Starting your health coaching business can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re struggling to get new coaching clients. In this week’s podcast episode, I’m talking with board-certified health and wellness coach Annette Smotherman, who recently gave her business a reset using my 5-Step FOCUS method.

Annette shares openly about what wasn’t working in her client search, how she overcame the fear of hearing “no,” and the exact steps she followed to sign 4 new paying clients.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, spinning your wheels, or unsure where to start, Annette’s story will give you both inspiration and a practical roadmap you can follow.

Hit play to hear how the FOCUS method can help you build momentum, land your first clients, and collect testimonials that keep your business growing!

According to HubSpot, 90% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase decision, and 88% trust those reviews almost as much as personal recommendations.

• Episode Summary: This Health Coach Got 4 New Coaching Clients Using the F.O.C.U.S. Method
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Episode Transcript

Annette opens up about the struggles she faced with traditional marketing tactics like running challenges, paying for ads, and trying to build a group program without an established audience. She explains why those strategies left her drained and what changed when she decided to simplify and follow a clear step-by-step system.

You’ll hear how:

If you’re a health coach who feels stuck or overwhelmed, Annette’s story proves that you don’t need a big audience, expensive ads, or complicated funnels to start building a profitable business.

Q: What is the FOCUS method?
The FOCUS method is my 5-step system for helping new coaches get their first paying clients. It walks you through setting up your foundation, creating a simple offer, collecting no’s, underpromising and overdelivering, and using social proof to grow.

Q: How many clients did Annette get using the FOCUS method?
Annette signed 4 new clients by following the steps in the F.O.C.U.S. method, even after feeling stuck and burned out by other marketing strategies.

Q: Do I need a big audience to get clients with this method?
No! One of the biggest advantages of the FOCUS method is that you can start with your existing personal network. Annette got her first clients without ads, funnels, or a huge email list.

Q: How is this method different from running a challenge or paid ads?
Challenges and ads can work, but they’re often time-consuming, expensive, and overwhelming when you’re just starting out. The FOCUS method is simple, clear, and designed to help you take action quickly.

Q: Can I use the FOCUS method if I already have clients?
Yes! Even if you’ve signed clients before, this method is a powerful reset any time you want to boost momentum, bring in new testimonials, or fill a few spots quickly.

Laurie: Welcome everyone! In this episode, I am sitting down with Annette Smotherman, who is a board-certified health and wellness coach who recently used the FOCUS method to jumpstart her business to kind of give it a reset and get things moving again. I hope this episode is really helpful for you and inspiring and if you’re interested in the FOCUS method you can check the show notes for the link and find out more. So let’s get back to our recap…

Welcome Annette. I would love to hear all about your experience with FOCUS method.

Annette: Where I was, you know, I felt like I sort of needed to just start over because not that I hadn’t made any progress but I feel like I hadn’t made enough progress and just sort of spinning my wheels and tired of what I was doing and so this gave me an opportunity just to say “okay, let’s let’s just try something different or at least parts of it, right?” Just taking a different look and as challenging as the like the collecting ‘NO’s’, I think everybody should go through that when they’re first starting.

Laurie: The way that you just phrased it was that you needed kind to to take a step back and almost do like a reset of how you were approaching getting clients. Can I ask you to kind of elaborate a little bit on what you had been trying, what you had done before? What have you already tried and what was your approach before?

Annette: My approach before, some of it was similar. I was going through, you know, doing well some of it was not but going through the you know, have a five-day challenge which is a lot of time, a lot of effort, and so you maybe money, doing ads, I felt like I was doing ads, getting some people who were not really interested… or they join the group and then you don’t hear from them or they never open an email and just going through that over and over. I just sort of got exhausted with it.

I guess if I would have been succeeding more then it would have been exciting and wonderful but I just got tired of that …and your program was more about starting with people you know and I have had experience with going to family and friends and that can get awkward but this is more about not “hey, you know, sister or friend or whatever, can you please do this with me and support me and stuff?”

It was “do you know anyone?” and just started using that particular logic and so it wasn’t completely different and maybe for me it was also just me mentally being in in a different place but I was ready to try something different and what you did for me was was just that.

It was saying “Annette, here you are, follow this method, don’t think about all the other stuff that you could do, you should do, you tried” it was ‘take this method, step-by-step” and it helps to for me to stop all the overthinking …” what if I did this?” and stuff . It was just a nice laid out, step-by-step plan that I just I followed and what you have is pointing us in that direction.

I like the structure because I am a structured person and that that really helped me.

Laurie: So the process was easy to follow?

Annette: Yes, for sure.

Laurie: Okay, as you were coming into focus, so you already had your foundation, you had, your social media stuff set up, you had your insurance, your legal, everything was there but you just kind of needed a reset, right?

So putting together your offer, what did that look like?

Annette: I had somewhat of a framework for the the four weeks and getting the group together was it was just the way I wanted to do it and for the price point I thought instead of doing it X number of times individually, it would just putting all the women together in one group.

I just I felt more secure doing that, so it was just me personally, I felt more comfortable going that route.

Laurie: When you have a group, you know, you kind of have this expectation of the of the participants that there’s going to be other participants and there’s going to be community and there’s going to be some kind of thing and if you don’t have a huge audience to draw from it’s hard to really pull that together for a focus offer.

It’s really just like a jumpstart for your business, collecting testimonials and then using what you’ve what you’ve learned about your target market, your ideal client and get and using that social proof to then, right, so price point one-on-one is always going to be higher than group.

So you can always offer a group with an upsell to one-on-one or the optional, one-on-one sessions if that’s what you want to do. The thing about running group is that, you know, you need to have audience, you need to have a list, you need to have people who are ready to to buy what you’re selling.

Let’s talk about collecting your no’s. On a scale of one to ten, how much did you not want to approach people and and make the direct ask to participate or ask them if they knew anybody?

Annette: Eleven. Realistically, I would say an eight. I think it’s just I’m an introvert, I feel like I’m asking people to, I feel like I’m asking people to do something that, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s just I don’t want to ask people.

I don’t want to hear the the silence or the no. I don’t know, it’s silly..

Laurie: It’s not silly, it’s very normal. Most people, unless you’ve, you’re a seasoned salesperson and you understand that yes only comes by hearing no, you know, I think a lot of people are afraid to really put themselves out there because you’re vulnerable, right? You’re offering a thing.

Annette: It’s very, yeah, it’s very uncomfortable.

Laurie: Did you, by the end, were you getting more comfortable because you knew you had to hit a certain number and you’re like, yes, let me just hear the no, let me just move on to the next, and it just becomes a thing. It just becomes a thing you check off.

Annette: Right, and I was starting to follow up and it’s like all I want at this point is is an answer and then after, you know, as time went on, if there’s silence, silence is a no. If I follow up and they don’t respond.

So do you think going forward you’re going to be as uncomfortable or do you think you need more practice there?

Annette: Well, I need more practice, but I won’t be as uncomfortable. It definitely helped me to release some of that discomfort. No, it was definitely, definitely a valuable experience for me, but I do need more practice.

Laurie: So all told, how many yeses did you end up with?

Annette: Four.

Laurie: So you had four clients participate in your focus method, and so the next part of focus is under-promise and over-deliver. So do you feel that that’s what you did? Can you tell me a little bit about what you promised and then what you actually delivered?

Annette: Yes, so I promised weekly habit challenges, delicious, easy meal ideas and recipes, regular check-ins for accountability, group support, and workout ideas.

Laurie: So when you met, when you had your check-ins with everybody at the end and you asked them about the content, right, you did your testimonial form where you kind of got their feedback on the content that you provided. What was some of the feedback that you got about the content?

Annette: They were all very pleased with it. They, I even got comments about how I over-delivered that they didn’t expect as much as I provided. They weren’t expecting as much as they got.

Laurie: Fantastic. So and then the last part is social proof, right? So collecting your testimonials from your participants. Were you able to get a testimonial from everybody who participated?

Annette: I received two out of the four. I need to send reminders on the other two.

Laurie: Okay, and the two that you have already received, how are they?

Annette: Very positive. They said they would recommend me to other people. To me, they were very good testimonials.

Laurie: Awesome. So these are definitely pieces of content that you can use in your marketing. We can put them on your website. We can put them in your social media. You can use them in your sales sequences, in your emails, when you go to promote your program.

These are really going to be valuable for you as sales tools in the future.

Annette: Yes, I’m excited that I did get those. Yes, and that was a really good part about the focus method, too, was that was one of the key deliverables, basically, was because when I’ve done programs in the past, I didn’t, I guess I didn’t go about it the right way to get some good testimonials.

So this really, and I know how important social proof was, so going through the focus method really helped with that piece, big time.

Laurie: On on a scale of one to ten, how much would you recommend doing the focus method if you are just starting out as a coach and you are, have no idea where to start?

Annette: Highly recommend it. I would say a ten for sure. Everybody should go through it.

Laurie: Oh, and that is so sweet. Thank you.

