Inside The Mind of a 6-Figure Coach w/ Alison Reeves

Today I got to interview a full-time 6-figure creator named Allison Reeves. Allison helps creators monetize their expertise online by combining business coaching with mindset work. She's been blogging since 2011 and business coaching since 2017, but in 2019 she sold her own personal self-care blog that originally just started out as a hobby for for an amount that ended up exceeding her former full-time income. And that's one of the components that we dive into in today's interview. Alison managed marketing teams for several multi-million dollar companies before becoming a full-time business coach. And she has since helped thousands of different creators worldwide grow their visibility and their income through coaching and courses. Me being one of them. Alison was actually one of my coaches and in the first week or two of working with her, I already made a $5,000 sale, which was pretty awesome. So Allison was my coach, and that's why I wanted to interview her. I enjoy being around her, I respect her, and it was really fun to be able to dive inside of her mind as a six-figure coach to come together and help you start or grow your own online business. Allison's business is to help people make more money, but her mission is to help people love their lives. To learn more about Alison Reeves, check out her website, AlisonReeves.co, or just listen to this interview where we unpack the secrets to her success. Without further ado, let's get into the interview. Hey, what's up, Alison? Great to have you here. Pumped to chat with you today.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah, man. So— or woman.

So you can call me man.

Okay. Yeah, man, let's do this. Okay. First thing I want to kind of dive into was obviously the big elephant in the room, which is like, how did you go about selling your blog. How, what was kind of the story behind that? Were you doing that because you were working for a marketing agency before or different marketing companies and doing the marketing inside of those companies? Was the blog some kind of something you did on the side and then you realized, wow, this is actually getting some traction and then you kind of decide to sell? What's kind of the story?

Yeah, yeah, that is roughly the story in a different order. So I was, I was a marketing manager at various companies, so I was doing It wasn't agency work, it was more specific to the brands, although it could feel like an agency because most of the companies I worked for had multiple brands. But I was doing marketing managing for them, and that was always a mix of like local marketing and then primarily online marketing, SEO, Facebook advertising, Google advertising, whatever. Um, and I had a personal blog that I started in 2011, and I started it to sell paintings and write about my music and Didn't really know where that was gonna go, but that unintentionally kind of launched my marketing career cuz my bosses at the time were like, oh, she's a blogger. And they promoted me to website administrator with, and I had no experience. I was building, I actually built a 200-page website using like HTML and CSS. That was before CMSs were really popular. Wow. But over time my blog would kind of like pick up steam and then lose steam cuz I didn't really know that much about keywords at the time or how to monetize like passively a blog until 2018. So the way that I was making money for companies wasn't translating exactly to the way that I could make money with the blog. And in 2018, I kind of figured out like SEO, Pinterest traffic, creating like the funnels I was creating in corporate, starting to create those on my blog. The reason why I sold it was because most of the traffic was coming from Pinterest. And even though it was a personal blog with like my face as the brand, I didn't know that I could sell a personal blog. Um, but in 2017, I started coaching and then in 2018, 2019, I pivoted my coaching to kind of, because most of my clients were like other entrepreneurs rather than real estate agents, which is how I kind of started coaching. Um, and then once that started picking up more, I quit my full-time job in 2020. And then by the end of 2020, I kind of just had to make a decision on— I could foresee the future of the blog dying a slow death because I was going all in on coaching and consulting. And so I decided to find a broker to help me sell it while the traffic was high enough to where the person could be making— they would have an on-ramp for passive income before they had to like kick their butts in gear. Um, but that was the reason I sold it, I was spread too thin. It wasn't aligned with what I wanted to do anymore. And because the traffic was primarily Pinterest instead of Google, it was unstable. And I like knew that was coming.

Wow. Okay. A lot to unpack here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, no, that's, it's a great story. One question is like, how much did you sell your blog? I'm just kind of curious, like, because you said it replaced your full-time income or was like a, full-time income that you were able to sell?

I don't know. I don't like to say the exact number, but that's what I— and so that's why I say it exceeded the amount, exceeded my first full-time salary income.

Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's just interesting.

Multiple 5-figure number.

