Speaker1: [00:00:04] You are listening to the Empowered Business podcast. I’m your host. Monica Farrow’s 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 100000 dollars a year. That’s right. One hundred million dollars 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 dollars. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. This episode is for all of my moms or not moms out there who are stuck in their nine to five or working a job they can’t stand, or maybe they took some time off to have babies and it’s time to start making money on your own terms and you have no idea where to start. And here’s the thing. This podcast is all about how to create a digital product business and make lots of money doing it. But there are other ways to get started making money online that can fund all the things you need to create digital products. And one of those ways is to become a freelancer. So I thought, who could I bring on the show that is like an expert in teaching, particularly other moms, how to freelance in the margins.

Speaker1: [00:01:31] Like I’m talking like an average of like ten to twenty five hours a week, which, you know, is something that even if you’re working full time, you might be able to squeeze in if this is something you want enough. So I decided to bring on a good friend of mine. Her name is Mikhaela Quinn, and McKayla is a Kansas City mom, wife, former teacher and current CEO of Solving the Modern Working Mom Dilemma. A Forbes and Box four featured contributor Mikhaela coaches women looking to lead and launch successful, sustainable freelance businesses. Today, more than 1400 women across the country and world have enrolled in her signature program, overwhelmed to overbought. And in late 2018, Mikhaela launched the live free podcast to spread her freelancing method and mission throughout the world. A fixture in iTunes tap toe for Entrepreneur podcast. It has surpassed a hundred and sixty thousand downloads. That’s really impressive. When Mikhaela is not leading the charge to provide women with the freedom to work and mother, you can catch her walking to the park with her kiddos making cookies or watching a rerun of friends for the millionth time with her cute husband. So let’s welcome Mikhaela on and learn all about how we can freelance in the margins and make good money doing it.

Speaker2: [00:02:41] Mckayla, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you.

Speaker3: [00:02:44] Monica, thank you so much for having me. I am part to be here and chatting with you.

Speaker2: [00:02:50] I know you know, the podcast I did with you is still to this day that was like two or three years ago. I don’t even

Speaker4: [00:02:55] Know. It was a while ago. It’s still

Speaker2: [00:02:56] One of my top referral sources

Speaker4: [00:02:58] In terms of like people who email

Speaker2: [00:03:00] And say, I heard you on Tequila’s podcast and I’ve been on

Speaker4: [00:03:03] So many podcasts. Oh, my gosh.

Speaker3: [00:03:05] That makes me so happy.

Speaker4: [00:03:07] Right.

Speaker2: [00:03:07] So your podcast is obviously resonating with people. You guys people are still coming in like they think I’m doing Pinterest and I’m not. I’m like, that was an old episode. But like, that’s so cool that you still listen to her back catalog.

Speaker3: [00:03:18] Yeah. Yeah. I get a lot of people that start from the beginning.

Speaker4: [00:03:22] Do you?

Speaker2: [00:03:22] That’s fascinating to me. I’m not one that goes back to the beginning of a podcast when I’m listening Unión.

Speaker3: [00:03:29] I’m not

Speaker4: [00:03:30] Either.

Speaker2: [00:03:30] So your audience really loves you. So so I feel like you’re going to have a lot to share. So I always like to get

Speaker4: [00:03:35] Started with asking

Speaker2: [00:03:37] Everyone about their entrepreneurial journey, how they got started and where they are today.

Speaker4: [00:03:42] Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:03:42] So mine started with me not really knowing that I was starting an entrepreneurial journey. I was just a mom. I had a new baby and I was teaching at the

Speaker4: [00:03:53] Time, and

Speaker3: [00:03:55] I wanted to be a stay at home mom. And so I was searching all the things, trying to figure out a way to become a stay at home mom, because that’s what I wanted to do. And we couldn’t afford to live on just one income. And so I was searching for different ideas how to budget different businesses. I could start looking at different job opportunities that would allow me to be at home, but also still make a decent income.

Speaker4: [00:04:20] And a lot of the

Speaker3: [00:04:21] Options were

Speaker4: [00:04:22] Just terrible

Speaker3: [00:04:23] And not what I wanted. It took me about

Speaker4: [00:04:26] An hour

Speaker3: [00:04:27] From when I was pregnant to when my daughter was about six months old, to when I finally fell into freelancing. And before I found freelancing, I had dabbled in like starting a cake business, making and selling cakes. Profit margins were terrible. I was left with a hugely messy kitchen and basically paid it to make cakes for people because sugar, butter, all that’s so expensive. I also tried making and selling both.

Speaker4: [00:04:52] But once, like all

Speaker3: [00:04:53] My friends and family, bought their obligatory bow. I had no idea how I was going to turn like a ten dollar boat into replacing my full time income. So then, like those two opportunities I started fizzled and I was just feeling lost. But I pressed on and finally someone told me about this website Hire My Mom dot com that posted different flexible positions, jobs for mom so that you could do from home whenever that you’re special. And so I started applying for those and joined the website subscription. And after

Speaker4: [00:05:26] Eight months, seven,

Speaker3: [00:05:27] Eight months of like applying to everything and anything, I finally got

Speaker4: [00:05:31] Hired by my first

Speaker3: [00:05:32] Client. Someone finally was willing to take a chance on a beginner and completely newbie to the virtual assistant, an online space that one client just opened up. Such a new world of opportunity for me that I had no idea it existed. She was a business coach and a lot of her clients were different, other business owners and one of the first projects she gave me was to go into some of these Facebook groups like this was back in 2016. So groups like Boss Moms and Screw the nine to five and whatever camera leanness was

Speaker4: [00:06:07] Back then, some of those

Speaker3: [00:06:08] Big, big groups. And she was like, go find out how they’re so engaged. Create a plane. Come back here and promote it for my. So in doing that, I just kept seeing all of these different other people being like, hey, I need a virtual assistant.

