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Lauren Golden laughing at camera and wearing a grey tshirt

Episode 49: Finding Success by Going All-In On Your Business with Lauren Golden

Are you consistent in your business? Do you utilize data to see what is working and what isn’t working?

There are many paths to success in business, and just because something doesn’t seem to pay off immediately, does not mean you should throw in the towel and do something else. You have to be consistent and curious in order to achieve the success you’ve been dreaming of. 

Not everyone loves collecting and interpreting data but it can be a huge factor in the success of your business. Sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get into the details of why things are working or why they aren’t. 

In today’s episode of the Empowered Business podcast, I sat down with Lauren Golden to talk more about why you need to be all-in on your business if you want it to be successful. 

Lauren Golden is the fearless leader of The Free Mama Movement and a thriving community of tens of thousands of women who don’t want to choose between family and financial stability. Her mission is simple: Lauren wants to ensure that no mother ever has to sacrifice time with her babies in order to provide for them. 

Lauren is also a 2 Comma Club Award winner and a #1 International Bestselling Author. In her book, The Free Mama: How to Work from Home, Control your Schedule and Make More Money, she shares her own story — along with plenty of practical advice for anyone looking to leave the 9-5 behind and live a totally awesome, guilt-free life.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

  • Why networking is so much better when it is on your own terms
  • How to practice sharing about your business more
  • Why you can’t get to your big scary dreams if you’re not all in
  • The importance of looking at your data in business
  • Making your offers evergreen
  • Using ads and funnels in your business
  • How to test your strategies out to get more sales
  • Why you don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you start a business
  • Why you need to choose your path to success and be consistent

 

Lauren isn’t afraid to analyze data and adapt her strategy as needed, and that is why I loved chatting with her. She has so much knowledge to share on how to stay consistent, find what works, and get those results. 

I hope you were able to gain some insight that you can apply to your business strategy with this episode. If you want to check out Lauren’s free Facebook group, you can do that here. 

Head over to http://monicafroese.com/listen to listen to this episode and previous episodes on your favorite podcast platform!

Resources Mentioned:

Monica Froese  00:00

I really, truly love all of the guests that I’ve had on this podcast. I love them all. And they’ve all brought such unique value to you the listener. But I have to say, this might be the most enjoyable interview that I’ve done. Lauren, who’s going to be on the podcast today, and I’m going to tell you all about Lauren in a minute here. She, she’s like my twin, we think so much alike. We have very similar journeys. And it’s so weird, because back in the day, when I was just really ramping up the redefining mom brand. We did these things called busy moms building spotlights. And Lauren was one of our spotlight authors. And it was before her business had really started taking off. And as you’re going to learn in today’s interview, Lauren, Lauren is a force to be reckoned with. And she is giving so much golden information in this interview, and so real and authentic. And like I said, this is one of my favorite interviews ever, and I think they are, if you’re here listening to me week after week, you’re definitely going to enjoy everything Lauren’s going to share with us. So let me tell you a little bit about Lauren before we jump in. Lauren Golden is the fearless leader of the Free Mama Movement and a thriving community of 10s of 1000s of women who don’t want to choose between family and financial stability. Her mission is simple. Lauren wants to ensure that no mother ever has to sacrifice time with her babies in order to provide for them. I think that sounds awfully familiar with why we even started this podcast to begin with. Lauren is also a two comma Club Award winner and a number one international best selling author. In her book, The Free Mama: How to Work From Home, Control Your Schedule and Make More Money. She shares her own story along with plenty of practical advice for anyone looking to leave the nine to five behind and live a totally awesome guilt free life. And if you’ve been around here long enough, you also know that I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as mom guilt. And I don’t believe in mom guilt. And I don’t ever let anyone guilt me for the type of mom that I am and how I choose to show up in my role as mother and that is a big cornerstone of, of Lauren’s teaching as well and helping women achieve both success and that financial stability while showing up in motherhood the way that is unique to so like I said, this is such a good interview. I hope you enjoy it. Can’t wait to hear what you think.  You’re listening to the Empowered business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese. A mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help 1000 Women make $100,000 a year. That’s right $100 million towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know right here week after week. So you can join us on the journey to $100 million. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. Lauren, welcome to the Empowered Business podcast. I am very excited to be talking to you today.

 

Lauren Golden  03:23

I am so excited that we are finally doing this. We joked before we hit record that your person called my person and we both had a really good laugh because we’re like, Do you guys know that? That we actually know each other we we’ve met we could have arranged this. So I love it. It just shows number one the power of outsourcing but number two, the power of networking and loving on your network and knowing other good humans who are in the business space.

 

Monica Froese  03:50

Well, you know what’s really funny about networking? When I was in corporate, I hated it. My husband said, well, just so you know, when you start your business, you’re still going to have to network and I was like, No, I’m going to be behind a computer. I’m not going to network, I’m going to like build like a brand that just sells things without me needing to talk to humans. Yeah, it doesn’t. That doesn’t work when I…

 

Lauren Golden  04:09

Secret empire.

 

Monica Froese  04:11

Right. But what I did find, luckily, is that the reason I didn’t like networking in corporate is because I didn’t agree with the ideals of corporate and who ran the world in corporate and playing by their rules. But the second I got to play by my own rules and enjoy what I do. Now we’re getting just actually comes fairly easy and is by far the biggest indicator of business growth. I’m on board now with that.

 

Lauren Golden  04:34

I totally agree my only like real experience that I remember in like a formal networking environment was when my husband we were dating and then gotten get like fiance’s at the time. We lived in Arizona. So before we got married many years ago, and I worked at a bank which is terrifying for everyone because I was like 23 and had zero qualifications to work at a bank but needed a job and they hired me and they forced us to go to like very traditional networking events where everybody was just walking around with their business card. And the objective was like to sell people stuff not to actually like, I don’t know, make a connection, meet a friend, help somebody. Like it literally, I just, I think of this very, like rigid, afterwork suit, business card game. And much like you’re sharing for me, I think it was that I wasn’t bought into the reason I was there. Like, I didn’t care about the bank, I didn’t care about the bank getting more clients, like, I was not motivated, because I didn’t believe in the thing that I was supposed to be talking about. So for me, that was such a horrible experience. And I think so many people have these horrible experiences. And then it takes us a while to shed them in our business. And I think that’s part of why people have such a fear of putting themselves out there when they get started. Even on the internet. Yes, there’s fear of failure and fear of what other people think. But it’s like, hey, remember, like, you, you’re good. And the things you do are good, and the things you have are good. And, like, again, you’re not gonna build a secret empire, like you’re gonna have to tell people about him. But it’s a lot easier when you actually like and believe in the things you’re doing.

