Hey, Hey Jasmine star here and I am so happy you're tuning in to my podcast today, every Wednesday afternoon for the past two years I've been hosting weekly live Q and A's. Questions and answers. For those of you who don't know on Facebook live titled ask me anything which seems pretty intuitive. You can ask me anything during this time. We talk about life, business, social media and everything on the in between. Today is a recording from one of these sessions that I'm sure you're going to love. Let's do this.
Speaker 2Hi friends, how are you? I am here at popping in to chat about something I don't normally talk about. We are going to talk about how to turn failure into success, which you know is probably not the hot topic of 2020 but there's a lot of people talking about casting your visions and making plans and I'm one of those people too. I'm going to be open about it. You've probably seen me talking about, Oh, it's time to build your , your plans. This is you're going to do, but I actually was like, girl, you got to come correct. You got to come correct. Because there needs to be a mindset shift around if you want to have a plan and if you want to have a strategy, what has to happen? Like what has to work and get fixed. I believe that I had to have a mindset shift that if we don't have failures, we don't have lessons. And for so long I defined my life and my business by what was succeeding and what was failing. And then I was challenged to say, Jasmine, can you not look at it as a failure and can you look at it as a lesson? Like what did you learn from all of this? And so I want to be 100 I'm gonna come at you and we're going to talk about three personal business lessons. And I actually this week debated like coming out and actually having this conversation because I'm like, how uncomfortable is this? Like I don't want to talk about behind the scenes of my business because it's not fun. Like we don't want to tell , we want to show everything on social media, make it look good. Right? But like there's a lot that happens behind the scenes, so I'm going to ask a favor of you. Can you please approach this conversation with empathy and sensitivity? I know I opened myself up to a ton of judgment when I talk about the decisions that I made when I talk about the things, the money that I spent. We're going there now. I want to be very clear that the topic of this was, let me just repeat it. Personal business lessons. I'm going to share an example of something that I look back on and I was like, girl, you meet up big. You learned a big, big lesson, so let's go back to 2016 at the time I had launched an event called the path to profitability. Okay ? The path of profitability was me teaching people how to build a brand and market social media. It was an in person event and I was like, I'm so excited. I'm having one in Dallas. I'm having one in LA. We're going to do it up. I want to have a very cool event for business owners to come in and talk about branding and social media. And so what I did was I'm like, I want to make it amazing. I want to make it cool. Um , I meet a magazine, I had printed work books . I rented out a studio, I had a professional videography team. We hosted a mixer at the end. Okay. So that is everything that I showed on the outside, right? Like, Ooh, it looks fun. It looks amazing. And it was, but what I did not talk about was the fact that this event cost over six figures. I am not stuttering friends. That event costs over six figures. I had professional hair, I had professional makeup. I didn't hire one videographer. I hired nine videographers. I didn't have just any event. We had like premiere champagne. It was, everything was so extra and I was really proud of the event. But at the same time, something else happened in my personal life. Uh , I bought a new house and it was old and when we renovated it, things got really complicated. It's like when you give a mouse a cookie, right? They're like, Oh, well , we're just going to put new floors in. Guess what the foundation's off. Once the foundation's off, we need to fix the roof. It was like literally I was like, Oh God. Not only did I host an event, I got in way over my head with this fixer upper of a house. I stopped booking wedding photography clients so that I could start focusing more on building out content and I stopped creating third party content. This totally meant that I was just in over my head. I had legitimately spent more. I cut down so many of my revenue sources and I thought I was jacked up. I was like, what did I just do? Did I just ruin everything that I built with photography and did I double down on event that will not pay us back? Because the goal of us hosting this live event was that we would recorded it and we were going to turn it into an online course, but that takes a ton of time in the in between. So we made a huge upfront business costs and we would not be able to pay it off her later. Then the house expenses just exploded and I was, JD was just like, are you sure you know what we're doing? And I don't know if this is making the right decisions and you want to know what? I was fricking stubborn. I was so stubborn in my belief that this was going to be the thing that I really wanted, that we literally were Titus belt. We didn't go out to eat, we didn't travel. We