798: Behind the Scenes of My (Intentionally) Slow Summer

0:01This episode is supported by What Should I Do With My Money? From Morgan Stanley. Okay, can we just talk about how money is legitimately one of the hardest topics to bring up. Like even when you think you have your stuff together, there's always this really weird awkwardness around it. That's why I am obsessed with this podcast. It actually makes money conversations feel approachable. I recently listened to an episode about affording multiple big life things at once, like a wedding, a house, an IVF, if they were all happening at the same time. And honestly, it hit home. So many people are wondering, can we actually have it all without sacrificing our sanity or our savings?

0:42What I love is that they bring in real experts who help break down these massive costs into actual doable steps. It's like having a money mentor in your ear who gets it. Search for What Should I Do With My Money in your podcast player. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Many thanks to What Should I Do With My Money and Morgan Stanley for their support. If you want to have a slower pace, you want to start thinking about and planning for it now. And one of the things that was really helpful is in knowing that this was the ultimate vision for our summer, it allowed me to say no with confidence to so many opportunities and invitations.

1:22I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota with my family. Here we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain.

1:59Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. When was the last time that you intentionally slowed down? And I'm not just talking about a quick weekend getaway, though those are very important to you. I'm talking about slowing down by choice, being super mindful about a slower pace, whether it's for a week or a month or even a season.

2:43Like, have you ever done that recently or ever? For most of us, we've had these built-in breaks once a year throughout our whole childhoods due to summer vacations. And if we were lucky, those precious couple of months were our opportunities to maybe sleep in later, to adopt a new rhythm, to give our brains a much needed break, to pursue these creative passions that we maybe didn't always have time for. Since entering into adulthood, the breaks become fewer and further between. And as entrepreneurs, does the work ever really stop? Now, here's the thing. Breaks are still just as important to our well-being as they were when we were kids.

3:21The only difference is that now we have to make time for these slowdowns rather than have it planned for us. And what we do during these breaks is also crucial, according to Brene Brown. In fact, Brene recommends that in order to boost your creativity and invite more joyfulness into your life, you have to make time for play, doing things just because they're fun and not because they'll help you achieve a goal or get across that next finish line. It's anything that makes us lose track of time and self-consciousness, creating the clearing where new ideas are born. And dare I say these breaks actually help our businesses in the long run?

4:01This summer, I have been really fortunate to be able to intentionally decide to slow down and invite more play into my life, both for myself, for my family, for my business, and for my team. We've all heard the saying, you can't pour from an empty cup. And that's exactly what this summer has been about, filling up my cup. And spoiler alert, it has been wonderful. So let's dive into the behind the scenes of what I've been up to these last few months while I pour into myself, my marriage, my girls, and the impacts it's had on my business. Let's do this. It's no secret that starting a business is hard.

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5:15With expert guidance from HubSpot, starting a business doesn't have to be hard. So don't wait to start yours. Head to HubSpot.com slash ENT to download the free entrepreneurship kit, all from a company who knows a thing or two about growing bigger and better. That's hubspot.com slash ENT. So really quick, before we dive into the meat of this episode, I just want to acknowledge the fact that it is a massive privilege to be in a place to be able to decide to slow down. And I recognize times in my own life where that wasn't an option. And I also want to acknowledge that for many of you, it probably isn't an option, but it's something that you deeply desire.

5:58And so my hopes in recording this episode and just kind of peeling back the curtain is to just let you know what is possible, what is out there, and for you to start brainstorming what choosing a different rhythm and pace could mean for your life, your family, and your business. That's it. So I wanted to start on the business side of things and then kind of scoot over to the personal side. So the first thing that I wanted to talk about is that we have been doing a four-day workweek for over a year. And honestly, it has been so amazing. If you are a boss or you run your own company, I highly recommend experimenting with a four-day workweek.

6:37And if you are an employee of a company, I would start researching the benefits of a four-day workweek and potentially pitching it to your company because there are so many benefits with the four-day workweek. And we have just found so much joy in this rhythm, both for business and for personal life. We started the four-day workweek as a 90-day experiment. So basically, I was like, I want to try this out, but I don't want to fully commit to it. I don't know how it's going to feel. And we have never gone back. I absolutely love Fridays off. And one of the things that I think is important to note is in going to the four-day workweek, we didn't extend our days.

