Chasing Simple Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Let’s talk about your sales funnel email sequence.

You know that classic email marketing advice?

Create a freebie.
Write a welcome sequence.
Then build out your sales sequence.

That’s the order I followed when I first started my email list. I did everything “right.” Checked all the boxes.

But if I could go back and do it differently?

I’d flip that order entirely. No hesitation.

Because here’s the thing: your welcome sequence doesn’t drive revenue. Not really.
And if your goal is to build a sustainable business, not just collect a list of silent subscribers, you need a sales sequence in place before anything else.

Let’s break down why this shift matters, how it accelerates your ROI, and what to do next (even if you’re just starting out).

Before we dive into strategy, quick clarification:

A sales funnel is the big picture—the full customer journey. It starts when someone first finds you (say, on Instagram or through your podcast), and it ends when they make a purchase. That’s the full funnel.

A sales sequence, on the other hand, is just one part of that funnel. It’s a set of automated emails designed to guide leads toward a specific offer. It’s evergreen. It’s automated. And it’s designed to sell.

Live launches have their place—I’m not saying you can only rely on evergreen funnels. But your sales sequence? That’s what works while you sleep. It’s always running in the background, always giving people a chance to buy from you. It’s the engine that keeps turning even when you’re off sipping hot coffee and watching your cat nap in the sun.

Unless you already have a massive audience, it’s going to take time to run people through your sales sequence.

And you can’t optimize what hasn’t been tested.
You need at least 100 people to go through your sequence before you can analyze what’s working — and what’s not.

So, the sooner you get it up and running, the sooner you can improve it.
That old saying, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.”
It applies here, too.

Welcome sequences are great for connection and setting expectations.
But sales sequences?
That’s where the money comes in.

We can’t keep building lists just for the sake of building lists. If you’re spending time creating content, promoting freebies, and growing your list, but you’re not selling, you’re just spinning your wheels.

Your sales sequence is the bridge between interest and income.

It gets your offer in front of people right away and gives them a clear, intentional path to purchase.

When someone buys from you once, they’re much more likely to buy again.

That first purchase builds trust and creates a connection that goes beyond “just another freebie download.” You start to establish yourself as a go-to resource. And you’re not stuck constantly chasing new leads — you’re nurturing customers who already love what you do.

Plus, repeat customers are cheaper and easier to serve than new ones. So the earlier you get someone into your sales sequence, the more momentum (and sustainability) you create for your business long-term.

When you start with a welcome sequence, you’re guessing at what your audience needs.

When you start with a sales sequence, you’re testing that messaging with a clear result: someone either buys… or they don’t.

That’s data you can use.

You’ll learn which pain points resonate. Which benefits move the needle. Which stories lead to conversions. And then? You take that messaging and weave it into your welcome sequence, so it starts planting seeds for the sale early on.

It’s strategic. It’s intentional. And it actually works.

One thing I need to say here: your sales sequence doesn’t have to be perfect to be profitable.

Let me repeat that.
You don’t need the “perfect” sequence.
You just need one that exists.

You can optimize and tweak later. But don’t get stuck in research, or outline mode, or thinking your welcome sequence has to be done first. Sloppy action beats perfect procrastination every time.

If you’re totally new to email marketing and don’t have anything in place yet, here’s your first baby step:

Write one single welcome email.

Just one. That’s it.

Introduce yourself. Share what you do and who you serve. Give them a link or two (to a blog post, a freebie, maybe both). Let them know what to expect. And that’s it.

Then, once you have your sales sequence set up, you’ll direct people from that email into your sales sequence automatically.

It’s a minimalist version of a welcome sequence that still gives your new subscriber a warm hello and invites them into the journey of working with you. And later, once your sales sequence is up and running, you can go back and add to that welcome sequence.

You don’t need a fancy welcome sequence to start building a sustainable business.

What you need is a way to invite people to buy.

And that means a sales funnel email sequence comes first.

It helps you:

So if you’ve been waiting for the “perfect time” to write your sales sequence?
This is it.

Inside the Chasing Simple Playbook, I’ll walk you through exactly how to build a simple, strategic sales sequence that converts—without the guesswork. If you’re ready to take intentional action and start generating revenue from your email list, I’d love to see you inside.

The post Prioritize Your Sales Funnel Email Sequence appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

You know that moment when your brain is spinning with all the things you could say in your marketing —but none of them actually make it to Instagram, your podcast, or your email list because you just have too many opt-ins and offers?

You’ve got a library of freebies, a handful of offers (or maybe more than a handful), and every time you go to promote something, you freeze. Because which thing do you talk about?

That’s exactly what we tackled in a recent live coaching session on the Chasing Simple Podcast. My friend, Colie James, joined me to figure out how to move from marketing chaos to a clear, focused strategy.

If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by all the opt-ins, offers, and resources you’ve created over the years—and you’re not sure what to do with them anymore—this post is for you.

Colie is a client experience system strategist for photographers and creatives. She’s brilliant, she’s a teacher at heart, and she’s created some incredible free and paid resources to support her audience.

The problem?

She has so many freebies and offers that her audience doesn’t know what to focus on—and neither does she.

With everything from templates to trainings to audits to courses, she was stuck in a cycle of indecision: “What do I promote this week? Which freebie should I link to? Is this leading anywhere?”

Sound familiar?

When your marketing gets diluted like this, your audience doesn’t take action because they don’t know where to start. And you end up doing more work to market more things — without seeing more results. OR, you just don’t market any of it at all, and no one knows how much of a genius you are.

In our session, we broke down her freebies and offers to figure out what was really going on.

Here’s what we discovered:

Her “Everything Page” listed all her opt-ins and offers in one place. Helpful for podcast interviews or guest appearances, sure. But for her audience? It was overwhelming.

Some people were opting into three or four freebies within minutes, which triggered three or four separate email sequences. That kind of email overload is a quick way to get unsubscribed, and have your audience too overwhelmed to take the next step.

With so many different resources, there was no obvious next step. One freebie led to one tripwire, another to a totally different offer. Nothing was connected.

And worse, many of her freebies were so good (because #teacherheart) that they unintentionally stopped people from buying. Her audience felt like they needed to finish the free stuff before they were “ready” to invest.

We started by picking one opt-in to lead with. For Colie, it was her “Workflow Magic” training—because that’s what her audience thinks they need most.

Even though she knows people often need foundational support first (like email templates or booking systems), we decided to give them what they want first, then guide them to what they need on the back end.

Instead of sending people into multiple funnels, the Workflow Magic freebie now leads to:

Simple. Focused. Strategic.

We didn’t toss the other freebies—we just repurposed them.

Instead of offering them all up front, Colie now:

This keeps her list warm and supported without sending people in 10 directions.

You might be thinking, “I don’t want to waste all the work I put into those freebies and offers!”

You’re not.

You’re simply reorganizing them to support a more focused strategy.

Here’s how to get started:

Make a list of every freebie you’ve ever created. Which ones are still aligned with your current offers? Which ones get the most traction?

This is your new go-to. Feature it on your homepage, link to it on podcast interviews, and build a funnel that connects it to a paid offer.

Instead of throwing all your resources at your audience at once, share them intentionally:

This creates a supportive journey instead of an overwhelming maze.

You created all those resources to serve. But the best way to serve now is to guide.

When your audience has too many options, they freeze. When your marketing has too many directions, you freeze.

Let’s stop spinning in circles and start building a path.

If you’re drowning in freebies and don’t know what to promote anymore, I want to encourage you to pick one. Just one.

Start there.

And if you’re ready to build your entire content strategy with simplicity in mind, come join the Content Planning Challenge. I’ll walk you step-by-step through building a plan that actually works and gives you your time back.

Your marketing gets to feel clear. Let’s make it happen.

The post Feeling Scattered by Too Many Opt-Ins? Here’s How to Simplify appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

You open up your laptop, coffee in hand, determined to finally send an email to your list.
But as soon as the cursor starts blinking in that blank email draft, your brain does the same, blinking on and off and feeling completely blank…….“What do I email my list when I am not launching?”

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in that awkward space between launches, you’re not alone. This is one of the most common email marketing hurdles I see course creators and educators face. And the truth is, showing up only during a launch is one of the fastest ways to erode trust with your audience.

So today, I’m sharing five simple, connection-centered emails you can send—even when you’re not promoting a thing. These are pressure-free, value-packed ideas that will help you stay consistent, top-of-mind, and genuinely connected with your people.

We all have that one flaky friend, right? The one who says “Let’s hang out soon!” but never actually follows through?

When you only show up in your audience’s inbox to sell something, you feel like that to them. Like you’re only interested in them when it benefits you. Even if that’s not your heart, that’s the impression inconsistency can leave.

Here’s what consistent emailing (even without launching) does for your brand:

So let’s stop ghosting our audience during “quiet” seasons and instead send them valuable, thoughtful content that serves.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or write an entire novel. Just teach one tiny thing.

Think:

Example: Let’s say you’re a productivity coach. Pull one tip from a larger blog post like “10 Ways to Work With Your Energy, Not Against It.” Turn that into a bite-sized email about honoring your natural rhythms.

Bonus tip: If you’ve written long-form content like a blog post, podcast, or YouTube video, take one section and expand on it. You could easily turn a “5 email ideas” post (like this one!) into five separate emails.

People are craving authenticity. They want to see what goes on beyond the polished sales pages.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes ideas:

You can keep it simple, like this one I sent recently:

“I’ve been quietly working on a brand-new member directory for the Playbook students, and I finally added a badge system to highlight our VIP tier. It’s a small thing, but it makes me so happy. Just had to share!”

These emails build trust, spark conversation, and remind your audience that you’re a real human behind the brand.

Not everything has to come from you to be valuable to your audience.

Curation emails position you as a helpful guide—someone who’s already done the research and is pointing them in the right direction.

Try:

Pro tip: Tie your list back to your audience’s goals. For example, if you help people create online courses, share “5 Books That Made Me a Better Educator.”

You are sitting on a goldmine of content. Seriously.

Don’t overcomplicate this. Take something you’ve already made and reshape it into an email. For example:

This is one of my favorite email strategies because it’s fast and strategic. No reinventing, just repackaging.

If you’re sharing weekly content already, make it a habit to send an email pointing to that piece every single time. You’re doing the work—let it work harder for you.

Want engagement? Ask for it.

These are some of the simplest and most effective emails you can send. And they don’t have to be complicated.

You could ask:

A recent email I sent asked my list to help me choose a workshop title. That one email sparked a ton of replies, engagement, and even conversations that led to new ideas.

When your audience replies, it deepens the relationship and increases your deliverability. Win-win.

Here’s a quick summary you can screenshot or copy into your notes app for what to email your list when you’re not launching:

Pick one of these five ideas and draft an email this week. You don’t have to use all five right away. Start small. Start simple. But start.

Even if you’re not launching, feel unsure, or you think your list is too small to matter (hint: it’s not).

Consistency now leads to conversions later, and connection always comes first.

Oh, and because I mentioned it:
My personal book rec this week is How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz I know, recommending it in April feels ironic, but I just finished it and it completely reframed how I approach the hard seasons—literal and metaphorical ones.

If winter makes you grumpy ( hi, it’s me), add this one to your fall TBR.

If this post made you say, “Okay, this is the kind of marketing I can actually do…” then you’re going to love the Chasing Simple Playbook. It’s my signature tool for simplifying your content marketing so you can spend less time creating and more time serving.

Or, if you’re just getting started with content planning, join  Content Planning Bootcamp—it’s the perfect next step to take this email strategy and turn it into a complete plan.

You’ve got this, friend. Just one email. One step. You don’t have to do it all—just do it on purpose.

The post What to Email Your List When You’re Not Launching appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Ever found yourself elbows-deep in a new offer, podcast pitch, or freebie idea … only to look up weeks later and realize nothing actually got finished? Then it is the perfect time to tackle project management for course creators.

If you’re juggling more to-dos than time, or if the idea of launching something new just makes you want to hide under a blanket (because where would you even start?), episode 261 of the Chasing Simple Podcast was made for you.

I sat down with integrator and systems strategist Manali Sontakke to talk about how course creators can stop spinning their wheels—and actually move their business forward in a way that feels light instead of heavy.

This conversation? It felt like a deep exhale. So, if you’re ready to breathe again in your business, keep reading.

I’m Manali, and I spend my time helping creative entrepreneurs become confident behind their business and lead a free & fulfilling life. My mission is to empower creatives and photographers to thrive with 1:1 coaching, wedding editing and digital product integration and time-saving systems education and templates. You can most often find me cuddling my cat Keegs , enjoying a hazelnut cappuccino at a local coffeeshop, out on the Ohio river kayaking or at a local winery in Covington – bubbly in hand!

Social Links:

Instagram – @manalisontakke

Website – Business Coach Wedding Editor for Photographers, Integrator

We kicked off the episode chatting about something I know so many educators wrestle with—why we feel like we’re working constantly, but still never seem to check the big things off our list. A common struggle when it comes to project management for course creators.

Manali’s answer? We’re too deep in the weeds. When you don’t carve out time to zoom out, you can’t prioritize effectively. It’s just survival mode on repeat.

So her first (and maybe most surprising) tip was this:

Schedule time to take a bird’s eye view of your business. Treat it like a non-negotiable meeting.

This is your space to ask: What am I working toward? Does this project actually move the needle? What can wait?

Without this time, we end up in what she called “reactionary mode”—where everything feels urgent, but nothing is actually aligned.

Next, we dove into Manali’s signature 7-phase project system: 

What I love about this system is how it slows us down—in a good way. Most of us jump from idea straight to creation. But skipping research and testing? That’s where burnout and backtracking creep in.

This system makes project management for course creators a breeze.

Each of her phases ensures you’re:

Want to try this with your next project? She recommends mapping each phase onto your calendar so you can see exactly what fits (or doesn’t) with your real schedule.

Spoiler: Most projects take longer than we think—and that’s okay.

Brace yourself. Because Manali’s hot take was this:

One project per quarter. That’s it.

I’ll admit—when she said it, my stomach dropped a little. But the truth is, it makes sense. She explained how this slower rhythm not only leads to stronger results but also protects our peace.

Instead of feeling like you’re launching something new every 5 seconds, you get to pour into one thing, do it well, and still have breathing room in your life and business.

And yes, that includes things like new opt-ins. She even gave a full example of how to break one down using her 7-phase system!

We wrapped the episode with a fun chat about time management preferences: Are you Team Pomodoro or Team Time Tracking?

Spoiler: We’re different!

Manali thrives with tracking her hours. I’m a diehard Pomodoro girl.

The point? There’s no one-size-fits-all.

Try different tools. Notice your own rhythms. The right system is the one that works for you. Period.

Manali shared so many gold nuggets, but if I had to sum up one actionable takeaway, it’s this:

Block time on your calendar every week or month to zoom out.

And then protect that time fiercely. Use it to look at your goals, evaluate what’s working, and choose what deserves your energy next.

Your project management system doesn’t need to be fancy. But it does need to exist.

You deserve to move through your business with intention, not chaos.

If you’re nodding along with all this but need help putting it into practice, that’s exactly what we do inside the Chasing Simple Playbook. You’ll walk away with a clear quarterly plan, a streamlined workflow, and more space in your week for what matters most.

You don’t have to hustle harder. You just need a better rhythm. Let’s build it together.

The post Project Management for Course Creators appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Imagine this: You’re scrolling through Instagram when you see yet another creator jumping on a trending audio clip. It’s catchy, it’s clever, and it’s already been used a thousand times. And suddenly, you’re spiraling. 

“Should I be doing this too?”

“ Am I behind?”

