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#260: Can You Be a Successful Introverted Entrepreneur?

ByJillian Leslie

Can you be a successful introverted entrepreneur? Today, on the podcast, I’m interviewing Tara Reid, a coach who specializes in helping introverts grow their online businesses.

Tara shares her personal story of how she built her own successful business, and explains how she uses sophisticated sales funnels to sell digital products, coaching, and memberships.

Tara explains that one of the keys to her success is understanding the unique strengths and challenges of introverts. She notes that introverts often have a hard time putting themselves out there and promoting their offerings on social media. But by utilizing other means like SEO and Pinterest to drive traffic to their products and services, they can build businesses that work.

Throughout the interview, Tara offers specific tips and strategies for introverts looking to grow their online businesses. She emphasizes the importance of finding your niche, and the power of building a community of loyal customers.

We talk about:

  • Why you don’t need to be on social media to build a successful business
  • How to sell by driving traffic to your site
  • The power of digital products and sales funnels
  • How to manage a coaching group as an introvert
  • And so much more!

If you have a hard time putting yourself out there to grow your business, I think you’ll find this episode a relieving listen!

Can You Be a Successful Introverted Entrepreneur? | The Blogger Genius Podcast with Jillian Leslie

Show Notes:

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Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I’m your host, Jillian Leslie. I’m a blogger and a serial entrepreneur. I started in 2009 building Catch My Party with my husband. In 2016, we built our pop-up app called MiloTree.

And then 2022 we launched MiloTreeCart, which is the easiest way for you, creators and bloggers to sell digital products to your audience. It is built for beginners and non-techies. As I mentioned, in my last podcast, I have been playing around with ChatGPT if you do not have an account, I recommend you sign up for one, it is a very interesting, easy and free AI tool.

In fact, yesterday, I led a workshop for our MiloTree customers, showing them how easy it is to use ChatGPT to create digital products. I walked them through creating an eBook which you can do now in just a couple hours. The response and the feedback I got was phenomenal.

If you are interested in tapping into a whole new income stream in 2023, here’s what I recommend. Head to milotreecart.com purchase our lifetime deal for $349. Remember, we offer a 30-day money back guarantee. We only want you to keep it if you love it.

What you will see is you get all of these launch calendars and marketing materials and access to me and my team. The simplicity will blow your mind. If you feel like you are working so hard, but not making the money you thought you would please give this a try.

And I will happily send you a link to the workshop I did yesterday where I walk you through how easy it is to create your first eBook. Again, head to milotreecart.com.

For today’s episode I have Tara Reid on the show. This is not the actress Tara Reid. This is the introvert Tara Reid. She teaches online entrepreneurs coaches course creators how to create very successful businesses without all the hustle.

So, if you struggle with putting yourself out there constantly on social media with that, “Look at me, Look at me,” kind of vibe. This is the episode for you. We go deep in how she has built out her businesses how all of her funnels work and how she has done this as an introvert and we talk about how you can do it too.

So, without further delay, here is my interview with Tara Reid.

Can You Be a Successful Introverted Entrepreneur?

Tara, welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast.

Tara Reid 3:04
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and chat all things marketing, business, introverts.

Jillian Leslie 3:12
Exactly. That’s the thing that really struck me. On your website and in your email you are an introverted business coach.

Tara Reid 3:25
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 3:25
Which feels like an oxymoron when I think of coaches and I think of people who are teachers. They have that extraversion like they’re just beaming extraversion.

Tara Reid 3:38
That’s something I avoided calling myself a coach for the longest time, even though that’s really what I was doing. Because I’m seeing all these high energy cheerleader kind of coaches. And I’m like, that’s not me. I can’t pretend to be that way. That’s not me.

What is an Introvert?

I’m very low energy reserved. Which I think if somebody is an introvert, that’s what they’re going to resonate with, and be drawn to because I know I’ve had a coach in the past who was very high energy. She was an amazing coach, but it was exhausting for me to work with her.

I’d get off the calls and I would just be like, oh my gosh, that was way too much for me to take in for an hour. So, I think it’s what kind of energy do you want to attract in your business?