Annette: No, it’s true! It’s true! We’re already overwhelmed, right? So as simple, and like you said, with the templates and stuff, that would just make, because that’s where it is, like, what do I say? What, how do I start?

Laurie: The thing is, you might not get it perfect. You might not nail it on the first try, but you’re getting out there and you’re taking action and that momentum is going to move you forward. You’ve already shown that if you want to bring in money, you can do it.

Annette: Yeah, went to 50 people to get four, which, I’m glad I had four.

Laurie: That’s eight percent conversion rate. That’s excellent, and the more people you talk to, the more people you’re going to find!

The focus method, that jumpstart, is meant to be a very short-term thing, and if it turns into longer-term clients, great. If not, you now have testimonials that you can use.

Annette: A very valuable, useful experience there for sure, but I liked all of the information and just the guidance and the support you gave. Really loved all the information because basically everything was very detailed, very good.

What really helped me personally where I was at was some of that more detailed ‘here I am and what should I do and what should I say?’

Laurie: A lot of your questions were “how do I respond to this? What do I say? What do I put in this email?” Really the wording. That tells me that templates, like swipe copy for emails, templates for emails and social media posts, would be really valuable.

I really do appreciate sharing your experience with me because this is going to help lots of people not feel that frustration that I know I felt when I was starting and that you felt as well. So I really do appreciate that.

.

In this episode of the podcast, I telling the whole story of my email list building strategy —from idea to execution – that took my list of email subscribers from zero to 10,154 subscribers in just 57 days—without spending a single dollar on ads.

This strategy isn’t specific to health coaches, but I’ve used it for both online and in-person businesses so I can vouch that it’s a flexible list building option!

• The BIG Problem
• The BIG Idea
• The BIG Results
• The Tech Stack
• 💡 Why It Worked (The 3-Part Framework)
  • 1. Purpose
  • 2. People
  • 3. Plan
• Final Thoughts

Have you ever wished your email list would just grow itself? Or wondered how to get more visibility in your community—without shelling out for ads or begging for attention?

No List, No Traffic, No Recognition

In early 2020, like so many others, I watched local businesses struggle. Facebook was flooded with desperate posts—“We haven’t had a sale in days… we may have to close.”

These weren’t strangers.

They were the people who owned the yoga studios, bakeries, and vintage shops that made our community feel like home.

I realized two things:

I had an idea: what if I built a website to showcase and support them?

The problem? I had no list, no traffic, and no brand visibility or authority.

Run a Contest That Does the Heavy Lifting

I asked myself: how can I build an audience and attract local businesses at the same time?
What’s fun, shareable, and community-driven?

I decided to run a “Best Of” contest, asking locals to nominate and vote for their favorite small businesses in categories like best coffee shop, best personal trainer, best burger, and more.

The plan:

And guess what? It worked way better than expected.

10,154 Subscribers in 57 Days

Here’s how the numbers played out:

During the peak, I was seeing 10,000+ pageviews per day, all from free traffic on Facebook—no paid ads, no dancing on TikTok, and no viral “hacks”,

I used tools I already had:

After running the contest and sharing this email list building strategy in a few Facebook groups, I heard from people who tried it and didn’t get the same results.

That got me thinking… what made my experience different?

It turns out, there were three key elements that make a huge difference:

This wasn’t just a contest, it wasn’t just an email list building strategy —it was a mission. People weren’t voting just for fun. They were helping their community thrive.

I tapped into an existing movement, which was already emotionally powerful and easy to align with.

I actively engaged local businesses and tagged them when they were nominated. That gave them a reason to share the contest with their audiences. The virality came from people wanting to support their friends, family, and favorite businesses.

I had clear messaging, simple tools, and a way to capture and validate email subscribers. It wasn’t fancy, but it was organized and systematic.

Whether you’re trying to build your first 1,000 email subscribers or looking for a new way to connect with your community, this email list building strategy works because it’s grounded in real people and real value.

The key? Make it about them. Support the movement your audience already believes in, and the rest will follow.

Listen to the full podcast episode to hear how I did it step-by-step! https://www.lauriemallon.com/10k-60-days/

Or check out the first video in my 10k in Under 60 Days for free:

Here are some questions I get about my contest list building experience

Q: Were all of those 10,000+ emails real? What about fake or junk entries?
A: Yes—they were real, valid, and filtered. While the contest used single opt-in for a smoother user experience, I still had a confirmation email go out to each participant. If the email bounced or was clearly invalid, I was notified—and any form entries associated with those addresses were automatically discarded. I actually collected over 11,600 emails, but I filtered out about 1,500 junk or fake entries before finalizing the list. So the 10,154 subscribers I counted were fully verified and ready for follow-up.

Q: What kind of contest is this exactly?
A: It’s a two-phase “Best Of” contest where your community nominates and votes for their favorite businesses, brands, or products in specific categories. It’s time-limited, interactive, and designed to generate massive list growth, engagement, and visibility in a short period of time.

Q: Why did you choose a contest instead of a lead magnet or quiz?
A: I needed something fast, community-driven, and buzzworthy. A typical lead magnet or quiz didn’t have the viral, gamified appeal I needed to get people talking and sharing. The contest created excitement, tapped into the shop-local movement, and let people participate in something bigger than my business.

Q: How long did the contest last?
A: The full campaign was 6 weeks—3 weeks for nominations, 1 week to organize data and prep the ballot, then 3 weeks for voting. You can adjust this timeline to fit your own goals and energy.

Q: What kind of results can I expect?
A: I started with no audience, no list, and no traffic—and ended with 10,154 verified email subscribers in 57 days. While results vary, the key is how well you plan your messaging, categories, prize (or recognition), and community involvement. Some contests bring in more, some will bring in less.

Q: What tools did you use to run the contest?
A: A WordPress site using the Divi theme, a form builder, and an email marketing platform. I started with MailerLite and then switched to SendFox when I outgrew the free tier. I also used Canva for graphics and Facebook for all organic promotion—no ads.

Q: Did you run paid ads?
A: Nope! I didn’t spend a single dollar on advertising. The entire contest was promoted through free Facebook posts and organic sharing by the businesses and people who were nominated.

Q: What if I don’t have a list, traffic, or any business nominations yet?
A: Neither did I! That’s the power of this strategy. The community helped generate the content by nominating their favorites, and their votes created social sharing momentum. The contest becomes the engine that drives traffic, content, and email signups—all at once.

Q: How did you get people to participate and share?
A: I used a “You’ve Been Nominated!” tag-and-share strategy. After people submitted nominations, I created simple Facebook graphics and tagged the businesses. Those businesses were excited to be recognized and asked their audiences to vote and support them. It created viral loops without extra work on my part.

Q: How many categories should I include?
A: I had 144 total across several subcategories (food & drink, pets, home, services, etc.)—but you don’t need that many. You can start small with just a few meaningful categories in your niche or community. It’s better to go deep with fewer categories than overwhelm your audience with too many.

Q: What’s the most important key to success?
A: Having a strong mission behind your contest. My contest tapped into the “support local businesses during COVID” movement. People shared and participated because they believed in the cause. Your contest should connect to something meaningful to your audience—not just free exposure.

Q: Can this work for digital businesses too, or just local?
A: It can work for both! After I ran this for local small businesses, I ran it for one of my other sites that’s 100% online. It can easily be adapted for a coach, course creators, and community builders who want to highlight the best products, services, or voices in their niche.

• Meet Morgan
• Morgan’s Tips for Taking Insta-worthy Food Pics
• Food Photography Tips – Episode Transcript

In this episode, we sit down with Morgan Beasley, a Women’s Health Coach who’s mastered the art of using beautiful food photography and engaging captions to attract new clients and boost her online visibility.

Morgan walks us through her journey of developing a unique style, sharing her best food photography strategies to help capture the perfect shot.

From the importance of natural lighting and ideal angles to selecting the best props and backdrops, Morgan offers practical advice for both beginner and seasoned food photographers.

She’s big on consistency, practice, and personalizing your own process! Whether you’re taking flatlay shots or side views, Morgan’s food photography tips can uplevel your skills and make your dishes shine online!

Morgan Beasley is a women’s Integrative Health Coach who’s mission is to help you make peace with food, so you can have your cake and eat it too!

Why she became a women’s health coach:

“After working as a Mental Health Specialist for 2 years, I decided to dive deep into my love for nutrition and mental health by helping other women reach their health goals both on and off the plate. 

Why she focused on Instagram: 

I knew that in order to grow my business through social media and reach my ideal clients, I needed to upload good-quality content for them to see.  For me, this meant choosing a few social media platforms to use to my advantage, which were Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. 

Food photography and lifestyle pictures can show so much insight into your life and business, especially a health business, so why not get creative and share your passion for health and nutrition with others?”

https://www.facebook.com/morganhealthcoach
https://www.instagram.com/keepitpurely
** Morgan is no longer online and her Instagram is now private

Tip #1 – Location, location, location

Tip #2 – The Best Time to Take Your Pictures

Tip #3 – Use What You Have 

Tip #4 – Invest in Some New, Fun Items

Tip #5 – Don’t Overdo It 

Tip #6 – Add Interest to Your Picture

Tip #7 – Personalize Your Plate and Your Feed

(0:02 – 0:29)
I’m Laurie Mallon and this is the Profitable Health Coach Podcast. The show where we’re all about creating a sustainable, enjoyable, and profitable online coaching business that gives you the freedom and flexibility that you want.

