Host 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Blogger Genius. Before I start today’s episode, I want to welcome you to my Facebook group. Please head to facebook and join my group. It’s called The MiloTree Mastermind Group.
I am having such a great time hanging out in there, getting to know everybody, everybody getting to know each other. It’s a continuation of the podcast. It’s a way to go deeper.
It’s a way for me to get to know you and follow you, for you to get to know me, and for everybody to get to know each other. It’s a really sweet group of entrepreneurs.
So please pause the episode, head to Facebook, search for The MiloTree Mastermind Group. And I’ll be excited to see you there today.
Okay. For today’s episode, I am interviewing Kayla Butler. Kayla has a site called Ivory Mix. Many of you will probably know it. Kayla gives away free beautiful stock photos that work terrifically on social media.
I’d seen her in a Facebook group, somebody mentioning her, and I had to go check her out and I loved when she did. I reached out to her and said, “Please come on the show.”
What’s cool about this episode is we talked about Kayla’s journey, and how she started creating these beautiful photos and started giving them away to grow her email list and then figured out how to grow business on top of that.
We go deeper in this episode. We talk about what it is really like to be an entrepreneur, what that mindset is all about, how we have found success, and also where we struggle as entrepreneurs. I think you’re going to really really Like this episode. Without further delay, here is my interview with Kayla Butler.
Kayla, welcome to the show. I’m super happy to have you.
Kayla Butler 2:10
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so glad to be here.
Jillian Leslie 2:13
So I was saying that I discovered you being in a Facebook group, somebody mentioned your work and your stock photos that you make and that you offer for free, which we’re going to talk about that.
I thought that your stuff was so beautiful. And then, I saw you offer courses and I thought you might have a different perspective on all the visual content that we are creating today because I see your picture right now that I’m looking at, you know, you’ve got your camera.
And so, I think you have this interesting photographic perspective, I guess is the best way to say it. So, welcome to the show. Would you share how you got to be where you are with your business?
Kayla Butler 2:57
Gosh, yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for that. I really started my business as a hobby. It wasn’t meant to be a business at all. I’m aesthetically driven. Everything around me is organized.
And really, the main objective is to make it clean and simple but aesthetically pleasing. That’s just me by nature. I used to be an interior designer for about 16 years. I grew my career to be very successful.
I had a corner office. I just was losing creativity because of that. I was overseeing teams instead of being hands on in the projects we were working on. I was more managing. And so, I started this side hobby of crafting and DIY and really got my hands into photography.
In the pursuit of creating an aesthetically pleasing website, I decided to create my own set of photos, branded photos. It was a practice for me. It was just a practice shoot.
I ended up shooting 50 or so photos for myself, but I ended up not wanting to use them because they just weren’t right for the brand that I was trying to build.
And so I ended up giving them aways, freebies, because I knew collecting readers and having an email list was going to be important for some reason going forward.
I thought, “Well, a lot of people I’m interacting with on a day to day basis while I figure out this hobby of mine are other entrepreneurs, other bloggers, other people who are into branding.”
And so yeah, I really started that way through a hobby and developing style around my photography and how to use them on websites and on social media. That’s really how I got started was giving away my photos for free.
Jillian Leslie 5:12
Okay. So, for the audience. I recommend they pause this episode and go check them out because it’s IvoryMix.com. You give away beautiful stock photos that you can easily add text to in Canva or something like that. They speak to kind of creative female publishers.
Kayla Butler 5:36
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And that’s really been a development over time. I mean naturally I created photos that way because I am a female entrepreneur and designer but it was really through the practice of using the photos myself to promote my own business that I started to understand.
“Oh. Well, it would be better to create photos that have a lot of white space, or a lot of negative space, or are easily cropped into a square for Instagram, or into something vertical for Pinterest, or for an E book.”
There’s so many uses, but I understand the use of it through my own marketing of my own business. So it’s been quite a journey. I think that’s what makes the photos really work.
Jillian Leslie 6:30
Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about then how you started thinking up and building products to sell? Actually, like rounding out your business. You knew at the beginning you needed an email list, but you weren’t sure why.
