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Welcome to the Grit Reapers, the podcast for aspiring online entrepreneurs that cuts through all the crap in the online business world and dishes out the raw and real truth about what it really takes to have a successful online business.

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No sugarcoating, no get rich quick schemes, just honest advice with a healthy dose of humor and hope. We're your hosts, Gayle and Candice, two online entrepreneurs who've been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale.

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So if you're looking for straight talk, practical tips, and the occasional reality check to get your online business moving, you're in the right place. Let's get down to business. So welcome back to the Grit Reapers.

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Welcome to all our listeners. Hello to Gail and a very. Hey everybody. Very special hello to Jen Edmonds. Hi Jen, Welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Candace. Really excited to chat with you today. We so happy to have you here.

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Jen and I actually know each other. We have worked together in the past and Gail, Jen and I happen to be in a common Facebook group with a program we have all, all enrolled in and you know, work through. Anyway, Gail and I met a couple weeks back and Gail said to me, oh, I saw this post, it was so amazing.

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And she started telling me about this post and I was like, hey, that's Jen's post. I read it as well and I actually know Jen and we should totally get her on the Griff Reapers to come and talk about her experience because both Gail and I felt, Jen, that you just really spoke about something that we, we loved, we want, we would love our listeners to hear about.

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And I've actually pulled up the post here. I thought I'd just read it out and then we'll just chat a bit about like what inspired your post and whatnot. So it starts off in like capital letters biggest realization. And I was looking back over my notes from 2022 and my 3 goals were to have consistent 10k months, not work more than 5 to 6 hours a day and be able to pick up my kids from school and spend time with them every.

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Right now I'm so focused on my next business goal goals which are 100k months impacting thousands of women over the world and collaborating with some of the industry leaders that I completely forgot about my original goals.

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It's been two years and my original goals have been realized and then some. But I never took a moment to celebrate that because I was always focused on the next thing. I constantly are consistently earn over 10k a month now I have the freedom to work when I want and I spend every day hanging with my kids.

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It wasn't an overnight success and it has taken time, effort and rinse and repeating. But it is so possible. I just followed steps. But don't be like me and forget to celebrate along the way.

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Your goals will always get bigger and better, but it is so important to know how far you have come. So that was the post and both obviously we, when we read it, we were both like drawn to it. But Jen, maybe you can, we'll hand over to, you know, maybe you can just actually tell our listeners who you are and what you do and then like what inspired your post what got you thinking about this?

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Sure, I'd love to. So I am a Pilates and yoga teacher, and my niche is with working with women who are struggling through infertility and pregnancy loss. And I have been in this space for a really long time. I've been teaching for about 16 years, and I never really thought about having an online business.

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So it was never something that occurred to me until Covid. And that really changed the game of the fitness industry. And I never thought that it would work. This whole idea of taking students online and teaching people across the Internet like, this is never going to work, but it did.

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And even when my studio reopened, I had so many students who didn't want to come back to the studio. They wanted to keep working online because it was so convenient, so easy. And I thought, wow, there's. There's an option here to, to really make something of this.

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And I thought, let's do it. So I put together an online business and it was a complete flop. And I could not understand why. Because I had been teaching for such a long time, I. I had no trouble filling up classes, getting repeat business. It just didn't occur to me that teaching online would be any different.

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But of course it is. It's completely different. So after kind of struggling on my own for a couple of years, I then went, I found an online marketing course that I thought I could go a little bit deeper into and just start learning some principles. Because everything that I learned at university clearly wasn't working.

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Even though that was, you know, 20 years before, it had no relevance to the online space whatsoever. So I started sort of putting together, you know, more structure within my online business. I made my first hire, which was very exciting.

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You know, having someone to assist me was a really big change. And I just started seeing little bits of progress each month. You know, little things would come up and I'd start seeing, you know, more customers and more referrals, and things really started to barrel roll.

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And I remember at the time, probably when I first joined the. The course that we're all a part of, I was probably earning about 2 to 3,000amonth. And, you know, that was pretty good for a business from scratch. But I thought, oh, what I would love more than anything is to just see that 10k come in every, every single month.

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And I was working so many hours. You know, I was teaching in the studio, I was coming home, I was doing all of the backend, the admin, the, the filming, the recording, the editing, all the financials, like I was doing A lot. And I was working so many hours, I was going to bed late.

