Ep 019: Diversify, Build It Once, Sell It Again – with Lauren from Restored316

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Welcome to The Shannon Acheson Show, real business talk for real life. I’m Shannon, creative business coach, digital product lover, and your strategy sidekick. I’ve built a business that fits my life, and now I help other women do the same. No hustle, no fluff, just smart, honest conversations about building a business that works for you. Let’s dive in.
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Hello?
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Welcome back to the show. I am so excited today to have Lauren here from Restored316. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the show with me today. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I’m so excited we could finally do this. We had some scheduling things and I’m so excited to just chat with you about this. Yeah, same. So for anyone who doesn’t know you, I’m just going to have you. I love it when my guests sort of introduce themselves because I love to hear how they introduce themselves outside of like, I have everybody send me a bio, like an official bio, but I love to hear too how the guests do it.
01:01
So tell us a bit about yourself, like what do do now with Restored316, all of that. Got it. Okay. So as you said, I’m Lauren, CEO of Restored316. And our primary goal is themes. That’s what we’re kind of known for, WordPress themes for bloggers and small business owners. But we also have a whole bunch of other products. Our goal is just to…
01:23
help women be profitable online and show up beautifully. So I love that. I have used your themes for my website for years, many different kinds back when it was Genesis. Now it’s Paydents. So I’ve used your themes for a long, time. I love them so much. So that’s my personal gush over like what you do. love it. I love it. So it’s been 17 years this year.
01:50
Yeah, like I’ve been blogging for 15 years. So yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s very cool. I love that so much. Okay. So before I know before you did the themes, you were doing other stuff. like, can you tell us just a little bit of how you first started designing websites and like how restored 316 started? Kind of came to be. Yeah. So, uh um, so when my daughter who’s 18 now was about six months old, um,
02:16
I was just desperate to make an income from home and I was just gonna do whatever it took. And I remembered taking an HTML class in high school and messing with the code and all that stuff was just kind of fun to me. And then I came across blogs back then when Blogger was super big and they were designed with scrapbooking kits, like digital scrapbooking kits back in the day when that was a thing. And I was like, wait a second, I think I can do that. Because I was already doing digital scrapbooking and then I was thinking,
02:46
well I can combine it with kind of some of this stuff that I learned in school and so you know this was the days before Facebook and all that which really ages me I feel like but um I know but um but yeah I mean there was YouTube so I YouTube and googled everything like and just literally taught myself like everything I needed to know but I didn’t say no to anybody like I was just like can I do your blog for free like all you have to do back then was do a blog post about me and or comment on my blog or whatever
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however we like connected back then. uh And so I did it for free for a little while just to like figure it out and learn it and then I started charging and like my first paid blog was like 25 bucks or something. I just like slowly built up from there. Yeah.
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I just said yes to everything and I figured it out. Yeah. So like super good business advice in there for people starting out, right? Like, yeah, you just gotta like one foot in front of the other and just take action for sure. Yeah. And that I know that in the blogging world, like, right, like you always get asked, like, can you do this sponsored thing or share this thing for free? And people are like, no, I’m not doing that. Like I need to make money. It’s like, no, but if you’re just starting, sometimes you have to do, like you need to have some experience somewhere. That’s why there’s internships for like,
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like regular jobs, right? Like you have to do some things for free when you’re starting out to get the experience. Yeah. No, absolutely. Okay. So do you remember sort of the moment or like, was there a moment where you realized, okay, I don’t want to do custom individual websites for people anymore. I want to do it a different way.
04:23
Yeah, totally. So I was actually pregnant with my son. So that was like, my kids are almost five years apart. So I guess it was about four years like after, you know, we began, I was just like, I need to do something different. I hated being tied to my computer like constantly. And I knew I was about to have a newborn and a four or five year old. And like, I needed to not be like in front of my computer every second of every day. And so I had,
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at the time I was doing started with Genesis. uh And so one of the people from Genesis reached out and was like, would you be interested in doing themes for us? And so it was a great, it was a great like segue into that market. And so that’s kind of where I started. I also did a couple of collaborations with some local photographers and like provided websites for their clients and like things like that. So, um, so that was kind of my like very first like intro into like, I can design, design something one time and like make money
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from it over and over again without coming back every day to those little tedious customizations. So yeah, so that’s kind of how it started. And then it took probably one to two years to fully make that transition from not really doing a whole lot of custom stuff to solely focused on themes. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that.
