Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.
Today's guest is Leah Remillet, she began her entrepreneurial journey as a photographer with the desire for time freedom and the ability to be present for her children. As she embarked on her photography career, she also decided to venture into the world of blogging. Little did she know, this decision would bring about a significant shift in her path. With time, Leah's focus evolved, and her blog became a central part of her work. Through continuous pivoting and adjustments, Leah transformed her photography business into something entirely different. This transformation led her to carve out a successful niche as a blogger, inspiring fellow entrepreneurs with her stories and experiences. Leah Remillet's journey from aspiring photographer to influential blogger is a testament to the power of adaptation and seizing unexpected opportunities.
In this episode Leah Remillet discusses the powerful impact of using Pinterest to build your empire. Leah shares her experience and strategies for leveraging Pinterest to drive traffic, build an email list, and ultimately achieve business success. From utilizing AI and automation to handling the challenges of imposter syndrome, Leah offers invaluable insights and practical tips for entrepreneurs at every stage.
Notable Quotes
- "So when we're posting on other of our outlets, it has a short shelf life. It's gonna be there and it's gonna be gone. But with Pinterest, it's like when there is the right kind of pin, it will continue to work for you for years, years, years, which is Incredible." - [Leah Remillet]
- "So I don't, like, ever do anything in real time. Like, everything that we're doing is always several weeks in advance because The joy gets sucked out of your business when you're having to do something in real time urgently." - [Leah Remillet]
- "The Power of AI in Saving Time and Boosting Productivity: 'I am saving so many hours with AI'" - [Leah Remillet]
- "Deciding what's right for me and my family: 'I like to shoot these videos at night because It's convenient for people in America and because it's convenient for the kids... I still spend time with them.'"- [Jonathan Green]
- "The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Business Efficiency: And there's so much room for efficiency because we can do things faster with tools and softwares that I know of a company with, like, 6 employees that's doing 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars."- [Jonathan Green]
Connect with Leah Remillet
Website: leahremillet.com/podcast-guest
Connect with Jonathan Green
Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.
Today's guest is Leah Remillet, she began her entrepreneurial journey as a photographer with the desire for time freedom and the ability to be present for her children. As she embarked on her photography career, she also decided to venture into the world of blogging. Little did she know, this decision would bring about a significant shift in her path. With time, Leah's focus evolved, and her blog became a central part of her work. Through continuous pivoting and adjustments, Leah transformed her photography business into something entirely different. This transformation led her to carve out a successful niche as a blogger, inspiring fellow entrepreneurs with her stories and experiences. Leah Remillet's journey from aspiring photographer to influential blogger is a testament to the power of adaptation and seizing unexpected opportunities.
In this episode Leah Remillet discusses the powerful impact of using Pinterest to build your empire. Leah shares her experience and strategies for leveraging Pinterest to drive traffic, build an email list, and ultimately achieve business success. From utilizing AI and automation to handling the challenges of imposter syndrome, Leah offers invaluable insights and practical tips for entrepreneurs at every stage.
Notable Quotes
- "So when we're posting on other of our outlets, it has a short shelf life. It's gonna be there and it's gonna be gone. But with Pinterest, it's like when there is the right kind of pin, it will continue to work for you for years, years, years, which is Incredible." - [Leah Remillet]
- "So I don't, like, ever do anything in real time. Like, everything that we're doing is always several weeks in advance because The joy gets sucked out of your business when you're having to do something in real time urgently." - [Leah Remillet]
- "The Power of AI in Saving Time and Boosting Productivity: 'I am saving so many hours with AI'" - [Leah Remillet]
- "Deciding what's right for me and my family: 'I like to shoot these videos at night because It's convenient for people in America and because it's convenient for the kids... I still spend time with them.'"- [Jonathan Green]
- "The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Business Efficiency: And there's so much room for efficiency because we can do things faster with tools and softwares that I know of a company with, like, 6 employees that's doing 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars."- [Jonathan Green]
Connect with Leah Remillet
Website: leahremillet.com/podcast-guest
Connect with Jonathan Green
Jonathan Green: Using Pinterest to build your empire with today's very special, very exciting guest, Leah Remile.
Today's episode is brought to you by Canva. When we finally decided to grow our social media presence, Canva was the only option. I tried dozens of alternatives, but I had to admit that nothing else comes close. We use Canva for social images, print on demand designs, and tons more at Serve No Master. Grab a free account today at serve no master.comfront/canva.
Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.
Jonathan Green: I'm very excited to have you here today, Leah, because this is near and dear to my heart. People know I've been talking a lot about Pinterest lately and figuring out myself. Looking at the statistics I saw that the biggest growth area for Pinterest is men and millennials. It's 40% this year, so men are finally paying attention. After 15 years, they're going, oh, maybe there's something going on here, and I'm just as guilty I'm one of them starting to get really active on there. What I'd love to know is how you started your online journey, Where it all began? Where's the beginning of your story?
Leah Remillet: Oh, I okay. So the very beginning, I think, like, a lot of entrepreneurs is You start with 1 thing. You think that's what it's gonna be, and it evolves. You pivot. You adjust, and it becomes something totally different. So I Started my entrepreneurial journey actually as a photographer. I wanted to have a lot of time freedom, wanted to be able to be home with my kids, all that kind of stuff, And over time, it shifted. What really shifted is that simultaneously, while I was trying to become a professional photographer, I decided to start this blog.
It doesn't exist anymore. I started it, like, 15 years ago, but it was called Go for Pro before GoPro actually became a thing. And it was literally me going for pro. Like, I was trying to figure out how to be a professional photographer, and there would be things that that I would find. This is, I mean, this is back, like, 2007, 2008 blogging was such a different world, and so I it wasn't at our fingertips the way it is today. I was Scouring. And when I would find these things, I would think I cannot be the only person trying to figure this out, which I believe comes back to you You know, I really believe when we give value, it makes the difference. And so I would share these things that I found.
I'd write these articles and share them, and that started growing. In fact, over time, that became even more profitable and successful than my honestly very profitable Photography business. And I'm like, well, this is great. I can do it from my home. And so I went in full time teaching photographers how to build 6 figure photography businesses and how to do it in a way that felt good and it wasn't competing with their family and everything else. And then in about 2015, I pivoted to really wanting to be able to help all kinds of entrepreneurs. I had made a huge focus on automations and systems and workflows and outsourcing and all these things that I could work part time hours and make a very full time income, and I realized this this isn't just for photographers. This is for anybody. I've now, you You know, I had built courses. I had built an online business, and so I made that shift in in, however many years ago that was now.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. That's amazing. I started my 1st blog in 2007 back when I thought blogging was your personal diary and no one could find it. Yes. And it's really shifted From it used to be people would read a personal blog and read about your story, and it could even get turned into a movie. Like, that 1 lady says, I'm gonna cook every recipe from
Leah Remillet: Yes.
Jonathan Green: Enjoy French cooking, and that becomes a movie.
