 Just by a show of hands My search for hands who's who's been in a gen-born word camp talk in the past, right? And so I I first met Jen or saw Jen at a word camp talk and I was immediately Blown away and I said this is this is my people and so, you know, we need I knew right then We needed to meet we became friends. We became we became Collaborators on on projects. We've been in a mastermind group together. We've shared ideas We are some patica and so I really do have a true respect for what Jen does what she's accomplished in her business what she's done over the years and so I'm gonna turn things over to Jen to talk about Sometimes that you maybe sometimes that you have failed in business and what your takeaways were So that we can all learn from that welcome Thank you. You're welcome So I'm just gonna come up and I'm just gonna list my failures. Yeah, okay There's so many So one of the things I think one of before I List some some failures. I think one of the things I think is interesting. Um a few years back I had this weird thing start happening where I was would speak at an event or I'd be in an event and During Q&A or sometimes afterwards somebody would come up and say can you just tell me about something you do terrible? Terrible. Yeah, can you tell me something you're terrible at? And I had it happen in Q&A. Can you just talk about stuff you're terrible at? And Then I'm like this is really weird and it happened three or four times And then it started happening on social media and I will post something and somebody be like that's great But can you touch it? What are you terrible at? I want to know what you're terrible at And here's the thing that you need to know about me. I'm good at a lot of stuff But I'm not great at anything Right, like you can like you're good at a lot of things, but I think The the people that are truly spectacular in one area like I don't I don't resonate with that at all I'm like I'm good at a lot of stuff So I think it was an interesting thing and I'd say why does everybody want to know how much I suck at stuff? And I had this conversation was I'm on there like yes But on you know, you've probably heard the thing like social media is the highlight reel Right, you see everybody's successes and of course I'm gonna post food that I make that's awesome I'm not gonna post the waffle thing that we tried that came out so crappy I had to turn my waffle iron upside down and like shoe water and like scrape everything out that there was Horrid and it made us want to puke like I'm not sharing that So you don't share all the terrible things you're only sharing, you know the good things What I found is you know, I'm I'm not thinking about sharing all the bad Because that's not I mean yeah, you don't share your dirty laundry. I'm like I don't share all that bad stuff But that's what people who Were aware of what I was doing. We're like, I just want to know that you're bad Like I just want to know like where do you fail? And so I love the idea of talking about failures here because so many times you never talked about the fact that um While I have a good reputation of customer service and client management. I have lost it on A client what like so bad So bad Brian like comes in the office and he's like He's like horrified and I'm just Keep going. It was so bad. Um, but they saved my client. So yeah, but it was so bad, right? Nobody taught you know nobody talks about those things Nathan shared that he lost a huge portion of his income in one day. That's happened to me like four times But we don't go on social and it's like my biggest client just quit today I'm not sure how I'm gonna fill that in Great. Let's hustle like those aren't the things that you're talking about or sharing sure Or the bad business decisions that you make like I I did a deal with the county that I live in Were a huge farm to fork area in Northern California and I did a deal with the county They came to me and they're like we want to be able to provide Websites to all our local farmers that don't have an online presence I'm like, yeah totally in and we negotiated this deal and I Was earlier on in my business and I wasn't super savvy and I didn't have a mastermind And I didn't really have people I could turn to and I did the deal and it was the worst thing I've ever done ever and And it was it was horrible So but those aren't things I'm gonna go talk about because I'm not gonna go talk about my clients badly You know, you don't you don't go air your dirty laundry in your business and go talk about your clients badly So we don't share those kinds of things or the days where you're like I built this business and I hate it And I want to quit, you know, I don't post on social that I told Brian I hate the business that I built like go like I quit go find another designer. I don't even want to do this anymore Because what if a client saw that and they're like, ooh, maybe we should hire somebody else Right, those are all the things that we keep and we don't talk about but everybody goes through it And so when you and you were talking about what today we're talking about failure. I was like I don't want to talk about that But then I was like, but it's something important that we have to talk about Because everybody goes through it and when you're going through it oftentimes you think and the only person This is happening to or maybe you don't have people to talk to Um In the really really early years of my business when I started freely like when I started freelancing it wasn't my idea It was Brian's he's like don't people that you do what you do at home Like I'm doing all the kids stuff and I was pregnant and he's like, I don't want to do all the kids stuff for two kids like Can't you quit and just work at home? And I was like, yeah, probably in the next day He's like I got you business license and I figured out a business name and I filed it all so this is happening But I didn't know anybody who freelanced I didn't I didn't know anybody who freelanced I didn't know anybody that worked at home I didn't know anybody that owned a business let alone anybody that did that that had All that had a two-year-old