217 – Grow Your Audience – Grow Your Business with Jennifer Allwood of The Magic Brush

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 217 do you think

you're good at what you do and can you tell people

you're good at what you do?

Excellent. This my friends is marketing Attention.

Gifters, bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue and I'm so happy that you're joining me here

today. Before we get started,

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift biz breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

I've got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt.

Wait, what aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group gift biz breeze.

Don't delay.

Come join us in gift biz breeze today.

Moving on.

Boy, do I have a special guest for you?

She's a role model for all women who have the dream

of turning their creative passion into a business.

She shares the steps that got her where she is today,

including lots of tips and wisdom that she's picked up along

the way.

I know I'm being a little bit mysterious.

Maybe it's the mood I'm in today or something,

I'm not sure,

but now it's time for the big reveal.

Let's get into the show Today.

So excited to introduce you to Jennifer Allwood.

If you don't know her already.

Jennifer is a wife,

mother and dynamic business coach and the host of the Jennifer

Allwood show podcast.

She has an infectious enthusiasm for helping like-minded creative women build

their social media followers and turn their talents and hobbies into

a lucrative online business.

Jennifer has built an incredible social media community with an online

following of are you ready for this?

You guys?

Half a million people.

She has a gift for creating relationships and showing up for

each and every one of them.

tribe and their business online and it is our good fortune

to have her sharing everything here with us today.

Jennifer, welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Well, thank you so much for having me,

Sue. I'm super excited to be here.

Thank you.

I love and feel really good about how we're going to

start out,

Jennifer, because most of the time this question throws people,

but with use,

interior creative,

I know it's going to be all good.

So I talk about a motivational candle and it gives our

listeners a little bit of a feel for you in a

different way.

So if you were to create a motivational candle that speaks

you, what color and what quote would be on your candle?

Well, the color is super easy.

I am a person that loves like I love color,

you know,

all the whole wide world is kind of decorating and farmhouse

and whites and grays.

Right now my house is like obnoxious fuchsias and blues and

I love color and I thrive in that colorful environment.

Okay. We have a lot of big colors in my home

and for some reason I keep gravitating towards this cobalt blue

and we jokingly have named it are all wood family power

color meaning I have clothes in the pocket of the cobalt

blue. My kids have closed the cobalt blue.

I don't know why,

but that's just the color that's resonating with me at the

moment. And I'm decorating a tug with.

Perfect. And what type of a quote or a saying or

a mantra or something is important to you and do you

run your business with?

Sure. So I was thinking about the soon I was thinking,

gosh, okay,

whether this be something that I,

you know,

a quote from somebody else or something that I always say

or there's so many good quotes I can think of.

But one of the things that I am on a pretty

consistent basis saying to the women in my community is the

following. And this quote I don't think encompasses,

it's just the one that I'm on right now and that

is that your fear does not release you from your calling.

And the reason that this particular saying that,

I mean,

I don't believe I heard that anywhere.

I'm pretty sure I made that up.

The reason that this one is resonating so loudly with me

and with my audiences that I have an audience,

much like you do have creative people of business owners who

are makers and creatives and DIY wires and bakers and jewelry

people, and the women that I get the opportunity to coach

and lead.

They're a fantastic group of women,

but the majority of them struggle with fear in their business.

And it's either fear to be online or a fear of

what people are going to think of them,

or if they're worried about the business piece of it because

they just really want to make and they don't love the

business part of it.

Or if they have fear over the fact that they're an

introvert and I'm asking them to do Facebook live.

So there's lots of fear usually involved.

And so when I'm always kind of talking to my tribe

about is listen,

it's okay that you're scared,

but you still have a thing to do even in spite

of that fear.

You know what I mean?

Like you have a business to run,

you have a family to feed,

you have people watching you who need in the world what

you're putting out there.

So even though you're scared that it still doesn't release you

from what you're supposed to be doing in your business.

So that would be my final answer.

Your fear does not release you from your calling.

Your final answer is that yes,

I Love it.

And I could not agree with you more mean.

I don't know if it's because all of us are creators

and makers,

so there's even more to what we're putting out there than

just ourselves because it's our creative expression into some type of

a physical product.

Right? Oh absolutely.

Yeah. Cause I think everybody struggles with fear,

but we get it double time.

And I don't know that everybody struggles with fear.

Cause when I think about like the plumber that just fix

the toilet at our house,

I don't know that he's like,

Oh gosh,

what do I put on social media today?

How do I word this?

So I don't sound real salesy,

but it's his job and he shows up for his job.

But creative people because we put our heart and our soul

into what we're making and what we're putting out into the

world. And we're often feelers and exceptionally vulnerable to criticism and

offense. And that's what makes us,

by the way,

so great at what we do.

But on the flip side of that,

it's what also often will hold us back on the business

part because it makes us feel very vulnerable to put something

that we just painted or just created or just made on

social media with the chance that people are going to not

love it.

And so I do think it's different.

Like I don't think my accountant is ever like putting his

hands together and Oh gosh,

I hope people like what I'm about to do today.

Now he just does his accounting and he doesn't think twice

about it.

But for us creatives,

it's so different.

It's a very piece of our heart and soul.

It feels bigger.

It feels heavier.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I guess I would rephrase it to say people who

are in business.

