Work Less, Earn More

  With the events of 2020 behind us, more people than ever before are taking the leap to work for themselves.   There are a lot of potential upsides. A flexible schedule. Freedom of choice in who you work with and what you work on. Security. And of course, no limit on your potential earnings.   But most people are also painfully aware of the challenges of getting started.   Is your personality a good fit for freelance work? What business should you start? Will anyone even want to hire you? And how can you find your first client?   To help you answer those questions and more, today on the podcast I’m bringing you Jay Clouse.   Jay is the founder of Freelancing School and the Unreal Collective, and his speciality is helping people make that transition from creative-stuck-in-a-day-job to freelancer, then from freelancer to CEO.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How Jay’s career evolved from startup cofounder to product management to freelance service provider and beyond A mindset shift around work, employment and compensation that will expand how you think about contract work The relationship of leadership, expectation setting, expertise and pricing Steps for building your freelance portfolio   Learn more about Jay Clouse: JayClouse.com Freelancing School 20% Off! Instagram: @JayClouse Twitter: @JayClouse Creative Elements   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources: Gillian Perkins on YouTube Business Plan Template  

Most of us wouldn’t consider setting out on a trip without a map.   Sure, if you start driving without a map, you might have a fun, interesting experience, but you’re probably not going to be able to get to a specific destination.   If making it to your particular destination is important to you, you start your trip by pulling up Google maps and plugging in that address.   But it is amazing how many people think that they can get to their destination without a map when it comes to starting a business.   They have a general idea of what business they want to start or what product they want to sell, but they don't take the time to come up with a plan for how they're going to build a particular business.   In fact, a lot of people don't even know exactly what they're trying to build.   Building a business without a plan can still potentially be a fun and interesting experience, but it can also potentially be a big waste of time.   Today, I’m going to talk you through exactly how to quickly and easily write a business plan to ensure that you have a solid road map for how you’re going to build your business and where you’re trying to take the company, so you can avoid wasting your time, energy and maybe a whole lot of money along the way.   Listen to the full episode to hear: Six essential sections for your business plan The elements you need to consider for your messaging, marketing, products, and production and delivery How to plan and break down your financial goals, even before you’re made your first sale   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources: Gillian Perkins on YouTube Business Plan Template  

Despite my best intentions, the day-to-day operations of my business don’t always come naturally to me.   Back when I was a solo-preneur, there were days when I was full of ideas and passionate about pursuing them. On those days, daily operations seemed less important than making big, important moves to grow my business.   Then on the days when I wasn’t even feeling very motivated or excited about my big ideas, boring day-to-day tasks were the last thing I wanted to do.   Long story short, the housekeeping just wasn’t getting done.   While I was struggling with balancing the day-to-day with my big ideas, I read Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C Winters. They identify two kinds of leaders: Visionaries and Integrators. Visionaries are the big picture, big ideas people. Integrators are the ones who make sure it actually happens, holding projects and teams together through big projects.   Realizing that I’m wired for the big picture and not so much the daily nitty-gritty also made me realize exactly the kind of person I needed to partner with to move my business forward.   I got lucky and found the perfect person in Cortni Loveridge, and she’s enabled us to do so much. But how do you find the Integrator to your Visionary?   Or if you’re an Integrator, how do you use those skills and find your Visionary partner?   Today’s guest expert is Sarah Noked, certified Online Business Manager (OBM) trainer. Sarah teaches people how to become OBMs, who are essentially Integrators, trained to manage the operations of online businesses remotely.   Sarah will be sharing with us all about how to decide whether you should become an OBM or hire an OBM to work for you.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How to know when and if your business is ready for an OBM Why Virtual Assistant and OBM are not the same role Personality types and traits that make great OBMs What you need to get started as an OBM How to find and hire an OBM for your business, and what you need to do to prepare   Learn more about Sarah Noked: SarahNoked.com Instagram: @sarahnoked Facebook: @sarahnoked   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources: Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business, Gino Wickman and Mark C Winters OBM Starter Kit Standard Operating Procedure Templates  