and was pregnant or had a baby And so I was really really alone and then I found this women's networking organization and I joined it and My business was taking off But I didn't know how to do business and I was under charging And so I was charging a lot of really really little but I was doing a lot of work and I was working 16 17 18 hour days Seven days a week every day, and I was drowning, but my business was great on the outside Like I was making a ton of money But I was dying and I go to these events and I talked to my friends at these events who are other women business owners where I'm looking for support and they're like How are things going and I'm like well my business is amazing But like I I have too much business or like I'm not like if I take less Like I need this to pay my mortgage, but like I'm not I'm not sure how to handle what's going on And they say oh gee we wish you we had your problems shut up Right like they just were like oh like there was no one to turn to at the time Right, and I think a lot of people get stuck in that spot at some point in your business Right, so I've gone. I mean born creative is now. This is this will be 14 years in July. Congratulations. Thank you I've been doing this for this. It'll be 21 years That I've been in this career and it's I think I always say I'm like every bad decision you can make I've totally made So ask me all the things So a running theme I've heard today From you and the previous speakers is about developing a support system Right you talked about burnout right talked about being alone or feeling alone Right, and so and you went and you sought out a support system. Ultimately. What became your support system? That is a really good question. I pay so The very first place I looked for a support system I paid a crap ton of money to join an online mastermind program Facilitated by a business coach. Okay, a really really well-known one, but it was a Multiple five figure like it was it was expensive. Okay, I think the first one I did it was 30 grand and And I look I was so desperate to have somebody I could get support from or a community or group to have support from I was like, yes, let me give you your money and she promised all the things and it was terrible The worst loss ever most painful loss We did do have I ended up getting half of my money back But that was a $15,000 loss sure, but I was so desperate for that right and I Still believe in that process. So I did it again, but with somebody else Still a big still a big investment and that one was a huge success for me. Okay, I found women who owned businesses and had kids and I found people who were doing the exact same thing I was doing in other industries and some in the same industry and Finally, I felt like oh my god I can talk to somebody about how I don't even know how to price my services right and they're like, oh, well I was in that boat too. Let me tell you how I fixed it and it was amazing So that helped a lot and then the second thing I realized is I need help in my business Right, I I can't you can't do everything and I was at a point was where I was thinking I need to either hire somebody or Like I but I had no systems in place. I had no process in place. I'm like, I'm gonna hire somebody. What am I have them do? I don't know. I Can't they have nothing to be like here do this I have nothing I'd like that. So I don't know what to do and I had seen an ad from infusion soft It's like the double your sales tour replace an employee with software and I'm like what bought the ticket flew down to LA Sat in the room and I'm like replace an employee with automation Done bought the software and I And I automated every single thing that you could possibly think of in my business like everything I'm like document it write it down put it in a process automate it set it up and I saved myself 50% of the admin time I was spending in my business really and it was amazing and I got the admin time Okay, and and that was inspired me to look at other avenues of my business of where I could create systems and processes and things That could save time to delay me having to bring in it somebody else After that my developer got super flaky because I'm a designer by trade my degrees in print design My developer got super flaky Brian needed to make an exit out of the fire department He had already been looking for to make an exit But he got cancer and needed to make a career change his job tried to kill him and he's like I think I could do that I Could probably do that So he taught himself development and Brian came in to my business as my developer and eventually I was like I always my bio forever was like Jennifer hired her husband to be her boss stupid decision Because I always joke I'm like I brought Brian into my business to do everything I don't like to do And for years he always joked he's like my job is just clearing a path to get stuff out of your way So you can do things And that made a huge difference There were lots of tears in the first few months as He wanted to change all the things I had been pouring all my my life myself into And I had to realize like some of the changes that are being recommended are in my own best interests But they're things I couldn't see because I'm like this right you're so close to your own stuff So bringing in a business partner. We happen to be married. So that was easier made a huge difference But also at the same time you're being married to your business partner. They have some objectivity issues sometimes Right. So our mastermind right that we had, you know other things like that having trusted people in the community like most people know Lemenire are good friends and like I Always know no matter what is going on in my business if I'm stuck if I'm like crap I don't even know what to do here if I have a question I can there's always somebody that I can call and say I need I need a different perspective Right. I need something like I could call you I could call Chris I could call Sean like I have that having a group of people that you know that would never utter a word of that to anybody That have got your back no matter what there's something