 “What if I miss the wave and never go viral?”

Let me stop you right there.

If you’ve ever felt pressure to jump on every trend in order to grow your audience or stay relevant, you are not alone. And honestly? That’s not the strategy that’s going to bring long-term success (or peace of mind). Inside today’s episode of the Chasing Simple podcast, I shared my Content Sundae Formula, a visual and practical way to understand how viral trends can fit into your content—but only when done strategically. Let’s break it down together so you can stop chasing trends and start creating content that actually converts.

Trends can be fun, effective, and even boost your reach—but they shouldn’t be your strategy.

This is where so many educators, course creators, and content marketers go wrong. They pour time, energy, and creative bandwidth into trying to replicate trends that don’t even align with their brand, all in hopes of “going viral.” But the truth is, viral content only works when the foundation of your content strategy is already strong.

My Content Sundae Formula will help ensure that you’re strategically putting out content that moves the needle for your business, while also allowing you to occasionally leverage trending content. 

This is the core of your content. It’s the valuable, actionable, insightful stuff that showcases your expertise and helps your audience learn something new. If you’re an educator, this should be the majority of what you’re sharing online.

Think:

Great educational content attracts the right people. It builds trust. It helps your audience see you as the go-to expert. And without it? Trends won’t do a thing.

The second layer is what makes your Sundae yours. These are the parts of your brand that bring connection and personality to your content.

Your audience needs to know more than what you do—they need to know you. This doesn’t mean sharing everything about your life, but it does mean intentionally incorporating parts of yourself that build relatability.

Choose 3–5 “personality pillars” to weave into your content. For me, that’s things like my love for Disney, Taylor Swift, and my cats. These “drippy toppings” help your audience feel like they know you, and they often make your educational content more memorable.

Here’s where the magic (and the simplification) happens.

Trends are the sprinkles—just a light touch, added on top when it makes sense. Instead of chasing every viral reel or TikTok sound, I encourage my clients to batch their core content first (ice cream and toppings), then stay open to trends as they come.

When you come across a trend that truly clicks with your brand or sparks an idea naturally, that’s when you sprinkle it in. Not because you “should,” but because it fits and you have the capacity to add it in without derailing your entire content plan.

When you build your strategy around what you want to say, not what the algorithm wants, you:

Stay consistent
Save time and energy
Avoid burnout
Actually connect with your ideal clients
Create a sustainable system you can stick to

Following the Content Sundae Formula means your content strategy is rooted in intention, not impulse. It gives you the freedom to be creative with trends without relying on them for your growth.

If you’re ready to create content that works for you, I’d love to invite you to join my free Content Planning Bootcamp. It’s a 3-day challenge designed to help you build out next month’s content with clarity and confidence.

And if you want to go deeper into the strategy behind this approach, grab a copy of Chasing Simple Marketing. Pages 68–71 are all about the Content Sundae Formula and how to apply it to your own business.

Trends will come and go. But a strategy that feels aligned, sustainable, and focused on serving your audience? That’s what builds a business with staying power.

Next time you see a trending audio or viral format that tempts you to drop everything, pause. Ask yourself: “Is this a sprinkle, or am I trying to make it the whole Sundae?”

Choose intentional over impulsive. Strategic over scattered. Because that’s the kind of marketing that moves the needle—and keeps your sanity intact.

Until next time, go out and uncomplicate your marketing and your business.

The post How to Use Viral Trends Without Burning Out appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Let’s be real: the idea of simplifying your marketing always sounds amazing in theory.

Less stress. Fewer platforms. Clearer messaging. More margin in your day.

But when it comes time to actually do the simplifying? That’s where things get tricky. You’ve got a never-ending to-do list, a brain full of ideas, and maybe a hundred browser tabs open. (No? Just me? Don’t tell my Mac.) Simplifying often requires the one thing we’re short on: time.

Friend, I get it. I’ve got ClickUp lists a mile long. Website updates that always take longer than expected. And big, exciting projects that stay on the back burner longer than I’d like. I know the feeling of wanting to make things easier, but struggling to find the time to even start.

That’s why what I’m sharing in today’s episode is such a breath of fresh air. Because I’m sharing 5 practical ways to simplify your marketing in under an hour. These aren’t sweeping changes that require a full rebrand or weeks of planning. These are quick wins that you can implement today—and they’ll help you save time again and again moving forward.

One of the biggest marketing mistakes I see? Trying to do all the things at once.

Paid ads. Podcast growth. Instagram Reels. SEO. Speaking gigs. Website updates. Pinterest. The list never ends.

Here’s the truth: just because something is a good marketing idea doesn’t mean it’s a good idea right now.

Instead of trying to juggle multiple priorities, choose just one outward-facing marketing goal and (if needed) one inward-focused goal. Maybe you’re promoting a new offer. Or maybe you’re working behind the scenes to refine your funnel.

Keeping your focus narrow makes every other marketing task easier—from writing content to measuring success.

If you’re not sure how to define or track your marketing goals, the Chasing Simple Playbook breaks this down in a super manageable way – and includes an entire workshop on KPIs plus a KPI Tracker Template!

Templates are your best friend when it comes to saving time.

Chances are, you already have graphics you love in Canva. Or Instagram captions that performed really well. Or email formats that felt just right.

Pull those out and turn them into reusable templates.

And don’t forget—AI tools like ChatGPT can help you expand or rework your templates once you’ve identified the tone and structure you like.

No, you don’t need to batch an entire month’s worth of content in one hour. That’s not realistic.

But you can sit down and write your next three emails.

Or draft 4 Instagram captions for the week.

Or outline next week’s podcast script.

Even batching just a little bit buys you breathing room. And once you’ve got a rhythm, you can use that margin to plan a bigger batch week in the future.

If you’re not sure how to make batching actually work in your life, check out this episode.

You do not need to be everywhere to be effective.

If you’ve been trying to keep up with Instagram, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, your podcast, a blog, AND TikTok—it’s no wonder your marketing feels overwhelming.

So here’s your task:
Write down all the platforms you’re currently trying to show up on, and cross a few off the list.

Ask yourself:

Always, always keep your email list at the center of your strategy (it’s your most valuable marketing asset). But outside of that? Give yourself permission to let a few things go.

You already have gold sitting in your archives—you just need to dust it off and use it again.

Go back and review:

Make a list of those top performers and look for patterns. What messaging resonated? What formats worked well? Which topics really landed?

You don’t need to create something new today. Just make the list. Later, you can:

You don’t need a total marketing overhaul to start feeling less scattered.

You just need a few intentional shifts.

In under an hour, you can:

And guess what? These little steps add up. That’s how we build sustainable strategies—not by doing more, but by doing less better.

If you’re craving that kind of clarity and simplicity in your content planning, join us inside of the Chasing Simple Playbook. It’s designed to help you create a marketing game plan that works for your unique business — simplify your marketing and start filling more seats in your online course.

The post 5 Powerful Ways to Simplify Your Marketing appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Today I’m sitting down with systems strategist and HoneyBook Pro, Dahlia Orth, to dive deep into how small business owners can streamline their operations and increase efficiency.

In this episode we’re discussing some of the most common misconceptions about systems and breaking down the 5 key systems every small business needs to have in place.

You’ll also hear:

Common gaps and bottlenecks that might be holding your business back

How to tailor your systems to reflect working with higher-level clients

How your personality impacts which CRM tool is the best fit for you

Unique ways business owners are using HoneyBook

Lesser-known features of the platform that could change the game for your business

Dahlia Orth is a system strategist and Honeybook Pro. She is passionate about helping business owners create simple, easy and effective systems and processes that help them gain back time and freedom in their lives. Dahlia started her business as a photographer and then pivoted into being a virtual assistant for a few years before she narrowed her focus down to specializing in systems. She is a born and raised Jersey girl who now resides in Cleveland, OH, loves to travel the world and will never turn down a spontaneous dance party!

Social Links:

Dahlia’s Website – http://www.dahliaorth.com

Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/dahlia.orth

Recently, I worked with a client who was finally gaining traction with her marketing. Leads were coming in. Her inbox was hopping. Things were moving in the right direction.

But behind the scenes? It was a scramble.

She was serving clients, yes—but she was also manually writing onboarding emails, struggling to keep track of who was where in her process, and constantly worried something (or someone) might slip through the cracks.

And if you’ve ever found yourself in that boat, friend, you’re not alone.

This is exactly why I brought system strategist and HoneyBook Pro Dalia Orth onto episode 258 of the Chasing Simple Podcast. Together, we dug into how small business owners can set up simple, effective systems—before burnout hits.

Whether you’re brand new or years into your business, the right systems for your small business can completely shift your time, energy, and capacity to grow.

Spoiler alert: yes.

Dalia shared that one of the most common misconceptions is that systems are something you add later—once your business has hit a certain level. But waiting until things are “busy enough” can backfire quickly.

Because systems aren’t about looking fancy. They’re about functioning efficiently.

Without them, even great marketing won’t lead to lasting results. You might gain attention and fill your inbox—but if you can’t follow through consistently? Those leads will quietly disappear.

Setting up systems before you need them creates sustainability for when the growth comes.

If you’re writing the same emails again and again or sending contracts by hand every time, your business is leaking time and energy.

Automated doesn’t have to mean impersonal. And when you set up templates with intention and personality, you can create consistency that still feels warm and custom.

Most business owners are only using about 50% of the functionality of their current systems. For example: HoneyBook isn’t just for contracts and invoices (we’ll get to more on that in a minute).

Just because you’re “using a system” doesn’t mean you’re getting the most out of it.

There’s a system for client-facing work—and then there’s a system for the rest of your business.

Your content calendar, launch timelines, team tasks, and goals all need a home too. Without an internal project management tool (like ClickUp, Asana, Notion, or Trello), it’s way too easy to forget, delay, or lose track of things that matter.

This one might surprise you, but it’s incredibly common.

So many business owners avoid email templates because they want every message to feel custom and thoughtful. And that’s a beautiful goal—but personalization and templates aren’t mutually exclusive.

Templates that sound like you (quirks, catchphrases, and all) can deliver a high-touch experience—without you typing it from scratch every single time.

This is one of the most brilliant things Dalia shared in our conversation: your CRM should fit your personality.

Yes, your business needs matter too—but if you don’t like using your system, you won’t keep up with it. And that’s where things fall through the cracks.

If you’re more detail-oriented and love a customizable backend? Dubsado might be for you.

If you want a user-friendly interface that covers the essentials with ease? HoneyBook could be your new best friend.

It’s not about picking the “best tool”—it’s about picking the one that fits how you work.

As you grow, your systems need to grow with you.

If you’re targeting higher-level clients or corporate partnerships, your systems should reflect a level of polish and professionalism that matches that value.

That might look like:

Small touches make a big difference—and systems are what allow you to create them consistently.

You probably already know HoneyBook is great for contracts, invoices, and workflows—but here are a few creative uses Dalia and I discussed:

HoneyBook isn’t just for client services—it can support content creators, educators, product sellers, and more with just a little creativity.

Here are a few lesser-known features inside HoneyBook that might just make your life easier:

And one of my favorite underused tools? The client portal. It’s such a simple way to house documents, conversations, and updates in one place, creating a truly seamless experience.

If systems feel overwhelming, start small.

Done is better than perfect. And simple is always the goal.

Inside Content Batching Bootcamp, you’ll find plug-and-play workflows, templates, and a complete system for streamlining your content creation. It’s the perfect first step toward systematizing your business without overwhelm.

Or, if you’re ready to streamline all your marketing systems? The Chasing Simple Playbook gives you access to my full suite of courses, templates, and trainings in one place.

Let’s stop duct-taping your business together and start building something sustainable—and simple.

You don’t need to do it all. You just need systems that support you.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

The post Systems for Small Business: What You Need and Where to Start appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Today I’m joined by Business Operations Strategist Nicole Boucher to chat about our mutual love of Disney, and lessons that small business owners can learn from Disney World, like:

Disney’s Laundry System and Magic Kingdom Tunnels and Creating Intentional Systems

The Star Wars Galactic Cruiser Hotel and When to Kill Your Darlings

Magic Bands, Data Collection and Knowing When to Invest

Annual Passes and Pricing

Disney’s New WaterPark Offer and Using the Underutilized Offers in Your Business

Minnie Vans and Partnerships and Collaborations

Nicole is a Strategic Planner & Business Manager with an English degree, an MBA, and a background in Lean Six Sigma. She helps her clients be more productive and strategic with their time so they can play BIG with their online business (without the overwhelm).

She’s also the co-host of the podcast Pixie Dust & Profits where she gets to geek out on the regular about her favorite things: Disney magic and business systems!

You know you can do *anything*… but, you also know you don’t have time to do EVERYTHING.

Imagine having someone in your business who *really* understands what’s inside your head.

Someone who knows what you need to grow your business. A sidekick who can turn your ideas into revenue-generating offers and campaigns (without the need for you to delegate every little detail… or worse, having to do it all yourself).

That’s a strategic partner, friend.

Nicole is a Strategic Planner & Business Manager with an English degree, an MBA, and a background in Lean Six Sigma. She helps her clients be more productive and strategic with their time so they can play BIG with their online business (without the overwhelm). She’s also the co-host of the podcast Pixie Dust & Profits where she get to geek out on the regular about her favorite things: Disney magic and business systems!

Social Links:

Nicole’s Website

Nicole’s Instagram

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

Ep. 257 6 Small Business Lessons From Disney World with Nicole Boucher

Amanda: [00:00:00] Today I’m joined by business Operation strategist Nicole Boucher, to chat about our mutual love of Disney and lessons that small business owners can learn from Disney World, like Disney’s Laundry System and Magic Kingdom tunnels, and creating intentional systems for your business. The Star Wars Galactic Cruiser Hotel and Wind to Kill your Darlings Magic Bands data collection and knowing when to invest.

Annual passes and pricing. Disney’s new water park offer, and using the underutilized offers in your business, minivans and partnerships and collaborations, and so much more. Nicole is a strategic planner and business manager with an English degree, an MBA, and a background in Lean Six Sigma.

She helps her clients be more productive and strategic with their time so that they can play big with their online business without the overwhelm. She’s also the co-host of my favorite podcast, pixie Dust and Profits, where she gets to geek out on the regular about her favorite things, Disney [00:01:00] Magic and Business Systems.

You’re listening to episode 2 57 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Cha and Simple Playbook, and you can check it out for [email protected] slash playbook.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Our launch is still a thing, and most importantly.

How do I put it all together to market my business strategically? Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasey and Simple, where Practical Marketing Strategy meets Simplicity.

I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, [00:02:00] simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business.

So that they have time to grow their business, take time off and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own. When I’m working, you can find me working with one-on-one clients, such as the contract shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches.

And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell. Reading in our hammock, watching gamecock boards traveling or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation.

They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily can suck up their time when what they really wanna be doing is the thing that they started their business to do. Which is why I’m here [00:03:00] to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love.

Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever you drink of choices. And meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on business Shall.

Amanda, this is laid out so nice. It’s really very clear and well thought out. I found the flow, easy to understand, and was able to create a pace for myself. I think someone could start and implement everything within two to three weeks, and it’s a lot of info, but I never felt overwhelmed or too lost.

The playbook is an incredible resource. Everything you need to plan and create the best [00:04:00] content for your business, a systematic method to get that content out in the world. Logical growth and nurture strategies and so much more. The playbook is a guided but flexible one stop shop. It gives you all the information you need while leaving space to personalize the execution so that it works for your own business.

Amanda explains processes in a way that. Just clicks, no marketing jargon here. This course is a one stop shop for building a streamlined content ecosystem from brainstorming what content to create, to mastering the process of bringing it to life. Amanda has curated a treasure trove of valuable resources.

