Hey everyone!

In this week’s episode i’m talking about how I built a half a million dollar business from ZERO (and while traveling!) what i’ve learned a long the way, what i’d do over again if I had to, and what I wouldn’t waste time on.

Listen to the full episode here! 👇🏽

Links to everything I mentioned in this episode:

(FREE MASTERCLASS) Create Passive Income with Your Own Online Course!:

https://rebellenutrition.lpages.co/1121/

Meera from Life Money Balance: www.lifemoneybalance.com/lets-chat (Tell her Amie sent you!)

Get a FREE month of Convert Kit HERE

E-mail List To Online Empire Course (Teaches you how to set up a simple landing page + build your email list!)

Amie’s Guide for how to get published on Mind Body Green

Amie’s Feature on Forbes

Below is the transcript of the episode if you’d rather read it, but I highly recommend listening to the episode HERE instead :)

Transcript:

[00:00:02] I have to just say I just got off a call with Mira from @lifemoneybalance on Instagram, she is helping me and Eric figure out kind of our budget and all of that for me at least kind of icky money stuff that's really scary or at least used to be really scary because if you guys know kind of a little bit about my story I've kind of always been the type of person with money who under spends like I have been conditioned to live in this scarcity mode. And even now that my business is thriving I still kind of have this fear sometimes around spending money. And so that's just a tip I wanted to offer to you guys if you are coming from that place of scarcity when it comes to money or maybe you're the total opposite. Every time you get money you immediately spend it or you're overspending. It can be so helpful to have somebody like walk you through. And I love the fact that she actually didn't call it a budget. She called it a spending plan which is like total mindset shift for me and so helpful to feel like I don't have to be you know hoarding my money. It's OK to enjoy it it's okay to go out and spend. And now having that clarity of how much I should be saving each month how much I should be putting into retirement for a one K is like all of these other things and now I realize that oh my gosh I actually have a decent amount of money that I can just have fun with and enjoy and use used to make me feel abundant invest in myself Invest in ME BECOMING MY NEXT LEVEL self investing in things that make me happy feel luxurious. I mean you can figure out what those things are for you. But I know for me and just giving myself kind of the permission to be able to spend that money that I've worked hard to make is just really cool. So this podcast today is actually not going to be about really money mindset at all. I mean it's still in an indirect way is about money because I'm going to be talking about kind of the strategy side of things when it comes to starting your online business because this is really cool. I'm just reflecting a bit that it's been about two years since I started my business and at this point I have scaled to over half a million dollars in business revenue which is insane considering that I started my business in a hut. I have pretty much besides the help of Eric who has done a lot of like my photography and videographer Eric is my husband by the way for those of you that are new besides him kind of doing the video and photo side of things. Really. We haven't had a lot of outside help in terms of like hiring outsourcing or anything like that. I have dabbled in Facebook ads a bit but I'm going to be talking about that a little bit in today's podcast because I'm going to be talking about going back. Like if I had to start my business from scratch and had zero audience right now zero business idea zero help which is essentially exactly where I was when I did start remember that I started at zero just like everybody else. I'm going to be telling you guys kind of what I've learned over the past two years and what things I would do again and what things I would not waste time on I'm going to be sharing what things I would invest in and what things I would not waste money on. So if you are starting your business from scratch right now maybe you have zero following you're not even sure about your business idea. You don't know what you're going to sell and you're having all of this imposter syndrome in confusion of where to start. I'm going to be sharing my experience. And again I'm not saying that like exactly what I did is going to work for you. I think what I can hopefully offer you is just like I said my experience and I hope maybe you can take pieces of it that work for you and if parts of it don't sound like something you want to do then don't use them. I heard that what was I watching some thing with Gary V the other day and he was saying like I love Gary V by the way sometimes he's very intense but he was just saying that like what worked for me will not necessarily work for you. The best thing that you can do is actually become self aware of what you want to do and do it your own way. Like stop listening to everybody else's business advice which is funny that I'm saying this as I'm getting into strategy. But my point being is that the most important thing is that you just start doing start taking action. Start doing something you don't need to be necessarily continuing to learn more and gain experience and all of these things that are kind of taking you away from actually getting started so become self-aware. Take what works for you leave what doesn't. And I hope that let me change that. I will say I know that there is at least going to be one nugget of info in today's podcast that is going to be helpful for you and the reason that I change my language there is because somebody else who's podcast that I really love. Natalia Benson she talks a lot about like changing your language because language is so powerful and she removes the word hope from her language. So instead of saying like Oh I hope this was helpful for you because that's kind of like I don't know it's just not a very powerful way to speak you're not really sure of yourself instead saying something like I know this is gonna be helpful for you. I don't hope I know anyways check out her podcast if you like that kind of information but anyways I'm gonna get into today's topic which again is the things that I would prioritize. 