Yeah, absolutely.

For sure.

But doubling up when it's also your creative expression in your

art, that is your business a hundred percent agree with you.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So and so you were talking about painting a minute ago

and let's go into that right now.

I know you didn't start with what you're doing today,

so let's go back a little bit and talk about what

your first business was.

Sure. So I used to do a nine to five job.

My background is actually in computer based information systems.

That's what I got a degree in when I was 30

I went back to college as a grownup,

as an adult,

and I hated that job.

Sue and I felt guilty because I'm like,

I have a pager.

I get to wear pantyhose every day.

I have a little lanyard that gets me into different rooms

in the building.

Like I should be really grateful and really loving this.

But the truth was is that I'm such a creative at

heart that I really just wanted to be home decorating my

house, making my home pretty,

et cetera.

this little side gig while I worked at my day job

at the computer and I was doing decorative painting for people.

So I don't know where you're from Sue,

but this was really popular here in the Midwest.

So we were doing like full finishing to make the walls

look like texture.

Did you have that where you're from?

Yeah, I'm in Chicago.

Okay. So you know I going to talk about,

so you remember when FAU finishing came on hot and heavy

and wallpaper was no more.

And so I was loving just nights and weekends making people's

walls, pretty painting furniture,

doing some kid's murals.

And then that day job that I was doing and that

I actually really disliked ended up laying me off.

And so when I got laid off I thought,

gosh, I at this point feel like I would do about

anything not to have to go back to another desk job.

It's just so not who I am.

And so I,

if I could make this like painting thing into a full

time business and I wasn't sure that that was possible,

but I was also hungry when you have that,

just like that touch of desperateness where you're like,

I'll do anything to make this business do well so I

don't have to go back to that other thing me.

And that is such a great advantage to have and God

can still work with that.

And so I was hungry.

I didn't want to go back to a daytime job.

So I started my decorative painting company full time.

It quickly went to being very successful.

And then I started having babies soon.

So I had three babies in a row.

And you know,

I remember when I was pregnant with our oldest son,

Noah, I was like,

okay, now how am I going to do this?

Because we just did one of the biggest decorative painting projects

in the Kansas city area.

It was all over the news.

There were reporters at the house,

it's all over the newspaper.

Like my business was really taking off and then I was

getting ready to have a baby so I was trying to

figure out how can I keep this business afloat but stay

home with the little one.

So it was then that I hired my sister-in-law to come

paint for me.

She didn't like the business part of anything,

she just wanted to paint.

So it was interesting how it came about very organically.

I stayed home and took care of kids and did the

marketing of the business and like developed relationships with different builders

and decorative or designers who hire decorative painters and I had

a team of women go paint for me and that was

an exceptionally great deal.

It was at one point I had eight women painting for

me every day on the field.

We got to do three episodes of the extreme home makeover

with type Headington for ABC.

That was really,

really good.

But about five years ago,

things kind of shifted for me and when I decided that

business as much as it once was.

And so I think you're going to want to talk about

that next.

But yeah,

that's how I got started in my deck gig.

So Jennifer,

I have a quick question for you right here.

As you started adding employees on,

how did you work with them to make sure that the

level of what they were doing was the quality that you

were already known for?

That's a great question actually.

And you know,

like when I was bringing different contractors on,

I feel like there has to be a little bit of

this understanding that nobody's ever probably going to do it exactly

like I would have done it or exactly like I would

like for them to do.

Does that make sense?

So when it's yours and it's your business,

there's always a different level of attention to detail and especially

if it's in a creative space that you're producing content.

But I was always like,

okay, I feel confident in my ability to teach people one

step and then another step on top of that.

And I felt comfortable with my sister in law as ability

to train new girls also.

And sometimes it's not like we were drawing canvases and you

know, doing artwork like that,

it was more like traveling texture onto walls and staining grads

starts to look like wood.

And so I got over the fact of thinking,

okay, it's gotta be perfect because it really is kind of

more of an artistic thing.

And so being really good needed to be fine with me.

Does that make sense?

It makes a lot of sense because I think people get

to a stumbling block where they're saying,

well, I'm the creative.

No one can do it the way I'm doing it.

Right. And that's true.

Yeah. And what I believe you're saying is you have to

be okay with that.

You really do.

Because the truth is like,

so I'm super passionate and in love with making a house

beautiful and making a space feel a certain way.

And I love that.

And I'll be doing that in my own home until the

end of time soon.

I actually bought my first house when I was 21 years

old, which is kind of unheard of for most 21 year

olds. So I love houses.

I love decorating.

I love making them beautiful.

However, that's not the piece of it.

That was super important to me because what I've counted by

the way things kind of worked out with me staying home

and raising kids and have other women working for me is

that I really loved the business part of it.

I loved marketing what my team was doing.

I loved getting onto social media and telling people how they

could do things in their house.

I loved the community piece of it even more than the

actual physical making somebody's house pretty.

Does that make sense?

It's exactly what I did.

So I can relate to it a hundred percent absolutely.

And so I love making everything pretty,

but it became,

so it wasn't the thing that I continue to just have

first and foremost in my mind.

And I actually determined,

gosh, I kinda like not only the making a house beautiful,

but telling people how to make their houses beautiful.

