Side Hustle Spotlights with Jenny Hughes
Hit your income ceiling in traditional therapy?
Then it’s time for a new ceiling—or to enter a space where the ceiling doesn’t exist.
When you create your own online business, you open the door to expansive income opportunities that allow you to make more without working more.
Jenny was keen on continuing to increase the financial support she provides for her family, and that’s why she joined Side Hustle Support Group.
The outcome? A fulfilling container where Jenny gets to help her ideal client while also supporting her financial dreams too.
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Show Notes:
Hey, Risers. Welcome to episode 181 of Empathy Rising. We are back with another student's spotlight where we will be talking with Jenny Hughes. Before we jump into this episode, I want to remind you that if you are somebody who is interested in the 2023 round of Side Hustle, applications are officially open.
You can head on over to marissalawton.com/side-hustle to read more about the program and to apply, and that will kick off the process for you joining us in January.
This is round number seven, which I am so excited about, and it just feels really special to have so much time and history with this program and feel like it is officially in its stride.
It is so proven and it is just honed in and I'm really excited about where it is right now. We also have another change that we are implementing this round where we are capping enrollment at 30 students. We have run this program with more than 30 and what I have come to believe is that 30 is the sweet spot.
It gives us a really nice, robust group to learn with a diverse group to learn from, but it also keeps that intimacy level high and makes sure that as a participant of the program, you are getting the value and the level of touch that you expect from a high-touch program. With that said, many of those spots are already full.
If you are interested in snagging one of the remaining 30 spots, you're definitely going to want to head over and apply. That link is marissalawtton.com/side-hustle. Alright, so what can I say about Jenny?
From the very beginning of my work with Jenny, it's just been so clear and so evident how pure of a heart she has. Her dedication to Brave, which you'll hear a lot more about: The Brave Trauma Therapist Collective is the whole name. I just call it Brave (I shorten everything).
Her dedication to Brave and the way that she wants to make an impact with this program is evident and it's so apparent from the way she carries herself, the way she speaks, and the look on her face (you guys won't get to see), but just it is so clear how pure of heart and pure of intention she is and how generative she is with this program.
We talked the other day during office hours about soulmates and redefining that as mates of our soul—people, things, and places that feel like they are mates of our soul. Jenny shared that she feels like this program.
I really hope that you hear that and it comes across in this episode cuz it's something that's been cool to just be a part of and to walk alongside as she has developed. Let's jump into the episode with Jenny.
Marissa (M): Hey risers. Welcome to episode 181 of Empathy Rising. We are continuing our student spotlight for our current Side Hustle students who are just about to be Side Hustle grads. In this series, they are able to share their experience going through the program with you and give you that 'real student' feedback.
I invite them to share openly and honestly and let you know what was fun for them, what was hard for them, what worked, what didn't work, all of that stuff, so you can get a really clear picture of what it would be like for you to participate in the program.
Today we're going to be chatting with a student, Jenny Hughes, she is a trauma psychologist and she is going to be sharing all about Side Hustle and then also all about the program that she has created as a byproduct of being a Side Hustle student.
Jenny, do you wanna just formally introduce yourself, let people know where you're at, what you do clinically, and then we can jump into your Side Hustle experience?
Jenny Hughes (J): Yeah. Thank you so much for having me here, first and foremost. I'm a psychologist. I'm based in Houston, Texas. I'm from Colorado, did grad school in California, lived in New Orleans, and then came to Houston. I've been all over the place, and I specialize in treating trauma and PTSD.
Right now I only work clinically with adults, but in my past life as a psychologist, I was trained as a child psychologist working with children and families affected by abuse and neglect. I think our careers take a lot of different pathways and I never imagined myself being where I am, but I'm really happy that I'm doing the work that I'm doing.
M: Yeah, I think that's cool that you bring that up because it's even within our clinical work, we have evolutions. Then for some, it's "oh, okay, I hit my income ceiling", or, "I've been doing this for a decade plus and I'm bored", or whatever. Another evolution that can come is stepping outside of the therapy room which is exactly where you're at.
Can you share a little bit about that? You've had evolutions in your clinical career. What made you think about wanting to do something just not even clinical?
J: I was really money motivated. I am the breadwinner for my family, and last year we were coming up against that income ceiling and we were like, "we need to figure out how to increase our income somehow", and I had that... I don't know if it's an existential crisis moment, but I was, "I can't take on more. I cannot give more hours of myself to clinical work because I'm already so close to the edge of this burnout", honestly.
I give thanks to our financial advisor who was like, "Jenny, you should just start a membership site" and he said it really nonchalant. He didn't realize that there were so many things that go into protecting my license.