 

Monica Froese  06:10

Yes, I actually have a lesson in my, I guess, signature program is what you would call it the lab about because we help women get started with digital products. So naturally, we do have a decent amount of people come in who have an existing mainly blogging audience, it’s like, Hey, you already know how to get people to you just actually have to sell to them now that they’re there. The other half that that don’t have an audience is a real big, we have to get over the hurdle of guess what, there’s no such thing as building something. And they’re going to come and if you can’t even talk to your neighbor about what you do, because you’re like, embarrassed by it, is going to be an uphill battle for you. And so like we go through, like simple exercises, like, Tell your neighbor, tell your mom what you’re selling, tell your grandma tell, you have, if you can’t tell the people closest to what you are doing, how in the world, you’re going to convince strangers to want to buy from you.

 

Lauren Golden  06:58

Yeah, or practice with strangers. That’s actually what I tell people. I’m like, because I always joke that I can make anything about freelancing and like, seriously, just like a topic, and like, it’s like, what’s the seven degrees of separation from like, Kevin Bacon or whatever. It’s like, I mean, I don’t even need seven I need two and I will make it a story about freelancing. So we’ll talk about like, when you’re at the grocery store, you go to Starbucks. And it’s like, simple questions. Like when someone say like, says, like, how’s your day going? Or like, hey, what’s new? You can literally make that answer about your business. Oh, my gosh, it was great. I got to be interviewed on a podcast, I got to tell people about the free month, the free mama, what’s the free mama? What do you do? Like anything I can make anything about freelancing. And I can make any question, go where I want it to do and I love that you practice that with your students, because it does take practice. It’s not like I just came out of the womb like knowing how to like, you know, manipulate a question to answer what I wanted, but but you really can’t. And so you’re never gonna see it. Well, you might see your Starbucks barista every day, but you might you you’ll probably won’t see the person at the grocery store. So just practice, like when someone says how are you or what’s new, or whatever, you know, share something from your day that incorporates your business. And some people will take the bait, and some people won’t. And guess what, you don’t want to force it down those people’s throat anyway. But people who are genuinely interested in learning more, they’re going to ask you, man, if you show that same interest in them and their life or their hobbies. Now we’re networking right now we have reciprocity. And you can go on and be good humans together.

 

Monica Froese  08:21

I love this. Okay, so you you totally get it. And I’m assuming with your students, we’ve did actually talk about what you do. But yeah, we do need to talk about that. With your students. I’m assuming that you also have to have these networking conversations. Oh, yes,

 

Lauren Golden  08:35

Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, just even getting my students sometimes to show up and participate on calls. And by participate. I mean, you know, submitting questions or feeling brave enough to unmute themselves. For some of them even learning to turn their camera on we do we do our coaching through zoom, I should clarify, and getting them to turn the cameras on the internet can allow you to hide and stay really small. The problem is, when you hide and stay really small, you’re probably not going to get the big results that you’re dreaming about. If you want better results, you have to play big. And so it’s what’s beautiful. And I know we’re going to talk a little bit about what I do in my community. But we have built a really safe community that I think allows people who maybe you do identify as shy or you’re an introvert or this is just new and really scary to you this idea of virtual work. I think we provide a really safe environment where much like you said, like, if you can’t tell your neighbor, you know, how are you gonna go do a webinar or whatever it’s like, you know, if you can’t get on zoom with 20 people who love you and are right, they’re trying to do the same thing you’re doing with the same struggles you have. It’s gonna be really hard to get on a sales conversation with a client. And so we do we create, you know, those breakout rooms and just those opportunities to be seen in that safe environment and it gets easier. Everybody listening. It gets easier. It really really does but you don’t get there’s no like Fastpass that I’m aware of. It’s not like Disneyland. You can’t do that. Yeah, skip to the front of the line. Like, you gotta, you gotta practice.

 

Monica Froese  10:03

So I barely get nervous before I have webinars. I have 1000s 1000 people I can, you know, join and I actually don’t get nervous for those anymore. I always get nervous that of rejection that doesn’t go away for me. I was before every webinar, I will say, nobody’s gonna buy Why would anyone new buy and everyone laughs at me, my husband laughed at me. They’re like, just go through your freakout. This is what happened. But I’m never nervous anymore to get on camera. That was not the case. In my first couple of webinars. I was. I mean, it was a lot of pressure. It was scary, but I did it anyways, I was sad because my kids were watching me. That’s my oldest is very perceptive. She’s nine now. But like, she’s been making comments about what I do, probably since she was five. And I’ve had both I’ve had bad moments. We all have bad moments. I’ve had breakdown moments and stuff. And then I realize she’s watching. And there was a moment when I really didn’t want to do this one life pitch. I was just, I just had it was just felt like a lot was on me, and a lot of pressure to make to succeed and stuff. And I was doing my makeup. And she walked up to me. And she had a half day that day. And she’s like, Oh, mommy must have an important call because she’s putting on makeup, you know, because I don’t I don’t rock Megan, normally. And I was like, Yeah, I’ve got this big presentation. I was just kind of like down about it. And she looked at me and she said, Well, you’re gonna crush it. And I was like, well, dang, now I really got to go in there and crush it because like, I’m not gonna let my kid down. You know, she’s watching. She’s watching what I’m doing. So that’s a big drive for me. Okay, okay, we’re going to be like 48 episodes. And when this airs, and you’re the only person I’ve not asked the question, first thing too, because we have so much to talk about. So I know.

 

Lauren Golden  11:43

I’m so shy. I have nothing to say like.

 

Monica Froese  11:48

Well, let’s rewind a little bit and talk about what? Yeah, we’ll give context. I got some context of your official bio already. But aside from that, like, tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and what you do today.

 

