Brand Strategy Expert on How to Get A Brand Deal and Create Offers that Sell, with Julie Solomon

What even is a content strategy? People get so lost there. Like, should I post about my dog, Should I post about my kids? Should I talk just about this thing that I want to sell?

A client of mine, she was having a hard time selling and so we were looking at her content strategy and I asked her, I said, what do people want when they come to you? And she's like, they just want alignment. Are they really walking around in their day to day lives saying, I want alignment? Like, if they were to Google today, I want blank. What would be in that blank? I want to feel happier, I want to lose weight, I want to feel less stressed. Like, what would the words that they would actually use be? And are we using that in your content?

Julie, welcome to the earn your happy podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me back.

I, you know, you're welcome back whenever you want. This is a revolving door for you. So you come on and teach. Come on and teach us how to go from brand deals to money. I mean, you're welcome because you help us make money.

Oh, well, thank you. And thank you just for being such a beautiful light of like goodness and service and support and all the things.

Thank you so much. And we're in person, you guys, if you're listening. We're in person. Really special in Nashville and we actually met in Los Angeles at a book launch. Do you remember whose it was?

Yes, I think it was Kate Northup.

Oh, I was just talking to her.

I think it was Kate.

Literally, I just love her.

She's amazing.

If you know, she is, she is magical as well. Yep, go check her out. So you have established a reputation in brand deals.

Yes.

Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that even got started?

Yes. So how I got started was really through my own journey and trying to figure out how the heck to monetize an online platform. So I'm going to take you back quickly. In my former life, I was a publicist. It's important to note that I did music, publicity, book pr. I graduated with, you know, a communications degree. So that was always kind of my, my professional background. Yeah. When I moved to LA, way back in 2013, I started to see a shift that was happening in the PR space, not only with the industry as a whole. It was, you know, kind of very traditional. It was very archaic dinosaur. Like, it was a really hard ship to turn around. At the same time, I started to see this opportunity and now what we would call influencer marketing. But a lot of PR people At the time, they were just like, that's like, silly stuff, like, we're gonna stay over here and, like, pitch our magazines. And I'm like, okay, well, have fun with that. Yeah, so. And also at the time, me personally, I was just going through a lot in my own life of trying to figure out, like, who am I and what am I really doing with my life? And I was getting very burnt out of pr. I had a client from hell who put me through the ringer and had, like, broken out in hives. I was $30,000 in credit card debt.

Around how old were you at this time?

I was like, 29, probably. So after that Saturn return kind of phase, and I had a newborn baby, and I was just. I was really lost. But I had this skill set. So, like, I had that, you know, I mean, I felt like a hot mess express in so many aspects of my life, but I had that. And so at the time in la, because I did feel so lonely, I needed a way to meet friends. And so I started to blog myself as a way to connect to the city. And, I mean, it was. It was like Julie Solomon, a publicist spin on motherhood. That was. That was the blog. So we all start somewhere, right? And because of my background in pr, I was able to start monetizing pretty quickly. I was thinking outside of the box. I was thinking of how to be of service to these brands that I, you know, with the products that I was talking about, I was using, you know, Mustella shampoo on my son's hair. And so I would say, well, maybe I could work with them. And so I would Google search a contact to Mistela and then pitch them and get a paid partnership. And this slowly started to happen. On top of, you know, still feeling alone and trying to figure out what I was doing and still doing PR work on the side. But then women that I started meeting at, you know, blogger events and things like that, they started to kind of notice what was happening. And they would come up to me and they would say, julie, I don't mean to be rude, but you have, like, five followers and you're making money. And I have hundreds of thousands of followers. Followers, and I am making no money. Like, what's happening here? And that's when I realized, like, oh, people are getting very lost in the glossy glamour of all of this, that they're forgetting to actually build a business with it. And so I started to think, well, maybe I can consult these women. So I started doing some consulting. And then in the midst of that. And this is what really opened my mind up to the possibility. I wanted to get my house, the interior of my house, redecorated. Okay. And I didn't want to have to pay for it. So I was like, okay, maybe I can pitch a brand to see if they would be interested in working with me.

And you, like, didn't have a large following at this point?

No, no, I had. Like.

Can you put it in.

Yeah, put it in perspective. We had less than 5,000 followers. I might. I might have had. I had no email list.

Okay.

Zero email list, less than 5,000 followers, 250 people on a YouTube channel subscribers on a YouTube channel, and probably, like 500 blog views a month. And I was just like the little engine that could. Right. Like, hustling and. But I was making, you know, $1500 here, $500 there, $5,000. I got paid $2,500 to do a YouTube video with 250 subscribers. Wow. And it's because the. The strategy was there and the content was there. And again, coming from this place of service, this. Essentially this methodology that I was creating that I didn't even know that I was creating.

Yeah.

