Episode 09: How to create six figure success in a service based business

You are 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 one hundred thousand 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 one hundred million dollars.

Sound good. Then let’s jump in.

Welcome back to the Empowered Business podcast today, I am so excited because we are talking to one of my students. She found me two and a half years ago, took one of my very first online courses, and she’s gone on to build an amazing brand for herself. Her name is Brandi Miles and she is the founder of Serve Scale Soar and the Beita to Biggie Accelerator. She’s a wife, mom, podcast host and online marketing expert dedicated to helping more women experience the life changing freedom that comes with not being stressed out about money. Don’t we all need that? In two years, she’s built a seven figure online education business that’s helped hundreds of service providers and of course, creators scale to six figures and beyond with simplicity. We all need some of that in our lives. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and daughter, and they live for Taco Tuesdays, spontaneous vacations and Friday spent together as a family as well as weekends on their boat. I’m so excited for you to listen to this interview that I had with Brandi. She is what I call a QuickStart. She’s not afraid to try new things. And one of the things you’re going to learn about her is that her heart is really the soul behind her business.

Her heart is in in her business. One hundred percent. She’s out for helping people. She wants to help people get results. And also, I think it’s a great contrast between for what I’m teaching you on the podcast. So I teach you to build a business based on digital products. And she teaches how to build a business based on being a service provider. And one of the things we talk about is the fact that being a service provider, so providing services to other businesses was not something that resonated with me. I felt like it kept me, made me feel like I had a boss, and that was why I left corporate. I didn’t want to feel like I had a boss and I was meeting other people’s deadlines. But, you know, that’s the great thing about online business is there’s a million different ways to get the same result. And I feel like this is a great interview that shows just another side of how you can arrive at the same end result with a different path. So without further ado, I’m going to welcome Brandi. Hi, Brandi. Welcome to the show.

Hey, I’m so glad to be here. Yeah, I’m so excited. You’re like you’re on my top of guest list to have early on because we’ve known each other for so long in some ways. But I don’t think we’ve ever really had a conversation like this about just like our business journey, even though I feel like I know so much about you. So this is going to be fun. First, I’d like to start off with just getting to know you a little bit more and like how your entrepreneurial journey started and how you ended up where we are today.

This feels like so full circle to me. So I started my business in twenty eighteen. Riley had just been born and at this point she was like at the three month mark and I was like, OK, we have to make money now. And so I started like Googling and I found like how to start a mom blog and everything. And this was right at the time where that blogger kit comes out that you always have stuff in and it’s like ninety seven dollars or something. And so I bought the blogger Kit and I started this mom blog because first time mom with a three month old knows everything about mom life, cause I, I’m going to be a mom blogger and this is great. And anyone who’s ever read an email that I’ve actually written or even a social media post knows, like there’s typos all day long. Word spelled words missing, like it was not a good fit. But I went through your Pinterest course and I remember posting in your group. I had my blog for one month and I was like, I’m getting that like three thousand monthly views on my blog. Is this, like, good? And I had no idea. And people were like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

And I was like, OK, but I’m not making any money, so this isn’t that great for me. And then I realized, like, blogging was going to be a long, long journey. I was like at pinnies, like here and there. And so you had Abby actually do like a joint venture or something with you. And I found out about Virtual Assistant and I was like, oh, man. Like, I could do this for social media because I had a background in direct sales. I had grown multiple social media channels to over ten thousand. That’s before, like, swipe up was even a thing. And I was like, I could do this for other people. So I jumped in that program and within my first three months I was already at six thousand dollars, but I was tapped out. I’d also taken your Pinterest program, so I started running Pinterest ads for people. And that’s when I got into Facebook and Instagram ads because I saw what was possible with Pinterest. But I still felt limited interest ads were like just coming around. And so I down to Facebook and Instagram ads and then the rest is history. It’s been a crazy ride since then, a very crazy ride.

So for context, because I know a lot about branding and sometimes I always assume that everyone should know everything about brands. And she has a really great podcast with a link to it’s called Support Scale, and we’ll talk more about that. But. Here’s the thing, that joint venture with Abby Atchley, who is another great friend of mine, just awesome program if you want to learn how to be a virtual assistant, right. Actually, when I came back when I was post-partum, I went to Pinterest when I was 11 weeks postpartum with my second I mean, because we turned about to Pinterest, first of all. And second of all, when your course is about that topic, like you go on Pinterest, whether you’re babies or not. So I went and I almost canceled that webinar because I learned it from a red, which I don’t do. Well, I’m not sleeping. Plus I had a newborn and that webinar was at 12:00 or 1:00 in the afternoon. I don’t have the energy for this. I was so close to I can’t imagine if I had to change the trajectory, but I like well, I’m not presenting, so I’ll go through with it. So but for context, this is made at twenty eighteen. And so you at this point we’re not making money. And just to give a little bit of a spoiler alert, because I think it’s important, you made in twenty, twenty over a million dollars and published that on your podcast. So it’s common knowledge.