We’ll hear about strategies, systems, and solutions from experts and fellow coaches who’ve created the business of their dreams, providing amazing transformations, and connecting with clients across the globe.

(0:29 – 0:58)
Laurie: I have Morgan Beasley with me.

She’s a Women’s Health Coach. I met Morgan, I think, just in a random Facebook group for health coaches and we connected. And I started following Morgan on Instagram and fell in love because her pictures are amazing and inspiring.
And it made me want to learn how to do it. I still haven’t figured it out. Hopefully, I learned something today from Morgan.
Morgan is going to share with us how she takes such amazing pictures.

Hello, Morgan. How are you?

Morgan: Good. How about you?

Laurie: I’m good, thanks. First, I want to share some of Morgan’s pictures in case you haven’t seen it. She posts recipes …you can see she’s got salad, she’s got a smoothie and smoothie bowl because Morgan loves to do smoothie bowls. And she does pancakes and waffles and she puts amazing captions that are really engaging. She is going to walk us through the steps that she takes to produce these amazing pictures.

(1:40 – 1:50)
Morgan: Okay, so I want to let everybody know it’s just about making it your own and continually doing it. Your style is going to evolve. It takes a lot of practice.

Not every picture that you’re going to take is going to turn out like perfect and everything. It’s just going to take time and to not give up on it. Because once you capture the picture that you really want and you really love it, you’re going to feel so proud of yourself after you edit it. You’re just going to be jumping for joy when you get that picture.

The first thing is good lighting. Natural lighting is the best kind of lighting.
I know when you get really professional, you can do artificial lighting, but I try to stick to just natural lighting. My biggest tip is to go around your house and find the room that you think has the best natural lighting. And that could be windows, you know, use the windows that you have.

The windows that are the biggest in my house are in my living room, in my kitchen. So that’s where I like to take pictures is my kitchen, like right beside my kitchen table and right on my kitchen table. That’s where I get the best lighting.

So use what you have and just try to find the best natural lighting. And I want to go over what angles you want to use. So there are like four different angles.

Two that I mainly use are an overhead shot, and I’m going to say flat lay a lot, but usually that just means like where you would have all your food laying out. So an overhead flat lay shot would be wherever you have your food laid out with all your ingredients, you know, make it look pretty, little, you know, utensils, whatever you want to use. And you could take it overhead and that’s one of my favorite ways. If you have something like a salad or oatmeal, usually if you’re doing like a stack of pancakes, maybe you want to show like the drizzle of it and the thickness of it. Then you can use a side shot.

(3:32 – 4:02)
And whenever I do side shots, I always make sure that the sun is coming in from the side rather than from taking it in front of it. So those are the two that I don’t recommend is taking a picture with the sun shining in front of your food or behind your food. And what I mean by that is if you have, say, the stack of pancakes and you’re trying to get a picture of it, you don’t want to take it to where the sun’s shining like right here in your window and you’re in front of it and taking a picture of your pancakes.

(4:02 – 4:24)
By doing that, you’re letting in too much lighting on your pancakes, and it’s going to be too bright and too overdone. It’s going to drown out all your colors. So again, whenever you’re doing pancakes or something like that, always try to do like a side angle or semi-side, you know, to where the natural lighting is hitting, but you’re not all the way turned.

(4:24 – 4:40)
It’s going to produce too much light on that picture. Whenever you’re taking a picture of, again, the stack of pancakes, you don’t want to take it to where the sun is shining behind the food. By doing this, you’re going to create sharp and, like, harsh shadows all over the food to where it’s going to look dark.

(4:40 – 5:04)
And what I like to compare this to is if you’re taking a portrait of somebody, if you’ve ever taken a picture of somebody and they’re behind, like, the sun is shining behind them and you’re in front of them trying to take the picture, you can’t make out their face and all the details that you want to capture because, again, the light is coming behind them, and it’s going to make their face look dark. So it’s the same with food. You want to take it from a side angle or overhead.

(5:05 – 5:19)
So if you get anything from that tip, it’s try to take it overhead or from the side to where the sun is shining on the side of your food. That’s the best way to get, like, the natural lighting. So my second tip is what times take your photos.

(5:20 – 5:41)
And I’ve found that the best times to take your photos are either in the morning or in the evening. And this is because the sun is coming up, you have all these natural pretty colors, or the sun is going down and you have all the orange, the pinks. The best times now to take pictures where I live are, like, 9 o’clock to 9.30, and that’s because the sun has just risen.

(5:42 – 5:54)
It’s not too much. If you wait until later in the day, like whenever the sun’s the brightest, you’re going to get too much lighting to where it’s going to drown out your picture. So in the morning, it’s kind of, like, dewy outside.

(5:55 – 6:04)
You still have the clouds kind of covering the sun. So, again, you have that natural color and it’s not too bright. My third tip is to use what you have in your house.

(6:05 – 6:19)
This literally was my first backdrop, and I still use this sometimes. This little cloth thing that I have that I found at the thrift store, and I just found this in my house randomly, and I was like, I’ll just use that. You can also use linen napkins.

(6:20 – 6:28)
You can lay it flat, and this will really bring out your food colors. There’s different things you can find around your house that you can use. You can use silverware that you have.

(6:29 – 6:39)
Maybe you have some pretty gold silverware, pretty dishes, plates, bowls. You know, use that and add it to your picture. You can even add greenery to your pictures.

(6:39 – 6:59)
Maybe if you have, like, some flowers or something that you want to use, you can always add that. You know, there’s just so many different options that you can try, and my best advice for getting inspiration is to go on Pinterest or somewhere like that where they upload recipes, and every day I try to look at different recipes to get inspiration. Look at different stuff.

(6:59 – 7:14)
Look at different food photography, and you’ll just get inspired by all the different colors that they use, all the different ways they lay it out, because it kind of, like, motivates you to take better pictures, and you can try to replicate it. You can try to make it your own. You know, there’s so many different options.

(7:14 – 7:27)
I’ve noticed in your feed you tend to go with a lot of neutral backgrounds, and it really helps the food pop. Anything that’s fruity. I think this is a salad with pomegranate seeds.

(7:27 – 7:57)
Like, it just pops because of that neutral background, and I just love that. It doesn’t take away from the food that’s in the picture.

Morgan: And that’s what I like to do because I always remind myself, like, what am I trying to capture? You don’t want to overdo it, especially if it’s a very colorful plate, because if you do a colorful plate with tons of fruit and all that kind of stuff and you do a colorful background, well, that’s not going to blend really well, because, again, you want the focus to be the food and not necessarily the entire layout.

(7:57 – 8:18)
You want it to be mainly the food. So that’s when sometimes I will even use a very simple layout because then it’s not going to take away from my picture, and whenever somebody sees my picture, they’re mainly drawn to the food and not, like, everything else happening around. So my fourth tip is to invest in some pretty bowls, pretty spoons.

(8:18 – 8:34)
This doesn’t mean you have to go all out and spend all this money, because I did that, and I regret spending half the amount that I spent because your style is going to evolve. Like, what you like now may not be what you’re going to like later on, and you may never even use it. So slowly add more things.

(8:35 – 9:00)
For example, I got this, and as you can see in this one, I don’t know if you can tell, but this is a very glossy bowl. It’s very shiny, and it reflects a lot of stuff. And the other day, this kind of reminded me why I don’t want these kind of bowls, because you can take a picture with it, and the sun will shine on the opposite side of the bowl, and you’ll have all these different lights shining and stuff, so you don’t want that.

(9:00 – 9:09)
You can even see how bright this is, like, because the sun is just, like, gleaming off of it. This one gets matte. It’s not going to have all these different reflections coming off of it.

(9:09 – 9:17)
Find what you like. Like, I like gold, so I use gold spoons. Wooden bowls, wooden spoons are my favorite too.

(9:18 – 9:34)
Just things that are simple. You don’t want plates that have all the designs on them either because it would be too distracting and take too much from your food. So try to just keep it simple, plain, and if you can, semi-matte to matte finish when it comes to dishes.

(9:35 – 9:53)
And number five is to not overdo it. I know sometimes we think, like, more is better, but when it comes to food, focus on what you want to capture. What’s my goal of taking this picture? What do I want people to see whenever they see this picture? My favorite tip is to add ingredients, cooking utensils, silverware.

(9:54 – 10:11)
I always ask myself whenever I’m creating my flat layer, I always ask myself, what did I use to make this dish? So say you’re making oatmeal. Use that pot with oatmeal in it that you used to cook in, or you can use a prettier one that’s clean. Put that on the corner.

(10:12 – 10:26)
You know you can add some silverware, some cooking utensils that you used. Maybe you added some blueberries to your dish or chia seeds or peanut butter or something like that. Add that to your dish so it looks homier.

