#308: The Truth About Blogging Success: Hard Work and Risks

As the host of the Blogger Genius Podcast, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Faith Mariah, a no-BS online business strategist and coach. And in this episode, we get real!

The Power of Selling Digital Products and Services

But before I launch into talking about the episode, I want to share one of the key strategies I recommend you implement to set yourself apart in 2024.

This is to sell your own digital products and services. To make this happen easily, check out MiloTreeCart, the tech tool we built that allows bloggers to set up and sell unlimited memberships, digital downloads, workshops, and coaching in less than ten minutes.

We are offer MiloTree Cart for a one-time lifetime deal of $349 with no recurring fees. We also have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk in trying it.

The Journey of Faith Mariah

Back to today’s episode, Faith shared her journey of starting a mental health blog and growing it into her first full-time income. She later transitioned into coaching other entrepreneurs, emphasizing the importance of simplicity and focus in business strategies. She believes in a good system for selling products and consistent content creation. Her program focuses on 90-day planning and teaching a simple business strategy that is sustainable and prevents burnout.

Show Notes:

• MiloTreeCart
• Personality Quiz: What Digital Product Should I Create?
• MiloTree Pop-Up App
• Faith Mariah
• Join My Blogger Genius Email List
• Catch My Party
• Become a Blogger Genius Facebook Group
• MiloTreeCart Affiliate Program
• All Blogger Genius Podcast Episodes

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The Importance of Starting Small

I agreed with Faith’s approach and shared my experience with clients who have grandiose ideas for their businesses but lack a solid foundation. I advise them to start small and focus on getting customers before investing in complicated technology or optimizing content. It’s crucial to prove the concept and generate revenue before expanding and optimizing.

Tracking Time and Diversifying Income

Faith added that tracking time and identifying revenue-generating activities are crucial. She advises bloggers to find their leverage points and focus on activities that directly contribute to making money. She also suggests diversifying income streams to avoid relying solely on platforms like Google or social media algorithms.

The Value of Simplicity and Focus

Both Faith and I stress the importance of staying focused and not getting overwhelmed by trying to do too much too soon. We recommend simplicity, a simple offer, and a simple way of selling it. Faith highlights the need for a standout offer and advises against spreading oneself too thin with multiple offers.

The Power of Your Brain and Multiple Leads

Faith also discussed the importance of having multiple leads and the value of your brain as an entrepreneur. She emphasizes that all money is created from ideas generated by your brain, making it your most valuable asset. When coaching people, Faith encourages them to think in terms of leads, which can be potential customers or visitors to their blog generating ad revenue.

The Role of Short-Form Video Content

Currently, Faith sees short-form video content platforms like Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest as effective sources for generating leads. She shared an example of someone in her mastermind who went viral on Reels and gained 5,000 email subscribers in just two weeks.

Rising Above the Noise

Faith discusses rising above the noise and gaining engagement on social media. She acknowledges that it takes time and perseverance, referring to the initial stage as “the suck” where you may feel like you’re talking to no one. However, she emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistency.

The Challenges and Realities of Building a Career Online

Faith also discusses the challenges and realities of building a career online. She emphasizes the importance of trying new things and being willing to make mistakes in front of others. She shares her own experience of organizing her first online summit, which had its fair share of technical issues and frustrations. However, she believes that being a beginner and facing difficulties is a natural part of the process.

The Value of Condensing Information and Expertise

Faith discusses the value of condensing information and expertise into a faster and more accessible format for people. She emphasizes the importance of not having to spend excessive time and effort on researching and reading books, as she has already done that for her students.

Delivering High-Value Results

Faith encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to focus on delivering high-value results that people are willing to pay for. She advises individuals to analyze their chosen niche or industry and identify what people are already paying a lot of money for, and then strive to become exceptionally good at delivering those results.

Conclusion

Faith and I emphasize the importance of simplicity, focus, and diversification in building sustainable businesses.

Other related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes you’ll enjoy:

• Secret Truths About Selling – Part 1 (Why Is It So Uncomfortable?) with Jillian Leslie
• Secret Truths About Selling – Part 2 (Insider Tips on 6 Best Ways to Sell) with Jillian Leslie
• Secret Truths About Selling – Part 3 (Unlocking the Psychology of Selling) with Jillian Leslie
• Secret Truths About Selling – Part 4 (Why Your Customer Journey Is SO Important) with Jillian Leslie

A Final Word About MiloTreeCart

Before we wrap up, I’d like to mention MiloTreeCart again, the platform we built to help bloggers, online entrepreneurs, and coaches to sell digital products. With the holidays coming up, it’s a great opportunity to make money. Sign up for MiloTreeCart with a one-time payment or three payment option. We also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee and a bonus coaching call with me to develop your 2024 digital product strategy.

Transcript:

Jillian Leslie (00:00:00) – Hi, I’m Jillian, welcome to a brand new episode of The Blogger Genius Podcast. But before I launch in, I have a question for you. How are you planning to grow your income in 2024? With competition from AI content and ad revenue potentially declining due to the phase out of third party cookies? My advice it’s time to pivot by selling your own digital products and services to your audience. And this is where my literary cart comes in. Imagine setting up unlimited memberships, digital downloads, workshops, coaching, and many courses in less than ten minutes. MiloTreeCart isn’t just another tech tool, it’s the easiest you’ve ever used with real people behind it ready to help. And here’s the best part. For our first thousand, VIP customers were offering mileage regard for a one time lifetime deal of just 349 no recurring fees, and our customers often find it pays for itself after their first product launch. Then we’re going to a traditional subscription model. So get it now. Plus, we’re all about trust, so we offer a 30 day, no questions asked money back guarantee.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:12) – There’s absolutely no risk in giving it a try. Ready to explode your income in 2024? Visit Military.com and grab this exclusive offer. And here is a bonus purchase by the end of December, and I will include a lifetime MiloTree Pop-Up Account worth $250 to help you grow your followers on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and your email list. This bonus is essential for growing your audience in 2024, so don’t forget you have the power to turn your passion into profit. Pause this episode, head over to Military.com and become one of our VIPs.