Speaker4: [00:06:21] Hey, I’m looking

Speaker3: [00:06:22] For a virtual assistant. You know, once I got started working with that first client and I thought like I won the jackpot, won the lottery, and then I started to see all these other people, I quickly started to see how this was going to replace my income from there,

Speaker4: [00:06:36] Just dove

Speaker3: [00:06:37] Into the world of online business.

Speaker2: [00:06:39] So spoiler alert for everyone. McKeel has an entire program teaching moms how to ditch their nine to five. Right. And because freelancers. OK, so like timeline wise, like how many clients did you have and how long were you just

Speaker4: [00:06:52] Freelancing before

Speaker2: [00:06:54] The course program world

Speaker3: [00:06:55] Opened up to you? So I would say my average was about four to five clients at a time. That was kind of what I could take on to still work about 15 to 20 hours a week. Now, keep in mind, I was doing this while I was still part time teaching. Now it started teaching my last year. So I was doing this on the side while still working when I to my first client in August. It took me a while to plan my first client. I did a podcast episode of all the mistakes I made, so you can learn from that. But when I leave my first client in August, I had tripled my teacher

Speaker4: [00:07:28] Income

Speaker3: [00:07:29] By the middle of February, so. Oh, wow. Seven months later, just with freelancing, working 15 to 20 hours a week. Wow. Compared to teaching where I was working, I taught high school English that the honors kids. So I was constantly grading papers, constantly reading, did so much work outside of the classroom, 55 to 60 plus hours a week. And I took home a thousand dollars a month after I paid daycare.

Speaker4: [00:07:59] Oh, my

Speaker3: [00:07:59] Goodness. So when I was pregnant with my second son in April, went on maternity leave and never went back to teaching in the classroom.

Speaker2: [00:08:09] So that was April 2017. Yes. OK.

Speaker4: [00:08:12] Under a year, you working

Speaker2: [00:08:15] Part-time like really?

Speaker4: [00:08:16] Part-time Hours, you know,

Speaker3: [00:08:18] Tripled what you were taking home. So, yeah. So what I was taking

Speaker4: [00:08:21] Home and how I figured

Speaker3: [00:08:23] That I took home one thousand from teaching after daycare and expenses when I was freelancing. I Farfan had no childcare. I was doing it all, kind of like the nighttime hustle or early morning hours, nap time, hours

Speaker4: [00:08:35] And taking

Speaker3: [00:08:36] Home thirty five hundred dollars a month.

Speaker2: [00:08:38] Now, do a lot of your moms that you teach now do the Naptime Hustle or do they have childcare arrangements?

Speaker3: [00:08:45] It’s depends. I would say a lot of them start out their initial goal. They go through kind of a similar experience that I

Speaker4: [00:08:53] Did, whereas like we’re kind of in this

Speaker3: [00:08:55] Mindset of like not take here’s the devil, but it’s like daycare is awful. We hate it. We want to be home with our kids. And so initially, a lot of them do

Speaker4: [00:09:02] Start out working the

Speaker3: [00:09:04] Time hustle, working around their kids schedules so they can avoid putting their kids in daycare. Some people don’t. But what I find is some people are very happy with that. But some people get and get started kind of like me, and they see, oh, my gosh, there’s so much opportunity out there. There’s really no limit, no ceiling. And so they will start to scale their business and utilize some part time childcare or

Speaker4: [00:09:34] Realize

Speaker3: [00:09:35] That they don’t really want to do that kind of what I did. I realize that that’s broken up schedule, like an hour here, an hour there, an hour there. Didn’t really work for me anymore. I was getting to frazzled, kind of trying to come into work mode and then hop out real quick. So for now, I just love having like a solid chunk where I can come in and sit down. I still work very Part-Time Hours, roughly about nine

Speaker4: [00:09:58] To to Monday through

Speaker3: [00:09:59] Thursday

Speaker2: [00:10:00] With following you, because I mean, I watch your Instagram stories and I have like four years. Like I feel like we’ve known each other for quite a few years in this world. Yeah, I find it very interesting everyone’s journey because, you know, incorporate my biggest complaint was that

Speaker4: [00:10:13] I basically gone from seven to seven, like the

Speaker2: [00:10:16] First three years and my oldest daughter’s life. I didn’t really get a lot of time with her. And so the initial of wanting to do my business full time was to have more freedom and flexibility to be with her. What I quickly learned was I was completely programed for corporate type hours and working in solid chalk. So I didn’t have to be the same hours of corporate,

Speaker4: [00:10:37] But I could not handle a three year old

Speaker2: [00:10:41] Tapping and needing my attention and getting work done. I was not a nice mom like that, like. I’ve seen you on Instagram stories like I mean, I’ve done a call with you in your community where your your kids, like you

Speaker4: [00:10:51] Handle the kid being in the

Speaker2: [00:10:54] Room and work

Speaker4: [00:10:55] Like

Speaker2: [00:10:56] Remarkably better than I do. Like in if you’re frazzled internally, I don’t feel like you show it to me. I was not nice to her. I wasn’t doing this to show up like that as a mom. So for me, I realized probably like literally a month one

Speaker4: [00:11:11] That having

Speaker2: [00:11:12] Daycare, we actually never did any formal daycare arrangements. We always had family. Then we had a nanny and we were very fortunate to have it. Aunt, I actually

Speaker4: [00:11:20] Worked my butt off in this

Speaker2: [00:11:21] Business to have a nanny. That’s what I wanted. I wanted her in the

Speaker4: [00:11:24] House, but I need it

Speaker2: [00:11:26] My time to work. So I was a nicer mom, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s very interesting. I think no one should ever feel bad no matter what, like whatever they choose, because we all are wired

Speaker4: [00:11:38] To work differently.