Wow. That's pretty amazing. Like, I mean, just even still. And what's interesting about it too is like, I, because I thought about this when I was coming up with a new name, I used to be called James Allen Coaching, but I realized like there's one of the biggest people in personal development space named James Allen. Allen, who wrote As a Man Thinketh. I was like, this is super cool. But I started trying to market myself and whatnot and it was like impossible to find me. Plus there were other people and it was just like, I didn't, I wanted to change the domain. But when I was thinking of a new business name, I decided on something related to what my business does for people. So I came up with Profit Your Knowledge and I was like, screw it, I'm just going to roll with it. But something you said was that people, like you were able to sell this blog. As a personal blog and you were like, it was kind of weird that you were able to like sell something that was tied to your name. How does that kind of work? How did you go about that? When did you kind of have that aha moment that, oh, I can actually do this? I feel like a lot of people kind of are like, oh, I can't do that, or I don't want to build a personal brand because I won't be able to sell it if I decide to.

Yeah, yeah. And I'll give you, I'll, I'll give you a link to get a free evaluation on your blog because the broker I use does free evaluations. But the broker was the one where I was like, do you really think people are going to buy this? Like when she told me the estimated sale price, I was like, well, that definitely feels worth it. But do you really think people are going to buy this one? Has my name and the brand? And it wasn't Allison Reads, but it was Allison's Notebook.com. And do you really think people are going to buy it with the name attached? And she said a lot of people want to have that personality behind the brand. And so as long as it felt authentic and yeah, that was like the, the person who bought it didn't want their personality on the internet at all. And so it was helpful to them to have something that had a voice behind it where they could just pick it up and continue on. But yeah, that was— it's interesting. Even if I've seen other people who have name brands, so for example, now my brand is AllisonReeves.co, and like even that surprisingly could be sold, but you're packaging it based on profit loss and assets. And so I just, yeah, I never knew people would want to do that, but it's a thing.

Well, question: was the person who bought it named Allison?

No, but I feel like I was going to say I feel like his wife's name was Allison, but that was somebody else who was thinking about buying it. They were thinking about buying it for their wife because— but their wife wasn't interested in the niche. I don't even know if the person who bought it has— is— they're very anonymous, but their name starts with an A and it is a male and his name is definitely not Allison.

Okay. Wow. Yeah, it's just interesting. I feel like with a blog you can kind of get away with it compared to like a YouTube channel because a YouTube channel is like you're the face and it's you that people connect with. But if it's you just typing, like people don't—

well, and that was like when I sold it, I had to like— that was part of the deal when I sold it was like the YouTube channel doesn't come with the sale because I had a YouTube channel with it. And so those videos got privated. My face got removed from because it was a personal blog. And so my art was on there and my face was on there. And before I sold it, I did have to like change all of that because I'm like, if I don't own it, I don't want to represent the brand anymore, obviously.

Gotcha. So obviously you were getting enough traffic with the blog and then you said something about how you were like learning how to create kind of that passive income through different products, but you were selling art. Were you making passive income with your art? How was that working?

I started the blog when I was painting like acrylics and I was doing local art shows and that wasn't passive at all. But when I started the blog, I was getting painting sales. By the time I sold the blog, I had fully transitioned only into digital products.

Hmm. Okay. So, okay. Oh, when you sold the blog, then you went to digital products?

Well, I was doing digital products since 2017.

Gotcha. Yeah, I was just curious, like, how can you do passive more passively? I mean, nothing's truly passive, really. Like, it still requires work, but with, like, physical products, I was just kind of curious about that. Yeah, but no. It's all digital. Oh, interesting. Wow. That's pretty cool. So what kind of— something that you talk about is income stacking. Is that something that you kind of developed when you were building out that blog? And I guess what is income stacking exactly?

Yeah, I mean, like another way to say income stacking, you do this in your business too, right?

Okay.

Like having multiple streams of income and then like the I like the visual of like income stacking because it's not just about having more than one thing that's making money. It's about those things, it's like stacking the stability of your business too. So for example, I can have multiple streams of income where I have coaching sales and course sales and this and that. And I can have income stacking where I have like payment plans, like long-term payment plans, long-term containers for things where my recurring income is stacking on top of itself. So it's the same thing, but I just like that visual of like, The more I focus on multiple streams of income that have more than one way to pay me, the more my long-term stability goes up.