Kayla Butler 6:44
Right. I knew that it would be important at the time really getting people to read my blogs. It turned into a real community because I started a Facebook group because it was was easier for me to communicate with people on a whim, so to speak, maybe pull people through my facebook group.
And so, I grew my email list. It really took off. I started to get hundreds a week, and then thousands a month eventually. Yeah, it really took off because of the viral nature of something so valuable and free as the stock photos that we offer.
But when it came to rounding out, like the offering itself and the different products that I’ve created, it was a journey of listening to our audience. I say “our” because now it’s not just me. At the time it was when I first started.
Jillian Leslie 7:56
Wait. So, who is it now? It’s not just you. It’s you and…?
Kayla Butler 7:59
It’s me. I have an assistant, a virtual assistant who happens to be my mom.
Jillian Leslie 8:05
Oh. That’s so sweet.
Kayla Butler 8:08
Yeah. And now I have another photographer on our team, Crystal. She’s located in Arizona. She shoots stock photos for us as well. My husband does some tech stuff for us. And so, we’re growing. We’re a team of four at this point.
Jillian Leslie 8:27
That’s great. That’s great because I work with my husband as well. And by the way, every one of my podcast interviews goes to my mom. She listens and gives me feedback like, “Oh, you should cut this.” or “This isn’t clear.” I love working with my mom.
Kayla Butler 8:47
Yeah, it’s so nice because it’s a thoughtful approach to criticism. Yeah. I think it’s a nice thing to have my mom there.
So it’s nice that you do too. So, in the beginning for me when I started creating products, it was just hit or miss. And so, my very first online course was a phone photography course. I thought that was great because it complemented the people I was serving.
Jillian Leslie 9:01
Totally.
Kayla Butler 9:21
They wanted an easy way to either shoot photos or get photos. And so I thought, “Well, give them the stock photos of high quality, high resolution photos, but then give them a course that teaches them how to do things on the fly.”
My first launch did not go very well. I think I made like $50 but I’ve since turned that through trial and error and learning various different marketing methods and automations and things along those lines.
I’ve turned that one course, my very first online course, into something that generates thousands of dollars every year.
Jillian Leslie 9:58
How? What did you do?
Kayla Butler 10:00
Well, specifically, I turned it into a one time offer. This particular course, it’s very thorough, and it’s so easy to learn how to use your phone to create great images, not only that, but edit your images on your phone and get them right onto your Instagram or Pinterest.
It’s a very easy course but it’s also very easy to sell, and it doesn’t cost very much in terms of purchasing the course. So, I turned it into a one time offer. When someone signs up for our free stock photos, you’ll probably notice that you’ll be redirected to a page at that point.
Afterwards, the thank you page that says, “Free stock photos are in your email. But hey, for the next 15 minutes, you’ve got a chance to purchase this phone photography course.” There’s a couple of other added benefits but it’s through that one time offer now that we generate thousands of dollars in sales every month, honestly.
Jillian Leslie 11:04
Wow. Okay. How much do you sell it for?
Kayla Butler 11:07
The one time offer? It’s $7.
Jillian Leslie 11:11
Wow. Okay. I love this. I was just at a conference. I’ve mentioned this, the AdThrive conference here in Austin. I was talking to two bloggers who do this strategy and it’s called a tripwire.
What they do is as soon as someone signs up for their list, they create this offer that expires. They are monetizing it. It’s something relatively inexpensive.
One woman was selling her medicinal herb course or ebook for like $5. And then, she was able to take that money and buy Facebook Ads to get people to sign up for her list. She wasn’t making a ton of money on the course but it enabled her to grow her list for free.
Kayla Butler 12:01
Absolutely. I remember the day that I learned about this. We were about to go on vacation, our family was. I was like, “You know what? It would be awesome if I just set this up before we go on vacation and then see what it does when I come back.” I made my first sale within 15 minutes of setting it up.
Jillian Leslie 12:23
Wow.
Kayla Butler 12:23
Yeah. I’m like, “Oh, my God.” It really was the catalyst to light a fire under me to create other products because it was a lesson if you set things up the right way.
Because I was already getting the audience. My audience was already warm to the ideas. And so, it was just putting the offers there and asking at the right moment.