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I love that the do it once and then sell it over and over and over again, right? That is so huge, especially, well, for any business, but online business especially, I think. What was the biggest challenge going from the custom one-on-one work to the list scale templates? Was it tech? Was it mindset? Was it just getting things done? What was the biggest challenge in switching from one to the other?
06:12
Gosh. was it easy? Maybe it wasn’t a challenge. Yeah, I don’t think, I think the only challenge there was, was the consistency and income because you know, you’re having a shift from like, okay, I’m all my incomes here on this like custom side and now I need to build up this theme side to be able to replace that income. And so I think that was the only like challenge that I had, but it was sort of a natural, like, right. Like I was all in once, you know, I literally remember being at the grocery store, pushing my daughter.
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in the car and like my phone would, you know, the cha-ching thing for PayPal. And I was like, oh my gosh, like I’m literally shopping with my daughter at the store and I’m making money. That’s really cool. So yeah. That’s awesome. I love that. Those are the best. Those are the best, right? You’re doing something else. You know you’ve already done the work. That’s so awesome. Yeah, for sure. So.
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I guess that was like my next question then was sort of like, was there a moment? Yep, this is working. So I guess that was that moment, right? Yeah. Yes, it is like that’s.
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Yeah, I mean it took a little while. not gonna sugarcoat that. You know, it’s like I think we all as business owners, especially in the like digital space, we feel like, you know, it’s just us behind our computer and we’re like putting in all this work and all this effort and like, will it really pay off? You know, there’s a lot of question marks going on in our heads. And so when you get even just that one sale, you’re like, oh, okay. Like this is actually working. Like even on a like small level, it gives you a little bit of that momentum forward, you know? Yeah. And the validation that you like it’s work, like it’s
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Yeah, right like especially I think now to like there’s so many are we see so many ads of people going I made XYZ gazillion dollars in like three days and you’re like But I’m not doing like it’s that’s not going that fast for me, right? So which totally okay? Yeah, it doesn’t usually go that fast truthfully. No There is no get rich quick scheme. Yeah, no even the idea of uh Passive income right like it’s not there is no a hundred percent like it’s not a hundred
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passive. You have to do the work. You have to promote it. Yeah, you still have customer service. You still have email stancers. Definitely. Nothing is 100 % passive. Yeah, but there’s definitely the work smarter part of it, right? Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So now, you’re serving so many, obviously bloggers, because that’s the thing, but you’re serving so many different kinds of business owners now. Did that shift? Because I know
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as the templates come out, like, oh, this one’s for like authors and this one’s for like, like, did that shift your design process or how you sort of approached any of your branding or promotions? Yeah. So in the beginning, it’s funny, my team and I kind of talk all about this now, because in the beginning, like my goal with Restore316 was just to like,
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help the moms that were in my shoes, right? Like the young moms with the baby on their hip and like just need to make money from home. You know, like that was just kind of in my mind. But over the years as we’ve done surveys and things to like truly figure out who our audience is, like.
09:13
90 % of our bloggers, know, and so but but I also want to reach more people I mean the the themes that we do can not just be for bloggers They can be photographers and authors and things like that that you said so every time I sit down to do a new design I go through like a research phase and just really try to study the industry and like what’s missing in the market and try to fill the gaps uh And so I mean at this point we’re kind of filling, you know the role in the market with you know, different genres, but we
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still are very heavily blogger focused. Yeah. No, that makes sense. um So that sort of research phase, like what does that sort of look like? Like what are you, you’re looking for the holes. Yeah.
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Cause you already have so many themes. Like, so how do you approach this? I was about this today as I was driving somewhere. I’m like, wait, but she has so many already. Like how does she keep coming up? And each one’s different and new and it looks different and it has different functions. Yeah. Um, okay. So let’s just take my, our most recent theme as just an example. So our most recent theme is called crafted and it’s really geared towards the craft blogger. And we have another theme called create. And so they can get a little confused, right? So create was really.