But that started the idea of one-to-many, which I had heard about, and seen in different spaces, but hadn't paid attention to because I didn't need it at that time. Then I was confronted with a really serious need. I'm the kind of person where, once I realize I need to do something, I figure out how to do it, and then I do it.
It all happened very quickly in terms of starting Side Hustle, but it really was a money motivation.
Now that still is there. I still am the breadwinner for my family. Also a career satisfaction motivation of diversifying the things that I'm doing, because I like having a lot of different things to keep me interested and to balance out where my energy's going.
M: Yeah, and in terms of money, I'm more money motivated too, and I'm not shy about that. I have whole episodes about my income goals and what I'm doing with my revenue and all of that kind of stuff.
But it's like, having different income streams of where that money comes from, for someone like me, it keeps me mentally engaged. If I'm bored over here, I can go play around over here or whatever.
Also, just options and alternatives, if you get to the point where "I just don't even wanna see 20 clients a week" or whatever, then you have this other option that you can lean more heavily on.
That's one of the things that I think is cool is just giving yourself almost… I've been calling it lately, like the gift of options—it's gifting yourself with these opportunities that if you stay in one lane, you don't get.
J: I love that. I think it really is a gift. Something I talk a lot about in my clinical work, but also in my side hustle is making informed decisions. Being able to be in a place where you can truly take all the information and make a choice as opposed to feeling like you're doing it out of survival.
Whether that's because you're overcoming trauma or you're burnt out as a clinician and you feel like this is your one life raft, so you're gonna take it even though you haven't had the space or the opportunity to look at everything.
M: Yeah, and I love that. I've been working with myself and just in my work, the difference between responding and reacting. You're making me think of that, it's different words, but a similar thing: if you can come from this grounded, responsive place instead of this, frenetic, reactionary place.
J: Yeah, and the outcome might be the same, and if the outcome is the same, if you're making it from a place that's more grounded, you're not gonna question it. You're going to continue to feel grounded in it.
Whereas when it is a reaction, it's a survival response. Sure, it was necessary, and you had to do it, but often it still lives in the back of your mind and you question it, you go back over it, you ruminate.
M: Yeah, and just enjoying the process too. Even if it's a difficult decision, being able to say, "oh, this is really hard right now, but I'm going to open myself up and just find moments of enjoyment or moments of peace" or whatever in this, instead of gripping too tightly.
I actually just wrote an email about white-knuckling and that experience, and like you said the result might be the exact same, but which is more fun; white-knuckling it through it, or just relaxing into it?
Let's talk a little bit about your side hustle experience—your choices, all of that stuff, what led you here, and then we'll dive into Brave because I think this program is amazing and I think a lot of my listeners can benefit from it as well.
If you could cast your memory back a little bit to about this time a year ago, what were you thinking? You just had this financial planner or financial advisor who just happened to know about membership sites, which is so fortuitous, and then how did that turn into you being in Side Hustle?
J: I've worked with Amber Lida before, had been following her for a long time, and so I was like, "Alright, let me just go into the Amber Lida rabbit hole because I knew she'd had some new offers, and she had just sent this email and about one of her new programs and she was like, "This is a right fit for you if...not for you this..."
Under the 'not', it was like, "it's not a good fit for you if you haven't created your first side hustle yet. That's when you go to Marissa Lawton".
M: Aww.
J: I'm one of those people that, I'm sure that I had heard of you, but I hadn't listened to your podcast, anything like that. It was like, I trust Amber. She helped me start my private practice. I went to your website. Like I said, I make decisions and I do it.
I was like, okay, this is what I'm doing. This person understands that it's not as simple as just starting a membership site.
That was the scariest thing, was how do I protect my license and make sure I'm doing this in a way that is ethical and is aware of all of those things? You spoke to all of that. I was like, "Alright, I'm just gonna submit this obligation and see what happens".
M: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Did you ever take the Kolbe?
J: Take what?
M: The Kolbe—it's an assessment that I just throw out there at the beginning of every side hustle round and I'm like, "If you're interested, take this assessment". It doesn't sound like you did, but I always find it fascinating because there are four results.
There's a researcher, a quick start, and a follow-through person—I don't remember what it's called—and then this kinesthetic, has-to-get-their-hands-dirty kind of person. I am high on research and high on quick-start.
I suck at follow-through. It's my lowest one. Then getting my hands dirty is a medium. It almost sounds similar. Once I know what I want, then I can make a decision like that. Then following through is not great for me. Hence, Side Hustle and all the accountability and all of the "here's how you do it", and "here's how I almost forced myself to follow through".