Speaker2: [00:11:39] And you were a teacher, too. So like you are accustomed to having kids in your workspace? Yeah. Yeah. I was like I had a cubicle where no one talked to me for 11 years. So like to have like that interaction, all of a sudden it’s just not something I was accustomed to.

Speaker4: [00:11:56] So now, OK, I want

Speaker2: [00:11:58] To talk about the

Speaker4: [00:11:58] Course side of your business.

Speaker2: [00:12:00] How that runs. But before we do that, I really feel like there’s going to be a decent amount of people listening that want to know more

Speaker4: [00:12:07] About freelancing and how

Speaker2: [00:12:09] To get started, because this podcast is about like literally how to build a digital product business. But I’ve always said and I’ve said it in like the early episodes and stuff is there are a million ways to build a business online.

Speaker4: [00:12:20] By all means, digital

Speaker2: [00:12:21] Product is not the only way. It’s my preferred way. And so I teach you. Lansing is a very, very valid way. So someone who might be like in corporate right now

Speaker4: [00:12:31] Or a stay at home mom

Speaker2: [00:12:32] Listening is like, I just want to get started making money. Like how how do you do that?

Speaker3: [00:12:37] Yeah. So that’s one thing that I love about freelancing is

Speaker4: [00:12:42] In all of

Speaker3: [00:12:42] The different ways to work online. It can be one of the fastest

Speaker4: [00:12:48] To

Speaker3: [00:12:49] Replace that Full-Time income or hit that initial income goal, because what you’re selling, it’s more expensive. Either package is greater than a lot of corsairs or like what some digital products are. So with freelancing, typically you are providing a done for you service for another business owner. If we are going at the most basic

Speaker4: [00:13:12] Way of how you

Speaker3: [00:13:13] Package and price go hourly. Twenty five is kind of like the entry level starting outrange or someone entry level virtual assistant. Twenty five dollars an hour.

Speaker4: [00:13:23] So you can take

Speaker3: [00:13:24] That and times that by a client looks a 20 hour a month package. One client, five hundred dollars. And the cool thing about freelancing, if you’re offering like virtual assistant social media management, some copywriting, if you’re offering these packages that are recurring meeting, the client is going to need it month to month to month. Once you do that initial hassle of

Speaker4: [00:13:45] Leading that client, that can be income you rely on

Speaker3: [00:13:49] Month in and month out, as long as it maintains a great working relationship for both parties. So one client,

Speaker4: [00:13:55] 500 land, another

Speaker3: [00:13:57] Client, you’re at five hundred, that’s a thousand dollars. A third client, you’re at fifteen hundred. And that’s just like the entry level kind of sign.

Speaker4: [00:14:04] So that’s why I

Speaker3: [00:14:06] Love freelancing for those people who are really looking for a I to start making money and I want to bring it in fast. There are so many people out there, business owners like myself, like Monica, that need an extra pair of hands. And we don’t necessarily always need to hire employees

Speaker4: [00:14:24] For some of those

Speaker3: [00:14:24] Roles. There’s a huge, huge, huge market for freelancers out there. So getting started. Couple of simple things. Figure out what service you want to offer. There’s a ton of variety that figure out what you want to do for people. Think about who you want to work with. Do you want to work with online business owners? Do you work with podcasters,

Speaker4: [00:14:43] Authors, restaurants,

Speaker3: [00:14:46] Online boutiques, local boutiques, life coaches, fitness companies? There’s so many

Speaker4: [00:14:50] Different types of

Speaker3: [00:14:52] Businesses that you could work with. So figure out who you want to work with and then think that from there, create a strategy to connect and put yourself in different networking opportunities that will allow you to naturally help them and actually tell them about your services.

Speaker4: [00:15:08] And that’s kind of what you

Speaker3: [00:15:09] Need to get started. Bare bones, bare basics.

Speaker2: [00:15:12] So at this point, how many people have gone through your program? Over 2000. On average, how fast would you

Speaker4: [00:15:18] Say somebody

Speaker2: [00:15:20] Lands their first client if they’re putting in the

Speaker3: [00:15:22] Work, if they’re putting in the works? And let’s go with that disclaimer

Speaker4: [00:15:26] Where

Speaker3: [00:15:27] We just started kind of tracking this with numbers I saw from like all of our wins and testimonials. It’s roughly one month from starting to put yourself out there networking, implementing what I teach and step six of the program.

Speaker4: [00:15:42] People are able to

Speaker3: [00:15:43] Land that first client within 30 days.