And so I wanted to get my house redone. I didn't want to have to pay for it. So I started to pitch a bunch of furniture companies, and all of them were saying no to me because they're like, you have nothing to bring to us. Like, what's the roi? Yeah. So I was like, okay, I got to, like, re. Engineer this here. I was like, if they don't. And they're right, like, I don't have a big following. Like, I've got to find something that I could offer them that's of value. So I did this crazy thing called asking. And I asked. Crazy, right? And I asked him, I said, what. What are you. What do you need right now? Like, what do you. You know, what do you need? CB2. What do you need? World Market. What do you need? West Elm and World Market got back to me, and they said, we're really looking to leverage more press, but, like, using social media. And I was like, okay, you're like, I could do that. Let me see what I can do. So I was like, okay, pause. Then I'm like, now I've got to pitch a bunch of press. Press outlets to see if they would be interested in a blogger's home makeover. And I. I had to get a good spin of a story. So the story that I came on, that I was pitching to media was I was a work from home mom. And, and I needed to transform my son's baby room into a toddler room while still keeping functionality in the home. And so I started to pitch to all these outlets. A lot of them said no. But then people.com came back and they said, we're actually doing a lot of blogger content now and we've got this like, mom section. And so we would be interested in doing this. And I was like, great. But before I went back to World Market, I was like, how can I make this bigger? So, and even though this wasn't quite true, I went back to World Market and I said, okay, people.com is interested, but in order for them to do it, they said that they need more content. So it's, it's not just my son's room that you'll need to renovate, it's the entire house. Okay. And they said yes. Okay. And so lo and behold, and this was like probably a four month back and forth process, but I just wanted to walk through. Just my ability to remain open, to remain curious, to remain asking the questions, to figuring out a solution led to me then landing $250,000 worth of brand new furniture interior design services with another company that came on board. Media coverage, multiple media coverage, photography of my home. And like every main house in my home, completely renovated with gorgeous furniture. When that happened, I knew that I had something. Like, I had something that was unique and different. And this was 2016. Nobody was doing this. I actually, that partnership started a slew of partnerships with World Market and like a ton of influencers after that. They worked with Kaitlyn Bristowe from the Bachelor and, you know, a ton of reality stars. But I was the catalyst of kind of creating that formula for them. And so I was like, okay, something is here and I need to. I need to monetize this. Yeah. So that's when I, at the same time started hearing about these things called online courses on the Internet. And I took a course that taught you how to create a course and very hodgepodgey put together my first program called Pitch it perfect in 2016 that taught people how to pitch and land brand deals. And within nine months, that program made $1.3 million. And I am still selling it today. Wow. So cut to 2024. Like one of the main programs that I have always sold, my first program, Pitch It Perfect, is the one that I am most known for. So to kind of go back to your original question, I am known a lot of times as the coach that can teach you how to get brand deals. And that's where it started. That's kind of where it came from. I have now taught over 10,000 content creators how to do it. It's still around because it works. It's just as simple as that. It is foundational, it is strategic. Of course, it's evolved over the years, but the foundation has always been there. Not much has changed with that. And so I think that that just shows a lot of testament of. Of how solid that strategy is. And so that was kind of my into the online space. That's what really started the coaching business that I have now. I did that before I had a podcast and everything else just kind of folded from there that we can talk about.

Oh, I love that story. So many people right now are like, okay, how can I redo my house? So great. Literally my mind is like, okay, I'm in the process of doing, like, yeah, decorating right now. I'm like, what? Why? Let me go, let me go. Take your course.

Yeah, get partnerships. There's so many opportunities for, especially with something of high value like that, gifted collaborations or even paid collabs, depending on what you're bringing to the table.

Yeah, that is amazing. And just to start thinking that way, like, even just hearing your story and I can imagine taking your course, like, you start looking at everything differently. Okay, so you have the brand deals, you've been helping people with brand deals, but you're starting to see a bit of a gap for people.

Yes.

Tell me about that.

Yes. So as I grew, so this was 2016, I launched my podcast in 2017. I was only selling the Pitch It Perfect course at that time. And then what happens for anyone out there that coaches, whether it's a course or a membership, you start to notice that there's a transformation that happens. If, you know, obviously that's the goal. And then you have these amazing people in your community that says, okay, what's next? And so I started to quickly realize, like, okay, brand deals are great and I'm going to be a proponent of them forever. And affiliate marketing, all of that is great, but that shouldn't be and doesn't need to be the only revenue stream that you have. I believe in order to create sustainability in the online space, you have to really start thinking about the products and services that you can actually create yourself that you actually own. It's not just about you getting paid to promote somebody else's products and services, even though that's great. But, like, what do you actually have IP over? What do you Actually own, you know, what is the thing that is going to carry you to that next level. And I started to see a major gap there where the content creators were doing great, they were landing brand deals. But then some of them would say, I'm burnt out, I can't sustain this. Or you know, I'm making 20k a month off of brand partnerships, but I would love to make 40K. And I, you know, I'm just starting to kind of wonder what's next for me. And I said, well, you know, need to create your own product and service and I mean, it could be a coaching service, a digital product, it could be a scrunchie line, like whatever it is, you need to start thinking about that. And so that's when my business really started to evolve into coaching more about building a brand that's not just about content creation or influencing or blogging. It's like, how are you really building a reputation and becoming known for something? So there's a lot of strategy that goes around that what makes you unique and different? What would make someone buy from you and then from there, once you have that, it's like, okay, now what's your offer? And really supporting women in the people in my world of figuring out this is the thing that I actually want to create, that I want to monetize, that I want to put out in the world and I want to put my, my energy behind. And that's been an evolution and also a really fascinating process to kind of see what happens. And I've even had pitch it perfect students from way back when that did go on to create a scrunchie line and a shampoo line and a lip gloss line and you know, day planners. And then I've had a slew of clients that have gone on to create digital products, courses, memberships, masterminds, things like that. And that's where I really love to like root in. And I can do high level strategy with that. And just I feel like that's where the magic is, is supporting in that way. And there's a lot of mindset that comes with that too. Yeah.