And that actually really turned out to be a great thing

in terms of pivoting my business down the road.

Perfect. And you segwayed into this wonderfully,

we've got a great feel for what you were doing before

and now your business is coaching and helping creators develop and

grow their businesses so that they're profitable and they're getting the

attention that they need and all of that.

Where do I want to start with?

This is,

I am quite sure gift biz listeners,

your ears perked up when she was talking about the publicity

that you got on TV and all of that.

So let's use that story as the kickoff and then let's

talk about marketing your business overall.

Sure. So it was interesting because when we got picked Sue

to do three different episodes for extreme home makeover,

this was when I really like went,

Oh, okay,

I get it now.

So I hope all of your listeners will just like thank

tune and off the whole rest of the podcast if they

want. But this piece of it,

I really hope that they'll lean into,

there was many very talented painters in the Kansas city area

who would have been great for the ABC show.

But what I figured out was we were selected,

not based on the fact that we were the best painters

in Kansas city,

but we had the biggest audience and I was the one

that was the best at marketing.

Does that make sense?

And so I was,

as soon as we got chosen for extreme home makeover,

I was like,

okay, wait a minute.

We don't have to be the best to be on TV.

We just have to be the best at marketing and we

could get on TV.

I hope that that makes sense.

That makes sense.

But that also leads.

So you had to pitch well,

yeah, we had to like take the samples before them and

talk about what we would do and,

and part of it was being in the right place at

the right time on the first house because I did work

with the builder that was selected in Kansas city to actually

build the extreme home makeover house.

But time and time again,

and that was just one example with using extreme home makeover,

I have found that people would ask my business to come

on local television.

They would want to interview me for a radio show.

Again, not because I was the most talented decorative painter in

Kansas city,

but because I was the best at marketing.

So I had a decent sized following in a decent sized

audience. Because the truth is you can be so talented at

painting, making,

crochet, knitting,

baking, whatever.

But if you don't have a platform on which you're telling

people that you have the talent in this area and you

can't get good on that part of it,

then you're still a lot of times doing a hobby and

it's not a legit bill paying business.

Right. And it's certainly not going to be a business that's

ready to grow.

Exactly. And so it's still in the hobby stage.

And so what I found is that a lot of creatives,

they're very uncomfortable with the term marketing,

and that feels kind of like,

you know,

nailing jello to a tree.

What is that exactly like define marketing.

What does it mean?

It sounds big.

It sounds like I need a degree and I break it

down just very simply into two things.

Marketing is basically one,

believing that what you make or have to offer the world

is good.

And to being willing to tell people that what you have

that you make or offer the world is good.

It's just,

it really boils down to that.

That is marketing in a nutshell.

Do you think you're good at what you do and can

you tell people you're good at what you do?

Excellent. This,

my friends is marketing and so I was pretty good at

just giving people pictures on Facebook of what we were doing,

talking about it on Instagram,

starting a website where I had pictures and I didn't get

stuck in the weeds Sue of thinking,

Oh gosh,

my website's not perfect yet,

or, gosh,

what if somebody doesn't love what I'm putting on Facebook today?

I never got stuck there.

And because of that,

my platform really grew in terms of my social media following

very, very quickly.

Did it grow because you were just putting the volume of

content or was it the pictures that you were putting on

or were you teaching?

What do you equate the growth to?

Cause I want to just bring up a challenge that I

hear from my community a lot and that is I'm spending

so much time there on,

I'm not seeing anything happening.

So people will feel like they're putting things up but it's

not working.

Right. So when I really figured out how social media works,

it was about five years ago,

I was really in this place where I was frustrated with

my creative career in the frustration is very basic.

Really. I just felt like I am working away too stinking

hard to not be making any more money than I am.

And I feel like this is where a lot of creatives

sometimes end up and they will be like,

gosh, I am hustling my butt off here.

It feels like I'm working really hard.

I should actually have more in the checking account than I

do. So I felt that tension,

that internal tension between,

I'm working really hard here and I'm not making what I

think that I should be.

And so I started trying to figure out in my head

like, okay,

well what could we do if I wanted to make more

money? Our family wanted to vacation where we wanted to buy

a bigger house.

So in trying to explore those ideas,

I was thinking,

well I guess I could start a second crew of women

who paint for me and we could be doing a second

house project every.

And then that just gave me like,

I just wanted to break out in the hives at that

thought. Cause I thought good grief,

I'm already managing eight women painting.

Like the idea of doing double that just seemed like double

the stress,

double the work.

And so instead I thought well what if I instead really

tried to do something online?

And I had this Facebook following of probably I would say

five years ago I was at about 50,000

followers on Facebook and I got to 50,000

followers by posting not only my painting but lots of things

that were about my family and things that were about my

faith and things that were my opinions on different things.

And I found that I was at first nervous to do

that cause I was like,

gosh, all these people are following me cause they want to

know my favorite gray paint colors.

And now I'm talking about the fact that,

you know,

I'm talking about something has to do with my kids and

instead of that turning people off,

it really just continued to attract people at an incredible volume,

which was shocking to me.

And the more that I did less business on social media,

the bigger my business became.