And so I mean that is just extraordinary how you go from making pennies on display ads on a blog and what, 18 months later you’re closing out a million dollars a year. And I know having done this for a long time, that is not an easy feat to do. So clearly, you did something different and. Right. So I really want to talk about that. Like, what was the thing that turned it around for you? How did you grow so fast?

Yeah. So I first off think that the fastest way to grow in the online space is with services like I truly think that one on one services is the quickest way to six figures, but one on one services isn’t going to get you to a million. I mean, there are some agencies, but like we could get into that. But for the most part, one on one services can get you to multiple six figures that did for me. So in my first 10 months of having a business, I hit six figures over six figures, and that was just with services. And then for 12, 19, my first full year in business, two hundred and fifty thousand were just from my Facebook and Instagram ad services. And then another hundred thousand came from my membership because it’s all I had. But I still did multiple six figures with my services. So I think that that really set me up for a strong foundation, because the thing with services is you don’t have a lot of overhead. And so it just set me up for a really strong foundation where I could invest in programs. I could really make smart decisions when it came to launching my membership and stuff like that, because I wasn’t concerned about money anymore, because I was really managing my money.

So when you run services, you are trading technically time for dollars. So first of all, I hate trading, so I personally didn’t go that route. I talk about this in a previous podcast episode. Everyone resonates with different types of things. There’s nothing wrong with going services. What works for you is going to be different. That’s what makes us all have unique businesses. I knew going in that doing services made me feel like I was doing corporate and answering to a boss that was like my biggest thing. I felt still beholden to other people’s schedules. I felt like it really wasn’t my own thing. So I put it in. I didn’t go that route.

Now when you get to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars without having an agency, so other people helping you, you obviously one, we’re going to get capped out on time. But also it sounds like you probably are offering a premium service. Right, to be able to scale to that degree. And that was the Facebook and Instagram statements. Yeah, OK, the membership. That’s the very first digital product then that you launched.

Well, actually, February of twenty nineteen, I did the wrong way, so I was like, OK, I’ll build it and they will come. And as a Facebook ad manager, I should have known this wasn’t right, but I built a full funnel. It was for a forty seven dollars product and like three people purchased it. And then I was like, OK, I’m done with this. I never want to touch this thing again. I put so much time effort into it and it’s like garbage. So and that wasn’t the case. I just wasn’t marketing it, but it was actually probably not the best thing ever. So I put it off to the side. And then in May of twenty nineteen, I launched my membership as a beta to my students, and then in July we launched it to the world. And the whole premise behind the membership is how to scale to consistent ten thousand dollars months without a team as a service provider. So I pretty much am taking all my students through what I did in ten months to scale to six figure. So we talk about systems elevating your services, how to actually land clients because a lot of people are doing it really wrong and how to set those boundaries and never to be working hourly. So when you get out of that, yes, you’re trading time for dollars. But like in the program, we teach you how where you’re not actually charging people hourly so you can get really good at your craft, charge more, work less.

So essentially turns into being a little bit more how I teach digital products and people get hung up on pricing. And I’m constantly talking about the fact that it’s the value outcome, really what your pricing is, the outcome. So when you price the service not based on hourly, but project based, it’s still the outcome that the person’s getting. So it could take you just as long as someone who charges a lot less for a lesser service. But if the outcome is a better outcome for their business, then you can charge more for essentially.

We tell people who are veis to go to OBM and a greater role as people who are doing social media management to get to ad management, so like, how can we really get your services to a point where your clients need that more because you bring more value?

That makes sense to me. So the membership you launched in mid twenty nineteen, and how many people did you get into it?

So my Beda we got twenty three people and I had a email list of less than a few hundred in social media. My largest was Instagram and I had four hundred people on there, just Demming people, social selling, really connecting with people that had already built relationships with. That’s really important to me is relationships. And then we got twenty three people and then we launched in July and in that launch we brought in over 60.

So major ways to get people into your membership with a small audience, social selling to the Dems. And then at that point after your Beita, would you say that you had gotten like word of mouth momentum like no one knew who I was?

Like, that’s the thing. Like no one knew who I was. I was the small kid on the block, like brand new to this.

And so it was. And I don’t like the term social selling just because of the context that it has. It was more me connecting with people that had already built relationships with and asked them if they wanted to join me in this adventure. And then when I launched so in my program, we call out the beta and then the next, when’s your big launch? And that’s what I did. And so that’s when we’re running Facebook ads that we use the money that we got from our beta. We put that into Facebook ads. That’s our first time. We’re using Facebook ads. We’re launching with a webinar and we’re doing all the digital marketing stuff to launch this in a five day window.

