Episode 012 – Behind The Myths of Running a Business: Real Facts about the Entrepreneur Hustle

Alyson Lex 0:00
On today's episode, we're answering the question, What does running a business really look like? The big question is this as entrepreneurs, coaches and business owners, how do we consistently sell our products, programs and services without making our customers feel like we're only in it for the almighty dollar? How do we serve the way we know we're meant to serve and still run a profitable business? How do we put good into the world while we put dollars into our pockets? How do we change the lives of our community while also bettering the life we lead?

Jennie Wright 0:33
It's not a zero sum game. It's not an either or scenario, it is possible to thrive while serving your clients to the best of your ability. This podcast will show you how. I'm Jennie Wright.

Alyson Lex 0:46
I'm Alyson Lex and welcome to the System to THRIVE.

Jennie Wright 0:52
This episode was inspired by all the gurus that are trying to teach you how you can grow a thriving business in two hours a day. The ones that are saying that you can hit six or even seven figures in your first year, the ones that are selling the pipe dreams in order to line their own pockets. This episode is probably going to be a bit of a rant. Frankly, we're both so against this kind of selling that it burns us up. And we really wanted to give you an insight into what it's really like, and what it's taken for us to build our six figure businesses. Now, here's a disclaimer. Does this mean you won't hit it big or strike it rich and have all the things? No, absolutely not. But the reality is a lot different than what the Guru's will have your belief.

Alyson Lex 1:39
The one thing I really want to say about this episode is that everybody's journey is different. Everyone has a different business, everyone has a different style. Everyone has a different goal. And if you're watching all those people make it big while you still feel like you're struggling. It's contributing to that, you know, that burnout, that frustration over The imposter syndrome, all of the other head trash that just keeps us stuck and feeling like we're less than, which is a terrible place to be. As long as you keep taking steps forward, as long as you keep growing and going, that's going to get you to where you want to be. There are strategies to learn things to do, you know, checklists, and all of that stuff that's out there that can tactically help you get there. But getting distracted by all of the shiny, I promise, this is going to work for you and give you everything you've ever dreamed of marketing tactics that, Oh, I hate them. I hate them so much. And you're like, Oh, yeah, this is probably going to be a rant. So Allison's feeling ranty today is a good one. But getting distracted by all of those things is not going to help you get there. What it's going to do, is if it doesn't work for you is it's gonna make you feel like there's something wrong with you. There isn't. So I'm just kind of gonna put that one out there right now. There's nothing wrong with you. You're running your own race. Okay. To center. So this whole thing isn't just a total rant because I really wanted to information. Oh, and we will we absolutely will.

Jennie Wright 3:20
But there's, there's a ranty aspect to this because quite honestly, you've been doing this for 10 plus years. I've been doing this for just under 10 years. And we have seen this happen so many times, not only for ourselves, I got suckered in, you got suckered in. You know, we've had clients get suckered into this kind of stuff. It's this terrible mindset that can really, really screw with you. And it's the you know, and it's pervasive, and it's predominant, and it's predictive. I love it here. I'm going on this leg. I love

Alyson Lex 3:51
the alliteration. Keep going. Thanks. I think I hit my limit on three. It's putrid.

Jennie Wright 3:57
Yeah, it's It's all these things. But there's also the great stuff about being an entrepreneur. But these myths, we need to dispel these myths, so that you can see all the good stuff because honestly, if you're having a tough time right now, if you did a launch and it didn't work, if you're feeling all stuck, and all, you know, bent apart and feeling really down on yourself, listen to today's episode, we're going to dispel some stuff, but we're also going to give you some uplifting ideas and some strategies that you know, have helped us personally.

Alyson Lex 4:31
Yeah. Okay. So the first thing and I just saw a post the other day, and I think actually, I sent you that post. And that's what inspired this whole thing, because we were will say ranting to one another in private messenger chat.

Unknown Speaker 4:45
There was a lot of heavy typing going on

Alyson Lex 4:49
a lot of a lot of hard typing, and you could hear the angry keyboards is this idea about time and that you can Make a build a six or seven figure business in just a couple of hours a day. And it's annoying to me. Because you're telling these people who work really hard. Sometimes people who are desperate to change their situation, that with just a few hours a day, they too, can live the dream and make the big bucks. And the thing that kills me that kills me is that that's always attached to. I'll show you how if you invest in what I have to teach you.

Jennie Wright 5:33
Oh, yeah. And we actually saw this yesterday. We saw this yesterday, Elsa and I were doing some research for something upcoming. And we saw this woman who said and, you know, obviously we're gonna, like make this a little bit vague. We don't want to call anybody out. But there was a woman who is like, you know, it's time to make your six figure offers. Remember that? Mm hmm. And the person was like, here, get My six figure offers stuff. And if you know all it takes us to do ABC and XYZ, and by the way, you can buy it for $47. Right? I think it's 27 or $7, I think, yeah, it's like, wow. So you're gonna show me how to spend $100,000 to make $100,000 per gig. But I only have to pay $27 to learn how, wow, okay, um, you know, that was a bit weird. There was also the promise of time. And there was also a couple of Oh, yeah, imagine how little you have to work. If you only need one or two clients. You know what I mean? Like, it's this idea that you only need one or two clients. Yeah, to make a big for your whole year. And if you really want to grind my gears, tell me again, how I can just work two hours a day and still make a multi six figure income. Please tell me to my face, say it again and see my reaction. Because here's the reality of time.