Jillian Leslie 12:51
Absolutely. And what I love is you created this course and it didn’t work. Or you thought it didn’t work.
Kayla Butler 12:56
Exactly.
Jillian Leslie 12:56
You must have been demoralized.
Kayla Butler 12:59
I was at the time, but what I’ve learned since is I actually didn’t. It wasn’t a failure. At the time, maybe I had only made $50, but guess what, I sold it. I actually sold it. What I didn’t recognize at the time was maybe I could have done it differently.
Maybe at the time I thought it would always be available. It was a lesson that when you add a little bit of scarcity, or add some bonus, or do something that really motivates people.
Because honestly, if someone really wants to improve their photography skills or purchase something to improve an area of their lives, it might be easy for some people to say, “Okay. Here’s my credit card. I’m going to purchase this for myself.”
It might be easy for some people but for other people they might need a little more motivation. It might be just getting them to have those internal dialogues to be like, “Okay. Do I need this right now or not?”
Jillian Leslie 14:02
Absolutely.
Kayla Butler 14:02
I have an hour, I have three days to make this decision. Do I need it or not? Sometimes, that’s all that it takes.
Jillian Leslie 14:09
Well, absolutely. We are programmed, we are wired with loss aversion, which is the idea, “Oh my God, it’s going to go away.” We are very motivated. We’re more motivated for loss aversion than gain.
Loss hurts us more than gain does. So therefore, if you can kind of tap into people’s loss aversion of, “Oh, no. I’m going to miss out and never be able to get this again.” You’ve tapped into some kind of human quality.
Not that they don’t want this. But it motivates them in that moment to go, “You know what? I do want this. I’m going to take out my credit card. It’s $7.” Right? I think that’s so brilliant. Okay. So then, from this, what else have you created?
Kayla Butler 14:51
Well, I ended up creating a few different courses. One on Pinterest marketing. Another course on Instagram marketing. And then, another course that I thought was another failure at the time. It was called self-made together.
It was supposed to be coaching that brings everything together like a well rounded soup to nuts kind of business plan for those starting out. It really walked people through coming up with a business idea, finding their niche, starting their branding, through the marketing of it and then scaling. So, getting affiliates.
Because at that point when I had launched this course, self-made together, I had built my business. I had taken it full time. I had learned all these lessons that I thought would be great to put in a course.
I thought it was a failure because I only sold 30 seats. I always have these grand notions that I’m going to sold a thousand. I turned those courses into more profitable courses that help a lot more people over time.
I’ve found that that first launch of online courses or even memberships or other products, it’s better to assume that that first launch is more of a beta for you and for your audience, because you’re learning what marketing works well and what your audience resonates with that first go around.
So for me, I like to treat the first launch of anything, really, as the beta version.
Jillian Leslie 16:47
Yes, I think that’s really smart. I think you’re right because we think we know, and we don’t until you test it.
Kayla Butler 16:55
Exactly. If you’re able to sell one of anything, it’s not a failure. Because if you can sell one, you can sell 10. If you can sell 10, you can sell 100. If you can sell 100, you can sell 10,000. It’s just a matter of tweaking and adding your strategies and addressing each point of the customers journey.
Each point on that customer journey, you can make improvements. And then, at the end of the day, be better for you and your bottom line.
Jillian Leslie 17:29
Absolutely. So tell me then. I’m also on your email list. Do you also have a membership set?
Explain that. How does that fit in with your courses?
Kayla Butler 17:38
Yes.
I really started out with the membership of our stock photos. It began as a free stock photo membership. And then, once I started creating more and more photos every month, that turned into really a service that was more valuable to people than the free stock photos.
I created the membership and I started out with something monthly and found that if I offered an annual version that I could really buy my members investing in that membership, I could really bring a lot of value.
So that annual investment in a membership has turned out to be one of the best things for us to better serve our members because then, we get to know them, their businesses, their niche, their colors.
Versus someone who’s maybe a month to month member who is a member for a couple of months and then takes a break. In terms of how that works in my business and with the courses, I ended up getting overwhelmed with the number of products that I was offering.