Jillian Leslie 4:28
As I shared I would call myself an ambivert. I would have called myself an introvert but then the fact that I do enjoy getting up on stage like teaching but if I can get out of myself, if that makes sense, then I can do that or doing the podcast.

When I really think about it, I like doing the podcast because I get to talk one-on-one with somebody and I forget that other people are listening to the conversation.

Tara Reid 4:51
I find that the same that’s why I launched a podcast too. I want to connect with people. I want to share my voice and my knowledge and my story, but I don’t really want to do video. So, a podcast was just a natural fit.

And I feel like with my target audience, they love podcasts, they love listening to podcasts, they don’t want to jump on and watch live videos either. So, it works perfectly.

Jillian Leslie 5:28
And I find too, I am a podcast listener because I can take it in. And for example, I don’t go toward TikTok, or even Instagram, it’s too jarring for me, it rubs me up in a way it gives me anxiety. Even if I’m looking at beautiful photos on Instagram website it will agitate me.

And therefore for me, my medium is podcasts where I can just be in my world listening to people and I like certain tones in people’s voices. I find them calming. I can get you revved up in a way that is agitating to me. Not energizing.

Leaving Social Media as an Introverted Business Owner

Tara Reid 6:15
I can totally relate to that I actually left Instagram and I think it was May of this year I was finally just like I’m tired of forcing myself to show up here. It’s just so draining to me. Even just scrolling my feed, I would just feel the anxiety building because it was like there was just so much information.

And yes, I love learning I love reading new things, seeing how people are marketing and what they’re doing and how they’re sharing their story. So, I would just take in so much information just every time I went on the app, and that just really started to bog me down.

Jillian Leslie 6:52
Here’s my first question. Is it possible to be an introvert and grow a business in today’s world when we need to be let’s say not dancing on TikTok, but sharing our expertise on TikTok and being relatable, sharing our lives? Is that possible?

Tara Reid 7:15
Absolutely, yes. I think if you’re an introvert, it’s really about finding ways to market your business that are going to get you the results you want and allow you to grow your business without doing things that are so outside your comfort zone and uncomfortable.

I always say if you’re forcing yourself, I know people say that phrase, “Push yourself outside your comfort zone, push yourself no great things are found inside comfort zones.” And that always triggered me because I was like I’m building a business that I love and that I enjoy.

And if I’m constantly pushing myself outside my comfort zone every single day, that is not how I want my business or my life to look like. For me, I think it’s about pushing yourself sometimes if it’s fear holding you back to push yourself to try new things. But then it’s really about finding what works and that you actually enjoy.

For me, that’s like blogging, that’s email marketing, that is connecting with people, one-to-one in a private Facebook group, where I’m kind of curating my own community, versus throwing more noise out into the social media world on Instagram.

Jillian Leslie 8:35
I would say, in business building, all of our businesses are funnels, you have a wide end at the top, and it narrows, and then ultimately, people purchase what you’re offering. And that’s at the bottom of the funnel.

Can You Be a Successful Introverted Entrepreneur? | The Blogger Genius Podcast with Jillian Leslie

How to Attract People to the Top of Your Business Funnel as an Introvert

And bore the top of the funnel, I would argue that would be the most difficult for introverts, because it’s typically through things like showing up on social media or blogging, or putting yourself out there to find the people who would be attracted to you,

I would say that as an introvert, it might be easier to keep the relationship going once they’ve discovered you. Because they see that you’re real, they see that you’re not just all about like jazz hands, that you are like, “I’m really going to be providing value and you can trust me.” I feel like the trust factor would be higher in somebody who is more intentional.

How do you then get people as an introvert, to find you to fall in love with you if in fact we’re scrolling so quickly, and we can’t sit still and we don’t have the time to go, “Wait, is that somebody I would want to invest in?”

Tara Reid 9:58
So for me, I feel like you’re right, that’s the big piece that’s where you’re going to have to push yourself a little bit and really dig in and find ways that you can bring people into your world and actually get them where you want them whether it’s your email list, a private Facebook group, wherever you can nurture them.

Focusing on Traffic over Social Media as an Introverted Blogger

For me, I really focus hard on organic traffic. I focus a lot on SEO. I have a background in SEO. So, I love when I can have people searching and discover me that is the best case scenario for an introvert is not having to actively find them, they come to you through search engines.

