Here’s what we’ll cover
If you’ve ever considered pulling back on the 1:1 client facing work and transitioning to the online space then you’re going to want to stick around for this conversation with the gorgeous Emily Osmond. Emily Osmond made the switch that a lot of us often dream about. She made that switch a couple of years ago from 1:1 client facing work to a membership model and while it wasn’t immediately successful she stuck with it and made it a success.
I’m asking Emily Osmond all of your burning questions. Why did ‘she’ want to change her business? What steps did she take? How do you know when you’re ‘ready’ to go make the switch? What if I just love my 1:1 work? Should we all be experiencing 1:1 before switching over? Is it really as good as it looks from the outside? How hard is it really?
Emily is very open with her journey, the highs and the lows. It was a great chat so stick around.
Links and Resources
- Checkout the Simply Smarter Numbers website HERE
- Checkout the Podcast HERE
- Checkout the Instagram page HERE
- Checkout Emily’s Website HERE
- Checkout Emily’s Instagram HERE
- Checkout Emily’s Podcast HERE
Keep Listening!
Here’s the shownotes
Jen Waterson
If you’ve ever considered pulling back on the one to one client facing work and transitioning to the online space, then you’re going to want to stick around for this conversation with the gorgeous Emily Osment. Emily made the switch that a lot of us often just dream about. She made that switch a couple of years ago from the one to one client facing work to a membership model and while it wasn’t immediately successful, she stuck with it and made it a success. I’m asking Emily all of your burning questions. Why did she want to change her business? What steps did she take? How do you know when you’re ready to make the switch? What if you love your one to one work, and you just not ready and you, but you do want to scale. You do want to make some more money. Should we all be experiencing the one to one before we switch over? Or can we just jump straight into something like a membership model? Is it really as good as it looks from the outside? And how hard is it really? Emily is very open with her journey, the highs and the lows, and it was a great conversation. So stick around. Let’s dive in.
Jen Waterson
So hello, Emily and welcome to the podcast.
Emily Osmond
Thank you so much for having me, Jen.
Jen Waterson
I am really excited to have a conversation with you today. The stuff that we’re going to talk about. I know that anyone who listens to my podcast is going to just soak it up, but before we get into the topic, tell us about what you do, Emily. A little bit about your background and what your business is.
Emily Osmond
Yeah, absolutely well, I’m excited to really go into the background. I guess my Business Today and how it has evolved and the many iterations over the years. I run two online programs, so one is really for people or for women that really want to have their own business. And right now, they might be working part time or full time somewhere else, or they might have gone out in their business and now it’s like okay, how do we grow this thing? So, I help them do that through marketing and that’s in my program called the modern Marketing Collective. And then I have a program called scalable, which is where I help people that have built their business traditionally or typically using services to then actually create an online course or membership. So that’s what I teach them in there. And that’s what I spend my time doing. I spend my time as well with my podcast. I’m sure you know, that takes a little bit of time as well to produce that one. And and I live in Melbourne with my fiance Koden.
Jen Waterson
Perfect, well, I’m really excited to have you here and what we’re going to chat about today is something you just alluded to before, which is all of those many iterations that we go through as business owners. So when we start a business we have these grand ideas of what it’s going to look like, what it’s going to be like, the money that we’re going to make, the freedom that we’re going to have, but at the end of the day, it sometimes doesn’t quite workout that way. I guess that’s where we’re going to sort of head into today with our conversation is around the evolution of your business from a service based business servicing clients one to one to the online program space. So that was the start of your business was servicing clients one to one and I guess if that’s where we’re going to go, let’s just start with what it was that made you want to change in the first place was at the time the money was it, their work? Was it the lifestyle? What was it that sort of got you to say I need to change up what I’m doing.