Which we'll talk about. So when somebody says to you, okay, I want to kind of move from brand deals to over to having my own products. And how do you know, how do you, what do you first tell them about having a brand? You're like, okay, here's what we need first, what does that look like?

Yes. So what they need first is that, that visibility in the marketplace. If you don't have visibility Then it's going to be really hard to convert. And so the first stage is really focusing on what are the key components that you need to do with content. Strategy, with consistency, with building authority to. To create that visibility. What is going to make someone know, like, and trust you enough that they will actually buy from you. And so that's when we have to spend some time nurturing, building up the content, building up what it is that you want to be known for. That's a big question that I always ask people. What do you want to be known for? What do you specialize in? Is another big question. Really rooting into that and starting to generate messaging and marketing content that supports that. Because if you don't have that, it is so much harder to sell and to sell consistently. Consistently and to sell sustainably, no matter what you're selling. And I think a lot of times what happens is that people want to jump the ladder, is what I call it. They want to go straight to that monetization tier, you know, all the time. They want to make money, they want to create offers, but they don't know what makes them unique and different. They don't have a brand story, they don't have a message. They haven't tapped into who their ideal buyer is. They haven't done any of that work. And so that's where a lot of the acceleration happens that you have to focus on first. And so those are kind of some key components that for anyone listening, that maybe they've been wanting to monetize or maybe they've been trying to for a long time, and they're like, it's just not sticking. Nine times out of ten, it's because you haven't really done that boring yet important work of building yourself out as a personal brand. And for some people, it could take 90 days. For some people, it could take a year. For some people, it depends. There's no, like, perfect time frame on, like, okay, when am I gonna be ready? It's like, well, you're ready to become ready to become ready. Like, it's happening in the process of that. But if you can just give yourself the space to really focus on who you are as a brand, who are you serving? Who are you calling in? You're also gonna get more information about what do they want to buy from you that you can be a solution provider for. That's another question that I get all the time of like, well, I don't know what I want to offer. Or I could offer five different things and how do I Pick. It's like, well, what's your audience telling you? You're not gonna know that if you haven't tapped into them yet. And so that's where we focus on first before we get to the conversion.

Let's talk about. You touched on content strategy. I think a lot of people get so lost there, like, should I post about my dog, should I post about my kids? Should I talk just about this thing that I want to sell? How would you tell somebody to start selling, setting up, like, what even is a content strategy?

Yeah, so I think it depends on who you ask. You know, you ask one person and they're going to say, well, you need pillars and themes and this is what they are, and these are the buckets and this is your niche and da, da, da, da, da. Yes. And when I think of a strategy, I think about the long game. What does someone need to see, believe and know about what it is that you're putting out there to trust you enough to make a buying decision either now or in the future? That's the goal. Like in a business, it's money, it's revenue. That should be the goal. I think the biggest reason why people have a problem with content or content strategy is because they don't have that greater vision of what's coming in at the end of that. They're not thinking about it from like, oh, this is actually going to be what supports me in selling something now or in the future. They're just showing up to create content. Just to create content or to get followers or to fill some kind of void or because they think it looks cool on social media. So you have to get clear on that why for yourself. And so a lot of times I like to start with the offer, start with the problem that you solve, and then reverse engineer it, because that's going to help you a lot more with the content strategy. And then of course, you can have things like pillars and themes and all of that if it supports you. But I think that's where people can really get lost. So the thing that I really like to think about when I think about a strategy with your messaging and marketing is who are you selling to? Who are you serving and what do they need to know and understand? What are their beliefs about the problem that you solve? What are their. What do they think are not true? What do they think that you know is impossible for them and how are you painting that picture? How are you taking them on this journey of allowing them to assess and decide that you have the right solution for Them. And so the more that we can get out of the weeds with having to have like a perfect content strategy or having to know, like, should my themes be this or should my themes be that? So I'll give you an example with, like my picture perfect course. One of the things that my ideal buyer believes that isn't true is that they have to have a lot of followers in order to land a brand deal. It is just this thing that they believe. Not only is it not true, because I've had students with as little as 300 followers land paid brand deals. So I've just, I've seen it time and time again. Yeah. But it is my job to start creating content strategically that allows them to understand that not and, and to believe that, not just to tell them, oh, you don't have to have a lot of followers. How am I creating story around that? How am I pulling in social proof from past case studies that I have? How am I sharing from my own experience? I didn't have any followers. And so it's really about thinking of it in that way of like, what is something that my ideal buyer believes that could potentially keep them from investing that I can show them is not true, is not. And then there's a new possibility in a new way. And that's really how I like to look at content strategy. I think it also lets us off the hook. I think that a lot of times, you know, as long as we have that content corralled mostly to where we want it to be, then it's cool and it's streamlined. However, most people don't. And so it really goes back to that. Why piece of like, what does your ideal buyer need to know and understand? What are those things that are going to keep them from engaging? What are those things that are going to keep them coming back? And that's what we're creating content around. And if you don't know what that is, then that also tells me you haven't again, gotten clear on some of those branding foundational pieces. You don't know what you specialize in. You don't know who you're talking to. You don't know why that's important. You don't know, you know, how you're showing up and serving them in a way that they can understand it. I'll give you another example with a client of mine. She was having a hard time selling. And so we were looking at our content strategy and I asked her, I said, well, you know what, what do people want when they come to you? And she's like, they just want alignment. They just, they're ready just to feel aligned. They're just so tired of, you know, feeling so disconnected with themselves and they want alignment. And I said, are they really walking around in their day to day lives saying, I want alignment? And she was like, no. And I'm like, well, what are they saying? Like, if they were to Google today, I want blank. What would be in that blank? You know, I want to feel happier, I want to lose weight, I want to feel less stressed. Like, I what would the words that they would actually use be? And are we using that in your content? Are we using that in your messaging? And she wasn't. And it was just that, the fine tweaking of that. And that's kind of like a good little hack. For those watching or listening, think about like the Google strategy. When someone goes to search on Google, the problem that you solve, what are the words that they're typing into the search bar? And that will help you generate content without getting so lost in having to fit into these pillar themes and these niche themes in these boxes. And so that's just kind of another example of, you know, how I define content strategy.