Totally. Well, I think it's really big too, because this, so I mean, I kind of figured that's what income stacking was, but I just wanted to hear like your definition because I've never used that term per se, but I do like it. And I mean, that's really what it is. Like when people hear passive income, I was reading some stuff yesterday, I just like went down a rabbit hole on the internet just about like fake gurus and like passive income. People sell you this and I'm like, God, it makes me look like a bad guy, you know, but like it's interesting to listen to and pay attention to, but it's like passive income's totally real, you know, it's just it, but it still requires work because nothing truly is passive. But I think the income stacking is such a smart way to develop passive income because you can have, like you said, like different price points and different options for people. And I feel like a lot of people don't do enough options for people. Obviously there's too many options. You kind of have to distinguish that. But having like a course is great because sometimes, sometimes people can't afford to pay for, you know, high-ticket coaching. But there's people who just focus on that and that's fine. I think it's great to have an option for someone of like, hey, you can sign up for my course or you can sign up for my mini course, or there's a payment plan, there's different options for people. And then yeah, it just kind of comes down to where do people want to, want to enter your world at.

Yeah. And I think the whole conversation on passive income is really interesting to me because my background was as a marketer in real estate investing. So like, like real estate, like, yeah, real estate investing, like flipping houses, wholesaling, doing rentals. And so for a long time I was like, okay, if I want to be rich, then I have to like become a real estate investor, which even if you're— are you familiar with the concept of wholesaling?

I mean, I haven't dove really deep into it, but I know of it.

It's like the— We Buy Ugly Houses is like the most popular company, or they used to be anyway, but they're people who find the houses and then they may not flip or rent them. They just find somebody else to buy them, and then they basically take a fee in the middle. So they'll find a house where someone is like in a bad spot and they can't sell it, and they'll offer them like 60 cents on the dollar or even up to like 80 cents on the dollar, and then they find a real estate investor and they'll upcharge it like $2,000 to even 50— like, it depends on the price of the house. But I always thought like Wholesaling is like the lowest barrier to entry as far as real estate investing, and it's still like this huge barrier. It's like finding people, signing contracts, connecting with landlords. And so when I started doing like even like $200 a month and then $1,000 a month on my blog, I was like, oh, this is, this is easier to me than trying to like, oh, hell yeah, get into real estate. But then I also think, I think, I do think real estate can be truly passive where like if you own a house, it's going to appreciate and you don't have to do quote unquote, you don't have to do anything to have that house appreciate. But I think what most people want, they want passive income. But I think what most people want really is leveraged income. They don't even care if it's passive. They just want to be able to make more money without working more.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, it is a better term because like it's just unfortunate that passive income has gotten such a stigma because it's the whole adage of like You don't need to do anything and you'll make millions of dollars.

It's like, that would be great.

It's a pipe dream, you know, it's just fake. And like, it takes a lot of work. Like building a course, for example, is a digital asset. And what's amazing about it is that, yeah, it'll take months to build like a good one, you know, or can to develop it into something big where it is like a nice price point and whatnot. And doing customer research, like all that stuff that goes into it. But once it's up and you have like a steady flow of traffic or getting discovered on your blog or YouTube or whatever, then it can sell for you over and over again. But it takes time to dial that process in, which takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of study. You got to learn copywriting and all that stuff that goes into it. But yeah, I like leveraged income. That's really a nice term with it to add to it, I guess, to the conversation. But cool. Yeah. So with income stacking, that obviously led you into doing your business coaching through your blog. You realized all that. Is that kind of how you were able to sell your blog? Did you actually give away all your digital products with your personal blog that you ended up selling?

I didn't give them away, but yeah, they were part of the sale. So like the— and so half of the products were— well, yeah, so there were some products I created and some products that I bought commercial licenses to and then customized. And so, but all of those licenses and anything that I created from scratch all went with the sale of the blog. And they were all— they weren't relevant to coaching. They were like self-care courses, decluttering printables, um, a decluttering for self-care course. They were all kind of around like minimalism and self-care educational products.