It became more of a desirable thing for me to see how I could bundle everything together if our members would enjoy the courses and would enjoy the the trainings along with their stock photos. And so, I’ve ended up bundling everything under our annual membership.
And so, when someone signs up for our annual VIP, we call it our VIP stock photo membership, they also get access to some of our trainings as well, in Pinterest and Instagram. So, it’s been early 2016 since I’ve had this membership, and it just continued to grow.
I really enjoyed teaching, marketing and growing your business along with providing the resources like the stock photos and the assets. Really it’s I’m the vision is to kind of create this membership that offers all of that under one umbrella.
Jillian Leslie 20:11
And so, are you doing live trainings, monthly get together, zoom calls, something like that? Or is it, you get access to stock photos once a month, new ones that aren’t available for free, and you get access to your Pinterest course or your Instagram course that kind of thing? Is there any more kind of hands on interaction?
Kayla Butler 20:33
There is. They get their monthly stock photos and they get access. If they sign up for the annual membership, they get immediate access to existing courses like pre-recorded self-paced trainings.
Then, once a month, we do one specific training on a topic that we pull our members on. Ahead of time, maybe a month or two. Ahead of time we’re pulling everyone to see what the hot topic is.
We throw out some ideas. Like last month and the month before, so two months ago, we did something on how to automate your sales funnel.
We did a zoom training live with interaction that month on how to set it up, how to write it, how to identify how long a sales funnel should be, or how short it should be. And then just last month, we did an Instagram training live.
And so, it’s just a better resource for those who want to get those live questions or really like dedicate, “Okay. This is the hour. I’m going to learn this.” We are doing those once a month too.
Jillian Leslie 21:53
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So for your business, given that you are teaching Pinterest, Instagram, and stuff like that, what are you finding success with?
Kayla Butler 24:08
With Instagram, for instance, what I’m finding success with is by not focusing on my product and my offering as much as I am focusing on the transformations that my audience wants in their lives or in their business.
When it comes to marketing on Instagram, I’m focusing a lot on who I’m talking to, and trying to resonate with the transformation that they want and what inspires them. If you go to my Instagram account, you’re not going to see that I’m posting samples of our stock photos all the time.
That’s because what I’m finding is a lot of our audience that comes to Instagram and follows us are coming through other channels. They’re not necessarily finding us through Instagram. They’re finding us through Google search, or through Pinterest, and ending up on our Instagram.
I’m finding that if I’m creating content for them, I don’t need to show them samples of my stock photos because they get to see that all other places. And maybe in my stories, I talked about it.
But really the content that I’m creating is about helping them with specific areas that they’re trying to grow or trying to change within their lives. I might post an inspirational quote of some kind, and then some tips and tricks.
Or, I might post a list of things to try on Instagram to grow their engagement. But really, it’s that focusing more on the transformations that our audience wants to make. That seems to get more saves, more shares, more engagement, more comments than anything.
The more that we get meaningful social interaction on Instagram, the more our Instagram does organically grow, and the more we do reach people on hashtag search. Do you see what I’m saying?
Jillian Leslie 26:19
I do. What hashtags, for example, would you say, work for you guys?
Kayla Butler 26:26
For us, it’s more of the daily motivation hashtag. I’m drawing a blank at the moment. Let’s see. On Monday, if you go to the past Monday’s Instagram, the hashtag was, I think, #HappyMonday.
I mean it really wasn’t that specific but the rest of the hashtags that we’re using are like success quotes or mindset. #MindsetMonday. We use different things like being boss or gold digger, which are other podcasts that our potential audience or existing audience follows.
So, yeah. We just focus our hashtags around the topic of the day, whatever the topic of the day is. And then, we look for hashtags that are very popular, and then hashtags that are like, I would say, medium popularity.
So, yeah. Anything over a million in terms of how often that hashtag has been used, that’s very popular. And then, anything under 500,000 is a medium popularity.
And then, anything under 100,000 in terms of use on Instagram is probably not used very often. There’s definitely hashtag strategy that we look at but we try to match the content with the hashtag as best as possible.
Jillian Leslie 28:09
Right. Now, one thing you said that I think is so interesting, and we try to think about this a lot, which is, it’s not always about the tactics, as much as the journey and the transformation. And that you want to inspire your customers, your visitors to feel those feelings of possibility.
