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Dama Jue, a funnel strategist and Thrivecart expert, shares her journey and how she uses strategic funnels and automation to simplify and enhance business operations.
Dama also shares her tips for boosting sales and making business run smoother!
Watch the episode ‘Why This is Easier (and More Profitable) Than an Evergreen Funnel Featuring Dama Jue’ (releases November 27th).
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Dama’s Links:
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the Art of Online Business podcast, and today we have a guest who I met in person at Make your Mark Live in Dallas, and she was such a dynamic speaker and had so many ways of making money in her business. I was like please be on the podcast, and she agreed. That guest is none other than Dama Ju is how you say your last name, right?
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
Because we related on this. And when you told me that your husband was black and Chinese and grew up in Japan, I was like really this is so cool. I spent lots of time in China.
Speaker 1:
But, before we get into all that, I’m going to introduce you Right after I introduce this other really cool lady sitting next to me, who is my wife, Jamie, and the new co-host of the Art of Online Business. And if you, the listener, are like, well, who’s that? And since where? Well, we’ve been married like 15 years but she’s been managing.
Speaker 1:
Facebook ads for a good part of the last this current year, behind the scenes and getting good results. And she just adds like a really fresh perspective to the podcast, not having been looking and staring at Facebook ads all along, and so she asks really good questions. And I thought been looking and staring at Facebook ads all along and so she asks really good questions and I thought let’s bring the wife in. Here she is, and now Damaju she’s a funnel strategist and a Thrivecart expert and I feel like an expert in everything.
Speaker 1:
I heard you share about Only a few things of which we’re going to talk about on this upcoming episode, but you love helping business owners build a profitable and impactful online presence through strategic funnels, which is what we all need help with, and automation and the automations that we never knew we needed, with high impact, low stress, trainings and templates, and I can’t wait for this upcoming episode. It’s like the listener you’re like what’s going on? Well, we’re going to get to know Dama and how she built her business to what it is now, which is huge in my humble opinion revenue wise. And in this next episode, if you’ve been wondering if you really need an evergreen funnel or is there a simpler way to make more sales and increase, like your average cart value of how much you’re selling. Then definitely come back because Dama’s going to share about that and it’s going to be really good. Welcome to the podcast, dama.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, thanks for having me and I will say a quick clarification. I don’t think my business is huge and, for the record, I do not want an eight figure business. I don’t want a seven figure business because I’ve been on the back ends of those and they tend to need team and not just a slew of contractors. We need employees and now I’m like I need an HR person and this tax and this fee and it just couldn’t be me. That’s not why I started my business.
Speaker 3:
I started my business to well, I mean that will get to my origin story, but, like as of where I stand, 2024 and into the foreseeable future it doesn’t look like me managing a lot of employees. It doesn’t look like me talking to HR or stressing about that. It’s me and my accountant and some really amazing, brilliant team members that are contractors. Most of my contractors are in English, are native English speakers, but they are not American, so they don’t live in my country. One is in Canada, one’s in the UK. They’re both brilliant. I’ve known them both a long time and I love to give them money.
Speaker 3:
I love to pay them. I love to pay them. I love the help that they provide and the insight they provide in my business, but it’s both. It’s important for all of us that they’re not my employees and I’m not their employer, so I don’t want a big, bustling, massive empire.
Speaker 3:
Couldn’t be me. I like a small but mighty team and I like to keep the profits. So that’s something that we that Quajo and I talked about at. Make your Mark is like you know you need to. You need to be about your profit margin. Your accountant should not be getting after you about your profit margin. You should be getting after you about your profit margin. Your profit, your job, is the profit margin and to make sure that this business is blessing you, agreed.
Speaker 3:
Brilliant that you bring to it. So I’m all about that profit margin and for me, yes, high paid contractors, it still fits with my business model and my you know 60 ish percent profit margin.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I mean, we’re the owners of our business. We need to know if they’re profitable and how much, especially if we’re doing anything ads related, but we’re not here to talk about Facebook ads. One thing that really did impress me is when you were talking about just from your affiliate revenue alone, that’s like six figures.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so the makeup of my business. I used to be a funnel builder. I used to build funnels for people and I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I never built my own funnels and I did kind of pitter patter around and created a $97 offer, but I didn’t have the right structure.