Emily Osmond
Absolutely, and it’s such a good question, because the thing was with my business, so I had been running my business for three and a half years that I had been running it before I then launched my first online program and the thing was I had built the business and by all measures it was a good business. It was quite successful. I was making six figures. I didn’t have a problem at that stage. I definitely did to begin with in attracting clients, so we were quite set up there and I had a few contractors that were working for me. But the thing was that when I looked forward to how I wanted or what I saw for myself in the future and what I saw from my business, I didn’t really want to have the business that I had created and so I didn’t really want to have to take on more clients or more projects and more contractors in order to grow. And I kind of thought and for me like a lot of people probably don’t talk about it openly, so it might be a bit weird, but like I really want to be a mum and that’s in the near future. Hopefully for my partner and I. And when I looked forward to what I wanted my life to look like with having kids and that type of thing, I wanted to have a business that didn’t really require my direct input of time to be able to run it, I wanted something that could run with my input, but not absolutely reliant on me and I didn’t really want to have to be doing client phone calls and client emails in this type of thing, I just they just didn’t feel like the way that I wanted to keep building my business.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it’s a real commitment. Fantastic and what I often talk about Emily is an elegant business model and like building an elegant business for yourself and building a business that’s going to suit your lifestyle goals and that’s kind of what you were doing. It was looking forward and saying this is what I want my lifestyle to look like, this is the time that I want to have to input into my business and what I’ve created today isn’t going to do that for me.
Emily Osmond
I love that you teach that as well, because there’s no right or wrong. As you know. And for some people they would have like they would have loved to have the business that I had. And that’s really lights them up. And they adore it. It’s just having that self-awareness and really, listening to what feels right to you and what excites you and the other thing was, I guess Jen was that I realized the work that I was doing it didn’t fulfill me as much. I was delivering projects for clients, but what I found this is what I actually did was I created this spreadsheet and I put in there my different revenue streams from my business and at that stage it was quite a few because I was offering all these different services So I put them all in there, and I marked down what percentage of revenue with these different revenue streams generating for me? And then also a markdown to each of them how much do I enjoy them?
Jen Waterson
Ok so like on a one to five scale you know do I love it, do I not?
Emily Osmond
So, that helped it to become quite clear for me that what I really enjoyed was the teaching, the coaching, the helping, and so like I mentioned with the business that I had built what I was offering was often handing over as strategy. Or that type of thing to clients and I had been running some workshops and that was the stuff that I just adored. I loved being able to teach people how they could do their own marketing. So it became clear to me that is the stuff that I feel like I really enjoy the most, and I also felt it was something that I could be successful at. I also like to think what do you want to be known for and what do you think you could be world best at as well. I kind of felt like I think this is the thing for me to focus on is really that teaching model as well. It was the end of 2017 and it was just like, oh, I just don’t feel happy in this business and something’s really gotta change because like I’ve made the choice to run my own business. Surely I should be doing something that I actually enjoy most of the time, like this is my choice to be running my business, so let’s actually create something that I feel really excited by it and that I really enjoy and that I feel proud of and that I want to grow.
Jen Waterson
It’s a big deal when you do put so much effort into it, you put a lot of time and energy and love into growing a business to a certain size or getting to a certain stage in your business, but then having the clarity of mind to take a step back and say okay, I’m gonna sit down and look at this realistically and say what is it and break it down. I love how you break it down like you say on your spreadsheet your different revenue streams. If anyone listens to anything I talk about, they know I speak about revenue streams a lot and having a really good look at what it is that’s making you the money and what is not making you the money. But not only that I also add in another element which I term return on time and when you return on time is looking at it’s not your hourly rate by the way, it is something that’s
slightly more encompassing and takes into account all of the time that you spend preparing to deliver that service, organizing that service, and the post service that comes with whatever it is that you do in your business. You know, really looking at each of those revenue streams independently and then saying, okay, yes, I’m making money on that but it is sucking the life out of my lifestyle. I don’t have time to do it. You know I haven’t got any room in my life for anything else.
Emily Osmond
Absolutely, I remember I would get quotes approved that were first several thousand dollars and I just it just didn’t excite me and I was just like I don’t even want to do it. Yeah which is a real sign obviously.
Jen Waterson
It is. But in saying that though, when you’re talking about service based businesses. Give me your opinion on this one, should we experience the one to one? And before we go online just to really understand your audience’s needs.
Emily Osmond
I really believe so, I really think it helps. I think it can be done absolutely like going from working for someone else and then to create your own online program. But I really think it’s so powerful to have that experience working with clients and starting out that way as well, because you really get to know your people and so by that stage I had those several years of business I had. I had also built relationships like a lot of people that join my program where my previous clients as well. So I had built that trust and I understood what the challenges were and that was the thing like I had been delivering these strategies and doing consultations and like so many people are asking me the same questions. Yeah I can put this together in a program and help so many more people as well, so yeah, I definitely think that it’s a really smart way to do it.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it’s a slower way to do it, but it’s I feel like it’s an important step. You know I haven’t personally done the transition to at the online space myself, but I feel as though there’s just so much to be learned by having those one to one conversations and experiencing it in in its entirety and getting that opportunity to really understand your audience. So let’s skip over now and have a talk about what I would love to do is contrast your month, your week. What did your life look like when you’re in the one to one space as compared to what it is now like? Give us kind of a bit of an inside view. If you can as to what it was and what it is.
