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When I asked, “What podcast topics would help your online course business grow the most?” some of the responses were, “What to focus on NOW as a solopreneur” and “Stop doing all the things.”
So, in today’s episode, let’s meet Visibility & List Growth Strategist, Tracy Beavers. She shares how to gain visibility online with ease and discover simple ways to grow your email list on Facebook.
- Cut your lead gen costs in HALF with my $37 mini-course–NOW only $17!
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Tracy has a proven track record in business growth. With an award winning career spanning 20 years, Tracy has guided hundreds of entrepreneurs to grow their business visibility through organic marketing strategies.
Tracy Beavers shares the simple shifts that helped her go from zero sales to a profitable evergreen funnel. We break down what most course creators get wrong about their sales process and what to fix before adding more ads or creating more content. Tracy also opens up about the mindset traps that used to hold her back and how she’s built a business that supports her life (not the other way around).
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Speaker 1:
So 61% of other listeners maybe you’re included are making under 50 grand a year, and I know this because when I asked on this podcast poll survey that I’m hopefully you can fill out too, when I asked what podcast topics would help your online course business grow the most, some of the responses were what to focus on now as a solopreneur and stop doing all the things, and so, if that is you, today’s episode is going to help you out a lot.
Speaker 1:
We are featuring a visibility and list growth strategist, tracy Beavers, and you’ll learn how to gain visibility online with ease and easy ways to grow your email list on Facebook. And if you haven’t told me yet what kind of episode topics would help your online course business grow, then please take 90 seconds to fill out the short survey. It’s linked in the show notes below. If you’re listening on an audio only platform, because this podcast is for you and we want to produce. My wife and I Jamie here want to produce the content that you need. So now about Tracy it’s her belief that everyone should have the opportunity to use their gifts and talents to build the business of their dreams, and Jamie, that’s our belief too.
Speaker 2:
That’s our belief too, we couldn’t agree more.
Speaker 1:
We’re with you, Tracy.
Speaker 3:
It’s awesome, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:
But, yeah, we do sincerely believe that God gave you gifts and talents and passions and that, as an online course creator or coach, you get the opportunity to help people have a transformation in their life. In fact, the people that you or that were meant to learn from you, whose lives are meant to change from us, are waiting for us to show up and continue to grow our businesses Right Tracy.
Speaker 3:
They are Absolutely, and you know what. It expands beyond the online space. I think, whatever gift and talent you have been given whether you have a gift for sign language interpretation, or teaching Spanish, or being a physician, or being a dentist, or counseling children, or building an online business it doesn’t matter what it is. I think it is our duty as people who are, you know, humans on this earth, that we’re giving gifts and talents by God. That’s my belief that we use those in the furtherance of other people, because that’s why he gave them to us in the first place. He didn’t give them to us just to hide them and not do anything with them. You know so, and even if you can’t do your user gifts and talents in a full-time capacity yet, you could still do it as a side hustle or you know something that just brings you joy. But as long as you are using your gifts and talents, I think that’s the key, that’s, when you’re in alignment with what you were put here for.
Speaker 2:
Man this is already a great Instagram real soundbite right here Let me read the rest of your bio.
Speaker 1:
So as the CEO and founder of Tracy Beaver’s Coaching, tracy has a proven track record of business growth. With an award-winning career spanning 20 years, tracy has guided hundreds of entrepreneurs to grow their business visibility through organic marketing strategies. She is a public speaker and a published author, dang and she has been featured by CBS Television, the Wall Street Journal, vanity Fair, lingerie and Kajabi. Shout out to Kajabi. We use Kajabi. She’s the creator of the top ranked business podcast, create Online Business Success, and that will be linked in the show notes below. If you’re not watching this on YouTube, you’ve only heard her. But click in the show notes below over to this episode on YouTube so you can see her. Tracy, welcome to the Art of Online Business podcast.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, I’m so excited to be here. I feel like we’re friends already, even though we just met.
Speaker 1:
We do have a vibe.
Speaker 3:
I can confirm that after like a bit before we hit record. Yeah, Like I feel like if we lived closer together we’d go have coffee.
Speaker 1:
Yes, right, agreed.
Speaker 2:
Speaking of which, where are you based? I was just going to ask you. I was like wait, where do you live, tracy?
Speaker 3:
I’m in the US, I’m in Arkansas, hence the Southern accent. I don’t think I’m like, oh really, a hint, it’s a hint.
Speaker 1:
So are you like a transplant or born and raised in Arkansas?
Speaker 3:
So I was born in St Louis, missouri, but we moved. When I was two, we moved down to Fort Smith, arkansas, and that’s where I was raised. And then, when I went to college, I went to Tulsa University, tulsa, oklahoma, about two hours away. Didn’t stray very far and then never thought I’d go back to Fort Smith, but I did and, long story short, I now live in Little Rock. I moved here in 2010 for my now second husband, john and I, to be married, and we raised my children together. It’s been great. Little Rock is an amazing city.
Speaker 1:
If you’ve never been here, Cool, I have never been here.
Speaker 3:
It’s gorgeous and the people are really nice and the food. There’s so much good food, like all kinds, it’s not just barbecue and cheese dip. There is so much good food we’re not just barbecue and cheese dip. We’re not just barbecue and cheese dip.
Speaker 1:
We have other things, all right. So the listener is like maybe this is me, I’m growing, but I haven’t hit 50K months. I was going to say months, 50k years yet.
Speaker 1:
And I want to know what to do right now, and we’re definitely going to get into the importance of having an email list and email building strategy. I especially love how you talk about how to build a list of buyers, but before we get there, on your Facebook page you have this quote front and center that says learn how to grow your email list, attract your ideal clients and get consistent income without paid ads Right? Can you break that down a bit Like? Tell us a little bit more.
Speaker 3:
Yeah for sure. So I am an organic strategist, as you said. All the visibility and list growth strategies that I teach have your leads coming in on autopilot, organically. Now this kind of happened. You know, I feel like some of the things we go through as business owners literally set us up for our successes and it might, at the time, feel like a failure. So when I first started, I was building this business alongside my full-time corporate sales job, because I couldn’t just quit. My husband would have thought I’d lost my mind, and at the time the kids were high school and middle school, so we were busy, right, and so I had to figure out how to maximize my time in the online space. Well, I made the mistake that a lot of people do. I thought paid ads would be the silver magic bullet, and so I hired someone who was supposedly an expert. Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing, and come to find out I had no business running paid ads because I didn’t have proof of concept yet I didn’t have a viable offer.