I love it. So helpful. So you, you went through this. You went from figuring out how to get a brand deal.

Yeah.

To then going, wait a minute, okay, I think that there's this other thing over here that we need, because brand deals can be. It's a lot of work. It's exhausting.

It's great.

It's a great. I mean, I think it's a beautiful thing to also have right to your repertoire. But also, you know, you just saw this other thing over here. So you're like, how did you personally, Julie, build your brand? Like, what were some of the things that I know you just shared? You know, all of the things that you had learned. But take me back to a time where you had some major aha's within your business and some of the obstacles that started or that came up for you when you were building your brand because you were like, I started a podcast. Tell me all about that.

So for me, I really allowed myself, instead of me trying to make up and tell myself what people wanted, I waited for people to tell me what they wanted and needed. I listened. And I think that that's something that really helped me. Like when I was talking to those bloggers way back in 2016, and they were like, how are you doing this? And I was like, okay, let me consult you. That was an offer. And then I Realized my time's getting maxed out. I need to figure out how to do this instead of one to one, like one to many.

Yeah.

So for me at the time, I had to get honest with myself about how am I going to build this as fast and easy as I can. And for me, that was online courses, it was low barrier of entry, it was way less sophisticated than it is now. But, you know, I, I figured it out and I hodgepodged it enough and slowly, you know, I had my first little launch and I made 5k and then the next one 7k. And I slowly built that to where I could start to, to pivot more into my full time brand. So I kind of, it felt like I went all in. But I did give myself kind of those little. You know, I might have still been doing some side gigs and stuff in pr, but I allowed myself to slowly pivot. I allowed myself to listen to what my audience at the time, no matter if there was one of them or a hundred of them, it's like, what does this person need that I can realistically today without needing to learn anything else, without needing to buy anything else so important needing anything else, like, what do I have in my arsenal today that is enough today to be a solution for this person? And so for me, that was pitching and strategy around pitching and getting media and getting brands so that it started there. Then the other thing that I think that I did, and I don't even realize at the time that I was doing it, but looking back now, it really, really helped me, Lori, was that I only sold one thing for two and a half years and I got really freaking good at selling that one thing and becoming known for something. I think it's a lot easier to build no like and trust and become an authority and to gain visibility and to become known for something if you're throwing out new offers every single month. Yeah. Especially if they don't have a through line with their customer journey. And so the fact that from 2016 until the end of 2018, the only thing that I was selling was pitch it Perfect. And then in 2017 came the podcast. Because I wanted what I would call now is like a nurture channel. I wanted another opportunity to be able to nurture, to talk. I wasn't focused so much on my blog Again, a podcast at the time was a very low barrier of entry. It was way more easier to plug a microphone into a computer than it was to set up a whole production for a YouTube channel. Yeah. So that's why I chose Podcast. So for me, it was about thinking again of just where I was at that time, what was going to be the fastest and easiest way for me to get to the goal without having to invest a lot of money, learn a bunch of stuff and that. So I always think about, like that low hanging fruit mindset, and I try to coach my students into that. It's like, you may want the bells and the whistles and all of this, but like today, with what we're working with, like what's actually possible today. And that mindset really helped, helped me. And then I launched some other courses. I think where I started to struggle was that during that Covid boom. Yeah. When everybody and their mama was coming onto the online space, you know, it was also a time that I had a newborn baby and I was writing a book. So I had a lot of things and I had moved across the country. Yeah, I had a lot of things going on at that time. But I remember at that time feeling very lost in the noise. And it felt very. The online space felt more cluttered and a lot of people came on and they were brilliant and all of that. It wasn't about that, but it felt very cluttered with just noise and information. And I got. I got lost there for a moment. I got kind of like compare and despair. I got very confused. Yes. I was second guessing myself. I was like, you know, this is what's happening. And so looking back, I wish that I would have seen that time because I had a lot of friends. We have a lot of mutual friends that like, killed it during that era. And I mean, that was like a huge time for them. And I think that due just to my. Where my. Where my emotional space was at the time, everything that was going on in my personal life, I couldn't really see it as a gift and as an opportunity to like, strengthen my muscles. Yeah. And to step into something new. It's kind of like, oh, there's a new space here. What am I going to do about it?

Yeah.

And so I got really kind of lost there for a while. I lost my purpose there for a while. I started to second guess what I was doing and if I was even creating anything of value for people anymore, you know, more and more people started creating courses around the very topics that I had. And so I started just really second guessing my place. And that did kind of slow me down a little bit. But the gift of that was, you know, it can only take you as far down as you let it. And so as I kind of had this. This kind of bottom, if you will. It did reinvigorate for me why I want to show up and why I want to be here.