If I buy your product, I’m not just going to have stock photos, but I’m going to feel a certain way. I will feel empowered to make beautiful images so that I can present my business, or myself, or my company in a light in which makes me feel good and will hopefully inspire somebody else to feel good.
Kayla Butler 28:59
Absolutely. Yeah. What I find is that a lot of our audience is right on the cusp of making big changes. They’ve got a website and they’re getting ready to launch their business, but there’s something holding them back.
They know they need to invest in the tools and the resources, whether it’s stock photos, online courses, or whether it’s the actual tools like email, automation or something along those lines. They’re right there. They’re right about to do it, but something keeps holding them back.
And so, those are the things that we focus on is trying to help people feel empowered to make those decisions and to not get so caught up in the feelings and really understand that making decisions is the way that you are going to make goals happen or achieve your mission, whatever that is.
Making decisions is the way that they’re going to get to the next step. And so, every piece of content, or just about every piece of content we put out, like on Instagram, for instance, is about empowerment and feeling like you are ready to make a decision.
Maybe today’s a good rest day so that next week, you feel like you’re ready and prepared to make decisions. And people really resonate with that.
Jillian Leslie 30:29
right? And what I always say is, make the decision, because you can always change it. But each decision is learning. You want to be learning always. And you’re a real testament to this in terms of how you built courses and then figured out, “Oh, okay. I’m going to go this way.”
“Okay. Now, I’m going to go this way. Now, I’m going to tweak it this way.” And the only way you get there is by making micro decisions. I always say that you avoid a midlife crisis by making micro adjustments, by going, “Well, this doesn’t feel right. Let me try this.” and see how that feels.
“Try this on.” Almost like a sweater. Does this fit? Does it feel good? It’s much easier if you are in the habit of making decisions to continue making them and to continue to course correct.
Because who knows? Again, you don’t know. And so, you have a hunch, and you hope that that hunch is right. It might not be.
Kayla Butler 31:35
Right. A lot of times too is we start thinking too far ahead. The decision that we want to make, we’re afraid that it’s not the right one. The thing is, it’s okay to be critical or criticizing of yourself because that part of you is trying to protect you from failure and protect you from feeling a certain way or protect you from loss or whatever.
But the truth of the matter is that it’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to criticize yourself and feel like, you know, maybe this isn’t the right decision or whatever. But the truth is that making a decision is the only way to get to the next step.
Jillian Leslie 32:20
Absolutely. And I try in my own life, to police the narratives I tell myself, the stories that I tell myself, that I fill my brain with, because the truth is, I don’t know. But I can tell a story about it, that it’s going to be a huge success, or it’s going to be a huge failure.
And so, what I try to do is tell myself, “Uh ah Jill, that’s a narrative. That’s a narrative.” And step back and be in the here and now. What do I know?
The other thing is that I’ve read this now, we are horrible prognosticators. We think we know about the future. You’re absolutely right, we do this to protect ourselves. But I mean, think about it.
If you keep a journal, like write down what you think is going to happen and then come back after it’s happened, and see how you feel, you will notice that you are wrong more often than you are right. But we love our own stories and we love believing them as truth.
Kayla Butler 33:20
Yup, absolutely. Yeah. I find that these things resonate a lot with our audience. It resonates a lot with me. If anybody is on the fence to do something, it’s usually about that inner dialogue.
They’re on your list for a certain reason. For us, they want those free stock photos. A lot of times, the free stock photos is helping them get along a little bit. It’s helping them show up on Instagram and Pinterest.
But if they really want to grow, they know they need to invest in something but something keeps holding them back and it’s not me. I’m not holding them back. Right? It’s definitely something internal and it’s that inner dialogue.
Being an entrepreneur or starting a new business is a vulnerable place to be. And so, we speak to that and try to help our audience really feel that they’re the decision makers and that they can be empowered to make a decision.
And then, shift and pivot and feel confident that they’re figuring this out. But we’re alongside them. We’re going to be there riding them with stuff that makes our lives easy. I mean, the stock photos and the trainings.