And so five years ago I thought,

okay, so in Kansas city right now,

I'm going into people's homes,

we're painting their cabinets,

we're paying their furniture,

we're doing their broad stores,

whatever. What if instead of doing that,

what if I tried to start teaching people by way of

like painting videos or instructional videos or webinars,

I could teach them how to paint their own kitchen cabinets

because it became really like obvious to me.

All of a sudden,

gosh, I have people in Ohio who are asking me how

I just painted this client's kitchen in Kansas city and I'm

sitting down,

I'm writing out this entire tutorial for them and I'm like,

why am I doing this instead?

Why don't I make a video?

And they could actually buy the video and then they'll just

get a list of all my instructions and a list of

all my products and let's see what happens with that.

And so when I started doing that about five years ago,

we quickly went to six figures.

It was just in a little over a year of selling

painting videos.

So it was the craziest thing.

And I was like,

wow, that's really wild.

And so then I was like,

okay. So if I did six figures in a little over

a year selling painting videos with an audience size of 50,000

or whatever it was,

then I wonder what would happen if I doubled or tripled

my audience size?

Could I double or triple my revenue?

And so I started really focusing hard on building my social

media, building my Facebook,

following my Instagram and my Pinterest in particular,

and also building up the number of people that were on

my email list.

And that's when things really compounded at a very quick speed

for me.

And people then were coming to me saying,

okay, how are you getting so many new followers every day?

On Facebook,

what are you doing?

And it was a combination of two things.

It was a combination of being exceptionally present everyday on social

media. So I wasn't skipping a day,

I wasn't skipping a week.

I was there every single day posting daily on Facebook,

never missing one single day in five years.

So it was that.

So posting but also engaging or just posting,

no post ambulant engaging to me means coming back and when

people comments on there just a handful of people that I

comment back to me today with 355,000

followers, there's no way I could ever remotely consider responding to

every and nobody listening to me right now should feel like

they need to do that on their social media.

But engaging by way of like yes,

responding to their comments but also asking for their opinion on

things and asking what they think about things and asking what

projects they are doing and really rallying like this troupe of

creative entrepreneurs and kind of standing up for them for lack

of a better word.

Like the other day for instance,

who I did a post on how sometimes I feel like

on social media right now I feel as though it's easy

for people to be kind of keyboard warriors and just with

rude commenting as things.

And yes,

it's disheartening when I see it on my own posts,

but it really makes me upset when I see it on

other creative entrepreneurs post.

So my friend Susie Q over here,

she posts a picture of a painted piece of furniture and

then there's a couple of people that are saying nasty things

and I didn't love it.

And so when I started posting things like that,

so which is is it for engagement?

Not really.

It was more of like me standing up for an entire

community and those sorts of things would be getting shared by

all these creatives who are also following my business account.

And then that's helping me to get more followers also.

So it was being really consistent on social media.

It was putting out stuff that was really good in that

people were resonating with.

And then I was also doing Facebook ads for a very

long time,

like ads just to get my Facebook page in front of

more people and give them an opportunity to determine whether or

not they wanted to follow along.

Does that make sense?

It makes total sense.

I had wanted to stop you there just because I know

that would be a question from the audience.

Yeah. Excellent.

Okay, so question for you real quick.

On your painting videos you were charging for those,

were you doing some that were online just showing a little

technique or was it all paid?

It was pretty much all paid.

I mean,

I would paint candlesticks on a Facebook,

well, Facebook live wasn't a thing five years ago,

so it'd be like a recorded video and then I would

upload it.

So I would do some things like that.

Yes. Where I would give them little,

here's how you can paint a picture frame,

here's how you can spray paint something cute to repurpose it

in your house.

But if they wanted to know how to do a bigger

project that was way more in depth,

that was something they've seen on my Pinterest account,

then they would need to buy a tutorial.

I love that you are a real live example of this

at work because so many people like as we were talking

about in you when you started having to hire other people

to paint for you,

if you don't do that,

you're limiting yourself entirely in terms of the income.

If you are the one who's making the product,

selling the product,

fulfilling the orders,

all of that.

Some people,

let's face it,

don't want to staff,

they don't want to hire people.

They don't and they really get stuck there and I feel

for them Sue,

because here's the truth,

I can remember how earlier you were asking me and I

loved that question.

Like you said,

how did you make sure the quality was there?

And I was like,

well I wasn't ever super worried about that because it wasn't

like I was handing them a sample board with five layers

and saying figure it out.

I would go in and you know,

start them on the first layer and start them on the

second and as kind of creative people,

we could tweak things at the end if it didn't look

exactly like the sample so that it ended up being really

close. But stuff like that is really subjective.

Now let's say somebody's right now is an earing maker.

Okay, so there shouldn't be a lot of subjectiveness there.

Somebody orders cute leopard print tassel earrings,

they should probably get what's on your website.

What I see so many people doing suicide.

Well they want to be the ones that both makes the

earrings and posted on Facebook and puts it in the cute

little tissue paper with the little sticker and they slip it

in the envelope and they want to be the ones to

like address the envelope and take it to the post office.

And I'm like,

sweetie, listen,

that doesn't all need to be you.

I mean,

come on.

Your 13 year old can package some of those earrings for

you. And so this is how creatives really get caught up

and stuck and they stay small in their business because they

want to do every single part from a to Z.