I said this before, but Side Hustle was the program that I needed because when I first started eight years ago in online income, I'd write a blog post, and then three weeks later I'd post on Instagram and there was no system and there was no cohesion. I was like "how do I do this and turn this into a business?" I literally created the program that I wish I had.
J: Even though I made this decision very quickly, I had a lot of conversations with people. With my husband, my financial advisor, with my aunt, who's also a very good business coach with big, high-level companies.
Ultimately I was like, "I know that this is something that I want and I need to do", and a big part of the decision was like, "if you tell me what to do, I can do it". I'm not going to spend my time trying to figure all that out.
I would much rather make this investment in myself, and in my business, and ultimately in my family and my life, and to know that it's all gonna be laid out there, I'm gonna have a community that's doing it with me and it's up to me to do that follow-through, but with that structure, I know it's like school, right?
I know that when I have that structure, do it. Is that internal motivation or external? Probably much more external for me, but when it's there I can get stuff done.
M: Yeah. I think we're really similar in that way. Money motivated, externally motivated a little bit—and is there, in my language, a shadow to all that? Yeah, of course. But it also works.
When the financial advisor said membership site, did you also look at group programs and courses, or were you just really committed to the membership site from the get-go?
J: A little bit of both. I took your quiz and that also spit out "membership", but then I looked, I think... the way yours works is you can also see the other responses somehow or on your website or something.
M: Might've got my tripwire.
J: Maybe. Looking through those other ones. For me, the membership site was really speaking to me because of the long-term growth opportunities. Acknowledging and accepting that it's a lot more work upfront and that once you get through...
I think you talked about it as sort of balance of, "you're working really hard for a few people and then all of a sudden the scales tip", and you're not working super hard and there's a lot of people that you're working with.
That really spoke to me in terms of the scalability of it, as opposed to doing a higher touch group program because I'm wanting to move away from high touch.
M: Yeah. Membership sites are by far... okay, so you have eBooks, they're super scale. Courses are scalable, but membership sites are extremely scalable and they also provide accessibility to the customer too. Membership sites are just a cool and unique offer to play around with.
Then of course we have the questions of churn and all that and retention, and we make plans for that. But obviously, sales is first and then retention comes second. That's right where you're at. I love that because I remember having the conversation with you, "there are coaches out there that will promise you like 10 grand in 60 days or whatever, and that's not me".
We talked about this 18-month timeframe where it's nine months in Side Hustle and then nine months to a year after that where you can be really at this like sustainable full-time income with a membership site. How was that for you as somebody who is money motivated, and I was basically saying, "this is gonna take you two years".
J: It was okay, I appreciate that you are realistic and never overpromise anything. It didn't feel like you were crushing any dreams, or dragging it out into this long slog. It just was the reality of it. I work well with that kind of feedback, then it also allows me to set my sights on things.
My husband and I were just talking the other night about "okay, I'm already thinking about when I'm gonna do my second launch" and in the next four to six months and figuring out where that's gonna fit in with our life and things that we have going on around that time.
It helps me have that forethought to know I'm not hanging my hat on this first launch. I'm super excited about it. I feel really good about it, but it is just the very first step into this.
M: Yeah. Like we said right before I started recording, when you graduate from Side Hustle, that's not the end. That's the beginning. You finished your work with me, but it's the start of your online business or your online income stream.
I love that you guys are planning out based on lifestyle. That's the Side Hustle Philosophy, lifestyle first. You're planning, when does a launch fit in with our family, with our needs, with our wants, and I really respect that a lot.
J: We have to fit it in somewhere between Mardigras and Jazz Fest.
M: Yeah, that's my priority. It's right there. We love it. I think what I've been doing with other guests/other students is going phase by phase because it's the structure of Side Hustle, but also gives structure to our conversation, which if you haven't picked up yet, I'm like the queen of structure.
Phase one, you were committed to a membership site, but coming up with the concept of Brave. In phase one we really flesh out "what is the offer?" We validate that offer, we branch that offer, and then we build the funnel for that offer. Can you share ups and downs, challenges, fun parts, all of that for phase one?
J: Yeah, even pre-phase one. I had started on Space Holder and I had made it most of the way through. I had gotten the bones there ready in terms of the person, promise, and all of that good stuff.
It felt good coming into Side Hustle knowing that I had done some of that foundational work. Then it was coming up against the work that I had already done and allowing myself to be flexible.
The first thing there was the ideal customer avatar because when I first wrote that narrative about that person, I think I was still just writing about myself, and I wasn't thinking about myself a few years ago because Brave is for trauma therapists and vicarious trauma.