She simplifies the overwhelm, providing clear guidance and actionable steps that make contention easier and more effective. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your strategy, this course is packed with insights to help you stay organized and consistent. These are just a few of the reviews that I have gotten from students inside of [00:05:00] the Chasing Simple Playbook because here’s the deal, friend.

Time for your marketing to stop feeling like a constant grind and start feeling like the ball is in your hands. This is the year that you’re going to make more sales with less effort through a simple but impactful marketing strategy. And you’re going to do it with the help of the Chasing Simple playbook, which includes all of my courses, templates, and workshops in one spot.

It’s everything you need to simplify your marketing and fill more seats in your course. And if this sounds like exactly what you need, head on over to amanda warfield.com/playbook. Again, that’s amanda warfield.com/playbook and I cannot wait to see you inside.

Welcome to, oh, it’s got me making. Some awful faces. Hello. Welcome everyone. I’m so excited [00:06:00] because today I have Nicole Boucher and we are going to talk about small business lessons from Disney World. Nicole is a small business planner and operation strategist and I have had the joy of working with her personally and, , spending time together at Disney and also working with her.

In other people’s businesses as well. So I’ve just loved getting to know all of her genius and I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you. So welcome, Nicole. 

Nicole: Thank you so much. It’s awesome to be here and it’s always awesome to talk Disney, especially when it’s. Very cold and wintery and all I can think about is planning a trip and going.

Amanda: Do you have your next trip planned? 

Nicole: I do, but we’re going to Universal. We’re staying on DVC property, so we’re staying at Disney, so we’ll probably end up at Disney Springs in a bunch of other places, but we’re going in June for Epic Universe because I have an 11-year-old, well, he’ll be 11 while we’re there.

So he has to go Hogwarts for his [00:07:00] birthday. 

Amanda: Yeah. Absolutely a hundred percent. And for the new park, like that’s so exciting. Yeah. Yeah. 

I love it. And you’ll still get the Disney magic. That’s what I love about Disney is like. Well, one of the things I love is there’s so many opportunities for that magic. We went in December over New Year’s, and I was not, oh my gosh, gonna to go in the parks.

I was like, that’s not happening. But we stayed. We didn’t even stay on site, but we went and we, you know, we rode around and hotel hopped and we went into Disney Springs and like, we still got all the magical feelings without going into the parks, and it was great. 

Nicole: They do so much that even if you’re not staying on site, you can come over like I think Disney Springs had a Christmas tree scavenger hunt type thing.

Yeah. So they have like 12 Christmas trees around so you can see them all. So that’s nice. 

Amanda: And they all had like very like different decorations. Like each one was themed, which was really fun to just walk around. Even if you’re not doing the full scavenger hunt, just walk and be like, oh, like that one’s Tiana themed, or this one’s a nightmare.

Before Christmas or the Haunted Mansion there was one, the Haunted Mansion one had like a whole [00:08:00] body inside of it. It was wild. 

Nicole: Oh my gosh. I, we only saw a couple of them, so I don’t think I saw that one. 

Amanda: I’ll send you a picture later. It was so weird. But anyways, we clearly both love Disney and I thought that there was no one better to bring on to talk about lessons that we as small business owners can learn from Disney.

Because you know so much about it. And also you technically still have a podcast called Pixie Dust and Profits, which Yeah. Is my favorite podcast of all time. Oh, thank you. It’s, I just love it. All the lessons from Disney, I mean, they’re successful for a reason, and so I. Loved listening every time you guys put out a new episode, but even now, I still go back and listen sometimes.

Nicole: That’s so nice to hear. So yeah, pixie Dust And Profits was, I was co-host with my friend Yasmin Kche Spencer, who is another business strategist. So we met on the like retreat circuit pre covid. We met [00:09:00] together and we actually roomed together and found out we were both just kind of like Disney nerds and it wasn’t Disney nerds from the, like, I love to go and see the castle and dress up, which, you know, that’s one side of things, but.

We were geeking out about how they handle the mosquito population and like queuing theory and all sorts of stuff like that about how they manage crowds because we’re just like operations geeks. So the idea for pixie dust and profits kind of started out of our mutual love of that. And then I think I was sitting at the airport maybe a year and a half, two years later, coming back from something that I had met up with Yasin for.

I was just sitting in the airport thinking of alliteration and Pixie Dust And profits came up and it’s such a fun name. I’ve got my little, like, we make small business magic for pixie Dust And profits. We’re currently on hiatus. That’s been about a year long. Yasin just had her second child, so she’s kind of on a maternity leave and, you know, every few months I’m like, we should bring that back.

It [00:10:00] was so much fun. Yeah, we talk a lot about operations, marketing strategy because so many of our clients over the years kind of. They didn’t go to business school and we did. We both have our MBAs and so our business is the business and a lot of people just kind of stumble into having a business like they were an artist who taught a couple people and then it turned into this big like online program, or they were a lawyer who, you know, helped a couple friends get a contract together because they just started photographing weddings and now they have a business that’s selling templates to other people.

And so a lot of our clients. Had the product or the drive or like they had the business, but they didn’t know anything about running the business. And so that’s where we stepped in. And we love the idea of distilling down some things that Disney does for just small businesses that are, you know, one to five employees.

Like it doesn’t have to be a big operation. You don’t have to have a brick and mortar to learn from Disney. 

Amanda: Yeah. And you [00:11:00] guys did such a great job at distilling that down and making it, so easy to understand. Whereas, you know, if you go get an MBA let’s be really, that’s a lot of jargon that may not be necessary for all of us who run online business.

Nicole: It really isn’t. It really isn’t necessary. And everything can be explained in a simpler way. And I think examples, at least I’m the type of person that examples really help. And so who doesn’t like to talk about Disney or hear about Disney? 

Amanda: Yeah. Crazy people. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, you guys did such a good job.

So we’ll link to that actually in the description guys, after this live is over because again, I have re-listened to so many episodes over and over ’cause they really are just so, they’re so informative. And if you love Disney, they’re so fun too. Before we dive into some of the lessons we can learn from Disney though, I wanna know what’s your like.

If you had to tell one Disney operations fun fact, what would it be? Like, what’s that one thing that, oh gosh. You’re [00:12:00] like, oh, did you know they did this? 

Nicole: You know, there’s so many things, but I did a backstage tour and they haven’t brought those back since Covid. There’s some of them, but not the one that I did.

And so it was so much fun to see how organized they are in every facet. So one of the things we did was we toured the costuming department where they actually make all of the princess dresses and like the onstage things, and they had this entire wall of thread. Each color was very specific and could only be used for specific characters.

And so there’s like Captain America Blue, you could not use it for anything other than Captain America. And so just the thought of they have this inventory to that level of detail is amazing. But I think my top thing was I really loved seeing the laundry facilities, which [00:13:00] is so, it sounds so silly, but when you think about it, they have at this point, I don’t know, like.

15 to 20 resorts in and of themselves. Yeah. And think about like the turnover and how much laundry needs to be done. And so they have these facilities and they’re so smartly made where the trucks come in on one side of the building and dump all of the dirty sheets and towels, and then it goes through the whole system where they actually don’t have time to dry everything because it would just take too long to use a dryer.

So they actually squeeze everything down into like this tiny little hockey puck to like get all of the liquid out of it. And then they throw it into a dryer that puffs it back out into a towel or a sheet or whatever, which is really cool. And then the trucks get sprayed down to get cleaned and sanitized, and then they pick up.

You know, the outgoing clean laundry and then they bring it to the resort. And because they have different levels of resorts, they actually have like three of these facilities. So one is [00:14:00] for the deluxe level sheets that have a higher thread count, and then they have the other ones for the other resort.

So it’s just, it’s very apparent that when they bought all of that land in Florida, that they were trying to make an ecosystem that supported itself. And so. It sounds like it’s silly to be like, I love the laundry system, but it was fascinating how well thought out it was. 

Amanda: So, okay. I never, this is one that I actually haven’t heard you talk about.

So they don’t have, like, each hotel doesn’t have their own laundry system. It’s all one. That’s crazy. 

Nicole: So those like green carts that you see in the hallways where they’re throwing all the dirty linens in, they load those onto like these big trucks. And then those trucks go to the laundry facility, dump all of the dirty stuff out, get cleaned on the inside, and then.

Go to the other door to get all of the new stuff to go back to the resort that they were just at. So it’s just like 

Amanda: That is mind blowing. 

Nicole: It is. It is. And what was, I mean, there’s also fun stuff when we were there. [00:15:00] So like one of the first steps is like there are people hand sorting to make sure that there aren’t.

Usually stuffies inside the laundry socks. They have socks. Yeah, they have a really big like glossed and found section over there. And they said that the number one thing that they find in the sheets is the remote control to the tv. Because usually what happens is like, you’re like checking everything, getting ready to leave and then, and this is their quote.

It wasn’t me, but I agree. It probably is that like dad sat down and turned on whatever game was on. And then you’re like, mom’s like, okay, we’re good. Let’s go. And dad leaves the remote on the bed. So, yeah. But yeah, it’s a like, just knowing how much they even looked at laundry. You, we didn’t get to tour their, like, food facilities or anything, but they have like biofuel that right on site and all of that stuff.

I have so many stories, but I can, but it reminded me about like gonna to like the mechanical area where they refurbish [00:16:00] everything. And that was a lot of fun. 

Amanda: Man. That is so cool. And I said that this was gonna be a fun fact before we dived in, but actually, uh, I’m curious what your thoughts are, like how can we build systems with intention like that in our businesses?

Nicole: Yeah, I think that like our systems can always evolve and I think as long as we’re open to, like, we may have started here, but now things are bigger or our customer base has changed, or I am using a different system, or whatever it may be, just be open to the fact that you can revisit something that you’ve already created.

Because most of the time we don’t start from scratch and we can build from the ground up to like really think through like every single facet that we need before we start. But I will say my clients who are most successful are the ones who have had a program or a product that does really well.

And instead of. And I know this is really hard to not get sucked into the shiny object syndrome, but instead of like kind of thinking about all the different things, you could go from there, you just take that one thing that’s doing [00:17:00] really well and you lean into it. And so you either make the program a little bit better, like you rerecord the videos, make ’em a little more evergreen, use a better camera, do some better editing, whatever that might be.

And then the next year you go in and you’re like, okay, I’m gonna change a little bit about how I market it. And so it’s just. Continuous improvement of the thing that’s working really well and that your audience really wants instead of dividing your attention and, you know, bringing in a new product every six months when you know, I’ve seen people have the most success with just making things work that they have and continually improving it because your existing customer base is gonna be so happy that the thing that they’ve gotten keeps getting better.

And then they have all of this like. Feedback and testimonials they can give for the new people coming in. And so it just makes a better community in a lot of ways. 

Amanda: Well, and something that I’m constantly telling my clients is that every launch is just, it’s preparation for the next one because what you’re doing every time you launch [00:18:00] is bringing in new eyes that aren’t gonna buy right now because they’re just hearing about it for the first time, but the next time you launch it, they’ve heard about it at least a couple times.

And so it’s. If you launch something one time and then you evergreen it and launch something new, you are never bringing in those people that they heard about it during that one launch and then forgot it existed because you didn’t launch it again. 

Nicole: Absolutely. And if you think about Disney, right, like Disney has to change to keep up with Universal right now.

But you know, they have a set schedule where they started with the Food and Wine Festival in Epcot, right? And so that was every. It was in the fall now, I think it’s like August to November, but it used to be just around 

Amanda: October, November. 

Nicole: And so they started with this one festival, right? The food and wine, and they market it and they continue to market.

They even have a run Disney race around it. And then they expanded out to, now we have the Flour and Garden Festival, which I think is like March to May or so. And they already had parts of that where [00:19:00] they had the topiaries that were like, look like Daisy Duck, or whatever it may be. , and so they were like, oh, this model’s really working.

Let’s, you know, do the same thing over here. And then a few years later they came out with the artists one. And so it’s the Festival of Art, and that’s like January, February. And that’s usually the one I end up going to because somehow I end up in Florida in February. A lot. 

Amanda: Well, because you’re escaping the cold.

Nicole: Yeah. And you know, now my kid’s in school, so I have to go in the summer and it’s really hot. But yeah, so they have the art festival and it’s the same formula every time. Yeah. Right. Like they have pop-up tents in every country in between the countries where you can get certain foods that you can’t get the rest of the time.

And so they kind of keep following the same model and just. Tweaking the marketing or what the theme is. And you know, at the art festival, they have this collage that everyone can go paint a couple squares on. Yeah. So you every day are making this beautiful collage with all the other people who went to [00:20:00] Epcot that day.

And I don’t know a lot about food and wine. I think they’ve only ended up there once, but I know a lot of people go just for food and wine. But yeah, so if they did it once and then abandoned it. You wouldn’t have this entire culture now where there’s basically a festival any time of year except, you know, one or two months and you already know what you’re getting when you go because you know what the other one was like.

Yeah. I mean, I think with something at least two times, unless it’s drastically not clicking with people, I mean, I think. There are times where you can like, have a really overpriced product or something that people really aren’t interested in. And especially in the world of like covid and post covid where people like wanna be online.

Maybe now an in-person retreat is more what people wanna do instead of being more on Zoom. And so obviously take into account those things, but see how you can switch what you’re doing into that. And I still think that people need to try and launch something too, maybe three times before really giving up on it.[00:21:00] 

Amanda: There’s just so many variables that you can test and change. Yeah. And you know, going back to the idea that Disney World has these laundry facilities that are so intentional, that wasn’t their first time doing something like that. Right? Like Disneyland existed before Disney World was created, and so they.

Probably tests run a lot of these things before going, okay, we can do this better. Let’s create this second site and here are all the things that we’re running into problems with at Disneyland. And then we could improve on and systems that we need and all of those things. 

Nicole: Well, well, I mean, and Disney World Magic Kingdom, I think is famously known as being like on basically the second floor.

And there’s these util doors underneath. The main main street in the castle. And so part of the tour I went on, we did get to go into those util doors, and I’ll tell you like it’s, it doesn’t smell very lovely down there when you’re in certain tunnels because they have like the trash shoots are going through and stuff.

[00:22:00] And so. What’s cool is that you’ve got your store on the first floor and underneath you’ve got all of the like pins and inventory that you need to bring upstairs when you’re out. And so that’s great. It’s also part of the reason they made that was because Walt didn’t want someone who was dressed for, you know, the wild West to be in the future world, right?

So that’s wonderful, but they learned that it’s actually really limiting because they can’t necessarily change those areas of Magic Kingdom very well. And it makes it hard for growth when they want to grow in certain ways because now you’ve got some areas of the park you can get to from the util doors, but other areas of the park you can’t.

And so they learned from that. And so when they built. Epcot and Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, they actually just have a dirt perimeter road around the back of the parks. And if you look, you can see like trailers. So all of the SVPs and everyone who’s like has to go to work at the parks, they’re in trailers, they’re not [00:23:00] in permanent physical buildings, so that when they decide, oh, we’re gonna build Star Wars, Galaxy’s Edge.

They can just take out that dirt perimeter road, add to the park, take out those trailers and move them a little bit further back. And so they learned from Magic Kingdom like, okay, this is actually, we thought it was cool and we had good reasoning for it, but it’s actually really limiting for us. And a dirt road is actually so much better for what they needed.

Interesting. Yeah, I love that. I didn’t know. Go look at the aerial views now. Yeah, like their little dirt paths. It’s really interesting now that the gondolas are there because you get to see a lot of the backside of Epcot, which you did not get to see prior to them existing. And so it’s really interesting to come in and you can see like the Ouie ride and yeah, all of that.