were paying the bare minimum on everything and I felt like I had made a failure. I felt like I was living in fear for the business decisions that I had to make and one of my good friends and mentors, his name is Lewis house, he says, the only we move past fear of failure is to put ourselves out again and again until this thing disappears. I was so worried that I had made this massive mistake. I was so worried that I let my husband and my business partner down. I was so worried I not lying that I was like, am I going to be able to pay my bills? Like it was like the perfect storm had happened. I stopped booking other clients. I made this massive new business investment. I bought a house. I was drowning, but I was like, the only way that I'm going to move past the fear of making other decisions like this is to do it again and to do it again and to do it again. And you want to know what I am standing before you saying we never went in debt, but I was so freaking scared. Let me tell you, that's just real talk. So what did I learn from this lesson the first time you try something new? It doesn't have to be perfect. Heck, it barely has to be good. I want everybody here right now to listen very carefully. I thought this event had to be so extra and you want to know what? I could have cut my half. I could've caught my cost by two thirds if I just said, you're okay. Taking the bare minimum and making it work. I would have learned more having spent so much less than trying to make it perfect. So if you're going to learn anything as you go into 2020 and you start planning for your business in 2020 please know it doesn't have to be perfect. So let's get into lesson number two. Lesson number two is to listen to others. Now I know it bears repeating, but clearly, you know, I just mentioned I was stubborn. You just mentioned that I'm very, very, very like other men and I make up my mind. This is the thing that I want to do and I'm going to tell you one of the biggest mistakes that I made in my business. So remember empathy and sensitivity . Okay? So most of you know, or many of you know, I launched a membership called social curator in July, 2017 what ? We also had a second launch for social curator in October, 2017 so this is a brand new business, right? Like I talked to my husband and I, business owner and I said, I don't want to know any of our numbers. I want to focus on serving our members well. So we had these really successful launches, like on the outside, it looks all amazing and we're just driving and striving and we're like, we're going, going, going in on the outside, it looks all amazing. And then we opened in July, 2018 and let me just tell you, I had a wake up call in January, 2018 so what had happened, we had these massive promotions. We had all these people entering any in January after doing all of these promotions, after paying for ads, after setting up retargeting strategies, we had less people than we'd started. And I was like, you're kidding me. How have I just spent six months breaking my back to bring all these people in? And now I have less like what happened? What's going on? So when people unsubscribed from social curator, they fill out an exit survey like, Hey, why are you leaving? Right? Well, what people were responding to were saying, I don't think that this works for me, or I'm not sure if I can be, I can see success stories. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm like, all these other people are sending me emails and DMS and they're saying that it's so successful for them, but they can't have the conversations with each other. So the team was like, Jasmine, I really think you should have a Facebook group. And I'm like, no, there's no way. I am having a Facebook group. I hate Facebook groups. Facebook groups have been the worst for me. I always said, I'm like, Oh, Facebook's go, Facebook is where all unhappy go. Unhappy people go just to Bock, Bock, Bock and be negative. And I was just like, I have had my reputation, I've had my name and I have had my character ripped apart in Facebook groups. I will never have one for six months. I said, over my dead body. Well, we have a Facebook group. Um, no, but let me tell you something. Those group revolutionized social curator. That's just real talk. When I said, okay Jasmine, you have to get over your ego. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it doesn't have the capacity to be good. So I am challenging you as a business owner if you aren't moving the needle or if the needle in my case was going backwards, what do you need to do to change? And I said, okay, I need to have the humility to say, you know what, Jasmine, you're messing up the business that you want to build. Get over yourself and do something for other people. And this group, I am telling you there are so many success stories, but the reason why it works is because other people are helping each other and then people are seeing the proof in the pudding. Tony McFadyn said , I started with 300 followers on Instagram in 2,360 in 2019 my goal was to get to a thousand by 2020 I am currently at 1,137 she beat her goal in a year. Hope said no, she's a doula. Hope said that she finished a large contract and she got two other clients. So what is Tony a photographer and Mindy , a doula have to do with each