How Allea Doubled Her Prices and Grew Her Revenue to $300K
Episode Summary:
Hi sweet friends. I am so excited to welcome Allea Grummert today. She is an email marketing strategist, conversion copywriter, and owner of Duett where she helps bloggers and content creators make a lasting first impression through automated welcome & nurture sequences. Allea is an incredible client and friend of mine and I think you are going to be so inspired by her story, her ability to work hard in her business and her humility. Throughout our conversation today, Allea is going to share a bit about our journey of working together the past two years. When we first met, she had just come off a month of not paying herself and was deciding if it was actually a smart decision to invest in coaching. Fast forward to now, she has created two new offers and has grown her revenue to $300K. You’ll hear the mindset shifts she’s taken the past few months and how they’ve helped her be a better business owner while providing even more value to her clients. Enjoy!
Topics Discussed:
Why Allea believes is your most valuable resource as an entrepreneur and how she prepared to hire her first team member and grow from there
How Allea uses her experience with blogging, copywriting, and tech to help create content, automation, and community for her clients’ email subscribers
Where Allea was at prior to working with Anna – coming off a month of not paying herself but still feeling fully resourced
How Allea has improved not only her revenue, but the mindset piece of stepping into entrepreneurship and paying herself more
The different mindset shifts that Allea had to take to feel comfortable doubling her rates and how she’s been able to find major success in doing so
Allea’s current offersuite and how she’s worked with Anna to make every piece more profitable by organically building it out
Creating more mental capacity as a CEO and some of the changes that Allea is most proud of from the past year
Episode Resources:
About Allea:
I’m Allea Grummert, an email marketing strategist & conversion copywriter and owner of Duett. I help bloggers and content creators make a lasting first impression through automated welcome & nurture sequences that engage readers, build brand loyalty and optimize conversions for sales and site traffic.
Connect with Allea:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
-
Anna (00:02.542)
Hi sweet friends. I am so excited to welcome Ali Grummer today. She is an email marketing strategist, not just a, but the email marketing strategist, conversion copywriter and owner of Duet and just an incredible, credible client and friend of mine. And I think you are just going to be so inspired by her story. You're going to fall in love with her storytelling abilities and just, ability to really, work hard in her business. So,
Without further ado, feel free to introduce yourself and welcome Ali. Hey, thank you. So yeah, like Anna said, I'm Ali Grummert. I run Duet. So we develop welcome and nurture sequences to build brand loyalty and drive traffic and long -term relationships between our clients and their audience. And most of my audience is actually in the blogging space. I started out as a personal finance blogger in 2016.
And that is where I hang out the most. And I absolutely love it. We work with the absolute best clients who are busy making content to make other people's lives easier. So we just get to do that with them, but through email.
I love it. And Ali is so well networked in the blogging marketing space. I'm always so amazed and impressed by the conferences you go to. Like what are some of the favorite like conferences or clients that you've been able to work with over your time? Yeah. So because I started out in the personal finance space, some of my first clients were like Stephanie O 'Connell Rodriguez or Erin Lowry of, what is the name of her blog? Anna. Damn it. I missed. so cut that out.
Sorry.
Anna (01:48.046)
So Stephanie O 'Connell Rodriguez and the college investor. And then early on when I started my business, I got invited to speak on the Food Blogger Pro podcast. And so from that, I've been able to work with Pinch of Yum and Alexandra Cooks. So, and then lots and lots of food bloggers since then. It's so fun. Like there are so many out there. And then when I meet the individuals who like reach out to me to work with me, I'm like, gosh, how did I not know you existed? Like you've been doing this for 10 years and you have such wonderful recipes in a community.
And so they just keep cropping up and it's always a delightful surprise.
I love that. OK, I have a million questions about your story in the last year, etc. But like the first thing that I wanted to ask and something that I so admire about you, Ali, is your ability to really nail team. And I feel like for business owners, obviously like we need to acquire a lot of skills, right? Getting visible selling, but I really feel like you are such a master at team in two different ways. Number one, being a part of people's team.
right when someone like hires you to like make over their email marketing, but also you are a master at running a team as you grow, grew and scaled your business. And I feel like for so many people, that's a huge blocking point. Like I would just love to hear any of your insights or just some of your story there maybe. Yeah. And this is, I mean, I joke that it is the feather in my, in my cap, like being a good boss. Like I am, I'm, this sounds weird to say I'm so proud of myself because it has required.