Lauren Golden  12:03

Sure, well, we’ll go personal history, where we are now. My name is Lauren golden. I am a wife and a mom of three. We live in Kansas, we just moved back about a year ago, we were in Texas for five years. I grew up here in Kansas. And yes, it is as flat as you’re imagining in your head. But it’s also super awesome. And a great place to raise a family. I, after becoming a mom, I realized two things really early on. One is that I love to work, which doesn’t maybe sound like this big epiphany. But I grew up with a stay at home mom. So for me, like good moms stayed home with their kids. That was a story that I had coming into motherhood. But my family relied on two incomes by the time we got pregnant with our oldest who’s now also nine. And that just was not going to be a financial possibility for us. So first, I realized I love working and I reconciled that I can actually be a good mom and have a career. But my second aha was when my son was born two years later, which is that a traditional nine to five was not allowing for me to show up as the type of mom that I wanted to be a type of working mom that I wanted to be. And so there’s a whole lot of stuff we can dive into if you want, but a lot of life happens a lot of failure and trying and network marketing, and I’m gonna be a blogger, and I’m gonna do like all these different things. And none of those worked out. So have you ever Googled, like how to make money from home, I’ve probably tried it we can talk about like surveys and secret shopping, like I’ve got all the stories, but I landed on freelancing that was that was my ticket out of the nine to five. And I first started my my freelancing journey with one foot still in my job and one foot in side hustle mode with a two year old and a baby and a husband, who was also entrepreneurial and worked at this time, pretty much seven days a week and was barely barely paying himself, because he had to make sure his employees got paid first. So it was stressful. It was very overwhelming. But I was actually pretty good at it. I mean, it was hard. We made all kinds of mistakes. But I was kind of like wow, like for the first time I was hopeful that I could be the working mom that I wanted to be that I could have something of my own. And, you know, still take my kids to the zoo on a Wednesday if that’s what I wanted to do. And so flash forward again, there’s like, oh, you know, there’s like seven years of stories in here. You know how that goes. But I did end up leaving my job. I replaced my salary. I was working about half the hours. We moved to Texas, more life happens. Long story short, about two and a half years into my own freelancing journey. I kind of had this It wasn’t an Aha I wish I could say like there was a moment I wish it was a moment I was desperate for that moment. But what it really was more it was more this like feeling that kept getting bigger or like this idea. Like it was like this calling on my heart. And it was like at first it was this little like who’s there like what’s what why are you bothering me? I’m fine. Like I did the thing I wanted to do but it kept getting louder, and it kept getting bigger. And it was like this whole idea that like, what if all this stuff you’ve done all this life, you’ve lived the last, you know, two and a half, three years in this journey that you’ve gone on, to be self employed and be able to show up as the mom that you want to be like, what if that wasn’t just for you? What if that wasn’t just to change your family’s life? What if you were actually supposed to go teach other moms how to do this too. And I don’t know if that sounds weird or not. But that that’s really how it happened. And for about a year, it was it just kept getting louder and louder and louder. And I would say for the first three months, I didn’t really know what it was. I didn’t know what it could look like. I didn’t know how I would actually teach other people to do it. And then as time went on, it got clear like I knew I wanted to create a course I knew I wanted to build a community. I knew like I knew I wanted to actually I didn’t know I wanted to coach people that was very scary to me. I’m like, because much like you I’m like, wait, I have to talk to people, like I just want to send them some videos like so I did not know I wanted to coach people. But I knew that I wanted like this support. I went to an all girls high school I was in a sorority like, I knew that I wanted this closeness of moms who were experiencing the same thing. And I knew that I wanted to equip them with the skills and I started to like, get clearer and clearer. But I had a whole lot of stuff probably like you listening that I had to work through to be in a place where I could actually take action. I would say the two biggest things for me that got in my way number one was that other people were already doing it. Like as my vision got clearer. And I like started doing market research and like cleaning, I’d be I’d like find people and I’d be like, oh, like for me at the time. It was very deflating. I was like, well, I can’t do it. Like someone’s already someone else is already talking to moms about being in business like this was this brand new revelation to me, because I hadn’t been in that space. You know, it’s like, when you’re not thinking about something you don’t, you don’t know. And then all of a sudden you hear about it, and you see it everywhere. And so I had a lot of imposter syndrome around like, Who the heck am I like, How can I come in years later when this is already being done? And then the second thing that was really holding me back, like we spoke about was a fear about what people were gonna think about me but not strangers. I actually was not I had no awareness about what strangers would think of me. I was terrified about like, what Susie from high school or the girl from my sorority. Or like, I’m like, when I start talking about this, like, what are people going to say about me like that was terrifying. Luckily, I got over both of those things. And again, we can dive into that too. I launched the free mama movement in September of 2017. And that’s that is literally what I do. I teach moms, how they don’t have to choose between family and financial stability and how to start and run a successful freelancing business from home. So they can live a totally awesome go for your life. That’s, it’s been your ride.

 

Monica Froese  17:47

You’re like the same person. Holy cow. I went to an all girls high school, I think it was like the one of the best experiences of my life. Oh, I have I hope I actually am going to give my daughter’s the option. I don’t really think I had the option. I think I was told I was going, however, oh my gosh, I think it was so formative. And I was focused on the right things as a teenager. And I think that has actually just set up me to now to like what I’m doing now and why I can be successful at what I do. I think it would had a lot to do with it. So and just listening to your whole story about well, and I guess we knew this because back in the day, and I it must have been I’m trying to like put it in my brain because in September 2017 I was newly pregnant with my second. So we must have had you as a spotlight or we had these busy mums building spotlights. And I think that was before I was sort of a nice summer. Yeah, that summer it was like ravenous, which is crazy. So what were you even talking about in the spotlight like being a freelancer, then I guess not actually teaching freelancing?

 

Lauren Golden  18:53

Probably well see again, like the seeds were already planted. I just had, we weren’t all in yet, if that makes sense. And so for anybody listening, if that doesn’t make sense. Again, we’re not going to get to the big scary dreams are not scary dreams, the big the big, beautiful dreams, if you’re not all in, like we don’t tiptoe our way to success, like you jump in the deep end. And that’s that is what I did in September of 2017. So I actually started doing like, it’s so funny My students love to like call me out on my hypocrisy is and I don’t try to be a hypocrite. It’s just we grow and as we grow when we when we know better we do better or you know, it’s kind of that new level new devil like what was working to get you to one place maybe doesn’t work anymore. And I just remember that I did a podcast interview in like April or May of 2017 where I talked about how like I never want to have a team and I love being a solopreneur because I don’t have to worry about anybody but myself like I had a team member by the end of the year and Free Mamas and they were like listening to that and they’re like you said you didn’t ever want to hire it. I’m like, I was scared. Be nice to May Lauren like she was really in denial about growing because she was terrified, you know. And so, anyway…

 

Monica Froese  20:06

I’ve actually had quite a few experiences, especially when I retired all the Pinterest stuff where people, I actually had to get to the point where I was like, listen, I find it very fascinating people’s opinions on what I do. It’s like, but it’s like, nothing, I do really impact your life. And some people were very resistant to me, moving away from the Pinterest ads course. And it was kind of like, but I don’t want to teach it anymore. Are telling me, I have to, because you don’t want me to grow, I can’t change and grow as a person and as a teacher and want to do different things. It’s very fascinating people’s resistance to other people’s growth. And usually, it’s because this was a huge learning lesson, not internalizing that it really wasn’t about me, it was likely that what they were going through that they were having their own blocks, and like they felt like they couldn’t move to the next level. And wow, that was a hard time for me to you know…

 

Lauren Golden  20:57

Misplaced expectations, I think.

 

Monica Froese  20:59

Yeah, it, it taught me a lot. But like, the hard things, the hardest things are always the things that teach you the most and, and it’s, I wouldn’t want to listen to interviews I did. And I was on so many podcasts early on, which really helped me grow. I don’t know what I said, I don’t want to hear them. I do not.

 

Lauren Golden  21:18

That is so funny. That is so funny. Yeah. So we can please put in the shownotes that we cannot be held responsible three years from now from what, from what we say today.

 

Monica Froese  21:27

You know, it’s really funny, though, when you started really when you started really growing. Because your name on the redefining mom site, the spotlight that you’re in, it’s your names in the slug. So I was redefining mom was ranking for your name, which people were googling to see if you were legit. And my website traffic was going up.

 

Lauren Golden  21:48

You’re welcome.