Speaker 3:
A lot of people are thinking about low ticket, low ticket, low ticket. And listen, I do low ticket, I get that, but you need to be in the right position to do low ticket, to also then put gas in your car and also then pay your mortgage or pay your rent or buy the ever expensive groceries. So low ticket is not the goat for everyone, but I tried it when I had no audience and, spoiler alert, that is not going to pay your bills for a very long time. So I had been a funnel builder for a long time. I’ve run ads. I’ve run Facebook ads, I’ve run Pinterest ads, I’ve run ads on Instagram. I’ve done a lot of things in the funnel world and then I one of my clients. I had made them multiple, six figures and I was like you know, at this point in time, I’m giving them strategy, the implementation, I’m writing the copy, I’m designing the pages, I’m building the automations, I’m brainstorming the solutions, I’m literally writing word for word their webinar. I’m doing everything but say the words for them.
Speaker 3:
And they’re making six figures, that I was, you know, making very little money, like, basically, as a funnel builder. I was under charging and also I just wasn’t like this, isn’t it? So at a certain point I decided, okay, it’s time for me to start stop being the bridesmaid and get off of the you know ugly dress trail and get myself into the front row seat and start creating funnels and offers for myself. And then I had my first five figure launch and I was like, yeah, bye, within two weeks. Let my clients know respectfully, lovingly, that in two weeks our contract is over. I will not be renewing as of February 1st. So I did this launch December 31st to like January something, launched December 31st to like January something 9th or something of 2021. And by February 1st I was like, yeah, we’re done now. Love you, xo. But also I’m ready to move on. Mic, drop Goodbye. Yeah, like love ya. That was amazing for me. Thank you for letting me learn and also, you know, have a role in your business. But yeah, I’m ready to move on. And so just went all in on digital products.
Speaker 3:
So right now, as it stands 2024, my business is about two thirds of my income is digital products, almost all low ticket, almost all of it low ticket. But I also do have a group program that I run twice a year. I’m always doing something, but I cannot be asked to do a year round group program, like just the idea of in perpetuity I have a live Q and a on Wednesdays at 11 gives me the dry heaves. I just can’t do it. So I um, I do twice a year. We’ll offer like a 12 week or 10 week container, um, but the majority of it is low ticket and group programs. And then about the other third or so of my business is affiliate income and, yeah, 2023, it’s six figures. I haven’t quite hit six figures for 2024. But I mean, we’re coming into gravy season, it’s Black Friday’s coming up and, yeah, I should, should, just, should, be just fine. So it should also hit six figures in affiliate income this year. So it’s not my main objective.
Speaker 3:
I like to create my own offers, but I have a sort of signature way that I don’t see anyone else doing. But I’m just going to tell the art of online business audience. This is my secret sauce is everything in my business is connected All my offers, perhaps tenuously, but somehow they are connected to some other offer. So you might’ve come to me for a funnel template. That’s great, but do you really know how to set up a funnel? Okay, no problem, I have a tech tutorial for you or I have a training for you. Okay, Well, now that you’ve got that, now you have customers.
Speaker 3:
How are you handling your customers? Not a problem, I have a system for that. It’s built in Airtable. It relies on automations. It’s boss. How are you getting sales, like, how are you getting people on the sales page? Not a problem, I have an email marketing training for you. So it’s all. And then, along the way, it’s like well, here’s what I use for my email marketing software. Here’s my affiliate link. Here’s what I use for this. Here’s my affiliate link. And I have this sort of self-sustaining system. That works really well for me. My brain is the kind of brain that builds connections, so it’s worked really well for me to just, yeah, lean into it and build a business that is mostly digital products and I get to create whenever I want, however I want, which is almost exclusively live. I love teaching live.
Speaker 1:
You’re very good live.
Speaker 3:
I mean, I like it. I feel like a ham, but I get really clammed up when I’m recording just me and my like recording software. I get all clammed up and I’m like, yeah, I need humans here, let’s get me some humans. And then, once you put me on live, if I’ve got my notes, my notion notes or my slides like I’m a ham, I won’t even look at them.
