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0:01:31 And now on to the show. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show
0:01:36 Greatest Hits Collection. What’s up? What’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because
0:01:43 you are the CEO of your own life. In this episode, you’re going to meet Jane Havens who went from being a
0:01:48 quote, bored stay-at-home mom to running a multi-six-figure business in just a few short years.
0:01:53 Jane, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to chat with you
0:01:57 today. Well, me as well. This is kind of a two-for-one episode because we’re going to learn
0:02:04 about starting a service business from scratch. In Jane’s case, that’s TheSnoozeFest.com. I love
0:02:09 that domain name where she helps babies and toddlers sleep through the night or maybe more accurately
0:02:13 helps parents with their babies and toddlers sleeping through the night. Definitely a big
0:02:18 pain point for moms and dads everywhere. That business started earning thousands of dollars
0:02:24 a month. That’s pretty cool. And then part two in the two-part episode is the addition of an online
0:02:30 course component teaching other people how to do what she did. So stick around in this one to learn
0:02:35 how she’s grown both sides of this thing and how you can borrow some of the same tactics in your own
0:02:42 business. Notes and links for this episode are at SideHustleNation.com slash Jane. It’s J-A-Y-N-E.
0:02:48 While you’re there, make sure to download my free list of 101 service business ideas that you might be able
0:02:55 to apply some of Jane’s same strategies to and get those creative juices flowing. So Jane, 65 grand in
0:03:01 your first year. Tell me about the service that you decided to offer and how you found customer number one.
0:03:09 I launched my business just a few years ago. Prior to becoming a sleep consultant, I worked in catering
0:03:16 sales before I had kids. So I had a bit of a sales background, but when my son was born, I decided that
0:03:23 I wanted to stay home with him. I loved being a stay-at-home mom, but after a few years, actually,
0:03:28 it was around the time that my daughter was born, about four years later, I was sort of feeling burnt out
0:03:36 from the stay-at-home mom life and was really itching to have something to exercise my brain
0:03:44 and to just like get the creative juices flowing again. So I decided sort of on a whim to get my
0:03:49 certification to work as a sleep consultant. This was something that I happened to be really good at
0:03:55 with my own kids. I got both my kids sleeping through the night at a pretty early age. And I was
0:04:01 always sort of the one that friends would come to asking for advice. They wanted to know how to get
0:04:08 their kids to sleep through the night. And frankly, it was really just a hobby of mine for years. What I
0:04:13 thought was going to be just sort of a passion project, something to keep me busy while I was caring for my two
0:04:19 young kids, really turned into a pretty legit business pretty quickly, which was exciting.
0:04:25 And where did I find my first client? In a Facebook group. You know, there are tons of moms’ Facebook
0:04:31 groups, either based on location or hobbies or interests. And I was just sort of lurking around
0:04:38 in Facebook groups. And I would hear parents complaining or seeking advice regarding their children’s sleep.
0:04:45 And I would just chime in and sort of answer their question is really what I did. I would answer their
0:04:50 question, provide a ton of really solid advice, and then also let them know that I was a professional
0:04:56 in this field and that I could help them one-on-one if they were seeking that type of support.
0:05:03 I didn’t know there was such thing as a baby whisperer certification, sleep consulting certification.
0:05:09 Do you think that was important for, you know, building credibility or your own confidence?
0:05:15 I asked myself the same question. I was really well-read in this topic because I had two kids of
0:05:21 my own. I worked really hard to get them sleeping. And part of me felt like, why do I even need to
0:05:26 take a certification course? Is this really necessary? Can I just do, I’m already doing it. Can I just
0:05:31 charge for it? You know, that thought definitely crossed my mind, but I do think that it was really
0:05:38 important to take a course for a few reasons. One, it sort of put me in the position to take myself
0:05:44 more seriously and to have confidence that I was trained, I was qualified, and I was a professional
0:05:50 in this field rather than just sort of winging it. I also think that there’s a lot to be learned.
0:05:56 Even if you think you know everything, there’s always more to be learned. Just in my case in particular,
0:06:01 my two kids, I taught them to sleep independently when they were about three or four months old,
0:06:07 and they have been solid sleepers ever since. I never personally struggled with an 18-month-old
0:06:14 trying to climb out of a crib or a three-year-old that wanted a parent to stay next to them while falling
0:06:19 asleep. These were things that I knew that other families struggled with, but I had personally never
0:06:25 gone through them. So it was really valuable to have the education to prepare me to support families
0:06:29 that had been through other struggles that I personally had never gone through.
0:06:35 Okay. Yeah, I like that. Combining something that people were already asking you questions about,
0:06:38 something that you’d gone through yourself, but not the full spectrum of it. It’s not like you were
0:06:42 struggling with this for years and years and years. So it’s like, okay, there are other
0:06:49 challenges that potential customers might know about. And then this investment in your own training,
0:06:56 education and saying, okay, and I imagine from the perspective of a prospective client to, I mean,
0:07:01 if you’re comparing, you know, two potential service providers to potential sleep consultants in this
0:07:06 case, like, yeah, all this being equal, I’ll take the one who did the certification training. I don’t
0:07:11 know. So that makes, that makes sense as a prospective customer, that little badge of approval or seal of
0:07:18 approval would, would make some sense. The next thing that you mentioned was I was in these mom’s
0:07:22 Facebook groups and people were asking questions or complaining about the kids sleeping. And so it’s
0:07:27 kind of just, you know, slowly raising your hand and saying, Hey, well, have you, have you tried this?
0:07:32 Have you, you know, what, what’s working? What’s not working? Kind of Q and A. Is that how the
0:07:33 conversation started?
0:07:39 The way I always approach it is I wanted to establish myself as an authority within these
0:07:44 communities. So when I was first getting my business off the ground, I really spent time just
0:07:51 making my name known. I wasn’t necessarily trying to land clients right off the bat. I just wanted
0:07:58 people to trust me. So I was providing a ton of really solid advice. You know, if somebody was posting
0:08:03 that their eight month old was up every 45 minutes and they were losing their mind and they just didn’t
0:08:11 know what to do, I would chime in and say, hi, I am a certified sleep consultant. I specialize in both
0:08:18 infant and toddler sleep. My guess is that your eight month old is waking up hourly because they don’t know
0:08:24 how to fall asleep independently. And when a baby doesn’t know how to fall asleep independently, then
0:08:28 they’re not properly positioned to fall back to sleep independently, which leads to multiple wake
0:08:33 ups throughout the night. You know, my suggestion would be to teach your child how to fall asleep
0:08:38 independently so that they are better positioned to do that work in the middle of the night when
0:08:43 they briefly rouse. If you’d like some guidance and support through this process, reach out to me,
0:08:49 you know, here’s my website. Here’s a direct link to schedule a free 15 minute phone call.
0:08:55 That little calendar, which I think you use as well is my lifeline. So, you know, giving people access
0:09:02 to reach out to me if they wanted it while also providing a ton of really valuable free advice,
0:09:08 I think is what made people trust me and, and want to reach out to me and hire me.
0:09:12 Okay. Yeah. It sounds like you have posted this dozens and dozens of times. You got the script down.
0:09:18 I like this part about introducing yourself as a certified sleep consultant, like just coming in,
0:09:23 you know, to rise above the noise that might happen inside of a parenting Facebook group,
0:09:27 like where everybody’s just throwing opinions at you. It’s like, okay, that one little line
0:09:32 establishing some authority and then going into the advice and then the call to action for the
0:09:38 free 15 minute consult at the end. That works. Do you ever like find yourself posting proactively?