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And when you've got kids, the first thing that goes is the time that, you know, your own personal time, you know, you've got to put your kids first and then the business second. And then I found I was really coming in third, maybe fourth after my husband as well. Last.

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You know how it is. Last, exactly. Last. Yeah, last. Last is the word. So I think having a lot of structure really helped me to prioritize my time, which was a really big change for me.

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And I think that I didn't really stop to realize where, where what I had done so well and where I was going. And all of a sudden I was doing my tax return this year and in Australia we do it at the end of June and I was just doing all my financials for the previous year and I was looking and I was like, I've been earning over 10k a month for ages.

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And then I was going through all of my notes from a couple of years ago where I was just, you know, goal setting and I was, same time of year, I was like, this is what I really want for this coming year in terms of finances and my personal life. And I didn't even for a second stop to celebrate that I had gotten to my goals.

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I was so focused on the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And I thought that's really sad and that's. I was so disappointed in myself. But I was like, that was a real, like to get to that 10k month where it's just been how the thing that you want more than anything and then to not even realize when it happened.

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I thought that was something I really needed to remind others about. So that's why I put up the post to explain that these little wins along the way are massive and they should all be celebrated. And I hope that I, you know, don't forget to celebrate when I get to my next goals, I will try and put some more reminders out to myself.

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Oh, that's a amazing, Jen. And I think it really resonated with a lot of people based on the comments that came off your post, you know, and people saying, yeah, you know, we don't celebrate the small wins.

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And actually I think in celebrating the small wins is what makes you, you know, happy to carry on because you, you can kind of see where you've come from. So. Yeah, I loved your post. Oh, thank you, thank you.

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It is so nice to see how far you've come and it's so easy to forget. You know, you will get busy and we get so used to this and that and it's all just happening. And you think, well great, well that's happening. Well, I'm onto the next thing straight away.

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So it was, it was the sort of post that I think I would have loved to read when I had started my own online business. So I hope that it inspired others as well. And Jen, if I can just ask you.

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So in that post, what I also found, you know, really interesting and I guess I'm in this phase at the moment was the rinse and repeat. So I wanted to just, you know, we all kind of say, oh, I'd love this gold of consistent 10k months or of, you know, even for some of our listeners it may just be consistent 1k months or 2k months.

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Like what does it actually take, what was that rinse and repeat process like to get to those consistent? Because you know, you can, you can have this goal but people don't often realize exactly what it takes in this online world to reach that goal.

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You know, they think they're doing what they, what they should be doing. But I've come to realize that, you know, there's so much that you, you should be doing all the time. So I'd love to just know what your rinse and repeat kind of ended up being.

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Certainly it wasn't the first offer that I put out there and it took a little bit of trial and ever error. So the very first offer I put out was a low cost course. It was about $200 and it, you know, when I first launched it, it did okay, but I thought I love teaching.

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And it was an sort of a pre recorded on demand course so you could go off and do it in your own time. And I didn't know how to incorporate what I teach with that course. And the problem with my niche with the fertility space is that it's not a problem that I can solve in a set amount of time.

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Unfortunately, if I had a magic wand that would be amazing. But because I can't say to someone, come and work with me for three months and you'll be pregnant. Yeah, you know, that's not exactly where we're at with my business. So it was sort of, it's a way to support women along their journey.

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But how long is a piece of string? So I thought how can I support them with a course and be able to teach it at the same time? So I changed it to a membership. So it was a low cost Membership, I think I started it at $29 a month, it's now $39 a month.

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And that way they got all of the online coursework included and then they got access to weekly workshops and classes and all of the face to face things that go along with that as well. So the second time I launched it, it was the membership and that did really well.

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I think that people really liked the idea of being able to try something for a month, see if it worked for them. If not, they can decide to cancel. And so that was the, so that was within a six month period. I had launched it as a course and then later on as a membership and when the membership did quite well and I had quite a good retention rate, I think in that first launch I probably had 30 people join the membership, which was a pretty good amount.

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Right. I, then I met Candice and we made a few changes and we sort of tweaked a few things and just simplified the whole process, made it a lot more streamlined. And then that launch I did, after meeting Candace, I think I welcomed 70 new members into the membership and I thought, this is, this is the way to go.