So an open closed. Yeah, what I find very interesting about what you did. So you grow this membership. Essentially, you didn’t grow a big audience first. It was like grass roots, essentially. Yeah. Then you started growing this loyal following. On the heels of that, you launch a podcast that’s pretty much matched to the purpose of your membership. So now you have a way for people to get to know you outside of paying you and naturally leads into the membership. And then I think you did something that I don’t see a lot of people doing, and I find it very unique and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ll tell me that you learned it from someone else, but you launched a course on how to run Facebook and Instagram ads. But what I found unique about it was going to the point of in order to scale high on services, you had a purge premium. So essentially you have all these service providers and you’re like, hey, now I’m going to teach you how to sell a premium service that I happen to know really well. So it’s not like I’m going to teach you just how to run Facebook and Instagram ads. I’m going to teach you tell me if I’m wrong, but how to sell the service of running Facebook and Instagram.

Yeah. So the membership is definitely much more business and how to run your business, and that is all service providers. And the reason conversions for clients my course was created was because we had too many people that were like Brini teach us and teach us ads. And the fourth pillar of my program is Elevate Your Services. And so then it makes sense for them to go into this if that’s the route they want. A lot of people are asking me for it. It was definitely not something originally that I wanted to create, but now I’m so glad I did. But the first module is very specific to how to run a Facebook ad management business. But 80 percent of everyone that is in conversions for clients either was already in Serve Scale Soar or they joined Serve Scale Soar by the first four months of being in conversions for clients so those to flow into each other very nicely.

So it’s essentially like the beginning of you figuring out your product ladder. Yeah, my assumption lottery. But I feel like around this time this is when also you started getting on some pretty big stages. It’s not the right word technically because you weren’t really speaking in front of people. But I feel like you started getting a lot of exposure. And I mentioned to you before you start recording, this is a very this is something I feel very passionate about. I’ve always had this philosophy, which I essentially call it buying your way into rooms coming from corporate. I strongly feel that, first of all, business is done among people, relationship and networking. And I see in corporate I hate it networking. I think sometimes I feel like it can feel fake. So I thought, man, I don’t know how to do personally with this business thing because I hate networking. But it came to find out that all networking is is getting into the right rooms and it’s totally acceptable to buy your way into those rooms. And I think that’s what you started doing to a degree.

Yeah. So I’ve always had the philosophy of going into any program is I’m going to be the A student. I did this in high school college like I always wanted to be the one that the teacher knew. And for me on the online space, it was really cool because I could come in and be the A student and then think that person by giving them a testimonial. And so my philosophy has always been relationships over revenue, meaning that like if you start building relationships, the revenue will come in. So. My whole intention is always to go into a program, be the A student and give back to that teacher because they gave to me and it’s because of that we end up becoming like friends or I get to speak on their podcast or whatever. That’s like a happy accident. But I do think there’s a lot of power in going into programs, being the student. They pay attention as course creators. We know the students we pay attention to and then they’ll be able to refer you. Maybe they ask you to be on their podcast and then that just opens up more doors for you. People go in with the wrong intentions, thinking that if they’re the student, that it’s going to open up all these doors. And whenever I go into this, I always do it, not expecting anything in return. I’m just going to show up, get what I need, and then thanks a person by sharing with them how they’ve impacted my life. And I’ve even done it with you, Monica. And I don’t expect anything back, like telling you like, oh my gosh, because you had this like now look at where I am.

And it stands out because I mean, this is why you are one of my top picks to have on the podcast, because you’re right. And this is what I mean when I say buy yourself into the room, because the reality is how else are you going to get in front of these teachers if you’re not in their program? That’s the reality of it. This is the easiest way to get yourself. You buy yourself into the room, but buying yourself into the room means nothing if you don’t do something with it, which is what you’re saying. I feel like you could almost teach a course on this because you are one of the few that I have seen that has done a great job getting into these programs and getting in front of the teachers. Obviously, you’ve done the work, you’ve created memberships, you’ve created a podcast, you’ve created a course. Now you have a high ticket offer that you’re doing as well. So it’s not like you’re not doing the work. If you could give, like, one tip to someone on how to leverage the most out of the programs best in, what would it be?

The biggest thing you can do is give people testimonials, whether that’s privately messaging them on DBMS and like writing up your testimonial for them so they can screenshot it posting in the Facebook group or a lot, of course, creators launch and when they do launches, they ask people for testimonials.