Right. Okay. Right on. Yeah. I mean, well, that's what's cool too is like you started that and I don't know how much you would like price them at, but I think it's cool like nowadays when people are considering starting a business, like what do you have to say to people who are don't really know their idea yet, but they're bouncing around like, I'm hearing about this. Maybe they see those big people flexing their Lamborghinis and cash money and all that, and they're like, I don't know, it seems cool because everyone wants to sell the dream. What do you have to say to people who are bouncing around between a couple different ideas? How can they just pick one and maybe get started? Do you have any insight in terms of that?

Yeah, I think that's like the hardest part. And that's like for new people who they're trying to figure out how to monetize and they also like don't know how to use the internet yet. That's like, there's so many barriers at first. But I think the most important thing, and people get stuck in this, and I'm sure you see this too, they get stuck in making the decision where they won't get clarity without taking action. So the, like, getting into like super practical advice, I would look at like your current interests, your current skill set, your current passion, like what you can actually see yourself doing, and then find the intersection of what people would pay for. So for example, you can say like, I really like organizing the colors of my pens, but like that's not going to make any money for anything, right? So you have to find like the thing that you love that people also pay for. And then so then from there, getting more sophisticated, you have to kind of decide what type of business you're going to start with. And you can have income stacking and have everything eventually. You have to decide what you're going to start with. So for example, I like to help people decide either between low ticket, high volume or low volume, high ticket. And again, you can do both, but knowing which one is your main goal gives you a lot of insight into like what to go all in on. For example, even though you're a coach, what you really want to go all in on is passive course sales and helping other people do the same thing.

Yeah.

So that's the reason why instead of just doing network marketing and building connections on Facebook, you have YouTube YouTube channel and building up, like, building up platforms that have potential for volume.

Yeah.

Whereas if somebody only ever wants to coach or do consulting, then a blog or a podcast or YouTube channel is not going to be the fastest way to get to full-time income. Does that make sense?

100%. Yeah.

That's like, decide the loose direction you want to start with and take action, but then deciding, like, which of those two avenues you want to go all in on first will really shorten your timeframe to making money that's meaningful.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is overwhelming honestly, because people are like, oh, like start doing dropshipping, start doing this, start with course sales or like run over here and do this. And it's just like, ah, like I can mean, you know, when you're just starting out, I kind of knew when I first started that like I wanted to help people in some way do meaningful work. Like that's really all that I ever wanted when I first was considering like leaving my job and I didn't even know what coaching was at the time. I just knew I liked working with people, talking to people and helping them in some way. And my friends were like, oh, you should do like therapy or something. I'm like, I don't really want to be like a therapist. But then I found out about, you know, coaching and everything and I just fell in love with it. And I kind of just knew that that's the direction I wanted to head in. And I mean, honestly, I started out as like a life coach and then working with people, at least in the coaching institute I went through, I felt more like a therapist and I was like, this isn't really it. You know, it's not really what I'm going for. And I tried to position it to where it was more career focused and whatnot, but it just wasn't really working. Working teaching their curriculum. So I went in on my own. That's what kind of got me into performance and productivity and being more efficient with time because I can help people with careers in that way. But then I learned about course sales and passive income and I was able to make that through the productivity stuff. And that's what I was like, this is like the sweet spot. So to dovetail off what you're saying, I think if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, I have all these ideas and I want to kind of go for it. Yeah, list them out, pick the top 3 and see if there's a demand for them. But I mean, you can't really go wrong if it's like health, wealth, or relationship. That's what I always tell people.

Exactly.

Because people are always looking to make more money or save money. People always want to get better at dating or get deep in their relationship. They want to get more fit or be healthier, and that's never going to change, never will go away. So you can't really go wrong if you dive into one of those. But if you just start, it's okay to make those pivots. I've made a lot of pivots, and I think that people feel that once they get going, they have to stick with it, but it is okay to pivot.

Totally. You're gonna reinvent yourself so many times and just detaching from that. Because if you think of— I mean, once you get into entrepreneurship, it's like, it's kind of your life. And like, you can work on the work-life balance, but it is hard. It's harder with entrepreneurship as opposed to having a full-time job to like not have it be part of your personality.

100%.

Like, as you change, like, your business has to change. Um, and I think the more like the more people can detach, the more I've been able to detach from just like allowing myself to change my mind, the faster I can grow and also just make moves like when the market changes or when buyers change or so. Yeah, but, but just like you're echoing in your story, you wouldn't have gotten all that clarity without actually just doing it.