Announcer (00:01:59) – Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast, brought to you by Milo Tree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:06) – Hello friends, it’s Jillian. I am very, very excited to bring you today’s episode. I am interviewing my friend Faith Mariah and I love what she calls herself the no BS Online Business Strategist. This episode is filled with no BS and faith. While she teaches the basics of business building, she does it through a different lens. She does it through the lens of mindset, of things like regulating your nervous system in order to show up.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:42) – So yes, we talk about things like needing multiple ways for people to find you multiple income streams. But she also gets very real about how this building is hard. But she uses these great analogies, like, you wouldn’t go to medical school and think it was going to be easy. Why should this be easy? Plus, she talks about the suck, which is like when you’re trying stuff and nothing is working. How do you get yourself through that? I think 2024 is going to bring a lot of change. I therefore think this is the perfect episode to get you into the mindset for how to not only deal with it, but how to thrive in it. So without further delay, here is my interview with Faith Mariah. Faith. Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast.

Faith Mariah (00:03:35) – I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. This has been in the works a long time. Very proud of us for making it happen. It’s like two busy ladies. Like, absolutely, we did it.

Faith Mariah (00:03:46) – We’re here, we’re recording, and I’m very excited.

Jillian Leslie (00:03:48) – Yes. Okay, so for you, because we were just talking about the fact that we’ve been building businesses online for a long time, and we’ve seen lots of things, lots of trends, and we’re going to talk about that. But first for people, I know that there are a lot of people in my audience who are fans of yours. For people who don’t know you, how did you get started? Kind of what inspired you and where are you now?

Faith Mariah (00:04:13) – I was inspired by a 9 to 5 job that I hated, and I think that’s probably true for a lot of us entrepreneurs. Right? So I used to work as a wilderness counselor, and I kind of had this job traveling all over the country, backpacking, having lots of adventures. But I was always very, very broke. And I kind of felt like a loser, like because I was almost 30 years old, had no savings, I had no money, I had like nothing.

Faith Mariah (00:04:39) – I had gotten a master’s degree when I was younger. And so I was like looking at my friends in these 9 to 5 jobs. And I was like, oh, they’re like successful. And I’m like this, this vagabond loser that has like nothing. And so I went and got a 9 to 5 job and I was like, I’ve done it. Now I am one of the successful ones. And I worked there for like three days and I was like, you guys have been doing this the whole time. This is awful. It’s like, right? It was very like, sit your butt at your desk. 9 to 5 fluorescent lights, no windows. Like, you know, be on time after your lunch break. Like, get your butt time in. Like, it was very much one of those kind of jobs that I was just like, this is awful. Like, this is what everyone has been doing this whole time. And so I was like, this is just not going to work for me.

Faith Mariah (00:05:21) – And I launched a mental health blog, I scaled that, I grew that email list to over 40,000 people all organically before I ever became a business coach, before I was ever talking about business strategies, I was doing marketing for my mental health blog, and that was my first business and my first full time income. I left my 9 to 5 job. I launched the blog in January, matched my salary. By October of that year, I left my job and I’ve been online ever since. That was about seven years ago. So that’s kind of like, you know, the short version.

Jillian Leslie (00:05:54) – And then when did you segue into coaching other predominantly female entrepreneurs?

Faith Mariah (00:06:01) – Well, I’m a huge nerd, and so I when I get really interested in something, I just study everything. And I got really interested in marketing and like learning everything about marketing, learning everything about messaging, learning all these online platforms. It was so fascinating to me. And when I left my job and I started making money, there’s a lot of people that start kind of coming out of the woodwork being like, you’re making money online, like you’re making this much money.

Faith Mariah (00:06:26) – Like, I’ve been doing this for years. Like, how are you making money? Like, how are you getting all this to work? People just started asking me questions, and I just love helping people. So I ended up making a free Facebook group. It was free for years. I had no intention of monetizing it. I was just like, I was like getting DMs. So I just was like, hey, can you go in the Facebook group and ask? And then I’ll, I’ll do a video and I’ll talk about this. And because I love talking about this stuff, and that way I can kind of help everybody at once instead of all of you being in the DMs. And that group ended up just growing and growing because people were telling their friends I wasn’t trying to do anymore. So like, I wish I could be like, this was my genius marketing strategy to do this pivot. But I just love talking about business. I made a Facebook group, I was talking about business, and people shared it.

Faith Mariah (00:07:08) – And then I launched a mastermind, and I kind of thought, I don’t know if anybody’s going to buy this. I remember telling my assistant, like, I don’t know if this is going to work like it was. It was just kind of like a group. I wanted to do a support group for entrepreneurs where we could talk about business and we could build our businesses together. And I opened, I think, 20 spots, and they sold out in like 30 minutes. And I was like shocked. I didn’t know if anybody was going to join. And I was like, oh. And my assistant was like, yeah, you have all these people in this Facebook group that like, love your stuff. Like they would definitely buy like business help from you. And I was like, oh. And so that was kind of the pivot, I guess, where I started kind of being like, okay, well, maybe this will be I kind of thought it was going to be a smaller revenue stream, but it just took off so fast and grew so much that it just greatly outpaced my other site, and I ended up selling it.

Jillian Leslie (00:08:00) – Wow. And how many years ago was this?

Faith Mariah (00:08:03) – It was 2020, it would have been like March of 2020 when I really went all like really started doing that pivot and it became a pretty significant revenue stream. I still have the mastermind. I mean, it’s a lot more than it was then, but I still have the same offer. Okay, selling this all time.

Jillian Leslie (00:08:20) – So you also but is that your coaching group? You also have a coaching group.

Faith Mariah (00:08:24) – Yeah. Yeah. So it’s called the Becoming Boss Mastermind, which is confusing for people. I wish I had not named it that, but let’s call the becoming Boss Mastermind, and it’s a group coaching program. And so we have 4 to 6 probably live calls every week in the group. And so we’re doing business retreats. We’re doing co-working, I’m coaching people on zoom. We’re doing Q&A. My team is coaching in there. They get access to my BI financial advisor coaches in there, they get access to a copywriter. We have that coaches in there.