 

Monica Froese  21:51

But it’s so weird, like I wouldn’t because I have times right? Actively stop. I am not I do not pop vanity metrics. However, when we’re launching and when sales are involved, I watched my Google Analytics. And I would see Lauren golden popping in. I was like, What is going on? And then you were popping into my search reports at the end of the month from search counsel. I’m like, okay, so now, you know, and this was probably like, early 2019, when I was, I think 18, 19 when I really started noticing that, like I was getting search results for you. And I’m like, oh, so because it’s legit. People wanted to like validate like, Who is this person? So hopefully, I was able to give them some validation because we had like a real, like, it was a real

 

Lauren Golden  22:32

hopefully you got some new Pinterest followers at the time.

 

Monica Froese  22:36

Right? It was just, that’s like how I knew like the tides were turning for you. Because you were being

 

Lauren Golden  22:42

So interesting. Fascinating. Very interesting.

 

Monica Froese  22:47

It’s very interesting. Okay, so what I want to talk about one of the things I’m there’s two things that I’m very, very curious when it comes to how you’ve built your business. One is building a community and two is how COVID has changed how we run our businesses and how we attract new people to us how we even sell, I feel like, really in the last six months, because, you know, in 2020, I think online businesses, were very lucky, especially online educators, we got.

 

Lauren Golden  23:18

Oh for sure.

 

Monica Froese  23:19

And while other industries were being decimated, I very much felt very fortunate, because my husband’s also in tech and you see communication, so everyone needed what he did to. So we were in very fortunate industries and our family really was not impacted financially by by what was going on. The tide did start changing though, as the world opened up. And like I’ve always had as a blogger, this I had the summer slump. We all know about the summer slump, especially when you talk to moms, they’re not on the internet, when the US goes into the summer moms or off the internet, if that’s your target audience, then you know, like, you’re going to have a slump. It was like double the slump this year. And then all the Facebook changes happened like and I’m very much I’m not a Panicker like that is like I’m a very I’m all about longevity. I think people panic about things I very much like tactics come and go we you know, mentioned that. But there are some major I feel like shifts that have definitely happened in the marketing space that and I’m still like trying to work through myself like what does this really mean? Or how we approach our programs for how we sell our programs. So maybe before we talk about communities I’m selfishly very interested in your thoughts.

 

Lauren Golden  24:26

Oh, this will be fun. I have many thoughts. I don’t know how long this episode is going to be but

 

Monica Froese  24:33

I already texted real time I texted my nanny and said can you keep my kids out a little bit longer because my interview is going long.

 

Lauren Golden  24:41

That is so funny. Yes, we have got all the time in the world for you and your audience. We can do a part two if we need to hear my thoughts. My thoughts are like you right after kind of lockdown happened and things shut down. We experienced also a tremendous amount of growth and very I guess organically or passively meaning, you know, I’ve always run ads. I’m a big fan of paid traffic, frankly, because I am lazy as I like to tell people. So I’m like, if I can get eyeballs without having to do a whole lot of work, I’m willing to do that. I think it’s always smart to have a strategy for both organic and paid traffic. And we do but but we rely a lot on paid traffic. And without increasing our paid traffic, we noticed a big influx, I would say, especially April to like July, possibly August, I’d have to pull up some statements, but like the four months right after we closed, and I think it’s because what my and this is the part I want to emphasize my marketing message became people’s necessity, right? So it was like, Hey, do you want to work from home? Do you want to quit your job and all of a sudden, it’s like, who cares about what I want? I have to figure out how to work from home. So there was this massive like, influx and people wanting to figure it out. Because just there was a lot of unknown, right? My kids are going to be home from school. Who knows how long this is going to let you know, I think there was that brief period where we thought it was like a temporary thing. And then we’re like, oh, okay, no, this is like real world. Okay, so that happened. It’s interesting that you mentioned the summer slump, and I’m wondering if that’s from your blogging days, because I have four years of tax returns in my business and our summers are always our highest so i

 

Monica Froese  26:08

Okay, that’s interesting.

 

Lauren Golden  26:17

I make a bell curve throughout the year in my business very consistently. So my winter my I start and end the year with with slightly lower revenue, and we reach our peak about May to August every year.

 

Monica Froese  26:37

What! That’s completely opposite of us. We have January’s hoppin’, August is hoppin’. But the like, basically, when

 

Lauren Golden  26:47

But was this for your Pinterest business? Or is this for the?

 

Monica Froese  26:49

Okay, so this is very interesting. Yes, because that’s gonna be the majority of how, like when, you know, the business was an actual business that could employ people and like function like business? Yeah. So I guess it’s Pinterest is a seasonal platform. But even so, we had our two biggest launches in January and April of this year, 2021. August was half. And actually, I recorded a whole podcast talking about it. I can’t remember the episode, I’ll link to it. And it’s just I, it seems like my but it this was my first year not not leading with Pinterest, so perhaps I just assumed wrong. So this is this is a very helpful conversation.

 

Lauren Golden  27:29

Yes, ladies track your data. Because yes, different markets, different offers different price, there’s lots of variables in business, and it can get it can feel overwhelming. I invite you to embrace the data, and to not take it personally and look at it as an experiment. But you do want to look at it over time, as well. So I love that you said earlier like, I try not to panic or whatever, like no, like, you’ve got to look at the bigger picture business, right? Like, this isn’t a sprint, this is the big picture. But just so you know, like, that’s our data, historically,

 

Monica Froese  28:02

does your program have any limited part of it? Where people because, uh, okay, so that could be a big thing, our program this year, is because I learned with the Pinterest of it. Pinterest scarred me in some ways, which I have talked about in terms of the fact that someone would pay you once, but then they could be in the support group. And ads is a very complicated topic, so then they’re never gonna pay you again. And on top of that, Pinterest changes all the time. But now Now I have to hire people to support the people who are in here. Plus, now I have to update everything because I would I don’t sell things that stink. And then on top of that, I have to constantly be bringing in new people to fund the expenses that are now growing and growing. It was like a losing proposition. And so I went into the to our lab, like there is no way there will not be a time bound on this support. Because boy, did that burn me for the last four years. But that becomes an objection that because it’s like, wow, you know, if you’re a mom, let’s say in April launch, it’s like, oh, but if I’m going to be if I’m not gonna really be at the computer much for the next four months, I just wasted for my six months. So it’s constantly that becomes an objection.