[00:05:00] As if I was going back to the very beginning and had zero audience zero business ideas zero business strategy and I know that some of this is going to be really really helpful for you guys. OK so first things first. If you're still not 100 percent sure on what your business idea is or what it could be. 

[00:05:19] I want you to think about your business idea in terms of what is a win win win. So essentially what is going to be a win for you in terms of fulfillment and your passion and like what lights you up and makes you excited and something that you want to share with the world. What is a win for the people that you are sharing it with. I know that if you're listening to this you are somebody who is like a soul centered entrepreneur. You want to help people you want to change the world and I love that. What is going to be a win and what is going to be of service to the people that you are helping with your business. You know whatever you are planning to start a business around has to fulfill some sort of need. So think about that. And then also what is gonna be a win for your bank account. What is something that you can monetize that you can charge people for. So that is what I mean when I say win win win. And now another way to look at like the way that you can use your passions and your skills. In your experience and turn that into a business is to kind of think about yourself. A couple of years ago and maybe the struggles that you went through and where you were then and how you got to where you are now what is a resource or a course or a service that you would have paid for back then based on what you were struggling with and what you needed help with. Because a lot of times you are your own ideal client avatar or your ideal client or what I like to call it your unicorn because ideal client Avatar just sounds so like professional businessman doesn't it. Which is not really my vibe but anyway. So think about like something that you were really struggling with and how you got over it. Maybe you found somebody online that taught you how to overcome you know emotional eating or you found somebody online whose course you bought that helped you learn how to build an email list something like that. Think about the struggles that you were going through then and what you would have actually paid for. Now also in thinking about your business idea and I think that this is really important to do. Like if you are starting your business this is one of the very first things that you want to think about and this is something that I'm so grateful that I had so much clarity on when I was first starting. Because from the very beginning before I even knew what the heck my business was going to be about I knew that I wanted to have the freedom to be able to travel to not have to follow any sort of schedule. I wanted the ability to like wake up in the morning and be like What do I want to do today and just do that. I mean maybe you feel like oh that's asking for a lot but it's truly not if you are clear about what you want. You can build that lifestyle for yourself and let me be the example to show you how possible that is. If you want that kind of freedom it is totally available to you. You just have to have a lot of clarity on what that is and say no to anything that's not going to contribute to that. So what I mean by that is if you decide maybe you want something completely different but let's say that you want the freedom that I wanted which was the ability to be able to travel full time and still run a business which I did successfully for over a year and a half which is pretty cool. This means that like you don't want to start saying yes to one on one clients that you want to book you for an hour session every single week. If that's not the type of lifestyle that you want to have so you don't want to set up your business in that way you don't want to feel like you need to go rent out office space if you don't want to be confined to like a 9 to 5 job where you're seeing in person clients all day and I know that maybe that sounds like oh I would never do that I don't even have the budget for office space but a lot of times when we're starting our business we feel and I say this from experience we feel a little bit of desperation of you know we have to do things a certain way in order to be successful because we think for some reason like I can't do what that person is doing. Yeah like that person has a successful business where they are traveling and making all this money. But like I couldn't do that in my town. I have to rent office space and see when I'm on clients. That's totally not true. 

[00:09:07] And I say that because I had those exact same thoughts and it's just you have to be fiercely protective of the things that you say yes to especially when you're first starting your business and make sure that every decision that you make is contributing to the lifestyle that you want to have. 

[00:09:24] And again if you're here you probably something attracted you to me it was probably like maybe my freedom based sort of business and lifestyle so that's kind of the tips and strategies I'm gonna be giving you is kind of how to work towards that. And again it's totally ok if you don't know how you're going to monetize your business yet you just want to think about like how your ideal day would look and what your ideal scenario would be of how your business is structured so maybe you want to see one on one clients and that's totally cool too. But if you're somebody who wants to have more freedom and make passive income maybe something like a membership or online courses is the direction that you want to go so you have to stay really really clear and focused on that. Okay now in terms of like strategy once you have your business idea what to set up first. 