Speaker 3:
And so I wasted thousands of dollars and that was like, oh, that hurt, right. And so that made me pause on, okay, paid ads don’t look like the thing for me, what can I do? And so that’s when I developed all of my organic strategies, because, coming into the online space, I knew the importance of having an email list A lot of the big people that I was listening to their podcasts and stuff. They were talking about list growth, list growth. You got to have an audience and that made sense to me because I also didn’t do that part before. I went to launch a course and I was like, okay, why isn’t anybody buying this? And I was like, okay, well, because you don’t have an audience of buyers yet. Tracy Beavers, what you know, duh. And so so I had to say, okay, I got to grow the email list. And so all the list building courses out there that I found they taught you how to identify your ideal client, which is super important because you’ve got to know who you’re talking to. And then they taught you how to create a free lead magnet and put it out on social media. And I was like, okay, cool, done. And I had like three lead magnets. They were doing well and my list was growing. But I wanted out of that corporate job so bad and I thought there has got to be other ways to grow this list and so I had the last one.
Speaker 3:
Over 20 years I spent in sales, business development, marketing and insurance.
Speaker 3:
Was was initially, yes, my first, my first career out of college, and then then about in 2005, I switched into really the focusing of sales and marketing and business development.
Speaker 3:
But I had to get scrappy and creative to have the award-winning sales career that I had. I had to figure out ways to set myself apart. I had to get scrappy and creative to have the award-winning sales career that I had. I had to figure out ways to set myself apart. I had to figure out ways to do like you hear what people say, I zig when other people zag, or whatever it is. So I just had to think outside the box and so I thought, okay, you’re a smart girl, you can figure this out. And Facebook was my platform and I thought I’m going to look at every nook and cranny of this platform and I’m going to turn every nook and cranny into a list growth funnel, and so in all, I developed over 10 strategies. I think five or six of them have to do with Facebook, but then we move into the power of live video, no matter what platform you’re on.
Speaker 3:
Then we move into the power of networking, collaborating like we’re doing right now, because that network can explode your list growth like crazy. And then we look at things like turning your existing clients into your best source of referral, because that’s a great list growth strategy. And so I started developing these strategies and when I layered them in the right order, that’s when the list growth and the lead started to happen automatically. Every day, in the background of my business, where I don’t have to think about list growth, people ask me all the time. They’re like well, you must tracy, you must set aside 15 hours a week to work on your list, and I’m like I really don’t.
Speaker 3:
I focus on the strategies that I have and they grow my list, but based on the activity that I’m doing. So that’s how that sob story came about. Then Then I tried to run paid ads again a couple of years ago, because I’m a slow learner and I thought I found another expert and she’s really great. I don’t know. I still didn’t know what I was doing, but she taught me more than anybody else. Again, wasted thousands of dollars, and I’m like okay, that’s it, I’m done.
Speaker 3:
I really am never going to run paid ads again.
Speaker 2:
So, as we always say, jesus, saves Facebook and Instagram ads do not. That’s funny and I like how you said before, like you when you first started, you’re like I’m going to do paid ads, but I didn’t even have an offer that was already converting Right. So, but what would you say to the online course creator who is growing, wants to grow faster, but they’re not yet ready to run Facebook and Instagram ads?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, they’re so what do? They do All the free strategies possible. Let’s do all the free stuff before we do anything expensive and paid, because really those paid ads are an experiment and for some of my clients they work really well. I think it depends on the audience. Really, I have some long arm quilters that I have helped develop online businesses and they can look at leads for like long arm quilters.
Speaker 1:
Quilters. Not that their arms are long, but this is a type of quilting.
Speaker 3:
No, there is some species. No, I’m just kidding, no, their arms arepecies no. I’m just kidding. No, they’re super long.
Speaker 1:
No it’s so funny Anyway, so that’s really funny.
Speaker 3:
No, they use. They use a machine that’s called a long arm quilting machine. Okay instead of using like a little sewing machine. Their machine is really long and it moves over that like you’ve probably seen them on YouTube or Instagram or something.
Speaker 2:
And so absolutely not watching quilting. I have a couple of clients in like the quilting, sewing niche as well. But that’s interesting.
Speaker 1:
We digress, we’re in the middle of saying that you have seen some of those clients who are using Facebook ads. In that long arm quilting niche we’re getting super. You brought to say really 25 cents, 25 cents yeah.
Speaker 2:
I know.
Speaker 3:
And they and they were actually converting. So so people say, well, you hate paid ads, you don’t? You know, I’m like. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s that they didn’t work for me. And in the, in our audience, the coach coach, the coaches, consultants, course creators, that’s an expensive audience, for at least I have found so. Anyway, yeah, it’s not that I don’t like paid ads. If I have a client or student running them, I always just say just be careful, just be careful, let’s do all the free stuff.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so when it comes to Facebook.
Speaker 3:
There’s some really basic things you can do that are going to get you visibility and grow your email list at the same time, and one of the things I love to teach is how to turn your Facebook personal profile into a list funnel, an actual growth funnel, growth funnel. So yeah, so when you landed on my Facebook personal profile and you saw my cover photo.
Speaker 2:
It showcases my free Facebook group. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
And at that hook at the top of list growth leads income. That’s what my audience wants, so I lead with that to get their attention. Then I have an invitation to come join the group. And if you notice, I have a click here button on there. It’s just a graphic, because you can’t put anything. That is just a graphic. You can put a hyperlink on there, but it’s not going to actually be hot, it’s not going to go anywhere. But if you notice, when you click on that cover photo, what happens, I see the whole cover photo.
Speaker 3:
Correct and over on the right, a description box has opened up.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah. It’s right there, I’m looking on my other monitor right here off camera.
