If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're going to love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make a thousand dollars for weeks of work, but when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work, since then she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking, "That sounds like the dream," you need to check out this free masterclass from Photobooth Supply Co. It's called Capture Success, how to turn your creative passion into a six-figure photobooth business. Catalina is going to show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn a thousand dollars or more per event with a photobooth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've got to check this out. Head to photoboothsupplyco.com/goldigger to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom, and build something truly amazing. That's photoboothsupplyco.com/goldigger. I could make a hundred videos with that little clip, so we don't have to always be in recording mode. We're going to be doing these highly produced things, mostly all of us just need to turn on our phone when we're doing our everyday life. I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger Podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. If you've been tuning into Gold Digger this summer, you likely know that this has been a year of exploring hobbies outside of work, from baking bread, to beekeeping, rowing, and gardening. I've literally loved every single second of it. And this is actually how I connected with my guests today. I stumbled upon her Instagram as my family and I were planning our first garden, and I instantly fell in love with her. Turns out she's been a member of my community for years and years. Nicole Burke is the visionary behind Gardenery, a brand that inspires people to grow at least a little bit of their own food using accessible gardening methods, creative tips and tricks, and a unique aesthetic. And although this is definitely a zone of genius of hers, Nicole is more than a gardener. Nicole's story begins in 2015 with no credentials and a $450 preschool refund check, driven by a dream to set an example for her four young children and make a significant impact on the world. Fast forward nine years, and Nicole has built not one, but two seven figure businesses, authored two best-selling books, Kitchen Garden Revival, and Leaves Roots and Fruit, and cultivated an online following of nearly two million engaged fans. Her next book is slated for release in January of 2025, and I will tell you, her previous books have been my Bible as I've been gardening, so I cannot wait to hear more about it. Recently, she expanded her influence with her personal brand, Haynical Burke, where she teaches entrepreneurs how to grow their businesses on Instagram using distinctive social strategy focused on short five-second video clips. In this conversation, we're diving into the key strategies Nicole used to quadruple gardenaries Instagram audience in just 15 months, and how she managed to quadruple shop sales in the same period. We'll uncover the secrets behind Gardenery Inc.'s record revenue growth achieved without any paid ads and solely through short-form video content. Nicole also shares insights into creating engaging content, avoiding common social media pitfalls, and how she transitioned from being a service-based entrepreneur into a digital online business. Nicole Burke, welcome to the Gold Digger Podcast. Super quick question. How many tabs do you have open right now, like actually go to your browser and check? If you have ADHD like me, it's a lot, and when you throw a business into the mix, it's even more. You might have a tab for your email marketing system, one for your payment software, one for your CRM content tools, email tools, and with all those tabs, you're spending more time searching through data, and less time, you know, growing your business. But with HubSpot's customer platform, you can close all those tabs and access all your tools in one convenient place. With HubSpot, you'll get everyone's eyes on the same work, boost data analysis with AI, optimize workflows for marketing, improve pipeline management for sales, and keep track of every customer question big or small. So close those tabs, it's business growing time. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. That's HubSpot.com. Honestly, I've been looking forward to this interview for so long, just so that I could come on air and tell this woman how she's changed our lives. Oh my gosh, I could like actually cry. What the heck? That wasn't planned. Pause. Hi, Nicole. Welcome to the Golden Grapak. I mean, I'm crying. You're crying. What's happening? We're only 30 seconds in. It'd be an interesting episode. Dude, gardening. What the heck? It's so freaking cool. People are like, why are you crying about peace crowds? Peace crowds are so cool. It's been so much fun. We have had like the best summer gardening. Why am I crying? It's so cool. I mean, I have my period, but what is it? What is it about plans? It's so in our core, you know? I mean, that's why I do what I do, because when I'm the same as you, go back 11 years, my kids were around your kids' ages. And it was our first summer, and I told Jason, I was like, I need a garden. I'd been in my mom's garden that summer. And I was like, as you've been, probably just like over my head with kids, you know? And I love being a mom, but I was losing myself. And that first summer, it was a complete fail, Jenna, like our garden was honestly laughable. But the moment of stepping out your back door and having the sky above your head and putting your feet on the earth and like leaning down and seeing this