Faith Mariah (00:08:57) – And it’s kind of like the bridge. I felt like between people that know they need support and know they need access to kind of people ahead of them, but they’re not making money to pay for a one on one coach or pay thousands of dollars for coaching. And so this is a way for people to get support, get their questions answered, get community. So they’re not by themselves like have somewhere to go in their stock, um, and not pay, you know, five grand for it. It’s 1000 for the whole year, right. And it’s all included.

Jillian Leslie (00:09:26) – So let’s talk about so give me a typical person who is drawn to your coaching group where you provide the most value, where you can help them really either turn on revenue streams or accelerate their business. Like what would that person look like?

Faith Mariah (00:09:45) – The people, well, we have all levels in there that do really well. We definitely have people that come in that are brand new, and I think just being around people further ahead helps them see where they’re going very clearly.

Faith Mariah (00:09:55) – And we have people in there making over ten months. So we have a big range. I would say the people that really come in and get the highest ROI, like get the most bang for their buck. They have a business, they have a good product, but they don’t have a good system for selling it. They’re getting new people to find them, but it’s maybe not consistent and they’re putting out content, but it’s not strategic. And so they’ve kind of got all these random pieces. And what my, my program is really good at is we do 90 day planning and I teach you a very simple business strategy. I’m like, your strategy should always be extremely simple. People want to make all these complicated strategies. And I’m like, they’re not sustainable. It’s the fastest way to burn out, to do stop, start, to make sure you don’t follow through. Right. You’re much better off doing a half assed launch or a very easy launch, um, than doing some complicated strategy that totally overwhelms you where you have a thousand pieces and like all this stuff, you’re never going to want to launch again, and you probably won’t even finish it.

Faith Mariah (00:10:55) – To be honest.

Jillian Leslie (00:10:56) – It’s funny. I feel like you are preaching to the choir. People come to me and they have these grandiose ideas of what their membership is going to look like, and it’s going to have a vault, and it’s going to have all of these handouts and videos and whatever. And I go, go get three people to join your membership. Then let’s talk about all these grandiose things you are planning, usually involving super complicated technology, where somehow, magically you’re going to build this. And like it was funny today, I.

Faith Mariah (00:11:30) – Also like be able to afford it. Right? It’s like you have to be able to pay for it. I’m like, don’t invest in tech you can’t afford.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:36) – Absolutely, or don’t buy tech for that future vision. I need to have the most expensive software in order to start this. And it’s so funny. Some a woman who, um. Who just bought my luxury cart. Uh, I say do b minus work always. Which is like better than average, but doable.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:57) – And she says she sends me her thing and says, uh, so I did B minus work, but now I’m going to move on to B plus and A minus work. And I said, oh no, no, no. Like you get customers until you have proven your concept. Do not start optimizing your content like or like.

Faith Mariah (00:12:16) – Spending all this time making. I’m doing a training about social media this week, so this is just in my brain because I just finished outlining my workshop. But spending hours like shooting a reel when you don’t have any followers, it’s like nobody’s going to see it. Exactly. You’re much better just making 50 bad ones and like starting to get practice right and like solving the problems that you have for the business you have now. A lot of people see people that have like, I have 200 people in my membership, right? My coaching program membership. And people see that and they want to like, do the things I’m doing and do the strategies I’m doing. But I’m like, but I have an email list with 10,000 people.

Faith Mariah (00:12:54) – I have an Instagram with 16,000 people. I’ve been online for seven years. I have a reputation. I built in this space. I have a network of people that know. Me that I collaborate with regularly, like you’re not in the same season of business as me. And I’m not saying that that I’m like better than them or something. I’m saying we need different strategies. And so if you have a baby business, if you’re under six figures, you need to be doing baby business strategies. And I agree with you. Like simple tech, a simple offer, a simple way of selling it, a simple way of getting leads and only focusing. You’ve got to be like laser focus. When you’re small and you have a team, you do not need to be repurposing and running around and like trying to be everywhere. I’m like like one problem for one customer on one platform selling like one really, really good signature offer if you want to have some other low ticket things here and there. But we really are like, you’ve got to have something really, really good to sell.

Faith Mariah (00:13:47) – And it takes time and effort to make something that can stand out in a space. Right. And if you’re selling all these different offers, I feel like sometimes people miss out on an opportunity to have an offer that’s special. Right. And so yeah, I’m like simplicity, like simplicity. I’m like, when you want to have all these different businesses and all these different strategies, you get a team, you can do whatever you want. But I’m always like, I tell my people, like, just stay with me till six figures. Just stay focused.

Jillian Leslie (00:14:13) – Absolutely. So let’s talk about that journey. Let’s say I’m a blogger, right? Okay. And that’s where I’ve started. And I liked let’s say I’m a food blogger. I like, you know, making food and stuff, but I’m not really able to monetize my vision is I’m going to get into Mediavine one day and I come to you and I say, like, I’m not making a lot of money, but I’m working really hard.

Jillian Leslie (00:14:36) – Can you help me? And in today’s climate right now, because you and I were talking before I pressed record that things are shifting, nobody knows. Uh, Google just came out with their update and a lot of people got hurt by it. Like, what do you say to that person who’s working harder than you would expect? They’d be making more money given how hard they work. What do you say to her? Because it’s typically a woman.

Faith Mariah (00:15:05) – There’s a couple things. Like, first of all, I tell my group, we just did a whole like little spiel about this in my mastermind, but I’m like, you need to track your time as far as, like, what are you spending your time doing and what are you working hard doing? And what are the revenue generating activities like? One of the really important things I think for people to understand is you want to figure out where your leverage points are in your business, and those are if I do more of this activity, I make more money, right? And it’s not always that direct.