And so when they ask it to a really great testimonial form, because those testimonials help them so much, it helps other people and it helps you really get recognized.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like for a while I mean, you were like everywhere we were taking a lot of high end programs and you’re getting on their podcasts and with your testimonial. And it stood out to me watching you do it. I thought it was a very smart strategy. For one, it’s smart business. And it was kind of it was a mutually beneficial type thing. Right. You got to grow your platform. They got a great testimony, a lot of it, to help them get more students.

And I just want to clarify, I am taking a lot of programs and there are a lot of programs that I have not given people testimonials for. So just so we’re clear, like I don’t give a testimonial unless I actually believe in the program. And there’s been a lot that I’ve taken. And I’m like, well, now I don’t even want to be friends with this person. And the program wasn’t that great. So I’m just not going to give a testimonial. So I don’t do it for all the programs I take. And I think that’s an important factor is if it’s not a good program, don’t leave a testimonial.

Yeah, that actually. Thank you for clarifying that. I am in complete agreement with that. I have taken lots and lots of junk courses and I would never give a testimonial just for getting ahead. That’s out of value and ethical alignments. I think we agree on a lot of that. It has to be. Well, I could go on because I think you had an episode about Broo marketing, too, which is a whole separate topic. Actually, I think we’ll link to it. You can listen to Brandy’s episode on it because being her thoughts on that as well. So I want to get back to this whole how we ended up at a million dollars in your second full year of business. So we launched this membership and then we started our podcast that we launched Conversion for Clients, which is, of course, in our Sencion product ladder. So now people are trying to be service providers and you’re going to offer this premium service, teaching them how to do it, how to run ads, and it can fuel their own programs to what was the turning point that led twenty twenty to be that big blockbuster year? Yeah.

So I actually didn’t launch conversions for clients until twenty twenty. So it January of twenty twenty that I launched a beta. I had like a simple sales page and sent it out to my email list and there was nothing created. It’s the same thing I did with Serve Scale Soar. But of course at this point my email list was probably around three thousand twenty five hundred or something like that and we did seventy thousand in this beta and I was like holy bananas. I sent out like five emails and we just did this. What the world. So clearly my audience wanted it. And I will tell you, the majority of those people did come from my membership. And then there are some people who join that. It had just been waiting for me to put out this type of program like that’s what they’ve been waiting on my emails for. They were never going to join Serve Scale Soar, but this is what they had been waiting on. And so I built it out with them, took about eight weeks and then we launched it in May and October in that program with those three did over half a million dollars last year.

Wow. Three launches, half a million dollars. So half of reaching your goal. Wow. Isn’t that funny how you know it. I mean, you are very similar. In the sense that I actually don’t create something before I sell it either. This in itself is the value of spending time cultivating your audience, because when you do that and when you deliver what you promise in your programs, which I’m sure you do in your membership, what happens is the next time you put something out, they trust you. They trust that you’ve already delivered what you promised. They trust your integrity and they’re willing to invest in it to be like the first people to go through it. Everything I create at this point and actually it blows my mind just as much as it blows your eyes. I remember the first time I launched, of course, that I didn’t create ahead of time. I launched it only to existing students. I didn’t even have sales, but it was a Google doc and it made like forty five thousand dollars in like three, four days. It was just like just to see how it was going to go. I mean, I think I was probably expecting like ten thousand or something. And then I was like, wow, that’s the power of delivering to your students and pouring into them. And then they’re willing to just move along your product ladder with you.

And what’s crazy is that I’d only had Serve Scale Soar at that time than six months, like six, seven months. And then we’re rolling out this program. And I wish I would have given myself a little bit more breathing room, but it worked out how it was supposed to. So it ended up being great.

So have you taken the Colbie test? You know what that is? I know what it is, but I haven’t taken it. You’ve got to pay to take it, don’t you? You do. For me, it was very enlightening. I have a feeling that you are Quixtar, so I actually went into it thinking I was Quixtar and I found out in the exact opposite. So a QuickStart. I liken it to my husband. He’s a high QuickStart and I think many entrepreneurs are. I’m like kind of a freak of nature like this, where basically you’re cool with throwing things against the wall and you’re not attached to if they stick or not, you can pivot fast. You don’t get wound up about the back end of everything. And I thought, oh, when I make up my mind, I move fast. So I must be a QuickStart. Like I’m constantly launching things come to find out. I was constantly stressed because I am a hi fact finder and then I follow through. So my back end has to be really clean or I get super stressed. And one of the things I find very interesting about following your journey, I mean, you got to a million dollars, I think, with just contractors. Do you even have any employees? We still don’t have any employees. That to me is just like mind blowing. So I would love to hear about how this all works to run these programs. And we’ve even gotten to the third one that I know you’ve just recently launched without like I have. I call my unicorn Hili. She’s full time. I’ve had her for two years. I don’t know how I could do this without her. So how does this work? Like, how do you keep all the balls in the air? Yeah.