thing that grew overnight. And you know, you had a little small part in it, but somehow it became so much more than that. And you get to cut a little from it, bring it inside and have the most delicious, fresh tasting meal you've ever had. And then you walk outside the next day and it's grown back. And I just, when that happened to me, and I think that's why you're crying, I cried too. Because it's like, whoa, I was missing this, you know? Like, what? This is such a... I mean, we've started talking about this with garden areas. Like, this is a human right to like see how the things that we need to nurture and care for our bodies. And I know you've been on your own body journey, and I've been on my own body journey. And for me, to finally see real food become food in front of my eyes, I was like, oh, food is not my enemy. Like food is my gift. And yeah, I have loved watching your journey this summer when I saw that you were going to start a garden. I was like, oh, world, watch out. Because as soon as Jenna experiences this, everybody else is going to want to do it too. I like it is so crazy. I think you're so right. And I think there is something so ancestral, like my grandma had the most amazing garden. They lived on a farm, they had a compost, like I just remember like going in there and just eating snap peas all day long or like running out and grabbing berries. And it's so visceral. And so I think too, to see your kids get that excitement over like yesterday, Quinn, who's too. We went out and there was a little strawberry and she's like, oh, because she got so excited to have the red strawberry. And she's like, I think it needs one more day. And like this little two-year-old who's like learning all of this and like running out and just coming back with like a big bowl of peas, like, there's just something so pure about the whole experience. And it's been so interesting because, you know, even yesterday, Drew was in the garden with me and I was, you know, picking weeds and helping out our pea sprouts and, you know, looking at our tomatoes coming up and I was like, I think I'm going to do a few things differently next year. But it's been such an experiment and a slowdown and something that even a few years ago, that version of me would have been like, oh, I just go to the store. Like, it's so much easier. You could just pay somebody to do this. And I'm like, people could not pay me to stay out of here right now. Like this is, oh, it's heaven. And you were like my speed dial. You guys, I have a funny story, but when I planted my garden, I just got so excited. And then all of a sudden, everything started sprouting up and I couldn't remember what I put where. I'm texting Nicole, like, okay, what sprouts are these? I'm like, I think these are cucumbers. She's like, those are the carrots. Okay. Thank you. So you have just been so instrumental. And I like studied your book and I watched your video with Shay McGee three times. And like, it was just, it was just so awesome. So thank you for what you do. Now that everyone knows that we're both obsessed with gardening, I want to go backwards because your journey started with $450 preschool refund check. Now run two seven figure businesses. That's incredible. Tell us about this journey. Yes. So way back when, let's see, 2015, I have four kids. I had four kids in four and a half years and I had mostly put my career on pause. I had worked in philanthropy before I had kids and then just kind of did contract work. And I homeschooled for a few years as well. And I turned 36 and my grandfather had passed away at 74. And I don't know what it was, Jenna. I think we all have those moments, but it was just this like, I'm not going to live forever. Like, I might be halfway done. I might be more than halfway done. And I just, I kind of woke up to, I have dreams and things I want to do and I need to start doing them. Like, you know, there's, there's no time to wait. And honestly, like, even around that time, two of my very dear friends were diagnosed with cancer. So it was just this, this kind of perfect storm of, of life, like waking me up. And so I put my kids in school and I was like, I, you know, as a mom of four, I really wanted to be there with them when they left for school. I wanted to pick my preschooler up at noon. I wanted to be there at two or three p.m. when they came home from school. And as you know, as a mom, it's very hard to find anybody who wants you to work those kinds of hours. And so I was like, I think I'm just going to have to start my own thing. At the time we'd been gardening for a few years. And as we just talked about, it was my soulless. It was my therapy and it was really my favorite thing in the world. And I, I think I'd always dreamt of being an entrepreneur, but I had told my husband, Jason, I was like, to be an entrepreneur, like you have to sell, right? You have to be okay with being a salesperson. And I told him, you know, like, I'm only going to be able to do this if I a hundred percent believe in the thing I'm selling. And so I had thought, you know, I could do stationary or crafts or this or that. And when I discovered the garden, just like we've discussed today, I was like, this is for everyone. Like I could sell this to a baby, you know, like anybody, I can sell to an old person. I can sell this to a school kid. I could sell this to someone in college, like any person anywhere, I think the garden is an answer for them. And so my first thought is I was going to sell things from my garden. So I started a company called Rooted Garden Goods. And as you've probably already started to learn, but the garden replicates itself. And so I was like, how cool, like I have