Don’t be afraid to switch up your business model! with Shay Jordan Hrobsky

Get ready because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh. Hey there. Welcome to the Right on Time podcast. Happy New Year. This episode is dropping at the start of 2022. I can't even believe we found our way here. This is an incredible episode for us to kick off this year because we're rolling into this new year with plans. We are rolling into this new year with a vision. We, we are rolling into this new year with goals for what we want to unfold in the days, weeks and months ahead. But you know, it doesn't always go as planned. And that is exactly what we are talking about in this episode with my dear friend Shay, where Shay is breaking down over a series of podcast conversations. Our first conversation on this was, I believe in October a few months ago and she shared how she is setting up a new business, a complimentary business to what she already has going on. And she is setting up a totally different business model with blogging and affiliate links and search strategy. She currently does Facebook ads management for myself and other clients. So this is something that is in the online world, but taking her in a bit of a different direction for more of a passive approach to doing business to augment her very service based business. So Shea has plans, she's got a vision and she's gonna make it happen. But as she reveals in this episode, it's not going quite as planned. It's not unfolding in exactly the order and the timing that she expected. But she's got this. And I can't wait to hear what your feedback is on this episode and what nuggets you get. Because mindset stuff comes up as we are going through building businesses together and plans get shuffled and reworked. But still, you've got this and so does Shea. We're going to dive into this episode right now. Happy New Year, Shea. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hey, Amber. Hey. I'm so happy to be here.

I am so happy to be chatting with you. We are rolling into a new year, a new season, and we have not caught up in a little while.

No. I feel like the stars just have not aligned for us like we had planned on catching up in November and things. Life happened, travel happened, sickness happened, but we're reunited and it feels so good.

Feels so good.

I know that was playing in my head.

Oh my gosh. Well, we have got to catch up. For anyone who forgot about the prior episode or who is listening to our series for first time, you've got a couple of things shaking that we're sharing behind the scenes on. You are being so gracious to give people a peek into what it takes to start a new business or to start a new. A new. A second business. Right. Because you've already got one business moving and grooving on the Facebook ads front. Could you give everyone some scoop on that as a catch up?

Absolutely. So I started a new holiday blog. It's called christmasroad.com and it's going to be just like traditions. It's going to be recipes. I'm actually putting together some playlists too that will be on the site moving forward. And so this new venture, it's going to be about affiliate income, a little bit more passive. And once I get the foundations, which you and I will talk about more because I learned the hard way, but once we get more of the foundational stuff put in place, then I'm going to be able to hand a lot of it off so that I am helping create content ideas. I'm doing some of the recipe creation and, and more along the lines of it really being passive.

Oh, I love this so much. And you know, one of the things that has occurred to me recently is whatever anyone decides. I don't know that this has occurred to me, but it's been a new reminder for me. And some of the conversations I've had with business owners is whatever the business you decide you want to have is like, go for it. You can have something that's more passive, you can have something that's less passive, more hands on, more physical. Like, there are so many different ways and we can change our mind at any moment and we can layer in.

New elements and we forget that we feel like we get stuck in the one thing and we say it has to be this way. And even when I started the Christmas Road, I thought, oh my gosh, it has to be only this, this, this, this. And. And then I actually met with Elle, who is in Amber's modern CEO program and in the scale part and we were talking and she goes, you know, it's okay to change things. And I'm like, you're right. As I build the foundation, I might even add in mini products with Christmas Road. Like, I have a bunch of planning sheets, I have a bunch of other things that I haven't even even monetized. Yet that I have branded and ready to go. And so these are things that I can incorporate into the business, into the. Into this Christmas road that I had a block about because it had to be a certain way. And it really doesn't.

It does not. And you know, I adore Elle. I love that you mentioned her because Elle is someone who has created an online platform. She's got passive income going. She shifted from. From Shopify and she still does some of these things, but she shifted from a very hands on model to more passive with YouTube. And I asked her last week. She is in our program. She's also a mentor in our program. Like Elle, any chance you can mentor me? Because Joanna, my business partner and I, you heard it here first, are looking to set up a podcast, a YouTube show next year, maybe hybrid as a podcast, but we're going to start it as a YouTube show. Elle's got so much experience there, so I wanted to see if she consult with us. Shea, I haven't told you this yet, have I?

No, this is all. Did you see my eyes? I was like, wait a moment.