Totally. Yeah.

I'd like to start and sell something and then figure out it wasn't for you so you could change.

Yeah, because I used to actually sell courses. I started to make my own courses from like my life coaching institute and I was making that and, but I never could make it like passive income sales. I didn't even know how to do that. I had to learn from people and that all kind of like fell into place as the years went on. But I mean, I would sell them like on the phone. That's like a downsell or something like that. It took me like 6 courses of making that were my own until I actually was able to make one that was able to sell passively. And that was when I was doing my productivity stuff and that started happening again and again. I'm like, holy crap, this is like a real thing, you know? Which is amazing, but I just didn't want to be known as like the productivity guy. I guess it still spills into like the business coaching because I'm, I mean, I'm just a huge fan of like, like you, you know, it's your tagline is to help people make more money, but your mission is to help them love their lives. And like, that's what it is, you know, like our work shouldn't consume us, in my opinion. I think it's great to love what you do. I like creating content. I like coaching people and working with people. But it's not like the, there's more that I like to do, you know, outside like hobbies and passions and whatnot. So yeah, I'm really big on saving the time. But in terms of, in terms of what you do with people, you are a business coach, but you also do a lot of mindset work to you. And something I like to ask people, whether it's marketing or mindset, is like, what is that to you? What is, mindset to you? Because that's a very broad, vague kind of term and topic. What is mindset to you?

Yeah, I think mindset to me has— it's like changed and grown as I've learned more about it. So like mindset at its core to me is like addressing limiting beliefs and trying to change your thoughts to eventually change your identity. But then the deeper side of that that I'm like really into now is that is like holistic mindset where mindset isn't really effective without embodiment. And when I say that, I mean like without learning how to regulate your nervous system and without learning how to feel. Like this quote that I love from, um, a former mentor of mine, Samantha Skelly, she says, if you want to feel better, you have to be a better feeler.

What do you mean by that exactly?

I mean, like, if you want to feel better, you have to get better at feeling in general. So, so many of us operate on this, like, autopilot mode where you might feel like stress for a whole week before even thinking, like, why am I stressed? Like, before even slowing down to say, like, what is this constriction in my body? And if you can identify— if you can start identifying your feelings sooner, you can stop patterns. So for example, like I had a client who was having this issue where she had a newborn. And so the only time she could do focused work was at like really weird hours. It was like 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM was like the time. And she's a morning person, so that was like horrible for her.

Yeah, that sounds terrible.

It was awful. And, um, but that was the only time she had to work and she found herself like any, it took her a long time to kind of warm up into getting into work. And any kind of distraction would just throw her off. And so then at 10 PM, when it's time to get to work, she starts feeling anxious and building it up and procrastinating. And it was like this whole cycle of that's the time she has to work and she couldn't get focused work done. And so we were able to like the first step in helping her work through that is like looking at the mindset side of it. So the mindset side of it is like, this isn't going to be forever. It's okay if I don't get things done all the time. And then part of it was like doing breathwork and meditation before it comes time to work so she can actually calm down. But she was still getting kind of stuck in that, in that pattern. So when I talk about like embodiment and nervous system work, sometimes we have to go into the body to find a pattern that's like stuck in someone's nervous system. So this is like when we— I do what's called somatic work, which is like when you feel an emotion or like a constriction or a stress, like closing your eyes, feeling in the body tracking it in the body, and then finding it like, it's kind of hard to describe, but figuring out like what the actual story is. So it turns out, like, going down this rabbit hole of like, where is this stress actually coming from? Because it's not just about this moment, because it's a habit that's not stopping. And it was stemming from fearing this fear of disappointing her parents when she's 8 years old. It's like, so when we recognize like the source and the nervous system of that mindset issue, we can kind of like stop the pattern. So it's like that is like getting convoluted and a little rabbit holey. But basically, if you don't integrate mindset beliefs with your nervous system, then when you say affirmations, they're going to feel like bullshit. So like if you've ever said an affirmation and you're like, that's not true. Have you ever done that?

Oh, 100%. Like, I'm going to be a millionaire in 6 months. It's like, no, it's not going to happen. That's an example of like that new belief belief is not embodied yet.