free raw materials, essentially. And a friend of mine said who I'd homeschool with, I was getting business advice from her. And she said, Nicole, I don't really want you to sell me things from your garden. I want you to teach me how to grow those things myself. And it was this light bulb moment for me of, oh, that would be also so much easier. And so much more fun. And so I had applied to two preschools for my baby Elaine. And I got one back because we chose the public route. And so I got this $450 check in the mail and finances were tight, Jenna. So we were in the Dave Ramsey world, like very low debt. We like, you know, vacationed with my parents at their house. Like we were living very simply, but we were definitely like right at our means and things were tight. And so that was my cash, like that was the supply I had to start a business. So I took that $450 and I was like, all right, I'm going to go for it. Like I could use this to pay a bill, but instead I'm going to put it in the bank account and use it as my seed money for my business. So in that first year, what I would do is go into someone like you, I'd go into the backyard with you and design a kitchen garden for you and then put it in and then even come back and take care of it and teach you how to become a gardener from scratch. And in my first year, my company made a hundred K, 130 K, actually. I know and I was doing it part time. So I would drop off my kids at school, drive, go meet a client and then come pick up Elaine at noon, maybe bring her around with me for a couple of errands and then pick up my kids at three. And I was done working. And I was like, what is life? Like within, you know, 365 days, I had a fully booked calendar. I was growing, you know, online, I was using Instagram to permit my business and I had money. Like I had money, I had earned myself and I could pay for my daughter to play competitive soccer and I could take them shopping for clothes. I paid for our first vacation and within that first year, I bought myself a minivan. It was just so powerful and empowering and literally unbelievable that first year. And I was like, this is too good to not share with other people. Oh my gosh. Also what a fun thing. Like I bet you were getting pictures of like, look at my tomato because I've wanted to send you like eight pictures of like, I am taking portrait mode for sure. For sure. For sure. It's my produce. It's very Instagram. I think, right? Yes. I think that's super interesting and it honestly kind of reminds me of my wedding photography days is you scale this thing to six figures, right? You're booked out for a year. Sounds very eerily similar to my wedding photography days. Did you, because I had this very visceral moment, especially when we were on the path to becoming parents of like, this isn't necessarily sustainable. The only way to earn more is to work more. I don't want to work more. What is that ceiling? Did you hit that point? For sure. So 20, so all of 2016, I did like 130 in sales. And then 2017 that spring, Jenna, I was, it was so crazy. I had my kids were all in elementary school, so my, I still had a preschooler and I was so booked out. And I was getting these jobs that honestly were like a big stretch for me. And I ended up in the emergency room three times. So I was stretching myself so physically because I would just run from thing to thing to thing and ended up in the emergency room at the end of the spring. And I literally told Jason, we got to the end of that spring season, I said, I can't do more. Yeah. I was like, that's the most I could do. And so I realized I could one, build a team so I could build a crew, get trucks and, you know, basically build out a full system that could run the business without me. And I did eventually do that. But at that stage, my kids were in this magical place and yours are getting there too where they were all in elementary and now I have a senior now. And so I'm so thankful for the wisdom of that moment, which was I don't want to be running the streets every day and going all day long and running trucks and that kind of thing. And so it was that summer I took off and I took my kids on a road trip across from Houston is where we were living at the time to Charlottesville, Virginia. And I took this course from Amy Porterfield called courses that convert and I learned how to create online courses. And I was like, oh, my goodness, this is so neat. I can take what I'm doing, one person at a time, one client at a time, and I can turn this into a system that I can teach people all over the world. And so I am not kidding when my four kids were sitting in the back of the minivan. I'm driving. It's a 21 hour drive. And I just listened to actually, I also had B school from Marie Forleo at the time. And I just listened and binged every time they were quiet and didn't need me. I was learning how to to create online courses. So that's what brought me that was in 2017 and brought me to the fall of that year. And that's when I first started creating courses. Okay. So I love this because I feel like even though our careers were so different, there were so many similarities and I'm sure for listeners, they're like, oh, poor you, you're making six figures right away. But I think that for so many people like us, you recognize very quickly, like this wasn't the dream, right? For some people, that might be the dream. