How Julie got 1,000+ new subscribers and booked out as a new business owner

Welcome to the Business Without Burnout podcast. I'm Kirsten Roldan and I help entrepreneurs make a lot of money peacefully. I'm a New Yorican who went from working in healthcare while cleaning houses and braiding hair on the side to building a business that's generated over $4 million and counting. But there was a time I almost shut my business down because I had a lot of money but no peace. I managed to turn it around and that's why every week I share the 4 strategies that help you grow without burnout: email marketing, team systems, and mindset. So let's dive in.

Hello, Peaceful Millionaires. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have an incredible million-dollar email client, Julie, here, and I cannot wait to talk about her because again, I, I say this for everyone, but it's so true. She's just such an embodiment of what being a million-dollar emailer is, of what we want people to achieve in the program. She's done so amazing, and I think she's gonna be so inspiring for you all. So Julie, please introduce yourself to those who don't know you.

Hi, so I'm Julie, and I help women who are tired of dieting to finally lose weight, to lose fat, particularly without obsessing about food. I have a program called The Mind Method, and I teach women how to build simple habits that make eating normally feel easy again, so that they can enjoy holidays, meals out, everyday life without guilt or constantly starting again on a Monday, and to ultimately feel calm and in control. Their own food.

I love it. And what I love so much about Julie's work is how you focus on women over 40, and particularly— and we'll talk about this— one of your unique angles is really detoxing from '70s diet culture mindset. I just love that about you. So, okay, Julie, why did you join Million Dollar Email, and where were you at in your business when you did?

Well, I had had one launch. And it had been reasonably, well, it had been successful. I was thrilled with it. But, um, as I realized, I, I'm, it's been very organic, my growth. And, and so I've probably been going about 18 months now. So I'd had a successful launch, but they were all, I guess what you would call people close in my circle. And I knew I needed to get to people a little bit further out than that. So you were launching and to be, I think. because of the time difference, obviously I'm in the UK, you were speaking and I think I was listening to a live and it felt, you know, my heart was going cuz I thought this is the right thing. But of course I'm committing and, and more than anything I could tell because I was already in Dix Meldry's program for Volume and she had talked about you and, and so I knew, I, I knew you were, it's credible. It's, you know, you need to know these things, don't you, before you join a program. So that immediately it was just, will I? Yeah. Do the work. That was the main thing, and I had to know I would do the work if I'm gonna invest. And I thought, yes, I will do it because it was the social media optional. That is what actually did it.

You were like, I'll do it, I'll do the work if I can get this.

Yeah, because I was getting just fed up of keep posting.

Yeah.

Sorry, there's always a story after that, but—

Yeah, which is so funny because now Julie has gone viral multiple times. She's got thousands of followers.

That is because I've developed my message through ELN and it's given me confidence. It's given me everything to write about. I don't struggle with subjects since doing the ELN, so now I just transfer it to social media. So yes. I, I, so I, I went viral. I got another 30,000 followers.

This is good. Let's back up. So let me, let's go over Julia's timeline here. So Julia joined the program and I remember vividly, I remember you specifically because you were like, I'm a beginner in business. I, you know, this would be a, a big financial commitment for me. It would be a time commitment. You, you worked, you were working a 9 to 5 at least at that time. Like you were working, you're busy. This is a financial commitment. You're newer. Will this work for me? Like, Be honest, will this work for me? And I was like, it will.

I have 98 subscribers.

98 subscribers. That's right. You had 98 subscribers and you had 1,200 followers. And the reason why I remember that is I remember there was a point in the program where you were like, I don't, I just don't know if I have enough of an audience to even succeed. And I remember being like, Julie, you've got plenty of people. You have plenty of people. Okay. Even before you grew, I was like, you have plenty of people. This is not, this is not an issue. All we need to do is fix the way you're launching. Because at that point, the way you were launching was a little scattered, a little all over the place, if you remember. And so we went over that. Tell us about that part and then we'll get into the results.

So learnt about launching was, well, it was the build up to launch because in the past I hadn't really done it step by step. I'd sort of just gone into it. And this was sort of a multifaceted, because obviously I did still use social media because I can't not. And it's, yeah, um, but that was generally because that got me the followers. Um, it then, because I did the, I call it the midlife edit.