Emily Osmond
That is such a good question. I’ve never really thought about it. Well, never spoken about it before.
Jen Waterson
I’ll give you a couple little I like you know yeah uh there’s some sub questions so you can sort of think about it ’cause I probably should have given you this question before. But you know, if we can say in the one to one space, you know how many clients could you take on without maxing out? What does your typical week look like? How many hours were you working in the week? Was it impacting your lifestyle, or on a scale of 1 to 10 how good was the money, you know? Give us a picture of what that looked like and then we can talk about the online perhaps.
Emily Osmond
So I guess before I started the evolution because I did slowly scaled down the services and scale up the online program. So before that started happening, what did it look like? Every year I did have a contract for several thousand dollars, so that was quite a good one. Managing event marketing. Let me think about my month as a whole, so I’d normally have a couple of retainer clients so they would pay me each month and I would do a strategy session with them typically. I really enjoyed that, that was that good regular income as well. So I knew if nothing else happens this month I’ve got this one then I would also have a few branding projects so they were probably the most profitable or they were the most profitable for me. Or the biggest chunks of money that were coming in at that time. So that would be delivering a brand strategy and a branding, basically Logo colors, fonts, that type of thing and then also website design, website strategy in the website designs where they were around $5000 each. So I’d normally have a few of them on the cards at the one time as well, but I also would then pay a percentage of that to my designers who do the logos as well.
Jen Waterson
So you did grow your business to that point where you did get a couple of employees contract?
Emily Osmond
Yeah. So, that was what it would look like and then I guess what my time was spent doing was part project management in a way between the contractors. So, getting the getting the work from them and giving them feedback. Asking for just changes and then I would go to the clients with the work as well and deliver them so a lot of emails, phone calls, that type of thing. I would then sometimes have just some contracts that I would do so. Copywriting type of contracts.
Jen Waterson
So it was quite a large variety of different things you do for people. That in itself can be hard to manage. You know if you’re doing sort of this offering the same service over and over and over again, like say a legal person might be doing, or an accountant might be doing or whatever, then perhaps it’s a little bit easier to streamline things. And get through them faster and create systems and processes and things like that. But when you’re doing a lot of different projects for different people that can, that can be pretty tough, I imagine.
Emily Osmond
Definitely. What I would rent recommend to other people now and it sounds as though you might too, is that you know, find out what it is that you really enjoy and what people need, and then put a process around it too. I had started to do that with the branding work I had. The templates and I had kind of set prices and everything so that did help.
Jen Waterson
Were you working a lot of hours as well?
Emily Osmond
Looking back, it really felt as though I was working so many hour’s at it. I was like, what am I doing this all for? I’m really not making a whole lot of money from it.
Jen Waterson
So it does start to impact your lifestyle then perhaps contrast that with what does it look like these days? You know in that online space where you really do, just have the two programs isn’t it?
Emily Osmond
That’s it. Yeah, that’s kind of all I offer now. So it’s funny when you compare the revenue streams. It was probably had. I should actually look at it and bring them up, but I probably had 15 or so revenue streams. I would break it down into copywriting, PR, social media, workshops, websites, branding, collateral design. So I wrote down to that and then for my first year I launched my first online program mid 2018 and I was kind of winding down on the client projects while building up the revenue for my online program, so I still had quite a few different revenue streams and then really now I have three. I would say about 3 revenue streams at the minute, and I’ll probably I might start building some more up. I’m not really sure. But to me, if I compare and I want people to know as well this took time. So I’m now two and a bit years into having an online program. And then I launched my second online program really because I saw a need in the market for it and from my existing students that then wanted they build up a great business with their services or products and then they wanted to scale with the program. So, I launched that one in February 2020, so this year so now I have the revenue from the online programs and then I have some affiliate revenue for some software that I recommend. And if people use then I get a Commission and then speaking so to do speaking gigs. And that’s about the revenue that I receive at the minute. Then in terms of what my days look like, I just feel now and this is 5 1/2 years into business so it is taking time, but I really feel like now I’ve built the business. It just serves me really, really well. It’s just serves the lifestyle that I want. It allows me to do what I kind of how I want to structure my day. In terms of the hours that I work, I like this is a thing I love my work. I’m obsessed with work and I wake up on a Saturday and I want to work but now I don’t have a whole lot of things that are really demanding for me to get onto, which I guess is what it used to feel like. I used to feel like, oh I’m, I’m always kind of at the back and call a little bit which is again something I’ve had to work on his boundaries as well, and having those in place, but in terms of what I spend my time on now definitely doing the podcast episodes so writing them, recording them and then just being in my Facebook groups for my students and supporting them, answering questions, giving them guidance. Then I have a couple of contractors that help with me with my business growth as well. So working with them.