Leah Remillet: And now Julia.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. It's so changed. Blogging is so tactical. Like, when I write a blog post now, I have to do So much SEO and optimization and word counts and formatting, and you can't really enjoy it anymore. Like, it's not fun, And that's one of the things that's kind of unfortunate, that shift, and I think you brought up something really important, which is the pivot. A lot of people think Leah's first idea worked. Jonathan's first idea worked, and he's been doing it for 13 years. And I wish that was true Of all of my friends, only one of them, their first idea worked. Everyone else I know in any type of online business, it's like their 7th idea, their 57th idea. And it's really important to dial into that lesson because We'll go to college, spend now college is, like, $200,000, 4 years there. And even if we don't get a job in that sector, we don't complain about it because we Such a good experience. And it's like when I think about what kind of experience my kids could have for $200,000 each, like, they could rock way more than 4 years of a good time. I think they could probably last 10 years on that each. So it's very much the way things are wrapped, and we, In some areas, except, oh, your 1st idea is not gonna work. Your 1st job is not gonna work. You're gonna hop different careers. But sometimes people think, oh, the 1st online business I try has to work. It has to work in the 1st 2 weeks. And it's really good that you brought up that your first idea was kind of wasn't a perfect fit. And, also, I'm very interested because there's really 2 Internets. A lot of my experiences, there's the Internet that the Internet I'm on. It's very masculine. It's very here's how to make a $174,000 with your 1st business online.
And then there's Lady websites, which are always nice. There's always the ladies drinking coffee. There's a saw long socks. It's always long socks. There's often a cat, And it's like a the house is very clean. Me up. And the colors are the color scheme is different. I Buy a lot of products from ladies because they feel nice, and they're different. They're a different approach. Right? It's very marketing most of marketing idea with is very aggressive. It's Very over the top. It's, like, gonna change your life. You don't have to punch you in the mouth where it's, like, many lady products, which I love, are, like, You can make money, and you can still be happy. You can enjoy the journey, which is very interesting, and it's very much very few people see both sides of it. So it's very interesting that you came from one side and broadened because a lot of the careers or the businesses are like wedding planning, photography.
Was it, House organizing or feng shui or interior design. Yep. All things that are useful. Absolutely. People often comment my background, 100% my wife. I can't make the tiles even hexagons. I can't do it. So even the most basic of things in straight lines, I once had a friend who build houses from scratch, And I went over his house and painted a white wall, and he goes, yeah. You can never help me again. I didn't know with 1 color paint, it looks so bad. I didn't know you could really ruin it. And he was like, listen. You can have a tool belt, no tools, one of those things. I'm very much not crafty or handy. So when you're transitioning through things and things Stop working. Do you what's that experience like? Because this is an important moment because an idea will work, and then you realize, oh, blogging's not working anymore, or I'm Shifting in a direction where I don't wanna do photography in person.
The challenge with photography is that there's always someone else to please. Like, wedding photography sounds really romantic until the bride is shouting at you or something goes wrong, often outside your control. It's your It's raining or something like that. I've seen those things from some of my friends who love photography at first until they realize that it's very high pressure in some situations. So What was it like when you go, you know what? I'm gonna move from full time doing to just transitioning into a teaching place, which allows me to be full time online, allow me to spend More time with my kids. For me, I was selling SEO services in Nashville, and I go, I don't wanna be trapped in Nashville. I wanna be able to travel and move other places. So I shifted to only Phone customers, I shifted to only people that were in different cities, so they didn't care where I lived. So what was that experience like for you?
Leah Remillet: So I started with the photography and, really, I wanted entrepreneurship. And I think that's okay for some people to admit to say, like, It wasn't that I was in love with photography. I had never picked up a professional camera before I said I'm going to be a professional photographer. I just knew I wanted A business. I loved entrepreneurship. I was missing it, and I thought this can be my vehicle. And so I I started that business, and it grew Incredibly, I was making 6 figures within the 1st 18 months, multi 6 figures within the 1st 2 years. And so, I mean, that looks awesome, but that's the thing.
It looked awesome. And I wanna just admit that because I think it's important that we recognize that, yes, Money is helpful, and we certainly have financial goals. But there was also a lifestyle goal that I had, which is what you were just sharing. Right? Like, you wanted this ability to travel. I wanted to be home with the kids more. I didn't want to have to be gone on Saturdays and realize that there was parts of Having to leave the house all the time that I didn't like. Now I worked to systemize and automate and outsource. I had people doing my sales appointments For me and my editing for me and right.
So I outsourced everything I could, but even still, I was like, I am not in love with this, and I am realizing that I actually think I'm even better at teaching than I am at photographing. I always joke, and I used to always say I'd be like, If I can make 6 figures and I'm like a mediocre photographer, believe me, you all can. And so I it was more exciting for me To get to show these primarily women, but these photographers how to actually make money. Like, they were the true artists, and I had never been the true artist, And I wanted to show them how. So in recognizing that, I think really paying attention to how we feel in our processes, and, yes, sometimes you're gonna be like, This is not making money. Now if it's not making money, there's 2 things. Either 1, you have to adjust your approach, maybe, you know, something's off with your branding or it's off with your marketing, Something along those lines. Or 2, it might not be money.
It might be like, well, the money's here, but I don't I'm not enjoying this. I I don't like the lifestyle it's creating. There are some careers that we're choosing that are literally they're they're synonymous with workaholic. Like, you can't really be successful without being in that hustle culture 247. And there's a lot of us who are raising our hand and saying, absolutely not. I'm not going to do this. This is not what I wanted. This is not Okay for me.
And that's whether you're, you know, coming off the 4 year degree. You get into a profession, and they're like, okay. Now we expect you to put in 90 hours Every week or more, be available 247. Right? So it can be in any sphere, but we're there's a lot of us looking at What we're being sold as the only way to get to success is to just outwork everybody else, and we're standing up and saying, no. That's not true. And my version of success looks like a lot of time freedom, still having that that financial goals, but maybe I'm not trying to make 10,000,000. Right? Maybe I'm going for something different so that I can have the lifestyle I want.
Jonathan Green: It's really good lesson there because a lot of people, they just go, what do you want? Just a lot of money. But money doesn't buy you happiness. It buys you freedom and choice. It gives the ability to choose where you live and who you have to listen to, what kids you can put your school, and it does give you some power, But some people think that I'll be happy if, which is a dangerous place to be in because, yeah, I'll be happy if I'm making $10 a day. I'll be happy if I'm making $100 a day. All that happens is when you hit that goal, change the number. And you're in a perpetual state. Like, when you have the stick on top of a turtle with a carrot hanging from it, so you can never actually catch it.
The carrot just keeps getting bigger and heavier on your back. So I love that you're talking about that. Now when a lot of people go through an impostor syndrome, when they shift from doing the teaching, This is very common. This is the most common email I get from people, which is, well, how can I teach it if I'm not still doing it all the time? Right? How can I teach photography If I'm not taking pictures every single day and there's this fear people have that they'll get called out for authenticity, and it's in every single market I've ever operated in? And I still people often will email me and say, oh, you're talking about a course today. Do you do that? And I'm like, I don't do every single business model. It's impossible. Right? Do does everybody sells private airplanes Flying a private airplane. So there's different components of it, which is for me as an affiliate marketer, my job is to detect if a system works.