I've been there, done that. It was a lot of that kind of internal work of thinking about "how am I different from when VT was really a problem for me? How can I better understand what that might be like for someone who would want to be in Brave?"
M: When you reconciled, alright, me now versus me 5, 10 years ago, or whatever, was that hard to let go of stuff? Flexibility, I think, is a really key trait, but was there any "oh I'm bummed that this is different" or...
J: My first reaction was, yes, it was hard to let go of stuff, but then I think the momentum is just going in Side Hustle, so it's just "keep going" and it forces you to just let it go, and keep moving forward, which ultimately made it easier to then do the other pieces because once my ideal customer avatar was more clear, it made all those other pieces easier.
I wasn't, like, fighting against myself in this avatar. To have the other pieces fall into place.
M: Let's talk about branding because you're somebody who built your branding and then you recently (I wouldn't say late in the game, that's not true, but) later in the program, went back and revisited your branding. Can you share that piece?
J: Yeah for me, there's design and copy and with copy and writing, I can do that all day, every day. I really like writing. I enjoy it, I've been able to make the switch from academic writing to this more casual writing pretty easily, and if anything, I write too much.
The design piece has just never been my strength. I can be crafty and make things with glitter and whatever, but when it comes to designing a brand, what I put together with the support of Shayna, the design person in Side Hustle was amazing. I was actually really proud of it, but I also kept looking at it and I was like, "this just isn't quite right".
There just came a time this summer when I had an opportunity to do something else with Shayna to help her with a project. From there I was like, "screw it. I'm going all in. I just want you to redo my brand so that it gives respect to Brave and to the people who are going to be part of this community".
Betsy, one of our current students too, was like, "Jenny, your old brand was great, but this is your grownup brand". That's how I feel.
M: I'll agree with that. I would agree with it. The one that Shayna and she didn't start from scratch. She started from what you had, but it does seem a little more elevated. A little more mature. I love that you bring that to the table because everybody is coming to Side Hustle with different skill sets.
I taught myself all of this. I would say similar to you, I would write my copywriting probably 9/10. 10/10, toot my own horn. I'm pretty decent at that.
My design, I'd give myself maybe a 7 now, but when I started designing, oh my you guys could go back if you really wanted to on my Instagram, just scroll way down and see that stuff and—oh wow. My design started at a 3 or a 4, and now when I do it myself, it's like a 7 it's passable, it's fine. I'll put it out there. But that was not a skill set that I had when I started.
I recognize that and that's why we have the support staff of Shayna and Kristen, and it's a done-with-you process. You're starting from their templates and they're giving you feedback and stuff, so you're still very much doing it yourself.
They also do offer side hustle discounts and things if you do wanna just hire them out because every round I have a couple of students who are like, "yeah, let me just pay for this". They provide that service, but they're also giving a Side Hustle discount.
What's cool about this is they already have worked on your brand. They already know you, and so it's that continuity. You're not starting over with a designer who's gonna charge you full price and who doesn't even know what your project is.
I think that one of the cool things about the program is the support is there and it's there for free, but then you can also choose to take on a higher tier if you want. It's not required by any means, but it's there for you if you want.
J: We have students who just used one of Shayna's design templates and was like, "plug and play. I'm good. I'm not gonna do anything" and for me, I'm really grateful that I went through and built my brand the first time, so I had that experience and understand what goes on behind the scenes with it.
Also acknowledging it's not my strength and that I'm committed to Brave and want that to shine through.
M: We finished phase one with ending up with this funnel, which is a machine where we're acquiring new leads, which you've done like the coolest job of acquiring leads. I can't wait to share that when we talk about marketing in just a minute, but we acquire these leads and they go through this machine, and then they end up on the waitlist.
What that does is allows us to test our messaging. It allows us to test our technology, it allows us to test a bunch of things. How was building out that funnel for you? Because it was probably one of your first online projects if I'm making an assumption.
J: Yeah, it was because even in my private practice, I built a Squarespace page, but then I also paid someone to ultimately make my private practice website. That was the first sprint in Side Hustle and the first intensity in terms of the amount of work to do, to stay on track, on time with the program, which was important to me.
It was just put your head down and get it done, but once it was done and you could see all the pieces come together - because a lot of it was just like, "Okay, do this and then do this, and then do this, and then just trust that it's all gonna come together" - and then once you see it come together, you're like, "Oh. Whoa, that's magical".
M: Yeah, it's like speaking of crafts, I like to knit and do macrame and like different things. It's like when you start a project, it's okay, it's in progress, but when you finish it and you can hang it up on the wall or you can put it on and if it's like a hat or something like that when it's done, it's a whole other feeling.
That's cool that that's, like, what you experienced when you got your funnel finished.