Speaker2: [00:15:46] And this is very important because like a digital product, I mean, absolutely, you could create and launch digital products in 30 days. It’s definitely different because you’re putting together assets, you’re learning

Speaker4: [00:15:57] Ptak like I can

Speaker2: [00:15:58] See where freelancing is a much lower barrier to entry to just

Speaker4: [00:16:02] Get money coming in,

Speaker2: [00:16:04] Especially like if it’s like, I

Speaker4: [00:16:06] Need this because think about when you watch just a product, you do need to

Speaker2: [00:16:09] Buy some software,

Speaker4: [00:16:10] Too.

Speaker2: [00:16:10] Oh, yeah. So this is like in essence, like freelancing can find you doing a is a product of the hundred percent.

Speaker3: [00:16:18] I know so many women that

Speaker4: [00:16:21] Were

Speaker3: [00:16:21] Building their podcast are building their digital product, their coaching business or Etsy business on the side. But it just haven’t generated enough yet. And so they started freelancing, offering the skills that they’ve learned, just bring their own

Speaker4: [00:16:36] Business to help fund

Speaker3: [00:16:38] More of their passion, project and passion business,

Speaker2: [00:16:41] Which makes money instead. So typically when people come into your

Speaker4: [00:16:44] Program, where are they that it’s like time for them to

Speaker2: [00:16:48] Do this? Are they like did they just have kids stay at home moms? Do they work like typically what is it?

Speaker3: [00:16:53] It’s a lot of mix. I would say most a majority of the people are moms with younger ish kids. They’re still in

Speaker4: [00:17:01] Daycare and they’re

Speaker3: [00:17:03] Wanting to spend more time at home with their kids, whether they just have their horse or they have their second or their third and don’t like seeing so much time in daycare. By the end, I’m barely breaking even, and I’m missing out on so much time. That’s a big, big motivator and big population of who I serve. We also have stay at home moms where like, you know, I miss working. I want to do something and I want to go back to full time job. That was not my favorite thing. And then we also get a lot, but not a lot. But we get a good handful of women who are empty nesters, even grandparents who are at that retirement age or have already retired and wanting to either supplement if they’re still working or reinvent themselves after a career where they never fully quite felt the felt.

Speaker2: [00:17:54] That’s funny to me because my founders’ round of my new program, Haley and I, my operations manager, we did a zoom call like it was like a brainstorming zoom call, like let’s brainstorm our digital product out of the gate right now. 80 people joined us on this call and you can see everyone’s faces. And we were like shocked by the number of like fifty five plus women. Yeah. I was blown. I mean, because my brand has always historically targeted, like young millennial moms like that. Always. And I was just like, how did I attract? It was just so I was I was humbled by that. They trust me and have like blown away. And it was a lot of them wanted to retire their husbands. They wanted to reinvent themselves. They had their career. They got bored in retirement. They wanted to find stuff to do with their grandkids. It was

Speaker4: [00:18:43] Like, wow, that is so

Speaker2: [00:18:44] Cool. It goes to show like we have a brand that is targeted towards one audience, like yours is definitely targeted towards young mom. That’s why I’ve always gotten from your dad. And yet you can attract people. I always go through this and we always want to expand who are talking to you. But the reality is, is that you resonate with people outside of who you’re talking to just naturally by being present, you know. So I think that’s very fascinating about your brand, too.

Speaker3: [00:19:09] Yeah. And it’s one that I use that a lot, because one of the first steps in my program. So you ask like how long it can take for

Speaker4: [00:19:16] Someone and they’re seven

Speaker3: [00:19:18] Steps, one through five or all about like building a solid foundation, getting kind of that baseline for building your business. Women come to me with no business background. A lot of times they’ve been teachers, nurses. They’ve worked in hospitality. A lot of them come without like I did without a business foundation. So we start with that. And then that can take anywhere from like a week to go through that, depending

Speaker4: [00:19:41] On how

Speaker3: [00:19:42] Fast and decisive they are to about a month. And then from there, they start networking. And we just started tracking this. We do these quarterly and client challenges, and we found that women who are consistent with that 30 day challenge. Seventy five percent or more of those 30

Speaker4: [00:20:02] Days were able to

Speaker3: [00:20:03] Land up to three clients. Wow. During those 30 days.

Speaker2: [00:20:07] Yeah. It’s all about being visible,

Speaker3: [00:20:09] Visible and consistent. But you don’t have to be perfect. And then people who participated in the challenge, just 50 percent, 50 to 75 percent or more were able to land one to two clients in those 30 days. Wow. That’s impressive. There’s so much opportunity there.

Speaker2: [00:20:27] So what are like the most popular services or I guess you could say like industry is you’re finding people going into that are coming into

Speaker3: [00:20:35] A lot of virtual assistant and a lot of social media management to start. A lot of the people that start in virtual assistant will then start to specialize in some. One thing that they really love doing when you get started as a virtual assistant,

Speaker4: [00:20:50] You get

Speaker3: [00:20:51] A lot of experience and different things so you can really find out what you love and what you don’t

Speaker4: [00:20:56] Love. Some people that

Speaker3: [00:20:57] Expands into just focusing on copywriting. Some people, though, they love the details, they love the back

Speaker4: [00:21:03] End, and they move

Speaker3: [00:21:05] Into more of a leadership online business manager direction. And then social media is a huge one.