0:09:42 Like, you know, would that be allowed? Would that be considered spammy today? Like, here’s the
0:09:48 top five tips that you need to know at the top of the group, or I don’t know if that type of post
0:09:49 would get any sort of engagement.
0:09:53 When I was first getting started, all the Facebook groups sort of have different rules.
0:09:59 Some allow a little bit of self-promotion. Others definitely don’t. I did reach out to a lot of
0:10:05 admins of Facebook groups that I was active in. And I would ask some of them, Hey, would it be okay
0:10:11 if I did maybe a monthly free Q and a for your community? You know, maybe I would just introduce
0:10:18 myself as a certified sleep consultant. And on the first Wednesday of every month, I will be here for
0:10:25 an hour to answer everybody’s questions. So I did that for a little bit. I definitely think that it helped
0:10:31 again to build authority. I don’t know how many clients came from that, but it was good just sort of
0:10:37 word of mouth and name recognition. So, you know, I don’t regret spending that time doing that, but I don’t
0:10:41 really do much of that anymore, to be honest. Yeah. I can see people do, I mean, it’s the more
0:10:47 times people see your name and then they associate that with sleep consulting, the better, right? It’s
0:10:54 all little touch points to establish credibility. And we’ve seen some examples really of people doing
0:11:00 similar things in like entrepreneurial Facebook groups. For example, one example that I always point
0:11:06 to is Steve Stewart in the podcast editing space and specifically the podcast editing for personal
0:11:12 finance podcasts, like inside of the FinCon community. Anytime there was a podcasting question,
0:11:17 either he would, you know, be on top of it, he would respond right away or people couldn’t rush to tag him
0:11:21 fast enough. Oh, this is a question for Steve, right? And so he became really well known through that
0:11:27 community for as being the go-to guy for that thing. And I imagine the same thing happens over time
0:11:33 in these different groups as well. Did you start out locally or you’re like, I’m going nationwide,
0:11:40 baby. I’m going to like, try to find these huge moms groups. It was easiest to establish authority in my
0:11:46 own local Facebook groups because I had plenty of friends and family members and just extended
0:11:53 network connections that were quick to tag me in sleep related posts. But I definitely expanded beyond
0:12:00 just my own local mom’s Facebook groups and joined some larger communities. And, you know,
0:12:06 it took a little bit longer to gain that authority in those groups where I didn’t have as many
0:12:11 connections within those communities. But after time, you know, after some time, what ends up happening
0:12:17 is people that don’t even know me personally have never even worked with me, are used to seeing my name,
0:12:23 just like you said, about sleep related posts and they just tag me. So yeah, over time, I was able
0:12:28 to build some credibility and authority within other communities outside of my own local space.
0:12:35 Did you give any thought to, well, is this something that people pay money for like competitive analysis
0:12:41 wise, like who else is out there? What are they charging? What’s the, I mean, the market size is
0:12:46 potentially huge. Like any, any parent with young kids, like, okay, that’s a huge market, but how to
0:12:51 say like, is this something that people pay money for? I knew that people were paying money for it.
0:12:59 I didn’t invent the idea. You know, when I decided to get my certification, I quickly Googled, you know,
0:13:05 sleep consultant certification courses and a few names popped up and I researched them a little bit.
0:13:09 You know, you can’t, you can’t really tell from a website, like how big are these companies,
0:13:14 how many people are really enrolled in these programs. It was hard to tell, but you know,
0:13:19 I knew I wasn’t the first one out there doing this. I knew that people were paying for this service
0:13:25 and I just needed to decide, you know, what I was going to charge for this service and what my services
0:13:31 were actually going to look like because they didn’t necessarily need to look like what everybody
0:13:36 else was doing. My pricing didn’t necessarily need to be the same. And my, my offer didn’t necessarily
0:13:37 need to be the same.
0:13:39 How much were you charging early on?
0:13:48 So early on, I was charging $425 for a two week consultation, which might sound really low
0:13:53 to somebody that doesn’t understand what we do. And it is a little low. I’ve, I’ve since raised my
0:13:59 pricing, but the way that we support families, at least for me, I find that if I set my clients up for
0:14:06 success on the front end, which looks like a really thorough, well-written sleep plan, a phone call to
0:14:13 answer all of their questions, those two things set up my clients for success. So I’m not talking to them
0:14:18 all day for two weeks, you know? So I write this plan, I get on a 30 minute call, and then they have
0:14:23 text message support from me for two weeks with a wrap up phone call at the end. All in all, most of my
0:14:30 clients really only require about an hour and a half to two hours worth of work. You know, it’s 45
0:14:35 minutes maybe to write the plan, two 30 minute phone calls, and then some like sporadic text message
0:14:41 support. So what I found is that I really can support a lot of families at once and really build a pretty
0:14:48 substantial income. You know, at one point I was supporting 25, 30 families a month, which I’ve
0:14:54 since scaled back. But you know, you can make good money charging four or five hundred dollars doing
0:14:59 that. More with Jane in just a moment, including how she generates referrals and word of mouth to deal
0:15:04 with the inevitable client turnover in a service like this, and how your hourly rate can improve over
0:15:09 time right after this. For such an important channel like phone, the software powering this
0:15:15 important channel was super outdated and clunky. We wanted to make it delightful and make it very
0:15:21 easy for businesses to connect with their customers through voice and text. That’s Darina Kulia,
0:15:26 co-founder of our sponsor, OpenPhone. Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one
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0:15:45 incredible experience.
0:15:51 Right. It’s all about speed, streamlined communication, team access to one centralized place. I think that
0:15:52 makes a lot of sense.
0:15:58 Something that all of our customers love is ability to have a shared phone number, which really is great
0:16:03 for calling and texting. So when someone calls you or texts you, there’s multiple people that can team
0:16:09 up on responding. And everyone is in the loop about that conversation. This visibility is so critical,
0:16:11 especially as you scale.
0:16:17 And the ability to text a business is like a new and novel thing that as a customer, I really appreciate.
0:16:24 One thing that we’ve launched at OpenPhone, which is, I think, a game changer, is Sona, which is our voice AI
0:16:30 agent. It basically helps you never have a single missed call. It can handle responses to any common
0:16:36 questions, basically any questions that you train it on, and then it can capture that information so
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0:16:42 lost opportunity.
0:16:47 Now, OpenPhone has automatic AI call summaries, so you don’t have to worry about taking notes while you’re on
0:16:53 the call. But another cool feature is what Darina called AI call tagging, basically allowing you to
0:16:59 quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints or requests for
0:17:04 a discount. So you can review those and see what worked, what didn’t, and train team members on the
0:17:10 most effective tactics and language in those cases. And it’s all in the name of building a better,
0:17:12 faster, and friendlier customer experience.
0:17:16 I want all OpenPhone customers to have five stars only.
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0:17:44 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out was this idea of
0:17:48 the piggyback principle. In the startup phase, that means you don’t have to start completely
0:17:53 from scratch, but instead you can take advantage of existing tools, templates, playbooks, best practices
0:17:58 from the people who’ve gone before you. A perfect example of this is our partner Shopify.
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0:18:54 Yeah. And so they kind of graduate out of the consultation after this two weeks, or do you find
0:18:55 people renew after that?