[00:10:10] If you are working with a very small budget because I know I've said this before on other podcasts and like other trainings that I've done but when I started my business I was so scared to be spending 12 dollars a month on a square space Web site that was like a decision for me that I had to really think through for. I think I thought about it for a couple months. I mean that just gives an example of where I was financially and the fear around starting a business and thinking like I don't know twelve dollars a month. That felt scary to me at the time so like I hear you. 

[00:10:40] If that's where you are but I'm telling you the number one in my experience if you have a very small budget. The number one thing to prioritize is to get a Web site. And again square space there are some other options. I really like square space. I think it's the easiest to navigate as a not naturally tech savvy person. And it's pretty inexpensive and I know people ask me a lot like what is the benefit of that versus WordPress. I've tried Wordpress and I did not find it to be super user friendly and everything that I've heard people say like that's better to do on Wordpress. I've found that you can do exactly the same but easier on square space. So that would be my number one recommendation set up a Web site. And again like you don't have to overwhelm yourself and think that you need to have like five different pages on your Web site and your blog set up and your about me Page Setup and all of this stuff like just create a simple landing page which is literally one page that you can send people to and then from there you want to invite them to join your email list with some sort of free resource. So I'll just kind of paint an example of what I'm talking about here. Let's say I send you to Rebelde nutrition dot com and that is just a one page site and there's only this is not what my Web site is right now obviously but there's only one option of something to do you can't click over to the blog you can't click over to the About Me page. And so literally a landing page like this will take you less than 30 minutes to set up. I actually teach you how to do it in my email list online empire course and how to connect your landing page to your email list and your free resource and all of that kind of stuff. But on this one page site it's just going to say something that speaks to your ideal client your unicorn. Remember that the person that is you or was you a couple of years ago so maybe something like let's say you're a nutritionist and you're trying to work with clients who are overcoming their acne maybe the call to action on that landing page is like a two day meal plan for clearing up your skin or something like that. It's something that speaks directly to your ideal client or your unicorn that they are going to then enter in their information their name their email address and then immediately poof they're on your email list and they're being sent your free to day meal plan for clearing up their skin again if you have like no idea how to connect any of that or do any of the tech stuff I will link to some resources in the show notes because I do have a course that teaches that. 

[00:13:04] But essentially the free resource can be anything it can be a PDA guide it can be a video it can be in audio like the P.M. And A.M. meditations and affirmations that I've made it can be a cheat sheet it can be a meal plan it can be as short e-book Just don't overthink it it doesn't need to be like super dense it needs to be something that is quick actionable and gives your audience like it starts to build that trust with them feeling like OK this person knows me they understand me and they have given me something really valuable for free. This is amazing. But at the same time you don't want to be giving away so much free content that they feel like OK I'm good I don't need them anymore because obviously that's eventually what you're paid offer is going to be. 

[00:13:48] OK just taking a quick pause. Out of this week's episode to remind you guys about my completely free online training called three strategies to add one hundred new email subscribers in one week without ads. And you guys I've said this before and I will say it again. But growing in email is in my opinion is one of the single most important things you can do if you want to have an online business. Even if you have no clue what you're going to actually sell yet and this works for people who want to sell courses have clients sell a product an affiliate link like beauty counter or direct sales anything like that. 

[00:14:23] Having a platform that you own like an email list is truly going to be the backbone of sales in your online business. So in this free training I'm going to be teaching you how many e-mail subscribers I had during my first one hundred thousand dollars month and this number is going to be way more achievable than you might think. So don't think you have to spend years growing your email list for this to work. 

[00:14:46] I'm also going to be teaching you my secret Instagram Stories hack to explode your email list and turn followers into e-mail. Opening fan girls I'm going to teach you why your email list is the most profitable asset of your online business. Even more so than Facebook and Instagram combined. And I'm also going to be sharing my three strategies for adding one hundred new email subscribers in one week without ads or without having a huge pre-existing social media following.

3 Strategies to Add 100 New Email Subscribers in One Week (Without Ads!)

Join the FREE Training HERE!