like chipping away at a lot of fears. Like I'm a big systems and operations person, but like you can't just develop them all overnight. So you have to be really patient and tolerant in the process to bring people on who are going to love your business as much as you do. And I had heard early on, like even in 2016 or so when I started my blog, I would watch YouTube videos on trainings of being self -employed and my teammates were like,
Anna (03:44.43)
you're not even self -employed. Like, why are you watching this thing about taxes? I was like, I don't know, I'm just taking all the information in. And one of the things that I took in at that time was just like, your team is your most valuable resource. And I just chose to believe that. And I mean, I started out, my first VA hire was for five hours a month. And it was like, how can I give this laborious task to me, like mentally laborious task of gathering all the email data and getting all their login information and organizing all that for my clients?
what if I gave that to someone else so I can just come in fresh with like the creativity and actually assessing their opt -ins and where they're shared and their messaging and their brand goal and all of that. Like, I just noticed like, it's really wearing me down after three hours of gathering all this, you know, tedious information. I'm like, what if I gave that to someone else? And so it started out really, really small and you can stay that way. And I remember making a choice saying like, I want to build a team for a few reasons. One,
I'm a woman in my thirties and I might want to have kids someday. And if I don't want to be writing 20 hours a week while on maternity leave, I need to figure out how to outsource some of this. And I had read Clockwork by Mike McKellowitz and Four Hour Workweek, but mostly Clockwork. He was like, you should be able to take a whole month off from your business and things don't break down. But that doesn't happen overnight. So it was this choice to say, okay, what do I need to put in place so that over time?
I can give away more and more of my responsibility, know that it's being done in a way that me, Ali, would do and provide for my clients. And it is intense. Like, you know, you've seen the inside of my business. Like I have a project manager. So like, even how my team talks with my, with our clients, I told them my executive assistant, I'm like, you can tell them that it's you. Like, you don't have to pretend it's me. I do not need to be this ghost, this omnipresent Ali ghost that's just emailing people all the time. Like, because.
I'm like, it's okay that they know that you exist and that you are part of my team and you don't have to be a ghostwriter, if you will. So yeah, it was a conscious decision that I made and I invested in training and coaching for like seven months or so, working one -on -one with a consultant to really figure out how do I take what's in my brain and teach it to someone else.
Anna (06:06.254)
because I thought it was impossible because what I do is like creative and strategic and just comes inherently to me. And so I really like, it took me two months to create a four month training for one of my team members to move from being like my general project VA, like making Google docs and whatever in Google slides into fully managing client projects. And that was intense. But also like I look at it now I'm like, what an asset, like.
Now I have all these materials in place to take someone from like a little bit of understanding of like the how, but they never really knew why. So it's kind of building backwards from that. And so now I have a team that's like fully on board with what we do and who we serve. And my clients are constantly saying like, your team is amazing. Your team is amazing. And I love it. It's not the Alley show, but they still know that I'm behind the scenes and I'm making the ship run.
And you are such a great ship captain, Ali. I love that. Okay, so good. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about just in case someone's never met you before, just like a rough overview of like what the type of work you do for your clients. And then we can talk about where you were at when we met a year ago. Yeah, so a lot of my clients come to me, they've been blogging five, 10, some even 15 years, and they have either not really set up an email strategy,
or they have some automation set up, but they feel really outdated. Mostly they come to me and they're like, it's just not, I know it's not working. And the tough thing, Anna, is that email marketing is like the last thing that a lot of people think of, but it really crops up when things like Facebook ads go up in cost or the algorithm on Instagram messes stuff up or right now with like the helpful content update through Google and like they're constantly updating stuff. So people are like, wait a second, I need to do email. But at this point in their careers, like,
they're busy creating recipes, doing photography, SEO, running their own teams. Like they don't have time to set up email for themselves. So the ways that I work with clients is I have a email strategy playbook, which is basically like, it's more than an audit for sure. But I do some auditing, but then some preliminary strategic work with them with things they could do differently to get more subscribers or really communicate their message more clearly. And it's super fun because my degree is in advertising and PR. And so the things that I...
Anna (08:26.478)
understand about like brand perception and brand projection and things that it's like, you want these things to be what people are thinking about you, but you're not actually delivering that content for them to think about you that way. So the way that I work with clients after that is we do audience research. We figure out what do people actually think about you? What are they actually coming to like and looking for on your site? What makes you different than other food blogs that they follow or like, or buying a cookbook instead? You know, what, what is the role that you play in their lives?
and then we create a custom strategy, write emails, 15 emails that will be automated for them, and we set up all those automations. So our goal is to introduce our creators, our clients to their audience as though they've never met them before. So like, how do we tell them, you know, this new reader, this is why you can trust me, or this is what you'll find here, here's how I wanna help you. So we're able to communicate that really early on with those subscribers in a welcome sequence and then nurture them over time. So.