Then I also tie that in with the blogging and Pinterest because Pinterest is an easy way to share your content without necessarily sharing too much of yourself. And then I also borrow other people’s audiences.

So, podcast guesting, I love speaking on podcast, it was scary at first, but it’s a lot easier for me to come on a podcast now I have my own and share my story without trying to be somebody that I’m not.

And then also borrowing other people’s audiences for email list growth, because my email list is really where my primary focus is. That’s where I’m nurturing. That’s where I have sequences and sales funnels. And that’s where I’m trying to really connect with my audience.

So, my goal is to get more people into that email list. And I have a ton of lead magnets, I think I have 10 right now. I’m multi passionate, so they’re all different topics for different people. And then I also participate in a lot of summits and a lot of bundles for list growth as well.

And I know summits can sometimes be scary because you’re teaching; you’re presenting. But a lot of the time it’s prerecorded. So, you just record yourself, you can edit it, if you mess up, you can start over it’s not live, which I really love as well.

Jillian Leslie 12:05
Let’s go through the path. Your background, you know a lot about let’s say, SEO. Were you an SEO by the way, were you somebody who this is what you did for a living before you got into this?

Tara Reid 12:21
It was at one point I’ve definitely pivoted multiple times. I’ve done SEO I went to college for website design. I love learning a lot of different things. And I think that kind of sparks the multi passionate in me because I know a lot of people also talk about niching down or you’re one big thing. And I tried to force myself to do that multiple times.

At one point, I was just doing SEO, I had SEO digital products, SEO services. And then I got bored after a few months I was like I love SEO and doing keyword research and optimizing websites. But it’s not necessarily creative work. And I really wanted to not just put myself in a box like that.

Jillian Leslie 13:11
So, let’s go through the journey. I am going to discover you in a Google search. What Google search, what am I searching for where you will show up? What is your number one blog post or keyword that you rank for, how would I find you? What am I searching for?

Teaching Virtual Assistants How to Grow Their Businesses

Tara Reid 13:31
That’s a good question. Some of my top ones are around virtual assistants because at one time that was when a lot of my digital products focused on helping people who were starting a service-based business. Some of my top blog posts are probably two years old, and they’re still generating so much traffic.

So, I’ve updated them. I’ve added in more content to link to my freebies that are relevant. I’ve now started using convert box to have pop-ups on specific blog posts in order to promote specific freebies.

If I have a blog post that has the word content in the title, convert box will automatically pop-up, “Hey, I have this content marketing mistakes guide,” and that’s really driven my audience and my email list growth too.

Jillian Leslie 14:30
So, I am somebody who decides, you know what, I want to be a VA. I start searching for that I might land on one of these posts is that like the use case? That’s what I’m thinking and I find you and then I read your post on how to be a VA like what kind of skills I might need. Maybe I could be like a Pinterest VA and help people with their Pinterest marketing.

So, I’m going to then see some sort of opt-in, like content mistakes. And I’m going to go, “Oh, I want that.” And I’m going to give you my email address. Now what happens?

Tara Reid 15:13
Now I have sequences set up that are automated to continue to add value. Value is one of my main brand values. I give away a lot of stuff and a lot of content. Just because I love helping people I love creating. So, I’m always offering new stuff. It’s not like you get on my email list. And it’s like a hard sell right away.

Jillian Leslie 15:39
I definitely remember like, I’m thinking maybe I’ll be a VA, I don’t exactly know what that is. I’m way at the beginning of this journey. I’ve read something and let’s say the post, I don’t know what it talks about, let’s say one of these posts, but I’ve gotten a little bit I go, “Oh, Tara, she seems really smart. This is interesting.”

I don’t even know who you are. I just know this information seems interesting. I get on your list. What are you teaching me? How are you providing that value? And then how are you starting to sell to me? And what are you selling to me?

Growing a Digital Product Business as an Introvert

Tara Reid 16:14
So, it’s really targeted based on the opt-in or lead magnet that they signed up for. Because I’m multi passionate and I have a lead magnet around being a VA, I have one about content marketing, I have one about SEO. So, all of these have their own value ladder of next step offers, I currently have about 50 digital products.