All right, I'm going to give you a little insight into my life. Allison going to give you a little bit of insight into her hers. This is real life and yours is different. Everybody's is different. But this is me. I try every day to get up before seven. I really, really do. I want to go for a walk, I want to do yoga, but more often than not because I worked a little bit late the night before. I'm getting up just shy of eight o'clock in the morning. just shy, and I'm trying to get to the desk where I'm at right now in my office before 830 showered, you know all the things but haven't eaten breakfast yet. Okay, I get to my desk, I make sure that things are okay, I get an hour or two of work. And then I'm taking a break for you know, like a little bit of a late morning breakfast. That's just my preference. I don't want to eat too early that my stomach doesn't like that. So I'm a bit of a late breakfast eater personally, it just goes with you know who I am. After that funny enough. I'm taking a bit of a break. So the break might be for an hour it might be for two hours. It could be for 20 minutes, depending on what's going on in the day. Oftentimes, that's my time to go for a walk or get some exercise and maybe some chores, you know, things that you got to get done around the house kind of stuff, right? And then it's possibly getting right back to work for the later part of the afternoon. And then again, in the evening, I take a break sometimes for dinner. And then I usually end my night and also notice we were both working last night we were we even did a little zoom chat, or Facebook chat into the evening, right. So that's just my preference. And I do that because I work best and so does Allison and she'll tell you at quiet times of the day, right? If I could, I would get up way earlier when it's like super quiet and chill. But just working late makes that impossible. So but the the great thing is, is that I make my own schedule. There are times I take almost a full day off. I have the luxury of scheduling things when I need to pick COVID it was easy to plan an outing with my sister in law or a friend Go for a midweek, you know, afternoon movie or go to Costco in the afternoon when the crowds are low. Things like that I could totally do that weekend's I do try and kick back more. I really, really do a little bit more, you know, laksa days ago. But because of my work ethic, you'll find me still at my desk. I can't help it. I gravitate this this desk, this computer, this business has this magnetic weight on me and I can't stay away. And I'm okay with that. Some people aren't like that. But that's me.

Alyson Lex 9:34
I think what drives me crazy about all of the work two hours a day thing is that it's setting these unrealistic expectations for people in business, like if I can't build my business in two hours a day, why should I even try? Or like I said earlier, there's something wrong with me that this isn't working.

And the fact is, you can cut your working hours to two or four or whatever hours a day. If you do one of two things, and that's hire people to do the work for you, or change your expectations about how much you're going to get done and how much money you can make

Jennie Wright 10:10
easy, that's those are the only two ways they really are.

Alyson Lex 10:15
So Jenny shared her reality mine is pretty different. Because I'm different person, I'm also doing the mom thing. And I have different patterns. Alright, so I get up between four and five most days. I'm up up early can help it kind of sucks. I usually sit right down to work because the house is quiet. And I hustle for a couple of hours until my kid gets up usually 830 and do the mom thing drop them off at daycare, all that then it's back to work. It's like a flurry of work and calls and just kind of checking things off the to do list and I might have client calls or we're recording an episode or this that or the other. And then once my kid gets home, which is usually around four I'm doing the same thing again. So I absolutely stopped my work. If I'm not on a call, I stopped my work when he gets home to greet him. And that's important to me. A lot of times though, even if I'm out, I'm living with my family, we're all kind of just hanging out but not doing anything special. So I will check my phone. I will chat with people on Facebook or check threads or whatever. I'm constantly networking online. And when I can or could in person I build relationships all day. And my entire day is multitasking with that. So when I'm writing copy, or when I'm building things for the podcast, or when I'm whatever, I'm also building relationships and networking and messaging, because that's really important to my business. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And then sometimes if there's something that needs to be done, or you know, my husband's watching a TV show that I don't really care to watch, I might wander back into the office like I did last night with Jenny. And we got some stuff done. But Jenny, we probably worked until what 10 o'clock last night?

Jennie Wright 12:06
Yeah. And then I continued going till about 1130. Right?

Alyson Lex 12:11
So it's those quiet times. It's the downtime. The middle of the day for me is really good for calls. And the the light Brain Stuff. The Deep Brain Stuff. I need quiet. I need a quiet house. Me too. You know, that has What? That's what my life has been like, for the four years that my son's been alive before that I worked a lot more. That's what it takes to run a six figure service business.

Jennie Wright 12:41
Mm hmm. It absolutely does. And it all ties in sorry. That's just what it takes. Absolutely.

And this ties in really well to the next thing, which is about money. Hmm.

So we really, you really need to temper your expectations around what you're able to do. So we've had clients in the past To can't work more than five or six hours a day, you know, they're they've got things going on, or we've even had, you know, I had a client not too long ago, who was active military. And so her business was her side hustle. And she works in a pretty important place in the in the military, she's pretty high up there. You know, her side, hustle is her thing. She does it on the side, you know, she's only spending three or four hours on it a day, and then full days on like her days off or whatever. But she has to temper that around the expectation of what she can make while she's doing it. And there's myths that you can start and grow a business without any capital. Okay? There's some myths that say you need a sizable amount to get started.

I will admit full on that when I first started in the online business. I had left my corporate job, and I had a package to leave that corporate job. So I had a little bit of runway. But I didn't have huge amounts of capital. And I came from a came from a space of like my parents were entrepreneurs because they had a gas station and my dad was a mechanic, and you know, worked on the bass and my sister and I ran the gas station part. And we came from a bit of a lean, mean scrappy machine mentality of entrepreneurship. So when I definitely started, I was like, I don't want to spend a lot of money. I don't want to do all the things. But early on, six months in, I listened to I was listening to a lot of stuff. I was following a lot of people I was listening to a lot of things. And there was this person that just kept reiterating that if you join my coaching programs spend about $10,000. In coaching and services, I would learn all of the essentials, that would get me launched into a six figure business, and if I didn't do it, I would have a terrible time succeeding. And I eventually just because the business wasn't growing the way I wanted it to I got vulnerable.

Alyson Lex 14:57
Mm hmm.