The goal is that our creators have such great content. How do we make sure that this new subscriber isn't overwhelmed, but that they also know what's all available to them? You are now in this space and I wanna help you make dinner in 30 minutes so you can spend more time with your family and less time in the kitchen. How are we communicating that? And it's so fun because I've been doing, my signature service is called The Duet Debut. I've been doing that since the summer of 2019.
So we haven't locked down like systems -wise. Like we know what questions to ask and it's so fun. But even though our system is locked down, every client has such a unique take on their audience and their content and what they want to communicate that every project is like completely unique and on its own. Yeah. So we take, yeah, I would say too the difference between me and just like an email copywriter is that we also do all the automation. So we set it up.
Like, and that's where I, like early on, I knew I wanted to do that as well. So yeah, automations and tags and segmentation and conditional content, all that nerdy nerdy stuff. We do that for our clients so that they can, yeah, this will be up and running for them for as many years as they leave it on.
Anna (10:38.734)
I love that so much. I love that. Like you said, it's really this front to end experience where you're helping them with the marketing and messaging and the brand, like the, the branding around their brand voice and all of that. And also doing all the writing, right. And also actually getting the writing into their email platform and tech and setting it up. Like just what, what a service, to be honest.
Well, and that's where like building up a team to do this was like, how in the heck? Because I'm like, I understand that I'm a unicorn. Like that I can, like I went to school for advertising, so I understand messaging and you know, I took a, an incubator on email marketing. So I learned a lot more about the strategy piece. And then I just loved the tech part from when I was blogging and I got really familiar with all of these different email platforms. And yeah, so like.
It's crazy because my team is made up of like six or seven people who are all doing what I used to do alone. And I think, yeah, I had to get over that early on. Like you're just going to have to hire multiple people. Like finding one other person just like you to do all this is, you know, that's an outrageous expectation. I love that so much. It's true. You're, you're a unicorn, right? So you have to like create a little recipe of yourself. Okay. So tell me where you're at one year ago in your business when we got started. Gosh. So.
Man, a year ago, I, gosh, I remember like last spring, I didn't pay myself one month, so that's where I was. I had my two primary signature services, the email strategy playbook and the duet debut. And I had just come back from a conference and at that conference, I got to share my knowledge with a group of six and seven figure business owners. Like I got to present at a mastermind with people far above my pay grade.
And yeah, the way that they all responded, like, where have you been? Like, you know so much. And I just felt so, what do I say? Like, it was such a reward because I've had my head down doing my work and working for my clients. And like, even the fact that I picked bloggers six to seven years ago, like that was weird at the time. People are like, no, you should be doing e -commerce. You should be doing software as a service.
Anna (12:59.31)
And I'm like, but I like bloggers and I think they have important things to say. And here I was just doing my work and then I present to this group, like a 20 minute presentation and like nobody was like making eye contact. I was like, are you guys paying attention? And then they're like, yeah, we're all just taking notes, like this room. And I was like, holy cow. Like what I'm doing is really important. And I do know what I'm doing. All that say is that I left that conference feeling like I was limiting my own impact in a way.
Or I guess you could say, I could see that there was going to be another phase in my business where I would grow my impact. I bought a coffee mug from Target that summer too that said, you already have what it takes. And I realized I already know so much, I just need to be more confident with getting it out there and promoting myself. And so that was definitely a turning point where I had reached out to you, Anna, I had heard about you from a...
previous business coach from years ago. I had followed along and a friend who had hired you as well. Yeah, so I was pretty confident. I was like, I don't know, I talked with a few different coaches and hopping on a call with you, I was also in a heartbreak position. I had broken up with an ex of two years last spring. I thought I'd be planning a wedding by that time. I remember telling you like, what if I just put all that time and energy and money into myself? Like, what if I just did it for my business and like,
It was like a healthy distraction. Like, you know, like what if I wasn't getting married, but what if I like, you know, grew in my investment and believing in myself in this season? So, and I know that one of my best friends was like, what do you mean you're spending money on a coach? You just need to pay yourself more. And I were thinking like, I actually can't, like unless I figure out some of these problems in my business around like cashflow or product pricing or something, like I definitely needed more revenue if I was going to.
to do that. So there was definitely some tension there, but it was, I had a lot of faith in you, Anna. Yeah. And hopping on a call with you is just confirmation more than anything. I love that. And just reflecting on that time, I think, you know, we see someone like you, Ali, that's so beautiful and radiant, successful. And we're like, certainly she's never had like a challenging moment. Right. And so I just love that you're being honest about like, no, there was a time. And I find that so many of my clients, so many clients start with me.
