. I would give you some major online love for that.Want to see more of Beth Anne?Visit her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brilliantbizmom/?hl=enDownload her templates: https://brilliantbusinessmoms.com/freebies/Support the show (https://thesweetestdigs.lpages.co/pp-webinar/)

This week I got to chat with the lovely Alana Terry about how she has created systems that ensure her success AND how she transformed her mindset around money and now uses Facebook Ads to put her books in front of readers and make consistent income. Here are just a few of the things we touched on: Why her second book was the hardest How a conversation with her husband helped her with the emotional rollercoaster of being an indie author How she uses ads to make her income more consistent What mindset she stays in a positive mindset around money Money mindset resources Barbara Stanny, Denise Duffeild-Thomas, Jen Sincero, The Abundance Code lady The systems she uses to release between eight to ten books each year How she started investing in paid ads Beth Ann from Brilliant Business Moms at brilliantbusinessmoms.com How managing her ads gives her writing brain a rest How she determines her Facebook ad audiences Creative ways of targeting people who read your genre The number of books you should have published to be effective with ads What kind of graphics she uses for her ads The must-haves to include in your ad headline What to include in your ad description The impact of confidence on your marketing success Why your ad copy should NOT be about your plot It’s my birthday week! And I’m doing a special birthday masterclass this week with goodies and giveaways aka presents. If you’d like to celebrate good times with me AND learn how to become an empowered, 6-figure indie author, come to the free masterclass. It’s gonna be a party! You can sign up at http://authorlikeaboss.com/alabmasterclass

www.LouiseCourville.com - Today, we are continuing our talk about the 6 hats and the last two colors. The next hat is the Blue Hat: which is...listen. Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you're not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don't want you to miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes! Now if you're feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they're also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite podcast is. Thank You!

The podcast is ALL about productivity and organization this week and we are kicking off the discussion with one of my favorite planning gals, Laura Smith from i Heart Planners. She's share her 6 secrets for staying organized!  Listen to the Podcast: We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both  And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.  Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.  Links & Resources:  Find the full 2017 Homemaking Ministries Online Conference here Follow Laura over at i Heart Planners Download Laura's note sheets from this episode Check out our sponsor: VistaPrint.com Check out our sponsor: Wix.com Sign up for the FREE workshop!!  Join me later this week for an awesome free workshop taught by one of my favorite bloggers and authors, Beth Anne from Brilliant Business Moms. She is teaching a free class called Craft Your Perfect Evening Routine and it's going to be SO good! In fact, in the next episode, I am going to share all the lessons I've been learning this week from Beth Anne - so make sure to sign up to so you can follow along too.  Sign up for the free workshop here!     

The podcast is ALL about productivity and organization this week and we are kicking off the discussion with one of my favorite planning gals, Laura Smith from i Heart Planners. She's share her 6 secrets for staying organized!  Listen to the Podcast: We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both  And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.  Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.  Links & Resources:  Find the full 2017 Homemaking Ministries Online Conference here Follow Laura over at i Heart Planners Download Laura's note sheets from this episode Check out our sponsor: VistaPrint.com Check out our sponsor: Wix.com Sign up for the FREE workshop!!  Join me later this week for an awesome free workshop taught by one of my favorite bloggers and authors, Beth Anne from Brilliant Business Moms. She is teaching a free class called Craft Your Perfect Evening Routine and it's going to be SO good! In fact, in the next episode, I am going to share all the lessons I've been learning this week from Beth Anne - so make sure to sign up to so you can follow along too.  Sign up for the free workshop here!     

Today on the show I have Beth Anne Schwamberger, the founder behind Brilliant Business Moms. She has helped so many moms start and grow their own business – that it’s no surprise, she lets us in on some of her favorite business tips today. I think my most favorite part of the interview is when she tells us about her favorite way to start her morning – it’s so good! Show notes here.

Welcome to the Etsy Conversations Rewind Series. For the rest of Summer 2018 I'll be featuring interviews with Etsy shop owners from way back that you might have missed. This week's rewind is my convo with Beth Anne and Sarah of Amateur Naturalist & Brilliant Business Moms. Connect With Me Instagram: Twitter: Visit  for more information.

Anne Bogel was one of the very first guests on the Brilliant Business Moms podcast. And I still remember the giddiness my sister and I felt when she was the first ‘big’ person who agreed to an interview. (If you don’t know, my sister and I launched this podcast back in 2014. Sarah has since left to pursue her own business and she’s doing great!) Though Anne modestly received the compliment, I’m still pretty delighted to have a noteable blogger on the show - again! Since our 2014 interview, Anne has since added ‘author’ to her list of credentials. Her book, Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything*, launched this year and is available now. Knowing yourself isn't as simple as taking an online quiz like ‘Which seltzer water best describes your personality?’. (True story!) What I love about Anne’s book, and our conversation, is that it helped me delve deeper into what makes me, well, me so I can best optimize my success. If you’re coming to this topic with no prior knowledge of personality types, that’s okay! Psychologists say that if you don’t know anything else about your personality, knowing if you’re Introverted or Extroverted is a good starting point, it’s the ‘the North and South of Temperament’. What if you’re one of those people whose personality type is that they hate personality types, as my husband would say!? Anne has thoughts for you, too! Other topics we discuss include: Clues that you might be a Highly Sensitive Person (experts say about 15%-20% of species are highly sensitive) and what you can do to unlock the keys to understanding a finely calibrated nervous system. How your personality affects how you run your business. How you can leverage your personality to plan your day. And the benefit of knowing how people’s differences helps you view the world.   If you’re ready for some self-discovery, click play below: (embed player) *Amazon affiliate link. Stay in Touch With Anne Site: Modern Mrs. Darcy Book: Reading People Facebook: @ModernMrsDarcy Instagram: @annebogel

Digital designer, professor, PR specialist, small business owner, wife, mom of two - you might listen to the many roles of Lydia Kitts and think, “Woah, this sister needs to take something off her plate!” But before you go all ‘Judge Judy’ on Lydia, take a listen to the podcast. You’ll hear exactly how Lydia juggles so many things at once, while keeping people first, and does it with excellence. We at Brilliant Business Moms are just in awe of her! Lydia lets us in on her unique planning philosophy, which involves using a combination of 3 planners. (I know, right!?) Throughout our interview, you’ll notice how Lydia is hyper-focused on the task at hand. She doesn’t let herself get distracted by giving every task a spot in her day, and keeping tasks in their spots. In this interview, you’ll also get to hear Lydia answer a great question from one of our Brilliant Business Moms. Amy Gabriel asked, “I want to know how to build a timeless brand that has a strong and loyal following. How do you look at modern trends and base designs off of the current style, but also build something that will last for years to come?” You’ll just eat up Lydia’s answer! If you follow the productivity tips and hacks Lydia drops in this episode, you’ll be able to keep your family first AND your clients happy just like she does. If this all sounds like information you need as a momprenuer, hit the play button below! Resources Mentioned: Lydia’s 3 Planner System: a Legal Pad, The Brilliant Life Planner, and an academic planner Freezer Meal Planning with OnceAMonthMeals.com Branding Insight with The Brand Alchemist's Archetype Test Keep in Touch With Lydia Site: TurnquistHouse.com Facebook: @TurnquistHouse

Julie Fuller is the super creative owner of Tokyo Blossom Boutique where she sells Christian gifts for women. She’s married to a fellow creative, and together they have one handsome son. As a busy Etsy seller and mom to a darling boy with special needs, it’s critical that Julie makes the most of her time. Press play on the podcast player below or keep on reading to hear all about Julie’s brilliant planner hacks. Fun side note here!: Julie was one of the very first listeners of the Brilliant Business Moms podcast! Julie and I got to hang out at a conference in Nashville last year, and I wasn’t at all surprised to discover she’s as sweet in real life as she is online! Listen Now 1:30 - Not Sure How to Grow your Biz? Listen To Your Customers! Julie’s shop, Tokyo Blossom Boutique, has gone through a bit of a transformation in the time I’ve known her. Lately, her business has been growing in fabulous ways, and I just had to hear what changes Julie’s made that have led to her new growth! Through 2016, Julie was selling lots of hand crochet and knit items. One of her products, knit cup cozies, was selling WAY more than the other items, but she couldn’t figure out why. At that time in business, Julie had been working hard to make her brand visually unified, rather than focusing on a target audience. The more cup cozies she sold in person, the more feedback she got that her product was encouraging. One lady said she was buying a cozy for a friend who’s not very joyful, as a reminder to be joyful. (This one made us both chuckle a bit!) After they purchased a cozy, customers would message Julie to say they purchased it because they needed the inspirational message to encourage them during a difficult time. One woman in particular wrote to tell Julie that her husband was facing tough medical issues and life was especially hard; She wanted a cozy to have that reminder to be joyful right on her daily cup of coffee. (Wow, that’s a powerful reason to buy a product! And Julie listened to each of her customer’s stories carefully!) Early in 2017, Julie decided to focus on developing more encouraging products that her customers would love. She revamped her shop and made mental notes of which products to purge and which to keep. The cup cozies, of course, stayed! Another favorite product, her planner clips, got a makeover; Julie redesigned them to incorporate inspirational messages. And the switch worked! Many customers are using the planner clips not just for planners, but to accessorize their Bible journals. Tokyo Blossom Boutique is now happily a Christian gift company! I just love the simple but impactful steps Julie took to refine her business: Meet customers Listen to them Serve their needs 5:30 - Selling Handmade in a Retail Space The day following our recording, Julie moved into her first retail space! She’s officially a vendor at Woodstock Market, which is a huge retail store of local makers selling home decor and gifts. Julie had been eyeballing this place for a year and a half...she knew it would be a great opportunity! Plus, once a vendor gets in, they receive lots of traffic and attention from local businesses and boutiques. Though Julie’s desire to have space in a retail setting was strong, she knew there was a lot that had to happen in her business and personal life before justifying the risk. Julie’s husband Scott had recently started his own creative business, and she wanted to give him time to get his business going strong. Julie wanted to have the confidence that even a small risk wouldn’t hurt their family. A wise move on Julie’s part was that she also wanted to make sure her shop was ready for a bigger platform. Though her products were visually appealing and high quality, she wasn’t confident that she could give a tidy description of her shop in one sentence. She wanted to work toward that unity within her business before contacting Woodstock Market. The right time turned out to be 18 months after she first started thinking in that direction. Julie had a peace about finally reaching out to the merchandising coordinator and putting in her application, and she heard back the very next day! Those magic words, “You’re a perfect fit, and your products are just what we’ve been looking for!” were exactly what she needed. Since Woodstock Market is Christian-owned, they’d been looking for a vendor who offered Christian gifts. Talk about perfect timing! After Julie got her initial call back from the space, she then had to go through an interview process. Julie says that she appreciated how honest and validating her discussion with the merchandiser was. Julie asked hard questions, like “What if I bomb as a seller!? And can you explain the details of this contract?” And she got straightforward answers right back. In fact, everything worked out so perfectly, that Woodstock Market actually made room for Julie when they had just booked their last spot! She’s been getting great feedback from her in-store shoppers. And it’s encouraging to Julie that many local stores got their start as a vendor at Woodstock Market. 11:45 - Julie’s Brilliant Life Planner Business Hack I already love Julie’s planner clips, but planner clips aren’t the only creative planner hack she’s made! Julie has experimented a lot with the Brilliant Life Planner. The planning pages at the beginning of the year and each month have been a big part of her goal setting. But, like most of us, Julie says most of her hang-ups come during those daily, mundane tasks. She would look at the blank week ahead feeling like a deer in headlights! What were all those nitty, gritty business tasks she had to do? Planning for social media, sending her newsletter, marketing, and contacting the right people...the list was overwhelming! Inspired by Crystal Paine’s Homemaking Binder, Julie made a master binder for her business that she incorporates in her planner. She listed all her weekly, recurring business tasks by day and tucked that list in the front pocket of her Brilliant Life Planner. Now Julie tackles that blank week with confidence! She fills her schedule with the regular tasks first and then adds in all the unique ones. 16:00 - How to Make Sure Important Biz Tasks Always Get Done! Julie’s system for tackling recurring biz tasks is brilliant! She has an awesome system in place to make sure none of the important tasks in her business fall through the cracks. She makes progress on all of them each week. So what are some of Julie’s recurring business tasks? On Mondays, for example, she makes it a point to give her Etsy shop an update. How does everything look? Are her listings up-to-date? Is there anything new she wants to add to her Shop Announcements? Julie keeps regular tabs on her shop so it always shines. Does Julie kick herself if she misses one week of shop updates? Not at all! But having this important to-do on the schedule ensures it gets accomplished more often than not. Some other biz tasks Julie keeps on her recurring list are interactions with fans on Instagram. Like many of us, it’s easy for her to update Instagram, but not necessarily to remember to come back and interact with fans, so she puts it in her planner. Julie also includes a list of who to contact for marketing, such as wholesale businesses and box companies. So brilliant! If marketing isn’t a regularly scheduled part of your business, growth is pretty hard to achieve! 17:00 - Brilliant Planning = Crushing Goals! Julie’s planning strategies have allowed her to meet her great big goals, and I couldn’t be more excited for her! In 2016 she doubled her sales from 2015, and for 2017, her goal is to double her sales AGAIN! Julie is well on her way to reaching that milestone. At the time of this recording, she’s up 60% in sales from where she was last year! And with space in a retail setting and Christmas coming, hitting that goal is definitely within reach. Let’s be honest, meeting these goals didn’t happen by accident. Julie has been super organized and strategic in making steady progress on her business every week. 17:50 - Washi Tape Planner Hacks So, does Julie have any other tips for making the most of her planner? Yes! As moms, a lot of our schedule outside of business can be counted as recurring, like picking up the kids from school, or a weekly lunch date with our husbands, as is Julie’s case. Julie noticed that she was writing the same words and events over and over again. As a result, her pretty planner was getting cluttered! For those daily recurring items, she writes them all out in the slots on her Monday section. And instead of writing the same task or event sideways across the week, over and over, she takes a piece of washi tape and tapes out the same hourly slot through the week. It’s one way she keeps her planner neat and pretty, plus saves herself time. The same washi tape hack can be used if Julie has a vacation coming up. If she needs to block out a full day or an entire week, Julie just stretches washi tape either vertically down the day, or horizontally across the week. Brilliant! 20:20 - Planner Clip Hacks Julie uses 2-3 clips in her planner at all times. She uses one to mark her weekly planning page, and another for the monthly page. Marking the monthly page helps Julie make sure she doesn’t add events to her week that overlap with anything previously scheduled. And when she’s working especially hard for a goal (like doubling sales from last year!) she adds a clip to her goals page too. I just love this hack! Julie saves herself loads of time by speeding up all the small tasks she’s doing each day… like flipping through her planner! 21:15 - A Bonus Hack + A Fun New Addition for Planner Lovers! Another great spot for using a planner clip is to mark your Habit Tracker page. But speaking of the habit tracker page, Julie (and many of you!) have asked if there are plans to include the habit tracker on the monthly page. While we haven’t changed the format of the planner, we ARE creating habit tracker stickers! I’ve teamed up with Ashley Monda of Sunshine Sticker Co.  to make custom sticker pages just for the Brilliant Life Planner! They are gorgeous, and I can’t wait for them to hit the shop! 22:22 - Teeny Post-It Notes Making A Big Difference Another thing Julie does with her planner that I just love is to use the smallest size sticky notes for repeated routines or lists. Turns out, those sticky notes are just about 1.5 inches by 2 inches and can fit across a several-hour block on our planner. Julie can then take her sticky of to-do’s and move them to different days as needed. How great is that!? 24:10 - Bullet Journal Hack Don’t worry bullet journal fans...the planner works for you too! Julie also is a bullet journal user and has incorporated a half-and-half system in her planner. She does time block recurring things. But during her big chunks of time, like the mornings when her son is at school or the afternoons if he takes a nap, she bullet journals. Rather than schedule 30-minute increments, she gets a lined stamp for planners and stamps lines into that block of time to create a bullet-journal style to-do list I do the same thing! I frequently use my big blocks of time as a to-do list. 25:25 - Adorable Mom Moment Julie’s son refers to her customers as ‘friends’. One afternoon as the two of them worked in their home office, he was very quiet and preoccupied with a project in the corner. He then came to Julie and showed her scraps of papers and glued them together. He said he made something for her ‘friends’ and they need to buy it so they’ll be happy. So cute! He gets it! And you’ll have to tune in to the podcast for a second adorable moment that Julie shared! Stay In Touch With Julie Etsy: Tokyo Blossom Boutique Facebook Instagram Pinterest What do you think? Will you try any of Julie’s planner hacks? I know I need to make better use of my clips, and I’m excited to give washi tape a try for some of my daily routines!

Oh Friends, I’ve been dying to share this episode with you! Today on the show I’m pleased to welcome Jamie Clinard, who owns the shop Saturday Morning Pancakes. She creates adorable t-shirts for moms and kids inspired by 90s hip hop. You’ll have to head to the show notes to check out Jamie’s hilarious and so adorable shirts. What makes this interview so exciting and so incredible is that by digging into Facebook and Instagram ads last summer, Jamie has taken her business from being a nice hobby ($500-$1,000 a month in income) to hitting $1 Million in sales in March of 2017! She told me she’s on track to do $2.6 Million for her business this year(!!!) Listen Now And, no, Jamie didn’t start teaching others how to grow a business to get these amazing results. She doesn’t have all these hidden revenue streams or $1,000 products she’s selling. She just dug deep and focused on her t-shirt shop. Jamie got busy serving her customers well, finding new customers, creating ads, testing audiences, and scaling what’s working. That’s all she’s done, and she’s hit $1M in sales! When Jamie reached out to me to tell me what a difference Facebook ads have made in her business, I was seriously stunned!!   Now I KNOW Facebook ads work, but to go from a hobby biz to a 7-figure biz in less than a year?! They’re even more powerful than I realized! I hope you will listen to this interview with an open mind. Don’t set up barriers for yourself and think, “well, Jamie must have something special that I don’t.” Or “Jamie just got lucky.” Or “Great for Jamie, but this won’t work for me.” I want you to know Jamie is a SAHM, just like me and just like you. She grew her business in the margins. She was tinkering with ads during naptime and bedtime, and her business started taking off! In fact, after the first month when business really exploded, she had to turn her ads off because she was getting SO much business. She took the time to hire the right employees, set up the right systems, and then she turned the ads back on for massive growth! I hope hearing from Jamie will get you excited at what’s possible when you use Facebook ads to grow your business! 4:00 - A Shop That Started...Thanks To Pancakes! Jamie is also a mom of two kids, a 4-year-old girl and 18-month-old little boy. She worked in gang prevention before she got pregnant. She loved her work, but when she was expecting her daughter, her family decided it was time to pursue something different. There’s so much negativity in the world that Jamie wanted to find an outlet to bring more light and laughter to people. Jamie has always been a fan of 90’s rap and hip hop. In college she created a playlist called ‘Saturday Morning Pancakes’ to crank up every Saturday morning while she made pancakes for her roommates. They were the kinds of songs you just HAD to dance to! So when she thought about a company name, that was the first thing that popped into her mind. She thought about how funny it would be to incorporate hip hop phrases into kids clothing… turning something “tough” into something funny and cute. And it worked! People loved it. Saturday Morning Pancakes has taken off. (Just wait until you hear the behind the scenes!) 7:24 - Best Seller From The Beginning Jamie’s first tee design is actually still her best seller -‘Regulators Mount Up’. The song is so popular and well-known, but the twist of the kid tricycle is just so funny. That’s why Jamie thinks the tee has sold well. 8:40 - Crazy Business Growth...Thanks to Facebook Ads! We’ve been hinting a lot about Jamie’s crazy growth, let’s get to it! Until the summer of 2016, Jamie was doing everything for her business -- from the screen printing and shipping, to the marketing and designing, in her garage - with two kids in the house! Something snapped in Jamie and she wanted more from her business. With that motivation, she started researching Facebook ads, Instagram marketing, and email newsletters. It was pretty overwhelming to tackle all at once! So Jamie decided to pick one method and roll with it. It was around this time that Jamie found FB Brilliance. She was in a PR-focused group called Cupcake Magazine. She asked if anyone knew anything about Facebook Ads, and a member directed her to Brilliant Business Moms! She found us thanks to that group, and joined our course. It took Jamie two months to get through the content with two little ones at home, but it was exciting! She kept pushing past the tech hurdles and tougher parts of mastering ads, and she finally got her ads up and running! Jamie’s first ads were okay, but once she sat down and thought about her customer, it all started to come together. Jamie started thinking about all of the websites she would visit online, and all the interests she had, and she used that to narrow in on her targeting and show her ads to the right people. She started testing a few audiences at once, and things really started snowballing! As Jamie’s sales started to grow in a big way, her husband finally told her, “You need to turn off the ads!” She got so many orders that it was almost scary! She knew she couldn’t continue to run the business on her own. Jamie and her husband sat down together to refocus, and make a plan. Jamie hired a fantastic college girl to help her with shipping, and the business kept growing the more she scaled her ads. It was really fun...and addicting! After a few growth spurts, Jamie was able to get some warehouse space and hire even more staff to handle fulfillment and shipping. With all this growth, Jamie is still really involved in her business. She does all her Facebook ads and product design herself, but she has a team that helps her ship, and a company that helps her screenprint her tees. 13:20 - Nobody Can Nail The Heart Of Your Brand Like You Can Jamie tried hiring an ad agency to help with Facebook ads, because she thought there might be a lot of information she didn’t know. But… the ad agency totally bombed! They were targeting all sorts of strange interests and creating ads that just didn’t resonate with Jamie’s ideal customers. This experience helped Jamie realize she REALLY was the person who knew her business best! At the end of the day, a big fancy ad agency can’t capture what makes your business unique as much as you can. No one else has that special sauce! In our case Ellen, our team member, is perfect at making ads exactly how I envision them. Jamie also has an awesome team member  Carli, who is their Social Media Manager and always hits the nail on the head with her funny posts. Jamie’s first hire was her General Manager, Jenn, who is in charge of all operations. (To meet her entire, awesome team, just visit their about page!) It is scary to let go, but oftentimes letting go in some areas will allow you to grow! Isn’t it hard to be a mom and CEO? 16:00 - Tips For Hiring A Team We always recommend hiring for personality. That really matters! Jamie has found that her customers really connect with her team! They love getting to see them in action. Her team shares hilarious videos on Instagram stories, and Jamie loves it when fans write to her saying, ‘Your Team Is So Cute!’. 16:50 - Just HOW Big Did She Grow? To give you a sense of how much Jamie’s business has grown: she has 9 employees, a shared warehouse with an aftermarket company, and a shared space with a non-profit. Her business is bringing in six figures each month. “I never thought this was possible in my LIFE! I didn’t even think six figures in a YEAR was achievable!” 18:14 - Crushing Business Goals at SMP Okay, so I have to go on a little rant here. A lot of us mompreneurs receive patronizing comments on a regular basis: ‘“Oh honey, your cute little business” - that kind of thing. And it’s so frustrating! All of us are capable of six figure years and more!! We need to ignore the patronizers who think we just have a cute hobby. Our businesses can be so much more than that if we want them to be! In fact, Saturday Morning Pancakes is already a seven-figure company! (That’s still a goal of ours here at Brilliant Business Moms!) When Jamie hit a million in sales for the year, she was so in the grind trying to make sure everything was working, that she almost missed the milestone! (It happened in March of this year!) Once she realized that her company had surpassed seven figures, she and her husband did have a celebratory beer on the couch, and kept on working hard. “I would say to myself, ‘It’s working! It’s working! I hope it keeps working!’ I kept thinking I would wake up one morning and the ads would suddenly not work.” So far, Jamie’s business just keeps on growing, and now, she’s got a huge base of happy customers who will continue to come back and buy from her again and again! 21:00 - Why You Shouldn’t Set an Ads Budget So you ladies might freak when you hear how much Jamie is spending on ads, but stick with us to hear her ROI! Jamie determines how much to put into a given ad set (a particular audience that she’s showing a particular ad to) based on whether she’s getting sales for $6 or less from that ad set. If a couple of days go by and Jamie’s cost per sale is much higher than $6, she’ll turn off that ad set. And if she’s getting sales conversions for as little as $1 to $2 each, she will scale those ads aggressively! At first, Jamie started with ads for 2 t-shirt designs, and tested 5 different audiences per shirt. These days, she’ll often have 7 different ads going to 7-10 ad sets (audiences) inside each campaign. Jamie never caps her budget. If your ads are doing well, and earning you profitable sales, don’t limit your success by capping! Early on Jamie and her husband DID experience some moments of panic: “Oh my gosh! We’re spending $500 a day on ads!” In March, when they hit 7 figures, they probably spent $1,000 a day - and made $5,000 or more back in sales on that same day. Again, she always bases her spend off of her conversion metric:  $6 sales conversions or less = scale up baby! You might have some growing pains at first, but if you’re making profitable sales and can fill your orders, keep scaling! Hint: This is EXACTLY how we do things here at Brilliant Business Moms too, and I never would have hit six figures so quickly without this strategy! (And, yes, Jamie checks on her ads at least 3 times a day to make sure they’re still profitable :) 24:05 - A Great Big Ads Mistake Since Jamie is earning such a great profit from her ads already, one day of having a loss with her ads would be a bummer, but it wouldn’t end her business or anything! And of course, Jamie has setbacks or days when the ads perform less well than others. Jamie told me about the time when she meant to increase an ad set budget to $50 a day, but accidentally changed it to $5,000 per day! She didn’t catch the mistake for almost 3 hours!!! Eeek!!! Sales went through the roof, but she DOES NOT recommend this method! Her cost per sales  conversion was $30 each, so Jamie was losing a bit of money on each sale. Thankfully she caught her mistake quickly enough and didn’t spend the entire $5,000! It was more like $300, with some sales thrown in to recoup most of those costs. Jamie’s story totally cracks me up, because it sounds like something I would do! We all have goof-ups, but usually they’re just opportunities for growth and knowing what not to do next time :) 25:30 - Why Spending Big Can Mean Big Profits It’s easy to spend $1,000 a day when you’re getting profitable sales. In Jamie’s case, if she’s spent $30,000 on ads in a month, she’s made about $100,000 in sales that month - or more! Jamie says she’s getting back 3x her Facebook ad investment. If for every dollar I give Facebook they give me back three or four dollars in return? Well, I’ll keep giving them dollars all day long! Cause here’s the thing:  You can decide not to spend money on ads and work your buns off to earn $10,000 month all on your own. And I know you can do it!   But think about all the extra cash Jamie gets in the door from ads. She’s working the same amount as that solopreneur bringing in $10,000/month, but in Jamie’s case, she’s bringing in $70,000/month after she accounts for her ad spend. Even if you then factor in her growing team and say, half of those profits go to expenses, Jamie’s still coming out way ahead at $35,000/month in her pocket.  (This is just a general example for you to see why ads can be amazing for your business!) “It felt like magic,” Jamie said. Scaling Facebook ads for massive sales can be easy when you have a great product and you know your target market really well. And the more ads you run, the better you get at knowing what your customers will respond to! 26:50 - Campaign Structure Most of Jamie’s campaigns are optimized for conversions and then she chooses the purchase event. Facebook is so good at optimizing whatever action you tell them to! I’ve started optimizing for purchases with my $15 mini classes. I can show my ads to a cold audience, get super affordable purchases, and get a 2-3x ROI on my ad spend. And here’s a quick tip! Facebook has a neat resource called Facebook Blueprint. Sometimes they’ll do mini classes to help your ads experience. The teaching style is a bit robotic, but sometimes the instructors will totally nerd out and give you insider info! This is a recent tip I learned inside a Facebook Blueprint class:  People who are strong clickers are different than strong converters. Some people assume a traffic campaign will be enough -- just to get clicks and eyes on their site. But there’s way more competition for those clickers. And the clickers aren’t necessarily the same people who will convert into a customer. Just something to keep in mind as you run ads. 29:10 - Getting Started With Facebook Ads So what did Jamie’s first ad look like and how did it do? Her first ad was...also her worst ad! The very first ad Jamie ran was a promo saying they hit 10,000 followers on Instagram. She had 30 Facebook followers at the time. Needless to say, the results weren’t great! After taking our course, Jamie’s first ‘real’ ad was for one of her adult tee shirts that read ‘But First Gangsta Rap’ with a selfie of her wearing it. She was targeting cold audiences as she hadn’t quite figured out lookalike audiences just yet. But her sales were profitable! Jamie says she tried targeting from every angle to narrow in on her ideal customers, and probably 90% of the audiences she tested were not successful, but the 10% that were she threw everything at them and made massive sales! Jamie’s purchase pixel was already in place to track those sales and measure exactly how much it was costing her per sale for a given audience she was targeting. 31:05 - How Much Should You Spend to Know if it’s Working? Some of Jamie’s audiences convert immediately, low and quickly. Those are the ones she pushes money towards. Some audiences have no sales for 3 days, but all of a sudden they take off like wildfire. Jamie gives each ad set about 3 days at $5 a day before calling it quits. And if she has a gut feeling to push one audience a bit further, she’ll go with it! The more you run ads, the more you’ll get a feel for what’s worth hanging onto and what you can stop on day 1 because you just KNOW it’s not going to work out! 32:33 - First Month Ad Results Jamie can describe her results best by growth. She started advertising after finishing FB Brilliance in August. She experienced an immediate growth in sales of 500%. It was fast! And she instantly became a crazy person with Facebook ads. She really wanted to push things off the ground. She was researching audiences and checking her ads every 6 hours. “You can’t give up right away if it doesn’t go well,” Jamie cautions. She went through about 20 audiences before one worked. But once it worked, it REALLY WORKED. I still remember Jamie emailing me at the end of last August telling me about her month of 17k in sales! Things took off for her really quickly because she was constantly testing and tweaking her ads strategy! The selfie with her tee shirt was her only ad she was running at the time, but then she created ads for her ‘Regulators’ kid tee. Facebook tends to like women’s shirts better than their kids’ shirts, which is interesting! 34:40 - Way to go Facebook! I see Jamie’s ads in my Instagram feed all the time! I’m someone who sees a product I love, and I will buy it right away! Way to go Facebook, very smart with the targeting ;) The Facebook pixel is seriously awesome, you guys. They will go out and find people who will give you sales at the most affordable rate! 35:50 - Mind Blown With Lookalike Audiences Delving into Lookalike audiences really blew Jamie away. She did a lookalike audience based on her website visitors at first. Then she created an audience based on people who watched a marketing video SMP produced. Jamie has created lookalikes of people who have visited certain pages on her website, and a lookalike of her customers. You can get really deep with it! It’s amazing what Facebook can do! 36:31 - So Many Lookalike Options! I, Beth Anne, am currently running ads to build my email list. Let me give you an idea of how many lookalike audiences I’m leveraging: I have a lookalike of everyone on my email list I have lookalikes of people who have visited certain blog posts I have a value-based lookalike (which is a new feature Facebook rolled out where they take all your customer data and try to find people who will spend the most with you!) I have general customer lookalikes I have lookalikes of webinar signups You can do so many things with lookalikes, and the coolest part is, no one else’s lookalike will be just like yours - so you’ve got all these killer audiences of millions of people that only you can really target to! (Ok not exactly but… you won’t be competing person-for-person the way you would with an interest-based  audience!) 37:20 - Are Lookalikes the Best Performers? Or Interest-Based Audiences? Cold traffic sometimes will perform better than lookalikes for Jamie! If the shirt she’s advertising has been around a while, then cold traffic audiences are better. If it’s a new shirt she’s introducing to her audience, lookalikes or retargeting ads are best. One caveat:  sometimes Jamie finds that her ads will suddenly stop performing. What she’ll have to do then is change up a new picture and post text for the same shirt, reset the ad, and the sales turn back on. This is all part of being a savvy business owner! 38:36 - Jamie’s Best Ads Let’s have a look at some of the best ads Jamie has run. The first ‘But First Gangster Rap’ Tee, featuring her daughter’s preschool teacher! Image: Selfie type of photo that moms relate to. It’s totally cool, casual mom style! Copy: Coffee is great, but for reals, though. Nothing gets our day started quite like a little Biggie Smalls, am I right? Get free shipping with promo code → GRFreeShip Grab yours here -> Bitly Link 40:20 - Talking To Your Audience Like a Friend I love how conversational, casual, and fun Jamie’s ad is! This is how you would share about t-shirt you really like with a friend. That’s why it resonates so much with people. Jamie says she doesn’t want her company to feel like a big name brand. Saturday Morning Pancakes include gifs and memes in all of her emails. Jamie responds best when she can laugh with someone and, let’s be honest, who doesn’t!? 41:11 - Another Winning Ad Copy: First Gansta Rap. Then Coffee. Then I do the things. Grab this super soft gangster rap tee and turn your cold, cozy mornings into hip hop awesomeness. Get your free shipping code here → GRFreeShip And if you remember back to Melissa Kaiserman’s episode, she also said her customers don’t often use her free shipping codes! They just love the product!  It’s nice to include coupon codes, but don’t be surprised if most of your new customers don’t use them! 42:57 - Pricing Tees Jamie charges $31 for an adult tee and $21 for her kids sizes. So again, people aren’t coming to her for cheap tees, but they are coming to her for these hilarious and fabulous products that tell the world what they’re all about! Another factor in pricing the tees is that they’re sourced with high quality fabric, which makes her costs higher. Don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth, and of course, leave enough wiggle room so you can afford to pay to acquire a new customer.  THAT’S how you scale up a business! 44:00 - Has Manufacturing Changed? Does Jamie screenprint her own shirts? SMP does work with a screenprinter now, due to the quantity. There’s just too many to do on her own! But Jamie does still screenprint a few of her shirts. During Christmas of 2016, Jamie was still screenprinting 60% of her tees, and her heating element went out! She was desperate for a solution, and even tried baking her tees in her oven! Jamie says she was desperate to make things work and not keep her customers waiting! 45:46 - Another Ad This ad is a flat lay of a t-shirt that says ‘You're The Wu To my Tang’ with a cute pair of sunglasses and cut-off jean shorts. Copy: GREAT NEWS! We are now offering our Wu Tang tees in another color! Woot woot for Wu Tang! Grab yours here: (bitly link to the shop page) Get 10% OFF with the code WuTang. (And shocker again! Not a lot of people are using the 10% off coupon!) 46:22 - What’s Working For Jamie Right Now Jamie has a great product that appeals to a specific niche. She’s always testing marketing. What else is working for her right now? “Build a community! People know when they're being sold to,” Jamie says. “I love my customers, and I’m sure we’d all be best friends if we had the chance!” I know just like Jamie, you and your customers are passionate about all the same things. You all have a story. Jamie has extended her branding and connection to her customers all the way down to the packaging of her products! Everything she does is light and fun! If you’re just trying to make a quick buck, people will know. Your business should be community-oriented. 48:00 - Loyal Customers Jamie says she’s always had a strong, loyal customer base. About 70% of her customers are new this year because she’s just growing like crazy. But once she earns a customer, they ARE repurchasing! This is why even if you can just break even on ads but get a bunch of loyal customers for years to come, it's worth it! 50:04 - Jamie’s Adorable Mom Moment You’ll have to listen for this adorable burn from Jamie’s 4-year-old daughter! I was cracking up! 51:20 - FB Brilliance is Opening its Doors Again! Was that not incredible hearing from Jamie!? Here’s the exciting news: If you’re ready to dig into Facebook and Instagram just like Jamie did and explode your business growth, I’m opening the doors to my course on Facebook advertising, FB Brilliance, this month! The doors will open Thursday, September 21st and they will ONLY be open for a week. I will close the doors Wednesday, September 27th - and that’s it, friends! I won’t re-open the course til next April. But I don’t want you to wait 7 months to learn a strategy that will get you the biggest bang for your buck and help you scale your business like Jamie did. In the meantime, I’m running a scholarship program from Tuesday, September 12th - Saturday, September 16th. This scholarship will be hosted inside my new Facebook group FB Ads For Brilliant Mamas. Five motivated ladies who submit their answers to all 5 assignments I give during my lessons will receive lifetime access to FB Brilliance, for free! You want to be in this group, and you WANT to be eligible for this scholarship by completing our totally doable assignments. And if you’re not sure about FB Brilliance, you still want to be in the group because you’ll learn a lot from my live sessions! (Jamie is also going to make a surprise appearance in the group towards the end of September!) Don’t hold yourself back! I know you can do it! Even if you have doubts that you can succeed, we will all be there to rally around you and help! And you can still grab our cheat sheet, 10 Things You Need to Know Before You Run Your First Ad right here: brilliantbusinessmoms.com/facebookadscheatsheet Keep In Touch With Jamie SaturdayMorningPancakes.com  