[00:15:33] OK so so far we've talked about your Web site and your email list. Those are the two most important things that I would focus on when you're first getting started. And the e-mail list you can do MailChimp that's free. I really love convert kit and I'm can actually link to a free month if you want to try that out of a link to that in the show notes. I just think it's a lot easier to use and it integrates really well with teachable and a lot of other different platforms. But there are always free options if you want to kind of dip your toe in before you try something out. I totally get that. OK. Number three what I would prioritize if I was going back and doing this all over again and didn't have an audience is that I would pick one social media platform that I enjoyed. That's key because anywhere that you enjoy making content is something that you're going to be more consistent with. And with that social media platform that I've chosen I would start creating consistent content. So this could be Instagram it could be Facebook it could be YouTube it could be a podcast. A podcast isn't really social media but I would still consider that to be a platform and whatever platform you choose at least showing up once a week consistently with some good content. Now Instagram is kind of different because I feel like if you're on Instagram and that's your main platform of choice you can kind of show up a little bit more frequently without having it needing to be super curated you can do Instagram Stories. I personally love a combination of Instagram and then one platform that you own. And so what I mean by something that you own that would be like your blog or even your podcast a blog and a podcast are really cool and I think like if you have to choose I would choose one of those over Instagram over Facebook over YouTube because the thing is is that you own that platform. 

[00:17:15] If you're only doing let's say you love Instagram which is great. I love Instagram too and you're only focusing on building an audience on Instagram you showing up every day you're making amazing content you're growing all the good stuff but you don't have an email list and you don't have a Web site and you don't have any sort of platform that you're creating content on that you own and you control if the algorithm changes and all of a sudden you know 50 percent of your followers or whatever aren't seeing the things that you post like your business is going to take a big hit from that. 

[00:17:46] If that's the only place that you are creating content or promoting your services or monetizing or anything like that. So again I love Instagram but I would really highly recommend especially if you are limited on time focus on a platform that you own. So that could be a blog if you're more of a writer it could be a podcast if you're more of a speaker or you could do Instagram. But I just also recommend combining that with your always wanting to send the audience that you're building from Instagram over to your email list because an email list is also something that you own. So by getting your followers even if you're just you know once a week you are jumping on Instagram Stories and saying like hey I created this new freebie for you. Here's the link you're getting a lot of those people who are engaged on your email list and then from there the email list you own and you can continue to email those people for as long as they're interested in your content which is like a win win win. 

[00:18:39] But the main point that I wanted to make about when it comes to the place that you choose to create content on don't overwhelm yourself and feel like you need to be on every single platform. I know that's how I felt when I started I felt like OK I have to be doing YouTube I have to be doing Instagram I have to be publishing my Instagram stuff and also sharing it to Facebook. I have to be in my facebook groups. I have to be blogging. I have to be doing an email us and like listen if you have the energy to do all of those things then go you or if you have the budget to be outsourcing and getting help. That's amazing. And of course you know it's great if you can do all of those things but do not feel like you need to be all of those places because what's going to happen is it's just inevitable you're going to be like half assed on what you're doing. There's just no way that would be more than a full time job to try and create content for each of those platforms. So I really recommend choosing one and combining it with your email list. So wherever you want to create content whatever you like whatever is easy for you or is at least somewhat comfortable and feels fun. That's huge. And then combining that with sending those people to your email list that is all you need to start with I swear to you that is what you should focus on because if you are picking one platform and you're putting like instead of being half assed like you're putting your whole ass into that one platform you are going to reach so many more people you're going to such a bigger impact than if you're trying to spread yourself thin across like five different platforms. OK next tip for what I would go back and really prioritize. Like listen you guys this is the most important tip. I mean obviously a website and e-mails. Those things are important but this tip is what I would pretend like was my full time frickin job if I had to go back and do everything over again. And this is exactly how I actually built my audience pretty quickly when I was first getting started without the use of ads. And that is networking and not networking in the traditional sense of going out and mingling in person with people because I lived in Hawaii at the time and it was not a lot of events like that in Hawaii but I would mingle like quote unquote mingle online. You can pretty much these days. This is such a cool thing about Instagram's like you can look at somebodies profile and pretty quickly know if you're going to jive with them or not if they're content like fits your brand. If you guys talk about similar things if you guys would have an interesting conversation and just start building relationships and networking with people online slide into their DMs send them an email comment on their stuff. Share their stuff repost their stuff that they're doing and this is not coming from a place of like expectation of sliding into their DRM and being like Hey want a collab as like the first thing that you send to them like that's a no no try and come from a really true authentic place of like building genuine relationships and friendships with people because this is going to pay off so much in the long run. It's all about just supporting other people supporting other businesses and truly engaging with other brands and other people who you find interesting. 