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I'm onto something here. So at the moment I'm only launching the membership twice per year and in the meantime, if people still want to buy that $200 Evergreen course, they can. So that's always available. But then I only open up the membership twice per year.

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And so that's what I've just kept doing every six months. Just kept doing the exact same thing, like the same emails with a few tweaks here and there, the same offer, but you know, with more inclusions as it builds and we start to add more alongside it.

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But that was it. I found what I wanted to teach in a way that people wanted to buy and I just kept doing the same thing over and over. Amazing, amazing. Because the privilege of working with someone is that you get to see the behind the scenes stuff. Right.

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And so like I often think when people speak about launching, people think launching is car open. You know, car open, I'm, I'm launching, my doors are open and then is when the launch ends.

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And I actually don't think it works like that. I think you're launching, I think if Jen, for example, only opens her doors twice a year, she's actually in launch mode. Probably like the six months from the time she closes the doors to, then when she's about to reopen, six months later, you're already launching.

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Right, right. The doors open. The period of actual intake Is like the tail end of the launch process. And in fact, even when your doors close, if some people include things like down sales, and that is still part of your launch.

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Now, the thing that I'll tell you about Jen is in terms of her rinse and repeat system, I was blown away. You know, Jen spoke a bit about how. Which I just love doing because I think you flipping are so right.

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So many people have this thing that are so good at, like, they are. They're known for it. They have like a practice or a studio or in real life, like brick and mortar dealing with people. You are so good at it. Like, people are referred to all the time.

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Then you come online and you just think that is gonna just carry over. And you're like, what the hell? I can't sell. You know, I was like, oh.

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What I was gonna get to is like, how Jen speaks about. And again, I think so many of us will relate to, like, doing all the things. Like doing all the things. You're still trying to do the thing in your real life, like, you know, to bring in money, but now you're trying to do this online thing and you're doing the social media and your content and your emails and then your business.

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You know, all the stuff, right? And I was blown away that this woman consistently prioritized making content. Like, it was like, I worked with quite a lot of people, but Jen blew my socks off that her.

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Her kind of like top of funnel. Like, when we're speaking about, like, how do you consistently generate leads? How do you consistently get people in front of people? And like, you know, it's through your content creation. Wherever you're doing that, you'll know that I don't like, you know, it's not Instagram, it's not YouTube.

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It's wherever you are doing it, it's like your top of funnel. You've got to be creating content because that is like the way people find out about you and Jane. Gail, if you asking, like, what does Jane do? That is part of that rinse and repeat system. Yeah. Like, she just built. She just knew.

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She just knew this was a priority. Like, she had to be creating content for her business. And she did it relentlessly. Like, there were times where I knew Jen was living in, like, Dubai when we first met her. Jen, you were in Dubai even like, you like your kids.

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I mean, I remember many meetings on Zoom. The stove was going, the kids were screaming, there's me and Jen. We tried to strategy. Like, despite that, she would be like, hey, Candace, I'VE done the real or hear it.

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Here's what you needed and was really like amazing because I do think that is part of Jen's success. It's that, yeah, prioritized her top of funnel. She, she just like got it, you know, and so when she went into oh, okay, now I think I've got the offer that works for my audience.

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It was like all the pieces kind of just started connecting, you know. So maybe Jen wouldn't have mentioned that but because I, because I actually got to witness it and you like some. This woman is seriously committed to her business.

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And I think that also comes from the fact that you just really love what you do and helping these women who need you. But that somehow it was just built into. You just knew these are the things I have to be doing if I want this business to work.

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And you were just completely committed until you found like the winning formula, you know, And Jen, did you have just, just based on that? Because this, this I think is so key. I was actually Kans and I speak about this a lot like, like you have to do something that works for you in terms of your content creation.

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So where you're going to create that content. And I've kind of also been looking around at other creators who are very successful, who put a lot of their success down to the consistency of their content creation. So did you, you, I think you said earlier you kind of systematized, you had a system in place.

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So what were your thoughts? Like what systems did you put in place, you know, that other people might find helpful? Just to make sure that you do this, because so often content creation, you know, you have to do a post and then the day whizzes by and you haven't done your post and then you think, I'll do it tomorrow.