Jennie Wright 14:58
And the vulnerability alone. That particular person to get me and I went for it. And it was a huge mistake. However, the other issue is that if you invest right away into like Facebook ads or advertising, you'll be an instant success. Can we just dispel that, starting with an organic reach to build your audience first, I think is incredibly important. And if you don't need go listen to episode number seven, where we talk about it in more detail, check it out. It's our you know, content storm or promotional storm even have a great download for it. And here's the thing about organic traffic and paid traffic early, early, early early on are actually anywhere in your business. If you haven't established a following, you're going to struggle with ads. Because with ads, you need to know who your ideal client is. And you need to have those people already in your mix a little bit. And if you don't, and you're trying to pay for Facebook ads or advertising in general, optimizing those ads without already having a business An audience is going to cost you more money. So you're investing a lot. I mean, if you have if you have loads of money to invest in Facebook ads or ads in general, right from the start shirt, you can absolutely succeed. But I don't know a lot of people like that.

Alyson Lex 16:16
I started my business as a freelancer. So it was a side hustle. And it was a way to make some extra money and, you know, reach some financial goals that I had. I started my business with no capital. I grew it slowly. I eventually got a website. I paid for that. I did one myself it was terrible. Then I paid for and began slowly investing. I've invested in some coaching programs, but I am proof positive that you can start a business with no capital. It also took me years. I was working for someone else for a number of those years. So but I started this Business this iteration, full time for myself in 2012. So it's been eight years that I've worked only for me straight. And in order to do that I needed things like a website. I needed things like business cards because I do in person networking. I do invest in events I go, I go to networking events or conferences. referrals are how I built my business for a long time. Now now at the point where I have a bit of a name because I've invested so much time in visibility, all organic podcast guesting being a guest expert on mastermind meetings or courses, doing cute open q&a in groups. My social presence until recently has kind of stopped,

Jennie Wright 17:43
but I've been working on it.

Alyson Lex 17:44
I've been upping my game, and that's led to more client work. But I've run Facebook ads, and they're Hard. Hard dude. I've had incredible coaching throughout my time. A lot of The most incredible coaching I got on the job working at Glaser, Kennedy, the coaching that I've invested for invested in has actually not been right for me. And I think that's some of the issue that I have with a lot of coaching programs.

Now, I don't want to say that all coaching programs are bad. All coaches are bad. I don't want anybody to think that I don't want you to invest in yourself. Because I do think it's important to have someone help you get to where you want to go. But I'm really wary of the programs that teach that one system that will absolutely work for you.

Jennie Wright 18:39
Oh, yeah.

Alyson Lex 18:40
Right. This is my super guaranteed system to making and they're just kind of teaching the same cookie cutter system to everyone instead of guiding you through making decisions for your own business. So I know Jenny that you had a group coaching program, the challenge blueprint Guess. And what I think was really special about that is you had the blueprint, right? But they filled it in the way they needed to to serve their audience their goals and their business.

Jennie Wright 19:12
Oh, yeah. And there was a lot of diversification in that because you have to build it in not one way. It's not one size fits all. I mean, we had everybody in there from service providers to spiritual right coaches, and I mean everything.

Alyson Lex 19:25
And so you tell them like, Hey, here's the framework. Now let's look at what you're doing, and personalize that framework to you. And there's differences like, okay, you don't have a ton of time to promote. So you need to spread your promotion period out a little longer, or you don't really have a huge audience. So you need to build that up. Like you really personalize it based on where they are in their business and what their goals are. And that's the kind of coaching that I want everybody listening to this to look for. Yeah, definitely. If you're in A coaching program that gives you a cookie cutter system. Don't throw it away, it's not worthless. personalize it for you. I, you know, I know that we're we're kind of stepping away from the myth about money. But I think this is really important. Because it's a way to make your investment actually deliver a positive ROI, you're gonna have to invest in your business at some point. That's a given.

Jennie Wright 20:24
Yeah, and there's other things that you've to invest in, like, let's have a brief brief conversation about technology. Yep. You cannot run an online business without investing in certain pieces of technology. If you're doing anything with an online business, you have to have an email marketing provider. There's different kinds of different levels. Okay, that's a conversation for a different day. But you have to have one and they come in all shapes and sizes from the super cheap to the super expensive. Let me tell you the rule of thumb, go with the one that is ever so slightly above where you are right now, but that has a little bit more features than you need right in this moment. and grow into it, versus getting one that is about basic, no features that you'll outgrow right away and then you'll have to move into a new system very quickly, because that's actually going to cost you money.

Alyson Lex 21:14
Yeah, so I'm just gonna put names to it right. So let's say our three choices are MailChimp Active Campaign and Infusionsoft. Sure those cover that Yep, yep, MailChimp is your beginner system. It's great. If you're really just looking for sign up to my list. And here's your thing,

Jennie Wright 21:31
maybe have a free option to start with.

Alyson Lex 21:33
I believe they do. Yep. Active Campaign is more advanced. It's not free. There's no free option. They are awesome if you have the desire to multiple lists or automations, right, multiple campaigns and some segmentation options. Infusionsoft is your most expensive of the free options. It's more of an enterprise solution with affiliates and payments and All kinds of features that I don't even know. Oh, and let me just say that that is the one that I got suckered in with within the first six months. And it's No, absolutely not. If you are new to business, do not go for Infusionsoft, which by the way is now called keep its Infusionsoft by keep but yeah, right or ontraport or mirror post, those are the those are competitors, right. It's too much,