Jillian Leslie 16:40
Wow.

Tara Reid 16:42
It’s a lot. But I love creating I love offering stuff. For an example somebody who opts in for the Content Marketing Mistakes Guide, I start off with getting them familiar with who I am and how I can help them in terms of content marketing, then when I start to sell, I usually give a specific offer using deadline funnel as well.

I like habit, an evergreen timer to create urgency. And the next product it would lead into is a content kit. I’ve created content kits for different types of service providers. So, if there’s one for them, they can purchase it.

Jillian Leslie 17:22
What is a content kit? What does that mean?

Tara Reid 17:26
Actually, I was planning on doing a blogging course. And then I sent out a survey to my email list. And they told me that the reason why they aren’t blogging right now is because they don’t have time. It’s not that they don’t know how or they don’t understand that it’s beneficial to them, it’s that they don’t want to add something else into their busy schedule.

So, that made me think, if I’m going to create a course, but these people are too busy to do blogging or want to do blogging, they’re not going to take a course to do it. So, that’s where I came up with the idea for content kits. They include PLR, Private Label Right content that I’ve created for specific industries.

So, I have the VA content kit. It is full of emails, email newsletter copy, social media captions, graphics, blog posts that you could make your own.

Jillian Leslie 18:26
Am I using this content kit to get clients for when I ultimately am a VA to help somebody. What is my goal? Why would I buy the VA content kit?

Tara Reid 18:41
Your goal is to attract clients through organic search. This also ties back to a lot of my audience are introverts. That really going to be something that attracts them is like, “Oh, I can take this content kit, make it my own.” And I’ll start to get organic traffic.

Jillian Leslie 19:02
Is it like blog posts? It’s PLR on like, “Hey, this is what I offer.” I’m just trying to understand what I get how to use it.

Tara Reid 19:16
The content kits in the VA one for example it’s like blog posts that are going to attract people who are looking for a virtual assistant. So, there’s blog posts around three signs, it’s time to hire a virtual assistant. And I created this about a year ago, so I can’t remember.

People love these content kits because that was what was really holding them back was the time to create content. So, giving them a starting point where they can just make it their own add in their story, their voice and then post it and it attracts clients to them is the main goal.

Once you get your business set up, it’s like, you can focus on organic traffic, you have email newsletters that are pre-written for you to send out to your email list as you start to grow it. I even put in lead magnet ideas for each blog post.

If there’s a blog post about three signs, ready for it to hire a virtual assistant, you could create a lead magnet for this post around a checklist to work with your first virtual assistant for clients. So, that gives them even additional content and ideas.

Jillian Leslie 20:48
Got it? I love this. One thing that we have found, my hunch is that your customers, a lot of them, most of them are women. One thing that we have found with MiloTreeCart, which is our payment tool, as I shared with you, we interview our customers, we interview our community about this.

Create Digital Products That Tell People What to Do

And I can’t tell you how many times people say to me, just tell me what to do. I know what to do abstractly, but tell me what to do. One thing that we have done that has been incredibly successful is we’ve created launch calendars. So, you want to sell that eBook. And you go okay, I make the eBook. Now what?

I know, I probably need to send some emails. I know I should probably put some posts up on Instagram, but oh, each one feels like a headache. So, we said here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to say, “Give us seven days.” And we’re going to have a checklist.

And not only are we going to have a checklist on day one do this, day two do this, day three do this, but we’re going to link to templates for send this email. And in this email, fill in these specific playthings, boom, share this social media post today, hey, tomorrow, do this.

And I will say that we have gotten amazing feedback, because it’s not like the people who are using MiloTreeCart don’t know what to do. It’s just pushing that rock up the hill and saying, from scratch, go write an email.

Tara Reid 22:32
Where do I start? What do I put as the subject line?

Jillian Leslie 22:37
I have to think about, there’s just so much. And so just having this guide, literally saying day one, and check it off. And it’s not that hard, or in the email, this is the time where you talk about what the benefit is. And here’s the email where you say, hey, the sale is ending in two days. So, get it now or whatever it is, we’ve done the thinking for you.

Not saying you couldn’t have thought this up on your own. But it just gets you so far. And it sounds like you’re doing the same thing.