Let's see. Is the person ethical? Is there do they honor their refund policy? Is there a catch in the back end? Is there something about it that doesn't work that people won't figure out in The back end is the person have a reputation as a good person. Do I know people who've been to the program and actually made money from it? Like, there's all these things that I have to check Because I've looked at hundreds of sales pages, and 99% of them don't work. Like, I don't show most things to my audience. That's my job is to screen out, not to screen in. But when you're went through that transition from, I'm doing photography all the time to, I'm just teaching photography, did you go through a moment of that Feeling of, oh, now I'm not really doing it. Do I really have the right to teach it when I'm not still doing it all the time?
Leah Remillet: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I I think We all deal with those kind of feelings. So I started you know, you start with your first thing, and then you gotta start putting yourself out there to get the next Opportunities. And that's the 1st place where you're gonna have the imposter syndrome. The 1st place is when when you start pushing to get those bigger opportunities. So, for example, I wanted to start speaking. I had been doing but this is back, like, when webinars were new, and so I was doing these paid webinars.
Right? Like, people could sign up for $249, and they could learn some component of how I structure my business. And and then I was like, gosh. I I wanna Share this on a stage. And I remember, you know, putting out those 1st applicant applications to speak at conferences or even getting an invite and having all the feelings of, like, Who am I to think that I can do this? Right? And that's what comes up. It's the who am I to. And, honestly, I think the biggest shift That you can make to overcome that imposter syndrome is if you care about the people you serve, if you truly believe That you can help them, then who are you not to? Then it's selfish. It's unfair of you to leave them questioning and unsure and sitting in this confusion when you have the answer. And so that's It's really where I try to come from.
Anytime impostor syndrome tries to show up, I ask myself, like, do you know you can help them? And when I'm like, Heck freaking yeah. I know how to do this. Like, I know if they put in what I tell them to do, I am positive that they will love their results. Then in that case, who am I not to share? And so that's how I try to kinda deal with and push those feelings out. And even switching from you know, I I got known in the photography industry, and then I wanted to shift over to helping all kinds of entrepreneurs. And I'm going into this new industry, and I felt all those feelings came back because, you know, I'm known in this one. I'm recognized. I can say, hey. I wanna speak of this and, like, oh my gosh. We'd love to have you. Now I'm in this new thing where they're like, who the heck are you? Right? And I had to sell myself, and that can be awkward. I remember writing this email. There was this conference. I really wanted to speak at it. Like, there was just I got this email of, like, basically inviting me to participate to buy a ticket. And I, like, I have this overwhelming feeling of, like, I need to be there, and I need to be speaking there.
And I knew they had No idea who I was. Like, I this was right when I had transitioned. And so I'm like I send this email. I'm like, this is gonna be the Strangest email you're gonna get today, but I hope it at least entertains you. And I sold the crowd out of myself. I'm like, I have done this, this, this, and this. And I mean, I was like, This is so tacky, but I knew I wanted this and I was gonna go for it. And I no response. No response at all. And I have this feeling of, like, no Follow-up. And so I did. And that is one thing. Like, we're just gonna kinda go on a side tangent for a second. We have to always be willing to follow-up. This is something that I teach over and over and over. Whenever you're trying to put yourself out there, expect they are not going to reply.
Just expect it. That's just what's gonna happen. Doesn't mean anything against you. It's just it is what it is, And so just plan to follow-up. And so I followed up again, and I'm like, I'm I you know, I don't wanna bother you, but just in case this Slipped in. I get this email back that's like, I'm so glad you responded. I had actually just had eye surgery, and we looked into you. We think you're awesome.
Actually, we wanna invite you to be our keynote speaker. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is amazing. I mean, I went from So many feelings of impostor syndrome, feeling embarrassed to even send this email, more embarrassed to respond when, like, Maybe I'm clearly being ghosted because they're like, who the heck are you? And I'm gonna respond to then get this incredible opportunity which led into so many more opportunities. So, you know, just this willingness to be brave, you know, it's that I think Mel Robbins says, right, like, 5 seconds of brave. Right? Like, just 54321, go. And you just make yourself do those things because the opportunities, the success, the things we're hoping for, They very well could be just on the other side of those 5 seconds of bravery.
Jonathan Green: A lot of times when When we send someone an email and they don't reply, we imagine it's that moment in the night's tale when he falls over and the guy goes, you've been drawn, measured, and found wanting. Like, the worst thing you can say to someone. But 99.9% of the time, it's that life got in the way. It's so rarely that.
Yeah. Even for me, like, I've had to for a project, something similar that I had to email the person 13 times. I'm emailing the head of their JV things. I'm emailing his wife because she'd emailed me once to send a payout. Sending everyone at the team, and And I was like, let's just get it working. And it's you have to let go of the embarrassing because the more busy someone is like, even for me, sometimes people send me an In email, especially a long email, what do we do? We get a long email. We go, oh,
Leah Remillet: I never heard about it. It goes straight to unread. You're like, you see it, and and that's its own tip. Like, Stop sending long emails, people. Stop. Give, you know, short paragraph. You can always send more information once you've gotten them to reply once. So the first one needs to be as short as it can possibly be with enough information to get them what they need. But, yeah, every single one of us. We see one of those, like, it's a novel, And you're like, it got moved right back to unread. I'm gonna try to get to it later.
Jonathan Green: And that's exactly it is that we think, oh, they have judgments. Like, no. You say that thing. It's the same thing when you send someone, like, a long text, And you and they go, oh, I gotta think about this. And then you forget because that's exactly what happens. That happens to me all the time. So being comfortable with the uncomfortable, being willing to go outside your comfort zone because people say that to me all the time. It's like, well, how do you get these opportunities? It's like, just tell everyone.
Leah Remillet: Yeah. I asked for it.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. Ask for what you want. And I learned that lesson. I read that in college, and I was helping someone move. And I was like, hey. What are you guys doing with this PlayStation 2? And the wife's like, you can have it. I don't wanna playing it anymore. Looking back now, I realized I did a terrible thing, But it was like, they're just had another baby.
She's like, we have another baby. There's no time for that. And they gave it to me, and I was like, oh my gosh. People give you stuff when you ask. And the same thing people ask me for things. It's so often that we're so afraid of asking, but if you don't ask, you get nothing. If you ask and I say no, you also get I think there's no downside to asking.
Leah Remillet: Right.
Jonathan Green: And it's really important to push yourself a little bit because most of the success has not come from brilliance. It comes from consistency. It comes from just do it every day. Put in a little work every day and move the ball forward a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. It's not these huge, I I posted a video and viral. No one's 1st video goes viral. No one's 1st project changes everything. And so that's a really good lesson.