Jennie Wright 22:25
yeah, too much too soon. And you don't need it. You also don't need to spend $10,000 on a website and you don't need to spend, you know, you don't need to go out and like right off the bat and go have a $5,000 branding shoot. And you don't need to you know, you don't need to go and have all of like the top level Click Funnels account and all the things like you don't need to invest $20,000 in your business just to get rolling. You know, I started with basically nothing, and I let the tools grow with me as I as I went. Now, if I started all over again, Right now Yeah, of course, the technology, I would still stay lean. But I would make sure that I have the technology that works best, and it's going to get me the best conversion. So I will always, always, always, always pay a little bit more for conversion ability. So let's circle back and

Alyson Lex 23:16
yeah, no, actually, you touch on something really good. So I want to talk about exactly how much I've spent. Oh, yeah. Okay. My first website, like I mentioned, I did myself so that I think I spent 50 bucks on a theme on create forest or whatever. The second version, I spent 1500 dollars for a ground up build, premium, you know, more premium theme, I wrote the copy. That's what I do. Oh, actually, I had a friend write it, but that's my dirty little secret. I didn't have to pay for copy. The second iteration of my website was when I rebranded under my own name, and I had an amazingly talented friend. Do my branding and the rebranding of my website. For me, I think I've forced him to let me pay him like 900 bucks. Okay, so you figure my website, I'm probably all in 2300 bucks. Let's just call it that. Okay. Then I've had I have Active Campaign. I pay yearly. So I think I pay no $27 a month and yearly

Jennie Wright 24:22
bill. So you got like a an earlier price and you locked it in?

Alyson Lex 24:26
Yeah, I'm, I've had it for forever. And then I have clickfunnels, which is $97 a month. Yeah. business cards, got those, you know, vistaprint, whatever. I pay to go. Again, go to events. That is usually a budget of about $3,000 a year, including event ticket travel hotel meals while I'm there. This year, not so much. proposal software, my proposal software. I've bought that off an app Sumo deal so I think I paid like 50 bucks for that. I guess The deal right now I think though it's a monthly fee,

Jennie Wright 25:02
which is what I'm paying for it,

Alyson Lex 25:04
right? I paid for zoom, because I like having premium so I don't have to worry about, well, there's three people, we can only talk for 40 minutes. I don't want to worry about that. So I pay the money. What else do I pay for? I have bought things for myself. I have client gifts that I pay for things like that, but that's extra, it's not necessary to run my business. I've purchased my hosting, you know, that's a couple hundred bucks a year. Yeah, um, my Microsoft Office Suite. You know what I mean? Like shows types of things, but we're looking at under 10 grand. Yeah, to run my business. And that is not I mean, that's not including any coaching that I've done, but those have not been very good for me. I, I get the most result when I hire a consultant and I have hired consult To help me figure out a specific problem, and I have hired people we'll talk about in a little bit with mindset. But that's what I've spent to run my business. In the service provider, Lucky variant, not doing as many products. I've thrown money into Facebook ads, they haven't worked. Yeah. So hashtag transparency, there's so much I spent to start my business.

Jennie Wright 26:24
And I know if I'm transparent on a monthly basis, I am under $1,000 a month to keep the business where I'm at and I use some premium stuff. It's well under $1,000. I'm in your eight and I, but I use some premium things that I absolutely want to have like Evernote and Dropbox and I paid for Google Drive. I pay for zoom. You know, I paid for my Microsoft suite, my email, all those kinds of things, but it's definitely under 1000. I would probably say it's probably under five And I'm talking Canadian dollars i to run the business on a monthly basis to have everything that I you know, that I use so easily. And I mean,

Alyson Lex 27:12
yeah, I paid forever Evernote, I pay for Dropbox, but their annual I don't think so. Yeah.

Jennie Wright 27:17
For you their annual I look at them annually but i did i do the math for my budgeting on a monthly basis. And then I added up on earth that I'm like, whenever it's due to the PnL girl p&l

Alyson Lex 27:28
came from that world balance.

Jennie Wright 27:32
cash account. Exactly.

So the thing I really want to call and I really want to get a little bit sassy about is the lifestyle. I'm with that for a second.

Alyson Lex 27:43
Yeah, because

Jennie Wright 27:44
I am seriously, you know, I am not off cavorting to, you know, little known Greek islands, spending thousands of dollars on tankinis and doing all the things right like I'm not on that beach. I'm not doing all those things. Don't Take a night, you know, do I try and take a vacation? Absolutely. But the lifestyle let's just call BS. There are a lot of people out there faking and baking the look and feel of their business right now. And there's always going to be that but that's by the way that's been around forever if you look at anything like mad men, right, you know, people like trying to put a front up with like a really nice house, but they're actually not doing so well. People do that for look and appearance. People have been doing it for ever. And you get it in the online world too. So have a little bit of, you know, look at things a little bit of grain of salt, because when you're looking at them, you're looking at their best self most of the time until you find somebody who's willing to show you the realness like Allison posts a picture of like her kid climbing all over her. Or, you know, just the reality. I post the reality a little bit I don't go too deep, but yeah, can we you know, we just have to look past the people who were renting houses and, you know, renting big, fancy cars and pretending That this is all their stuff to sell their next get rich course.

Alyson Lex 29:03
Not even necessarily even just the people that are pretending. Right? It's the people who they really do live a different lifestyle than we lead. And it's okay to not want that. And it's totally okay for them to have that lifestyle. I don't begrudge them their life. Exactly. It's totally okay to not necessarily want to step away from the business. One of the things that, that my husband and I have talked about, is that when we retire, because you know, we're doing the whole, like, do we have enough money to retire? I don't think I'll ever fully retire. Mm hmm. I love what I do too much. I'm not in this business to get out of this business. That makes sense. Absolutely. And so the lifestyle of running your business doesn't have to have the end goal of doing nothing while the money rolls in.

Jennie Wright 29:58
Yeah, I'm way too. Busy or wanting to be busy to have that happen?

Alyson Lex 30:03
Yeah, I want my brain to have to do some work. I mean, yeah, wrong. It's nice to take a break.