Speaker2: [00:21:12] How do you overcome objections you get about tech? Because like every business, if you’re working with online business owners, we all have our tech stacks. We all have the way we do things. No two businesses are ever the same. So do you help them? Is that part of your program to help

Speaker4: [00:21:29] Them learn the

Speaker2: [00:21:30] Different tech like burkini pages and all that fun stuff?

Speaker3: [00:21:33] Yeah. So we don’t cover all of those in detail

Speaker4: [00:21:36] Because there’s so

Speaker3: [00:21:38] Much. And someone could spend their time learning every single different software out there. And I see people that will get stuck in that learning and that planning phase and never put themselves out there. So we don’t teach the nitty gritty, like how to send an email and Ontraport and convert and MailChimp and blah, blah, blah. When they’re getting started as virtual assistants, how I kind of have that structured as most clients who are hiring a virtual

Speaker4: [00:22:06] Assistant, knowing that they’re

Speaker3: [00:22:08] Beginner, they’re going to have standard operating procedures in place.

Speaker4: [00:22:11] Most likely if they’ve been in

Speaker3: [00:22:13] Business for a little bit. And so they’ll have that kind of S.O.P place. Here’s how to do this task.

Speaker4: [00:22:21] I need you to be my support.

Speaker3: [00:22:23] One of the roles of the virtual assistant is like customer support, help. They’ll have documented the

Speaker4: [00:22:29] Specific issues

Speaker3: [00:22:31] That frequently come up in how to problem solve that. So that’s what we do. And in my business and or when all of the different software companies, like if you’re getting on a discovery call and you know, someone uses

Speaker4: [00:22:46] Convert

Speaker3: [00:22:47] And click funnels, you can do some real quick digging, researching on those

Speaker4: [00:22:52] And play in a trial

Speaker3: [00:22:53] Run on that software website. All of the softwares have free trainings because they want people to know

Speaker4: [00:22:58] How to use their

Speaker3: [00:23:00] Software.

Speaker2: [00:23:01] Well, actually, that’s a very good point, that these platforms do have free trainings that go overlooked. I mean, I have been in the role a long time and seen a lot of courses that would teach how to be a VA and everything. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone recommend go to the source to learn the software. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:23:20] I’m not going to be able to teach it better than. Right. They want you to use it. And the best way to learn how to use the software is through experience and through doing it, even if you’re going through and you get stuck. There are a lot of the software have support channels where you can get online chat if they don’t. Sometimes there’s Facebook groups where you can ask questions about my students, whatever. Like newer students, they’re learning something. They get stopped. We have such an amazing student community where they can come in

Speaker4: [00:23:49] And say, hey, I’m trying to create

Speaker3: [00:23:52] Blah, blah, blah. Can anyone help me? I’m getting stuck with X, Y, Z, and people are always willing to come in.

Speaker2: [00:23:58] You’re empowering your students to be resourceful.

Speaker4: [00:24:01] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker2: [00:24:02] Which I find is actually instead of spoonfeeding everything. I think it’s actually

Speaker4: [00:24:06] Better because part of being

Speaker2: [00:24:08] A freelancer, too, is you’re going to have to

Speaker4: [00:24:09] Problem solve for the business

Speaker2: [00:24:11] Owner that you’re working for anyway. So it’s just like honing that skill.

Speaker4: [00:24:14] Ok, so

Speaker2: [00:24:14] What is the name of your program?

Speaker4: [00:24:16] Over one to overmatch. Overwound to

Speaker2: [00:24:18] Overbaked. I love that. That’s such a good name. Did you trademark it?

Speaker4: [00:24:21] I did. And you should.

Speaker3: [00:24:23] I now I hate attorneys. I’m married to my nine.

Speaker2: [00:24:27] I know you are just so funny.

Speaker3: [00:24:30] He’s not an IP attorney.

Speaker2: [00:24:33] Well, you should still trademark it. I know. I know. I know. I know. I mean, you are in commerce for a long time, too. So there’s all that, you know, you still have rights to it, but you know. Yeah. Protect yourself. OK, so aside from that,

Speaker4: [00:24:46] Let’s talk about the program and structure

Speaker2: [00:24:48] Of the program. Let’s go back first

Speaker4: [00:24:50] To when did this become a thing?

Speaker2: [00:24:52] So, yeah, we got up to April 2017. And you’re still freelancing and quitting your job.

Speaker3: [00:24:57] So as I was freelancing, I am still teaching and

Speaker4: [00:25:02] Trying to

Speaker3: [00:25:02] Figure out what I was doing. I was the first one in my friend circle to have kids.

Speaker4: [00:25:07] So I joined

Speaker3: [00:25:07] A lot of Facebook groups in my local community to

Speaker4: [00:25:11] Like ask

Speaker3: [00:25:12] Questions

Speaker4: [00:25:12] And just connect with other

Speaker3: [00:25:14] Moms, because I didn’t have that in my real life. And as I was building my business and freelancing, landing clients, I started to see all of these questions every day. A different mom would post in this one specific Kansas City from Facebook

Speaker4: [00:25:29] Group, a different way of

Speaker3: [00:25:30] Asking, how can I work from home without joining an email or I’m a stay at home mom, I want to make extra money. I did not want to join in Ellen. And so I just actually started helping them, saying, hey, you know, this is what I’m doing here. Some resources over time became known as the lady who can help. You work from home with outearning in Milan, and so people would ask, I would get tired. I had a whole story typed up in a Google doc to help save me time, so I didn’t have to retype it every time. And I just copy and

Speaker4: [00:25:55] Paste and go on my way.