 

Lauren Golden  29:08

Oh, interesting. Interesting. I see what you’re saying. So we actually just flipped our model, which will be part of my answer to this, this compensation. But historically, so prior to recently, I know the various published recently, pre will say October of 2021, my value ladder so to say I won’t get into the whole thing, but my core offer was it was a is a course. And on the back end of that and upsell I can speak Can I speak core course language to your audience? Is that what you teach them? Cool? Yeah, so my course, so I have a webinar evergreen webinar, because I like I’m lazy. We already talked about this evergreen webinar to a course offer to an upsell that was continuity. So for $97 a month again, historically, they could be a part of our coaching community where that ongoing support was provided. So the ongoing, I know we should have talked like four years ago, sorry. So that so that was actually an upsell. So it was like, Hey, you bought this course, you can go run with it and take all this amazing information and build your own business. And by the way, plenty of people did. But a lot of people want the Hand tool, they they need the accountability, they want to be able to ask questions. So that was the upsell. So, okay, so just put that on the shelf for a second. Okay. So here’s what I think towards the end of last year, I noticed two things. Number one, my marketing message that I had been using beautifully in this evergreen automated world and gotten very comfortable, no longer resonated, because now we’re already sitting there going, do you want to be at home with your baby? I’ve been locked up in my babies for six months, like give me some space like, yes, we know the data around the number of the millions of people who have left the workforce and all of that. However, when you think as marketers, and course creators, like you have your marketing message, you have the things that you can say that resonate in their bones with their pain points. And my marketing message no longer landed. And I wish I could tell you that it like it was a long time coming. But it it actually did feel like a light switch. It very much felt like okay, it’s working. We’re growing. People want this, oh my gosh, more people want this because they’re stuck at home. And then all of a sudden, it was like, Wait, is is this thing on? Did our Stripe, Did something break? Like it really did happen very quickly. So that was the first thing is the marketing message didn’t land anymore, because messaging is important. Here’s the other thing that happened, though. Well, gosh, there’s really more than two. But the other thing is that my market changed, not just the words we were using, but my market changed, meaning not that I was necessarily talking to a totally different avatar, although we could have a whole podcast episode about that, too. But it was that the people that I was talking to were in very deep pain, the amount of mental health crisis that has an is and will continue to come from the pandemic is extraordinary. It has impacted under our house, I won’t get into details, because I don’t like to tell stories that aren’t mine to tell. But we’ll just say that there are counselors who help members of my family. And that said counselors have full time jobs at schools, and that the kids that are going to schools today are broken. It is a mess. I mean, if you talk to any mental health professional, our children are sad, their mothers are sad, we are sad, we’re tired, we’re depressed, we’re anxious. We’re overwhelmed, in a way that is I hate the word unprecedented because it’s so overused after the last few years. But it really kind of is. I mean, we you know, it’s, it’s crazy. And so taking both of those things, like my team and I sat back and really be on a very deep like, in my dreams. I was literally dreaming about how do I help people that don’t even know how to help themselves right now. Like, let’s take away. Yeah, limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome and talking to that’s hard enough. But now I’ve got the weight of the world on my shoulders. Like now I’ve got a kid with anxiety and I’m we’re still wearing masks, and do I get the shot? Do I not and elections and like, I mean, the world got scary for a while. And I think it is crazy to think that like I believe that businesses are in that like we’re in the business of humans, you know, whether you’re one to many at scale, or one to one service provider, like we’re talking about humans. And I think I just think a lot of humans are broken right now. And I think that that that is actually what’s played the biggest role in sort of the changes that we’ve seen in our business over the last year. So what do we do about it? Is that kind of where you’d like me to go? Okay, so what do we do about it? But I’ll give one kind of like our overarching strategy. So the first thing is, we need to look at our marketing message, right? So that’s, that’s the obvious one is like, how are people actually talking now? But then on the fulfillment side of that, and on the offer side of that, it’s like, how do we let people know that they’re truly, truly taken care of right now? How do we let them know that we see that they’re hurting? And not only can we help them start their business, but we can, like, this isn’t going to magnify that this is actually going to help that. And so we took what was a course and an upsell, and we’ve actually created a comprehensive program. So it’s now actually a 12 month program. It’s the same course curriculum, but but they’re basically signing a 12 month agreement where they are like the coaching is not optional. That is the offer. The offer is the coaching and the community and the support. And we brought in additional support to be able to really guide people and not just like hold them accountable, but like give them the love and support that they need to actually make it through all of the content and get the results. We are also added like very clear. benchmarks. We hear about gamification a lot. I don’t know if you teach that to your students in terms of their course. And that’s all good and fun for self motivation. But I think people also need to see their life changing. And so we’ve always had what we call free mama awards, like you can get your word for, you know, when you quit your job, or you get your first paying client or we have like a 1k 5k. And then we have like, a month, and then we have like, 100k word that was like the big one. And then I have a student who’s amazing. And now I have to go create a million dollar word. So I’m gonna do that too. But we’re not mad, we’re very happy for you. We love you with your million dollar business, your rock star, but we like turned the awards that they were playing to into, like, we gamified I don’t even want to say gamified it like we kind of turn those into a mission recognition. But also like, I wish I could show it to you. And this is a podcast that you can save anyway. But like, we essentially have like a roadmap of like, you do this, and then you do this, and then you get this award, and then you do this. And then you do this. And when you’re struggling at any of these this is that I just said, Here’s exactly where you go. You show up to this call at this time and this person is going to help you like it’s just Vero. Yes, it’s very systemized, And this change the price point of the main course. Okay, so, so you kind of you mirrored the two together. So it’s similar. It’s very similar to what I’m doing my six months because we they don’t lose. Well, that’s a whole lifetime access is a whole different conversation. But what a conversation that could be. I will say this, though, we’re very roadmap focused as follow. You’re giving me a lot of ideas about oh, like milestone awards and stuff. Oh, wait a minute, we could do that. We could do that. I’m very roadmap focused as well. But that’s so that’s interesting. So are you selling it like this right now? Yes. And is it from a… We live launched it. So I had an event recently, we we live launched it now we’re in the process of evergreen in that offer.

 

Monica Froese  37:00

Okay, so let’s talk about the Evergreen. Cool. Okay. So I know, I got my notes pulled up. We know that Evergreen. And when we say evergreen, just just to make sure everyone knows that. That live launching is like the carts open from for like, five, seven days, there’s usually an event that goes along with it. Like you said, you had an event. It’s like a challenge or a training. It’s like a big hype thing that happens. And it’s usually like a time bound. That gives the urgency. A lot of people live launched just so they can bring like a certain number of students through their program to like, validate it like I did that in January. And then evergreen

 

Lauren Golden  37:34

You’re also delivering it live,.

 

Monica Froese  37:36

 Yes.

 

Lauren Golden  37:36

That’s the biggest reason why I don’t live watch. Yeah. Oh, I got to show up.

 

Monica Froese  37:44

And evergreen is like you basically can get in at any time. But it’s usually behind something like opting into a training so that you can have context of what the heck you’re spending money on for so evergreen, but you

 

Lauren Golden  37:58

But you can you can evergreen a challenge.

 

Monica Froese  38:00

You can

 

Lauren Golden  38:01

 I mean, I’ve seen those things ever your numbers. But yes,

 

Monica Froese  38:06

I use open source. Okay, cool. Now, point blank. I don’t mind saying this because it’s the true. And I don’t I don’t hide either, because I’m very rooted in data. Now I,  do I think I tried as hard as I could know, before I say this, because I had my attention split in many different ways. However, evergreening, from our August 2021, launch through, we’re recording this midway through November of 2021. Could not could not get the Evergreen engine turning it was behind. I tried multiple things. We tried presentation, and we tried taking like our challenge. We’ve tried private podcast, and maybe I didn’t give enough time. Like I have a lot of like reasons that maybe didn’t work. But it definitely felt harder than it has in the past. So it could be a messaging thing.