Faith Mariah (00:15:34) – But if you’ve been doing this a while, there probably are some things. So for me it’s like, I know if we send more emails, we make more money, right? I don’t necessarily have that correlation on Instagram where if I just post more on Instagram, it equals more money in my bank account. So if I’m busy or the team is busy or somebody’s sick or somebody’s down, the first thing we do is stop posting on Instagram because I know where our money comes from and where our revenue generating activities are. Right? And so if I had to get lean, if there was something happen, and let’s say I had to let my team go, I would just be really, really doubling down on revenue generating activities. So the first thing is like, if you’re working hard to me, I’m always very curious about what does that mean? And like, what are you spending your time doing and what are your revenue generating activities? The other thing I think is getting multiple streams of revenue coming in, because you don’t want all of your eggs in the Google algorithm mediavine basket, you just don’t.

Faith Mariah (00:16:25) – Right. And so to make these businesses sustainable, I talk about building sustainable businesses in an environment that’s inherently unstable.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:33) – That’s a good one. I love that.

Faith Mariah (00:16:35) – The internet is inherently unstable. The strategies that me and my team are doing right now that are working, I fully expect not to work a year from now, and it might even speed up, to be honest, with ChatGPT. And the AI stuff I think is potentially going to accelerate that. So you could even say nine months, six months. The strategies that we are doing will not work, and I just don’t think that’s a problem. I’m like, good, I’m an innovator. I figure things out. It’s not a problem for me and it’s less competition. So I’m like, good. Like I hope it gets harder. Like that’s my thought about it. You guys can borrow that if you want. Otherwise it’s like very easy. It’s really easy to like lay down and go into victim mode right about like, oh, poor me.

Faith Mariah (00:17:16) – My brain was so dramatic, right? I’m a mindset coach. We talk a lot about dramatic human brains. Our human brains love to be like, poor me. Like, I worked so hard and like, how dare Google do this to me?

Jillian Leslie (00:17:27) – Google hates me, Google hates me.

Faith Mariah (00:17:30) – Hates me personally, and I’m laughing. But this is what we all do, right? This is just like human brain stuff. But I’m always like, you know, I let my brain have those moments and then I’m like, no, we’re getting back in this game. I’m like, problems don’t exist without solutions. We’re figuring this out. And so the way I teach people to have stability in an environment that’s inherently unstable is like multiple legion. So you want to eventually have multiple ways people are finding you. So that way if Google dings you or Instagram takes your account down or Facebook deletes your group or what? Never happens. You still have customers coming in at other places, and you also want to have multiple streams of revenue, right? So we’ve got multiple ways customers are finding us and we’ve got multiple streams of revenue.

Faith Mariah (00:18:13) – Meaning I’m not having all my eggs in the ad bucket. Is that a good analogy? I like that I’m not having everything in all in with the ads. I’m also selling my own products, maybe doing some affiliate launches, maybe I have some tripwire set up and some stuff in my welcome funnels. Maybe I have, um, some high ticket coaching I offer a couple times of year. Maybe I have a group program I run a couple times a year. Like we got to start looking at diversifying our income. Maybe you have templates. There’s lots of different ways to make money online, but you want to build those those systems out before the algorithm strikes you or something happens and takes that away. It’s a lot easier to make money when you aren’t desperate for money. And it’s it’s one of the hardest things about entrepreneurship. But it’s a lot easier to add more revenue streams when you’re up, when you’re not worried about bills, when everything’s taken care of, when you’re winning. Like, that’s the best time to add revenue streams, right? What happens a lot of times as people get struck by the algorithm or what they’re doing, stops working, and then they panic.

Faith Mariah (00:19:17) – And it’s very hard. I always say, like, genius ideas aren’t created in the climate of like, oh my God, what’s going to happen?

Jillian Leslie (00:19:25) – Yeah, yeah.

Faith Mariah (00:19:26) – And scarcity overwhelm, scarcity. That’s not a climate for genius ideas. And a lot of this entrepreneurship requires like I’m always like all money is created like from ideas from your brain. Your brain is like your most valuable asset as an entrepreneur. So all money is created by value. All values created with your brain.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:46) – Love that. Where do you see when you are coaching people? You say you need multiple leads and I like that you’re using the term leads because I don’t think people think that way. Like leads. Our potential customers leads are also visitors to your blog, making you ad revenue. But it’s thinking in terms of leads. So when you go, you need multiple leads. Right now, where are you seeing the top three sources for leads?

Faith Mariah (00:20:12) – And I’ll say like two if you’re just starting, just get one stream of leads.

Faith Mariah (00:20:15) – Right. But eventually if you want to do this for ten, 20, 30 years, like I’m talking about helping people build businesses that are going to support them, hopefully forever. Right. And so if I want to do that and I’m serious about that, we have to look at what are the things they need in place eventually when you. So when you’re starting just get one stream of leads to be working. If you don’t have one stream of leads working, don’t be going and adding other things. But the things that we’re seeing right now that are working for people are the short form video content still. So we just had someone in my mastermind go viral on reels. She got like 5000 email subscribers in like two weeks or something for free, which is just insane, right? I mean, so we’re still seeing we were seeing it slow down a little bit, but I’m still seeing my students getting results reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts, the Pinterest ideas like those short form video content platforms. If I were just starting out from nothing that I would be posting on those things nonstop like that would be my strategy would just to be go three months and just crank out as much content as I can and get a chunk of people following me so I can validate my ideas and start building some revenue coming into the business.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:29) – I want to take a short break to say that my goal with this podcast is for you to learn from me, from other experts, on how to accelerate your business without having to learn the lessons the hard way. And this is why, if you are thinking about selling digital products in 2024, which I recommend you do as a way to diversify your income, get my checklist on the ten big mistakes I see people make selling Digital products. So in order to get this, just go to Military.com. Slash mistakes, learn from the people who have gone before you so that you can accelerate your business again. military.com/mistakes. And now back to the show. What would be your piece of advice for rising above the noise.

Faith Mariah (00:22:28) – As far as like getting.