Speaker3: [00:25:57] People could DM me if they had any questions. Well, one day it was August of 2017. So just a couple of months after fully quitting teaching,

Speaker4: [00:26:06] Still freelancing and

Speaker3: [00:26:08] Someone posted and I did my same thing that I always did. And then there were like 30 women wanting me to give them more information.

Speaker4: [00:26:15] And I was like, I

Speaker3: [00:26:16] Can not absolutely DM all of you at a time. And I got stressed was like, I can’t do this, but I want to help them.

Speaker4: [00:26:23] So we started a Facebook group.

Speaker3: [00:26:24] I was like, you know what, I can put you guys on a Facebook group and I’ll just help you all at the same time.

Speaker4: [00:26:29] And it kind of just

Speaker3: [00:26:31] Quickly dinged in my head, like you have learned how to do this. There are people who want to learn how to do this. You work with online business coaches and of course, creators

Speaker4: [00:26:43] Start your own course. And so I

Speaker3: [00:26:45] Just kind of winged it. Did my first beat around it launched in September of twenty seventeen.

Speaker4: [00:26:52] I had ten students signed up.

Speaker3: [00:26:53] It was fifty dollars. And I gave those ten students my all for that program. And one of those initial team members is actually on my team today. We’ve been working together for over three years. Oh my gosh. And how cool. Yeah. And I would say

Speaker4: [00:27:09] Out of those

Speaker3: [00:27:10] Initial ten, nine out of ten went on to the and freelance clients and I would say seven out of ten of those are still freelancing today.

Speaker2: [00:27:19] So while you were doing this, like founders been

Speaker4: [00:27:22] Around, were you still

Speaker2: [00:27:24] Freelancing?

Speaker3: [00:27:25] I was about October when I was like in that first day to launch, I was like, I can’t do this anymore. I had to offload my clients. I became way too passionate about helping other moms start freelancing and get started that I couldn’t I couldn’t focus on anyone else’s business at that point.

Speaker4: [00:27:42] It was like just my.

Speaker2: [00:27:43] Now, isn’t that funny how quick that can happen? Because it’s a very

Speaker4: [00:27:48] Similar like even

Speaker2: [00:27:49] Though I never was technically a freelancer in this world,

Speaker4: [00:27:52] I said this in a previous

Speaker2: [00:27:54] Podcast.

Speaker4: [00:27:55] I was like my husband wanted

Speaker2: [00:27:56] Me to take any contract that came my

Speaker4: [00:27:57] Way.

Speaker2: [00:27:58] Freelancing to me sometimes came like I was working for someone else, and that was what I was trying to get away from. INCs was just my personality. I just wanted to build my own brand. But it’s funny how when you launch something like For me it was my first Pinterest course. I never set out to be

Speaker4: [00:28:12] Known for Pinterest

Speaker2: [00:28:13] Advertising or Pinterest marketing at all. Like that was not what I want to do. Just like I’m sure you couldn’t have predicted you were going to become known as the girl who can

Speaker4: [00:28:20] Help you build a

Speaker2: [00:28:21] Freelance business. Yeah. How quickly it happens. Like you just were testing the waters and then boom, before you knew it, it became a full fledged business. So now we’re like in the end of 2017, you pretty much offload clients, taught your ten women. You’ve proved the program. So now what happens?

Speaker4: [00:28:40] So that was

Speaker3: [00:28:42] A crazy, crazy ride of a time. I launched my first

Speaker4: [00:28:46] Beta in

Speaker3: [00:28:48] October, in December. I was starting to make it evergreen and going live November, December

Speaker4: [00:28:54] Marketing

Speaker3: [00:28:54] At getting new students. In December of 2017, my second son passed away. So I took there was kind of just a pause period of where I kind of just like shut down for a little bit and understandable

Speaker4: [00:29:08] Just dealt

Speaker3: [00:29:10] With life. And I don’t know all of that.

Speaker4: [00:29:13] And then in April, May

Speaker3: [00:29:18] Of 2018, that’s when I got back into it and was like, okay, I’m going to revisit this recommand, refocus. And twenty eighteen. I think we finished that year with about just over thirty K in total revenue. The course was one ninety seven back then and twenty nineteen we revised and we launched it and twenty nineteen I finished the year just over 400000 in total revenue.

Speaker4: [00:29:43] You went

Speaker2: [00:29:44] From thirty thousand in twenty eighteen to more hundred thousand in twenty

Speaker4: [00:29:50] Nineteen. Yes. Okay.

Speaker2: [00:29:53] That’s incredible. So what did the price of the course go to?

Speaker3: [00:29:57] Started at fifty, then went to ninety seven one ninety seven five ninety seven seven ninety seven and then it moved to nine ninety

Speaker4: [00:30:05] Seven and twenty nineteen.

Speaker2: [00:30:07] Basically in twenty eighteen. You really built it out. Mm hmm.

Speaker4: [00:30:12] Yeah. And this was

Speaker3: [00:30:13] Back in the good old days where I can run my Facebook ads.

Speaker4: [00:30:17] And it just

Speaker3: [00:30:20] The world of online business has kind of changed since then. So like I went from twenty eighteen thirty thousand in revenue to twenty nineteen. Four hundred thousand in revenue. I thought I was going to have the same margins in

Speaker4: [00:30:33] Twenty twenty or twenty twenty was abysmal.