  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve been talking all about Facebook ads and their potential to help you grow your business this month on the podcast. If there’s anything I’m ridiculously passionate about, it’s using Facebook ads to explode your business growth. I’m on a mission to help as many brilliant mamas realize their potential as possible! I’ve got another amazing case study for you today from LJ Johnson. What I love about her story is that a year ago she didn’t even have a website!  She just had an idea in her head. She was passionate about planning trips to Disney on a budget and wanted to help other moms do the same. In January of 2017 LJ started her website, Smart Moms Plan Disney, and in March she launched her first product with a presale. LJ has done more than $30,000 in eBook sales since then. I think that’s pretty crazy for someone who didn’t even have a website a year ago! It’s not often you’ll find someone who starts a blog, and less than six months later brings in five-figure sales stats, but that’s the power of Facebook ads! You can really amplify your business growth. If you’re out there just thinking about a business idea, I think you’ll be completely inspired by LJ’s story. You’ll feel empowered that you can do this, too! Exciting News! The other thing I wanted to mention is that LJ talks about going through my Scholarship Program for FB Brilliance. And I wanted to let you know I’m hosting the Scholarship Program again this year! 5 brilliant, amazing ladies will get to enroll in FB Brilliance for free. And I’m not talking limited access or limited stuff. Nope, they get the whole sh’bang! They get lifetime access to the course + all updates. Access to my weekly coaching calls that happen for the first 8 weeks of the program. Access to the private Facebook group to connect with other amazing Mamapreneurs. Access to my mastermind pairing bonus (yep… everyone will get matched up into an 8-person mastermind this year!). My scholarship students get everything! To be considered for a scholarship, make sure you request to join my private Facebook Group right here. Every day, for 5 days in a row (from September 12-16th) I’ll share a lesson. At the end of the lesson, there will be a simple assignment.  Each woman who completes all 5 assignments will be considered for the scholarship. We will pick those 5 winners based on who has done the best job on each assignment. Plus, each lesson and assignment will set you up to be more successful with your own Facebook ads, so it’s a win-win! Last year we had 3 winners. These ladies have been totally motivated, and totally rocking and rolling in their businesses. I loved having the chance to gift this course! (Something else fun...and I don’t even know if I should mention this! But I actually gave everyone who submitted a scholarship application a special discount code for FB Brilliance last year! So if you’re on the fence, you should give the Scholarship Program a shot! It’ll give you a sense of my teaching style and steps you can take to set you up for success.) Ladies, I just can't wait to see you in those lessons! And one more note before we get into the interview. I wanted to say that LJ gives FB Brilliance a pretty rave review. That is totally unsolicited! She just started sharing how much she loves FB Brilliance and how it’s changed her business. I just want you to know I did not try to pull that out of her! She just started sharing, which was so, so sweet. I love that she’s enjoyed the course so much. And I honestly think you will, too. Make sure you’re on our list so you get all the updates about FB Brilliance! 7:05 - Meet LJ LJ Johnson is the founder of SmartMomsPlanDisney.com. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and 4 kids. Her business is not even 1 year old yet, and she’s already done amazing things! I am just so excited at how she’s grown a blog and created a product from scratch this year and you won't believe her sales numbers for that brand new eBook! LJ achieved her insane growth primarily using Facebook ads and I can't wait for you to hear her story. 8:26 - A Business Is Born from a Personal Passion LJ’s business idea was brewing for a while. She knew she wanted to do something Disney-related because her knowledge around doing Disney on a budget was seriously ridiculous! (As in, she and her family had been going to Disney every month, and sometimes twice a month for several years!) LJ was eager to bring friends along for the ride. She discovered Brilliant Business Moms in the Fall of 2016 -- the last time the doors to FB Brilliance were open. In fact, she stumbled upon our 5-Day scholarship program ON Day 5! She watched the entire series after the fact, but almost wrote the scholarship off as she didn’t think she would have time to complete the assignment. LJ’s super amazing husband agreed to wrangle their kids for two days while she worked through the assignments so she could be considered for a scholarship. And that was literally the beginning of her business! When we asked you all to start a business Facebook page so you could run ads, that was the moment LJ had to think of a name for her business! “My business was born in FB Brilliance,” LJ says. 10:25 - Faith, Trust, and Ebook Pixie Dust Those initial business tasks took LJ until the first of the year, which is when she officially launched her business. At first, she was considering becoming a Disney travel agent, but it wasn’t a great fit for her passions. LJ felt the real pressure to make a profit, especially since she was spending a lot of her own money on Facebook ads to build her email list. The idea of writing an eBook came to her in March of 2017. She realized that two of her areas of expertise were managing money and going to Disney World, and her ebook was born: Disney World Within Reach: Meeting The Mouse Without Breaking the Bank. This book was the answer to a question LJ has received hundreds of times: “How do you afford to go to Disney?” LJ always thought she was giving common sense answers, but as we business owners have to remember, what comes naturally to us doesn’t come naturally to everyone else! Disney has improved LJ’s life in so many ways, from getting her finances in line (her family was almost a quarter of a million in debt!) to learning how to make the most of time with her family. 15:00 - Maximizing eBook Sales Through our emails, I recommended my sister-in-law Abby’s Book Boss* resource to LJ. In that course, Abby shares her own eBook launch strategies - such as offering presales and working with affiliates - which LJ took to heart. By creating a product that really helps people and following solid marketing advice, LJ has more than earned back every cent she has invested into her Facebook ads. During just her week of presales, she sold over $11K worth of ebooks! And that was just presales! Those customers hadn’t actually received the final product yet! Within two and a half months of the book going live, LJ made $35K in sales. LJ says she is reinvesting a lot back into her new company, but the income has already outpaced the real estate company she already has! 17:38 - How to Run Presales In February, LJ started a Facebook group, which really works well for her niche. Fans were posting to LJ’s business page asking their Disney planning questions, and LJ was eager to answer them...but she felt uncomfortable answering personal questions in a public place. She had the idea to start a private Facebook group where moms could ask their questions, and it worked well. Facebook did a great job of matching up the perfect members to join Smart Moms Planning Disney. By the time the book pre-sale started, LJ had about 5,000 members in her group, with tons of engagement! LJ told her group an ebook was coming the moment she started writing it! And it worked out great since she got tons of amazing feedback during the writing process. (People were even begging her to finish the book as quickly as possible!) Once LJ was ready to warm up buyers, she introduced the book price at $50. She knew most moms might find $50 for an ebook too much to pay, but she wanted to establish that value in their minds. Plus, when she announced the presale price of $35, everyone was super excited for the deal and eager to buy! LJ’s goal was to sell $3,500 total, but she made that amount in the first day! LJ credits all of her success to the working of God. 22:33 - Favorite Tools to Run a Presale Of course, Facebook is LJ’s #1 tool. She says she never would have connected to her audience without it. Another tool LJ loves is SamCart. This app makes it easy to offer customers other products you have for sale. And in fact, it motived LJ to diversify her product offerings and create several packages for customers to choose from. SamCart includes training that suggests using ScreenFlow or PowerPoint Mac to create a slideshow pitching your products and how they work together. She also purchased a quality microphone to record her voice overs. LJ invested $1,000 to use SamCart for a year, but it paid for itself on her first day of sales. 25:00 - Using Facebook Ads for Affordable Leads LJ ran her first Facebook ad on Christmas Day, but there was a MAJOR glitch. A friend sent her a screenshot which showed that LJ’s landing page was completely messed up and looked awful! Still, those leads were coming in at $2.20 each, which is pretty great considering her error-filled page. LJ quickly turned off the ad and did some troubleshooting. Once she was back online, she started getting leads for as low as $0.15 a day! LJ watched our FB Brilliance course in bits and pieces. But whenever she would hit a dry spot or snag with her ads, she picked back up and watched the next module - which usually solved her problem. Due to her background in real estate, LJ is comfortable with the idea of investing money in order to grow. She was okay to spend money up front (about $2,000 a month for a few months) to build up her email list so they would be ready to buy when the time came. Once LJ started writing her book, she backed off Facebook ads and let the momentum organically continue. These days, she is spending about $200 a month on targeted ads. 28:21 - LJ’s Brilliant Ad LJ’s most successful Facebook ad is her simplest. She tells the story of how her first Disney trip was a total disaster! But she came back home, learned more, and tried again. The second trip was a huge success! Then she directs visitors to her free cheat sheet on a carefully designed landing page. This simple ad is her highest clicked link of all! Despite the fact that she’s really pushing other ads to evergreen blog posts. From the investment she’s put into Facebook ads, LJ already has 10,000 subscribers on her list. That kind of growth is incredible for such a new business! And the proof is in the pudding that LJ’s sales funnel is on point. In fact, she has a recent example of one customer completing her entire sales funnel in the course of a one day! The customer: Signed up for her free cheat sheet Clicked immediately on the delivery email and joined her Facebook group Began engaging with the group, and clicked over to LJ’s popular blog posts While reading her blog, the customer requested LJ’s first ebook chapter for free And by the end of the day, had purchased LJ’s $50 eBook! 31:12 - My New Assignment for LJ Since things are going so well, I have a new experiment for LJ to try:  Retargeting ads for the people who ended up on her product landing page but didn't end up buying. She could offer a special bonus or $5 off coupon, or even a customer testimonial ad to recapture those visitors and get the sale. At this point, LJ says she can’t handle more sales. (And I know that’s a great problem to have!) Currently, about 6 out of 10 orders are digital, but taking care of the printing for those few physical orders is a lot. LJ is interested in assembling a team at some point to help her grow. 33:47 - The Magical Story LJ Paints with her Ad So let’s dig into LJ’s ad. It’s so well done! Copy: I know you barely have a second here between taking care of your kids and career. In fact, you’re so busy you don’t think you have time to plan a vacation this year. But you know your kids are only the perfect age for that Disney World magic for so long before the time passes you by. I’m LJ and I understand exactly how you feel. But to be honest, my first trip to Disney wasn’t all that magical. I was so busy, I just showed up in line and stood all day. I had no plans, no reservations, and no idea where anything was. We stood in the heat all day and did very little. I didn’t go back for 3 years. But when Baby #2 started walking, I wanted to go back again. And this time I wanted to be prepared. An obsession was born. I now look back on that next trip with such fondness and feelings of joy. I wouldn’t trade those magical memories of my kids and husband for a million dollars. Since then, I’ve gone to Disney over 20 times. I spent over 100 days at Disney World in the last 2 years. I’ve taken not only my four kids but also people of every age from newborn to school age to grandparents! I’ve stayed at almost every Disney resort, rode every ride, seen most every show, ate at so many of the restaurants. And I’ve started this blog to help other working moms find the magic I found at Disney World. I’ll make it easy for you to plan your trip because I don’t want you to end up like me during my first trip! I even have a free cheat sheet that will give you all the important steps to plan your trip. Click here to sign up and grab my free Disney World Planning Cheat Sheet. → bit.;y/WDWFreeCheatSheet Photo: It’s a fun flat lay, desktop shot. And she has snapshots of Disney World overlaid on the desk, as well as a checklist. Headline: Disney World? You CAN go this year. Tagline: Disney World:  Make the Magic Happen in 2017 This ad has so many shares and views, it’s really perfect! 36:50 - BUSINESS MOM POWER! You guys, this is why moms business are going to take over the world!  Moms love supporting other moms, and telling other moms about the awesome things they find! And, moms listen to each other. I just love this energy! LJ is also passionate about moms having an outlet, and being able to earn an income from home. (Audio abruptly cuts here due to some technical difficulties we had, bear with us!) 39:00 - Getting Creative with Targeting We see that LJ has an ‘Ear Hat Ad Set’ that is marketed directly to travel agents for them to be affiliates of her book. Pretty smart! Copy: You’re the expert. Your client is looking to you to provide assistance to make their trip to Disney World as magical as possible. They want you to tell them where to eat, where to stay, what they should fast pass, and how to save money. If you’re like most people, you probably value a great recommendation. When someone tells you about a product that makes your life better, you’re grateful to that person and you’ll go out of your way to help them in the future. The word for this is loyalty. Wouldn’t it be great if you could make a great recommendation and earn your client’s loyalty for years to come? And it would be even better if you got paid to make that recommendation! If this sounds intriguing, click here to check it out the program. And the link goes to a smart landing page explaining the affiliate program for LJ’s book. 40:10 - Narrow Your Target Audience With Your Ad What I also love about this is that LJ let her ad do the work of narrowing down her target market. A lot of newbie advertisers try to perfectly pinpoint their audience on Facebook, only to get frustrated that Facebook doesn’t have that exact audience at their disposal. But the thing is, it doesn’t cost a lot for Facebook to show your ad around. Let the very clear message in your ad copy, image, and headline do the narrowing for you. It’s totally okay if thousands of people pass you up on your offer, as long as a few of the right people see it and respond. That’s the power of Facebook! 40:54 - Facebook Ads Are NOT Just For Huge Companies A lot of people think that Facebook ads are only for huge businesses, but I’m here to tell every Brilliant Business Mom that ads are doable for any business of any size! You don’t even have to run your ads every day to see great results. You can have a successful campaign for $50 a month, get new people in your funnel for about 10 Days, turn off your ad, nurture them, measure your results, then tweak from there! 41:30 - A Fabulous ROI When LJ started her real estate company a few years ago, at the time she was really nervous about investing! “Am I really going to spend all this money? I might never get it back!” And thinking about FB Brilliance, LJ says if anyone is on the fence she can attest that the course is a great investment. She says, “This course had everything I needed in it. You gave me the direction for me to head in.” (That is SO sweet and kind. Thank you, LJ! And our interview ends really abruptly here due to technical issues. But stay tuned! We’ve got great things ahead.) 43:30 - Ready To Try Your First Ad?? Did this interview leave you just itching to test Facebook ads?? We have a cheat sheet you can grab before you do: 10 Things You Need to Know Before You Run Your First Ad. It'll save you time, tears, and money! 43:50 - Closing Comments Whew! That was so fun talking to LJ! One thing I wanted to mention, there were a few awkward starts and stops to the interview,  and you might have heard baby squeaks in the background. That’s because I was holding Levi while recording, and his schedule was a bit different than mine :)  We did have to cut this interview short, and didn’t get a chance to hop back on due to scheduling, but I did want to share LJ’s story! Her success is absolutely crazy. And one thing I wanted to point out is that LJ is not afraid to invest funds up front in her business to get results. You can absolutely do Facebook ads on a budget. But LJ did scale more quickly to see bigger results more quickly. As LJ shared, she comes from a real estate investing background. And in real estate, you’re often putting up large sums of money before seeing a return. And honestly, that’s how a lot of business growth works. We’re almost spoiled to think we don’t have to spend anything and can just start a profitable business from thin air. Yes, we live in an amazing time where we can set up shop on the internet instead of having the huge overhead involved in a storefront or physical place of business. But that doesn't mean starting an online business will be free. There is always a cost to growing your business. The question you have to decide is what expense do you want to trade in: dollars or hours? There isn’t a right or wrong answer. But if you’re ready to trade dollars for quicker growth, I think you’ll love FB Brilliance!

Erin Odom blogs at TheHumbledHomemaker.com. She’s wife to Will and Mommy to a lovely trio of redheaded girls and one sweet baby boy (yay! another boy mom!). Erin says she’s a recovering overwhelmed homemaker, and she writes about motherhood, homemaking, healthy living, and family finances. Her debut book, More than Just Making It: Hope for the Heart of the Financially Frustrated, is coming out on September 5th. I just have so much praise for her book! I’m so excited for Erin and delighted to have her as my guest today. Welcome to the show, Erin! Listen Now 2:10 - How a Low Point Turned into a Brilliant Book When Erin’s family was living the difficult story she recounts in her book, she would think to herself, “God is teaching me so much. What good will come from this? If I ever make it through this time, I want to do all I can to shatter the shame and stigma of the poor.”  But she never envisioned she would write a full book, and with a major publisher! Erin was raised in upper-class middle America, went to private school, and received a college education. Yet her book opens with Erin walking into the Department of Social Services to apply for food stamps. Like many of us would be, Erin was embarrassed and shocked to have found herself in that position. In fact, she says her pride was so strong that initially, she thought she would write an expose on government aid and how broken the system was! Erin’s story is one of being humbled over and over again. Her book formally began when an agent, actually through Facebook, reached out to her. Her agent told her three things were needed to publish a book: Be Able to Write Have A Platform Have a Story That Meets A Heartfelt Need Erin had several long phone conversations with her agent about her life, what she’d learned, and ideas she had, but things kept coming back to this low point in her life. While going through this time she would think, “We are just barely making it,” but at some point the tables began to turn and she started saying, “Okay, we can be more than just making it.” 6:45 - The Long Road to Publishing   Book writing can be more rigorous and drawn out than you might think! Erin signed with her agent in January 2014. She took two years to write book proposals due to other professional projects. Her book was finally written in 2016, and is now getting published in late 2017. Thanks to the time between the actual living through these events and the writing of her book, Erin had already processed much of the emotions bound up in her story. She had shared bits and pieces of the story to real life friends and blog readers, and already faced much of that shame and privilege in the eye. 8:15 - Expecting Critics Erin is also wisely looking ahead and anticipating critics. Especially due to the controversial nature of a few, main topics in her book - like government assistance - she knows there will be people who disagree. Erin says she’s at peace with that now, but also won’t be surprised if she sheds strong emotions when that first negative review comes! But even still, she says she couldn’t NOT have written her story. 11:30 - If You’re Thinking About Writing A Controversial Book (or Business) Especially for other Christians, Erin’s chief advice is to pray about the decision. Her book couldn’t have been written without lots of prayer! Also, she suggests doing a ton of research on your topic. Erin had her own story, but also she needed to research the facts to help her gain objectivity. 13:10 - Wisely Choosing What Influences Your Work Whatever book or business you want to produce, you’ll be influenced by what you read and listen to during the process. A couple of books in particular were foundational to Erin’s writing process during the proposal phase. She was very drawn to books which read like fiction, even if they weren’t! Bonnie Gray’s Finding Spiritual Whitespace was one such book on Erin’s list. Gray did offer practical tips on how to find whitespace, which was helpful to Erin in a time of entrepreneurial burnout, but her book was framed in memoir. Erin really loved that feeling! Emily T. Wierenga’s Atlas Girl, was another title that gripped Erin’s attention. Wierenga’s book didn’t have a practical element, but she does chronicle her time moving around the world, alongside the story of her mother having a terminal illness. Erin took this inspiration and thought, “if I want to write a book geared toward financial practicality, I don’t want it to be dry and boring.” She wanted her book to take her readers into the story. Erin wants people to feel that space with her, and evoke their empathy. “The way we evoke empathy for other people's stories is by sharing our stories.” 17:00 - The Hard Work of Book Writing Writing this book wasn’t easy, even having always loved writing and majoring in Journalism! Erin says she thought it would be much easier to write her book than it was. Around 2015 she was in entrepreneurial burnout mode, and simply longed to write. As her blog became a business, she got farther away from those writing roots and wanted to get back. Since this was her heart, she thought book writing would be easier....but it was MUCH harder! The memoir was emotionally difficult to write. There were many layers of her financial situation, and painful realities to walk through - some of those stories made it into the book and some didn’t. But writing the practical part? Well, Erin confesses that it was kind of boring to write! (We’re all business moms, aren’t we? We can admit there are boring parts to business, right!?) Primarily, Erin wondered if readers would even be helped by her tips! She didn’t want to write a book that only gave people the warm fuzzies, she wanted to write a book that gave steps to life change. (Phew! Erin placed a tall order on herself with this book… but I think she totally delivered!) 18:50 - What If This Is Super Obvious? It’s tempting to think that everyone already knows the things we do. When Erin was writing the book, she incorporated many tips her parents instilled in her. Both Erin’s parents grew up in large families with not a lot of extras; and though her own father had a great job, frugal living was the norm. She realized in the moment that God prepared her for her lean years since she was a girl. And Erin realized while writing the book that not everyone grew up in a family that was super frugal like hers was. (What’s common sense to us is often knowledge that others need to learn about!) 22:10 - Hope for the Frustrated If Erin could tell a mom feeling financially frustrated just one thing it would be, “There is always hope.” Of course, she can’t predict levels of financial success, but she can say, “Wherever you are doesn’t mean you’ll be there the rest of your life.” In any trial, it’s easy to think the trial will go on in the same way forever. Erin says, “Especially if you are listening to Brilliant Business Moms and you’re an entrepreneur, trying to make a business for your family, you’ve already taken a big step!” One major issue the Odoms discovered is that they had an income problem. A key component of her book is to identify that if you’re financially frustrated, you may have either an income problem or a spending problem. Once you know the root cause, you can find a solution. “If you have a small biz or are planning on starting one, you are steps beyond what many are,” Erin says. 25:05 - Making a Blog a Business The Humbled Homemaker (Erin’s successful blog) launched in 2011 and it was on a bit of a whim. She was freelancing for newspapers, and one of her editors told her, “Erin, there are moms making an income from home with their blogs.” The idea was certainly intriguing to her! At first, Erin had absolutely no money to invest into a business. There are lots of ways to start a blog or business by investing money up front, and you usually do get quicker returns. But Erin didn’t even have $10.00 for a website domain. Her first domain literally was thehumbledhomemaker.blogspot.com. Back then, as is true now, you couldn’t monetize a wordpress.com site but you could monetize blogspot.com domains. Erin’s blog was completely DIY’ed. Though one crucial step was Erin getting into a mastermind group from the beginning. The group provided her tons of resources, one of which included a friend who was eager to design her site! It was about 2 years before Erin was making more money online than her husband made as a teacher, and it was 3 before she was making a very good income from her blog. Erin and her husband Will thought a LOT about whether or not  he should quit his job. In 2014, he went down to teaching 4 days a week, and in December 2016, he totally quit his job as a teacher One reason her husband didn’t make the leap to quit his job was because they weren’t sure if their marriage would survive working together!! It’s a joke, but with a bit of truth to it! The first 6 weeks of working together in early 2017 went really well...and then their 4th baby was born! As with most newborns, a family adjustment was required. But 8 months in, Erin says it’s gotten better as time has gone on. Blogging as a business isn’t easy, and comes with lots of work. (Pssst. Another venture Erin had a big hand in was starting the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle with Stephanie Langford!) With all of these activities spinning at once, when Erin’s agent signed her, she was in a stage of burnout. But thankfully her agent did not pressure her to write a book proposal right away. (And it is highly unusual for an agent to not put pressure on writing a book proposal!) 29:50 - Book Marketing Some authors will receive a launch budget from their publisher, but not most! You have to do a LOT of marketing yourself, even with a traditional publisher. Erin did receive a marketing budget but is still pouring a lot of her own time and money into the book. One benefit of a traditional publisher Erin enjoyed is that she didn’t have to hire an editor or designer for her book. The quality of those services was very high caliber. Receiving a marketing budget depends largely on the publisher and the size of the author’s platform. But even with a marketing budget, Erin says that a publisher would not cover 100% of those expenses. The publisher may have a plan in mind, but the author will lead the way. In fact, some of Erin’s marketing ideas were covered by the publisher, while others were not. 32:44 - Why Traditionally Published? It’s possible to make more money by self-publishing if you know how to market well, so why traditionally publish? Erin says working with people has made it really worthwhile! She loves the accountability, and it fits her personality well to work with a publisher. That’s not to say she would never self-publish another book, but she’s really enjoyed this experience! 33:20 - Book Payments Let’s talk about the book money, honey! It is traditional to get paid part of the book’s advance before even writing the book! Erin’s publisher pays the advance in thirds. She got one third when she signed the book deal, the second 3rd upon getting the completed manuscript, and the final third when the book is published. Other publishers offer 50% upfront, and 50% when book gets published. Erin’s blog has taken somewhat of a backseat to the book, and so having that advance money is a really nice cushion as the blog is her family’s primary source of income! 35:40 Mark your Calendars for Erin’s Next Book! Erin already has her 2nd book on contract! It is a gift book that will come out in 2018. (And, yes, Erin wrote 2 books and had a baby in a twelve-month period, which she tells us isn’t necessarily recommended!) The upcoming book is a gift book, and it’s called ‘You Can Stay Home with Your Kids: 100 Tips, Tricks, and Ways to Make it Work on a Budget’. Actually a team at her publishing house came up with the concept and title, and asked her if she would write it! Erin was amazed that books go up on Amazon while they’re being written! (Like the book Erin is still writing which will come out in 2018.) Why the early-bird treatment? In the book world, preorders are everything. I just loved sitting down with Erin and chatting about her story, her incredible book, and her business wisdom. I hope you’ll go grab your copy of More than Just Making It, because I know you’ll find it incredibly encouraging and chock full of practical advice! 37:40 - Adorable Mom Moment You’ll have to tune in to the podcast to hear all about the sweet moments that are happening between Erin’s girls and their new little brother. So much cuteness! Stay in Touch With Erin! Erin’s New Book: More Than Just Making It Erin’s Blog: The Humbled Homemaker Facebook: The Humbled Homemaker Instagram: @thehumbledhomemaker

Have you written off Facebook or Instagram ads as “just not for you”? I want to encourage you to take a look at ads with fresh eyes this month as we explore how many different types of Mamapreneurs are using them to build their businesses. You’ll hear from Etsy sellers, designers and membership site owners, bloggers and eBook writers, and course creators. All of them are scrappy Mamapreneurs working with tight budgets - just like you! And all of them are finding success with Facebook and Instagram ads. On this episode, we’ll hear from Melissa Kaiserman, who’s using Facebook and Instagram ads to bring in more sales for her Handmade Cash Envelope Organizers. Melissa sells an affordably-priced product, and she’s able to bring in brand new people to her shop and make profitable sales. Press play on the podcast player below to learn how you can make sales using ads too! Listen Now If you've been around Brilliant Business Moms for long, you probably know Melissa Kaiserman. She’s basically an honorary team member of Brilliant Business Moms and an active member of our Facebook group -- always ready to answer questions and help people out. It’s been way too long since we had her on the show and we're so glad she's here today. (Three years, can you believe it!?) Melissa is the Etsy shop owner of A Time for Everything, where she sells amazing cash wallet systems for adults and kids. She’s also the founder of Makery Space, an online business providing practical help for Etsy Sellers. Follow her on Facebook to watch her wonderful weekly show, Etsy + 1. She’s a total pro when it comes to selling on Etsy successfully. Since most of you know Melissa already, let’s dive right in. 1:20 - Using Facebook Ads in Her Business Melissa enrolled in FB Brilliance but had a slow start to actually running her own ads. Her fear of getting something wrong, and hesitancy to do the work knowing it would require tweaking, stopped her for several months. But in the summer of 2016, she decided to dive in. The very first campaign she ran, she targeted interests that she thought would be a good match for her product. She knew people who followed organizational blogs would be her ideal target market. Interestingly, not as many budget-conscious folks who follow Dave Ramsey or frugal blogs buy her products, since they’re not big spenders. Melissa’s campaign targeting organizational groups did okay, giving her a cost per click in the $0.20 range. Then she decided to do a lookalike audience of her email list. She had been building her list for a while with content centered around living on a budget and, naturally, her blog matched her shop well. Once she targeted a lookalike audience, Melissa’s cost per click went down to $0.08! “This is a lot smarter way to target my ad set!” she thought, rather than focusing on a general interest. Finding that perfect combination is all part of the learning process. And thanks to Melissa’s commitment to test and not give up, one of her biggest wins was right ahead. She decided to do a Christmas campaign and then she decided she would use her customers as a lookalike audience. She downloaded her orders from Etsy and uploaded the customers to Facebook and Facebook was then able to create a lookalike audience. This audience was even more targeted than an email list since it was created from the emails of actual purchasers. Her cost per click in that campaign was around $0.04! And to cold traffic! You guys, that’s crazy! 4:00 - Defining a Lookalike Audience Let’s stop for a moment and define what a lookalike audience is, for those who may not know. To build a lookalike audience, you give Facebook a piece of data, for example, Melissa’s customer list, and what Facebook does is take the people you have and go find you about a million other people on Facebook who are really similar to that initial bunch. Then, Facebook shows your ad to those similar people. You can see why lookalike audiences are so powerful! 4:50 - Womp, Womp. A Few Bummers! With Etsy, you can’t directly track how people get to your shop. (Although, following our advice, she sent people to a page on her blog and then redirected to her Etsy shop.) However, Melissa could see her shop sales and traffic increase during the time frame her ads ran, and she realized “here absolutely was a correlation, even though she couldn’t pinpoint one for one.” Another slight bummer, Melissa noticed her cost per click did go back up after the first of the year. It was hard to get back to that $0.04 to $0.08 cost per click range. Her current campaign averages $0.09 per click. Also using lookalike audiences, Melissa ran another set in the Spring that received about $0.12 a click. But still, Melissa is happy with the performance of her lookalike audiences! Facebook knows what it’s doing! 6:58 - Melissa's Successful Ads Let’s dive in and look at some of the successful ads Melissa ran to drive traffic to her site at an amazing rate. In this slideshow video ad, Melissa focused on her bread-and-butter cash wallet system. She showed a selection of those wallets in the slideshow. Her content appealed to the concept: “Are you trying to find the right envelope in your purse, but it’s a mess? Try something that’s pretty and will last for years!” For those listening, we’ll describe the ad below. Ad: During the ad she shows the cash envelope at different angles, and at the end, she uses the tagline, “Find the beauty in budgeting.” Body: Does living on a cash budget have you rummaging in your purse at the register for the right, beat-up, paper envelope? Find the beauty in budgeting with this handmade, laminated, cotton envelope system wallet that’s lovely, durable, and will last for years. Headline: Organize your budget with a cash envelope system wallet. Coupon Code: For Free US Shipping, Use the Code: FACEBOOK (But Melissa tells us that only one person has ever redeemed that coupon code! Isn’t that interesting!?) 9:38 - What Program did Melissa Use to Make a Video Ad? Melissa just used the native slideshow creator within Power Editor. That’s how easy it is to make an ad! Have fabulous product photos, upload them to Facebook, and let them do the heavy lifting for you. 10:08 - What Sales can She Attribute to Her Ad? The only time she ever tried to figure a sales percent increase was from her ad campaign from last August. During that time period, she saw a 63% increase in sales from the same time frame a year prior. Summer can be pretty slow for Etsy shops unless the shop is seasonally focused. What a great strategy to run ads to create sales during a slow time! The ad ran for just 5 days and had tremendous success. Moody Sisters Skincare also used ads to overcome their summer slump, resulting in their best month ever! To go from a very slow month to the best is pretty cool! You really can get started at $5 a day. 12:30 - ROI I know these questions are a bit theoretical, but I love asking them! Even if you can’t use the Facebook pixel on Etsy, you can still do detective work and see how it’s helping your shop. Especially if you're getting affordable clicks like Melissa! So, doing guesswork while looking at her Etsy sales, Melissa compared the difference in sales from the same time period in previous years. That’s where she came up with that 63% increase we mentioned earlier. Her return on investment was 5 times what she spent on ads, which was $50. And, half of her ad sets were the organizing interest sets that weren’t as effective. The other half was her highly effective lookalike audience. Because this particular ad was so effective, Melissa has kept the same ad and changed the copy a bit as needed. For example, at Christmas, she might mention how her wallets are a great gift. She also changed her coupon to be more versatile and simple. Melissa now uses the same ad and ad set repeatedly and just runs it when she wants some more affordable traffic with targeted potential customers. Can you see why ads are so fun!? Melissa has received some criticism for not spending money on promoted listings. In general, her Etsy relevancy has always been pretty good and she shows up in search. For Melissa, why would she spend all her ad budget to get people already on Etsy to her shop? It’s more worthwhile to find people who haven’t gotten there yet and send them over. 15:56 - Pattern by Etsy and the Facebook Pixel I wanted to talk some about Pattern, Etsy’s new selling platform, and the Facebook pixel. Melissa has the scoop! She recently started a free trial of Pattern. In the beginning, she wanted to try out Pattern but didn’t see great benefits right away. At this point, the platform has gone through a few iterations, and Melissa can see the benefits. Someone who can’t manage inventory or shipping for more than one shop would probably enjoy Pattern. You can send people to a domain without the distraction of Etsy. It’s your own space, in a way, but still connected to Etsy. Everything from inventory to orders to shipping is managed in one spot. As of this recording, it is possible to install the Facebook pixel on Pattern. You can’t do the standard event code, but you can use your Pixel ID code. Pattern also allows for Google Analytics tracking, which is a huge advantage! If you have a Pattern shop, you could send people there directly and not to Etsy through a redirect, giving you a clearer picture of what’s happening. Plus, you can get back in front of those who haven’t bought yet with retargeting ads! 18:29 - The Etsy Scoop Melissa is our Go-To Etsy Expert! We had to get her take on what’s new at Etsy.   “The main thing right now is that there’s a ton of testing and experimenting happening,” she says. Melissa cites tons of changes coming from Etsy since about February of this year, including: A New Shop Manager New Stats Yes Checkout even a CEO Turnover! Through all the testing, Melissa’s best advice is to be patient and hang in there. Don’t panic and don’t go changing a bunch of things. Often Melissa says she’ll see something tested and then hear people making definitive statements about a change Etsy made. Don’t panic over theories! Keep doing what you're doing that’s working well. Sometimes you can make small changes, but don’t stress about them. For instance, Attributes is a new factor Etsy added that affects relevancy. This feature is actively being tested and constantly changes. They haven’t made any permanent changes, but you can choose attributes that might naturally fit the listing. Don’t stress! This is exactly the kind of stuff she addresses in her Etsy + 1 show... it’s on Thursdays at noon Pacific. She addresses Etsy changes, her thoughts about it, and practical applications. Like Makery Space on Facebook to catch the show. (Isn’t Melissa totally an encyclopedia of information!?) 23:16 - Melissa’s Adorable Mom Moment Right before recording, Melissa had a funny moment! Turns out that one of her teenagers with YouTube ambitions had swiped her recording equipment, and Melissa was scrambling to find the pieces before our interview!

This episode is dedicated to another repeated question we received in our community survey: How do you manage your time? Or one of my favorites, “Can it be DONE??? Mother and businesswoman???” Yes, it can be done! At the time of this recording, I have a newborn baby at home, a 6-year-old in school, and am a military spouse - and, of course, I run Brilliant Business Moms. It does take some finessing, and you have to be creative. I’m hopeful that this episode will spark some ideas for you. Listen Now I do want to mention that I got several questions on specific life circumstances, like: How can I have a full-time job and build a business on the side? How can I build a business while I homeschool full-time? Since I have never been in either of those situations while growing my business, I do not want to pretend I have any expertise answering that particular question. I have time management tools and tips that work for me, but it would be glossing over your specific situation to pretend like I can speak directly to your circumstances. (And one day we will bring ladies on the show who have more expertise in those areas.) Alright, let’s get to it. How is it that I’m doing everything I’m doing? How do I even get sleep!? The #1 Thing You Have To Know You guys don’t realize I’m doing a lot less than it appears! Remember my fabulous team? It’s thanks to Ellen, Carlee, and Victoria that I appear to be doing much more than I am! These three ladies work quite a few hours every week and they have all sorts of expertise. They can write posts about Pinterest, webinars, Facebook ads, or a new tech tool - just like I would. They write a lot of our weekly emails. (Have you noticed that our emails are now signed ‘The Brilliant Business Moms Team’?) They regularly answer our Facebook group questions and pass along the more complicated ones to me. They post on social media. I never want you to think it’s me writing, when it’s actually not me! We’ve decided to use a collective voice when we write much of our content. That ‘team’ language frees me up to do things only I can do: podcast episodes, course creating, group coaching calls, developing and designing new products. (We’re excited for the new planning and time management products we’ll be releasing over the next few years!) My hand in the business is very much taking part in our big-picture strategy and growth for Brilliant Business Moms. For example, in this community survey we’ve been talking about, I made sure every question was what we needed it to be. I’m driving our content plans and creation of future products. The main role I have is painting the big picture, planning growth, moving forward, and identifying how best to serve our audience. I know a lot of you may not be at the point of being able to hire a team. But I really think if you just hire a few hours a week you’ll be amazed at how much more quickly you can grow. Have a growth mindset with all your decisions. For me, I’m not willing to work even 40 hours a week because I want more time with my baby. My paycheck isn’t as big as you assume it is. Because it’s worth it to hire out a few tasks to have that peace of mind, invest in the lives of other women, and have quality time with my family. How My Work Life Looks With A Newborn Levi was born in April 2017, and for the first 6 weeks after I didn’t do anything in the business. I was very hands off. I thought I would be off a lot longer than that, but with the slower pace of life I had a lot more time to think and the ideas just came rushing in! (Raise your hand if you can relate!) Some things are not possible without childcare! Levi is not in any sort of daycare. He’s primarily home with me. Just this week, I hired a babysitter for Levi, a high school neighbor. She watches him a few hours at a time, a few days a week for me, so I can do tasks that wouldn’t be accomplished otherwise. Tasks such as: conducting podcast interviews, recording tutorial videos, and hosting my live coaching calls for FB Brilliance students. Especially when I know my students have spent good money for my courses, I don’t want their time with me to be interrupted by a baby. Leverage one-handed technology. I’m nursing my son Levi. So, when I’m feeding him, I often have my phone with me. The fact that I can answer emails while feeding Levi or on-the-go is great! I love being a mom in the 21st century! I also use the Google Keep app to save notes for myself or my team. Just hit the mic button and do a voice recording. Using the phone as my office, in 5 min increments. Okay, but what if I was still a solopreneur? Having any sort of life balance with a newborn would be tricky. It certainly is a time to work in the margins. Literally, sometimes, 5 mins increments. If you’ve got a new baby in the house, you probably won’t have those clean start and stop times without childcare help. I work all over the place now, and I don’t have a neat little office setup. Things are way more fluid. My phone is my new office! Google Keep and Wunderlist are my go-to apps for getting things done. And remember, I’m the lady who makes and sells planners! I do love time blocking and having hard stops and starts. But when you’ve got a new baby, give yourself lots of grace. Do what you can. Okay, but what if I REALLY need to work!? When I need to get some hardcore computer work done, I’ll often have Levi on my lap. I maybe can get 15 mins of really good work in, or more if I’m lucky. If your kids are still around age 3 or age 4, you could really leverage their naptime to get work done. If your kids are older than 4 (like my little guy Holden, who’s 6) still facilitate quiet playtime! You’ll be amazed at how your children’s creativity can blossom during those moments. Balance it all? Give it up. Here’s a big secret. You don’t have to do it all. (Promise!) You can give up those things that don’t provide value to your business or your customers. Especially if you’re feeling crunched for time, only do those tasks that will support your goal. For example, our Brilliant Business Moms community has told us time and again that you prefer the podcast much more than blog posts. So we do try to make sure at the bare minimum a podcast goes out each week - everything else is icing. The same is true of social media. We’ve scaled back in a lot of ways there! And just a tip, if you’re listening to me scale back social media and thinking, “But! But! Social media is the only way I’m making sales!” Focus on building your email list. If you’re afraid about tanking your sales potential by focusing on your email list, I promise you’ll be surprised if you focus more on email! And if you’re wondering how to increase your sales by building an email list, we’ve got a free resource for you. 20 Optin Offers Your Subscribers Will Love.   Focus on big, high impact things. And I’m telling you, your email list should certainly be one of them! Throw the routines, and find the time. I used to have really solid daily routines, but they’ve gone completely out the window with a new baby in the house. Levi doesn’t have a great routine, yet, and I’m finding myself working bit by bit during some pretty crazy hours. Some mornings when he wakes up around 4:30am, I will just stay up after and get some solid work accomplished. Now, I do NOT do that every day! I may do this every other day, at the most. But it’s a great way to fit work in with a new baby. If you’re SUPER struggling to fit work time in, I almost wonder if you’re not super excited about your business anymore. That may be more of your problem than not having time. (And if that’s the case, go back and listen to our episode ‘Do You Ever Feel Like Giving Up’.) Most of the time, I work 2 hours a day in teeny snippets. But I love the business so much that losing a bit of sleep here and there, or giving up a Saturday morning, isn’t a huge deal. Again, if you feel like you’re forcing it, maybe your heart isn’t in it. I think it is easy to find time to work when you’re passionate about what you do. And also, I say no to a LOT of things. I don’t go on other people’s podcasts, I don’t do joint webinars, I’m not part of group programs or masterminds. I don’t add extra things to my calendar. Even though I’ve seen tons of mastermind-type groups lately I’d love to join! I just say ‘No’. What I have been saying yes to are courses and training programs. If you have unexpected down time, or a slow time in business, maybe you can commit to a training program to watch and take time to learn, while growing your business. (I watch my classes while I feed Levi!) Maybe you’re not getting lots of interviews, and that’s okay. It's time to relieve my babysitter, so this episode will have to come to a close! This is work / life balance, friends. I hope you took away some helpful pieces of information. Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant.

Hundreds of you answered our community survey (thank you!) and over the next several months we’ll be using that information to bring you the content you said you need from us. Seriously, I wish I could call everyone who responded and give you a business coaching session, a pep-talk, or a long distance hug! Since that’s not exactly practical, my team and I will do the next best thing. The next several solo episodes we release will my very raw and real answers to questions that came in through the survey. These podcast episodes are just one of the many ways we’ve got planned to use this survey to bring you actionable information. One of our favorite questions we asked you was, “If you could ask Beth Anne anything, what would it be?” And an interesting, often repeated reply was this cut-to-the-chase one, “Do you ever feel like giving up?” My honest answer? YES. Listen Now   To be even more honest, I'll tell you that it’s not a feeling that ever goes away. There are certainly moments where I think maybe all the work and stress aren't worth it and it would be much more luxurious if I could just read books at naptime. Especially for those of us who are fortunate enough to not require a second job for our families to make it, the temptation to close up shop can be incredibly tempting! It makes staying motivated to keep going that much more difficult. In this episode, I want to offer a few takeaways and truths that I hope will help. Everything in life worth doing is hard. Like marriage and motherhood and almost everything else worth doing, business will be hard! But, in our home, hard work is a virtue. We don’t value staying comfortable, we value pushing boundaries and limits. You, my community, keep me going. If I’m being very honest, one of the greatest motivators I have in my business is YOU, the Brilliant Business Moms community. You’re here week after week and you keep me going. If you’ve been helped by our courses or products, thank you! It’s an honor to serve you and I couldn’t imagine letting you down. There are lots of people starting businesses these days, but I’m only interested in you ladies: the gutsy mamas putting their families first and businesses second. You’ve got to balance pursuing passion and making money. Never, ever start a business where your only goal is the bottom line! If you’re not passionate about improving the lives of your customers, you will fizzle out. I understand this advice is totally counter intuitive. The purpose of a business is to make money, but you’ve got to have a "why" bigger than that. I will freely admit that once I could take home a consistent paycheck, that was major proof for me that my business was working! The desire to quit does go down as your sales go up. But it can’t be your only motivation. When you feel like giving up, take a breather. I mean it! Even if you put your Etsy shop on vacation mode because you’re just not feeling it, do it. You run the show. Give yourself permission to do whatever it is you need to come back refreshed and recharged. If you need to take a week off, do it. And if you’re thinking, “I have tons to do! Are you nuts!? I can’t take a week off!” maybe you really do need a breather, more than ever. If you’re feeling overwhelmed because you’re working so hard and it’s not working out, you’ve got to see where the issues are. Ask yourself these questions, and leave the other stuff behind: What do I  love doing? Why am I doing what I do? Where are people connecting with me? Where am I starting to get a few more visitors or subscribers?  Have supportive friends and family. I’m so fortunate that my husband Chris is my biggest supporter! Even last night I was in tears over something. It wasn’t one particular thing, but I was talking about it - and then there were 10 things that had built up throughout the day. Chris was right there for me saying, “You’re doing a great job. It’s not your fault,” offering me nothing but encouragement and reminding me of the important things. A year ago when I was working so hard to grow the shop and nothing was taking off, Chris was right there saying, “You cannot quit! You’re really good at this. And I know you can do it.” He told me this on plenty of days I wasn’t sure I could! Surround yourself with people like this as much as you can. What if your spouse isn’t supportive? Maybe you’re not making progress and it’s frustrating everyone. In that case, a breather could be that much more important. Have honest conversations when you’re not all emotional, but do have them. (And maybe the Brilliant Business Moms community can be that for you, virtually. I am blessed by how encouraging and supportive you all are to each other.) Find some help. I can’t emphasize enough how much hiring help has helped me. I was overwhelmed. I was working way too many hours. The business had taken over many of areas of my life. As soon as I hired help, I was able to scale back. How do I sleep? How do I have time with my family? People think I do much more than what I actually do! There are a lot of things that appear like I’m doing them, but my team is actually doing them and that’s how I sleep and have time for my family. There is a trade off. I definately take home a lot less of a paycheck, but it’s worth it. I’m in business for the big picture, but I knew I couldn’t be in business for the long haul if I kept going at my unsustainable rate. Also, I value being able to support my team (and their families) with the work I can provide. The Heart Behind Brilliant Business Moms Something else you all wanted to know is how I stay so positive, perky, and happy. It made me happy to hear from a lot of different people that you get that perspective. But, once again, I may need to burst your bubble. I’m not that happy and perky all the time! This is real life, I’m a real person and I’m super flawed. I’m a person of extremes. That super mellow, calm and steady type? That’s my husband! Me? I’m either super happy, or super frustrated. Believe me, there are tons of times my team gets to see the spitfire side of me. Don’t get me wrong, I truly am happy and positive a lot of the time, but not all the time. Because I have supportive people in my life who pick me back up, and I can be happy and positive for you all. Chris, most of all, and my wonderful team members are always there to encourage me when I’m feeling down about the business. I hope you have wonderful people like this in your life. But the biggest reason I can stay happy and positive is because of my faith. I am a Christian, and I believe that there’s a purpose for everyone who exists on this planet. I believe that I’m called to more than just taking care of my own selfish desires. That is a huge part of how I stay happy and encouraged. I want to be real and authentic and I simply could not create this episode without sharing what’s at the core of my heart. Another thing that keeps me going are the even bigger goals and visions for how Brilliant Business Moms can serve others. I want to use the income I bring in from Brilliant Business Moms to build orphanages in India and other places! Thinking about the ways we can minister to orphans and children with special needs totally keeps me going. And while we’re talking about it, let me share a bit more about these future plans. To lay the foundation, income and profits are two different things. Right now, a big portion of my revenue pays my team and another chunk goes to Facebook ads to keep things growing. And then I take a portion for my paycheck. But there is SO MUCH MORE I want to do. I want to make giving back a huge part of my business. And to be honest that’s what can really discourage me the most. I want to see bigger growth, bigger profits. Not to pad my pockets, but to help others in bigger ways. Right now, my primary job is to be a wife and mom. I can’t run myself ragged and neglect my own family in the process of building this business. But I do have crazy big dreams for the coming years. Stay here with us, and you’ll get to join along. That’s it for this episode. I hope if you’re having a rough week or month, you’ll be ready to take a breather, or get right back up again! Know that you can use your business to make a difference.