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Advertisement 23:14
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Tara Reid 23:59
I love how you frame that because it goes back to the psychology of when you have an Instagram caption, if you don’t tell people what to do at the end, if you don’t have a call-to-action. People don’t take action. Sometimes they need an outline or a step-by-step and I love checking things off too. So, that’s always I think a psychotic thing too.

Jillian Leslie 24:25
As a person who loves lists. And by the way, I am that person who has always checklist. And if I do something that’s not on my checklist, I will write it on my checklist and cross it off.

Tara Reid 24:40
I will do the same thing.

Jillian Leslie 24:42
It’s so weird, but it lights me up and makes me feel so proud of myself. Like I didn’t get credit for that. I need to go get credit for that. But it is so true. I think as a business owner, we have so many tasks that we have to do. You’ve got to be an SEO expert and an email marketing expert.

And then you’ve got to have your jazz hands up on TikTok, and you’ve got to do so much that I think it’s so overwhelming kind of what you were saying when people are going like, “I just don’t have the time.”

MiloTreeCart is the Tool for Selling Digital Products

And one thing we would say for MiloTreeCart very specifically is not just like, “Hey MiloTreeCart is the easiest way to sell digital products.”

I say, “Get a sales page up in 10 minutes.” Because all of a sudden, I’ve given you the parameters of what will happen if you purchase this product. And I think telling people that like if you were to say, hey, here’s my kid and you could have this whole party your business up in three hours, or whatever it is.

I think people go, “Oh, okay, I can do that,” versus this open-ended future where it just feels like drudgery.

Tara Reid 25:58
That’s so true. I always say, nobody can buy unless it’s out there. Just get it out there. This is going to cut so much time out of it.

Jillian Leslie 26:13
Let’s keep going. I came to you via Google, I’m on your list, you’re dripping me value, and then you’re offering these content kits. And are those really connecting with your audience and how much are the content kits?

Tara Reid 26:33
They’re regularly $47, but we offer a one-time offer in the email sequence where you can get a kit for $17.

Jillian Leslie 26:42
Okay, and then I’m assuming you’re going to start to offer me more expensive or personalized products.

Tara Reid 26:52
Yes, so next in that value ladder, I have a content-to-clients course. It’s a smaller course, it’s very, no fluff, targeted strategic, about how to create your own content, like continue on create your own content kit with a lot more ease. I don’t want it to feel overwhelming, or like it’s going to take all this time to do it.

I give a lot of tips around batching content repurposing content. Because people were always calling me in my email list, every time I would be like, “Oh, I did this new thing, or I have all these new things.” And they’re like, “You weren’t just a content machine.”

I know I’m going to show you how I do all of that in this content-to-clients course. So, that’s the next step.

Jillian Leslie 27:55
How much is the course? How many videos? Is it a lot? Is it a mini course? How much is the course and how much time?

Tara Reid 28:06
The course is $197. And I think I really tailored it, the videos are very short, they’re like 5 to 10 minutes each. Because I know I don’t love watching super long videos myself. Where it’s like, I just want the goods. I just want the details. So, they’re very actionable. And I think there are eight modules, maybe two to three lessons per module.

Jillian Leslie 28:37
Got it. And so, here’s a question, given that you’ve got all of these content kits, do all of the kits lead to this one course or is it this course? Is this course only for people who want to be VAs, let’s say or do you have like another? Do you have other courses that you’re offering or does everything lead to this?

Tara Reid 29:00
All of the content kits would lead to this course. But then what I did is after the course, whether they buy or not, I then go back and look at which content kit they purchased. Because I have the one for the VA, I have one for a Pinterest manager, I have one for an online business manager, I have one for marketing.

I have tags in the email sequence. So, if somebody purchased the VA one, I also have a VA bundle, Canva template bundle. So, that’s where I have even more really targeted products that I can then also mention or organically sell in the email sequences too.

Jillian Leslie 29:49
That’s amazing. So, then I’m now moving through that, and I get offered these Canva templates that are very personalized to what I’m looking for and now, are there any other offers?

Tara Reid 30:05
Usually not in automated sequences, if I come out with a new offer, I usually send it to my entire list. I’ve run a couple of six or eight weeks live group programs that they could join, or I also now have a signature offer that I’m going to talk about. Probably twice per year, I’m going to do a push for it.