0:19:02 Very few families need to renew. Most of my clients that have infants were totally done in two weeks. And
0:19:07 then my clients that have older children, sometimes it’s a little bit of a longer process, but I still
0:19:12 find that most of them are ready to be wrapped up. Even if they have more work to be done on their end,
0:19:17 I’ve given them the tools in those two weeks that they don’t really need me anymore. They just,
0:19:21 they know what they need to do and they just need to keep doing that work to get to the finish line.
0:19:28 Okay. So it’s kind of this, at least on the consulting side, this constant hunt for new
0:19:33 business. Cause it’s like, well, if a client only lasts two weeks, then I gotta, I gotta go back to
0:19:34 the drawing board to find the next client kind of a thing.
0:19:40 Yeah. So that’s true. But what I find is that all of my clients are really coming to me by way of
0:19:46 referral. I’m really, I’m changing lives out there right now. You know, parents come to me sort of at
0:19:53 rock bottom. They’re so desperate for sleep. They’re so exhausted. They’re delirious. And in two
0:19:58 weeks, I, I turned their life around. You know, people tell me that I saved their marriage. People
0:20:03 tell me that their children are, their behavior has completely changed, that they enjoy their children
0:20:12 more. So this really rapid, amazing results leads to them sort of singing my praises from the rooftops.
0:20:19 And most of my clients come to me by way of hearing my name through a former client of mine.
0:20:25 So I’m not really out there hunting for business. I was in the beginning when I first, when I first
0:20:30 got started, I definitely was out there hunting for business. But at this point, it’s sort of like
0:20:36 every single day I get an email or a text message or a phone call from somebody that got my name
0:20:43 from a former client. Yeah. Parents tend to know other parents and the word of mouth starts to
0:20:49 spread. One other thing on the, on the pricing or the consulting side, and that’s you, I’m writing up
0:20:57 this plan, but I imagine by this point, you’ve seen just about every scenario or every, you know, sleep
0:21:03 related problem. And so it’s like, there’s probably a template that you can, you know, dust off from,
0:21:08 Oh, I had somebody, you know, on the other side of the country, you know, last month who was dealing
0:21:13 with the same thing. So we can just apply this. And so that makes it even faster to deliver.
0:21:20 Absolutely. I’ve supported so many families at this point that actually when a new client comes in,
0:21:27 maybe it’ll be, you know, baby Eli and he’s four months old and I’ve already worked with three Eli’s
0:21:32 that are four months old. So, you know, you know, the details might be a little bit different. Maybe
0:21:38 the first Eli was sleeping in a snoo and the second Eli is sleeping in a crib and the first Eli uses a
0:21:45 pacifier and the second Eli doesn’t. So I need to make sure that all of the details are specific to
0:21:50 the family that I’m supporting, but yeah, I’m not, I’m not reinventing the wheel. I’m not starting from
0:21:55 scratch every once in a while, a situation comes my way that I feel like is a little bit unique.
0:22:00 And I do have to start a little bit from scratch. And that actually throws me for a loop at this
0:22:04 point because it’s so rare. Okay. No, but that’s, I wanted to highlight that just because like, okay,
0:22:10 the, the hourly rate becomes a lot better as you go forward. And as you have kind of more,
0:22:16 you know, more knowledge and more files and more case studies in your database or in your Rolodex,
0:22:19 you can say, okay, I can, I know what, I know what’s going on here.
0:22:25 On the referral marketing side, aside from delivering great service and transforming,
0:22:29 you know, parents are obviously getting more sleep and they’re happy. They’re going to spread the word.
0:22:35 Is there anything specific to incentivize that word of mouth sharing or just, Hey,
0:22:36 it’s going to happen naturally.
0:22:43 I personally don’t incentivize my clients to refer me. I don’t want to give them a little
0:22:49 Starbucks gift. It just, it’s not, it doesn’t feel sincere. I don’t know. I don’t really want to be
0:22:56 paying my former clients for referrals. So I personally don’t do that. I just take really good
0:23:01 care of them. I send every family a handwritten thank you note with a little gift for their child
0:23:08 at the end of our two weeks together. I think that that gesture goes a really long way and
0:23:14 they remember that. And you know, they, they share my name. I haven’t really had the need to
0:23:18 highly incentivize my clients to refer business to me.
0:23:22 Yeah. I know that. That makes sense. Especially when it’s something so
0:23:26 personal. It’s like, well, are you recommending this person because they were good or because
0:23:27 they sent you a Starbucks card?
0:23:28 Exactly. Yeah.
0:23:32 But I like this, this personal touch, handwritten thank you, a little token,
0:23:36 a little something for the kid. I think that’s awesome. And aside from the Facebook stuff,
0:23:41 anything else on the marketing side, or is it just like, Hey, I need to do the Facebook group thing
0:23:47 to get this initial customer base. And then the word of mouth starts spinning.
0:23:55 So I think the key to finding clients is networking and connecting is talking to people. I don’t think
0:24:00 that necessarily has to happen in Facebook groups. That’s where it was happening for me,
0:24:06 but I know that other sleep consultants are successful networking and connecting offline.
0:24:12 You know, if Facebook groups aren’t your thing, it doesn’t need to be that for me, that’s where I got
0:24:17 started. And then it was referrals and word of mouth. But I know that others spend time networking with
0:24:24 pediatricians, lactation consultants, doulas, preschool teachers, family photographers. And,
0:24:29 you know, as my network has grown, these are all places where I also receive referrals. Actually,
0:24:36 a good friend of mine is a family photographer and takes pictures of newborns and older babies. And,
0:24:42 you know, she’s referred business to me. My daughter’s preschool director has referred business
0:24:47 to me. So, you know, there’s lots of ways that I am networking and connecting to grow my business.
0:24:51 Facebook is just one place where I’m hanging out to do that.
0:24:56 All right. Think of, you know, who your target customers are already doing business with,
0:25:00 where are they hanging out? I like this, you know, the preschool teachers. If people know what you do,
0:25:06 then it’s easy and who you do it for, then it’s easy to make that connection. So I think that all
0:25:12 makes a lot of sense. All right. So things are spinning on the marketing, the referral side,
0:25:17 people are coming in, they’re signing up for this two week consultation and you’re delivering
0:25:23 their results. Can you give me a sense of, you know, a day in the life, if there is such a thing,
0:25:28 or, you know, the logistics of delivering us on a service-based business like this?
0:25:34 Frankly, it looks different every single day. I wake up in the morning and before I even get out
0:25:38 of bed, you know, seven o’clock in the morning, I’m texting all of my clients just to see how the
0:25:44 night went. That’s how I start off my day. I like to get that out of the way before my kids start
0:25:49 getting going and I’m rushing to get them off to school. Just a little bit of back and forth with
0:25:55 each family to hear how the night went and to offer a tiny bit of advice or support or just
0:26:03 whatever they need. Then my morning is busy with getting my kids ready for school, breakfast out
0:26:09 the door. Then I usually have time to myself for about an hour or two. My calendar doesn’t open up
0:26:16 for calls until about 10 a.m. So I have, you know, an hour and a half to run to the grocery store,
0:26:24 get gas, you know, do whatever I need to do for myself in my own life. And then from 10 until about
0:26:32 two to 30, I am doing all sorts of stuff. Sometimes it’s phone calls with perspective
0:26:38 clients. Sometimes it is that first 30 minute phone call to onboard a family that’s getting
0:26:44 started with sleep training. Sometimes it’s just hanging out in Facebook groups and, you know,
0:26:50 doing my thing really looks different every single day. I make time for the things that I want to be
0:26:56 doing because the whole point of me starting this business was to like, continue to be that
0:27:01 stay at home mom that I was. I just also wanted to use my brain and make some money. So I still make
0:27:09 time for myself. I will make sure that I have a lunch with friends once a week. I played tennis earlier
0:27:14 today. You know, I do the things I have a Mahjong group. So like I do all the things that I want to be
0:27:21 doing as a mom that has her two kids in school that has some free time, but then I’m also
0:27:27 churning out stuff for my business. And most of it can be done by phone. You know, I’m on my cell
0:27:33 phone all day. I’m not sitting at a computer. So, you know, I can talk to my clients while I’m sitting
0:27:39 in carpool line or at the checkout counter at Target. You know, I have a really flexible schedule
0:27:44 with work. And then I write all of my sleep plans at night after my kids are in bed. It’s just
0:27:49 my routine. They could be done during the day, but for whatever reason, I’ve just gotten used to doing
0:27:52 them at night. That’s what I do. And I don’t know, that’s what my day looks like.