And also the other wrench I threw into twenty twenty besides, like everything that happened in twenty twenty is I came out and I was like, we’re going to go from three hundred thousand to a million and I’m not working Fridays. And so three day weekends for my family that was super important. And so we are one efficient machine. It’s so funny. I have Janessa which is like my right hand person. She’s been with me since I launched the membership and she really helps all fulfillment. So she makes sure the payments are recovered. She make sure that everyone has what they need. That’s kind of her GM. And then we have a podcast producer that does everything with the podcast and then we have a graphic designer. So that’s my team. Now, towards the end of the year, we did have like a copywriter that helped with the sales page. And then we had someone who came in for three months to help upload everything to KJB for my new program and stuff like that, and really helped facilitate that. But she’s no longer with us. So it’s really just the three of us and really it’s just Janice and I. And so we’re on one efficient machine and it’s all done through systems. I started setting up these systems as soon as I like started. And this is something innovative to begin. I’m very passionate about because I don’t want people to think they have to have a big team to make this run.

So let’s start from the very beginning, having these well oiled machines that I already have created. Now you just take them and put them in your business so that you can run a very efficient business without a big team. And we’re always like we don’t tweak a lot of stuff. We keep things very simple. I always say kiss, keep it simple, sweetie. And so if it’s not simple, we don’t do it. And then I know that my contractors are always like, Brini, can we just tell you how amazing your systems are? Because they’re in other people’s businesses and they come in and they’re like, you’re so efficient. And we just we’ve really honed in on systems. And it’s not because I love systems. I’m not someone who wants to be, like, playing in editable or click up, but I like to be efficient. And so to me, if I want to be efficient, that means I have to have systems in place. I don’t know if you’re familiar with human design, but I am a projector, which means I like big picture. So like in the savannah, I’m like the bird at the top looking over everything. And so I can see the big picture of what the needle movers are. And that’s the only thing we focus on. We don’t focus on social media. We have zero freebies. I mean, we have like Evergreen webinar, but we don’t use freebies. We only focus on things that actually move the needle.

I don’t even think you had a website for all of twenty. Twenty? Oh, I still don’t have a website. We all have one soon I. Oh, I mean, if you’re going to sum this up, essentially, you’ve grown based on Conexion in ads also like the big thing that helps us is I know my students, I know my audience.

One thing I see a lot is people hire all these people and they don’t actually know the pulse of their communities anymore. And like I know the polls like my students, besides the fact that I told them I don’t have clients, they know that I have a pulse on what’s going on. One of them did me the other day and she said, bring me I’m in your membership.

And I was like, of course I know you’re my membership. And she was like, Really? And I was like, yes, I know exactly who you are.

And so I am not removed from my programs. I know my people and I care about my people.

I mean, you are a lot like I actually say all the time to Hailie. I’m like, I get the same thing. People will say things to me and they’re like, you probably don’t know who I am. I value since two thousand seventeen and I know who they are, which might sound crazy because I mean I just actually clean my email list, but we were up to like seventy thousand now, cleaned it down to fifty for my open rates and but still you would think that’s crazy. But I if you’ve communicated with me, I know who you are like I have a very good memory like that, but I think that’s what makes us I think you’re very right. I think that makes us very unique. And that’s how we can sell to people without having it create it, because people know they can trust us. Trust is such a huge thing, especially I think as the online world gets more and more crowded, there’s just a lot more not great feeling marketing activities that go out on out there. And people can sniff that out. They can sniff the genuine versus not genuine. How do you feel like your podcast has helped in your growth efforts?

So the podcast takes people on a deeper level with me. They get to know me. They get to know my family, especially with the income reports. I’m very open and transparent. They get to see my style of teaching, but like, I don’t know if it’s actually growing our audience besides the fact that, like, people will say like, oh, I found your podcast on iTunes, but like, it’s not a large number. I think what it does is once people do find me, however they find me, it gives them a place to go deeper with me, to build, know, like and trust.

Yeah, I agree. That’s that’s where you’re sitting here now, because the only way to really get to know me was in my email. I mean we have sent like two thousand broadcasts and convert it. That doesn’t include any of the sequences that go out. I mean, so I was no stranger to emailing and I would send pretty like raw type emails and people loved them. We got high responses, but in emails kind of in essence, like social media. Well, first of all, not everyone’s going to open the email. You send it. It was like a lot of wasted effort, essentially, I believe email.

Now, my philosophy is it’s for amplification of your message. It’s a really great way to get in front of your loyalist fans. There’s like a word for your true fans, whatever, but it’s still like a behind the firewall type thing. So podcasts are a great way for people to I don’t know, are they interested in and something like being a service provider for me, are they interested in digital products? And you get to hear us talk and get to know. And I think that that’s the no trust factor is a huge thing for podcasting. Yeah.