other. We're all just business owners proving to each other that social media has a crazy foundational way of changing what you're doing in your business. People just had to see those success stories. People just had to say, Whoa, what are you doing and you're the doula world that can help meet. That is amazing, but that's not, I'm not here to talk about Facebook group. I'm here to talk about the lessons that I learned. The lessons that I learned is that it's not about you and it's not about me. I had to sit back and I had to itemize. What do I want a Facebook group to feel like? What do I want the Facebook group to look like? I do not want unhappy people. I do not want snarky people. I don't want selfish people. I don't want all of it to be sales driven or me, me, me. I'm so cool in my business. No , I wanted I , I sat down for an hour and a route, a dream. This Facebook group is going to light up the internet. This Facebook group is Google were business people go and they help each other. This is going to be a creative, inspirational think tank for hustlers. That's what I said and I'm telling you today that what I saw in the future has come to be present and that would never happen if I had too much ego. That would never happen if I said, you know what? That's not for me. I'm not going to do it for my business because how many of us as entrepreneurs have to do the stuff we don't want to do to get to where we want to go? That was the second lesson that I learned and let me just tell you, there have been times I'm sure that you felt like it was a failure. My friend Amy Porterfield said this, she said it felt like my dreams had burned to nothing more than a spark, but they came back with the roaring flame and I'm just like, hell yes, queen. I felt like when I had a wake up call in January, 2018 and I saw that my numbers had dropped, all this hard work and passion, I was like, I'm not even staying in place. I'm moving backwards. It broke my heart cause I was like, I took it personally and then I realized it's not about me. It's the fact that I wasn't serving members to their highest potential. Just like Amy had said, I burned down to a flame and now the community is a roaring fire. All I can say is heck yes to that. Lesson number three, let's dive in. Set your priorities. I'm going to be real and tell you something. I don't want to admit I dated my computer more than I did my husband when I started my photography business in 2007 and 2008 I didn't know anything about photography. I didn't know anything about building a business, but I knew that I had passion so I was spending all day and all night on Google. I was watching video tutorials, I was reading books, I was reading manuals, I was outside networking with other people. I needed to get my business off the ground, but in the process of getting my business off the ground, I was losing attention for the people who mattered the most. Specifically my husband, he would get home from work and I would be like, okay, we're going to eat dinner together and then I'm going to go and work a few hours. And I was like, just like two hours and he's just like two hours. He's like, we haven't even seen each other all day. I was like, okay, just give me an hour. And then three hours later I would like see him falling asleep on the couch and that sucked. Or I would say, Oh Hey, let me just check my email real quick, I'll be right back. And then like two hours later I would come back and it was just like I could not snuggle with my computer, but that's where I spent all of my time. But then I got a call that changed everything. One of my best friends called me and she said, Jasmine, I'm in Minnesota at the Mayo clinic. My husband just hit his head and they did a scan and they realize that he has a brain tumor and they're not giving him time to live. And I was just like, wait, what? We're the same age. We got married in the same month and now you're telling me your husband's not going to live. And I was heartbroken. Like I was crying with her on the phone and I was like, how do I help you? And she was a photographer. We actually met because of photography and she said, I'm just calling to see if you can pray for me. And I'm also calling to tell you and remind you to tell JD that you love him. And I was like, Oh, like it killed me. It killed me. Cause I was like, dang , I'm doing it wrong. Like I'm jacked up. Like I care more about my business and I care about my relationship with my husband. And I knew that I had to just, the biggest lesson that I learned in my business was yo, I need to say I'm sorry, like I'm sorry for prioritizing my business that I had to believe that I had enough time and the right time to build my business and also focus on people that I loved. So the thing that I learned in this lesson was when you set your priorities, you set parameters. Like what is the priority as you build your business, right? If that's your partner, if that's your children, if that's your nonprofit organization or even if it's your business, whatever it is, whatever your priority is, it allows you to put parameters on what you will say yes to and what you will say no to. And every time I need , uh , when I , uh , at the time I thought there were mistakes. Now I'm like, Hey, I learned some lessons. But at the time when I was