47: Anna Gray: How She Takes Her Shots and Doesn't Worry About "Failures"

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Hi there. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to ask you an important question. Are you wondering why your hard work isn't reflecting in your bank account? If so, I've got something that could change the game for you. With my digital product accelerator One on one coaching program, I'm on a mission to help entrepreneurs like you bank consistent revenue without sacrificing your time, time or sanity. Imagine shifting from 90% client facing work to enjoying consistent revenue from your digital products, all while reclaiming your time. You already know that you don't need another course and a one size fits all approach isn't going to cut it. What you need is a strategic long term plan tailored just for you. So if you're ready to build the profitable freedom giving business you've dreamed of, apply to work with me by going to destinycop.com apply. I cannot wait to learn more about you and your business. Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destiny Kopp and in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. Before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is on the AppSumo Marketplace at a special deal and the link for Course in A box on AppSumo is in our show Notes. And today we are in the middle of our Course Creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators Jeff, just like you, we're going to be talking about their journey and their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people and today my special guest is Anna or Banana to her friends. And Anna is a Facebook Group strategist Adopt a mom and 20 year operating room nurse who lives just north of Los Angeles. She has built successful online businesses using Facebook groups as her sole Strategy for over 10 years. She is the creator of the Done for your group Content Creation Membership Conversation Starter and the course Mastering the Arts of Facebook Group. Anna, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so happy to have you.

Thank you so much Destiny for having me. I love your podcast so thank you for having me.

So excited that you're here. I absolutely love your story which is one of the reasons why we connected. I just think it's so important for everybody to hear kind of where you started and how you've pivoted and changed and what you've been doing all over the years. But before we dive into the questions, why don't you begin and tell the audience a little bit about you?

Sure. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Because my story is long and windy, but I'll just share a little bit about myself. Like you said, I am a registered nurse that works full time. I am an adoptive mother. My daughters are both 17 and 14 now, but we adopted them when they were little, itty bitty babies. And I have always loved to just get up and go. So I am a 48 year old mom that plays hockey. Some people think I am crazy, but I have a really hard time sitting still, let me just tell you. Which is probably why I originally jumped into business because, you know, after being in nursing for at the time, 10 years plus, I was ready to add something onto my plate. My kids were little and I just wasn't get. I wasn't being fulfilled in the nursing, in the nursing life. I had changed jobs every three to five years, changed positions, rode the, the nursing ladder and I had hit kind of a slump and I just was looking for something to do and that really led me into, you know, building my own business. I knew nothing about business. I literally was a tomboy jock nurse.

And you knew, is there such a thing as that?

I love it. Yeah, I didn't know anything about business and so I just, you know, I'm one to take on challenges and I wasn't being challenged anymore in my nursing career. So I was like a lot of people presented with this opportunity through network marketing. I mean, a lot of online entrepreneurs start in the network marketing space that know nothing about business. And that was me. I knew nothing. I just watched what people were doing and I thought, gosh, I want that. I want the freedom, I want the, I want the accolades. I want to be able to pay for my kids daycare. I want to be able to pay for my kids karate lessons. And then it just kept getting bigger and bigger. I want to pay my mortgage. I want. And so I've always kind of tried to reach the next level and always challenge myself because I don't know what it is. I never want to sit still in the moment. I mean, that could work against me as well. But I see, you know, I see experiences as being in the moment. So I'm really one to jump on experiences like hopping on a plane and going to play pond hockey in Vermont this year, you know, those kind of things. So those are my sitting still moments. So that's a little bit about my story.

Well, those aren't sitting still. That's moving.

It is. I know.

And I love seeing your post about your kids on Facebook.

Thank you.

Adorable. And I've enjoyed watching them grow over.

The years into young adults now. They for sure are.

So tell me a little bit. You got started, you said, in the network marketing space. What did you do and how. How did you kind of get into that and how did that take off?