And especially because, like, I don’t even write my own emails. I’m very open about that. I don’t write them. I don’t read them until they come out on Tuesday when I want to read them. But they come from my podcast. So all the podcast emails are is just a Janessa is recapping what I said in the podcast and she knows my words so well, but she writes it. I don’t write my email and honestly, half the time I don’t even know what they say. So the podcast is where people are actually getting me at my fullest and I’m an auditory person. So anything that’s email form is not from me.

Interesting. So I actually pretty much follow your model. Well, this is pretty new. We’re still very early on in the podcast, but it got really stressful to think every week all I have to write another lengthy email. And as your business grows, it’s harder to have that kind of time to a single email. Could have taken me eight hours because they were good emails. But when you break that down, I really have eight hours to spend on one email that fraction of my list was going to see. So now we’re kind of taking your tack. Where you get me is on the podcast and we’re sending the weekly emails every time the podcast comes out and we’ll see how that results in twenty, twenty one moves.

But it seems like it’s worked well for you, so I have high hopes it’s going to work for us as well. Yeah.

And you know, the email format we use, I think I got from Pat Flynn and was just like, here, let’s use this, let’s try it. We don’t do any nurture sequences. I mean, like that weekly email is our nurture sequence. And so we don’t even segment that it goes out to everyone. So you build your list with Facebook ads. Yeah. And the number one way we build our list is during launches.

Ok, so you run Facebook ads for whatever they want for webinar or if you’re doing a challenge that your main your opt in is come to my training essentially.

And then we have like we have delighted with Sato. We’re not working with absolu anymore. So we’re switching it to honey book. So like we have that that runs, but that’s a paid like low cost program. And then I have my evergreen funnel that runs to my membership when we’re not launching. And so it’s a. Training, but it leads to Evergreen, I’m not sending anyone to here’s a PDF download me or something like that, and then the only thing that has a nurture sequence is like launch. Of course, you have your launch emails and then the evergreen has the five day launches and then they go right back into the thing. So I’m not about like some nurture sequence or anything like that. I know they work for some people, but that would just be more emails for me to have to write.

But this is why I love talking to you, because I really want to impress on people how many different ways there are to get to the same result. The way you do business is vastly different than how I grew mine. Yet I would say at the end of the day, our communities are very similar in the sense of how engaged they are. It actually is very similar, but we went very different routes to get to the same result.

Essentially, I’m over here like you have fifty thousand people in your email is like, holy cow.

And Brady made more than me last year. So I mean, it goes to show banditti numbers. And I’ve never been big on when I was a blogger, I was like, I could care less about page views. I care about what people are paying me. Same thing. My email, it’s just a vanity number. It’s like, sounds great. That’s just active. Who knows? I have hundreds of thousands of people have filtered through my list, but who cares at the end of the day, because really it’s about who you’re helping. If you’re in business for the right reasons, it’s who you’re helping. And I mean, if we have to make money as well, we’re in business. And that’s the whole point. But I personally, and I think you would agree, would find little satisfaction from making money for just the sake of making money like it has to be connected to a bigger purpose. I like making money. OK, well, then I like making money. So and yes, money like helping people to want you’re doing.

I love. Yes. I’m not saying I’m only doing this for money, but also like this was one of the big things that kind of irritated me in twenty twenty is when people would ask coaches and stuff would say why are you trying to like hit a million, what’s the end goal. And I was like, because I’ll hit a million dollars. Like that’s a big achievement. And it wasn’t until October that I found out, like, why I needed to hit a million and like what that actually meant for my family.

But I think that sometimes we put so much pressure on people having why they need to make money that it like it’s so annoying because it’s like we have to have money to live, like you have to have money, because the pressure that that alleviates from your family, that would change the whole generations from going from families who are paycheck to paycheck to stress, to a family that doesn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. And they’re taking care of like the impact that you have on your family. Just if you can provide from them without being stress, will affect the generations and generations and generations after that. And that’s impact. And I think sometimes we put too much stress on people to have this big Y or big purpose when sometimes you just have to take care, your family to figure out what that purposes. But that is your big why.

I mean, when you think about it and that’s perfectly fine, I think that it’s very actually similar. I started the business because I wanted a better life for our family. I didn’t want to live paycheck to paycheck. We were constantly stressed about money and I have hefty student loans, which I’m still working on, and I just didn’t want to be stressed about money for the rest of my life. What happened to me was once I felt like we were in a comfortable position. I’m a naturally pretty driven person and I believe in consistency. So I show up day in and day out and I built this with small building blocks at a time. I personally, in twenty twenty hit a wall where it was like, we have a great life. I didn’t really need more, so I had to start connecting with a bigger reason. And my bigger reason was very passionate to boil it down for women to be able to have financial independence, whether they’re married or not. I saw too often in my life that women got put in very bad places because they didn’t have the same earning potential as their male counterparts. And I’m just very passionate that that. Why does it have to be? I don’t believe motherhood is limiting. I think if anything, it’s empowering. And so that became my big driver. But like generational wealth and setting your kids up and your family up is just motivating and just as good enough of a reason.