Jillian Leslie (00:22:29) – It like you’re posting, you’re posting, you’re not seeing engagement or little bits of engagement. How do you and I know going viral is like lightning.

Faith Mariah (00:22:40) – But I think a lot of it a lot of it is time though, right? So like a lot of it, I always call I call that stage like the suck where it’s like you’ve talked and you go and you talk to no one.

Faith Mariah (00:22:49) – And like, we’ve all been there, like we’ve I sent emails when I only had five subscribers. Like, I suppose I used to post on Snapchat before all this short form video to nobody watching them. Right? I had nobody on my Instagram. Nobody reading my blog like that is a stage of business. It’s just one season, and the most important thing is to keep your mindset right so that you can get through that season. The way I teach people to think about it is like the stuff that you’re doing now like that should be getting your results like a year from now, like you’ll start seeing a return on on the stuff you’re doing now, a year from now, we very rarely see like an instant return on things. A lot of the things that I’m testing and the team is testing and we’re looking at now, will be stuff. You guys see us get really big results from like a year out, not next week. Right. And and I think a lot of it is longevity of like, can you keep your brain in line long enough to stay in the game?

Jillian Leslie (00:23:43) – I like that.

Jillian Leslie (00:23:44) – And and I would say too, it’s putting stuff out, seeing where you’re getting even the littlest bit of connection and then doubling down on that, like learning not just spray and pray, but okay, I’m going to spray and pray at the beginning, and then I’m going to go, whoa. This messaging seems to somehow.

Faith Mariah (00:24:03) – Definitely.

Jillian Leslie (00:24:04) – Connect. So what if I do something similar to what’s working or what I see even a little bit and leaning that way?

Faith Mariah (00:24:13) – Yeah, and we teach people to do this in my this is the process we follow more or less like in my mastermind is like, you make a plan, you execute it for 90 days, you look at the data and then you take as many lessons as you can from the data you have. The data doesn’t necessarily tell a whole story, right. It’s like you kind of have to put your brain about like, why did this one do well, why are this this my top performing post? Right. And so if you were in my mastermind, you would make a 90 day plan.

Faith Mariah (00:24:39) – That’s like, I’m gonna work on TikTok and reels and growing a platform there, right? And then you would make a plan about how many times you’re going to post what thoughts you need to think. You’re like belief plan or whatever about it. You would execute. And then you look at that data and you make a new plan. Right. And so then that’s when you would start looking at. But you have to have the analytics to look at. A lot of times I see people that have not been posting at all, and they’re trying to make content plans. They’re trying to figure out their content pillars, they’re trying to figure out their marketing. And I’m like, you need to get your nervous system regulated to being seen, because being on social media is a weird it’s weird, right? It just is. And most of us feel cringey and embarrassed and stressed and whatever. Like, I think we all have experienced that. You got to regulate your nervous system to be used to that, so that it’s sustainable for you to post over a long period of time, and you’ve got to build the habit of picking up your phone and talking into your phone every day.

Faith Mariah (00:25:36) – It feels weird if you haven’t done it. And I’m like, if you’re just starting, just do that right. And then as you’re doing that, you’re also doing what you’re saying, where you’re building enough stuff, where you’re getting some data, right. It’s like eventually once you have 100 posts, go back and be like, what are my top three? Why? Like, was there a topic? Was it the way it was shot? Is there, is there? Oh, these all have music like these all have texts like what is the commonality here? And then you test it. Right. But you have to be willing to go get that data. And I tell people like, you’ve got to be willing to feel negative emotions in your body. It’s not going to feel good, right? You’re probably going to feel stupid half the time. And then when you do finally think you know what you’re doing, you’ll get a bunch of haters that will take you down a notch, and you’ll still probably have negative feelings in your body, right? So you’ve got to be willing to feel negative feelings in your body, um, for as long as it takes to get the result.

Faith Mariah (00:26:31) – And eventually you’ll have that habit of posting so you can get the data and then you’re like, ready to win, right? Because it’s like you’re just creating stuff, looking at the data and adjusting. And that’s really where I like to see people is like in a groove of like coming up with ideas, testing them, looking at the data, making their next plan. Right. That’s really where I like to keep my students.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:56) – But what I like about what you’re saying is back it up even one step further, which is getting yourself, your mind in the game, understanding it’s awkward and weird for everybody. I just did a solo podcast episode about selling, and the whole concept is it is weird. It is awkward. You think it, you know, magically faith that you can sell and it’s not weird for you. It’s weird for everybody. And just normalizing that so that asking somebody for money is not an easy thing to do. So let’s all recognize that, okay. Now how do we deal with that? Because at the end of the day, if I’m not willing to sell, I make no money.

Faith Mariah (00:27:44) – Yeah, totally. So I love people. Selling is like playing the violin. It’s just a skill. And I’m like, you don’t pick up the violin once and expect to be good. Like if you’ve never played the violin, you pick it up the first time, right? You’re you’re understanding like, oh, I need a lot more practice if I’m going to be good at this. People do sales one time and it doesn’t work. And then they’re like, because I suck. Because my product is horrible, because I’ve wasted all my time and money, because I can’t do this. And they make it mean a bunch of stuff about them. I’m like, no, you just haven’t picked up the violin enough. Like you need to go out and get practice and I’ll tell you, like to speak to what you were saying a little more. I think one of the most valuable skills you can have as an entrepreneur is just being willing to be bad at things. Yeah, like being willing to be a beginner, being willing to suck at things and like, we have to do all this publicly.

Faith Mariah (00:28:29) – It’s like, that’s what it is. And if you’re going to have a career online, it’s always going to be like that. You’re always going to have to be trying new things, and everybody’s going to be able to see what you’re doing. So like we did our first like summit, like a little over a year ago. Right now we do tons of online events. You’ve been in some of our events and we regularly have we have events for my mastermind. We have events for my business. We have like a ton of events, but the first one we did was like, not the best thing I’ve ever done in my career, right? It was like very overwhelming for the team. We had a new team member. We had those systems like people were frustrated signing up. There were tech issues, but if I hadn’t been willing to do that, the first one, which is not fun, by the way, when you have like a big audience and I’m a business coach, it’s not fun to like go in front of everybody and be like, I’m going to try this new thing in front of all of you, like, for the first time, and let all of you see how where we mess up.