Jennie Wright 30:07
Yeah, for about 48 hours. And then I'm like, Where's the laptop?

Unknown Speaker 30:12
Where's my stuff? Where's my people? Show me?

Alyson Lex 30:15
Yeah, I remember, like, I would go on vacation and I always take in my laptop or my Chromebook or whatever. And I'll message Jenny in the morning before the boys get up. And be like, Hey, I'm doing this. Why are you working? Because I'm up and I'm bored.

Jennie Wright 30:30
Oh, yeah, exactly. Or like, just before COVID hit, I was able to take a very small vacation. Yes, but my group coaching course started literally, day one started when I was in the car on my way to my destination. And I did my first group coaching call

Alyson Lex 30:51
out of province

Jennie Wright 30:52
because I'm in Canada, and on a call whilst literally sitting in a parking lot of a coffee place. In a different province in this country, and I was just like having a group coaching call, and luckily, it was on zoom, and I didn't have to have my video on or anything. I was like, welcome to the first call for a year, you know, for the let's build Academy challenge course here's what we're gonna do it, right. And my second call was from the hotel room at my little mini vacation, and I didn't tell anybody I was on vacation, because that's not the kind of person I want to tell people like, hey, by the way, thanks for paying for my vacation. Right? That's just not my style. And quite honestly, I don't feel that way. When I work with people. I don't know. The reality, by the way, and Alison knows that I hadn't taken a vacation in six or seven years. And so I really needed that break. And it just so happened that was probably the last break that I got or would get, because COVID hit

Alyson Lex 31:48
right. It was very, very timely For me it was

Jennie Wright 31:51
it was very timely. This was early February, you know right after that. Bam. This was what was happening anyways. It was really, you know, group coaching course started while I was away and I was working and Allison gets it everybody, you know, everybody in my realm gets it but my you know, my family is like, what are you doing? Like, no, this is this is

Alyson Lex 32:11
this is not what I'm doing.

Jennie Wright 32:12
This is what I'm doing an hour out of my day to start my coaching program, not a big deal

Alyson Lex 32:17
to one of the struggles that I had, especially before I had kid was I wanted to work all the time. I wanted to It was fun for me, to passion for me. And so I did find myself not taking breaks and gravitating back to the laptop and so there is a fine line that you need to run between working all the time and not working enough. Really kind of setting a good routine for yourself. You know, Jenny and I both outlined what our days look like. And we have a routine now that routine is flexible. Of course it is That's another reason we got into business. But having that routine and kind of this, this is what my day is going to look like it does allow you to make sure that you take time for the other things. Because we build our businesses, we enjoy it, we love it, we want to do more of it. But it also has to support the life that we want. And not everybody wants the same life that Oh, okay. And, you know,

I just wanted to take a second to talk about this passive income thing. This is kind of where lifestyle and money come together. Everyone wants to talk about passive income. Passive income is not passive. I just want to really strike that phrase from our vocabularies. Passive Income does not exist, what a misnomer. Like, they talk about it, like they don't have to do anything to get the sales like they just throw a website up 10 years ago, and it's just still making them Millions. The only way passive income happens is if you own stock in something that you don't run. Yeah. Okay. The people that have passive income, they're actually have scalable income. So they can sell the same thing to more than one person using one too many marketing techniques there, but they're out there looking for new leads. They're creating content. They're developing products. They're hosting webinars. They're moderating a Facebook group. They're not sitting on the beach all the time. Now, if someone can pay me to sit on a beach and drink fruity drinks while reaching that reading, like a trashy beach novel, I'd happily take that job for about 48 hours like

Unknown Speaker 34:44
yeah, then give me my

Alyson Lex 34:46
darn laptop. And then I'm going to need something else to do. Yep. And you know, so the thing is, even if somebody is working four hours a day, this goes back to the time thing. They've got a team working 40 hour weeks, they've got a video editor or copywriter or web designer or a VA customer service rep a sales team this that the other. Yeah, of course, they can spend two to four hours a day, creating content, shooting video, shooting it off to their team and then doing whatever they want. But that's what it takes to work just a couple hours a day and have quote unquote, passive income. If you have passive income, somebody's working for it.

Jennie Wright 35:23
Love it, love it, and rent. Okay.

And the other thing is, how much money do you want to take home? Can we just talk about that for a second?

Alyson Lex 35:32
Oh, this is such a good one. If you

Jennie Wright 35:35
are parceling out your work to a team, and you're making six figures, that's like the income coming into the business. You are not taking home, that money, right? You're paying your team. You're paying your VA, your video editor, your copywriter, your web designer, your funnel builder, your administrative person, your everything. Mm hmm. So you have to understand that right. So what's it going to be now For I, I feel very fortunate that I have a lot of technical ability. I started as a VA, I could do all the jobs. When I no longer wanted to be a VA and I was transitioning, I was still doing all the jobs. But I was able to bring more money home, like more take home money as a result, because I was doing all the work. But that meant I had to work more hours. If I want to work less hours, somebody else has to take on the work, I have to hire a VA, I have to hire an admin person, I have to hire a tech person, whatever it is. And over the years, at different times, I have had to use other people to help me. You know, there's some things that are not within my technical ability part as an example, hard coding, dude can't do it. Nope. I will definitely hire that stuff out because I tried. And I lost like six hours of my time on this thing when I could hire somebody from Upwork for you know, 45 minutes or an hour and this stuff got done. Right. Worked, right. So I'm cool with that. You have to understand, like, you have to have that conversation and you have to have that conversation with your significant others if you have them, or yourself or whatever it is to determine what your okay level is, if I, you know, if I'm pulling in 10 grand a month, or I'm pulling in 1200, you know, $12,000 a month, am I willing to pay out 12 to 15 or even $3,000 a month to pay my service providers and only take home the rest of it? Right,

Alyson Lex 37:26
right. And that's the thing, when this makes sense, is when you're generating revenue that's above your goal. You can pay in order to work less sure, or when you know that the things that those service providers do will help you make more. Let's talk about that. Let's talk

Jennie Wright 37:45
about that. That makes me so happy because if people didn't do that, also, I wouldn't have a job.