Anna (15:24.846)
when things are a little bit at crisis in their business, but also at crisis in their personal life. But, and cause I just think sometimes it's those moments that require us to step up and say, yes, I will believe in myself. Yes, I will invest in myself, but also I'm willing to, like you said, like, what did that mug say again? You already have what it takes. You already have what it takes. I know it sounds cheesy, but like that makes me want to cry, right? Cause it's just such a truth of like you knowing like,
I know I have it in me. I know what this room of people sees in me. I just had to figure out how to, now that I've gotten my business to this point, how to grow to the next level, right? Yeah. And I was like, yeah, the fact that you already have what it takes, you just need to figure out a way to package it up and sell it differently. And I wanted to grow my impact. I think I looked in the number of people I helped through my two signature services was maybe like 24 people a year, capped. Like that's as much as I could help. And so I was also like,
there are more people, like whether it's a small product. I remember coming to you wanting to do like a group program and we can talk about all the things we've created since then. For sure, I wanna talk about that. But yeah, I was in a place that, yeah, I felt like, not that I had stunted myself, but it was really like eye -opening of like what else would be possible if only I believed a little bit more in myself. And then hiring a coach, and I've hired two other coaches before.
one for two and a half years. She was like, Ali, I think you're done with me. And I was like, I will tell you when I am done. Like I love having a coach and you are my coach and do not leave me in. Because she was like, can I even really ask me for help anymore? I was like, I will tell you when I'm done. But yeah, like there's something too about having somebody like one -on -one support you actually came to you and I remember for Sell With Heart and you were like, do you really want to be in a group program? Like.
Because at this point too, because I'd worked with so many coaches and I've had that like hands -on side -by -side work, I was like, yeah, you're right. I didn't even, I actually don't even think I knew you had one -on -one services. So I was like, well, in that case, sign me up. Yeah, and it was an investment, but I also saw, you know, I ran, I'm the numbers gal, like if I make X amount more over the next like so many months, it'll definitely pay for itself. And yeah, and we got so much momentum and I had created this coaching program and.
Anna (17:46.19)
We can talk more about that too. But I wanted to point out too, even like a year ago, I'm looking at our notes from our, so I'd submitted this like a month before, no, two months before we met, month and a half. But you asked like, where would you like to be in six months in your life and business? And I mentioned saying like, I'd like to take home, $4 ,000 more a month would be a dream. And we're like, we're on our way there basically. And yeah, I'm gonna be moving to Nashville in the next month, month or two. And,
it will require me to pay myself more. And so, yeah, like working with you, not just on bringing in revenue, but the mindset piece of it, I can pay myself more and I can live a life outside of my normal bubble. Cause I'm so used to living in scarcity between like paying off student loans, starting a business, a pandemic, and living in a really low cost city. Like I was scared to do anything else. And so it's kind of an experiment for myself to go.
See that like, I have a lot of that security within me, like to run a business, to be comfortable in a new city, to make friends, to move out of the city where I've lived for 17 years. Like, I think a lot of that also comes with business.
Anna (19:03.15)
I so agree. It is a continual like releasing of the comfort zone, right? Yes. Tell me about the new things that you've created in the last year or anything else there. only all of those things. So yeah, we had talked about, I wanted to do a group program. But yeah, you were honest with me too that like my audience is still pretty small and you need a little bit more demand or time.
to be able to go like recruit all the people for a group program. So you would actually encourage me to start with just doing one -on -one coaching. And it was one of those like I sneezed and made $10 ,000 type things that you'd say on the podcast sometimes like it was me. That's what happened. I reached out to some folks who'd come to a live mastermind of mine, send them each like a personalized loom video. Like out of eight, I think two or three signed up for one -on -one coaching with me. So that was really cool. Like a whole.
whole new revenue source that didn't require me to pay subcontractors. So, and along those lines, not a new offer, but raising my rates was also something that you and I did that has given me so much more peace of mind. I had a friend a year and a half tell me, like, tell me that I needed to raise the price of my duet debut to be $12 ,000. And at the time I was selling it for like 6 ,500. And I was like, girl, you're crazy.
And then I ran the numbers with her again like a year later and I was like, gosh, I really had to decide like, do I keep being a service -based business with a team or do I go into coaching? Because the team thing was gonna drain me. But I was like, you've created these systems, these processes, you've helped so many people, like you can't let it die. The worst thing that happens is you raise your rate and people say no, but at least you know, like the market can't handle that and now it's not a viable service anymore. So.
You and I had set goals. Like we're going to sell it at $9 ,000 two times, $11 ,000 two times, and then up to 12 ,000. And I sold two at 9 ,000 in the first quarter of the year. And then I upped it $2 ,000 to $11 ,000. I was like, this is insane, but we're doing it. And I sold two of them in the same day and they both paid in full. And I like, I think I passed out. I'm like, I'm just going to lay here on my living room floor and not move. Like, what the heck? And it like, I'm crying a little because it was so...