And so in order to embody it, there's lots of things you can do to embody a new belief, but it basically involves, at least in large part, like your nervous system. And that takes practice and like physically feeling the sensations.

So physically feeling like the sensations that, you know, obviously not be a millionaire. And so, I mean, maybe it could be depending on where someone's at, you know, if they're at that stage where they could do that. But even if it's just like, I'm going to start my business, we'll say, and it keeps saying it's like, that's bullshit. You're not going to. Is it through like repetition of them saying that until they can actually believe it is when they will actually take action? Is that kind of what you mean?

Well, I think that's the first step. And the second step is like, that could, that could be it. But if you can't get behind the affirmation, like if you say it and you're just always like, like affirmations can be detrimental if you say it and it always feels like It's not true.

Yeah.

Creating a bridge statement like, I'm excited to get started in trying to build my business. That's something you can really get behind and believe in. So that's the first part is creating like a compromise until you can start believing you're a millionaire. But then the second part is like, why do you want to be a millionaire? What will that give you? And then feeling like, what will that feel like?

Right?

So for example, I want to be a millionaire because I don't want to have to worry about money anymore because I just want to be able to relax and feel safe? What does it feel like in my body to relax and feel safe? And so then you can start like resourcing the result before you have the thing that's going to get that result.

Interesting. I mean, it makes sense. And I'm just like playing together like that quote of like you have to feel more. And I do believe that you have to look inside and be— yeah, you have to feel more of the emotions that you're feeling and be able to get like hypersensitive to those feelings. I just think about like when I, when I first got into personal development, I was reading the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I love that book. Still live by it today. And example of like not being impeccable with your word or taking things personally, I would have to develop awareness within myself that I was taking things personally or that I was making assumptions. And that came down to being like hypersensitive with my own self and being able to feel those things. And I believe that that's like that intuitive piece of being able to feel more, because when we are able to do those things, then we can kind of like spot it. The awareness piece is always the first step. Then we can kind of backtrack and assess like, what's causing me to feel that way? So I'm just trying— yeah, I was just trying to—

that's exactly what it is. That's like a great example. That's because like, it's just that so many of us operate on autopilot. We're like, we don't want to think about where we're out of integrity, or we don't want to think about— like, I— a lot of my clients, they're so stressed out about acknowledging that they have anxiety around money that they won't ever deal with the anxiety around money. And so then they just live with anxiety around money. Whereas if you want to feel better around anxiety around money, you have to actually feel— you have to let yourself feel the anxiety around money so that you can work on it.

Gotcha. And that's a long process.

Exactly the same exam.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is. And it's a lesson you learn over and over again, unfortunately.

Yeah. Well, yeah, but that's how you grow. I mean, that's, that's anything that's like, if you're gonna learn how to shoot basketball and you keep missing, like you keep practicing and you'll, you'll get better just like with your mindset. But yeah, that, that makes total sense with like the feeling piece. Um, how do you feel that we can kind of develop the right mindset when it comes to either starting or building our businesses? Is it just, I mean, the same thing, or is there, is there a couple like maybe common mindsets that you see with people? I guess you mentioned the money to help us either just get started or build the business that we already have.

Yeah, I think like even basic mindset, a lot of people aren't really aware of. So I always look at like if you just want to have like a core of like a mindset routine for getting started, I would look at limiting beliefs. Creating affirmations you can get behind on those limiting beliefs. So not affirmations that are— that feel like baloney, but ones you can get behind. So limiting beliefs and then affirmations, and then just journaling what you want your life to look like, because that's your, like, North Star. I'm like, why am I doing this? So then when things are bad, you can always come back to, like, why you're doing it. And then I would say, like, the next level of mindset and embodiment is building like the basics of that is just building resilience. So, and you've probably heard of some of these tools like intensive breathwork, cold showers, doing things that are slightly uncomfortable. Like if you practice doing things that are uncomfortable intentionally, then you won't freak out as much when surprises come. And entrepreneurship is full of surprises. So yeah, those are like the two. If you do those two things early on, like limiting beliefs, affirmations, build a vision for your life, And then do something for resilience. You'll be like worlds ahead of most entrepreneurs.