How did you get there?

Time.

Yeah.

Looking back, the times I would be really hard on myself. Didn't help. When I was trying to force solutions. Didn't help. It was really when I just said, okay, I don't have all the freaking answers. Like, I don't know what to do. But the way that I'm showing up is not the woman that I am or the woman that I want to be. It's. I'm not leading with enthusiasm. I'm not grateful for what I do have.

So had those moments.

Yep. And that's. I mean, the universe has a funny way of just like, oh, you're not grateful.

We'll take it all away.

We'll take it all away. Bye. And so it was kind of these hard lessons of like, again, going back to that worthiness of like, can who I am today with just with what I have today be enough? Like, can that be enough for me to show up, to serve, to share, to sell, and just to be who I am and what my place is in this part, in this moment in time and really what my part to play is without judgment, without criticism. And so it was. It was just. It was like almost nine months of me navigating. I kind of like burned my business down during that time too. Like, I just. I wanted to, because I can be very. Go all in, you know, And I was like, I'm just gonna burn it all down. Yeah, you know, I'm done. And it was like, I don't. I don't think I needed to. To do that. That was a little extreme. Um, but the gifts of me kind of coming back to myself, the gifts of that time, of me really getting rooted into my. Why. The gifts of really being grateful for, you know, the money that I was making and the money that I had made and the money that was still available to me to support my family and to do all of the things that we love to do in life and to have that freedom came back. And then it also gave me a really good lesson about team and about loving boring money and about the structures and the automations and, you know, things like funnels that people love to poo poo on because, you know, it's not fun and sexy, but it's like, if I wouldn't have had those things during that time, I don't know how I would have been sustained. And so I really look Back at that time of teaching me how to embrace and love boring money in a way I never had before.

Tell me more about boring money, why you're so passionate about it.

Yes. So boring. I love boring money is a phrase that I use a lot inside my, my coaching container, specifically with the Revenue Growth Lab. And it's one of the first things, it's a mindset hack that we really work with our incredible clients with, is I want you to learn to love boring money. I think a lot of times what can happen is that things that don't give us that dopamine hit things that aren't, you know, really feeding the addiction to chaos that so many entrepreneurs can have. When we're not getting that, then we go and we seek it from something else. And so this is where I see, and I've done it myself and I've coached a lot of incredible women through it, is that something will be working well. And because they're not getting that chaos addiction that they need, it's like they either have to blow it up or they have to completely shift gears and go and like create this whole other thing. Yeah. And it actually creates this unsustainability. It creates this lack of consistency. It creates this lack of predictable money. And before you know it, you're on this roller coaster of having to launch, live launch something every single month in order to make money. And I've seen so many clients do it and I've had so many clients fight me on it because they're like, well, Julie, I'm multi passionate or, you know, I'm a manifesting generator in human design. So it's just like in my DNA to have to do this. And I'm like, all of those things can be true. I'm not saying that you can't manifest and generate. I'm not saying that you can't be multi passionate. But can we just love ourselves enough to create something that is sustainable and just to put the team and the processes and the systems that are needed and they're not. It's not rocket science. But to put those things in place so that you have some kind of foundation so you can go and be your multi passionate, managing self. You can go and create all the things that you want to create because you have this thing here that's supporting you. And so a lot of times, you know, it's kind of like trying to build a house without an architectural plan and without a foundation because it's putting together a plan is boring. It's like, okay, well, but you also need that in order for the house to actually stand up straight. So what do you want? So we talk a lot about that. The addiction to chaos, the addiction to instability, and how to really just start to embrace, you know, the mailbox money, the boring money. And how do we call more of that in?

How do you do that mentally? Yeah, I still struggle all the time with this. And I. And I know all of the things. It is like getting back to that place of how do I fall in love with the monotony?

So first it's about knowing all the things. So if you have a complete lack of awareness of your pattern in that, nothing's going to change. Yeah. So the first step is the awareness of that. Of, like, oh, like I will full on admit that I am someone who is addicted to chaos. I thrive. Like, that's what I learned when I was little, when things were unstable. Like, that's. That was love to me. That was like safety to me. And so I have to know my trauma wounds, I have to know my childhood wounds. I have to know those things that get me going. The awareness is the key there. And then you have to have tools. You have to start accumulating the tools of, okay, even though I want to go and burn this down and go create this other thing, can I pause? Can I know that maybe this is not my strong suit? So do I need a person, a support system, someone that I can lean on that can say yes and yes, we want to go create your, you know, cupcake business, Julie. And let's make sure that this is being nurtured and this is being taken care of, because this is what's actually going to sustain that cupcake business. And so for me, it's having people that will tell me no in a really loving and graceful way. Totally. It's me admitting to myself that I don't always have the answers and I don't know what's best. You know, that's a big one for me. It's me being able to say, I need help. Like, that is a big one for me. Because growing up and like, when I started my business, I didn't even know that was possible. Asking myself, what does it mean if I was fully supported right now in this? I was like, I could be fully supported. Like, I didn't know. I thought I had to do all this by myself. And so, like, I don't know. I need help. I'm feeling the itch, you know, and just having someone on your team, in your world, whether it's A friend, a team member that you can bounce that off of can save you a lot of money, a lot of headaches, a lot of trial and error. So that's a big one is having that. And then I think that just really being mindful of when you're wanting to jump in and react and like, what's, what's the feeling behind that? Like, if something is going well and you're bored, that's fine, we all get bored. But why are you wanting to go and jump into all of these other things? And if there's a legitimate reason and it makes sense and like, let's just talk about it. Instead of just doing it, let's, let's just talk about it. And I think that for someone like me, who I'm such a doer, I'm like, I ain't got time to. I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna think about, I'm just gon do it. And like, time is of the essence. I've had to really unlearn some of those things that don't serve me well. Like, there's been a lot of things in my life where taking action has served me very, very well. But there's also been a lot of times in my life where taking action immediately without really thinking and feeling through it has not served me well. And so just realizing those things, it's really, I think, about knowing yourself and surrounding yourself with other people that can hold you accountable to your own shit and not let you squirrel so much. And so that's what's been most helpful for me.