Anna (21:27.374)
like redeeming for how much work we've put into that service. And the reason why the rates had to go up is because my profit margin was so low, not just the cost of my team, that was really lean, but getting new clients is where I realized like there was this whole like other expense. And so I was like, huh, I can breathe. Like I'm not just going into the red because this can't be a passion project. I also need to pay my bills and my team. And I'd like to pay myself more. I had a real come to Jesus with that. So, and I've since sold it at $12 ,000.
since then, so I've sold five. And like the fact that a year ago I was selling it for 69 .50 last spring of 23, and now I'm selling it for 12 ,000. And the service is the same. Like I just had to see, other people had to tell me like the value is there. And then the clients have not batted an eye. It feels so scary on the other side where you're like, what? There's no way. And that's why I think that stair stepping was really helpful. Any thoughts on that, Anna? And then we can get into the newest offer.
I just want to say it does take so much courage, even though we know your duet debut is worth every penny of the 12K, right? Again, from the amount of coaching that goes into it, the amount of copywriting, the amount of tech support, the amount of like, it really is like the people that you're working for, your clients, it's like you're hiring a team, you are, they're hiring a team of like seven people to really go at and like, kind of like if you were to hire someone to make over your kitchen and the contractor is like,
hiring the tile guy and the blah, blah. But like all that person has to do is like sit back and pay the bill, right? And I just think like, I love that you stepped into the courage to double your prices, right? But you were really saying like, actually my business needs this. I need this. Like if I want to keep my business doors open, I've got to do this. And having the faith that you will find those buyers out there. Did you ever have a moment where you were like, certainly I won't.
find someone to pay double the price? I think I was more afraid that I would have to switch industries. Like that I would have that like the blogging space wouldn't have people willing to pay that. And then, but I love working with bloggers. So that was where some of the fear came from. But yeah, actually right before I had worked with you and I just did a whole like rebrand and new website and stuff too. So I also kind of had this position of like, it is clearly communicated how much value I provide. And I had this asset.
Anna (23:54.606)
of a website to support me in that. And so, no, I was so surprised. And what was it? I had raised my rate and the two people that paid the $11 ,000, that contract, both in one day, both people that I didn't even meet at a food blogging conference, just referrals who weren't even in food blogging. Like one is in like the trucking industry, but she runs a blog about trucking. And then like, this is so random, but like.
bloggers, whether it's food or trucking, like the process still applies. And so it was just really exciting because I was like, there's still like other industries within blogging. Yeah, where people are out there. And now I'm not really afraid of that, I don't think. I guess I haven't thought of that in a while. It's probably not. You know, and I know that the blogging space is going through a lot as well. So like that to be said, I'm not like out here gorging the blogging space because they're...
with Google updates and whatnot, it's like, she's really profiting. It's like, no, I mean, my business needed to be charging $12 ,000 for this years ago. And it is an investment. It does take seven people and seven or eight years of my expertise to get it done in four months for you. So I kind of had to get over that too, that like I'm allowed to ask for money and serious business owners are also going to invest in good things. Like how I invest in coaching, they're investing in EMA marketing. Like it just kind of depends on the industry.
Yes, I love that. Okay. Also, let's circle back to you. So I love that you streamlined your current beautiful offer that you came in with the duet debut, right? Let's talk a little bit about adding the revenue stream of coaching and what that was like. Obviously, like you've been coaching for years, your clients just not really charging for it, right? But how did it feel to step into and say, you know, even though I have these done for you services, I'm going to add on.
my coaching consulting services? Well, you know, with everything in business, I was like, well, it's an experiment. We'll see if anybody bites. You know, before, what was that? I probably had it as a Google Doc for two, three months and sold it from a Google Doc. That's what it was. I sneezed $10 ,000 from a Google Doc sales page. And it was just like, OK, clearly people are are interested. And no, it felt really easy. It was just like.
Anna (26:14.766)
It is until you fill up your calendar with lots of coaching calls and I might maybe overdid it. I was like, I want to help everyone and never sleep. So no, that's not true. I slept, but I definitely was sleeping going to bed early, if you will, because it was quite an adjustment. But yeah, I absolutely loved it. I think one of the struggles, I guess, is still like, because I can help in the variety of ways, like strategy copy and tech, that feels like the hardest thing to communicate.
but it still hasn't been hard to sell. Like I am booked two months out. Like I actually don't know if I'd be able to take on another coaching client for like four months at this point, which is awesome. Like it's filled up and that will be a year basically that I've been doing coaching. And so it's awesome. It's more just like, yeah, how do I communicate? It can be really anything you want, but it's gonna be in this realm. And so it's a little bit tougher versus like a done for you service. It's like, here's what you're going to get.