J: Yeah. Totally. I also felt throughout that, that there was such a good level of support with all the new technology stuff too. That really helped.
M: What we talk about in 'funnel' phase and compare it to 'launch' phase because those are two of the phases where you're building, but in 'funnel' phase you also have the learning curve because you're building, but you're also learning everything for the first time.
It's "here's how to make a landing page", "here's how to make a mailer light automation", whatever, then the other day I was like, "pop quiz", every time we have a new group and you were just on mute. You have automation, you just knew it.
By the time we're in 'funnel' phase, that learning curve piece, you know what you're building and you've already learned how to do it. It's a little bit more effective or efficient, I guess is the word I'm looking for.
Let's talk about marketing because you are the collaboration queen. I'm dubbing round six, this 2022 round, as the collaboration round. I give everybody a nickname.
We've had COVID round, we've had all these different ones, but this one is collaboration round because you guys have partnered within the group and outside of the group more often than any other round before.
Do you wanna walk us through what you've been doing, marketing, because you've been doing your own content marketing as well, but also some of these like events and things?
J: Yeah. So the content marketing, that was a whole new world for me too because I was always a social media consumer and not a poster. I had to learn all that technology. Then Betsy and I decided to do a joint venture and it was a cross between a visibility event and a joint venture because we had these dual goals.
We wanted to both increase our audience so more people would know about us and we were pitching something at the end. With that, we decided to reach out to folks.
I'm trauma, she's substance use and abuse, and so we reached out to people with larger audiences in our respective areas. We were able to get two bigger names to come to this event with us and we did this awesome event called Braving the Course, and it was all about helping.
Another piece of it was we were really, it was so important to us that we really, truly taught skills at the event. We wanted to deliver really good high-quality content that people could actually use in their practice.
The goal was to help learn more about doing trauma work and how to integrate substance use work. Guy McPherson came on to talk about trauma stuff and Gene McCarthy came to talk about substance use stuff, and it was an awesome event. We had a really good time and it was super exciting. That was really fun.
M: Do you wanna share results in terms of numbers?
J: Yeah, so we had 299 registrants, and actually my initial goal was 400. Then we started to decrease that and I think we decreased it to 200 and then we surpassed it. I felt really good about where we landed with the number of registrants.
M: Round it up and call it 300, like 300s for your first event. What was really cool too about the way you guys did it is and I told some of the others who are doing panels and stuff, I was like, "Get with Jenny and Betsy" because you guys made like a task list for each of you and you broke it out of like in each other's strengths and stuff like that, which was cool.
You took what I teach and made it your own, which is cool for me too because I'm teaching systems. It's not like you have to do it this way or this is the end all, be all way. It was cool to see you guys also bring your own organization and your own skill set to it too.
J: Yeah, I agree. Focusing on our strengths was super important because if I had to do the design stuff for that event, that would've been terrible. I would've hated it. It wouldn't have looked good.
Betsy has a strength there, and I'm a much better writer than Betsy is, and she will tell you that first and foremost. It also just happened to be that we had complementary strengths.
M: That teaches you to pick your collaborators wisely too. We talk about these things when you start doing collaborations, looking for people who are on-brand because ultimately they're an extension of your brand. From your standpoint, which I don't necessarily talk about, but I think is cool to bring up, is the complimentary skills.
J: Yeah. If it's possible, if you know that ahead of time. I think it's amazing to have.
M: Yeah, then you also participated in a really cool event that a lot of listeners probably recently have heard of in Therabundle. Do you wanna share what that was like?
J: Yeah. Tamara Howell is the mastermind there. I just happened to see her post about applications opening in a Facebook post. I used my tripwire that we had already made in the first phase of Side Hustle, and that's what I submitted to be part of their bundle.
It was accepted and all of a sudden, the cool thing about the bundle and also with Braving the Course is I have even more people on my email list, but I have been forging relationships with collaborators.
Guy McPherson, and I was just telling you, he offered to put my hype event in his trauma therapist newsletter and I've been setting up coffee chats with tons of people from Therabundle and talking about how they can come into my membership site and be guest experts and vice versa. I'm presenting in one of the Therabundles as a guest expert in December. It's so cool. I think that's been way more rewarding than anything else.
Just being able to learn from them. It was cool to be able, to not only participate and grow my audience but to really forge these relationships with collaborators and already set things up to be able to be in each other's programs and to learn and grow together. That's been really awesome.
M: I remember talking about ways that we could use strategically beyond to catapult some things because I launched this business off of a visibility event and I was still doing one-on-one work, writing for therapists at that point. I was booked out. The event was in November and December and I was booked out one-on-one till June.