Let's talk about the expectation around talking about boring money. This leads into it as well. Because I think sometimes if it doesn't go well, if there's an expectation around, this should be working. It's month three or it's month six, or it's year one and you're not getting the results that you want. How long do we stay with something?

Yeah, so the first thing that I love to, to work with clients on and this is, you know, typically when they come in and if they do have an offer and offer suite and they'll have that issue of like, well, you know, Julie, I launched this thing and I made like four sales and you know, I wanted to make X amount and I'm like, I pull out the calculator and I'm like, okay, let's just, let's like have a realistic baseline here. How many people are on your email list? 200. Okay. How many, you know, followers you have? 10,000. How many are engaged? 1%. Okay. How many times did you launch? One time. How many people signed, opted in for your webinar? 15 people. And you expected to have 50 sales. So just like simple math goes to show us, like actually the fact that you sold five of those with 15 people on the island. And I wish I had that engagement like I was on that conversion rate. That's incredible. Right? So the first thing is like, I love to kind of take people off the ledge where they start to feel like crap about themselves. And I love to reframe it to say you're actually exactly where you should be based on the strategy that you had at the time, the way that you launched at the time, and where your legion was at the time. So if you're wanting to grow this, well, then let's start focusing on it. Let's start working on some of the bits that you need to grow that visibility to grow that email list. Let's maybe create some opt ins and like work on building that list out. Let's make sure that we have a really good Runway of you sharing content every day about the problem that you solve and how this offer is the solution to that. And then let's launch again and see what happens. And when you reframe it in that way, I think that it really allows people to see that this, this is a long game strategy. Yes. I think that it is so easy to look at women like you and me and Amy and whoever else and just to think like, oh, I just create a course or I just, you know, launch a product and it's gonna make a million dollars in my first launch. And maybe that happens for some people. It didn't happen for me. No, I don't know either. Yeah, I don't know anyone that that happened for. But, you know, I mean, maybe. But I think that the more that you can just get really honest and realistic about, about your numbers. And I think for some reason people that are going into creating offers the first time, that's just something that seems to be missing. It really helps that second time kind of like regulate the nervous system a little bit more. And I really believe that enthusiasm is what leads to sales. It's not the confidence. If you keep waiting for the confidence, you're just, it's not, it's, it's the courage to show up. And it's about you being enthusiastic to do it. And so we got to get that enthusiasm back up. And so I work with a lot of, you know, I take the data and then we Work some of the mindset around that. We baseline that nervous system and then we go back into the strategy and. And then the other thing is just having the right systems in place. And so, you know, another thing that my team and I are now able to do is like, look, if you need to build, let's say a funnel out and you don't have capacity or desire to do that yourself, but you need it in order to, you know, launch what it is that you're wanting to launch successfully. We'll just do it for you and like that way you can learn it conceptually, you own it, it's your ip. But we're going to walk you through how to do this in a way that feels good for you, in a way that's sustainable and it's in a way that's in integrity to what it is that you're offering. And so I think that that's really, at least in my world, that's let people, a lot of people off the hook because I've seen so many incredible women try to go and launch something once. Maybe it doesn't go right. And it's really just because they didn't really have the right system in place and that's okay. But because they don't want to learn the tech or they get very overwhelmed by something, they just freeze. Yeah. And then they don't ever really learn it or hire who you need in order to build it out for you.

I think that was one of the biggest, the most overwhelming thing in the beginning for us was like, we weren't the people to build it, Right?

Absolutely not. You don't want me building that.

No, no, absolutely not. But I saw people who I thought were building. It was like, she knows how to do everything. She must build her own funnels. Come to find out, you know, she's got like a 30 person team, right. When I find out, like, oh, yeah.

Okay, so like, what am I comparing to exactly? And I think now, and you probably feel this way. I mean, I remember the first time that I ever saw a funnel map. I was like, this is like freaking Portuguese to me. Like, yeah. And my brain was fried. I was like, this is not a spreadsheet. Like, this is why I didn't start my own business, have to look at a story spreadsheet. But now it's like, I could, I could teach that in my sleep. It doesn't mean though that I'm the one that's actually building it out. But I do understand very conceptually and very detailed, the pieces that need to go into that. And I believe that every business owner needs to know that about their business. Even if you're not the one doing the sales, you need to have a strong conceptual understanding of what it takes to sell your offer. Even if you're not the one building out the funnels. You need to know how to use your ActiveCampaign or your ConvertKit or, you know, you need to have some understanding of the machine that is running, what you're building, but you don't have to be the one that's physically building it out. And there's a lot that I'm grateful that I understand, but, like, I don't need to be spending my time there. It's not my best use of time. There's another genius out there that could do that. So I agree with you on that a lot.