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created to
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geared towards the multifaceted blogger who has the recipes and the crafts and the DIY projects and the home decor, whatever. It’s just kind of the all-in-one thing. Crafted was really geared toward, okay, well, what does a craft blogger need? They’re sharing tutorials, they’re sharing how-tos, they’ve got sublimation, they’ve got all the different machines, they’ve got all these things. so part of that research is going to as many bloggers, craft blogger websites that I can.
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and just figure out, well, here’s where they’re succeeding and here’s where I feel like they’re failing. And a lot of times.
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I find a lot that are failing. And obviously I’m trying to like, you know, that market. But, but, know, and then trying to organize the content within that theme, right. Which I think is the big thing. It isn’t just the design. It’s like, okay, well, where would this go on, on their website, right? Whether it’s the different machines or the type of crafts that they’re doing or the age group or whatever, right. X, Y, Z. um So yeah, it’s just studying all of that and like really putting all of that in a theme.
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And the beauty of that is when you buy a theme, it’s not only the theme, it’s already organized for you. So all you have to do is fill in the blanks, you know, so you don’t have to like think, well, where am I going to put this content? It’s all built out for you already. So it is, you know, we call it kind of a business in a box. It really is. It’s more than just a theme. It’s like a little business in a box ready for you to get It’s so true. Cause I remember early on like having to go in and organize all that and build the page.
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and build like, I mean, you got the basic like category page, which was just ugly as. To go and sort it all and put it all together and like pillar pages even, like whatever, like it’s so true. So that.
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So you have themes, but then you release block collections too, right? So like I have a theme, that, I mean, I have a couple, but I have like one of your themes, but then I’ve bought like block collections on top of that. Like, how did you figure out like that that was going to be a good sort of, I don’t know, revenue stream for you, but a good solution for other bloggers who don’t want to buy a whole new theme too. Yeah. So.
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customers were asking. They’re like, I love this, you know, in this theme, but I really have this, you know, like how can I mix and match? So it really came out of that. And then also communicating with Kaden, so how do we make this work? You know, so that’s how block collections kind of came to be, which is so fun that you can, you know, have one theme and has these colors and these fonts and the header and footer, but then you can just very quickly just replace everything in the middle, you know. uh So yeah, so they’ve been a huge
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huge blessing for our business and a huge blessing for many bloggers.
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Yeah, because I love them. I have very basic HTML, because I went to school a long time ago and did HTML way back and then started my WordPress blog where you could still easily access the HTML in every page and every post. And I’d edit it if I needed to, but the blog collections have made it so much faster for me. I have a graphic design background too, but like 30 years ago, right? So the blog collections have made it like I could customize everything, but…
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So much easier like so much easier than it was when I started so yeah Yeah, and WordPress just as a whole like has just come so far I mean that was the classic editor and that was just like yeah in order to start a blog on WordPress you needed to be like a code wizard, know, and that’s just not That’s just not the case anymore. Yeah. Yeah, so much easier. It’s so much easier. Yeah Yeah, so you have other products and things too, right? Like you have
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some courses, you have some other digital products, like tell me how those came about. Yeah, so
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Okay, so I’ve always been really big about bloggers not having all their eggs in the Google basket is what I call it and I share that a lot in our Newsletters that we share weekly, but yes, so I just all this What’s that last week where you said it was like a revenue string like a stream not an actual business model? Yes, exactly Yeah, like you should have many many different revenue streams, especially as a blogger just starting out You know, I think too many bloggers just put all their eggs in that basket and
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is focused solely on SEO and not other revenue. So anyways, it really came out of that need of seeing bloggers struggle with ad revenue or seeing their ad revenue plummet unexpectedly, which we’re seeing a lot of nowadays. uh And so I’ve created two courses. I have one all around email marketing because I’m a really big believer in uh building connection and community around your business um and not solely focused on social media because you know.