(10:26 – 10:59)
So add different things that you used to make it, and it makes it look kind of comfy and people can, like, see, like, the process that you went through to make that dish. If I made oatmeal with, like, strawberries or chia seeds or hemp seeds or something along those lines, I can lay that flat on my background, and then on that I’ll add my bowl along with I’ll probably lay, like, a linen napkin, lay my bowl on there, and then add, like, some chia seeds. I could sprinkle those somewhere just to make it look like this is what’s in the bowl, you know.

(11:00 – 11:12)
You can add a spoon in the dish, or you can add a spoon, you know, sitting outside the dish. Different measuring spoons, different cooking utensils. Maybe you used a grater to make zucchini, you know.

(11:13 – 11:26)
Put the grater in there, like, in the corner or to the side. Or maybe you used tahini. Put it in a wooden bowl, put my tahini in there, put a spoon in there so it looks like I just drizzled it on my pancakes or whatever you made.

(11:26 – 11:50)
Something that’s kind of hard to capture are smoothie bowls and smoothies because they melt really quickly, and the toppings kind of go all, like, into it. So if you’re going to do something, like, cold that’s going to melt, work as quickly as possible and have in the back of your mind what you want to do and what you want to capture. It doesn’t have to be exact, but just an idea so then you know you can work fast and add different things to it.

(11:51 – 12:02)
And then my last tip is to personalize it and make it your own. Not everything is going to look, you know, like so-and-so’s. It’s about making it look like how you want it to look.

(12:03 – 12:15)
My pictures and my editing is not going to look the same as yours because, you know, we’re two different people. I’ll have a different style than somebody else. It’s all about finding what works for you, what editing style works for you.

(12:15 – 12:35)
Laurie: Back to your point about it being a process and something that you learn, I just want to share this, and I hope this is okay, but these are some of Morgan’s pictures when she first started, and you can see a big difference between these pictures and – I don’t even remember those pictures. They’re from the very, very beginning. But you can see the difference now.

(12:35 – 12:45)
She’s developed her style. She’s got her neutral backdrops. She’s got props and, you know, a signature look, you know, with the drizzles and the ingredients.

(12:46 – 13:07)
And, I mean, you’ve really come a long way with developing your style with your pictures.

Morgan: Yeah, and like I was telling you the other day, it’s like just – I may look at my pictures now and be like, I’m so glad I learned, you know, from my mistakes because you’re constantly learning new stuff. You’re constantly learning new ways you want to add, new techniques, new angles.

(13:07 – 13:29)
And it’s, again, about working with what you have and just, like, practice. That’s all you can do. You can only practice and not be too hard on yourself whenever it doesn’t look picture perfect because sometimes, like I was telling you, it pays off to look perfectly imperfect, kind of like what you said, like a messy type perfect to where the picture looks like you really want to eat it.

(13:29 – 13:55)
Sometimes when it’s too perfect, it doesn’t come off as authentic and it looks too fake and it doesn’t look – you can’t really notice the textures in it, if that makes sense. So sometimes I try to make sure that it looks a little – like if I do a drizzle, I add it around the plate. Like sometimes I just flop the spoon places because I want it to look messy but not too messy, kind of like professional but yet yummy, like something somebody wants to eat.

(13:55 – 14:03)
So I was going to talk about, like, the editing apps that I use. I have three different apps. One is the Lightroom CC, and for that one I use presets.

(14:04 – 14:22)
You pay for presets. I already have some that are geared towards the pictures in my editing style, but the ones that are free that I wanted to show you all are VSCO, and Snapseed. Those are my two top two favorite food editing apps.

(14:22 – 14:42)
I was going to show you all a video of how I actually edit. First one I go into after I take the picture is VSCO, and you just click this little plus sign once you get in there and you add your photo. Once I click on the photo, you can see that there are different presets that you can do, A4, A5, A6.

(14:43 – 15:00)
I always go with A6, so if that’s what I’m going to click on is A6, and it kind of gives you a scale. It starts at 12. I think it was 12 right here, and you can slide it down at how edited you want this picture, like the editing style for this one.

(15:01 – 15:13)
I kind of just went around. I think I kept going a little bit lower, and then I went, you know, just kind of play around with it, kind of slide it up and down to see which kind you want. And then, again, you just save that to your camera roll.

(15:13 – 15:23)
I always do actual size, and it saves it. And then you X out of that, and then I open it up in Snapseed. I get in there, and I push the editing one.

(15:23 – 15:31)
In this one, you can change, like, the brightness, the contrast. So I went for brightness first. I kind of like a brighter color.

(15:32 – 15:46)
So I kind of just moved it up, and then you can go into contrast. For this picture, I didn’t do any contrast because the papaya was already really orange. So contrast kind of makes it a little, adds a little more color, makes it a little darker.

(15:47 – 15:55)
So I didn’t want that one. I went in ambience because that makes your food look brighter, and I really like that one. But, again, don’t overdo it.

(15:55 – 16:09)
And then I did a little highlight, and by highlighting it, it kind of brings out all the colors in the picture a little bit more. And then you also have shadow. And shadow is used whenever you have a lot of shadows in your food.

(16:09 – 16:17)
It kind of hides those off. But I don’t necessarily use those a lot because, again, this was shot overhead. So I didn’t have any harsh shadows.

(16:17 – 16:29)
And I just clicked to show you the difference in between. And then you just save it, and you modify it, and it’s done. And you just upload it to Instagram or wherever you’re going to upload it.

So, yeah, that’s the process of the editing that I do.

Laurie: I also was going to ask you a little bit about captions. Some you give the recipe, and some you kind of direct them to your website.
How do you decide which ones to share and which ones to put on the website?

Morgan: Well, the way I decide that one are my favorite ones I kind of put on my website because I want my website to look really good. So I’m like, some of the ones that I’m – I never – I’m a perfectionist. And when it comes to pictures, I try to never upload ones that I’m not – I’m kind of iffy about.

And if I’m like, I don’t really know if I like this picture, I usually don’t upload it, honestly. If I really like the picture, I’m going to upload it to my website and to Instagram. And the reason I don’t upload the recipe on Instagram or Facebook is because I want to bring people towards my website so they can go on that.

It takes me a while sometimes to come up with some. And then sometimes it kind of just pops to my mind. I try to just let your personality show when it comes to captions.
You know, be yourself. Talk about – people actually like to listen to your story. They like to hear stories.

They like to know about you, what’s going on in your life. You know, what did you do today? What was going on whenever you were taking this picture? You know, like, for example, with the oatmeal thing, you could describe, like, what else you had with – if you had a matcha latte, you know, or what you’re going to do that day. Like, this is my pre-workout, you know, about to go to the gym, about to spend the day doing some work or going to a yoga class this evening.

(17:55 – 18:06)
Just let people into what you’re doing that day. And even some things you’re struggling with, you know. If you’re struggling with something, so people can relate to you, that you’re also human. They like a story.

Laurie: I have found the posts where I’m most kind of vulnerable about, like, things that are going on with me get the most engagement. And that’s been really an adventure for me because I’m not really used to sharing a lot of stuff like that.

(18:21 – 18:26)
Morgan: Yeah. They see you as, like, a friend. They want to, like, know about your life, you know.

(18:26 – 18:33)
It’s not as engaging whenever you just see a picture with the recipe. Switch up the length of your captions. Sometimes do short ones. Sometimes do longer ones. Play around with it and see which one gets better engagement on your page. Sometimes it takes me over a day to write a caption.

(18:41 – 18:54)
And I’ll just sit there and, kind of like a blog post, I’ll write some of it. And then sometimes it’s just not coming naturally, so I’ll go do something. And then it’ll pop in your mind, like, this is a smart thing to say.

(18:54 – 19:08)
I’ll, like, hurry up and go get my phone because I’ve got to write this one down.

Laurie: I feel like a lot of those things come to me when I’m either washing dishes or in the shower. For some reason, those are two places that I, like, get a lot of inspiration.

(19:08 – 19:15)
Morgan: Or, like, cooking or, like, laying in bed. You’re like, “this is clever. That was really clever.”

(19:17 – 19:41)
Laurie: Now, do you come up with your own recipes or are they just kind of a lot of things that you either derive from other recipes? Or what’s the process that you use? Because, honestly, I’m lazy in the kitchen and I’m lazy about what I eat. So, for me, it’s, like, anything more than, like, three ingredients, I can’t be bothered. So, I’m always inspired by, like, your dishes that have, like, fun stuff in them.

(19:41 – 19:55)
Morgan: Since I just now turned vegan, I like to do plant-based versions. And even if you aren’t vegan or anything like that, you can go online on Pinterest, just add different things. Sometimes it’s a hit and a miss whenever I’m messing with stuff.

(19:55 – 20:05)
You know, like, you’ll make something, like, this is not, nobody, I’m not going to share this recipe. You know, and you’ve got to still work on it. And you just practice, kind of like with the picture-taking.

(20:06 – 20:22)
You just throw some stuff in there and see what you got. And if it doesn’t turn out well, well, then, oh, well, try again next time, you know?