Jen Waterson
I feel like the word that you’ve used there is. It’s just less demanding. So when your business is when you feel like your business is demanding your time demanding your attention, that’s tough. It was actually 12 months ago this week that my mother-in-law passed away. Really, really suddenly and it was really awful but we had to stop. We have this business and another business and we dropped everything and we were basically out of our business for a month. Now that was probably we didn’t probably have to, but we wanted to. We wanted to take the time out to go and do all the things that we needed to do and be around the people that we needed to be around and so on. And take the time to grieve and so on. And we were able to do that because our business is set up in a certain way that we can. People have all sorts of different things that come up in your life, and you want your business to be there to support you and not the other way around. Do you know what I’m saying?
Emily Osmond
Oh, completely and this is the thing as well. Like you have a completely different business model to me, but you were able to do it too. So I really think it’s not necessarily like you definitely don’t need to have online programs like I’ve chosen to do to be able to have that space, and for your business to not rely on you, but it’s just that was what really like it, just felt like a really good fit for me. What I enjoyed and my personality. It’s actually a good that you say that you know that it is. It’s not all about the online space, it’s a very interesting and intriguing and alluring sort of space to be involved in, but at the same time, if you are in the one to and you love the one to one. I was talking to somebody just recently, a client and we were having this conversation around the fact that she is so busy and she isn’t confident enough to put their prices up or anything like that and not everything is about putting your prices up, but at the same time you if you have enough money coming in from the work that you’re doing that you can just leave that sort of one day a week where you say I don’t do client work that day or I’m leaving that one day out for myself, or, you know, giving you that to give you the opportunity to say no to people. Yeah, I think you know if you have in that. If you’re in that one to one space and you’re making enough money, then you do have that luxury of being able to say no. I’m sorry, I’m not taking on any work at this point in time and it just gives you that opportunity to be able to push back a little bit and say no, I just need a week or two space here and feel okay with it, you know?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a really cool part of stage in business and milestone business when you’re building the service based and you realize that you don’t need to take on every client as well, that’s that’s a really cool milestone. You, like. You know what like, there’s enough revenue coming in, and I can actually start being a bit more picky about who I want to take slowly.
Emily Osmond
Yeah, that’s it. And so you mentioned earlier, so you had to wind down the service part of your business as you’re winding up the online part of your business. I find that I get a lot of questions around how do I do this? How do I find the time to step back and do the things that I know I need to do. I’ve had in the last month I’ve spoken to three different people, one who has just gone and said, okay, I am literally going to stop taking new appointments now I’m going to stop. Which will see me through to a certain time of the year. Then I’m going to take three months off to work solidly and take care of X business and we’re going to work together, and we’re going to get this thing done. I’ve had another one who’s just had a look at her revenue streams. We’ve done that together. Basically, kind of like what you’ve done there and said, no, that’s not what I’m going to do anymore. So she’s made the decision to drop that revenue stream. How do we do that? How did you find that transition from trying to pull back on the one to one but still make enough money and have enough time to create that online space?