And you can't,

if you want your business to grow,

you literally cannot.

You're so right.

And I'll tell you my theory on this.

You tell me what you think.

Yeah. I think people do that because they're staying busy and

then they're not doing the things that really move a needle

because those other things are uncomfortable like Facebook live or whatever

else. Yep.

It always boils down to fear.

We're going to go a little bit deeper with this topic

of fear.

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And what so oftentimes I think too is that people don't

realize, but when I usually say it out loud,

people are like,

Oh, you're so right.

The fear shows up in many ways because so many women

are afraid that their business is going to be a failure.

But then there's also this huge portion of women who are

scared that their business is actually going to be successful.

And so if I give up the earrings to the host

office and putting them in the envelope and I actually sit

down and do some Facebook lives and actually like send out

some emails and if I do those things then we start

getting some,

some momentum and I start seeing some success in some growth

here. Am I going to be able to keep up number

one and what are people gonna think of me?

Number two,

what is my sister-in-law?

And I think when my business start growing,

what's my mother and log in to say,

are my kids going to be okay with it?

Like there's reasons behind why women sometimes will unintentionally keep their

business kind of stifled and thinking that they have to do

every part from a to Z is exactly one of those

reasons. And you're so right.

If they keep themselves busy doing the busy work,

then they don't have to do the big work And I

love that you just said unintentionally because now I'll say to

everybody who's listening,

reflect on that a little bit and see if that's you.

You may not even recognize that that's something that you're doing

and I've got to say I've had some of that myself.

When it gets bigger and bigger,

how do you do it?

You continue to add staff.

Then you have support,

like you're responsible for someone else's livelihood,

all of that.

It's all in that little fear package,

right? Yep.

I agree a hundred percent that's one thing,

but I also to Reemphasize what you did,

which I think is brilliant,

which is finding another way to monetize what you're already known

for, which is then selling those videos.

So really smart.

How much were they?

They were $47 when I first came out,

and then I ended up putting them down to $27.

Then I also ended up putting them in a package of

you buy three and get two free,

like we redid it several ways,

Sue, to kind of keep it fresh and new.

And then I was doing the webinars,

which is very uncommon by the way in the creative space,

but people responded so well to it and I was doing

webinars like how to make money off of your furniture painting

business. I did that webinar and we had over 400 people

sign up at $47 a person for that webinar.

So it was a really good webinar.

It was about four years ago.

Then I did one on how to be profitable at your

cabinet making business or your cabinet painting business.

Then I did like how to use Pinterest to get you

more clients,

both locally and in the online space.

So I was doing a lot of webinars and people just

kept coming to me and say,

okay, so they kept leading me to my next thing essentially.

And right now,

even though I closed my painting business down almost two years

ago, so I still have something online.

It's called the paint finish of the month group.

It is a membership group,

so it's a monthly fee of $47 and you can join

my group.

I used to be the one that would teach you two

new paint finishes every month in that group.

And we've had that group about three and a half years.

And so it was people that were DIY wires or perhaps

they were painters also and just wanted to kind of freshen

up their portfolio.

Well, I got to this place where I was like,

I don't want to be the one doing all the painting

anymore. I've really made this switch both internally and externally into

the coaching and teaching space.

And so now what do I do?

Well, so I kind of went through my resources in terms

of what do I know?

Who do I know?

How could we reposition this?

And the truth is I know so many talented painters who

are so much more talented than I am,

and I have a large audience.

So I've gone for the last year and a half now.

I have not taught any of the finishes in my paint

finish the month group.

I call in what I lovingly referred to a celebrity painters

twice a month.

I picked two people twice a month that either I just,

I find off Instagram,

I find them up Pinterest and I asked them to come

in and teach the people that are in my paint finish

the month group,

a new paint finish every month.

In exchange for that,

I try to give them a shout out on my social

media because I have a half a million social media followers

and so it works out really,

really well.

So I have almost 400 people in that group at $47

a month.

I work on it for 20 minutes,

maximum a month and other people teach the group,

other people manage the group for me and so many people

get such great value out of it.

What, what started as like one off videos then went to

like they could do a one off video with a coupon

and then we did a package of videos and now we're

like, well we don't sell videos anymore.

You just have access to all of them within that paint

finish of the month group.

So we've tried to just like keep kind of switching it

up and offering something new and really innovating in the creative

space, which I feel like is so important for creative people

to be doing Something new and fresh all the time.

What you are describing is a win on three levels.

It's a win for you because you were ready to focus

more on coaching.

Yes, exactly.

It was a win for your audience because had you shut

it down here,

you'd been giving them something for so long and all of

a sudden you're gone.

So that would be terrible.

And then it's also a win for your guests who come

on because they I'm sure are quite honored when you reach

out and invite them on and then they get all the

visibility. Yeah,

I would like to think so and so with,

that's how we've tried to structure it,

so it's just really a win win for everybody.

And I also think too,

like sometimes people have never,

there's a lot of creative people and probably I'm guessing a

lot in your audience who've never considered making a tutorial.

They've never considered doing a blog post showing people how to

do exactly that sort of cake decorating.

They've never considered it before because in a way they're almost

concerned that they're going to be teaching people that will become

essentially their own competition.

That's exactly what it is.