Breaking. We are. Joanna and I have been wanting to do a show for a long time, and now it finally feels right. We are in good flow within the company. We have experienced growth. We have hit a couple goals. We are like, okay, now we can carve out some space for this. And we were talking to a PR consultant and one of our core values is boudoir bff. And she kept coming back to this boudoir BFF value. And I told her, like, yeah, Juana and I feel like we could do a show. And she's like, oh, my gosh, that's it. You need to do a show. Women hanging out popular right now, which is. We get it. We love to hang out with all of our team on the regular. And. And she said, you two just doing a show about pulling in the boudoir BFF values. But that's like life. This is us doing life together. And so we're going start a show and our working name is called the New Nude, which I love. I'm so excited.

I love that play on words.

Yes. We wanted something, you know, in the Boudoir family, but it's also about now, like having transparent, like, let's have the conversations.

Let's get down and dirty.

Yeah. I love it.

I love it, I love it, I love it. I'm so excited.

I know. We're pumped too. That'll come sometime in 2022.

Oh, my gosh. I Know, it's crazy.

It is wild. So you're making changes to Christmas Road?

Yes.

Now are you making changes to your strategy or are you changing how you execute it?

So I'm not making changes to the strategy per se, I'm making changes to how we execute it. And because I miscalculated the time that I would have to put out up front, I also need to add in some things to the foundation. There were some trainings that I over that I overlooked. And so I need to go in, redo some of the things at the training in so then I can hand some extra pieces off and have it be 100% crystal clear training for your team members. Yes.

Okay, got it. So that, so, so what are those things that you're training and handing off to get support with?

It's going to be the blog posting. So we talked about a little bit on our first episode about how I hired a writing team. And so with the writing team there is a lot of editing because I not only do I love that they're writing these long form articles, every article is at least a thousand words, which is my goal. But it's also a little generic as it's meant to be because it's a writing company, they're doing bulk writing, which is understood. It just doesn't sound like me. So what I need to do is I don't need it to sound 100% like me, but when people are coming, they want there to be a personality with the brand. And if I do intend to potentially sell this down the road, which is one of my end goals, then I still need to have that personality because you're not going to sell something bland. And I need to go in and as I call it, Shea fi the blog articles and add in just my little spice. That's me. But in order for me to hand that off, I need to have words that I use. I need to have them look at some of my old articles and say, okay, I, I see some of the smartassery, I see some of the funness or the absolute like love for Christmas or like I need that to be in there and I need to create a foundation around that. Like a brand personality guide that is taken in and I did not do that ahead of time and so there was extra work for me. But this is my busiest time of year with ads and with my own other stuff that I'm like, ooh, I did not think this through.

Oh, good point. Yeah, we, and I mean we all Shea's clients on the ads Front. Okay, got you busy. And we pulled you away from some of the Christmas road stuff, which I.

Didn'T think it through. I. And I know that now is my busiest time, and then January through March are my busiest times of the year for my ads, my marketing, my consulting.

Yeah.

And so my ultimate goal was to get us ready to go for June, July, for Christmas in July. That happens next month. Year. I just wanted to get a pep start this year. And so it's resetting and getting all of that foundational brand personality, the foundational here. So I'm ready for that moving forward so I don't set myself up like this again.

So good. You know, I think this is so beautiful, and I'm so grateful to you for sharing this, because business, the first business, or the second or the third, it's not always like, okay, we set it up and it's done. My husband and I were joking about this actually last week. He said, come on, Amber, have you ever seen Field of Dreams? Like, dude, it doesn't work that way in marketing.

If you build it, they don't come.

And I said back to him, like, if you market, then they will come, but you've got to have your marketing down.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Because it takes a minute. Sometimes we reset. One of the other things we're thinking about in the photography business as well is bringing in. Well, like, lingerie would be very complimentary. So we refer out all over the place, like, what if we had our own line? And then we backed it up. We're like, okay, how do we test this first, though? Yes. So we're going to start with the test of affiliate links. Right. So getting into that world as well, very similar, but different. We're going to invite people who are clients, people who are booking a boudoir photo shoot to see. All right. Is our audience that is naturally there through the boudoir side, interested in lingerie or interested in loungewear, and then we're going to go from there before we go all in on this one thing.