Speaker 3:
It’s right to the right. A lot of people do not know this. I’m giving away one of my secrets just for you guys and your audience. So, if you look at that, though, it’s the what’s in it for you to join my Facebook group, and the hot hyperlink is right there. So if somebody doesn’t have a free facebook group, if they want to showcase yeah, if they wanted to showcase a lead magnet, they would just make a really sexy hook at the top about the lead magnet. What’s in it for me to grab it with a click here directive or join here directive, so they know to physically click the cover photo. Yep, there we are. There we are that is.
Speaker 1:
That’s pretty genius. From here we click the image and then boom, there’s the link to go into your Facebook group and your Facebook group strategies. I know this isn’t the focus of today’s podcast, but they’re quite evolved. I actually had not seen some of the stuff you did. After we talked in our Facebook DMs and then a link to your group and some other things showed up. I was like this is next level.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So a free Facebook group is another list growth strategy that I teach. To me it makes sense about nine times out of 10 for a business. Some of my students and clients it doesn’t make any sense for, but most of them it does, and the reason why is because so my audience and your audience, for example, they really want communities where they can be a community. There are so many Facebook groups out there where everybody is just spamming each other, posting stuff, not commenting, nobody’s talking to anybody, and I created my free Facebook group for that reason. I couldn’t find one that I really liked and I thought, well, all right, I’ll just build it. And so and at the time I was still working the corporate job, so it was like me, my husband, who was an admin, I think, I put my sister in there and I asked some friends and family. I mean, it was like sad. It was sad sack for a while. But the way my free group grows, my list, is because of the way the membership entry questions are set up.
Speaker 3:
So, like this whole thing I’m describing to you is like a big old puzzle piece. So the free group membership entry questions we write them in a way that makes people want to give us their email address and in a way that’s GDPR compliant for my people that are in the UK, germany, places where that really matters. And so then somebody wants to join your group. They get on your list, goal achieved. Then you have an opportunity to welcome them in with a DM that makes them feel like they’ve entered a Nordstrom store. You know how it feels when you enter a Nordstrom.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and you walk in and they go.
Speaker 3:
So great to see you. What are you looking for? And you go men’s shoes and they go. May I take you over to the men’s shoes and then they come back later. How are you doing? Do you need anything else? Oh, I think I want to look at a watch. Let me walk you over.
Speaker 3:
That is the experience we want people to have when they come into our world, and that’s one of the best places to do it is in a free group, and the reason why the free group is so great is because it’s an easy yes for your audience, because I’m going to tell you, I’ve got this free group full of online entrepreneurs. We’ve got like 3,800. You can promote your stuff anytime, which is something everybody’s looking for. It’s not a spam fest, believe it or not. You can network with other people. You’re actually encouraged to do that. You can answer questions for people that ask a question that you know the answer to. So it’s literally this ecosystem, and along the way, I have a chance to get to know them, they get to know me. They will, at some stage, convert into a buyer.
Speaker 3:
Now, whether that happens immediately that remains to be seen, but it’s my job to build that relationship. Get them onto my email list and then have that DM conversation and that inbox conversation with that person. Okay, yeah, so the okay. So the personal profile. If you don’t have a free Facebook group, that’s okay. Showcase something that leads to your list growth. Now, if I have a student, students will say to me well, I have a podcast. Awesome Podcast can grow your email list. As long as you say something to grow your list in your audio and you put it in your show notes, you can showcase your podcast. I would rather see something like a lead magnet though, quite frankly, just to really make sure we get them on the list.
Speaker 1:
My Facebook. Sorry, that’s okay or you can ask. No, I was just going to insert a very self-serving little ad for my lead magnet, since you said Well, what is it? Here we go in 20 seconds. No, but if you’re listening right now, of course, we are Facebook and Instagram ad managers and we believe thoroughly that anyone who runs Facebook and Instagram ads should have the same strategy that we use to get the highest quality lead at the lowest cost possible, and so I took the framework, the same one that keeps me getting clients and keeps my clients happy, and I put it into a mini course and, yeah, it’s in the show notes below.
Speaker 1:
It’s normally $37 and it’s discounted to $17 for you, dear listener. All right back to the episode.
Speaker 3:
That’s amazing.
Speaker 2:
The ad testing cheat code is what it’s called.
Speaker 1:
It’s called the ad testing cheat code, but it’s in the link in the show notes below, so you’ll see the link as soon as you click over to the page.
Speaker 3:
I love that Crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:
I feel like you just gave a very tactical bonus to this episode. Like, dear listener, do that with the banner that you had at the top of your page and the profile, not the profile, the description that popped up when I clicked the click here banner. Click your button on the banner and it’s like here we go. Here we go and, boom, join the group. That is ninja. I have not in the what are we like?
Speaker 3:
170 plus episodes let’s just say you were gonna say years like y’all look great right, I know, but no, I haven’t seen that.
Speaker 1:
I’ve interviewed a lot of people and I haven’t seen that.
Speaker 3:
So that was a ninja, well and the other thing is go over to your facebook business page, use the very same cover photo, the very same description box. And a fun fact when I go into promotion for my eight-week group coaching program because we launch it three times a year I change the cover photo to showcase the live masterclass that I’m having. Every time you change that cover photo that is public information People get a notification. That’s visibility. That’s visibility. They may not say anything, but they’re going to see it. Every time you change your profile photo I used to change mine once a quarter before I became meta verified I would get three to 400 comments oh, my gosh, that’s a gorgeous photo. Did they buy anything? No, did they join my list? Maybe, but it gave me an opportunity. It gave them an opportunity to see me again. They’re like oh, I wonder what she’s doing Checking out my personal profile. I could easily have slid into the DMs. Thank you so much for commenting on my photo. How are you? How’s?
Speaker 3:
the fam Are y’all still in Mexico, you know. And then that DM conversation, y’all. It’s where we’ve got to make the connections. We’ve got to get people onto our list so we can have inbox conversations, and then we’ve got to make connections where we can get into the DMs and get to know people. That’s where the business growth is going to happen.
Speaker 1:
Agreed Spoken like a true visibility and list growth strategist, I want to take a little detour before we get to more email list building strategy. I want to take a detour because on your website I saw that it said in your second year of business you were hitting consistent five figure months. And I’m being a bit tongue in cheek. But what took you a whole year to reach five figure months?