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We all have love-hate relationship with it. I’m one of them. And so, uh I mean, it has its place. It’s a great marketing tool, but I don’t like to like…
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have all of my eggs in that basket, right? So I think email marketing is a huge thing. And then we also have a new course that we did last year, ended last year about creating and selling digital products. And that just helps not only in like actually creating and selling digital products, but if you want to learn some design stuff and you want to have better lead magnets and really build up your email marketing, it kind of goes along with that as well. So it covers the design, tech and strategy behind all of that. ah And then we also have
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Lunch and Learns, which are like more bite-sized workshops, not like a full-on, like expensive course. And so it has a very specific goal of like, okay, how do I do this and accomplish this? And those have been really successful. I think one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years is that I really enjoy teaching, especially the tech stuff, because I mean, I see it. We see the emails and the support tickets all the time of like, I don’t know how to do something kind of basic, you know? And it just makes me realize that
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ah you know people need this type of education and it’s kind of missing in the market so yeah that’s kind of where our lunch and learns came and then we have Canva graphics as well that just sort of go along with our day. oh So yeah that’s our whole.
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uh It’s sort of like things have sort of grown from like you got known for one thing and then you took a not a pivot but like a little pivot to add something else right like little bits and I think I think there’s a couple of things like I 100 % agree that you need to have more revenue streams than just ads like I have always had digital products or I’ve always had courses or brand sponsorships Way back when and like all of the things but I think people confuse that like multiple revenue streams with having multiple
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focuses almost right like you need to have whatever your niche is no matter how big or small that is you need to have an like in my opinion you can tell me if you agree or not but like you need to have a niche you need to be known for some or get known for something yeah and not be like I’m gonna talk about
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Well, let’s say, you know, I’m going to talk about building websites and, um you know, growing my own garden and, know, like, you need to have a niche, but you need to have multiple income streams in that niche. that like, is that kind of what you’re No, no, totally. I mean, I’m not personally against the websites that are multifaceted. oh But yeah, but yeah, I mean, it’s that overall.
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Umbrella right of like okay. So and so does this right? You know, like one person that comes to mind as we’re chatting is Courtney at pizzazzery like she’s known right for You know like beautiful decor and parties, but she’s out and shares recipes and all that. She’s very multi-faceted, but she’s very known for uh her decor ability so so yeah
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Definitely, I agree. Yeah, yeah. No, I think I’m because there are people who do like multiple I mean even if you talk about mine like my other business like Home Made Lovely is there’s decor and organizing and you know cleaning and there were recipes they’re sort of buried at the moment like there are different things but it’s all under Home Made Lovely like that it fits that yeah, um, but yeah, definitely different revenue streams like for sure makes a huge difference as a buffer I mean things change all the time like this whole uh
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of Google lately and all of, Like that’s nobody particularly saw it coming, but it has changed a lot of things for a lot of people, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. um So sort of what does your team or workflow, like your week sort of look like now that, well, first of all, that Restored316, I don’t know why I have trouble with that today. Restored316 uh has grown, but also now that you have like all the things that you have, like what is your sort of week look
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like how like you have a team to help you obviously with different yeah
19:19
So we have two people on our team. So Lani, who most people are very familiar with, she handles all of our support tickets. She’s amazing. And she’s been with us for, I don’t even know, I think it’s like eight or nine years now. And then we have Jill, who does a lot of our copywriting. So she helps with sales pages and newsletters and things like that. But generally our week is, you know, I’m still doing a lot of the heavy lifting, right? I’m doing all the design work or the complicated tech that maybe something Lani can’t figure out.
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on support tickets and things like that um and then um yeah I mean and just getting you know making sure things scheduled and like all that kind of stuff you know I’m definitely not um
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How do I say this, like kindly, guess, like I’m not of the like CEO mindset of like only working a couple days a week. Like I actually really enjoy my work, you know, so I like to be in the office and working and just kind of having my hands on things. Could I like go on some of that stuff? Sure. You know, but yeah, so I am very, I am very hands on in the office. Yeah. having like a giant team and passing everything off is not something that like, that’s never, that’s never really been.
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one of my goals. mean, I like to have my hands in it. I love the design process. In fact, you know, one of our goals this year is just to take kind of what we have and grow it, you know, and one of my things and one of my strong suits is creating new things. And so it’s been like a really, yeah, because I love the creative process of, you know, designing themes, designing graphics, whatever. And so it’s been really hard not to just be like new, new, new, new, new. Like, so, uh so yeah, that’s just.