Yeah. But it's been interesting because I don't have people really questioning it. They're like, understood. I can come to you with whatever questions. And I'm like, exactly. And we will do them together. And then I don't know if it feels really unique that my coaching calls are really more like a coworking call. I think I've told you this, Anna. One of my clients goes, can you drive today? And I was like, sure. So I just share my screen and I open her convert kit or I open her Google Doc with her onboarding emails. And we just edit and go through everything together.
Like we're making notes or I have another client who she hired me and for the three months, all we did was just organize her convert kit, make sure she felt confident using it. Maybe wrote up a couple sales emails. And then she was like, wonderful. Now that is off my plate and I know how to use my convert kit. Like, so everybody who comes to work with me has like kind of whatever it is they're struggling with. But it's fun cause I get to cowork with.
I love and I just love that you said that because I think we think of coaching as such a narrow definition or consulting, right? Like it has to be sitting in a room and the coach is only listens or only ask questions. And while that's one model, like I do think a lot of my clients, especially that are done for you, for you providers, their coaching consulting clients come to them and want a more active experience, right? Where you're coworking together, getting something done, having more direct feedback, maybe even.
Anna (28:35.086)
having some things done for them in session, right? But the crux being they're paying for an hour of your time live. So I love that you've just like made the coaching your own, something you love and something your clients love too. Yeah. Because the other alternative was like, right, this $12 ,000 offer or a two hour intensive, which is a one time two hour call. And it is intense when we walk away and we're both like, my head spinning. Like, and I do those like,
probably at least once a month, I have an intensive, but the coaching is really great because we get to answer questions over time, they get to work on stuff and come back to it. So I'm like, go right, like we'll draft up like the strategy for the sales emails or the welcome emails. And then they get a couple of weeks to go work on it and bring it back to me. And then we work on it on our calls. And so similarly to like how I treat my calls with you, Anna, I'm like, I don't know, but I know that at 2 .45 on Wednesday, I will meet with Anna and then I will think about it.
Sometimes I have clients who do that. They're like, well, yesterday she's like, I didn't do any of our homework. I was like, great, what do you want to work on today? It's fine. And we got in her convert kit, we renamed all of her forms. I was like, this is great. And she goes, it's so organized. I feel so much better. And whereas other people, like I mentioned, we're editing sales launch emails. It can be completely different. And so it's fun for me that I get to be actively exercising all of my skills.
And I'm like teaching my clients. Like I want them to feel more confident in how they're using their email marketing. Yes. I love that. Okay. Yes. Talk to us about, I know you've been busy this year. Added the new one -on -one income stream, almost double your price on your, you know, done for you offer. And then you launched a new done for you offer. Talk about that. Yeah, I know. I'm like, wow. I really accomplished a lot this year. So yeah, at the start of 2024,
I had just heard a lot with the Google updates happening to bloggers. And just in general, the industry in general, I heard that a lot of people were not spending very much on service provider work. I kind of just follow whatever the web designers in the blogging space are doing. They're like, I see that you're creating smaller one week offers. Okay. And so I kind of took a cue from that and I'm like, what can I do to support the people who need to get their email marketing set up fast and they want to set it up well?
Anna (31:00.878)
But it's a lot, you know, like, you know, like you've already been doing email, but to like start sending emails, to have a template, to have a way for people to join your email list, let alone a welcome sequence, like that there's such a, there's so much friction there for a blogger who's already, you know, they're working on like, what theme do I get and how do I take photos and like, how do I format this blog post and SEO and all of this? But I know that email marketing is super important to their businesses. Like I treat it like,
business insurance. Like if Instagram goes away, you lose 300 ,000 people or you lose that 8 ,000. And so I want them to start email marketing as soon as possible. What I had always struggled with with the duet debut, cause people are like, well, can't you make a smaller offer? I'm like, well, I'm not just going to make a smaller offer for the sake of a smaller offer. Cause I think the audience research matters and you know, like the audit that comes with it, like all that really matters. I can't just get rid of it. But when I saw it in this lens of like, how can I help the new person?
who just needs what they need to get started. Then I was like, got it. Now I can truncate it. Now it has a purpose. I'm not just doing it to make it cheaper. So what we do is we create two opt -ins, a five email, professionally written welcome sequence. And we set up all the automations for you. We give you a newsletter template. We give you a newsletter content strategy. So it's basically like, I joke, it's like my no excuses plan. I'm like, no more excuses. Go girl, go email. Go girl, go email. So if you think about it, now they have this.
this whole asset in place. Because a lot of times it's hard to grow your email if you don't know what you're gonna send, but you don't wanna send emails if your list isn't growing. So I'm like, here you go. Now you have the thing, go do it. Go get your message out there. I often say, it's not fair to your readers that you're not telling them about your new content. And it's not fair to you if people aren't visiting your new content because that's how you will make money if not now on an ad network in the future.