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 1:
Right, I know, I feel like. I feel like, just like me who listens to online podcasts? You know about building, you know online businesses and online course memberships, and for online coaches too, and you too, dear listener, I feel like maybe we have an unrealistic expectation of how much money we can make and how quickly, right?
Speaker 2:
right.
Speaker 1:
Because podcasts tend to feature folks who did really well and you don’t really hear the challenges and all the left turns they took before they originally or before they actually turned right like they meant to turn. So I’m super curious like what did it take you a year to reach five figure months? And like what’s the reality of how long it takes folks to get there, like cause you’re a coach? And like what’s the reality of how long it takes folks to get there, like cause you’re a coach? Like what are you seeing?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, I love this question so so much because I can get on a soapbox about it. Actually, because part of the frustration I have with the online space is that there’s a lot of big people making it look like you can just come in, put up a shingle, create an offer, put it out there, you’re going to make money, boom. They don’t talk about the struggle. They don’t talk about the fact that things take time to build and grow and and and get your traction on. They don’t talk about the expenses that go along with it. Right and so and then. The other thing that frustrates me is when somebody says they’re having five figure months used to. I would be like, oh, what’s wrong with me? Why am I not doing that? What I should have been asking is what’s their profit margin? Hmm, you know very good question.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, Because if I’m making five figure months and I’ve got like a 50% profit margin, I’m doing pretty good, Right. But if I’m making you know math is so hard for me If I’m making $100,000 a month and my profit margin is 5%, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:
Those two businesses.
Speaker 3:
On the face of it, those two businesses don’t look. One looks like it’s doing better than the other, when in reality, I want to know how much money you’re taking home Right, and I want to know how much money you really want to make. That’s the other thing that I got caught up in. When I first started, I thought I’m going to be the next name, a big name, right, with a 20-person team and making a gazillion dollars a year. And I’m sorry, I’m 55 years old and that has changed.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, plus how long does it take to do that, and the whole skillset of being a leader that can manage.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and there’s some people that are like I’m cool, making an extra two, three, five grand a month. You know their stay at, stay at home, mom, and they’re just wanting like a little side hustle for some kids activities or extra grocery money or yeah, or putting it away for the kids, college.
Speaker 3:
I mean, we have to ask ourselves so. So when I have a student or a client that’s comparing themselves to somebody else, I have to ask them what is your enough number? What do you want to make? What do you? How do you want this business to feel, day in, day out, week in, week out? Because the reality was, I’d like to have six pack abs, but am I willing to give up cake and wine to get the six pack abs? No, I’m not. So was I willing to give up a lot of time and hours and money and frustration to build something that may? You know what I mean. I was just like I don’t know about this. So back to your question, though, about how long should it take.
Speaker 3:
I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to get there fast, and for me there’s not a silver bullet, there’s not a fast path. What it takes is consistency and patience and being willing to do the same thing over and over test it, tweak it, pull it back in, zhuzh it up, change a few words if you need to on your marketing messaging. Throw it back out there. See who bites. If that doesn’t work, pull it back in. You know what I mean. It’s like constant until you can get to a point like I’m at right now.
Speaker 3:
We just did launch number 10 of my program. In launch seven we were able to do more of a rinse and repeat style because we’ve got it nailed down. But it took seven times of launching this program of me being patient and consistent and not beating myself up if it didn’t work great, and being willing to do the research and being willing to throw it to, zhuzh it up and throw it back out there and see. You know what happened, yeah, and so I think also, though, remember I was building alongside my corporate job, and so that took about a year and a half. And then in I don’t remember how much money I made in the first full year of business, but I I felt like in the second full year because I was able to be super intentional and not distracted by a corporate job and all that other stuff that I that that’s where the growth, the traction, really started to happen, because I was able to really focus. But I have to tell you I put in a lot of hours.
Speaker 1:
How many? What did the average people look like back then?
Speaker 3:
you. I put in a lot of hours. What did the average week look like back then? So I treat this like a full-time job. I am up at 6.30. I am working by 7.30. Now I will take a lunch break and I will make sure that I’m wrapped up by 5.30 when my husband comes home. Thankfully not thankfully, but now we are empty nesters, so it’s me and the dog, so nobody really needs us during the day. Right, that’s a little different than most people. But I think you know another thing that I see people. I think if people started to actually treat it like a business and like an actual thing they needed to focus on eight to five, monday to Friday that they would have more growth and they would have that growth faster.
Speaker 3:
And then there gets to a point where I wasn’t having to work weekends anymore. I wasn’t having to spend evening time working on creating something, because I’d spent my time during the day visiting with clients and bringing in money, and so that’s what’s been nice. In the last few years I’ve noticed the shift of oh, what do you mean? I don’t. Oh, gosh, it’s Saturday, all my work’s done, huh, maybe we could go do something fun, I mean, for a while that didn’t happen. You know, that’s just my reality, though I I really wanted to build this business and my family was on board. Now, I didn’t miss out on everything and I’m not, you know, wasn’t working 24 seven, but I put in a lot of hours, but it wasn’t that second year that you were able to quit your corporate?
Speaker 3:
job. So I was able to quit the corporate job a year and a half into building Okay, but then that second full year of just building this business. So actually, if you think about it, I was three years in before I hit five figure months consistently. I was hitting them in years one and five figure months consistently. I was hitting them in years one and two, but it wasn’t consistent. Okay, does that make sense? Oh, sorry, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it does, yeah yeah, I have a couple of follow-up questions. Yeah for sure. Leading into those, I’ll say well, jamie could say we relate with the working in the margin hours you will while having a daytime job.
Speaker 1:
A bit of our story. The listener might not know or you might have heard before, listener, but back when we were in China, tracy teaching full-time the first thing we did. Well, jamie showed me this article about this guy who took like a mid-career sabbatical and she’s like you could do this, you could start this language teaching. This is my previous business, teaching Mandarin Chinese, so you could start this language teaching business. It was fun and I remember spending so much time. It actually took me about two years before I reached high four-figure months not quite five-figure months and I remember the feeling. Remember when I was launching the group coaching program. It was like $6.97 or $7.97, something like that.