Sure. Probably a lot like most people that have gotten started in that space. I, at the time, was a nurse, clinical systems analyst. Okay. I am an operating room nurse by trade. You know, that's where I. That's where I lay my hat. But for five years, I sat at a desk in the basement of the IT department in a. In a big local hospital, and I just kind of let myself go. So I was turned on to this thing called P90X, and I decided to gather my friends around and say, let's do this. You know, let's challenge ourselves. And so, of course, I was the only one that stuck with it. I got amazing, great, you know, great results. I felt great. I felt healthy. And I was like, all right, what can I do next? Oh, wow, there's this business. Okay. So I became a Beachbody coach because I had, you know, experience with the products, and I was, you know, beaming from ear to ear with my success. And, you know, people were asking me what I was doing, and so naturally I wanted to share with them. And then I thought, okay, well, I can share that, this with them. It'll keep me accountable. Accountable. Everyone wins. And I really wasn't in it for the money. I just wanted to not lose my results that I had until I started to see people paying off debt and, you know, leaving their job and things like that. So I dove in to the business side of it because I just saw this excitement in doing something that I have never done before, using the knowledge that I had. I felt like I was a pretty smart person, you know, and knew that I could learn and be successful. Like, that's never. I've never second guessed myself in that category, so I knew I could learn this. I didn't know how I. How successful I would be, but I knew that this was totally worth my time. So I dove in headfirst, and I just, you know, started to reach out and listen to people and listen to what their success stories were and really kind of follow and emulate, you know, what they were doing, but really kind of doing it my own way and, you know, looking back at it when I decided and I'LL get into that later. But looking back at it, when I decided to go do Facebook groups, I built my business solely on building Facebook groups. And, you know, they were accountability groups. I would invite people to the groups, we would do a challenge. You know, this is before challenges were popular and, and I was able to motivate people, which was really, for me. I felt like, as a person, I was doing something right in the world. As a mom, I was showing my daughters, you know, what a good role model was. I always had good role models in my life. My mom, I always call her a workaholic. But looking at it now, you know, she showed me what was possible as a businesswoman. She was a. She was a business woman with no education. And I watched that growing up. So I wanted to be a good role model for my daughter. So why wouldn't I, you know, talk about health and fitness and, wow, I was making money. Okay, this is even better. And then I just started to inspire. And it was, for me, it was really inspiring my community. And the bonus was the income. So. So that's really how I started in the business. And then I just grew from there. It took me about four years to really reach all the goals that I had set for myself. I had, if anyone is familiar with network marketing, I reached that top.01% of the company. I had set my goal for that. And it took me four years to get there, but I got there. I was just on a high. And then I got a little burnt out. Living my life and working out every day on social media got a little old.

And you were still working as a nurse.