I mean we added Instagram captions too so every time we deliver stock photos, we’re delivering captions that people can use to customize. And they’re strategic so there’s goals that go along with these Instagram captions.
If your goal is to get people to click on your link, I’ve got captions that you can customize that gets people to do that. The resources we’re providing are supposed to help you feel like the weight has been lifted. And that you’re free to now make other decisions and think about other things.
Jillian Leslie 35:08
I love that. Like, you’re not traveling alone. The reason why I started this podcast was because I think being an entrepreneur, while like the best thing I could ever do, and I do work with David, my husband, it’s lonely.
I don’t know if you have kids, but like, I always think it’s super weird, you know, when you’re talking to the moms and you go, what do you do, and you’re trying to explain what you do, and they don’t really get it.
It can be very isolating. And because we love our own stories, and typically, by the way, we’re not telling ourselves happy stories, because we want to protect ourselves. So we tell ourselves bad stories, and we believe them.
I thought when I started the podcast, “If I could just be like a little friend in somebody’s ear, helping them, giving them ideas.” That was my goal.
In a weird way also to then make me less lonely because I now have this community of other women, predominantly, who understand, who get the struggle, and who understand that we can be our own worst enemies.
But we can also really help raise each other up. And because of the internet, it’s kind of the Wild West. You can build anything. There are tools.
My assistant lives in Portugal. We Skype, and we talk, and literally, she’s one of my best friends. And yet, she’s halfway around the world. But it’s only because of technology today that you can do stuff like that. It’s like the possibilities are endless.
I think you’re right, which is some of the things that we hold ourselves back in ways that can really limit us and that if we can find friends like you, who will help push us, it’s amazing what we can do.
Kayla Butler 36:54
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love it. I love the community of entrepreneurs. Yeah, I definitely resonate with the things that you’re saying.
Jillian Leslie 37:04
If you could go back now to you when you started, which was now how many years ago?
Kayla Butler 37:10
Four years at this point.
Jillian Leslie 37:12
Okay. And you could tell her one piece of advice, what would it be?
Kayla Butler 37:17
I think it would be that mistakes and failures are good things. And that through each little setback, there is a lesson that’s going to be learned. And to keep going. And to not hold back from asking for the sale.
I think a lot of my first year, I thought that selling, promoting or offering things was gross and it didn’t align with who I was. I was very stuck up in my head that stock photo should be free, they just should be free.
But I quickly… Well, I wouldn’t say quickly. I should have learned a lot faster that I had a lot to offer. And so, I think if I could go back, I would tell myself to own what you’re doing, trust that what you’re offering is of great value, and to not be afraid to ask for the sale.
Jillian Leslie 38:35
Wow, that’s very powerful. Again, I think that we all get that. Especially as women because we’re helpers. It’s part of who we are. I think it’s genetically who we are. It’s also society, you know, trains us to be givers and helpers.
Somebody said this to me and I thought it was really helpful is to reframe it as we are helpers and by offering our product we are helping and that we are then creating a living for ourselves so that we can help even more.
And just saying, you know, that somehow it should be free what we’re doing, you know, when all of a sudden I was for myself able to reframe it as, “Oh, if I make more money, I can help even more. I can come up with more products and more things to sell and make other people’s lives better.”
The bigger I can be, the better because I can touch more people. And if I can lighten somebody else’s load, like what else do I want to do in life is to help somebody else on their journey.
Kayla Butler 39:50
Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jillian Leslie 39:52
So again, it’s like a mindset shift. It’s a powerful one. There was one interview, I remember this, of a woman who was saying that she makes seven figures and she’s really successful. And she said she gives a bunch to charity.
She works in like, I don’t know, Haiti or someplace like that. But she was like, “I can do more.” Like this is all good. And I remember listening going, “Wow.” And that she’s so owned it.
I was so impressed how she owned that and wasn’t at all embarrassed or felt somehow she shouldn’t share this. But like she’s kicking ass. She’s able to then share the wealth.
Kayla Butler 40:35
Right? Absolutely. I have to say that this past year for me has been that specific mindset shift. I wasn’t afraid to make money at that point. This January 2019, I was doing really well and making money but I thought that I had to do it all myself.