Speaker 1:
I remember the feeling launching my very first one in Instagram stories and getting like eight people to sign up for this program. That would start in I don’t know about three weeks time and then that going well and, before it was finished, me launching it again and having like 12 ish people sign up and then, before that second round was finished, launching it again. But that took like two years and I was I would say I was slow and the thing that’s yeah, like two years, and I was.
Speaker 1:
I would say I was slow and the thing that sped things up for me was I just paid to be in a group coaching mastermind. And then they looked at me. I’ll never forget. They’re like Quajo and they ran the numbers quickly because they’re all like super savvy and I was the stereotypical dumbest guy in the room and you never want to be the smartest guy in the room. I definitely literally was the. At any rate, it was quite intimidating, but I remember they calculated how much I was making per hour and it was like I think it was like seven dollars no, no it was like 97 cents, something, really really low, it was really low, it was really low.
Speaker 1:
They’re like you can learn Mandarin Chinese from you for like 96 cents an hour and I was like, oh, but they did it in such a positive, like we’re going to come here and support you and that actually forced me to launch my group coaching program Before day two of the in-person portion of the mastermind. They were like you will launch this.
Speaker 1:
Like now in your stories we’re not letting you leave this right like now, like now in your stories right when you leave, and I was so scared anyway, all I can say is it took me two years and it took you you said about three years before you hit consistent, consistent, five-figure month, even though you had hit five-figure months before yeah, it was just sporadic. Yeah, so to summarize that how you? What would you say to encourage the listener who has thought that well, wherever in their past? 50k, 50k, 50K, yeah, 50,000 years and onward?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So first of all, they need to know what, what income do they need to make to keep the online business going, and but they have to be willing to do what it takes. So like sometimes I will recommend to a student go get a part-time job. It’s okay. Some of my students have gone back to full-time jobs. They’ve not given up on their dream, but they just got to a point where the stress of the money was too much and it was overshadowing any growth they were going to have.
Speaker 1:
I mean.
Speaker 3:
I knew that for myself. That’s why. So, when I decided to do this and my husband and I talked about it, I knew I didn’t want to quit that full-time job immediately. Because I know myself being raised without a lot of money and having money mindset things and having money be a stressor for most of my life and the amount of money I make tied to my you know self-worth and all that crap that we go through. I just knew. I just knew I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want, I just didn’t want that.
Speaker 3:
But what I did do was I went, was very honest with myself. I went through all the bills and things that I paid for our house and I committed to my husband that I will not lower the amount that I’m putting in our retirement account. That will stay the same. Cause he was like we’ve worked so hard to get to this point. You know we’re on track to retire in about seven years and he’s like you know we got to maintain that. I said that’s absolutely fine and I also didn’t want the kids to have to go. I didn’t want to say to the kids no, you can’t have a new pair of shoes because mom’s not making any money. I just that was not okay with me, so I chose to build alongside the corporate job, but what that meant was putting in hours in the evenings and on the weekend and being very honest about that, and even when I didn’t feel like it doing it anyway.
Speaker 3:
So I think we have to be willing to do what it takes to get where we want to go, and we have to be honest about it. I could not sleep in until 10 o’clock on a Saturday. It shouldn’t happen and expect to grow a business no, I couldn’t just not work the business during the week, at night, a couple of days a week, and expect it to grow. That’s not realistic. So I think, first of all, I would like for them to tell if I was helping somebody through this, I’d be like okay, what is the amount of money you need to make every year to keep the lights on, to sustain yourself without stress, to sustain the business? And if that’s 50K a year, then I want to look at how big is their audience. Do they have a list yet? What is their offers? What are they priced? How? Yet what is their offers? What are they priced? How often are they promoting those offers?
Speaker 3:
There’s another mistake I see people making. One of my students had a $97 offer. She helps caregivers of people who are helping somebody that’s going through dementia. Beautiful use of her gifts and talents. And she said to me well, I think I need to create another offer, because this one nobody’s buying it. And I said hold on.
Speaker 3:
How often have you promoted it? And she said, well, I posted about it on social media a couple of times and I emailed my list once about it.
Speaker 2:
And I was like okay, I said.
Speaker 3:
I said here’s what we’re going to try. First I said nobody can buy anything they can’t see, and so we’re going to put together a social media strategy where you are posting about this thing to you, feel like you sound like a broken record and you’re pretty sure everybody’s sick of hearing about it. That’s when people are starting to pay attention, Right, and we’re going to create an email sequence not a sequence, but an email strategy that feels good to you, where you are telling people about this and we’re going to do this and see how it goes. Two weeks in, she made $2,500. I was like, wow, okay, organically, without paid ads.
Speaker 2:
That sounds very typical entrepreneur, right Like? I made this new thing and, well, no one bought it, so I’ll make something else.
Speaker 1:
Make another new thing. Wow, this is like a very strategic episode. We haven’t even gotten to the topic of the episode yet. We got to a little bit of it. We were, we’re almost there, but wow, there’s so much. I’m just going to summarize that to say use wisdom, a healthy dose of wisdom, like what I’m hearing from what you shared about people who you’ve coached and even how a lot of what you said about your journey was talking to your husband having a very concrete plan, getting up and acting like it’s a real business. Before you’ve seen those, I guess, numbers that validate in your mind that it was a real business, like we very personally had, like a worst case scenario.
Speaker 2:
What if you?
Speaker 1:
make zero money and we built up enough savings to last us for two years of zero income.
Speaker 1:
And thank God we took that step because we had no idea that a pandemic was going to strand us outside of our home country, where we had lived for two years in China 12 years, 12 years in China, sorry, almost 12 years in China, in Mexico and absolutely destroy my previous online business, like we had no idea that was coming and that happened at like year. What was was that it was about to be two years, so let’s say, like month seven of year one or year two year one. So, anyway, all that to say is use wisdom when you’re starting out.
Speaker 1:
We had the saving, we wouldn’t be here right now. We didn’t have that savings, we would be.
Speaker 3:
I don’t know what we would be doing.
Speaker 1:
It was rough.
Speaker 3:
That’s one of the reasons why I built alongside my corporate job is because I was squirreling away money, so when I left that job I could have not made a dime, for I think it was 10 months and I would have been fine.