Laurie: I’m going to look at your pictures differently now, now that I know, like, what goes on behind the scenes now. It’s going to be a little bit more like, “oh, there’s the jute mat.
Oh, there’s her white napkin. There’s her gold spoon.”

Morgan: I need to start investing in some new ones because I’m, like, I feel like I’m using the same ones.

(20:29 – 20:37)
I’m, like, I got to step it up for something.

It’s part of your signature look. And, I mean, I think that it’s good to have that continuity.
I really love that gold spoon, though, that’s in that, I think, the smoothie bowl picture here.

Laurie: Where do you look for, like, kind of interesting pieces to put, like, little, your props to get to put in your pictures?

Morgan: Home goods has some good options. Thrift stores have some good ones.

(20:56 – 21:10)
Like, if you’re looking for stuff that’s, like, boho, I guess you would say, like, rattan-type stuff. Most of mine are from, like, Marshalls, home goods. I actually went into a store in my hometown, and I found two wooden bowls.

(21:10 – 21:15)
I’m all for wooden stuff. Like, I love wooden spoons, wooden bowls, wooden plates. I found those at a local store.

(21:16 – 21:26)
You can find them a lot of time, like, at stores that have homey stuff. Dollar Tree, you may not think they have some cool stuff, but you can always see what kind of silverware they have. Just keep your eyes open.

(21:27 – 21:43)
Laurie: I don’t know if this is a Southern thing, but the antique stores, those, I mean, those are just, like, they give me a little bit of anxiety because there’s just so much, like, stuff in a small place. But we always find, like, the most interesting pieces. And my husband collects antique mixing bowls.
So anytime we go into one of these stores, he goes straight for the kitchen stuff because we have to look to see if, you know, they have one of these bowls that, you know. So we have, like, a whole collection of these bowls. But, you know, it’s just always, like, the most interesting stuff.
But I never cared because I never was taking pictures of food and things like that. But now I’m going to be on the lookout for interesting pieces. I’m totally inspired now, Morgan. So I’m going to try to step up my Instagram.

We’re going to wrap up. And I want to thank you so much for sharing all your tips with us.

(22:15 – 22:27)
And if you want to follow Morgan on Instagram, her handle is @keepitpurely. That’s the name of her coaching business. And I’ll go ahead and add that into the show notes as well.

(22:28 – 22:35)
But thank you so much. I really appreciate the time that you took to come here and share this with us. And it’s been very inspiring and very motivating.

(22:36 – 22:40)
Morgan: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on here.

The secret to a sustainable online business is being a part of a community for online business owners who can support you in your journey. Get yourself a group of ‘biz besties’ who get it because they know what it’s like to ride the highs and lows of online solopreneurship.

• Meet Jen and Jessica
• Episode Transcript:
• Want to learn more about creating community for online business owners?

In this episode, my guests Jen and Jessica met each other – and their soon-to-be band of besties – at a marketing conference and created a bond that extended far beyond business, all while ….hunting for a Maribel dress from Encanto? YUP! They share the story of how a shared mission to find a very specific souvenir over the course of a weekend brought them together and forged invaluable connections. Their chats went from group texts to monthly Zoom calls, and they realized their connection was having a huge impact on their business success.

From this they created a mastermind community for online business owners that isn’t your average networking group; it’s a unique blend of trust, referral relationships, and connections that celebrates every member’s success.

Jen is a Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC),  Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach, Certified Cycle Instructor, mom, and wife living in Minneapolis, MN. 

With over 10 years of experience in Marketing, Project Management and Leadership for corporations, Jen became passionate about helping others through their health and wellness journey after overcoming her own health challenges. 

Jen has since helped hundreds of others create healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives through her caring and strengths-driven approach to coaching. 

Connect with Jen:
https://wellspired.co

Jessica is a featured Kartra Certified Partner, as recognized by Kartra (Genesis Digital), a three-time Kartra Community Member of the Month (September 2021, July 2022, & January 2024), A Funnel Gorgeous Certified Master Marketer and has been featured on numerous business and marketing podcasts such as Flip Your Marketing Flops, Superwoman Soul, VA Tips, Tricks + Advice, and The Styled Mind, and was a top 10 Launch Gorgeous participant for Spring 2022.

Connect with Jessica:
Pineapplerelations.com 

Welcome everyone. I am here today with Jen Wright and Jessica Scotten, and they run a community for digital entrepreneurs who want to find connection with other entrepreneurs who understand how isolating and lonely it can be in the online business world. Jen is a business and marketing strategist, and she’s also a nationally board-certified health and wellness coach. She helps her clients create and grow businesses that align with their values and strengths, so they can avoid burnout, have more energy and build the business they want. Jessica is a Kartra top expert in automations and funnel specialist and a certified master marketer. Welcome, thank you so much.

0:01:36 – Jessica
I’m so excited to be here with you.

0:01:39 – Laurie
This is a topic we have not yet covered on the podcast, and this is all about collaboration, community and basically having that group of biz besties that you can connect with and lean on and support and help you grow in your entrepreneurial journey. This is such an important topic.

0:01:57 – Jen
Honestly, like it’s sort of like a little kept secret. Like, if you think of like Amy Porterfield and Jenna Kutcher, think about their like relationship circles and networks that they have, like that is really what has built them into who they are today, but like no one talks about it, and so it is sort of this like little kept secret. They’re starting to come out, they’re starting to have more conversations about it, but it’s just been really recent, and so we feel like the idea and the topic of relationship marketing is going to in year.

0:02:24 – Jessica
You’re gonna start hearing a lot more about it from some of these bigger names what we’re seeing, and probably for a week in our text message thread that is still going from a year ago. Um, for like a week everybody kept sending screenshots of this big name is doing a community. This big name is doing a community. No, like curriculum style, there was no teaching involved. It was everybody kind of at the same time. For us, we might have been a little bit ahead of it because we started putting this together. We had our August brainstorming weekend and then, coming into the end of the year, just starting to see so many places are doing communities and so many big names are just doing no, this is just community. This is just for to see so many places are doing community and so many big names are just doing no, this is just community. This is just for building relationships. So there’s something there.

0:03:10 – Laurie
Right, like the network is your network Exactly, and so there’s really more attention that needs to be paid and more conversations around having opportunities and what this looks like to be a solopreneur, and how can we come together? Why don’t you tell me how you met? Oh yeah, it’s such a good story.

0:03:28 – Jessica
So eight unknowing people went to a marketing conference almost exactly a year ago today and we all went in knowing nobody and there’s a little bit of solopreneur social anxiety, a little bit of that apprehension that hits in the pit of your stomach that you just say I don’t know anybody, how am I going to do? Do I have a quiet space to go to refresh and shut down? And in the community Facebook group for this event, somebody had put up hey, I want to start a text thread of people going by themselves.

And a whole bunch of people ended up in it and I didn’t pay any attention to it until like the day before, and there was one that said hey, after everybody gets registered, do you want to meet for a drink? At the place around the corner. And it was like well, I should go, I’m going to meet people, I’m going to have new experiences, I should get over myself and go sit at the table. And everybody was great and everybody was wonderful. And then there was eight of us who split out of that and said, well, let’s go get dinner.

So we were in Orlando, we were at a Disney property, we got on the bus, we went to Disney Springs and somebody said one of the girls said before she got there. She said my daughters are really, really, really looking for the Maribel dress. Encanto had just came out. The Maribel dress was all the rage and I was like, oh, I was here three weeks ago, I know exactly where the dress is. And we walked over to the place and the dress isn’t there because Encanto is on fire.

The staff was like we don’t have any. We get shipments every day, but it’s really first come, first serve. Okay, we’re here for three days, we’ll come back tomorrow. So we went off, we had dinner, we shared food around the table which is like the secret of how you make friends and how you introduce yourselves to new people Took the bus back, had really amazing conversation, did it again the next day and she goes. Can we go look for the dress again? Like, yeah, we’ll go for the dress, jen. Did we get the dress on the third, second day or the third day?

0:05:28 – Jen
I think it was the third day. It became this like thing that we all just really connected around and it was great because it was just like brought up conversation. We were talking about it every day hey, we’re going to get over there to like go see at what time are we going to go off there. And day, hey, we’re going to get over there to like go see at what time are we going to go off there. And it just like created that like a common mission, right, Just in that moment, totally unrelated to business, but super fun at the same time, Cause it got us out to Disney Springs and it got us walking around and also having these side conversations and learning about each other kind of, while we had something else to focus on and I think that was like a huge thing for me and some of the other girls.

You know, I tend to be like a little bit on the high anxiety kind of scale of things and it was great to have like a mission for us to like focus in on and not it wasn’t high pressure, Like we were sitting down at a table doing this like speed networking type situation that can feel really high pressure. This was like fun and so it was different for us and we created this relationship that really blossomed into something more.

0:06:28 – Jessica
After we came back, we started a text thread and I drove from Orlando to South Florida and I think there was like 175 unread text messages by the time I drove two and a half hours home of just everybody’s ideas and this feels really good. This feels really great.