Speaker2: [00:30:36] We were flat like eleven percent over from twenty nineteen. But our profit margin was cut in half.

Speaker3: [00:30:43] Yeah. Maintained a very healthy profit margin.

Speaker4: [00:30:46] I want to say like 40 percent.

Speaker3: [00:30:48] And we increased revenue by about 30 percent. And I thought I was going to make over a million dollars in 2020. Twenty I was going to be amazing. And like there was just challenge after challenge after challenge at my life. And I had some wakeup calls of like expectations and realizing that

Speaker4: [00:31:06] For me, what’s most important

Speaker3: [00:31:08] Is like I’m building a business that is allowing me to. Yes, make a great income. But more importantly, make a great impact on people and also allow

Speaker4: [00:31:18] Me to

Speaker3: [00:31:19] Live life how I want to and not be in an office, stressed out,

Speaker4: [00:31:24] Frazzled.

Speaker2: [00:31:25] How funny that is. The exact realization I came to in twenty twenty as well. I hired too quickly, which really hurt our profit margin.

Speaker4: [00:31:32] I just found myself feeling like it

Speaker2: [00:31:35] Was a job and not like I’m impact that I wanted to make. And that’s when I decided to walk away from Pinterest, because it was

Speaker4: [00:31:41] Not serving the purpose

Speaker2: [00:31:43] That I wanted my business to serve. Like I felt like I had a bigger mission and I couldn’t accomplish that by just teaching in this like bubble of low dollar Pinterest ads. And it was like I really got to a point where I felt like, if I’m not happy, I don’t want to do this anymore. Like, I just don’t. I would rather walk away. I could build another brand. Both of us could walk away and build another brand. We know how to that now. Yeah. And I would have rather done that

Speaker4: [00:32:07] Than keep doing something that made me feel not happy.

Speaker3: [00:32:10] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker2: [00:32:12] Like I was twenty twenty one going.

Speaker3: [00:32:14] But it’s about the same. About the same as twenty twenty. We’ll see how things. Are you happy. Yeah. How it’s all. Yeah. Yeah. 318. I had another baby. Oh man. And then twenty. Twenty we had another baby. So our

Speaker4: [00:32:30] Fourth. She’s just ten

Speaker3: [00:32:31] And a half months. Oh wow. Yeah. There’s been a lot of like babies and new even more babies. I think that either being pregnant or breastfeeding my entire business career, definitely my entire marriage, except for maybe two months.

Speaker2: [00:32:46] I gave you lots of props for that.

Speaker3: [00:32:48] I think I still want maybe one or two more.

Speaker2: [00:32:50] So I’m way more ambitious than me enjoying.

Speaker3: [00:32:54] I want a big family, but I also want to provide a really good life for them. So I work, but I don’t want my work to overtake

Speaker4: [00:33:03] My wife, which in this

Speaker3: [00:33:04] Online space, there’s so much pressure and messages of like more in scale and more in scale. And I’m just trying to that is Downie’s that

Speaker2: [00:33:13] I sent out this year saying I want this to be my million dollar a year. And in the same breath, I said,

Speaker4: [00:33:18] But if I don’t hit it, it’s OK. And that’s funny, because

Speaker2: [00:33:21] I’m a very driven, goal oriented person. But the reality is, like, I do want to hit the million dollar mark and it could sound vanity, but it’s not

Speaker4: [00:33:29] Because of statistics out there that only two percent

Speaker2: [00:33:32] Of women business owners make that in a year. And like that sounds like a glass ceiling that I’m ready to like go through. And this is how I feel. Yeah, but you know what? If it happens to twenty twenty two, that’s fine as well, because I think what I’m hearing you say and basically how I feel as well is it’s more important that our lifestyles, the way we want it, that we’re happy with it, and that we’re still serving a purpose that matters to us.

Speaker3: [00:33:55] Absolutely. I had a big wake up call at the end of 2020 with, you know, a lot of people will publish income goals and all that other income reports. And I saw some of her income report. She made like two point five million or two point three that took home less than what I took home.

Speaker2: [00:34:14] I actually think I know which one you’re talking about.

Speaker3: [00:34:18] And I saw that and was like, whoa, I am not going to like kind of back to the teaching mindset of I’m not working my butt off if it’s not going to benefit

Speaker4: [00:34:26] Me and not to be

Speaker3: [00:34:28] Selfish, but

Speaker2: [00:34:30] If I if it’s your hard

Speaker4: [00:34:32] Work that you’re putting into it.

Speaker3: [00:34:33] And so I looked at that and was like, I’m OK with my not having a million dollar goal on I thought I was going to do.

Speaker2: [00:34:41] I mean, in twenty twenty, we built a house and three times aside, I never, ever thought I would be in this position, like and we didn’t hit that elusive goal of a million yet in a year. But like when you look at compared to like what I made in corporate, it’s like mind blowing. You can do so much. You don’t need to hit a million to have a really great lifestyle and do things that like I never could have imagined as a kid. We didn’t grow up with a lot of money or anything like that. And I think people

Speaker4: [00:35:12] Underestimate, you know, even

Speaker2: [00:35:14] With freelancing, like, do you have people in your course in your program that make six

Speaker4: [00:35:18] Figures? Hmm. Yeah. And they’re doing it on their own terms. And a lot

Speaker3: [00:35:22] Of women, they’re happy. Medium is twenty, twenty five hours

Speaker4: [00:35:25] A week, max, and

Speaker3: [00:35:28] They’re able to get their working those Part-Time Hours. Not not everyone. And it’s not like I’m not saying that can happen in three months, but these are people that I’ve been in freelancing for a year. They’ve gone on to make additional investments in their business, mostly skills training. You further their skills increase the value that they bring to their clients and increase what they charge for their services as well.