0:27:58 Okay. Yeah. Something that kind of fits in the cracks in the days in a lot of ways versus,
0:28:02 you know, here’s my nine to five, going to the office, firing up the laptop. And it’s like,
0:28:06 oh, it sounds, it sounds very flexible. One thing I did want to ask about was the
0:28:12 transition from this free initial consultation to saying, hey, I think I can help you,
0:28:18 but it’s going to be $425. Like what’s that conversation like, or what’s that,
0:28:21 you know, gentle nudge to sign up for the actual service?
0:28:29 Sure. So it’s now more like $600. 425 was what I was first starting. But I think when people are
0:28:34 getting on that free 15 minute call with me, and I’m probably making this pretty clear when they’re
0:28:40 getting on that call that the 15 minute call is not for me to share free advice. The free 15 minute
0:28:46 call is for me to hear a little bit about what they’re struggling with, wrap my head around their
0:28:51 specific situation. And for me to paint a picture of what it would look like for us to work together
0:28:58 and how I can help, how I can solve that problem that they have. So they know, most of them know that
0:29:04 that 15 minute call is really just to make sure that we jive, we get along, and then they decide
0:29:09 whether or not they want to hire me. And, you know, I sit there and I listen to their struggle.
0:29:16 I share how I can help. I explain what the process looks like. And then I explain to them that if they
0:29:20 would like to work together, they head to my website and sign on to work together. And then for me,
0:29:28 it’s about 48 hours to turn around a sleep plan and get started on working towards their children
0:29:33 sleeping more independently. Okay. Yeah. They’re not expecting to have all their problems solved in 15
0:29:39 minutes. Do you have prices listed on your website? I do. Yeah. I think that that’s important. I understand
0:29:46 in some industries that is more complicated, but in my situation, I think that they need to know.
0:29:52 I don’t really want to be getting on phone calls with people only for them to hear my pricing and
0:29:57 think it’s outrageous or whatever, you know, that just feels like a huge waste of time. So
0:30:02 I’m really transparent about pricing. It’s always like, you know, if, if it’s all the,
0:30:07 you know, call us for a quote or request a consultation, it’s like, if you have to ask,
0:30:12 it’s probably not going to be a good number. So yeah, be upfront with it, save everybody some time
0:30:17 and heartache and just, it makes a lot of sense to be upfront about that. And so you’re working with
0:30:22 clients who are going to be a good fit. And then they’re going into that consultation, likely knowing
0:30:30 what comes out the other end. Are you, do you have a sense of the typical conversion rate, so to speak,
0:30:32 of somebody jumping on the call with you to becoming a client?
0:30:40 I really don’t keep track. Uh, I really don’t. So the thing about me is like, I’m not a computer
0:30:45 person. Like I always joke, like how successful would I be if I actually knew how to work my own
0:30:52 computer? You know, like I am not one to track data and have spreadsheets and I’m just, you know,
0:30:55 I’m getting on calls with people. And if they hire me, they hire me. And if they don’t, they don’t.
0:31:01 I used to spend a lot of time keeping track of who I had spoken to and following up with them.
0:31:06 I do believe that to some degree, the fortunes and the follow-up, but as my business has grown,
0:31:12 I’ve just come to a point where I’m sort of good with whatever happens. If they hire me, great. If not,
0:31:18 I’ve moved on and I’m busy. So I, I’m not as, I’m not worried about it. Yeah.
0:31:23 Yeah. Versus, yeah, I’m going to grow a team and I’m going to franchise this thing out. And maybe this
0:31:29 is a good transition point. So you’re getting questions from parents all day long, but I get
0:31:34 the sense that you’re also starting to get questions from other moms or other parents saying like, well,
0:31:41 I, you know, how could I do what you do? And this is the, the birth of the online course side of the
0:31:49 business. Let’s talk about that, that transition. Sure. So a few reasons for why I decided to create
0:31:57 my own certification course. One, I’m just sort of hungry when it comes to business. I like the feeling
0:32:04 of being successful and growing and always challenging myself and creating my own certification course felt
0:32:13 like the best way to level up for lack of a better way of explaining it. I also saw that the other sleep
0:32:18 consultant certification courses on the market were lacking in certain areas that I felt like were
0:32:24 pretty, it was pretty like substantial what was lacking. And I felt like I could fill that gap
0:32:31 and provide a higher level of support, a higher level of mentorship. And, you know, I also place a
0:32:35 really heavy emphasis on business building and entrepreneurship in my program, which I don’t
0:32:40 think other courses on the market are really doing. This was sort of what I saw missing. I,
0:32:46 I saw these women coming out of these programs and they were trained to be sleep consultants,
0:32:54 but they weren’t trained to grow a business. And they really lacked that understanding of how to find
0:33:01 clients, how to network, how to grow, how to just like logistically set yourself up. They weren’t given
0:33:09 the tools to have the proper mindset to be successful. And these were all things that some, most of which came,
0:33:14 I think a little bit naturally to me, but it’s also what I really love. I love the entrepreneurial side
0:33:22 of having a sleep consulting business. So I thought it would be frankly, just really fun to coach and
0:33:29 inspire others to have a similar level of success. Yeah. There’s two sides to this. There’s learn how to
0:33:36 do the thing and then learn how to go get customers for that thing. And so touching on both of those makes a lot
0:33:46 of sense. So this is at the CPSM.com center for pediatric sleep management. I am checking the site
0:33:55 out now on the certification thing. So you can just create your own certification and say, you know,
0:34:04 give it an official sounding name and now customers are certified. Yeah. So the universe of sleep consulting
0:34:09 is really an unregulated field, which I have mixed feelings about because I do think that,
0:34:16 you know, it would be nice to have some standards within the industry, within the field. But I also
0:34:22 think that the work we do is we’re essentially, we’re parenting coaches. We are coaching parents
0:34:27 through the process of teaching their child to fall asleep and back to sleep independently. There’s nothing
0:34:32 dangerous. There’s nothing risky. There’s nothing medical about the work that we’re doing. So,
0:34:37 you know, in some respects, I sort of think, do we really need to be regulated? You know, we’re just,
0:34:42 we’re coaching parents through something that feels hard, just sort of like potty training, right?