Exactly. I love that. And I know that I have the audience, like, even looking at my numbers from October, I doubled my views to Christmas Road. But I also didn't take into consideration that my husband and I were going to do that surprise New York trip we were launching for Amber McHugh. We were doing the modern CEO launch. We did that trip where we changed, where we went to the Bahamas too. And so I'm like, look, Shay, you have bit off way more than you can chew. And I know. I like Chewing. But hold on, let's back it up a bit. So it's all about recognizing. Okay, yes, I did this as the CEO, and now I can adjust, and now I can look at what I need to do, especially now that I'm taking this time off, like, at the recording of this, we're going right into Christmas break, but, like, I get to take that time off, and I'm going to reset, reflect, and I'm going to write out what I need to get done so that I am ready to go with my assistant, my va, so that they can take some of this stuff over once I get the foundational stuff rerecorded. So it's understandable.

So good. I love that you're navigating this. It's not a pivot. You're navigating this reset of timeline with a whole lot of grace. You know, oftentimes I hear CEOs, modern CEOs, especially, who are like, we're not on the timeline that I wanted. This isn't going as fast as I wanted. It's not happening how I expected or how I would like it to be happening. How do you sort of navigate that in your head, the mindset of giving yourself grace?

And I was just going to say the first thing is I had to give myself grace. And I remember breaking down, too. And I said, you know what? Feel the emotions. Because if I leave it inside, it's just going to sit and see, and then that's going to come out into the work, and it's not going to be productive. It's not going to be good for my businesses, but also my family. And so I let myself sit, I let myself feel. I let myself get all up in my head. For 30 minutes, I watched a movie that I knew would make me cry. And then I said, look, you are a CEO. You need to keep moving. You are going to do this in a way that feels good to you. Now that you've released all the stuff you had to release, it's time to keep moving forward.

Oh, my gosh. So good.

But don't forget, like, take the time, because so far it's. I don't have anything to celebrate. Like, we're going in the. Oh, I missed the timeline. I don't have anything to celebrate. I'm behind on this.

This.

I'm not making enough. I'm not doing all the things. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I'm driving the car. That is the thing. I sometimes have to make a pit stop. I sometimes have to get gas. I sometimes have to just sit and walk around and be in it with just me before I can keep driving.

Oh, my gosh. Love that. I also love that strategy you gave. Like, I'm just going to watch a movie. That's going to help me get this all out.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Do something you know will help. Like, I have a friend who's like, I'm going for a run. I wish I were a runner. Like, that would help with what? The things that I want to do as far as weight loss, but I'm not there yet. But she goes for a run, and she goes into, like, the middle of the woods, and she just screams. And that's her release.

Like, beautiful, isn't it?

It's kind of amazing.

It is amazing. Does your friend who goes on runs live in winter?

Yeah, she lives in Wisconsin with me, and she still runs in the middle of Wisconsin in the middle of cold.

I would love to be out there running. I started running this year.

Did you really? I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

Well, I got all the surprises today. We started running or I started running and Matt, then I brought him along with me, and it was really nice to do this with him. I am 5 2, and he is 6 1. So he would go a lot faster and, like, keep going. Just keep going. He is like, no, I'm going to. I'm going to go right here with you. But I was doing slow running, which is going very slow. And the strategy around slow running that I was following is that you're not supposed to get out of breath. And if you get out of breath, you're going too fast. And so from. I started it in August. August through October. I was running for two minutes, walking for one, run for two, walk for one. And at any moment, I was like, oh, I'm feeling a little something. I would slow down even more still 2 1. But my run was. Was. Might as well be walking. My husband would walk and. But I really enjoyed it. But then the cold weather came here, and I'm like, my body does not react well to the cold, as you know. So I'm figuring out some stuff.

Yeah, you might have to get extra gear or a treadmill or something. But, yes, that's what she does. She, in the middle of winter, will still do that. And it's a release. And then she takes pictures of, like, even the sun rising. And I know. And I'm like, that is beautiful. I'm not there yet, but it looks different for everyone. So do what works for you. Because we all are different. So I literally go right to my Hallmark movies, and I know which movies are going to get me, and I'm. I'm bawling.

I was going to ask what would be your go to, like, make me cry it out? Hallmark movie I actually just watched, which.

This. Okay, so this isn't one, but we just watched it last night, and it's called Christmas Again. It was on Disney or it was on Nickelodeon with the kids. And it was a blended family. So the husband was getting remarried, the wife was single, the family was together, and this little girl hated it. And she kept living reliving Christmas. And at the very end, she finally, the little girl got it, and she welcomed, like, the new woman and called her stepmom. They started, like, getting along. The little boy, who was the woman's like, help. Played catch. And he. The little boy was like, you are just the best big sister. And I'm like, we don't see this in real life. And I'm bawling, and my husband's behind me laughing because we're snuggled on the couch. My son is next to me laughing, and he's like, we knew you'd be bawling. I'm like, but it was just so pretty. And then they all got together and everybody was happy. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. I love that. That was called Christmas Again.