The after.

Yes. So I then through that got I've now got to a shot of 1,500 subscribers. So it just gave me something to go at so I could do a bit more long form and I could give a lot more, a lot more information about what I do and how and stories. It just really kickstarted everything basically. And, um, yeah, so my next launch, I have filled it and, um, you know, I'm still reasonably small and, but I'm getting, I'm getting ready more to scale, if you will.

Yeah. Yeah, you ended up getting what, 5 clients?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Incredible.

Peacefully. And that was the other thing that, you know, that drew me. It was peaceful because it does some, I mean, it still can feel like hustle occasionally. It was hustle, it was thinking, and it was just stress. And I just thought it's not worth that sort of stress. So yes, optional. Social media, peaceful marketing. And that's really what I am trying to do with my ladies within my program. I am trying to get peace. Yeah, peaceful for them so that they are not, you know, constantly hustling for trying to lose weight, for trying to know what to eat, to stop, keep snacking. Um, and I want peace for them.

This is good. So what you said, what really helped you was you developed your message. So How did you do that inside Million Dollar Email? How did you set yourself apart as a fitness coach? Because there's a lot of fitness coaches, as you know, in the world now. Over 40 coaches, I mean, all the things. There's a lot of people. So how are you setting yourself apart? How did Million Dollar Email help you?

Well, offer story, basically. Yeah, so that was obviously going through my ideal client, my specific niche. Or niche, as you call it over there. And it was, I could pinpoint, so I'm, to be fair, I've gone definitely over 50 and I'm closer to over 55 because I now attract, I'm 61 myself. So I'm getting people closer to my age. I get, I still get odd ones that are sort of in the 40s, but on the whole, there's a huge audience for over 50 women doing this. And, um, So it's made me really hone my message on my skills, message how I do it differently, um, because I'm not about restriction, I'm not about, um, tracking all calories. Um, this is about, yeah, getting to a place, you know, for women to, to feel peaceful. Yeah, your course as part of, was it within Million Dollar? I just started to go through it. I then did the 30-day challenge, which it just made me, I would just email in sort of daily. And now I never do less than 3 emails a week and that sort of, sort of like, but of course, if when I'm not selling, I think 3 is enough. Although I mistakenly sent 2 items at once.

No, you did it. That's great. I love that you, I, there's so many things I want to say. First of all, I love that you came in and you worked on your messaging right away and you figured out what made you different and one of your unique angles, like I said at the beginning, was really talking about like, "We're dismantling '70s diet culture." And like, "We are, we're get— Everybody talks about diet culture. I wanna speak to this specific person." And you got so what I call relevant, right? You got so relevant and so specific to that person. And there's so many people that are, I think what makes you stand out so much is there's so many people talking about weight loss, but not talking about the person losing weight. And you are, right? You're like, "I know you. I know you grew up on these ads and you grew up on this and you grew—" And it's that making them feel seen in a way no one else does, right? Even there's over 50 weight loss coaches that are like, "We're gonna help with your hormones. We're gonna help with this. We're— You're gonna lose the weight." But then you are like, "Okay, but I know you. I really know you." And I think that's what helped you so much. And now it's so funny. Julie started the program. She was like, "I don't think I can succeed with such a small audience being a beginner." All these things. Now she's at— she went from 98 subscribers to 1,500. She went from 1,200 followers to 32,000, going viral multiple times. You just mentioned your age is 61, running rings around the, the, the 20 and the 30-year-olds, like literally running rings on social media.

Honestly, my, my kids now were like, whoa, right?

Right. You're going more viral than your kids are.

Another question. So I think in the first one, I think I got just short of 3 million. I might have even got 3 million by now. And it was just, I mean, yeah, it's interesting. But a lot of this came out in the live weekly call because at first I didn't always attend it and you went, no, come, come. Because it was asking for coaching and that is so, but I learned a lot from listening to the others, the questions others were asking. I was getting good stuff from that. But oh, every week I ask for some coaching. I have something to ask.