  This is the story of how I successfully launched a profitable product online.   But this story was preceded by almost 3 years of trying unsuccessfully to launch an online business, and before that, about 7 years of trying to figure out what I even wanted to start.   I was 6 months into my YouTube journey, and my channel had grown to about 15,000 subscribers. I was earning just enough from ad revenue and freelancing that I'd been able to finally quit my day-job. Though, to be honest, we were still barely scraping by and mostly living off of savings.   The time had come to try to launch a digital product to — hopefully! — create a stream of passive income.   The only problem? I'd already tried to launch three digital products, and none of them had been successful.   In Episode 2, I talked about the mistakes I made trying to do a big launch of a project I didn’t know  if people even wanted.   So what did I do differently that finally moved the needle and started generating sales?   Listen to the full episode to hear: Why choosing to offer the workshop at a low price eliminated a key variable, but why it’s a choice to be used strategically and sparingly How using the same format with different topics clarified what people were interested in learning about How those quick and dirty live workshops became valuable assets Why focusing on the process instead of a sales goal can be the mindset shift you need   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch! Get on the waitlist for VALIDATE    

  Not. One. Single. Sale.   After spending almost two months creating an online course, writing launch emails, and even putting together a webinar, I ended up making ZERO sales.   So what happened?   In episode two of $0 to $1M, I'll be sharing my mistakes so that YOU can avoid them with your next launch and get much better results than I did.   It was 2016 and I was ready to launch my online business. I had finally discovered what I was most passionate about—what I really wanted to "be when I grew up"–and I was ready to step into this new career.   Over the previous several months, I'd built a list of 1,000 subscribers for another business venture, and now that I'd started my digital marketing business list, that was quickly growing as well.   I wanted to turn my knowledge into a source of income, and creating an online course about list-building seemed like a great way to do that.   So, I planned, recorded and edited video lessons, created worksheets, wrote launch emails, planned a webinar. I was putting everything I'd learned over the past 2 years about digital marketing into practice!   Problematic symptoms started showing up early, but I had a lot of faith in the process. I was holding out hope for the promised six-figure launch!   14 people signed up for my webinar. None of them showed up.   Needless to say, I didn't make many sales.   In fact, by the end of the whole "launch," not a single person had purchased   What went wrong?   Listen to the full episode to hear: Why you have to know that people want your product and why they want it–you have to validate it Three essential puzzle pieces you need to sell products and how to balance them The launch math you need to know on sales tactics and conversion rates Mindset adjustments and tips to take failure out of your launch   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch! Get on the waitlist for VALIDATE    

I expected that growing my business would be a lot of hard work, tough decisions, and at least a few late nights. But what has surprised me the most is what a journey of personal growth it's turned out to be.   In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the lessons I've learned from my entrepreneurial failures have been as valuable as the rewards I've received from the successes.   And in this new series, $0 to $1M, I'm sharing those lessons with YOU.   This first season of three episodes focuses on lessons I learned while struggling to earn my first $1,000.   It took me over three years to earn that first thousand dollars. Partly getting momentum from $0 is tough and partly, well, I did everything wrong.   But, like I said, every mistake I made taught me something, and made me a better, more successful entrepreneur today.   I'm what people like to call a "multi-passionate entrepreneur." Which is a cute way of saying: I have way too many ideas and I'm not very good at sticking to any of them.   But entrepreneurship is a long game; building a business takes continued effort, consistency, and patience.   So how did I find a way to settle down and focus on one thing? In this episode, I'm sharing the story of how I went from a wannabe with a bad case of "entrepreneurial ADD" to a successful, focused business owner.   My hope is that, by sharing my story, you'll find some inspiration and ideas for how you might be able to overcome this challenge yourself — whether to make that initial decision to choose your niche and decide what business to start, OR to refine your business to focus more on one area of specialty.   Listen to the full episode to hear: Why it is okay to quit when something is truly no longer working for you How the freedom to explore any topic, with the structure of committing to a regular posting schedule allowed her to find her focus naturally Why you should invest energy before money Concrete action steps for when you’re struggling with too many options or ideas   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

If you’re not playing the game, you’re not going to win the game.   Experimenting with new platforms, new tools and new strategies is part of the game, but throwing content at a wall like spaghetti isn’t playing the game to win. A winning social sales strategy takes commitment and consistency.   Approaching your social sales strategy like a science experiment might sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. You just have to know what your basic hypothesis is so you can analyze the metrics when you’re done.   I am joined today by Jessica Stansberry. Jessica is a longtime friend and powerhouse content creator.   Jessica is the owner and founder of Hey Jessica LLC. She helps rockstar entrepreneurs and content creators use video and content creation to grow their brand and show up as an expert. She throws down booty-kicking advice on her weekly podcast, Hey Jessica Radio, on her YouTube channel, and blog and shows up every day on Instagram to make sure the tips never stop coming.   I'm super excited to have her on the show to share some of those tips with us and give us some behind the scenes, insider info on her social media strategy.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How Jessica structures her various content platforms and social media in her funnel, and why Why you should repurpose topics, but not content across platforms Why Jessica committed to using Reels on Instagram as part of her discoverability strategy, and how she uses other Instagram tools to nurture new follows How she mixes planned content with off-the-cuff observations, and where those posts go   Learn more about Jessica Stansberry: Hey Jessica Facebook: @heyjessicallc Instagram: @jessicastansberry Hey Jessica Podcast Jessica on YouTube   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