You know, and I love that you said once you were taking care of, then it changed because I think that’s what happens is once you start taking care of yourself and taking care of your family, then you find that bigger purpose, which is what I said, like in October of twenty twenty is when I broke down in a car with tears knowing why we had to hit a million, because it was such a bigger purpose than just me. But it took getting to that safety and security place for me to be able to see that. And I see way too many women stop because they feel bad that their only purpose and by only them doing this in air quotes is to provide for their family. That is massive. And once you do that, then you’ll find what is bigger than just you and your family. You’ll find that big, big purpose outside of just your circle. But first, you have to take care of your circle in order to find that bigger purpose.

Well, and isn’t this the parallel with motherhood, too, when you think about it? Because intellectually, we know in motherhood that if you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. But how often are moms martyrs expected to be martyrs and put everyone else before them until. Our cup is so empty that they can’t fill it up. It’s the same thing with money, like how are you going to be out there helping other people when you don’t know how you’re paying your bills next month like you’re depleted? If you’re not taking care of yourself first and once you are, then you can go out and have such a bigger impact, whatever that might be. And I will say also, I think it’s totally and I grappled with it this last year, it’s totally fine. If your purpose wants to end with my family set up or having I’m making enough that we have a happy life and I’m just going to keep on that trajectory. I don’t need to have massive growth to be happy because I do see that to a lot of screaming about big goals. Like, honestly, I got to the point where I’m pretty confident we’re going to hit a million this year. I hope we do. And even if we don’t, though, I was just telling Haley, who cares? As long as my family is happy and safe, like who cares what the number is at the end of the day?

And I totally agree. And what was so great about million last year was the person I became during that journey. It had very close friends to me at the end of the year, say, like Britney, you are a completely different person than you were 12 months ago. And it was just the journey that I went on that was way better than like the million. I mean, the money’s nice, don’t get me. But the tax bill is just as big, you know, like you have a big tax bill now. So they always have people saying new level, new devel. And it’s the same thing.

But like the journey was so amazing, the mindset work that goes into building a business. And my opinion is like nothing. I’ve never been stretched as a person like I have in business and even like motherhood stretches, but maybe probably for both of us, they kind of went hand in hand like I started my business because I was super postpartum. You started yours when your daughter was three months. I think probably they get a little combined in my head because I think both of them, like they just have stretched me. I don’t think I would be the person I am if I hadn’t started this business. It’s really made me evaluate so many things in my life, what matters to me. And even in that, like, why does money matter for security and how does it change your life? It’s a very fascinating journey. I agree with you. OK, so to wrap up, because there’s still one pillar that we haven’t talked about. So you launch conversion for clients. That was next on your ascension ladder. But now you have another program which this is where without having a team, I’m like, oh, my gosh, Brandi is like superhuman. I don’t understand how she does this. What’s the last program that you just launched?

We launched Beta to Biggie. And this is like I haven’t been this excited about a program since. I want Serve Scale Soar and the team knows. I know like my students know, like this is like the thing that I wake up in the morning so stinking excited about. I say that like Serve Scale Soar was my first baby and beat it to Biggie is like my love child.

So this is a high ticket program.

So it is a higher ticket, but it’s higher type. I don’t like to call it high ticket. I think everyone has a different definition of what high ticket is. What high tech it may be to one person is like low ticket to another. Well, I like to say it’s a high touch program because that’s what it is. It’s very high touch. Is that where you’re spending the majority of your time? Then we have a well oiled machine. But yeah, I guess if I was looking, I probably spend most of my time in there. We have weekly Q&A, so that’s an hour. And then I do weekly critiques and that usually takes me about three hours. So yeah, I would definitely be in there. And it’s just because the other programs are so batched out now, we’re getting ready to launch conversions for clients as I’m recording this. So then that program will actually have most of my attention for six weeks. But then after the six weeks are up, we probably won’t launch for another year. My attention shifts.

So now I’m beta a beginner, essentially teaching how you launch a beta and use that money to have a bigger launch and you put that behind it.

And so it’s basically your formula for how you just like sort of Serve Scale Soar was your formula behind how you became a service provider. The biggie is how you fill your programs.