 

Lauren Golden  38:52

Ads? Are you doing organic traffic or ads?

 

Monica Froese  38:56

So that’s another thing ever since Facebook, I very rarely, very rarely having taught ads for five years. Yeah, I’ve heard the sky is falling on Facebook ads forever. And I say this. It’s like I would roll my eyes. There has been quite a change from last 14 updates. Absolutely. It has changed a lot. I’m in some pretty good groups, coaching programs around this with people who dig real deep into their data like and I dig deep and they dig deeper. And you see that like the attribution of it. Like you can’t rely on the Facebook ads dashboard pretty much anymore for correct attribution, which then hurts understanding what messaging is resonating.

 

Lauren Golden  39:35

Working. Yeah, yep, yep. And we’re, no I totally agree.

 

Monica Froese  39:39

I kind of have my hands thrown up about evergreen right now I’m a little frustrated with Evergreen. So this is why I’m very curious about how you’re approaching this.

 

Lauren Golden  39:46

Well, let’s talk our strategy in terms of quite literally how I approach it because like I was saying, tactics change tactics. I have no intention for this funnel to run. ads for the rest of the year because they also get really expensive right now, right? We’ve got Black Friday, we got Christmas, I don’t want to compete with all the E commerce people, like you guys are gonna drive everything up. And I’m not I don’t want my ball in that court. So we haven’t been running paid traffic for a little while now. And we probably, I say probably we probably won’t for the rest of the year unless I do it to a lower ticket offer like a breakeven funnel or something like that. But so here’s how I approach it very tactically. And if you’re listening, and you are geeking out with us, because by the way, nerd alert, like, fun. So here are the four questions we ask ourselves all the time, because like, you guys, think about your funnels, and even it can start with ads, or it can start organic at the top of your funnel, whatever. They’re all just different levers. And it’s like if we can move that lever just the little bit, that can be that much more sales, or that’s that many more people saying or thing or whatever. So here’s, here’s what we look at. We asked ourselves, number one, how do we get people to register? How do we get more people to register? How do we get them to sign up? So this could be everything from tweaking your headline on your landing page? It could be looking at different traffic sources, it can like there’s all different components. But how do we get people to sign up? How do we like increase that registration rate, right? If we’re looking at a percentage, I would see for evergreen. This year, again, we’ve kind of turned everything on its on its stomach, I used to like freak out if anything, it was anything lower than 40%. Like that was our that was our like, standard of excellence. And that is excellent. By the way, that’s not like, you know, and this and this is paid traffic. So cold traffic, it’s not like you’re showing it to warmed up list. So 40% really, if it was above 30, I wasn’t yelling at anybody, if it was under 30. I’m like, move over, I’m gonna do it myself, like, you know, so I’m freaking out if it’s under 30. But 40 was like what we would always be shooting for. And that is that’s, that’s pretty high. So how do we get people to register. Other things you can look at besides your traffic, your headline, you know, if you’re doing it evergreen, there’s all different tactics, like what’s helped for us, is not trying to BS people. Like way back in the day, when I first started this game, there was all kinds of people who were evergreen, but they were trying to make it look live through like WebinarJam. And all that, like, people don’t insult the consumer, everybody has courses and webinars these days. Like that’s annoying. So I think this we did this about two years ago, which means it’s old now. But about two years ago, we were like, We don’t want to be those people. So we would literally say this was previously recorded live. And by clicking the button, you will go directly to the video, like we are not going to BS with a countdown and pick your name and blubbling so we I mean, we set it a lot more concise than that. But what was interesting is when we first did that our opt in rate went up like 10% and stayed there for at least six months. So like just testing those little things of like, what like make a hypothesis, why are people not registering and then test those things? So that’s the first thing you got to get them to friggin register, then the question is, how do I get them to actually show up? Right, and this is most like mostly if it’s live, but really for evergreen to how many people opt into something and the never open your emails and you’re like looking at your email list. And you’re like, Why do I have like 20,000 people on my email list who have never opened an email? Like get off? My it’s because they opted in for something? It’s actually crazy. Do you have to then incentivize them to actually show up and watch it? So what do they get? If they watch? Are you sending those follow up emails, this can all be automated to actually get them to watch the video, right? So even if you take them directly there, you can not make the assumption that they’re staying there and watching. They could have just seen your ad when they were sitting waiting for their kid and carpool pickup, then the kid runs out, they lose their phone, they forget about you for forever, right? So how do you get him to actually show up? That’s only half the battle. Are you tired yet? But no. Yeah, so if we look at it as a game, that is kind of fun. But you have to be a nerd or this will not be fun. Okay, so that’s half the battle. So then the question is, how do I get people to stay? Because showing up is one thing. But your offer is probably not till the end of the video, right? Whether you’re I mean, and by the way, how do I get him to stay, if you’re trying to Evergreen a challenge, you’re going to work even harder, you’re not just trying to keep their attention for 60 to 90 minutes, you’re going to keep their attention for three to 30 days, whatever you’re doing, right? So think about like, what are the ways we can make this fun. So something that we did a couple things that we did for this both to get them to show up. But also to stay, we created a workbook for our webinar. I don’t think we call it a workbook because work sounds hard. But like something that actually follows along that’s like participatory for the Evergreen webinars. The other thing that we did to get them to stay is we incentivize them with another freebie that we actually put the link to get the free thing at the very end of the pitch. So like after the pitch, we go through the whole stack all the stuff and then like I literally put up a secret URL. I don’t even know if I say it, but it does not go out in the emails. You have to watch to the end of the video and then you get this free, desirable thing I tell them about it at the beginning of the webinar, but they got to stick around all the way till the end to actually get okay.

 

Monica Froese  44:51

And that is smart. Thank you for that.

 

Lauren Golden  44:52

Okay, so I’m gonna give credit where credit’s due because I like to hack people because it’s fun. I actually got that idea from Emily Hirsch, Emily Hirsch runs a Facebook group…

 

Monica Froese  45:00

She’s brilliant.