Right, and I was still working as a nurse. But I will tell you that at, let's see, year four, when I hit all those goals, I was hitting a. I hit a financial goal that I was matching my nurse management salary. So my kids were in elementary school. I decided, I'm going to quit the job. I'm going to just do this full time. So In August of 2015, I quit my job as, you know, in a nurse management role. I was receiving management pay. I quit my job and I stayed home with my kids for three years, just being a beachbody coach and making six figures and, you know, providing the exact same ways I was providing in my day job. But I was home with my kids in that transition from elementary school to junior high, which is something that I really, really wanted to do because, you know, as we all know, junior high is tough and especially for daughters. So I reached that goal and I quit nursing And I never thought in hindsight there were some things that I should have, should have not let go. But I never thought I would go back to nursing. So I was a full time beachbody coach for about three years until I got, until I lost my, not my love for it, because I still love them, I still love what they're about, but I just got burnt out. I had been working out in front of the camera for so many years and I started overthinking things and I had all of this time on my hand, right, because my kids were now sitting, settled in junior high. And so I decided this was about five years ago, I guess. Yeah, I decided to go back to nursing, but I didn't need the money. So I said, I'm going to go back to nursing, I'm going to do what I love. I'm going to go back in the operating room. I don't need the money. I'm still making really good money in my network marketing business. And I went back to work in the operating room as a staff nurse. No management, no responsibilities, just working at a hospital that I had never worked at. It was, it had always had this great reputation. It was like, okay, if I'm going to go back, I'm going to go back big. So I started at this trauma center as a staff nurse and you know, life happens. And I was struggling with some life, life struggles and with the fact that I was completely burnt out of working out. I thought, you know what, I can't just sit here and be a nurse. I love nursing, I love what I do. But I still felt the push to be somebody, not be somebody, but really to do something that was fulfilling outside of nursing. Because nursing is, and this is pre Covid nursing is incredibly stressful. You wonder why. You see nurses exhausted and you know, a lot of nurses gain weight and it's just a really stressful job. And now we all know that because we've seen it on tv, but it's a true story. And so for me, I didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole. I really wanted to give myself something outside of work to really be proud of, to really stretch myself and to really honestly share show those that I was surrounded by that like life is so much more than just showing up to your job. So I said, I'm going to build my own business. I know how to do it. I've been doing it long enough. I know marketing, I know sales psychology. I know how to be myself. What is it that I can do that I can Use all of the knowledge that I had from my network marketing experience. What is it? What business can I do and still work full time as a nurse and have kids? And, you know, and so I thought, you know what? I was so good, too. My own horn. I was so good at building community, and that was my own community around my own, you know, team of coaches as well as other teams of coaches. I had no problem hopping in somebody else's group and really inspiring them to do this, to, you know, be someone, to, you know, believe in themselves, all of those things. And I was able to build these communities that I was just so proud of and, you know, customers that stuck around for years and years and years. And so I said, you know what? And at the time, I didn't really know if anyone was teaching Facebook groups, but I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to teach Facebook groups. And then I go, okay, now who am I going to teach that to? And I said, I'm not going to go down the network marketing route because that's just. That's. This is what I said back then. That's just too easy. Let's do it the hard way. Let's start from scratch just so that you can prove that you know what you're talking about, not only to other people, but really to yourself. And so I started with perfectly clean slate, Zero audience, zero audience, zero course, zero idea what the heck I was going to do with my audience. But I just knew I wanted to teach Facebook groups to business owners. Right? And after all of these years, you know, you've been. I've been able to narrow things down and who I really. Who is really my ideal group member and who my ideal audience is and who my ideal course goers are or one on one or, you know, I've really used my time to understand the things that I didn't understand about business so I could rely on the things that I knew that I had learned over all of those years, but I was still ready to, you know, learn new things and trial and error. I'm the biggest fan of trial and error. So I was able to really, really make. And my whole goal was really to make. Make a name for myself in this Facebook as a Facebook group. Guru. Right? I don't know. I know guru is such a funny name, but it's just I wanted to be that go to person when it came to Facebook groups, but I wanted to be the person that was unlike your typical and I don't know what your typical Facebook group person looks like. But I didn't want to be your typical Facebook group person. I wanted to really give people permission to be themselves, to do this with a busy life. I mean, I was living, as the example, working full time in a trauma center and building a brand new business and building a brand new group and a brand new audience from scratch, all while working full time. And now I can, you know, now I use that as examples of the courses that I've created and, you know, how to do it on a busy life. Most of my clients, I will tell you, though, do not work full time. And it's really interesting because they. They still see the connection with just. It's almost like they say, if she can do it on her schedule, there's no reason why I can't do this. And that is what brings me joy and, you know, a big reason why I show up every day, even though. Especially during these times, you know, I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 12 hour shifts. I come home on Wednesday night and I am completely fried. And it just. I'm excited to wake up on Thursday so that I can bring my full energy. And my audience knows that. They know what my schedule is like, and it really gives them permission to not have to be a certain way. And that's what's given me, you know, that's what's given me success in this business, is I didn't have to be a certain thing or do it a certain way. And I just created and I listened to my audience and I created. I know, Desti, you're one of those people that helped mold my original program based on. And I remember this very vividly based on a conversation we had in our direct message. This was, you know, probably three years ago, almost three years ago, about something that I was, you know, sharing in the Facebook group. And I remember you said, why don't you turn this into something like, you need to sell this. Oh, okay, I guess I'm gonna sell this. And that's really what started me actually monetizing my group because I didn't know what I wanted to sell. I thought it was a course in the beginning, and it was just so fresh and so early, and I didn't really know. I didn't really pay attention to my audience, and that flopped completely. But then I just started to throw things out there, and I wanted to listen and listen and listen, and that was what I was really good at with community. And I listened and I listened to people like you who said, you know, you really do need to sell this. And sure enough, that's what got the ball rolling. So it's not only been an incredible journey as a business owner, but also as a person, just as a human being connecting with people. And now, of course, this was again before we've all been on lockdown and just the value of community and connection, even in the online space. That's something that I had been preaching before this. Now it's like proof that that is exactly what we need. We need that online connection, those relationship buildings. We don't need to be a number in a Facebook group. We don't need to be a number that, you know, we're just tallying up to, you know, be so that I hit a certain goal and sell a certain number of courses. Like, the more human we are, the easier it becomes to show up every day, to sell every day, you know. And so I just, I just love what I do. I still continue after all these years. Love to learn, love to, you know, look at my message. Is my message correct? You know, I'm always a student, so yeah, that's where I'm at today.