Faith Mariah (00:29:23) – And it was good. Like people liked it. It wasn’t like a disaster or anything, but I’m just saying it’s still to me like does did not feel good. But I understand, like being a beginner, I don’t expect being a beginner and doing something the first time to feel good. And I also understand that things that are worth doing in life also kind of suck the most, right? Like so building a business I always like say it’s like signing up to go to medical school. It’s like signing up to go to medical school and then being surprised. It takes a long time and it’s expensive and hard. Like nobody’s shocked about that, right? They’re like very on board with like, I’m gonna have to invest a lot of time. I’m going to have to invest a lot. Money and this is my career path. This is what I’m passionate about. This is what I want to do. This is how I see my future and they’re on board. The problem I see with entrepreneurs is they’re kind of like, well, I want this vision, but I don’t really want to spend that much time and I don’t really want to spend that much money.

Faith Mariah (00:30:11) – And I don’t really know how much time I want to spend, and I don’t really know how much money I want to spend. And there’s all this, this drama about it. Right? And so I always try to get people to a place where it’s like, if it’s harder than you think, this is how I think about everything in business. I’m like, it’s probably going to be harder than I think. Take way longer. And it cost us more money.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:28) – More money. Absolutely. I think you more.

Faith Mariah (00:30:31) – Time, more money, more tears.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:33) – You are so right about that and I, I.

Faith Mariah (00:30:35) – Yeah do I still want to do it?

Jillian Leslie (00:30:37) – I run into this question because I do a lot of business coaching and I go, it’s not puppies and rainbows. You thought you signed up for puppies and rainbows. It’s not right.

Faith Mariah (00:30:52) – No, no, no. And I think like but I think that’s what makes it worth doing right. I think like I don’t have kids, but I think about like, if you’re going to raise kids and you want to have a family like you understand, like that’s not going to be fun all the time.

Faith Mariah (00:31:03) – But you’re like, but this is meaningful to me, and this is important to my life, and this is the vision I want for my life. And I’m willing to go through the uncomfortable, difficult parts to get what I want out of life, to have this vision that I want. Right. And I think about that with medical school, right. It’s like, I want to be a doctor. I understand it’s going to suck. I understand it’s going to take a long time. I understand I’m going to be in a tremendous amount of debt and it’s worth it to me. I want to do it like I have good reasons for doing it. And I would just say to people, get in your brain in that place with your business where it’s like, I understand it’s probably going to be a lot harder than I think, take a lot longer and end up costing me more money. And it’s the vision I want for my life. It’s worth it to me, right? I think the things that are the most meaningful in life, the most impactful in life, the things that make life worth like being here for, like a lot of those things are not fun.

Faith Mariah (00:31:54) – Like, you know what? You know, we can just, like, lay on the couch and watch Netflix if you don’t want to be uncomfortable. But is that what you want out of your life? And if you want something else besides that, you’re probably going to have to be willing to be uncomfortable. And that’s why I love coaching. Entrepreneurs is like, I love the idea of like, being outside of your comfort zone and who you become. And in the process of all of this, that is so fascinating to me. And it’s the best journey I’ll ever do. Like if you’re wondering if you’re like, I don’t want to do that, that sounds really hard. It’s so worth it. Like what you get out of it is like beyond anything like you would ever put into it, I think.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:29) – I think so too. So here’s a question. You’re coaching your people and you say, hey, you need to be selling products, and you’re talking about products and you’re talking about expensive products and maybe entry level products and all this stuff.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:42) – How do you coach somebody to say, how do you come up with a product idea? How do you test that idea? How do you sell that idea? How do you price that idea? What is your strategy?

Faith Mariah (00:32:53) – It’s very different for everyone. So I really teach like a lot of customized strategy and stuff. But I’ll tell you, when I’m coaching people, some of the things I ask and like my thought process about it, the first thing I ask them is how much money do they need to make with that product? Right. And I’ll tell you, I always encourage my people to get side hustles. I don’t think you should be relying on a baby business to financially support you. However, I also have been broke in my life and I take that very seriously. If people I know there’s people in my community that like need to make money and like, that’s a real thing, right? And so the first thing I ask is like, how much money do you need to make? And like, what size is your audience? Right.

Faith Mariah (00:33:35) – And something I see a lot as people will come to me and they’ll be like, I need to start making $2,000 a month. I’m like, great. I’m like, how much is your product? They’re like $5. I’m like, how many people you have on your list? It’s like 100 people. And I know and I’m sure you, you know, you know too, like anybody that’s been in this game know, it was like, you’re not they’re not going to have a 100% conversion rate. It’s like you’re going to have 30% of people opening your emails, maybe a 2% click through rate, right that go to the page and then on your page, whatever your conversion rate is on that. So it’s a very small like percentage of people that end up being buyers. That’s just how sales works in any industry. It’s like very rare. Somebody’s gonna have a 100% close rate. No matter what you’re selling, you’re always going to have more people tell you no than yes, usually. Right.

Faith Mariah (00:34:20) – And so I just think it’s important that you that you do that math. Right. And so if somebody really needs that money, I’m like, you have to come up with a higher paying skill set. And something I think people don’t think about is they’re like, well, I’m making coloring pages for kids. And I’m like, great, you’re going to need a lot of value, like volume to make that work. You can do that. But that’s a long term business strategy. And they’ll tell me they’ll kind of feel like that’s all they can do. But I’m like, but you can learn higher paying skills. And so for some people, like I will literally tell them. You need to figure out people you want to work with, a problem they have and go get certified. Go work with the best people doing that. Go like go learn how to be the best at solving that problem that you can charge more money for, right? Where it’s like, maybe you’re going to learn like how to really help people with their health and fitness in a in a really powerful way.