Then I was like okay, how do I keep this momentum going? And that's what we've been able to talk about too, is how to keep it going beyond just the event.
In phase two, we talk about different types of marketing, visibility marketing, content marketing, and all of that. You're somebody who's done multiple types of marketing. Would you say you have a favorite? Would you say you've had better results from one versus the other?
J: I think visibility marketing is my favorite. I like talking about my program and I'm someone for whom public speaking is, I think also a strength. I like doing that, I don't get super nervous either pitching or going on things like podcasts. I also have seen good results from it.
When those podcasts come out, seeing that stuff happen in my mailer light is really exciting. I also do content marketing, so I try to post every day. Usually, I don't post on the weekends because I'm not doing that.
I think that is more for me, I look at that as more of know and trust as opposed to necessarily converting a ton of people onto my program.
Although posting in therapist Facebook groups about your business is a really great way to get people to come to events, so that's a bit different. I have both of those. Visibility is just more enjoyable though.
M: Yeah. Yeah, and that's what's really cool too, your strengths are different than other people's strengths because we've had some of the students come on and say, "Oh, I really like being more behind the screen."
We had Abby on one of the spotlight ones and she's "I like being behind the screen. I brought on somebody to do the social piece for me where I just type all the stuff and then they take it and they run with it and turn it into these more visible pieces".
It meets you where you are at, to use therapist language and I like the fact that I've designed it as a strengths-based program. We come in and we say what feels good for you, what feels fun for you? Because if it's enjoyable, you're more likely to be consistent.
How can we design a marketing plan that's gonna work for you? Not me just telling you "this is what you need to do" and then it feels like you're begrudging it the whole time.
Do you mind sharing your numbers, how many people, you said you got almost 300 for the first event, where's your total email list now? How has your waitlist grown? All of those.
J: Right now my total list is 749.
M: That's incredible. Your first event was in July? At the time of recording, that's three, and a half months ago, or two and a half months ago if I'm doing math right. Two and a half months ago. And you've grown by 750 people.
J: Yeah, and with Braving the Course, the number of subscribers that I still have from them is 239. From 299 to 239, which I feel great about.
Also with Braving the Course, it was interesting because we were combining two audiences and so I imagine there were a lot of people there that were really there more for the substance use stuff and more for the trauma stuff. Whatever.
For Therabundle, there are still 10 more days left of Therabundle for them to access the offers, and right now I have 325. That's great. Those are my biggest buckets in terms of where this 750 has come from. But then I also, for my hype event, I have 86 people.
Then on my waitlist, I have... it's weird in Mailerlite. Technically it's 15, but it's actually 12 because some of them, their emails didn't work or whatever. I have 12 active people in my yeah.
M: The 86, I'm just curious for me, are those internal, or are you external promotion as well?
J: Both.
M: Some of them are coming from your promotion to your list and some of them are brand new subscribers to you. That's something that we don't talk about a lot too. Launching itself can be a big list builder. We wanna launch to the people who are in our audience already, but we can grow our audience through our launch too.
J: Yeah, because my opt-in group, so the people that have just come to me through the opt-in, it's only 119. My hype event is almost at the same amount that my opt-in is and so a lot of these people are brand new to me, so it'll be interesting to see what happens with that in the launch.
M: Yeah. What's cool about your outlook, and just for the listeners to hear about how this works is all of this is data and you've done a really good job.
We talk about how when we start setting up our funnel software, the cleaner and clearer you can label these things and track these things, the cleaner and clearer your data is going to be. You have already done a really good job of that.
When we make sales in the next few weeks, you're gonna be able to track that line all the way back, and you are going to have some, I would say maybe 50%... I don't know off the top of my head, but let's call it 50% of your audience is gonna be cold.
We're going to see how this offer sells to a cold audience, which again, is just gonna be data because I know you're leaning toward Evergreen over time. Evergreen is selling to a cold audience.
That's the whole point of Evergreen, taking out the nurture. You go from lead acquisition to sales. If we see how it sells to cold, we'll be more informed as you start to pivot toward Evergreen over time
J: Yeah, definitely.
M: It's a long game. When you work with me you're working the long game. We talk about this in terms of hunting versus farming, and you've gone out and done both.
A lot of what you're doing right now is farming strategies. You're cultivating, your tilling, your planting, and you will harvest that for many seasons to come.
I also teach hunting strategies like go out and have a cash injection, go out and have this, so you have revenue that comes in. When you hunt, you eat for a day.
That's what I think you've done a really good job of is holding space for both of these things. Some of this is gonna have an immediate return, and some of this is gonna have a longer return, and that's okay.