These are women that I’ve never had this kind of connection with before. Nobody is in a competing industry. Everybody does something a little different, so there was no weirdness between everybody while we were building these initial connections and the conversation came up is I want to keep this going, so we put on the calendar hey, we’ll do a monthly zoom where everybody’s just going to come in and maybe we have challenges or things that we need to get out of our system, that the people in our lives aren’t really the best suited for.

Your sisters, your brothers, your spouses they don’t know what it means when you say things like, lori, what you said to me the other day your SSL certificate is not working properly. Or somebody who’s in my Dream 100 shared a post that I wrote and that means the world to me.

Or I’m having challenges with my client and I don’t know how to properly express it as a solopreneur, which is what we all identify as you don’t.

It doesn’t come with a built-in support system, so when you have those really tough challenges, who do you go to? Your husband doesn’t want to hear about it. Your wife doesn’t have any clue what you’re talking about. Your friends are like I don’t know what you mean by all of this.

And it’s hard because you go from having wanting to have these conversations to almost training yourself to not having the conversations because people look at you really strangely.

0:08:26 – Laurie
Or you have to give like a 10 minute backstory to explain all of the terms that you’re going to be using, what this all means, kind of give the context, and by the and by the end they’ve got like that glazed look on their face and they’re like when does this end? What is?

0:08:40 – Jen
she saying Just smile and nod and pray it’s over soon too, because we all have that in common, like a common challenge, and it’s and there is something when you can come together as a group and say like, hey, we’re all experiencing this and now we don’t have to give the backstory on everything. It’s like a breath of fresh air. You know you’re like, oh my gosh, it didn’t take me 10 minutes to explain what just happened in my business. When I say SSL certificate, all of us know what happens. Or when I say my you know first name on my email didn’t populate right and now everyone got hi, first name right. We’ve all been there Like it’s. You know, it’s one of those things where you can all like kind of commiserate on together and be like, oh yeah, that’s happened to me.

0:09:30 – Jessica
The one that really struck the chord with me the most was something that none of us did. I was in a Facebook group and somebody posted I just had the best month in my business and I have no one to celebrate with. And I about cried because I’ve been there landing big clients, hitting metrics that you didn’t think were possible, meeting the goals that you wrote out for. Well, nobody knows what it means when you say, like I’m so excited that I have 500 members in my private Facebook group now.

That’s a win for some people, but like to somebody else, they’re like I don’t know what that means, but yay, I guess. And then you don’t feel good about your win. So as we came together and as we started doing these what started out as monthly conversations, which then turned into weekly conversations we all started to notice that we were getting better independently and we were all getting better together.

0:10:25 – Jen
I would say as myself. I’m a nationally board certified health and wellness coach and coaching. It can be really a very solitary business, right and same with solopreneur, right. And so isolating is usually the word that I use, because you are either speaking to someone one-on-one in a coaching session and then as soon as you’re off, you’re by yourself again. Right, and it can feel really isolating and alone.

So to have that community to be able to come to it just changes the game, because when you’re by yourself, you know there’s self-doubt that pops in.

There’s a lot of questions you feel like you can’t answer, maybe there’s roadblocks that you feel like you’re so close to the problem. You just cannot get over that hump to like figure out, like what do I do next? And just being able to come to a group and be like blah, like this is what’s happening, and someone outside of the box is like, oh well, why don’t you just go ahead and do step one?

And you think to yourself the first time why on earth did I not think about that three hours ago? You know, and like that in the moment, I think just shows you the power of the community. When stuff like that happens, it just it’s like it, like expedites so much of what you would normally deal with on your own. When you can have, you can say like hey, I have this idea, I’ve been thinking about it, it’s been stuck in my head. I can’t get rid of it. Do you think this is a good?

0:11:35 – Laurie
idea, or do you think?

0:11:35 – Jen
it’s going to turn into like this big monster that’s going to become a bigger thing. We call those demon babies in our community and when they’re all like, oh my gosh, that’s such a good idea, you need to move forward with that. It gives you that sense of confidence to be able to just do some really amazing things, or they’re like put that off to the side. There’s something so empowering to be like. You’re totally right. I’m so glad you said that I’m putting it off to the side and moving forward that you could have otherwise just completely derailed yourself and your business, not having kind of that extra input or somebody outside of the box to give you that.

0:12:09 – Laurie
Okay. So just to recap, having this group is kind of like a sounding board. There’s validation, there’s some reflecting and there’s some what I call like the shiny object protection squad. They’re like nope, we’re not going to do that, stay over here. But you’re right when it’s just you and you’re doing your own thing and you’re like is this a good idea? I think I should do this.

I don’t know, and I personally I have ADHD and I always feel like the new idea is the best idea because it’s shiny and it’s fun and there’s so much possibility. I would love to have somebody like kind of sit next to me going Laurie, all right, get back over here, yes, yes, get back on the road here, do the thing that you don’t really want to do, and you know which is why you’re distracted to do this other fun thing.

So you found that having this group helped you personally, helped you professionally, because you were growing your businesses. You had that support, you had people to bounce ideas off of. That kind of kept you from getting sidetracked, distracted. That kept you on track with the goals that you would have already set, kept you on track with the goals that you had already set and moving and making progress.

0:13:18 – Jen
Yep, absolutely.

And as we became more comfortable and felt that safety net with each other, we were able to open up and even become vulnerable, right, and I think that really took kind of this community to a whole.

Nother level is when we were able to jump on and shed some tears or say I’m having a really terrible day or week or month or whatever. It is Right, and having us all be either like oh my gosh I’ve totally been there before in my experience.

Here’s something I did to be like, oh my gosh, thank you, I needed that like extra push to say like I can get through this. Or for someone to be like, hey, I’m going to sit down, let’s just cry together, because sometimes we all just need that too.

And especially as a solopreneur and a coach, as when you do feel so isolated, that can feel really, I mean there’s like a healing element to it, right, when you feel like you you’re at it all at your own and then suddenly you have this group together, that’s kind of giving you like a virtual hug to say like, hey, you’re having a crappy day and that’s okay and we’re here for you and it doesn’t need to, we don’t need to fix it, but we’re just letting you know like we’re here.

0:14:22 – Laurie
Tell me how this evolved into creating Kaleidoscope.

0:14:26 – Jen
We realized that this group of eight was really something special and we were getting so many benefits out of it. We knew that there were more kind of solopreneurs out there that were dealing with the same challenges that we were dealing with, and we didn’t want to just kind of keep this to ourselves.

We thought it was really important to be able to help other solopreneurs going through those same exact challenges, and so we decided to really like make something of it. I think, jessica, if I remember, like the first thing we did was we were like let’s all get together. We’re going to fly out for a long weekend in Chicago and let’s mastermind on it. And so we got together. We did this like mastermind weekend where we were like what are we? What are we doing? Like where are we going with this?

We a couple of our members went down to a conference and came up with this idea that like wow, wouldn’t it be so great to like create a community or a conference? And it really was like okay, let’s, let’s plan it. So we spent this weekend together. It was so much fun and we came up with some like great ideas, and one of them was basically what is now Kaleidoscope Co, and it’s this community of solopreneurs that are really all about connection, collaboration and community.

Those are our top three kind of values and focuses and it’s just been the most incredible kind of experience of seeing this community come together and grow and continue to just like strengthen, even as we get to know new members and things like that. So it’s been so much fun.

0:15:53 – Jessica
Now there’s a private mastermind for the year and now we have people that were passing those principles on to through training, through collaboration, through connection, through building really strong relationships with others.

It builds your network and now we’re starting to see the spider web of people mixing and mingling. And this person’s talking to this person and this person’s chatting with one of the core the founders and now they’re collaborating and now they have projects going and they’re building this web of people that they know really well. And that’s the most magical part of it is members of the mastermind organization that are saying I had a call with this person and it went really well and I’m going to hire her to do this thing.

Or I had a call and she really helped me get unstuck, which is one of the properties of a collaboration, and the collaboration calls is properties of a collaboration, and the collaboration calls is let us help you get there. Whether it’s you have an idea that you need to work out, whether you’re stuck in something, whether you’re having trouble with something, there’s a community sounding board for you to let those things go, and seeing that be changed in other people is really magnificent.

0:17:16 – Jen
We sometimes get compared to like a networking group or a networking community, and when I entered into the solopreneur world I joined a ton of networking like local networking groups and things like that, and they’re great, they have their purpose for certain reasons. But after meeting with like so many people in those organizations and not truly feeling like I got to know them all that well, I kind of knew what they do, but what I found was they would be really interested in developing a referral relationship with me, which was super great. I would refer people to them.

But I would always feel a little let down because maybe the experience wasn’t something that I kind of envisioned. It should have been for my person that I referred over to them, and so for me I really struggled to develop a sense of trust in those referral relationships where here we’re so tightly connected and we get to know each other on such a close community sense that when I refer to someone it’s because I truly believe that that is like the solution that the person needs, and so there’s just something so much different and I know when people refer to me it’s the same way, and so we have this like exchange of trust that is different than any other kind of network or community that I’ve been a part of.