Jonathan Green: I love that you're talking about that. A lot of people just assume That at a certain level of success, imposter syndrome goes away. But even where I'm at now, every single time I'm interviewed on a podcast, I'm always thinking, what if they ask a question that I don't know the answer to. That's all that fear never goes away, and then I'll look like an idiot, and they'll be like, I knew it. You didn't know anything. How dare you come to my show? Like, yeah, you've created the entire scenario, right, canva would ever do because I've had people on this show that I'm not gonna release the episode, and I don't do that. I just go at the end. I go, you know what? This Something went wrong.
We don't like each other. This only happened once. That one happened. I was like, we don't like each other. It's not gonna work. Something went wrong with our personalities, and it wasn't no No one wants to start a big confrontation, so it's okay to have these feelings because everyone feels impostor syndrome, and then thinks they're the only one when it's ironic because it's the most Common fear everyone has. Everyone feels it at every level. So I love that you're sharing that story.
So what I'd like to talk about now is How you transitioned into really using Pinterest to drive, like, a lot of traffic. I know you're getting a quarter 1000000 views a month, which is very impressive. You You tell me a little bit about your process. Like, I've looked a lot of your pins. I noticed that you have, like, 5 pictures that you just reuse, and I love that. A lot of people think every I I have to take a new picture myself, new picture myself, new picture myself
Leah Remillet: Oh gosh.
Jonathan Green: To constantly reinvent. So let's talk a little bit about the mechanics or the process or your approach to it from a systems
Leah Remillet: level. Absolutely. Okay. So Let me start by saying Pinterest is our number one driver to my website. Hands down. When we look at our analytics, 97, 98% of the traffic coming into my website is directly from Pinterest. So I wanna tell everybody that because I Really believe in Pinterest. Right? I'm not a huge fan of I am the queen of balancing busy.
Right? My podcast is called balancing busy. Everything I do is helping people to have more time to do less but better. And so I see social media works for some people. Let's just be honest. Like, some people are Killing it. They've got that influencer status. They know how to make those reels right or whatever it is, and it is driving traffic. I have been on Social media from the very, very beginning, and I have you know, it's okay.
I have, like, I don't know, 12,000 on Instagram, 20 something on, Facebook. So it's okay, But it's not amazing, and it's not where I wanna spend my time because it is just this time suck. And so me being someone who is all about less but better, like, where can I get the most Bang for my buck? I heard, you know, some things about other people using Pinterest. I was really fascinated. I'm, like, okay. I'm gonna see what I can do with this. And so I think That was 4 or 5 years ago that we really started making a concerted effort to really work with Pinterest, and it has been phenomenal. Now I've been pinning from forever our number 1 pin, hands down.
That's something I really love about Pinterest. As you're looking at your analytics, you can see Which pins are working best? Hands down, the number 1 pin is a freebie that I created in 2009. Like, hands down, that is still the number 1 generating pin. And then the second one is a collection of pins, but they're all around the exact same thing, Which is my office makeover that I did for a magazine in 2015 Or 2014. And so one of the things about Pinterest that's really cool is that your pins have longevity. So when we're posting on other of our outlets, it has a short shelf life. It's gonna be there and it's gonna be gone. But with Pinterest, it's like when there when it's the right kind of pin, it will continue to work for you for years years years, which is Incredible.
So I love systems. So everything we do has a system. I actually call them Bob's. So if anyone coming from the corporate world, you are familiar with SOPs, and that's standard operating procedure. I don't believe anything should be standard. I believe we should be trying to make things as incredible as possible and always be ready to innovate and be looking like, how could I make this even better? And so BOB stands for best operation breakdown, and they are Google Docs that my entire team has access to. They're evolving all the time, And it's every single step of any process that we do on duplicate. And so and so we have an entire system, but ultimately within Pinterest, we're using a system called Tailwind, and so Tailwind is where we're doing all of our scheduling.
We're using Canva. K? There's a free version of Canva, and what I've done is we've created a handful of templates. So I a lot of people make this mistake of they think exactly what you said. They think I need to create a brand new pin every single time, a brand new graphic, And it's going to have brand new everything. No. First of all, you that's gonna take extra time, and our whole goal is to do less but better. So what I've done is we've designed a handful, you know, maybe a dozen designs. And every once in a while, my Pinterest manager goes a little rogue, and I'm like, wait.
Go back to the ones we have. Stop trying to, like, create new things. I want us to just use those same graphics. So it's kind of the same colors. They adjust a little bit. Same fonts. I also want that because we need brand consistency. You want people to get to a point where they see a pin, And they're like, oh, that must be a Leah Remile.
That must be balancing busy podcast. And so we have these templates that we're reusing. We put in the new images, and it's a combination of I'll do brand shoots every once in a while, hand them all the images, use whichever ones you want, whatever, or it's stock images that we have. We have, You know, several different memberships for different stock things so we can grab them, and we're just putting out these different pins. So for a blog post, So the way that I'm blogging is I'm literally blogging for Pinterest, and the way that I see Pinterest is I see Pinterest as a search engine. So Especially me being a woman who loves beautiful things and is it can be very creative minded, If I'm trying to find something, I would much rather search Pinterest than I would Google Because I'm gonna see pretty pictures, and those pretty pictures are gonna help me to know what I want to click on. And I am not alone there. There is a lot of us Who we love Pinterest, and we're using it as a search engine.
So that's one of the first things. Anyone who's like, okay. Pinterest, I'm thinking about getting into it. What how would I do this? 1st, you need to realize that you're looking at Pinterest as a search engine. So it being a search engine, I'm thinking, what question does my ideal customer have that I could answer? That then can be a blog post. So the blog post is ultimately the answer to the question. Then I'm creating pins, multiple pins for each post, and we're gonna pin them to different boards and and try to get them Circulating plus, we can then see which ones are producing the best results. We can duplicate or refine or try a just a slightly different version of that one.
Kinda the same way someone would do Google Ads. Right? Like, they're gonna go, oh, I'm this Google Ads really performing, so I'm gonna duplicate that ad and just adjust a little bit and see See what I can do with it, and that one's doing terrible, so we're not gonna try to make that one again. So we're making multiple pins that work Around that question, we'll, you know, try different hook lines, try different all kinds of different things, get those circulating, and they're all driving to the block. Now my ultimate goal for Pinterest, hands down, is my email list. And we always have to know what is the end game? What is that CTA, that call to action? And so in my case, it is I want them well, 2 things. Either I want them listening to the podcast Or I want them joining the email list. But my real goal is joining the email list. Why? Because if they're on my email list, then I can keep reminding them about the podcast.
Whereas, if they come listen to 1 podcast episode, that's awesome, but if they didn't subscribe or, right, they few weeks later, like, who was that girl? That was really good, but I can't remember, and I'm gone. I'm out of sight, mind. And so this idea of really trying to drive to our newsletter is my number one goal. So that was a 10. Tell me which direction you want me to to take it from there.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. I love all of that. The thing that I found, I got really bullish on Pinterest about 6 weeks ago. I was like, oh, I get 2,000 views a month. And I was like, let me see what happens if I just now that making pins is easier in the past, it's, like, a lot more complex. Now I can generate AI image for each pin very quickly.