But prior you didn’t get to see all of those things. 

Amanda: Yeah, you were just inside. Interesting. So speaking of Star Wars land, I’m very curious to know your thoughts about everything that’s [00:24:00] happened with the Star Wars Land Hotel. Oh my gosh, 

Nicole: I cannot remember her name, and if I find it I will link it to you.

But there is this YouTube that did, like, I wanna say it was like an eight hour deep dive into that hotel and the failures and. And why it failed and everything, and it was so well done and so well researched. It’s lovely to watch while you’re, you know, crocheting or doing something else. But what’s really interesting about that is they came out the gate with this offer.

If you don’t know, they have this hotel that is not operating right now. And so this hotel, the Galactic Star Cruiser, I think it was was right next to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, and the whole idea was, it was a cruise ship model where you would show up, you would be on the Star Cruiser for two days.

It would include, you know, going to Galaxy’s Edge and Hollywood Studios and you know, getting to ride the popular rides. But it was supposed to be like an immersive experience. And I think Yasin and I had an [00:25:00] episode about this on the podcast, but we had considered going. And mind you, we are people who go to Disney very often.

We are both vacation club owners. You know, I just went in January for run Disney. I’m going back in June. Like we go often enough. And the starker experience was like out of our price range to people who are willing to spend a lot of money at Disney. And I think, if I remember correctly, it was like.

$4,000 a person starting, and it, mind you, this is two days and no one’s gonna fly. At least not me. I live in Maine. I’m not gonna fly down to Florida and back up in two days. I’m going to extend my trip. So if just two days cost that much, what else do I have to spend for everything else? So the cost itself was so exorbitant.

And then when you looked at what they were offering, it was like the Jedi training facility. Which already existed in Hollywood Studios a pass to the Droid Factory, which I [00:26:00] have already done in Hollywood Studios. And so they weren’t really offering anything exclusive. And then the whole idea of it being this, I don’t know, kind of like Dungeons and Dragons, you’re living in it while it’s going like a Comic-Con type thing.

They were just severely limiting that audience. They were like, you have to be making this amount of money to even come. You have to be a mega Star Wars fan. You have to probably be somewhat extroverted if you wanna be on this experience where you’re interacting with characters. And so I think that their biggest problem was they thought it was like a really cool new world idea and it just wasn’t executed really well, and they didn’t.

Stop and think like, do we actually have people who will pay this and it will like lasting, right? There might be people who would do it in the first year, but are they gonna come back and are they gonna tell their friends? So, you know, Yasmin and I were looking at it and trying to share one pod with both of our families to [00:27:00] try and make it affordable.

And at that point it was just, we’re all gonna be packed in like sardines on a cruise ship. So yeah, it was very interesting. I think that period in Disney expansion was an interesting one. The Bob Chap who was CEO at the time. I don’t know why they went in that direction. And they very quickly pivoted out of that direction because there were so many failures back to back.

And it was apparent that someone had a really cool idea and they didn’t do any sort of market testing before building it. And now I think it’s gonna become offices or something like, that’s crazy. I think they, uh, the last I heard was like the Imagineer offices were gonna go in there. Wow. 

Amanda: That’s wild. I didn’t realize that.

Nicole: Yeah, and Universal just opened one of their hotels for their new expansion and it is kind of this spacey, futuristic theme. And part of me is like, did they kind of just [00:28:00] wanna stick it to Disney? Like we did it right where it’s a theme, but it’s, you know, you can still see there are still windows.

So if you go look at the Galactic Star Cruiser, they didn’t have external windows, so you never got sunlight for two days and just. I don’t know. There were a lot of decisions that were questionable with that. 

Amanda: Well, and I have to wonder like how many mega Star Wars fans are extroverts? I would guess not many.

Like that to me just seems like a big red flag outside of the cost and everything else. But like as an introvert, it sounds like a nightmare. And I’m not a fan. 

Nicole: I know. And you know, star Trek has a convention happening in Vegas later this year. Right. And like, it’s one thing when you’re going to a convention and you know that you’re kind of in like a safe place with other people who also love the thing that you love and you’re all like dressing up and you know, it’s very different than.

There’s a family next door to us and here’s us, [00:29:00] and we’re trying to pretend like we’re cosplaying, but you’re also not allowed to wear costumes if you’re over 10 years old. And you know, there’s just a lot of mixed messaging that Disney was giving with this whole property. So, cool idea. I think terrible execution.

Amanda: Okay, so things we can learn here. One, it should be encouraging that. Even big, super successful businesses like Disney, they, they have failures. Two, you mentioned market research and market testing. What are some other lessons we can learn from this? 

Nicole: I think some of it is really to think about human behavior, and I think a lot of times we have.

In MBA school, we talked about kill your darlings, right? So you have your darlings, which are like the product idea or the thing you’d love to see come to life and you love it so much, but that doesn’t mean everyone else does. And so I think as a business owner, we have to be really aware and.

Find times to step back and think like, do I love this? Or will other people love this? And it can be in little ways, like my [00:30:00] branding very much like, looks like the style that I keep my house in, right. That uses a lot of the same colors and because that’s what feels good to me and it’s you know, it feels authentic to me, but.

If my people resonated more with like bright, happy, loud colors, we’d go with that, right? And so I think that there’s just a lot of times that we love something and we don’t take that step back and think, what are people, what are the trends right now? What are people doing? So, you know, after covid, people who are like eager to get out of their houses, right?

And so if you were like trying to make a program that was keeping people tethered to their computer. When everyone was trying to like exit the world, you probably weren’t gonna do so hot. But if you took that opportunity and saw what was coming ahead and how people were feeling a little bit wound up and you said, you know what, I’m gonna do an in-person experience.

I remember the first pixie Dust And profits live. We did. It was originally supposed to happen. Covid hit. We made it an accelerator that was virtual based, and then that first year that we could have [00:31:00] it in person together. I don’t even know how much business talk happened because everyone was just so excited to not be home, to be with other women of the same age group and just.

Yeah, business talk happened, but it was really just like a mental thing everyone needed to experience. So definitely like stepping outside of yourself and your wants and thinking about what other people what the trends are for how people are behaving and you know, I think there’s something to be said.

It’s not my favorite practice. But I have done this with a lot of clients and it can be successful if you plan it well, is to pre-sell. And so this is where you kind of have, this is what I’m going to make. It’s going to include X, Y, Z. It’s going to launch on this date. You can get in now. It’s not built yet.

You’re gonna get like a discounted pricing. I’m gonna take your feedback into it while we make this program. And so that can be really helpful when you have a really solid concept. You just know it can go in a couple directions and you need that immediate [00:32:00] feedback for where it should go. So preselling can definitely be an option.

And I mean, brands like Brandon Sanderson, who’s an author, he uses Kickstarter and he has no need to, he is like one of the biggest selling authors, and he uses Kickstarter. To get like leather bound editions of his books printed. And so I think there’s something to be said where like we are never too far above doing some of these kind of grassroots ways of getting things done.

Amanda: That’s such a good point. Yeah. You do tend to think of some of the grassroots ways as like, oh, this is for beginner business owners, but just because you’ve had success previously doesn’t mean it’ll keep happening if you’re not intentional about, do my people actually want this? 

Nicole: I’ve seen people have success with just like sending an email out saying, just picked, you know, 10 people that they were super fans usually.

Like, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. Like, what do you think? Do you want in? And that can be really successful. Obviously you [00:33:00] can’t do that more than once or twice depending on how long you’ve been in business, but it’s definitely a way to like get some good feedback and move forward with it.

So like. Disney, you would think that they wouldn’t have mistakes like this with their, they have a huge audience of super fans. They know every dollar that we have spent, they are right. They could obviously pull and they do. I think every other trip I go on, I have to take like a 30 minute poll either at the park or when I come home.

You know, they have ways to get that data, so it’s really interesting. To hear how big of a flop something like the galactic star cruiser was, because did they ever take those polls and say, would you be interested in an experience that would cost around this much? 

Amanda: That’s so true. You know? Okay.

So. Speaking of the data, I am curious, I’d like us to talk about the magic bands and how those work, but I’m also curious, why do you think it is that they only do those at Disney World and they don’t have them at Disneyland yet? Still 

Nicole: the magic bands. Yeah. [00:34:00] So I think. First to explain magic bands for anyone who doesn’t have them.

So magic bands are like, you wear ’em on your wrist now they’re optional for a while. I was there when they were test running them and it was really cool. So these magic bands basically are RFID Chip that can open your hotel room. They let you into the parks, they kind of link your tickets to your wrist.

Think of it like Apple Watch or I don’t know, the Samsung watch, but like the watch that has your wallet on it. And so I actually forgot my magic band once and I just used my watch and it worked exactly the same way. Not as fun. So these things, they keep your lightning lanes on them so you know what time you’re returning to a ride.

It gives you access to things. And so they’re basically just like data gathering. 

Amanda: And it also has like celebrations on the 

Nicole: Yes. The new ones have celebrations. So you can buy like magic band plus. And so when you walk by statues, they usually like. Coco was yelling at me the other day and it sterling me ’cause I forgot that I had one of those on.

And so [00:35:00] there’s that. And then they do all sorts of fun things. So like when I scan into the park, it turns purple and it says Welcome home because I’m a DVC member. And so it’s just little things that make things feel a little special on the business side. This gives them so much data. I use my magic band to check out at restaurants to buy all of my goodies and souvenirs because it just like sends it to my hotel room or my credit card, like whichever way you have it set up.

And so I don’t need to carry around as many cards or cash or anything. I just magic band, swipe it over. And so they have data about like where people are in the parks, how many transactions are happening at any given time. And it really lets them do things like deploy characters in an area that’s really busy to spread out crowds.

And I think this gets why into Disney World has it and Disneyland is flagging behind and why they haven’t like prioritized rolling it out. There is I have not been to Disneyland. I have relatives who have, and it’s basically you can do both [00:36:00] parks in a day. Yeah. Two days you’ll really get to see everything.

And so there’s probably not as much of a need. To throttle crowds and do crowd control and the whole like queuing aspect of things. And so, yes, I think from the consumer standpoint, people want it because it’s really cool to be able to swipe in and have everything like in one place. It’s so simple. But I think from Disney’s perspective, like they’re using it as data gathering and crowd control.

Whereas at Disneyland, that’s not needed quite so much. And so, the initial expense of implementing the magic bands was so much money. Is it worth it to retro’s fair? All the stuff at Disneyland, which I mean, if you think about it, even Disney World. So many lines don’t, like every line is handicap accessible in some way, but the newer rides do it better where there’s, you know, a dedicated section.

I travel a lot with, my mom is blind and deaf, and the last time I took her I was pushing her in a wheelchair, [00:37:00] and so I’m very familiar with. The older rides are a little bit difficult and we have to like, go in through the exit in some rides. Whereas newer things they, you know, have a very steady process for it.

And so like, think about that. And Disney World is hard enough to retroactive things and Disneyland is so much older. And so trying to get magic band into every aspect of that park might be more difficult. 

Amanda: It’s true. 

Nicole: Maybe it’s coming, but I just don’t think that Disney has as much of an incentive.

Amanda: Yeah. There also aren’t as many hotels and most people. 

Nicole: Yeah, I was gonna say, there’s like two hotels, right? 

Amanda: Three. There’s three. But they’re so expensive and you can literally, like staying offsite is a fraction and you can still walk right in. And so it’s, yeah. I don’t know. Like I don’t, we stay offsite every time because it just doesn’t, yeah.

Financially, I’m like, I could spend more money on souvenirs than food instead of in the hotel. 

Nicole: Yeah. And I mean, there’s the whole Disney aspect, but like, think about Disney Springs and Disney World, where there’s hundreds of other [00:38:00] brands and companies who have a storefront there and have to integrate with the magic band system, right?

Like you can go shop at gosh, where were we last time? Like. Oh my gosh, I’m drawing a blank. We were like a sunglass hut or something. And you know, there’s all these stores that are like high end stores that you can go to in your local mall or drive down to Boston or whatever, and they have to be able to interact with the magic band.

And so when you think about that, like they really invested in a lot of infrastructure. Like you can use it at the Lego store. Like, and you know what? Fun fact. If you have an annual pass, you can get a discount at the Lego store. DVC doesn’t count with the annual pass you get, I think it might be 5% or something, but like the Lego, Lego does not give discounts.

So when I was an annual passholder, that was nice to get it a little bit off. 

Amanda: Are you not a Passholder anymore?

Nicole: No. We can talk all about pass holding too, as like. There becomes a point where things are just more [00:39:00] expensive and you’re turning people away. So, there was one year that the way the dates worked, we ended up.

I ended up at Disney three times in a year. ’cause we had like Pix US Live, we had a family trip and then we had another family trip, but it was like, one was in August and one was in May. So they were you know, a year apart almost. And so we bought annual passes because the math really worked out that if you were going twice, they really paid for themselves.

Especially with DVC we could get the Florida pass rate. Yep. So they changed that whole system actually during Covid. They stopped the sales of annual passes. And so I renewed mine just because I might not be able to keep it if they didn’t bring it back. And then they kind of restructured everything.

The DVC still could get a discounted pass, but it wasn’t as discounted as the Florida rate. It started being like you needed to do like two really long trips or three trips for it to make sense and. It just got to the point where it was like, I’m okay [00:40:00] going to the park for a couple days and I don’t need to be at a park every day.

So like, we did run Disney recently and there’s so much to do that we just got one park pass and that was it. And we went to Epcot to have like dinner and stuff. And so it really, it did change how much we go or what we do, but yeah, they got really pricey. I just saw an article last week and I think it was like the.

CEOs the board has recognized that the price of a Disney vacation has gone up so much in the last few, too few years that it’s now becoming a problem. So I think like that’s also like in your business, it’s smart to keep in mind like, where are my price breaks? Am I still offering things at all the different points?

And really weighing out like, yes, the annual pass cost this much, but how much more money are my annual pass holders bringing in? Does that necessitate that they get a little bit more of a discount instead of raising the rate of annual passes? Because I’ll say that, yes, I’m DVC. Yes. I had an annual pass.

I would usually bring other people with [00:41:00] me. I buy so much more merchandise because I’m not paying for my hotel room, per se, the traditional way. ’cause you get that discount, which like feels good, right? The discount is so good. It’s like, it’s 20%. So I usually, like, I have a friend who’s like, oh, can you find that spirit jersey for me?

I want another one. And then, you know, I can get them 20% off on saying that they really want it. Like, that’s pretty cool. Yeah. But yeah, so I think like think about the fact that like, okay, yeah, I need to raise rates. ’cause the price of things keeps going up, but they raise the rates and they still limited when you could go to the park because they said you have to say you had to like specifically set a date that you were going to go to, which park and annual pass holders it.

It’s not that it, you’re just a little more fluid. You’re like, I want a park hop. I want to like, I just wanna wake up and decide I’m gonna Epcot. Because you don’t go to the parks in a traditional way. You’re not waiting in line for all the rides. You’re, I mean, there was one time that it was [00:42:00] before a holiday party, and I just wanted to stop into Magic Kingdom and get some hot cocoa mugs that I wanted to buy, and they wouldn’t let me in the park because, well, you didn’t use your pass earlier in the day at Epcot, so you can’t park hot.

I was like, well, I decided not to go there. I still have an annual pass and if I had gone there, then I could hop here. Like the restrictions that they put in place combined with the price increase, it was just, what’s the point? I can’t just kind of skip over there anymore. 

Amanda: Yeah. I just looked up the the pricing and.