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. And you might be in a season of life where you can hustle, but I had such a similar moment of like, I can't stay at this pace. This is not sustainable and this isn't the dream. And one thing I'm curious about is were you hesitant that what you did could translate into an online course? Because a lot of times people talk to me and they're like, okay, marketing is very general. Obviously, you can teach people how to do this. But gardening could be slightly more specific based on where you live and things like that. Were you worried about that? Or had you done the same thing over and over and over again? So many times that you knew that there were universal truths that you could put into an online program. Yeah. I do recommend. I know some people go straight from like life experience of their own to being a teacher online. I will say I loved my journey and I would highly recommend it to anyone listening, which was to first personally coach people because I got to, when I created these courses, I had so much confidence because this wasn't just one time experience I'd had in my own garden. I had literally done this for a hundred people, right? And so I could say here's a shaded garden, here's a tight space garden, here's someone who's never garden before, here's someone who had success and then had more, right? I had all these real life experiences and you don't have to have a hundred examples. But I also could then like when I created the course, I already knew the questions people were going to ask, I already knew the objections they were going to have, right? Because I had had these one-on-one conversations. So I would say anyone who's wanting to like scale and go online and digital, it is so valuable to have those one-on-ones first, even if it's just your first quarter, your first half year or even as you're creating those digital resources. It was really powerful to me to have all those experiences behind me. And I continued my service based business. So as I grew my online course and I would recommend this too as my own journey, I think one of the things that's made it so powerful is I'm still in it, right? It's not just like, here's what I did 10 years ago and here's my teaching from that time. I have like a real in-time data set, right? Where I'm like, come with me today, I'm helping Jenna put her garden in, right? And then hey, and you can learn how to do this too through my course. And so I do think there's a lot of power in having those one-on-ones and then also keeping your hands in the dirt, so to speak. You know, like even as we become online experts and digital teachers, I've found for myself personally so much confidence by also continuing not as full-time for sure, but having my hands still in the business so that I'm always speaking from real-time perspective. Oh, I couldn't agree more. I used to mentor photographers in our home. And one thing that was so helpful for me too is like being able to picture a specific person asking a specific question and creating for them and not thinking of like the masses. Yeah. So I could like remember my friend Abby and this is what she was struggling with. And so now I'm going to create this module about like branding because she just didn't understand what a brand was. And I totally agree. I think there are so many different ways that you can get that experience and it not only boosts your confidence, but you also know how to anticipate people's questions before they can even ask them and that gives a stellar experience. Yeah, absolutely. I think that I'm curious about is like as you started kind of shifting to more digital, what surprised you the most? Oh, so for my service-based business, I literally didn't have to do any advertising. It was so easy to sell. So easy. I mean, I- Wear a mouth alone, right? Wear a mouth. So I started on like the other side of the tracks in Houston, okay? Like we were close to MD Anderson where my husband works as a chemist and I had never honestly stepped foot on a property that was, you know, over- I had one friend who had like a million dollar home, right? And then it was like she introduced me to her friend and then boom, boom, boom, boom, it was like I had to tell people, hold on, like I can't handle all this business and I wasn't marketing. I wasn't paying for advertising. The only thing I was doing was taking little photos from my little iPhone 5C or something and posting them to Instagram, right? That was all I was doing. I wrote a newsletter and that was it. And the sales were so easy. I mean, I would go in, do the consultation and I'm like, here's the estimate. This is what it costs. And they're like, when can you start? And so a huge surprise to me and I was just breaking this down the other day with my kids explaining them the difference between a physical service-based business and online. And I said, you know, when you're in person, the service is the most important. Like the better the service you can offer, you really don't have to worry about the sales. Because if you offer great service, the sales just happen. But the more online you go, the more digital you go, the key thing is trust. And so I'm still learning that lesson. But realizing like the sales piece of digital is so much more complicated. Because unlike when you're standing in front of this person and their neighbor is telling you, oh, Nicole just helped me with my garden, she's amazing. We're now online with strangers, right, who the, like our instinct is to distrust those people, right? To assume they're lying, they're exaggerating, and they're not going to keep their promise. And so that's been, that was a huge, huge lesson for me, and I'm still learning it. And I think it's something that most people that step into the online space way underestimate. I knew I did. I thought sales would be just as easy as they were in person. And I've learned it's a completely different game online, because trust, well, trust