Going into the launch, how are you feeling? You've said you're feeling good about everything, but this is the part where it becomes real when you make your funnel. But also now we're putting it out there for the first time for people to pay money.
J: My waitlist card opens next Monday—in less than a week.
M: It's so exciting and it's crazy.
J: It's hard to believe that is happening. I am going into it just like we've been talking about with a mindset of curiosity and just to see what happens. I'm hopeful, but I'm not, like, beholden to any specific outcome.
Also, I really appreciate that we've had a long pre-launch because I am gonna have everything automated by the end of this week. I'll be able to just hit play and go and deal with things as they come up, but know that the core of the launch is just automated and ready to go.
M: Yeah. I think that is key when you're doing this as a side hustle because even when I didn't have Rooted and I was just doing the therapist business as my primary business, I've had launches where everything's been pre-done and I've been "on top of it", and then I've had launches literally where I'm writing Tuesday's sales email Monday night.
Even when you only have one business, that sucks. That's not fun. The whole goal of the way we set up phase three is so that it feels a little disjointed, you're working three, or four weeks ahead of your audience.
Sometimes that's a little discombobulating "wait, what are they seeing? Why am I like way ahead of them?" but it's for this exact reason. So that when everything opens, you're just sitting back and letting these prescheduled things unfold and you're not doing them in real time.
I'm curious, have you made any changes around the house? We talk about energy management and we talk about resource management coming into the launches. Have you felt like you've needed to make any changes or accommodations as you've moved into the launch phase?
J: Yeah, it was helpful to have the reminder to talk to my partner about this, and he is just amazing and super supportive. He's the primary at-home caregiver for our youngest child, so he's already running the house, which is great because I am the breadwinner.
It was more just "hey, babe, so this is gonna be happening and more like my emotional energy is going to be less". I'm very lucky that I didn't have to say "Hey, I'm not gonna be able to cook dinner for you guys" because he's already got that.
Being clear that emotionally I'm not gonna have a whole lot additional to give to him for a couple of weeks. Having that conversation ahead of time, especially in our relationship, is really important because, I think in any relationship, I don't want anyone to feel like I am rejecting them or that they've done anything wrong.
It's just being upfront and saying, "Look, I am conserving my energy in very intentional ways so that we can do this launch and then we can resume things on the other side".
M: Yeah. I think that is part of this whole lifestyle-first approach. This is meant to fit into what you already have going on and eventually if you're able to shrink your practice or stop teaching or some of these other things that you have because you have a lot of fires going on.
That will be an eventual goal, but right now those are realities. You have kids, you have a partner, you have your practice, you teach and you're introducing something else.
How do we make that introduction fit into what's already going on? Let's talk about Brave. Tell us about this offer and what gifts it's gonna bring to the world and how it's going to be so beneficial for therapists.
J: The Brave Trauma Therapist Collective is an online membership community for trauma therapists to help them address the inevitable experience of vicarious trauma so that they can do that healing and avoid burnout.
VT - vicarious trauma, it just is gonna happen. Whether you're a trauma therapist or not, you're at risk, but trauma therapists in particular, but it doesn't have to lead to that end-of-the-road burnout where, like we were talking about earlier, you jump ship because it's your only survival mechanism.
When people join the Brave Collective, they get to join a community of other trauma therapists who get it, who understand what it's like to do this work, and who are really proud of the fact that they're trauma and wanna share that.
Within that community also getting content and education for me and guest experts, bi-monthly calls. One will be more of a content call, and then another will be a live Zoom call more for kind of consultation, whether it's cases or to just talk about how we're doing as trauma therapists.
The community is gonna be hosted on Facebook and then the content will be actually in Thrive Cart. Went ahead and did Thrive Cart. I'm gonna host it there.
M: Yeah. I would think that I've always really loved about your design of Brave (because memberships can either be content-heavy or community-heavy) you always knew, yes, education's important, but you really, from the get-go were about the community piece. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
J: As a trauma therapist myself, I know how isolating it can feel doing trauma work. Not very many people sign up to be therapists. Even fewer people sign up to be trauma therapists.
I'll hear from other therapists all the time "oh, I don't know how you can do that work" and they intend that as a compliment, but over time it stopped feeling like that and it was like, okay, here's another time where I have to shut down and I can't talk about what it's like to do my work.
That was why the community inside Brave is so important because we're not saying that to each other. Certainly, we can set boundaries. If there's a certain kind of trauma that is not helpful for someone to hear about, they can set that boundary.
But knowing that it's a space where you can come and there's a lot of unspoken understandings as fellow trauma therapists and also open communication about how we're gonna navigate all of this stuff together.