So tell me about the offer. When do we know when we're ready for the offer? And then just like, really, do you help people dial in that offer?

Yes. So I think that, you know that you're ready to create an offer. I mean, a, it's like, well, why do you want to create a brand? If you want to create a brand, you're probably ready to create a total. So there. So it's probably way before you think that you're ready. And two, it's when you have a good understanding, which shouldn't take someone longer than a day, to be honest of, like, what are you really good at that someone would happily pay you money for? What problem do you solve that someone would happily pay you money for? And it really comes down, I mean, the most basic things, like, you know, I want to lose weight, I want to make money. You know, I. I want to get laid. It's like, I mean, whatever that is for that, right? It's like, it's. It's very basic things that the majority of people want in life. I want to feel better, you know, I want to look better. I want more money. And so you find what your little magic sauce is in your corner of the Internet to provide a service for that. And then once you have that, then you get to go into the fun testing phase. Because what you first offer may not be what your end is. I think that's the other thing that people are like, I'm going to create this course, and then it's going to have to be the one thing. It's like, no, you don't know where that's going to lead you, Right? So first figure out what you're gonna offer what do people that are in your world right now so we don't have to go buy them or find them, like in your world right now, what do they want to pay you for? If you don't know that, what are they naturally coming to, to you for already? What are they asking you? You know, look at your insights on Instagram. What, what are the pieces of content that are getting the most engagement, that are getting the most hits, they're getting the most questions? If you're in the baby stages of a business, it may take you, you know, a little bit more time to build that out, but it will show if you're consistent. And then from there you get to choose what that offer is. Maybe it's a physical product, you know, maybe it's, it's a digital product. You get to figure out what that is and then you start to build it out. And the way that I love to do it is I usually give myself like a three month Runway of building out. The strategy of this is what you're creating. This is the offer this suits for. We want to make sure that any kind of future offers are going to feed that ecosystem, even if we don't know what they are yet. That's, that's fine. But we're setting it up to be sustainable in its own right. And then we create other assets that can support that. We pick a launch date, we stick to it and we go and we test it. We'll have maybe a general idea of what you're going to land on based on your list size or something like that. But more than anything, I just, if it's somebody's first time launching or if they're launching something new for the first time, it's like, let's just go test it and like, let's not put any other kind of constraints on it. And let's just, let's see. Because the data from that first launch is so juicy and so important because that's what's actually going to give us the information that we need to refine it for an even better one next time. Yeah. And then I like to, if it's like a digital product, I like to kind of live launch those maybe two to three times and then we kick them off on Evergreen and we let them make money while you sleep.

Yeah, I love the way you put that because I think we get, we get so attached to like making this offer. The thing.

Yeah.

You almost have to go into it, it really lightly, like detached.

Yeah.

Kind of going, this is just data. This is like beta. This is just beta.

Yes.

Even just putting that word on it, you know, because we're so much with our, our new product right now. I'm like, everything is beta.

Right.

Like, I'm not getting attached.

I'm not.

Like, this is the plan that has to make the money, and if it doesn't, then I'm a failure. Like, people get so emotionally attached.

Yep. Like, I don't even know if, if this is going to be the same bottle a year, two years from now.

I didn't know if it was going to be the same formulation.

Exactly.

I literally didn't know if it would be a completely different product, which it was a different product before it even launched. And so that's taught me so much. And I think that that is the way to approach this, just with what you said. It does kind of. It loosens the grip. It makes it be like, hey, this could be fun. Let's find out.

And it's supposed to work.

Then it's, it's, it doesn't make it that you're not good.

Right.

It's that when you find your fit, it's like, it's gonna be really good. Just give it some time.

Yeah.

Have some fun with it.

Yeah. It's something that I always tell people. I'm like, don't come to me if you don't have any no's, like, because we learn from the nose. So, like, if you come to me and you're like, julie, is my offer good enough? It's. I don't know.

Yeah.

What did the people that bought it say? What are the people that didn't buy it say? Like, I already know how to create good offer. Like, I want you to get better at creating good offers. So you got to create an offer. You got to put it out there. And it's usually only one of three. Three things. Like, if you're not selling something, it typically comes down to, well, visibility and conversion. But more specifically, you either have the wrong offer, you're offering it to the wrong person, or you just don't have your marketing and messaging dialed in. And that's it. Yeah. And it's, it's really as simple as that. And then where we get to have fun, and this is why testing is so important, is that we get to figure out like. Like, is the offer hitting. Are we packaging, packaging it correctly? Is it positioned right? Are you trying to sell to somebody that literally just has no desire to buy what it is that you're selling? They don't see the value in what it is that you're offering. Yeah. Do we need to create more value? Do we need to go pivot to a different buyer or do we need to work on the marketing and messaging? Most of the time it's the marketing and messaging. Nine times out of 10, somebody has a great offer.

Yeah.

They just don't have their marketing messaging dialed in.

And that is all what you help with. And I know that you have Revenue Growth Lab.

I do.

Tell me all about it.