Speaker 2:
Wow, nice yeah, have that financial runway, as they say. Can I ask one question before? I know we want to go jump into the email list stuff, but was there a time, even after you quit your corporate job, that you were like I don’t know if this is going to work, or like you were maybe ready to throw in the towel and like yeah, I would so.
Speaker 3:
so I do have those moments. I still do believe it or not. And anybody who says they don’t, I think they’re lying. They’re a liar, liar pants on fire Cause. That’s just one of those things that happens to us.
Speaker 3:
But I will say that when I have those thoughts of when I go into a launch, I have an idea of how it’s going to go, but we really don’t know how it’s going to go, right. And so I’m always like, well, let’s just see how this goes. But I, on the days when I think, okay, I’m just going to go get a job, I’m just this, is it, I’m done. It’s too frustrating. There’s too many, you know, failed payments are the bane of my existence. People that say they’re going to come to a masterclass and don’t show up. I mean, it’s just so many things, right, so many things on your nerves. I walk myself through the actual writing of the resume. What does that feel like? I walk myself through actually fixing the back of my hair, cause, let’s face it, on zoom, you don’t have to fix the back of your hair.
Speaker 2:
We’re all going like this I got a sweet spot back there.
Speaker 3:
I walk myself through, as my friend Tasha says, putting on pants with buttons and an outfit that actually goes together and shoes that are not sneakers, and driving to the interview and going through the BS of it. I mean I walk myself through Tracy Beavers, going back to corporate and immediately I get to the point where I’m leaving the house with my clothes on and I go, nope, that’s it. It’s not that I don’t have clothes on right now, it’s that I have on cute little yoga, you know, pants and I’ve got socks. I don’t have shoes on. I’m standing on my walking pad Cause I’m going to get that kicked up, started here in just a minute.
Speaker 3:
But I mean like I went out and walked the dog, I, you know what I mean. I’m just, I’m like, yeah, so I still have days like that, but the fact that I do have so much in savings is comforting, because then I can go look at my P and L. I can see do I need to make a shift? And then I can go look at my business bank accounts and be like, okay, if you don’t make another dime, you’re still good for 10 months, you’re still good for a year. You know what I mean. So that’s kind of. That’s kind of the way I do it. I usually, when I start thinking about the resume, is when I go Nope, not doing it.
Speaker 1:
I love that mental strategy of rehearsing. What is it going to be like if we decide Cause we could right, we’ve done all the hats in our business, growing them as you have, and sure we could go back and get that job, but oh, what does it involve?
Speaker 2:
and so I guess the thought of it makes me kind of get like anxious and it’s like no no, no, and we got.
Speaker 1:
We got two kids, so like if we both went back to work, then yeah well what are the kids gonna do, right like after they get out of school, but before we get home after the five?
Speaker 2:
I don’t actually know how that works. Yeah, like, how do people do this who are working, both working full time? I’m like I can’t see a world how that works for us.
Speaker 1:
So let’s keep doing our online businesses.
Speaker 2:
Okay, time to get tactical.
Speaker 1:
Time to get tactical Building. An email building, an email list of buyers, please. Not just an email list, but an email list of buyers, please, not just an email list, but an email list of buyers. If you could touch on the importance of having an email list just because the listener should know, and then your best ways to gain visibility with ease and growing your email list with Facebook, we’re just going to let you drop all the good ones.
Speaker 3:
Okay. So, first of all, the importance of the email list. Now, I’m sure your audience knows this because they’re savvy people, but let’s look at what’s going on with TikTok right now. It was here, people were making a lot of money on it, then it was gone, then it was back. Who knows what’s going to happen. I just pray that those people are building an email list. Same thing goes for Facebook and Instagram. You guys know it went dark, I think. Now it’s been about two years ago for about 36 hours when the lights came back on.
Speaker 3:
I’m in the meta leaders network and I have been for a few years. When the lights came back on, there were thousands of small business owners that lost a lot of money because they didn’t have a way to find their audience and connect with them. The people that made money were the people like Amy Porterfield, who sent an email to her list and she made $14,000 in that 36 hour period. So I would rather be the person that could still make money, the person that could still reach their people, and having an email list allows you. I like to think of when I land in your inbox, that I’ve landed in your living room and I’m like, hey, you know how’s it going. You know, like literally, because you are landing in front and center, to that person’s eyeballs, versus social media, where I might post something and you might not see it for 30 days. That has happened so many times. I had a girlfriend that was getting married and I’m like I’m so sorry, I had no idea where you’re getting married. It’s because Facebook didn’t show me her post.
Speaker 3:
Oh my gosh, you had a baby.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:
So we have to, we have to do things that sort of guarantee that our audience is going to see what we’re doing.
Speaker 3:
And then also in that inbox you can really cultivate some relationships by sharing what’s a little bit of what’s going on in your life. You know I’m goofy, I like to. You know I like to overshare, probably. But then I also try to find fun ways to get people to reply back, because not only does that help the email deliverability, but it also gives me an opportunity, like the DM conversations, to have a conversation with that person and it’s not just me sending them an email. So the email list is super important because we don’t own social media. It could disappear tomorrow. All that and you can cultivate deeper relationships with your subscribers and having a list of buyers what that means to me. I am not into vanity numbers and here’s, here’s why I had a client hire me last summer. She had you’re not going to believe this, she had 600,000 followers on Instagram. Do?
Speaker 3:
you know, how much money she was making Very little.
Speaker 1:
Was it less than like? Let’s just say less than 80K? You should be making more than 80 grand if you’re doing it right.
Speaker 3:
She was making zero dollars. Zero, zero, yeah, zero dollars. Oh zero Yep. She was not. Effectively, most of those followers were probably voyeurs.
Speaker 1:
And I don’t say this to I don’t react. I’m not reacting in a judgmental way, just like I’m reacting from a place of. I’ve built my previous Instagram for the other business was like at its height I don’t know 27,000 followers and I built a YouTube channel to 20,000 subscribers. It takes a lot that’s a lot of video editing, getting brave and showing up live or making content to make nothing, and 600,000. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
And it’s heartbreaking it was. It was completely heartbreaking, but that’s a. That’s an example of vanity numbers versus somebody like me who, on Instagram I think on a good day I’ve got 3,800 people, primarily because I don’t really focus on Instagram. It’s not been a converter for us, so it’s just kind of I’ve got content there. It’s not been a converter for us, so it’s just kind of I’ve got content there. It’s not a focus.