going through all of this, the thing that I felt the most was like, God, am I the only person who messes up like this? Like why do I feel so alone? Like why do I feel so alone in every time I feel it in my business? Like what is actually happening? And years later, any advice that I can give anybody at all? I would say we are only alone if we can keep people out of our story. We have the tendency to think that we're going through it alone. Nobody else has ever experienced the pain that we have been. Nobody else has failed the way that we have. No . Everybody else has their life together. I'm here to tell you [inaudible] , that's trash. Do not compare yourself to somebody else's social media feed to your real life. People will put out stuff to make them feel better about themselves, but that is not 100% of their life. We only feel alone if we stay alone. The thing that I did not imagine on the inside of the Facebook group is that people are going in there and they're like, has anybody experienced this? And everyone's like, yes. How do we fix this? How do we move past it? And I was like, Whoa. People are showing up for each other in a way. I just didn't. Could see my mentor James ones where it says, we must make the conscious decision to reframe our situation. We can choose to believe we failed or we can choose to believe we learned lesson. Heck yes. Right now. My question to you right now is do you have the capacity to say I didn't fail. I learned a lesson. If that is you, can you leave a yes in the comments right now because I want other people on the outside to see and have the knowhow and the wherewithal that we are not alone. We might feel alone but we're only feeling alone because we're not letting people in. My question to you is do you have a safe space to let people in? Do you have a safe space to do light with people? All I can say is James Wedmore is my mentor. I absolutely love him. I invited him to speak on the inside of social curator and we talk about mindset shifts and I have to tell you that pure in Coco said, true story. Just look at my numbers and because of you and James Wedmore. I doubled my business last year and to think I almost walked away from my business in early 2019 because of what happened in 2018 so grateful, yo, you don't have to do this alone, but you can't grow your business. If in the back of your mind you're like, I'm such a screw up. What are people thinking? Other people have done it before? No friends. No, because if you think you have ever failed in the past in your business, the question then becomes how do you get back up from failure? Let me just tell you, you learn the lesson and then you try again. That is it. A Sinead says, everyone has a future self just waiting for them to let go of the old versions of themselves. Oh , Shanae is out here preaching. I'm going to add on that. What do you have to let go today to get what you want tomorrow? Do you have to let go of fear and doubt and negative self talk because until you let go of the baggage that's holding you back, you will never be able to run the race that you had been called to run. Antoinette said, hi. Do you batch all of your content or do you write your blog post record the podcast and film videos weekly? I'm finding it so hard to get all the content done without getting overwhelmed. Antoinette. I believe one day I will be sore organized in my business that I'm going to pack batch all of my content. I try to batch as much as possible, but I know also it's just physically impossible to do all of that and match my ambitions. I have big ambitions, I have big dreams, so my actions map, my elevation, what I am doing as much content as I am creating, it's I can't get it done in a day, right? Like I plan all of my content on Instagram for a week and for Facebook for a week. Now I don't write all of it. I just know what I am posting. So for instance, every Sunday I sit down and I know that this week on Facebook I was going to go like three times this week on Facebook. So I put that in there. I also knew that I wanted to ask questions for ask me anything, so I had to post that on Tuesday. I also know that I needed help like testing a webinar and so I went live randomly in the middle of the week like I knew what I was going to be doing even though I didn't always write the content in advance. Today I'm going to a speaking event. I'm asking my husband to bring a camera to take a photo of me at speaking event . Why ? So? I have content for Instagram and Facebook. You know what I'm saying? Out here, a squirrel just trying to get a nut. Am I batching as much as I would like? No. Is it possible? Yes. If I wasn't producing so much content, I'm just out here everyday. Produce, produce, produce, produce. Having a plan is what prevents me from being overwhelmed. I don't find myself so overwhelmed. If I just know who girl, you got a big day to day. We often get overwhelmed when we don't know how to anticipate everything that we need to do. Can I get an amen? Okay, so that was Antoinette's question. If you have other questions, please feel free to leave them here. Jackie Duran said regarding finding your ideal client. You've mentioned that sometimes they start pretty similar to ourselves . Is that true? No, I don't think so. I think that it's natural because we could think