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And then you think, oh yeah, well I'll do it tomorrow. So like how did you set those sort of boundaries for yourself to, to do that? So I set aside a day, a week for content creation and I have to create a lot of content because I film full length sequences like yoga sequences, Pilates videos, as well as the podcast that I run, as well as all of the social media content.

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And all of that is very different. And yes, it kind of interweaves with each other and you can use the same themes throughout, but like it is a full day every week for me. So I think just having that in the calendar, like writing everything down, like what has to get done, I find with, especially with the social content, having at least a week's content prepped, ready to go. Yeah.

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And just have that ready even if it's not completely finalized. But you know, you filmed the reel, you've edited a little bit. Maybe you've just got to put a few captions on or write the, the, you know, all of the words that you want to put underneath it. But if you do have one of those days where everything just goes haywire and you've got no time, at least you've just got something ready to go.

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Ready to go. The thing that Candice taught me the most was that it doesn't have to be this amazingly perfect thing that takes you hours for one post. You know my. The best posts I've ever done, I'm sure everyone can relate to this were really the five second videos that I filmed because I thought that trending audio was funny.

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So I'm like cool, I'll just throw that up today, you know. And that really helped getting out of my very type a perfectionist mindset and personality of being like no, every video has to be perfect. And I'm, you know, I just don't care these days.

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I think also that having another thing that Candace really helped me with was knowing exactly what you were creating. So different content for attracting new leads as well as content that nourishes and nurtures the ones that you've already got.

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And then sort of that content that's doesn't always perform so well in terms of reach but it's really valuable like how to content. You know, it's not funny, it's not super relatable stuff. It's what I do for a living so people know what I do.

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So I think you need those three things across what you're doing. So. Yep. And the consistency I think think that's just the biggest thing and it's really hard because when you're putting out video after video and it gets a hundred views and no one likes your.

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Your posts and it doesn't matter, just keep going. And I repost a lot of stuff. I might tweak things here and there but you know, I have some of my most watched videos and most shared posts have been stuff I posted a year ago that I just reposted the, you know, in the last month because it was the school holidays and I didn't have any time to create anything new.

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There's nothing wrong with that because people forget. People don't care. You've got so many new followers coming in that they haven't even seen it. I think that was those three Things really helped me. Their consistency, knowing what you were posting and why and having that schedule to get everything prepped.

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Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's amazing. People need repetition. Like human beings have to hear some. We have to like repeat and repeat and lack. For all of us in our businesses, there's just certain things that, like, it's prolific, it's always going to be relevant, and it's the thing that people need to hear over and over and over again.

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Always use that analogy of like, like a, like a present, you know, like someone arrives on Christmas morning and there's like the most freaking amazing gift in a box, but it's wrapped in like dirty newspaper.

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Like, just rip off the newspaper and go find amazing black, colorful wrapping paper. The gift is the same. You've just packaged it differently, you know, and your content can be the same thing. It's like the information, the message is the same.

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Just throw some different wrapping on it. And then it doesn't feel like you constantly have to be like, oh my God, what am I going to post today? What am I going to speak about today? Because you're just speaking about the same core concepts that you need your audience to know about, just with like different rapping and different way.

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Yeah, so true. And it makes your life so much easier when you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. I literally just write the same things over and over again. And no kiss. It's just. It makes life easier for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And.

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And Jen, I agree with you. I've worked with Candace as well, just on the. The content creation and that maybe this is a bit of a plug for our listeners. But, you know, she really is. She. She. I found for. For my consistency because I managed to create a piece of content every day for 90 days, which for me is unheard of.

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But as you said, Jen, it's because I knew what I needed to post. Candace had given me everything. It made sense. I understood. And like, I knew which people I was talking to. And it was difficult in the beginning and takes a while to get into it, but can was there explaining.

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So it definitely helps. So I want to just add to that, like work with Candace. But if you don't work with Candace, have a plan, you know, like, like have a strategy. We all get told we need a content plan or we need a strategy, and so many people just wing it.

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And I think that's when you just never gonna. You're never gonna be consistent. So. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, I think getting Back to Jen's rinse and repeat and, and even though I had said, you know, it was amazing to see someone who just understood this needs to be a priority, like I need to be making content because it's like the top of funnel cold traffic, bringing them down into some kind of process where I'm going to nurture, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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But it's also that when you know what you're posting, why you're posting it, posting it, and that your content, all your content leads to offers actually, you know, so it's not just that Jen was throwing out just tons and yeah, thinking, oh, I just needed to grow my following. It wasn't that.