7:17So we didn't just go down to 10 hour work days. We actually kept the same rhythm and routine that we had. We just eliminated Fridays. And it has just been such a blessing. My team has been able to have more time with their families, to have more time for themselves, to have more time with their hobbies. We have this fun Slack channel called Granny Hobbies because so many people on my team have really fun hobbies. We are crocheting, we're making sourdough, we're gardening, all of these different things. And so I just feel like it's given us a much better work-life balance. And it's something that we all really, truly love.

7:52And what's interesting is that our profit didn't go down, our efficiency didn't go down. And I would maybe argue that it increased just because we don't have a lot of time to sit and think we're just in action when we're working. And then we are fully unplugged when we're offline. So 4-Day Workweek has been amazing. And that's how we were approaching this summer in this stage of business is having that four day work week be the foundation that we were working off of. Now, another thing to note is that when I look at the entire year at a glance, I am not doing my annual planning in January. So last year, we actually started planning out 2024 back in September.

8:32So we still had a full quarter of 2023 to finish before we entered into 2024. And I loved planning out the year when we still had kind of a runway left. And so in September, Marissa on my team, who's basically like the VP of operations, flew to my house and we were closing out a launch together. And then we spent an entire day going through our annual planning. And it was the first time we had ever done it. And I absolutely loved doing that with her. She's been in my business now for over five years. And so she kind of knows the rhythm that I want to operate from. And so it was really helpful for us to sit down.

9:10And what we kind of did is this epic analogy out there about the big rocks and the sand. I don't know. You've probably heard it before and I might butcher it. But essentially speaking, the theory is, is that if you don't start with your big priorities and you fill your life up with all the other things that are calling for your attention, you're likely not going to get around to those big rocks. And so if you picture a jar and you fill it with sand first, sand being the meetings and the running around and all the other things and everyone else's requests, and you fill your jar with that, and then you try to fit the big rocks in, you're not going to be able to fit them in.

9:47And so when we were doing our annual planning, we started with the big rocks. Here are our four main projects that we want to have for the year. This is when we're going to slate them. And one of the things that we did that was different this year is that we protected, and I mean fiercely protected our summer. So June, July, and August were protected on our calendar. And we said no launches in the summer. Now this is the first year in probably a decade that I didn't have any launches in the summer. And this was something super intentionally set up. And I want to share this piece of it because I think a lot of times people are like, I want to slow down.

10:25I want to have a slower summer. I want to do all these things. You might want to start thinking about that right now. You might want to start thinking about next year and what that's going to look like and what needs to happen in order to make that happen. And so what was amazing about sitting down in September is that we planned out the year with the protection around our summer months. And I loved it because last year we did a launch in June and there were a few things that I didn't love about it. First, I felt like launching in June felt like I was delaying the start of my summer. So in my brain, even though summer had started, my brain was thinking, okay, once this launch is over, then summer begins.

11:06And so I felt like I missed out on a few precious weeks of summer. I also felt like that launch was more stressful than others because I was juggling both of the kids being at home, this new rhythm. We're trying to figure out like, what does summer look like for us? And if I'm struggling, there's a good chance that my audience is also struggling getting into a summer rhythm. One thing that I think is important to know is that oftentimes our ideal audience has similar lifestyles to us. And so if we are struggling with our schedule, there's a good chance that our audience might also be. And so I started to recognize that and I was like, I don't want to do that again.

11:46So what did this mean? So having zero launches in June, July, and August meant that we had a heavier stacked beginning of the year and we have a bit of a heavier stacked end of the year. Totally worth it and totally doable because of the way that we planned it. And so we went from June, July, August, September, October. We don't have any internal launches in that whole window. That's almost five months out of the year. So if we're not launching in these summer months, what have we been doing? Because guess what? We've still been busy, but it's been a different sort of busy. So I reserve these summer months for my favorite type of work, really methodical, thoughtful, intentional work and work that often happens behind the scenes where you might not be able to see the work that we're doing, but I promise you, you are going to be able to feel that work.