[00:21:38] And then after time has passed when you guys have had conversations and you've shared each other's work and you've supported each other and you've built this mutual trust and you know for sure that like your brand messages kind of jive together then it is an appropriate time to let's say you decide you want to host a free challenge or something like that then you can recruit a couple people that you feel like would be an awesome speaker in your event or would like to collab on this challenge with you and you always want to position it as what it truly is which is beneficial to both of you. You are creating. Let's go back to the free challenge example you're kind of creating this platform and you want them to be coming to your challenge as a expert in whatever their field is on whatever this topic is. So not only are they going to reach people on the platform that you have but you by inviting them a lot of times when you're clubbing and this sort of way you'll have them promote this challenge to their audience as well. So you are reaching their audience and they are reaching your audience. 

[00:22:37] And that's kind of the way to go about it to make it mutually beneficial and also a good tip on how to make this really work. Well to is I mean obviously of course finding people that really you jive with and that your brands really mesh well together but you can also look for people who have a similar sized audience as you. This isn't always super important because I know like if somebody reaches out to you and they have a smaller audience let's say and they want you to be a speaker. That's still a platform for you to reach new potential clients students customers things like that and share your message and be viewed as an expert but also like in the other direction don't worry about reaching out to somebody who potentially has a lot bigger audience than you. Because again as long as you pitch it as a mutually beneficial partnership or collaboration it's my opinion that that would be stupid to say no to. 

[00:23:27] I mean like as long as you have the bandwidth to do it and it fits your brand and it feels good to you. 

[00:23:32] I think like it's always a win win. 

[00:23:36] So a couple other ideas besides the free challenge example would be something like Instagram takeovers which essentially you and whoever you want to collab with take over each other's Instagram's maybe for the day and do like Instagram stories so that you get in front of their audience and they get in front of your audience. Podcasting is great because again it's like this platform that you have where you can reach out to people and they get to be interviewed as the expert on your platform. But then you are also potentially reaching their audiences. Another thing that worked really well for me is writing guest posts for certain publications. 

[00:24:11] So when I was first starting out I read a lot of blogs at that time I don't really blog or read blogs that much anymore because I much prefer video. But I reached out to people like Maddie Moon empowered sustenance who is like a paleo blogger real food with Dana. 

[00:24:27] I'm trying to think of some other examples but I just I found people who I really liked their message and I thought that I could really contribute something to their viewers. And so this is the thing too I really want to drive home the fact that like you don't want to be just mass e-mailing people or mass deeming people with some sort of vague request of like Hey can I get post for you when you aren't totally sure what their audience needs. I really recommend doing as much research as possible like reading ten blog posts or listening to 10 podcast episodes of this person before you pitch them so that you can have a really specific targeted pitch to why you would benefit their audience because you are again you're pitching it as being beneficial to them. This is a piece of content that they don't have to write like they're going to host you on their site or their podcast or whatever and you're the expert. But this saves them a week of content right. So it's all about how you position it and making sure it is beneficial to both parties. I also wrote a lot of articles for Mind Body Greene and this might sound like oh my gosh I could never do that. 

[00:25:31] I had those exact same thoughts and I actually I will link in the show notes my guide for how to get published on Mind Body green because I after doing it I think I submitted maybe one or two articles before they accepted one and then after that it was like I knew exactly what they were looking for. And at this point I think they've published nine or ten of my articles. That was a huge way for me to get in front of a much larger audience because they a massive platform. And one of the articles I wrote kind of went viral and I think reached like I don't even know hundreds of thousands of people. 