The, I the, since I’ve had a pass, the cost has gone up 200 extra dollars and it was at the point where, I mean, ’cause I wasn’t, in Florida, I didn’t have DVC, so I did, I had to buy the top tier. Yeah. Which also is crazy. They have, let’s see, one, two, I don’t, they four. Right? Four passes and. Two of them, you have to be a Florida resident to get ’em the third one, Florida [00:43:00] resident or DVC.

And then if, so, if you’re not DVC and you’re not a Florida resident, you have to buy the most expensive one, which doesn’t make sense for everybody. It’s $1,549 right now, plus tax. 

Nicole: It’s 

insane. And I think the way this, it was structured before there were three or four tiers for DVC. You could get, first like the, there’s Florida and then there’s DVC and Florida and then the others. So you at least still felt like, I’ve spent all this money on vacation club and I’m getting this one, but now you’re just like I’m just getting the base pass everyone else gets. And I wanna say that the first year I got an annual pass, it was like 750, maybe $800.

And now if I were to get it, it’s. You know, I think 1300 or something like that. Like it just went up so significantly. And then you multiply that, like, I fortunately have a family of three, but most people have a larger family than that. And so it just got too pricey for, I’d rather just buy the tickets for the [00:44:00] days that I’m going.

And sometimes that means that we just don’t go to the parks. Like we don’t currently have any tickets to Disney Parks for our June trip where we’re staying on site, where we’re planning to go to Universal. I will say that they did add this year for your arrival day, you get a free pass to the water park.

The water park, yeah. That started this year. We did not take advantage of that in January. It was 30 degrees when we ran the run Disney Race, and so the water parks were closed. It was just way too cold. But I’m looking forward to using that this time, and I think that was a really smart move.

So when you’re thinking about it from like a business perspective, like what things do you kind of have lying around that are underutilized and how can you, like, give that to your audience as an incentive or a bonus or just a, like, we appreciate you because I mean, the water waterparks are there. They are open every day.

They have to pay the staff to be there so. You’ve got this audience of people who, you know, maybe they land at [00:45:00] 11:00 AM and they don’t have a room yet. What are they gonna do that day? And so I think it was a really smart move to be like, we have these kind of open places. Go get that for free. And I think they’ve experimented with the water parks here, and there were so many times, like they have the water park pass that’s like ESPN and the water parks.

And like mini golf. And I don’t know that anyone ever takes that up. I will say the mini golf is really fun. So 

Amanda: we’ve done the mini golf a few times. 

Nicole: Yeah it usually, we ended up in a situation where our flights got canceled. They didn’t want us, we couldn’t leave for another, like three or four days, but I.

The way Disney was throttling, you had to have like date specific tickets. We couldn’t go to the parks. So we were just stuck in Disney but couldn’t go to anything. And so that’s when we did like all of the mini golf and Yeah. Went to the movie theater and like all the random things you can do, 

Amanda: they do have so many things you can do.

My husband doesn’t like we are very much, we get up, we go to the park in the morning and then by [00:46:00] 11 he’s like, let’s eat lunch and get out. Like, I’m done. All the people are here. We’ve ridden all the main things. Which is fine by me, but we would do like, okay, let’s go walk over to mini golf and do mini golf this afternoon or something.

Just so it’s not like we’re still doing Disney, but it’s not so crowded. Yeah, and that’s something when you stay on site, they give you passes for mini golf, right? Like it was. Included in our stay. And so it wasn’t like, 

Nicole: I think they do that extra For regular rooms. DVC, we don’t get those, but we did take a trip last summer and we stayed at Caribbean Beach.

And I remember getting them, because I remember we had a rental car and took my kid and we went in mini hall because Typhoon, the lagoon kept closing because of the weather. Like we kept getting thunder and lightening, 

which 

happens when you go in August. 

Amanda: Yep. That hurricane season. Okay. I feel like we could keep talking forever about this.

We may have to do a second installment if anyone’s interested in that. Let us know the comments. But yeah, if there was one final lesson that you could share that we could all learn from Disney, what would it [00:47:00] be? 

Nicole: I don’t think I have one. I would say go read Bob Iger’s book. It’s super fun. Even if you don’t read through every single chapter, he’s got a list in the bag of like all of the highlights that he’s written in there.

Like all the leadership lessons. Yeah. Mine is over there. It’s it’s one of my favorite books and he just gives so many good lessons about how you need to listen to the creatives and the experts around you. And you’re like, you’re not the smartest person in the room. So. That’s not one lesson.

There’s a lot in there, but I highly recommend gonna read that book even if you’re not interested in Disney. There’s a lot in there about just like marketing and he talks a lot about when he worked for like the sports segment. He worked for a, b, C for a long time, like he kind of got acquired by Disney when they bought.

He talks about like the mergers and acquisitions and the moves they decided to make. And I think that it’s really important to like just be inspired by that whole journey. Even if [00:48:00] you’re not into Disney stuff. I think it was really well done. So I would say go read that book. And I’m trying to think of just like one of my favorite things.

We’ve talked about so many different things. So like the minivans. I loved those when those first came out. Obviously they kind of took a hiatus during Covid, but it’s such a smart idea that they kind of incorporate stuff that’s happening in the real world and see how they can bring it into their Disney bubble.

And so minivans in and of themselves, like, I love the dad jokingness of it. I love that they look like mini mouse. And then they were like, we don’t have to build a whole app. Let’s partner with Lyft. Or like they do Lyft, but you know, partner with them. They already have an app. They already have the ecosystem, but we’re using Disney employees.

And so I just think it’s really smart of them to kind of look at what’s happening in the market and incorporate that. So the mobile ordering that they have. For parks now. So I just kind of put in all the lunch we want to eat and where we wanna eat it and what time we’re gonna pick it up. And I just hit like we’re [00:49:00] there while we’re waiting in line for something else.

And I don’t think everyone knows that exists or knows how to use it. And so we’re always eating at a good time. We’re not waiting for anyone else. We’re not losing park time. And so I think that if you think about things like what is trending around me? What things do I like to do? How do I incorporate that into my brand?

Trying to think of any other like fun lessons that we work through, but that’s a lot. Yeah. Go listen to the podcast. Maxie Dust And profits com. Yes. There’s an episode for you. Absolutely. I’m, we try to keep them like on the short and sweet side because we know your time is really important. 

Amanda: Short, they’re sweet, but they’re so actionable.

Like you don’t feel like. You’re not walking away going, I got nothing from that. Like you get so much in that short and sweet, but they keep it so simple. Anyways, again, it’s my favorite podcast of all time. We’ll definitely link to that in the description. Where else can everyone find you, Nicole? I. 

Nicole: So I am not as active on social media as I should [00:50:00] be.

But 

Amanda: no, there’s no should. 

Nicole: So I, but I’m very available, so if you have questions or wanna talk to me, like DM me, that’s great. So, we’ll put them in the comments, but my handles n Boucher, which you will not be able to spell by how it sounds. So, and it’ll be, we’ll put it in the description.

So I’m very available. You can DM me, you.

Related to what you are like working on in your business. We also have at Pixie Dusted Profits. Again, the podcast itself is on hiatus, but Yasin and I like this is our, we did it as a fun side project. We will talk Disney Operations Marketing Strategy all day long. It’s our favorite, so, yeah.

Amazing. That’d be great. And if you feel like you’re kind of all over the place and you’re just like shiny objects everywhere, I dunno what to work on. I know like it’s February right now, and so a lot of people are like, new Year, get your goals in order. And I always feel really overwhelmed by that. And I don’t really [00:51:00] start that process for myself until probably February when I feel like I got a grip of like all of my clients’ goals and what they’re working on.

If you feel like you’re kind of scattered all over the place and need helpless, prioritizing yourself. On my website, it’s n boucher.com/shiny. There’s a whole workbook for you. It’s all about the shiny object syndrome you can get, and it actually has just like a little flow chart of like if you are here yes no, and kind of sends you to what you should work on.

So I really recommend checking that out because that can just help you like think about things in a different way because a lot of times we. Sit down, think about working on our business. And there’s just so much of like, do I work on marketing? Do I work on like fixing that product I have? Do I like start writing emails?

What do I do? And so I think that can really help prioritize for you. 

Amanda: It is really a great workbook and we will link to that in description as well, so you guys have easy access. Nicole, thank you so much for being here and sharing some lessons that we can learn from Disney. I appreciate you so very [00:52:00] much.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing [email protected]. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you’ve never missed an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now, go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Ep. 257 6 Small Business Lessons from Disney World with Nicole Boucher appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Are you struggling to get more eyes on your landing page? You created something wonderful, but since putting it out into the world you’ve heard… well, crickets. That’s because it’s not enough to create something and expect people to come. You have to actively drive traffic to those pages.

So in this episode, I’m breaking down the two essential pathways to driving traffic—Nurture Marketing and Growth Marketing—so you can choose the right approach for your business.

Nurture Marketing focuses on building relationships and trust with your existing audience (especially through your content), while Growth Marketing is all about expanding your reach and attracting new visitors. I’ll explain how each type of marketing works, the benefits of both, and when you should use each to boost traffic to your landing page.

By the end of this video, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to:

Useyour content to turn loyal followers into landing page visitors. Implement Growth Marketing tactics to bring in new traffic.

Whether you’re looking to nurture your audience or cast a wider net, I’ve got you covered with actionable tips and strategies to drive more traffic and conversions.

Ready to increase traffic? Let’s dive in!

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

Ep. 256: How to Create Content that Drives Traffic to Your Landing Page

Amanda: [00:00:00] Are you struggling to get more eyes on your landing page? You created something wonderful, but since putting it out into the world, you’ve heard, well, crickets. That’s because it’s not enough to create something and expect people to come. You have to actively drive traffic to those pages. So in this episode, I’m breaking down the two essential pathways to driving traffic, nurture marketing and growth marketing, so you can choose the right approach for your business.

Nurture Marketing focuses on building relationships and trust with your existing audience, especially through your content. While growth marketing is all about expanding your reach and attracting new visitors, I’ll explain how each type of marketing works, the benefits of both, and when you should use each to boost traffic on your landing page 

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how to use your content to turn loyal followers into landing page visitors and how to implement growth marketing tactics to bring in new traffic. Whether you’re looking to nurture your [00:01:00] audience or cast a wider net, I’ve got you covered with actionable tips and strategies to drive more traffic and conversions.

You ready? Let’s dive in. You’re listening to episode 2 56 of The Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, simple Marketing, and you grab your own warfield com slash. book

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Our launch is still a thing, and most importantly.

How do I put it all together to market my business strategically? Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. [00:02:00] This is Chasey and Simple, where Practical Marketing Strategy meets Simplicity.

I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business.

So that they have time to grow their business, take time off and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own. When I’m working, you can find me working with one-on-one clients, such as the contract shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches.

And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell. Reading in our hammock, watching gamecock boards traveling or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation.

They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily can suck up their [00:03:00] time when what they really wanna be doing is the thing that they started their business to do. Which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love.

Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever you drink of choices. And meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

Amanda, this is laid out so nice. It’s really very clear and well thought out. I found the flow, easy to understand, and was able to create a pace for myself. I think someone could start and implement everything within two to three weeks, and it’s a lot of info, but I never felt overwhelmed or too lost.[00:04:00] 

The playbook is an incredible resource. Everything you need to plan and create the best content for your business, a systematic method to get that content out in the world. Logical growth and nurture strategies and so much more. The playbook is a guided but flexible one stop shop. It gives you all the information you need while leaving space to personalize the execution so that it works for your own business.

Amanda explains processes in a way that. Just clicks, no marketing jargon here. This course is a one stop shop for building a streamlined content ecosystem from brainstorming what content to create, to mastering the process of bringing it to life. Amanda has curated a treasure trove of valuable resources.

She simplifies the overwhelm, providing clear guidance and actionable steps that make contention easier and more effective. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your strategy, this course is packed with insights to help you stay organized and consistent. [00:05:00] These are just a few of the reviews that I have gotten from students inside of the Chasing Simple Playbook because here’s the deal, friend.

Time for your marketing to stop feeling like a constant grind and start feeling like the ball is in your hands. This is the year that you’re going to make more sales with less effort through a simple but impactful marketing strategy. And you’re going to do it with the help of the Chasing Simple playbook, which includes all of my courses, templates, and workshops in one spot.

It’s everything you need to simplify your marketing and fill more seats in your course. And if this sounds like exactly what you need, head on over to amanda warfield.com/playbook. Again, that’s amanda warfield.com/playbook and I cannot wait to see you inside.

Welcome to Today’s Lunch and Learn. [00:06:00] I’m Amanda Warfield. I’m a simplicity focused content marketing strategist and copywriter, and my goal is to help course creators, educators, digital product creators, simplify their marketing so that they can make a bigger impact in less time. I go live every single Monday at 1:00 PM.

Eastern time, 10:00 AM Pacific time to have a lunch and learn style chat. Sometimes it’s just me. Sometimes I have guests. It just depends on the week. But the goal is always to help simplify an area of your marketing when we go live and when we have these lunch and learns. So today we are going to talk about.

Driving traffic to your landing page. And when I say landing page, I’m using it as a, an umbrella term, really, where it could mean your homepage on your website. It could mean your landing page for your freebie or for your sales page, for your course. It really is whatever strategic website page that you are [00:07:00] wanting to drive traffic to, that is not always what landing page means, but that’s simply how I’m using it here today.

, people use it interchangeably for a lot of different things, but for today’s purposes, when I say landing page, I simply mean just wherever you are trying to drive traffic, whatever that goal may be. For many of you, it will be your course, your core sales page, or. If you have a funnel set up, it will be , the, , the landing page for your freebie.

So that page where they come and you’re like, here’s the freebie. I wanna get traffic to it so people can sign up for the freebie and then I can tell them about the course. Right. That may be your landing page. I would love to know where are you trying to drive traffic right now? What is your number one page that you are really trying to focus on pushing people to so that you can get more traffic there and so that you can increase conversions, sales, your email list, whatever that may be.

What, where is it that you’re trying [00:08:00] to send people? Now when it comes to driving traffic to your landing page, there are two main pathways forward with this, and it’s not paid or unpaid. It is nurture marketing versus growth marketing. Now, I talk a lot about this. In my book, chasing Symbol Marketing, if you want to snag a copy of that and be able to dive a lot deeper into this conversation.

But nurture marketing versus growth marketing. Nurture marketing is nurturing the people that are already in your audience, that are already in your sphere. Growth marketing, on the other hand, is trying to get out in front of a new audience and bring those people into your sphere so you can hit them with that urgent marketing.

A lot of times we contend to use our nurture marketing channels and think that they’re going to be growth marketing channels, and that’s just not the case. Things like Instagram at [00:09:00] this point, that’s no longer a growth marketing channel. Right? For the most part. When you’re posting to Instagram. You are not posting and seeing a ton of growth, you are trying to connect with the people that are already in your audience.

However, something like TikTok or Threads right here, right now as I record this, because this changes often with social media. Those are places where you can actually expect to see growth. And yes, you’re nurturing your current people, but you may actually be really focused on, okay, how do I grow? And those are platforms where that’s happening right now.

Realistically. So growth marketing, nurture marketing. They are two different things. Sometimes your goals with them and the platforms you’re using can be interchangeable, but for the most part, social media. Especially Instagram, that’s gonna be Nurture Marketing, your email list and your email newsletters.

That’s gonna be Nurture Marketing your podcast or your YouTube channel, right? That’s probably [00:10:00] going to be nurture marketing, because for the most part, the people that you’re talking to, for those. Those are people that have already said, oh, I’m interested in what they have to say. I wanna learn more about this thing that they’re talking about.