This is going to be a solo episode with me, your host Beth Anne Schwamberger. I’m going to be talking all about finding and leading a great team in your business. This is a question I get all the time: How did you find your team? The ladies who work for you are so awesome, how do I find these people for my business!? And what do you do once you find them? How do I get these awesome VAs to stick around? Those are exactly the topics I’m going to dig into during in this episode. On the Podcast 4:43 - Finding A Great Team 8:15 - What I Look For 19:40 - How To Lead Your Team 28:07 - Letting Go (of Micromanaging)30:00 - Be Open To New Ideas 33:30 - Facilitating Creativity35:02 - Working With New Employees41:34 - Bonus Tip: Help Your Team Prioritize 45:00 - Wrap Up Listen Now   I want to start with a caveat: I don’t want this at all to sound like I’m tooting my own horn. I’m not this totally amazing, flawless boss. I have lots of room for improvement in terms of being a leader, and the boss of a few employees. I’m constantly messing up - and also learning! - and having to say sorry. I constantly need to get feedback, and ask how I can make my business an even better place to work. I’m just one, humble mamapreneur sharing what I have learned so far. I’m sure that a year from now, or 5 years from now I’ll have loads more to share. Many of you are in the beginning stages of hiring help for your business, and some of you are seriously just thinking about it. But I know you’ll absolutely relate to my 1-year experience having a team and leading a team. Keep in mind I’m just a few steps ahead! I also want to point out this is the very first episode I’m recording since Baby Levi has been born! I’ve been taking a nice, long break from work - honestly barely checking in, which has been fabulous. I plan to keep things pretty minimum for a few more months. Bear with me during this episode, as I’m a little out of practice and not getting as much sleep as I used to! Hopefully it’ll be fun to hear from me, knowing I’m thinking about you all and missing you all. I’m excited for jumping back in during a few months. Finding A Great Team The first step of this formula is finding your awesome team members. I’ll just share quickly my experiences finding a great team. And to quickly clarify, when I say ‘team’ I mean: Ellen (Tech guru, problem-solver extraordinaire, and the glue that holds our team together) Carlee (Answerer of emails, organizer of stuff, keeper of spreadsheets, and maker of downloads) Victoria (Community builder, social media manager, and coordinator of podcasts) These are the three ladies who work in the business every single week. Beyond these 3, there are several independent contractors who work for me. Contractors like Sarah Heddins who edits our podcast, Hadassah Stoll who does most of my graphic design work, and Lydia Kitts who does all my InDesign stuff and planner formatting. These are people highly skilled in a particular area who I hire to do specific tasks and jobs. Our independent contractors do those same jobs for a lot of other people as well. For Ellen, Carlee, and Victoria, I’m their main squeeze. Some of them work with other clients here and there, but BBM is the main thing that they do week in and week out. They feel like Brilliant Business Moms is where they work. Their roles change and morph, they are constantly learning new skills and have new tasks and get to work independently. There’s a difference between someone who does specific tasks working for many clients, and someone who does many tasks for a specific client. All this to say, our independent contractors are just as amazing and awesome, too! Finding my team really happened gradually. In all cases, I hired each of these ladies through word-of-mouth referrals and personal reference. The Brilliant Business Moms private Facebook group was (and continues to be) a place where I find help for my business. My sister and I started that group a few years ago when we were teeny tiny, and over the years I’ve grown to know a lot of the women in the community. Over time, some ladies in the group would post that they’re looking for some VA (Virtual Assistant) work, and post the skill sets they had. What I Look For So what are some qualities I look for when I hire someone on my ream? It’s someone working every single week, and they’re invested. I want my team to feel like they’re part of something, not just punching a time clock. 1) Hire for Character The difference between hiring someone like a podcast editor means that I’m hiring for a particular skill: sound recording. That’s not necessarily something everyone can do, so I really want to make sure I get the person with those skills. But for example, someone who’s going to be in my inbox every day doing customer service, in that case it’s not necessarily the skill I’m after, it’s what that person is like. It’s much more about their personality, than an easily teachable skill. I want to work with someone who I can build a strong relationship with, and feel like I can really trust them. At this point, I can usually throw out a new idea to my team and trust that either Carlee, Ellen, or Victoria will take it and run with it! You can teach people skills over time! All the ladies on my team, at one point or another, they’ve taken courses to teach them new skills. Those are the things I’m happy to spend money to allow them to take a course and expand their knowledge, because I know they’re smart and motivated they’ll help BBM do great things. 2) Hire People Who Believe In Your Mission The mission of Brilliant Business Moms is to help women make money doing what they love. It helps that all the ladies on our team are brilliant business moms themselves! They get what BBM is about. They get all of you.   There are tough days, for sure, but I know these women are in it for the long haul. They’re not going to take a tough day out on any one of you or anything! Because they’re so passionate about the mission, and they know we’re all in it together. 3) Hire People Different From You (Like Really Different!) If you can, hire people with different personalities and different skill sets, than you. I know a lot of you have interacted with Ellen, Carlee, and Victoria quite a bit. They all have different personalities, and skill sets! That’s incredibly helpful. When you think about hiring help, you want to hire people to do the stuff you’re not good at. You want that person to be quicker than you at certain tasks. You do not want a Mini You. Here’s the thing about a Mini You. A Mini You is going to annoy you like crazy. A Mini You probably wants to also have their own business and call all the shots, and not necessarily work on a team! I think about my personality and I really don’t like working for other people. I really, really feel strongly and passionately about being my own boss. So if I hired a bunch of Mini Me’s, it wouldn’t bode well for building a team! They wouldn’t want to work for me long term, and wouldn’t enjoy it. Find people who are really different from you, but you know they’re solid. Know this is someone I can trust, has similar values as me, is a fabulous work ethic, is a great problem solver, and someone who’s really smart. That’s what I look for. 4) Remember: You Get What You Pay For I do not recommend that you go to Upwork.com and find the cheapest person you can. It won’t work well long term! Consider the long-term vision you have for your business, and maximize your business growth for the long run. That’s way more important than the bottom line. If you want someone to do cheap, shoddy, inconsistent work. Go ahead and find that person who will do the work for $3 an hour. But if you want your business to be successful for the long term, including building a solid team, you really need to fork over a little bit more per hour. I’ve heard from quite a lot of other bloggers and online business owners who have gone through a bunch of VAs in the past that they tend to struggle with finding quality people who stick around and who nail the projects and tasks. The common thread I tend to see is they’re not paying their employees enough. Of course if you’re not paying your employees what they’re worth, they’re going to look for work elsewhere! If you don’t create an environment in which they’re fulfilled, they’re going to look for work somewhere else. You might not be shelling out big bucks right away, but you need to have that long-term view. I tell my team all the time I wish I could pay them more! I do give raises and bonuses when I can. I want them to know how much I value them and how amazing they are. I want them to know that long term I don’t plan to keep them at whatever hourly rate they came to BBM with. I want to slowly raise those rates over time. When we do a big launch and it goes well, I want to give them all bonuses to thank them for hustling hard. (The same is true at Christmas! They got bonuses and gift cards. Just find those ways to value your employees wherever you can.) How To Lead Your Team Now we’ll assume you’ve found your team and talk more about leading your team. The first tip I have is: take the time to give praise. And I don’t mean praise in between feedback and critiques. You want your praise to stand on its own. Go out of your way to send an email to say they’re doing an amazing job. Or, that they went out of their way to solve a problem creatively. Let that praise stand on its own. And make sure your praise is genuine! I never want to give a disingenuous compliment. I want to be 100% honest and transparent with my team members. With that, they know if something needs improvement. They know if something got missed, and I want to make sure it doesn’t get missed the next time. I’m 100% honest and upfront with feedback and when things need tweaking. I don’t apologize at all for being picky! I have a strong vision for BBM and how I want it to look, how I want it written, and how I want it communicated. That’s my job! I’m the CEO. I have to have a clear vision. But with that, I know my employees can’t read my mind. That’s a big mistake I see new bosses make. They have a strong, clear vision, and assume everyone on their team has the same strong vision. That’s not true! You’re the leader. It’s your job to be an effective communicator and convey that vision to your team. Never expect people to read your mind. Always expect the new project or task will take a bit of back and forth. I’m never, ever frustrated that we may have to go through 5 rounds of revisions before it’s what I wanted. For me it’s part of the job. It’s how things go. I want you to have those expectations for whoever you hire. It’s gonna take multiple rounds of revisions. Especially when your employees are new. Never, ever be irritated if it takes a while to get your vision. Communicating With A Remote Team Hack One trick that I’ve found helpful to communicate as clearly as I can is to do screencast videos for my team. One of the benefits of having a team that works remotely is we each get to work on our own time and schedule. But it’s also harder! I can’t walk down the hallway to Victoria to give her my real-time feedback. Scheduling a Google Hangout (especially for projects with quick turnarounds) isn’t always going to work when we’re figuring out 4 time zones. What works well for us is to do screencast recordings. So, if Ellen and Carlee are doing a landing page, I’ll make a video and go point-by-point through all the changes I’d like to make: this image here is too small, change this color, edit this content. I nitpick the heck out of those landing pages! I’d be super confusing to type all of that feedback in an email, right? The screencasts can also be useful to teach your employees something new. For example, when Victoria took over the podcast I used screencast video to show her all the steps she needed to do to get an episode up: how to upload to libsyn, and use this other piece of software to tag the file. Get yourself some sort of screencast software (like LiteCamHD, Camtasia, or Screencast-O-Matic.) When I first started the videos I wondered if I was being too extreme. Is it too annoying to hear me drone on and on? My team loves getting these videos, actually! And funny enough, apparently their spouses and kids all know my voice and listen to the the videos, too! In creating those videos, they get to see the raw and uncut version of Beth Anne. Sometimes in my screencast videos the dog starts barking, or Holden needs me, or I’m frustrated about something  they see the real Beth Anne even though we don’t get to work side by side. Letting Go (of Micromanaging) One thing that’s important to say now is let your employees do their own thing in terms of their workflows. Even though I’m super nitpicky about how I want an email worded or the landing page to look, I’m only nit picky on the final product. I do not micromanage behind the scenes. I do NOT say to Victoria, “Hey, when you’re doing the podcast workflow, do it in XYZ order. This is exactly how you have to do it. You have to use a spreadsheet I created.” Rather, I say, “Here’s what needs to be done. Here are the tools you’ll need. Come up with your own system.” We all have different personalities! Our brains work totally differently. I know if I created a whole system and passed it to Victoria, it may not work well for her at all. I want to give my employees the freedom to get things done the way in the way they want it to be done. What I should really care about is the end result. Be Open To New Ideas I also want to encourage you to be open to new ideas in your business. I work with women who are brilliant, creative, and motivated. And I want you to hire amazing people, too! If you can assemble a fabulous team, you have to understand that they bring a ton to the table. You want to encourage creativity and feedback from your employees. Do not run your business like a dictatorship! Sure, you are the boss. At the end of the day you decide what stays and what goes. But along the way encourage feedback, encourage new ideas, and encourage ways to improve the business. Each of your employees are experts in their own little part of your business, and oftentimes they might just have a better pulse on what’s going on. Victoria has a better pulse about what people are saying on social media. Carlee has a better pulse on the customer service questions we’re getting in our inbox. And Ellen has a better pulse on all the tech tools that we’re using, where the glitches are, and where it can run more smoothly. I am literally just the leader, giving them the tools they need; they’re the experts in the trenches. I for sure want their best ideas for how to serve our customers with products and processes. I know for many of you who’ve run your business own your own for awhile, it feels like your baby. And I know it’s really hard to let that baby go! But when you do so, that little baby just thrives and flourishes in new ways that wouldn’t have been possible with just you. The same way you have strengths and weaknesses, the people on your team have strengths and weaknesses. You want to harness that energy and let the strengths of your team strengthen your business. Facilitating Creativity Letting go of micromanaging also makes for happy employees! Remember, you’re going to be hiring really smart people. And smart people don’t want to just check tasks off to-do lists. They’re motivated and want to challenge themselves and try new things. Keep in mind, this creative overdrive won’t happen on your team member’s first day. Those first 1-2 months will be about you slowly giving your client more and more tasks in the business. There won’t be as much fun creative stuff early on. But, overtime, as they get to know your business and customers well, and they’ve mastered those boring and mundane tasks, the creative collaboration will come. Keep in mind that you’ll want to help your team be involved. Working With New Employees This is a mistake I see business owners make all the time when hiring new employees.Don’t set your expectations too high for a brand new team member. Take a deep breath and trust that if you’ve done your homework, you’ve interviewed your team member, and know they have solid character and believe in your mission, trust that you made a great choice and give that person time to adjust. The person you hire will need time to adjust to their new role on your team, you as their boss, and the projects you’re giving them. New employees (and even old employees tackling a new project) will have a learning curve. Just plan on there being mistakes to work through up front. There will be kinks, there will be balls that get dropped. Be super patient, and give constant feedback as well as constant encouragement to your team. It’s hard being a new employee and feeling like you’ve got 100 things coming at you. And it’s hard to get feedback on a project you turn in thinking it’s perfect, but get 20 items to change. I’m going to be honest with you, I always thought I did a good job of this - but recently I learned that everyone on my team, at one point or another, thought I hated them! That makes me really sad! You can hear more about that in our group episode. And I really think that’s because I have super high expectations, I’m really picky, and I am not afraid to give all the feedback a team member needs to be up to my standard. Whatever level of praise you think you need to give, give at least double of that. Then give it a couple of months to see how things are really going. The other thing you can encourage new employees with is that they’re going to get better.   Literally, at this point sometimes I think these ladies read my mind. They take initiative and solve problems before I realize there are problems! That’s because I hired amazing people and took a lot of time up front to tell them exactly what I was looking for over time, and now they know exactly what to do. For me, that’s awesome! It’s another reason why you want to build a  team, and not just hire random people who are the cheapest you can find for a given job. Carlee, Victoria, and Ellen don’t just do the tasks, they solve new problems and come up with new projects to move the business forward. I can be so hands off, just because they’re awesome! As I’m recording this episode, my baby will be 4 weeks old tomorrow - and I am not worried about the business at all! I have no pressure. And that’s only happened because this awesome team is running things behind the scenes without me. Bonus Tip: Help Your Team Prioritize As entrepreneurs, we tend to have multiple projects going at once. I try to focus in on a few of those at once, but there are always a few more projects on the backburner. But the projects that I tend to pick actually have a lot of moving parts, there are a lot of people to communicate with and things that need to be created. When you have a lot of moving parts, help your team prioritize. The last thing you want to do is have team members who are stressed out and overwhelmed all the time. They’ll burn out - and move on to a boss who doesn’t give them ulcers! At any give time, each of these ladies may have 50 BBM action items on their to-do list. And I know there’s no way they’re going to get all 50 action items done that week. What I do instead is say, “Hey, I know I mentioned this to-do at the end of last week. Given this other project going on, that first task is no longer a priority. Save this task for when we have breathing room.” Help your team know what’s nice to do, and what needs to happen now. When you’re hiring really motivated people, they will want to do an awesome job. And if you don’t tell them, “Hey - don’t stress”, they probably will worry! Because your team will assume everything you ask them to do needs to be done as fast as humanly possible. But again, you know they’re humans just like you. In the same way you don’t get everything on your list done, you need to have realistic expectations about what your team can get done. Make sure to let them know when priorities shift. It can be as simple as an email, “Hey! On Monday this task was a big priority but now it’s Wednesday and this new task really needs to get done. Sorry I didn’t catch it sooner! But it’s time to change gears.’ Wrap Up So that’s really it! Those are my main tips for finding and leading a great team. And I phrase it that way - ‘leading a great team’ - for a reason. What’s great is the team. I’m not an especially great leader, but I’ve found incredibly talented and awesome ladies to lead. It’s my job to foster that awesomeness. I don’t have to be amazing and fabulous, I just have to bring the amazingness out in them and I find that super rewarding. One last thing, even if you’re on a budget, start with that one fabulous person and start them with just a few hours a week if that’s all you can afford. That’s a much better approach than finding a random person on a generic site to work 20 hours a week for $3 an hour. Invest in those people who can grow in your business. I think you’ll be amazed. A year ago, when I first hired Ellen, I never would have guessed sitting here a year later I’d have 3 team members. I definitely wouldn’t have guessed all that we’re able to do and all the people we’re able to serve and reach. That would not have happened had I not hired a great team. Or if I just found random people to do random tasks. The best advice I can give to you is intentionality your team members. Now It’s Your Turn To Head Out There And Be Brilliant!

Get ready to laugh! We've got another Brilliant Business Moms team podcast! We’ve got Carlee, Ellen, and Victoria here, sharing how they’ve found work as Virtual Assistants and their thoughts on using VAs in your business. I know they get questions all the time about how they came to work on the Brilliant Business Moms team, and these ladies have a wealth of knowledge to share. Listen to the Podcast   On the Podcast 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be 14:02 - What About Competition? 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person 20:50 - Working Well With Clients 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: Ladies, I’d love for you to start by sharing how you got into work as a Virtual Assistant. 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be Victoria: Sure, I can start! I got started a couple of years ago, and really out of necessity. I wanted to spend more time with my baby but I still needed to bring in an income. So I put together the work I had been doing professionally prior to having a baby, and thought maybe I could do that same type of work as a freelance contractor. We laugh about how easy this is, but I literally sent emails to a bunch of people! I sent about 25 emails in a week to different individuals that I followed online. (I do have a small blog, it’s not monetized, just a place on the Internet. And because of that I had knowledge and awareness of different mom bloggers out there.) So I sent these emails along the lines of, “Hey is there anything I can do to help you? Let me know.” The very first VA job I did was make a media kit for someone. I didn’t know anything about media kits or graphic design, but I figured it out and did the job. As far as my connection to Brilliant Business Moms (BBM), I was a long time fan girl of the podcast and the brand. I reached out to you, and Sarah at the time, and asked if I could be helpful, and eventually that translated into the working relationship we have now. Ellen, you started similarly, right? Ellen: Yes! I had a blog, but was really enjoying the behind the scenes stuff way more than blogging or creating things. Through blogging I knew a few others bloggers that I liked and got along well with. At first I offered free (or super cheap) work, because I really wanted to get experience. Most of that was raising my confidence, helping me know if I could actually do the more technical work and get paid for it. Working with those first few ladies that I really knew helped me realize I CAN do this, and I can keep going. I think I mentioned in the BBM group that I was looking for work, and either Beth Anne or Sarah reached out to me about doing a simple job. That’s how my work with Beth Anne started. I was copying and pasting names from a spreadsheet, and they were really happy with how fast I was! A tip for when you get started: If you are doing free or cheap work, make a boundary for that, maybe 10 free hours or 2 weeks, so you’re both clear on expectations--but it’s a great way to get started! Beth Anne: I think that’s a great way to get started, you two. When you reached out to us, Victoria, I remember reading your email and wondering if you were really offering to do things for free! We asked, “Is she crazy!? How is she this nice?!” At that time we didn’t take you up on the offer to do things for free, but we knew because we had that relationship you were in the back of our minds for as soon as we could afford a VA in our budget. One of your first tasks, Victoria, was helping format our ebook Time Management Mama. And then in the meantime your clientele built up a lot and I remember thinking, “Oh no! I think Victoria’s too busy for us now!” And Ellen, I remember Sarah finding your post in our Facebook group and reaching out. (And we still encourage moms to do that! Post in private Facebook groups. Share who you are and what you can offer. It’s a great place to get started.) And Ellen did work so well and so fast Sarah and I quickly started to freak out that we weren’t paying you enough! What you were charging at that time was such a small rate, but it’s good that over time you’ve built confidence and increased your rate. It’s really important as a VA to value yourself. Victoria: Beth Anne, this is so funny to hear from your side! I do want to add that, in that time of waiting for a job, or if you have someone you know you want to work for someday, in the meantime as much as you can be helpful, do it. Support the people and the brands you care about. The group was still close enough that Sarah and Beth Anne often asked for input on projects. It’s a good practice to give before you expect to get back. In life, that makes you a nice, moral person. But in business, it sets up the organic working relationship. Beth Anne: And Carlee! You’ve been so quiet, but I’d love to hear how you started! Carlee: I feel like the newbie and almost the imposter in this conversation! It’s really funny how I started. I’ve always worked from home, but with jobs like grading papers and tutoring: on my time frame and pretty minimal because I homeschool my kids. But my youngest turned 10 last year, and has been doing well and getting more independent in school, my husband and I realized that I could take on more hours. I even actually applied to some jobs outside the home, and had no peace about it. I didn’t want the jobs and I didn’t want to be out there, and we were still homeschooling. For those of you who don’t know, Ellen is my (little!) sister-in-law. She was hesitant to tell me about VA work because a lot of people don’t really understand it or get what it means. (And now I face that too!) But when she finally explained what she had been doing, she told me she thought I would really enjoy the work and would be a really good fit for VA work. So I gave it a try! I did the same thing, I posted in our Facebook group and fell in love with BBM from the moment I started. I got a client right away who was excellent and paid me in courses. She knew what she wanted me to do and what classes would be helpful for that work. So I was able to work and learn all at once. Rather than paying me in money the first month, she paid me in classes. When Ellen’s husband was heading back to work for the school year and Ellen needed to drop her hours, there was a scramble to pick up the work that Ellen couldn’t do any more. There was the problem of the inbox and a few other issues! And if i remember the story correctly, she asked Ellen what Ellen thought of me coming on. Beth Anne: Yes! I think that’s right. Because Ellen, I don’t think you would have suggested it to me first. For reference everyone, and I have to tell this story because it’s so funny, Ellen literally had Be Brilliant mugs in her house for an entire year and was shipping them for me - and it took an entire year for her to ask me if she could have a mug and could I take it off her paycheck!!! It’s like, “Ellen! You can have as many mugs as you want!” So that’s very much Ellen’s personality. She wouldn’t have come to me to say I have this sister-in-law looking for VA work and she’s awesome. But the connection did happen organically. Carlee’s daughter, Mckenna, actually attended one of our Pinterest webinars. And once I found that out I gave Mckenna the course to help with her Etsy shop. And then one day the lightbulb went off. I knew we needed to add another member, and I knew the team member would be primarily offloading tasks from Ellen’s plate. But I didn’t want to have to jump back in and be that person to explain to a new person how Ellen was doing everything! And I also knew Ellen, and that she would absolutely need to feel comfortable telling the new person exactly what needed to be done. So I thought, “What about Carlee?” Carlee: It came out of those relationships. And to fast forward, Ellen does not have a problem bossing me around. I’ve known Ellen since elementary school, and I have been the boss forever. So Ellen has SUPER enjoyed getting the chance to tell me what to do. Ellen: Oh, I do. I do. :) Carlee: I love it. And Ellen’s personality is so sweet and genuine. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. If someone told her no or had been incompetent, she would have just fixed it for them and not said anything. So it works well that she can tell me point blank, that’s not right - do it again. 14:02 - What About Competition? Victoria: I feel like this is fun to get Brilliant Business Moms history. And I think this is a good place to point out one thing Beth Anne has done really well in terms of building our team. It’s stereotypical to assume that anytime you get a bunch of ladies together there’s going to be a bit of cattiness and jealousy. This is such a good spot to say we have 0, no we have negative 50 million of that, on our team. I would just imagine in other settings, maybe you bring a new team member and - wait, what!? she’s related!? How did she get in here? I’ve worked in places before where people had that negative outlook on life. What I love about our team is there is none of that. We were very much, “Yay! Carlee’s here!! We can get even stronger!” And Beth Anne, I think that was good insight and foresight on your part knowing your team well, and knowing how we needed to operate together to be successful. We all play to our strengths. And we said in a recent episode, this past year was our most successful ever. And I think it’s due in large part by putting the exact right people together. For the business owner out there looking to put a team together, if you even see a hint of any negativity - stop it, cut it out. You want people who work so well together. Carlee, I think you said that a win for one of us is a win for all of us. Carlee: From the business owner end, I totally agree. As the team leader you have to be aware of your team and foster good relationships. You have to pick the right team and shut down negativity. From the VA end, and this is something Beth Anne shows in all her business practices, it is not about competition. Victoria and I are not in competition, and our jobs overlap all the time. There are times she does my job for me and I do her job for her. It’s not about if I do it better or she does it better, or who does more. We are a team. A win for one is a win for, and a loss for one is a loss for all. So when a babysitter can’t make it and you lose work time, we all chip in. Or, in my case I had a chicken emergency this morning (#WyomingLife), when those things happen we gladly jump in and fill in for each other. There’s only collaboration and not competition among a team. 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person Beth Anne: I have to say I don’t know if I’ve done a great job of fostering this, but I think you all are awesome and do a great job working with one another! You two, Carlee and Victoria, especially have jobs that overlap all the time and you manage it and figure it out and work together so, so well. One thing that definitely helped is when we were all able to get together in person at the Business Boutique in Nashville. That was the first time I got to meet Carlee and Victoria in person! All of us getting to be together really solidified the team. We are all coworkers, but we’re all friends as well. We care about each other as people and that’s really important. Carlee: I think it helped because we all have slightly different personalities in person than online than everyone expected. Obviously, I’ve known Ellen forever...so that doesn’t count. Beth Anne was a little different than I thought, and Victoria was too. But that was so good! We’ve talked since then about personality and communication styles and strengths and differences. Choosing to be friends and enjoy, and help each other has helped us communicate better according to each other’s styles. Victoria: Choose conferences wisely: whether you’re building a team, working on a team, or working as a VA. I would even say look at the calendar of where you want to go, and check-in with your groups to see who will be there, and choose which events to attend that way. It can be hard in the online world to know how to connect. Even if you’re simply trying to meet people to put on your team, conferences can be a great way to meet a bunch of people in one location. Our team was able to meet in person for a longer work session in San Diego, and I know not everyone in business is in that spot. Conferences are more accessible, and while you’re there do as many auxiliary events as you can to meet people and network. Beth Anne: I totally agree. I had only talked on the phone to all of you before working with you. For someone looking for VA work, if you can meet up at a conference and interact in person how great would that be!? It gives them a better sense of who you are and what you do. I think I can know how a person communicates pretty quickly when I meet them in person. And doing online work you have to be a good communicator. 20:50 - Working Well With Clients Beth Anne: So obviously, you all are rockstars and I love that you all work so well together. I would love it to share with everyone what are your tips. How do you work well with clients? What do those relationships look like? Ellen: It may be cliche, but communication is so big. Being able to communicate over email is essential. Don’t be afraid to clarify, or ask dumb questions. It’s better to clarify up front when you’re working with someone on a project, rather than move forward unsure and frustrating your client. Communication really is just such a key part; especially with online work, when you can’t just go down the hall and have a conversation. Up front, you want your expectations to be clear, and know it’ll evolve over time of your working relationship. And even something as simple as responding to emails with new tasks, “That looks great, I’ll take care of it.” and offer a time frame of completion can be helpful. Beth Anne: As a team leader, whenever you ask for clarification, I love it. It shows that you care about doing the job well and about my vision for things. There is no dumb question! I want you to ask as many clarifying questions as you need. Carlee: And sometimes we’ll do a project knowing it’s not totally perfect or exactly right and submit the draft to you for feedback and tweaking or vision and direction. Sometimes it helps for us to take what Beth Anne has said, put it on paper, and see what we’ve missed. Victoria: I second the practice of sending drafts and getting concrete feedback. Something I’m consciously working on (not perfect at it!) is to take detailed notes as I work, especially when working with several different clients. It’s important to mark differences in the styles you need to keep track of between your clients. Or you need to write notes about how a particular client handles a certain situation. Especially if you’re working with a bunch of different people, those details can get lost or muddled. I can be a very creative, free thinker and sometimes I’m tempted to make up the answer to a problem for myself, which works in my life but not when I’m working for other people! Maybe this habit of keeping notes comes naturally to you, but for me it for sure does not. But I’m making myself do it! In the same breath as talking about communication, I think transparency is really important. Maybe you need to send a note to say, “Hey, I’m really struggling to understand how your sales funnel is working, but I’m taking notes and will ask you again if I have questions.” I also try to be really detailed with my time records so people know how long a project took me. I think having strong communication and being transparent builds trust. Ellen: Early on in my VA work I had to face the fact that I am very much a people-pleaser. Before I got started I read the Bootstrap VA -- and it’s an awesome book. It helped me learn to be okay with criticism. I knew going in that would be my big struggle, so I made a very conscious effort to prepare myself. Getting feedback isn’t bad, and you can’t take it personally. You have to be able to take critiques, learn from it, and work with it. But this tendency is probably something a lot of people struggle with; I knew for me it would be a particular weakness and I wanted to be prepared to work on distancing myself from my work so I could take feedback well. Beth Anne: That is true - and I give all of you all tons of feedback! Which brings me to my next question that I’ve been dying to ask you all! 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask About 6 months ago or so, you all confessed to me that when you first started working for me, the first couple of months, you thought I hated you. But when you guys made this confession to me, we were obviously past that point, and I thought you liked working for me at that point, but I still wanted to know: Why did everyone think I hated them!? What made you feel that way? And why in the world did you keep working for me!? Victoria and Ellen: *Not it* Carlee: Okay, Okay. I’ll start. When I came on the team, we pretty much jumped right into a Kickstarter campaign - and then straight into our gigantic FB Brilliance course launch. Side note: If you’re going to do VA work, don't think you’re going to do only do one thing. That doesn’t actually happen. I was hired to handle our inbox. I had been around about two weeks, and suddenly I was writing a refund policy. I think the policy was for our planner. In my draft of the document I used lots of formal wording, which defaulted to my love of English grammar. Then I got an email from Beth Anne that said, “Never use the word ‘therefore’, ever again!” I was like, “Okay then. Sure.” Needless to say, we didn’t end up using what I had written! It was comical Early on I did lots of screenshare hangouts with Ellen as she was handing off tasks to me and teaching me how to do certain things. During one of our conversations I said, “Ellen, I don’t think Beth Anne likes me! I don’t think she’s happy with me.” And I kid you not, Ellen’s exact words back to me were, “Oh I’m so glad you think that because you’re one of the most confident people I know, and I feel that way half the time too, so if you’re feeling that way then I feel better about myself.” It was great for me. Because I knew Beth Anne loves Ellen! Beth Anne thinks Ellen is the best thing ever. So if Ellen is thinking that about Beth Anne, but Beth Anne totally likes her, maybe she totally likes me! So we just worked through it. Ellen and I helped each other through it. And when Victoria hit that same spot, Beth Anne told her, “Go talk to Carlee.” And so she did. (And Victoria made sure I knew Beth Anne told me to talk to her. It was not gossip!) We talked it through, and I was able to help Victoria see that’s Why did we stick around? Because we’d all rather have the person who says, “Never, ever use the word therefore!” than someone who will dance around and not give a direct answer. I don’t want to deal with the game and fluff; I want to be told what’s great and what’s not, and be done. It’s a waste of time to do it any other way. It’s a respect level. Because even when I questioned whether or not Beth Anne liked me, I knew I liked Beth Anne and I liked Brilliant Business Moms, and I wanted to stick around and get better. Beth Anne: I feel like the mean head cheerleader or something! And my team is all, “We like Beth Anne but she doesn’t like me!” Ellen: For me, because my feelings happened very early on, I knew I was learning how to handle criticism. I learned that I do like the direct feedback. I’d rather know exactly what you want, and move on with that. That’s just part of the working relationship--we have to learn to deal with criticism! Victoria: Okay, guys. I would not hate it if you threw a fluffy pillow to me and then gave me criticism. Just saying. But yes, at the end of the day, we all pursue excellence in our personal and professional lives. And it’s good to get it straight, and know how to move on. I also feel I need to be the voice of practical necessity here. In addition to what you guys just mentioned, part of me is like, “Well, I still need a paycheck, so this is going to be worth it.” On a very real level, there’s a sense of knowing that it may be hard, but it’s going to be worth it. Man, this is getting very deep quickly. I’ll just say that I’m painfully extroverted. I’ve been noticing in my life that I like to work really hard, but as soon as the work gets challenging, I want to sprint on to the next thing. The best things come from more of the marathons and not the sprints. I also realized in myself that it’s a sign of maturity to believe it’s worth sticking through the hard things, and having an uncomfortable conversation or two to get through the tough spot - and, in our case, preserve the team and progress we’re making. I don’t know if that’s a VA thing or a work thing. Carlee: It’s a work thing. I’ve worked a lot of jobs and they all come with great parts and hard parts. I can honestly say at this point, even if I couldn’t have those first few weeks, I’m living my dream. This is my dream job. I’m so happy to be here, but it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. The other day Ellen and I had to redo a project we spent a lot of time on, but that’s the nature of the job! It’s the nature of the fact that we’re all moms, working in the margins, doing our best. It can’t be personal. And it can’t be all fun and sunshine and rainbows and then when it’s not I’m out of here. That’s not any part of life--not marriage, or parenting. And that’s the best part about our team! On the hard days (and hard because they’re busy, not because they’re bad, they are hard because our to-do list is longer than the number of hours we have) we talk to each other and pick each other up. What’s great is the other day I was having a very hectic day and Victoria reached out to me and said, “What can I do for you?” Victoria: See? Here’s a fluffy pillow! The fluffy pillow is valuable sometimes! Beth Anne: Victoria you’re such a nurturer and I love that about you. You pick up the slack for others. Victoria: And vice versa! It happens to me as well. Beth Anne: I am learning more and more as a team leader to get better about knowing how my team likes to be led. So, Victoria, I know in some cases it would be better to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you, than just send an email - which is my default. That’s part of my responsibility as a team leader. When it comes to all that hard stuff, it’s the same for me too! There are days that I don’t want to get up and do the work I need to do that day, even though I run the show. Assembling a team that cares about the mission makes a big difference. 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves Beth Anne: And Victoria, I know that the podcast has been one example of how you pushed through something that was harder was working on the podcast. I’m sure there were times you were tempted to say it’s not worth it! But everyone is so excited to have it back and you’ve created a great system for us. Victoria: Yes! I can talk about that. But first I do want to say, we all do care about the higher mission. We have all bought into Brilliant Business Moms. And if someone is having a bad day, the other has good day. If you run a business or work in a business, you make a commitment. That basic level commitment is, “This work has to be done because it’s what I agreed to do,” and sometimes once you work through that basic level, then the higher level love feelings come back about why you’re doing it. I hope it didn’t come out crass to say working for a paycheck is sometimes what keeps you going, I didn’t mean it to! Beth Anne: No, it didn’t! Victoria: Right, it’s just that sometimes you have still put one foot in front of the other. Speaking of that, the podcast is a good example of what we’re talking about. Around the time of our San Diego trip we had a team growing experience. We had a show due on Monday, and in my mind I had it basically complete and ready to go, but it was not that way. Carlee and I proof for each other, and I sent the transcript to her for proofing. Since we were in person, Carlee looked over at me and said, “Victoria, these shownotes are awful. They’re not done at all. You need to go back and fix it.” At first, I was mortified. Then I went through the stages of grief, getting angry then accepting what I had to do. This all occurred later at night, pressing up against the deadline. We worked through it and we hurried to get the show finished on time, and I swore I’d never work that late again! And you guys still heard a great episode that day, having no idea what happened behind the scenes! It was good for me to see that Carlee didn’t hate me, she just made a judgement call on the work. Carlee: And that’s it! My thought process was, “You usually do this fabulous job, and this is not up to your own standards.” I wasn’t mad, it wasn’t personal, they were just bad notes. There’s no hidden meaning with us, and that’s how Beth Anne is, too. Beth Anne and I are similar in that, we really shoot straight but there’s no deeper, read between the lines insult. Victoria: We really learned as a team, that we’re all here for the listener. We’re here for the community, to put out good content. It’s time like that the bigger mission does help. 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business Victoria: I think anytime you’re in a service-based business, it’s so hard to not directly tie yourself to your service. I feel like with product-business ladies, it’s kinda nice to be able to hide behind the product. With a service-based business, it’s just you. You’re providing the service. And you have to work extra hard to separate the value of the service from the value of you as a person. As a BBM team, we will always fall short in some way,  but we have a lot of grace for each other. Carlee: And you’re making such a good point for anyone looking to be a VA or be on a team. If you’re not working in person, you have to over communicate. Honestly, in this moment I should have explained what I was actually thinking, “These are not up to your own standards, did I miss something?” And really I was wondering, “Are you okay? Is there anything going on? Victoria: And on my end I was thinking, “Nope, I just didn’t get them done as well for whatever reason this week.” Carlee: You’re so honest, Victoria. I love it. This is the real deal, guys. Victoria: Aren’t we calling these BBM Confessions!? It fits! I think you have to be honest, and call each other out, but also give grace and be willing to move forward together. That’s why we’re all here, Beth Anne. Beth Anne: As a team leader one of the things I can improve on is communicating when I need to give feedback or ask for something to be done to another standard. I always feel really, really bad when I want you guys to change something last minute. I don’t want to be that boss who controls every hour of your day. But because I’m such a work under pressure and last minute person, and I know I drag you into that. 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business Beth Anne: So I want to ask: how do you set boundaries on your time? For example, I know that Victoria has set work times with childcare. Ellen and Carlee’s worktime feels more fluid. How do you make sure I don’t take over your life!? Sometimes I know I do! That really concerns me. Carlee: But you..so...okay *laughs* You do and you don’t. Especially for Ellen and I, you do take over our lives sometimes - but we know that in advance. It’s not a daily thing. But we are aware of an upcoming big launch or big webinar, and during those times Ellen and I structure our time around work. On the days when we have a work event at 6pm at night, my crew knows we’re going to eat at 4:30 and then Mom is going to lock herself away. That’s a choice we’ve made and we don’t have to make it. Ellen: And it’s not every day. It’s rare. Carlee: Yes. But what people should know too is we can literally say, “Hey, I’m leaving town for 3 days.” And while our tendency is to follow up with, “But I can still work!” Beth Anne says, “No! Take time off!” We have crunch time, go time, all hands on deck -- but we also get the rest time. It wouldn’t be possible without the rest time. Ellen: But there are times Beth Anne sends me a task on Friday night but she says it can wait til Monday. And often I will do the task that weekend, only because I usually work Saturdays, but there’s no pressure. Victoria: Communication is good. My tendency is to do everything, but because my kids are little younger and I have very structured work days, I’ve tried to get better about projecting when a task can realistically be done instead of saying, “Sure I’ll get that done tonight!” Early on as a VA I tried to do it all right away, and it wasn’t healthy! When given a job I would say, “Sure sure! I can do it” but I really couldn’t, and it was resulting in stressful moments for our family. But now, we have clear times - ‘This is when I work, and this is when I don’t work’ - and planning in advance has been helpful. We haven’t talked about working with a bad client yet, but in my bad client experience it was expected that I could drop and do whatever this person needed right away. But setting realistic boundaries and communicating them clearly is good. Now I try to answer, “I’m done with work for today, but I can do it first thing tomorrow.” Beth Anne: Carlee and Ellen, I would totally understand and appreciate if you want to be more structured! I want you to be happy with your work and stick around for a long time and I would have no problem with you telling me what works for you with your life. Carlee: We are happy! And we promise it’s working. We as a team assign tasks according to those schedules, too. For example, I homeschool from 8 to 11 am, so I don’t have tasks that have to be done at 9 am. Victoria’s jobs are things she can do ahead of time, for example. Ellen: For me, the late-at-night stuff isn’t good, but early morning is my time. Beth Anne: And let me say what I love about Ellen’s early morning time is that I can go off to bed with a wishlist of items I’d like done, and by the time I wake up and have actually logged into my email Ellen has them done! Carlee: Me too! I’m a late night person and just recently I sent Ellen a few corrections to landing page at like midnight or 1 am. I was worried I had woken her up with all these crazy messages! She wrote back first thing in the morning and said, “Hey thanks! Those were great. Changes made.” It had only been 5 hours since I sent the corrections and they’re done! 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out Beth Anne: So let’s start talking about when the relationship is not working out. And this still cracks me up, because I’m still confused about the warning signs! You all thought I hated you, but kept working anyway! Victoria: Honestly, what we just described is more a of a challenge of working online. Working in-person you can joke around at the beginning of the day, have a conflict in the middle, but end with a joke. I think the barrier of the screen means you have to overcompensate. It’s just hard! I still contend that online is what makes it weird. And on a blog or business, you can always put the best version of yourself out there. But when you’re working with someone online you don’t always get the time to polish in between. Beth Anne: Okay, that makes me feel a little better. Victoria: And you’ve done well at helping us compensate! Getting us together at the conference and again in San Diego, that was huge. Carlee: Oh Victoria! You are such an extrovert. This won’t be true for everybody. Victoria: That’s true. Carlee: For me, I haven’t worked for a bad client. But for me, the product is my big determiner. I have to believe in something. I have to look at the product and believe there is great value going out into the universe. I have to get behind something, so I guess I work at a philosophical level that way. I’ve said no to, and had a hard time working with a product that I just wasn’t able to personally endorse. Whereas, Brilliant Business Moms is totally a brand and business and community I can get behind. Ellen: If you feel uneasy at all about something..and uneasy is different than having hard times. There’s going to be hard times...but if you feel uneasy about the client or the work they’re doing, it’s better to say no and back out than put yourself in that situation. It’s better to be 100% confident about the people you say yes to. Carlee: So true. And sometimes the uneasiness might come later. We talked about boundaries previously, and if someone doesn’t understand or respect your boundaries it won’t work. And maybe it’s as simple as time zone problem, where the times they want you to work you’re putting dinner on the table. But everyone has to be on the same page. For me right now, I just don’t have the hours to work with additional clients. I’ve had to drop clients because I simply don’t have time to give them what they need. Ellen: That’s usually the issue for me, too. It’s not a matter of not wanting to work with them, I just don’t have time. In fact, I’ve had to fire a few clients because my plate has gotten full and I literally didn’t have the time to do the work. Victoria: Being realistic with what you’re able to provide is key. And be okay that you’re not the right VA for everyone. The case when I had to end a working relationship. The client wasn’t a bad person or anything. It was just that the things I needed to do I wasn’t able to do. There was a big task that had to happen every morning, very early. I tried so hard to make it work for a long time, but with two little kids it wasn’t possible. As we were talking I just pulled up my breakup email with this client. I wrote, “I don’t think I’m the right VA for you. I’m not able to give you the support and assistance you need on a daily basis. I’d love to keep working until you find a replacement.”   Peace out. (Just Kidding!) I do worry if I say no to a job, I’ll never get another client, or that they’ll think badly of me. I often worry about my name or reputation, and that if I end a relationship will I ever work again? But truthfully, the sooner you realize it’s not working out the sooner you can prevent those unrealisitic fears. I think as women we want to do everything and be good at everything, and that person doesn’t exist. Beth Anne: Right. No one is good at everything all the time! So much of what we’re talking about comes back to honesty. I give you honest feedback about the work, and you give me honesty back with your schedule or a job you can’t do. Carlee: And we’re getting so much better at saying No right away! Ellen: I love Beth Anne’s video feedback. I get giddy and tell my husband, “Hey Tim, Beth Anne sent me a video!” It’s so great to be able to watch one of her videos and know exactly what she’s thinking. Carlee: Ellen I don’t know if Beth Anne realizes that our entire families watch her feedback videos with us! If you haven’t had the privilege of meeting Beth Anne in person, she is exactly who she seems to be: strong, a spitfire, kind, genuine. So her videos are seriously so funny. She tells us everything good about what we’ve done, and everything really really not good. Ellen: Tim will ask why I’m laughing, and it’s because Beth Anne sent a video. Carlee: Ellen and I will watch your videos at the same time and just message back and forth and we laugh so hard. Ellen: It’s my favorite thing. Iit’s great to see the video, because I can go fix exactly what needs fixing. Beth Anne: It really is the next best thing since we don’t have an office. And working in different time zones is a struggle, so it’s much easier to give feedback via video. We can’t constantly schedule a Google Hangout to go over things! I try in my screencast videos to pretend you’re right there. Carlee: And usually in these videos she tells us stories or something that’s going on, which are always hilarious. Victoria: And my favorite is when you comment on your environment, like a car driving by, and it tickles me. Carlee: You know, I hadn’t put it together with that whole “walking down the hall...” but you really can’t email us to say, “There’s a line with the wrong shade of pink here.” It just wouldn’t make sense in email. The videos are great, and they do reveal your personality. Beth Anne: Ellen sees the most of my videos because she also sees my raw course videos - and there are some where I go off on a rant where something isn’t working and I am so frustrated. Ellen: My favorite is when I talk back to you and say, “Oh gosh! You just have to click the button, Beth Anne! CLICK THE BUTTON!” My husband will ask what I’m doing and I’ll just respond, “Talking to Beth Anne.” Carlee: In one of your recent videos Beth Anne was concerned that we hadn’t published a pretty important page. We actually did have the page published, she was just looking on the wrong screen. Beth Anne was saying, “We’re at crunch time, guys! This needs to be done!” Ellen: “Just click the button, Beth Anne!” Carlee: And that just reminds us that there are things we do more naturally than you, and vice versa. Beth Anne: It’s an ego boost for you guys! You get to see me at my best and worst. You know I’m a flawed human, and that’s good. 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: One benefit of being the “boss” is that I get to collect a team who all have strengths different from me. We show this face to the world, and it all looks pretty and fabulous and polished. And I feel like I get credit for all of that! And, not only that, but I don’t have to do the things that aren’t my strengths, hardly ever, because I’m the boss and I just get to tell someone else to do it. And sometimes it does feel unfair! I do acknowledge that. There are lots of things I totally stink at. Carlee: There has been a shift in the last couple of months. You’ve said more often “you and the team” are doing a project. And you’re asking us to put our name on the work. There’s more of a shift to ‘us’ rather than ‘you’. None of us want to be the face of Brilliant Business Moms or to be Beth Anne. It’s not a competition. But it is fun that you’ve started putting, “Beth Anne and the Brilliant Business Moms Team” because we are a team and it takes all of us to get all of these crazy things done! Victoria: And it’s nice of you to admit. I imagine it would be tempting to and easier to just speak in the first person always. It’s nice to share the credit. It’s tricky to walk the line and preserve the brand that you’ve built up and who you are and how you help people, and acknowledge the team. Beth Anne: You don’t want to work for someone who takes all the credit all the time. Victoria: But I’m saying you could, though, if you wanted! It’s your brand. But it’s so nice of you to include “and the Team’. Carlee: And it’s practical. Because we get emails, addressed to us, in the inbox that you’d just pass along to me anyway. It’s more efficient. And it’s good that people know who to talk to. It doesn’t all have to come from Beth Anne all the time, because you can’t be everything to everyone. Beth Anne: It does set expectations up in a better way. This is a total team effort. I like that we get emails addressed to the team, like, “Hey, Carlee!” or “Hey, Ellen!” or “Hi Beth Anne and Team!” because it means they don’t expect email answers only from me. And I’m not setting people up for disappointment. Ellen: And it fits really well with the BBM brand. How it started was a podcast that is all about the community and these women who are building businesses, it’s always been about that. And it’s neat to see the community come about as a team, too. Our team is a small part of the community, and we are also part of the bigger community, and we’re all working together. Beth Anne: Yeah, I have no intention of being a weird internet celebrity where people care about what I eat for breakfast. That’s totally differently than saying, “We are Brilliant Business Moms.” I would never want to be BethAnneSchwamberger dot com. That would be stupid long, for one. But it goes back to the brand always being about a community of moms, not one person. Carlee: And there are plenty of questions we get that both Beth Anne and I know Ellen needs to answer. It’s not even just the four of us, it’s the four of us and these incredible women in our community. We learn from them every day too, and they know things we don’t know. Brilliant Business Moms as a whole is not about celebrity. We’re about community. Beth Anne: Well thank you ladies for hanging out with me today. I feel like you each have a lot more to share because you’re all fabulous employees and I love having you on my team. And just an aside, this is seriously how much fun we all have together. We literally just got off topic for 30 mins talking about childbirth and labor because these ladies are awesome. Thanks for listening. Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

