A (4:51)
And I was still working my 9 to 5 at that point hadn't fully gone into the online space, but that was kind of my dipping my toes first into the online space and I learned how to monetize my online blog and then from there and I learned how to do that very, very quickly. The reason why I knew how to do that so well was because I was so good at messaging. And the reason why I was so good at messaging is Because I had spent years as a publicist and, you know, that was my degree. That's always been just something that has kind of come naturally to me. I am a communicator and connector at heart. And so when I was able to start monetizing it and the way that I really worked messaging back then was not content creation, it wasn't podcasting. My medium was pitching. That was the content that I would create to monetize my blog. I would pitch businesses and brands and companies that I aligned with to work with, and then I would promote their products and services on my blog. Other bloggers started to take note and they were like, hey, how are you doing this? And Julie, how are you doing this? When you don't have a big following on social media, you don't have a lot of people. You know, my views were considerably lower than some of the women that were coming to me. You know, they were like, how do I have. And Again, this is 2013, 2014, 2015. They're like, how do I have, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers, which would be like millions of followers in today's landscape. But I'm not making any money and you have like 2,000 followers and you're making $5,000 a month. And it's like, well, I know how to create messaging, I know how to pitch myself, I know how to show up. And so that then turned into consulting, which then I hit a limit because I am only one person and there's only so many people that I can consult. And so I wanted to be able to create as much impact as possible. So I had to go to a one to many model. Yeah, the model that I chose was online courses. So I created my first online course in 2017. So mind you, 2013 to 2017 was the year of me, the years of me really building, right, consulting, doing brand partnerships, writing for media outlets to try to get my visibility out there. Like anything that I could do to make this messaging work for me so that I could root in my visibility and really share with people what my genius and authority was. Hey friends, it's Julie. Now all the time I hear from so many of you that you're wanting recommendations of people that I know, that I like, that I trust, that can help you build your business. So if you've ever thought about launching a podcast or already have one, but want to finally get out of the weeds of editing, uploading and managing all the moving pieces, I have to tell you about Commonwealth Company. Now, I've been working with Erin and her team at Commonwealth Co for over a year now. And they handle absolutely everything for this very show that you're listening to or watching right now, from editing to production, to making sure it all sounds polished and professional. They are my go to source for all things podcast production. And when you let them know I sent you, you get a little savings, you'll save 10% off your first month of services. Again, I cannot recommend them enough for all of your podcast production needs. Just head over to commonwealth-co again, that's commonwealth-co.com and mention my name when you reach out for 10% off your first month of services. And so in 2017, I created my first course which taught other people how to pitch themselves so that they could get media partnerships, get brand partnerships. And then that really started to take off in my small little corner of the Internet. A year later in 2017, I launched my podcast, the Influencer Podcast, and really started to learn more strategies on what it meant to have an online business and how to scale it. I started to invest, you know, really invest in myself. Not just downloading freebies and not just, you know, buying little courses here and there, but I actually invested in a $25,000 mastermind in 2017. Mind you, I had not made a million dollars in my business yet. I think from 2016 to 2017, I was right around that, like, a hundred to $125,000 a year mark. I was still kind of doing some of my PR stuff, but I was really, I was ready. I was like, I'm ready to go all in on this online thing. And I think that it was a mix, Stephanie, of having this online course that was literally created off of my genius of like, really knowing what is my genius? What do I want to be known for? That's another question that you need to ask yourself. And. And those two questions along with the third question, which is, what am I really good at? What could I really help someone with that they would find so much value in that they would actually pay for it? And I had years of PR experience and really a few years in the online space consulting to know, well, okay, people have already paid me for versions of this, so let me put it in a course. Then that course started doing well. Well, for me at the time, I told myself, I said, if I can just make $5,000 a month off of this course, like, that's life changing. Yeah, life change. Life changing, right? And life giving. Because that meant that I didn't have to hustle with these one on one consulting Stuff and still doing PR stuff on the side and still doing these brand deals on the side. It's like, if I could just make $5,000 a month. And so I think the first month I didn't, but I came close. It was like $3,000 a month. And then I just kept going. And throughout that year, the core sales mixed with all the other things that I was doing, I was around that small, like, lower six figure mark. That was more money than I had ever made.