Yes. So the Revenue Growth Lab is. It's exciting because we've added a new element to it just in this last year. So the Revenue Growth Lab traditionally is a. Is a 90 day strategy implementation experience with myself and my team. And that is where somebody who is ready to either launch, scale or refine an offer or their offer suite comes to us and we help them with that. And so we've got operation managers, project managers, sales strategists that are here to support you in refining. So it starts with a pretty deep dive of an audit, like a live audit that we do. We go through the entire system as it is right now. We start to kind of find the holes and what we can strengthen. And then we put a game plan together and then based on that game plan, we start to build it out with you for those next 90 days. At the end of the 90 days, most people stay with us because they're now in that tweaking, launching, refinement stage and they want the continued support. And that's kind of how it's always worked. What's new this year is through the Revenue Growth Lab, we now have what is called more of a done for you option. So in the past, it was just kind of more done with you. We would streamline what you needed, you could go launch and do your thing, and that was that. Now we have a killer, phenomenal team in place to actually do a lot of the heavy lifting for you that may be dragging you down. So any type of operations, if you need, you know, sales copy written, if you need, you know, a sales team trained, if you need the packaging of the offer, you know, revamped, if you know, really anything that you need, if you need the funnel built out, if you need email sequences, we can now provide that for you as well. What I really love about that, Facebook ads as well. And it actually, the idea came from me talking to my Facebook ads manager that she just said it's so much harder to work with someone who has this like siloed of contractors everywhere. And even if they Have a couple of in house employees, like they've got this person here and this person here and you're on 15 different time zones and you don't know how each other works and it takes. Takes 24 hours to hear back from anyone. And I just remember her saying like, wouldn't it be nice if just you had like a team that even if they like, they just all worked together pretty consistently. And it gave me that idea where like, well, why don't me and my team essentially become your team and we give you what you need in order to grow and scale. And since we all are cohesive and how we show up and our strategy and, and just the back end operations of how we work, it makes it really, really clean and it, we're getting results for clients a lot faster, which is really exciting.

I can attest to that being very challenging having it completely pieced together speaking different languages, like not really fully. That means each team member has to be like versed in your company as well. I've been there where it's so many.

Different and they have to be versed in the other contractors company and how they work and how they work and.

How their team works. And you're like, does it right down to like this team doesn't like to use Asana, this team likes to use Slack. I'm like, this is insane. The setup is insane. So it's so streamlined.

It is being able to do that altogether. That's.

That is an awesome value add. I actually have some people in my head for you.

Perfectly. Yeah. Bring them on. Anyone who podcasts. Like, I've now brought my entire podcast in house, which has been night and day. Yeah. And just what we're able to provide in terms of production, editing, project management for podcasts, it can be a beast. And so it's just, it's a really beautiful thing just to see this synergy come alive. And my team has been just phenomenal and stepping up to the plate and it just, it allows me to finally provide something to my community that I think that they've needed for a long time. And I just didn't have the structure in place and now I do and it's really exciting.

That is so exciting. So how can we, how can we be a part of Revenue Growth Lab?

Yes. So you can go to Julie Solomon.net Interesting. And this is just a form to. There's no pressure. We actually just kind of want to hear like if any of this is curious to you. If you're like, okay, I need some help. With my offer suite. I need to create an offer, I need to refine it. We just want to hear what you're doing. Like, that's our data. Mine. Yeah, you know, like, I just, I'm like, just please fill out the form. It's super quick. There's going to be a little line there. We always want to know where people heard from us. So please let us know that you heard about it from Lori and that's where you can put that in. So we know that you're coming from her world and we'll, we'll like make sure that you guys get like, like vip, you know, response and access to us. But yeah, let us know that you heard, heard about it here and, and then what happens after that is that you'll get on a call with. Most likely there's three people, Becca, Aaron, Nicole on my team. They're rock stars. They will talk through what's going on, your goals, what's working, what's not working, what you, what you're really stepping into. And then if we feel that you're a good fit, we can invite you in to the revenue growth lab, which starts with that kind of 30 day Runway, if you will. With a lot of strategy with myself and my team members. There is also access to connect with other, you know, people that may be going through RGL at the same time as well. If you want networking, if you want accountability, if you want some group, there are some one to one as well. So you get to network, you get that kind of group component, which I love because you learn so much when you hear what's going on, people's businesses.

Like it's, you have to be in some form of groups in the beginning.

It's just, it's so good. And, but then you also get the one on one. So we can really give you that personalized help to succeed. And then we put the plan together and then you can either fly baby, fly and do your thing, or if it's like, okay, now I want help building this out, we can do that too.

Amazing. That is so helpful. Not a lot of people are doing that right now.

They're really not.

It's very PC out there and I, I have done it for years in different areas and it's, it's, it's challenging. So definitely, you guys, if there's something, if you want to be fast tracked.

Yeah, if you want to work with.

Someone who's been working with a lot of people, go and check it out.

So. Yes. Thank you. And the other thing too, so that we focus on conversion there. But when you become a member of the revenue growth Lab, you also get free access to my brand accelerator and that covers all of that visibility stuff that we were talking about earlier. So you're going to get both ends of that. Amazing. Yeah.

And you need it all.

You need it all.

You need it all. So thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me.

This was so much fun. I can literally talk about about brand all day long because I love it and I always need it and it's always changing.

It is.

So I'm super grateful for you being out there and doing the work and then telling us how we can do it.

So thank you so much for being here. Yes.

You guys definitely go check out Julie. Everything is linked below in show notes. And what's your Instagram?

So, yeah, Instagram is where I hang out the most you can find me at Jules J U L S Solomon S O L O M O N and then the Influencer podcast is my podcast.

Amazing. Thank you for coming on. You guys go check that out and until next time, earn your happy.

Bye, everyone.