Ordinary Is Not a Bad Word: Building a Business That Fits Your Life

You've been told that if your business isn't scaling, you're falling behind. But what if that message was never meant for you—or most of us online business owners—in the first place? 

This Talk Copy to Me episode is for anyone who's built a business around their actual life and wondered why all the marketing out there seems to assume you want something completely different.

Jess Freeman, of Jess Creatives, joins me to talk about what it really means to run an ordinary, sustainable, and profitable business on your terms. 

We also dig into the 2026 State of Online Business Survey results that Jess just released, and the data is both validating and a little eye-opening. From referrals to AI to why 27% of respondents are struggling with getting clients, this one's full of real talk about what's actually happening behind the scenes of online businesses right now.

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EPISODE 184.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/state-of-online-business-jess-freeman/

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Get to know our guest expert, Jess Freeman

Jess Freeman is the award-winning founder of Jess Creatives, where she helps nutrition and fitness pros get found, trusted, and booked with websites that actually match their expertise. 

With over a decade of experience in web design and SEO, Jess is all about no-fluff strategies that highlight what makes her clients stand out—so their websites finally reflect the level of excellence they bring to their work. Based in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and daughter, Jess can often be found sipping Diet Dr. Pepper, reading a murder mystery, or at the gym.

After listening to this episode, grab your tickets to the 2026 Ordinary Business Summit (or get on the waitlist!)

Then, check out the 2026 State of Online Business Survey results here. And don't forget to listen to The Ordinary Business podcast when you're done.

Here's the info on your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform—and even transform—its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.

When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as ADHD-ish, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
• Learn more about working with me or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit my website to learn more about my business, services, and products

Transcript

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Okay, Jess, so we have a lot to cover today. I'm gonna apologize in advance for doing that to you, but I really want to talk about two things on this episode. One, the idea of an ordinary business, like mm-hmm. What that is, what that means to you, and what that could mean to people listening. And two, I wanna talk about something that you created, which this is the third year, right? Mm-hmm. The survey. Yeah. Yeah. So Jess, a couple years ago, created the state of online business survey and the results just came out within the past, week or so ago. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they're kind of fascinating for small businesses, so. It might look like a long episode on your podcast player friends, but I think you should stay around for this 'cause we're gonna accomplish a lot today. Let's start our conversation just with the ordinary business. What does that mean for you? Where did the idea of an ordinary business kind of pop into your head? So the ordinary business was completely accidental. Like I was not trying to create something. I just had a threads post that got some attention, right. I was prepping to go to a conference, had tried to make lunch plans with somebody that I have known for, 10 years, I don't even know, like a long time. And I got brushed off, because their business has really taken off and like makes. Literally millions of dollars and I was just like, I'm so annoyed. This is just another example of me getting pushed aside. I've been in business for 15 years. The number of times I have been like invited to a summit . And then they ask for like, how many people do you have on your email list? Oh, we don't take people who have less than this many followers on Instagram or whatever. It just annoys the crap outta me because I, not to like toot my own torn, but I've been in business for 15 years and I have a very sustainable, very profitable business, but I'm not making half a million dollars and I have a very small email list. And so I made a threads post talking about like. Someday I'm gonna host the Ordinary Conference where the speakers have to make less than this much and have less than this many followers, and I was just being. Silly. I can't say I don't do an events'cause I'm planning one, but at the time I was like, I'm just like being silly and kind of venting. But people really were like, "I would absolutely pay for this. Is there an actual wait list? Because , I want to go to this." So at first I was like, y'all are crazy. I'm not doing a, I'm not doing an event. And then I just had several friends who were like, I think you're onto something. And I think you need to like lean into it because the, those who have known me for a long time know that. It just annoys me all the time how much of, how much we ordinary businesses get like pushed aside because we don't have this rags to riches story. We don't have millions of followers and some