Does your brand express your point of view? Or does it just tell people what you do?   If you want to position yourself as the go-to person in your industry–to become a brand people look up to, that they know, like and trust–you have to know what makes you different from everyone else doing the exact same thing you do.   Your personality, your skills, your history, your world view, those are the things that no one else has that will make you the person everyone suggests when someone needs to hire in your industry.   Today, I’m talking to Hillary Weiss about what it takes to go from thinking there’s not much special about how you do things, to building your brand on your unique approach.   Hillary Weiss is the creative director, positioning coach, and founder of Statement Piece Studios. She's also the cohost of the cult favorite YouTube marketing talk show Hillary and Margo Yell at Websites (#HAMYAW).   Hillary has had her work featured on Business Insider, The Next Web, The Observer, and more. Since 2011, she’s helped thousands of brands all over the world get seen and heard (and make serious cash) through her 1-1 client work, writing, coaching, and videos.   Nowadays, she’s on a mission to help more small businesses define their “statement piece”, a.k.a. the bold point of view that makes them radically relevant to their perfect people.   Listen to the full episode to hear: Why your business and your brand are not the same thing Why starting with “nah” can unleash creative energy that refines your point of view and leads to perfect fit clients How getting vulnerable will make your positioning stronger Five practical steps to begin refining and building your unique position   Learn more about Hillary Weiss: HillaryWeiss.com Instagram: @hcweiss Twitter: @hcweiss Hillary and Margo Yell at Websites Statement Piece Framework   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

Set them up once and let them work for you.   To be able to work less and earn more, you have to figure out how to leverage your time–how to do things once that have an ongoing impact.   Sounds like passive income, right? It is. A work-less, earn-more business is one that creates not only ACTIVE income, but passive income as well.   With an online business, without the demands of brick and mortar,  you can set up systems to increase your income without having to increase your hours.   How?   Making more money and scaling your company largely depend on your marketing efforts. Those are the systems designed to attract leads and convert them into paying customers. Those are the systems that generate sales.   While marketing platforms and strategies are as diverse as the businesses that use them, email can be one of the most effective ways of taking people from not knowing your company to becoming full-fledged, enthusiastic customers.   In today's episode, we'll be discussing five of the most powerful email marketing sequences to use to increase sales for your online business.   Listen to the full episode to hear: The five functions an automated email sequence can accomplish for your business Using sequence triggers effectively to reach leads at different points in the sales process Why you should clean your list, when to do it, and how to use tidying up to re-engage subscribers Why you should keep segments simple, if you use them at all   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources: Work Less, Earn More Episode 67: How to Write and Email Welcome Sequence Work Less, Earn More Episode 69: STOP! Don't Automate Another Thing Until You Listen To This ConvertKit

How much time do you spend on Instagram?   How much work does it take to really get results?   I see the appeal of Instagram. And I see when I do get involved and spend time on, how much engagement I can create. I love how it allows me to talk to my audience and really start to create conversations, but it’s hard to fit into my limited schedule.   Today, I’m asking Jasmine Star how much time she really spends on Instagram and other social media platforms, why it’s worth it to her, and what are her secrets for making the biggest impact in a relatively limited amount of time.   Jasmine Star is a photographer and business strategist who dropped out of law school and became an internationally recognized creative entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Social Curator and host of the Jasmine Star Show.   Jasmine empowers entrepreneurs to build their brand, market on social media and use it to create a life that they love. She’s been featured in Forbes Entrepreneur and Inc. Magazine.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How batching content helps Jasmine use multiple social platforms effectively to spread brand awareness Why you should treat your social posts like a physical storefront and greet your customers Where she sees the future of monetization for creators on social platforms Why the most important thing is still to do what you can, how you can   Learn more about Jasmine Star: JasmineStar.com Social Curator The Jasmine Star Show Instagram: @jasminestar @socialcurator   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!