I find it's a dial, I just reuse it over and over again. I can have 10 templates in Canva that I found from other people's boards. I go, I'll try 20 of these to see which one kinda works For me, try the different designs and then make it my own, and then I just constantly reuse it. And just post 5 or 10 pins a day. Like, that'd be a crazy number, and I went from 2,000 to 75100 in 6 weeks, and I missed 2 weeks. I was sick for in the hospital for a week and a half, so it was still growing. What I've noticed is that it's it's very arithmetic. Like, you I always want it to, like, double, double, double.
It doesn't seem to do that for me. And Me too. Other people, I'm like, yeah. You can grow. But if every single month you increase your views by 7,000, at the end of the year, you've increased your views by 90,000. That's a huge difference, and that's monthly views. So I also noticed that you're rewarded. My old pins get more views when I post new So that's the second thing I noticed.
And the third thing that's really important is that Pinterest always asks you, well, where do you want this pin to link to? Every other social media form is like, don't put a link. You can have 1 link in your bio. We wanna keep people on. Pinterest is very interesting in that it sends people away. And as much earlier, I love that it grows. Every year, it grows 7.5% for the last 10 years. It's the little engine that could. So when I look at statistics like that, I see that consistency, whereas I can sometimes I can have a video go viral on TikTok at 750,000 views, which is awesome, and then the video gets taken down.
Right? It's all these complexities, and it's always a challenge, and it's what have you done for me lately? It's very hard. This algorithm is constantly changing, whereas Pinterest is like, listen. Do a little bit, we'll give you a little bit. Do a little bit more, we'll give you a little bit more. And there's this Reward for consistency over anything else. And it's very interesting that because I ask a lot of people that. I was like, am I doing something wrong? Then I'm just Growing a little bit. So every time I post a pin, maybe I'll every day, I notice my monthly views goes up 1, 2, 300.
Some weeks, it just goes up a couple 100 here and there. It's not a lot, But it's always this trajectory. It's always going up, and learning that the design matters, where you point pins matters, what you write on the text matters, that there's SEO to it. Because I have a blog that just doesn't SEO from, like, Google is so hard. The content has to be bad because it has to be completely It's unpleasant for people to read.
Leah Remillet: And I wasn't willing to do that. Like, I'm like I I mean, when you're thinking about and some people just I I have a a client, and she is Killing it with her SEO, and she writes them, you know, exactly how you're supposed to. They're insanely long, and, you know, it's working. It's bringing the traffic and everything. But, Again, I think this is where you have to know your customer. Right? Like, I am literally speaking to people who are too busy. They are feeling Frantic. They are feeling overwhelmed.
They need simplicity. They need me to show them how to make their business simpler so that they Can stop feeling like they're sacrificing their home and their health and their happiness. If I go write a novel of a blog post with, With, you know, 1,000,000,000 words, so it's all SEO optimized, I am, like, doing them the biggest disservice.
Jonathan Green:
I think that's something really critical. 1 of my mentors once Said to me, he goes, I would pay 10 times as much for a 1 page product that gave me 1 trick that would make me more money. It's like, I don't wanna read. And now when I we think whenever we're creating a course, we go, it has to be more hours. It has 3 more hours, whatever
Leah Remillet: I buy it for.
Jonathan Green: And I go, sure. Please be short videos. Please be short videos. Please be short videos. Please be short videos. We want that brevity. It's so important for us. So I think that We always think that the cut when we're creating, we think the person wants long.
And when we're watching like, I'm at the age when I hit 40, I was like, every movie my wife hates Star Star Wars, but I go, but it's a tight 90 minutes. I every movie, I'm like, is it longer or shorter than Star Wars? Like, we just watched the shark movie today. That was 2 and a half hours. I was like, this is a commitment. I felt like the movie was longer than my marriage. And I just don't have this time to sit there and work through it. And that's the thing we forget That brevity is so valuable. We always think that longer is better.
Like, if someone's book is 500 pages, I need to be 600. And it's this escalation, this arms race. And, unfortunately, that's really where search engines have pushed it. You know, my best blog post was how to start a blog, and It was, like, 3,000 words, and now it has to be 15,000 words because that's what the SEO wants. And he goes, oh, you have to have at least 50 images, and it's a nightmare for traffic. You can't really be yourself, and it's so much hope. What's interesting about Pinterest is that it happens day 1. It happens right away.
They'll start to give you a little bit of traffic and that they reward consistency, which is the best way to run a business. Because a lot of people, like, I'll just post 5,000 pins today and then just let it ride for 2 years.
Leah Remillet: And And that's where Tailwind comes into place. Because with Tailwind, then you can schedule. Right? So and you can have pins like your best pins Circulating where they're being repinned, you know, maybe every 8 to 12 weeks or something along those lines. And so that's where have using a platform like Tailwind is so, so helpful because we're so I'm a big believer in batching. I don't want people sitting down every single day Being like, oh, I gotta work on my Pinterest. No. You're running a business. There's a lot of things you have to do.
Well, first of all, I'm gonna say outsource it completely. That there are things That we do that are CEO work, and there are things that we do that are assistant teamwork. And creating pins and doing all that is assistant teamwork. So So outsource it. But for those who are not ready to outsource or like me, I really like to explore things myself first because I'm not gonna train you or teach you when I don't know how to do it. So I wanna figure out what works for my my business, my style, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna turn around and outsource it and let somebody else take over. And then, of course, we'll I'll just say there's also when you just get the expert who knows better than you, and you're like, I don't wanna have to learn. I wanna just hand it to you.
You do it for me. But with creating your Pinterest plan, What I would suggest to everyone is that you are sitting down and batching. Now for anyone who has a ton of blog content, Go back and use what you already have. You do not need to be making fresh content. You need to be making pins That are going to go be pushed out, that are linking back to the content you've already created. So that's incredible because for anyone who's been around for a while, I mean, I have a plethora of freebies and different things we've created over all these years. I have, you know, all the different podcast episodes. I have All different blog content.
And so when we first started our Pinterest strategy, you know, several years ago, I'm like, okay. Here is everything I want you to make pins for and to Push and let's go. And so that's another thing to think about is just you probably already have content there that you can use for Pinterest, then you're gonna sit down and you're gonna batch. So, you You know, you're gonna sit down for 2 hours and just make as many pins as you can, then get as many of them scheduled and rotating, and then you'll come back In a week or 2 weeks because you're like, perfect. I've got 2 weeks worth of stuff done. I'm gonna you know? And the goal would be to eventually get yourself ahead. So I don't, like, ever doing anything in real time. Like, everything that we're doing is always for several weeks in advance because The joy gets sucked out of your business when you're having to do something in real time urgently.
Like, it just does. If I'm like, crap. I've gotta get, you know, everything ready for the podcast because it goes live tomorrow. It's not even remotely as enjoyable as when I'm like, oh, we've got 4 weeks scheduled completely ready. I'm working on and refining One that's for next month. And so, anyways, I just gonna give that little caveat that I really love batching, Getting several scheduled out and then working to get myself ahead of the game.