Speaker4: [00:35:51] Last question, I’m very curious.

Speaker2: [00:35:53] You alluded to the fact that Facebook ads have become difficult, as they have. I just read before that I was talking to a Facebook ads expert about how difficult they have become since iOS. And the different metrics now that we have to look at is a complete brain

Speaker4: [00:36:07] Flip that you have to

Speaker2: [00:36:08] Make to run ads. I know you’ve had trouble with your ad account in the past being down. Are you relying at all on Facebook ads right now?

Speaker4: [00:36:15] I am, yeah.

Speaker2: [00:36:16] Ok, is that. I love it. I do, too, when I work. Is that the primary way you bring new people in at this point?

Speaker3: [00:36:24] That is still my biggest traffic driver right now. I’m working on doing more organic Instagram, but miasto. I still I still rely on those ads. I don’t know. Well, ever

Speaker2: [00:36:38] With the limited time that you do work and you don’t have an. Like we talked before we recorded, you have a lot of contractors support your other freelancing moms. I have employees who are dedicated to the business. It’s a little bit of a different

Speaker4: [00:36:50] Mindset there, but basically like you work more

Speaker2: [00:36:53] Finite hours than I do.

Speaker4: [00:36:55] In so doing ads

Speaker2: [00:36:57] Is a much more concentrated thing than trying to be all the places organically. Like that’s a lot more work. As I always say, you either pay with your time or you pay with your money. And since your time is finite, paying with

Speaker4: [00:37:09] Your money makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and

Speaker3: [00:37:11] I’m running ads right now by myself. I’m just actually running story ads. There are a lot easier and the courses are a lot cheaper right now per

Speaker4: [00:37:21] Sign up just on

Speaker2: [00:37:22] Instagram

Speaker4: [00:37:23] Stories. Yeah, just since the stories.

Speaker2: [00:37:25] Well, honestly, it kind of makes sense for you,

Speaker4: [00:37:27] Too, because like I watch

Speaker2: [00:37:28] Yours. You’re very organic on your stories as well. So I think that’s probably how a lot of people like even organically connect to you.

Speaker3: [00:37:34] I’m running like the cold traffic on Instagram, but then I want to bring them back to follow me and hang out with me and the stories and watch read my feed

Speaker4: [00:37:43] And and learn and

Speaker3: [00:37:45] See what’s possible and you know how to use that to make their decision.

Speaker2: [00:37:50] Yeah. You walk around the house with a baby in your arms and you’re giving tips. I just I can’t my brain. I said I’d be tripping over my feet. I’d be like annoyed with my kid. I do not multitask like that. And when I watch your stories, I’m just like, wow, I’m just so impressed. I mean, yeah, but it’s great to show your people like you can do

Speaker4: [00:38:10] This and have

Speaker2: [00:38:12] Your baby on your hip. I’m a firm believer that moms, especially like we’re superwoman, we’re just like with the things that we can accomplish. And it’s cool to see you out there, like inspiring us that you don’t you know, your kid doesn’t have to be in daycare and you can still do this. I’m showing up on stories and my kid’s here and it’s great, you know.

Speaker3: [00:38:28] Yeah, my kids are on my calls. If it bothers you, then I’m probably not the person for you.

Speaker2: [00:38:33] So I love that

Speaker4: [00:38:35] Because my kids aren’t because of my

Speaker2: [00:38:38] Focus issues. I have never,

Speaker4: [00:38:40] Ever like we’ve had

Speaker2: [00:38:42] On our team calls. I’ve had babies being fed and stuff like, you know, that’s why we do what we do. It’s and it’s it’s great. And it’s on our own terms.

Speaker4: [00:38:50] And what works

Speaker2: [00:38:52] For you might not work for me, but it’s it’s great that we have that flexibility to choose, you know? Yeah, absolutely. OK, so if someone’s listening and they’re like, hey,

Speaker4: [00:38:59] I want to learn how to freelance.

Speaker2: [00:39:01] Where do they go to learn from you?

Speaker3: [00:39:04] So you can go to Mikhaela Green dot com forward slash guide. That’s going to be a free thing, that starter kit. Kind of a crash course on freelancing, diving deeper into kind of what we chatted about

Speaker4: [00:39:13] On here, a checklist

Speaker3: [00:39:15] And a skills assessment to help you determine what service to offer, as well as kind of like a breakdown of what some of those main freelance services

Speaker4: [00:39:23] Are.

Speaker3: [00:39:23] And then connect with me on Instagram, shoot me a DM. If you go through that starter kit, you get some kind of do just skills assessment. You have any questions. Don’t be a stranger.

Speaker2: [00:39:32] Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your knowledge with us today.

Speaker3: [00:39:37] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Speaker1: [00:39:42] Thanks for tuning in to today’s show. I have a brand new way for you to connect with me. I just launched a new Instagram account where I am sharing all of the best tips at how to grow a profitable digital product business. I’d love for you to come join me and send me a DM to say hello. The handle is at Monaca that grows Afro easy. As always, you can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at Monaca froze dot com forward slash podcast. See you here again next week.