In this episode, I’ll talk about a piece of marketing that is often overlooked: content. The truth is that every business is in the content business, so I’ll give you ideas that will help you create trusted, credible content that your followers and customers will actually care about! My guest this week is Beth Ann Schwamberger. She started the Brilliant Business Moms brand and podcast! She’ll talk about the steps she took to start it up and turn it into a sustainable business. I’ll also talk to Shannon Basso, who created an inspirational magazine called “BECOMING.” She curates and edits all of the content in the publication. She’ll tell us about how she took her online magazine to print, and how she overcame Imposter Syndrome throughout the process. And I’ll answer your business questions! 1:10 How to Create Engaging Content for Your Business 14:17 Interview with Beth Ann Schwamberger 31:34 BB Success Story with Shannon Basso 43:43 #ASKCHRISTYWRIGHT 53:21 Homework — Buy my new book, Business Boutique: A Woman’s Guide for Making Money Doing What She Loves, and receive a FREE Marketing Basics You Can’t Afford to Miss video, a $40 value for only $19.99. Visit BusinessBoutique.com/BBBook and use the code BBBOOK to also receive an exclusive podcast interview with Nicole Walters on Sales. Order today!  Limited-time offer. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Nashville ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. — If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community or a question you would like answered on the podcast, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. Ask me a business question via social media by using #ASKCHRISTYWRIGHT New podcast episodes are available every other week.

In this episode, I'll talk about a piece of marketing that is often overlooked: content. The truth is that every business is in the content business, so I'll give you ideas that will help you create trusted, credible content that your followers and customers will actually care about! My guest this week is Beth Ann Schwamberger. She started the Brilliant Business Moms brand and podcast! She'll talk about the steps she took to start it up and turn it into a sustainable business. I'll also talk to Shannon Basso, who created an inspirational magazine called "BECOMING." She curates and edits all of the content in the publication. She'll tell us about how she took her online magazine to print, and how she overcame Imposter Syndrome throughout the process. And I'll answer your business questions! 1:10 How to Create Engaging Content for Your Business 14:17 Interview with Beth Ann Schwamberger 31:34 BB Success Story with Shannon Basso 43:43 #ASKCHRISTYWRIGHT 53:21 Homework - Buy my new book, Business Boutique: A Woman's Guide for Making Money Doing What She Loves, and receive a FREE Marketing Basics You Can't Afford to Miss video, a $40 value for only $19.99. Visit BusinessBoutique.com/BBBook and use the code BBBOOK to also receive an exclusive podcast interview with Nicole Walters on Sales. Order today!  Limited-time offer. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Nashville ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. - If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community or a question you would like answered on the podcast, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. Ask me a business question via social media by using #ASKCHRISTYWRIGHT New podcast episodes are available every other week.

Maria Dismondy is a self-published children’s book author who has sold close to 300,000 books….and she’s done this while working at home with 3 kids. Maria has grown her business by finding unique ways to market her books, so I can’t wait to learn from her. I know a lot of you want to self-publish or market your books better, and I know Maria has tons of wisdom to share. Welcome to the show Maria! On the Show 1:05 - Getting Into Writing3:40 - Selling a LOT of Books5:49 - Parents and Teachers As Customers6:34 - Partnering With School Systems9:57 - Getting Found Online & Making Sales12:05 - Opening A Publishing Company14:20 - A Unique Business Model18:35 - Busting the Self-Publishing Stigma21:13 - A Day In The Life24:58 - Funny AND Adorable Mom Moment Listen Now   Getting Into Writing Right after college, Maria became a teacher and taught for over a decade. She used children's literature to teach indirect lessons to her students. For example, if she noticed a lot of teasing or a lack of community in her room, she tried to find a children’s book that would talk about community and begin that conversation in their class. Maria knew that teaching young children a lesson could be difficult. (And we Mamas know exactly what she’s talking about, right?) But an effective way to teach principles is to show the children an example and talk about the topic indirectly. Maria had a hard time finding books about real life characters, especially kids, who had the courage to be themselves in tough situations. She found tons of books with bears or talking dinosaurs as the main character, but she wondered why there weren’t books about bullying, teasing, or self-esteem with characters of different cultures or disabilities that represent real kids in the United States. So she wrote that book! Maria’s start-up mindset was, “If it’s not out there, I’m going to write it.” And out of that thought came her first book, Spaghetti in a Hotdog Bun. At the time she was working full time as a teacher and was pregnant with her first child. After her baby was born, she went back to work part-time as a teacher, but noticed that her book sales and speaking engagements were increasing. Maria ended up leaving teaching altogether in 2011 and has been writing ever since. She works primarily from home but often speaks outside of the home. She brings up how we often get hung up on titles. Is she a Work From Home Mom? Or a Work Out of the Home Part-time Mom? Maria says it’s hard in her case because for so many years she was defined as a First Grade Teacher and Reading Specialist, but then all of the sudden she doesn’t have a tidy title to wrap-up her work. It’s certainly a funny challenge for mamapreneurs. (Here at Brilliant Business Moms, we are all about growing a business that works with you and your family - regardless of the term you put on it!) Selling a LOT of Books The amazing sales didn’t come about immediately after her book published. It took a few years, and lots of hard work, but, as of this podcast recording, Maria has sold over 300,000. Congrats! Maria says she primarily used grassroots marketing and lots of free social media marketing. She focuses not on selling books but giving valuable information and content to her target market. Maria smartly recognizes that, although she writes picture books for kids, her market isn’t children. It’s the caregivers, teachers, and parents who will be purchasing books for children. Her goal is to build a community around her books and a network of people who believe in empowering children with tools to navigate tough situations. Her marketing message isn’t, “I have a book for sale. It’s $10.95 and you can buy it on Amazon.” But rather, “Did you know these 7 lessons are really important to teach children before age 7? Let me show you the research.” That hook is much more powerful, isn’t it!? It’s much more compelling to explain the problem you solve or the benefit you offer. In her case, it's providing easily accessible information for families and teachers to help raise children in today’s society. Parents and Teachers As Customers It’s hard for Maria to look back and see where her sales came from on the consumer side. She knows how many books she sold via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers, but not who her individual customers are. But what Maria does know is the majority of her followers on social media are teachers. Her books are part of the curricula in several school districts, which means there are lesson plans written around her books.  Partnering With School Systems It’s incredibly cool that Maria’s books have been incorporated into schools! How did Maria make that happen? With her background as a teacher, Maria knew the going rates for author speaking engagements - and she knew what teachers wanted in those presentations. At first, she offered her school visit services for free. And once she had a few under her belt, she charged a small fee. Word-of-mouth has been her biggest form of marketing since teachers knew she was good with the children, and age appropriate. In the last 5 years, she has focused on her relationship with people at a school who are responsible for booking speakers, like principals and media specialists. Following her speaking engagement, she would send a personal note and a small gift to thank the school for having her. In the note, she would ask two things: what else she could do to help the school, and (if they had been happy with her presentation) to please share the word with 3 colleagues. That strategy has really helped her business! Other than these personal connections, she doesn’t do advertising. (And this shows how word-of-mouth is a WONDERFUL way for business moms on a budget to make an impact!) A year ago she produced a video where she invited 5 contacts from her prior speaking engagements (educators and staff) to come to Barnes & Noble and record their thoughts. She made this request really easy - the date and time were set and she threw in a gift card to sweeten the deal. This video got tons of hits and was very helpful for booking future engagements.  Maria says that her speaking engagements are usually local to her. She has 3 young children and acknowledges that she has limits on her time. Maria isn’t willing to travel for work, so she’s limited to mostly local schools. Recently she did take 2 speaking engagements in Florida because they were within driving distance to Disney World, so that worked out well for her family! A creative solution Maria came up with is to offer virtual school visits. These have been gaining popularity and she has done many virtual visits to schools in California and New York. There’s a handy video program she uses to ‘visit’ the school online. We think that’s an absolutely brilliant strategy! Getting Found Online & Making Sales Maria has never paid for ads. She started blogging after the birth of her second child and was really passionate about writing at the time. She blogged 5 days a week! Her target market was parents and teachers and she made sure her content was excellent, despite the exhaustion of having a 2nd baby! Since then, she posts 2 times a week. She has remained consistent with blogging, even as other social media platforms have ebbed and flowed. Since then, she posts 2 times a week. Maria has remained consistent with blogging, even as other social media platforms have ebbed and flowed. In her posts, she doesn’t force her use of keywords. But she writes organically and due to the volume of her posts, she pops up on Google often. (We think Maria gets a major high-five for all that consistency!) Even though blogging isn’t as popular these days, Maria still recommends it for the traction you get in the internet space. Opening A Publishing Company About two years ago, after a television interview, Maria was approached by a publicist for an NFL player. Her client wanted to write a children’s book - and the rest is history! Stephen Tulloch (linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles) co-wrote The Little Linebacker, which is a story about having a growth mindset and a little boy who is so determined to be in the NFL despite the odds against him. The year prior Maria had hired a business coach. And though it was a bit out of her character to make heavy investments, she thinks her business coach was very worthwhile! Her coach actually predicted that Maria could start a boutique publishing company with high profile clients. At the time, Maria thought a project like that may be a little too big for a work from home mom. So she tucked the idea in the back of her head, but soon enough the idea resurfaced. Since she couldn't self-publish The Little Linebacker (since she wasn't the only author), she needed another option. Maria worked with her graphic designer and web designer to create a platform for Cardinal Rule Press. She says this project happened very quickly and wasn’t super strategic at the time. But it has paid off! (And don’t some of the best business ventures begin with a lightbulb moment?) A Unique Business Model After publishing her own books and experiencing success, Maria began to get requests for coaching and consulting. And Maria noticed that she got requests from traditionally published authors who wanted to go to the "other side" and self-publish. At first, Maria was confused. Why would these traditionally published authors want to self-publish?  But actually, it’s something that most authors aspire to. Maria heard over and over again that publishing was a big industry, and unless you have a big name it’s hard to make money. She also heard about difficulties people had communicating with their publicists, and frustrations over doing lots of hard work for little revenue. So as Maria set up her business model, she knew she wanted to work with two kinds of authors. She wanted to, first of all, work with authors who had established a platform. And second,  Maria wanted to work with authors who had stories that empower children. In her publishing company, she has a team of editors and copywriters who review manuscripts (and authors) that are aligned with their company values. Her publishing company is a hybrid model, which means the author may put forward $10K to $20K in creating their project, but they make back that investment much faster. Her authors get around 90% of each book sale, which is far more impressive than the 8% to 12% they could expect from a traditional publisher. Busting the Self-Publishing Stigma Self-publishing does seem to have a stigma in the public eye. We’ve heard naysayers say things like, "Self-publishing isn’t as legitimate as traditional," or, "People won’t take you seriously as an author," and so on. How does Maria combat the naysayers? Not surprisingly, Maria gave us some helpful insight! She believes the bias against self-publishing has improved over the last 7 years. About 7 years ago, more people began self-publishing and the industry has gained credibility since then. She doesn’t see the stigma as much as it was then. In Maria’s mind, her book sales prove that mode of publishing truly doesn’t matter. If you’re comparing apples to apples, she sees herself as an author whose book has sold over 300,000 copies. “[My writing] brings an income to our family that is more than I made with a college master’s degree. I worked long hours as a teacher, and I only work about 3 hours a day now. I have 8 children's books that make a difference. The way my books get into the hands of children may be different, but I’m proud of the difference it’s making.” The sales really do speak for themselves in Maria’s case. (I can relate to others casting doubt on the legitimacy of your business model! I can still remember last year when Holden’s pre-k teacher made the comment, “Now that he’s in school maybe you can get a real job.” I was an online business owner and used to be a nurse, but I was thinking, "I worked way more hours and made way less!" Smile and nod, and be confident about how you can help people make a difference.) A Day In The Life Maria goes to bed around 9:00 or 10:00 and reads a book to relax. She’s awake by 5:30 or 6:00, makes a cup of coffee, and gets right to work. This morning, she was up at 5:30 am and her crew didn’t wake up until 7:30 am. So she got 2 full hours of uninterrupted work done! Maria makes a point to be very focused during this early morning work session. She’s not checking Facebook or getting sucked into her email. She’s attacking her to-do list from the night before. These hours are highly focused for her. Once her 3 kids - ages 3, 5, and 7 - wake up, they’re her focus. She makes them breakfast and gets them off to school. She has one in school full-time, one part-time, and one home full-time. Her two littles go down for naps or quiet time about 1:00 pm. Maria then checks her email or will do something like an interview or a virtual visit. After her older daughter gets home from school, they do after-school playtime and dinner. Her husband sells commercial real estate, so a few nights a month he will work late entertaining clients. On those nights, she puts her kids to bed at 8:00 and will work another 2 - 3 hours until he gets home. On the days she needs to work outside the home, she works from about 8:00 am - 1:00 pm. Maria’s mother lives close and will come watch her children during these workdays -- she’s very grateful for that option! Believe it or not, Maria even finds time to work out! Usually 2 mornings a week she makes time for exercise, and usually with her kids. She enjoys long bike rides or runs. Her son, who’s 3, loves to visit the train tracks, which for Maria adds up to a 4-mile run! She incorporates exercise as part of her day with her children, and we love that. On weeks when her workload is light, she wakes up at 6:00 am and might get an hour workout and an hour of work. Funny AND Adorable Mom Moment Around Christmas, Maria ordered about 100 super cute calendars to send to her corporate clients. She had to package the calendars separately, and ship them out in time for Christmas. So, imagine Maria in a busy, Christmas-time post-office with about 60 packages. Her son kept putting his hands on her face, hugging her, and telling her he loves her. She thought her son’s sweetness was a stark contrast to the cold mood of the post office. There was a sad feeling in the post office, with everyone looking so sad, grumpy, and impatient. Her 3-year-old looked at the line of people on the way out and said loud enough for all of them to hear, “Happy Halloween, everyone!” The mood instantly lightened as everyone laughed and smiled. Isn’t that exactly what people need? A bit of laughter during the stressful holiday season when we *should* be enjoying ourselves. I just loved chatting with Maria, and I hope you came away inspired and excited to make a difference with your business. Stay in Touch with Maria Site: MariaDismondy.comInstagram: @mariadismondybooks Now It’s Your Turn To Head Out There And Be Brilliant!

Hi everyone! It’s me, Beth Anne, and today we’ve got a solo episode for you. I’m doing this solo episode because I’ve gotten so many questions from you brilliant business ladies about how I designed my planner. How do I import a product from overseas? How do I find a manufacturer? How does one scrappy business mama come up with a product idea and make it happen? I’ll give you all those answers. Let’s dive in!   Listen Now   On the Podcast 3:25 - First Product Iteration9:50 - Finding The Right Designer14:18 - Be An Expert In Your Niche17:54 - Your Minimum Viable Product24:03 - Improving On Your Product26:10 - Finding a Factory31:00 - Ordering Samples33:30 - Taking Presales (with Kickstarter)35:41 - Delivery Dates37:34 - If You’re Having Trouble Finding A Factory44:11 - Clearing Customs52:14 - Fulfilling Your Orders   My experience with designing and manufacturing a product, as you might expect, has to do with planners. My product started originally as the the Brilliant Business Planner which launched in June 2015. That first iteration morphed to the Brilliant Life Planner, which launched via Kickstarter in August 2016. I’ll take you through this process. And rest assured the takeaways will apply to you regardless of your nice. (But to that point. I’ve heard from many of you with great ideas of planners, journals, and other paper products that solve problems in your niche.) If you have a fabulous idea for a product that you just know is going to improve people’s lives, and you know it’s a better product than what’s on the market currently., JUST GO FOR IT! Yes, there are a lot of steps and unknowns, and you’ll learn a lot along the way, but you’ll be so glad you did it. When you’ve produced a fabulous product that you can put into people’s hands and help them, it’s really an incredible feeling. That’s my pep talk as we get started :) I’m going to share my journey and the big takeaways you can keep in mind for your own product launch. First Product Iteration As my sister and I were writing our book Time Management Mama we wanted a planner that allowed us to plan our business and lives in one place. Our planner idea started with lined, blank paper. We sketched out what we wanted on those pages. We really wanted work and personal to do lists, and top 3 priorities for each week. And we knew we wanted our weekly layout to be time blocked. We just sketched it out our ideas. I should go pull up our old sketches for fun :) Neither of my sister or I are very artistic or good at drawing. These early sketches were SUPER rough. We just knew what the end result should be, but we needed help bringing it to life. From there, we found a designer to take our sketches and turn them to a digital file. Takeaway #1:Those of you trying to produce a totally unique physical product, will eventually need a CAD file. CAD stands for Computer Aided Design. You’ll need an expert to translate your ideas to this digital format, so that your factor can use and produce your product in mass quantities! We got off easy when it came to finding a designer! As soon as we mentioned we were working on creating a planner, one lady in our community reached out and said, “Hey! I make planner pages and am well versed at using Illustrator to create printables. I’d love to work with you.” (SUCH a gift, right?) This gal took our very rough sketches, translated them to Illustrator, and gave us ideas about how to make the planner even better. Takeaway #2: When you find your designer, one of the best things you can do is be really prompt with feedback. Design and development takes a lot of time. It’ll take way more back and forth than you imagined. If you want to keep your project moving forward, you need to write back to that person within 24 hours every time. Otherwise, you’ll be the kink in your own system. Then a year will go by without having a product, but it’s because you didn’t give prompt feedback! Since this time, we’ve worked with a few different designers and they all appreciate feedback. They’re in creation mode and ready to work, you just have to give the direction you want to go. You need to also give detailed feedback. Never assume that this designer can read your mind! Spell everything out for them, even when it comes down to the spacing of a line or font choices.   One tip: When I feel like a piece of feedback will be hard to explain via email, I’ll do a video recording. I use a free app called liteCam HD for these quick recordings. What I’ll do is pull up those exact files that the designer sent back to me, and record my screen with me looking at the file. Following my mouse movement, I can say things like, ‘This line is too thick. And these colors aren’t quite what I wanted. But I like this section.’ Finding The Right Designer If you’re fortunate enough to have a designer reach out to you and ask you to hire them, you can always go to a site like Upwork.com and submit your job. You’ll give details about the job you need done and the hourly rate you’re willing to pay. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of paying by the project. I know a lot of graphic designers have project fees - something like $1,500 for one project! I don’t like that at all!!! Here’s why. I want to build my working relationship with a designer and start with a few hours of work before I commit to using them exclusively. Sure, design portfolios are great. But I don’t know how well we’ll work together until I give the designer a few hours of work and we have some back and forth. How responsive will they be? How quickly do they make the changes I request? How easily do they understand my feedback? Maybe someone who’s skilled, just can’t get your vision. Or maybe you two will have a language barrier that can be tricky. You need to cut ties before the project goes too far! Again, I don’t want to pay $1,500 if it took someone 5 hours to do the work! Or $1,500 if it took a couple hundred hours and I should pay them more. For me, the hourly rate makes sense. I have them invoice me on a weekly basis, and I pay promptly. I recommend you start any designer with a small, low-impact project and go from there. It’s ideal to have a designer who is versed in both Adobe Indesign and Adobe Illustrator. (Currently, I do have two designers - one to make my signature florals pretty in Illustrator and one to format the planner in InDesign. They’re both wonderful ladies I enjoy working with!) And, as I said earlier, if you’re creating a physical product you’ll need CAD files. Be An Expert In Your Niche The last word I’ll say on product design is this: look at the marketplace and know what other similar products are on market - THEN know how your product will set itself apart. I firmly believe in the benefit of studying and becoming an expert in your product space. For example, when we were working on our first planner - I purchased 20 different business and personal planners. I bought as many different ones as I could find with different covers and layouts. I wanted to be an expert in the marketplace. What are the issues and things these products are not addressing? What do these planners do well? I knew after the first iteration of my planner that I wanted a hard cover. This is an example of a feature other planners had that we didn’t. Sure, at the end of the day a planner is a planner, but there are many little features you can customize to reach your audience. (After being frustrated ourselves that we couldn’t find weekly time-block layouts, we decided to design the Brilliant Life Planner with our weeks divided into time-blocked sections.) To this day, the Brilliant Life Planner has pages inside unlike anything else. That distinction came from us carefully considering what we needed, and considering what problems other products on the market weren’t solving. The void your business ends up filling may not be huge, but you don’t want to go through tons of time and effort to create something already existing. Knowing the void that you feel not only will steer your business development, it’ll help you with marketing later on. I see some people who don’t want to look at what others are doing in their niche and think, “I’m just going to create from my brain and it’s going to be totally unique.” While I do understand that point of view, I have experienced that you miss things by not knowing what’s out there. It’s your job to be an expert in your space. Your Minimum Viable Product Once you’ve worked with designers to come up with the digital file you’ll need to make your product, you have to actually manufacture your product! When it comes to getting your product produced at most affordable price, you will likely have to look at an overseas option. The Brilliant Life Planner is currently manufactured by a factory in China. One hurdle with using a factory overseas is they often have pretty high minimum quantities you need to order before they’ll work with you. There are a few ways you can work around this hurdle: Produce your minimum viable product, knowing there are improvements you will make over the next years. Take presales for your product. Once you have one product sample or prototype, get some photos and offer people a sample if what they’ll get. You can take presales with an expected production date in mind. I’ve done both! The Brilliant Business Planner was first produced by a printer in the Pittsburgh area. We found a printer close to my sister Sarah, and came to that printer with our planner idea and got a sense of options. This printer couldn’t do a hard cover planner, but they could do a thicker paperback cover and spiral binding. We gave them our design file and they gave us a sample. Actually our first planner had a white cover, so one immediate change we made was to make our cover a lovely shade of bluish-green. Our printer could accept a minimum order quantity of 100 units. Volia! We had our Minimum Viable Product. Keep in mind that factories will generally want you to order 1,000 units. Even with that smaller order quantity, our minimum viable product still cost us several thousand dollars to produce. The cost-per-unit was much higher with smaller quantities. And, as it usually is, much higher with a manufacturer in the United States. By going overseas to manufacture the new Brilliant Life Planner, everything on my dream sheet - product gift box, custom shipping, full color, thick monthly dividers, metal edge reinforcement - was the same price as my minimum cost-per-unit in the United States. I still don’t recommend coming up with an idea and plunking down thousands of dollars right away! If we went overseas for our first planner order, it would have cost at least $10,000 - and that would not have been a wise business move. You want to validate that people want your product, before spending tons of money to create the product. In retrospect, we even could have done presales with the business planner rather than putting our own money into the project. Once we brought our first Brilliant Business Planner to market, we were able to make sales - but I’ll be honest, those first sales weren’t great. But the women who bought this planner loved it and used it every day. We chalked up the slow sales to our planner not launching in the right season (we launched in June) and with a half-year planner. Then we tried a run of the planner closer to planner season with a full-year planner, and sold 300 units. That was great for us! Getting the timing right was huge. Using the strategy of a minimum viable product will allow you to start with small, manageable steps - and iterate your way to success. Improving On Your Product Even if you think your product is perfect right out of the gate, keep in mind that there will likely be changes your customers want. We sent out a customer survey shortly after our product first launched and asked if there was ANYTHING at all our customers would want changed. People loved our florals and the planner, but didn’t have a business and need all the sheets. They wanted the time blocking and project pages, but not the pages dedicated to growing a business. I thought I could serve a lot more women if I made the planner for any woman who wants to live intentionally. And that’s really how the Brilliant Life Planner started. Around this time, Sarah stepped away from the Brilliant Business Moms brand, so it was on my shoulders to get the new planner design in place. But it was WAY easier because we had a base of design files and could easily tweak and improve. I also knew I wanted a much smaller planner, and hardback. Our local printer couldn’t accommodate, and so that made me explore other options for manufacturing. Finding a Factory Okay, I get this question all the time. “Beth Anne, HOW did you find the factory you worked with?” You guys, I used Google and Alibaba. It’s that easy! Here’s a quote from Marie Forleo I love that applies to this entire process: “Everything is figureoutable.” It’s so true! I feel like a lot of business owners out there want all the answers before they’re ready to get started. I’ll be honest, you’ll never have all the answers. There was a moment in creating the Brilliant Life Planner when I literally had this amazing product - 1,600 planners on a boat ready to come to me - and I didn’t know how to get them to clear customs. I didn’t know what to do! Everything is figureoutable. You can do this and find the answers. You should not wait until someone comes along who is going to hold your hand. Newsflash: that person doesn’t exist! Sure there are people like me, or business coaches, who will give you a lot of information. But at the end of the day, no one person will have all the answers you need. A lot of running a business is figuring out your answers. What I did to find my factory was visit Alibaba.com. On this website, you can find factories from all over the world who show you the products they’re experts at producing. I searched keywords like: ‘planner’, ‘weekly planner’, and ‘hardcover planner’. I found a factory and was able to see that the structures of the planners they produced was really similar to what I wanted. I got in touch with this factory via email; there’s even a chatbox within Alibaba that you can use to contact the factory. I asked them very specific questions about what I needed, “What’s your estimate on the cost per unit based on these specs? How long will it take to produce my order?” The factory quickly sent back photos of other planners that they had produced, and it gave me the confidence that they could print my planner. When it comes to working with a factory, keep in mind that you never EVER EVER want to throw down cash and order 1,000 units and wash your hands’. Always order a sample first. You need the proof in your hands that this factory can produce the quality you’re looking for. You have GOT to order a sample to see if any tweaks need to be made. You want to ensure that the end result is just what you want. Ordering Samples Initially I ordered 4 samples - with my 4 different covers. The inside of the planner was the same, but the covers were different. I paid $500 to get those 4 samples produced. That investment was hefty, but think about it from the factory’s standpoint .They don’t want you to throw them $5 for 4 units and run. They need to know you’re serious about doing business with them. Their team had to work with me and my designer quite a bit to make sure the files were formatted correctly. Plunking down that $500 said to them, “This is serious money and I know it's taking you time to work with me and ship this sample.” The factory shipped the 4 units pretty quickly, since we didn’t have to clear customs with the small quantity, and got my samples within a week. After looking at these samples, I realized there were tweaks that needed to be made and corrections to the files. There were 2 covers I loved, and 2 I didn’t. I requested the changes, ordered 4 more samples. With this additional round of samples, I also included a gift box and card with each planner. Once I had these final touches in place, and was confident the factory could produce what I wanted, I picked my four favorite covers and we were in business! Taking Presales (with Kickstarter) Since I only sold 300 units of my first planner, it felt like a risk to not use pre sales as a way to test the market. We used Kickstarter, but I have to be honest I was not a huge fan of running a Kickstarter campaign. We spent a lot more money than first projected with making the Kickstarter video and photos needed to showcase the product. Plus, there’s a lot outside your control with Kickstarter. If I ever would take presales again, I would put the product in my Shopify store and explain that it’s for presale, giving people the expected shipping date. You think you’re being smart to take presales before ordering in mass quantities. And while it is smart, you can easily spend $10K getting a Kickstarter off the ground. Especially if you hire a photographer, videographer, graphics, and so on. Honestly I’d rather see more people do minimum viable products. You could set up an online store with listings, hire a photographer for a hour or two to get product photos, and go from there. Delivery Dates One thing I learned is it takes much longer than you’d expect for your product to clear customs and get to your hands. If you’re using any factory outside the US, give yourself 3 months for the product to be to you - or to your fulfillment center. I was pretty lucky with how the Brilliant Life Planner shipping worked out. I ordered 1,600 units in mid-October and was able to get them to my house by mid-December. This process was a 2-month turnaround which worked hugely in my favor, but I wouldn’t expect this kind of magic to happen every time! Give yourself at least a 3-month margin for sure. One way you can help this process along is to communicate constantly with your factory. In my case, the factory I worked with needed a 50% deposit, for materials and paying employees. The other 50% cost was required to get the planners on the boat and shipped to me. It took a month for my 1,600 units to be manufactured, and another good month for shipping and clearing of customs. (Again, I was REALLY lucky with this time frame. But in the future, I’d give myself more margin. I’m a big fan of under promising and over-delivering. Of course your customer would be thrilled to get a product sooner than expected!) If You’re Having Trouble Finding A Factory Before we talk about what it’s like to get a product through customs - which was a HUGE learning curve - I did want to point out one thing. If you’re having trouble finding a factory producing to your standards, here’s a pointer. You can look up import and export records from other companies in the US as that information is part of the public record. If there’s another company who also produces a product in your niche - a high quality leather shoe, for example - you can find out which factory that particular company used. Now, of COURSE your product is going to be different! You aren’t going to knock off anyone else, but rather fill a void in the marketplace. So back to our shoe example. Maybe you find another company with a similar, high quality leather show. Or even just another shoe company; you could search ‘TOMS import records’ or something like that. You will likely find a factory that could work with you on your shoe design if you search around.   Here’s how you do it: Google search ‘import records’ for whatever company you’re searching. Be aware that the company official name may be different than how their name presents. You can find bill of laden information from many companies using ImportGenius.com. Every shipment into the United States will have a bill of laden, and on that document you can see the name of the factory. Import Genius does cost some money, you may want to try other free resources first. But if you can’t find what you’re looking for, Import Genius may solve the mystery. For a lot of products it’s a safe bet that they’re produced in China. You could use a one-country plan, select ‘China’, and see what you can figure out. TradeAtlas.com has bill of laden records also. And I was able to get a good amount of details using their free options. This will take some detective work, but using Google and possibly a few additional Internet resources and you should be able to figure things out! Clearing Customs After you’ve taken presales (if you’re choosing that route!) and have 50% to plunk down to the factory, the next step is to focus on shipping and getting your products cleared by customs. Any big shipment into the US will need to be cleared by customs. And I’ll be honest, I’m still very confused by this process. From the factory you’ll get a bill of laden and other information. What you’ll need to do next is find yourself a customs broker. How did I find a customs broker? I Googled it! (It really can be THAT easy to problem solve in your business.) I searched ‘customs broker San Diego’ and ‘customs broker Los Angeles’. From my paperwork I could see that initially my shipment was first going to Los Angeles, but then would be transported closer to me in San Diego. Obviously when it comes to working with factories overseas communication isn’t going to be as constant. But when it comes to working with people who are State-based like customs brokers and freight forwarders, it’s much easier to just pick up the phone and call them. (I did find that a lot of these places are very unresponsive to email.) I called up the first company I found, and got an answer, “We don’t do that, but try this company.” And then I got the same thing again! But finally the third company was able to help me out. Though it was a winding way to find my broker, as soon as you find a great customs broker, they’ll know exactly what you need. So my broker was able to quickly come back and say, “Hey, here’s some additional information and a piece of paper I need from your factory.” And you say, “Great, let me get that for you!” Hopefully your factory is really responsive and you can put that information into the hands of your customs broker. My customs broker filled out all this necessary information for me. There was one tricky Excel spreadsheet that I had to fill out myself, but it got done! In my case, I waited too long to get a broker. I got very lucky, but you really should have your broker lined up before your products ever leave port. In my case, my planners left port and it was another week before I found a broker to help get our products through customs. But (thankfully!) she was able to jump to action and we got the planners to port. Let’s say if you don’t have your act together, what’s the worst that could happen? If your products are waiting to clear customs, they’ll just be waiting at a port somewhere. It’s not the end of the world, but depending on factors like how the shipments are stored your product could be impacted. My factory already had a company they worked with lined up to take their shipments off the boat and put them in a warehouse. I didn’t have control over that step, so I had to wait for these parts to move. It took about a week for the shipment to get unloaded off the boat, and then finally the company could give me the status. At this point, I needed to present paperwork to prove my shipment had cleared customs and my freight forwarder could get the planners. At the end of the day, my customs broker dealt with all these nitty gritty details. (And I was so grateful for her expertise!) We did end up getting our own truck and not waiting for the freight forwarder to bring the planners to me. We called the warehouse and asked if we could come get the planners; they worked with us and told us the specs of the truck we’d need -- and we got those planners! But if we had given ourselves more margin, we wouldn’t have been so pressed for time. I can’t recommend enough that you just find a broker who has lots of experience and can help you navigate the waters. You don’t have to do this on your own! I promise, with the right help you won’t be stuck in some warehouse in Compton saying ‘let my products out!’ (Not that I know who that person would be :) LOL) Bottom line: get someone on your side who can help you. Fulfilling Your Orders We filled our own orders this run of planners, but next time we will be using a fulfillment center. How do you go about finding a fulfillment center? You guessed it, Google it! Search around and call a few up. Give them your unit numbers, your specifications, and what you need them to do with the orders. Ask for their cost to store and fill those orders, and then compare statistics from a few difference centers. Not to mention, when you call up the center you’ll get a sense of the company and how professional they are, how organized they seem. And that’s pretty much it! Let’s recap our big takeaways. Takeaways Find a quality designer who’s skilled with Illustrator and InDesign if you’re manufacturing something like a planner or journal, and CAD if you’re making a different kind of physical product. Order samples from your factory first to make sure they can create your product to your standards. And another note, if you’re having a hard time communicating with your point person at your factory, just ask if you can work with another person in the factory. (I loved working with my point person, Betta, and highly recommend her!) Find a customs broker for the largest port near you. And ask your factory where they would send your shipment. Give them the final address of your product, either your house or fulfillment center, and they’ll tell you how to get your shipment. Pick up the phone to communicate with the key players in this process! Use Google! Be a detective. And take deep breaths along the way. Ask around and you’ll always find someone with the missing link you need to create your product. Start with a minimum viable product. You will likely begin with a US-based company first and produce a tiny run, or take presales for your larger overseas factory order. You CAN do this! You can run your fabulous business and create an amazing product for your customers. And I’m curious, what are you planning on designing and producing this year? Shoot me an email and let me know: brilliantbusinessmoms(at)gmail(dot)com. And if you still have questions, I’d love to answer those. If we get lots of emails about the same question, we’ll do an episode answering them. Thanks for hanging in there with this more technical episode. Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant.