And that is such a poverty mindset.

And just for me,

like when I'm coaching women,

that is completely the opposite of what I'm teaching them because

this is what I will say,

there will always be people Sue who will decorate their own

cakes. They're never going to hire you to decorate their cake.

They want to make their own.

They're going to go to Pinterest and find something and so

they're never going to be your client.

But there's also these people that are local in your community

who will buy a cake from you.

But then there's people all across the country that you're missing

out on the ability to teach them how to do that

cake because they're never going to be able to drive to

your home and pick up a cake and drive three States

back for their kiddos birthday.

They love what you do.

They think that they could perhaps make their own cake,

so they would love just to know how you did that

thing. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I keep talking to my creative people and I'm like,

come on guys.

If people are,

this is how you know,

by the way,

Sue, that your audience would love for you to teach them.

And so many creative people are like,

well, I'm not a teacher,

honey. That's why I used to think too,

I used to think too,

I'm not a teacher.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I barely know how to make these paintings as finished and

successful myself.

But the truth is you don't have to know all the

things about your industry.

You just have to know a little bit more than the

people asking you.

So if you have people messaging you right now on Instagram,

they're showing up in your DMS or they're sliding into your

Facebook DMS,

or they're sending you an email,

or when you put something in your email,

they're responding back and they're asking you,

gosh, how did you do that?

How did you make that cute headband for kids?

How did you make that soap?

I'd love to know how you X,

Y, Z.

What a lot of times will happen is creative people because

we're such genuinely givers.

We're giving the world our creative talents.

We'll often spend a lot of time being like,

Hey, I'm so glad that you messaged me and here's how

I made that sober.

Here's how I put together that cute headband.

And if that's happening,

I'm telling you what,

you could monetize that in a hot New York minute and

not only could you,

but you should because originally I think it started out kind

of as like flattering,

like, Oh my gosh,

people are wanting to know how I did that.

That's awesome.

But then you'll come to a point where you're like,

Oh my goodness,

I'm so tired of people wanting to pick my brain.

And if people are asking you to pick your brain or

they're asking you for specific instructions or directions or ingredients or

whatever, make some sort of a tutorial,

make an ebook,

make a video,

make a webinar,

do a Facebook group,

a membership group.

But you could be making money off of the knowledge that

you have in your head and the years of experience that

you have.

Yes. Amen.

I totally agree with you.

And I think there's another extension to that too,

which is some people think that they can do it and

it's so easy.

If it's your business,

you're assembling all of the pieces that you need.

You probably have materials to make a product and it's all

accessible because that's what you do all the time.

Think about starting a new craft for yourself.

You have to get all the materials or learn the techniques,

not as easy for them as it is for you.

Right. And I think a lot of people who will try

it will see number one that they've got to gather everything.

So they've got to like put everything together first,

but then also see that there's a talent to what you

make too.

So there's two different types of audiences,

what you're describing,

and then some people who are going to say,

I have tried this,

this is way harder than I thought it would ever be.

And then,

well guess what?

Then you can have this beautiful jewelry,

here's my website,

then order it.

So they get convinced that they're not going to make it

themselves. They're going to buy from you.

Exactly. So it's giving in two different ways,

giving to people,

like you're saying so wonderfully that we'll do it themselves and

you don't want to hold back their ability to have pride

in their own work.

Exactly. But then also people who are going to see a

whole different Avenue and you're going to get the revenue then

too. And you know,

I know at one point,

so I was thinking to myself early on and I already

know that some of your podcast listeners are going to be

thinking the same thing.

Well, why would somebody pay me if we just go back

to the cake decorating?

Why would they pay me for a tutorial on how to

do this when they can go find that for free on

YouTube? And that's what I thought too about my painting videos.

I thought,

I'm charging for this.

And literally somebody else could go search around YouTube and probably

figure it out.

But the truth is people will pay for convenience.

This is why I will pay a little bit more to

buy something on Amazon prime.

Then if I have to drive to my local target and

pick it up.

Does that make sense?

Like people will pay for convenience.

So if they were to pay you for instructions,

you've got everything in a nice little tidy PDF for them.

There's the list of all the products,

Oh by the way,

they need this cute mixer that you bought online somewhere and

you could give them an affiliate link for that.

That way you're getting paid for your recommendations and they will

literally, they would rather pay for information that is organized that

they don't have to hunt and Peck for.

That gives them a list of supplies that gives them exactly

what they need and then also they know so that they

could perhaps message you or DMU if they have any questions

they will pay for that versus sitting down and spending hours

hunting and pecking across the internet for free content and trying

to string it together into a successful project.

Yes, and I think knowing that the quality of the content

is good.

Exactly. And I think because of what you've done with your

brand, you have a following,

you've proven yourself with all the visibility you've had on TV

and YouTube and all of that.

I would suggest that your videos can command a higher price

because you are elevated in the industry.

So your videos of doing whatever the technique is I think

is perceived at a higher level of quality than maybe someone

who is an unknown,

which goes back to all the work that you've put in

for being present on sites and all of that.

Brilliant. Jennifer,

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you sir.

Was this part of your master plan all along?

It wasn't.

