882: Your Questions Answered: Email List Growth, Biohacking Sleep, and Launching Big

24:36They're just so great. So chickens, very niche. I apologize, but I am obsessed. I am a proud chicken mom and my kids literally love them. Okay. The last thing I will say, and I've got to apologize. Cause I was trying to think of like cheap things I've bought and I can't really think of anything. I feel like I haven't been spinning as much is blood work. Okay. Hear me out here. I know again, a little bit niche, but it's true. So I think that especially for entrepreneurs where we are in cortisol rising situations and we need to have energy to run the type of businesses we want to run and do all the things we want in our precious life.

25:13I think that investing and getting your blood work done, either if you have insurance and they can do it awesome. If you don't have traditional insurance, paying out of pocket is an expense. But I will say that I believe that getting your blood work done is going to save you money because you will buy only supplements and things that are for you that you know you need. And I also just think that it gamifies your health in a way that makes it really fun to make super healthy changes. Like I will argue that your health is worth every penny. And so I typically get my blood work done two times a year, three times if there's something going on that I'm watching.

25:52But I love it because it gives me basically the guidebook of like, here's what I need. Here's what my body actually needs. Here's what I'm doing better on. Here's what I need to focus on. And so I am a huge believer in getting your blood work done. And I just think that modern medicine doesn't do enough to help us be proactive about our health. and I am someone who I'm like, I will invest this money just one to make sure that the vitamins and supplements I'm taking are actually what I need, but also to make sure that like I am staying on track. Like once I started to watch my blood work move as I got healthier, it just became so much more fun for me.

26:32And as somebody who loves numbers and results, like actually seeing it on paper was such a huge motivator. So Greg, these are kind of niche things, chickens, getting my colors done and blood work, but those are three things that I feel like I talk about often. And that's why I'm hesitant when people are like, what supplements do you take? And what do you do? I'm like, I think that everybody is so bio individualized that I don't think we should be taking full supplement lists from people who have very different needs. And that's just my opinion on it. But blood work helps me with that. Okay, let's dive on in to the next question.

27:06hey Jenna my name is Stephanie Ross and I'm a fellow Midwesterner just across the river here in Wisconsin and I'm recently a new mom and I'm about to launch my first book that I wrote in the last two years of making some huge pivots for my personal life and my business my question to you is because I know you've done this yourself. How do you make a big launch like a book while you're a brand new mom? Ooh, okay. This is a tricky one. And I think that for every single mom, this is going to be a unique situation. Would I advise on tackling a very big launch when you are a brand new mom? Probably not.

27:52I would leave room for choice if that's possible. like you could pencil something in, but I really, if you are a mom, there's just so many things that are so unpredictable, like how you are going to feel, how your baby's doing, how your health is. So I launched my book when my daughter was about six months old. And it was when I knew that was kind of the pub date. And especially going with a traditional publisher, I was with Harper Collins, you don't really have a lot of wiggle room. And honestly, I loved the timing of everything. It worked out well for me. But again, I think this is a very unique experience for each person.

28:35One of my really good friends is having her third child and she has a book coming out and she was just asking me advice of like, okay, what did you do? How did this work? And so here are a few things that I would do. So I would make the plan prior to having your baby. So lay out the plan and lay the foundation in as many ways as possible. So I tried to hit all of my deadlines before I gave birth in terms of all the things I could control. So getting my manuscript in, doing our first round of edits, all of that happened before my daughter was born. I also really had to thoughtfully plan out like, when was I going to do promo?

29:12And what was that going to look like? And was I going to bring my baby with me? Or was she going to stay home? so like the week that my book came out my whole family my mom drew and my two daughters flew to New York City with me and I will never forget like nursing my daughter and then going on the today show and then getting home to nurse her again nursing her in Barnes and Noble when I saw my book for the first time in a bookstore doing an event and then having to like pause to nurse her like it was it was crazy but it was also so beautiful and just like awesome so get support where and when you need it, plan in advance as much as you can, leave room to push around dates if necessary.

29:53And for me, every time I went on to maternity leave, I always tried to set myself up so that I didn't have to do anything while on leave. But if I wanted to do something, I could. And so it just left me with more spaciousness and the ability to just be present, which I think is so huge. And the last thing I will say is I don't believe in balance. Like I just don't, I think balance is a moment in time, not a state that's meant to be maintained. And so things will get out of balance if you're doing something really big, but just make sure that you have end dates so that you don't stay out of balance.