0:34:46 There are actually potty training consultants. I don’t know if you know that, but you would never
0:34:51 think that potty training consultants, that that needs to be a regulated field, right? Like you just
0:34:56 coach parents through the process of potty training their kids. And I think sleep training is very
0:35:02 similar. Yeah. And I’m not trying to make light of it because I see other online programs doing the
0:35:07 same thing. So I just had to bring up LoanSigningSystem.com. This is Mark Wills, and we’ve
0:35:13 had several of his students on the show as well, teaching people how to become mobile notary loan signing
0:35:17 agents. And he says, you know, at the very top of the thing, this is America’s number one
0:35:23 notary public loan signing agent training course and certification. So it’s like, and if it becomes
0:35:30 big enough, if you become kind of the go-to brand in that space, then all of a sudden your certification
0:35:36 starts to hold some merit, hold some weight with potential customers and say, okay, you know, you
0:35:41 had some education in this space. We’re, we’re good to go on this. Tell me about the, I guess, initial
0:35:49 traction or what was there any like pre-sales or market research that went into creating this course?
0:35:55 Did you have a waiting list of, you know, moms who wanted to sign up? Yeah. So this was like really
0:36:00 outside of my wheelhouse, if I’m being completely honest, like, you know, creating a digital course,
0:36:07 creating the curriculum for a digital course. I had never even heard of platforms, you know,
0:36:11 all the learning platforms like Thinkific and Teachable and Kajabi. Like I literally didn’t
0:36:17 know what any of those were and I didn’t know how any of them worked. And I didn’t even have an email
0:36:23 list. I didn’t have, I wasn’t working with, now I have active campaign, but like, you know,
0:36:30 when I was just doing consulting, I wasn’t using MailChimp or Constant Contact or anything like that.
0:36:36 I really sort of had to get my act together. I hired somebody to help me write the course curriculum
0:36:42 because I had never done that before. This is what she does professionally. And I literally,
0:36:49 I sent her six books. I got on a million Zooms with her. We literally outlined the course module by
0:36:55 module. I taught her everything I knew. After I would tell her something, I’d say, okay, then go to this
0:37:00 book and like, read about it here. And then write up this, you know, she helped me to create this whole
0:37:07 curriculum and we put it on Thinkific. And I just started, I started list building, but literally I
0:37:14 was building it in a Google doc. You know, I was meeting people in Facebook groups that were maybe
0:37:18 interested in becoming a sleep consultant. And I would tell them, you know, my course is launching
0:37:25 in three months. Can I just grab an email from you? And when it does, I’ll make sure that you get emails and
0:37:33 information about it. And so I was having these conversations in Facebook DMs. And then I had my
0:37:39 Google doc of like their names and their emails. So I think by the time I launched my course, I had
0:37:46 about 300 people on my email list. Wow. Very grassroots, kind of like one-on-one hand-to-hand
0:37:52 list building. Yeah. More with Jane in just a moment, including how she uses a Facebook group to connect
0:37:57 with qualified prospects and the other tools and tech she swears by right after this.
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0:40:18 Yeah. And so what was great was that not only did I have their name and email, but I had also
0:40:23 previously connected with them in Facebook Messenger. So like I had access to having conversations with
0:40:28 them. You know, it wasn’t like just sending an email that somebody was going to delete. It was like,
0:40:34 I could actually send them a Facebook message and I could see whether or not they read it and then
0:40:40 hopefully they’d respond, you know, but it was a little bit more like personal access than just
0:40:48 an email. So when the course was finally ready to launch, I did have a pre-sale and for, I think it
0:40:56 was like seven to 10 days, the course was pretty heavily discounted. And during that launch, I think I sold
0:41:03 about seven courses and then a few days later, my goal was 10. I know that. And I know that I didn’t
0:41:09 make my goal in the initial launch, but literally a few days later, I was up to 10. So I was very close
0:41:15 to making my goal. And that was from a list of about 300 people. So I think that was like, it was pretty
0:41:21 decent for a launch. Yeah. Like a 3% conversion rate. I don’t know what’s good or bad, but, but,
0:41:26 you know, I think it was considered to be decent or I felt good about it. You know,
0:41:32 that’s, that’s what counts. Yeah, whatever. And, and then, so I just sort of kept plugging along and I
0:41:39 would just keep adding people to my email list. And I was everybody I was in touch with. Again,
0:41:44 this was like connecting with people in Facebook groups. And for this side of my business, I was
0:41:50 sort of hunting around in more entrepreneurial type Facebook groups, talking to women that were
0:41:58 teachers, nurses, paralegals, hairstylists, really anybody, but that were sort of unhappy in their
0:42:04 career, looking for a passion project. And, and I would just put them into my email list. And I would
0:42:11 also just keep in touch with them in Facebook messenger, you know, over time that built. And eventually,
0:42:16 I don’t know how long it was after I started the course, but I created my own Facebook group,
0:42:23 which is called becoming a sleep consultant. That was a real turning point for my business and how I
0:42:30 grew the course, because now I sort of use that Facebook group as the top of my funnel. And I bring
0:42:36 people from various Facebook groups over to my Facebook group and nurture my audience there. They
0:42:42 still get all of my emails, but it’s a good way to sort of educate them on what it looks like to become
0:42:48 a sleep consultant and then, you know, provide information on what my program specifically looks
0:42:55 like and the value that I offer. Okay. Let’s talk about the group at the top of the funnel. So now I’m
0:43:02 on the becoming a sleep consultant group. I think Facebook is an underrated search engine in that sense.
0:43:05 So if somebody searches sleep consultant, you know, you want to show up. If somebody searches
0:43:11 side hustle, I want the side hustle nation, Facebook group to show up as a top of the funnel entry point.
0:43:15 If Facebook is going to send me free traffic, I will take it. So how does this, how does this work?
0:43:18 Somebody comes to this page for the first time or this group for the first time.
0:43:23 So they come to the group either because just like you said, they searched sleep consultant and because
0:43:29 that’s in the name of my group, they just find it. Or I found them in another Facebook group and
0:43:35 encourage them to join my Facebook group. And they have to answer a few membership questions. One of which
0:43:41 is, you know, would you like to receive my free ebook on becoming a sleep consultant, which opts them into
0:43:46 my email. So if they share an email, then I plop them into my email address. I add them into the
0:43:52 Facebook group and I will either tag them in. I have a welcome post at the top of my group, which is just
0:43:59 sort of like a 20 minute rundown of everything they need to know. I’ll either tag them there, or if they
0:44:04 join the group, one of the questions I think I ask them is like, do you have any questions about becoming a
0:44:09 sleep consultant? If they ask a question that I’ve already answered in the Facebook group, I do a lot of
0:44:14 lives in that community, just answering questions that come up regularly. So, you know, if their
0:44:20 question is, how do I choose a sleep consultant certification program? Well, I’ve done a live on
0:44:27 that exact topic. So if that’s their question, I tag them there and they can watch that and sort of that
0:44:35 gets them sort of hopefully more interested in what I do. I also send every single person that joins my
0:44:41 Facebook group, a message just to introduce myself, let them know that they can ask me questions in
0:44:47 Facebook messenger anytime. And it just sort of opens up the communication and, you know, gets us
0:44:48 talking.
0:44:54 Yes. This is something that, and not that 3000 is a small audience, but 3000 members today is something
0:45:00 that a smaller group, a more intimate group can really do and really have an advantage over,
0:45:06 over a larger group where it’s like, I couldn’t DM everybody who requested to join. So I think that’s
0:45:10 actually really cool. And that’s an advantage that you may have starting out and really have this one-on-one
0:45:18 touch point. Are you doing manually when somebody requests this, the email opt-in thing with the
0:45:18 membership questions?