Speaker 1:
I’ll be good to go for the next 45 minutes and then the tech tutorial stuff I always like to pre-record because that is not fun to watch anyone teach tech live. Have you ever thought about just live streaming? When you record, that way there’s an audience. Just invite people off your list to your podcast recording session.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I don’t have a podcast. I don’t currently have a podcast because I have this mental block of like it must be prerecorded and then I get trapped in this like clammy it’s just me and my microphone. It’s not a good look, so I don’t have a podcast. I have had 24 episodes for a YouTube channel mapped out since February. We’re recording in October and I have no posted YouTube videos yet, and the reason is is that I cannot teach in a vacuum. I’ve recorded a couple, but I haven’t posted them, and so, starting later this month and all the way through the end of 2024, I’m doing, I’ll be live streaming my YouTube content.
Speaker 3:
So I’m going to be doing YouTube content. I’m really excited about it. It’s really strategic, really thoughtful, really impactful stuff. Lots of tech tutorials on the back end of that. But, yeah, I need humans. So it’s going to be me emailing my list saying please join me, please don’t leave me alone, please don’t make me do this alone like I. Whenever I am teaching live and people show up, I’m like god bless you, thanks, so, so thankful you’re here, because I’m not really good in a vacuum. I I just do better when I’m interacting with people.
Speaker 1:
I get that. I love being in a room with people. It gives me energy. I’m so lonely when I’m just only here behind the screens looking at Facebook ads all day. So before I even ask you about your origin story and like kind of some highlights and lowlights of the business, I’m super curious about you and your husband.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah, okay, so my last name is a Chinese last name. My husband is Chinese and African-American and his dad is Chinese, his mom’s African-American. He didn’t grow up in Japan. He lived in Japan, um, and we happened to meet in a Japanese class. His Japanese is a lot better than mine, but as a Spanish, I’m Mexican and I grew up speaking Spanish, so as a Spanish speaker, my Japanese accent is better than his and he speaks Japanese with an American accent, but conversationally I he’s so much better. His Japanese is just better he. He may have an American accent on his Japanese, but he can. He, he’s very conversant. He does great.
Speaker 3:
He reads characters and I sort of cheated and don’t read the characters and I I sort of I don’t know what’s that. I Enneagram three are my INTJ. My way through any of it. I’ll just flub my way through it and like with a big smile and okay, a lot of Japanese.
Speaker 3:
What’s interesting about Japanese language is that it’s very what we would find perhaps annoying as Americans. Where I’m like I’m feeling Japanese person will insert what they think you’re feeling, because they want to help you get your point out. So I might say I’m feeling and trail off and they’ll say hungry, tired, sleepy. Do you want to do this? It’s not maybe to Americans that are people from North America or something, it might seem annoying, but to Japanese people that’s like being very helpful and so you can flub it. You can really like kind of blow it, and Japanese people will still have a very good idea of what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah, so you can drop me anywhere in japan, I’ll be fine. I’m conversant enough that I’ll be fine, but my husband lived there so he’s really good at japanese. So, anyway, we met in japanese class. So our little, yeah, our little family is just us two mexican, chinese and black. But our culture is bay area.
Speaker 1:
we’re san francisco bay area, that’s okay, wow to me that is just so cool, I mean when I first saw your last name, I was like wait, that’s kind of like a Chinese, having spent 12 plus years in China myself, I was like wait a second. And then, when you told me that, I’m like oh, this is intriguing, yeah how would you say it?
Speaker 3:
uh, in a job, like in a Chinese accent? Yes, yeah, did you live in China?
Speaker 2:
too, jamie, yeah, yeah, we were there almost 12 years together, so, yeah, and then I’m looking at your first name too, dama. I’m like well, that’s lady. Yeah, it’s lady in Spanish.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it’s short for Damaris wait a second, because when we were talking you were saying the accent’s not where people think it is and I thought it was on the I but it’s not not, it’s, the accent is on the first A, so when I introduce myself in Spanish, I’ll say and.
Speaker 3:
Then they’ll say oh, and I’ll say and they’ll say and I’m like, just call me Dama, like, no, so the like. The human brain always wants to associate it to what they’ve already heard. So the common pronunciation perhaps is damaris, but that’s just not why my parents named me. So anyway, that’s why I go by dama. I’m like, let’s just go by dama, whatever.