is always the currency, but trust is so much easier to earn in person. So digitally it is a very different game. I think that's such a good point. And again, parallels with wedding photography too. I ended up shooting so many bridesmaids weddings and so-and-so sisters wedding and things like that. And it is so interesting, especially because I think that this generation we're recognizing we're constantly being sold to, right? It's everywhere. Everything is a sales pitch. And so it does. It builds up that distress before the relationship even begins. And it always has us wondering what do you want from me, right? Not like, what can you do for me, but like, what do you want from me? And I think that's so interesting. How have you combated that? Because I would say the majority of my listeners are people just like us who are like, I don't love sales. Like, I don't love the idea of selling. I think a lot of people listening would love to have a business but are terrified about the idea of them having to sell their product, their service or their offer. So how have you combated that? Yeah. So I will go back to that conversation with Jason of I have to 110% believe in the thing I'm selling. And so when I feel overwhelmed, when I feel like I don't want to do this anymore, I literally go to my garden and I go back to the source and I think probably your listeners, I'm sure you've felt this way at times where we get exhausted or we get worn out or we're like, I don't want to convince anybody else to buy anything. We have to go back to what got us started in the first place. And so for me, I do go back to, I go back to the garden and remind myself, like, what would life look like without this for myself? You know, what would life be without this? And I said this when I first started in 2015, my youngest will graduate high school in 2030. And I started talking then and I still say, like, my dream is that in 2030, my kids live in a world full of gardeners that my youngest will graduate into a world full of gardeners where it's as, I used to say this all the time, it's as common as yoga pants, you know, it's like in the 70s, you were a weirdo if you were a yogi, you know, like you're extreme edgy if you're a yogi. And now it's like everyone identifies as a yogi, whether you actually know how to do a downward dog or not, right? It's just like, we're all wearing stretch pants, right? Even the guys. And so I'm like gardening, I want gardening to be that common where everyone sees themselves as someone who grows a little bit of their own food. And so I would say that has been the, like, really the foundation that's kept me going for almost 10 years now is I so believe in the mission and I have such a big mission that honestly, Jenna, I'll never get there, right? So it's like, it's so big and so huge that I know I could work the rest of my life and sell to everybody every single day and I still want to achieve it. And so that keeps me going. And then I would say, like, staying in the stories. So I'm actually doing a webinar this week for my kitchen garden academy course. And I've sold this course since 2019, right? So this is like my six year selling this course. And I don't know. I know you do this too, right? Like the course is still good. So you should still sell it and there's new people in your audience that need it. But for us as the entrepreneur, you've got to keep that energy alive. And so two days ago, I just went into my membership groups and just spent an hour and a half looking at their photos and looking at their videos and reading what they said. And you know, it's those stories that keep us going and that remind you, like, there's more barbers out there, you know, there's more canis out there. And you know, if I got to change these people's lives for the better, I shouldn't quit yet. And so. Yeah. So one of the things I think big, big mission, I would encourage everyone listening to go bigger, like get whatever mission you've got. Ask yourself, how could this get bigger and and make it so big that you probably can't achieve it. Even if you work, you know, the rest of your life going after it. And then going back to those individual stories, especially digitally, that's why it keeps me going. Yeah. Oh my goodness. If you're serious about making connections that actually lead to results, LinkedIn is where it's at, especially if you're in the B2B world. With LinkedIn ads, you can get your business in front of the right people, like 180 million senior level executives and 10 million C level execs. It's like the ultimate business network, but way more targeted and with fewer distractions. On other platforms, it can feel like you're shouting into the wind, but with LinkedIn ads, you're building real relationships with the right people and that's where the magic happens. 79% of B2B marketers agree that LinkedIn is their number one for paid media. And it's easy to see why LinkedIn gives you tools to drive real results. And with two to five times higher return on ad spend, it just makes sense. So if you want to build meaningful relationships, start making smarter moves with your marketing and grow your business, it is time to get LinkedIn ads working for you. Make B2B marketing everything it can be and get $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to linkedin.com/goal to claim your credit, that's linkedin.com/g-o-a-l terms and conditions apply. If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're going to love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make $1,000 for weeks of work. But when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work since then she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking that sounds like the dream, you need to check out this free masterclass from Photo Booth Supply Co. It's called Capture Success, how to turn your creative passion into a six figure photo booth business. Catalina is going to show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn $1,000 or more per event with a photo booth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories, or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've got to check this out. Head to photoboothsupplyco.com/goaldigger to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom and build something truly amazing. That's photoboothsupplyco.com/goaldigger. One thing that I think is so fun to watch of yours and I swear the algorithm just loves you for me, which thank you algorithm for once in my life, is watching the content you create the amount. I think I have saved every single post you've ever published because I'm going to need that. I need to remember how to prune back my tomatoes. I need to understand this. One thing that's amazing is that your social media strategy that you've been using to market your online business has also led you to quadruple your sales over the last 15 months quadruple. So many people will argue that the economy stinks and this isn't working and people are over this stuff. That's not true. Tell me about this. This is fascinating. Yes. Yes. Okay. So I took your Instagram course, and so I found you right around the time I found Amy. And I can literally remember, I think I sent this to you in email, but the day you and Drew went viral for your bathing suit post, I was on vacation with my husband. We were just about to move to Chicago and I'm like, "Jenna's going viral." I mean, I felt like I knew you personally. I mean, like we were best friends and I was just celebrating you. And so I took your Instagram course and it's so I was thinking about this the other day, how different Instagram is from those first days, I would watch you post your bikini photos and stuff. And everyone loved how raw and real you were. But how much simpler was the algorithm then? Right? It was like post a really cool photo and you're good to go. So I started Instagram then and to be honest, it was really hard for me, the switch in 2020. So I was very used to aesthetic Instagram and colors and lining everything up perfectly. And that worked for me because I had these really beautiful gardens to post. And then suddenly in 2020, they brought in the TikTok vacation to Instagram and I was shook. I was like, "No, why are you changing this?" I was really angry. And I would see people who were like brand new to the platform, like blowing up past me. I'm like, "What is this?" So I had just hit 100,000 followers in 2020. So 2021 in 2022, I'd say I was a little lost online. I had been running ads, ads fell through in 2021 with the iOS updates. And so I was literally like, "How am I going to grow my business? I can't do paid ads anymore, they're too expensive." And I do not understand how to do Instagram anymore. If you look at my numbers, we had already had grown to be a seven figure business, but we were pretty repeat. Like 2021 and 2022, my business was basically the same size. And I heard this interview with the Daily Stoic guy, Ryan Holiday, in 2023, or right before 2023. And he said, "You know, if I had a marketing budget, I wouldn't spend it on paid advertising. I would make the most incredible videos I could possibly make to reach the most people organically." And I was waiting at CrossFit to pick up my two high schoolers. And I was like, "I'm going to do that. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go all in on short video, and I'm just going to not give up. I'm going to put my ego aside. I'm not going to pay attention to the likes and the followers. And I'm just going to throw spaghetti at the wall until something sticks." And so for 2023, I committed to be more strong in my language, to speak more opinionated, to truly speak what I actually thought, to post things that I was previously afraid to post and to post often. So I committed to posting one to three short form videos a day. Yes. So at the start of 2023, we had like 240,000, 270,000 followers. By the end of 23, we had 640k. So added almost 400,000. And then now today, we're at 1.2 million. So we've doubled. We've added over 600,000 followers just this year. And I'm going to tribute all of it, honestly, to that moment of saying, "I'm going to put my ego aside. That's another Ryan holidayism. Ego is the enemy." So I'm going to put my ego aside. I'm not going to try to look perfect, and I'm going to be okay with posts that just totally fail. And what we did is we used what I know you use too, is we started to use DM automation. And so because previously, right, it's like, even when you went viral with your bathing suit posts, it's like before on Instagram, you just get likes and followers. Like, how does that actually turn into sales? And with this DM automation, it's amazing because you can tell them to comment something. You send them a DM. And then instead of them sending you sending them to your website, which who knows what happens over there, we just get their email address or their phone number inside of the DM's. And so Jenna, we went from like, maybe having a 20% conversion, like when someone gets on our website to them signing up for a webinar or something to a 60% conversion. So for every 100 people that would comment, we would get 60 people's contact information. So for instance, this week, I'm doing webinars, and we have almost 30,000 people signed up, and they're all signed up from Instagram posts and DM automation. Isn't that crazy? It's amazing. It