Alyson Lex 37:51
That's right. We wouldn't we wouldn't have a job. Let's

Jennie Wright 37:54
talk about that because that is super cool.

You know, not everybody is a awesome coffee. Raider, like Miss Alyson Lex over there. And not, not everybody can build, you know, high converting funnel. Not everybody can do all the things not everybody can shoot a video and edit it. Like there's so many different things that we need people for. And your time is better spent on the things that you're really, really passionate about. And you're really, really good at. And if you can hire people to do the rest, do so highly recommend it.

Alyson Lex 38:23
So, transparency. I promised I would never tell anybody this. But I built the website for the System to THRIVE podcast. And I don't tell people that because I don't want people to know that I can do it because then I have clients that asked me to do it and don't want to do it. I don't do it for other people. So if you want a website built, don't call me. I did it because I was excited. Because we were mid pant and I needed something to do. They could focus my mind. That wasn't deep creative work. It was more technical work. And so I did it. I you know, we had a website I could have paid someone to do it that would have gotten done a lot faster, probably with fewer bugs. And that would have been not, but I wanted to do it. So it's okay to do that. As long as it's not to the detriment of other parts of your business. Okay, so I like to play in Canva with social media image posts is not my forte. Design, not my thing. And so it's not in the best interest of my business for me to be spending my time doing that. Because it's not the best quality product and I can rabbit hole. So I just wanted to caveat there that sometimes you can do things and you should. Sometimes you can do things and you should not say absolutely you should not. I have a lot of clients that they don't come to me to recommend. Because they can't do it, they come to me to write copy because they know it would take them too long and they are not willing to invest the time. They could write it themselves and convert just fine. They want the time saving measure.

Jennie Wright 40:14
And they also want those extra few points of conversion as well

Alyson Lex 40:17
horse and I also have clients that come to me because they've tried writing their own copy but it hasn't converted for them. Both are valid reasons to hire someone. Mm hmm. One doesn't feel they can do it and one feels they can but they know they shouldn't. Mm hmm. I kind of forgot what I was going to say next. So I'm gonna make you go

Jennie Wright 40:36
I want to talk about the mentality and the mindset

Alyson Lex 40:38
Yes, switch to mindset. That's what I was gonna say okay, because

Jennie Wright 40:42
I'm, you know, you could say I'm a mentally strong person. If I listed off the things that my trials and tribulations in life, you know, I've had a lot of crap shoveled my way. I've also had a lot of awesome things brought my way which is fantastic and I'm very grateful for but I'm stronger because of some of the crap that I have gone through. But I'm also very aware of my limitations, my abilities, and my constant need to work on all of it. I am not perfect by a long shot. I also know that I can't do things alone. I need support, I need mental support and physical support. My quote unquote love language is comfort. And you know, closeness and that kind of thing. So I am very lucky to have a very supportive partner. I have a very small yet highly awesome group of friends and family that I rely on. I have Alison, my co host and one of my great friends that honestly is on this crazy journey right along with me. And this whole venture started from a almost support style friendship. Absolutely. And without it, yeah, like it takes a village and if you cannot do this stuff alone, and I continue to have shortfalls, I continue to have you know things It happened to me in the mindset of being an entrepreneur is the elasticity. The stuff that if this if this kind of stuff, if I took these kind of hits that I've taken as an entrepreneur and I took them in corporate who, golly, that would be really, really hard. And they haven't been any easier as an entrepreneur. You know, there's been some things that have been like, wow, the doors might shut, the doors might shut the business might go under. And it's by the grace of really hard frickin work and a little bit of luck sometimes that I've gotten to where I am, it's, it's hard frickin work. Yeah, sometimes they get incredibly easily rattled.

Alyson Lex 42:34
We all do,

Jennie Wright 42:34
right. And I also, you know, I need recovery time. There are certain things that really pull it out of me as somebody who's slightly introverted. I can't do six hours of coaching calls in a day I will I'm done. I'm exhausted and I get irritable and upset and all these kinds of things. My I know my limitations and I'm like, yeah, two coaching calls three coaching calls a day, Max. I need quiet. Like, I need quiet. I need my music. Allison heard me play my music last night she left her ass off at me. But it was fun, right? And I'll be honest and say that I've absolutely struggle with mental health over the years. You know, I went through a situation back in 2010. That was incredibly traumatic. For me personally, it was a medical issue, the medical issue, ended up spilling over into my work in corporate, because I needed some time off to deal with what had happened to me, mentally and physically. And the result was, I just didn't fit into the corporate world anymore. Just didn't. And so that's how this business was born. But you know, I've experienced the things that would raise the hairs in the back of your neck, just like anybody else. And it's had an effect. It's also allowed me to be incredibly tenacious, and incredibly determined to succeed.

Alyson Lex 43:52
So we've all had things that knock us down. We've all had them. We, you know, you've mentioned mental health struggles. Hashtag right there with you. I'm very heavily medicated for depression and anxiety. And I struggle with that still. It's just what it is.