Speaker 2:
Yeah no, that’s cool, I like, yeah, I like the mix.
Speaker 3:
I like the mix because we have such different backgrounds but the biggest cult, like the biggest culture clash in our household is just our family. Cultures are different. Like theirs is like quiet and respectful and they don’t interrupt each other, and my family culture is like the only way you get heard is if you interrupt each other. The loudest person gets heard and like, yes, you can take food off of other people’s plates, and he was like horrified by that when we first got married and so, like the biggest clashes have been family culture and having nothing to do with our backgrounds.
Speaker 1:
So wow, that’s great I remember jamie going, because she was in mexico for several couple of years before we got married and went to china and I remember her just the. I mean China is not Japan, but the cultural difference between Mexico and China is significant.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they’re kind of like polar extreme opposite yeah.
Speaker 1:
We’ve gone through that too.
Speaker 2:
Yeah definitely. So I want to know you said you got started in funnel fixing, but before that what were you doing? Or how did you? How did you switch to that? Or do you have a background in I don’t know? A lot of people have like graphic designer communication, no graphic design.
Speaker 3:
So I went to school for international business and finance. I went to school at San Francisco state university, graduated with an accounting, you know, in in finance and did not care about it. But I was very much like, okay, first child, you know, first kid in a first gen household like my parents are immigrants. So first one to go to college, like I better, like I had to fight for the kind of they didn’t really understand why I wanted to go to college. So I had to kind of fight to go and I paid for you know a lot of my tuition and stuff. So I like I had to sort of make it count and so I chose the very financially responsible path. I chose finance and that was fine.
Speaker 3:
I always liked business. I always thought that there’s a place for a bossy pants in business or something like that. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Ended up working as an accountant and did that. I worked in accounting or finance for like eight or nine years in Silicon Valley, mostly for tech startups. So still very flip-flop and cargo shorts, but accounting and the finance side of things. And then my last job was my last finance job was I was a fund accountant for the school district for, like the county, the county office which got money from the state, then got money, then gave money to the school district.
Speaker 3:
So I sort of did all the fund accounting for that. Super dry, super boring, great, reliable job. But you know I just didn’t care about it that much, you know, I just didn’t. I felt very trapped and hemmed in by accounting unchallenged. And also they wanted me at my desk at 8 am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and answering emails and I’m just like a night owl and a wasteoid at 8 am, like I don’t know why you want me here. I’m useless but okay.
Speaker 1:
You just seem like you have way more personality than many accountants I’ve met.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I was the absolute weirdo on every department. Like you don’t fit the mold, you don’t pull on here, so anyway. And creative accounting is a negative right. Like that’s a little too creative right.
Speaker 2:
Creative accounting Isn’t that usually like?
Speaker 1:
something illegal.
Speaker 2:
I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.
Speaker 3:
It’s an ethical gray area, guys, so it’s gray. So anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. It’s an ethical gray area, guys, so it’s great. So, anyway, I was just, yeah, when my husband was working in tech. We lived in Silicon Valley and we were just feeling like we wanted to do more with our lives and just hunkering and like just have being corporate drones didn’t feel like the vibe. We also weren’t feeling called to buy a house, um. We weren’t feeling called to have kids. We just none of it was really appealing. We just wanted to do more. So we quit our jobs, sold all of our crap and sublet our apartment and moved to Mexico for a year. We lived in the Yucatan for a year just volunteering, and then, while we were there, I tried, very unsuccessfully, to get remote accounting work. This is pre-pandemic, so no one wanted to hire an accountant. We were there. I tried, very unsuccessfully, to get remote accounting work. This is pre-pandemic, so no one wanted to hire an accountant remote.
Speaker 3:
No one wanted to hire a person that they hadn’t been referred to. It was just like this is pointless. So I started looking for how can I make an income here so that we could stay, because we really loved our life and I started my business there. So I started a Pinterest management business, so bought a course. Literally Now in hindsight I totally was pulled into a funnel right and it’s like I was very much sold on the benefits and the features and how that would serve me. I absolutely stressed for two weeks. It was a very long cart open. In hindsight it was open. The cart was open for two weeks. It was a very long cart open. In hindsight it was open.