M: What you just said, I obviously didn't specialize in trauma, but when you were saying set a boundary, I even felt a permission piece there, "oh, I can set a boundary of what's okay to talk about and what's not", because I feel if you sign up for that work, then you're almost like "I signed up for this, so I should be able to handle it all". Even the idea of setting a boundary, I felt that in my body when you said that.
J: Absolutely. It doesn't make you less than as a trauma therapist to set boundaries around that, it doesn't mean you're not cut out for this work.
M: Do you wanna share your framework? Because I think you have a really clear framework that Brave is gonna work through and you have a really clear method for which to do this work. I think that's really important.
J: Yeah, the framework is "name it, tame it, reframe it". Name it, and it goes visually it's represented in a circle because we go through it in a kind of, over and over again in the same order, but name it, we have to name our VT regularly. It's not a one-and-done thing because VT likes to sneak up and be a chameleon and all of a sudden shows up wearing a different mask.
That's what "name it" is. It's just, what does VT look like for me this month? Tame it is: what are those things that are helpful for me right now?
Whether that be self-care, which I'm still trying to figure out a different word to use for which I don't like the term self-care. I think it's lost its meaning. Whatever it is that someone needs to be able to manage the vicarious trauma so it doesn't grow bigger and bigger into something like burnout.
"Reframe it" is my favorite because it's when we get to focus on vicarious resilience. Most therapists can resonate with this, but when you see someone overcome PTSD, it is so incredible. The little wins, the big wins.
One reason why I love being a trauma therapist is that PTSD is treatable and people get better and those moments, fill your cup in this really sustainable way.
That's what "reframe it" is, focusing on that vicarious resilience. Then guess what? We go right back in to name it because we need to name it again. We need to do that regularly.
M: Yeah. I think that it's cool that you don't shy away from that because a lot of programs will promise "you do this once it's done, you've got the result and you're cured", or "you're healed" or whatever. You're not claiming that and you're not shying away from that.
You're admitting and acknowledging and owning the fact that trauma work is going to require continuous work on you and this is a place where you can feel completely held as you do that continuous work. I think that's really cool. Where do we go? Where do we find out more about everything?
J: My website is braveproviders.com. If you wanna download my free Vicarious Trauma Tracker, that's a great place to start and you can go to braveproviders.com/vttracker Vicarious Trauma Tracker 'VTT'.
That'll start you on part of my method of naming vicarious trauma and in your own search of how you want to be able to address it and manage it.
M: You're giving them the quick win of insight right away. Then they're able to follow along with, okay, is this something I want support for. If so, I know where to go. That's really cool. We'll have all those links for you in the show notes.
Don't worry about writing 'em down, especially if you're driving. Be safe and we'll have them all clickable for you. And you can follow along with Jenny over at braveproviders.com.
Jenny, if you just had words of wisdom or anything for somebody who's sitting in your shoes where you were a year ago, and they're on the fence about Side Hustle and they're like, "should I do it? Should I not do it?" what would you say to them?
J: Go with your gut. Yeah, so just like Malcolm Gladwell says, “our gut is almost always right". I think that we need to take space and time with ourselves to be able to hear that internal wisdom, but it's there.
Certainly seek guidance. As I said, I called all my support people and support people who are professionals in this place to give me really good guidance and counseling on it.
But ultimately, I listened to my gut about the things that I was needing for myself and my family and felt like this was a space that would resonate with who I am as a person.
M: Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon, and we'll have all of your links for people to check out.
J: Thank you so much for having me.
M: It's been such a joy to work with you and just be a little piece of your journey. It fills me up to watch how what you guys create and I feel really proud of you guys. Proud of the container that facilitates all of this. Again, just thanks for being willing to share.
J: Thank you.
M: Alright. I beam and light up whenever I spend time with Jenny. She is a go-getter. Some of you might resonate with the drive that Jenny brings to her experience inside Side Hustle.
Side Hustle is what you make of it. The curriculum is a jumping-off point and I guide you through what to do, when to do it, how to do it, where to start, where to go, and what's your next step.
I guide you through all of that stuff and there is room for you to play. There's room for you to experiment. There's room for you to make things your own, and I am all about that. Jenny is someone who is really inspirational in that way. I hope learning from her and hearing from her has inspired you to make your side hustle a reality.
If Side Hustle's Support Group feels like it might be the program to help you do that, I would love to have you apply. You will do that over at marissalawton.com/side-hustle.
Remember, there are only 30 spots available this round, and many of them are full already. If you know that this is your next step, hurry over and apply before all of those spots are gone.
Alright. I can't wait to talk with you next week, and until then, keep on rising.