[00:26:04] So again I will link to the article on how to get published in mind body green I will link that in the show note so check it out but all of these ideas essentially are like you have to be your own publicist. You know you have to really believe in your stuff and find people who have a similar message as you and start collaborating with them. This is truly if you don't have a budget for ads right now if you don't have a budget for a publicist which I know a lot of you guys don't. I did not when I was first starting out you have to be your own biggest cheerleader and your own publicist and like hustle and grind. I hate the word hustle but it really a lot of times doesn't feel like hustle when it's really aligned and you really believe in what you're doing. I think that's the kind of thing that is confusing for me to kind of verbalize is like I am just a natural I'm going to use this word even though I hate it. I am a hustler and I think I work really hard. But it doesn't feel super hard because what I'm doing I believe in so much that I would just do all day long. And you know it's fun. It lights me up. It feels right and it doesn't feel like I'm grinding like what feels like a hustle to me is working a 9 to 5 job for somebody else that is killing my soul. That feels exhausting to me. So just kind of a reframe of I try and be really honest about the fact that like yeah I don't think you should be hustling and grinding 18 hours a day but there is still a lot of aligned work that goes into building a successful business and keyword they're aligned. OK that was a little bit of a tangent but getting back to networking and building your business when you don't have a huge budget when you're starting out and then this is another thing too like being your own publicist people reach out to me all the time and they're like how did you get published in Forbes. 

3 Strategies to Add 100 New Email Subscribers in One Week (Without Ads!)

Join the FREE Training HERE!

[00:27:46] Like what did you do. Because like I don't know I think it was earlier this year I got published in Forbes. And like listen you guys I want you to know how possible it is for you to get this same type of exposure you have to think in your mind like a storyteller. What is an interesting story about you. And if you're right now if you're like I don't have an interesting story like hold up you definitely do you just have to think about it in the right way. So start thinking about what is a story about you that you can pitch to somebody and the thing is like I got published in Forbes because I did research that was a goal of mine to get published in Forbes So I went online. This is exactly what I did. You want to get published in Forbes. This is how you do it. I went online and I read like tons of articles and by tons of different contributors on Forbes. What I did was I found contributors to Forbes who wrote articles similar to the one that I wanted to be written about me which was telling my story about how I started my business and built a multiple six figure business while I was traveling full time. And like I wanted to show people that that is possible. So I researched contributors to Forbes found ones that had previously written articles on entrepreneurship female entrepreneurship digital nomad life things like that. And I pitched them and I pitched them and I kept pitching them and by pitching I mean like I found their email. So another tip how I did this was like I'd click on the article if it didn't have their contact information. I would go stalker on them and I would research their name and I would see if I could find a contact on LinkedIn or on Twitter. It's actually not that hard to do like follow this step by step process and wherever you want to get published like you could probably follow these exact same tips. And eventually I pitched one person and he wrote back and he was like that is an amazing idea and I would love to write an article about you. And then after that it literally took from that first point of contact with him it probably took another nine months to actually get published because he was really busy. But the thing is you guys too. Once I had his contact and he was like I'm interested I followed up with him probably once a month. And yeah I felt like I was being annoying as fuck but like that was my goal to get published in. Forbes So you really have to be again going back to being a hustler you kind of got to be a hustler and you got to know what you want and if it feels aligned like Don't give up until you get it. 

[00:30:08] OK so now that I've talked about four things that I really would re prioritize and I would do again when I was starting my business and in a second I'm going to talk about some different ways to monetize in your online business if you're still kind of trying to figure that out. But right now I also want to mention like things that I would not prioritize and things that I would not waste money on. 