Speaker 3:
The cart was open for two weeks and was like a 799 enrollment for this group program, which was not, you know. It felt like, oh man, I was just agonizing over it. I had been on the wait list, quajo, so I had been agonizing over it for months. So I finally my husband’s like if you buy the thing, are you going to do the work? And I was like, yes, absolutely A hundred percent overachiever, you know, gene. And he’s like, okay, then just buy it, we’ll figure it out, so I bought it.
Speaker 3:
I made my investment back within like three weeks and was just yeah, I made my first thousand within a couple more weeks, like it was just felt. It felt really good, it was all clicking. It felt like a lot of the things that I never that was always made me too much, too extra in my friend groups or especially at work, was like oh, am I rewarded for this? This is a good thing. Am I hashtag made for this? Was I made to be an entrepreneur? Is this the right fit for me? And it just was all clicking.
Speaker 3:
So funny side random thing is that in that same group program, in that same course, I met the person that works for me now, who is my. I call her my marketing genie. I tell her my ideas and she’s my implementer. She takes my ideas and turns them into sales copy and pages and automations and assets and promo graphics and stuff. But we happened to meet throwback while I was living abroad in that Pinterest class. So I got pretty quickly bored with Pinterest. It’s very repetitive Social media, ain’t it for me? I realized that also rather quickly. This isn’t it for me. So a lot of clients were like how do I know if I’m getting ROI from the clicks and I’m like well, I’m bringing you the clicks, what are you doing with it? And they’re like.
Speaker 2:
I don’t know.
Speaker 3:
I have a blog. I think you know like someone’s writing a blog for me, and I’m like, okay, so it very quickly pulled me into well, what are we doing with this traffic? And I know that lands with you, quajo, right, because you’re like well, it’s all about, I can get you the clicks, what are you doing with it? And then for me, as a problem solver and a person who likes to like pull up my sleeves and dig in and like fix things and tinker and experiment, I was like oh, funnels, this is where I belong. This is where I belong. This is what I don’t want to just like build other people’s strategies. I want to build my own strategies, but you sort of need to lay the groundwork. So I started working with clients building funnels, and it was just all my clients came from. They were hiring me to do pinterest for a couple hundred bucks a month or whatever. And I was like you don’t have an email list, let me build that for you. You don’t have a tripwire funnel, let me build that for you. You don’t have a welcome sequence, let me do this, let me do that loved you right building yeah, yeah
Speaker 3:
they didn’t have anything they you know a lot of them had like well, I’m the wedding photographer, so so here’s some photos.
Speaker 2:
I’m like well, what else?
Speaker 3:
do we have? How are you sucking people in? So yeah, a lot of my clients came from having hired me for Pinterest and they thought that just more traffic is the solution. And I’m sure y’all hear that all the time more traffic, more traffic, more traffic. But it’s like if you’re not ready for the traffic or if you don’t know what to do with it, it’s just wasted. It’s a waste and not only that, it kind of detracts from your brand and from like you waste. Not only have you like, not capitalized on it, it’s been. It was kind of a waste that you’re paying me even to bring you traffic If you have no mechanism, no means for people to get out their credit card.
Speaker 3:
So, long story short, yeah, stuck around with Pinterest for like a minute and one of my biggest disappointments. I’ve probably only cried about my business twice, and the first time was I was I had decided that I wanted to no longer do Pinterest. I was bored with it, I was over it. I was really into funnels, I was pivoting into funnels, I was already had been building funnels for like six months and but was still droning on about Pinterest, cause that’s what my content pillars were and you know I hadn’t really figured out how to pivot. So I had this brilliant idea that I’ll just like, take everything I know, put it in a course, I’ll make it $57. And then that will just, and then I’ll just hand that out Like that’ll just be the closure of the Pinterest chapter in my life, which was such a mistake, because when you put out a course, you have to keep bringing ads. You know, not ads, but leads to it in order to make money from it. People are going to ask questions, so you need to stay current on the topic. It’s not an escape. Creating a course is not your get out of talking about Pinterest.