Faith Mariah (00:35:16) – Right. People will pay a lot of money for that, a lot more for them for like a coloring sheet. And so it’s like if you don’t have any marketable, any skills you can sell right now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t go get them. Right. And so something else to think about is like. What would you have to learn? What kind of problem would you have to be able to solve? I’m always like, what’s a problem people want to pay to solve? And like, what kind of solution could you come up with? And then go get the skills so you can charge more money so you can have a high ticket offer, right. You’re not like locked into who you are now. You can always go get more skills. You can always grow expertise. Expertise is unlimited. You’re not limited to where you are now. So that’s something I try to get people to think about in the beginning is like, if you were to ever have a high ticket offer, what would that be? What kind of expertise would you have to have? How good would you have to be? How could you learn that? And that’s an interesting place, I think, to take your brain.

Faith Mariah (00:36:07) – Um, and then what was the other question about sales?

Jillian Leslie (00:36:10) – Well, just like how do you how do you do like, I like this thinking and especially today with the internet, like you can learn anything. You don’t need to go back to college. You don’t need to get I mean, if you’re going to be in like health and wellness, you might need some sort of credential. But for most things like I’m going to learn Canva, you know, I’m going to learn accounting, I’m going to learn like, maybe I’m not going to be a CPA, but like, I can learn stuff. And yeah, and if you learn that information.

Faith Mariah (00:36:40) – Yeah. And then putting that information together in a process that’s faster for people so they don’t have to Google all of it. They don’t have to read all the books. Right. It’s like people are hiring me. I’ve read every business book. I’ve read all the marketing books, I’ve done all the classes right. I don’t want my students to have to do all that.

Faith Mariah (00:36:55) – I want to try to take the most important things, the places I see where they can get the most leverage and give it to them so they can get that outcome in less time. But you can do that in any industry. It’s the same with health and wellness, the same with mental health, with goal setting, with time management, relationship stuff. It’s like you go get all that expertise and I really love to like we have like you were saying, everything’s online. We have access to the best thought leaders in every industry because they almost all have podcasts, any book, any book that anybody’s written. That’s non-fiction. Like they probably have a podcast and you can hear them talk to you every week. Like, that’s crazy. Like we used to have to get on a plane. You would have to, like, fly to a conference and watch them speak on stage. It’s like we have so much access to information and the ability to become an expert in really anything these days with the.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:44) – People that you’re coaching, what are some say, high ticket items they are selling where they’ve gone back and learned some skill, like what are some examples?

Faith Mariah (00:37:54) – There’s a couple different things.

Faith Mariah (00:37:56) – Like the main things are definitely like. Like done for you. Things like, I’m gonna build your website, I’m gonna train. I have some a bunch of dog trainers that have recently joined the mastermind. I’m going to take your dog. He’s going to live at my house. You’re going to get him back. He’s going to be trained. That’s like a high ticket offer, right? It’s like done for you. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do your whole website in your funnel, like. And then there’s also coaching. So one on one coaching, group coaching, that kind of stuff you can usually charge more money for than just a course because you’re literally charging for access to you, right where it’s like, you get my brain to look at your website, I’m going to look at your launch plan. We’re going to plan your launch together versus just watching the videos of how I do it. And so I but really it doesn’t. It’s more about the result you can get for people.

Faith Mariah (00:38:42) – It’s like, how much is it’s what’s a high ticket result you can get for people? What’s a result? People are willing to pay a lot of money for, right. And look at the niche that you’re interested in or the industry you’re looking at going into and look at what are people paying a lot of money for in that space, and how could I become very good at delivering that, or how could I do it better? I’m always like, I want to be better than everybody else, like I just do, right? I’m always like doing these free events. I’m like, I want my free events to be better than most people’s paid courses. Like, I’m like, I want to be good at what I do, right? And I spent a lot of time thinking about that, about how do we become like the the best? What would I how good would I have to be to be the best in the industry? Right? What kind of results would I have to be able to get? What what kind of tools would my students need? And I think that’s an interesting place to take your brain, no matter what space you’re in.

Faith Mariah (00:39:33) – It’s like, what are people wanting to pay for? And how do I become very good at delivering it? Then your position and make a lot of money.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:40) – And one thing that you’ve alluded to that I think also, which is I’m really hard working and I too will do the research and really work at something. And I think that’s my competitive advantage. You said it about you. So I’m like, bring it on. Like if it’s about consistency, I’ll be consistent. If it’s about going deeper, I’ll go deeper. And I can bet that most people won’t. So therefore at the end of the day where you’re like, bring on the competition or make it more difficult because you’re willing to dig in to rise above. It’s like, bet on you. You know, it’s like willing.

Faith Mariah (00:40:21) – To take risks, right? I think it’s a lot of people don’t want to risk. They’re like, what if it doesn’t work? What if I don’t make the money back? What if I don’t get the time back? And I always tell people, like any investment you make, you’re not guaranteed to make your money back, right? So my partner Matt and I, we just bought an investment property.

Faith Mariah (00:40:38) – Real estate property. It’s a pretty penny investment, right? We don’t have a guarantee on that. It’s like we just had to look at our bank accounts and be like, what do we think the best case is here? What do we think the worst case is here? Can we afford to take this risk and then decide the payout is worth the risk and to me I’ve always seen entrepreneurship. The the payout is like unlimited. It’s unlimited earning potential. It’s freedom. It’s me getting to do what I want. It’s me being able to have an impactful life, helping a lot of people, having community, all these things that are very, very worth it to me. Right. And so I think people want they want the opportunity of entrepreneurship because they’re like, oh, I’d love to have a business. I’d love to do that. But I’m like, I’ve put my ass on the line for this business. I’ve spent every dollar I’ve had on it at certain points. I’ve worked, uh, nights and weekends, like, and mornings before my 9 to 5.