in that way, but when I created a dream customer profile, when I was a wedding photographer, she looked nothing like me. Like when I first started like my dream customer, like my dream photography client, which was a bride, she was zero like me. She was rich. I wasn't, she, you know, has higher education. She's a doctor, a lawyer, accountant. Her family has money. Her parents went to college, she lives in Chicago, she shops in the miracle mile. She drives a nice car and vacations in nice places like that looked nothing like me at the time. When I started my business and I started creating my dream cousin profile is there in 2007 2008 when my business wrong , two years old at the time and I was like, I need to change my marketing. I need to go after a luxury client. She looked nothing like me. Oftentimes it is people say, Oh, I'm marketing to people like myself, which is awesome. That's great. It's easier because you know what that person wants to hear. But is it necessary? No. Does it happen all the time? No. Like currently my dream client for social curator, she looks nothing like me, like nothing. She's white and drives a range Rover and has a husband who's a lawyer whose father was a lawyer. She lives in Manhattan beach and she has two little boys and she lives along the water like no, she's also a person I probably would be friendly with but we wouldn't be friends and that's fine. I just know exactly what marketing too . I hope that helps. Um , okay, so less Lopez said I started hosting self development workshops. So that January's workshop in three days. Congratulations. Question is, should I put out this schedule for the year or should I announce each workshop slowly for registration? If you are going to have open registration for all your events for the year, then you could put it out. So Jesse , yesterday. Oh, this works out real well. Just yesterday I decided I wanted to get tickets. See Oprah. Oprah has an event where she's going around the United States having live events and I was like, I want to go see Oprah. And I said, JD , do you want to be the world's best husband and come with me and go see Oprah? And he's like, ah . And I was like, Jennifer Lopez is her guest and he's like, alright , we'll go, Oh, okay. Oh God . See how you do. Um , anyway , um , Oprah announced all of her cities because she has opened selling of the tickets. If you are going to do that, why not do the same? If you're not sure you're going to have those dates and you're not selling the tickets yet, then I would be very careful. Also if you are already, I would really just really want to sell tickets if you already had the venue locked in, that's super helpful. As people are making plans, they want to know like if I buy tickets, where am I staying? So that's something to take into consideration. Maggie said four hashtags, should you display those on the story or kind of hide them so it doesn't clutter your story, your image or your motive that is entirely up to you. Again, maybe your dream customer wants to see the hashtags that you're tagging so that she can kind of see what in reference you're talking to or join that social conversation. In the video that I posted on my Facebook page and in the video I posted on Instagram and in the video that I posted on YouTube, this video exists all on the same platforms I posted at different times, but it is three tips on how to use hashtags and then how you can make your hashtag small and then put a GIF on top of them. Or sometimes you can get your hashtags and you can drag them off your screen. A very cool, so really just depends on what your dream customer wants to see from a visual perspective.
Speaker 1Friend, I hope you enjoyed this Q and a hosted on Facebook live. If you'd like to watch the video I mentioned towards the end of the Q and a about the three tips for Instagram story hashtags. You can find that linked in the show notes on Jasmine star.com or by clicking this link in the episode description wherever you're tuning in today, friend, I love these question and answer sessions because we have the best time growing our businesses and chasing our dreams together. Speaking of together, I should let you know that I feel like we're friends. I mean, I know that sounds weird, but it's just true. You make me feel all warm and fuzzy and all those good things. It's like the inside of my heart is like a gumball machine filled with tequila. There you go. You're welcome. A quarter eight. You know you're going to get a gumball that turns into a good time when people share the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I am honored and I am totally blown away. When you share this podcast, you're helping spread a message of empowerment. Take an action and embracing risk and adventure in the same breath. And I want to say thank you. If you'd like to connect even more, I'd love to see each podcast review. They help this podcast so much, and I read every single one of them because you all helped me provide more and more value and hear what you liked the most. So dual , it's ms straight and let me know. I'd be honored to get a review so when you do shoot me a direct message on Instagram so I can personally thank you. I am legit showing up and I want to thank you personally. I appreciate you listening and I'll see you next time.