0:45:27 I was for a long time, uh, which was brutal. And then, then somebody told me that I could use one
0:45:33 of those little like Chrome plugins to do it all for me. And that actually has been totally life
0:45:37 changing. I think it’s called, I want to say it’s called group leads.
0:45:41 Yes. Group leads is the one I’m using. I love it. It’s like the coolest piece of software.
0:45:48 Life changing. Yeah. So, you know, they, they request to join. I accept them using the group
0:45:53 leads, little red button, and it automatically sends them a per, a welcome message, personalized
0:45:58 welcome message. It automatically opts them into my emails if they’ve agreed to be opted into emails
0:46:00 and that gets it started.
0:46:05 Yeah. Now they’re in active campaign. Now they’re, now they’re part of the system versus just being
0:46:10 another person on Facebook. Like it’s, it gets more touch points and does it in an automated
0:46:14 way. So I’ve really been happy with that release for the last seven, eight months I’ve been on
0:46:16 group leads. Definitely. Yeah. Same.
0:46:22 A, um, a game changer for sure. Okay. So now you have opportunity to communicate with people. You’re
0:46:25 answering questions. You’re like, if you have any questions, Oh, we already covered that in this
0:46:29 live. And so now they’re watching this video and they’re building a deeper relationship with you.
0:46:35 And then for the course itself, is this on a open and close cart? Is it evergreen? Is it always
0:46:37 available? What’s the strategy there?
0:46:43 It’s always available. I’ve had strategists, coaches tell me to do it differently. You know,
0:46:49 everybody has a different opinion about this, but my course is always available. And I like it to be
0:46:55 that way because I like for a person to register here, a person to register there. You know, if I have
0:47:01 20 or 30 people registering at once, it’s actually overwhelming for me on like the onboarding side.
0:47:06 And then also there are a few assignments that I have to grade throughout their, you know, going
0:47:11 through the course. And it actually is really nice to have them all staggered so that they’re turning
0:47:17 in assignments at different times. Um, I actually had a crazy, crazy busy month this past November.
0:47:24 I ran a black Friday sale and now I’m sort of on the struggle bus because they’re all wrapping up the
0:47:30 course. So, you know, I’m paying the price for that right now. So it’s nice when they trickle in.
0:47:37 Okay. Is there anything to encourage people to get off the fence and just do it? Or just like, Hey,
0:47:43 the price is the price, whether you jump in this week or next week or next month,
0:47:45 whenever it’s right for you, doesn’t matter to me.
0:47:53 So I do offer sales pretty regularly. It works, you know, giving people a couple hundred dollars
0:48:00 off the price of the course makes them feel like they are winning, you know? So, so I do that from
0:48:07 time to time. I also often will, you know, if I get on a call with somebody and they, they seem like
0:48:14 really, really ready and they just need a push. I will offer them sort of a personalized flash sale
0:48:20 code. You know, if you sign up within the next 72 hours, I’ll give you $250 off, you know,
0:48:27 and the code is Anna 250, like their name and 250 after. And you need to set that up in the Thinkific
0:48:34 like admin dashboard. So I used to use Thinkific for my checkout cart and I’ve since moved over to
0:48:40 Thrivecart, which has been just a world of difference, but yeah, same thing. Okay. Basically.
0:48:47 Lots of friends on Thrivecart. It must be, I’m an affiliate of several Thrivecart users, but I have
0:48:52 not used it as a shopping cart myself, but know that lots of other people are on it. So some safety
0:48:58 in numbers there for sure. What was the advantage of, you know, running checkouts through there versus
0:49:06 just, you know, sign up directly through Thinkific? So Thinkific is amazing in almost every single
0:49:12 way, except for their checkout cart. Thinkific’s checkout cart. I really do love that platform,
0:49:18 but their checkout cart is I think a two-step process. So you have to first, you know, put in
0:49:23 your name and your email and you’re this and you’re that, and then you go to the next page and it’s your
0:49:28 credit card. And I think by the time people to get, get to their second page, the second page, it’s like,
0:49:35 then they start to hesitate and it’s crazy. But like when you’re making a big purchase, my, you know,
0:49:41 my course is almost $2,500. So when you’re making a big purchase, you know, in that split second,
0:49:47 you could get cold feet and just change your mind. And actually I was noticing that that was
0:49:53 happening because you have to sort first register as a user in Thinkific before you can purchase
0:49:58 something. So I would get an email that a new user had registered, but I didn’t get the email that they
0:50:03 had checked out. So like, that’s exactly what was happening is they were like registering and then they
0:50:09 were changing their mind. And I felt like that was a major problem, you know, it kept happening.
0:50:15 So I investigated because I’m on, I’m on a teachable and it’s, it’s the same. Sometimes I’ll get
0:50:21 notifications like, Oh, so-and-so registered for your school, but then there’s no like second email
0:50:25 that like, Oh, they actually registered for the class. Yeah. They’re changing their minds in that
0:50:33 split second. And thrive cart is a one page, like it’s literally name, email, credit card, boom,
0:50:38 done. And then whatever information you need later, you can get that later, you know?
0:50:43 Okay. And they’re still doing as a one-time fee, like lifetime license for thrive cart.
0:50:49 Yes. Okay. So it layers on top of Thinkific and then it syncs over, you know, the customer
0:50:53 data through, through Zapier or just, it happens automatically.
0:50:55 Yeah, no, it’s, it’s Zapier. Okay.
0:51:01 Like two years ago, I had no idea what Zapier was. I had no idea what any of this stuff was. So it was a
0:51:06 huge, it was a huge learning curve for me. I love it. Um, and that’s a great sign that,
0:51:10 you know, you can learn new things. And we had somebody recently said like, you know,
0:51:15 if you had asked me five years ago, would I be involved in running a website and affiliate marketing
0:51:20 and SEO? I would have told you, you were crazy. And it’s like, yes, you can learn new things. I love
0:51:23 that. Anything else on the tools and tech side that you swear by?
0:51:30 So my favorite, favorite tool, which I mentioned a little bit earlier is my Acuity calendar. I feel like
0:51:36 I can’t live without that. Uh, it makes it so much easier for me to schedule both calls with
0:51:41 clients, prospective clients, and then also do things on the student side of things. You know,
0:51:47 when my students complete the certification course, I offer them what I call a zoom strategy session.
0:51:52 So we get on zoom for about 45 minutes and just answer any of their lasting questions, whether they
0:51:57 be sleep related, business related. And I love that, you know, when they finish the course,
0:52:03 it can just automatically send them an email, like, congratulations on finishing the course.
0:52:08 Here’s your link to schedule your zoom strategy session. Right. And then we just pop up on zoom
0:52:15 together. It’s the best. So I love Acuity. I like zoom. I use Canva a lot for my business.
0:52:22 I find that it’s really easy to put together things that are relatively beautiful and professional for your
0:52:28 business on Canva, which I would never be able to do without. And then I recently moved my website over.
0:52:35 It was on WordPress and I was always struggling with my WordPress website because I didn’t know how to use
0:52:39 it. I didn’t know how to make changes. I didn’t know how to, it just felt really overwhelming and
0:52:46 techie for me. So I moved it over to a platform called show it, which still uses the WordPress blog.
0:52:52 So from an SEO perspective, it’s still really strong, but the show it website sort of operates
0:52:58 like Canva and I can go in and just make changes really easily. It’s almost like I’m a web developer.
0:52:58 It’s crazy.