[00:30:27] Again this is just my experience. So you know take it with a grain of salt or you're going to have to make your own mistakes in your business I fully believe that and just because something didn't work for me doesn't mean that it's not going to work for you. So you know go with your gut take this for what you will. But if I was going back to do it again. I would not waste time trying to think that I needed to be doing every single social media platform again. I kind of mentioned that before but when I was starting it was like I was consuming all of this content from other people online who were saying you know this was my strategy follow this. This was my strategy follow this and I was like oh my gosh I want to be successful like that person. Oh my God I want to be successful like that person. And truly the best thing that I ever did was kind of shutting out all of those voices who were telling me what to do. Once I had at least my bearings straight where I felt like I had enough information where I could get started I think that's like there's such a fine line between consuming enough information to where you feel like you know what to do and how to start. But then there's a fine line between then like stopping like stop searching for different perspectives and different answers and instead like turn inward and ask yourself what you actually want to be doing. What platforms are fun to you. What platform do you feel like you could be consistent on and continue to create consistent content on and if you follow anybody who makes you feel like you have to do it a certain way or you know you look at their stuff and it makes you feel kind of like bad about yourself that you're a few steps behind or anything like that just maybe mute their account for a while or stop following them for a while until I mean I'm not saying this has anything to do with what they're doing it's all you it's all on us right. But sometimes while you're trying to figure out what your authentic truth is you kind of have to ignore a lot of the outside voices and tune into yourself and what is right for you. So I would stop trying to feel like you need to be everywhere at once. Tune in. Ask yourself what you want to do and if it's still unclear you probably want to take more time to think about what feels right for you. I also would add I'm gonna just say this with I'm just gonna be really honest with you guys. I have dabbled in Facebook ads I've taken Facebook ad courses to try and do them myself. So that was my first kind of DIY attempt. I have outsourced them multiple times to multiple different people. I've tried multiple different Facebook strategies Instagram ad strategies. Maybe you even found me from an ad which is awesome but something about ads to me at least right now and in my experience up until this point is that I haven't seen a huge return on investment of the money that I've spent of the time that I've spent and just in terms of how it feels to me ads don't feel really aligned with me and it's not that I'm opposed to using them because obviously I keep trying and I know that that is a great way to scale your business if you're doing ads right now and they're working for you then. Awesome. Keep doing them. I just have found that they don't feel great to me. Also I mean just tracking like my sales what I'm spending on having somebody do them the ad spend and what I'm getting in return. It's not really worth it at least for me at this point with what I've found to be true in my business. So that is something that I wouldn't waste money on especially if you're first getting started again. If you're like further along and you're bringing in a lot of money and now it's just at the point of scaling and you want to try that out like go for it for sure but I'm just giving you my experience. 

[00:33:54] Now another thing that I also wouldn't necessarily outsource and this is going to depend on like how comfortable you are with design sort of stuff is like if you have the budget to outsource and get like a graphic designer. I mean obviously do it because there are usually a lot better than whatever you can do. But what I did when I was starting out as I bought so you can go on like Etsy or there's somebody. What is her name. Nicolette styles I believe she does like canvas templates but you can also go on Etsy or creative market and search for like whatever sort of graphic template you're looking for whether that is like a email header or an Instagram graphic or a Facebook graphic or whatever and you can buy this premade template but then kind of like add in your own hex codes for your brand you know change it up make it your own add your own fonts and it makes it look really professional without you having to outsource every single time you need a design or a graphic for Instagram or whatever. So I think like the ones that I bought I got a package of them that was probably like less than 30 dollars and I use those same templates for like two years to make everything I needed whether that was PBF downloads core slides Instagram graphics Facebook graphics all of those things. So that's not necessarily something I think that you need to worry about outsourcing if you're comfortable in Canada and you feel comfortable just like changing out the text or whatever. That's super easy to do. And I wouldn't really especially if you're starting out. I don't think that's something that you need to be spending money on. OK so last but not least only talk about a few different ways that you can start monetizing your business. I'm obviously not able to like walk you through all of the steps to each of these but I'm just going to kind of give you some examples. If you're starting from scratch and you're like I want to build a business online but I don't know how the F to start or like how I'm going to make money. Here are a couple of my best tips and I'm actually not going to be talking about online courses because you guys know online courses I believe are like the best way to build a really sustainable profitable as fuck business online. That's what I do but they do take more time and effort to create. So these examples that I'm gonna give you right now are kind of quicker if you want to get started like soon and start making money quickly. These are gonna be the ones that I would recommend for you. 

[00:36:11] So no one and this is funny because I was just talking about how much I didn't really enjoy ads but ads in the sense of like you can put them on your website if you want to again having ads on your website is not going to make you like a ton of money. But as long as they're aligned with your message and they feel OK for you if you have a lot of blog traffic you're gonna make some money off of that. You can also put ads on your YouTube videos. So I think once you have over a thousand views or something on your YouTube channel you can enable ads. And basically every YouTube creator has done that because I mean it's like a couple seconds worth of an ad that somebody has to watch before they watch your video. You can also if you have a podcast you can enable ads on there and I think you get paid out by the sponsors after like so many listens. Or you can do what I do which is now that since I have my own paid offer I just create my own ads and like send you guys to my own paid offer which you know the ad itself isn't making money but I'm making money indirectly because people hear the ads and they go to my courses. 