Faith Mariah (00:41:32) – Um, I’ve, I’ve risked and there was no guarantee that that was ever going to be paid back, that it was going to be worth it. There was no guarantee that I was going to be successful. Right. It’s like you just don’t know what’s going to happen. And so I think getting your brain on board with, like, I want to risk it like this is why it’s worth it to me. I want to know if I I’m always like, I want to know if I can do it. I’d rather know that I can’t do it. And it’s like, at least I tried. So I have this million dollar goal, right? And I’m like, we’re going to scale to a million. It’s a ridiculous thing, kind of for the level we’re at. For me to be saying on the internet publicly, I think. But to me it’s like, I want to shoot my shot. I want to call it publicly. I want to try to do it. And if we fail publicly, like, that’s fine with me, because I want to be someone that goes after things and tries things in a in a real way.

Faith Mariah (00:42:19) – And I’m really I’m willing to risk failing at it. And I because I would rather know if I could do it, I would rather try and be disappointed than never. No. Like, to me, it’s like, I want to know if we can’t do it. I want to know if it’s not going to work.

Jillian Leslie (00:42:34) – Well, I will say that there is something very. Inspiring about what you’re saying. And I don’t think most people, they want to think like you, but it’s hard. And if there’s anything and the thing that I say all the time where I feel like we are very aligned is you have to get used to being uncomfortable. You have to get used to going to bed at night and having like, not being able to close your eyes because you’re like, oh my God, am I really going to do this? Or what if I fail at this and and at the same time, treat yourself with grace because chances are it’s going to be awkward and you’re going to do your first launch and you’re going to be like, ooh, that was bad, or my tackle failed and I’m embarrassed.

Jillian Leslie (00:43:23) – And so it is about digging deep, and I feel like you are a person who is willing to dig deep, who is willing to challenge yourself. So for all of you out there thinking growing a business is puppies and rainbows, it’s not. And I feel like you speak truth to power.

Faith Mariah (00:43:39) – Yeah, well, I work a lot on the mindset part and the the reason that I work so much on the mindset part is because I have clinical depression and PTSD, and I run a business right? At times. There was times where I was running over for businesses at different times in my life. Right. And that’s not easy to do. And so I think, like one of the misconceptions people have when they hear me talk about all this stuff is they’re like, oh, well, that’s easy for her. And I’m like, no, I’m good at this because it’s so hard for me. Like, I’m like, you guys can’t imagine. I’m like, nobody’s brain is a bigger dumpster fire than mine, right? And I’m like, and that’s why you want to learn from me? Because I’m like, because I’m not naturally positive and I’m not naturally good at this stuff.

Faith Mariah (00:44:18) – It’s very against my nature. Like my brain is super negative. It’s super like loves to focus on the the bad stuff. Right? It tells me every day in my life nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. Like this is never going to work. Like, what do you think? Like I have all those thoughts, like, we all have human brains, right? But it’s like I choose what I want to focus on, and I choose which thoughts I give airtime to. And that’s where your power is. And the mindset is everything. And the reason I’m always telling people it’s supposed to be hard is because I know they’ll have a lot less mindset drama. If you start a business and you’re like, oh, it’s going to take a long time and be very hard when your first launch fails, you’re a lot more prepared for that, right? It’s the people that come in thinking, oh, you just like, follow this little step by step plan, and I get a six figure business at the end, and they don’t expect to have to fail.

Faith Mariah (00:45:03) – They don’t expect people to criticize them. They don’t expect all of the negative feelings that come up for them. Those are the people that have drama that are like, I don’t think I can do this. I suck, nobody likes me. I don’t know all the stories. Right? And so I’m just like, I want you strapped in. Like if you’re prepared that it’s going to be hard, expensive and take a long time, it’s actually going to be easier for you. Not as much drama.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:26) – I find this out like I get it and you are also very inspiring. So people want to dig deeper with you to find you online. What? Where’s the best place to go?

Faith Mariah (00:45:39) – You can go to my website at com. I do a podcast every week. I do a live panel show where I have which.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:46) – I’ve been on.

Faith Mariah (00:45:46) – On. Yeah. And so all of that, all of the past episodes, you can find my comm on the blog. We have all of the video on there, and they’re also on the podcast, which is at Faith comm as well.

Faith Mariah (00:45:59) – And get on my email list because we do big free training events, I try to do 3 or 4 of them a year. Right now. I don’t know when this episode is coming out, but as we’re recording, we’re doing one on social media. We’re getting ready to do one, um, in January about creating really great freebies and lead magnets. And these are just free stuff we do for the community. And I’m like, you do not want to sleep on those. They’re really, really good. Like me and my team really put a lot into them. And so I’m always like, you guys should not. You’re going to miss out if you’re not on the email list. I don’t know what to tell you.

Jillian Leslie (00:46:32) – Well, I have to say, it’s been fun getting to know you. I feel like you speak truth to power. You call it like it is, and that’s. We’re very.

Faith Mariah (00:46:41) – Similar. You and I are like straight shooters, I think.

Jillian Leslie (00:46:44) – Yes, absolutely. So I just want to say, Faith, I hope you come back and thank you so much for being on the show.

Faith Mariah (00:46:51) – Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful.

Jillian Leslie (00:46:54) – I hope you guys like this episode. For me it has been filled with takeaways. I love her idea of spending a consistent three months trying something new, going through the suck, learning from your analytics and your hypotheses, digging in and building off of that. I think her prediction of leaning into short form video in 2024 is real. So if you’re not doing that, I recommend you start. And I really like her advice about getting good at some skill, monetizing it, and scaling it. If you want to start diversifying your. Income stream by selling digital products that can be ebooks, workshops, coaching courses, memberships and you want some guidance? Get on a free 20 minute call with me. Go to Military.com slash meet because I’d love to meet you. Or go directly to Military.com. If you purchase Military Car right now until the end of the year, there are some extra special bonuses, like getting our pop up app for free forever.

Jillian Leslie (00:48:14) – And remember, we offer a 30 day, no questions asked money back guarantee so there is no risk. And finally, if you are liking the podcast, please share it with a friend. It grows the audience. It enables me to get other amazing guests. So please spread the word and I will see you here again next week.