Jonathan Green: A lot of people run just in time businesses, which is Every day, I have my list of task for the day, and I've never finished a whole day's task list. And I've been doing this for 13 years. I've never
Leah Remillet: No one ever does.
Jonathan Green: So It's interesting what you say because my approach was I it's the least stressful part of my day. So I was like, every day, I do Pinterest for 1 hour to start the day, then I do my harder work. And I did that for the past 6 weeks. And last night, I finally hired someone to take it over. I go, here's the templates that are working for me. Here's kind of a design because I don't want someone to come in exactly and Play design bingo.
Leah Remillet: I was
Jonathan Green: right here on the exact Canva templates because these are the looks I like. I said, if you want, here, I have tons of images uploaded from my AI generated that are the image Styles that I like, I have an aesthetic that I like, that I'm kind of testing, and that works for me, and all of that helps. And I was like, I Don't really wanna hire someone because I like doing it. But at the same time, there's a lot of things like repinning, Like, circulating pins a lot of things you're saying that are outside my skill set because I like just in time pinning just because I go, oh, what am I gonna do today? I'll pick a random blog post, make 5 pins for it, schedule for the next week. So I'm not methodical enough for it because I don't take it that seriously because I'm enjoying it. Because it's like, oh, this is the fun part of the day. But at a certain point, You have to push it down. I was trying to do it with my male VA, and he's so bad at Pinterest. You just come like,
Leah Remillet: bad at him and I'm gonna just say, yeah. I A 100%. I think you gotta go you gotta go female.
Jonathan Green: And, yeah, I hired a lady. I was, like, very to do one thing, do one picture, because he's a great video editor. I was like, how come you're so bad at Pinterest and you're costing 4 times what a full time Pinterest works because you're I'm paying you for hours. You're doing so long. So I was like, this is not gonna happen anymore. You gotta here. So it's important to for me, before you hire someone to have a sense of what kind of results you want, like I said, okay. What am I gonna get? Where am I gonna be in 30 days, 90 days, a 180 days to work together so that I don't get mad.
Right? Manage my expectations. When I hire someone, I want a sense of what's possible. Right? And I was like, What met and I I was like, well, how many monthly views? And she goes, well, I don't do monthly views. I do clicks to your website. And I was like, well, I'm now you're speaking my language. I'm already excited by that because, obviously, that's the profitable metric. And she gave a really good number that was not crazy. She was like, I can triple where you're at right now in the next month or 2.
And I was like, okay. That's reasonable. It's not crazy. Because the thing is we're so used to platforms like TikTok is feast or famine. Either 200 people watch your view or 2,000,000 people watch your video, and there's no middle. So we often get trained by social networks, and we think Follower accounts are so important, which nobody nobody follows you on Pinterest. Nobody follows me on Pinterest. You know? I looked at your account. You get two 150,000 views a month, and you have, like, 87 followers because that's not how people use the platform because it's not a social media network. That's a misnomer. It's important to understand that it
Leah Remillet: is so social media.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. And if you I grew up using Myspace. And Myspace, They claim what they claim about why they went out of business, it's because they just your profile became more than 50% ads. So your page became worse And worse and worse until there was more ad than nonad, and that was what when I was like, oh, that that's when everyone left. Everyone left at the same rate. There's just too many ads. I don't want my profile to be all ads. And in the same way, most search engines are aggressive with lots of ads for stuff that you don't want.
There's lot most Just hard to get the result you want more and more. That's why, like, now people are switching to asking AI questions because there's not gonna be an ad in the middle of it. So there is this market shift where we go, I just want something that like you said, it's gonna look nice. It's very interesting to see How the search engine works. I'm not a heavy user from the user side, but that's because I hate the Internet. Like, if it wasn't my job, I would never be online. There's this, I think big misnomer that people think, oh, if you have an online business, you love online, and it's like the exact opposite. But it's like, no.
My when I'm not working, I don't wanna Work. Like, I would never put a video game in my work computer, because, like, that's crazy to me to mix those 2 worlds. Even my wife and I are talking about it because we Haven't owned a TV for years, and I was like, let's buy a TV. So when watch a movie because I don't like I would never connect, like, my game system or Watch I don't like watching movies on the computer either. We did it today, and the the keyboard is sticky. I'm like, oh, my gosh. What kid did that? Like, it's making me crazy. And but you have to have these delineations in areas of your life.
So it's very important to separate work from play, especially when you're at home, which is kind of the next thing I wanna talk about. There's this Revelation that happened, and the first one I experienced was about 6 years ago, there were a lot of travel bloggers. When travel bloggers made enough money that they could start traveling, they all went out of business Because they could not go to Machu Picchu and then blog. They could not stay fastidious. So the secret to my business is that I work 7 days a week. Like, my dad gave me this piece of advice. He goes, listen. Don't work more than 6a half days a week.
I was like, oh, that's where I get it. That's workaholic advice. Right? Like, only 2 workaholics are gonna, like, take off 3 hours a week. I obviously have a system where I work shorter hours so I can spend more time with the kids. That's why I'd rather work every day shorter than 5 days longer, But I'm always amazed by people that don't work on weekends. I don't know how they do that because I always get emergency email on a weekend
Leah Remillet: from a past. And it makes me like I'm like, What are you why? Like, I have not worked on a weekend in years years years. You're like yeah. I'm like
Jonathan Green: Well, I live on vacation island. Where I live, everyone comes here for 3 day vacations. So every day, one of my rules is if the kids ask me to swim, I always have to say yes. So one of my rules is that that. And that if the kids ask to sleep in the room, I say yes. But I make them be off camera because it's their choice When they're older to decide if they wanna be famous or online or whatever, I don't wanna make that decision for them. But I liked they're here most of the time until till they start fighting. Sometimes I'll be shooting a video, and they'll start fighting each other, and that's the one thing I can't handle because I can't stop them because I'm on camera.
So that's Kind of how I structure, but it is very important to structure what works for you. And a lot of people exactly they freak out when they go, I work on weekends. Like, yeah. But I'm also always on
Leah Remillet: vacation. I totally agree. Because, one of the things I think that's so incredible is that we get to choose our own schedules. That's one of the beautiful things about Entrepreneurship and having an online business. And so, you know, if you're working a a few hours and you're able to do it before the kids wake up or or whatever that looks like Or after they go to bed, but it's it's every day. And then, you know, there's a there's another mom out there who's like, okay. Well, I need mine. For years, mine was like, I needed it to fit while my kids were at school.
And so it was like, I didn't want them to feel me working. And so when, you know, I got them off to school and then I worked until I They came home from the bus, and there was never any extra in addition to that. And then and the thing is our lives are going to keep shifting. They're going to keep changing. So My schedule has changed dozens and dozens and dozens of times over the years because I started my business with 3 babies who were not none of them were in school yet. I now just took my oldest to college last week. So we have shifted dozens of times throughout the years of, like, what works for me and what works best for our family.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. It's important to understand that it's different for everyone. So we lived on a different island for years where I only had Internet from midnight to 6 AM. So you have to shoot your videos And get do that kind of stuff when there's no Internet, and when the Internet's on, you gotta upload them all. So I people are like, how do you do that? I was like, well, my kids live in paradise. We live in one of the biggest surf spots in the world. My kids have this amazing life. Now we live in a different place because there's a really good school here, but it's always this Decision.