A very long story, but, but I loved it. And I'd like to unpack some of the things you said there because I think some of these points are so very critical for folks that may be in the early stages of going into an online business and trying to figure out what they are really going to offer and who they're going to help. You mentioned that you just got started and initially you, you maybe hadn't completely decided on who you were going to help and what that ideal customer was going to look like, but that kind of molded and changed over time and you used the time that you had to understand, you know, who you were going to help, what that person looked like. Hey there Destiny here and I'm the host of the creators MBA podcast and this episode is brought to you by Hello Hello Content Shop. Your go to destination for content creation in your online digital product business. I understand how busy you are as an online business owner. I am right there with you and that is why I have filled our hello Content Shopify store with low cost digital products that you can use as a lead magnet or part of your paid programs like your online course courses or memberships. We also have marketing templates like email swipe files and social media templates designed to save you time and money. So whether you're looking to streamline your content strategy, enhance your digital products, or just save some precious time, I've got you covered, my friend. Now visit the hello Content shop today and take the first step towards effortless content creation.

Right? Yeah, I knew. Well, when it comes, you know, when I was a fresh, fresh newbie newbie, I just knew I wanted to inspire other people to, you know, feel healthy, to look healthy. I didn't know who my target was then. I just wanted everyone, everyone needs to feel healthy and look healthy. And I didn't care who I was talking to. It just. And that back then too, it was. Social media was just starting and it was actually really looked down upon on building business. And even my mentor came to my house and we went to the mall and I watched him talk to people in person and really connect with people in person person. And it was like, that's the way you're supposed to do it. And I go, I can't do this. I'm not a person to person person. Like, I gotta figure out a way to do this the way I can do it. And then I just said, you know what, I'm putting my foot down. It's. I'm just gonna connect with people online. And that was right in the beginning of when Facebook first started. And sure enough, as we know many, many years later, you know, social media is the, the more rapid way to be successful. And I just wish in the beginning I listened to my gut tell me that, and my gut was telling me, do it your way, do it your way, do it your way, you know, listen to what they have to say, but do it your way. And that when I pivoted my business, it was kind of the same thing. I'm going to do it my way because I knew that you could be successful doing it your way. So I didn't know what that way looked like, but I was just kept following my gut and I just kept listening to what, you know, people either resonated with or they didn't resonate with. And I would take note of those things. And then that really just, you know, I think it just guides you into really understanding who you're talking to. Now. I know, you know, I have a very clear vision of who my ideal audience is, but I didn't know that in the beginning. And the only way that I discovered that was really just to ask questions, ask questions. And did I get excited about, you know, what they had to say, or was it something that I was excited to answer? That's a really good thing. You know, if someone asks a question about my business, you know, about their struggles in my business, and I get excited about answering, then I know that that person Is my ideal person. Right. If someone asks a question and I'm like, ugh, I don't feel like answering this, then I know that that type of person is not necessarily my ideal person. And I just use those cues and those clues to really follow my gut. Right. I know, it just sounds so cheesy, but it's really true. And we get so in our head, even to this day, after all these years, I still tend to overthink things, and I'm continually being called out on that, but I think that's part of the process, too. So I don't know if that answered your question.