about that. That's just like, okay, you got this Right, or if something does go south you've got people that can help pick you back up. Sure Yeah, so my my parents were Business partners for 35 years, right and I frankly I could never relate to that, right? I just couldn't see it I didn't I didn't understand how that works. I Really just and so so talk to me about that for a second because how how do you separate? running a business together and then running a family together and then being a couple How do you separate those things? So we manage our kids and we manage our clients and we manage our relationship all in the exact same way same process basically It's all very similar. We always joke managing your clients is like managing your kids but It is a lot easier for me to separate things than Brian. Okay We no longer work together in case nobody knew that he left me in January He abandoned our company To go work somewhere else So I'm back on my own but for for the years that we work together people would always be like, how do you do that? I'm like, we have separate offices in our house so we don't share space because I am messy and he is not so we have separate offices We both work with headphones on and I'm like if I need something from him I'm like slap like hey dude I need this send it to me and he's like sends it over like we come out of our office at lunch We're like hey, he's a what are you making me for lunch? To be fair for the first 13 years we were married Brian did 100% of the cooking all of the cleaning and all of the laundry and all of everything I did nothing. That's a good catch. I'm like my mom did everything I was a kid. Why should I do it as an adult? And Brian did everything as a kid and I'm like just keep on doing it all But when he when he got cancer there was really nothing I could do for him except make food and I was terrible at it because I didn't know how to cook But I learned how to cook and then he was like now that you're decent at this I think I'm done like I did it forever now. Yeah, it's your turn So now he's like if I don't cook word going out, but um, but We've had conversations like I tell people working together for us was never a big issue like it was we never it was We've always done everything together and some of it might have been we got married the day after I turned 20 So we were babies and we I say like I kind of grew up into adulthood with we like we grew up together So we've always done everything together and business was no different But there were days where I had to sit down and tell Brian. I need to feel like a wife and not a co-worker Like you've been really busy. I've been really busy like business has been taking up all of our time Like we haven't had a date night in a while and I'm starting to feel like a co-worker and not a beloved wife So to the end of it, right so So we have those moments where it's like in some of that is open communication like I had and he's like oh my gosh Yes, like like yeah, we've been going crazy like it's busy. I'm sorry Like it's a little harder for him to shut all that stuff off. It just is yeah Personality so date nights were something that we we started doing and I don't post all our date night selfies anymore because it was irritating people Because we do date nights more than anybody else. I know so we we do we do date nights at least once a week sometimes Two or three times a week good, but we go to we go to the bar We go to shows and we see bands and and that's what we do But we get out of the office and we leave all the stuff when you work at home for us It was like we got to leave home Like I am in an office. I close my door and I'm like I'm done But Brian's in the it Brian has the whole entire front half of the house now So but it's the front half of the house like there's no closing a door So for him it was it was harder to to let all that go. So we're like nope. We got to leave the house Let's go out to dinner. Let's go see a band. Let's go tomorrow. Let's go hang out friends Like let's get out and that's maybe that's made a huge difference Two things I'm thinking about come to think of it. My parents had separate offices Yeah, which is probably and they had two very separate offices. I tried to get Brian to share my space at one point And he was like, are you crazy? Are you crazy? But to reflect back on something that Nathan said it sounds like what the key to making this work making what you made work was Open communication right on both sides, right? Oh, yeah, and with our kids the same thing like we When I know it's gonna be a particularly busy week I have big deadlines Brian has a lot of meetings like we've got stuff going on at the beginning of the week Sometimes we'll say all right guys this week's gonna suck like we're probably gonna work some late nights We've got some big deadlines like you're on it take care of your like you have to take care of your stuff this week When they were really little and they couldn't understand all that like we have always been super open with our kids They know our finances. They know our business status like they know everything Everything that we know about our existence of our family. They know And when they were really little and they didn't understand all the things like when we relaunched the born-creating website in 2014 We're like we are gonna knock this out in one month But we're gonna be so busy like you guys can be good and you can do all your homework And you can handle your stuff and you do not make our lives hard at all like when we're done We're gonna go to Disneyland for a week Like we're gonna go we're gonna go for a week. We're not gonna bring any work It's gonna be awesome. And so over the whole month they had we've always said schools your job our business is our job Right, so you do your job. We're gonna do our job and at the end We're both gonna get an award for doing a good job and we're gonna go on vacation And so we've always had that kind of open communication through our through the whole family So we're always on the same page about expectations and what's going on and if Brian's got a really busy day I'm trying to