Speaker 3:
And I just that was the moment that I realized it. I actually I was on like a group call and I was talking to somebody and I was like, oh, I just I was so embarrassed that as a funnel builder, I didn’t see the connection in my own business and I thought like I’m going to just dump this little Pinterest course. I’m going to mark it up to 97 bucks. I over-delivered, it was way too big. And then I just thought, you know, like I sold 5,000 spots. I was like, wow, I’m good at this. And then, like a month later, it was like oh, people keep asking me questions and people keep wanting to do this and they keep wanting my help and they keep eh, this is not the escape route. And it just dawned on me Like I did not, like I messed up the strategy on that entirely, and that was like the first time I cried about my business like this ah, I’m a failure. But I wasn’t a failure, I just screwed up, you know.
Speaker 3:
And then I’m like a successful failure yeah, it looked like I didn’t. It looked like wow, you sold as a person with like relatively no list like how did you sell 5 000?
Speaker 1:
right, yeah ticket.
Speaker 3:
There are 5 097 courses. I leverage other people’s audiences a lot, so secret, secret number, whatever to? If you don’t have an audience, you need to learn how to be strategic in a non-slimy way and, with permission and good intention, leverage other people’s audiences. So, yeah, anyway, I pivoted pretty quickly after that I was like nope, I’m never talking about Pinterest again. Literally changed my site with the next month and took that lump and was like okay, we’re talking about funnels from now on. Changed my site Nothing but funnels. Built funnels from now on. Changed my site Nothing but funnels. Built funnels for like a year and a half and kind of licked my wounds Not a year and a half, but like for like a year. Didn’t create another offer because I was so self-conscious. I was confident in the funnel strategy and building that I was doing for my clients.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 3:
I’m being the numbers, I’m like I’m okay at this, I think I’m doing good at this, but I didn’t build my own offers because I let that setback and that lack of strategy kind of take away some of my own confidence in building for myself.
Speaker 1:
So that year you were just providing a service to clients.
Speaker 3:
I was just a service provider and, interestingly enough, I was applying funnel principles to my service provider business. I was upselling like crazy, right? Like? Oh, you want me to install, like you’re looking for. You want me to set up your email list? Not a problem. Do you have a tripwire? Can I set that up for you? Oh, you don’t have thrive cart yet. Here’s my link. Can I, now that, since I’ve got you set up, I include 10 templates as a bonus, why don’t I get in there and customize that template for you? Do you want me to set up your first tripwire? Okay, not a problem. Click here to add that. Click here to add that. Oh well, now it’s a tripwire. We need to set it up as a full price. Do you want me to add do you need a welcome sequence? Yeah, I just love, I love.
Speaker 3:
Upselling is a concept in my business that comes up again and again. It’s a thing I’m never going to grow out of, because if you need A, that follows You’re going to need B. Do you have B? Oh, you don’t. Can I do it for you? I’ve already got your logins. I already have your logins. I’m already working in the back end of your business. Why don’t I just add in oh, you need C, do you have C? No, okay, okay, let me do that too, and I’ll give you a discount because I already got your logins. You know we will just throw this on this contract. So I started building into my CRM even upsells and bumps. I was using funnel concepts, even as a service provider, and it, let me scale to, you know, like to a six figure service provider business relatively quickly.
Speaker 2:
Nice. So you’re the. You know, here’s the hamburger. Do you want fries with that and a Coke and dessert and maybe an appetizer?
Speaker 3:
You’re going to have to dip your fries in. Do you want that? Do you want to try that Pepsi cherry lime, because we also have that.
Speaker 1:
Pepsi cherry lime.
Speaker 3:
It sounds good. I just upsold Cuejo on cherry lime Pepsi, which I probably would I just cross-sold I just up-sold Kwejo and Cherry Lime Pepsi, which I probably didn’t.