30:33So for me, I said, once my book comes out, I will go really hard with promo for one month. And after that month hits, I am taking time to be with my family. And that worked out really well because I had a runway. I knew how long I was going to need to be in promo mode. And then I just kind of peaced out and enjoyed that last month of summer with my family. And it was really fun. I will also argue for me personally, I feel like the first few months of having a baby after you get over the initial like birth recovery is when they sleep all the time. And so you have the most flexibility and freedom.

31:05I will argue that once they start hitting that like eight, nine month mark all the way to, you know, a year and a half where they're really figuring out mobility and they're more on the move and they're more alert. That season to me is more challenging than the newborn stage where they sleep all the time. So that's just me though. But I'm excited for you. And I think sometimes too, as moms, it's beautiful to prove to ourselves that we can do both things and we can do them well. So I'm very excited for you, Stephanie, best wishes on your launch. All right. Next question comes from Jessica. Hi, Jenna.

31:39My name is Jessica. I've been juggling two businesses and are very different. One is being a fitness instructor and the other is photography. And I'm trying to merge those two businesses into one experience where someone goes through a fitness journey and then ends it with a photo shoot. So as far as I know, there's nothing really like this out there. And I'm if you have any tips as to how I can reach my ideal client who would be out there wanting like a massive transformation. Ooh, okay. So this is a really cool idea and I really love it. I think it's fun to incorporate in both of your passions as an offer.

32:18Now here's what I'll say. I will say that this could be like your dream offer and your main offer. But what I'm very curious about is how many people just want one piece of it, right? I have noticed that a lot of times as business owners, when we bundle things together, we see the value as super significant where people might value just one part of the offer more than the other, or be willing to pay a certain amount just to get one piece of the offer. I see this all the time with like online courses where people throw in all these bonuses and it's like they're valuing it super, super high. but as a person or a consumer, you might just want one piece of that.

32:56So what I would say is, is if I were you, Jessica, I would have both offers separate. So I would have the fitness instructor side and the photography side separate with a goal to be to meld those two together. And I love it because I think too, once people start to get results on the fitness side, They'll be way more likely to want the photography side, but I feel like people might feel intimidated going into the experience thinking, oh my gosh, I have to have this perfect, you know, after experience and my body has to look a certain way before I'm ready for photos. And so the other thing that I'd be really curious about is if Pareto's principle is at play in your business and Pareto's principle is essentially that 80 % of our results usually come from 20 % of our efforts.

33:46And given that these are two very separate and distinct offers, I'd be curious to know if one side of your business is giving you 80 % of the results and the other one is kind of just like the cherry on top. And so take what is already working, go really hard on that, and then see if there's a natural path to the other offer. So all of this to say, I would still keep two separate offers, one fitness, one photography, have one dream offer where it is the whole shebang and then really investigate, okay, what is already working and how can I naturally lead people to the full shebang? Does that make sense?

34:22I think it's a really, really, really cool offer. And I'd just be curious to see if the data is saying that people value it in that way and that they want it, or it might be something that they don't even know they want or need yet. And so the goal would be to get them in the door, get them working with you, and then naturally lead to that extension of the offer. When we were young, we dreamed of castles and fairy tales. And as we grow up, those dreams might shift into building something real, like starting a business. You need a website, payment systems, a logo, and a way to reach customers. It can all be overwhelming and confusing, but thankfully, that's where today's sponsor, Shopify, comes in.

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35:50Anyone who knows me knows that I'm all about creating spaces where people actually want to be. So when we started hosting on Airbnb, it honestly felt like the most natural thing in the world. And it's turned into one of the best decisions we've ever made. Over the years, we've hosted hundreds of couples in our little spaces. We've had so many repeat guests come back and we've created this incredible community, not just with our guests, but also with the people who help us care for our space. Whether you've bought properties as an investment or have unused rooms waiting to be shared, hosting on Airbnb is a practical and profitable choice.

36:24And just think about it. If you've put a ton of time, effort, and work into your home, someone out there probably would love to experience it while they're traveling. So next time you're planning a trip or want to make some extra income from your spaces, you should definitely host on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Next question is from Mary. Hey, Jenna, this is Mary Boker. My business helps women find, learn, and enjoy playing golf. One question that I have is just as I'm looking to kind of scale and make things more repeatable and make more systems.

37:03And you've talked a little bit about your team structure and stuff, but just looking to get advice and guidance on how to build that team as I'm looking at growing this online business. Hey, Mary. Oh, this is so fun. I used to work at a pro shop. It was one of my first jobs. I was the only girl in the entire pro shop. And I was so good at selling golf clubs, even though I had never golfed a day in my life. That is where I learned how to sell things. Okay. So I loved this. So let's talk about where you need the most support. So if you are trying to go more online and create more systems, one of the best ways to figure out where you need the most support is to do a time audit, like a calendar audit.