Speaker 3:
My Facebook following, I think, might be around 7,000, 8,000 with between friends and followers. Linkedin, I think I have 6,000 connections. My email list hovers between 3,500 and 4,500, but I have consistent five figure months and I have an over six figure a year business because I have an audience of buyers. I’m not trying to get to 10,000 followers on Instagram. I don’t care if I have 10,000 followers on Instagram. When somebody is bragging about that, my question is kind of like when they say how much money they made, I want to know what were your expenses. When they tell me how many followers they have on Instagram or YouTube or wherever I’m like you know, are they on your list? Are they buying from you? Is it converting?
Speaker 3:
So, so I’m into having an audience of people that really want to be with me and and I’m able to really develop those relationships with them and deepen that trust factor so they convert into buyers. That’s more important to me than having a big number.
Speaker 1:
There it is. How do we get that list then, Tracy?
Speaker 3:
So the list growth. So I mentioned to you guys I’ve got over 10 organic strategies that I teach, Because list growth can happen with almost everything you’re doing in your business. What I teach my students to do is put on a sticky note all roads lead to list building.
Speaker 3:
And what I mean by that is every action you take in your business every day. I want it to lead to your email list. So this podcast episode, this will lead to my email list because I’m going to share my podcast with people and my podcast grows my list. And I just shared my free Facebook group. My free Facebook group grows my list. Being on here, people will get curious about me. They’ll go to my website. They might grab a freebie. You know this will grow my email list. Doing a freebie swap with another person who has a similar audience to me, that will grow an email list.
Speaker 3:
I’m just thinking through the collaboration opportunities being in a bundle, being in a summit, speaking on stage, all of those things grow your list. But you have to be intentional about getting the list growth from them. So for another example is I had a student who went and spoke on stage oh, no, no, no, it was a vendor event she was doing and she came away from it. She said I don’t think anybody joined my list and I’m like well, what did we do to get them to join your list? She wasn’t doing basic things like having a QR code ready or having a freebie ready or something that would cause that list growth. So we really have to think about.
Speaker 3:
Another gal I visited with had a YouTube channel. She said, tracy, it’s not growing my list. And I said in the audio of the video, are you giving people a call to action where they can land on your list? And she went no. And I said in the description notes, are you giving people a few places where they could land on your list? And she was like I don’t think I am. And I was like, okay, and so Facebook personal profile we talked about that. Let that grow your email list, facebook business page. Let that grow your email list, your free Facebook group, if you want to have one working in other people’s Facebook groups for visibility that was something we hadn’t touched on. So free Facebook groups where your ideal clients are hanging out, even groups that don’t allow promotion of any kind, I still get massive list growth and group growth. So my Facebook group grows my list by hundreds of people every single month and I’d say 85% of those people I’ve never met.
Speaker 3:
But because I’m on podcasts, because I am visible on LinkedIn, because I am visible in free Facebook groups, just being of service, that is all I am doing. I am commenting on something that you had a win on. Oh my gosh, quajo, that was amazing. I’m so excited for you. Or you know, I’m struggling to grow my free Facebook group. Does anybody have any tips? Yes, here’s two or three that I help my students with. Let me know how these work for you. I’m not promoting anything. I’m not even saying I’m an expert, but I’m showing up and I’m being of service. That is going to showcase my expertise for me and people will get curious about me. They’re going to eventually be like who is this Tracy Beavers girl that I see in this group all the time? Okay, you can guess what happens next. They click on my personal profile, they go there, they slide right down my list growth funnel because of the way I have that set up. So that’s how all these puzzle pieces start to work together.
Speaker 3:
Where I’m not focusing on list growth, I’m focusing on where can I be of service? I want to be on a podcast, I want to be in a summit, I want to speak on stage, I want to be in free Facebook groups and I want to have conversations with people. But because of the way I have all this stuff set up, people are landing on my list. Okay, I’ll go through this and I’ll go through this real quick and then I’ll be quiet. Also, every piece of my funnel, every piece of my funnels, every time you turn around in my funnel, there is an invitation to my free Facebook group. Now you go to opt into a free lead magnet. Thank you, success page is. Oh my God, I’m so excited for you. You should be excited too and it’s a less than two minute video with an invitation to my free group. The, the lead magnet itself. One of the pages of the lead magnet has an invitation to my free group. Or another offer the email that I send to you hey, did you know I have this free Facebook group? I mean literally, you’re not getting away from me without joining my free Facebook group.
Speaker 3:
Now your audience may be saying, well, they’ve already landed on your list. Why is that important? It’s important because of the way I welcomed you and kind of blew your mind right when you joined my free group. I was immediately in the DMs going oh my God, I’m so excited to see you, so excited to have you in this group, and I’m trying to figure out what do you need? What can I give you? You know, if one of my people that joins my group says that they’re feeling invisible. I’m going to tell me what part has you feeling invisible? I’ve got so many free resources. I can send you a podcast, I can send you one of my live trainings, and what does that do? That’s that Nordstrom welcome, where they’re like dang, she’s nice, she’s helpful, she’s not selling me anything. She just made me feel like a million bucks and she wants to help me Now. Obviously I’m showcasing my expertise that way, but they will convert into a buyer when they’re ready. But I’ve got to establish that know, like and trust factor first.
Speaker 2:
I’ll get off the soapbox now you can stay on the soapbox.
Speaker 1:
I’m going to give you maybe a taller, higher soapbox to stand on. I actually need this next question, me fully realizing that a lot of times when I interview folks and even when I talk myself, the strategies that we you and Jamie and I are using right now to grow our business many times aren’t the strategies that we used to grow when we had to get scrappy. Right, because businesses very naturally have, like this, evolution and your strategies change, right. So all that is to lead up to this one question and then we’ll finish the episode. Okay for you, facebook group and all roads leading to that, whether you guest on podcasts or whether somebody is already on your list, that is what’s working great.