I signed up for this freebie already. Right. So when it comes to your nurture marketing and driving traffic to your landing page, whatever that may be, you want to talk about the. Different areas that touch on whatever it is your landing page is about. So that, that is kind of confusing to make that more clear.

Let’s say you have a freebie that you are trying to drive traffic to, and the freebie is a, it’s a seasonal meal planner, and your goal is to get people. Onto that landing page. Well, [00:11:00] you can do the thing where you say, Hey, I have this freebie. Go check it out. Right? Like that’s a really simple way to do it.

You can send emails about that. You can put a post about that and say, Hey. I have this freebie. You should go check it out if you want. That’s one way to do it. That’s a great way to use your nurture marketing. However, you can also put up posts on Instagram or talk about this on threads or share videos about this on your shorts or on your YouTube channel, or wherever the case may be.

Putting up content that’s going to lead into that naturally. So for example, you could put up, , right now it is February, you could put up a post or a reel or a short that says, here are all the vegetables that are in season in February. And then at the end of that, and you say, Hey, if you wanna take this a step further and make eating seasonally so much easier, check out my free seasonal meal planner.

And so that makes [00:12:00] it a really simple, like, I’m gonna grab your attention with this tiny little detail about this, but hey, if you’re interested in this, , here are seasonal vegetables. Let me take this a step further. Let me help you take this a step further. And so that’s a way that you can use your, your current nurture marketing.

And give the people that little tiny taste because they’ve already said that they’re interested in what it is that you do. They just need that tiny taste and that reminder of, oh, but I also have this resource for you. Right? And that could work the same if you are selling that same thing, right? It’s not a freebie, you’re selling it.

Hey, here’s all the different seasonal foods for February. By the way, if you want my planner on how to eat seasonally, my seasonal meal planner, you can snag it here. It’s the same thing. However, that’s one thing. You’re giving out tips, you’re giving out advice. You’re giving out, you’re trickling out these little, Hey, did you know that this is what’s in season right now?

This is, this is [00:13:00] the step, or this little tiny taste of what I have more of. However, what you can do with your growth marketing is these are people who are a cold audience, right? Most likely. Most likely, they’re a cold audience. They don’t know who you are. They don’t have any trust in you yet, and so you have to do a little more work to really build up why they should grab this freebie or why they should buy this product from you.

Now, growth marketing. Is primarily going to be things like doing an Instagram live with someone or hopping on someone else’s YouTube with them and to do an interview. Like I often have people that come and do interviews here during our lunch and learns, or going onto someone’s podcast or writing a guest post.

Typically, with growth marketing, not always, but typically you’re getting in front of an audience and you’re able to give them. Well, lemme back up. Especially [00:14:00] with unpaid growth marketing, I should say. You’re able to say, Hey, here’s this thing I have and here’s this information and here’s where I’m an expert.

And you’re able to give them a lot more content than just a snippet here and there because that’s just how those opportunities tend to be. Bigger opportunities, speaking engagements, anything like that. When it comes to paid growth marketing, it can be different. It could be a snippet, which often, what works really well with paid growth, market growth marketing is taking the social media posts that have already done well and then just putting money behind them.

But that’s a whole other thing. Again, today’s not really about paid versus unpaid, but nurture marketing versus growth marketing. So growth marketing. You take these. Bigger opportunities where you have more time and space to explain and give background, and you want to make sure that you’re giving reasons why what it is that you’re [00:15:00] doing is helpful.

So it’s not just, here’s this thing, let me capture your attention real quick. It’s here is this whole idea that you may never have heard of before, and I’m gonna put it in front of you and I’m gonna tell you why. You might be interested in this, and then I’m gonna lead you into my nurture marketing and then I’ll give you more.

So using that same example, what does that look like? If you are talking about seasonal meal planning and you are selling a seasonal meal planner, well, you need to convince people that seasonal meal or that seasonal eating is the way to go. You also could take a different stance and you could talk about.

Meal planning in general and how it makes things so much easier. Um, but in this case, I think the seasonal aspect is what really makes this particular meal planner stand out. And so I personally would and would recommend focusing on the seasonal aspect. But you could do both. You could, , have some interviews you [00:16:00] do where, or some speaking engagements you do where you are.

Focused on why seasonal eating, and you could have some where you focus on meal planning and how to meal prep, and so you could have a mix out there of that. However, what you wanna make sure you’re doing is you’re selling this idea of, this is what I teach and this is why it’s important and this is why you should do it.

You wanna assume these people have never heard anything about this before, or if they have very little and so. You go and you talk about, okay, here’s what seasonal eating is. Here is why it matters, why it’s good for you, why it’s good for the environment, why it’s good for the, your wallet, et cetera, et cetera.

I don’t, this is not something that I really know much about, but just throw it an example out there. Here’s why it matters. Here’s why you should do it. Here are some tips and hey, if you want more, I’ve got a whole meal planner and so. Depending on [00:17:00] the amount of warmth that you have, depends on how much more information you wanna give them.

Really? So you get in front of a cold audience, they don’t know you, it’s a very cold audience. You are gonna give them a lot more information as to why and try to bring them into your audience with the why. And then once they know the why and they’re. At least curious and more interested about the why and possibly investing in that.

Like, yes, this is an idea I wanna get behind. Then you’re nurturing them with more of the how and more. And I don’t wanna say. Maybe, how is not the right word? Because you could also do a how to interview and share, and those tips work really well there. But just more of the, the smaller details, less big picture and more, here’s the like, here’s a tiny bit, here’s a tiny bit.

[00:18:00] Here’s a tiny bit. Learn this little tip. Here’s a tip here, here’s a tip here. Um, and that tends to be a really great way to differentiate between what you’re sharing for growth marketing and what you’re sharing for nurture marketing. Now again, you can mix and match those. Some, you can swap ’em back and forth some, but in general, you want to do growth marketing and bring people into your audience.

You want to use your growth marketing to convince them of the thing that you’re talking about and why it matters so that they’re more interested, and then you drive that traffic to your landing page. Then through that landing page, they either buy from you or they. Uh, sign up for your opt-in, whatever the case may be.

They sign up for a discovery call, whatever. It’s right. Then they’re in your audience, they know about you. They’re nurtured a little bit. They’re warmer, and they say, oh, I might, I’m gonna go follow on Instagram, or I’m gonna get these weekly emails and I’m gonna learn even more about [00:19:00] this. And eventually.

There as they’re being nurtured, it will lead to a sale. But driving traffic, you really wanna focus on both. You need to be going out, getting those growth opportunities. And if you are like, what are these growth opportunities? Let me know if you want a whole video on growth marketing and how you can find these opportunities, what those opportunities look like, things like that.

Going out and getting those growth opportunities, bringing these people into your audience, and then as you bring them into your audience, you’re nurturing them continuously. So you’ve got your consistency with your content, right? The content you’re putting out there. You wanna make sure you’re showing up consistently, that you’re consistently nurturing your people, but then also that you’re going out and bringing new people into your sphere over and over and over again.

Because if you’re not bringing new people in, you’re, you’re gonna not have that. You’re not gonna see that traction in that momentum. So both are important. You need both to drive traffic. You take those growth opportunities [00:20:00] and you send them to your landing page. You go out and you find podcast episodes, bundles to be part of, et cetera, et cetera, and you use those to drive people to that landing page you picked earlier.

Your nurture marketing. You wanna do the same thing. Share little tips that will drive traffic to your landing page and get more people on that landing page and on your email list. Right? That is the ultimate goal is growing that email list through all of these other ways that you can market your business, because your email list is the one thing that you actually own.

Okay. Um, we saw this with TikTok. Right now, we see this all the time. This isn’t anything new, right? With. You don’t own your Instagram following, you don’t. You don’t even own your YouTube following, right? That if you’re not hosting it, you don’t own it. So it is important that you are growing your email list that is the cornerstone or should be the cornerstone of your entire marketing plan.

Truly. Okay. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments and I will come back to answer them for you. I would love to [00:21:00] know where you are currently trying to drive traffic and you can drop that link. Go ahead and share it with all of us in the comments, and I will be back next Monday with another lunch and learn, like I said, 1:00 PM Eastern Time at 10:00 AM Pacific, and we will talk even more about how to simplify your marketing so that you can make a bigger impact in less time.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing [email protected]. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you’ve never missed an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now, go out and uncomplicate your marketing and [00:22:00] business.

The post Ep. 256: How to Create Content that Drives Traffic to Your Landing Page appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

I probably shouldn’t say things like this, but I’m going to — this is one of my, if not my favorite guest interview that I’ve ever done. That’s right. With over 255 episodes under my belt, I’m claiming it. This interview is MAGNIFICENT.

But before we get into the details, let me introduce you to my guest – Jillian.

Jillian Dolberry is the founder of Serve Your Heart Out, a community that serves agency owners looking to streamline their business. While devoting her heart and time to the members of her community, she helps online business owners set boundaries, get unstuck, and reach goals that honor the reason they started their businesses in the first place. As a wife, mom, and business owner, Jillian has become a master of setting boundaries, allowing her to serve her community, family and her clients well.

Jillian’s entire business is based around helping others create and grow agencies through their core values and in today’s episode, she shares with us how we can use our own core values to create an impactful and unique course for our students.

If you’re someone who believes in building an intentional business and an intentional life, this episode is going to leave you feeling incredibly inspired.

Jillian Dolberry is the founder of Serve Your Heart Out, a community that provides personalized coaching and training for VAs and OBMs. While devoting her heart and time to the members of her community, she helps online business owners set boundaries, get unstuck, and reach goals that honor the reason they started their businesses in the first place. As a wife, mom, and business owner, Jillian has become a master of setting boundaries, allowing her to serve her community, family and her clients well.

Social Links:

OBM Services | Jillian Dolberry

@jilliandolberry

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

I probably shouldn’t say things like this, but I’m going to, this is one of my, if not my favorite guest interview that I have ever done. That’s right. With over 255 episodes under my belt, I’m claiming it. This interview is magnificent. But before we get into the details, let me introduce you to my guest, Jillian.

Jillian Dol Berry is the founder of Serve Your Heart Out, a community that serves agency owners looking to streamline their business while devoting her heart and time to the members of her community. She helps online business owners set boundaries, get unstuck and reach goals that honor the reason they started their business in the first place.

As a wife, mom, and business owner, Jillian has become a master of setting boundaries, allowing her to serve her community, family, and her clients well. Jillian’s entire business is based around helping others create and grow agencies through their core values. And in today’s episode, she shares with us how we can use our own core values to create an impactful and unique course for our students.

If you’re someone who believes in building an intentional business and an intentional life, this episode is going to leave you feeling incredibly inspired. You are listening to episode 255 of The Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, chasing Simple Marketing, a Crash Course, and contact marketing for showing up, saving time, and growing your business.

You can get your own [email protected] slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Our launch is still a thing, and most importantly.

How do I put it all together to market my business strategically? Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple where Practical Marketing Strategy meets Simplicity.

I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one-on-one clients, such as the Contract shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or how we, my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell reading in our hammock watching Gamecock Sports traveling or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really wanna be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices. And meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on business. 

Amanda, this is laid out so nice. It’s really very clear and well thought out. I found the flow, easy to understand, and was able to create a pace for myself. I think someone could start and implement everything within two to three weeks, and it’s a lot of info, but I never felt overwhelmed or too lost.

The playbook is an incredible resource. Everything you need to plan and create the best content for your business, a systematic method to get that content out in the world. Logical growth and nurture strategies and so much more. The playbook is a guided but flexible one stop shop. It gives you all the information you need while leaving space to personalize the execution so that it works for your own business.

Amanda explains processes in a way that. Just clicks, no marketing jargon here. This course is a one-stop shop for building a streamlined content ecosystem from brainstorming what content to create, to mastering the process of bringing it to life. Amanda has curated a treasure trove of valuable resources.

She simplifies the overwhelm, providing clear guidance and actionable steps that make contention easier and more effective. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your strategy, this course is packed with insights to help you stay organized and consistent. These are just a few of the reviews that I have gotten from students inside of the Chasing Simple Playbook

because here’s the deal, friend. It is time for your marketing to stop feeling like a constant grind and start feeling like the ball is in your hands. This is the year that you’re going to make more sales with less effort through a simple but impactful marketing strategy.

And you’re going to do it with the help of the Chasing Simple Playbook, which includes all of my courses, templates, and workshops in one spot. It’s everything you need to simplify your marketing and fill more seats in your course. And if this sounds like exactly what you need, and head on over to amanda warfield.com/playbook. 

Again, that’s amanda warfield.com/playbook and I cannot wait to see you inside. 

Amanda: All right. Hello everyone. For those that haven’t met me yet, I am Amanda Warfield. I’m a simplicity focused content marketing strategist and copywriter, and my mission is to help other women entrepreneurs make some. Build out their revenue streams. Sorry, my YouTube started playing in my ear, build out their revenue streams and find freedom for themselves through simplified marketing.

And today, I’m so excited to have Jillian Berry joining me. Jillian is an operation strategist and team consultant and she helps women entrepreneurs streamline their businesses and get their operations in order. And she has a very unique. Human first, people first approach that I can’t wait to dive into and have her share more about with y’all later.

Um, but today we are going to talk very specifically about making mindful decisions with that people first approach as a course creator, as an educator, and how we can make those decisions as a business owner. But before we dive too deep into that, Jillian, anything else you wanna add to that introduction or anything else people should know about you?

Jillian: Um, I think you did a great job. First of all, thank you for having me. Um, I’m excited to kind of chat through this. I’ve had a lot of, I’ve supported a lot of clients in this way of like figuring out how to make better decisions in their business and do it in a way that honors themselves and honors other people.

So I’m just excited to jump in. So I say, let’s do it. 

Amanda: Amazing. Okay. So before we dive into the entire decision making process and what that looks like, tell us about your people First approach. Because it’s something that I think is unique in the fact that it’s not talked about much. But I think it’s something that most of us in this online space want and that we can really connect with.

We just haven’t had anyone put it into words for us before. 

Jillian: Yeah, so I feel like people first is kind of a, like the term people first is kind of a, well duh, you know, like, of course I’m gonna put people first. I’m gonna like really honor them. I’m gonna do what they need. We’re gonna serve them well. We’re gonna like do everything that is supportive of people.

But where it gets really tricky is when you have these hard conversations coming up in your business or conflicts that you have to navigate and you’re like. I don’t know how to handle this. I mean, how many times do we get in a situation where somebody says something to us that we like, weren’t expecting, or they’re requesting something that is out of scope, or they’re seemingly pushing boundaries or not adhering to them at all or respecting them.

And so we have to like kind of stand up for ourselves a little bit or. Have conversations where we’re bridging the gap of where we are today and where we need to be. And so this people first approach, I like to call the honor everyone approach because it’s not just about putting others first, it’s about, or, or respecting others.

It’s about respecting everyone involved and honoring everyone involved. So. That means that you’re honoring yourself by establishing boundaries, but you’re also honoring that other person by communicating those boundaries with them as well. Because when you are honored, you’re gonna be able to perform and do a better job for them.

So it’s, it’s kind of like a cycle where it’s not just all about me and it’s not all about them, it’s about everyone involved. And honestly, that’s biblical for me is like. It’s about making sure that we’re clear in what we’re doing and how we’re communicating, because that is kind. And so when we are able to do that, it honors every single person in the room and that is always the focus.