 

Lauren Golden  45:01

She’s super smart. She’s uh, she did a like secret podcast launch, where like, it wasn’t her main podcast, she had to sign up. And they like, sent out the link and I totally just, I don’t I like video. I’m a video girl. So I don’t even know why I have a podcast, quite frankly, because I am a video girl. But I like so I knew I wasn’t going to do the secret podcast because that doesn’t resonate with me. But I’m like, I still wanted to hack the process. I love just, I’m a funnel hacker. I come from the Clickfunnels community, we love to hack stuff. So I’m watching Emily’s thing. And I’m like listening to it in the shower. And like, all of a sudden, it’s like, make sure you tune in each day. Because on one, it was like a three day secret podcast thing. And she’s like, on one day, I’m going to drop a secret link. And I’m like that, that we talked about this Monica before we recorded, you guys, as you grow in your business, you don’t need the roadmap you do when you start, do not reinvent the wheel, do not DIY, don’t do it, go hire Monica or somebody else like don’t don’t try to figure it out yourself. But once you have something and it’s up and it’s running, you just need those little nuances. And I remember listening to podcasts and being like that was it. It wasn’t a secret podcast, that was the little idea that I need to tuck away. And how can I apply that? So shout out to Emily Hirsch. So that’s one of the ways that we get people to stay. And then the last thing is, how do you actually get people to buy and this is always this is I think, where people put the most emphasis, the thing we don’t take into consideration is if you haven’t done those three other things they will never buy from you. If you do those three things, well, you can be halfway decent at sales, as long as you have a halfway decent offer. And you’ll still make some sales. Like you might not make a ton, but like you’ll make some you know, but it’s actually the three things that come before it that not enough people are giving enough time and energy to you know, how you get them to buy is like you mentioned somewhere, you need some sort of scarcity and urgency, you can still do this with Evergreen funnels, we use deadline funnels. So it’s a software that integrates with what we use. And you just have to make sure that whatever you’re doing is still in integrity, you know, are you dropping the price back down? Or like does it raise? Are there bonuses that they only get if they do it within a certain timeframe? Like there’s ways to use scarcity and urgency and not come across? Out of integrity? Yeah, gross, gross. Exactly. So yeah, those those are the four things. And they change, they change half of what I said, we just started this year, some of it we’ve we’ve done for a little while some of it we incorporated a few years ago, like and and it will still evolve. And as we incorporate this new offer, like we will then have to go back and look at each lever and go where were people dropping off? Are they signing up? If they’re not showing up? Are they showing up? But they’re not hearing the pitch? are they hearing the whole thing? And that well, then we know we have an offer problem, right? Like and so you have to know how to look at each of these four categories, and then get creative. And then even when it’s working. This is the thing I think a lot of people miss to even when it’s working, how can you make it better? How can you still test and tweak and optimize and you know, split test and do all of these things. And that’s when you get like real nerdy but

 

Monica Froese  47:56

so you’re really into data like I am like you

 

Lauren Golden  47:58

I am sort of so I don’t like sounds like you are I don’t like to collect it, but I like to see it. So I need people on my team who like show me what’s going on. And then I can I like to interpret data. That’s what I’m trying to get it. I don’t like to like I like to interpret data. I don’t necessarily want to like look at it and spend time in it and like marinate in it and build spreadsheets and like, I don’t want to actually do any of those things. I like to interpret it because I like to solve problems. So when I can interpret data, I know what the problem is when I take both my intuition, my hypotheses around what I’m seeing in my community, and I can interpret the data. Now we know we can make an informed decision about how to move forward whether something is working or not.

 

Monica Froese  48:40

We are so much alike. It’s so scary.

 

Lauren Golden  48:43

Isn’t it sexy? We’ve probably lost every listener by now.

 

Monica Froese  48:47

Well, that’s okay. I don’t think so. Because I think that’s actually why people when people actually stick around in my world, it’s usually for this reason there is, believe it or not. Okay, everything you said about evergreen, and what you’re looking at is golden. But there’s one thing I really, really want people to pick up on this. Yeah, because I find they miss my students miss this. And I find it’s also very hard to articulate. We’ve talked about it before we recorded. And now we’ve talked about it since we recorded and that is that mean you are very similar with how we believe like I agree, do not reinvent the wheel. Like everything shiny objects, when you’re starting. It’s all about momentum. I always talk about the snowball, with my students, it’s like those early stages are the hardest. And in until the snowball starts rolling, it just it takes a lot out of you. So if you’re like allowing 15 people to talk at you about what you should be doing, and you’re going off in this direction in that direction, good luck getting momentum, so pick a path and stick on it. But there does come a point when you the snowball starts going that no one can really tell you what to do, because every business is different. And so I’ve been a longtime proponent and I’ve tried to tell my students this is that how many times have I enrolled in a group programmer I’m and I’m very big on education, I still I pay to be in the rooms I want to be in I’m big proponent of this. And the reality is, is that I’ve been disappointed by lots of things I’ve spent a lot of money on. I have always, if I got that one nugget that connected a dot that I was missing, it was still worth the investment. Or if I met the person that I got connected to, because I made that investment. And it paid off six months down the road. And I think, unfortunately, people get so hung up on thinking that there’s some magic pill to make this work, that they lose sight of the fact that it’s not about nobody’s giving you a magic pill. It’s not out there. It’s about what you do with what you learn and how you connect dots at work for you and your business.

 

Lauren Golden  50:48

I’ve got really good news, actually. Because it’s not that there’s one like secret sauce that like you just haven’t found yet. It’s actually like, the secret is that there are lots of paths to success the problem, which is what you’ve identified is that when we start something, we don’t get instant gratification. It doesn’t work the first time, we assume we picked the wrong path. Yes. So we jumped to another one. And that that is why I see a lot of people in the online space not being successful or not being consistently considered successful is because find a path, a proven path, not just any path, but like find a proven path. But it’s not like all roads lead to Rome, like there are plenty of people with seven, figure eight figure course businesses out there, if that’s what you’re trying to achieve. So pick one of them that can teach you how to do it. And then follow it to I don’t want to say to a tee because there’s a level of integrity and like interpretation. But follow it long enough to find success not long enough to fail, you’re probably going to fail. Like nobody showed up the first seven times I did my webinar while paying for traffic, most people would have quit after the first few. Well, I now have a multi seven figure business and a community of 10s of 1000s of followers, because I showed up the next week and did it anyway. And I kept doing it. And I kept taking my message and I trusted the path that I had chosen and the mentor that I had chosen to help me get there, you know, and it wasn’t freaking easy. And it didn’t feel like it happened fast. Now it feels like it happened fast. Because I look back and I’m like, Oh my gosh, that was only four years ago. Like I interviewed with you before I even built this. That’s funny, right? Like, that’s crazy. But at the time, when you’re like when you want it so badly and you’re working your butt off. Trust me, it doesn’t feel fast for anybody, when you’re in that mode know the hard and it’s supposed to, that’s why not everybody is going to be successful.