And the other thing I struggle with is what's known as the limiting beliefs. And there are a lot of people out there that are like, if you just get over this one limiting belief, or if you just overcome this one thing, holding you back with your mindset, you'll be set up for success. Guess what? I have never thought about. I used to think I was nobody I got over that. I used to think I didn't know much and I wasn't an expert. definitely got over that. I used to think that people were making fun of me while they watch my videos or listen to me talk and I went to therapy to get over that one. And I used to think XYZ and I got over like, I keep going behind each of the limiting beliefs that I got over there's another one behind Because that's part of the struggle of being entrepreneur. It's scary AF guys to put yourself out there and let people judge you for what you look like and the content that you put out and what you're wearing. I saw something the other day, and it was a video ad on Facebook. And it was this super smart Facebook friend of mine made it wasn't an ad made. It was just a post and it was a clip from a presentation she was giving on a very coveted stage. And the stuff she was saying was so smart. And all of the comments were just about her dress.

Jennie Wright 45:35
Oh my god.

Alyson Lex 45:36
Okay, now, the dress was not my style. It looked really good on her. But it was definitely not a conventional public speaker dress because she's not a conventional public speaker woman. Okay, she's an ex, a subject matter expert. She's incredible. And nobody was paying attention to the content. They were hating on her clothes. And it's scary to put yourself out into that kind of world. Mm hmm. There's the determined, like you said, the determination to say, I am terrified of this, and I'm gonna do it anyway.

Oh, yeah, that happens every day, every single day and I know firsthand from real life experience in my body, that it is 100,000 million percent easier to say, just get over and do it anyway, than it is to do it. It's easier to say that you've got to brush the haters off your back or not worry about competition or stop comparing yourself to everyone else, or step into your expertise, or any of the other cliche things that you hear. It's so much easier to say it than it is to do it. I'm an expert in my field. I have some name recognition. I've been on stages. I've been on podcast, I've launched courses. I've gotten killer testimonials. I've seen real results in the lives and businesses of my clients. And I still struggle with it. Every single day, you are not alone, which is why you've got to have I'm so ranting right now. That's why you've got to have that keep going mindset and determination. And like Jenny said, at the same time, be aware of your own limitations and your own weaknesses. I know that I suck at following through with implementation, so I hire someone to help me because it's not going to happen. I'm really good at the big idea. I'm really good at writing the copy, and then I'm kind of done. That's all I got. I know when I go to an event. I have 2.5 days before I am 100% out of charm. That's as much networking as I can do 2.5 days, so I plan to leave an event at about 2.75 days, give myself time to pack. Like, I know that so I work within my limitations. It's okay to have them where people People with limitations.

Jennie Wright 48:02
Absolutely every single person. Yep.

Alyson Lex 48:04
But this is gonna be a lifelong journey. It's not going to be this magical day you're gonna wake up and be like, Oh goody, I'm over it now I could be successful.

Jennie Wright 48:12
Yep. Thanks. I'm over my limiting belief. I'm good. I'm over

Alyson Lex 48:15
all my head trash.

Jennie Wright 48:17
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. If it hadn't been the funny thing is your head trash changes

Alyson Lex 48:22
in your business. It does. So, you know, six, eight years ago, it was Oh, who wants to hear from me who wants to hear from me? Now it's, well, there are too many places for me to go out and teach. I can't pick one. What if I pick the wrong one? I'm so mad at myself that I can't do it all. Yeah, a complete opposite head trash. But it still causes me anxiety. It still causes me frustration. It still causes me to be mad at myself or to judge myself harshly. Mm hmm. But that shows how actually I'm really excited cuz I just realized that that shows how much I've grown. I told you that the other day No, but sometimes you just have to realize it for years.

Unknown Speaker 49:03
I literally sent both work.

Jennie Wright 49:07
Thanks for realizing them live on a podcast.

Alyson Lex 49:10
Okay, yeah, sometimes it just takes a couple extra days. Oh,

Jennie Wright 49:16
God. Okay, so have we told you enough about the myths these gurus put out these and some you know what we got to say there are some really good people out there that you can follow and they're just like,

Alyson Lex 49:26
amazing. This is not everybody

Jennie Wright 49:28
know, you know, but

we do put people on a pedestal and we really need to be careful when we do. Be careful the people that you follow and the you know, do all the things and stuff like that. Just be really careful there. You know, there's been a couple people I've thrown on a pedestal and realize later that it was you know, made of straw kind of thing and it's fallen apart. But some people are really great to listen to. And some people are really great to listen to for right now. And eventually you'll grow them and that's okay. A couple things that you can do that are going to help so we don't want to leave you with just like an empty feeling. At the end of this incredibly long podcast, thanks for hanging out.

Alyson Lex 50:04
Right.

Jennie Wright 50:06
Thanks for being along for our journey today.

Alyson Lex 50:09
Journey of self realization right? So yeah, my biggest thing is don't compare their your day one to their day, whatever. It's not even close to the same. And what's more, is your day whatever. Let's just say it's 1000 right there day thousand is not the same as your day one and your day thousand is not the same as their day thousand because you're on different paths. Like if you take away nothing else from this rant, it's not for me.

Jennie Wright 50:44
Absolutely. The other one is the if you build it, they will come fallacy drives me bananas. You know, you can spend 5000 10,000 $15,000 in a website if you want, but unless you build out your traffic channels, nobody's gonna see it. It's not like you build it into the internet. it blesses you with the right traffic like I've ordained here yet like glitter, no glitter, bomb your website with the right people, Congratulations, you now make six figures. If you go, it doesn't work like that. So you know, build it, but then you have to put in the work or find the people to do the work for you to actually attract your ideal client to

Alyson Lex 51:20
another thing. You know, we've talked a lot about having a website and this is something that a mistake that I see a lot of people make is they don't necessarily have a website or landing page or funnel or a way to capture leads, they just kind of have all their eggs in one online basket. Hmm. So they have an incredible Instagram, or YouTube or Facebook following but they don't have anything else. And if something changes, you don't really have a six figure business. No. So diversify. Right, maximize your content and your efforts in ways that will get you leads from different sources. I mentioned that My business was largely built on referrals. And a few years ago, I realized how scary that is. Because if my referrals dry up soon as my business

Jennie Wright 52:08
that happened to me, I had a client that was referring that referred like 18 clients to me. And then that client closed their business. Yep. And so by by when all the referrals, it was scary. So yeah, and to that end, this plays as well. It's the keep your head on a bit of a swivel. So the online world moves faster than the corporate world. Yep, it moves at a faster pace by a huge longshot, and you need to be agile to move with it. So today, the darling is Instagram tomorrow, it's tic Tock a week from now Who the heck knows. But, you know, you still have to be very agile like girl, I did not want to do Instagram. I did not want to do it. But I know that my ideal client is on there and we even had proof positive by talking to somebody who's actually going to appear on the podcast.