Laura Smith is a wife and mom of two little littles, plus she runs an online business at IHeartPlanners.com. And actually this is the second time Laura has been on our show! I am excited to have her back, especially because Laura has agreed to get really real with us and talk about a really juicy topic. You don’t want to miss this one! Listen Now On the Podcast 1:11 - What’s New With Laura 2:55 - Bravely Talking About Failure 4:23 - Disconnected Freebies 8:46 - When Hiring Help, Doesn’t 12:48 - Affording To Fail 14:28 - Laura’s New Plan 16:26 - When Deadlines Set You Back 20:00 - The Course BLowing Laura’s Mind 20:26 - More Successes Than Failures 26:14 - Advice if You’re Afraid of Failing 27:27 - Laura’s Adorable Mommy Moment What’s New With Laura Wow, so much has changed since we first had Laura on the show back in 2014! Her little girl was just 12-weeks-old and the business wasn’t quite 2-years-old yet. Not one thing feels the same! That little girl is now almost 2 ½ and she has a 7-month-old baby boy. Her family made the move from Pittsburgh, PA to Iowa, and her business is incredibly different. Laura says, “So much has changed! Not one thing is the same. I don’t think hardly anything I was selling when I last talked to you is what I sell now.”  She has shifted away from physical products to digital, since, like many people these days, she has found that digital products work better with her lifestyle; they’re less stressful and more profitable. Back then, Laura was a true solopreneur, but now she has a ton of people helping her with her business - and plans to expand that. One of the best things Laura says she has done in her business is bring on people to help so she’s not doing it all herself. (And I know we say this all the time around here, but hiring help is truly this AMAZING thing. It’s a game changer.) Laura Bravely Shares About Failure For Laura, this past year she’s hit her biggest failures and greatest successes. And we are all so so lucky that she’s agreed to let us peek behind the curtain. In terms of revenue, profit, and growth, 2016 was Laura’s best year. That said, it was also the year that she tried many things which totally bombed. “If you find the magic way to go through business and have everything work out perfectly, let me know!” Laura joked. “The bigger you get, the bigger the successes and the bigger the failures.” Laura agreed to talk about her failures in order to encourage other women. (Thanks, Laura!) One “Failure” from the Year: Disconnected Freebies One major thing that didn’t work out well for Laura was a launch she attempted in September. After not being heavily involved with her business while welcoming a new baby and moving, she poured a lot of time, energy, and money into this launch. This launch was supposed to be her first big venture after coming back, and a way to boost sales before the end of the year. She hosted a free challenge with a partner to kick off the launch, and everything was running smoothly...except she only made 10 sales in September, whereas the prior year, selling the same product, she made over 700 sales! Laura is still really glad she did the launch, but was hoping for more of a change in her business, and for sales to really pick up! So what about marketing going forward? Laura says it was definitely a learning experience as far as marketing. She remembers mentioning briefly during the planning stages, “I don’t think the connection between my free challenge and the product at the end is really tight. Eh - I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Learn from Laura! If you doubt your own idea, or hear an offhanded concern about your strategy, don’t dismiss that warning bell. She says anytime you offer a freebie that should then lead to a sale, make sure there is a tight correlation between the freebie and the product you are selling. You want the product you’re selling to be the next logical step for people after consuming the freebie. In Laura’s case, she had a TON of people excited about this amazing freebie she offered - with lots of engagement and participation. But when it came time to offer the product, which was fairly disconnected from the freebie, it just didn’t work. I see this all the time in new business owners! Their freebie doesn’t connect logically with their product. It’s easy to get excited about building your list, but it’s hard to take extra time to make sure everything connects. Don’t skip that step.   And as Laura learned, it’s easy to feel like they’re tightly correlated in your mind than they really are. I think this analogy is perfect: “I loved my freebie AND I loved my product. Wouldn’t everyone else? No. Just because you love puppy dogs and chocolate, doesn’t mean you need to do a puppy dog challenge and sell everyone chocolate.” When Hiring Help Doesn’t Pan Out Overall, hiring help has been one of the best things Laura has done in her business - both in terms of personal sanity and helping her business grow. She is a HUGE fan of hiring help, whether that’s hiring people to help directly in your home, someone like a Virtual Assistant, or a web designer to build your website. But the reality is, It can be very scary to hire help! You have to invest some money up front, with no guarantees about how it will turn out. Early last year Laura wanted to build out funnels that were a bit more sophisticated than what she had been doing -- more complex than just offering a freebie which leads to a sales pitch for a product. She wanted to test out ads, opt-ins, and limited-time offers. Laura knew that with a brand new baby and a toddler, there was no way she would get those funnels set up with the team she had. She wanted to hire the job out to experts who could get the job done. Long story short, she paid an expert over $6,000 to set up these funnels - and the results have been, well, nothing. She paid about $600 in ads and only made $400 from the initiative. Laura is quick to clarify that this experience didn’t make her run into a dark hole and say that funnels and Facebook ads would never work for her. On the contrary, Facebook ads actually DO work, and they do work for Laura. But they did not work for her in this specific situation. The moral of the story is three fold: Sometimes you have to try a few strategies before finding what works. Do your homework, but it won’t always work out the way you think it will. When you do choose to hire someone, as much as possible, try to start them off with a mini-project first. (Laura tries to find a one-time project that she can pay a new help $50 to complete to test and make sure everyone is compatible. In Laura’s case, she knows this expert has gotten results for tons of other people - but their fit wasn’t good.) Take financial risks that fit where you are in business. Had Laura tried this sales funnel project 3 years ago, she would have had to shut down the business! Back then she didn’t have $6,000 to lose. At this point, while losing a chunk of change is a bummer, her business will be fine for the long haul. Take risks appropriate to your stage in business, and do it with forethought and wisdom. Have the expectation that nothing in business is guaranteed. Can you Afford To Fail? Sometimes I see new business owners want to throw all of their money and life savings into a project, but it doesn’t work that way, because what will you do if you lose that entire investment?  As your business grows, then you can make more calculated risks about investments. At the time of recording, Laura has been in business for 4 years and she has worked with a ton of people that did help her business, and ran many successful launches. But even then, she STILL makes mistakes. “Just because you’re newer (and have a failure near the beginning) doesn’t mean you’re terrible at business and should run away. That’s not true! If you need to cry, go have yourself a good cry, and come back and make a plan of what you’re going to do now.” Laura and I both agree that the only thing separating a successful business owner from a not-successful one is whether or not they keep going after a setback. Laura’s New Plan What I love about Laura is that she didn’t let a few setbacks set her back. WIth regard to sales funnels, she’s back in the saddle! Her motto is: “You never know until you try!” She is continually trying and testing new strategies and she’s experienced huge successes with sales funnels. In fact, she had one funnel that brought in way more than the $6,000 she lost working with the expert. Through the funnel that failed and then the successful new strategies, Laura’s lesson learned is: “Had I just said, these aren’t for me, they don’t work for my business--I had a bad experience I’ll just bury my head in the sand--I would have lost so much. As far as funnels, you’ve got to test different things. You can’t throw an ad up in 30 minutes, and then if it doesn’t work, say, ‘My audience doesn’t respond to ads.”’ Though expert advice disagrees, Laura has found that running ads directly to a sale has worked very well for her audience. She can’t tell you why! But most of the time, she does better running ads straight to a sale rather than an opt-in. There’s just something about her audience that loves a good sale! The moral of the story isn’t “Maybe your audience will do this or maybe they won’t,” but to take the time to see what works for YOUR audience. When Deadlines Set You Back Laura’s final example isn’t so much a setback, but more of a net neutral. She worked very hard on another funnel (it’s been the year of funnel success and failures for her!) and it again did not convert. It was neither a loss, nor a profit. They made back their investment, but couldn’t make it profitable. Yet again, this was another case when she should have listened to the voice in her head. There was a big mismatch between the freebie and the product she was offering. It’s easy to see that disconnect in someone else’s business, but not yourself. You would notice, for example, if a friend wanted to offer a freebie on dog training and sell a chocolate box subscription. It’s just harder to see it in yourself. When you’re working hard on your project and you’re really excited, you just want to get it out of the door ASAP! Laura says if she had held back and been patient, this product wouldn’t have been as disjointed. In fact, one of Laura’s goals for this year is to set fewer deadlines in her business. Deadlines do help you get things done, but arbitrary deadlines can make you push out products that aren’t quite ready - or haven’t been tested thoroughly. Don’t get me wrong! We’re definitely fans of setting deadlines at Brilliant Business Moms, but it’s good to know when you need an extra week or two to put the finishing touches on a product that you can think it through and take the extra time. And Laura shares that your relationship with deadlines can change along with your stage in business. When you’re first starting out, deadlines help you get the work done. But further in your business, maybe you can take more time to refine your work regardless of deadlines. The Course Blowing Laura’s Mind Thinking about how your stage of business can affect how you treat your business, Laura gave us a quick recommendation of a course that really has been helpful to her as a seasoned business owner. It’s Todd Herman’s course The 90 Day Year, and he talks in depth about the different stages of businesses. More Successes Than Failures Lest you think Laura’s business has been full of failures, we want to spend the remaining time highlighting her successes! Laura’s optimistic approach to failure is so inspiring. She doesn’t let it get her down, she tries to learn and moves on to the next success. And some great successes she’s had! 2016 was her biggest year to date; she had by far the most revenue, had the most profit, and reached the most people. One success she experienced was getting a really profitable funnel up and running! Funnel-building is something she’s not been able to do up until this point in her business. Every business owner has limited time, and previously she had focused most of her attention on limited-offer launches to her whole list. Laura realized that she was not capitalizing on the opportunity to make sales right as a new subscriber signed up to her list. And now that she has, she’s excited about the ability to stabilize her income through funnels without having to work hard on launch after launch. Another great success for Laura this year was launching her course List Building Academy. This is her first product outside her usual scope, and it’s designed to show other bloggers how to build a profitable email list. At the end of 2015, Laura remembers struggling to know what direction her business should go. She was conflicted about deviating from her home organizing/planners/printables blog theme, and adding a course about building an email list. It is true that if you spread yourself too thin, you won’t be effective at anything, and Laura is usually the person who wants decisions to make sense objectively; but she thought it was time to follow her heart in this case! She was SO excited about creating content for her List Building Academy course that she decided to go for it. And we aren’t surprised that it’s been a wonderful product addition to her business! In other news, Laura had a baby boy this year - so that was a total win! And her family moved halfway across the country. She hired a new team member who has been amazing for her business. Laura says, “If you’re not always talking about how amazing the people who work for you are, you don’t have the right people.” Laura says her team has been a total lifesaver, and they do some things better than she does! Especially with a new baby and a big move, her team allowed her to hardly work at all, and yet things could continue to move forward in her business. And I SO agree! When you find the right people, it’s incredibly freeing for your business! The things you struggle with, others can do ten times faster. It allows you, as a business owner, to play to your strengths. Advice if You’re Afraid of Failing Success and failure go together sometimes. I wanted to know what advice Laura had for someone who fears failure. Laura’s advice for those of you who might be struggling with the fear of failure is straightforward: “Don’t let the fear stop you from trying. And don’t look at failure as a bad thing.” She doesn’t see her past year as a negative at all, or that she’s personally a failure. Failing is part of learning. Just like Laura’s new baby boy who falls down a lot while he’s learning to walk - and that’s okay! Falling - or failing - is part of learning and growing. I love how Laura approaches this: “If you’re afraid to take any risks or try anything new, it’s going to be hard to grow in the online world that’s changing very quickly.” Take risks. Embrace it. You will fall down at times, but it’s totally okay. Get right back up. Laura’s Adorable Mommy Moment Laura’s daughter is totally mesmerized with her hands when they get wrinkled in the bathtub. She’ll proudly announce, “Hands all rinky bathtub!” Laura thinks her daughter’s pronunciation of ‘wrinkled’ is so precious. (And I do too!) Laura has loved watching her daughter become a big sister and love on her little brother. Recently Timothy (Laura’s little boy) was crying and Laura asked her daughter why she thought Timothy was sad. Her little girl said, “Because Timmy wants daddy!” Kids are so sweet! (I am really looking forward to Holden becoming a big brother! I can’t wait to see that sibling interaction.) Keep In Touch With Laura Site: IHeartPlanners.com Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

Today we are so happy to have Stacy Tuschl on the show! She started her now 7-figure business when she was just 18 years old, in her mom’s backyard; and currently she has over 40 employees and has been able to build her business by spending just an hour a week on that business. This freedom has allowed her to dedicate her time to something she’s very passionate about: helping other women take their business to the next level. She also hosts a podcast called She’s Building Her Empire and you can learn more at StacyTuschl.com Welcome to the show, Stacy! Listen Now   On the Podcast 1:15 - Building a 7-Figure Brick-and-Mortar Business 3:36 - Moving To A Commercial Space 6:50 - Community-Based Marketing 8:50 - Hands-Off Business Woman 11:40 - ‘Is Your Business Worth Saving?’ 14:44 - Pushing Past A Low Point 17:51 - She’s Building Her Empire Podcast 22:55 - Stacy’s Adorable Mom Moment 19:23 - Facebook Live Podcast Recording 25:25 - Stacy's LIVE Event Building a 7-Figure Brick-and-Mortar Business In high school, Stacy was a competition dancer, but she knew that she wouldn’t make a career out of dancing. While she was going to college, she started teaching dance classes in her parents’ backyard for free (She says that honestly, it was more for her than for the kids!). Her original goal was to keep her dancing passion alive, but she quickly fell in love with teaching the kids and giving them that experience. Three years later, nearing college graduation, Stacy was still offering classes - but now she had 100 kids in her backyard!! About to graduate college with no idea what she wanted to do next, Stacy started putting the pieces together: she loved being a leader and teacher. It was a no-brainer to start her own business. She incorporated her dance studio at 21, and it turns 15 years old this summer. At the time, Stacy couldn’t even dream of becoming a 7 figure business. Her secret is that her company has always been good about over delivering, and “giving to the community and to the kids, and because of that we can’t help but have all these kids coming to us every year. We just keep getting bigger and bigger.” (And by “we” she means her amazing team.) Moving To A Commercial Space At the beginning, because she was doing her classes for free, no one expected a highly professional set up. But when she started charging for her classes, she realized people expected much more. The first thing she did was rent a commercial building, because, it was too risky to buy right away. Stacy rented a small space year-to-year for a while. Within 3 years she saw that her business was profitable, that it was working, and then built a 9,000 square-foot commercial space. Her first studio was very large, but she wanted to make sure that her business wouldn’t be going anywhere; they could grow into and then max out the space they were in. Her second location was at least 10 years into the life of her business. And she was aware that changing cities could potentially impact her success, and it was another risk. So she rented a space for 3 years (which is usually unheard of for commercial properties--they expect longer leases) and knew if the business went well in the new location she could continue to scale up and build that second building. Her second location is around half the size of her first, and though it’s only been in place for about 4 years she thinks it’ll quickly surpass her first. Stacy’s team had a hard time finding land, so they found a foreclosed building - where the land was worth more than the building! The gutted the building down to the block and put a $1M renovation into it. Now it’s a 7,200 square foot space, which includes a tenant space. (Stacy’s tenant is a nail salon, and they signed a 10-year lease with her, to give you an idea of how commercial rentals usually work!) They’ve also planned out a Phase 2 of her property, which would create additional tenant space. Community-Based Marketing It’s obvious that Stacy’s customers are so incredibly happy and she blows them away with her studio experience. We wanted to know, other than word of mouth, what are some main ways that she has marketed her dance studio business? Stacy was happy to talk with us about other forms of marketing. But she couldn’t talk about growing her business without word-of-mouth because “when you deliver to your current clients, they can’t help but talk about you to their friends.” Her business grew from 17 students to 100 in just 3 years. And at first, she didn’t pay a dollar for marketing because she made it a priority to talk to her existing audience. At this stage of business, Stacy does have the money to invest in marketing -- but still, the number one way people hear about her business is word of mouth. It’s so powerful! She has seen great success using Facebook ads and can attest that Facebook ads work for local businesses. Her studio regularly runs advertising to their local community. Stacy also has arranged a few paid partnerships, pairing up with local businesses for various services. She also spends marketing money giving back to their community. Each year they host 3 events free of charge for their local community, including a trunk-or-treat event. Having 450 kids trick-or-treat on their property is AMAZING marketing. They’re paying for their community to come to their location and check them out. Stacy says, “Their first impression and experience with us is that we’re giving to them before they ever pay a dollar to us.” (And isn’t giving before getting how Stacy built her entire business!?) Hands-Off Business Woman Stacy has been able to keep her dance studio running by spending just an hour a week on her business, which has allowed her to focus time on her current passion project. How can you build a team and work less? How can your business thrive? Well, for starters, Stacy says that working increasingly less on her business wasn’t something she set out to do. But as she started investing in more training - like live events and seminars, reading books and listening to podcasts- she kept hearing advice to build a team and delegate the work. This did not come naturally to Stacy! But after 15 years of working at it, she’s gotten good at delegating. As Stacy built her phenomenal team, she gradually noticed that she had fewer and fewer responsibilities on her plate, and they didn’t need her. “My passion is business in general. I love--and it sounds so boring to people--but I love working on my computer and getting new things done and having that challenge...as soon as I realized I had this incredible team, I asked, “Now what do I do?” Her passion is to teach other female entrepreneurs. So she has devoted her (now free!) time and energy to the online space and pursuing educating others. Many people have prodded Stacy to sell her business. “I have no interest in selling my dance studios!” she says. She loves what she’s doing for her community and has no interest in selling what has become a fun experience for her. Plus, over the past 15 years, she’s built systems into place to make her company self-run. Her advice is to grow your business one employee at a time--you don’t go from zero to 40! Hire one person as you bring in more money, invest in your team, and then grow organically. This model has also worked for Stacy in her new online business. She’s been at this venture for a few years now, also starting from scratch. She needed at least one person on her team to delegate to, and the larger she gets and more money she brings in, the more people she can afford to put on her team. 'Is Your Business Worth Saving?’ At first, it doesn’t sound like a nice question to ask, but Stacy knows that every entrepreneur (and we know this is especially true for Mompreneurs whose business isn’t as profitable as they hoped, or they’re drowning in work or have lost their spark) has asked it -- including her. What then? All entrepreneurs get to the point in business where they ask, Stacy wanted to reach out to the people asking themselves these questions: “What am I doing? Is it worth it? Can it really be a business? Will I make money?” And she wrote her book especially to those who want their answer to be ‘Yes!’ Stacy knows that many entrepreneurs just need strategies and the right tips and tools to go in the right direction. But she also wisely understands that “sometimes we actually want to give up and we don’t want the answer to be yes; we really don’t have a passion for it. My biggest question I ask people is, ‘Did you ever have a passion for what you do in your business?’ Sometimes the business side takes over and we start doing things we don’t love to do. But if there ever was a point you loved an aspect of your business,” we can get back to that thing. For example, let’s say Stacy didn’t love the business side of her studio - but loved dancing instead. If she felt like giving up, she could get back to teaching dance and hire people to run her studio. In your business, do what you love and outsource those other parts. (For me, I’ve found that outsourcing the Brilliant Business Moms tasks I don’t like to do makes a huge difference! I’m so much more excited to get to work every day when I’ve got someone else behind the scenes helping me. And guess what? Those other people love doing those tasks!) Stacy says she knows a lot of you listening might be quick to say you don’t have the money to outsource. To that concern, Stacy responds, “I want to tell you this: it is a temporary situation. Understand that this is not permanent. You might have to do everything right now, but it’s temporary. Keep telling yourself that. Keep making a list of things you’d love to outsource when the time comes...Right now you may have to work your butt off as a solopreneur to get there. But you will get there if you keep pushing.” Pushing Past A Low Point We appreciated what Stacy had to say: “When you’re looking at someone who has a level of success you want to achieve, they have absolutely had a ton of failures...People want to know what does that low point look like? How did you get through that? And I have so many examples I could share with you. When you’re an Entrepreneur you take risks. And sometimes when you take risks they aren’t all going to work out.” Stacy’s personality is to move very quickly. She gets things done in rapid and record time. People will give her a two-week project, and she can get it done in a day.  But things can break down when you move fast. There are pros and cons to every mode of working. In Stacy’s case, her biggest mistake was not realizing that she was in her comfort zone. And it may not seem like being a mistake, she says, but if someone told you your business could hit $1M in year 10, but you didn’t hit it until year 15 - you may not think you’ve made a mistake, but you might have prevented yourself from growing. Stacy had been going to the same conferences, and meeting the same friends. She wasn’t stretching herself.  And when you’re comfortable, you’re not growing. But amazing things happen when you get to a whole new league! In fact, the only reason she started an online business is because she stretched herself. She attended a live event that was insanely expensive. In fact, so expensive that she had a hard time paying for it! But, making that investment allowed Stacy to get into a room full of people that she normally wouldn’t have come across. It was people she needed to meet, and a network she needed to break into, in order to move forward in her business. Stacy says she should have made that step a long time ago, so it was a mistake for her. In the business world, no matter your focus or the niche you’re in, the minute you stop growing and learning and changing - you could get left behind. She’s Building Her Empire Podcast As we mentioned at the beginning, Stacy is also a podcast host for She’s Building Her Empire. We often get questions asking if the blog or podcast should come first; which will help your business grow more? We wanted to know Stacy’s experience. Did the podcast grow her audience? Or was her podcast more a tool to help her serve her existing audience better? Stacy is quick to point out that while podcasting, blogging, and Facebook Live can be great ways to spread the word about your business - they are often slow to start. “We think we’re going to have this platform and blow up with a thousand listeners every single week, but that typically doesn’t happen,” Stacy said, and we know it’s true! More than 50% of podcasts on iTunes have less than 176 listeners per episode, which is crazy low when you think about it. It’s low, but think about yourself being in a room of 176 people every week and giving them your message - that would be great! It's a different vibe when you think of it that way The Podcast is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time to grow. Facebook Live Podcast Recording Stacy is a big fan of repurposing; she likes to do everything, but doesn’t always have time! She has a really unique way of recording podcast episodes and creating social media content. Stacy will actually record her podcasts while on Facebook Live! After the session is done, she’s got great social media content and material for her podcast. Another great example of how Stacy repurposes content is by recording content via Zoom (which is a video recording platform), then uploading the video to YouTube and stripping the audio for a new podcast. Stacy thinks it’s great she can be in many places online, without having to actually BE in each place. Your audience isn’t all in one place. There’s some on Pinterest, others on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Stacy can take her podcast, put a shareable social media graphic on it, and put her content everywhere. She gets a lot of mileage from one-time work. (We think this is such a great idea!!) Mixing platforms like this can be tricky because “your podcast listeners might not enjoy you constantly communicating in real time with people on Facebook Live.” Stacy works around this quirk by leaving a comment at the top of the video that mentions she’s recording an episode and There will be a Q&A at the end, so stick around. Her audience knows that if they commit for the whole session, they’ll get their questions answered at the end. But when Stacy does mention that she’s recording on Facebook Live in content headed for the podcast, it’s great because maybe the podcast listener was unaware she puts out content on Facebook and will go to visit her there. We just had to ask HOW does Stacy do it? Does she mount her phone with the Facebook Live rolling? She says that she sets up the camera to give a ‘behind the scenes’ feel. Viewers can see her mic and background. And, in her experience, everyone thinks it’s so cool to have the inside look. They appreciate this view way more than just a talking head on her phone. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed with social media, think about where could you double up your efforts. Can you repurpose any of this stuff? Is there a sentence from the show notes that can go into a social media graphic that links to YouTube? (Wow, I learned so much! I want to do some streamlining in my own business after talking to Stacy!) Stacy’s Adorable Mom Moment Stacy tries not to work in front of her kids. She sends them to daycare, and when they’re home she’s totally in Mom Mode. But during a busy time, like a launch season, you have to figure it out. During one of these busy times, Stacy was working at home while her husband played with her daughter, who was 4. She casually asked her daughter, “Is it okay if mom works, or do you want me to play with you?” And her little girl said, “It’s okay, Mom! You keep working. I’ll keep playing over here.” Stacy was so touched by her daughter’s insight, until a few days  later when she told Grandma, “Mommy works on her computer and doesn’t play with me.” Kids! They are watching and listening...and sharing too! Stacy's LIVE Event I love how Stacy got to an amazing place in her business by taking it one step at a time, just like all of us do. Stacy has a live event coming up in April I wanted to let you know about: She's Building Her Empire. A 2-Day conference happening in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You'll get to hear a lot more from Stacy, as well as other amazing speakers including 'Boss Mom' Dana Malstaff. On the event website you'll see a detailed breakdown of the 2-Day agenda, plus get all your questions answered. Visit the event page to learn more. brilliantbusinessmoms.com/buildingherempire Keep In Touch With Stacy ShesBuildingHerEmpire.com ShesBuildingHerEmpire.club Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

Today we’re going behind the scenes of a $100,000 course launch. We’re going to dive deep and geek out over numbers. I’m really excited to break it all down for you! I know that when I heard other business owners talk about a $100K launch - or even a $1M launch - it’s really easy to feel like 1) that’s a completely unattainable and unrealistic goal that would never happen to me (Which is how I used to feel!) and 2) that a $100K launch would bring me into a fantasy dreamworld. I thought if this ever DID happen to me, I’d be rolling in cash and everything in life would be perfect. And that’s not the case, either. I want to give you a realistic look inside a $100K course launch. I want you to see exactly what I and my team did to earn over $100K in course sales during our launch month. You’ll get a firm grasp on the numbers as we dive into questions like: How much cash-on-hand did a $100K course launch mean for the business? What were our refund rates? How much did I spend on advertising to get these students? You’re going to get all the nitty gritty details so you feel like a $100K launch actually IS doable for you and your business, and that you understand as amazing as a massive launch is, it doesn’t solve every problem and mean life is perfect. Listen Now Time for a quick disclaimer: this episode will be full of numbers, stats, and data. The next episode we release, my team will be coming on the episode with me: Victoria, Carlee, and Ellen. We’re going to chat about what went well and what we’d love to change. That episode will be really fun! And if you’re not a numbers or data person, you’ll really love our team episode. But if you are a numbers person, this episode is totally for you. (I’ve got a piece of paper with so many numbers it's making my head hurt!) The Big Picture So the course launch we’re talking about is my Facebook ads course: FB Brilliance. I’m obsessed with Facebook and Instagram ads, they go hand in hand for me. I had a version of this course I released in the summer of 2016, but I wanted to add more content and make it a better experience. In October 2016 I decided to give FB Brilliance a facelift. We revamped the course content and did coaching calls with students for three months. Facebook ads is a beast. I’ve seen other courses where they can break down and simplify a topic. That’s super great if it works, but there is so much to Facebook ads it’s not really something you can just ‘break down’ and ‘make easy peasy’. I wanted a course that covered it all, and took my students from brand new to Facebook ads ninja. We added a bunch of new content, and raised the price of the course. FB Brilliance is by far my most expensive product, we chared $497 for it when we opened the doors in October 2016. Previously I had charged $200-$350 for this course, depending on whether or not the customer was using a coupon code. I knew my students would need extra help to really get the hang of Facebook advertising, and set a price that would value my time and expertise. Another decision we made during our course relaunch was that we didn’t want to leave the course open all the time. We learned that anytime we had a new Facebook ads student, they needed lots of help up front. New students needed lots of support, feedback, and hand holding. I realized that I didn’t want to have new students entering my classroom at all different times throughout the year because I couldn’t give them the attention and help they deserved and they wouldn’t get the best experience. I made an intentional choice to open the doors on Oct 14th of 2016 and close them November 2nd. After Nov 2nd, no one could purchase FB Brilliance. Everyone started class together, and that way I could focus on digging deep with my new students and serving them well. I didn’t have to worry about onboarding new students every week. It was also fun to have people journeying together and getting feedback at the same time. Before FB Brilliance I never did an open/close launch model. All of my products were available all of the time. I made a majority of sales for my Pinterest course through webinars. During the webinar I might have offered a coupon or limited time bonus; I love doing that to get people to take action. But I had never completely closed the doors before and told customers, “Nope, that’s it. You can’t buy it.” It was a little scary at first! What if the launch didn’t go well? I was taking a product off the market and wouldn’t have it in my back pocket to grow the business. Looking back, I’m really glad I did the open and close model. It did allow me to have a big launch period, but then focus my time after the doors closed on my students. If you are an instructor of a course with a lot to it and a lot of content, I highly recommend an open/close enrollment model. My team and I would all say it’s been great to have marketing be one batch of time and nurturing students a separate batch of time. Okay, so let’s talk about the numbers. What does a 100K course launch look like? Let’s dig in. The Numbers Total Sales from Cart Open (October 14th) to Cart Close (November 2nd): $106,066 - no cents! (It would come down to nickels and dimes after payment processing.) Total Brilliant Business Mom Sales: $97,646.50 (After paying our 1 affiliate, a good friend who hosted me for a webinar.) Even after coupons and rewards, we sold over $100K of products. That amount felt awesome to me! Before this point my best business month had been $50K in sales. And to reach that milestone took a lot of hustling and Facebook ads and webinars. Bringing in $100K blew my mind, and it still does. My business has grown so quickly, and I’m always looking back in amazement of what my team and I have accomplished. For me, this would not have been a $100K course launch without 3 awesome ladies working right alongside me. Without Carlee, Ellen, and Victoria doing customer service, creating ad images, and writing copy, I couldn’t have done it. So let’s break down the sales. We had 206 total sales. 206 new students who purchased FB Brilliance. I had options to pay all at once for the course ($497) and 99 of my students chose that option. There was also a payment plan (6 payments of $97, and those students ended up paying $582 total in the end) and 107 students wanted to do that. (I was surprised at all the people who wanted to plunk down the $497 all at once.) If you calculate the math on those sales quickly, you’re going to say, “Okay, Beth Anne, you should have made more than that!!!” Note that 32 of my students came through an affiliate, and I was only making 50% of those sales. And I did other promotions. I offered my Brilliant Pin Promotion students $97 off the total price to thank them for being students. They could either paid in full at the $400 price point, or take $17 off those monthly payments. 12 total Pinterest students took me up on my offer; 6 paid in full, 6 paied via the payment plan. I also did a promotion with the Genius Bloggers Toolkit (run by the fabulous people at Ultimate Bundles). I offered a mini course called FB Ads for Beginners inside the Toolkit. Since these customers already paid a lot to get access to the bundle, and already had a $97 course of mine inside the Bundle, I offered them a coupon for $97 off FB Brilliance and 4 students took me up that. The last discount promotion I ran was a scholarship. I knew that $497 is a lot of moolah for my target customer, a SAHM/WAHM on a budget. She doesn’t have $1,000 around to spend on her business. I wanted to give a few hardworking and motivated ladies a scholarship opportunity. I did a five day series on Facebook Live that was comprised of a daily lesson and homework assignment. We invited participants to submit their ‘assignments’ in the comments of our Facebook live video. My team compiled the submissions throughout the week, and anyone who submitted all 5 answers by the deadline were eligible to be considered for the scholarship. We had 3 full-ride spots we could give. Looking back I am SO glad we offered this scholarship! One student in particular is really rocking and rolling with her business. She works so hard, and is constantly trying to improve. In fact, she’s about to host a webinar which is super exciting! I’m so happy I was able to give these three ladies a scholarship, they proved me right - that they’re all motivated and hardworking ladies. For everyone who didn’t win our scholarship, but did do the work, I offered a 50% off coupon. Maybe that’s crazy. We only emailed this offer to people who had submitted all 5 assignments, and I felt great about doing it. (And I did let the cat out of the bag, but I’m okay with that.) I really wanted to reward the hardwork of everyone who submitted scholarships. We had about 30-40 submissions who completed every assignment, and of those 14 took me up on my offer; 6 paid in full and 8 went on the payment plan. I’m really excited to try out the scholarship program again. I know I just spilled a big secret, but I’m deciding not to be too worried. The Brilliant Business Moms community is so sweet and full of integrity, you’re smart and hardworking so I have every hope that a second scholarship will be just as well-met with hard work. The cash that came in the door from people who paid in full was a total of: $41,717.50 And the cash in door from payment plans was: $55,929 (divided over 6 months; $9,321.50 each month for that period of time). The first payment began that first month of sales. I had about about $50K of cash in the bank by November 2nd, and have been getting another 9K a month in the door through April 2nd. Even after subtracting out my affiliate sales from the total sales, things are looking really good. But of course, I had to spend money to make this money - especially, as you might guess, on Facebook ads. Expenses To generate over $100K in sales I spent $23,590.31 on Facebook ads. So after paying my affiliate and paying for my Facebook ads, the total profit to Brilliant Business moms was $74,056.19, and the rest of that amount came in the 5 months following the launch. Ending the month with $50K in the bank, after paying for $23K worth of Facebook ads, and an additional $9K coming in each month felt great. Thanks to my students on payment plans, I was able to take the rest of November and focus on finishing out final modules for course content, hosting weekly office hours, and answering questions. I was fully able to help my students succeed! And of course it allowed me to prepare for planner season. Our Brilliant Life Planner sales season ramped up in December and January. It was really nice to only market one product at a time! Refunds We gave 8 total refunds for FB Brilliance. I gave people 60 days to return the course; if they did the work and weren't happy with their results, they could get a refund. But I was very clear to say, “You’re not getting a refund just because you changed your mind!” That’s wouldn’t be fair at all, right? And with a digital product, how would I know what the user’s end purpose was? It’s so hard to oversee. We thought the 60 day window was a generous time frame and let people really dig into the course. Out of 206 students, only 8 were refunded. Our total refund rate was 3.88%, which is pretty good! I’ve been told to expect a 5-10% rate. And of those who asked for a refund, it wasn’t because Facebook ads didn’t work. We had one student who realized their MLM was strictly against Facebook ads, for example. So we dug into the policy and, sure enough, that was the case. Another person was having lots of trouble getting the pixel installed; we didn’t have time to cater to all the different platforms this person was using and help them out - so a refund was easier to offer. Some refunds were due to hard life circumstances, like having to close their business and go back to a day job. To be honest, most of our refunds fell outside of our return policy, but we tried to be kind and understanding. It’s really a tricky thing to manage! I’ve seen some business owners be super strict with their policy. We want to have the highest integrity possible; it’s not fair to give someone a refund 6 months later just because they changed their mind. But we’ll dig more into this at a later time! Reality Hits, But It’s Still Awesome I used to think that a $100K course launch meant that person went out and bought a Ferrari or something. That was not the case at all for me! It was more like me looking at the launch and saying, “Awesome! I’m happy to teach these students, and I can keep paying my team and expenses.” While it was great to have that big launch, the amount of cash I received at the end wasn’t necessarily this huge life-changing thing. Hopefully you can see that through my story. With that said, a $100K course launch truly was awesome! I want to see more of you listening do big product launches! Shoot for the moon and hit those great big goals. Now, I’m going to break down for you exactly what we did marketing wise to earn those 206 students. Marketing We primarily got these customers through selling on webinars. I love webinars! I’ve been blown away by doing a well-crafted webinar to allow me to build relationships and knock the socks off my customers with the value. I enjoy selling in a way that feels authentic, and encourages people to get off their behinds and take action. If you want to learn more about how I sell through webinars, have a course Craft Your Brilliant Webinar. You can learn more about it by visiting: brilliantbusinessmoms.com/cybw This course will help you hone your message and show how your product solves a problem. It will refine how you relate to your customers and provide value. Once you do all of that, your potential with Facebook ads is crazy. This crazy business growth I’ve experienced has mostly been through webinars. This course launch I can attribute to doing webinars. I did 4 webinars, 3 were to my audience + new subscribers via Facebook ads, and 1 was an affiliate webinar. The webinar dates were: October 14th October 20th October 27th  (affiliate webinar) October 28th (my last webinar) The total number of webinar signups was: 7,513. That number was bigger initially, but since then a few people unsubscribed. It was more like 9,000 at the time of the launch. The total number of signups were: 1st Webinar - 1,421 2nd Webinar - 1,719 3rd Webinar (affiliate) - 1,682 4th Webinar - 2,061 I was getting enough sales throughout the month that I knew my Facebook ads were paid for. Of course I wasn’t going to plunk down $20K in a week and cross my fingers that it would work! I scaled advertising as I saw the sales coming in. Even with me feeling confident on how to use Facebook ads, you never know exactly how a promo will go. Ads I test still involve a few thousand dollars, but I’m not going to plunk down more than that until I saw profits. I taught the same webinar each time I hosted it. I do want to change that up next year, but this year I was honestly revamping the course and in the middle of a launch, so there wasn’t time. I sent out a post-webinar email sequence following each session. I would provide the students with awesome value, and after class I sent the replay and an ebook on 20 Brilliant Optin Offers they could use to build their lists. The main way I used Facebook ads was to build my list, and from there make sales. I gave ideas for freebies in this ebook, and guidance on how to use them. Another post webinar email I sent was titled ‘What’s the Facebook pixel and why should I care’. This was basic information for customer needed to know, I made it really exciting but also told them it can be tricky. And I ended that email with ‘Don’t stress, I have training in my course’. As I mentioned, each email sent a link to the replay along with a link for the next live webinar. And, of course, I linked to the full course to purchase. The other thing I did for all my webinar customers was to offer limited time bonuses. It did get tricky to manage these bonuses with multiple webinars! I told everyone they would have four days to grab the bonuses, but would have the same people attend multiple webinars and get confused about the bonus limit time. What we ended up doing was telling everyone they could grab the bonuses through October 29th. And from that point it was a few more days until the cart closed. I actually have a fun table that Carlee on my team made to show how effective the bonuses were. Looking at the sales day-by-day, for the last week the cart was open we had more course sales come in the Saturday when the bonuses closed than when the cart closed! (And this was after I told people the course wouldn’t be open again until September 2017!) We had 40 new students enter the course on cart closing day, but on the fast action bonuses day we had 70 new people come into the course. You can see by those numbers that momentum really builds with the course. When you launch a course, have faith that the majority of sales will come toward the end. Of course you want to see sales along the way, and it was great to know I could pay for those Facebook ads, but the last week of the promo was huge. Facebook Ad Stats My total spend on Facebook ads was $23,590.31. Where did all of that money go? The vast majority went on my webinar signups campaign. Essentially, I showed people an ad to my free class all about how to make a profit with Facebook ads, click here, signup, and attend my free class. I spent $21,965.97 on that campaign. That campaign led to 7,168 email subscribers. And again, when I look back at what ConvertKit says now, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost a couple thousand subscribers from that promotion. Some of my Facebook ad campaigns were to people on my list. I did run ad sets to my site visitors and email subscribers, since they’re people I can get to signup at an affordable rate and they’re likely to buy my product. I have no problem spending money to get people into a free class because I want to make sure they get in the door and don’t miss it. My average cost per email subscriber was $3.38. But broken down, I can see that when I targeted my ads to my email subscribers, it only costs about $1.29 to get those people to sign up. Ads targeted to my website visitors were at $1.69 per lead. The investment is totally worth it to me because those people bought the course. With that average spend per lead, I will say that my general bench mark is $ per lead I’ve heard from other Facebook advertisers that this benchmark is really low. But generally I’m able to get people for that $2 a lead. In this case I was intentional with my ads in that knew I was offering the course at a higher price point. For some of my audience it was just outside their budget. So I did target not just by interest, but also household income level. I didn’t want a bunch of people for my free class get excited, then cry at the end when they saw the course price!! That’s a bummer for everyone. I didn’t want to get people excited, but have them walk away. And it doesn’t make sense to pay for $2 if no one can afford my product. Seeing the end result of about $3 per lead, but making sure it was inside their budget and they could afford my course was worth it. While the vast majority of my $23K spend was acquiring signups, I also spent money on class reminders - just for my October 27th webinar. To those people who signed up, I showed them an ad that read ‘Hooray! Class is today!’ The way in which I used this ad, I didn’t get a lot of clicks but I did get a high reach. My ad reached 442 people, though only 8 people clicked, my reached was 25% of class signups for that day of class. And I only paid $2 a click. So about $15.64 total, but I was able to show up in 442 people's newsfeeds. (Of course I’m sending reminders to students via email, but the more places I can show up in front of someone the better!) The other strategy I did to fill my classes was retargeting. So everyone who signed up to the class, I sent them an ad that said ‘Don’t miss out on the bonuses and growing your business with Facebook ads’. The cool thing with retargeting campaigns is you can get great results with not a lot of money. I got back in front of about 7,000 - 9,000 people to remind them of my awesome product. I spent $130.30 on that retargeting campaign. I did experience a HUGE bummer that I’ll never let happen again. Here’s the story. I work with an awesome guy at Facebook who helps me with my ads. I hopped on the phone with him and set up a custom purchase pixel for Teachable. We set it up, it was working, and we could see who purchased on Teachable vs. Shopify.   It turns out we had to do one extra thing, and because of that oversight my sales weren’t showing up inside Power Editor! The sales were coming through, and I knew the ads were profitable, but the bummer was I couldn’t go back to those campaigns and say, “Awesome, this ad set purchased FB Brilliance this many times,” or, “This was an affordable campaign to get webinars, but not for sales.” I was bummed to not have that data! This glitch had since been fixed, so I can now tell you which ads worked best and which audiences brought more money. So I did a replay reminder campaign, and all the people who signed up for a class I said ‘Hey, you missed the class but grab a reply’. Sure I was emailing them, but I wanted that other touch point. I spent $971.87 on the replay campaign, and I had 605 link clicks and spent $1.61 per each click. It was a great use of ad spend because I know when people show up live, they’re more likely to buy. It’s easy to put off watching a replay. And when people don’t watch the webinar, they don’t know what kind of teacher I am and the value I can offer. It was valuable to get as many people as I possibly could together live. For cart closing I did a Facebook Live session, but the post didn’t turn into an ad until after the session. I spent $300 on that ad. People who watched the video for 3 seconds - 4,104 ($0.07 per view) People who watched the video for 10 seconds - 1,011 17 people watched 20% of the video, and only 1 person watched 100% of the video. Man, looking back those stats aren’t great! It would have been better to get people on the replay page. The other post I boosted was to announce my scholarship. I let people know about the 5 Day Video Series, and how it worked. (Our scholarship was a Facebook live session where I introduced the program and explained how it worked.) I boosted that post for $200. I got 12,000 impressions, and 3,027 video views. Only 761 viewed the video for 10 seconds. Only 28 people viewed 25% of the video. And on down the line, only 9 people watched the full video. Now these numbers don’t include organic reach. A better use of time an ad spend would have been boosting after the fact, and during give lots of incentive for people to join and engage live. (The more interaction in the moment, the more free reach.) I’ve boosted posts more recently, and my goal was to get viewers to sign up with the free guide. The link for my guide was right in the description, and it’s so much easier to get a subscriber with a great freebie. Facebook live is a beast. It’s great for free engagement, but not for paying. Lesson learned, huh? Recap So to recap, I ran 4 webinars and promoted limited time bonuses - expiring a few days before cart close. The cart closing was also a motivator. People who bought the course knew they would have weekly office hours to get live help with the content. I sent lots of followup emails and was not being shy with those reminders! Hopefully this episode wasn’t too tough to get through! My team and I will be on next week to dig deep on customer service, strategies we used, and the ways we’re excited to make next year’s launch even better (For those wondering, the doors to FB Brilliance will open again in September of 2017.) I’m excited to keep the transparency and continue to share what I’m learning in this stage of business. I love sharing the nitty gritty, and hopefully you love hearing it! If you’re interested in learning how to use webinars to grow your business, we have a new course called Craft Your Brilliant Webinar that will get you on your way. You can learn more about it by visiting: brilliantbusinessmoms.com/cybw Now it's your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