Yeah, I think so many people get like hung up whether they're obviously just starting for sure, but even after they've like played around with entrepreneurship or just trying to achieve that next kind of level is the procrastination piece. Like, I mean, I tell people like when I work with them, like just make one piece of content this week. And to me it's so simple. I'm like, no problem. You know, but to someone who's never really done it before, and I have empathy for them, obviously I understand it, like the challenge and stuff, because I used to be there. I used to want to start a YouTube channel for so long and I was like, oh, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I never do it. And then one day I was like, I'm just going to freaking do it. And I was like sloppy. It was terrible, but I just did it. And it's just that action piece like we were talking about earlier of like clarity comes from action and it really does. Like even if it's not the right action, as long as you can intuitively feel that this is going to get me closer to that thing that I want, and you're going to naturally, like, I mean, like you said, when you journal, just writing out the vision that you have in your mind, you have that North Star of like, I want to achieve this. And then you can from there think like, what can I do to get closer to that? Naturally and instantly, really, ideas start to come up inside of you. And if one is just kind of like giving you electricity, then you just kind of have to like go for it. Really. If it is like start a YouTube channel, it's like make a YouTube video.

I, I love what you just said too. Like even if it's not the right action, cuz I think people get really hung up on like doing the wrong thing, but like, yeah, what happens if you do the wrong thing? What happens if it's garbage? Like the thing about YouTube is like the only thing that's important for YouTube, or one of the factors is It doesn't have to be good when you start, it just has to get better.

Yeah.

Like for the 1%.

Better.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

100%. Question. We're going to start wrapping up here. I'm just curious, and I like to ask people this. Why do you think that people don't take action? We live in a world right now where there's so much information. People buy courses, they buy books, you know, they, they pay for all these different things and then they don't act on it. Why do you think that people in the, in this like just new age, it used to be back in the day where like information was rare, you know, to get the type of information that we have nowadays. Like if you could get that, it was just like you were lucky and it was like a very fortunate situation. But why do you think that people don't take action today?

I think it's information overload. And I also think that a lot of the free information out there is amazing and some of it is not as actionable as it seems. So, and I see this a lot in the blogging space, there's a lot of free information for bloggers about blogging, but there's not a lot of really good information about helping somebody choose a direction that's actually realistic for them. And so this is a biased opinion that I feel really strongly about, that at some point in your business, in order to take meaningful action, it's really helpful to have a coach who's doing what you wanna do. Like, and that's like, do— it's okay to do research around coaches. It's okay to talk to a couple of people, but find someone who's already doing what you wanna do. So that, you know, they can help you make decisions that are informed to get the results that you want to get. Because before you have— and this is the hardest for new people, like once you start buying a course here and there and taking some action, you start to become informed and you can see an ad on Facebook and read between the lines, right? So like I'm reading out on Facebook and I can already get a sense of what this person might be selling. But before you're in this world at all, you're like, have a lot of information that means nothing. So I think having a coach early on, even for like a couple of sessions, can be really helpful. But I think it's meaningless information overload is the biggest reason why people don't take action. There's so much free information and it's almost unhelpful.

So to kind of unpack even more of that, if someone is listening to this who's like already creating content and like, I mean, like myself too, like we want to create the best content that we can. To help people, but also have people discover us and bring us to, bring them to like our ecosystem so they can buy our products and services as well. In terms of like there being so much free information that is not as actionable as it seems, what do you feel that content creators can do now to actually make more valuable content?