And also, we give each other feedback, which is so great, right, like you know, if someone was to refer to me and something happened, they would be like hey, I touched base with so-and-so the other day and you know they were, you know they gave me some feedback. Would you be open to hearing it?

I’d be like, absolutely, I want to make my business better, right, and I don’t feel like I’ve been able to do that in any other community to be able to help each other, actually, like make each other’s business better. It’s not just solely about referrals, it’s about all the angles of business, which is, I think, what makes us different.

0:18:50 – Laurie
So, I can relate to that because I know that I have joined networking groups in person and online, and it almost seems like people conflate networking with promotion. They come into these networking groups thinking how can I benefit, how can you help me, and it’s very much a push, like they just give you their information. Here’s my card, here’s my website, here’s this, and I’m like, well, I need to know something about you, I need to know, I need to develop some trust with you before I’m going to send someone to you. Like, cause, it’s going to reflect poorly on me if I send someone to you and you are just you know, it’s not a great experience and guess what? I’ve lost that relationship now too.

So you know, there’s gotta be some kind of connection, like you were saying, on a personal level and professional right. So you have to trust that they are good people, they’re, they’re ethical, they’re going to do what they say that they’re going to do. I trust you to take care of the people that I’m sending you so that I’d feel good about it.

0:19:48 – Jen
We have a pretty large, it’s growing free Facebook group, which is great. It’s just a great way for people to kind of step into our world, be able to understand. We actually offer once a month collaboration calls with that community, just so that they can kind of get a taste of like, let’s see what it’s like to be in a community like this and then if they’re interested in really, you know, meeting on a more regular basis and getting a little bit more of that sort of like mentorship from a business side, things like that, then that’s where our mastermind group comes in. Kind of officially I’ve called it a mastermind, even though I would say it’s a little bit more of like this hybrid experience of what it actually is.

We get together on a weekly basis for different style calls and then we actually are so excited we have coming up a in-person mastermind like conference that we’re doing with these members, where we’re going back to Chicago with them and we’re going to do a little mastermind week with everyone who is now our members.

So it’s kind of fun because it brings it back full circle from like the moment we sort of created it, which was in Chicago, and now we’re like back again with our bigger group doing more masterminding, if someone wanted to just be a part of the community, check it out and sort of jump onto those monthly collaboration calls. We just want to be able to connect anybody that we can, which is why that free group is there. But for the person who really wants to kind of take it to that next level, get really involved and be a part of this sort of deeper community, that’s where we have the mastermind.

0:21:08 – Laurie
So Okay, now talk to me about the real 50 and how that works.

0:21:19 – Jessica
Real 50 is the idea that if you had 50 close people that you knew the ins and outs of their business, what they offered, what they did, and you can refer business back and forth. That’s all you need. You can actually really do okay with 10, but make it aspirational and make it 50 is where that all comes in.

There’s a lot of talk about your dream 100. A lot of times on people’s D100s, I see Tony Robbins, I see Oprah, I see Russell Brunson. I see people that are so far removed from where they are that there’s not really a chance that you’re going to meet that person. I would love it if Oprah was referring business to me.

So what we talk about when we say the real 50 is a closer knit connection to people that you know. I know. If I need somebody for a WordPress website, I know there’s only one person that I’m sending that to. We have somebody in our group who is a spectacular graphic designer.

If somebody is coming to me looking for a graphic designer, I know exactly where I’m sending them to. It’s not. Oh, you should check out this weird Facebook group and put a post in there. No, I have a name, I have personal experience and that’s the person that I’m going to send you to.

0:22:31 – Laurie
I like that. We’re taking it from. You’re probably never going to get to you know, oprah, saying you get a client, you get a client here, you go, here’s some work, but it’s you’re bringing it down to like it’s realistic. So bringing it in a level or two and saying, instead of the aspirational this many, let’s make it realistic, this many, and that’s all you need and that can actually take you pretty far.

0:22:58 – Jen
Hugely far Like, if you think about it, like what would 50 close people who knew exactly what you do in your business knew you were accepting new clients, knew that you, you know, helped a very specific type of ICA or, you know, ideal client, whatever and they knew all of that about you? You know to the point where, as soon as they bumped into someone, they’re like, oh my gosh, I need to introduce you to Jessica. She’s super, she’s the Kartra queen. Like I need her, you know.

So I mean, you know what kind of power would that have? It’s, it really is a huge impact on your business and we are literally seeing that come to life right now, which is so much fun. We have, like some really fun statistics as we’ve been going.

One of the great statistics we love to have and Jessica, you’re going to have to tell me, because I know that you know it better than I do has been like the total dollar amount that we’ve been able to refer like in our group. Every time I hear it, I’m just like what Are you serious? That’s amazing.

0:23:51 – Jessica
So within the eight of us that originally started, we could put actual measurable numbers. From November to October, when we put it all together, we had referred and passed $50,000 worth of business between us to each other Amazing. Now, that’s not necessarily me hiring Jen, but I have hired people within the group. It’s also me saying to somebody that comes into my world I need help with something and then sending that client to them. And that was only with the eight of us, for a six month period, that we measured it.

0:24:25 – Laurie
Wow.

0:24:26 – Jen
Yeah, incredible. And the thing I think that is really important to note from that is that wasn’t our goal, right, and that’s always the thing for us is like we’re not that group. That’s like focusing every single month to be like how many dollars in referral dollars did you pass this month? Right, we didn’t. We don’t do any of that. It just happened to be a question six months later to be like you know, we really have been referring a lot of business to each other. I wonder how much that would be in total if we calculated it up and then we sat back and we looked at it, right? So at no point was that actually a focus for us during those six months. It just happened to be something we were curious about at the end of it.

0:24:58 – Laurie
So that’s just like a nice added bonus, right? So now you’ve got this core group of people that you know you can depend on, you can lean on, you can collaborate with, and then having that additional revenue being created as a result of this connection is just, it’s just frosting. I love that. That is great. I have two things that I just I have to ask, because this is how my mind works. One is what if you have jerks? How do you screen people to make sure jerks don’t get in? Or like people who are just going to come in and be spammy and gross and like screw everybody over and ruin the party.

0:25:35 – Jen
We build the relationship before someone’s coming into this mastermind, and so it would be very odd for us to have someone just like suddenly sign up for the mastermind without any of us, like have are keeping it limited to, like a certain number of people, which I also think helps to, you know, make sure that everyone is playing nicely.

0:26:06 – Laurie
So you kind of have a subtle vetting process in that it’s not just an open door and they can just join and then they’re part of the group and they’re here and they can do whatever, but they kind of have to show who they are before they can be in the group and part of the network.

0:26:19 – Jessica
Yeah, it’s not so much like invitation only, because it definitely is public and it is available to anyone who wanted to be a part of it. I think Jill, who’d absolutely get the hat tip for writing the best, the most incredible copy for the offer, has really helped in manage the expectations of people. We talk about acting heart forward. We talk about doing the right thing, being a community, being support for others and getting support in return, and in knowing how great copy works. Great copy also deflects the people that you don’t want.

0:27:00 – Laurie
So you’re attracting and repelling at the same time. So if somebody’s got it in the back of their head that they’re going to join the group and scam the hell out of it, that copy is going to be like oh no, this is not the place for me, no thanks.

0:27:14 – Jen
Yeah, exactly, and also just with our regular calls that we do. So we do weekly calls with the community and they’re on different kind of focuses, so whether it’s a collaboration call or celebration call, but we also do training calls with them, and all of our training call topics have kind of a focus in on how do I do this with the idea of relationship marketing in mind, right? So how do I do social media with the idea of relationship marketing in mind, relationship marketing in mind, and so those are all just like really great trainings that help to just kind of almost further develop the skills of our mastermind to say, here’s how we do this as a relationship, as a group, as a community, and so we’re continuing to even help each other like hone those skills in along the way.

So so it’s like a development process, all like, every step of the way is is is kind of getting people in mindset of if you’d like to be part of this.

This is who we are, this is how we act and this is kill the fun for everyone. And so it’s really important to us that we really do maintain that Also, just because, like I mentioned before, like the feedback that we’re open to giving each other, like if someone we know that everyone is the first and foremost right, we have to kind of assume everyone’s there for positive intent and they’re just, you know, doing it because maybe they just don’t know of a better way. Like there would be no reason why one of our members wouldn’t be able to reach out and say, like hey, let’s have a conversation. You know, what you’re doing is a little bit. Maybe, you know, maybe it’s offending some people or whatever it is. Let’s talk about a way. Or you know how do we bring that to be able to help nurture those relationships a little bit better. Like, hey, let’s talk about some ways we can do this a little bit more effectively. And I’d love to help you out, and we have all offered to do that for our mastermind members that come on.