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where I’m strongest for sure. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that’s a that speaks to like how entrepreneurs are we kind of were like all these ideas, right? And we’re like, Oh, I’m work on this one. And then I’m work on this one. And I’m gonna work on it’s like, wait, wait, wait, let’s back up. Let’s make the most of what we have before we charge forward, right? Like, that’s personally something I struggle with to to go back and go, okay, how can this thing that’s doing well, how can I
21:24
make it better? can I? Yeah. I don’t exactly. I think that speaks. The other part of that is to like you said, you have like two people on your team and yourself. And I think that’s something else that like, I want to make sure that like my listeners understand too, is you need to know like, there’s nothing wrong with either direction, right? Like having a small team, or just being a solopreneur, or having a big team, but you need to know what you want and how you work best and what your goals are and not go
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Well that person’s doing that and that person’s doing that, right? Like, yeah. A hundred percent. actually had that reality check here recently because we were having a team meeting and I’m part of a, like a course that I signed up for and like, you know, there’s a lot of talk about that CEO mindset, right? Well, you got to have the CEO mindset and work two days a week and be gone for six months. And one of my team members asked me like, well, Lauren, like what is it that you want?
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What is the life that you want to live like without feeling guilty without the pressure of like what a CEO is supposed to look like like what is it that you want and I had to say like well I want to be here like I don’t want to just work two days a week you know like I want to actually be in the office and I want my hands in the creative process of things and um And writing content and scheduling content like I enjoy that part of it, and that’s okay. I don’t need to be about that Yeah, I really love that because I feel like there’s
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a of this mindset of, no, no, like here, have this lifestyle of only working, like you said, two days a week, whatever. And it’s like, wait, but that’s not what I want. you know, there was, I feel like there was this era where bloggers were like, let’s get bigger, bigger, hire more people, hire more people, have an office, like whatever. And for a little while I was like, oh, that’s what I want. And then I thought about it I’m like, no, I really don’t. That’s really not what I want to have. Like a couple key people, yes. Yeah, it’s so good to know.
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So you said that was part of a course that you did. Is that something you sort of realized consciously before or?
23:30
I mean, I think I’ve always known that, but I mean, just to like be able to say it out in the open. was like, well, I don’t, I don’t want to live like that. Like, you know, the main goal with starting the company in the first place was to provide an income for my family, but also to be here for my kids and my family when they need me. So like, if, you know, I get a call and I need to go pick up a kid or whatever, like I can do that. I can easily, I have that flexibility and that’s, and that’s good for me. Um, so yeah, it was just, you know, being able to just voice it.
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and just be like, you know, okay, wait, I’ve never really truly thought about this, like that big picture, but it’s okay for that to still be my desire. Yeah. And it feels really good, I feel, I think, to realize that too, right? Because then you’re like, okay, this is the right place. I’m in the right place. I’m doing the right thing. And then sort of for me, that was everything else gets sort of filtered through that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. And another point of this conversation is I always wanted to feel connected to my customers, you know, I feel.
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like. um
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For us like we’re very much a brand that’s very supportive of our community and all that’s really what we’re known for And so I feel like that I would lose touch of that a little bit if I were to like step back and be like no You know, I’m only gonna be here a days a week, you know We would lose that a little bit and I want our customers to still feel like we’re you know Holding their hand through this tech process. That’s that’s what we’re here for Yeah, which I think I think when you’re talking about like tech and and you know bloggers who are just
25:02
Starting or even I mean, like I said, I’ve been doing this for 15 years, but still I mean I still I’m like hey guys Or I have a question or whatever and I think that’s like a super key important thing Especially the tech stuff for people who haven’t been doing it that long. Yeah, it is I don’t want to say it’s complicated and hard, but there’s a lot to it Let’s say it that way. There’s a lot to it, right? There’s a lot going on Behind what you see on a blog and a website. Oh, absolutely. Yeah
25:32
And then you throw in all the other things that bloggers have to do, Like the SEO and the social media and everything. It’s all very overwhelming. we want to take that one thing that’s very complicated for most people off their plate and be able to help. Yeah. And I think you guys do that really, really well, at least in my experience. Yes. Thank you. That’s the goal. Yeah. So how do you… So we talked a little bit about…
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you know, how you do research before you do a new theme, but how do you sort of keep things fresh and aligned with your customers, especially as like trends in things like SEO, but other trends and things and platforms change, right? Like we talked about, it’s been a few years now since Genesis was basically replaced by Kadence, but like, how do you keep going with things like that when things are always like, so much is changing, plugins are changing the way that we share things are changing, like all of that. How do you, how do you keep up?