big exclusive framework and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, there are so many of us who are running really solid businesses, doing good work. We just don't have a team of 12. And I'm like, we have stuff to share too. So to me ordinary is just, it's not a bad thing in the eyes of the internet. Yeah, we're just ordinary, but we are very like solid, reputable, good people doing good work, and we're just not trying to like scale the seven figures and create an agency and do, and those things are fine if you want to do those things. I have nothing against them. I'm not against growth, but I just think there's so many of us who have really good insights to share and we ha we do good work and we just get lost in the noise of the internet. Yeah. And there's so much noise.'cause you, you had just mentioned like the internet might not see. Ordinary is a good thing. And we just look at the word in general, like the word is meant to be, less than, right? Mm-hmm. Especially when we can compare it against like extraordinary, which we'll see in everyone's marketing, especially if they use ai, it's not new. I've been in business 10 years, so I feel like we've both kind of seen a lot. Mm-hmm. And it can be cyclical. The messages that we've seen in marketing over the past, 5, 10, 15 years and what's taught to us over and over again is that you have to, , go on hyper speed and you have to scale and you have to build a team, which. I always just found so interesting and I think my response to it has , changed over time., When I was younger in business, I definitely felt more emotion about it, where I felt less than or I felt like I couldn't keep up or I just questioned a lot of my own choices. Now I don't feel that because again, time and experience and, just trust in self and what you're doing is right, but it's always bothered me, the vast majority of people that I have worked with have never been at a point that is preached to be the normal, right? Like extraordinary. And they work themselves into this fit of like exhaustion and unhappiness in their business to try to achieve something that's preached to them that other people aren't even. Achieving yet. So it's this myth of like falsity of , you do this thing and then you'll be worth something. Mm-hmm. And then your business will be important. And then the other thing that really hit me about what you said was when I think of this like ordinary business, which I also consider myself an ordinary business, and the people who would work with us, I also think,"wow, you're getting such a great deal." You have like this person with like hyper experience, , hyper education potentially, or knowledge on a subject who is dedicating their time and schedule to your project, to your business. And there's something that you can't get when you work with a small to medium business, meaning like more hundreds of people or mm-hmm. Even when we talk about like online business. Teams that they're scaling to. I think everyone's biggest pet peeve is like joining a program and then only to find out that they're not actually working with that coach or that CEO because they've scaled and now have other people running parts of their program, which is icky feeling. But I think that there is a beauty that lies in an ordinary business owner coming into your business because you get so much attention and again, experience that you wouldn't get elsewhere., And the results are. Customize, right? Mm-hmm. So like all of my clients, like, I'm not using a template and just writing their copy and it, it's done and over. Like they're getting their copy from scratch. A hundred percent. They're getting their strategy from scratch because it's based on their needs, their growth over time, their goals. And a lot of the times you work with those that are meant to scale and scale in the way that they can just get more and more and more people through their doors, that you lose that custom touch. Mm-hmm. So. I would say, if anything, especially in online business, it's ordinary is a positive word versus, being extraordinary. You know, we can't, every, every single person can't be extraordinary because then that would be ordinary. Right. So I think it's kind of like, if we can all get comfortable with the idea of knowing what we want from our business mm-hmm. Then we can step into that ordinary business in a way that feels good. Mm-hmm. I personally remember when my youngest was born. And I was doing really well. For me at the time, like the numbers were looking lovely, like I had zero problem with the income that was coming into my business, but the only messages I kept hearing over and over again, and these were from people I trusted, not necessarily from like the big gurus truly like the mid-level, but vocal people online was that if you did not scale, if you did not bring on, , like subcontractors or even team members that could take on parts of your job and focus on growth, you. Not being successful. Mm-hmm. And I just remember holding like my youngest baby who would only sleep on me and typing on my phone some of my copy stuff that I wanted to like write out. And yeah, I was tired. I was a new mom. I was exhausting to run a business and have a baby. But it was also so lovely. I just remember sitting there and thinking like. Honestly, I just want to hold my baby and like mm-hmm. Wow. Thank goodness for, you know, the year 2018 where I have a phone that I could type things