Can You Be a Successful Introverted Entrepreneur? | The Blogger Genius Podcast with Jillian Leslie

Setting Up a Coaching Group as an Introvert

So, after they’ve been on my list, and they’ve consumed some of my smaller products, now might be the time where they want to go into my signature program, which is a weekly group coaching, but they also get access to all of my digital products and lifetime access to my two memberships.

It was built, because I had some people on my list, who would just buy everything that I put out, and I was like, I really want to reward these people. So, I came up with this society, where it’s weekly coaching, it’s access everything.

Jillian Leslie 31:12
It is Zoom? Is it a Facebook group? Where are you coaching?

Tara Reid 31:18
It’s on weekly Zoom calls. And then I also have a community that I set up through Heartbeats. It used to be on Slack but I switched. I got a lifetime account through AppSumo for Heartbeat because I was in a community on heartbeat for somebody else. And I was like, “I really love this.” So, once I saw it available again, for a lifetime offer, I snapped it up.

Jillian Leslie 31:42
And that’s an app where you can manage a group?

Tara Reid 31:48
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 31:49
And how much is your signature offer?

Tara Reid 31:53
So, I have six months or 12 months. And then right now I have three, but I’m removing that because if somebody signs up for six months or 12 months, they get to keep everything that they had access to, or that was live while they were a member. And so right now, I think it’s $300 to $500 per month.

Jillian Leslie 32:19
Wow, per month.

Tara Reid 32:23
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 32:23
I love this. Now, let’s say somebody is listening to this. And they go, “Oh, Tara, you have built this very interesting business. And I want to do something similar. But there are so many moving parts.”

How do you recommend I think about starting to build this without just such overwhelmed? Do I need a wall size whiteboard where I start putting the pieces together or was it a more organic approach?

Tara Reid 32:57
I feel like for me, it was definitely an organic approach. I think we have to be open to things changing. Looking back seven years ago, I was working basically as a VA. And I was doing that for several years.

And then at the start of the pandemic, I lost half my clients in one week, they all wanted to pause, they were all worried about what was happening or had started to lose income themselves. And that was really the switch where I was like, I don’t want to just rely on clients, I started to really diversify my income.

It wasn’t something I started out with. Right now, I have eight revenue streams in my business. That wasn’t something that I just out of the gate was like, “Okay, I’m going to set up all eight revenue streams,” because it was very overwhelming.

Jillian Leslie 33:53
You might not remember all eight of them. But what are these revenue streams.

Tara Reid 33:56
The way that I break it down is one-to-one coaching services, which is basically a VIP day right now I don’t do retainers or big service packages. It’s just VIP Day offer. And then my two memberships, which is recurring revenue, which is great.

My live group programs, the Evergreen digital products, affiliate marketing. And then I also added in creating content sites, so I started to build my own blogs and websites.

Jillian Leslie 34:40
So, like being a niche blogger.

Tara Reid 34:43
Yes. And then I’m selling them.

Jillian Leslie 34:45
The sites.

Tara Reid 34:46
Yes.

How to Build Out an Online Business Organically

Jillian Leslie 34:47
Nice. I love this. I think this is interesting. What I’m hearing you say is that you’ve built this organically. I call this emergent business building and I think it is the only way to go, I don’t think top-down business building works.

I do not recommend you get the big whiteboard and you start mapping out everything because you don’t know how it’s going to evolve. And I compare this to a plant community versus here where I am in Austin, where I continue to see cool strip malls.

A strip mall that has a tire store all of a sudden has a cool coffee shop and then the sushi restaurant comes in next to it. This is really true. And then the succulent store comes in, and then the vintage record store comes in. And you go oh my god that disgusting strip mall now that was kind of squeegee now looks kind of cool.

And you want to go there versus hey, we’re going to do a planned community, here’s where the pool is going to go, here’s where the houses are going to go. There’s something about online business building that I think really speaks to building on the fly.

Tara Reid 35:57
I always call it following my energy. So, I’m like, “What do I want to focus on this month?” Or I’ve had training plans and if it comes down to it, like a live training, a paid live training, so people can sign-up for this training session. And then when it’s time to create the slides and promote it, I’m like, “I’m just not feeling it this month, let’s push this off.”