26:31
Gosh, I feel like that’s a difficult question and a difficult one to answer.
26:36
I think for us, it’s just always been like we’re listening to our customers and what their pain points and frustrations are and then figuring out how we can solve that. So in all of that, it’s created all of our pivots, right? So let’s take the Genesis Kadence example. Like so many of our customers were seeing, you know, that, okay, now we have Gutenberg because Gutenberg did come out with Genesis. And we can like now like manipulate some things a little bit easier than like touching code. And so then that need for more customization became very
27:06
obvious and evident and so then it was okay well we’ve got to find a solution to this and so it was you know it actually took me about nine months or so to find like a good solution we first thought show it was a good solution until we were like no it’s not so it’s great oh yeah so it’s not I don’t think that show it is the great thing for bloggers and so it wasn’t super well received and so we’re like okay back to the drawing board but ah but yeah I mean it’s it really is about okay
27:36
think to what our pain point the pain points of our customers are and like how can we how can we solve that and so like I was saying earlier with our courses you know we are seeing with our bloggers that they’re frustrated they’re losing ad revenue they don’t know how to make money they’re doing all this work and nothing is working like how how do they need to pivot right and so that’s where our courses and stuff have come in but yeah I mean you just gotta take it and find the solution for it literally just on and on you know
28:06
Yeah, I feel like I was really slow to embrace. Like I kept the Classic Editor plugin for long time. For blog posts, I was cool with the the blocks and all of that and like for pages, right? Because it meant I could let go of any of my page builders that I had like lead pages or whatever, right? I didn’t have to have all my sales pages external. But I felt like it took me a while to be like, no, I’m okay with this for blog posts. Like I wanted the Classic Editor. I know. I still see the Classic Editor.
28:36
all the time and fraud on sites. Yeah and Gutenberg came out in 2019 I believe. Oh my gosh really? Yeah, it’s been six years guys. It’s time to embrace it but yeah I mean when it comes to technology in general though I think we can all agree that it takes some people a little bit more time to embrace it because it’s change you know it’s not something we’re used to or comfortable with and we have to stop long enough to learn it which is always frustrating.
29:06
You know, all those other things on your plate, like you said, right? Like SEO and social media and email and all the things like to stop to change something that you’re you’ve gotten efficient and proficient at it. Change it to something else. It’s it can be overwhelming, I guess, initially, but it is so much easier now. It is. is. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once you embrace it for sure. Yeah. OK. So let me see.
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So you’ve built, like we talked about, such a strong community around Restored 316. What is something, is there something that you’ve learned about sort of your people that you didn’t expect, like, over time? Oh, goodness.
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that they weren’t exactly who I thought they were in the beginning. We had talked about that. I thought it was the young mom with young kids and all that. And that’s really not our primary market. We were mainly serving 40s, 50s, 60s. We’re serving this middle-aged group and most of their kids are grown or almost grown and they’re searching for purpose. And they want to create something online, which is really awesome. I love that we just
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happened to land in that space despite what I thought we were doing. ah But I love that so much. But also, despite that age group…
30:30
and you throw them into tech, I think a lot of women in that group have a lot of trouble with tech, but they do it. know, and I mean, our big goal too, I mean, obviously we hand hold through the tech a lot, but is we want to equip you with the knowledge to be able to do it on your own, you know? So we’ve got lots of tutorials and all that stuff to kind of help you through. And it surprises me that so many women like do it a hundred percent on their own and they’ve got it all figured out without sending a support ticket. So that’s like, makes my heart happy.
31:00
I love that. And that’s, I think that speaks a bit to, to like the determination of women, like in that age group, which I am firmly in that age group. I mean, I started 15 years ago, so I wasn’t, but I now. You know, and also the, speaks to like your tutorials and your how to’s like for installing the theme and how to do the things and change the colors and change the fonts. Like they’re very well written. And so it’s easy to go and, and you’ve, and you’ve systematized that. feel like you’ve got it down for like each different theme and each different.