So it’s a biggie is how to create a second revenue stream for your service based business. So I hate how people are like Phase-Out. Your clients. No, don’t phase out your clients. Your clients bring in money really fast. Course creation is not like this overnight thing that happens. And so with the first step, it is the beta. And then I take them through three, what we call big size launches. So it’s the biggie, the biggie XL and the partner Biggie. So I showed them how not to recreate the will after each launch, but just focus on the little things that make the biggest difference. So it is a year long program. We get to create a six figure or membership in that time. And it’s like all my favorite things. We talk about launching debriefs today. Before I got off here, I just did six debriefs with my students. I was like, this is my favorite thing in the world is debriefs.

Isn’t it so fun when you find the thing that lights you up when you’re teaching?

Yeah, I love the personal connection because the thing with launching I’ve seen so many times people like join these programs, which are great. There’s so many programs. I have so much value. But once again, like you said, I’m a QuickStart. Not everyone is a QuickStart. And some people suffer from perfectionism. And that is never been something that I suffered from. And so what I love about this program is you’re not thrown in a group of two thousand people. You’re thrown in a group with a small community who also. Each other, but also you get personal feedback for me, that gives you the sometimes we don’t need to know what to do. We just need to hear someone say, yes, this is good, move forward or you get done with the launch and it didn’t go the way you wanted. And you’re like, well, what do I do post in this group with a whole bunch of these people that have no idea what they’re talking about, giving you advice and you end up recreating the whole thing when really all you need to do is change like this one thing that would make all the difference. And so I love that I’m going to be able to help more people that want to get into the corporation business and launching not like get defeated after their first three months.

And I know how easy that is to get defeated, especially in the beginning. So basically are like two and a half years into this from when you started to right now, what would you say is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned?

I think the biggest thing that I always tell people is just love your people hard. Like that is probably the biggest thing is just love your people hard. That includes your family, love them hard, love your community. When anyone joins any of my programs, I welcome them into my family because that’s what they are now. And just love them and don’t see them as a dollar sign and see them as like your sister, your brother, your child. And so that would be my biggest piece is just like love people more because more people need to be loved. It just makes me so sad. I see so many stories of people who like they don’t have the love, they don’t have the support at home. And they come into a community and they’re like, you’re the only person who’s ever cared. And that doesn’t make me feel good. It’s like, holy cow, why haven’t you been loved your entire life? And so if we can create a community where more people feel loved, I think we’re doing something in the world.

Yeah. And to go back to your point that you made about, you know, there’s nothing wrong with just making money to, like, better your life and create that generational wealth. But like, look at how your ultimate goal, though, when you strip it down, is that you want to love on your people. So it’s about the money. And yet it’s still not about the money because you don’t just want to take their money to put another check box next to OK, now I’m this much closer to my goal if you’re not giving and helping them at the same time. And that’s impacting and changing their life. So it’s not just about our family. I think that took me a while to realize I still live in denial. It great emails. It’s almost hard to understand. It’s like really it’s amazing. But it’s like, wow, it just goes to show that showing up and just being yourself can impact so many people. Like that’s really a rewarding part of this business, if you ask me. Yeah.

Whenever we get those dams, we get those messages, we throw them in the group. And we know that when people say, Brandi, that they’re not saying me. They’re saying our team, like Brandi is the team. And so one of the really important things is that we share all that with our team and they take credit for it. And we just donated money to Village Impact. Again, that’s one charity I donate to every year I post in the group. And I was like, yeah, I just made a donation and know that you’re part of this like, yeah, the money didn’t come out of their pocket, but they helped generate the money so that I can do that. And so I think one of the other things is if you have a team, include them and stuff like that because they make it happen to this isn’t just me.

I love that. I just wrote that actually down for a podcast to think about how important it is. Even if you’re the face of your brand, it’s not just about you. There’s a whole team behind you helping you do this. And. Oh, I love that. Thank you. Thank you for for sharing all this. It’s been really great talking to you. So can you tell everyone they want to connect, especially because you do not have a typical often to send us to how many people connect with you?

So head over to app Brandi Myles on Instagram. I’m sure Monica will link that up. Go over there. I don’t post like in twenty twenty. I posted twenty four times so I don’t lose a lot, but I am idioms and they just got me to set up a link tree so you can click the link in my bio and pick your destination. So now we do have a link tree but I’m always in my DMS. If you ask me a question, if you post in there you will get me responding. So I love to connect with people on their awesome.

And we’ll also link up to your podcast, Serve Scale Soar, because Serve Scale Soar Weekly, I suggest everyone else listens weakly. You’re always full of so much great knowledge. So thank you so much for being on today. Thanks for having me.

I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the Empowered Business podcast. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, check out the Empowered Business Box, a flexible monthly membership with resources to enhance your digital products and sales funnels from top to bottom. Head to Empowered Business Dacko Gogglebox to sign up. As always, you can find all the links and information mentioned in this episode at Monica Fros Dotcom Portaledge podcast. Thanks for tuning in.