0:53:03 All right. Yeah. I was trying to, you know, view source on your site just now to see like,
0:53:06 well, what are you running? It doesn’t look like WordPress. I did see that show it show up in the
0:53:12 code. Uh, well, cool. Thanks for sharing all of those different tools. I think that ends up being
0:53:18 how a lot of people do it. You know, it’s, it’s taping a bunch of stuff together that meet your
0:53:25 needs and really the website and the email list, the active campaign kind of at the, um, at the core of
0:53:32 that. Anything that you do differently or anything that surprised you on either side, either the service
0:53:37 side or the online core side in the last two, three years? I don’t know. I don’t know what I do
0:53:41 differently. Cause I don’t really know what anybody else is doing. I’m on my own, you know, I’m on my
0:53:46 own path. I’m, I’m in a competition with myself. I’m not really looking at my competitors. Like I really
0:53:50 do feel like there’s enough business to go around both on the consulting side and on the core side.
0:53:56 there are plenty of tired parents. There are enough tired parents to warrant as many sleep
0:54:02 consultants that they’re, you know, it doesn’t matter. And then, and then same thing with the
0:54:08 course. You know, I think that my audience for my course is perfect for me. And then there are other
0:54:14 programs that probably attract an audience that’s more appropriate for them. Uh, the key to my success,
0:54:21 I think has been to just like keep challenging myself and always trying new things and then also
0:54:27 seeking support when necessary. I hire virtual assistants to help me with tech stuff that feels
0:54:33 really hard. Active campaign in particular is something that’s really overwhelming to me. I know how to send
0:54:40 like a one-off email campaign, but if I were to try and create a whole automation or to tag people in
0:54:45 certain ways, I would lose my mind. I don’t know how to do any of that. So, you know, instead of me
0:54:51 freezing up and not doing things, I just pay somebody to do it for me and, and move on.
0:54:58 On that front, is there an automated welcome sequence or sales pitch once somebody,
0:55:03 either they, they find you, you add them to the list manually, or they get added through the Facebook
0:55:08 group and the group leads integration. Is there like a, you know, three, four, five email sequence
0:55:14 that ultimately leads to sales pitch? Yeah. So when they first enter my email list,
0:55:19 they get access to my ebook on becoming a sleep consultant. They get a download of the course
0:55:26 syllabus. And then, you know, I think it’s seven emails in the welcome sequence that ultimately ends
0:55:34 with an offer. And, you know, they, if they book a call with me on that, you know, sixth or seventh email,
0:55:41 I think they will be eligible for a $250 discount on the price of the course. And, you know, they book
0:55:48 that call. I have the code ready to go for them and hopefully that converts. And then after that
0:55:57 welcome sequence, it’s me winging it to be completely honest. I send emails based on what’s going on. I was
0:56:04 just on a podcast the other day that dropped, you know, yesterday or the day before. So I sent out
0:56:08 an email like, Hey, I was on this podcast, you know, if you want to take a listen, here’s the link.
0:56:14 If I share something interesting in the becoming a sleep consultant, Facebook group, I’ll send out an
0:56:19 email like in case you missed it. This is what we talked about in the Facebook group today.
0:56:20 Okay.
0:56:26 You know, every once in a while I get antsy and offer a flash sale. I’m totally winging it there.
0:56:30 You get antsy. Like if it’s been, you know, a couple of weeks of a dry spell,
0:56:35 is that what would cause that? Yeah. Like sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m just
0:56:41 like, yeah, exactly. What should I do? You know? So breathe, breathe some new life into it. Okay.
0:56:48 Yeah, exactly. And it works for me. So, you know, sometimes I feel like I’m throwing spaghetti at the
0:56:52 wall. And then sometimes I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of what’s working. And I don’t
0:56:58 know. Either way is fine. I think the combination of those two things is entrepreneurship in a nutshell,
0:57:01 right? You got to throw the spaghetti and then double down on the spaghetti that’s working.
0:57:02 So I like that. Exactly.
0:57:09 Given the price point, $2,000 and up, do you find that most of the sales are coming through these phone
0:57:16 consultations or are people kind of ordering just a la carte on their own without booking a call?
0:57:22 So I get really excited when somebody pays for my course and they haven’t spoken to me.
0:57:30 That really lights me up because that just means they’ve been lurking either in my Facebook group
0:57:35 and they like what they’ve seen. They don’t feel the need to talk to me. Or just yesterday,
0:57:40 somebody enrolled in my course that told me she found me on Google, which is very exciting because
0:57:48 I’m really not doing much to warrant any significant placement on Google. It’s on my list of things to do,
0:57:55 but I am starting to hear that more and more. And that’s really exciting because that means that my
0:58:04 website is making people feel comfortable with my offer and my program. And I don’t know, that really
0:58:10 lights me up when somebody signs up without talking to me. That just feels amazing. I do have an affiliate
0:58:17 program where, uh, you know, if somebody refers somebody to my program, they get a commission and
0:58:24 I have a few affiliates really actually one or two that seem to have a lot of authority within their
0:58:31 own communities. And, you know, when we run a promotion together, I do, those do convert because
0:58:38 their audience is trusting them. So then they trust me and that works really nicely. I don’t often have to
0:58:43 get on calls when we run those promotions. Okay. Yeah. I just was curious about that. You know,
0:58:50 sometimes some, I’ve heard that $2,000 is the kind of upper limit of what people will buy without,
0:58:54 you know, getting on the phone. And so it’s like, you know, I was curious to test out, well,
0:59:00 is that a true assumption or is that just a thing? But it’s cool that you offer the phone consultation as,
0:59:06 um, as a last or as a next step. So, you know, I like to talk to people before they enroll in my
0:59:13 course because, you know, I really do treat my course as a community. It really does feel like
0:59:20 a family of friends or colleagues and it really helps me to know who they are. I like to get on a
0:59:25 zoom and see them face to face and hear their little two-year-old crying in the background. You know,
0:59:31 I like to know what their story is and feel like I’ve connected with them so that I can better support
0:59:37 them. What’s the breakdown if you’re comfortable sharing between the sleep consulting work and the
0:59:44 core sales today as, as the picture of the revenue pie? Uh, again, like I have no stats on anything,
0:59:50 but most of it is core sales just based on, you know, the price that I’m selling the course versus
0:59:57 the price that I’m offering my two-week consultation, you know? Um, so it’s, it’s mostly income from,
1:00:03 from core sales at this point. That being said, I’m busy with clients. I have six or seven clients
1:00:07 on my roster right now. So it’s not like I’m not supporting families, but if you’re looking at the
1:00:13 dollars, most of the dollars are coming from core sales. Yeah. You gotta, gotta stay in the game,
1:00:19 you know, so you know what to do in the next version of the course. Where do you want to take this thing?
1:00:26 What’s next for you? I don’t know. I would love to find somebody to help me to sell the course,
1:00:32 you know, sort of like build out a sales team a little bit. I’m having trouble finding that person
1:00:37 because all of the people that are great, that have taken my course that, you know, I’ve approached
1:00:41 about this. They’re really excited about growing their own businesses. They, they’re not really concerned
1:00:48 with growing mine, which I totally, which I totally respect. So I’d love to find somebody or build a
1:00:54 little bit of a team. I’d also love to figure out how to make the internet work for me a little bit
1:01:01 better. I mentioned, you know, working on some SEO, making that a bit of a priority. I did just hire
1:01:07 a Pinterest manager to help me grow my presence on Pinterest, which we literally just started.