pull work off his plate if I've got a big deadlines He's trying to pull work off my plate if the kids have got tons and tons of homework Those are the days. We're like don't worry about anything. Just get your stuff done Like we'll do all this stuff, right? Like it's it's a push and pull between all four of us of whoever has the most stuff to do that day gets priority in our family and And these things just goes without saying family relation and your relationship that is a priority That is your priority over your business But one thing I know about you and you just said it said it very quickly about your trip to Disneyland One thing I know about you is when you're on vacation You're on vacation, right? You are disconnected, right? There is no contacting you during that place, right? Am I correct? Yeah, so expand on that explain that explain why why that's important I went years in my business was never taking vacation or I would take a vacation But I would work the whole entire time and then be like why did we even go on vacation? You just work the whole time And it was it was awful And and we we started little like people are always like now we take like nine weeks of vacation a year And like lots of long weekends and things but and people will always how do you guys do that? I'm like, well, we started small like I started my goal was like to let's do one day Let's just do one day a week where I I'm not doing client work Like one day and then was let's try to go the whole weekend without doing client work, right? And then the the next was let's try to stop at five every day Like that was a big deal for me and then it was let's try to do a three-day weekend Let's try to I'm gonna take a day off during the week, right? So we started little and built it up and built it up and to build it up, but For for me now, I'm better for my clients when I have a break. Yeah, like I know I Can I can hustle? Hard and work my butt off for about six to eight weeks before I hit that point of I'm feeling burnout Right like that's about how far I can go before you start to reach that. Oh, why am I even doing this? Like I'm exhausted. I'm getting tired. I'm getting burnout So as long as I know every six to eight weeks, I need to go on vacation Like I need to go somewhere it might be a three-day weekend a four-day weekend It might be a week It might be a nine-day road trip whatever it is every six to eight weeks I need to do something where I'm disconnected and I'm gone Anytime for myself to recharge to relax so I can come back refreshed because guess what when you're overwhelmed And you're burnout and you're exhausted. You're not doing your best work You're not giving your clients the best and what we started to find is where I'm telling my clients We're gone So we're what we warn them way in advance the clients who do get invited into our project management system We plan all of our trips for the whole year in December So we know every single trip we're taking the whole entire year in December We load it all into our p.m. System our retainer clients know Those clients they know every single day. We're gonna be out of the office for the year as soon as we know For the rest I would put it in my email signature We're closed this week we're closed this week and we tell clients get us your stuff by this date If you want it done before we're gone otherwise awaits till we get back And it would give them these mini deadlines that all of a sudden everything would start getting it done So my vacations would give clients all these mini deadlines because you know when you leave all of a sudden every single person wants everything Done they've ever wanted in their entire life done before you go So all of a sudden all these mini deadlines my projects were getting done faster Because I was leap because I was out of the office and unavailable So I was doing better work. My clients were getting their projects done faster And what's funny is some of our best clients started scheduling their vacations the same week so we Wow Three of our clients did that they would take their summer vacations for the same weeks that we were gone So and nobody was working on anything So I'm gonna reiterate something you said for the audience, but really mostly for me, right? So when you are burned out, you're not doing your best work. No And I need to take that to heart. Yeah, but something else you said I would kind of kind of would reflect it on a few things you said you're self-aware, right? So, you know your limits, right? You know when you're gonna be burned out You know how long you can go without a break, right? And you're also managing expectations both your own your families and your clients And you're managing all around and you're doing them well ahead of time so that everybody knows what to expect So that when you're out, it's not a surprise, right? And granted if there's an emergency they can get a hold of me But I haven't had that happen good the one emergency happened while we were on vacation once it was with our own It was with our own site, so That was it. We have we haven't had to deal with it. All right. I've got time for a couple quick questions Hand went up over here first. So let's start over there. I'll get I'll get you I'm a project manager fan girl. What's your system? My project management system the one you keep talking about. Oh Well, I use base camp, but the the client management and system that I create is called profitable project plan And it's just one that I created for myself, but the software that I use is base camp Base camp. Yeah, okay Thanks, Jen question for you. You mentioned the automation of a big fan starting out in particular for a small business What do you suggest? What are some viable examples of things you can automate? Oh, that's a great question. Uh, so I examples of things that you can automate if you're just starting out Anything that you do more than one time It's but anything that you do if the best thing to do is to start writing down like I had a task book It was just lined and and I printed it at FedEx office and bound it But it sat on my desk and I just documented every single thing