into with my one finger mm-hmm. While holding this little like, you know, snugly baby. And that's what I want from my business. Like the money works. The clients that I have are lovely. Like, I get so excited about working with them because there's like such a nice fit. And I can hold my baby because that little pain in the butt just will not sleep elsewhere. This is what I was dreaming of. Mm-hmm. When I decided to start my business. So why is everyone telling me that it's wrong? Like that just didn't make any sense to me. So I think that's where I started to just keep telling myself like, but this is what you, this is the lifestyle you want. So do you need more? And, and having worked in HR for a long time before, running my own business. I am extremely aware what it means to build a team, the amount of training and effort and guidance and all these things that come on with stepping into that role. And no thank you. Like I did that for long enough. So I'm going on a different rant here, but, I think sometimes we need to remember like why we started and what our goals are, because I would much rather. Go to my son's baseball games, go to my daughter's dance, competitions, go to school for the book fair, and I couldn't do that if I was trying for something that my business isn't at this point. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think like what you were saying about, , if you're not scaling, if you're not doing growing, whatever, then you're not succeeding. And it reminds me of, I've had people on threads tell me like two or three times different people say "well, if you are not like growing an agency or if your business can't survive without you, you just have a day job. You don't have a business." And I'm like,"well first of all, it literally is a job. I don't know if you're aware of that. Literally this is a job, so , I don't know why you're saying that. Like it's a bad thing" and also like there "Yeah, sure. Like if I end up in the hospital, things will be a little crazy for a while and, but it would still be crazy if I had a team of 12., Like, yes, they could take over , and those kinds of things, but it's like. It's not the end of the world. I'm building websites. Okay. I'm not doing heart surgery. Yeah. So if I'm in the hospital for a week, it's not the end of the world. Well, and I think that goes into being a successful ordinary business is also having systems. Now, I'm not gonna say that like systems can protect you from emergencies because that example, like if something were to happen to you that was unplanned, it is more reactive of an approach. Mm-hmm. What's the system you or someone you know has to email all your clients and say, "I had an actual emergency. Your timelines are going to be adjusted." Worst case scenario, you have a client who's really unhappy with that and you just end the contract and refund them. Whatever the portion is. Right? And in that case. Screw them. Like this was an actual emergency. You want a picture, like a selfie of you in the hospital bed. Right. That's silly to me, you know? Mm-hmm. But the other part, when I say systems, is like I, I remember being very nervous about birthing my final child because I was technically full-time employed when I had my first child. Mm-hmm. So I had the protection of a job. Yeah. Knowing I could go back somewhere. Um and that made like being part-time, self-employed a lot more comfortable, right? Mm-hmm. Because that would just quote unquote extra at the time., But with my final child, it was. This is all on me. Like I've already been in business for over two years now. I need to develop plans. And I think that if anyone considers themselves an ordinary business, they're smart enough to plan that things happen. Mm-hmm. You develop processes, you push clients out, you schedule them later. You do a ton of work earlier. But. Actually, I'm glad that I just said that.'cause I wasn't even thinking that I had my kids, uh, home full-time with me until they started kindergarten, full-time, zero childcare, zero daycare by choice. I will say that not for the week of heart. I don't even think I would recommend it, but they, again, that was the total ordinary business choice for Erin was yeah. I wanted my kids to be home with me. I wanted to live the life of a stay at home mom, and I wanted to live the life as an independent business owner. So it was very hard, but it was also, I, I just remember being so thankful all the time. Mm-hmm. Like. Uh, at one point in the day I got to talk to this like super successful woman who was leaving corporate and was starting her business and really wanted to get her marketing and like her website created that was like, so like, I don't know, like intellectually, stimulating for a mom of a young kid. Mm-hmm. And then in the next moment I'm holding the baby that doesn't sleep unless someone's holding her, right. Mm-hmm. So like, that's truly what I wanted. And I think that replaying to where we just were, it's knowing what your goals are for your business. Mm-hmm. And I think that once you kind of be okay with what your goals are, it's so much easier to tune out all that noise that you hear online. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. But speaking of the noise, this is probably a good segue to talk about your report. What made you decide to run an actual survey? The state of online business survey to learn about what was happening behind the scenes for other businesses. So I actually saw somebody do this for web designers. And I had filled out that survey and saw the report, which that was very catered to, what are you building websites on and how it was very, very like web design specific. And I just thought it was so interesting. To see like what the majority results were versus like what my business looks like. And I was like, I" want to do this for like, the whole online space". Obviously I can't like literally do everybody, but I just wanted it for transparency again because I wanna know what people are actually making. I'm curious kind of like what tools people are using and like what does it look like behind the scenes and the survey if, for people listening who aren't aware, it's completely anonymous and we get a really good picture of like, where are you located? What type of business do you have? Which we go more like, are you one-to-one, are you a group coach? Then we look at team like how many contractors, employees we look at pay. Um, and then I do a bunch of questions about the tools that you use, which is always so interesting. We talk about AI struggles in your business. Like it's just every year I add a few questions and I am, I'm always like, I'm gonna get real close to like, this is too many questions and I'm not answering anymore. I've just, honestly, I'm just kind of nosy and. Felt like we needed some transparency in our, in our industry. Can we speak on transparency for a second? I know that you've probably see this as well in the web design world, but I think one thing that I found really fascinating where I pivoted more of working with small businesses and a little bit less of my brand client work was I had this, idea that all of these businesses were achieving X, Y, and Z.'cause that's the messages that we're told by the big gurus. Mm-hmm. And repeated by people who I would say were within my sphere of online business. And I judged myself against that. And then I started to notice, a constant, repeated thing that I have seen is people. Speak one way about their business publicly, and what goes on behind the scenes is not necessarily the same thing. And I was actually truly like flabbergasted by the amount of people who would say like. I'd be like, well, why is now the right time for copy? And a lot of it I'd hear initially would be things like, oh, I'm just adjusting my services or how I work with clients. But the more we talk, the more I would learn. Like the reason they were doing that is because. They weren't getting clients anymore. Mm-hmm. They weren't filling group programs, and I'd be like, because I'm so nosy, I'd be scrolling back through social media to be like, I don't, it doesn't look like that truly sometimes to see people just flat out lying about mm-hmm. What enrollment was and things like that. So. I, I, I don't know, like at first I just, it made me cautious.'cause then I'd be like, who can you trust? Like mm-hmm. Who is trustworthy out there?. One, I have come to learn that sometimes the people who are, are not the loudest. Are the most trustworthy. Um, and also, you know, sometimes if you are like envious of people, it just, just stop looking at their stuff and just focus on your own business. Yes. Because you don't know what goes on behind the scenes in other people's business. And I think the results of the survey really that for this year's survey do show that. Mm-hmm. Um, I wouldn't say there's anything that's like shocking per se. But again, you know, in 2026 we're still hearing so many of these like income based messages or growth based messages. Mm-hmm. And, I would even say like a year or two ago, people were a little more quiet. Like you really had to get into a conversation to have someone be like,"yeah, I'm struggling a little", or like "I'm having a hard time finding clients" or "things just feel off and I don't really know y". But now it's like you just ask someone like, how's your business? And you're like, "it's wild out there. Like I had to do X, Y, and Z and it's so different when I did this. This is happening and I, clients aren't coming in how they used to. And now I", like everyone in some way, shape or form is feeling a shift in their business yet. Mm-hmm. The main marketing message is still, you have to grow, you have to increase your income. Like here's how you do it. So one of the key stats that I actually found really interesting in your, results, and we won't share all the survey results, people, I just wanna. Put that out here. We'll talk about a couple. But if we really were to talk about everything, we'd be talking for longer than you would want to listen. Yes. So we will link out to how you can get these survey results yourself. But I thought it was really interesting that 27% of the respondents, cited that their biggest struggle was that they're not having enough clients, even though they might have years in business. Mm-hmm. And if you are listening and you're like, yeah, I've been struggling with that too, or it just, it's getting clients the way I used to is harder. Mm-hmm. You're definitely not alone because I think that's, again, a lot of the conversations I see behind closed doors. That's why a survey like this, I think is so important because people knowing that it is anonymous might feel a lot more comfortable sharing the truth of their business and they wouldn't necessarily share that elsewhere. Right. Yeah, and it's just interesting. I always, when I was