Amanda: Like you said, it’s such a a, a no duh idea, and yet most of us. When asked, we would say, yes, we want to practice that, but then we don’t. What barriers do you often see with clients as far as why they aren’t practicing this honor? Everyone approach 

Jillian: fear. Like, fear of losing clients, fear of not pleasing them, fear of, um.

There. I think that there’s internal fears and external fears, right? There’s, um, if we don’t please someone, then that may trigger us internally of saying that we’re not doing a good enough job, or we’re not fulfilling the promise, or we’re not. Doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And there’s that fear of like not performing.

But then there’s also an external fear of like, if I upset them, if I do establish that boundary, if I do put that line in the sand, if I like that could upset them and therefore they could be upset with me. And then that’s like that external piece. So I really feel like when we get in our heads about that, that is our biggest bound or that’s our biggest, um, what’d you call it?

Oh my gosh, the word, what I call it, um, obstacle or whatever it is. So I was like using the word boundary and I didn’t wanna overlap it to get it confused, but it’s that thing that stands in the way of them being a able to implement the honor everyone approach that obstacle for them. Yeah. 

Amanda: And the reality being that when you don’t set those boundaries from the beginning.

You could potentially lose a client if you decide to set boundaries. And so how do you help clients navigate this? 

Jillian: Yeah, I would say you have to start with like your core value system, like what’s most important to you and something you just said is important to note because if we have brought clients in.

On a process or a way of doing business that doesn’t honor ourselves, then when we do decide to like fully honor everyone in the room, that’s gonna be different for them. So that’s gonna go against what they’re used to. Some people will. Be happy about that and like fall into line. And then some people won’t like that at all because that’s not the original, um, culture of your relationship working together.

And so if someone removes themselves from working with you because that doesn’t align with them, that’s okay. That’s their choice. But we need to be okay with that. We need to kind of release them. Um, but when it comes down to actually implementing some of these things, I think it really starts with what’s important to you.

What are the values that you hold really dear to your heart, but also to your business, and that you want your business to magnify out as an impact on others? 

Amanda: And how do you determine what those values are? And I’m. I think I might be jumping ahead a little bit here because I’m imagining that when I ask more about decision making and the framework and all of that, that that’s gonna be an important part of this.

But since you mentioned this now, how do you know, how do you actually get context contextuals not. The word I’m looking for, but how do you, how do you make that real versus something that’s kind of up here, pie in the sky? 

Jillian: Yeah, absolutely. I would say you have to think about you as a person.

A lot of us have started our business because we wanted flexibility and freedom, and we had something to give and put out into the world, something that was planted in us that we know can help and serve other people. And so. But the way we do that is equally as important as what we do. So we have to think about what are the pieces about me that make my people the experience of people working with me different?

What do I believe in is important? Is communication really important to me? Is um, honesty really important to me? Is vulnerability really important to me? You have to think about it, not just in terms of like a service. To someone else, but you have to think about it as like you as a person in all of your relationships because.

As women too. Like there we can’t, it’s like we have this inability to be, uh, two separate people. I feel like I, in the movies or in watching other people do business, sometimes they can be someone completely different at the office and someone completely different at home. But I feel like as women, we have this level of authenticity that like this is true to our core, true to our being.

And the same person who shows up at the office, virtual office is the same person who shows up at home. And so. You have to think about what are those values that are important inside your home, and then also what you’re sharing with other people. What are like the, the things that you want people to know about you, to know about communicating with you and working with you?

Amanda: You can definitely say no to this question, but would, would you be willing to share some of the values that you’ve, you know, established for your own business? Or is that too personal? 

Jillian: Of course. No, not personal. I mean, I love that question and I think that I love it because it’s so important to me to be clear with people, for them to know and for me to not have, it takes a lot of energy to be somebody different.

Right. And so we just want to be true to who we were created to be and let that kind of overflow out of us. So a couple of the things, there’s like several, but a couple of the things that are really important to me are clarity is kindness and. Honor everyone, which is, you know, the people first approach that we talk about.

Um, and vulnerability. And vulnerability is big for me because growth happens when we let people in and when we let other people in to work with us. And so in sharing. How we were like who we are today and the experiences that we’ve had that allows us to be better every day moving forward and to just really absorb and understand where other people are coming from.

And I think that that’s kind of a superpower in business that was sometimes we overlook because the more we seek to understand, the more we can communicate better, the more we can be more, more vulnerable, the more we can help people and serve people.

Amanda: I love that so much. You, you said a phrase that really stuck out to me that it takes, and I’m probably butchering it, but that it takes more energy to be someone we’re not, and I just think that yeah, it, and it relates so much back to the authenticity piece that you were talking about before, but just we, we find ourselves building these communities.

Of people that were like, I could be friends with you in real life for sure. Like not a problem at all. Um, and it’s so important, just that authenticity that comes with, or should come with vulnerability if you really wanna build a community. And I just think, yeah, I love the way that all of your values, you can see the way they really work together.

Jillian: Yeah. They, and I think that’s the important thing about values too, is you’re never gonna have two values that collide. . Like, your values are all gonna like Be strung together. And I wanted to say too, on top of what you just said, that it’s not, while I say it, it comes naturally to us to be authentic.

It doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that it’s always easy. Because we have these other things at play, our other experiences in life that make us wanna please people versus be honest with them. And none of what makes us up in that way is bad, but we’ve got to figure out how to organize it in a way that is supportive of everyone and not just, um, supportive of keeping us comfortable. 

Amanda: Yeah, 

I like that. Not just being comfortable. So. First and foremost, for everyone that’s here with us, if you wanna share some of your values in the chat, we’d love to hear them. And if you’re catching the replay, let us know in the comments. But I’m curious, you, you tend to work primarily with people, with teams, with agency owners.

For those that don’t have a team yet, that don’t own an agency, but are course creators and they have students, how can they. 

Share those values and be authentic and not just be comfortable. How can they do all of this and implement all of this with students versus team members? Do you have any thoughts on that? 

Jillian: Yeah, I think if you wanna spit out like a specific situation, we could like kind of talk through that and kind of play through it.

But off the top of my head. So I have a client right now who doesn’t have a team. Part of us working together is she needs a team. And so we are figuring out who those people are and we’re hiring those people in our time together. Um, so one thing though that is important is. In every stage of business, whether you’re a solopreneur today or you have an assistant or you are clear, you are only working with people who are on the other side of your product, right?

They’re getting your product, they’re experiencing it. There is. The, the simple answer is it’s interwoven into everything that we do, right? Because how we talk to people, the words that we use, the tone of voice we use, all of those things come into play of ex of expressing our values. But a lot of times people will, instead of, so like I would say.

It has a lot to do with the boundaries that you set for yourself and for your business and for how your business is structured. That communicates a lot more about your values than just words that you tell people. Because you could say, I really value communication, but if on the back end of your business you’re sending client updates or weekly updates to your course members, then.

You are communicating with them, that’s, that is communicating that you value communication. Whereas like if you just say, I love to communicate, I love connecting with you guys, but then they don’t hear from you for weeks. Like that’s not communicating that you value communication. So there’s a lot of different ways that we can kind of implement those things.

But a lot of people look at the word boundaries or hear the word boundaries, and they’re like, oh, people don’t like boundaries. So like, I don’t, I don’t wanna like off-put anyone, I don’t wanna upset anyone. Um, even though. Boundaries, and we’re going through this in our season of parenting right now. But boundaries are intended to keep you happy, healthy, or maybe not always happy, but generally a happy person, healthy and safe, right?

And so, and happiness is kind of like the after effect of all those things when you’re healthy and safe, like you’re able to kind of live life in a more free way. But a lot of people view boundaries as the thing that holds you back instead of the thing that makes you free. 

Amanda: I love it. Yeah, and I, I love that example so much about communication and I never would’ve thought that, like you said, like words communicate your values, but your actions and the boundaries you put in place really do so.

I’d love to know if someone said that they value. Pulling something outta thin air. So if you have examples, please feel free to jump in. But if they say that they value, um, connecting with their students and they value connection, what’s a way that they could implement that to showcase that value with their course?

Jillian: Oh gosh. There’s so many ways. I’m just gonna use a couple of different examples. Yeah. But if you value connecting with people, um. An example of maybe how we do that in a way that doesn’t have a lot of stability is by opening up a chat. Let’s just say I’m gonna create a chat forum for my students, for them to like, comment in or whatever.

Um, because that to me is like, oh, I’m giving them the opportunity to come to me. But if connection is important to you, and it’s important for you to get to know those people and get to know more intimately like what they’re struggling with, so you can better serve them, then you need a process around.

You going to them. You need a process around that connection piece in your business. So that could be every other month you pick three students that you personally email and you say, Hey, I would love to hop on a 15 minute call and get to know you better because you are my ideal client and you are somebody that I would love to like get to know better, serve better, and figure out what your true needs and pain points are like.

That’s something that you can do. That’s a total of 45 minutes. And every other month. And of course you can change the timeframes and the dates and how, the cadence of all of that, but that’s something specific that you can do that will fulfill that desire and that value of connection for you. But it’s also valuing, connecting with them and honoring them, that now you’re able to serve them better because you actually understand them.

Amanda: Wait, you’re blowing my mind right now. Okay. So let’s say someone has, I’ve never thought about this in this way, ever. Let’s say someone has a value of, um, hit me with it. Just, let’s just go for it. I, well, I’m like, I don’t even know. Um, they have a value of,

personal development and like personal growth. How could they, I don’t know. That one might be a hard one. 

Jillian: Well, let me think about it. If we, if you, if we value personal growth and how do we implement that with our. Course members, is that what you’re saying? 

Amanda: Yeah. Or how do we showcase that value to our course members, our students?

Okay. 

Jillian: So an ex, a way that you could do that is if you value personal growth, then you’re probably investing in books. You’re probably investing in. Um. Courses potentially, or people or conferences or whatever. Let’s say, let’s just say it’s a book. For example, if you are investing your time into growing who you are as a person or growing who you are as a business owner and you want people to know that you, that, that’s important to you.

I think that that comes out in how we build out what we deliver to people. So like. Let’s say if you have a, if you have a Facebook group or a community that you communicate with your course members, you could say, Hey guys, I just read this book. Here are my key takeaways. I think it would be a great read for you as well.

If you are struggling with X, Y, and Z. Or we could say that on social media, we could use our Instagram stories to say like. I just read this book and it is blowing my mind. You got, I think if you like these things or if you value this, or if you’re struggling with this, you would love it. And so it’s just about like.

When you’re friends with somebody and you go get your haircut and it was the best haircut you’ve ever had, you were immediately texting your friends and you’re saying, you guys, I just had the best experience. Right, and that’s because the experience was important to you. What’s important to us pours out.

From us and overflows from us. So it just naturally kind of falls into the spaces that we are in. And so something for personal development, which is a little bit more of a like internal value versus like, and a way to, well, I said that you could like share it with other people and like share the book with other people, but that also supports them developing and growing as a person.

And so I think that it just kind of circles around. Whenever we are, whenever we value something, whenever it impacts us, it overflows out of us in a positive way. 

Amanda: This is, you’re a genius. You’re just straight A genius. I’m gonna have chat, GBT give me ideas right now to throw at you. Okay? I love it because I can’t think on the spot.

But also, this is why don’t, don’t let us down chat. I hate naming episodes or saying like, this is what we’re gonna talk about today because we never end up talking about what I think we’re gonna talk about. Um, for everyone listening, I told Jillian we were gonna talk about mindful decision making. I don’t know if we’re gonna get to that.

And this is. Just as great. I kinda wanna do another one about mindful decision making, but, um, I, I always end up in these rabbit holes with guests, so thank you for allowing me to go down this rabbit hole with you. We’re just gonna, you’re gonna go where the mood takes us, um, business values. Okay. Let’s see what chat comes up with.

Um, ooh, sustainability, that’s a good one. 

Jillian: Ooh. Okay. So sustainability, can you tell me how that would, do you want me to talk about this from the perspective of a course creator or anyone? 

Amanda: Course creator would be ideal. 

Jillian: Okay. So sustainability, but I also know that I’m 

Amanda: throwing this at you with zero preparation.

Jillian: So true. So you get what you get. Um, okay. So. If it were, let me start with the bigger picture and then I’ll, I’ll zoom into course creators. So, if a client’s, uh, value is sustainability, it’s important to them that whatever they put their efforts into, whatever they focus on is to support the future of the business, right?

So. Sometimes to be able to support the future, we have to reconfigure our mindset to be less about reactive decisions and look at us going back to decision making and then going into proactive decisions. So we have to be, if we, if sustainability is important, we’re not just making decisions based off of what feels good today, what’s most important for the bottom line for this month, we are looking ahead and seeing like.

Who on our team is going to take us to the long haul? Who is going to support us moving forward? Um, it’s less about the here and now and more about the then and where we see everything going because when we have a vision for our business, I. It’s in the then, right? It’s not just always in the here and now.

The impact happens in the here and now. But we have to also support the vision for the future. So some decisions that we might have to make for sustainability. It may mean that we are evaluating our expenses every month. Again, there’s like systems that we implement to support these types of things.

We may implement a decision making tree so that we’re making decisions based off of the future vision of the company and not just like what feels right in the moment. Um, I have an experience in working with somebody where they have. They’ve hired people based off of an immediate need. It’s almost like I need someone to take these things off of my plate, and then a friend gets fired from a job and so they hire that friend because it seems like that’s the best decision.

But does this person have. The experience that you need. Do you have the correct training materials to even like hand things off to them to where it’s not as stressful to be able to train that person? Um, is this person someone that you see being a long-term fit with the company that could grow with you?

You just have to think a little bit bigger to be able to make the decision today. And, um, in terms of a course creator. Sustainability for them will look differently than someone who has multiple team members, right? But ultimately, as a course creator, you probably will get to a point to where you feel like you need to bring someone on your team to just support the everyday activities.

Um, so when you think about sustainability, maybe you’re thinking, well, I get that. I probably need to hire somebody, but I don’t really wanna give up that money. I feel like I need to, um, hold onto that extra $500,000 a month in what I’m making because I don’t know what the future holds. But when we think about it in terms of sustainability, I.

You are going, if you’re already feeling burnt out, you’re gonna need to consider what the impacts of that are if you don’t bring someone on. So it’s almost looking at the opportunity cost of if you make the decision the way that it feels right now versus if you don’t make the decision that’s right for the future.

Does that make sense? 

Amanda: Absolutely. Okay. I’m curious, so earlier you mentioned that values will never. Conflict, right? Let’s say we’ve got someone who is currently a solopreneur. They’re running a course or a community, and they are in that place where they are just like, I cannot do all of these things that I once did.

One of my values is sustainability, and so I need to make these long-term decisions for the business where maybe I bring someone else on to help run, said membership or course. But another one of their values is connection with their students. How do they find that balance? So that those aren’t conflicting.

Jillian: Again, I kind of go back to the process piece because that’s a really great point though, is that, is that an active pain point for course creators? They’re afraid that they’re gonna lose the connection with their people. 

Amanda: Um, I, let me say this. I feel like as a student, I’ve noticed course creators doing that, and I, I, I’ve had those thoughts.

Of I purchased to learn from you, not from a team member. Hmm. And so I don’t know if course creators necessarily are feeling that. I think I would feel that if I got to that place. 

Amanda: Um, because as a student myself, I have felt a lack of connection, which maybe it’s not that course creator’s value to be clear, uh, which is okay, but.

Does that make sense? 

Jillian: Yes. Yes. Okay. So I feel like if, if this were somebody coming, a course creator was coming to me and they were saying that there is a disconnect here, or they’re concerned about this being a potential thing, because a lot of times, even if you’re not a course creator, if you’re just a business owner, you worry about and an agency owner as well, because you typically did the work first.