[00:37:11] So ads are kind of away. If you're just getting started to monetize but again it kind of depends on the amount of traffic that you have coming in and if you're just doing ads on your blog or whatever. It's not really going to be super profitable. OK next idea is anything sort of done for you. So things like recipes meal plans macro guides even design templates if you're like a graphic designer you could do things like stock photos email templates grocery lists any sort of low priced I mean and when I say low price I'm saying like less than one hundred dollars maybe even less than 50 dollars offer that somebody could potentially come to your website find and it's an easy yes for them to opt in and they can buy this anytime of day or night. You don't have to do anything like it's all hands off and this is kind of where the idea of passive income comes in. So that's a really good idea and kind of to snowball off of that done for you content. You could also create a membership site so membership sites are really cool because again they're usually lower cost its monthly so a lot of times like you know less than 30 dollars to get access to this membership site which is an easy yes for the people that are enrolling and they're going to get new updated content every month and then for you it's consistent monthly income that's coming in. And I recently created my own membership style program membership style course I guess you could call it and it really snowballs quickly because every month you're having more and more people kind of slowly trickle in and that money continues to build and build and build even if it is a low low priced offer. 

[00:38:45] Another idea if you're just getting started is to create an Amazon store or some sort of affiliate link. So if you're somebody who and I think thrive market does this too. If you're like a nutritionist or health coach and you're always talking about you know supplements that you like or foods that you like me thrive market would be a good idea. I think I have a pretty awesome like commission structure an Amazon store if you're linking to like I created an Amazon store because I love skin care as you guys know and there's a lot of skincare things I use like guar gosh Jade roller even some skin care products supplements things like that and people are always asking me for the links to those so I'm like well I might as well make some money off of the links that I'm sharing anyways. So I created an Amazon store that people can shop in so that's an idea. 

[00:39:26] You could also I mean again like things like beauty counter or any sort of maybe essential oils any sort of like direct sales businesses if you don't have your own paid offer yet those things if they feel aligned for you can be a great way to get started making money from wherever you are online right away without having to spend the time to create of course things like that. And then lastly again like if you're listening to this you're probably not somebody who's really looking to do fully one on one clients but the benefit of doing one on one clients. Let's say you just graduated from the NTA or you just got your health coaching certificate getting setup with one of my clients is actually it's not always easy but it's very simple to get started to do especially if you have any sort of audience going already. It's very easy to like put your services on your Web site and send people there and have it be in a really sort of like a done for you way which what I mean by that is like if somebody wants to book a session with you they go to your Web site they can pay you from there they can schedule from there to get that setup I recommend using acuity. It's a a scheduler. I think Kalinda Lee does that too. It's basically like you embedded in your web site and you have your different options. They will pay you for whatever program or offer they want to work with you on and then also after they've paid they can book this specific date and time that they want to work with you. So it's just really really easy it's kind of hands off and I think those are a couple of ways that you can like start making money quickly maybe not a lot of money it maybe might not be super scalable or super sustainable but again it's all about getting started somewhere and learning from there and building and growing from there. 

[00:41:07] So I was going to say I hope this was helpful for you but I'm changing my language too I know that there is something in this podcast that if you are starting at the beginning of your business right now you can take and implement and feel motivated and inspired to know that like you guys I started with zero budget zero confidence zero knowing what the fuck I was going to do or how to do it and built to a over half a million dollar business in less than two years while I was traveling. So please I say this to you to really hopefully be the inspiration that it is so possible for you. And I know that when I was first starting out if I would've been able to see somebody else who had built a business like that it would have just been the fire under my ass that I needed to continue to keep going. So I hope you guys have a beautiful day. I love you for listening. If you found this helpful which I know you did. Please screenshot and share it on Instagram so that more people can find it spread the love tag me at rebel nutrition and I will be back next week. 

[00:42:11] Pretty soon I'm going to be getting some guests on but I've just still been so on fire with my own like solo podcast so you know I'm just gonna go with it. OK have a good day. Bye guys. 

Links to everything I mentioned in this episode:

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Meera from Life Money Balance: www.lifemoneybalance.com/lets-chat (Tell her Amie sent you!)

Get a FREE month of Convert Kit HERE

E-mail List To Online Empire Course (Teaches you how to set up a simple landing page + build your email list!)

Amie’s Guide for how to get published on Mind Body Green

Amie’s Feature on Forbes