Christmas Again.

Okay.

And it was really, really, like, adorably cute. But I also think that I was still processing. I had watched something called A December Bride right before that, and that also made me emotional.

Have you watched Love, I think it's called Love Hard on Netflix yet?

Yes.

You watched it?

I watched it with the girl from Vampire Diaries, and she falls in love with the man was catfishing.

Yes.

Yes. I cried at that one, too. I watched it on the way home from New York, and I'm like, I don't know why I chose to watch a Christmas movie, because I knew it would get me and it got me. And, like, she does the confession above at top, at the very end. And, like, she realizes it's him all along even then. Oh, son of a biscuits.

So sorry. Just in case anyone hasn't watched it yet, it is technically came out for the holidays, but you're going to want to watch this anytime. It's such a heartwarming show. It was.

It was so cute.

I just love doing spoilers over there.

I always do spoilers because it's just, like, I even Google it before. If we're watching, like, a mystery, I Google to find what the answer is, but I still watch it and I make the kids guess and I'm like, if you guess, I'll give you $5 or go buy some ice cream or something.

You're hilarious.

Yeah. And they never did it right. But. But I just like to know.

So as we roll into the new year and you're resetting and sort of moving things around on Christmas road, what do you. What is the strategy that you're stepping into as we restart in 20, 2022? There I go again to ground. Because you're getting the posts up and you're going to ramp up the site so you get the views is before July, Christmas in July or what's their next milestone?

So with the strategy that I put together, I know that the next big milestone is going to be Christmas in July, which is when Hallmark, Lifetime, Balsam Hill, a lot of the Christmas companies, the websites actually do their shows, their there's specials. That's when it starts. And so the one thing I did not take into consideration that was actually in my strategy, but it wasn't in my strategy until next year was the keywords. And so getting ranked for keywords, getting ranked for the recipes, making sure that I have Christmas in some of the recipes and the keywords, things like that. And so the writing company has actually done the keyword research for me, which has been really nice. But I need to start getting those out there January through March so that it looks legitimate, especially with the new Google updates that are coming through. I need to. I want to start ranking earlier rather than later, so.

Good. Oh, I'm pumped for this. Shay, have you also started to organize your affiliate links yet?

Yes, I. And that's one of the things that I actually had my VA do not just for Christmas road. Oops. Oops. I didn't mean to hit the mic. Sorry. But also for my marketing, my soul Fuel life too is okay. These are the affiliate links that I want to be using. Please go sign me up for them. Put username, password and then also the affiliate link in a Google Doc, Google spreadsheet. So we have it organized so that either I or you can come in and take that as removing these forward.

That's great. Oh my gosh. There is so many layers. I mean everything that we are doing in all of our businesses has so many layers to things. So it is so fun to hear you peel back some of this and share with us this peek behind the curtain both on the mindset but also the strategy and what you are implementing. And again, I Just want to thank you for being real and. And we talked about this like, all right, what, what do we want to share? Where are we going with this episode? As we share with you who are list and it's the real, real, real. It's what's happening.

And as we even get deeper in, as I do start getting more articles and marketing, like I've not even done a lot of social around this yet. But like in October I had a hundred users. November I had 200. I didn't check December's yet, but I want to even share down to that too as I start building out the keywords and saying, okay, these were my top two, three referrals from like where people were coming from, whether it's Pinterest, whether it's Instagram, whether it's Facebook, things like that. So that we. They're even seeing a little bit of the behind the scenes with that too.

So good. Oh, thank you, Shay. So we're going to be back in Q1 later in Q1 of this year to share. Okay, where are we now? What's happening? Are we moving in the right direction and what's coming up and say massive love. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

Me too. And we will. Where do people find you? Just a quick reminder, so you can.

Find the website christmasroad.com. that is my niche website. Otherwise soulfueled life.com and I will actually be starting a podcast. We just finished my intro outro and I'm getting ready to record my first two episodes.

Oh, man. So if you want more time with Shay, which is always a gift, you're going to want to watch out for that podcast as well. Happy New Year, everybody. Remember, if you are making your way, but it's not going exactly how you expected or how you want it to. It's all good. You are right on time.

Yes.

Bye.

Bye.