12:35So here are a few things that we left for this summer. And let me tell you, I have just so enjoyed the different pace and the projects that we're working on. So we recently went through an entire rebrand, which meant new website, new brand assets, new photos. This whole process was a massive undertaking. And we started this process at the end of last year. So we knew going into this year about when it would come to fruition, which was going to land in the summer months. Crazy how long this process takes. But what has been so amazing about having a full website refresh is that it has really challenged me with this new brand identity and this new kind of evolution of who I am and new introduction is like, what do I want to bring forward with me?

13:22And so what's been awesome is that we have been taking so much time behind the scenes to update and optimize some of our best offers. So we have been updating not only our website and our blog and our pages. We have been updating all of our top performing freebies. So our opt-ins to grow our email list. I mean, going all the way back to starting with fresh content from start to finish, fresh landing pages, thank you pages, fresh email copy, delivery copy, fresh designs. everything feels so fresh and good right now. And what has been so fun for me is not only digging into the analytics of like, okay, which freebies are moving the needle the most and which one should we prioritize, but also how can we make these free offers the best free offers out there on the internet so that we can get people results for free without having to pay a penny.

14:17And I love this type of work. I love getting back into the trenches thinking through, okay, what does my audience need the most help with? How can we create something that is really filled with value? How can we guide them on the journey that gets them results? What does this look like? And so we have been going through freebie by freebie. We've already updated four of our top performing freebies. Our goal is to get to 10 and it's a lot of work. So again, updating the freebie content, the landing page, the thank you page, the email confirmation, the email funnel, everything that goes into it. And so there's a lot of moving parts, but I love this kind of work.

14:58And honestly, what we've been up to reminds me a lot of what we did back in 2020 when the world shut down. We decided we're going to put our heads down and we're going to go deep on what's working instead of going wide. And I think that when everyone was panicking and thinking, oh my gosh, I need to get out new offers. I need to find new ways to make money. we went back to some of the basics of like search engine optimization, lead generation, ad strategy. Like we were just kind of going back to the basics. And this honestly feels like we're doing that again. And I cannot believe that 2020 was four years ago.

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17:34fast two-day shipping easy returns it's literally the only place you need to shop from that's revolve.com forward slash gold digger to shop my favorites and get 15 off your first order using the code gold digger offer ends december 14th so happy shopping one thing that's made this work so enjoyable and i know that it is moving the needle is that we started working with a measurement team about a year and a half ago and it was a huge process onboarding them and getting them really in our business and integrated into the work that we're doing, but also able to measure and give us the information that we needed to actually optimize our offers.

18:12And so having a measurement team means that once a week, we're getting on the phone with them and we're walking through what we're up to and how we can optimize what's already working. What's awesome is, is that in the past, we didn't have all these numbers to look at. And so when we were updating things, it was kind of a shot in the dark. Like we're like, well, we're just going to change this headline and see what happens. And we weren't actually measuring the outcome of that. We are in a place in our business where we now have the time and the bandwidth and the system to say, hey, does anything happen?

18:44Like if we change this headline up here, or if we move this text up, does that increase the conversion of this page? And now we are literally doing weekly calls where we're looking at the data and the analytics to really further optimize things that are already working well to make them work better. And so it's a lot of the nitty gritty stuff where the past me was like, we don't have time for this. Like we're just going to get it up and running. And once it's running good, just let it run. And now we're like getting into this nitty gritty step and we're learning so much in the process. And so this work has just been so fun for me.

19:16It's been a huge undertaking, but it's just a different rhythm. I mean, there's been entire weeks on end where I'm not on camera the entire week. I'm not doing Instagram stories. I'm not recording podcasts. I am just behind my computer doing what I love. And honestly, those are my favorite weeks of work. And so that is something that we've been working on. We've also been looking at just refining different processes and things. One of the things that has been such a blessing about having this more extended time without a launch is that we're able to dig into a lot of the things that have been on our list that just keep getting shoved down our list.

19:51So things like managing our Facebook communities and are there ways to optimize that? Are there different things that we want to do with our Facebook communities. How are we collecting testimonials from students? What does the follow-up look like when somebody either opts in or when they sign up for a course? We've been able to really kind of peel back the curtain on different things that have been working well to make them work even better and just get really clear with different strategies and systems that we have in place in my business. And so I just feel like this is like the summer of refinement and oh my goodness, it just feels so good.