You have to make these different decisions of what is right for me, what's right for my family. And, for example, I like to shoot these videos at night because It's convenient for people in America and because it's convenient for the kids. They're asleep, so they don't see it, and that allows me to get certain things done, and I still spend time with them. I'm still there every morning when they have breakfast School, I still hang out with them, like, home from school. So you have to again, as we talked about at the beginning, decide what you really want. So a couple of years ago, I started using an office that was a 100 meters from my house, and I was so efficient. I've never gotten more work done. I would walk over there at 7 in the morning, come back after dark, and I was like, I'm an idiot.
What am I doing? I live on the beach, and I never see it because I've created this really, really stupid scenario where I give up all the goodness. Right? It's like we Sometimes think, oh, this is what I should do. Like, I should rent an office space, or I should rent this. Oh, yes. To have a team. And one of the things that I wanna ring up is a lot of people Talk about now because they go, oh, I wanna come home, or I have to go in the office 2 days a weekend. There's a huge difference to me, because there's 1 person who works from home. I'm gonna work every day. Like, I'm gonna get my job done. I don't take long days off. I'm gonna get work done. I'm in the hospital. I'm still sending messages back and forth. I'm still running the business, and my wife doesn't work. We have 4 kids. She's very busy.
But some people, especially people kind of that are work from home employees, like 1 company just said, they have to come back to work, and 50% of their employees quit. I feel like there's the employee who they're wearing pajama bottoms. Right? They're kind of thinking, when you get paid based on time, not performance, You don't have the pressure behind you, and this is why I mentioned the travel bloggers. Some people do not have the Self motivation, whether you call it gene or training or whatever it is, the consistency, the fastidiousness. And I went through a period myself before I had kids where I was, like, Kinda coasting because at a huge year, I was able to live off that for the next 2 years. Once I started having kids and they want breakfast every day, they wanna go to school every day. The school's always sending me bills for new things. They just Send me a huge bill for the bus.
I was like, can you just put into the tuition? Like, why do you always have to have these extra bills? And they're like, oh, your kid kid chose soccer for his elective. That's extra. So It's always happening. Right? There's always someone wants money. The baby wants new diapers. Everyone's hungry. So there's this pressure to perform That motivates me. Right? I I operate well in that environment, but many people who are thinking about starting online business, they don't realize it's Still a business.
Right? You still have to work hours. You still have to put in time. You still have to pay attention. You still have to either manage staff or manage tools or figure out how you're gonna deploy your time, how you're gonna employ your employees' time, how you're gonna be efficient, and that's I feel like those are the people who are the most likely to fail because they Think, oh, online business equals easy.
Leah Remillet:
Oh, it's it's so true. I mean, there's it might be a different kind of hard, but it's Still hard. And one of the biggest things that we have to do is we have to shift from so it's Michael Gerber's book, E Myth Revisited, like super old classic. Sick. Right? But he talks about and I remember this sticking. It was one of the first business books I ever read about, like, you cannot think like a manager or like an operator. You have to shift and think like a business owner. And it's you know, you gave such a beautiful example of this.
You were enjoying doing Pinterest. It was a little creative outlet. You know, it's like The easiest part of your day, but you recognized that in order to protect your time, which is your greatest asset and you need to be pushing that time to income producing activities, that was something that was better off delegated to somebody else so that you could Protect your time in places that we're going to produce better results. And so as we're looking at how we spend our time and what we're doing, This idea of just really, really needed to focus on what is going to get us the results that we want. And I think So many people start their business, and they're doing what's fun. They're doing the creative stuff. They're doing the stuff that they really enjoy. They're, you know, being the manager or they're being the operator.
And so, you know, let's take someone who maybe has a videography business or a photography business. Right? They're spending all the time shooting, and that's the part that lights them up. But there's an entire side of their business that needs to be focused on that so many people miss. It's the difference between working in your business and working on your business. Right? The in your business are the things that have to be done That day, though, the deadlines, they're taking care of the clients. The on the business are the things that are actually going to move that needle. They're gonna move your business forward. They're gonna get you into that next realm that you're excited for and think could be possible. But if we never schedule the time to work on our businesses, then we get stagnant, and we're just you know, nothing's changing. Nothing's evolving.
Jonathan Green: I think that's a really important lesson because For a lot of people, they go, well, I have to do this. And I work with a lot of authors, and every author tells me I have to narrate my own audiobook. My audience demands it. And I was like, I don't think they're demanding it. I I don't feel like you're getting that demand because they're like 2 years later, like, oh, I saw them and found time to do it. I'm like, well, all you did is not give an audiobook To everyone who won it for the last past 2 years, most people think that writing the book is the job. It's like, no. Writing book's the easy part.
Wait till you find out what happens after you push publish. Nobody wants it. You have to make them want. You have to market. You have to go on every single podcast you can get. You have to hold up your book. You have to tell people about it. You have to constantly grind To build that attention because it's not easy. It's there's, like, 1,000 I think it's 3,000 books a day get uploaded to Amazon. So how do you give me the 1 out
Leah Remillet: of 3,000
Jonathan Green: people notice? People Sometimes, it's the fun part, and I'm like, the fun part is not the money part. It's hard to self assess. Like, one of the things that I do is I check email once a day
Leah Remillet: because Me too. I'm 2 times a day, but there's a timer. So it's 30 minutes, 2 times a day, once at about you know? I and I never this is Such a big thing. I do not start with email, and I advise everyone to never start with email because email is someone else's to do list for you. That is what your inbox is. It is not your own to do list.
Jonathan Green: You can spend 6 hours a day doing email. Like, most people work for companies. I read the study. They said 6 hours a day doing email. I was like, well, I don't like that. Yeah. And you have those days where you go, what did you get done today? And they go, oh, I don't know. And I really rage against that because You have to do the 80/20 rule once a week or once a month where you say, what did I do this month and what made money? People say to me all the time, like, Jonathan, you have a huge business.
Why do you still do ghostwriting? I was like, well, They pay me at the start. They pay me upfront. Like, that's why. Everything else I do, I get paid after it works, but it's really nice to get paid a whole bunch of money at once And to have that there, because sometimes you have a bad month or things go wrong in another area or you have a family emergency. I like to have a fast money and a slow money in my business. So I think a lot about risk management or risk balancing, which is every time you make a new product, maybe nobody wants it. Right? There's that risk. Every time I write a book, my favorite book that I've ever written, my audience hates.
They hate it. It's their least favorite. I I put more work into that book, more science into it, more effort. Everyone's like, yeah. Kate it. I was like, oh, okay. Learn my lesson. My book that I wrote in 1 week is everyone's favorite, so you never know what's gonna work because it's a democracy and your customers get to vote.