Emily Osmond
So I think, well, it’s going to be different for everyone and it was funny because I was just recording a podcast episode myself about when we make that transition from quitting our jobs to go full time in the business. And I was saying the way that I see it, there’s kind of two different approaches and I think that applies here too. Is that there’s either the leap and then build it up, or the build it up and then leap. So when I quit my job to go out in my business, I did the I really let and then built the business from there and I know that I had some privilege there. I had savings. I had a mom that if all else fails I could move in with her. When it came to the business I did it the other way around, in a way, in terms of switching my business, but I mentioned earlier that it got to the end of 2017 and it just was like, OK Emily, you really have to make a change here. Like let’s take ownership, you built a business and you can change things now. So let’s do that. So you actually enjoy your business. But the thing was, I didn’t really know at that stage what it was going to be. I hadn’t really got my head around whether it was an online program and I kind of thought that was not something that I could do. I felt like and I’ve spoken about this previously. I’m like, well, I’m Australian. I’m not American and I only see American people having online programs. But I made the decision because we already had enough work for about six months already booked in. So I had that commitment there but I said right I don’t want to take on any new work in that time period and so it did help to give me some space and kind of that mental space as well. Like roll out those projects and look after those clients that are already booked in but keep my mind very open to what the next phase is for me, and so I listen to a lot of different podcast episodes. I’m massive podcast listener now and it was on one of them that I heard someone speaking about her membership and how she had built a membership and she taught social media and for me that was the thing that I really, really loved helping people with their social media. And they were the workshops that I used to run about growing your business online. And so I thought, rightI think that’s it. And I also love the fact that she said she was an introvert because again, I had this idea that you have to have this really big personality to have an online program. So I thought well she’s an introvert. Then maybe I could do it too and I’m quite a quick action taker as well, and probably act first and then think later in a way. So I had this podcast interview and it clicked for me. I’m like OK, I’m going to start a membership and so I think it was only a few weeks later that I opened up the doors to my membership and I really had no idea what I was doing. I had a maybe a couple of 100 people on my email list.
Jen Waterson
So what sort of following did you have at this point? Because that’s kind of where we look at it and we go. Oh, I’m not there yet. I don’t have enough people that know me. I don’t have a big enough audience I don’t have this. I don’t have that, you know, and we can talk ourselves out of it. So what sort of audience did you have?
Emily Osmond
And I love that you said that Jen because that’s what I tell some of my students who were like, I gotta wait and grow my audience first and then do the online program. And I say look, I had like 200 people on my email list and I think I got half of them because I did a promotion for my program. So they joined my email list. I did have about 5000 followers on Instagram an I had a free Facebook group that looking back I was basically running a free membership because I was answering their questions and. I was doing a Facebook post every week with a kind of training like almost a new tip and that type of thing. Now the interesting thing was that I thought, OK, I’ve got 700 people in this Facebook group. I’ll get it and I just thought and I have 5000 followers on Instagram or whatever it was. I thought easily I’ll get 100 people and that was my goal for my launch and I ended up with I think 35 or so. Maybe a few less and I just felt like such a failure. Now the thing was that I didn’t realize anything about conversion rates and so an you kind of want to mainly look at your email list in a way that’s kind of what people say and I see that plays out in my business now like it’s almost like it doesn’t really matter how many followers you have. It’s more your email list in a way. So I got the I kind of got the standard conversion rate that you would expect from the email list that I had. So it actually went OK, but I was just mortified ’cause I thought I’m such a failure.
Jen Waterson
That standard conversion rate is actually really quite low, isn’t it?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, and it’s funny because I’ve put my program price up quite significantly and so I see the conversion rates drop. But at the same time, my business is more profitable. So yeah, it’s an interesting thing to look at. What I say to people is that why don’t you just launch now because you will grow your you will learn so much about your students by having an online program. You’ll learn so much about what people want. You build your credibility in your profile by having the online program and why don’t you grow your audience while you grow your online program rather than putting it off putting it off until you think somehow magically you’ve got enough people.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it’s almost like a beta program, but you’re getting paid for it at the same time I guess isn’t.
Emily Osmond
Exactly an I hadn’t created it and this is something else I say with both my programs I have sold them and then as students enrolled. Then I create the content.
Jen Waterson
Oh, that’s a great point. That is a great point because that means that you can move faster. You’re not going to all of the effort of, you know, trying to have everything all the T’s crossed and the eyes dotted and everything perfectly laid out there in front of you. You were kind of working it out as you went along.
Emily Osmond
Yeah, and the thing and this is the other thing that can hold people back. ’cause I know when they were talking to me about scalable. My program about creating online programs they and they can’t get their head around it. Sometimes they’re like what and so I think some people it’s almost yes they might have a bit more limited time so it really it’s going to be very challenging them for them, perhaps to be able to create the content as they roll the program out, but other people as well that it’s just that security of having it all done. But what the thing is, just get the program launch and actually see if there’s demand for it. Actually see if people want it. Don’t spend months creating all the content to then find out that two clients bought it or no one actually wanted it.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, really good point, but how do you know when you’re ready to transition over to the online space? Is there any real way to sort of to work it out? Or is it just a just a feeling? I’m ready for this.