20:24And it's been such an amazing way to work through the summer because it offers a ton of flexibility. And it also just gives us this chance to like really follow through and follow the work that we're doing to make sure that it is the best version that it can be. And let me just tell you that one of the things that my team and I love doing and that we've continued to do over the summer is just methodically working ahead. I think a lot of times people are maybe surprised to learn that we are constantly four to six weeks ahead of my business. So if at any point, we had to like peace out for an entire month, our business would keep running per usual.

21:05So we work from a place of rest and not urgency, which means, and this is why I think we have such a good team culture. There is never really anything that is super urgent because we're always working into the future. And so whether it's the podcast or our email list, or even our blog calendar. We are always looking ahead and working ahead so that we can just stay at this really beautiful, peaceful pace, which is exactly what I wanted for this year. My whole year was less force, more flow. And I'm learning it in a million different ways, both in business and life. So overall in business, what I have loved is really just blocking out a solid chunk of time where we are saying, Hey, we're still going to be working.

21:48It's a different rhythm. And we're working on some of the different things that don't normally take precedence over the big shiny launches. And we're putting our heads down and we're just doing that work. And it has just been a really great summer. I think it's going to be a tradition that we carry on both for myself and for my team. And I have absolutely loved it. And so for you, if this is something that you're hoping for, even if you just want like a slower month, which is what I've done historically in the past where I've said like, okay, August is our slow month or July is a slow month. I've done that for years.

22:21This is the first summer where I've been able to say, okay, June, July, and August are really protected. But if you want to have a slower pace, you want to start thinking about and planning for it now. And one of the things that was really helpful is in knowing that this was the ultimate vision for our summer. It allowed me to say no with confidence to so many opportunities and invitations. Because while we're taking a slow summer, a lot of people are not. And we got invited to do so many different launches and online summits and speaking things and all these things. And knowing that this was the vision for the summer, it allowed me to really kindly say no thank you to different opportunities and offers in protection of our summer.

23:05And I have been able to fiercely protect the summer and it's just been the best. Okay. So what has all of this meant for my life. We've talked about business. I love what it's meant for our business, but let's talk about life. So let me be honest in saying that it was a challenge shifting from our regular rhythm during the school year into our summer rhythm this year. And it was just a whole different thing. I really love the rhythm that we have when Coco is in school and what that looks like. A few things I love about it. One, we're waking up at seven every day and they are out of the house by eight o 'clock.

23:44So Drew will drive Coco to school every single day and he'll take Quinn in the car with him. And so right around eight o 'clock is when I can kind of start my day, kind of do a quick reset and then dive into work. Summertime. Oh my gosh, we have been sleeping until 8am. I am not complaining here because there was so many years in my life where I never thought I I would sleep until 8 a.m. again. My children are running around outside all day. They are so tired by the end of the night. They sleep so well. Drew and I look at each other like, wait, is this like life now? My Oura Ring sleep scores have never looked better because we are getting so much amazing quality sleep.

24:20But settling into the rhythm of like, okay, I'm diving into work at nine and oh my gosh, now I'm already feeling behind because I've got Slack messages and you know, kids are constantly finding me in the house. I literally will like move around the house to try to hide just to like get focused work done. My zoom calls can be chaotic. The kids are running around, you know, there's different appointments during the day, just different things. It was, it was a bit of a struggle and a challenge to like sink into summer and to figure out like, what is our rhythm and how is this going to work? And one of the things that I realized is that I don't think that Coco understood that while she is in school, I am working.

24:56And so when she is home all day, every day for summer, every single day, she's like, mom, do you have to work today? And if I say, yeah, she's like, oh, mom. And it's crazy because I'm working a four-day work week and I'm working very manageable hours within that 40 work week. But like my kids aren't used to that. They're not used to seeing me work in this way. So just a lot of adjustments all around, but we finally found our groove and I'm just grateful that I wasn't gunning for like a huge launch in June and trying to juggle this transition into a new rhythm. I think it would have been very chaotic.

25:29I think it would have been stressful. I don't think I would have been the best mom and I don't think I would have had the best launch. So I'm grateful for the past version of me for protecting June. In terms of life, I can say that I have never had such a beautiful season of my life as an adult. I think there's so many different factors here that I want to acknowledge. One, I think, you know, I am 13 years into entrepreneurship and this type of pace and these types of decisions weren't even a possibility for a lot of those years, right? Like I recognize and acknowledge that so much hustle led me to this point today.