Oh, that's a really good question. What can content creators do now to make the content more meaningful? I think having— I don't know if this applies to everyone, but this has been helpful for me. I do these, this, these free workshops where I do live teaching, and I feel like that's a way that I can give people something for free where they can get like an interaction with me that's really tangible. Um, I think being able to ask like Engaging with, like, giving people opportunities. Here's a better answer that's more specific. Giving people opportunities to engage with you. So, like, and I, I teach this all the time where, like, your ba— the basics of marketing is having at least one platform for volume and one platform for trust. So, like, one platform that has volume potential like YouTube and one platform where you can have conversations with people like email. Mm-hmm. I think that helping people connect the dots like an easy way to do that is to think, where's the, where's the platform on which I want to have conversations with people and how am I going to ask for those conversations? Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, yeah, I think the engagement thing is really big because a lot of people are like, oh, like, I don't know, they get fixated on like the dollar signs, especially if they start to get more growth and they don't necessarily give as much meaningful— and I see this with creators and like the comment section, if someone's just starting out, they're not getting as many comments and things. So they're going to pour into someone a lot more. Not everybody, but there, I can think of, you know, a couple people who are like, they go all in and they're freaking blowing up. They're huge. And they freaking are in the comments section doing long answers that are in-depth for people. I think that that stuff speaks like massively, you know, in the beginning, like, yeah, you'll get an email here, like a couple comments, and it's, you can pour into that person. You're like, oh, this is exciting. Like someone responded, you know, but as you start to grow more and more and more comments come through, So you don't have to respond to everyone per se, but some of them, people ask a question, like questions get left unanswered all the time in the comments section. I saw some YouTube creator and I actually saw one of the comments who asked a question and they replied, the person, 6 months later to the same comment, the question that they asked and said, wow, 6 months and still no reply. Ooh, that looks pretty bad.

Yeah, I think that's a good, cuz that's like, I really understand both sides of that equation, right? Cuz like as the person commenting, you want an answer, but then as the creator, there's a point at which it's harder to respond. And you can still think about like, as I grow, how can I leverage my responses? Could I have like a Q&A, Q&A podcast or, you know, create a Discord or, you know, there's, so I think that's, but I, I think that that's like one answer to this, like how can I make sure I'm creating content that's really actionable and relevant? To people. I mean, ultimately you're going to do that through a paywall for your most valuable content. But I think that engagement piece is the answer. So as you grow, how can you leverage how you talk to people, right? Create leverage.

I like the idea of like if you actually have a following and you're getting a bunch of questions, if you can just like run through your comments, you're like, I really don't have time to answer all these, which is understandable. You got to live your life too. You can either have an assistant too if you really want to take it to the next level. That would actually run through the comments and copy and paste them into a document, various questions that you got asked, and then you could even make a piece of content on your YouTube channel or your podcast or whatever, email it to your list and be like, here are the most common questions that I get answered, you know, in my YouTube comments or like reading YouTube comment questions, because that's more scalable in my opinion to create for you as a creator if you're at that position anyway. Awesome. Super cool. Okay, Alison, we're going to start wrapping it up. Is there anything— we covered a lot today and it's been super fun conversation. Got me thinking, what is there anything else that you kind of have, I guess, for, for the audience that to say, I guess, to get them inspired about either starting or growing their own creator style business?

Yeah, I think that would just sum up what we already talked about, which is like follow your passion. I would decide a direction as far as volume or high ticket, like decide which one you want to prioritize first for income stacking because it'll influence a lot of your first decisions and then work on building mindset and resilience before you need them. Because early on, early on, you might be kind of gung-ho and then like, you know, it'll catch up with you fast. But I feel like those, those 3 things will get people off to a really good start. Cool.

One last thing. You also have a workshop that you have for people. Tell, tell us a little bit about that. Where can people get it?

Yeah, aliceareams.co/workshop. I change topics every month, but I always do live coaching at the end. So this is like my passion project and I just love— I mean, we have people who come back every single month. That's my favorite thing that I do. If you're newer or if you're already like 10K, 20K months and you're stuck at scaling, come to one of these workshops and just ask a question and get coached. I always talk about the combination of of the strategy and the mindset because it's always both.

Oh, so this is like a live workshop. It's not a prerecorded workshop.

It's live every single month. And I do coaching every single month. I know it's like all— it's what the gurus tell you not to do, but it's like the thing that I'm the most obsessed with. Live workshop every single month on rotating topics. And I do live coaching.

That's cool. Yeah, that's rad. And that I think— okay, real quick, that ties into this whole thing about making more meaningful content, being involved with people, the touchpoints, being able to actually interact with you. I think that that's really big and something that I would like to see more in the world of creators nowadays, especially in terms of scaling and that kind of stuff. So very cool. I didn't know that it was actually a live workshop, so that's pretty epic. You know, going against what the gurus say, but you're, um, you're following that inspired insight, which is huge. That's what we're talking about.

Cool.

Thank you so much, Allison. Been a great time talking with you. Um, to whoever's listening, check out Allison, allisonreaves.co. Check workshop, sign up for the next one, and we will see you in the next episode.