Yeah, because bloggers make money largely from site traffic. And so I'm like, okay, here's your thing. And so that is called Ready Set Email. And it's super fun because I already had these assets from the duet debut that was like, okay, we know what questions to ask before our welcome sequence. We know what questions to ask about the tech. We already have a process for getting access to their email service platform. Like, we have it. We had it dialed in pretty quickly. Cause I could just take this big project and cut out all the pieces we weren't doing. And yeah, and my project manager was like, sounds great.
Anna (33:27.022)
Like we found a couple of writers who'd be really good at like just quick turnaround because with our duet debut projects, they're 15 emails. And so that takes a little bit longer lead way or lead time. Whereas with Ready Set Email, it's like, okay, we have like a week to turn this around and get it edited by the client. Cause we are zipping through it.
I love that so much. And I like to like the theme of like, has you been growing and scaling your businesses? You've really just been looking for like opportunity areas to grow versus like do any big pivots, right? Like, okay, we have this beautiful offer that's working. How do we create a smaller scale version of that? Right? Hey, I'm already kind of doing some coaching consulting within my business. How do I sell just that? Right. So I love that you've made it more profitable just by like kind of organically building it out.
Mm -hmm. Yeah. And so, and it's already, you know, I did a big giveaway when I had 85 people apply to get it for free, which was like a very stressful time in my life because I'm like, how do I pick? Yeah. How do I pick the winner? And so it's been great. And yeah, I'm just, I'm proud of the fact that I had the mental capacity at this point to do that. That was the other thing, Anna, like starting coaching or a different service offering. Like I just didn't have the mental capacity.
Like for the longest time I was like, no, I'm just operating a business in general, the one that I have. And so working with you, it's funny because I tell people I'm like, yeah, I hired Anna to help me like create a new offer. She's actually made me a better CEO. I didn't ask for that, but like, yeah, the way that really early on you supported me through like, how do I create the margin I need in my calendar and in my brain and on my team to both give them what I need?
but so that I can build out an offer so that I do have time to deliver on these client things. Like, so if I think about where I was a year ago, I don't think I would have believed you. I just said, look at all the other things you're gonna do over the next year, especially where I was emotionally. I was like, I'm just here to survive and do a little bit better. Yeah, now I feel like I have this really well -rounded business offering. I love, it's so true, right? You did have to work hard at creating.
Anna (35:47.15)
Obviously with like creating three new offers, you probably already felt stretched thin starting, right? So you really did have to create more capacity with your CEO skills, with your schedule. Like what are some of the CEO habits or skills you're most proud of growing in the last year? well, let me take you to August, 2023. I had one -on -ones with like four or five of my like core team members, like my retainer client or retainer team members. my gosh.
First of all, I am proud that they all told the truth. Like nobody was like batting around like, we don't want to offend the boss. no. They came right out and each of them individually was like, it's you, you're the problem. And I was like, gosh, what am I doing? And it was like, because I was like sporadically sending them tasks on Slack or like, yeah, dropping stuff in Slack. I had to do's on my desktop on my Asana homepage in my Asana.
in a Google Doc, hanging out in my email inbox, things I just need to get back to, my brain felt scattered. And so the way I communicated to my team about anything felt scattered. And specifically, they weren't just like, you suck as a boss, but it was like, Ellie, when you just give us a task, we assume because you're the boss, it has to happen ASAP. Meanwhile, I'm like, for the love, no. If Laura, our blessed project manager, tells you to do something, Laura wins.
Like I own the company, she runs the company. Let's be honest. Like, cause she's doing project -based stuff like for clients. I'm like, no, no, no, that takes precedent over me like asking you to create the silly Google doc template that can wait. So it was just like simple things. Like I wasn't giving them a deadline or communicating like there is no rush to this or especially in Slack, Lord. They're like, yeah, I feel like you're giving me half the task. Like they don't actually understand what they're supposed to be doing.
man, I remember Anna, I used to send Loom videos to explain everything to everybody. I'm holding my head in shame. That was not my best time. Because I'm an external processor. But what we ended up doing, Anna, you would encourage me to take everything, all of my to -dos and put them in Asana. Like give them all a home base, which is so funny, because I do that with my email marketing clients. I'm like, all of your ideas in a content bank and it will relieve your brain, trust me. And so that's what that did.