Speaker 1:
I guess I’ve seen. I’ve seen lime in like Diet Coke before when I was working in Paris. I don’t want to lose my question though. Okay, when did you? Get the mindset from to upsell but actually charge for it, because I feel like so many folks, especially providing the service, it’s like well, I feel like you need this in order for the service to go. Well, I’m just gonna do this for you, you know and you can appreciate me, but I’m not gonna charge you for it. How’d you make that jump?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you know what? No one has ever asked me that question. I’ve probably told my origin story like a billion times, but I don’t know. I don’t know like the gumption, like where the cheek of that? You know, why did I do that? I have no idea. I think somewhere along the lines I always trialed new offers at an intro price and I went out and said this is 750. It will be a thousand, or you know, I always told people it’s an intro price and then I stopped marketing that way because my clients were like hey, hey, hey, hey, I want you know. So I’m like why am I marketing, barking into the void of Instagram stories? Cause that’s how we marketed right in 2021 with stories. Why am I just barking into the void? It disappears after 24 hours to strangers with low engagement rate, when my clients are like right here. So I? It started with that Pinterest client.
Speaker 3:
It was a means to an end at first, cause I was like okay, we had moved back, so back in 20, whatever, 18, 19,. We’d moved back home from Mexico, had no jobs lined up, and we’re like oh, we’re back in San Francisco. It’s very, very expensive here and my tenant, my subletters, moving out and like any given minute. Now I’m going to be responsible. I got to pay him his deposit back and I’m going to be responsible for rent in Silicon Valley, in Menlo park.
Speaker 3:
Like as we were going home with our savings like pretty low, we had some financial setbacks are over there. So like as we were going home with our savings like pretty low, we had some financial setbacks are over there. So like as we were going home with our savings kind of low, I was like I got to like cook the books on this. I got to cook the books. So as we were going home, I my business was like it was bringing in I think like 1600 a month for where I was living Incredible for the Bay area. Like that’s rent. You know, like maybe at that time it’s rent that sounds really low, cheap rent yeah, yeah, that’s really.
Speaker 3:
That’s below market value for bay area even in 2018 or 19 or whatever it was. So the that like gave me some pressure to like, okay, I either have to go back and interview for freaking accounting jobs or I need to turn up the heat on this business, and I had started to notice that I think there may be an aptitude here. I think there may be like, this might be the right fit for me, and an office has never been the right fit for me and I’ve always interviewed well but been a mediocre employee because I get too many ideas and I want to go off in too many directions.
Speaker 3:
And when you’re an employee, you can’t like the ideas are not supposed to come from you, the implementation comes from you. And I’m like I’m not her, I’m not really like. I’m great in a board, like at a team meeting, but then catch me outside when it comes time to implement, like it’s not good. So I yeah, so I keep. We came back and I really felt like Hmm, I went on a job interview for an accounting position at like some county office or city or whatever and I was like, yeah, halfway through the interview I was like I don’t want this with every cell, like I’m going to double down. So I hired a business coach and it was like a 90 day one-on-one Voxer daily access container and I was like that’s it, let’s freaking go and was just going to double down.
Speaker 3:
And I started looking at and her angle was like get on IG stories every day, which I did, but never felt good to me because, again, I’m not talking to anybody live, I’m talking to myself, you know.
Speaker 3:
And then I’m like that tooth is crooked and like, oh, my eyeliner smudge, like it’s just, I need to not be focusing on me, it needs to be live, so that I’m not focusing on me. Right, I need to not be focusing on me, it needs to be live, so that I’m not focusing on me, right? So her angle was like market on stories and I realized pretty quickly well, like this client doesn’t have an email list, this client has an email list but has not emailed her list in 18 months. This client doesn’t have this. So I was just like why am I going to run off and try and build rapport with strangers via stories and like spend an hour and a half each day making cute slides and like designing them in Canva? No, couldn’t be me. So I just started marketing to my existing customers and was like, hey, here’s because I did like a monthly report anyway.
Speaker 3:
And so I started being more specific with the suggestions Well, I think you need this. I think we should do that if you want me to set that up. The suggestions Well, I think you need this. I think we should do that If you want me to set that up for you. And then I would reach out. I do direct outreach and just like hey, quajo, I know I set up that XYZ for you, but I really think it needs a tripwire. I really think we’ll amplify if we see this. I can set that up in the next two weeks if you’d like and like when I’m telling you, but I can set it up in the next 14 days. You’re kind of like, yeah, okay, because that’s been on my to-do list for a year. So the upselling thing just, I don’t know where it came from, but I think it came from like, wow, I better get, like I better start making like Bay area money because I’m going to have to quit my business and I really didn’t like it.