Emily Osmond
I think it’s just having that desire really. For me it just didn’t feel like there was any other option, it was just like this just makes so much sense and I just want to give this a go. And the other thing was I speak about, you know I didn’t hit the numbers I wanted. I didn’t have a 6 figure launch or you know, but I really kept at it and then now it’s really great and I’ve kind of been able to build it to the stage that it serves me and the revenue and it makes me like I just love writing it and all of that now. So I think as well in terms of like is there right time or not. I think if you feel called towards doing it, if it feels like maybe it feels a little bit scary, but it feels really exciting and you just feel as though you’ve got something that you want to give and you want to be able to give it to more people and you really enjoy the coaching and the teaching and you think you might enjoy that type of thing like there’s. I don’t think there’s ever really a perfect time to do it. Just get it out there and then learn from your audience about what they like and as well, you know I’ve I’ve changed my messaging overtime as I’ve really listened to my audience and the words that they use the phrases that they use so that I can just evolve the messaging around my program. So it really, really appeals to people as well, because I think we can assume if we’ve got something that we think people will want that people are gonna want it and sometimes it’s not the case. It’s just but we can just kind of change how we position it and message it so it makes sense to people and they’re like, Oh no, I do need to solve that problem.
Jen Waterson
I love how you can say that you only had 35 like there’d be a lot of people that would be super excited with 35. But perhaps your goals were unrealistic. You know when you look at things like conversion rate, but it can feel really out of reach and daunting and overwhelming when you see lots of people that have these massive launches and they made however many hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands and thousands of dollars. And all the talk. But you know, we don’t all necessarily, I mean, yes, we’d love it, but we don’t all do it for that and don’t expect it in our first launch. We just want to put something out there that is going to help somebody and be able to sort of switch our business around a little bit and give us back a bit more of our time and try something different, but make some money along the way. How did you feel when you did find out that you had that sort of 35 members and not your hundred?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, and like how amazing to have 35 people that trusted me to spend money on something that didn’t even exist. You know, like they didn’t know, they just were like, right I’ll give you money let’s do this. It was like amazing result but for me because I just for some reason was like 100 people.
I felt I really kind of spiraled. It wasn’t good, I was just like oh my gosh who was I to think that I could even do this. I just felt embarrassed which is so silly but I felt like oh my gosh I’m so embarrassed. And then I went into the mindset of oh my gosh, everyone else that bought the program. They’re going to think, oh, there’s barely anyone in here. You know and looking back it was like that’s a great result and totally some people launch and they get two people and I say you should so celebrate that because you have done something that so many people think about doing but they’re too scared to start and put it out there and don’t let you don’t let yourself think that having a small number of people join your first program means anything, because there’s people that have had one person purchase their first program and then now making millions of dollars like it just doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just what you need to do is commit and then persist with it and just keep involved like keep refining it and overtime with some patience. This is the big thing as well. Like you got to have patience with it, then it will grow.
Jen Waterson
So you started off with 35. Did you then relaunch you know another three times in that year? Or were you sort doing individual launches along the way or so? And it just grew each time?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, good question. So this is the other thing. I think like I’m probably tell like I’m very big around having something that serves my lifestyle. And for me I chose to do a different way to launching, so I still like I kinda do like lazy launches or little promotions, but what I have done is created it basically like a sales funnel that we now rather than having a big influx of students like a few times a year I have consistency in how many students I’m attracting and I’ve kind of built a funnel that I know my numbers. I just feel like it’s a smart way to work. So now I know I like will have this many students coming in on an average month and I know how much I can afford to spend. I know how much it also ’cause I have a membership. I’ve got that recurring revenue so I have a pretty solid business model and a very consistent one as well, but it took me a good year to really get that sorted. Like I didn’t know what on Earth I was doing.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it is really interesting to get that little bit of insight from somebody who hasn’t didn’t have the huge you know, following like you’ve got a large following now I think on Instagram, what’s your Instagram following at the moment?
Emily Osmond
I think yeah 18,000 or something. So that list is now thousands like that’s really grown.
Jen Waterson
Well there you go so you know as somebody sitting on the outside looking in and seeing people launch that’s the kind of thing that we sort of look at it and and we say but you know, I don’t have thousands on my email list. I don’t have 18,000 Instagram followers and so on, but it’s just about, you know, getting started and then just chipping away. And I guess the Instagram growth and the email list growth has all occurred because of what you’ve been doing over the past two years, you know from that initial 35 members that has everything you’ve been doing since then, is the reason that you have that following I guess.