It wasn't,

but I'm telling you what,

just literally I kept just doing the next thing that was

put in front of me and with the thought of sticking

to the things that I feel like I'm really naturally good

at and staying true to where I think God's positioning me

right now in terms of like cheerleading for other creatives and

it was never a master plan.

I promise you it wasn't,

but I've been super willing to be flexible and to kind

of shift gears and lean into what my audience is asking

me for now and not getting stuck doing it one way.

So toys R us just closed down how many hundreds and

hundreds of stores.

I'm going to tell you why toys R us had to

close because Amazon prime and their ability to get people toys

much quicker for a less amount of money,

just toys R us refuse to compete with that and look

at like bed bath and beyond too.

The same thing,

like they haven't really changed the way they've been doing business

in the last five years and five years ago you couldn't

find any bed bath and beyond things on Amazon and now

you can find all of them and bed bath.

To me,

I was having to close a bunch of stores and so

I think it's super important for creative people to understand that

there's shifting in the way people want to consume content and

get product and so you're going to have to be able

to ship quicker.

You're going to have to be able to get stuff out

the door faster,

which means you can't be the only one up late at

night making earrings and the dining room.

There needs to be people that you have on your team

working with you.

The orders come in and getting it out the door faster.

I think creatives need to really understand that we are in

a world where people would prefer to sit at home in

their jammies and learn and order things from the convenience of

their homes,

college applications,

and the number of people going to college is down substantially

because so many people can learn what they need now on

the online space.

And so even though it may not be something you've ever

considered for a creative to put together,

like a webinar or a course that somebody could take.

We did a course once too.

It was four different ways to paint furniture in four weeks

we called it BYOB,

which now I think,

gosh, that was so lame,

but it was bring your own brush.

And I taught people how to paint a piece of furniture

that was like had previously been painted,

one that was laminate,

one that was stained and one that was wood.

And so we demonstrated this over a four week period.

I just put everybody into a Facebook group with me.

It was $77 for people to take that course with me.

And it was a painting course.

They were not at my home.

We were not at a studio.

I was just on camera painting furniture in my garage and

they paid me $77 a person to do that four week

course. I love that because people love to sit at home

and learn and people will be fascinated.

I think.

Here's what I think.

So I think a lot of things,

by the way,

but I think most of us creative people,

we kind of fufu off our talents and we think,

well, decorating cookies isn't that big of a deal.

It's not that special of a talent.

I'm not an astronaut or I'm not a doctor,

I'm just a creative person.

But the truth is half the world can't do the creative

thing that most of the people who are listening right now

can actually do.

So we flew off our talents and think,

well, anybody can figure it out when there are a whole

group of people who are thinking to themselves,

gosh, I could figure out how to decorate cookies and then

I would kinda be fun for me.

Maybe it'd be something that would be a good thing to

do with the kiddos or whatever.

And so there's a whole group of people out there that

would love to know your secret to how you do things

in your business,

if you'll just be willing to share that with them.

And I never suggest for free because no other people on

the planet work for free and creative people shouldn't either.

So put a price tag on it,

put it on the internet,

see what happens.

There you go.

Love it.

Okay, so we have some listeners here,

I'm quite sure who are right at the starting line.

They're thinking about going,

they know what their craft is.

They might have several,

but they've narrowed in on which one they want to try

and build a business around,

but they're not putting their foot over the line to start

the race.

What do you say to that woman?

Well, first of all,

if there's several things that somebody is good at,

I always suggest that you have to start with just one

because so many creative people are very gifted and very blessed

in many different areas.

So I can organize my pantry and I can paint a

piece of furniture and I can make earrings from scratch and

I can stage a home for resale.

Okay, well that's all fine and dandy,

but when you're kind of known for everything,

then you're known for nothing.

So in the beginning you always need to pick one thing

that you're going to double down on.

And I always suggest that it's the thing that like you

would do even if nobody paid you,

that you know so well or you're so passionate about that,

you could probably do it in your sleep.

So pick that thing,

pick that thing to start with.

It's kind of the lowest hanging fruit.

And then you could always shift later on.

What happens with a lot of creative people is they're like,

no, I don't want to pick one thing,

because then I feel like I'm stuck with that.

And it's kind of like that whole,

nobody puts baby in a corner mentality.

You know?

I'm like,

I don't want to pick one thing.

I want to be able to do the cookie decorating and

the jewelry making and the home staging and the organizing.

Well, it's very,

very difficult to get really well known for one thing when

you're doing all the things.

So pick one at least to begin with.

And then after you've gotten some momentum with that,

you can branch out into other things.

But initially you have to double down on one thing.

I agree with you totally.

So one thing and then just move forward back to your

candle with the fear.

Exactly. And you've gotta be treating it like a legit business.

So that means you have to have a business Facebook page.

You can't be just running your business on your personal Facebook

profile and calling that a business.

That's not a business.

Also, it's absolutely against Facebook's terms of service for you to

be doing business things on your personal profile,

regardless of how many of your friends are selling their leggings

or their makeup or whatever they are,

that is literally against Facebook's terms of service.

Yeah, you don't want to lose your profile because of it.

You don't want to lose your profile,

so you need to have a Facebook business page and we

actually have,

so if it would be okay,

I would love to give your audience like a resource for

this because I have something called a starter pack that's for

somebody who wants to figure out,

well how do I name my business?