Speaker 3:
I was just starting to get really fond of it and feeling like I think there’s a potential to really scale so or to really, like you know, plant my feet and stay here and be that, let this be my thing. So, yeah, it was. It started like almost from the beginning and then it never. I’ve never let it go, because you’re already an existing customer. You know that what I, when I do put an offer out it’s tested, it’s proven, it’s really high quality, it has a lot of thoughtful touches that not everybody includes. And hey, I just thought of what else you needed. Oh and hey, before I even finished that sentence, I thought of what else you needed. So I have to be careful to not be a fire hydrant of blasting people with too many offers, too many ideas, because there’s a Rolodex in my brain of like you know what they need and then I’m just off creating it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:
But you already have that know like and trust factor with your clients, so it makes sense, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:
I mean, honestly, that’s the easiest way to scale a service provider business is pick what you want to do, present the concept of why they need it. And we’re talking about writing or saying one line of copy right At the certain point I was writing conversion copy and we know how expensive conversion copy can be to hire out how powerful it can be when it’s done right. Yeah, but we’re thinking of, like you know, 3000 word sales pages. What if I just wrote one really freaking good sentence of conversion copy and I started doing that as a service provider, like here’s your proposal for setting up your thrive cart, here’s a one click add, you know, upsell, to add this and to add that and to add that. And I’m writing one sentence oh, you don’t have Thrivecart yet, I recommend it. Here’s blah, blah, blah, and if you get it with my affiliate link, then I’ll do this and I’ll do that, you know. And so, just like one sentence, and that concept has stayed with me since 2020, because I just keep doing that in every aspect of my business. Even today, 2024, different business model, right, a lot of my revenue is either coming from affiliate income, speaker fees or digital products. And still, I’m using this one sentence concept.
Speaker 3:
Sometimes I’ll put out an offer. I put out an offer last month. I didn’t do, I didn’t write a single email about it, I just put a mention in my PS and my strategic four by four PS thingy and I have 77 people enrolled already and that’s like. I just wrote one sentence. The copies on the sales page. Obviously you need to write copies somewhere, but the biggest thing is getting the click Right and you know that from ads it’s the same as from ads or from emails. If they don’t land on the sales page, then a tree fell in the woods, right? It doesn’t matter how good the copy is on the sales page if no one clicked. So sometimes you don’t have to write seven emails I mean, we’re getting into next episode, but like you don’t have to write seven emails, sometimes one really good sentence of copy.
Speaker 1:
Perfect Cause. I don’t like writing a lot of emails and when you said you could share about if you really need an evergreen funnel or is there a simpler slash?
Speaker 3:
lazier, proactively lazy right, I love lazy. I’m here for lazy. Yeah, I’m a hardworking, lazy person.
Speaker 1:
That’s okay. Did you say a hardworking, lazy person?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I work really hard but yet my goal is to do less and to do it strategically. So I think that’s why automations and funnels and stuff Like why should I keep doing the same thing again and again when I can set it up once and just be really strategic about it?
Speaker 1:
Sounds good. Yeah, full transparency. I need a funnel. I don’t have a funnel. It’s pretty bad. We were talking about this yesterday, or was it the day before I don’t know.
Speaker 1:
It was this yesterday, or was it the day before, I don’t know. It was recently. Yeah, no, I was on a call actually for the mixer mind that I’m in and we were doing hot seat style and one lady was on my email list and she’s like you know, you don’t sell. I don’t think I know when the last time was. I saw like a sales email from you. I’m like huh, good point, I have like this lead magnet onboarding email sequence and then I never sell again.
Speaker 1:
I just send out podcast emails because I’ve been focusing on like you know side of business, but now I can’t have that as an excuse. I need to learn how to sell my own course with a funnel. So I can’t wait for the next episode to hear what you’re about to say.
Speaker 3:
Sounds good to me.
Speaker 1:
Sounds great to me. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you, dama. Thank you for being on this episode. I can’t wait to record the next one. Thanks for having me absolutely, and for you, listener, until the next time we see you, or you see us or you hear from us, take care, be blessed, and we’ll see you in the next one. Bye goodbye.