that I did every day I wrote it. I like writing things down on paper. So I did it that way For months, I did that for months and then I went back and I just grabbed a highlighter And it's like every single time there was this I highlighted it in yellow And I flipped through the book while I was watching TV one night and highlighted it and I'm looking at these things And I'm like I'm doing the same thing over and over and over Automate that if there's something that you have to do on every single client project Automate it if there's something you have to do in your business Administrative wise figure out ways that you can take that you can automate it and take out the manual Need to do that right anything that is repetitive no matter how small it is if you can take it off your plate It's one less thing that's gonna take up space in your mind It's one less thing you have to do and even if you're like this only saves me five minutes But if you're doing it 50 times That adds up over time Last question. Hey, Jen I was in your talk yesterday and at the end you had a slide where you had a bunch of your different brands in your programs Yeah, what is your secret to getting those programs done? When you've got a bunch of client work, how did you structure your time and manage that? So two things One I do client work from roughly nine to five or like ten to five sometimes But my son gets up in the morning at 5 30 every day, and I make him pancakes at 5 30 every day Just the two of us chocolate chip pancakes or chocolate chip bubbles every single day And then we watch SpongeBob chili goes to school at eight. They leave at eight o'clock. I Don't do client work until nine or ten every day. So every thing I do Before that is for myself and let me get to me. Let me tell you something really quick And then and then I'll tell you a funny story If you get to the end of the day and you haven't finished a client project and the deadline is the next day What are you gonna do? You're gonna keep working If you get to the end of the day and the thing you didn't get done was for yourself. What are you gonna do? Put it off So if you do your own stuff first in the morning if you get get one thing done That's gonna move your own stuff forward in the morning and then do your client work Every day you've made progress on your own thing So I always I do my stuff in the mornings because I know at the end of the day. I'm tired I'll just put it off and not do it. You ever eat that frog. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah a hundred percent get that stuff done Eat that frog. Um, but like profitable project plan my course I had been talking about doing that for for a long time and I never found time and I was kept putting it off And I'm like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for this I was on vacation at the lemmas. We were we were at the lemmas went in the summer and Chris like just get it done And I'm like, no, I don't have time and he said I'm going into a two-hour meeting sit down and write the content for the sales page I want it when I come back out. I was like And he went into his office and closed the door and like that was it. There was no more conversation so I sat there on my phone and I'm like And I wrote the sales page for it and he comes down. He's like send it to me Okay, I sent it to him and he sat down and he built the ugliest beaver builder site ever That beaver builder fault not beaver builder fault But he built like it was so ugly and it was they had like a placeholder YouTube video And it had nothing to do with my front like my course It used a URL that I hated and they was like, here's a username password and knowing that I'm like I have to fix it I have never seen a beaver builder video like they're my friends and I'm like, sorry I've never even looked at your thing. Um, I had never watched a tutorial. I'd never seen a video I'd never done anything because like here's the username password fix it and I was dying I'm like, I have to fix this and they go in Testament to their product. I was able to do every single thing I wanted to do on that page Not ever having watched a tutorial or anything I was able to make every change I wanted to make and it went live what like three days later And I put the course for sale the beta and I put the beta up and 40 people were in the beta and it was amazing And then every time in the middle of the sixth one right now We're in this will be week nine of the sixth run of it But but every time like for every single time Brian would see Chris afterwards because he's like Brian's just Brian gets all the money notifications And so every time he'd be like thanks for making Jen get that done Thanks for making Jen get that done but But the impact that it was able to make because my goal was to diversify income to because up until that point a hundred percent Of my income was relying on client services And I wanted to diversify some of that so I could work a little bit less and do some other things and try some other things and Yeah And and I've been able to do that through through courses and now I have lucrative leads as well and content camp is a Accelerate is a retreat. It's a weird cough you got Yeah, I do a retreat for women business owners the next ones in October called accelerate and I finally have time I that I'm doing a Three-day live event in September Two days before word camp Sacramento, but it's all content. It's it's called content camp. It's a workshop. So You're doing all the work there, but I'm really really excited about that and this is the first time I've had room in my business to be able to play with ideas and A couple years ago. I had said to Brian. I spent my whole career building everybody else's stuff Like I'd like a chance to build something on my own and I didn't have time to do it because we were so bogged down in client work and profitable launching profitable project plan and doing that gave me enough space in my business to have time to be able to explore and play and see Try new things and like create content camp and do those things that have been really really fun Thank you so much for sharing everything