looking at the results, especially like the struggles, and we looked at"what's your number one metric of success" and that kind of thing? Mm-hmm. I kind of thought of it through a marketing lens and like, oh, like so many people could kind of tweak their messaging. Mm-hmm. Instead of, you know, oh, like make seven figures or whatever. Obviously I'm ordinary, so of course, like I'm, I'm one of those people, like, that's not gonna resonate with me. But thinking about, just like knowing. What people are actually struggling with. Mm-hmm. From a marketing perspective, I feel like was really interesting from that. But I also thought about, 'cause yeah, so many of those people have been in business like five to 10 years, so they're not newbies. And I think sometimes what I see just online with clients, with whoever, is we get really stuck in like, well this is how I market my business. Like we don't try different platforms or different strategy, different messaging. And for me, I felt like this was another good sign of like, "y'all need to branch out and try new things." I'm, and I'm not preaching like, "oh, you need to be on every single social media platform" or anything like that. But it was like, what are other avenues that you could try? What's something else you could try in your business, and are you just sticking with the same thing and being like, why isn't this work? Right. And even if the, there's something that has worked, are you putting effort into it? One, one of the questions that I was curious the most about was the, "where do you market your business online." Mm-hmm. And it was asked like a marketing channel, which people could select multiple platforms. Um, a percent that you use that channel. And when, when I say channel, it does not specifically mean just like platform as in. Instagram, which is included. It could be things like online directories, , podcast, Reddit, uh virtual summits, webinars. So like, a truly holistic view of marketing. And then the final part that was related to that was the percent that consider that channel or that like type of effort, their number one lead source. So at first when I was thinking about", oh, what can Jess and I talk about? Like what am I gonna focus on here?" I found it very interesting and. Expected, I would say that referrals were the place by far, that people considered their number one lead source. Mm-hmm. Um, so 67% of respondents said that they used referrals in relationships as a marketing. Effort. And then 57% of respondents said that that was their number one lead source. So the vast majority of people say that referrals are their best way to get clients yet. Mm-hmm. Almost a third of respondents to the survey are saying that they're having a hard time getting new clients. The first kind of like connection I built there was Are you doing anything to get the, like referrals from people? For example, , in part of my offboarding like sequence with my clients. A while after we've like completely off boarded, I'll send an email to say like, "checking in, need any help. You know, additionally, like if you know anyone that needs anyone, I would love the referral. I loved working with you, and I always kind of feel like if I like working with one person, I will gen generally like their people too." Yes. Yes. So that's one way, right? Like encouraging clients. Another way is like talking with people in adjacent fields like you are a web designer, I'm a copywriter. Potentially we could work together for referrals or affiliate program if you start something like that. But. Are you doing all of those things right? Like have you tried all of them? Mm-hmm. Even if the answer is yes, have you adjusted your approach to trying them, like me just mentioning to clients in one email, like five months after they work together, that they, I would like a referral is not effort to ask like former clients to give me like referrals. Just, it's not effort. It's just something that, like I have literally tucked in a workflow that is a smart idea, but I put no effort into that, so mm-hmm. To me, to see that 57% of respondents think that referrals are going to provide them customers and they're still not getting them. It tells me there needs to be like, referral based programs, constant reminders, , incentives, like anything to try to develop that. But. I also think if we look at wanting to get more leads in, and then additionally, a future point on this survey was, , how long does it take to close clients? Like to get them in. And I think that we are also, especially if we're being reactive in our business, we're also, um. Wanting an immediate result. Mm-hmm. 31% says that it takes two to six months to get a client. 