Yeah. And now that we have our AI tools, you're able to get that instant support, right? And so Julie joined in the, you know, she's one of the OGs, right? But now you get that instant support where you can get that copy review feedback, that offer story feedback right away, everything right away. You don't even have to wait. So—

I was doing it before we started this. I'm just in there now.

Exactly. Exactly. So it's even better because I know that you had I think this is really good for people to hear, like, and this is a big reason why we shifted to this format. You had a time zone like you're far ahead, right? Number one. And so our, our calls are evening time for you. And on top of that, you were working during the day as well. So you're probably tired. So we really tailored the new format for people like you so that you could get instant support without having to come to a call, you know, to get it for that reason, because we don't want you to have to, you know, come on late at night after work when you're tired. We want you to be able to just get instant support. So that's why we have that in the program now. But I, yes, I love, I've loved seeing your growth. I've loved seeing you go from, I think my audience is too small, to viral constantly. Something that I think is underrated that we should talk about is how you did this without—

did you have, did you do this with freebies?

How did you build the list?

I started off, I was doing freebies.

You started with freebies, and then how did you get from 98 to 1,500?

With 1,500 email suggesting that they join my Midlife Audit.

Incredible.

Really surprised me because everybody tells me to go with a lead magnet.

Yes, it's so funny because you got over a 1,000 new subscribers just by saying, join my email list, I send exclusive email content, which for me is a measurement of the quality of your messaging, the quality of how well you are communicating your offer and talking to your audience that they want to just hear more from you. They don't care about the freebie, they just wanna hear more from you. You can do a free, like, you know, I always say like, I'm not against freebies. However, when you primarily build your list with them, you end up with a, with a mixed bag of quality leads. Yeah.

I get a lot of, yeah, I get a lot of people, because I still do an odd one because I give out, you know, certain things.

Sure, yeah.

You know, just because. And I often give those out actually via my email, to my email.

Yeah.

I do some on social media. And I just don't find that I probably get the same quality. The ones who want email, I mean, it amazed me. Obviously once you've got a lot of subscribers, you don't mind losing them. And then now, you know, you've taught me to love the ones that go. I don't need those people. The more subscribers you've got, the more it doesn't bother you. Because I've got people coming in all the time. I've got people—

I love that. And I love that mindset, that mindset of like, there's always more leads coming and you have a visibility, you have a list growth strategy to where you're consistently building your email list. So how, how did you build your email list? I, I know how, of course, but tell the people, how did you build your email list? Like, what exactly did you do?

It was, it was pretty much putting out content on, on Instagram. I did a little bit on TikTok, but yeah, Instagram is generally my, my way. And it's just my call to action. Do you know, join me, I'll give you more of this, but I go into, you know, I just tell people I go deeper. Uh, I give more content in my emails.

Your bio also says my best content is on my email.

Yes, it does. Yeah. Yeah. So it literally is through that. I love that. So every now and again, I, you know, I'll, because I have an idea of what tends to bring in a lot of views, which I don't feel is the best content, if you will, but it brings in views and it brings in interest. So I get so much more engagement, particularly through my email list.

So this is good. So you want it to be social media optional. So how are you feeling about social media now?

Well, I feel that I don't have to do it daily. I probably could do it less, but I'm a little bit of a— Yeah. Yeah. So once I start something, if I had something going, I sort of feel that I need to keep doing it. Totally. So now I maybe do 4 or 5 times a week. I have a little strategy with it and I'm trying to, you know, I do some lives. I do a variety on there and, and I quite enjoy it. But I ask questions now in my email list. I ask and I get feedback, I get people coming back to me and I love it because they all think it's just them. It's really personal, really personal. I didn't realize how much until I started asking questions and they literally come in thinking that I have just sent it to them.

Yes. Yes.

It's so lovely, you know.

You're building such a deep connection with your community. And I always tell people when you, especially when you're first starting your business, especially when you're a small, like, you know, you have a small audience, those connections, that community is what builds you.

It's what scales you.

It's what comes with you. You know, I, I still have people in my audience from my first 100 subscribers and like, those are my people. Like, I love those people. And so you're really connecting on such a deeper level and that connection naturally like helps you create more sales and things like that. But also it just makes you feel. just so good about what you're doing and the work that you're doing.