I think that’s a big part of entrepreneurship, planning is great. But don’t plan so much that you lose sight of what’s possible, and new ideas and new things that you can come up with, because that’s where the really big things are going to happen like content kits.

Surprisingly, for a small price, digital products were so popular, and people are always asking me to create new ones. And my audience is just obsessed with them. And it’s something that I almost didn’t create, and was sparked by sending a survey to my email list. And it’s not something that I would have planned out five years ago.

How to Manage Your Time as an Introvert Entrepreneur

Jillian Leslie 37:08
That’s so interesting. I’m going to push back. Because what I hear you saying is you have to take your own temperature and go like, “Where am I and how am I managing my energy?” But how do you thread the needle thinking about am I then resting on my laurels? And a lot of times work isn’t fun it is energy sucking.

What strategies do you use to dig deep when you need to? Let’s say you’re planning this training, and you wake up in the morning, and you think about it, and you go, “Oh, I so dread this.”

Which by the way, I wake up a lot of mornings thinking that and then there are ways that I trick myself into getting my work done some days with drudgery. A lot of times I can snap myself out of that.

How do you recognize when to push, even if you’re unhappy, even if it’s draining, and then when to pull back and go, “No, I need to really pay attention to myself and what my intuitive self is saying.”

Tara Reid 38:23
That’s a really good question. Something that I feel like it’s always going to be a work in progress, too, is knowing when is the right time to force yourself or to push through things or to step back and say, “Yeah, this isn’t working for me anymore.”

I usually do a monthly training. And if I started to feel that way for like three months in a row, like, “Oh, I really don’t want to do this.” Maybe that’s a sign that I should really think about, do I want to continue to do this or is it something that I can just let go?

I would also then look at the numbers like are these live trainings really moving my business forward? Are they really growing my list? Are they really helping my audience? And if the answer is no, that makes my decision a little easier to let it go for a little bit and maybe focus a little bit more on other stuff.

One example I can give is my membership for introverts. I have a membership. It’s been about two and a half years now. It’s been running called the Introvertprenuer Club. It’s just for introvert business owners, we focus on all of the feel good marketing methods and finding what works for you.

There’s a lot of mindset stuff that comes up as well as an entrepreneur and an introvert. And I was creating my monthly content for the membership for about two years.

And I started to get really exhausted about creating all this new content every month and I took a step back I looked at the numbers of like, okay, how many members are actually consuming this content? Is it worthwhile for me to continue doing this, if it’s not something I’m enjoying.

And people weren’t consuming it, they weren’t there for the content, they were there for the support, they were there for the community.

So I decided, okay, I’m not going to do pre-planned monthly content on certain topics. If something comes up where somebody needs a training or wants me to do training, or something sparks in me where I want to do a training, I’ll do it, but it’s not guaranteed every month. And instead, we’re going to focus more on the community.

So, I added in two times per month Voxer office hours, which the introverts absolutely love. I was worried that people wouldn’t use the Voxer office hours.

Jillian Leslie 40:50
Can you explain what Voxer office is and why that’s been helpful?

Tara Reid 40:55
Voxer, I think they call it a walkie-talkie app, so you can text or you can record audio messages. So, during Voxer office hours, I have like 11am to 7pm people in my membership can send me messages on these two days per month, and I’ll get back to them. And we can work through their questions or what they’re working on. The introverts really love it.

Jillian Leslie 41:23
Don’t you think it’s because it’s asynchronous? Meaning they’re sending you messages, and then you can send a message back, but it’s not happening in real time. You’re not on the phone with somebody or actively texting, and the fact that you can get the message, then you can respond to the message. I feel like for introverts that would make me feel good.

Tara Reid 41:51
It’s good. I think it works for them because I’m also a huge introvert. For me, I love getting a message or listening to their audio message. And then I take a few minutes so I can reflect on it. It’s not like it’s live where I have to answer right away and come up with this brilliant response.

It allows me to really think about things which, as an introvert, I’m in my head a lot, and I think a lot. So, I love being able to take that few minutes or time to really reflect and give the best response I can and help them.