Anna (38:08.91)
Yeah, having all my thoughts there. And then I had to change my entire brain to like figure out how do I actually assign like these thoughts as tasks to my team member with as much context as necessary or as possible and a due date and up to a person. Like I had, right, cause we put it in Asana, you have to make it a task. Like this is what I want you to do.
And so I joked with my team for like the next month. I was like, I hope you're happy. My brain hurts. It hurts real bad. Because I was so used to just sporadically shooting stuff off. Like to take that extra like five minutes was so tense for me. But my team is so happy. Like I have like, and they tell me, they tell me this. They're like, no, it's great. It's great. And now the level 2 .0 is that we communicate through Asana versus Slack.
about different tasks. So at the actual task name, the front of it will say, reply in comments in all caps, reply in the comments, and then assign it to that person. So basically like, if it's not showing up in my Asana, you're not gonna get an answer probably. And that relieved my whole team. Like Laura came back from Labor Day and was like, I was so worried I was gonna have 40 Slack notifications. And she was like, I had six. And I was like, I'm so happy you only had six. Like.
See, I'm trying guys, I'm trying. Like, but it was really humbling for me. And it gave me so much opportunity to bless my team with like just taking extra time to think through things as uncomfortable as it made me because I don't like moving slow. I don't know if you caught this, I talk really fast and I type really fast and like, da, da, da, da, da. But yeah, it was, you know, going back to your team being your biggest resource.
I remember there was a study years ago that came out that was like some of the biggest issues in the workspace is people not having the resources that they need to do the work. And I was like, Ellie, you are not giving them the resources they need. You're not giving them the context. And so I just kind of had to own up and trust too. Like if I deliver on these things, if I'm doing a better job of communicating, the work will get done much better, much clearer. There'll be a lot less back and forth. Yeah, and it's proven that everybody is much happier now.
Anna (40:28.27)
And I just so admire that like your humility, right? I think like that's why so many people don't make it as they grow and scale their business is they're not willing, like they make it mean something instead of like, okay, maybe there's just this communication skill I need to improve. Maybe there's this leadership thing I need to work on, right? But I think you so beautifully don't make yourself wrong, but you're able to look honestly and take feedback and integrate it. And I think that that's amazing. I didn't cry about it.
You remember I did, I was like, my gosh, I've been the worst business owner and I was through heck and whatever. And you were like, okay, but they are also grown adults and they could have quit by now if they wanted to. And they've chosen. Exactly. You create a beautiful work environment. Your team loves you. Right. And I think sometimes we think because of like whatever reason, like we can't have love and honesty, right. But I really think directness and the fact that your team was able to tell you that is just such a sign of health.
Okay, I wish I could talk with you forever, but tell if people are listening to this and they're like, I love Ali, I want to follow along with her or I want her to make over my emails. How can they connect with you? Yeah. So the best way to connect with me would be to hop on a discovery call. We can chat about my different offers and what would be the best fit for where you're at in business and what your experience is with email marketing. You can do that. So my website is duet .co, D -U -E -T -T dot C -O. There's a contact page there.
And then the most valuable thing I can offer for you would be just to join my email list. So I have a ton of freebies on my resources page. And I say this like, by way of the people who tell me this, who are on my list, people tell me that they often save my emails and come back to them, that they are, yeah, just full of value and practical application. And yeah, a lot of it is encouraging you too. Like the work that you do is so dang important. And I wanna help you get that message in front of more people. So.
Yeah, if you'd follow along on my email list, you can reply back at any time and I will answer, comes to me. Yeah, that's probably the best way to stay connected. And then I host a free monthly event, a coaching workshop, if you will. And so you'll get notifications about joining that as well.
Anna (42:43.822)
Yes, I highly recommend you join the duet community. If ever I get a glimpse of Ali's emails, I just kind of get lost reading them because they're so captivating, so story. That's so cool is like that you walk your talk, right? And so that's a great way to get to know Ali better too is just to see her walk her talk in her email game. I think it really inspires me. Well, thank you, Anna. Yes. Okay. Any final words as we wrap up? I don't care. No.
I just, I'm so happy. I, yeah, I'm in a completely different place than I was a year ago. And I have you to thank for a lot of that, Anna. And thank you for seeing the potential in me and just helping me direct my attention and my energy and my thoughts in the best places along the journey so that I didn't, yeah. So that I was able to accomplish this much.
You are a joy to support Ali. I'm so grateful for you. Okay. I will put in the show notes, all the links that Ali mentioned. and also you could just shoot her an email if you want to. Okay. Have a beautiful rest of your day and thank you for tuning in.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.