Emily Osmond
The other thing is that that, I guess some people don’t say is that I bought people. You know. You can spend Facebook ads and you can go and find people that are perfect for online program like I did that and that is such a cool strategy when you have something that you can scale and you have something that you can just, you can welcome more students into. There’s no real limit to it as well, so that was something that I learned and I’m and I just couldn’t believe it that I could put X number of dollars into Facebook ads and out the other end I would make double or triple or whatever it was out the other end of that,
Jen Waterson
Yeah, and was that your main growth strategy?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty major one. So I found I’ve had my podcast about a year and I’m definitely starting to see that is like really helping. It’s just people get to like, you know. People get to know you. They figure out if they like you or not and then if they do, and they have a problem that I think you can help them with and they’ll be keen to work with you, but that’s been a newer one. I’ve always been pretty active on social media so that then helps. And then yeah, using ads to go and attract people as well and that was I guess the strategy rather than having doing launch campaigns so much, it’s more having that foundation in my business that I know that if I go and spend money, I will then send this many or track this many people to my sales funnel. They will go through it and then this percentage at the end will buy. So it’s kind of I just think it’s such a cool business model and then it’s like OK, well we know these numbers now let’s double our ad spend and we assume that will probably double the revenue at the other end.
Jen Waterson
I guess you’re doing that gradually as well, so you’ll just starting off with smaller sums of money that you’re putting towards ads, and then you are just as you’re getting confidence in the numbers that you’re seeing using those numbers and treating them I guess as a as an intelligent, informed business decision, am I going to spend more money on this? Or am I not?
Emily Osmond
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s I guess that’s kind of cool because it doesn’t take my time either. So I used to manage the Facebook ads myself, and then I’ve recently bought on someone to manage them. So of course, I’m working with her, but versus me I don’t know manually doing things. It’s a way that I can grow my business without my direct input again, which is something that I just really like and then I get to welcome these awesome people to work with them too.
Jen Waterson
And over the past couple of years. Have you seen Facebook ads get easier, harder? They seem to be changing all the time the way that they operate. You know how have you found it in your business? Are you still getting the return that you would have been getting before?
Emily Osmond
So it’s a bit hard for me to say because what I I’ve been putting my prices up for my online program and then I did a big price increase about mid this year so end of financial year 2019 just because I just really didn’t feel aligned to the price that I was selling it out. I just yeah like it. Kind of got to that stage. It’s that energy thing as well. I think it’s like hang on, I don’t really want to sell it at this price, but I just felt like it was too cheap.
Jen Waterson
Your pricing can devalue your branding as well. You know if your pricing needs to be in line with where you see your business going, I think and then you know you will attract a different type of person at different type of business owner into your business and so on so. It is important to get your pricing right from a couple of different perspectives, isn’t it?
Emily Osmond
That’s right and so with that changing now it’s just let’s adjust the ad strategy and also my messaging and that type of thing too. I guess as we change the price point as well. So it’s only been a few months now, but the thing is, we are overall I’ve built like I’m now getting more profit in my business as well, which is really cool in terms of we’re having fewer number of students joined. But because the price is quite a bit more and I also would change that I did was I used to offer my program month to month, cancel anytime, and then I felt like I didn’t want to do that anymore, so now it’s a 12 month commitment as well.
Jen Waterson
So you can make those adjustments as you become more confident throughout the growth of your business, so you may not have started, may not have ever started with that, but it’s great to have those sort of goals and then be able to, you seem like you’ve been able to just switch around and change what it is you’re doing as your business is growing and not getting sort of stuck. I think sometimes we can get a bit scared and say oh I don’t want to change it because what if somebody doesn’t buy and you don’t want everybody to buy.
Emily Osmond
And that’s the thing I have fewer people at this stage and I don’t plan to keep it this way. We’re growing, but at this stage I have fewer people buying. But like I said when they buy, I’m actually generating more revenue and it just to me. It just feels better. I know that they are like kind of is a generalization, but they’ve got more on the line and they’re more likely because they’re spending a lot more money now versus kind of jumping in, and they can cancel the next month, and so it’s not really a whole lot at stake for them. I like, I really like the idea of them, kind of being a bit more scared to join. You know, before you make an investment, it’s like, oh a little bit nervous. So I think for them I’m just like, yeah, I just feel better about it for me and for them as well.