If you're a mom on Instagram, we bet you've seen a gorgeous Lily Jade bag. On today's episode of the podcast, we are pleased to welcome Meggan Wood, owner and creator of Lily Jade. We talk about her design process, working with social influencers, product manufacturing, and what it's like to be a husband-wife team. Let's get started! Listen Now   On the Podcast 00:34 - The Inspiration Behind Lily Jade02:45 - Growing a Business Rapidly04:45 - Working with Social Influencers08:45 - Meeting Manufactures, Taking Feedback, & Lily Jade 2.016:02 - Working With Your Husband21:24 - Giveaways Galore26:00 - Adorable Mom Moment29:45 - Our Own Lily Jade Giveaway The Inspiration Behind Lily Jade Meggan is married to Landon and mom to two girls, Caroline, 11, and Madeline, 7. Before becoming a mom, Meggan always loved cute totes and accessories. As a new mom, she hunted for a tote that would meet her needs, but didn't scream diaper bag. She worked in outside sales before coming home to be a SAHM, and she wanted a fashionable accessory to feel less like she had spit up all over her all the time. (And we sure do understand that!) Meggan remembers going to discount retailers and finding the biggest leather tote she could that had sturdy strapping and different carrying options. She has always valued organization and created her own ZipLock bag system to organize the contents of these totes. She vividly remembers sitting in a restaurant with her mother-in-law, lugging 2 bags to the table -- one bag for 6 month old Madeline and one bag for herself. She sat down and announced, “One day I am going to create a diaper bag that doesn’t look like a diaper bag, and fits all of my stuff, and that’s what I’m going to do.” While at that moment nothing drastic changed, the dream of Lily Jade began. Lily Jade was birthed out of a real-life need. Meggan knew that other women surely could relate to her struggles -- and she was right. Growing a Business Rapidly Lily Jade has grown quickly in  just over 3 years of business. We’re amazed, and so happy for them. But, what has contributed to their rapid success? First of all, Lily Jade creates a bag that their customer base is excited to talk about. It’s innovative, highly desirable, and appealing to a targeted niche customer. It’s not hard to find a raving Lily Jade fan! Lily Jade also used social influencers to spread the word about their bags. Social influencing wasn’t originally part of Lily Jade’s marketing strategy, but the company quickly became aware that social influencers could be valuable to the brand. Lily Jade bags are fabulous demo products, and showcasing the bag was easy for mommy bloggers to do. (If you visit Lily Jade on Instagram, you’ll see a gorgeous feed full of moms who love their Lily Jade bags.) Working With Social Influencers When asked if using social influencers has paid off for the Lily Jade team, Meggan gave a resounding YES. We wondered how she found them and what her budget was. Marketing the perfect designer diaper bag happened with a lot of trial and error. Meggan says when Lily Jade first launched they were able to work with a company who really modeled for them how to find and manage bloggers with social campaigns. Meggan began to pursue the marketing of her product after she had already created the bag, and was in the thick of designing and finding a factory. (If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a business lifecycle, or business stages, click here to learn more.) As Lily Jade approached influencers, budget wasn’t necessarily the most important factor - finding the right fit was. While numbers are important, Meggan worried more about the potential influencer’s ability to engage their audience. Did they have many likes and comments on each post? Was their board aesthetically pleasing? Was their Instagram feed thought out with time and attention to detail? “Social channels are like window shopping for ecommerce customers,” Meggan says. (We LOVE that.) She wanted to make sure influencers they worked with would pay attention to details like the lighting of the photos, and knowing the product well.   From there, she could narrow down her list. Since Lily Jade is a higher end product, they didn’t have to necessarily worry about paying influencers; they simply could give a product away. (And these bags are so high quality and great, we know Lily Jade has a line out the door of influencers asking for a bag!) Meggan says she has had some “full circle” moments in her business when some influencers purchased additional bags for themselves and for friends. It’s a blessing to know that someone really does love your product. And as much as their social influencers like Lily Jade products, they’re also willing to give honest feedback. Just before Christmas 2016, Lily Jade was able to launch their 2.0 line, created by making changes that had been suggested by their customers. Meggan sees the value in taking both negative and positive feedback to heart, and making her company even better, noting, “It’s awesome to take stock of our inventory and make an honest brand assessment. Where do we do well? Where do we need to do better?” We think that openness to feedback is brilliant. Meeting Manufactures, Taking Feedback, & Lily Jade 2.0 Meggan has made a trip overseas to China to visit the factory that produces Lily Jade bags in person. While she says you certainly don’t have to travel, and there are many ways to stay in touch with your suppliers and manufactures, for Lily Jade, it’s vital to see the process up close and personal. Being a Texas gal, Meggan loves the opportunity to shake hands and give hugs to the people who make her business possible. Meggan explained that “it’s an honor to meet them face-to-face and thank them for what they do.” She tells the workers that their attention to detail matters, and Lily Jade bags are showpieces, and unique treasures, because of their hard work. We wanted to ask Meggan about sourcing this fabulous product. While at Brilliant Business Moms we know a lot about manufacturing and creating prototypes of our planners, we know next to nothing about creating a bag! She says that the beginning steps were really slow. She sat on her idea of creating a designer leather diaper bag for several years. Her husband had a small business, and when he sold that business, Meggan pitched the idea to him  that it might be time to pursue her diaper bag idea. Her husband did some market analysis and research and told her, “I think you’ve got something here.” Prior to Lily Jade, Meggan had zero design experience. She couldn’t even cut a straight line! She had a vision and a concept in her mind, yet didn’t even know how to get it to translate to paper or the computer. Her very first step was to contact an Etsy seller who designed and made quilted cotton handbags. She first asked this shop owner to create a bag for Meggan to see. Meggan measured and cut the first Lily Jade mockup out of cardboard! She put pockets and inserts where she wanted them, sending the measurements to her Etsy creator. Together they created the first prototype. Meggan carried the bag around herself for a while, and made some changes based on how the prototype worked for her, and how it didn’t. Then, she and her husband found a design consultant from New York through LinkedIn. The design consultant was extremely knowledgable and helpful and explained lots of industry terms to help Meggan translate her vision. (Like the side of the bag is called a gusset, in case you wondered.) From this stage, the design consultant was able to sketch out drawings and tell Meggan exactly what she needed to do get this bag to production. Lily Jade launched with two bags, the Madeline and the Caroline -- named after Meggan’s little girls -- in a variety of colors. They started with US tandem made leather, in a New York factory. After the first run, they knew if they wanted to scale they would have to go overseas. Seeking out an international manufacturer was never a negative for them; they were honored to hire the greatest craftsmen and leather workers they could. After her husband Landon went to a trade show in Hong Kong, he choose a few factory options and settled on one in China. Recently Meggan and her husband were able to visit the factory that puts together Lily Jade bags, and discuss a few changes to be made. Meggan thinks it is truly amazing to meet her manufacturers face-to-face and thank them for their work. (I can’t wait to experience this same thing, and visit my own manufacturers face-to-face!) We love Meggan’s care toward those who make her business possible! Straight Talk About Working With Your Husband Full-Time Meggan and her husband Landon launched this business as a team. Lily Jade doesn’t exist without either of them! I had to know what it’s like working with your husband full time! (My husband Chris has always been a helper and cheerleader to Brilliant Business Moms, and he is amazing, but even in those roles I can sometimes think, “Wait, I don’t need your help!”) We just had to hear from Meggan the pros and cons of working with your spouse. Meggan explained their priority to keep relationship over business: “Landon and I were husband and wife, college sweethearts, and parents ever before we had Lily Jade. Lily Jade can rise and fall, but we’re the Woods. We’re a family. We mean that, and we operate in that place. We tell our children that Lily Jade is what we do, but it’s not who we are.” The Woods have a strong sense of family. Meggan says if you lose sight of that first commitment, working together cannot be enjoyable. She also says a mutual respect and honor toward each other has to be a consistent theme. Working together exposes the weak places, and if a spouse is ready to pounce on a weaknesses it’s not helpful. But if your spouse can see a weak place exposed and say something like, “Do you need any help with that?” a culture of honor is upheld. Meggan also acknowledges the advice she frequently hears to ‘not talk business on a date.’ But the Woods family has a vision and desire for their lives, but it’s not ‘business’ to talk about Lily Jade. God has a bigger plan for the Woods family, so they very much view Lily Jade as just a 3rd party member. “They’re not our dreams, they’re God dreams,” Meggan says. (Chris and I are the same way -- because we are dreaming big all the time, it comes up naturally and we enjoy talking business because really, we’re talking our hopes and dreams.) Meggan speaks so tenderly about the quiet moments between she and her husband when they’re able to look into the windows of each other’s hearts, as it were. Landon will ask, “How’s Lily Jade going for you, honey? Where do you feel like you’re succeeding? Where can you use help?” We think that working relationship is just beautiful. Giveaways Galore If you’ve followed Lily Jade for any length of time, you’ll know that giveaways are something they do often! For example, on the 1st Monday of every month Lily Jade hosts Adoptive Mommy Monday giveaways for adoptive moms. The Giveaway Model in the broad sense has been part of their business model and marketing initiatives from the beginning. Early on Lily Jade would do ‘tag a friend and follow us’ type giveaways to build their social channels. Word spread and it wasn’t as necessary to do those big sweeping giveaways as often. At this stage, they have a certain number of bags built into their inventory for giveaways each year. Meggan says it’d be fun to go all Oprah with Lily Jade and be able to shout, “You get a bag! And you get a bag! And you get a bag!” But for now, their customers are wonderful supporters, and Megan loves seeing their pictures and reading their emails. That appreciation fuels what they do. And then people get excited and want to share a $300+ bag giveaway with their friends! Adoptive Mommy Monday was birthed out of Meggan’s desire to bring awareness about adoption and honor adoptive moms. There’s a level of bravery, and financial risk that is unique to adoptive moms, and Meggan loves to highlights those encouraging stories. Meggan deeply believes that children matter, and their lives are valuable. (And many of you know we adopted our son Holden from India, and I am due with our first biological child this April. We’d love to have kids from all over the place! This part of the episode nearly made me cry.) Without adoption, Meggan wouldn’t have her sisters! She was the big surprise baby; “I was the stomach flu that didn’t go away,” she quips. She has one sibling from the Philippines and one from Georgia, which makes adoption near and dear to her heart. It’s fabulous that Meggan has used her platform to put eyes on the often unseen world of adoption. Adorable Mom Moment Meggan’s oldest daughter, who is 11, understands a lot of what Lily Jade is and has attended meet and greets with her parents, as well as conferences. She’s a true cheerleader, who comes in at the right time and asks, “How’s work? How’s Lily Jade? Do you feel like you had success today? What do you need to work on?” These are the same questions Meggan will ask her children through the course of the day. In this intense season of putting the hand to the plow, Meggan thinks it’s sweet her children are able to come alongside their parents and desire to participate in their work and cheer on their successes. (I love this! And I can so relate. Holden totally thinks he’s part of my business. One time he asked, “How many sales did we make?” after a Facebook live event. He was so disappointed that this was a teaching even, and not a sales event!) Our Own Lily Jade Giveaway Don’t you just love Meggan? She has such a heart for serving women and making a difference with her business, and all while keeping her family at the forefront.   If you’ve never seen a Lily Jade bag, you have got to check it out. Go to lily-jade.com and click “Shop Now” to browse. Meggan’s bags are gorgeous, smart, and clever, with amazing organizational systems. And you’re in luck! Right now we’re doing a podcast relaunch giveaway after our great big, long podcasting break. There are 4 fabulous prizes, and one is a Lily Jade bag! We’re giving away a Madeline in Brandy and Jade, this high quality bag costs over $300. You can click the link below for more details: bit.ly/brilliantpodcastgiveaway To enter you simply have to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review. We’ll draw 4 random names from people who left reviews between February 6th and March 6th. Then, we’ll announce the winners on the podcast and coordinate prizes through email. Good luck! Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant! Stay In Touch with Meggan Lily-Jade.comFacebook: Lily Jade CoInstagram: @lilyjadecoInstagram: @megganewood

This episode wasn’t on our schedule, but it was on my heart, so I wanted to pop in and share some business wisdom with you ladies. Listen Now   It’s not that I think I am so wise, it’s just that looking back over the last year and taking stock of how things have gone, I realized something that I couldn’t help but share. I know many of you out there feel the pressure to keep spinning your wheels. You feel like you’re caught up in the rat race, or on a hamster wheel and you can’t get off. I want to encourage you to hop off the wheel and do something different. First, I wanted to start by saying that I am so excited the podcast is back. Thank you so much for letting me in your ears every single week, and truly, I am so pumped for what’s ahead! As I’m recording this, it’s midday on Feb 16th. Our podcast downloads for the month of February are already over 27,000 downloads. Without context that might not mean much, but let me tell you, this is already a RECORD high month for us! You all know I took this past year off from the podcast, but before that the podcast was very strong. We published a new episode at least once a week for a solid 18 months. We had well over 100 episodes under our belt. Prior to this month, our highest month was 18,000 downloads, and that was March 2015. Two years later we finally topped that record! A HUGE shoutout and THANK YOU to my amazing listeners!!! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the podcast and listening faithfully. I want to read some recent reviews from you guys that are so incredibly sweet and, honestly, your encouraging notes really do keep me going. JennyEliza24 said, “So encouraging! I listen this podcast to get inspired to own my own business. I’m still at the stage where I know I can do it, but I don’t have an amazing idea yet. This podcast -- and its super friendly host -- give me hope that I can do it too.” I love that! On the show, we purposely bring on women who are at all different stages of their business. Some have been in business for just a year, and some have been around for many years. But even if you’re just mulling things over, I hope to provide that perspective and encouragement that you can do it too. We want you to say, “She sounds like me.” Here’s another review from Carmen M. W.: “I have never listened to a podcast, never been interested. But that is before BBM! But then again, I’ve never clicked on an advertisement prior to Beth Anne’s. Needless to say, Beth Anne knows her stuff. Period. About two months ago, she drew me into her Facebook advertisement. Then, she drew me into all her goodies in her store and now her VALUABLE podcasts! Now, I have access to all the knowledge on marketing and tips that has gotten her where she is today. And to top it all off, she does it in a positive, uplifting way. Thank you Beth Anne.. you’re an inspiration!” Keep the reviews coming, because they totally encourage me, and right now, If you leave a review before March 6th, you’ll be automatically entered into our giveaway! We’ve got four prizes you can’t resist. FREE access to my signature course, FB Brilliance A Madeline in Brandy & Jade bag by Lily Jade The VIP package of Brilliant Pin Promotion A 2017 Brilliant Life Planner Click here for more details, including directions on how to leave an iTunes review. But, talking about podcast downloads and all your fabulous reviews is not the only reason why I jumped behind the mic today. You’re probably intrigued by the title of this episode: They told me I was Making a Huge mistake… Let me pull the pieces together and explain what that has to do with podcast downloads. A year ago, my sister Sarah decided to leave Brilliant Business Moms. At the time, I was really sad, and to be honest, I was also pretty overwhelmed. I totally supported her decision, and think she’s still super happy about her choice. But I was overwhelmed because until that point we had been splitting tasks in the business and each had different roles and things we were doing. I thought, “Oh my goodness. I’m already working like a dog, how can I add Sarah’s tasks to my list as well?” I didn’t think I could handle it. I knew I needed to hire help, but, at that point in the business, even though we were making sales and bringing in money, we were not making a good profit. Once a year we each got a teeny tiny profit paycheck. (And I’m talking teeny tiny!) I simply didn’t have cash leftover each month to hire help. But I knew if I wanted to keep growing Brilliant Business Moms, I was going to need to assemble a team. I had to take a step back from all the tasks I was doing in the business every week--all the things on my great big, mile long to-do list and ask, “What are the biggest impact things I can do to grow this business? What should get set aside so I can grow this to be a profitable business? What do I need to let go of so I can grow our team and move forward?” When I looked at the big picture of the business, I knew that the podcast took a lot of time and work each week. And there wasn’t necessarily a clear, straight line between podcasts and increasing revenue and profits. Sarah and I loved doing the podcast to interview great moms and provide valuable content, but there wasn’t this clear connection between the podcast and sales. I also knew I had a bigger product to launch -- a course on Pinterest marketing. I had learned so much about Pinterest marketing, and I had used Pinterest effectively on a budget, and I knew I could show other moms like me how to do it.  But didn’t see how I’d have the time to do the course unless I dropped things from my list. I had to drop the podcast. Now, I didn’t plan on it being a whole YEAR before getting back. And, I am very happy to be back.  But having said that, I’m still happy with my decision to take a break when I needed to. They told me I was making a huge mistake… All the advice from fellow business owners like bloggers and podcasters, plus my faithful listeners who loved it, was that it was a bad idea to stop the podcast. Everything I was hearing sounded like, “You can’t put the podcast! That’s your thing! It’s what made Brilliant Business Moms into Brilliant Business Moms.” And yes, I agree, Brilliant Business Moms did truly start as an idea for a podcast. You know, in the same way a lot of bloggers get the advice that you have to blog consistently every single week, or 3 to 5 times a week, and if you don’t do that your audience will drop off and you’ll never get the momentum back.  And you have to keep spitting out content constantly, etc. I asked myself some self-identifying questions, like, “What do I see myself as? Am I a podcaster? Am I  a blogger?  Or am I an online business owner?” I realized what I wanted was to be was an online business owner, building a profitable business. A business owner  may produce content in all sorts of different ways, but a business owner is not defined by blogging or podcasting, which are the things they do, but rather by how they help people. What defines the owner is the product they put out, and how they can serve and help people solve their problems. I knew I had a great product that would help people, but I felt so much guilt around focusing my time on product development and marketing. I felt guilty for a long time for not running the hamster wheel of free content, and spending all my time there every single week. A year later, looking back, I realize I have still provided value to my community of BBM. Through Instagram, emails, blog posts, and free webinars, I have helped people, and honestly, I serve my community best of all when I spend time creating and developing solid products that grow their businesses. I can’t feel bad about spending time creating these products for my community! Those products are a huge way that I get to help people! I very much DID have all those fears in the back of my mind. “Maybe everyone’s right,” I thought. “Maybe I am making a huge mistake. Maybe my audience will drop off and wither away and I’ll have nobody left online. Maybe no one will care about the podcast when I do come back.” That’s where those podcast stats come back in. I think when February ends, we will have doubled that record number of downloads. So, do I regret this past year of jumping off the hamster wheel? Do I regret putting the big rocks in first? Not at all. Building my list is a high impact activity, and now I have a much bigger list I can sell to--it’s truly a big rock activity. In December 2015 my email list was about 3,500, and as of this recording we’re sitting at 49,000 people. Thank you so much, that when I posted on Instagram and sent an email, you all came back to listen! And I don’t think anyone has any hard feelings. I have only heard about excited, happy listeners. And because I jumped off the hamster wheel, and I focused on the big rock activities, this last year I have been able to assemble a team. Ellen was my first team member --I hired her to get my Pinterest marketing course out the door. At first, Ellen was literally on a rationed schedule. I could only afford to pay her for 10 hours of work a week. She would have to check in with me and make sure she wasn’t over her hours! But now I have 3 fabulous ladies who work with me every week. And I can bring on contractors and freelancers as needed. Because I have that team in place, I can do this podcast and it’s not as much work as it used to be! I’ve got Victoria behind the scenes coordinating everything for me: interviews, promo graphics, show notes, and publishing. Podcasts are a lot of work!  Victoria is spending at least 10 hours a week on the podcast. Without her the podcast wouldn’t be back, and I’m so thankful I can get new episodes out the door. Make sure you give Victoria a great big hug, because this podcast wouldn’t be back without her. But again, it was big rocks in first. I took a deep breath, looked at the big picture, and asked what are my great big goals, and how am I going to get to them? Steps To Reach My Goals In brief, these are the steps I took to getting my business to where I needed it to be: Got my product out the door Focused on marketing that product Increased revenue and profits Hired help to grow the business even more Which then let me focus on serving you guys even better with more free content and connection As many of you know, Carlee is on customer service. She makes sure emails don’t get lost in my inbox, and that all your refunds and bonuses and whatever goodies you are looking for come to you without a hitch. Last year, I couldn’t have afforded to have her, and I wouldn’t have been able to serve you as well. Don’t listen to people telling you that stopping, and doing something new is a big mistake! So here’s my advice: take a step back, take a breath, focus on the great big rocks that matter most, and be okay letting other things go. Understand your life comes in seasons. When I let the podcast go, it helped to know I would only be gone a few months -- I knew I wasn’t letting it go forever. I put it aside for a season so I could focus on high impact activities, and then I could bring it back when I had the right systems and team in place. Remind yourself that life has different seasons for different things. Thinking of life in seasons is helpful for me with baby boy due in April. We’re heading for a totally different season I have to adjust to and be okay with! I know I won’t make the same level of progress with my business, and that’s okay. I’m going to let myself take several months completely off from work. I’ll hop back when I want to, but it’ll be nice to have a season when family is WAAAY up high on the scale. Usually my life is pretty balanced, but family is about to tip the scales, and I’m looking forward to that season. Before I go, I’ve got a fabulous freebie for you: The 5 Days to Craft Your Brilliant Webinar Guide. Now, the live Facebook series is over, but everything you need is in the guide to help you start crafting your own webinar, which will help you make more sales, build relationships with your customers, and set yourself apart in your space. Webinars were a big rock activity for me last year, and a huge driver in terms of building an audience and being able to help you all, and making more sales. Whether you sell a physical product, you are with an MLM company, or you sell services, a course, or an ebook, I want you to consider using webinars!   brilliantbusinessmoms.com/webinarguide Most of all, no matter what your big goals are, I encourage you to jump off that hamster wheel. Don’t listen to all the people telling you you’re making a big mistake. Map out the highest impact activities. Have confidence that your goals and milestones matter. You have the ability to create the path that’ll get you there, and you can put blinders on to what others are saying. And of course, now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant.

I am SO excited to bring you this show today! We are going to talk about the ONE strategy that has impacted my sales the most this year! I'm super passionate about this topic. Honestly, I try to talk about this strategy with business owners everywhere I go. I constantly want to convince more people to use this strategy because the difference it has made for me is seriously crazy-cakes. Do you have a guess as to what it could be? Knowing me, you might think this strategy is Facebook ads, but it's not! I love this strategy because it's approachable and affordable for business owners. Facebook ads are how I get customers in the door, but this strategy is how I build relationships and sell the things I want to sell. The strategy is hosting webinars. I know you've probably heard a lot of online business owners talk about webinars over the years, and maybe you already have decided opinions about them. If you're rolling your eyes at this point and thinking, "Webinars aren't for me. Business mom out," I need you to give me a few more minutes -- and I am pretty sure I'll change your mind. :) Listen To The Show The Numbers Speak For Themselves (3:26) If you'll give me the chance, I'm going to talk about the 6 big webinar myths I hear all the time. I'm going to debunk them, and teach you the truth about making webinars work for your business. I have crazy-cool stats to share with you that speak for themselves. This past year, Brilliant Business Moms has grown an insane amount. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it! Chris and I finally sat down and did the books, like responsible business owners, and figured out where our sales were coming from. We've had $285,000 in revenue (sales in the business). $201,000 of that was from sales of my online courses. So, the courses I sell are: Brilliant Pin Promotion FB Brilliance A brand new course coming soon! The other $84,000 revenue was planner sales, primarily. And keep in mind planner season flows into 2017. So we had an awesome season, but only part of the tally accounts for 2016. Other revenue was made through some shop sales and affiliate sales. (Hint, hint... guess how I make my affiliate sales? Webinars!) Over 2/3 of my income came from course sales. And literally the main way, about 90%, of my course sales have been through webinars. People come to a free class that I hold around a given topic, they get to know me and trust me, and they get value out of that free class, whether they purchase anything or not. And then a good portion of those attendees decide they're ready to take it to the next level. They think, "If this is her free class, I know her course will be awesome!" Webinars for Physical Products (6:23) And I have to tell you, I was very close to doing a webinar to sell my physical planners. So if you're a business that sells physical products, please don't turn this episode off! I have a lot of thoughts and ideas for you. (In fact, that'll be one of the myths we debunk!) This strategy 100% applies to you. I was really close to doing a webinar to sell my planners. But to be honest, it takes a couple weeks to create a really great webinar, and the planners were selling more quickly than I anticipated. I was nervous that by the time I got my webinar together, half of the planners would be gone. The main reason I didn't do a webinar to sell planners is because the Brilliant Life Planners sold too fast. (A good problem, but still a problem!) For our next planner season, I'll get the planners to my doorstep much sooner and will absolutely make webinars part of my selling strategy. Proving Webinars Are Powerful (8:49) I want to share a few stats to prove to you that webinars are crazy powerful. One of the ways I filled my webinars with happy students was with Facebook ads. We're talking about getting people to attend my free class; and my goal was 2,000 signups. Keep in mind I'm only running these ads to cold traffic. These are 2,000 brand new people through the door who knew nothing about me before seeing a Facebook or Instagram ad. On average, I'd spend about $4,000 on advertising on average to get the 2,000 people. And I'd make about $8,000 in sales, so the profit margin is 50%. You more experienced business owners may be looking at that 50% profit margin and thinking it's way too low. And I get it. It's not awesome per industry standards, but I was mostly excited about getting to know a new audience. I spent $4,000 to get 2,000 new email signups, and I made $4,000 profit. I felt really good about that! On average, that's 63 course sign-ups out of those 2,000 webinar sign-ups. With these numbers I'm getting about a 3% conversion rate. People who are insanely good at webinars and have it down to a science can get way higher than 3%, but I felt amazing with these numbers! Because guess what? Those sales were to people who didn't know me before that webinar! One stat you'll see floating around online marketing looks something like this: Let's say you've built an email list and worked hard to have a relationship with that list. The best practice is to nurture the list over time, and then send out a ton of messages pitching your product. Conservatively, you should estimate a 2% conversion rate from those efforts to people who already know you. But I hung out with total strangers on my webinar and got a 3% conversion rate. That blows my mind! The first time I launched my FB Brilliance course, in July, I brought in 125 course sales from about 3,000 webinar signups, and those were from my email list of about 20-25K people. It was a pretty straightforward process: I emailed my list a few times, and about 3,000 people took me up on my offer. I only pitched my course and bonuses to the people who signed up to my webinar. I probably should have pitched it to my whole list, which I should have! I didn't go through all the motions of building anticipation and hint, or make tons of calls-to-action. I just said, "Let's do this!" and got the webinar out the door. And I had a 4% conversion rate! I'd prefer to do this method than bug my list like crazy for only a 2% conversion rate! Webinar sales always blow my email sales out of the water. It's just more effective. Here's one more non-webinar example. My current list has 50,000 subscribers. Only 1,600 of them purchased a planner, and a lot of these people are brand new. Many of those 1,600 weren't already on my list, but I didn't do a webinar on time management or goal setting. That conversion rate is 3%. It's better than the standard 2% conversion rate. But it also happened over a couple of months. It happened with loads of social media posts and emailing. Lots of buildup and time and content to get that 3% conversion rate from my list. Whereas, I probably could have just created an awesome webinar around goal setting and time management and had a much higher than average conversion rate. Are you excited for the potential of webinars!? I really hope that you are. Webinars are fabulous because not only will you get to show off your personality and knowledge - and get to know your audience - but also your audience becomes your friends. It's so much fun that your attendees want to walk away from the class to take action. Alright, let's get started debunking 6 Webinar Myths, plus I'll give you the Truth About Making Them Work For Your Business Myth #1: I need to be great at public speaking. (17:33) It happens all the time. When I start talking about how great webinars are, people panic! People (usually introverts) think that in order to put on a great webinar they have to be fabulous at public speaking - not true! First of all, I am not great at public speaking. Yeah, I'm a Chatty Cathy, but I'm not great at public speaking. I'm a rambler, you guys! That's just as bad as the person who doesn't have enough to say! I have so much work to do when it comes to upping my public speaking game. In terms of my experience, how many times have I been on a stage speaking to a large group of people? Maybe twice. The only time I can think back on is when I was part of a mission program with my college. I spent  a couple months volunteering at an orphanage in India with a mission project. And when I came back I had to speak at a chapel service about my experience. It was supposed to be an inspirational 20 minute talk, explaining what we did and inspirational insights from the Bible. At the time, I was at the time a molecular biology major. I had no background to be inspiring! So that's one public speaking experience. Recently I did a breakout session at the Business Boutique conference in Nashville. This was in front of maybe 35-45 people. To be honest, I find that setting WAY more intimidating than a webinar, or my chapel experience, because of the close proximity. By biggest fear is that I'm going to accidentally spit on someone in the front row! But keep in mind, this Business Boutique event didn't even happen until after I fell in love with doing webinars! I am not a public speaking expert, and I haven't taken a single class on public speaking. Think about recording a podcast, it's a totally different environment. We have editors to make us sound way better than we really do, when I was recording with my sister we had each other, and we had another person doing most of the talking! Podcast recording is not really public speaking. Here's what I would say if you think you need to be great at public speaking, or have a natural speaking talent: practice is what makes you great at webinars. That's been my experience and it's what others say, too. The cool thing about a webinar  is that you're the boss! You decide what you want to talk about. You create your slides, which remind you of what you want to say. And you get to practice as many times as you want. As you practice the flow will become increasingly natural. Even though I recommend you show your face in the webinar, you aren't looking out on a crowd of faces! It takes away the intimidation factor. And if you need to, you can hide behind a slide and not show your sweaty pits or wardrobe malfunction. Webinars are actually the perfect way for an introvert or a shy person to share their skills and knowledge. I know you'll get amazing at doing webinars if you just practice crafting the right kind of presentation. Now that I've done tons of webinars,  an in-person event or a mixer is way scarier than a webinar! Myth #2: I have to sell an online course to make a webinar work. (24:50) I hear this myth all the time! Of course webinars are great for selling courses. I've done it, and I know lots of online business owners who are selling courses through webinars. But here's the thing. I think you'll stand out even more and be really surprised at your results if you use webinars to sell whatever it is you already sell online. Whether you sell ebooks, physical books, homemade baby goods, whatever the case is, I think that you can make a webinar work for you and your business. I've seen webinars work well for book launches. You could teach a topic related to your book, do an author Q&A, and maybe offer a juicy incentive like a book giveaway every 15 minuets for all live attendees. Sarah and I used webinars to launch our very first planner. We talked about how to balance a business and family during the presentation, and at the end of the webinar we had a special coupon code for our brand new planner. We only had a few thousand Facebook fans, less than 5,000k, and our email list was maybe 1,200 people. We had about 100-200 people sign up for each webinar (one in the morning and one in the evening). Only 20-30 people showed up live; our live attendees had so much fun, gave thoughtful and encouraging comments, and about 10 people from each webinar purchased a planner! That's a great conversion rate, about 50%. (How would it feel if you made 20 new sales a day? It's pretty exciting!) Another benefit of the live webinar is that we could answer questions. I'm thinking of so many products that I would love to get help answering my questions about them before I purchase. For example, I would love to know how to do a baby wrap. I just bought one, and I have no idea what to do with this thing! I feel like I need to practice 100 times with a baby doll so I don't drop my real baby! What if a baby wrap business offered a free class on wearing your baby and getting life done? If I saw an ad for a class like that, I would sign up for sure. And would be a super loyal customer, because they took the time to teach me how to use their product. If you sell a physical product, think about the help and value you can add by doing a webinar. I've got a few examples to get your wheels turning :) Julie Fuller of Tokyo Blossom Boutique has a fun shop and sells awesome, adorable planner accessories. Julie is super creative and has gorgeous handwriting. She decorates her planners and totally blings it out! Her planner pages look really pretty and classy. Julie is going to create a course on planner decorating. She could do a webinar showing 5 quick ways to make your planner beautiful and functional, and it'll lead right into her course! Even if her course isn't ready right away, who am I going to buy planner accessories from? Julie, because she is going the extra mile and rocked my socks off in her webinar! (And by the way I'm totally giving my biz friends assignments right now! LOL) Melissa Kaiserman of A Time for Everything sells cash envelopes systems for  people on the Dave Ramsey plan, or other cash budget systems. Now, Melissa already does awesome and her sales are fantastic. But what if she did a budgeting webinar? Or a webinar on how to set up a cash budget that will work for you and your family? I think the webinar sales would blow her away! What about you? How can you use a webinar for your product in a way that makes you insanely helpful? When your customers get to know you and form a relationship with you, it would be really tough for them to switch and go to someone else. And even if they found a product they wanted from someone else, you'd likely get their feedback to improve your product! Myth #3: You need to have expensive tools and programs to run a webinar. (34:16) (And yes we're just at Myth #3. I told you I'm not a skilled public speaker. I'm a rambler!) I'm sure you've been to webinars where hosts are using Webinar Jam or Go To Webinar. If you Googled these tools, you know they are expensive. Plus, the more people you have, the more expensive they get! News flash: you don't need those expensive tools to run a webinar. Here are the tools I use to record my webinars: A Yeti microphone, which you can get for around $100. (You can also get a Snowflake microphone for around $35.) My computer. (Obviously! Hopefully you already own one, but if not you can get a decent laptop for a couple hundred dollars these days.) You Tube Live Events, using your YouTube Business account. (Which is basically like the new Google Hangouts. It's free!) Leadpages for my webinar landing page. (This is a paid service, but you can easily make a page on your own site.) Chatango for my chat option. (Which I embed on my Leadpages webinar page, and could easily be embedded on any webinar page. Also free!)  Google Slides for my presentation. (This is part of your free Google Drive tools. Can you believe it!?) ConvertKit, which is my email service provider, because you want to collect signups. (An email service provider could be your biggest expense. MailChimp is free for the first 2,000 subscribers. Sarah and I used MailChimp for our first webinars!) I did choose to invest in video lights for night webinars, but you don't have to do that. If lighting is a concern, just make sure to host your webinars during the day to use natural light. That's really all you need! If you're really on a barebones budget, just grab the basics: a microphone, Mailchimp, and your website to embed your video and a free chat box--and you're good to go! To me, I feel like there's more room for things to crash with fancy systems. I've been to a lot of webinars where things go crazy. It seems that the more tech you have, the more you can get bogged down. Google Hangouts has only failed me one time in a couple years. Bottom line: hosting your own webinar is really affordable if you need it to be! Myth #4: You have to be great at selling and marketing. (39:57) A lot of people think they need to have that obnoxious salesman personality in order to make the webinar work. Maybe you're sitting in your chair right now thinking, "The thought of selling to people live freaks me out! I can't do it!" Take a deep breath. Because I DO recommend you offer something for sale at the end of your webinar! But I DO NOT want you to be sleazy or salesy! First and foremost, whether or not people buy from you, people should walk away able to take action and have a quick win. You want to focus on fabulous content and solid teaching. And what you can do in a webinar that you can't really do without video is to show off your personality! You get to be you in all your glory. Part of the fun is people seeing your mistakes, and that you have a sense of humor and can handle the mess. If you're afraid that your personality stinks, or you have quirks, know that there are people out there who jive with it. And guess what? They think your quirks are the most amazing thing about you! Here's an example: We've established that I'm super chatty and wordy and ramble on and on. I always get people who comment in webinars, "She talks too much." But I ALSO get people who say, "I love that you want to explain things in detail, it feels real that you're real." If they don't love you, they aren't your ideal audience. How do you make friends in real life? You make friends by hanging out with people, and having a real conversation. It's hard to have a relationship just off of letters, emails, or Facebook posts. The most genuine relationships happen when a real life conversation is happening. Webinars are the next best thing to a face-to-face conversation with people from all over the world. The other thing I want to say about selling is that there are formulas, or specific steps, you can take your customers through that really feel seamless and natural and lead to a sale. You get to be you--talking in your normal, non-salesy voice--and you'll get way better at it and more comfortable the more you do it. You're approaching this sale from a place where you just taught people tons of awesome stuff, and you want to help them take their business to next level. You're excited to share your product with them, and have confidence that your product will positively change their life. Myth #5: You need to have a huge audience. (46:53) I hear this a lot from business owners, "I'm not ready for a webinar because I don't have the budget to spend on Facebook ads. My audience is just too tiny. I'm nervous if I offer a webinar, it will be me and one other person." For my first webinars with Sarah, we had a small group but we  had a great time I promise even if only 5 people show up, you'll have a great time! You'll get amazing practice, plus you can take the replay and use it in other situations. You could send your replay to your list, or a as a thank you to new customers or email subscribers. It's not a waste even if no one shows up, because you can use that recording in other ways. The other thing is that webinars are a great way to build your audience. The more webinars I've done, I always get new attendees who say, "My friend told me I just had to attend your class." I get emails and Facebook posts all the time from people asking for the next class! People will tell their friends about your fabulous webinar. Promise! Another thing I share about webinars I am hosting is how fun it is to hang out with like-minded people live. I love all the chatting between business moms, and when they start to collaborate with someone they've just met. It's fun to know that in this often lonely online world you can meet up with people real time. That's the incentive for signing up to a webinar. Customers don't get to connect or communicate with you when they grab your checklist or cheatsheet. Webinars are an inincredibly powerful form of communication! Myth #6: Webinars are over done, and just a trend. (53:20) Some people think webinars are just a fad. "As soon as I jump on the webinar train, webinars will be overdone and old news." Not true! I completely acknowledge that the format webinars are given in,  the structure, the tools used to put them on, may change over the next decade. Sure. Absolutely. But building relationships with your customers on video? That's not going away, you guys. You see it all over. There's Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Instagram Live, Snapchat, and YouTube - which feels like it's been around forever - aren't going anywhere. Selling and building relationships with your customers via video isn't going away. When you dig into webinars you'll realize that you're building skills you can take with you for the long haul. I think one of the reasons I'm really comfortable to hop on Facebook Live at any given point in the day is because I do webinars all the time. It becomes second nature. While we're on the subject, you could technically do a webinar just using Facebook Live. At this point it would be tricky to have a clean, polished slide presentation. But something like a baby wearing demo, craft project, Q&A, or a product launch would be great! Just set up your phone with the right kind of mounts and do the webinar right there. You could be commenting in the chat, giving people links, and telling them where to go to find your product. A webinar is simply using video to provide awesome value and sell a product. That's not going away. There are more and more people in this online marketing space using webinars to sell. You may notice your feeds are inundated with offers for free classes and lessons. But there are so many niches out there where hardly anyone is doing webinars! (Maybe yours is one of them!) Plus, I don't care who's doing what! I'm confident my webinar is way better than anyone else's. So I'll keep putting them out there, giving a lot of great value, and people will tell their friends. People who are in other niches outside of the online marketing space have a great advantage. I don't know about you, but I have loads of friends on Facebook who are body coaches. Let's say after giving myself time after this baby comes, I want to get back in shape. Maybe I want to try a beach body program and get into one a challenge group. Well, I've got 15 friends who are all selling beach body programs. How do I decide which friend I pick? (Hint, hint: There are 1,000s of others in your niche selling something similar as you! How will you set yourself apart?) I'm going to pick the friend who seems most passionate about her product and who walks the walk. I'm going to choose the one with the most knowledge and expertise, and not just fluffy duffy tips. And honestly at the top of my list is the friend I relate to the most, and I really like the most - because that's the person I'm going to have a great working relationship with. You've got to be the person in your space with the most knowledge and the most passion, who walks the walk, and who people really like. But that's a lot to live up to, right? It's a lot to cover in word format--social media posts and blog posts. Webinars are a one-stop-shop, you can accomplish all of this in an hour, and have people who all the sudden know you and like you and think you're the real deal. 5 Days to Craft Your Brilliant Webinar (1:05:50) There it is. We just busted the 6 myths about doing webinars. How are you feeling? If you're ready for next steps...take a deep breath. Don't stress. I've got you covered! I'm actually doing 5 Days to Craft Your Brilliant Webinar next week. It's a free, live video series on Facebook Live. Monday February 13th - Friday February 17th I'll be on Facebook Live everyday at 9:30am PST / 12:30ET with tips everyday on how to craft your very own webinar. After watching this series, you'll have the framework in place to get started growing your business with webinars. To prepare for this free video series, go to: brilliantbusinessmoms.com/webinarguide to grab my free 5 Days to Craft Your Brilliant Webinar Guide that includes all you'll need to follow along with the videos, plus worksheets and cheat sheets. So grab that now, before we get started Monday the 13th, to be super prepared for our 5 day class. By February 17th, you'll feel awesome about hosting your first webinar. Don't Forget To Enter Our Giveaway! (1:04:36) Before you go, don't forget about our Podcast Relaunch Giveaway! I'm giving away access to FB Brilliance (our Facebook Ads course), Brilliant Pin Promotion (on Pinterest Marketing), a Lily Jade bag, and a Brilliant Life Planner. Just subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave an honest, clean review by March 6th to be eligible to win one of those amazing prizes. Now it's your turn to head out there and be brilliant!