 

Monica Froese  52:39

My husband reminds me all the time. If if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, Monica when I can trail and the thing. It’s funny, because in my early 20s, when we maybe don’t know everything that we think we know what I I was a little judgy on people who didn’t complete school. Like they didn’t see through their college degrees. I admit that I was a little judgy about that. And my husband, who is when I met my husband, he did not have it. And he will tell you this will probably record a podcast about this. He he just he didn’t finish his college degree. And so he thought he was just going to be mediocre in his career. And he’s so smart. And I was like, What are you talking about? Why do you think you’re only gonna be mediocre. He’s like, because I didn’t finish college. And he thought it was such a stain on him that he didn’t finish college if he was gonna amount to what he I knew he was capable of. And he ended up he got a lot of confidence from from me pep talking him and he’s done great in his career. But it taught me that, okay, you know what, my college degrees were both my college degrees. And this is what served me in the business. It was about perseverance. It was not about what I learned, because trust me, I could use the stuff I learned in my MBA now. And I wish I remembered any of it and i don’t i It’s not about that. For me. It was the perseverance to finish it even when it was hard. And that I think is what has driven me in my business. I see things through. And I guess that is a skill that not everyone possesses. I’ve come to learn, but like when like I I get asked a lot like what is what is your secret sauce? I don’t have a few words. Yeah, I just think that’s the thing. Like you have to figure out like, what is the thing for you? And then you double down on that. So like for me, I actually have pens. I don’t do failure. We have sweatshirts now. It’s like this big thing. The thing is, I don’t do failure doesn’t mean that we don’t fail. We fail all the time…

 

Lauren Golden  54:31

You don’t quit. You don’t give up

 

Monica Froese  54:32

Exactly yeah, I don’t quit and when my like this past week, we’ve had a pretty rough week and I got I feel like I was pushed in a corner. And I my husband caught me rocking on the rocking chair with my three year old in the middle of the day, which I take my work hours very serious. I paid the nanny to be here so like it is serious time for me. And he was like what is going on? And I was just kind of defeated and I felt like I don’t it’s just not working And he said, No, you are going to get back into your office and you’re gonna

 

Lauren Golden  54:35

Put your sweatshirt on.

 

Monica Froese  55:09

You’re gonna do what you do best, until you’re out until you’re not backed into the corner anymore. Don’t do failure. I’m not doing failure. And we turned it around this week, because that’s the thing you put me you put my back into a corner, I still fail. I’ll figure it out. And that’s all I can like, when people are like, how did you do I have people ask me all the time, like, how did you? How do you start from nothing? I don’t, it’s a snowball, like everyone starts from nothing. And you just got to stick with it. I don’t know what else to tell you.

 

Lauren Golden  55:35

That is true, though. Everybody starts with nothing, everybody starts with nothing. I just want to add really quickly because it’s so interesting that you said your take your your big takeaway from college is like that you finish it. And that’s so important to now your brand. And I don’t know if that’s just for your family or for you given to your students or whatever with the failure. But it’s a big part of like how you operate. Now, like, for me, I was just thinking, like, let’s not wait for college because I did go to I went to a great school, I had a great time, I got a great degree that I’ve never used. But my big takeaway from college was actually all of my leadership experiences, I was very involved in organizations and got some pretty high up roles and those organizations and I learned how to, like, do public speaking and lead meetings and like make decisions and you know, just like drive community and like all these things, and I’m like, that is what prepared me like to be the leader of the free movement. But I’m like very much what I feel like I really gained from college happened outside, it’s still on college campus, but outside of the classroom, yet, those are very much, I would say, have been my strengths my whole life that I really had the opportunity to fine tune, like under mentors in college, and very much is now how I run not just my my business and my students and my clients, but also my team. So it’s kind of cool to see how like these big when I look back. This was my biggest takeaway and I’m like, huh, yeah, I guess I did use college like that.

 

Monica Froese  57:03

But it’s like everything else, like, Okay, you join a program and you think you’re gonna get x and then maybe you’re disappointed that the delivery wasn’t there. But I always ask people like, what can you get out of that experience or something you could have gotten? You know, like, I by nature, I’m not a very, I will say cautiously optimistic sometimes. Generally, I used to say pessimist, people say no, you’re a realist. I’m not like an overly like peppy. Oh, the world is great. And sunshiny, I’m not that person at all. So the fact that I can take from every experience, I’ve learned to take what good came out of it, instead of dwelling on like what I thought I was getting, and I didn’t get because that only hurt you in the long run. Even when something doesn’t go the way you wanted it to or like you invested in something. It was a disappointment. If you’re gonna fixate on it, and let it derail you. Like it’s only hurting you in the long run.

 

Lauren Golden  57:50

Yeah, this i It’s yeah, reminds me of you know, how the universe doesn’t give you what you want gives you what you need kind of thing. Like, even when there’s hardships and struggles, which there always will be I always joke with my students. Like there’s no struggle free life, like when people show up to coaching calls, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I have too many clients, and I’m so busy. I’m like, these are the struggles we want, right? Like, it was struggle, like that person still stressed out. It’s like, but what’s the opportunity for you to learn? Where’s the opportunity for growth? Like, yeah, maybe something didn’t happen the way you wanted? Or you you know, invest in something and I actually I shared with you I had this experience last year, like I joined this mastermind I had this intention heading into it. And I very quickly realized, like, that was not gonna happen. And so I did I like a scan of the room, not literal room, but like mastermind room and I’m like, what, what can I get here? And the curriculum was amazing. So it wasn’t why I joined the mastermind, but it was like, What can I suck out of this that still, you know, will benefit me? And maybe was why I came here in the first place, even though I thought I knew better, but there was actually something kind of bigger at play. So very, oh my gosh we could talk forever!

 

Monica Froese  58:59

I know. Can I have you back to talk about actually building a community?

 

Lauren Golden  59:03

Yes!

 

Monica Froese  59:05

 This is a long episode. So yes, let’s uh, I will send you the scheduling. Like I don’t have time open right now. But I will open time to make that happen.

 

Lauren Golden  59:15

Poll your audience and be like, do you guys want that really nerdy girl who talks about evergreen funnels coming back?

 

Monica Froese  59:20

following me that they must because this is all I talk about is funnels. So I mean, I don’t know why you’re here if you don’t want to hear about funnels. Okay. So in the meantime, till we get back to part two. How do people find you on the internet? Of course, I mean, you want them to come to your house in Kansas in the flat ground?

 

Lauren Golden  59:38

No, thank you. I mean, you guys can come hang out with a free mama lives in March. We just announced this if you want to come hang out. Yeah, march 24 through 26. I know the best way to connect with me is actually in my community, which we’ll talk about next time. But you can find me in the meantime on Facebook. It’s the free mama movement group. I’m in there every day. I’m super active. So just tag me if you have any questions or introduce yourself, say, hey, and we’ll, we’ll begin networking, full circle, begin a networking conversation.

 

Monica Froese  1:00:11

And you have a great community because Hayley and I actually stalked out your community that when we were thinking about opening, we did briefly open another free Facebook group this year, and I decided it’s just not something that fits my personality very well. But we were like, we were like, Where’s the gold standard? And yours was the golden standard. So by Yes, we will definitely link to the community go and join because there’s lots of value in there. And I’m very impressed, which is why we’re gonna do an episode on it. So thank you. Until next time, when we wrap up the conversation. Thank you for sharing all that with us. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

 

Lauren Golden  1:00:45

I did too. I could talk about this all day and I’ll see you all in 2022.

 

Monica Froese  1:00:53

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of the Empowered business podcast. Be sure to follow the show and leave a rating and review. I read each one and I love hearing from you. As always, you can find all the links and information mentioned in this episode at Monicafroese.com forward slash podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in.

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