How do I register my business?

How do I get it up onto social media and how

do I start kind of thinking like a business owner?

So if it's okay,

I can give your audience a link to that if that's

all right with you.

Sure. Fantastic.

It's at Jennifer allwood.com/starter

pack and because this is the part where I found most

people get stuck,

like the ball never gets rolling because of these things right

here. They just never get it started.

And I liken it to the fact that,

and maybe your audience isn't at this point,

but there's so many people that I find will come into

my coaching group and they won't even have named their business

yet. And I'm like,

what? What do you mean you haven't named your business?

Well, I just can't decide on something.

No, you don't want to commit to anything.

And that's very,

very different because it's like when you're pregnant,

and I have about a hundred kids,

I joke for only,

but it feels like a hundred at times.

Yeah. And so when you're pregnant,

you're definitely pregnant.

You definitely know there's a baby there.

But once you name the baby,

even if the baby's still in utero,

then it just feels so much more real to like refer

to the baby with a name.

Like the name feels like it.

Now everything is really happening.

So a lot of times business owners won't even get to

the part of naming their business to because once they name

it, then they know they probably need to start doing business.

Does that make sense?

Like I'm so fascinated by how many people get tripped up

on naming your business.

Listen, very few things on this side of heaven are permanent.

Your business name is not one of them.

So pick a name,

pick the one that you hate the least.

My magic brush business name.

I hated that,

but it was the one I hated the least and I

had it for 16 years.

It is what it is,

but you're wasting another six months.

You're wasting another year.

You're wasting another two years on just trying to come up

with the name.

And the truth is you just got to pick it up

and then go,

well, it's an excuse to stall is what it is.

It is absolutely a hundred percent all right.

At this point,

Jennifer, you have given us so much valuable information,

so now I'd like to give back to you.

Oh, awesome.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

So this is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your

future. This could be your dream or your goal of unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

So please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What's inside your box?

Ooh, well that seems big.

It's supposed to be big.

You got to make it big.

Yeah, it's big so well right now.

I mean,

just from a practical level,

we're in the middle of conversations with several different book publishing

houses. So a book will be in my future,

which I'm super excited about.

And so what's in my box?

Gosh. So that's a big question because I know in my

head I'm thinking Sue probably wants a business answer.

Nope, it can be personal.

It's okay.

Okay, good.

Cause my answer really isn't,

it isn't businessy.

I have always said from the very beginning of my business

that I knew that my business had little to do with

painting and a lot more with doing,

with encouraging women,

giving them confidence that they could work for me.

They could go off and start their own business,

giving confidence to women in painting their business.

So I really,

my heart is so towards the woman who is just wrapped

up in fear,

whether that's starting a business or doing something in our home

or whatever.

However, and that's what I will be doing even if nobody

pays me for the rest of my life.

But even though that's what my business is about,

I have always said if I make it as a business

owner, but if I end up screwing up my kids and

my marriage like it will never have been worth it for

me and so I think what I would want to be

in the box is my husband and my four kids watching

mom do things that are big,

hard and scary.

Even though mom's an introvert,

even though mom's not often comfortable with this sort of an

audience, seeing moms speak up on stage even though she's sucking

her thumb in a corner ahead of time because she's so

nervous about it.

I hope that what's in the box is that I will

have served my family really well by setting a good example

for them and showing them boundaries and that they will always

feel like they came first over my business.

Even though I ran a successful business where I encouraged other

women. That's why I think what I would want to be

in the box.

Love it.

It's a perfect representation of what it should be.

I think family first for sure.

Businesses in overlay.

Oh, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And you've already talked with us about your starter pack.

Again, gift biz listeners.

That's going to be@jenniferallwood.com

forward slash starter pack.

Where would be another place that you would send people online?

They can find me on Facebook.

I have my own podcast and just everything that you search

for, just search for Jennifer Allwood.

So you can go to Jennifer allwood.com

you can see there where I have links to my podcasts,

links to my coaching group,

links to my Facebook page.

So if they just go to Jennifer all would that come

or just go to the podcast app and search for the

Jennifer Elwood show.

They can find me across all social medias just with my

name. Perfect,

nice and simple and easy to remember.

Thank you for that.

And once again,

thank you for all of your valuable information.

I know that this has really resonated with a large number

of our listeners today,

so I really appreciate you being on the show.

So thank you so much.

I love what you're doing.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you.

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had envisioned?

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Get it on Amazon or through www.

Doug gift biz,

unwrapped.com/master wow.

Jennifer gave us some great information in terms of how to

connect with our audiences through social media up next week.

We're going to talk about connecting with your audiences further and

this is through a topic that in gift biz breeze we've

been talking a lot about lately and that is website development.

We get into the value of your website,

what platform you should be considering,

what content should go on there.

Imagery, branding,

navigation. Oh my gosh.

I think we touched base on almost everything.

You just have to wait for one short week and I

think we're going to answer all your website development questions.

If you're enjoying this show,

it would be so helpful if you went over to iTunes

and left a rating and review.

That helps us get the show up higher in the rankings,

so more and more people can be exposed to the information

and the learning that we share here.

It's a great way to pay it forward.

Thank you once again for joining in on the show and

I'll see you next week on the gift biz unwrapped podcast.