It's not a rumor. The Brilliant Business Moms podcast is back!!! HOLY COW, you guys! It's been a long time since we talked! But I'm finally back with Episode 139. In this episode we'll give you the down low on what's been happening here at Brilliant Business Moms since the last time we talked. So the last time we chatted was March 2016. And I have to say, we planned a break - but not that extensive of a break! I'm super amped to get going again. Here's what's happened since we've been gone. Listen To The Show   Goodbye, Sarah. During one of the last episodes you heard, we told you my sister Sarah was leaving Brilliant Business Moms. That remains the case. Sarah made a really tough choice, which was the right choice for her, and left the brand. You can now find Sarah at SmallBusinessSarah.com, where she's written another eBook! Search 'Sarah Korhnak' on Amazon for all of her titles, like this one. Sarah is an accountant by trade, so she approaches small business advice from a very practical place. I'm excited to see where my sister takes Small Business Sarah! I'd love it if you stopped by her site to let her know you're thinking of her and cheer her on. I have to say, I miss Sarah all the time not being part of the business, but I'm super grateful that we still get to talk and hang out since we're sisters of course! :) Hello, Team Members! Since Sarah left the business, I expanded the brand to include a team. This has been one of the best decisions I've made as a small business owner. Some of you are amazing solopreneurs, and you rock it - but that is not my strength or desire! I feel really grateful to have a team of ladies that work with me every single week. Let me introduce you to them: Ellen is our resident tech guru. She works behind the scenes, testing and implementing new technology. Ellen is constantly creating pretty graphics and landing pages, she's totally a jill-of-all-trades, and she learns incredibly fast. If you ever get to meet Ellen in person, give her a huge thank you! She is the woman who keeps the lights on! Then we have Victoria, who is our resident social butterfly and communicator extraordinaire. She runs our Facebook page and the Brilliant Life Planner Instagram account. She also runs a lot of the behind the scenes for the Brilliant Business Mom of the Week feature, as well as writes blog posts and other content. Victoria works on this podcast behind the scenes, coordinating interviews and writing show notes. Carlee is our customer service ninja! Carlee is seriously awesome! You don't want to know what my inbox would be like, or what response time you would get, without Carlee. She's the friendly face you'll encounter when you write an email. Carlee is there to help solve your problems. Because she has such a pulse on what our community wants and needs, she's constantly coming to me with ideas for improving and expanding products to serve you better. Carlee is the reason you feel heard and understood! I've just introduced our core team, who works with me every single week. But, we want to give a shoutout to our freelancers who help to make Brilliant Business Moms possible. Hadassah Stoll and Lydia Kitts are our designers. Sarah Heddins is my podcast editor. And special thanks to Chrys Jones for updating our podcast jingle. Our Brilliant New Products In addition to growing the team, we've had a few other big changes in the business. We dove into the world of online courses. I now have several courses that have really changed the business in awesome ways. They allow me to make more sales when its not planner season, and serve many more of you. I love that I can literally give you my brain and what I know in terms of marketing and growing a business. Creating courses is part of why I took a break from the podcast--I wanted to get these awesome products out the door. I did spend a bit more time creating products than I thought :) but now the podcast is back every single week! You also probably saw that the Brilliant Business Planner has transformed and improved to become the Brilliant Life Planner - a planner not just for ladies in business, but anyone who wants to live an intentional life. (Creating this product has been a huge learning experience. During upcoming episodes I'll do a podcast all about that process of designing and manufacturing a product from scratch.) The response to our planner has been so amazing and humbling. As of this recording, we are sold out of 2017 planners! But don't be too sad, we'll have a digital version of the planner available so you can still get this resource and our fabulous bonuses. Our plan is to launch the 2018 Brilliant Life Planner and an undated version of the planner in October. Our Brilliant New Podcast As far as the podcast goes, we have so many great interviews lined up with mamapreneurs to learn from. I can't wait to share these with you! We're going to be adding more solo episodes. I've started to get lots of similar questions around a few topics and I am eager to answer! Questions like: "How am I creating and selling online courses?" "How do I go from an idea in my head to an actual physical product to ship to customers?" "How did I find and hire my awesome team?" I want to really dig deep and answer these questions for you. You can expect a new podcast episode every Monday; we'll alternate between a mamapreneur interview and a solo teaching episode. We're also going to do more coffee break episodes! I plan to bring my awesome team onto these, and we will all dig deep and chat about a topic. (For example, I know you all want to hear from me about how I found the Brilliant Business Moms Team. Beyond doing a solo episode, the team and I will talk about how they find work and how to know who's a good boss.) This very first week back we have several episodes for you to binge on! (You're welcome. We know its been way too long!) To celebrate the return of the podcast, you'll hear not only hear from me, but two awesome interviewees: we've got Rachel Cruze talking about money and business, and Hannah Hageman who has great insights about running an online business and is now making a steady, fabulous income - without tons of startup costs. Next week you can anticipate my first solo episode, which will be about the one marketing strategy that has been the biggest difference-maker in my business this past year. We're Doing a GIVEAWAY We are so excited that the podcast is back, and we want to make sure all those brilliant ladies out there can find it! To celebrate, we're hosting a giveaway! NOW through March 6, 2017 All you have to do is 1) SUBSCRIBE to the Brilliant Business Moms podcast and 2) RATE & REVIEW the show and you'll be entered to win. (You do need to use either the Podcast app or an iTunes account to review the show. If you can use an Apple device, like an iPhone or iPad, it's super easy - just click on that purple Podcast app and find our show that way to leave your rating and review!)  We have 4 fabulous prizes and we'll be drawing 4 winners!  The first person we draw gets their pick among these prizes, and on down the line through winner #4 :) FREE access to my signature course, FB Brilliance. (FB Brilliance isn't even available to purchase right now! It costs $497 and I only open the doors once or twice a year; the doors won't even be open until September 2017.) This giveaway is the only way you can get access to FB Brilliance! Another lucky winner will win a Lily Jade bag! We are super excited to include a gorgeous Madeline in Brandy & Jade bag in this giveaway, which retails at $335. If you aren't already familiar with Lily Jade, these bags are amazing. They're diaper bags, but look nothing like diaper bags. They're totally beautiful and you'll still want to carry this bag when your kids go to college. The VIP package of Brilliant Pin Promotion, which retails for $247, will also be a prize option. Much like FB Brilliance, this course will teach you everything you need to know about advertising on Pinterest. And our last prize option will be a 2017 Brilliant Life Planner, which has been sold out for a few days now! We've held back our most popular cover, and this giveaway is the only way you can grab a 2017 Brilliant Life Planner! Good luck! I am SO pumped for Season 2 and so glad you ladies are along for the ride. Now it's your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

When a stay-at-home mom on a budget launches a blog, her path to success is often different from the fantastical stories we tend to hear about. Success means plugging away - even when results are small and growth is slow. Success means focusing on what really matters - helping your audience and giving generously. We love the kind of success Laurie Hise represents. It's real. It's genuine. And there are no casualties along this path. If you can relate, listen on. (And even if you plan to "make it" much faster, Laurie has some crazy good Facebook tips you'll want to hear!) On The Podcast 01:26 - Meet Laurie02:07 - Mom On A Mission04:20 - Many Blogs Fail - What's Laurie's Secret?05:30 - Why Laurie dislikes "Success Stories"06:29 - Why Comfort Zones are Bad for Readers08:09 - Solve a Problem? Build a Business!09:38 - Can Low Expectations be a Good Thing?12:00 - Free Ideas for Driving Traffic14:50 - Does your Business have a Magic Word?16:33 - An Insane Commitment to Facebook18:18 - How Laurie Wins with Facebook20:38 - Scheduling Facebook Content22:50 - Laurie's Strategy for Repeat Posts24:25 - Using Facebook Groups25:10 - The Handiest Facebook Tip We’ve Ever Heard36:00 - The Obnoxious Girl Personality (and why online business sometimes requires it!)37:26 - Seeing Mom Make A Difference (Laurie’s Adorable Mom Moment) Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Hear from Laurie Meet Laurie Laurie has been married almost 20 years (!!!) and has three kids, ages 8 to 15. She started her blog, Passionate Penny Pincher, 6 years ago on a whim. When a family illness took much of her husband’s attention, Laurie occupied her time by reading blogs. She noticed a gap in the money saving site niche and decided to start her own blog, then Publix Penny Pincher, to fill the need. Mom On A Mission Laurie has always considered herself to be a frugal woman. Around the time when her youngest child turned two, she got an itch to start working again and began dreaming up ways to bring additional income to her family. In the words of Laurie, “I knew that I wanted to earn extra income from home especially as they were getting older and heading off to school...I primarily was a stay-at-home mom. I started obsessively clipping coupons back in 2006 (folks, I was nuts), so the idea of potentially earning an income from home while telling other folks how to save intrigued me.” She read Crystal Paine’s series  How To Make Money Blogging and followed her advice. As she and her husband dealt with an illness in the family, Laurie used those late-night hours to research and start her blog. From the get-go, Laurie was passionate about donating half of her income to missions. Her husband thought the idea was crazy, but they went for it! After all these years, she still donates half of her blog’s profits to missions. Many Blogs Fail - What's Laurie's Secret? Of the twelve bloggers who began at the same time Laurie did, Laurie is the only one still working at her keyboard. What’s the trick? Consistency. Laurie has showed up to work everyday, even though she made nothing on her blog for the first few years. Why Laurie Dislikes "Success Stories" Laurie’s popular post How I Make A Full Time Income As A Stay At Home Mom + 7 Secrets To Success has encouraged many moms to pursue online (or other creative working outlets) as sources of income for their families. But the post was hard for Laurie to write. When she hears people sharing their crazy success stories, it rubs her the wrong way. Laurie sees herself as just a wife and a mom who got lucky. Even though she’s hesitant to call herself a success, she wants other moms to know that working online is possible. At the end of the day, Laurie's success is due to a lot of hard work and sacrifice. She didn't start making money overnight, but instead stayed committed and slowly grew her income over many years. Why Comfort Zones are Bad for Readers Laurie is a private person, so putting herself out there is uncomfortable. But she knows from her own experience online, that the more a blogger or influencer shares about themselves, the more she begins to know, like, and trust them.  We all feel more of a connection with people who open themselves up more. So for that reason, Laurie has reconciled her discomfort and is willing to be more transparent. When she sees income from ads or affiliate sales, she knows it is because she was able to make her readers feel at home. Helping readers connect with the information she shares is uncomfortable, but sticking with it has been rewarding. (No one ever said business was comfortable or easy!) Solve a Problem? Build a Business! Laurie shares some excellent business advice in her article How I Make A Full Time Income As A Stay At Home Mom + 7 Secrets To Success: choose a business model based on people’s needs. In Laurie’s case, she doesn’t blog simply for the sake of blogging. Originally, her blog was Publix Penny Pincher. Her goal was to create meal plans and shopping lists which coordinated with Publix weekly sales. Her site has slightly expanded its focus, but the core of her business model remains the same. Laurie thinks there is certainly space for bloggers who are simply great writers, but she knows her strength is in catering to the needs of her readers. And she has consistently met the needs of her readers for 6 years! Can Low Expectations be a Good Thing? Laurie suggests mompreneurs focus on their businesses, not the money, and set low expectations. Her advice is quite different from traditional business advice! Prior to blogging, Laurie had never made more than $7/hour. She didn’t come to the online space with years of marketing and advertising experience. Growing her blog did take a longer amount of time because Laurie was so new to business and marketing, but that meant that any monetary win (no matter how small!) was a big win. Focusing on driving traffic, not building revenue, was Laurie’s method. Free Ideas for Driving Traffic Facebook has been the greatest driver of traffic for Laurie. She has three (free!) great ideas for using Facebook. Give your page a lot of attention. Laurie says that she ‘babies’ her Facebook page and constantly keeps track of what posts perform well and which ones don't. Join Facebook share groups. You can find Facebook groups related to your niche (or create your own!) and the bloggers inside share each other's posts each week. Everyone's content gets a boost and exposure to new audiences. (Rachel Coley of CandoKiddo also uses this method!) Ask for a share. Occasionally Laurie sends her best posts to other bloggers and ask them for a share. She says that some of them allow you to post to their wall, and each week they'll take a look at the best posts there and share them with their Facebook audience. Does your Business have a Magic Word?  Though her content posts are excellent performers on Facebook, Laurie's page has a few magic words as well. When these words are included in a post, Facebook chooses to show those posts to a large volume of people. For example, Starbucks is a magic word on Laurie's Facebook page. Those deals spread like wildfire! (We understand!) Because of her niche, Goodwill is another ‘magic word’ that drives a lot of traffic from Facebook to her site. Although recently Laurie noticed that a Goodwill post did very well one day but when she re-posted the next day, she heard crickets. It’s all about the right people seeing your post at the right time. (Isn’t that Facebook algorithm pesky!) An Insane Commitment to Facebook Laurie’s Facebook page shows the work she puts into it. Her recipe roundup posts (like this one) get tons of shares! One of Laurie’s recent Facebook posts, from Money Saving Mom, has 1,415 shares. Impressive! But Laurie’s schedule is intense. She has chosen not to outsource Facebook posting and commits to posting around the clock (except from about 1:15am - 5:15am) every day. How Laurie Wins with Facebook If we decided to start posting every hour on our Brilliant Business Mom Facebook page (with just 4500 fans) it would be crazytown! As a deal blogger, Laurie is already posting 15-20 deals on her site each day. There’s already a lot of content going around. So she didn’t necessarily need to get her readers used to seeing an intense posting schedule, they already were. Laurie’s Facebook posting strategy is the most unique we’ve heard! Here are the highlights: Laurie shares a new Facebook post about every 40-50 mins. She shares content from other people more than her own. It’s another piece of counterintuitive business advice, but it’s working. Laurie has found that Facebook doesn’t like her own content as much as other people’s. So the more Laurie shares content outside of her own site, the more Facebook increases her page reach. By gaining increased reach, Laurie then has the ability to reach more and more people with her own content each week too! (It's a win-win really!) Use Facebook like a curator. Laurie thinks of Facebook as a way to share content that will truly help her readers. She doesn’t see herself as the star of the show, and Facebook seems to like that! In fact, she finds that only about 50% of her posts on Facebook are from her blog. Facebook has changed, but don’t write it off! Yes, Facebook's algorithm means that not everyone will see your posts, but if you can build a sizeable audience on the platform, you will still see sizeable traffic too! And, let's face it, not everyone sees our Instagram posts or our pins either! Making any form of social media work takes commitment and strategy. Laurie's Facebook Scheduling System Laurie’s scheduling system is a bit willy nilly. She sets up posts using Facebook’s built-in scheduler. This is another strategy Facebook seems to favor over outside scheduling apps. She has a simple spreadsheet that tells her how many times to post categories of her own content (recipes, deals, etc.) and how many times to post other people’s links. She likes sharing content from other bloggers who are doing well, and has appreciated other bloggers doing the same for her. That altruistic outlook builds a strong community and is a win/win for everyone! Laurie's Strategy for Repeat Posts Laurie has a detailed system for figuring out when and how often to repost her own content. On the day her blog post goes live, she’ll share it once. (Say, at 2pm.) Then, she’ll share the post in a day or two at a different time. (Say, the next day around dinner - 6pm.) She finds that nighttime, weekend mornings, and once in an afternoon are especially good times. She usually waits 24-48 hours between reposts. If the post does well, she will save the post as one to use again. (Usually in a month or so.) The Handiest Facebook Tip We’ve Ever Heard When it comes to sharing content from others, how does Laurie find and curate all of those other posts? It sounds like it would be a time-consuming process! But Laurie has a handy tip that makes Facebook sharing much easier! Laurie has made a point to like the pages of the popular bloggers in her niche so that she'll see the posts they share.  Finding the Facebook ‘Save Link’ Tool On A Phone: On Laurie’s phone, she sees an arrow in the top right hand corner of a link. The options are to: hide unfollow report post save link   Beth Anne couldn’t quite find the ‘save link’ option, but maybe her phone needs updating :) Finding the Facebook ‘Save Link’ Tool On A Desktop: When Sarah looked for the same arrow, she visited Facebook as herself (not a Brilliant Business Moms page admin) and saw these options: report save link embed Finding Facebook Saved Links It’s easy to access these saved links for posting later! On a Phone: Hit ‘More’ On The Lower Right Corner Scroll Down Until You See The ‘Saved’ Bookmarklet Tap ‘Saved’ And Your Saved Posts Will Appear On a Desktop: Visit Your Newsfeed On The Left Hand Side Column, Scroll Down Until You See The ‘Saved’ Bookmarklet Click ‘Saved’ And Your Saved Posts Will Appear Under Each Saved Post Is A ‘Share’ Option   As far as Laurie can tell, your links will be saved as long as you want to access them. We think this tip is a brilliant way to store excellent content shared by you and others. And as smart as Facebook is, we have a hunch you’ll likely start to see similar posts in your news feed. The Obnoxious Girl Personality (and why online business sometimes requires it!) The sensationalized aspects of Pinterest marketing don’t come easily to Laurie! The all caps and superlative language feel obnoxious and a bit soul-selling. But, ultimately, Passionate Penny Pincher is a business and Laurie has to make business decisions. For example, her team was spending a lot of time on a  ‘Kroger Coupon Matchup’ series but seeing little results. A quick title change to ‘7 Deals You Need To Get At Kroger Today’ and the series took off! Laurie asks herself, “Is this (decision) worth giving up  control over to get the traffic?” She admits the balance is a struggle, but she also has a strong center of knowing what is and isn’t worth the time she’s investing away from family to make her blog work. Seeing Mom Make A Difference (Laurie’s Adorable Mom Moment) Despite the great success of Passionate Penny Pincher, Laurie’s family life hasn’t changed a great deal. All of their money, minus the half that goes toward missions, goes to savings. Her kids see that Laurie works hard, but they still live on a frugal budget. One day, Laurie’s kids were able to see just how much her mom's business makes an impact. Eating at a restaurant, their family came across a reader who thanked Laurie for her blog as they were able to adopt a child thanks to the money they saved. A few days later, Laurie’s daughter came up to her and said, “Mom, you’re helping people. You helped those people get their little girl!” What a sweet way for her daughter to recognize Laurie’s work! Find Laurie Online! PassionatePennyPincher.comTwitter: @PPennyPincherFacebook: Passionate Penny PincherInstagram: Passionate Penny PincherPinterest: Passionate Penny Pincher

From the minute you start chatting with Jamie Samples, one thing is clear: she is one-of-a-kind! Jamie truly stands out in a world that tells us all to be the same. She's a country girl at heart, an animal lover, and a firm believer that we'd all be better off if we did business like our grandpa's!  Jamie has tons of wisdom to share on setting yourself apart with both the niche you choose and the way you choose to market. She has such a crystal clear understanding not just of what her target market needs from her, but how they need for her to reach them. You won't want to miss hearing from this brilliant lady - she's full of wisdom, kindness, and wit! On The Podcast 01:05 - Get To Know Jamie02:50 - Niche Down, Niche Down!05:27 - Understanding The Horsing Industry06:24 - Rebranding, Risk Taking, And Diving In09:22 - Failing Forward, Jamie’s Personal ‘Learning Opportunity’13:36 - Affiliate Marketing And Authenticity15:58 - Thinking Like A General Contractor18:39 - Facebook or Twitter? Depends On Your Goals21:08 - Send Out Cards, A Brilliant Tip!25:26 - Social Media Advice For Business Beginners26:52 - Jamie’s Little Cowboy Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Hear from Jamie Samples of Yellow Barn Media Get To Know Jamie Jamie lives in Michigan with her husband, Eddie, and son, Edison, whom they adopted through the foster care system. As you might expect, Jamie’s family also includes many four-legged friends: a horse, a miniature donkey, two dogs, and a handful of indoor cats! In 2008 Jamie started her “little, bitty business”, unsure of where it would go. Today, Yellow Barn Media is a solid source of income and provides for her family. Niche Down, Niche Down! Jamie considers herself a bit of a social butterfly, which made the advent of Facebook and social media especially exciting for her. Having a background in network marketing, Jamie wondered how social media could enhance her work. She started playing around with Facebook, then began to strategically use Facebook in her business. Jamie casually coached others on how to use Facebook for business, and she did it for free. Friends noticed that Jamie lit up when talking about social media marketing and suggested that she should start charging for her coaching sessions. She took their advice and formed a business. For a while, Jamie worked a full time job and did social media coaching as a side gig. Another wise mentor told her that if she wanted to bring her passion to the next level, she should niche down. He asked her, “What could you see yourself doing for the rest of your life? What do you have a ton of knowledge about?” For Jamie, it’s horses. Jamie rebranded her business to Yellow Barn Media and ramped up to take the equestrian world by social media storm. Understanding The Horsing Industry You Brilliant Business Moms already know that businesses offer one of two things: Products Services The equestrian industry is no different. In the equestrian world, you might see services like horse trainers or products like saddles. (Though Jamie notes in the horse industry, most businesses are product based and use e-commerce platforms.)  Once you’ve immersed yourself in a given industry, the number of products and services are endless. This is a great perspective to keep in mind when creating a niche business model! Rebranding, Risk Taking, And Diving In Focusing exclusively on the horse industry was scary for Jamie. But after much thought and prayer, she knew it was the right thing to do. She admits that changing anything in business is a risk. But what greatness comes from playing it safe? Jamie had a great strategy for breaking into a new niche: Get face-to-face. Knowing her marketing dollars were limited, Jamie focused exclusively on getting face-to-face with horse industry businesses. Attend industry events. In the time before she became a mom, she traveled to horse expos in order to make a strong first impression. Dressed to impress, Jamie would visit the different booths and talk to business owners about their needs and her services. Offer to speak and resource share. Jamie offered to speak for free at these events and provided a wealth of free information; a brilliant move! Be gutsy! Jamie’s marketing model was simply to dive in headfirst, getting in front of as many people as possible. She did her best and prayed clients would hire her. And it worked! Jamie hasn’t gained clients herself via social media, as she’s observed the majority of the horse industry doesn’t know they need the help! We think it’s very astute of Jamie to know her target market so well. Failing Forward, Jamie’s Personal ‘Learning Opportunity’ Over the last couple of months, Jamie has hit a second crossroad in her business. Once again, it's time for her to reevaluate her business model and make some adjustments. Talking about failures - or perceived failures - is admittedly uncomfortable. But Jamie is a firm believer that our would-be failures are actually marvelous learning opportunities. Whether you’ve been in business for 6 months or 16 years, Jamie says solopreneurs need to understand that failures are nothing to be ashamed of. Jamie shares a very personal example of a business ‘learning opportunity’ she recently experienced. She developed a marketing course for her business - complete with 9 videos, and targeted the course for the horse industry. She invested resources to hire a videographer and produced a snazzy, informative, killer piece of content. This video marketing series was exactly the resource that the horse industry needed! Jamie launched the course at an affordable rate of $47 and waited. The response was dismal. Jamie only sold 2 courses, which didn’t come close to paying for her investment. Jamie so believed in the importance of this piece of content she produced, that she was still committed to getting it in front of as many people as possible. She decided to give away the course, completely free. Jamie stretched her dollars and paid $600 to advertise on the cover of a top industry magazine reaching 6,000 subscribers. You would think her opt-ins would have skyrocketed, right? Wrong. Only 12 people picked up Jamie’s course. Jamie was beyond disappointed. She was actually angry! Jamie knew without a doubt that this course was desperately needed by her target market, but she couldn’t even give this valuable information away. After talking with her wise business mentor, Jamie realized that the horse industry just wasn’t ready for the social media services she was providing. So she has begun to brainstorm a new niche where her social media marketing savvy might be more welcome. What about the video course? Jamie was so proud of the content that she wanted others to be able to use it. As part of that testing the waters to see what’s next, Jamie decided to continue giving away her video-based social media course. Brilliant Business Moms can access it right here. (Isn't Jamie so nice?!) Affiliate Marketing And Authenticity Jamie is confident that a new niche for her business will appear soon. She has an excellent customer base already, and is excited to see what comes next. Personally, we think Jamie should try more affiliate marketing! She’s a killer affiliate partner for the Brilliant Business Planner. Her networking skills are crazy good and she has a knack for authentically recommending products. Jamie’s dad gave her this piece of advice: “Connect yourself with the right people for the right reasons.” When Jamie shares a product with her audience, they know she’s not trying to be salesy; she’s simply trying to connect them with a good tool. That authenticity and integrity is an invaluable combination, if you ask us. Thinking Like A General Contractor In her consulting meetings, Jamie found that what her clients needed wasn’t necessarily help with social media, they needed a complete marketing overhaul. Poorly designed websites, crummy logos, and zero marketing collateral was sinking their businesses. Jamie knew she didn’t have the skill set to help clients in each of those areas. And so rather than hurry around trying to learn each skill herself, she brought on others who were experts in these fields. Jamie has connected with a team of amazing people who all work together to help her clients succeed. Jamie has found the analogy of a general contractor to be helpful. Like a contractor, she partners with experts who are smarter than her to build different pieces of a customer’s proverbial marketing ‘building’. Thanks to the nimbleness of online work, Jamie was able to build out a virtual team and doesn’t necessarily need to see her employees face-to-face. Facebook or Twitter? Depends On Your Goals What’s the most powerful social media platform according to this social media expert? Facebook. For most business owners, Jamie says Facebook is an incredibly powerful tool. Perfect to get the job done. Though the days of organic reach are gone, with the right strategy Facebook is the tool to help business owners reach their intended audience. But what about for Jamie’s business? Is it the same story? Reaching her target market with Yellow Barn Media, Jamie has actually found that more personal connections have been the most successful way to build her B2B company. Because the horse industry isn’t quite as in tune with online connections, she has had great success using physical mail to reach her clients that don’t spend a lot of time on social media. The old fashioned call and card has done the trick. Jamie’s goals are unique, though. She needs to both find clients and get social media influencers to recognize her work. To get in front of those influencers, Jamie has found Twitter to be her secret weapon. Send Out Cards, A Brilliant Tip! Handwritten notes are decidedly Old School, but that personal touch is seriously lacking in today’s business. Jamie’s brilliant tip is to use a service called Send Out Cards. Perfect for busy business moms, Send Out Cards is an online platform that allows you to mail physical cards with personalized messages to customers. They offer thousands of cards to choose from, and many personalization options. Jamie says she could share numerous success stories of wowing clients with a personal card and a box of brownies, all for under $4 and done in 2 minutes time. Absolutely brilliant! While social media and email marketing are Jamie’s passions, she understands the power of doing business the old way. In fact, she thinks businesses may experience more success if they were to learn from our grandparents’ generation. Jamie is planning on experimenting with mailing a physical newsletter to clients. She wants to test the strategy and see if it sets her apart, especially when marketing to business clients who aren’t as active as they should be on social media. (Reminds Sarah of Amy Dacyczyn and The Tightwad Gazette!) Social Media Advice For Business Beginners Jamie has two simple pieces of advice for business beginners: Be Consistent Be Yourself The number of social platforms and tools are endless, but to be compelling on any of them you must have a clear sense of who you are and use those platforms consistently. Test and measure to see what works and what doesn’t, then adjust accordingly. Jamie’s Little Cowboy Jamie’s son Edison is 20 months old and already showing an interest in the equestrian life, much to mom’s delight! Jamie thinks it’s absolutely adorable that her son will run through the house with treats in his hand asking for ‘Bubba’, the family’s horse, all day long. Could Edison be saddling up to the life of a cowboy? Maybe so! Find Jamie Online! Site: YellowBarnMedia.comFacebook: Yellow Barn MediaTwitter: @joyfuljamiePinterest: Yellow Barn MediaInstagram: Yellow Barn Media

On today’s show, we’re shaking things up a bit. Rather than grilling a guest with questions, we are the ones in the hot seat! Can we take the heat?! You'll have to listen to find out :) We're chatting with Maggie Frank-Hsu, a content marketing and social media consultant. Maggie and Beth Anne met at Social Media Marketing Day in San Diego, and they bonded over a mutual love for social media along with agreeing that, "hey, this motherhood thing is really hard!" They've been grabbing coffee and chatting all things business ever since.  Since Maggie really knows her stuff when it comes to social media, we decided to be a little bit vulnerable today. We gave Maggie complete reign to tear us apart when it comes to our Facebook strategy. "Throw us the book!" we told Maggie, and she kindly obliged. (In all honesty, Maggie is super sweet! We knew we were in good hands!) On The Podcast 02:00 - Facebook Growth to Over 200K03:24 - Without a Goal, What's the Point?05:10 - More Than A Like07:34 - 3 Questions to Ask for Perfect Posts11:40 - Avoid That Tempting Cute Kitten!14:57 - One and Done!17:58 - A Brilliant Visual for the Perfect Post!22:55 - How to Create an Insane Amount of Content in a Tiny Amount of Time25:05 - Our Secret Weapon29:50 - An Important Reminder about Facebook Ads31:35 - Put Yourself in  Their Shoes34:12 - How Often Should you Post?41:11 - How to Ride a Trend while Maintaining your Brand Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Learn Brilliant Facebook Strategy from Maggie! Facebook Growth to Over 200K Maggie lives in San Diego with her husband and 15-month-old son. Originally from the East Coast, she has spent the better part of her professional career working in NYC and Charlotte, North Carolina. Trained as a journalist, Maggie took a job at a startup and eventually found herself working in marketing. Maggie took the position of Social Media Manager with a nonprofit called Understood.org. There, she was heavily involved in strategy building leading up to the organization's launch. During her time in that role she was able to garner wide visibility for that group’s Facebook page and grow it to over 200,000 engaged fans. Maggie now works as an independent consultant for small business owners - helping them connect with their ideal customers and reach their goals when it comes to social media. Without a Goal, What's the Point? While this episode focuses exclusively on our Brilliant Business Moms Facebook page, much of what Maggie will discuss can apply to many different social media channels. (Just bear in mind the unique nuances of each as you implement these tips yourself.) Before we dig in, Maggie wants us to remember that there's a clear distinction between what we do on social media with our personal accounts and how we use it for business. Often, new business owners forget this or get confused. But there are clear differences that we should keep in mind. Personal Use of Social Media Is about maintaining a certain persona We're presenting a certain version of ourselves to the world. We collect and curate any and all content that we deem interesting enough to share. Business Use of Social Media Social media use should be directly tied to business goals Social media use is about revenue generation We generate revenue with social media by first getting more potential customers interested in our product or service. We should have specific measurable goals such as clicks through to our website or email subscriber growth. More Than A Like Currently, our Brilliant Business Moms Facebook page has 4500 likes. (Yay! Thank you for being awesome fans!) Likes are often the first metric people look to when determining the success of a Facebook page. But Maggie says number of likes don’t actually tell much of the story. Some people may ‘like’ your page once, but promptly forget about you. And with Facebook’s algorithm, we know that the vast majority of your fans won’t see your content. Others may like your page, but never engage with your content. That’s why Maggie says engagement metrics are far more telling. To encourage those of us with smaller numbers, a page with not many ‘likes’ could still have tons of engagement! 3 Questions to Ask for Perfect Posts A great strength of the BBM Facebook page is that it isn’t salesy. If you’re only using Facebook to push product, you may want to rethink your strategy. Imagine how those sales-heavy type posts are perceived by your audience. People are usually scrolling through their newsfeed in quick bursts of time, like waiting in line at Starbucks. Under these conditions, users are looking for content that catches their eye quickly and will pique their interest to read later. They don’t want a virtual megaphone in their face. Your purpose behind sharing content on Facebook shouldn’t simply be to “get people to see your page.” Instead, craft every post you share on Facebook with a specific end goal in mind. Maggie shares tips for developing the type of posts your audience will like: Ask your customers what types of posts they enjoy. What pages do your customers follow? What do they like about those pages? What are some interests from your ideal client? Avoid That Tempting Cute Kitten! It is tempting to post content solely to get a response from your audience. (Gosh, we love those likes and comments!) But while posts should resonate with your audience, they must be related to your business too. It's difficult to draw in your ideal customer if your posts are all over the place. Pictures of cute kittens are often popular on personal newsfeeds, but that doesn’t mean you should necessarily share a photo of your cat Whiskers on your business page. One unique way to bridge this gap is to try out interactive Facebook posts on your business page. Maggie liked this post Sarah shared recently. This post drew in our audience and created a space for conversation and connection. Because our brand is partially driven by personality (we want our audience to get to know each other) this post did really well. The bottom line is to be organic with personal-type posts and not abuse them for the sake of a like. One and Done! Most business owners simply want to run their businesses, not engage in social media marketing. Brilliant Business Moms is a unique hybrid because part of our business is sharing social media marketing tips! However, as more solopreneurs enter the marketplace, social media marketing is going to have to be a part of their business model. If you’re intimidated about carving out time for Facebook in your packed schedule, Maggie suggests creating a posting calendar and scheduling out posts. You can do this in one block of time using services like Buffer and Tailwind, or simply using Facebook Pages’ built-in scheduler. The key is to be consistent, and following a calendar is a great way to ensure consistency! I just love how strategic and thoughtful Maggie is with social media. Be sure to grab her Guide - 3 Tips for Using Social Media to Find Customers. A Brilliant Visual for the Perfect Post! Maggie created a Venn diagram visual to help business owners identify the type of Facebook posts (really, any content!) they should be creating. Circle A includes ‘Problems Your Ideal Client is Googling’ and Circle B includes ‘What You Feel Like You Could Write About Forever’. In our case, Circle A would be topics we often see in our Facebook group: How to balance staying home with kids and getting work done. How to grow a business with limited time. Circle B would be topics like: How to use social media to build your business. The ins and outs of small business taxes. What’s the intersection of these two? Our favorite mamaprenuers are interested in getting the most out of their time, and we’re interested in helping them build their business! That means we should be writing content like: How to use Pinterest in the most time saving way to build your business. Organizing your business finances in 5 minutes a day Maggie noticed the recent share of our Tailwind affiliate link on Facebook as a teachable moment. Rather than simply sharing the link, as we did, Maggie suggested we could have written a blog post entitled ‘How Tailwind Saves You Time And Gets You More Customers’. That title would have been highly specific about the benefits of Tailwind to our audience, and probably would have gotten that Facebook post more engagement. How to Create an Insane Amount of Content in a Tiny Amount of Time The great thing about Circle B ‘What You Feel Like You Could Write About Forever’ is that it will be very easy for you to create a lot of content in a concentrated amount of time. Plan For Creating an Insane Amount of Content in a Tiny Amount of Time: Think of as many blog or video titles as you can. (Maggie says shoot for 30.) Choose about 10 or so and schedule out when you want to publish that content. (You could use the Editorial Calendar in our Brilliant Business Planner!) Write an outline for each of the 10 topics. When you have a free afternoon, start typing! If video is more your speed, it only takes a moment to pick a place with good light in your house and set up your smart phone camera. Once your content is ready to go, prep and schedule the posts to go live according to your calendar. Pat yourself on the back, way to go mama! Our Secret Weapon Thanks to this podcast, we already have weekly content creation built into our schedule. How would content sharing look if we were to apply Maggie’s strategies? Maggie mentioned this Facebook post from December 29th sharing our interview with Danielle Arran. This particular post was a straightforward share of our content. Nothing super complex. What if we were to use Maggie’s Venn diagram? How would that look? Actually, in a January 6th post we unknowingly did what Maggie described! Same principle, we shared this blog post from our Blab with Crystal Paine, but with a twist. Victoria asked a question that fell into Circle A, “As a working mom, did you ever struggle with feeling less-than professional?” And we, through Crystal, were able to provide the answer. And, as it turns out, we did see much more interaction from that post ‘How To Balance A Business & A Baby...Without Going Insane!’ If we were to repeat this process every time we shared a podcast episode, we would not only likely have more fun creating content, but we would probably see more engagement. So, how could we rephrase Danielle Arran’s episode? Like this: “You Asked How To Grow Your Email List, and Danielle Arran Has The Answer!” Maggie’s advice is that there is power in explicitly stating a problem and how you intend to solve it. Another great tip Maggie had is to pull quotes from our podcast conversation to create even more posts and shareable graphics. Great idea! We need to get on that one... An Important Reminder About Facebook Ads These strategies sound great, right? While the tips Maggie shared are excellent best practices to optimize your Facebook page, they aren’t the end of the story. Facebook isn’t really free. The social media network clearly favors those who are willing to invest in advertising. But, for a paid ad to be successful, Maggie still reminds us that you should clearly know what you want to get out of your post. If we were to write a blog post about Tailwind saving time, as Maggie suggested, we could put money into advertising with specific target goals. Maybe we want to target previous visitors to our site or women ages 25-35 with children. Facebook ads can be great, but only if you have a very specific business goal in mind. Put Yourself in Their Shoes Maggie brought up a great point when it comes to sharing on Facebook. As a business, we often share while we're on our business page. We're seeing all of our past posts, and clearly, we intimately familiar with what Brilliant Business Moms is all about. But that's not how a Fan of our page sees things. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the woman holding her phone, waiting in line at Starbucks. (Venti half-caff caramel macchiato, please!) If a fan likes your page months ago, but has never interacted with you, chances are they don’t remember the details about your brand. For that reason, Facebook posts should be self-contained. You want each post to carry a bit of your personality, to be distinctively marked by who you are. Profile and cover photos should clearly include your product or service. Since you don’t have control over who is seeing your posts, you have to pretend as if it’s everyone’s first time being acquainted with your brand. How Often Should you Post? For a business our size, we wanted to know how often we should be posting to our Facebook page. Once a day? Twice a day? Maggie surprised us a bit and doesn’t buy any advice that says you should post a specific number of times a day. She figures that we actually don’t know a whole lot about Edgerank, Facebook’s algorithm that determines who sees what content and when. If we were to be posting multiple times a day, even our most loyal fans may not even notice. (Maggie cited this article from Slate.com by technology writer Will Oremus.) Maggie suggests simply experimenting to find the perfect posting schedule for your business. Try out a souped up posting schedule for a few weeks, then evaluate: Is that posting high frequency worth the effort? Are you seeing measurable results? (More or less interactions?) You have to decide if the increased time is worth it. Ultimately, consistency is key. If you’re just getting the hang of Facebook, choose a posting frequency that you can certainly manage and go from there. How to Jump on a Trend while Maintaining Your Brand Maggie used the example from her Understood.org days. Back when the Black vs. Blue Dress controversy went viral, the editorial team at Understood.org wrote a blog post about percecptions of people with learning and attention issues tangentially related to the viral phenomonen. In the Facebook post sharing that blog, Maggie made sure that the post presented Understood.org’s vision and purpose. That particular post did very well because it caught onto an idea, albeit a momentary one, its audience was interested in (the Blue/Black dress) and intersected it with the core vision of Understood.org. Maggie recommends using and referencing hot trends, but only you can tie it back to the core of your business. Don't forget to grab Maggie's Guide: 3 Tips for Using Social Media to Find Customers Stay in Touch with Maggie! Site: MaggieFrankHsu.com Pinterest: Maggie Frank-HsuTwitter: Maggie_FHLinkedIn: margaretmaggiefrank