13% is six to 12 months. That's a year for a new person to come into your world. I would say as a copywriter who markets through her podcast and things like that. A year is a solid, like most people do, not just find me and hire me. That is more rare than anything, and that took a long time to get comfortable with, but I now know that. If I want to continuously build my audience, I do have to provide value for a while because it is not a low price service so they want to trust me. They want to get their finances in order. They want to also set up timelines with other providers. So if you're looking for more clients, and it takes a while to get those clients. It needs to be active effort in many ways and regularly. Mm-hmm., I am never one to say do everything for marketing, but like, look at what you enjoy doing or where you're spending your time and audit if that's the right place. And if you're actively. Marketing or just being present in those places. Mm-hmm. I also like to think about not just like, where do my clients come from, but earlier it was last year, um, I was just kind of looking at the data again of like, okay, where have my like last several clients come from for, I think I did like the last two years, like I know just off the top of my head, like where most of my clients. Come from, but I wanted to look really like closer to like actually look at the comparison and I also looked at the conversions of like, okay, I got a lot of leads from like this platform, but how many converted? And then am leaning more into those platforms and those avenues because I'm like, well it's a higher conversion. Like 'cause yeah, you can say you get leads from. You know, threads all day, but how many of those leads are actually turning into clients and looking at what type of clients they turn into? Right? Yes. You know, like I have, um, like standalone, like prerecorded courses that people can buy. I have a done with you copywriting program and then I do done for you services., If I have leads that come in to buy a product that's. Smaller, , and I am putting my time and effort there. The number still might not make sense for me if I'm putting in my effort for the done for you client or even the done with you client because I one obviously need less of them than I would for mm-hmm. My smaller price products, but two, it just, it also is. They're more primed. Maybe , the people who are purchasing the larger product. Sometimes people buy courses just'cause they're interested, just'cause they're reactive, because they think they need to do something. They don't even look at them. Whereas someone who's gonna hire me to do like done with them, copy editing, copy mentoring strategy. Or just hand it all off to me. They know that this is an investment, right? Mm-hmm. So I also think I've had to remind myself, this is not something I'm super good at. I'll put that out there. But I have had to remind myself sometimes where I spend my time should be more like related to where I want money to come into my business. Mm mm-hmm., think about SEO as an example. If you, even if you don't want to blog, if you have just created a batch of cornerstone content that does a handful of things. Talks about the what the person could potentially hire you for. Talks about how to hire someone like you. Talks about what the process of working with you looks like, talks about the results of hiring you and , like being finished with the project. If you have a batch of content that lives on your site, that is actually SEO friendly. That is going to draw an ideal client to your business. Mm-hmm. You create it once or you hire someone to create this for you, and 2, 3, 4 years from now, it is still bringing people into your business. The only time we've ever really seen a, a drastic interruption with SEO is more recently with ai. Mm-hmm. And newsflash everyone. The, the interruption is just telling you that you've just followed the same best practices and answer more questions, like literally like that. That's all you have to do. You need to do, just do the damn thing that we've been telling you about for 10, 15 years now. But like just sharing that as an example to say that like if what was working in the past is not working currently, even if it's something that you might not be familiar with or you're excited by, . It could be shifting into one of these other options. Mm-hmm. Create a private podcast, you know, do SEO efforts, write case studies that are optimized there's no right way, but we can't just rely on the old way. Sometimes it's pivoting to try new things and then truly measuring to see the results of those things. Yeah, I think it's looking deeper into the data, not just the surface level of like, oh yeah, I got a lead, but like what we just said with, are they good leads? Mm-hmm. Are they converting? Are these leads actually converting? It's all the more important data I find. Yeah. And just because we brought up AI through search for a second, a couple of questions you asked in the survey was related to AI and how people are using it, which I found interesting. Some expected like answers . But I will say, um, one of the biggest ways people use AI is for copy and content creation. Friends. Cool. That's fine. No judgment. Go for it. You do you, two points for you that like I, I would just literally not feel comfortable not saying in this episode. And that is one, just make sure you're editing it for goodness sake. Yes. Like the only responsibility that I you have when using AI for content creation. You have all of our permission'cause you're gonna do it anyway. But you need to edit it for a variety of reasons. One, plagiarism, two, just so it sounds like you. Mm-hmm. But, and that brings me to point number two. Consider how you use AI to create content for you, because I think what we're starting to see, is the more people use ai, the more everyone begins to sound like everyone. There is a super loss of like style and voice to the content creation. So. Go for it. Use it. But I think when you edit it, you can input that style. You can have the, like the little isms that you would use, in your voice and in tone within the copy that you are creating