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It was, yes, we need to get in front of new eyes. But by doing that, once people engage with the content, the content starts to bring people into your offer funnels, you know. Yeah. So I was like, oh my God.

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I'm like, can I just also say, Can I just also ask Jean one other thing? So this is the other thing that like I just think is amazing. So many of us, and I'm guilty of this, but I've actually pulled right back.

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So many of us create an offer and then we look to create the next offer and the next offer and the next offer. So that also then becomes complicated because now when, as Ken says, when you're creating your content for an offer, you want to bring people to an offer.

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Now you've got this offer and this offer and this offer and this offer. So, so do you, do you literally have, you've got your, your self paced course and your membership and that is what you focus on. Like everything comes back to those and really to your membership.

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Yeah, that is it. I do offer one on ones but I find them very time consuming and I, I don't feel they're the best use of my time. So I do offer them but I price them high so that if someone really wants to work with me one on one then they, they can, it's.

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It will be worth my time, you see. And I'm sitting here and I've just, I've pulled back because I have all these offers and I've just decided to focus on one of. And I actually said to cans this morning like now that I'm only focusing on this, I've got all this time to create the content around it because now I'm not creating other stuff, you know, and you hear it but you just, it takes you so long to actually take what people are saying and because you think, oh, this offer is not doing so well or only three people joined. Like, I need.

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Maybe I need something else. And actually three people joined, which means you've got a validated offer, which means now all you need to do is make it better. So, yeah, we can learn a lot of lessons from you, Jane.

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Yeah. Oh, thank you. I was totally guilty of the same thing. When I first started the online business, I had so many offers. I had the fertility course, I had the IVF course, I had the, the mini course, the prenatal course, the postnatal.

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Like it was. There was 10 different courses. Yeah. And people just look at that and they're like, well, I don't know where to start. This is all too much. Just. And then they don't. Keep it simple. Yeah, yeah. You know, the other thing just to add in is like, I'm working with a client at the moment who, when I met, when we first met, and she was like, I've got like 25 E courses.

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I was like, what? On the website, I was like, no, no. Just no. Because, like, people get there and the minute there are too many options, people. It paralyzes people. They don't know what to do. Right.

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But here's the thing. I really believe, like, you can have more than one way to work with people, but it doesn't mean you have to tell everyone upfront what all those ways are. So there are ways you can plug in different offers, like in a hidden way.

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So, like, for example, if you're using funnels and email sequences and like all those things, it would kind of be like, this is the way you can work with me, A or B. Right. And then once a person's kind of taken you up, then maybe once they're inside that offer, they might discover, oh, hey, just check.

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There's a little image here that says I can book a one on one. It's not like you have to tell everyone all the ways up front. Just keep it simple. Like for your, for your luxury, your, your, Your shop front. Your shop front must be like exciting and tantalizing and people want to look and it must just be simple.

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And then when they in, they can discover like all the hidden gems, you know. But people often want to just display everything, everything, you know, up front. I think they think, like, an offer will eventually stick. You know, like if I give them all of this, they'll find something.

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But actually it has the complete opposite effect. What did they say? A confused mind never buys. And I'm, I'm like that myself. I'm just like, I was in a membership which was absolutely perfect. Like we were going along and then they decided to merge that they had like three memberships.

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Merged the three memberships. And then there were like 17 calls a week and this. And I just, I just exited the membership and they sent an exit survey to be like, why did you leave? And I'm like, because, because there's just too much. Like I said, you guys, it's just too much.

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I just couldn't keep up. And then there's just emails all the time book, you know, come to this workshop, come to this. And I was just like, I just couldn't. So I just left. And. Yeah. So confused mind. Never bad. That is really good advice for anyone with a membership.

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Yeah, yeah, keep it, Keep it. Well, Jen, thank you so much for your time and we will drop all the links how you can find Jen if you want to learn more about Jen. And it will be either, you know, in the show notes or, or wherever you're watching or listening to this.

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Don't worry, we will hook you up with Jen's details. Jen, thank you for coming. Thank you, Jen. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Oh, fantastic. And yeah, guys, we will catch you next week for another. Another episode of the Griff Reapers. Ciao.

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Bye, everybody. Thanks, Jen