37:46So what this looks like is for two weeks time, you literally write down almost to the minute what you are doing in your business. And that is going to reveal trends and places where you are spending a lot of your precious time, not necessarily as the visionary or the CEO, but more in the weeds. So I always think naturally that the first place that you want to hire somebody for is as a virtual assistant to help you manage your inbox and to help with other tasks online. So like my VA, who is amazing, her name is Steph. She has been with me for eight years. And over the years, she went from managing the inbox to helping us pull things into courses, to quality checking pages, to helping serve our clients, to, you know, noticing what are we getting most questions about so we can create content around that.

38:40So she is kind of the hub and the main person in the business that like has eyes on everything. And so usually I would say a virtual assistant, especially if you're going more online with your business and trying to find somebody that is trainable so you can teach them different aspects. So I think a lot of people get stuck because they're like, well, I would only need a VA for like one hour a day, or I'm not really getting a lot of volume in my inbox. So this doesn't make sense, but VAs can do a bunch of different things. But what I'm going to tell you is I think that when you do a time audit, you are going to see some really clear places where you need support, whether it's social media, building out landing pages, creating email funnels, like all the different places.

39:20And I would argue that if you did a time log and you pulled it into chat GPT and you said, help me see my blind spots or tell me like what type of talent I need to look for. You could probably really quickly land on what sort of position you need to create. And you could also create a job role based off of what you need to get off of your plate in that audit. So you could hire the exact type of role you need. And I will say I hire more based off of personality and then I train for talent, but you can kind of decide what that looks like. And so with the online business, like you're basically taking your offers and getting them online, obviously.

39:58And so there are a lot of little tiny nuances within there that you might want somebody that has experience in that space of knowing, okay, do you know what a landing page is? Do you know what a thank you page is? Do you know what an email funnel is? How would you respond to this support request? Do you know what this platform is, et cetera? But the time audit should give you a really clear look at like, here are the roles that you need the most in your business. And then you can figure out, is that one person? Is it two people? Is it part-time? Is it full-time? What does that look like? And then you can hire a person based off of exactly what you need the most help with.

40:35All right. This one is coming in from Kat. Hey Jenna, my name is Kat and I'm calling from Nashville, Tennessee. I'm really hoping to get some better sleep. What are some recent hacks you've come across to get better sleep? Oh, okay. This is one of my favorite topics. It was funny. I was climbing into bed last week and I told Drew, I was like, I have got to do an episode about the ways that we are controlling what we can control with sleep after six years of very unpredictable sleep, thanks to children. And one of the things I've learned, especially if you are in a stage of parenthood where sleep is unpredictable, is taking control of the things that you can control helps ease anxiety around sleep and helps you sleep better.

41:28Okay. So I have gotten really nerdy when it comes to sleep and it has become just a huge focus for us and a part of our life. Cause it's like, when it comes to our health, controlling the controllables, there are certain things when it comes to sleep, we can control. and there are other things that are out of our control. So the first thing is this. One of the things that has been such a game changer is our kids go to bed around 730 or so. As soon as the kids go to sleep, I go into my room and I like set up the room for the environment that we want to be in. So we have like throw pillows. I like organize those, take them off the bed, turn down the sheets.

42:04I turn on our humidifier. We have an oil diffuser. I close all of our curtains. I put our lamps on super low. I turn on our white noises. Like I get our room so ready. And there's something so powerful with this. Not only does my future self always thank me, like when it is bedtime, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I just get to crawl into bed. But I also feel like it is signaling to myself, my brain, my body, like, okay, sleep is coming soon. You will be able to wind down soon. So just kind of doing like a little turndown service at seven 30. I also do my skincare at this time. So let's walk through that.

42:40So I used to wait and do my skincare right before I went to bed. I would half-heartedly do it. Some nights I'd just like wipe my face off and be like, call it good. And so at this time at seven 30, I turned down our bedroom and then I go in and I do like a mini spa experience. And for me, again, it is like an experience where I come back into my own energy, right? I just got done parenting. I got done putting kids to bed. It's kind of stressful. And so it's like returning to myself, being back in my own body, doing something that is caring for myself. So I am obsessed with Primally Pure. It is the only skincare I've used for the last seven years.

43:22I love that it is all natural. It's non-toxic. I used it all through pregnancy, through breastfeeding, through every stage. There's no hormone disruptors in it. Like I feel so good about the skincare. So a lot of times I'll turn down my bed, I'll put the cleansing oil on. And one thing my therapist told me to do was like, just pause and enjoy it, right? Like, let it be a visceral experience where you notice how it smells, how it feels, the temperature of your washcloth. Like it is just like an experience where I come back to myself. I don't know how else to say. So I do the cleansing oil. Then I do a toner.