another reason you should edit is because. Like if you want to show up in AI search, AI search actually hates AI content. Like mm-hmm. It is one of the like things that it will be like recognized and be like, that's not good. Like, there's no expertise there. There's no first person point of view. So like it's harder to rank with AI created content. That's my rant on 0.1, but moving into 0.2, I actually was shocked that there was a high percentage of people who use AI to do their SEO research and SEO efforts for them. Mm-hmm. Do you have thoughts on that? Have you heard anything from like, what people are doing or why they're doing that?, I wonder if some of the people put the SEO and keyword research also kind of with. The creating content, like if they were kind of like, oh, I'm having it like optimize, quote unquote optimize my SEO. I haven't heard directly probably because people don't wanna tell me that they're using chat, GBT or whatever for SEO. But what I always tell people, and I've like said this on social and in emails and like whatever is the AI tools do not actually know. Like if you're like, Hey, give me some key words for my physical therapy practice, it's gonna spin out and be like, yeah, here's your SEO title. It doesn't actually know if those key words are good. Like in theory, yes,, it knows what SEO is, it knows like this is typically what you want it to sound like, or words that you would probably include. But it doesn't actually know if those key words are actually like low competition and high search and what the intent is. And so you can go to AI tools all day and ask for SEO titles. But you don't know if it's actually going to give you that. Now, I, I do like using AI for like, Hey, give me some variations of this key phrase for me to research, because it can just do a faster job of like, gimme variations, different words, swap out this word. Maybe there's like a different word we can use for whatever. Like, that's good, but you would be shocked at how often I'm like, here's a list of 75 keywords. Let me like search it in my tool. And it comes back and it's like two of these, um, have any search. One of them is way too competitive and the other one has 10 searches a month. And I'm like. Cool. Great. And I'm like, how many people are just taking this list of keywords and being like, I'm just gonna create a bunch of blog content mm-hmm. On all these keywords. And I'm like, great. Yeah. And, and the other thing, and I've just been like literally like standing on a soapbox about this for 10 years, is the, everyone forgets about intent. Like, why are we forgetting about intent? You know, like if someone is searching a copywriter. The one word copywriter, I'll tell you what the results will be in three seconds. But if I am now trying to like update my entire website, thinking of like using the word copywriter as like the s the main SEO keyword or like variations on that, that is so bad for business because when you search the word copywriter, you are going to get a slew of results that include. Copywriting jobs for actual, like larger corporations, uh, copywriting trainings on how to be a copywriter, books on copywriting, um, other copywriters. But even that is less than everything else that I said above. So when we think on intent, we, and again, that was just a easy example, but we wanna make sure that whatever the search term is, people, we have the result or solution. For the reason that they are searching that, you know? Mm-hmm. So if they're searching something because they want to, um, learn about it, and we only provide them with a sales page. That doesn't work, which is higher level than what we're talking about. But it really goes back to the fact that if it's shooting out SEO keywords for you, and we are not factoring in the intent of the keywords or how we're presenting information to the people searching those actual keywords, which as just just said, they probably aren't even searching them. Um. We're, it's just a waste of time, and that's why people don't like SEO or they feel overwhelmed by it because a lot of it's just trying to take shortcuts. Mm-hmm. So I guess if you are, if you did fill out the survey for Jess and you're hearing us chat about this and you're like, oh no, I, I use it. My advice would just be to pay for someone to do strategic keyword research for you and then use the res like results from that. Mm-hmm. In the AI tool to do things like Jess said about like titles or, um, even just optimization of a post. Like, I wrote this, here are some phrases I'd like to use in this. I don't feel like I've used it, the phrases throughout, can you help me insert them? Things like that. Yeah. Fine, but everything else, it is not a strategist. Stop it. Um, be before people start to be like, oh, that Erin, she is. Um, she's wild. Let's talk about, let's bring those back to the beginning. What do you think, having done the state of online business survey for a couple years now and seeing these results, what do you think that this reflects back on? Like what we mentioned earlier about running an ordinary business. Are there any key. Themes or is there anything like that you said about your own experience that you see coming up in the results? Um, well, the first thing that I would point out is how many people came to me and were like, this was so validating. Mm-hmm. Like, this was so validating to, because it, even, even if you're trying to like, block