31:30
sort of collection or whatever it is. So I think that’s, that’s really awesome for your customers. And a really key thing for those of us in business to realize, okay, if you put those things in place, it’s going to be so much easier to point people to that, then to for those kinds of things, then to have to like, like you said, like hand hold them through that part, if you’ve got it sort of like
31:53
Yeah, totally. Yeah, just from our experience, like any time, like literally even to this day, if we get a ticket that is like a repeat question, it’s not like a one off like, you know, issue that we’re trying to solve. Like I record a video or Lani will write up a quick tutorial and we put it in the Doc site because if one person has the question, there are probably many more that have the same question and they’re just not asking it. It’s It’s true. That’s, I had an SEO guy look at my website and he’s like, you need more frequently asked questions. Like in your
32:23
blog post and on your website in general and I’m like you know that really makes sense because then you can just point people to that so if people have a question yeah that absolutely makes sense um okay so you said you love
32:38
you know, being in the business and working on the design and all of those things. So have you managed to always show up consistently without burning out or is it something you sort of had to learn over time? Because I know, I know, I think, well, I feel like for a lot of us, like the burning out thing online is fairly common, right? Because there is a lot to it, like we said, and so some of us, takes a while to learn that. like, is that something you learned over time or you sort of had a good groove always?
33:06
Not really. Like in the beginning, I really mixed my work with life and there was just, you know, like it was just messy. Like it’s just always kind of like that when you’re first starting, you’re like trying to fit it in like wherever you can. Right. Um, so for the first definitely five years or so of business, it was really difficult, but I feel like, you know, as my kids have grown and gotten older and the needs of, of them have changed, it’s really forced me to create balance. Um, and to, you know, really.
33:36
just have like dedicated work time and not let it overflow and like all that stuff and having a dedicated office like or walls like it’s in here and it’s not out there you know it’s been really helpful for me because I used to work in the middle of my living room so and that was not conducive uh to a good work-life balance but uh but I can’t I can’t say that I haven’t had periods of burnout I will say that I have uh just just life you know like life happens you’ve got you know you’ve got the stress
34:06
of life and then you’ve got a business that you’re trying to run and you’ve got the pressure of that because it’s providing income for your family and it’s just you know kind of goes around in circles with that but yeah I mean
34:19
Just because you have a season of burnout doesn’t mean it’s bad though. It’s just life. Yeah, I think it’s life. I think it’s life as women and moms. think it’s life as business owners. There will be periods of time where things are a little more intense than others. Yeah, and you can do the things, the healthy things, like if you can spare the space, creating an office for yourself versus working in the main space. You can do those things. And I think…
34:45
burnout can’t be a hundred percent avoided, but I think you can do things to sort of buffer against it as much as possible. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And one thing for me too, is I like to, even though I love my work and I love the creative process and all that, I do try to take like a few weeks off a year for vacation, you know, and just like really step away and really step away. Like, yeah, you know, I may bring my laptop just in, just in case something happens, but like, I really try to not open it, you know, like that and just to like give your brain a break.
35:15
It’s true. It’s true. And I think as creative people, that’s something that’s needed too, right? Like you need that time.
35:22
I don’t know what it is, like to, to just refresh, right? Like to fill back up after pouring so much out creatively. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So if someone is sort of listening and they’re wondering if they can, so if they’re in a place of, let’s say they’re doing client work, so done for you, one-to-one sort of thing, and they want to make the leap to like more like digital products or like create it once and sell it again and again, like what would your advice be for them in that sort of situation? To take action.
35:52
uh I know, but that’s so easy. oh It’s so easy to say. It’s not necessarily… to say, yes. That’s what I meant to uh
36:03
Really, it’s deciding what it is you want to create. that’s step one and then taking action. You know, and I think even in that step one is really difficult because you know, if you’re a creative, you’ve got a million ideas bouncing around in your head. And so it’s, you know, try to narrow into a couple of ideas and maybe pass it by your audience or pass it by somebody else who might be in your audience and just kind of um get a get a third party opinion. Sometimes we’re so close to it. It’s really hard for us to make that decision on our own.