Alyson Lex 52:57
So excited for that one.

Jennie Wright 52:58
Me to that changed you know that when I but you know my partner's been harping on it as well for years get on Instagram get and I've been like, oh man I don't need Instagram Instagrams not for me. But now I'm like, Yeah, I do it, right. So I have to be agile, I have to go with what's working and so to you

Alyson Lex 53:16
at the same time, kind of the other side of that same token, is I don't want you to focus on the super shiny strategies either that are going to just keep you distracted. Learn the principles, right? The principles of Instagram, and Facebook and tik tok and whatever are the same as far as building a following delivering content, they love engaging with them the appropriate way for the channel, that sort of thing. And those are the principles. Now the tactics for that channel may change, right engagement on Instagram and engagement on Facebook and engagement on tik tok and on YouTube and Pinterest. They all look different Those are the strategies and you should learn those for any platform you're going to use to drive traffic. Understand the basic principles of meeting your people where they are serving them in a good way, creating a community creating engagement, being an expert showing up consistently, all of those base things that you need to do no matter where you are. And then when the new thing comes along, you're already prepared to leverage it. Because you have a system in place, and you have the content and the community and all of that as those principles. I hope that made sense. That's okay. I mentioned it before. I'm going to say it again. Understand that it's your business and it's your journey. Find people to support you in that. Don't necessarily follow one person and do everything that he or she says, really look at things critically. Understand how to incorporate them for yourself. Jenny and I do this all the time. I sent her a screenshot yesterday, of a post that like a lash consultant did. I was like, look at this, I really like this post, how can we use this style or idea in our business? It wasn't let's copy the text and do it. It was how can we be inspired by this? How can we customize this for what we want to achieve? So think critically, when you invest in things, read things, hear things, even everything we say on this podcast, think critically about how it applies to you and yourself and your goals.

Jennie Wright 55:36
Absolutely. At the same time, you don't want to follow so many people as you get overwhelmed with competing strategies, and try and do all the things don't follow 50 people and say well, so and so said to do this, but someone said to do that, and then so and so said to do this, but what do I do? Because you'll never do anything. Right? Right. And you know what I like to do, it's okay and this is how this is funny. This is how I cook. This is how I bake And I did it last night, I will look at two or three different recipes for approximately the same thing. Mm hmm. And I will look at them critically and be like, Okay, well, I don't want that ingredient because I don't really like that ingredient. But I really like that ingredient. But I like the recipe from over here. And so I'll incorporate a couple of them with my know how of the fact of you know, it's trial and error and hopefully it'll work out if it doesn't, it'll be really cool experiment. And that also applies to how I look at marketing and how I look at the business like I will. I will follow and watch and see what people are doing. But I will also pull out certain things to try but not all the things.

Alyson Lex 56:42
I hate onions. I hate them. I don't mind the flavor. For me. It's the texture, the consistency. If I bite into an onion during the meal, I am no longer hungry and I'm physically Oh, that's how that's how deep my onion. Hate goes there. therapy for that. Yeah, no, I'm good. The recipes that you find, I'm gonna say 99.98% of them have onions in it. And most of the time, it's for flavor. I get that. So I have two options. I have onion powder, or I cut like a real onion up, but really big when I'm cooking a sauce or something so I can get the flavor. And then I just scooped the onions out. So I don't have the texture. I take what I know, does not work for me. And I figure out how to get something similar. Without the part that doesn't work. Yep, we all do it. I'm sure right now you can think of something that you do. Where you edit something in your life. Do the same thing in your business, and

Jennie Wright 57:51
you've probably listened if you've made it this far. In this episode, you've probably heard some stuff that you're like, Yeah, I like that. No, I don't like that. This I like this I don't like and that's cool. How it works.

Alyson Lex 58:01
And lastly, again, it's okay to outgrow the people that you follow. There's a sense of guilt, I think, because we have loyalty to people that have helped us. It's okay that their strategies and their techniques and their principles and what they teach no longer work for you. They may have been right for you at some point in your business and they aren't now. Find someone who is don't stick with someone out of a misguided sense of loyalty.

Jennie Wright 58:26
Oh, heck No. Absolutely not. Nope, nope, nope. That that'll keep you that'll keep you stuck in the same spot. Absolutely. And if you want to get a couple more strategies on how to actually make some of the stuff that we've been talking about work for you. Also. Now I would love for you to check out our online entrepreneur reality checklist, the realness of being an online entrepreneur. A couple things that you can go through to actually help you navigate this. You can grab it at System to thrive.com, forward slash 12. That's the numeral 12 and you can Grab that. Thanks for listening. We'll be back again really soon answering another big question. Thanks again for watching or listening to this podcast. We hope we've answered some of your big questions today.

Alyson Lex 59:13
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast anywhere you're listening and leave us a review. Also, make sure you've checked out the thrive collaborative podcast community, our Facebook group for listeners and entrepreneurs. Find us on Facebook or online at System to thrive.com