Speaker 1:
I want to ask if you weren’t doing that what would be the second strategy that you would lean on. That’s a good question. Yeah, so if I didn’t have my free Facebook group, I would be the second strategy that you would lean on.
Speaker 3:
That’s a good question. Yeah, so if I didn’t have my free Facebook group, I would be thinking of another top of funnel strategy, and I think podcasting is a great one.
Speaker 1:
Okay, why.
Speaker 3:
Well, because you can reach an audience on a global scale, whether they are on social media or not. Podcasters I heard this the other day when I was out walking podcasters are doers, they are producers because they’re usually on a treadmill listening, or they’re driving to work listening, or they’re driving to get their kids, or they’re washing dishes, or they’re doing something making the bed, doing the laundry, whatever. They are productive people and I. I could be wrong about this, but I think the income level of podcast listeners is a little bit higher on average than other demographics. I could be making that up completely. I don’t know. Maybe we should cut it.
Speaker 1:
I’m sure, dear listener, you could just open up chat and ask Kat.
Speaker 3:
Right Was Tracy Beavers right when she said so. If I’m wrong, just ignore it. But also, the podcast shows do not expire unless you take your show down. So, like years from now, if I’m still doing the show, people will find me, people will find this episode as long as this show is in existence, versus if Facebook disappeared tomorrow. There’s a big strategy that I’ve just lost, so I’ve got to think of a way to bring people into my world top of funnel to warm them up, but also to build those relationships with them, and so that’s where, if Facebook disappeared, I would be fully focused on the podcast, probably incorporating more SEO and Google Analytics and things like that than I am now, and AEO, which is a new thing I’m hearing about.
Speaker 1:
Oh, I haven’t heard about that.
Speaker 3:
And I can’t remember what the A stands for, but it’s basically when people because people are not using Google as much as they are using ChatGPT as a search engine to ask questions of. And so AEO is where you want to. Is it artificial engine optimization? Maybe is what it stands for, but versus SEO, aeo is where, if somebody types in I want to know a business coach that teaches visibility and list growth strategies my name has to appear.
Speaker 2:
Or.
Speaker 3:
I need a free Facebook group where I can promote anytime for online entrepreneurs. Da, da, da, da da. My group has to appear, and so we need to start thinking about the analytics in our favor. When it comes to the AI tools, we want to appear when somebody asks for something in our world, like you guys paid ads. You want ChatGPT to go. Oh my gosh, you have to call Kwejo and Jamie. They may be in China, but we’ll check and see you know. We’ll check and see, you know. So I would be employing more of those strategies organic again, because if social disappeared, that’s what we would have left, and then that inbox really being my playground where, instead of being able to have a DM conversation, I’m really working hard to get those replies back and that conversation going and those info, calls booked and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:
I love the answer.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
I mean I can. Obviously we can second that, because a lot of what I do is producing podcast episodes and Jamie’s here working alongside of me pitching, I would say, to an extent, like-minded podcasts. But really she does focus on like, who does she think we would get along with? But within that, looking at podcasts that we can partner with that serve the same online course creator that we serve, but in non-competitive, complimentary ways, if you will.
Speaker 2:
So I agree.
Speaker 1:
Your podcast is called the Create Online Business Success. Dear listener, I’m telling you that again so you can go down to the show notes below if you want to hear more about Tracy or more from Tracy and, of course, Tracy. Your free Facebook group is linked in the show notes below. What’s the final thought that you want to leave the listener with before we say goodbye?
Speaker 3:
It’s a great question. I end every live training, every podcast, saying pretty much the same thing, and it is that being an entrepreneur is freaking hard. It’s a roller coaster. Some days everybody wants to buy what we’re selling, other days people cannot remember our name. And the biggest thing I want them to understand is that they are not alone feeling that way.
Speaker 3:
You know, it’s really hard sometimes when all we see is the highlight reel and the success stories. And then we’re over there wondering what’s wrong with us and why isn’t our business growing faster? And if you think you’re alone feeling that way, you’re absolutely not faster. And if you think you’re alone feeling that way, you’re absolutely not. And that is where it is so critical to get into a community of like-minded people who are being honest, going through the same thing you are, so that you can shore each other up, because a lot of times our friends and family don’t understand, you know. So, anyway, just know that you’re not alone, get into a community of support and just keep going, don’t. Just don’t quit. Be willing to do whatever it takes to get where you want to go, including going to get a part-time job or doing DoorDash or something like that.
Speaker 1:
But just don’t quit, just don’t quit. It’s really hard.
Speaker 2:
It’s so true.
Speaker 1:
Jamie, weren’t we just walking with our brand new nine-year-old daughter last night in Mexico City and you were telling her about, like her birth story you know for?
Speaker 2:
the ninth time, but now she remembers more. I think it’s not the ninth time, because she probably didn’t start telling you until she was five.
Speaker 1:
But didn’t you just say, jamie, that just I think Elaina Faith, our daughter, was like well, did it hurt though?
Speaker 2:
And you were like, yeah, I’m like, yeah, it hurt. She’s like why did it?
Speaker 1:
hurt. I’m like, why did you do it then? I’m like, because you had a big head and you came out of a small hole you know, and then she was like I don’t think I want to have a baby and something, and then we were just saying that like, but most wonderful things, and we’re like, you’re wonderful, elena fave and I said you were absolutely worth it yeah, most wonderful things are difficult yes, yes, aren’t they things are the most wonderful things as well so I love that oh
Speaker 2:
right we’re gonna leave you with a teardrop at the end and one of the things I think, one of my favorite things you said at the beginning of this episode, tracy, was I had to get scrappy and creative and I feel like we could make, I don’t know, stickers with that or something. Get scrappy and creative when things aren’t working out. You’ve got to find those ways, and what you said as well if you have to get another part-time job or you have to do something else, like it’s okay, you know, like yes it’s okay, we’re gonna say goodbye, all right thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:
This was so much fun it is and it was, and I think you need to be here again. I would love that all. All right, dear listener, until the next time that you see us or hear from us, take care, be blessed. And what’s the next part?
Speaker 2:
We’ll see you soon. Bye.