43:59I either do the everything spray or the clarifying spray and it just spritz your face. And then I do serums. So my favorite serum is the clarifying serum. I also use a plumping serum. It's a little bit more floral for me. So I like the smell of the clarifying. And I also just feel like as someone who is prone to get like hormonal breakouts, I feel like the clarifying everything is amazing. And then if my skin is drier, they have like the most, like the deepest cream. So there's clarifying cream, which drew steals it all the time. The other day he was like at the bottom of it. And I was like, dang it.

44:37I got to order more. And so I'll go cleansing oil, spray serum, and then cream if I need it. And then I also use the baby balm. I'll use that as like an eye cream and like a lip balm. And that is the routine. So I love doing my skincare then, because not only does it have time to like soak into my skin before I crawl into bed. Because if you think about it, a lot of people are putting like expensive products on their face and then they're just putting their face up against their pillowcase and their pillowcase is getting all the product. So I feel like it gives my skin time to like soak everything in.

45:10And then when it is bedtime, all I have to do is brush my teeth and climb into bed. It's like the best. I have a humidifier that is next to my bed that is running. And it is crazy to me that I have to like refill the tank almost every day, but I love it. And then we do different oils. So like I love eucalyptus oil. It feels like a spa and we'll just have oils going in our room. So our room smells really good. We have this thing on our mattress called the Chili Sleep. There's also one called the Eight Sleep. I don't, I think they're both very similar. We got it a few years ago and I kid you not, I swear by this thing.

45:47So it is like a mattress pad and it runs water through the mattress pad at a specific temperature, you can set your temperature different than your partner's. It is expensive. Let me tell you, it is an investment, but we sleep so much better. There's some crazy data on how most of the time when you wake up in the middle of the night, it's because your temperature changed, like you're overheated, right? If you're one of those people where you stick your legs out of the blanket or you throw the blankets down or you just have your sheet. And so I sleep so much better because I love having blankets on me, but I don't want to get too hot.

46:21And it's funny now because if we sleep somewhere without our chili sleep, we sleep like crap. Like we just want to get home and back to our bed. So our chili sleeps on and set to a temperature. I think I have mine at like 80 degrees. So if you think about it, your body temp is 98. So it keeps me cool, but I'm not like cold. And you can also set it to like be warm when you get in and then go cold and then get warm again when you wake up. But it is insane because because it runs water every once in a while, it'll run out of water in the middle of the night. I will literally wake up sweating if it runs out.

46:52So huge fan of the Chili Sleep. None of this, this is not sponsored. These are just things that I like swear by. And we bought ours years ago. And I always just look at like, if I get one hour of better sleep a night, how much is that worth over time? And I, I'm a huge fan. We love it so much that when we designed our furniture for our bedroom, we made sure that the bed that we ordered fit our little Chili Sleep docks underneath it. Like that's how much we love this thing. Okay. So chili sleep on. Then when I climb into bed, I do a sleep spray on the bottom of my feet. So primally pure just came out with this like amazing magnesium lavender spray and I love it.

47:34So I spray the bottom of my feet. I can spray my forearms and I massage it and it smells really good, but I also just feel like it helps my body absorb magnesium, which is huge and it helps with sleep. And then we have done this for literally a decade. We do not sleep with our phones in the bedroom. Our phones do not come in the bedroom. We are in a weird camp where I know a lot of people will listen to this and be like, what? But we sleep with our phones in our pantry. So not even on the same floor as us. In a decade of doing this, we have only ever missed one call that was an emergency. And other than that, we've never missed like an important call.

48:13And yes, we have aging parents and grandparents and you know, life. But to me, I get hours of better sleep. I wake up without scrolling on my phone, like the benefits far outweigh it. And maybe you charge your phone in your bathroom, but I, we have been so huge on this and I think it helps us sleep better. I think it helps us connect better. I think it helps us wake up better. So like, I don't even go on my phone until typically when the kids go to school in the morning. I'll peek at it just to make sure nothing came in overnight. And I don't take my phone out of the box in our pantry until my kids go to school.

48:47So no phones in the bedroom. We have our Kindles. That's the only device that we have. And so I'll lay down and I'll read my Kindle. Sorry, this is getting long, but I'm obsessed with sleep. And I do my higher dose red light face mask, which is hilarious because it is bright and Drew always like laughs because I look like crazy, but I will do 20 minutes on the red light face mask while I'm reading my Kindle. Typically I will fall asleep while the mask is still on, which is crazy because it's bright. And then I will take the mask off and I put mouth tape on. And I am someone who never thought I could do mouth tape.