Jen Waterson
I love the idea and the concept. I love the way that you’ve been able to just change around your business and do the things that you felt you needed to change in your business. Couple of questions to finish up. So is it really as good as it appears on the outside? Having this online world being in this online space, is it really, as good as it looks?
Emily Osmond
Well it depends like it depends what you see good is being because this is the thing like some people might build this and then they realize it’s not for them. Some people might say is it really as good as it looks Having your own business? And I had that but I didn’t really love it that much and now I’ve just evolved. So to me. Yeah, it’s I’m kind of like this is so amazing but it’s I guess I’ve built it because that’s what feels amazing to me and I feel as though like the big things for me is that I do feel like I have so much space. Space in the day and time and I kind of have that capacity to like dream up projects.
Jen Waterson
It’s important to have the space in your day and have your business not overly demanding of you because it does impact your creativity. Now I am the most uncreative person in the world, I understand that creativity as a whole. We need space in our days to be able to be creative, to think about where it is we want to move our businesses or what it is we want to change up, and what we might want to offer or not offer. So yeah, it’s a real advantage when you do have the space to be able to be creative.
Emily Osmond
Yeah like I’m not, you know like I’m not that busy and then I like think of some project that I’m going to do and I’m like why did I do that now I’m busy again but yeah you can kind of be like OK, cool what’s like a project that I want to create work on because I like. I love work, it’s not that I don’t love work.
Jen Waterson
A lot of people listening would be going I wish I had the time to be able to do that. And then the second question to finish up on. Is it really as easy to establish as it appears? So we’ve spoken about how you’ve created your business, but you know, in the background is it really tough with the tech. With the tech in the promoting and the marketing and all that sort of thing, it sort of appears to be really hard.
Emily Osmond
I would say it’s hard. Yeah this is the thing like it’s not easy or everyone would do it, but it’s totally doable. Like I’m not someone that has ever been that tech savvy like my mom still is like she thinks it’s hilarious because I’m not a tech savvy person. But it’s like it’s totally doable as well. But yeah, I want people to think like, you know, it’s doable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s like easy to do so with the tech side of things, you can just learn how to do that. You can just learn how to do that, and you’ll be absolutely fine an you can actually keep things pretty simple. And there’s such good programs now that can make it actually quite easy for you too, in terms of tech side of things. With the promotion, that is the thing that I don’t know. I think it can be the most challenging because you gotta have something that people actually want and I describe it as you’ve got to like there’s got to be a problem that people care enough about solving that they’re willing to pay for it so you can do all the promotion that you want. But if you’re trying to sell something that you might believe in, but other people just don’t see the value in it. Then that’s going to be a struggle. Or you could have a program that is like could be in really big demand, but maybe your marketing is not quite hitting home at the minute. The messaging is not there or like this is also a numbers thing. It’s like how many people can you get in front of as well. So again, it’s like completely doable, but that doesn’t mean it’s like it doesn’t mean it’s going to be quick, and it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy as well.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, and you could smash over all of the tech stuff, but if you don’t have the messaging right, well, it’s not going to work, is it? Do you have and if is there a need? Or are you? Yes it is it a nicety? Well thank you so much Emily. This has been like a really great conversation. Is there anything I’ve forgotten? Is there anything that you would love to add?
Emily Osmond
I’m trying to think what it is. Well, if anyone’s listening and then like you know what I think I want to give you like just go for it and then as well persist with it because you can grow. For me it wasn’t a quick growth but it happened. I think after I launched my membership, I was like okay now I’ll create a course. Also just to have focus on one thing, like do it properly.
Jen Waterson
Is this what you do in your scalable program?
Emily Osmond
So yeah with the modern marketing collective, that is more for businesses in the service and products space and really helping them go through marketing and being confident about selling themselves on marketing as well.
Jen Waterson
So yeah you’re the go to girl. That’s great advice all throughout the conversation. I’m just soaking it all up myself so I’m sure that anyone listening has been too. So where can people go to find you Emily?
Emily Osmond
If anyone has a burning question, I’m more than happy for you to just reach out to me, my Instagram is emilyosmond and my website is emilyosmond also. I’ve got a free trading on their, you can find it on the home page about creating an online programme too and the phases to go through. The podcast is The Emily Osmond show.
Jen Waterson
Perfect. I’m sure we’ll all be tuning in to the podcast really soon and checking you out online for sure.
So, thank you so much for coming on the podcast wherever you are in the world, have a wonderful week.
Emily Osmond
Thanks for having me Jen.