Absolutely. So it's really talking with people and just asking questions and interacting with them, you know, in a real. In a real environment and just being yourself and, you know, wanting to help them. You met. You talked about trial and error. You said that you've made. You've had a lot of trial and error. Do we ever have failures or errors in business and marketing? I kind of look at them like they're just learning opportunities, not really errors. But we know how we're going to, you know, pivot and change from, you know, what we learned.

Right. And I think that, you know, I have a really hard time calling them failures. Like you said, I refuse. So one of the things that I think that I really, really am, you know, strongly convicted in is not. Is refusing to say the words failure. You know, like, oh, my launch failed. Even though I've definitely, on paper, you would say, okay, why did your launch fail? I refuse to say that it's a failure. I like you say, okay, what did we learn from this? Why did it happen? What is it that we can get out of this? There's always a reason for something. And, yeah, I absolutely still have on paper failures. Recently, I've had a few of them, and I just refused to call them that and just look at the situation and say, what can I learn from this? How can I make this better? You know, where is my mindset around that? How do I show up about this? It's really just quite making. Even asking your own questions. So not only asking the questions to those. Those who could be your possible, you know, clients, but asking yourself the same questions, like, what am I struggling with? Why am I doing the things I'm doing and really understanding that. But I do think that that takes time to get there. And. And I think, like anything, it takes practice, right? Wouldn't you say it takes practice to say, okay, without calling myself a failure, what is it that I can improve on, because I see so many people, so many people saying that they fail or my group is such a failure, or my group just sucks, or my group is, you know, it's just like I, My goal is to take that verbiage out of your vocabulary, you know, because it serves you no good to really admit to the fact that, you know, okay, your engagement stinks, but really, is your group that much of a failure? You really, look, you brought people in here, you people wanted to be a part of your group, you know, that's successful as it is. And so really that mindset of failure, I tend to work on a lot with my community because if you're in my group, chances are either you feel like you're a failure with groups, you are afraid of being a failure in groups, or you, you know, you've seen other people fail and you don't want that to happen to you anyways. But failure is a really big topic that I tend to address because we just, we don't see those as learning, learning opportunities. We see them as failures, and it's just really not that way. So.

You mentioned that you're always a student. I'd love to know, you know, given what you've learned over the years. And I'm sure things have certainly changed with 2020. Can you talk about your next steps in 2021 and some of the, you know, some of the things you're thinking about and where are you going to take your business?

Yeah, I think that's great. You know, evolution is, is great. You know, every year, you know, as long as you, as long as you show up and you, you know, set some goals, your. Your business is going to evolve, you know, whether it's financially or whether it's clarity. And that's where being a student comes in. I know for me, over the, you know, 10 plus years, I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on education and training and this and that and this and that. And, you know, you just get better at understanding what you need when you need it. And so, you know, I always do kind of a gut check of why do I feel like I need this or am I just filling a gap that I, that that may or may not be there? I mean, trust me, I've spent plenty of money on courses that I didn't need because I didn't do the gut check. So after the years of evolution of my business, you just, I, you just sit with it and you go, okay, what do I need this year? All right, this year. So last year was visibility for me, it didn't have anything to do with monetary value. It had everything to do with visibility. I wanted to be known as the, you know, the Facebook group person. So I really studied, you know, how to be, how to, you know, become visible and really kind of take those steps and really believe in the possibility. And so by the end of last year, that's really. I feel like I crossed that bridge where people could say my name and know that I was the Facebook. Okay, visibility great. So now it's really being honest with myself in really streamlining things because you get to a point, you know, you start a new business, you get to a point where you're like, you just have to trust that you know what you're doing. When you trust that you know what you're doing, then moving forward you just, it's like a matter of just tweaking things. You know, for me it's just a matter of tweaking things and making things more streamlined and knowing that my content is great, my courses are great, my, you know, my one on one strategy is great. And it's. And now that I'm getting the visibility, it's really just, you know, making sure people know that it exists. Right? So it's an. For me this year is really not visibility for myself. It's really visibility for the content that I have, which I obviously we all do, but which I feel is completely different than anything else out there. So my focus this year is really to get people to understand that and to really see it. So it's got a hint of visibility, but it's got a, you know, more of. I don't necessarily want people to, you know, it's not about me, it's about my transformation that I can give to my people. You know, I was really just trying to prove that I was actually somebody that knew what I was talking about last year. Now it's like, alright guys, let's put this into play because these have already been tested, there have been transformations. So it's just getting that into more and more hands and really seeing those transformations. So I really am excited about this year because I'm excited about what my students transformations are going to look like. So really that's really my, you know, my focus this year.