49:24One, I like how I'm claustrophobic. So the thought of like having my mouth tape shut felt terrifying to me, but I am a mouth breather And there is so much studies around how breathing through your mouth impacts your sleep. It impacts your health, all different things. And especially since I did Invisalign and I have to wear the retainers at night, I would wake up with the driest mouth like 10 times a night, like just wake up with like cotton mouth. It's a worse feeling in the world. So mouth tape has been amazing. At first I tried really thick mouth tape and I felt so claustrophobic and I didn't even really know how to breathe through my nose.

50:02and so it lasted like 10 seconds because I would panic but I ended up going on Amazon and I got this really cheap it's like clear and it looks like an x so you can still breathe through the sides of your mouth if you need to breathe or you can drink through a straw if you're thirsty and I can still kind of talk to my kids if they come in my room in the middle of the night with this mouth tape on and so oftentimes I will hold the mouth tape right against my kindle and when I'm about to fall asleep. I'll put the mouth tape on and go to bed. And it has changed my sleep so much. It's good for sculpting your jaw.

50:36It's good for like parasympathetic nervous system. It is amazing. I am a mouth tape believer. And now if I sleep without it, I notice it. I wake up so much. My mouth is dry. My teeth feel gross, like just everything. So mouth tape, huge believer. I have an organic co-op pillow. There's this brand on Amazon. It's like organic co-op. I slept somewhere once that had them and I loved them so much that I like opened up the pillowcase to look and now I have a body pillow and the head pillow. And what I like about them is you can take stuffing out of it to make it like the perfect height. I love pancake pillows, like super thin pillows.

51:14And so the organic co-op pillow is great. And then also Drew and I have eye masks. So we have curtains in our bedroom, but they let light in, which I like because I just love sunshine, especially like as we're getting into summertime. But we have, we sleep with eye masks on our nightstands so that if it's like 5am and it's bright out and we want to keep sleeping. So like even this morning, Drew woke up to work out and he like tapped me and gave me my silk eye mask. And then I put that on and got a little bit more sleep. So can you tell I've gone down a rabbit hole when it comes to sleep? I am obsessed.

51:47I will link to all the things I just talked about just if you're curious, but I love all of these things. And I feel like coming out of six years of just not sleeping great as parents, we're finally in a more predictable sleep rhythm and schedule. We still get some, you know, intruders in the middle of the night, but I feel like my sleep has been, never been better. And I feel like, yes, I'm high maintenance when it comes to sleep, but to me, it is so worth it because I wake up feeling rested and having the energy that I need to do all the things I want to do. All right. That was a long one. Okay.

52:20Next question is from Dr. Pam Johnson. Hey, Jenna, this is Dr. Pam Johnson. I'm a semi-retired veterinarian. I noticed that you do a lot of posting on social media about your personal life, which I very much appreciate and wanted to know what percentage you post personally versus professionally. Okay. I love this question. And ideally I would say I try to go 30 % business, 70 % life. I would say lately it's felt more like 40 % business, 60 % life. Essentially like when I think about social content, I think two out of three posts are personal. And when it comes to email content, we definitely try to err more on the side of personal and serving versus selling.

53:12I don't necessarily try to separate as much about personal versus business, but more like serving versus selling or like connecting intentionally versus, you know, trying to promote something. And so I think find the balance that works best for you. But I think there is so much power in having content that is created just for the sake of encouragement and serving and connecting, especially in a world where we are constantly sold to. So whenever we lay out our content plan, we are constantly looking at like, okay, what is the breakdown? There are going to be months where it is heavier on the business, especially when we're in live launches, which is typically four months out of the year.

53:50But then the rest of those months, we weigh really heavily on serving content versus selling. So I hope that answers your question. All right. That is a wrap on questions. Thank you so much to everyone who reached out. If you would like a chance to be featured on the next Gold Digger Q &A, simply call in and just leave us a voice message with your burning question. The phone number is 218-203-9660. That is 218-203-9660. And just leave your name, where you're calling in from and your question. The number is also in the show notes in the episode description. And I hope you love today's episode. And if you know anyone that could benefit from any of these answers, take a second to share this episode with them, have a conversation around it, work together and collaborate.

54:37And thank you again for letting me be a part of your life. And thank you for these awesome questions. Until next time, gold diggers, keep on digging your biggest goals and I'll be in your earbuds soon. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the gold digger podcast. I hope today's episode filled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more.

55:12And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, Gold Diggers.