Yes. So I'll try to teach people that you wanna have a skill that you can sell. And people like, how do you get clients? I just tell everyone. It's not on my website. I don't have it anywhere because I'm not seeking clients, so I act aloof. I saw that in a TV show, and I go, oh, I'll just be like, I have GhostRite, but I'm not looking for clients. And every time someone says, how much does it cost? I just say a bigger number And see what they say. Because I had a person last year.
I said $20,000. He goes, oh, you must suck, and he hung up on me. And I go next person goes, how much is it? I go 40. And then the next person, I go, 50. This is the only business where you can just double your salary. Like, if you went to your boss at any job, they go, I wanna raise. How much? Double it. They're never gonna do that.
Right? There's no such thing as a double at race. They'll be, like, what are you talking about? The the what we have as the owner is all the risk, but also all the work. People often I see this a lot when people are complaining about the owner of the business and, like, we should all get a share of the profits. It's like, yeah, but you have to take a share of the risk. If you're in the right in both directions, then
Leah Remillet: absolutely.
Jonathan Green: Right. Because sometimes I work on a project, and they go, do you wanna put money in it? I'm like, no. They go, okay. Then your Upside is minimized. I go, yeah. Also, my downside, and that's risk management, which is a poor part of any businesses. Most people get devastated by a real estate deal. It's the downside of the doubt because they're working so much at the upside, they forgot that there's a downside.
And a lot of people Don't manage the 2 parts of their business. You have to have a fast money part and a slow money part so that when you need emergency money or you need income, it can come in. And when you wanna Slowly build it because just like we talked about, Pinterest can take 6 months or a year to start to get enough traffic that's really moving the needle. During that time, Time what I always tell people, like, yeah. Just sell yourself out as a Pinterest expert and do other people's Pinterest so you get good at it. Get paid to learn. That's how I started. Someone else paid me to do SEO, and I go, okay.
I'm gonna go buy an SEO force and figure out what what to do, what this person just bought. And that's how I deliver my results. It's okay to do that because it puts this pressure on you as well. Like, this person already paid. I do not wanna refund them because I've already spent the money. Have to deliver good results. So you can create a pressure depending upon how you operate. But a lot of people think that they can self motivate and then they can't Because they are the type of person if the boss isn't watching, they're like when the cat's away, it's like you have to be the cat.
You have to be the business owner. You have to keep track of everything. Thing, you have to have your strategy, which is how much money do I need to make every month, how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, what can I do to increase efficiency? And I do like that that's a lot what you talk about because it's a lot people don't talk about. The final thing I wanna ask about is that there's a huge shift now with artificial intelligence tools, which allows, Like, my team is down to just 2 peep oh, 3. I hired a Pinterest person. It's down to 3 people. It used to be 20. And there's so much room for efficiency because we can do things faster with tools and software's that I know of a company with, like, 6 employees that's doing 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars.
It's possible to do so much more with less now. A lot of Business books that I read are all about, like, oh, I've had this employee for 20 years, which to me is like, okay. Come on. That doesn't exist anymore. Like, Everyone job hops. Like, nobody's staying at a job for 20 years. I've had people quit. They go, oh, I'm just bored.
I wanna work for someone else, not for more money, but just because I'm bored. I want some a new challenge or not even a challenge. I want something more interesting. So How has that changed your approach to outsourcing building teams now that you can do more with less and there's opportunities for efficiency that don't require an employee, but can instead be like software?
Leah Remillet: Oh, I'm looking for those opportunities everywhere because there are 2 ways to make money. 1 is you have a new product. You're selling something. Another is you cut costs. Never minimize the fact that cutting costs also makes you more money because if you're bringing in the same amount of revenue, but now it costs you 50% less to produce that result, you're making more money. And so I'm loving AI and loving using it. And, in fact, I'm working on a course right now that I'm really excited about using AI as your virtual assistant because I'm like, oh my gosh. We don't really need them anymore.
Like, AI can do all of this stuff for you. And you had made a point which I really liked where, You know, you hired someone for Pinterest. You hire someone for different things. I really believe in hiring people for their genius zone and not trying to get them to crossover and be multiple things for you. One of the big mistakes we make is, like, we hire, you know, let's say, your 1st virtual assistant, and you want them to take on everything. You're like, oh, and can you try to do this, and can you do this, and can you do this, and You they're costing you way too much money because that's not their strength. So they're slow and they're inefficient, and they don't really have the eyes, so you're having to follow-up and be like, that looks like Crap. Right? And trying to adjust.
And so I I learned that lesson the hard way years years ago, but I I really try to only hire someone for 1 job. Like, you are doing Pinterest, and you are doing gosh. Why am I blinking right now? What other things people do? It's on my website. Anyways, everybody has their role Upwork they're doing. I have it on my about because I want people to know, like, I I don't wanna try to pretend. Oh, I'm doing it all. No. I'm not.
I'm getting help, and I believe in getting help. But going back to AI, AI is another way that we can get some really incredible help. And so taking the time and the energy to really learn how to use, you know, the different options that are out there and integrate them, I mean, it is incredible what we are going to be able to do. I am saving so many hours with AI with just one of my favorite things about how I'm using it is just the thinking. It sounds kind of funny, but, you know, I'm creating a podcast, And I'm trying to think about the title. Right? And normally, in the old way, like, I'm sitting there really trying to think up All the things I know about how to create great subject lines that create urgency, that are gonna be clickable, that are blah blah blah blah blah. And now I'm like, chat g p t, Please create 10 subject lines around, you know, and we know the more we put in, the better the results are gonna come back as. And it's like instead of me sitting there for, I don't know how long.
It's seconds, and it's back. And I'm like, oh, that one's great. Do a little refining and go. So, yeah, I'm I am loving that we can use AI to do less but better. We just need to see that balance between making sure that we're not giving too much. We're still showing up And it's gonna be it's gonna be our voice. It's gonna sound like us, but but, yeah, there's it's pretty great.
Jonathan Green: That's amazing. So I've this has This has been a great episode. It was supposed to be 25 minutes. We've already done it in an hour. It went way over because I had a lot of questions for you. Where is the best place for people to wanna listen to your podcast, find out more about what you do, and check out what you're doing on Pinterest?
Leah Remillet: Absolutely. So first thing I'm gonna say, just go over and look up balancing busy on your podcast platform Subscribe, and you're gonna be able to look at all the episodes, find what you're super interested in, listen there. You can also go to balancing busy.com. We have tons of free resources And so much there to help to just give everybody the chance to just drop your hours. My goal is for anyone who wants to to show you how to make your Full time income on part time hours. That's what I've been able to do for the last 13 years, and it's amazing. I love it, and I wanna show other people how they can do the same thing.
Jonathan Green: Amazing. So if you guys don't wanna work on the weekends, you wanna go to balancing busy you absolutely love it. Thank you so much for being, Leah. This has been an amazing episode, And everyone, we'll see you next time in the Serve No Master podcast. Thank you for listening to the Serve Master podcast. Get a free copy of my bestseller, Fire Your Boss, right now on Amazon, go to server master.comforward/getfire or just search fire your boss on Amazon.
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