1:01:13 I think it’s been a month and a half since we started maybe two months. So, you know, just
1:01:18 getting, getting the internet to work for me a little bit better rather than like me hustling so
1:01:23 hard all of the time would be amazing. But I also think in the same breath, I’m the type to always
1:01:29 hustle. So even if the internet is working for me, I’m still going to do what I do. Um, I guess it’s
1:01:33 just going to allow me to grow. It’s a good feeling when you can get the internet to work for you.
1:01:39 People are finding you organically and signing up for your things and buying your stuff. That’s a,
1:01:43 that’s a great feeling. Um, and I’m confident that you’ll, that you’ll get there. It sounds like
1:01:44 you’re already halfway there.
1:01:49 It’s slowly happening. You know, the Google thing, it’s happened a few times in the past couple of
1:01:52 months. You know, when somebody signs up for my course, there’s a little line, how did you hear
1:01:59 about CPSM? And a few times people have said, Google, like really? What? Like, how’s that? You know,
1:02:05 so it is starting to happen. And so I guess I have to just keep doing what I’m doing. Uh, but I would
1:02:13 love for that to happen a little bit more. You do anything with paid ads? No, I have dabbled in paid
1:02:21 ads a teeny tiny bit from time to time. And it just feels like a really expensive way to list build with
1:02:29 the wrong people. That that’s my experience. And so it hasn’t made sense for me. I don’t want to pay
1:02:35 for people to be added to my email list. You know, I, my product is expensive, so I can’t just put up an ad
1:02:41 for somebody to buy my course. Like they’re not going to see an ad and pay $2,500 for a course. They’re going to
1:02:47 want to see an ad and opt in to learn more about my course. Right. So it just feels like a really
1:02:52 expensive way to list build. I I’m good at list building. I’m good at getting out there and talking
1:02:57 to people and connecting with people that are legitimately interested in what I have. And I
1:03:02 think I’m, I’m better at that than what any ad would do for me. And then it just becomes more expensive
1:03:08 to have all these people on my list that are, that are the wrong people. The reason I ask is it’s such
1:03:12 a niche, or at least from the outside looking in, it seems like such a niche service or certification
1:03:15 where it’s like, you know, become a certified sleep consultant. Like how many other people could
1:03:21 be bidding on that keyword in Google? And it’s like, well, if you’re using the Facebook group
1:03:26 as top of the funnel, we’ll opt in for the free ebook guide to this and get the course syllabus.
1:03:31 It’s like, could you do that? Same thing. I don’t know how maybe those ads would be prohibitively
1:03:36 expensive, but it’s like, you know, it might be worth, you know, if it were to be like, well,
1:03:42 if I could, I shortcut my exposure in, in Google, in SEO by buying my way to the top of the results.
1:03:45 And it’s like, well, I was paying 50 bucks a lead and the conversion rate just didn’t shake
1:03:51 out. Then maybe not, maybe not so much, but you know, it might be worth, it might be worth a test,
1:03:52 but I’m not in charge here.
1:03:57 It definitely, no, it definitely is worth a test. It’s just, you know, this is one area where I do
1:04:03 feel like it’s tricky to find the right people to support you until I find that right person.
1:04:08 I don’t want to just throw a bunch of money at something. You know, I already have a system that’s
1:04:15 working and, you know, even, even just like my SEO has gotten better. So, uh, and I do,
1:04:20 I have somebody that blogs for me. So like, maybe that’s working. I don’t know, but I, I would like
1:04:26 to just, I don’t know. I, you’re right. I should probably do that at some point. The secret is finding
1:04:31 the right person to help because I can’t do it myself that it’s outside of my wheelhouse.
1:04:37 It’s a learning curve, especially I feel like Google, well, you know, my background was in
1:04:42 paid ads like 15 years ago and the ads, Google ads platform is so much more complex than it was
1:04:46 at that point. All the different ways you can slice the data and the targeting and, and everything.
1:04:53 Right. And then Facebook is another black box of, you know, ad optimization and audience
1:04:56 targeting and everything. But that’s something that just came to mind. So, you know,
1:05:00 yeah, you’re right. I don’t know. Um, but sounds like things are going awesome for you.
1:05:06 The snoozefest.com. If you are a parent struggling with getting your kids to sleep, check, uh, chain
1:05:13 out over there and the CPSM.com for the sleep certification, sleep consultant certification
1:05:19 program. Appreciate you joining me sharing the ins and outs of all this stuff. Let’s wrap this thing
1:05:26 up with your number one tip for side hustle nation. I guess my number one tip is to brush the fear
1:05:33 aside. I think that when it comes to entrepreneurship or really just like making any big leap or choice,
1:05:40 like everybody’s scared, right? Like everybody has fear or anxiety around starting something new
1:05:48 and the people that are successful are scared and do it anyway. And the people that do nothing are scared.
1:05:54 So they do nothing. Right. So like everybody has this fear. And if you can be one of those people that
1:06:01 pushes through and, and tries, uh, then I think you’re ahead of most of the others.
1:06:07 I think you’re right on that. A hundred percent. Like progress happens just beyond your comfort zone.
1:06:12 Brush the fear aside. Everybody’s scared. The people who got off the sidelines are the ones who pushed
1:06:18 that fear aside just for a moment. Jane, this has been awesome. Just some final thoughts or, you know,
1:06:24 kind of big ideas for me from this episode. Uh, the first was this idea of being expert enough where
1:06:29 you were already answering people’s questions and maybe you weren’t the world’s, you know, foremost
1:06:35 leading sleep scientist expert, but you knew enough to be dangerous and you invested in yourself in the
1:06:39 training certification. Like, look, I know what I’m talking about. I can help people with this.
1:06:43 People are seeing results and that’s, you know, part of this brushing fear aside.
1:06:48 I think the idea of creating your own certification program, like we kind of talked about,
1:06:55 it’s a pretty cool idea. And there’s something that could gain traction and it’s, you know, for
1:06:59 better or worse, like you said, it’s something you can just kind of put your own stamp on. We had,
1:07:04 when I was running the virtual assistant site, I had a little badge that I would put on the reviews
1:07:09 for the companies that I had tested. And it just said, you know, virtual assistant, assistant tested.
1:07:13 It didn’t say certified or approved or anything, although it could have, it was something that I
1:07:17 thought about adding, you know, maybe the, the companies could put their, you know, they could
1:07:21 put that certification badge like down at the bottom, like, Oh, they were certified by this,
1:07:26 you know, random dude in his, uh, you know, spare bedroom, but whatever it was. So I think that was
1:07:30 really cool. And then this, you know, come one of the common threads, just, you know, meet your
1:07:34 customers where they’re at. If they’re on Facebook, great. If they’re not on Facebook, you’ll go find
1:07:39 another way to connect with them. Like you mentioned through different networking opportunities,
1:07:45 other people who are already talking to them, you know, it’s the, the pediatricians and the
1:07:51 librarians. We had a Riley Jarvis on the show a couple of months ago, who was a sleep consultant
1:07:55 in a totally different niche. He was targeting executives. And so he would go and connect with
1:07:59 them through LinkedIn and it was, you know, different audience, different platforms. So go where your
1:08:03 customers already are, but really appreciate you joining me, Jane. Thanks for sharing your insight.
1:08:07 Once again, the full text summary and links to all the resources and mentioned for this one
1:08:13 are at side hustle nation.com slash Jane, J A Y N E. While you’re there, make sure to download my free
1:08:19 list of 101 service business ideas that you may be able to apply some of Jane’s same strategies to
1:08:25 and get those creative juices flowing. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time.
1:08:29 Let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle
1:08:30 show. Hustle on.