If you bring on somebody else, the clients are gonna be. Like concerned that they’re not being supported in the same way, or it’s a different person, or I hired you versus them. Um. I think that how we present this has to be extremely confident. Mm. And ultimately the, the decision we make to make this change in our business comes from our core values of being able, able to help and serve them in the future.

And you will not be able to help and serve them well in the future unless you bring in some internal support. Now, if there is, and again, like if we get feedback that. Connection is important to us and it’s a value that we have in our course or our business, and yet people are not feeling connected.

That’s worth looking into. Maybe you’re missing some kind of process that is continually connecting you with people, but it’s an unrealistic expectation and, and some people have unrealistic expectations. Shocking, but it’s an unrealistic expectation that as a business grows that you’re being served by the same people.

 But as the business owner, you can do the intentional work on the backend to make sure there are processes that, that support those values so that you aren’t, um, communicating that those are no longer values. So if you are missing a piece of that somewhere, it’s always good. Like I said before of like.

Connecting with those people, taking 15 minutes on a call or just sending them a couple questions. Recently I did a, um, I used a video ask for this and just sent it to a couple people because it’s my face. It’s a video of me, but then they’re able to, so there’s that connection piece for them, but then they’re giving me the feedback of what I need to hear so that I can continue to serve them better.

It’s all about how we position it to them as well. Because if ultimately we’re setting a boundary that is gonna help us be sustainable, help our business continue to serve more people, and they don’t respect that, then they may not be your person. May not be the ideal client for you. The people who truly understand it are gonna be able to be long-term clients in the future.

Amanda: Okay. I’m trying to decide. There’s a rabbit hole. I kind of wanna go down based off of something you just said, but I also wanna throw more values at you. Um, I’m kind of intrigued by the rabbit hole. I know. I know. This is my problem. Okay, so you mentioned processes and looking at the processes, and you do so much for your clients.

Uh, I feel like it’s truly hard to put into a really succinct sentence. How you serve your people, because you are just, I mean, operation Strategist covers it, but it doesn’t sound like enough with all that you do and all that you help with. And so this all we’ve talked about is just one tiny part of how you help your clients, and a large part is those processes and those systems.

How would you give someone a quick 1 0 1? Here’s how you look at the processes in your business to make sure that they align with your values. Sorry. 

Jillian: Yeah, no, you’re good. Um, it starts with a pain point, and it could be your pain point or it could be your customer’s pain point. So I think that having those conversations to understand where the gap is, that’s where you start.

Like you have to be able to, you’re, you as the business owner or the course creator. Have a very unique perspective and view of your business, but they, you still have blind spots. So you have to one, be open to feedback and like ask the right questions. Um, you have. Communicate with the right people and ask the right people the questions, and you have to know what’s most important based off of that feedback.

Because you may ask someone a question, they may give you all sorts of feedback under the sun, and, but all the feedback they give you has more to do with the season of. Life they’re in, in their business or whatever versus how you’re actually serving them. So there’s like a level of discernment there.

And when I come alongside clients, I kind of serve as that filter for them of saying like, this is not you, this is them. Like this is their perspective of it, but here’s what we can pull from it. Here are the specific things that we can use to our benefit to make adjustments and create systems around how to serve them better.

Amanda: Okay. Can you give maybe a practical example or two of different processes that you look at with clients? 

Jillian: Well, we look at everything from the core function of their business. So like if their business is, um, creating a course, then it’s about how all the processes that go into creating an idea or having an idea and putting it out into the world, um, to the internal processes.

So. Whether that be like strategic planning that you have or, um, if you do have team members, uh, communicating with those team members, weekly check-ins or monthly check-ins or team reviews, we look at all of the systems that are in the business and say, how can we do this better? Um, that sounds like you’re looking at a list of like a hundred different things, but really the core of it is that.

It’s the core function of the business. It’s how we communicate with people and it’s how we operate in a bigger picture. So it’s leadership, it’s um, the systems of how we get everything out. And um, it’s also looking at our numbers, making sure that those things are in shape and communicating with our team.

So we try to look at it in those core areas of leadership, profit, systems, and team. And then we. Go into those four categories, so we kind of lump it together in those. 

Amanda: And you actually have a quiz that people can take that will give them a health score for each of those core categories, right? Yes. Tell us how we can find that.

Jillian: Yeah, so it’s jillian berry.com/quiz and it will basically ask you, I can’t remember how many questions it is, but I do know that it takes you like less than two minutes. Um, and you just click yes, no, whichever one applies to you. And it’s a really simple questionnaire, but what it. Gives you is it gives you a score of where you’re at in that sustainability versus in all of those core four areas.

So it’ll give you a score in all of them and then it’ll summarize it together, and then it breaks down your scores for each area, why you got that score, and then it’ll give you specific tips on how to improve and tactical action steps of how to improve each of those core four areas. Mm. 

Amanda: Okay. So. We’ve got the quiz.

Do you have any resources on uncovering your values? 

Jillian: That’s a really good question. I don’t, and here’s why. Well, resources I do in terms of like blog posts and such, so you could go to my blog. Okay. There’s post and look at them there. I don’t have like a freebie and here’s why. People feel like they already know their M they feel like that is such a core foundational business thing, and it’s true. It is. And a lot of times we start our business with a set of values that. Is what we think it is in the moment. But the longer we operate, the more we try to like, the more we realize that it’s a little bit more refined than what we started with.

And so I walk through the process of really figuring out what those values are with the people that I work with. But a lot of times people need someone to walk that line with them because. Doing it by ourselves feels like we already kind of like check out. We’re like, oh, I know who I am, I know what my values are.

Like, that’s something that’s ingrained in me. So we don’t always sit down and take the time to like write those out. So if that’s something that, um, resonates with anybody listening to this, I highly recommend, um, just like sitting down and asking yourself a couple of questions like. What’s important to me?

What do I want people to feel when they interact with me or my business? What kind of impact do I want to have on the world or my students? You can kind of make it as broad or small as you want it to be, um, and just think about what those things are and then look at the systems that you have and do those support that.

Amanda: Okay, so. We’re gonna link to some of your blog posts on values, and we’re gonna link to the quiz, and someone is either going to decide they already know their values, or they’re gonna look at those blog posts and figure them out, and then they’re gonna take their quiz results. How do they merge the two?

How do they use the values that they have for their business and those quiz results and move forward? 

Jillian: That’s a great question. I would say, well, first of all, after you take the quiz, you get a free one hour strategy call with me. So I think that that would be really important. I know, so like, let’s, let’s just hop on a call people, let’s just talk it through together and I will walk you through it.

Um, but in terms of implementing it, obviously when someone gives you a list of things to do and you don’t know them and they don’t know you, you have to weigh. Your values next to that to-do list, right? A lot of times we’ll see things on Instagram and we’re like, oh, that sounds amazing, or, that’s a really good idea, or whatever, but that may not be aligned, fully aligned with the core of our business and what we need to be focusing on.

So. That’s why it’s important to like, bring someone into the operations piece so they can kind of help walk you through that and work as an advocate for you and for your clients, for the honor Everyone approach. Um, but something that you could do is you could, again, ask yourself those questions of what’s most important to me, what feels, um, like it needs the most attention right now.

Um. You can also ask questions like, does this fully serve the future vision of my business? Is this going to positively or negatively impact the future of the business versus now? If we’re not looking at the now and we’re just looking at the future, that might be the difference between the right decision and the wrong decision if we’re being more reactive versus proactive.

So I think that, again, we’ve gotta you, we gotta be able to shut out the distractions. And focus in on what those values are. Look at what someone else is telling us to do and say, okay, if I’m looking at these two things, which things on this list feel most important based off of who I am and the impact that I wanna have and the impact that my business has.

 Start there. 

Amanda: So discerning through your values, what next steps are? 

Jillian: Based on exactly’s can help them do that 

Amanda: with the one hour call? 

Jillian: Yes, absolutely. So I can walk them through it. Um, discernment is something that. Is not like what we wanna hear. Like, because it, it makes us pause, it makes us go inward, it makes us reflect, and that is sometimes very, very hard when we are very, very busy and burnout.

 So, you know, we didn’t really talk much about the decision making piece, but one of the things that. I want people to do or start implementing as a practice is when they feel the urgency of someone else. The urgency of fixing something or the, like, they’re being impacted by the, by this outward urgency, or they’re putting urgency expectations on themselves.

I want them to pause. Like give yourself a solid. You may not need a full day. You may not need 24 hours, you may need 30 minutes. It just depends on how quickly you can kind of recenter yourself into your value system. But pausing is going to give you the best chance of making a decision that is most aligned with your values.

Amanda: It’s so funny because this right here is exactly why I wanted to have the conversation about mindful decision making because just like you said, so many of us are overwhelmed or burnt out. We have these big decisions to make about running a business on a daily basis of what do I work on next? What is the thing that’s most important today?

What’s going to move my business forward, but what’s gonna make me money and which one do I do next? You know, we have all these big decisions and we do just want that, like, okay, what’s next? We want the easy decision making, but that isn’t. Always mindful decision making, like you said. So I just think it’s really funny.

This came full circle. Um, if you guys want to hear a prolonged version of that conversation, let me know in the comments if we should bring Jillian back for actually talking about mindful decision making next time. But yeah, I just, I resonate deeply with that idea of there’s so much to do. How do you make the time for it, for deciding I.

Mindfully with those values and with, you know, their, um, I have you heard of Mike Al’s book? Fix this Next. 

Jillian: Oh no, but I need to add that to my list. 

Amanda: It’s a great book. I love all of his books. He writes, it’s, it’s so easy to read. Um, but I got the book thinking it was gonna give me this quick like. Fix this next and it’ll be great.

And then you read it and you’re like, huh, how do I have time to do that? You know, it’s just, yeah. There’s always so much to do. And I just appreciate your, your approach and your consistent reminders to honor yourself and honor your clients and really take a, a slower approach to running a business.

Jillian: Yeah, I think we get really, um, sucked into we need more quicker because we like put ourselves in this, um, rhythm of putting, putting things out into the world and needing an immediate return. But what I’ve learned is that, and listen, like all of our businesses, if we were to look at them and this, the revenue, we’ll just say the revenue of it.

If we were to look at our revenue over the course of three months versus three years, those pictures are completely different. But the one thing they have in common is a lot of this. And so I feel like the more clear we can get on our values, the more we can. Serve people the best way that we were created to.

And a lot of people see, like have that fear of, if I show that these things are my values that may not align with somebody, and therefore they may be, they may exit my program or they may exit working with me and then I’m losing revenue. But ultimately. If we continue to be consistent in what we put out there and it is very clearly aligned with who we are as people, then that is gonna find the right people to then come back to us to work with us.

And so instead of values like eliminating things and cutting things out of your business and viewing it that way, it’s really more focusing and growing and making the roots richer for us. So I really encourage people to take the time to pause and even like the, I. What we’re almost in February. That sounds ridiculous, but this is still a new year.

February 1st is our new New year. We still have time to like take a second, think through what our values are and how we can make small grace filled changes in our business to take steps forward to communicating those values with other people. And that’s important too. I. Everything that I do and teach my clients has this underlying level of grace.

We are not gonna get it perfect. We are humans, even in hard conversations and conflict like we do our very best and still we sometimes we don’t get it right. But what is going to give you the most power in edge in business is the grace that you give yourself because it allows you to get back up and do better next time.

Hmm. 

Amanda: And you know. As you’re sharing all of this, I’m thinking about my business in the last year and changes that I’ve made and, um, you know, we don’t always get it right and also sometimes we get it right on accident. Um, so true. I’m just like, I’m thinking back to this last year and um, previously I have had clients that I loved working with, but that had more of a.

Social media focus for what they wanted with content and not really my values when it comes to marketing, right? I, and you know this, I very much value a cohesive, whole marketing system approach, a systematic approach that’s cohesive and simple, and that isn’t so focused on social media. Social media is just kind of like nice to have on the side.

And I’m realizing this year more of my clients, most of them in fact, if not all of them, are more aligned with that cohesive less social media approach. And I’m realizing as you’re talking about this, that I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that outwardly, I was posting less on social media, whereas before I was posting a lot, um.

Jillian: Can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah. Yes. And this isn’t like in a vacuum where it’s like all or nothing, right? But if I would say in, in response to what you’re saying, if you’re posting a lot on social media, you’re communicating that that’s a value to you, right? Yeah. 

Amanda: Yeah. That’s what I’m realizing is like, oh, I was communicating that value without even meaning to, and.

But I’ve honestly only stepped back because of time constraints and having to make those decisions of like what’s important and it wasn’t a value or not as high of a value. 

Amanda: And I’ve showcased that now and it’s showing in my clients. And I did not do that intentionally. It just happened naturally.

Jillian: Because you probably went through a season of your life where you’re like. I’m evolving as a person. I’m growing as a person, and therefore I’m gonna choose something different because I now realize that this is really where I want my focus to be. 

Amanda: And you know, I don’t even know if it was that conscious.

I think it was just I cut back my work hours a lot because that I, I took on a part-time job that aligns with some of my other values. Um. This is crazy. This is blowing my mind. I’ve never like consciously thought about this, but by cutting back my hours, things fell off to the wayside. Interesting.

That what a testament for exactly what you’re saying though, of follow the values and the right clients will come.  

They will feel aligned with you with what you’re showcasing, even if you’re not meaning to showcase it necessarily in that way. Wow. 

Jillian: I think that there is. Also a lot to be said in the longer we can stick it out in business and the longer we can.

Um, and grace is a big piece of this. When you give yourself grace, you’re able to get back up and keep moving. And so the longer we live our lives in our personal lives or in our business lives or whatever, the more we learn about ourselves. And you’re right, it wasn’t a conscious decision of like. Well, I’m gonna choose, or this is no longer my value, so I’m gonna pull back from that.

It was more of a, like this naturally happened because you were clear on what the next step was for you in your life and in your business and in your work and how you spend your time. And so there’s a lot of that that, I mean, I think that anybody could go back and look at their recent life changes or the last time there was a big change and shift and see how.

Their values have C become more refined. And how that’s impacted the decisions they’ve made moving forward. There’s power in the pause. Yeah. Just to like figure it out. Power in the pause. I love that. 

Amanda: Yeah. Amazing. Wow. Jillian, I. Love this conversation, even though it was not where I told you it was gonna lead.

So sorry about that. Um, I should just add a disclaimer as I’m talking to all guests, I feel like this is where we’re gonna take it, but also maybe not. Um, no. But thank you for being here today. We are gonna link some of your blog posts on values and we’re also gonna link the quiz so that everyone can check that out.

But is there, are there any additional resources or anywhere else that you want people to connect with you? 

Jillian: Well, I’m on Instagram and um, I am not affected by this TikTok band or whatever happens with that. I am an Instagram girl, so, and I love chatting with people in the dm, so if they have questions about their quiz or anything like that, they can DM me or they can just email me, I’m [email protected].

It comes directly to me, so if they have questions about it, they can reach out, but if they do take the quiz, they just need to go ahead and book the call so that we can just chat over it. Yeah. So I would love that. Absolutely. 

Amanda: All right guys, we will have all of those links for you. Thank you for being here today.

We go live every single Monday at uh, 1:00 PM Eastern Time is our brand new time for the new year, 1:00 PM Eastern, 10:00 AM Pacific for a nice lunch and learn. And we are so thankful to Jillian for being our first guest of 2025. 

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing [email protected]. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you’ve never missed an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now, go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Ep. 255 : Create an Impactful Course that’s Aligned with Your Core Values with Jillian Dolberry appeared first on Amanda Warfield.