Memberships Are About the Community

Jillian Leslie 42:24
And by the way, something you said, I keep hearing over I love seeing patterns. And one of the patterns I continue to see is just what you shared in your membership, you feel this need, or you did feel this need to create this library of content and really prep everything.

And memberships I think typically sink or swim based on the community and the support they feel from the leader. And it’s less about your library, everything in the world is available on YouTube. It’s not like, oh, you need to therefore have it in your community meeting if it comes up and there’s something. I think of communities like living organisms.

That’s what people come for is that aliveness not necessarily for the back library. And in fact, one thing that I’ve heard over and over is people don’t really go back. Maybe they can, it’s offered. But that’s not where the value seems to be. It’s having access in real time to you. And to each other.

Tara Reid 43:30
Yes, definitely. And that’s something I struggled with a membership because I love creating content. At the beginning, it was fine. It worked. It helped to build things up. But at a certain point, it was like three months in a row because what I was doing was at the start of the year, I would create like a 12-month calendar.

These are all the things we’re going to cover each month, and then the month would come and I’m like, “I really don’t want to create anything around this topic. It’s not something I’m excited about right now.” But I promised it so I forced myself.

That’s where I was like, yeah, this this needs to change after a couple months. And then looking at those numbers that just solidified like, yeah, I can let this go. This is not the numbers I actually want.

Jillian Leslie 44:18
What happens though, if there’s something that you dread, but you’re making money from it. What is the conversation you have with yourself?

Tara Reid 44:27
That’s a really good question. Sometimes I will push through it depends why I’m dreading it. I try to take some inert reflections and be like, why am I driving this just because it feels overwhelming and I need to create a better plan in my project management system that is going to make me easier to go through each step that I need to do to get this out.

Or is it just the overall idea that I just don’t want to do it? And if that’s the case, I honestly wouldn’t matter to me how much money it made, I would find a different way to recoup that money.

Jillian Leslie 45:16
Interesting. So, you get curious about it and start examining what’s going on like deeper, go deeper.

Tara Reid 45:22
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 45:23
That’s super interesting. Tara, I’m assuming in my audience, there are a fair number of introverts. So, if people want to reach out to you, as an introvert, introvert, introvert, and learn more about what you offer and how you teach? I think they would totally have a vibe of you based on this conversation.

It was interesting I’ll just share, when we first got on the call. And normally, I will say my guests are typically women. And it’s like, “Hey, hi.” And you had this very calm energy as soon as you got on the call, which was unique, not typical of my podcast guests.

I’m assuming people listening to this are picking up on that energy and chances are many are very drawn to that because it isn’t that crazy, girl hug kind of energy. If people want to learn from you reach out to you have questions, that kind of thing where would you send them?

Tara Reid 46:31
First thank you for that because I am always calm and reserved, and I don’t know what the word is. But I’m sitting here and I am anxious. I am anxious about one-on-one interview. It’s still a work in progress. So, thank you for that. The best place to reach me is probably my website that’s my hub of everything.

So, thetarareid.com. I have an everything page where you can see all of my offers all 50 digital products, and all of my freebies as well. If you want to sign up for anything and get on my email list, because that’s really where I’m delivering the value content is to my email list.

And then I also have the Introvertprenuer podcast, if you want to binge listen to that. We’re just wrapping up season two, and then season three will start next year.

Jillian Leslie 47:27
Awesome. Well, I have to say, I like your energy. I really do. And I just want to say thank you for coming on the show.

Tara Reid 47:34
Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

Jillian Leslie 47:38
I hope you guys like this episode. I personally relate to it. Because I struggle sometimes putting myself out there. It’s not a natural feeling for me. I’d rather be home working, building stuff in the background in my pajamas.

So, I’m really glad that I had Tara on the show to represent this whole other side and to show that it’s possible to be an introvert and build a successful business.

Before I go, I want to announce that on January 20th I will be doing a one-hour live training on how to set up a paid workshop it costs $10 because remember, I want you to have skin in the game. You can sign up at workshop.milotreecart.com It’s easier than you think and we’re going to pull in some AI.

Again, go to workshop.milotreecart.com $10 on Friday, January 20th. And I will see you here again next week.

Other related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes you’ll enjoy:

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