So let me ask you this, and we're getting towards the end of our time here. What advice do you have for other online course creators or online entrepreneurs? If they haven't developed their course yet, what advice do you have for them?

So my biggest advice that I have is something that you'll probably fight with year after year after year is really to stop overthinking things and start doing things and, you know, without the fear of failure. Because. Okay, and I'm going to totally botch this quote, but I'm a hockey player, and there's a Wayne Gretzky quote of, you know, you miss every shot you don't take.

You got it, right? I have it up on my son's room.

Thank you. I knew at one point, one of these days, I would actually get it right. Okay, so you miss every shot you don't take, right? So the fear of failure, if you remove that completely and you just take the shot, you can also do use the Hamilton quote, too. If you just take the shot, you just never know what's going to happen. Right. It could be that you completely fail. For example, when I started teaching Facebook groups, I just said, okay, I'm gonna put together a course. And I think I even built the course right. It was brand new. Built the course, tried to sell the course, and, like, nobody was interested. So instead of saying, I totally failed, this is what I really wanted. I really wanted to sell a course. Instead of falling down that trap, I thought, okay, maybe my audience isn't ready for a course. And really just being proud of the fact that I put that out there to see if they were ready for it or not. So shoot your shot and don't be afraid of what comes after, whatever it is you're gonna learn and move to the next step. Right. If you look at it as a game, like, I'm gonna just take this risk. I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to tell someone, you know, whether it's like sending off five direct messages and having, you know, a simple conversation and just see where they lead, you'd be surprised at how proud you are of yourself. And you go, okay, all right. Take it a step further. And, yeah, so just don't be afraid to take that shot. And, you know, trust your gut. Trust your gut. That's really what it comes down to.

And I absolutely love that I have.

A quote on my wall.

It's one of those. It's one of those things I build at, like, one of those AR workshops, you know, where you have the book and everything it says, don't worry about failures. Worry about the chances you miss if you don't even try.

Well, then, there you go. You summed it up for me.

So, so perfect, right? I absolutely loved your story today. I love the twist, I love the turns and kind of all the changes that you've done, like a roller coaster, it's so. I mean, it's so inspiring. And I want people to know that you can leave a job and go back to it. You can quit, you know, quit an entrepreneur, you know, role like you did with Beachbody, and do something different. You know, you can do all of this over the course of your years, and you're going to learn so much every time you make that change.

Absolutely. I think that's one of the biggest fears also is just if I make this decision, what happens to me? If I, you know, if I quit my job, what are people going to think? If I quit my business, what are people going to think? It's. If you can remove that, you just. The other side is just so nice. So, yeah, I fought through all of those demons about going back to work. What are people going to think? Did they think that I was a failure in business if I went back to work? No, I don't care. I'm enjoying being back at work even though it's hard. You know, I don't have to justify that, but that took a lot of time and learning. But, yeah, absolutely. You know, there's nothing that says that you can't go back to what you were doing without feeling bad about it. Like, you know, it is. It's your story. Your story is your story and nobody else's.

Anna, can you let people know where they can find you?

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. You can find me in two places. One simple place is Instagram. The direct message in Instagram, shoot me a message, say that you, you know, heard this podcast and say hello. And that's at Anna A, N, A, underscore B as in boy underscore, gray G, R, A, Y. So you can find me on Instagram there, or you can find me in my Facebook group called Facebook Group Success with Anna or hosted by Anna. And on those entry questions, just say where you found me. If you found me on this podcast, let me know so that I can reach out and say hello to you.

And I will make sure that all of those links in the show notes so people know exactly where to find you.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Anna and course creators. Thanks so much for joining us today. If you have any questions about course in a box which is offered on AppSumo, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Anna. Would love for you to rate and review the podcast on itunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.