0:29:06 – Laurie
So that’s a good point. They may not even realize that what they’re doing is out of alignment with how you want it done right. Because in online business I’ve seen from one end to the other of the spectrum of how to behave and promote yourself and get clients and do business people just may not even be aware that what they’re doing is offensive or inappropriate or spammy, and so you call them in and you say, look, you know, let’s just have a conversation. This is how we feel about what’s going on. Can we talk about it?

0:29:36 – Jen
Yeah.

0:29:36 – Laurie
Yeah, I love it. Okay.

0:29:39 – Jen
Another thing I was going to ask was is it specifically for women or we don’t have any specific rules that says, like it’s only women, anybody can join it. Just through our sort of you know, ideal client development, we’ve kind of realized that that’s just where our branding leans.

0:29:56 – Laurie
Got it. Okay, I thought of that and I was like it sounds like it started with a group of women, but I don’t know where it’s going, so I didn’t know if that changes the dynamic.

0:30:06 – Jessica
When we’re planning all of this. The conversation was is this for only women? Is this for men? What about the non-binary community? There is no designation on the sales page, on any of our verbiage, through anything that designates that this is a women’s only experience. That being said, this year’s cycle is women only. If a male were to join, that’s wonderful and we’re very excited that you’re here and we can’t wait to see what you bring to the community. We knew going in that we probably weren’t going to attract that audience, but if it happened, we would be very receptive to it.

0:30:42 – Jen
We all kind of collectively agree that we want to be really inclusive and kind of all are welcome, all are loved, kind of a group, and so I think that’s going to maintain, you know, probably through the next year and again, you know, our branding kind of hits one way, but everyone’s able to come.

0:30:59 – Laurie
So yeah, perfect, awesome. Thank you so much. You have something for our listeners, which is awesome. This is the seven ways to build connections that grow your business, and I’m going to be putting the link in the show notes as well. Can you tell me, but just like a little tease of what they’re going to get?

0:31:16 – Jen
Yeah, it’s a really great tool we put together just because we wanted to help people get started on this journey if they were interested in relationship marketing and understanding how that all works.

0:31:26 – Jessica
This guide gives you seven actionable steps that you can put into your business that help you build that connection piece from in-person events to digital events, those little tips that if you’re doing this by yourself, you might not be getting. We know a lot of people that are moving to a solo business haven’t done this before. One of the things that’s in the guide that we found really helpful was digital business cards, something that you can show up with and say, oh, here’s a scan, here’s all of my information, but actually use it to follow up and show up with intention and show up in a valuable way that says hey, I’m really glad we got to chat last week. Your dog is so cute, because that might be the little bit of personal that you got out of it. Can we have a coffee conversation to further our relationship and follow up on those things and show up for yourself.

0:32:21 – Laurie
Awesome, I love that. Okay, I’m going to be putting that in the show notes and all of our listeners can grab that. So let’s talk about how listeners can connect with both of you. Jessica, where are you? Where can they find you? Sure.

0:32:33 – Jessica
So my business outside of Kaleidoscope is Pineapple Relations pineapplerelationscom, instagram and Facebook it all runs under Pineapple Relations and I work with individuals looking to grow and scale their businesses using the Cardtrip platform. And then you can also find us in the community connections and collaborations Facebook group that is open to anyone who wants to join and be a part of our little world.

0:32:56 – Laurie
Perfect and Jen, where can our listeners connect with you?

0:32:59 – Jen
world Perfect and Jen, where can our listeners connect with you? Yeah, so, outside of Kaleidoscope I am, you can find me. I own wellspiredco, so Wellspired Collaborative, and we are a training and development company for health and wellness coaches and professionals to help them either grow and deepen their skills as health and wellness coaches and professionals or to help to grow their business. So, and you can find us at Wellspired Co, pretty much all over the social medias or wellspiredco.

0:33:25 – Laurie
Perfect. I’m going to be putting all of your links in the show notes so people can find you wherever they hang out and connect with you and find out more about Kaleidoscope, join your free group, et cetera. Awesome, perfect, well, this has been fantastic.

Thank you so much, both of you, for coming by today and talking about everything that you’re doing about Kaleidoscope and the Real 50 and sharing your free gift with us.

In this episode I chat with Pipsa Valkeila, a business mentor who helps conscious and compassionate women entrepreneurs go from overwhelm, burnout, hustle and scarcity to authenticity, peace, excitement and abundance.

Going from being one of Finland’s most influential sustainability advocates with over 10,000 active readers and mentions from the biggest media platforms of the country, she has grown to become a mentor, helping entrepreneurs get incredible results in alignment, impact, wealth and happiness.

Pipsa is a mentor for conscious and compassionate women entrepreneurs, helping them create aligned businesses full of heart, impact and abundance.

Pipsa lives in a small countryside town in Finland with her partner and two little ones and can be found swimming in lakes, breathing in the fresh air of the forests and basking in the wonder of it all.

Pipsa’s website www.pipsavalkeila.com

Her online course: Aligned & Abundant:

Free gift: 6 things blocking your abundance and how to fix them – A guide to the conscious and compassionate entrepreneur.

In this episode I chat with Annie Toth, a live event consultant, who works with entrepreneurs and community builders to help them plan and execute profitable in-person events. With a background in event planning and leadership development, Annie brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her clients.

Episode Summary:

Annie Toth, a live event consultant, shares her journey into the world of event planning and how she helps entrepreneurs and community builders create successful in-person events. She emphasizes the importance of putting the guests first and tailoring the event to meet their needs.

Annie also discusses the different types of events that can be hosted, such as workshops, parties, retreats, and conferences, and how they can be integrated into a business’s sales funnel. She provides valuable tips for planning and hosting live events, including having a clear purpose, focusing on the guest experience, and starting small to test the waters.

Key Takeaways:

Quotes:

Annie Toth is a live event expert with 15 years of experience in the field. As an Event Consultant, she works with entrepreneurs and community builders to help them profitably bring their people together in person

Connect with Annie

In this episode, I chat with Joanna Sapir, a business strategist for holistic practitioners. Joanna shares her 20-year journey from being a high school teacher to opening her own strength and conditioning gym, and eventually transitioning into helping other wellness professionals streamline their sales process and grow their businesses.

She helps her clients ditch the session-selling model that’s popular in the health and wellness space, and instead, helps them design strategic programs that address their clients’ specific goals and problems, using her signature Client Champion Formula.

The CCF focuses on identifying ideal clients, designing specific journeys for them, and implementing a sales system that filters out the wrong people and enrolls enthusiastic and committed clients.

You can access the Client Champion Formula training mentioned in the episode here: https://joannasapir.com/profitable

Joanna Sapir is a business strategist for holistic practitioners, particularly those that integrate multiple modalities.

Joanna’s special ability is in helping practitioners set up repeatable systems and processes in their businesses to serve their clients more powerfully, enroll committed long-term clients, and create steady income and cash flow.

She has been a teacher and trainer for more than twenty years, from the classroom to the gym floor and now to wellness practices across the world.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a mother of two, a USA Masters National Champion in Olympic-style Weightlifting, and the host of the Business Revolution for Practitioners podcast.

Learn more at http://joannasapir.com

In this episode, I sit down with the Chief Treble Maker, Takenya Freeney, who is a singer,  voice instructor, composer, and entrepreneur to talk about how to use your voice literally, and figuratively, to your best advantage in your business.

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takenya.freeney

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenyaskeys

Her website: https://kenyaskeys.com

Find out more about her upcoming Put Your Best Voice Forward Workshop 

Ever thought about writing a book to boost your business? Adding ‘author’ to your title can quickly elevate you to expert status and provide instant credibility, but the process of writing and actually publishing a book might have seemed overwhelming and caused you to shelf that idea.

In this episode I chat with Chrissy Wiginton, who is a nonfiction publishing strategist for entrepreneurs. With 15 years of experience working in a traditional publishing house, she saw hundreds of book proposals sent in that weren’t a good fit for that specific publisher… but she was unable to help those authors understand what kind of publishing route would be best for their project.

She now provides the guidance and resources to help first-time authors get their material published, based on their specific project and goals and helps them choose the best publishing path so that they can be successful.

Chrissy’s free Facebook group, the Publish with Clarity Club:

Get Chrissy’s Virtual D.I.Y. Publishing Strategy Workshop!

In this episode I sit down with Certified Canva expert Brenda Cadman, to talk about the benefits (and potential pitfalls) of using a DIY graphic design tool as a solopreneur.

As an entrepreneur for more than 22 years, Brenda understands the importance of consistency in building a brand. As a Canva expert, she’s taught thousands of small business owners how to use Canva more effectively and efficiently. In particular, she loves to help business owners tame their hot mess Canva accounts by creating an organizational system that ensures they can spend less time in Canva, and more time doing what they love.

With over 20 years of experience in creating branded marketing assets for her clients (and herself!) Brenda knows the ins and outs of Canva, how to use it most effectively, and what to avoid when using it for your business. She is one of only 25 verified global Canva Experts worldwide, and owner of Bon Accord Creative, a WordPress development company based in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

If you’re only using Canva to create social media graphics, you’re missing out! Grab Brenda’s free guide and find out the 10 ways to use Canva in your business!