Anne chats with Sarah Kohrnak of the Brilliant Business Moms about the perils of high expectations, characters that you can root for, and what she should be reading next.Click over to the podcast website for the full list of titles discussed in this episode, and leave us a comment to let us know what YOU think Sarah should read next!Connect with Anne: Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | WSIRN Instagram

Are you struggling with balancing too many social media platforms? What about monetizing your site to its fullest extent - so there's a chance to earn something from every single visitor? Jennie Brandon, our very first guest from the UK walks us through loads of great tips on how to use the IF app to leverage our presence on social media. She then goes beyond a handy app to teach us all the ways we can make sure our site is ready for an international audience. (The stats she shares are staggering, so you definitely don't want to ignore this huge demographic who could fall in love with your content!) On the Podcast 01:26 - Jennie's Two Blogs03:29 - How Learning Creates Opportunity06:57 - What is the "IF" App?11:30 - Build Leverage Across Social Media Platforms14:38 - How to Start Using IFTTT20:37 - How to Monetize your Site for International Customers28:52 - Why your Amazon Affiliate Links Aren't Making you Money35:25 - How to be Inclusive of an International Audience47:10 - Jennie's Hilarious Mom Moment Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Hear Great Tips from our Favorite Brit, Jennie Brandon Jennie’s Two Blogs Jennie lives in Cambridge with her husband of 10 years and two small children Sophie and Joe. She has two blogs, The Errant Sock, and Laundry in the Temple. Laundry in the Temple is where Jennie shares how she teaches her children about her faith and The Errant Sock is a lifestyle blog with parenting hacks, books, and lots of recipes. All of Jennie's friends call her the “slow cooker whisperer” so she shares plenty of tips to help out other mums! Running two blogs and being a mum of 2 means that Jennie has limited time to invest in social media and sharing her content. How Learning Creates Opportunity When Jennie first reached out to us it was to share a story of how the Brilliant Business Moms podcast had helped her business and landed her a new job. Years ago, Jennie created her first blog where she focused on slow cooker recipes. Later when she tried to get back into blogging as a way of bringing in more income, she found that the blogging world was very different. In order to get caught up quickly she began listening to the podcast and it was Episode 53, Everything Twitter with Kelli Miller, that made the biggest impact on Jennie's blog and life. Jennie had never been very comfortable with Twitter before listening to the episode, but by the end of the podcast, she felt ready to give it another try. Jennie dug into Twitter and got 600% more views to her blogs by focusing on the platform! While Jennie still works on growing her blogs, she knew that she needed to take on a traditional job for now to make ends meet for her family. The podcast helped her with that goal too! A local pastor approached Jennie with a job opportunity, and it was her social media knowledge and web design expertise that set her apart from the other candidates! Jennie's new job lets her use her new skills in social media and website development, and it fits around her schedule and life as mum. What a great example of how learning creates opportunity! What is the “IF” App? IFTTT (If This, Then That - now called the IF App) is an app that allows you to connect other apps and websites to each other for completing an array of different tasks. Each app, program, or website you can connect is called a channel, and you can create "recipes" between the channels.The title really explains it all: If you do something on one channel, then something else will automatically happen on another channel. There are hundreds of suggested recipes to help you get started, but almost any way of connecting two apps that you can imagine can be created to make your business and personal life more convenient. The IF app currently has over 250 different channel options, which include Ebay, Etsy, Twitter, Evernote, Fitbit, Spotify, Feedly, Youtube, Trello, Reddit, and they just recently added Pinterest!   Here are a few examples of how the app works: Jennie has set up the IF app so that IF she takes a photo on her android phone, that photo is automatically saved to her Google drive. If she tweets something, that tweet is automatically saved to Evernote. If you leave the office, you could even set up a recipe to turn on your heat if you have a smart heater! There are so many possibilities! Our heads were spinning when we heard that Pinterest was just recently added: You could automatically pin items that you just added to your etsy store, Pin instagram photos to a board, or Tweet every time you add a pin. Build Leverage Across Social Media Platforms In running two blogs Jennie really didn’t have time to devote to social media. She also didn’t have time to be creating new content every single day. Jennie uses the IF App as a way of sharing the content of bloggers that she trusts (as well as her own content) to various social media platforms on a regular basis. This happens automatically without the time and effort it would take to go in and manually schedule content. The IF App lets Jennie have a constant stream of valuable content across all of her feeds in a fraction of the time. In this way, her account always looks active and can engage with her followers. She never loses momentum due to a busy week at home. Below are some recipes that Jennie uses: If she posts to Facebook, that same posts is shared on Twitter. (and vice versa) If Jennie posts to The Errant Sock, that post is shared on the Laundry in the Temple’s feeds. While TwitterFeed lets Jennie automatically share great content from her favorite bloggers, now with the IF App, those posts will automatically be shared on her Facebook page as well. Overall, even when Jennie is crazy busy at home and has zero time to post on her blog or social media, she still looks perfectly active and keeps her sites top of mind for her followers by automatically curating great content for them. For Bloggers who Work with Brands:If a blogger sends out a tweet for Company X, they can auto-save those tweets (or any posts for that matter) to a spreadsheet. In this way, a blogger working on a large campaign with a brand can show them all the content they produced all in one place without having to hunt for it and manually collect it. In addition, if they work with the same brand every year, they'll have plenty of great content ideas ready to go in their spreadsheet. There are thousands of possible recipe combinations you can use with the IF App, so be creative and don’t be afraid to play around. They also offer many suggestions for inspiration. And the app is just as useful for your personal life as it is for your business. How to Start Using IFTTT Jennie gave us some great tips and an outline of how to get started with IFTTT and make it work best for you and your business! Make a list of which social media platforms you are currently using. Prioritize the networks where your target audience hangs out most and where you enjoy connecting with them. Pull out a pen and paper and create an actual visual map of how you want your content to be shared. Which way do you want the information to go? This will help you make sure that you are creating a complete loop and using the channels to their best ability. Look at the IF App website and the suggested recipes. What are other bloggers using the app for? Think about what content from others you want to share. Where will that information be coming from? Consider the entire flow of your content and the content of others and how that all works together to build and reflect your brand. Start creating recipes! This is a very quick process and in less than 10 minutes Jennie created 8 recipes that form the basis of her IF App and social media strategy. The Downsides to the IF App: Graphics. When you share graphics keep in mind that each platform shares photos in a different size so some of your photos may appear awkward on certain networks. Characters. The IF App does not count characters so make sure you know about what 140 characters looks like so your shares through to Twitter won't all be truncated. Hashtags. When you share a Twitter post to Facebook it will also copy over your hashtags, this may not be an issue for your particular situation but take this into account. Content Repetition. All of the content that you are sharing will be the same across all channels. Again, for Jennie and many bloggers this may not matter but keep this in mind. For most of us, our readers aren't following us or interacting with us on every single channel, so it's not generally an issue, but you'll have to keep your particular audience in mind. Bonus: The IF App does shorten your links for you. How to Monetize Internationally Based on the staggering numbers Jennie shared, it may be in your best interest to consider your international readers and to work to serve them better. The population in the US is 320 million people. The population of other countries with a similar potential audience (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, & South Africa) is 190 million people. So these other readers in English-speaking countries with a similar culture could add 60% more potential readers to your site. With a few tweaks to your content, your site, and the products you offer, you can monetize their visits to your website. Monetization Ideas for an International Audience: Google Advertising. Since Google display ads are contextual and based on where someone has already visited online, you can easily monetize any visitor's experience on your site. For example, Jennie may visit a UK store to shop for coats. Then, she visits a US-based blog. That same coat will follow her there via a sidebar ad. If she clicks on that ad, the US website gets the commission for that click, even though both Jennie and the store are in the UK. Printables, E-books, and Downloadable Content. Jennie loves buying digital resources from brands she likes since she won't have to worry about shipping prices and she can begin using the product right away. Online Courses. Jennie took a great blogging course from a US blogger. When the courses are self-paced with no set times attached, they work perfectly. Recorded webinars. Webinars can be tricky with the time difference, but a recorded webinar is a great fit for Jennie. (We recently heard Amy Porterfield mention adding recorded webinars to her launch sequence because she had so many international customers requesting this.) Membership sites. Jennie can interact in the forums on her time and consume the content on her time. Services. There's no reason why a blog designer, marketing consultant, or other service-based business owners couldn't work with clients overseas. They could greatly expand their customer base if they started targeting these audiences - and they might face less competition too! Affiliate Marketing. If you're marketing an internationally-available product, or a digital product, program, or course, you can market to everyone! Jennie has bought an Ultimate Bundle before through an American Blogger. Selling on Etsy. Etsy makes things easy by automatically doing all the currency exchange and tax calculations for international sellers and buyers. Hopefully this gets you thinking about all the ways you can monetize your site to a wider audience. We all know digital products can be great for business, but if you've delayed creating them thus far, maybe knowing you could attract 60% more potential customers will be just the thing to get you started! Why Your Amazon Affiliate Links Aren’t Making You Money Did you know that if someone from the UK clicks on an Amazon affiliate link from your website you do not get a commission? Shoppers in the UK cannot order from Amazon.com; they have to order through AmazonUK. But there is a way to fix this and ensure you're earning a commission from your international readers. Sign up for each country's affiliate program through Amazon. Get more information from Amazon right here. Install the Amazon Link Engine Plugin on your Wordpress site. This plugin ensures that each visitor is sent to the relevant Amazon site for them. Create an account with Genius links. This program ensures that you are getting paid from those other countries’ links. The program is free up to 1,000 clicks/month then $10 per every 10,000 clicks after that. Build your affiliate link just as you did before, and the intelligent link will send each visitor to the correct Amazon site. Note: Amazon says that if over 10% of your traffic is from other Amazon countries, this process should be worth it for you - particularly if you get a large volume of traffic to your site, or you already do well by being an Amazon affiliate. How to Be Inclusive of an International Audience One of the best parts of having our first podcast guest from the UK is that Jennie was happy to share many ways that US bloggers and business owners can be more inclusive of international readers. Below are some simple ideas to cross different cultures with your brand. Be more inclusive in your language. For example, instead of saying “since next week is Thanksgiving” you could say “here in the US, we have Thanksgiving”. Show awareness that things happen at different times overseas. For example, in the UK back to school time is later in the year and summer vacation doesn’t start until late July. Not all trends go at the same speed in all countries. In the UK, online shopping has been a normal part of life for many years. Since they are a small country their postal service is very efficient and it is convenient to shop online and has been for over a decade! Don't use brand names, but describe the products as other countries often have different brands. For example, in a recipe instead of saying “can of Rotel”, say “can of diced tomatoes with chilies”. In the UK, Scotch tape is actually referred to as cello tape. Don't say "a package" or some other generic term. Use specific measurements to an international audience can still follow the recipe accurately. Jennie sent over some other notes and thoughts, and I really liked what she had to say here to sum things up: Be aware that we may have some different challenges and concerns. e.g. Brits have less disposable income and live in smaller houses because land is very precious here. We drive less because fuel is very expensive and driving is more stressful. Over half of us don't have a dryer for laundry, often because we don't have the space. We're also increasingly environmentally friendly and a post that suggests waste may hit a nerve. But please don't feel sorry for us! We wonder how you manage without universal healthcare, how you cope with tornadoes and blizzards, how you manage with so little annual leave (we typically get at least 4 weeks, not 2 plus 8 national holidays) and how you can consider anything over 2 hours not being a really long drive! (That last line really made me chuckle as Holden and I used to drive from South Carolina to Pittsburgh for an 11-hour day, and I didn't think that was "too long of a drive" :) It's so fun learning about other cultures! Jennie with her adorable family. Jennie's Hilarious Mum Moment Jennie's daughter Sophie's spirit of determination is so adorable in this story! You'll have to listen to the podcast to hear all about it! Find Jennie Online LaundryintheTemple.comTheErrantSock.com

On today’s episode we welcome Sarah Gilcher of the very successful Etsy shop, Perennial Planner.Sarah lives in Washington State with her husband and three daughters. She creates printable organizational tools and planners and actually took our ideas and inspiration and brought them to life with her work on the Brilliant Business Planner!  Sarah has been such a wonderful part of our Brilliant Business Moms community since it first began.  She's kind, brilliant, and crazy talented!   On the Podcast 01:28 - Sarah's Top Priorities03:17 - Sarah's Start on Etsy05:37 - Self-Taught Designer07:31 - Finding her Niche11:34 - 3,000 Sales in 1 Year's Work!13:31 - How to Make a PDF Editable15:41 - Building a Lifestyle Business17:18 - How Sarah's Business Helps her Family18:56 - Two Streams of Income27:15 - To Blog or not to Blog?31:44 - 3 Kids + a Successful Shop: How She Does It36:50 - The Power of Video for Business41:56 - Sarah's Terrifying Mom Moment! Sarah's Top Priorities Sarah is a stay at home mom to three little girls who are 6, 4, and 13 months old. Her husband is a pastorand spends a lot of time learning new languages and training new pastors. Sarah's main priorities are as a wife, mom, and helper in so many ways to her  husband.  She helps with his ministry, and she also has the privilege of helping to bring in an extra income for their family. Sarah's Start on Etsy Sarah’s journey with Etsy began when she was searching for a specific printable grocery list. When she couldn't find exactly what she wanted, she decided to open up Adobe Illustrator and create one herself! Sarahthen realized that she could make her printable cute and share it with other moms who may be looking for the same thing. Sarah was excited about helping women with organizational tools that were attractiveand that moms would actually want to use. Another early item in Sarah's shop was a spreadsheet she and her family had used to get themselves out of debt.  Clearly, Sarah's organizational sheets were helpful!  All she did was make them prettier, and they were ready for Etsy success. Self-Taught Designer Sarah has a degree in Fine Art, but she's a self-taught graphic designer. In doing projects for her church,friends, and for herself, Sarah slowly learned programs like Adobe Illustrator and In Design over the course of several years.  Now she can create beautiful printables and planners like it's nothing!  (Seriously - Sarah works fast!) Finding Her Niche Business was very slow when Sarah was started out with her printables Etsy shop. Since she was pregnantwith her 3rd baby, Sarah became interested in the idea of sewing and selling baby products in a brand new shop. She knew that baby products were a wildly successful niche on Etsy and wanted a piece of that pie. Through this process of trying to build up her second Etsy shop, Sarah spent a lot of time learning how to grow her store. She listened to podcasts like Brilliant Business Moms and took the advice of other successful Etsy sellers. Sarah then applied the lessons she learned to both Etsy shops and found that her original printable store was seeing lots of growth. Since product creation is so much more time consuming than selling digital products, and since her digital store was seeing more growth, Sarah ditched the baby shop and focused on her original idea. She rebranded the shop and officially become Perennial Planner. After about a year of focused work, Sarah's shop has surpassed 3000 sales! 3,000 Sales in 1 Year's Work Sarah has attributed a lot of her success to listening to the Brilliant Business Moms podcast! (aww shucks, thanks Sarah!) She found that listening to stories of other successful business owners has been a huge help for her. Once Sarah started seeing her Etsy shop as a real business, success followed.  Sarah shared two great tips that helped her to grow: Focus on keywords, titles, and tags for each listing to get found more often via Etsy search. Brand product photos so that your online shop looks more cohesive. This gives the customer a similar feeling as if they were stepping inside a physical shop. Set the right tone for your customers. How to Make a PDF Editable A lot of Sarah’s printables are actually editable forms so customers can use them right on their computers. To Make a PDF Editable: Use Adobe Acrobat Pro (this is a part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Subscription). Find “tools” on the top menu. Select “Forms”, then “Edit”, and “Add New Fields”. This will allow you to create editable fields for your customers built right into your digital products. Note: you cannot copy and paste your fields throughout the document to add more than one editable filed.  Instead, select “Create Multiple Copies” to speed up the process. You will also be able to give fields multiple lines and make them rich text enabled so customers can change the size and fonts of the text. How cool is that?! Building a Lifestyle Business Sarah's top priority is her family and her faith.  She knew she needed a flexible schedule, and she quickly realized that she didn't want to create and ship physical products day after day. Creating beautiful and helpful digital products has been the perfect solution for Sarah.  The best part?  She can create a product once and sell it over and over again... even while she sleeps! How Sarah's Business Helps her Family Perennial Planner has provided Sarah’s family with more financial freedom. Since she has little to no overhead she is able to bring home more profits, and that money has helped cover the “extras” for her family. Sarah and her family live a Dave Ramsey lifestyle with no debt. Although her husband provides the primary income, her Etsy shop has worked to cover extra expenses and provide more security.Occasionally Sarah does struggle with the idea that she is bringing in extra money and struggles with the mentality, "oh the business will cover that!" versus remembering to be intentional with how she spends and what the family's big goals are. Two Income Streams Sarah loves doing whatever she can to help busy moms by providing them with the organizational tools they need. Often customers’ needs are slightly different from her product so she offers customization. This is hard to balance with the overall business because custom work in any business can be very time consuming. Sarah counters this struggle with requiring a minimum amount for custom products so that each order is worth the time she puts in. On top of doing custom orders for her Etsy shop, Sarah enjoys taking on freelance projects. This provides another great stream of income for her business, and it keeps her income balanced and weatherproof during a slow season on Etsy. In the past, Sarah has done work for local businesses but lately she is getting more referrals from her shop and past customers. One of Sarah’s biggest freelance jobs so far has been designing the Brilliant Business Planner! She landed this job by seeing a need for her service and reaching out to Sarah and Beth Anne. This is a great lesson for any entrepreneur -- it never hurts to ask. The worst thing that can happen is that someone says no, but on the flip side you could land a great job and a great partnership! Sarah really enjoys these larger projects and they work out well to balance out the times when her Etsy shop slows down during the year. (We've certainly loved working with Sarah and hope to keep her busy for years to come!) To Blog or Not to Blog? As with many other Etsy sellers Sarah has struggled with blogging to promote her shop.  Blogging takes time and commitment, and it's often too much to add on to an already busy shop! Recently, Sarah did a post on how to print her products double sided. She plans to focus more on helpful, instructional type videos that will serve her current customers. She can link to these videos within the listing descriptions in her shop. Videos are a great tool for serving current customers better as well as gaining trust and credibility with new shoppers. Sarah and Beth Anne created a video about how to build a butterfly terrarium and that video has sold more products as well as ranked well on Google for some competitive keyword phrases in their niche! (And isn't Sarah's little girl Lilly adorable?) Your videos don’t have to be perfect or even posted on your own website, just get them posted to your YouTube channel and out in front of an audience! 3 Kids + a Successful Shop: How She Does It Building a successful business can take a bit time commitment, but Sarah proves that you can do it with just a few hours a week. Sarah only works 10-15 hours each week and balances this time between afternoons (during naptime) and nights (if her husband is working). A great tip Sarah shared was to encourage independence in smaller children so they can be playing alone and entertained at least for a short time while you do some work. Sarah has been able to achieve her goal of making a part-time income on her own terms with lots of flexibility. Although she tries to continually create new products, she knows that her business was built to allow for flexibility and put her family first.  So Sarah doesn't stress if she can't add new products for a while.  Her business works for her - not the other way around! Sometimes when you're working as your own boss it's easy to set crazy deadlines or hours for yourself without realizing it. Step back, know your limits and ask yourself if you and your family are thriving. It can take a long time to learn how you work best but it is so important so you can set up your time and your business for success. The Power of Video for Business Many online business owners don't realize how powerful video can be for their business.  Not only does it let you connect with your audience on a deeper level and teach things that are difficult to convey with words on a screen, but video also makes it easier to rank in Google (as well as get found on YouTube of course!) The video that Sarah and Beth Anne created on how to build a butterfly terrarium has 967 views! This video has had zero promotion and only one “dead link” included in the listing descriptions in their Etsy shop. Another surprising video result:  Beth Anne found a tutorial video she created for her and Sarah's now-defunct Mommy blog on making cappuccinos at home with a frother.  That video has almost 5,000 views on it! Again, this video wasn't promoted in any way, it just sits on their Mommy blog which gets about 10-20 hits per day... so it's essentially dead.  The video is getting viewed because it's ranking for keyword phrases on Google and YouTube. These statistics just show how powerful video can be. You could use video views to send people to an Etsy shop or blog. How can you use video to drive more traffic and sales your way? If you're nervous about starting out on video, Meredith Marsh, the VidProMom has you covered with these great tips for newbies. Sarah's Terrifying Mom Moment! Sarah's mom moment is both funny and terrifying!! You'll have to tune in to hear the story! Find Sarah Online! PerennialPlanner.Etsy.comPerennialPlanner.comInstagram: @PerennialPlanner Watch Sarah's adorable little girls in our planner landing page video! (They're the ones talking about Pinterest strategy!) Don't forget to join in on our book club for Money Making Mom by Crystal Paine. You can find the schedule here.

If I told you that this week's episode was with a "grandma blogger" who built her business on a pile of failures, would you guess that I was talking about Crystal Paine?!  Probably not!  But it's true.  Crystal is so honest in this interview, as well as in her newest book: Money Making Mom: How Every Woman Can Earn More and Make a Difference. Sarah and I just love the way Crystal shares from her heart and holds nothing back.  She's also incredibly passionate about helping women to get out of survival mode so they can thrive.  You won't meet many successful online business owners who care more about giving than earning, but Crystal does!  Listen on, Brilliant Business Mom, for a breath of fresh air. On the Podcast 01:33 - Is Crystal a Grandma?!02:56 - Can you Relate?04:49 - 2 Parameters Crystal Sets to Take Back her Time07:26 - Before You Quit, Ask Yourself This08:36 - Rejections, Setbacks & Failures...What to do10:27 - The World Needs You!13:38 - Spoiler Alert - Crystal has Failed at Things!15:58 - On Learning New Tricks Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Hear from Crystal! Is Crystal a Grandma?! Crystal doesn't have any real-life grandkids, but she's considered by some to be a Grandma blogger! That's because she started blogging 10 years ago...when most people had no idea what a blog was. Crystal initially started a "mommy blog", but in 2007 she started MoneySavingMom.com as a side hustle. After a year she realized that it was growing so quickly and doing so well that it made sense to give it her full attention. Crystal now has a full team of people working with her -- including her husband Jesse of 12 years. Can you Relate? In the course of helping families to save money and get by with less, Crystal realized something important about her audience: There was simply a point for many families where they were doing everything right and no longer had a “budget” problem but really had an income problem. Can you relate? I know there are some Brilliant Business Moms out there who are brilliant at budgeting, but maybe you have a child with special needs and the expenses are just too great. Maybe you want to serve in missions more often, but the budget won't allow it. Crystal has been passionate about this topic for years but decided to wait until the timing was just right.She now has many years of experience with running a business as well as making mistakes and learning fromher failures. Crystal shares ways for women to bring money into their families by combining their passions,gifts, and skills and making sure it is a blessing and not a burden.  2 Parameters Crystal Sets to Take Back her Time 1. Crystal sets time parameters that allow her to give designated time to both her family and her business. One way she does this is by “co-homeschooling” with her husband. She teaches in the morning and makes sure to remain fully present and invested in what she is doing. In the afternoons her husband takes over teaching andmanaging the kid’s activities and Crystal is able to fully focus on her business. 2. Crystal recently took email off of her phone, and that has made a huge difference! Since she uses her phone for her alarm in the morning (Shoutout to the Sleep Cycle App!) it stays right next to her in bed. Having e-mail on her phone was causing her to be bombarded with “to dos”, stress, and ideas that were preventing her from getting a good night’s sleep! Before You Quit, Ask Yourself This Growing a business is hard! If you're on the fence and thinking about quitting, ask yourself this question: "Is my business a blessing or a burden?" Does your business give you the quality of life you wantfor your family or is it causing you to be stressed and continually unhappy? If your business is becominga burden look at how you can either scale back or change directions. Rejections, Setbacks, & Failures...What to do Even 10 years into online business, Crystal confesses that she still faces rejections, setbacks, or even failures! And it happens more often than the rest of us might think. There are also challenges involved in leading a large team that just make life a little more complicated. When things get really challenging, and Crystal is tempted to quit, she always goes back to her "why" Knowing her "why" keeps her going through all of the difficult things, because those hurdles are worth it when you've accomplished your mission. Crystal’s “why” is to inspire and encourage women to stop living their lives stuck in survival mode. The World Needs You! While there are plenty of books on the market that will help women make more money, Crystal wanted to send a different message out into the world - one that would remind us of the true purpose of money. Making more money isn't about building your own little empire - filled with nice cars, big houses, and beautiful things. Yes, making money can be a blessing to your family, but it can also make an impact on the world around you. Crystal knows what it's like to live life with outstretched arms. She knows what a blessing it truly is to serve and give to others, and she wants more women to experience life this way. So, get off that couch, Brilliant Business Mom, the world needs you! Spoiler Alert - Crystal has Failed at Things! Crystal loves to say that MoneySavingMom.com became so successful because it was "built upon a pile of failures".  As with most successful entrepreneurs, Crystal is certainly not an overnight success. She tried a largerange of small businesses that failed. Crystal has sold on Ebay, resold books, sold handmadecloth diapers, and tried many different blogs! Before Money Saving Mom, Crystal had a blog foryoung moms, one for Christian women, a blog on politics, and a website about saving money.  All of these blogs were flops! However, each of these failures taught her lessons that have made her the successful business woman she is today. Crystal always focuses on learning and growing in everything she does.  In every situation, Crystal asks herself, "how can I make this better?"   “The day that you feel like you’ve arrived is the day that your business starts to die" On Learning New Tricks Crystal has jumped on the Periscope band wagon and is loving it! Although she is an introvert she scopestwice a day and has loved being able to connect with her audience immediately and authentically. Notonly has Periscope given her access to a new group of fans and followers but she is also going outsideher comfort zone and learning and growing! (That's one thing we really admire about Crystal - she's always trying new things and finding ways to grow as a person!) Find Crystal Online MoneySavingMom.com@moneysavingmom on PeriscopeHead to MoneyMakingMomBook.com to get more information about the book and get Crystal's 5 Day Course on Making an Income from Home. Pssstt! We're also hosting a book club for Money Making Mom! The book club kicks off on Monday, November 9th on Periscope.  Get the full details right here. Other Resources Mentioned on this Episode:The 2016 Brilliant Business Planner

This week, we're trying something new here at Brilliant Business Moms!  Sometimes, after the podcast interview officially "wraps" this is when we all breathe a sigh of relief, and we just start chatting freely!   We had such a great chat with Erica Richards of Rainey's Closet that we wanted you to hear what happens "after the episode".       On the Podcast we Chat About: Promoted Pins - Rainey's Closet on Pinterest Pinterest SEO Etsy SEO Our Etsy Shop - The Amateur Naturalist Instagram Marketing Balancing life as a Mamapreneur Our Kids' Crazy Antics!

What if you could create beautiful photos... of 100 products...in minutes? No, you're not dreaming! Using Photoshop and Smart Objects makes it possible. Sarah Guillot has worked with these tools for years as a User Experience Architect (how cool does that job sound?!) and now she has her own side gig helping Mamapreneurs like you and me use Photoshop for business to make our lives easier and faster. On the Podcast 00:52 - Architecture for Users04:26 - Solving a Real Problem Inside a Make-Believe World08:57 - Not all Mock-ups are Made Equal14:02 - What Makes an Object Smart?24:12 - Photoshop Perks29:23 - Help for Photoshop Newbies31:44 - Silhouette Studio34:00 - Sunshine Sticker Co.38:24 - It's only a Season39:57 - The Most Requested Podcast (for 5-7 year-olds!) Architecture for Users In October of 2014, Sarah Guillot launched her first side gig. But she's still working full time during the day as a User Experience Architect (UX Architect for short) Essentially, Sarah helps big companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and GoDaddy figure out how to create the best possible experience for users traveling through their website. She works on user flows, wire frames (a demonstration of how a website will look and function) and works on landing pages to optimize them for sales or other conversions. Despite her brilliant day job and experience with the online world, Sarah says she had all sorts of fears that held her back when it came to starting her own business. There were so many unknowns she'd never dealt with before - getting a business license, figuring out taxes, and lots of other little details.Although friends have been raving about Sarah's crafty presents for years and encouraging her to open an Etsy shop, she didn't drum up the courage to do it until her kids came along. Sarah has two little girls, age 5 and 7 years old, and she knows how precious her time with them is. She wants more time at home with them and less time answering to a manager! In October of 2014 Sarah purchased an online course for writing and publishing e-books. She followed it step-by-step until she learned about marketing her book and getting reviews. Unfortunately, Sarah felt that the course creator was encouraging her to get reviews in a way she thought was unethical. So Sarah didn't have the huge book launch she wanted, but she did get her books out into the world. After that iffy experience, Sarah shifted directions and started making printables in the Fall of 2014. She thought it was the perfect time to jump on board since everyone would be buying Christmas printables to decorate their homes. Despite her best efforts, over the next six months Sarah wasn't getting much traction on her printable sales. The niche is so crowded already, and there are many beautiful ones available for free online. Sarah realized she'd have to drive a ton of traffic to her shop to really make a living selling printables. In the meantime, Sarah realized there was a big problem in her niche that she could solve! (Ever notice how the path to business success isn't always straight and smooth? Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to find the right niche, or a problem that demands a solution. Don't give up, Brilliant Business Mom!) Solving a Real Problem Inside a Make-Believe World When Sarah was setting up her printables shop, she used Photoshop to make mock-ups so she could quickly and easily show case her printables. Sarah quickly realized that there are many Etsy sellers in all sorts of field who can benefit from mock-ups to showcase their work in a realistic way. So What's a Mock-up? A mock-up means taking an image, such as a frame, mug, book, or t-shirt (often with beautiful props alongside it!) and putting your digital design right onto that image to show how your designs or creations will look in real life. Mock-ups are perfect for T-shirt designers or drinkware designers who don't want to do a photo shoot for every new design they create. They use their digital design (without even making the product) and place it onto the beautifully styled photography scene. Not all Mock-ups are Made Equal Sarah looked around at the styled stock photos currently available and realized there was a big gap for sellers who create more unique items. There aren't nearly as many mock-ups for products that don't go into a frame. Mason Jar Mug sellers, glass sellers, mug sellers, and other vinyl decal sellers didn't have as many beautiful photos to choose from, and if they did find a great photo, they weren't sure how to get their designs into the photo and have them look natural. One great way Sarah researched this niche and knew which problem to solve was by participating and listening in many Facebook groups. Sarah joined many groups for Etsy sellers and noticed that 5-10 people every day were asking about mock-ups. They'd wonder, "How do I make a mock-up? What are mock-ups good for? Who can find styled stock photos that fit my product?" Sarah began solving their problems and answering their questions by recording Youtube tutorial videos and posting them on her blog. Finally, Sarah created a Mock-up Design Essentials Course. The course has short videos that add up to about an hour of tutorials along with photoshop template files that have pre-styled scenes. The Differentiator Sarah differentiates herself from other styled stock photo sellers in two key ways. She offers tutorial videos so that a seller can turn any lovely stock photo into a smart object where their designs can be easily overlaid. So, they're empowered to be as creative and unique as they want to be! Sarah's templates all include smart objects, so the colors and placement of the objects in her scenes can be altered. You can't do this with a regular stock photo! What Makes an Object Smart? So... we're pretty sure these objects in photoshop don't have an IQ of 145. What makes them smart?A smart object turns a layer in Photoshop into something that can easily accept a new design element without changing its basic structure. (Sounds a little confusing, right?! It's easier to give an example than to talk about smart objects in theory.) Here we go! If you have a styled scene full of cute little desk accessories and you want to lay your printable (pretty piece of paper in digital form) on top of a desk, this is very tricky to do because the angle of the image will be quite different than your flat-rectangled printable. You'll have to stretch, tweak, and mess with Photoshop for a while to get your printable design to look just right laying on the desk in the photo. But that's not the case if you turn that piece of paper into a smart object. THEN, adding your printable design to the desk goes like this: Double click on the smart object layer in Photoshop A new tab will open up. You'll see a blank rectangle on this tab. You can past your printable design onto this rectangle. Hit save and close the tab. Your printable is automatically placed into the image on the table at exactly the right angle. No weird distortions necessary! Smart objects are perfect in this instance for two reasons. Not everyone knows how to stretch and distort the perspective of an image to make it look natural in a photo. Smart objects allow you to work much faster. You can take 100 of your fabulous designs and plug them into your beautiful styled photo scene in no time. Voila! 100 new listings are ready to go in your Etsy shop, and to your customer, they look just as they would if they were photographed in real life. An added benefit to using smart objects: You can also use one smart across multiple Photoshop files. So then, if that object needs to be changed, Photoshop will automatically change all the other files that include that object for you. Again, let's use an example so this makes more sense! If you're designing a website with a team of people and everyone is using the same header. (It's a smart object) Then one day someone says "we're going to change the header color" The team doesn't have to go in and edit 100 files that all include that header. They simply change the smart object for the header, and all the other files are automatically updated. (Is it just me or does that sound amazing?!) To create a smart object, take that layer you want to turn into a smart object and save it as a.psb (This is the extension for a smart object versus .psd which is the typical photoshop file extension.)Now, when that object is altered and saved, it's updated everywhere it's used. For more help, you can check out all of Sarah's free video tutorials right here. (If you're wondering if Adobe is worth the price, you should know that you can get a 1 month free trial, and after that you can get Photoshop and Lightroom for $10/month. We're not affiliates, we just use Adobe products regularly. Check out our interview with Kim VanSlambrook to hear how she uses Lightroom to save her loads of time when she takes real product photos.) Photoshop Perks So how does Photoshop stack up to the other great photo editing tools out there, like Canva and Picmonkey? Sarah hasn't used Picmonkey in a while, but Beth Anne says adding your own fonts is easy, and arranging transparent pngs to get the perfect graphic design is a cinch. Canva is great for typography. They have so many creative templates that you can plug your headlines into. They also have social media image sizes ready to go so you can save time. Photoshop has some unique features that you can't find anywhere else. For one thing, their color correction tools are powerful, and you can color correct just one aspect of your photo while leaving everything else the same. Working with layers in photoshop also means you can customize which aspect of your photo you edit, and you can shift layers around (like the png overlays I use in picmonkey). Photoshop has powerful editing tools for other aspects of a photo as well, such as smoothing out blemishes, adding shadows, or erasing something. Adobe products also work nicely together, so if you use Illustrator for graphic design, you can drag layers over into Photoshop for more editing. If you're not sold yet, Smart Objects will put you over the edge. No other photo editing tool on the market can so quickly and easily take your design and place it perfectly on the right object in a photo. Help for Photoshop Newbies Sarah Korhnak mentioned in the interview that she probably wouldn't give Photoshop a try, because it just seemed way too complicated, and Picmonkey works great for her! But... she may have been persuaded. Sarah Guillot says the beauty of Photoshop is that you don't have to know how to use every single feature in order to benefit from the program. Sarah's course teaches sellers just what they need to know. You can get started and save yourself tons of time while simply ignoring the 100 other tools that you don't need at the moment. For her course, Sarah focuses on helping sellers get their designs out the Silhouette program and into Photoshop, how to add those design to your smart object, and how to change colors, shift objects around in the mock-up scene. Silhouette Studio One of the most common groups of people who can benefit from Photoshop Mock-ups are those designers who use a Silhouette. What exactly is Silhouette, and what can it do? Silhouette Studio is the name of the design program that accompanies Silhouette printers. The Silhouette Cameo is a printer that can print 12 by 12 inch sheets of vinyl designs, stickers, or other items. The Silhouette Portrait is a smaller printer that can work with letter-sized sheets of material.Sarah says that Silhouette Studio tries to mimic Adobe a little bit. She says it's not too difficult to figure out the basics of designing with Silhouette, but even as an experienced designer she often turns to Youtube to learn a new trick! A Silhouette costs about $200 to $250 for the machine and a few tools to print designs. Sunshine Sticker Co. One of the things we love about Brilliant Business Moms are the genuine friendships we make with brilliant women who are growing businesses. Our private Facebook group is such a positive, encouraging place, and for many women, it can be a jumping off point for developing their own masterminds or partnerships. Sarah Guillot and Ashley Monda met through our private Facebook group and teamed up with a few other women to form a Mastermind. They hold weekly Google Hangouts to encourage each other. When Sarah came up with her idea to help Etsy sellers with photography mock-ups, she turned to Ashley for feedback, because Ashley uses her Silhouette often to make party supplies. After getting to know each other well, they both came up with the idea to get into the planner sticker market. (Planner stickers are huge these days!) Sarah could bring her design skills to the table, and Ashley could print and ship the stickers. The more these ladies researched their new idea, the more excited they got. They got together on Google hangout and said, "Wait... are we really going to do this?" The answer...."Yes!" Sarah and Ashley have never met in person, but their planner sticker business, Sunshine Sticker Co. has already launched! Sarah says she already knew Ashley well and developed a friendship with her. She knows all about her family, her business, and she knew Ashley had a great work ethic. They both live in Washington state, so in-person meetings are possible down the road. We're so excited for Ashley and Sarah and can't wait to see how their business grows! It's only a Season Sarah is in an interesting place right now when it comes to combining business and motherhood. She's still working full-time, and she's also working like crazy to grow her new businesses. She doesn't want to work 40 hours a week for someone else forever, but.... right now she's working 80 hours per week trying to grow her biz and work her day job! Sarah is often up past midnight working hard on her business. She says it's a lot of juggling, and some days it just feels like way too much to take on. But Sarah is keeping the end goal in mind. It's just a season, and working 80 hours per week isn't the way her life will run forever. (You got this, Sarah! We can't wait to see you kiss that day job goodbye!) Sarah with her adorable family. The Preferred Podcast for 5-7 Year-Olds! This funny mom moment made our day! Sarah says she listens to a lot of podcasts while she drives her girls to school. Among her favorites are Pat Flynn, Flipped Lifestyle, and Brilliant Business Moms. She didn't realize how much her girls were paying attention to what was said until one of them asked if she could start a business someday. Sarah said, "Sure!" Here comes the best part: Sarah turned on Pat Flynn one day and her daughter said, "I want to listen to that other podcast ..you know ..the mom podcast!" Pat Flynn, we love you, but apparently Brilliant Business Moms is a little more popular among the elementary school crowd :) (Pssst - that's not the first time we've been requested by little kiddos. Cheri Tracy's girls love us too. How fun!) Stay in Touch with Sarah! SarahDesign.comInstagram: @SarahDesignMockupsSunshineStickerCo.comInstagram: @SunshineStickerCo

I stumbled onto this weeks' podcast guests because I am totally addicted to podcasts and somehow I happily found theirs and became hooked. Sarah and Beth Anne are the sister duo behind the Etsy shop The Amateur Naturalist where they... The post appeared first on .