out the noise, it. Still infiltrates. And so just people saying like, hi, this made me feel so much better about like where I'm at in my business. Meaning some maybe felt they were doing better than pe, like the majority, quote unquote, in the survey. And others were like, oh, everyone else is just like me and. So that was the first thing that really stood out after the results came out. But I think it really just shows like how many of us are pretty ordinary and some of us, like you've mentioned, some people are lying, some people are kind of exaggerating or putting up some kind of front, and I'm like so many, like for instance, one of the things that was in the survey is how many people are completely solo? They don't have employees, they don't have contractors. And I'm just like, everyone's talking about grow and scale and blah, blah, blah. And it's like a lot of us are just running this ship by ourselves. And, um. Yeah, I think one there was, we did something new this year. I say we, it's just me, but something new where I kind of had like a just put open feed, like open for comments kind of question. I had questions, but it was just more, instead of like just pushing a checkbox. And so it was kind of like, what did you change last year? What's something you're changing this year? And there was just a lot of talk of simplifying. Like simplifying the tools, simplifying my offers. Um, there wasn't a lot of talk about like, I mean, yes, there were some that were like, I'm growing, I'm gonna add five people to my team, or things like that. But so many of the comments were just, I am changing this. I'm getting rid of this. I'm just going all in on one off for like so much simplification and I feel like. That's something else that happens a lot in the online space is there's always new shiny tools and, oh, now I need to add VIP days to my offers, and now I need to add a group program to my offers. And we like complicate it. And I feel like sometimes we overcomplicate it in our businesses with all the tools and all the offers and sometimes that makes marketing harder. Sometimes that takes up more of our time. I think people are just becoming more aware of like their actual capacity and what they want their life to look like, and they're like, Hmm, actually maybe these offer, like this offer or this offer or like these three things aren't going to work because I wanna go to my kids' dance recital and I wanna be able to pick my kids up from school every day and, and those kinds of things. Um, and so I think. Kinda like what, what a lot of people told me is I also felt like this just validated. A lot of us are, we just need to simplify. Like what do I actually need to run my business to be profitable, to be sustainable, to not burn out? Yeah, it was just. Really validating. Yeah, I agree. If you're listening and you're like, oh, all of this resonates with me, one thing I want to let people know about, 'cause you mentioned this early but we didn't get into it, is that you are running your. Second. Ordinary Business summit. And that's happening really soon. Tell us about when it's going to take place and when people can sign up. Yeah. So the wait list is open tickets open to the public on March 18th. The wait list gets early bird access if you wanna get like a VIP pass, but the summit is April 1st and second. It's all virtual so you can watch from your couch or whatever., And it's all of course, ordinary businesses and. One of the kind of big themes this year, which was not intentional is a lot of people talking about how they are growing without social media. Yeah., Or like without going viral, without this huge following, like those kinds of things., You won't be hear people talking about their. Teams of 12 and those kinds of things. So it's just how they're juggling very simple things., Some of the talks are literally like 10 to 15 minutes 'cause it's a little case study, almost tutorial.. Yeah, so April 1st and second you can go And then I had not officially finalized or launched anything, but I am doing an in-person event later this year too. Okay. Well, when you do let us know and we'll make sure we update these show notes and share it with everyone who's listening as well., And if there's one thing I can say, in your first summit, I remember talking to someone who had I. Think that they presented, but they also were like listening to everyone else's presentations and just privately, the discussion that she and I had was that she was really impressed with how actionable the summit was so not necessarily that it's like teach and implement. But it was just the idea that like, there was a true takeaway. And I think that that is what maybe makes it stand apart other than the, like the true theme of it being just for people who are running an online business who are not trying to be extraordinary in their online business. Other than that, I think that kind of is what makes it stand out, that it is , valuable. And, you know, I will say that like I'm sure that this year will be the exact same thing because , it's all filtering through you and you're making sure that that quality is there. Thank you for staying along on this long episode. Thank you so much, Jess, for talking about running an ordinary business as well as the survey results. Yes. And I'm just excited to see how this all goes for you and can't wait to learn more about this in-person event you get coming up. Yes. Thanks for having me.