The mindset shift that I went through recently was that by bringing on more team members, I can grow the business beyond any of my current dreams.
I still, you know, had a lot of fear about investing and trusting other people in the creative process because I thought that I had to own every bit of my photos, every bit of the creativity. The truth of the matter is you can empower other people to be just as creative as you.
If you can learn how to do it, other people can learn as well. The only way to grow at scale is by not doing it myself. I’m also surrounded by a team and also am able to impact and help so many more people.
It becomes less about the revenue and more just about just doing what we’re doing at scale, because I can’t do it by myself. I have these grand visions. But I never, at the beginning never really envisioned it beyond just me and my bubble, you know?
Jillian Leslie 42:12
Absolutely. I think too, when you bring on people to work with, again, they’re not you. So they’re not going to do it exactly like you. And so, that can be frustrating, but they also bring new ideas to the table.
They see things from a different perspective. And so, yes, will there be moments where you’re frustrated and go, “Wait. What? Why would they think that that’s the right way to do it?”
But to also step back and go, “Well, maybe their way is better. Maybe it’s just different and feels uncomfortable, because it’s not the way I do it.” But also like, what other ideas do they have that I would never thought of.
Kayla Butler 42:53
Right? Yep. It’s very powerful. The more you trust in the process of growing a team. I’ve only seen growth from it in all areas, not just revenue. Just like personal because at the end of the day, what do I want to be doing on a day to day basis?
Do I want to be constantly hustling and doing everything myself? Or do I want to be surrounded by a team that’s supporting the vision and then I can actually take a break, you know.
Jillian Leslie 43:29
I was just reading this, which is when people have to go to office jobs, you know, you don’t get to pick who you work with. That can be a real place of discomfort and unhappiness.
The cool thing about what we do is, A, we get to choose the people we work with. And, B, if something’s not working we can make changes and adjust. But that there’s so much more control.
I am here in Austin. I mean, Austin’s a really big city, but I don’t just have to work with people in Austin. Like I can work with people from all over the world.
And so, my pool of people is so large that like, I always think that I just want to work with people that I really like, that empower me, and that the relationships are really positive, and help grow my well being.
And that to me, when I had that realization, I thought, “Oh my God, how cool is that?” You don’t get to pick your family. And they say you get to pick your friends, but also when you are an entrepreneur, you get to pick the people you work with.
Kayla Butler 44:37
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is. It’s definitely a blessing and something that I don’t take for granted. So there’s so many good things to growing a team and being able to pick out your own. Yeah.
Jillian Leslie 44:52
Well, Kayla, this has been so terrific. How can people reach out to you, learn more about what you do, what you sell, ask questions?
Kayla Butler 45:01
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely visit IvoryMix.com. The best place to have a conversation with me to pick my brain or to learn more about what’s going on currently is on our Instagram, @the_ivorymix.
Jillian Leslie 45:20
Wonderful. Well, Kayla, thank you so much for being on the show.
Kayla Butler 45:24
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been so much fun.
Jillian Leslie 45:28
I hope you guys liked that episode. I loved how Kayla was so willing to be honest and share. My big takeaway is how she just listened to what her audience was looking for and figured out ways to serve them.
Even when things weren’t working, she pivoted and and didn’t give up and just kept chipping away and ultimately found success. So think about that in your own business.
Also, I wanted to share that for MiloTree, we now have rolled out snowflakes for your pop up especially for winter. So please, if you have not tried MiloTree, head to MiloTree.com, sign up for your account.
You get your first 30 days free. Install it on your blog to help grow your social media followers on Instagram, and Pinterest, and Facebook, and YouTube, and your email list. We’re coming out with some really awesome features soon too which I’m excited to announce, but please go try it out.
Tell me what you think. Turn on snowflake. So just so you know. The place to turn on snowflakes or sparkles is when you are configuring each pop up there’s a little toggle switch and it’ll say there turn on sparkles or turn on snowflakes. It just gives your pop up that little extra something so that people notice it and people click on it and people follow you.
Okay. If you have any questions about it or about anything, please reach out to me. Go join my Facebook group because I’d love to welcome you personally. And I will be here again next week.
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