It has changed that. It's changed how I feel about everybody. There's less resentment.

Yes. I remember you feeling like, I remember you saying something along the lines of like, they, they, they come for the freebie, they don't do anything with it. They just, you know, they take forever to buy and it's like now you're really seeing their problems and it's so beautiful. And something that I wanna say is what I'm noticing is You wanted to be social media optional and now you just don't feel pressure. And you, what I'm also seeing is specifically you don't have pressure to convert on social media. I think when you are trying to create content and you're not making the sales that you want, social media is extremely annoying, right? But when you, but when you're like, oh, I'm gonna create content, I'm gonna get views, I'm gonna get email subscribers, I'll convert them on the email list. It's just like, it's so much lighter and you just are not worried about it. And so I— what I'm hearing is like the reason why you don't have pressure is because you're not trying to like get sales from social media, you're just trying to connect with new people, get them—

So to be honest, so what I, I like is that I'm going away this weekend and if I can post, I will. I'm not big on scheduling posts. I, I like to do it in the moment. And it, but knowing that I've always scheduled my emails, it doesn't matter because in the past it was like, well, I'm not, I'm not connecting with my people. They wonder where I've gone. I know they don't. But now I know that my emails are going out wherever I am, whatever I'm doing. And it's no pressure because I find them the easiest thing to do.

Yeah, you, you have your marketing, your marketing's consistent. Yeah, I love it. Okay, this is my last question that I've been asking everybody.

Cool. Can I just say, sorry, at first I felt a little bit overwhelmed and I thought it was probably too early for me to come in. And I thought, oh, I've spent this money, I'm really, perhaps I should have done it into, I should have something else. But it wasn't too early. It was the right, it was the right time. And I think you said that, that if you haven't got barely anybody on your list, start with email. Start with email. So even though I felt that maybe, oh my God, maybe I should have done this later, no, turns out it was the right time.

I love that you said that because that was going to be my question, which was, what was your big objection to joining and how have you overcome it now? And that, yes, Julie had the— I think so many of us go through this, like the buyer's remorse, like the fear, right, of like I just made this investment and I don't know if this is gonna work for me. You know, like it's, it's totally normal. And I remember—

I said it to you.

You did. Yeah. You were like, I'm scared. You were like, I'm scared. I feel like I joined too early. And I was like, I'm telling you, you did not join too early. You just have these things you need to solve for. And it was, and you solved them and you're like, you were literally off to the races. You hit your, you hit the program promise within, less than 30 days after we had that conversation. And so I love that. But like, what was your— it could be that, but what was your big objection and how would you overcome it now?

A big objection was I had a small list.

Yeah.

I thought potentially I should be putting my efforts somewhere else, like into tech so much. So they were just, you know, it was sort of a lot of money at the time. It now isn't a lot of money, you know, in the scheme of things. I'll go, bloody hell, no, it isn't a lot of money. But just at the time, it would just seem a big deal.

Of course.

Yeah. No, not now. Yeah. So it was a little bit early. But no, it's just so proved. It's just, it's almost made my business and it's certainly given me, I still get the hustly feel at times, but ultimately it's, it's just a real solid foundation for what I do and everything is almost built around it.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And that's why I always tell people it's not too early. You should start with this because it really does give you the foundation for everything else. I love that you said that, and I love that you were honest with what you shared before of like, I had some buyer's remorse. Like, I was like scared when I first joined. I think that's so normal and inspiring for people to see like, oh, I've felt that before. And now, like, even if I feel that or whatever it is, like, I know that, you know, if Julie can do it, I can do it. Right? And truly, you've been such a good example in the program. We've loved having you. And I just love, like I said, I love seeing you just run circles around, around people that you wanted to be social media optional. Mm-hmm. And now you're like, I'm the social media queen. I love it. I love it. So tell people where they can find you if they want to get to know you.

So they can find me on Instagram. So it's Health and Fitness with Julie, and also via email, which is julie@healthandfitnesswithjulie.com. But yeah, Instagram.

Where she sends her best content.

Yeah.

I love it. Thank you so much, Julie. I really appreciate it.

We're so happy you're in the program.

No worries, I appreciate you.