36:33
Right? post in a Facebook group, like whatever you have to do to kind of get some outside opinions. And then once you’ve decided that you’re going to do that thing, then to like literally just start putting one foot in front of the other. And the reason I said that as my first thing is, is, you know, it’s 17 years in business. That is one thing that I see that is very common is, you know, people kind of start walking through it and then they like, they burn out or, you know, they don’t know how to do X, Y, or Z and they just kind of throw their hands up and give up.
37:03
And so taking action and like literally being determined to see it all the way through is is really key It’s yeah, and if you don’t do that, you’ll never see what the potential could have been It’s true. It’s true because there are so many ideas and there are so many directions we could go and I think that point of asking your audience or asking a similar audience if you don’t have one yet or whatever like
37:28
It’s social media and like email makes it so easy now you can like put out a Google forum for a survey or you can put a simple like one or two question thing in a Facebook group or you know on Instagram right so it’s so easy to get that feedback on something to say hey would you rather this would you rather that or what’s your biggest
37:45
issue right now, how can, like, what would be your biggest solution, like, right? Like, what are you struggling most with or whatever? I think that’s really key. And then, yeah, taking action, because we can all sit there and go, I have this giant list of ideas or this notebook full of ideas, and it’s almost paralyzing to go.
38:03
I don’t know what, like even if you get the feedback, you have to take action on that, right? Like nothing happens if you don’t actually take action. Yeah, exactly. And just to give another example or uh piece of advice to like, if you’re interested in doing something in a certain field and just as you’re going through the internet and researching it, you’re landing on people’s websites and whatever, pay attention to your Facebook ads as you’re scrolling on Facebook. I have a folder on my phone of screenshots of Facebook ads.
38:33
That just it tells me okay if someone is willing to pay money to run a Facebook ad Then this must be a verified good idea Right, right So anything like that is super helpful and just helping you come up with ideas or confirming or in verifying to you that it is something that is Worthwhile and and good and then don’t let imposter syndrome like come into play there obviously You know a lot of people go. Oh, well so and so is doing it. Well, there’s room
39:03
there’s room for more than one person. Yeah, because people will identify with you versus someone else, right? Like there could be 50 people teaching, for example, Facebook ads, and you could really like someone’s personality or how they teach it and not someone else’s or whatever, right? And I think I lost what I was going say. so I think that’s
39:29
That’s a really good tip to look at Facebook ads because yeah, cause that’s what’s gonna come up, right? Is what you’re looking at. Yeah, exactly. Nowadays you just talk about it with your friend and like five minutes later you’re gonna see an ad about it. You were thinking about this? What? Here you go. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so if you could, we sort of covered this. I’m curious if it’s the same thing. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice while you’re still doing custom websites, what would it be?
40:00
Is there anything you would have done differently or you’re, mean, obviously you’re good with how things turned out, but. Yeah. I mean, I mean, can’t, nothing like came to mind. Like when you asked that, but I would maybe just to have done started themes sooner, you know, that would have been, that would have been nice. Um, but I still do do custom work just because I do enjoy the custom, like design process of that. I’m just limited on the projects I take. Um, but yeah.
40:27
That’s fair. No, that’s fair. Okay, so that’s all the formal questions I had just for fun. Sort of what’s your go-to drink while you’re working? Coffee, tea, diet coke? I don’t know.
40:39
Normally it’s Coke Zero. Okay. Or I like the little, I think they’re called ice sparkling drinks. They’re sparkling drinks. Yeah, yeah. We have a gazillion different kinds of those up here. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, we have one of those Sonic ice machines. So I like always have, I always have my cup and no straw because I have to eat ice while I’m drinking whatever. That’s awesome. I love that.
41:09
Anything else you wanted to share with everybody or we are? I think we’re good. Yeah, you’ve asked some great questions. I hope we covered a lot and encouraged a bunch of people. Yeah, I hope so too. Thank you so much for coming on today. I love that you had, I don’t know, you’ve got 17 years of experience, so I love that you were willing to share some of that. So thank you for coming on the show. Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you.
41:38
That’s it for today on the Shannon Acheson Show. If you found this helpful, follow the show and share it with a friend. And hey, if you’re not sure what kind of business actually fits your life, take the free quiz at shannonacheson.com. It’ll point you in the right direction. Thanks for listening. Talk again soon.