is. So it totally changes social media in the way of like, I think so many people spend so much time on social media. And if you were to ask them, what is the end result? Like, tell me, you know, what is your cost per lead or like, how much does a new follower earn you or like anything? They can't tie it to anything, right? They could say, well, this one post of me making hot cocoa last week got 200 likes and it's like, well, great. But like, what does that actually mean? And how much time did it take you? Yeah. And that the people that are like scrappy with their time and like any time I'm spending in my business is going to lead to a result because anytime I'm sending in my business is away from my kids, yeah, it totally changes it. And it's so interesting to me too, because I think a lot of people look at things like DM automation and they think it takes the human out of it. But when you think about the amount of friction that you are giving your follower saying, look out of this post, go to my bio, find the link in my bio, scold up page, find the form that I need you to fill out, fill out that form. And then I'll email you, there are like 10 different points where somebody can fall off, not because they don't want what you have or your resource isn't valuable, but because they're living a life and they're busy too. And so it's so amazing to me because I not only then can also see the automated messages and jump in as a real human and say, like, hey, I see you, but you are giving them such a better service. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying about how service is everything, right? How you make somebody feel the sales are easy if the service is good. Yeah. This is like having our own little service bots there helping us help them so that they have a better experience. I love it. I am so curious about your real strategy and how you managed to create enough posts to do one to three posts a day. And are you still doing that? Yes, we are still doing that. We still do about three. We're actually now we're adding in carousels and memes. So now we post about five times a day. Yeah. I know everyone, you know, everyone I'm guessing in their brain, they're saying right now, but the quality, right? The quality is more important and we've tested. So we'll have times where our videos are not performing with what we were hoping for or following and we'll be like, Hey, let's back it down. Let's just do one post a day. Let me tell you something. We don't know which post is going to be good. It's true. And so what's happened is we'll back off and we'll do one a day and it'll still perform poorly. And so we're like, it wasn't the number of posts that we did. It was just the quality of the post, right? It was just the how good the post was. And the thing about the algorithm is the thing about social media followers is I don't know what they're going to love until I give them the chance to love it. And I will think, I'm sure you've had this happen, we're all make a video and I think it is going to go so big and it just tanks like I'm like, this thing I saw you post one time, you're like, can y'all give this some love because it took a long time to make. He just helped me out and I spent like two hours doing this. I just edited this for forever, so please just at least give me a heart or something. And I'm like that too. So I'll put a lot of work into a video and I'll post and they'll just tank and then I'll put like a nothing video up and the world goes crazy for it. And I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to put a lot out there and the algorithm will take care of the trash. Let me just say that. So like the stuff that isn't that great, it will just hide it and no one will see it. So it doesn't really matter. I've heard people be like, so if I underperform, should I delete it or hide it? I'm like, no one will ever see it. Like, if it was bad, no one, no one will know. So yeah, so how do we do this? So last year it was me. I did have someone helping me do long form video and we would like have the phone recording while we did that. But for the most part, I was the editor and I was the poster. I would take a dog walk every morning around 5 a.m. So I would literally edit with my thumb while I walk the dogs. Oh, that's amazing. And post, we're not looking for perfect here. And I would say for real, like everyone listening, like your mind is saying, I can't do one to three posts a day. And that's because you're thinking, I can't do one to three perfect posts a day. But what if I said, can you do one to three bad posts a day? Totally. Yeah. And we can all do that, right? And so the people are so done with perfect, like it is such good news for us as entrepreneurs. People are so done with polished and super overproduced. People just want to know us, like they just want to see us and see someone that looks like them and lives like them and, you know, is doing things like they do. And so yeah, so I would edit while I was walking and then post three times. We post like 9 a.m. at lunchtime around and then around nighttime, like 8 p.m. Now I have a short form videographer, like that is his main role. And so the way we do it now is we try to be about a week ahead in terms of planning and we plan based on what we're promoting. So for us right now, like this week, we're selling our kitchen garden academy course. And so we do post that that promote our workshop and the webinar because that's the way that we sell and promote the course. The thing we don't do is sell directly. So we don't do any videos or posts that say, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. Everything goes to a resource. Everything goes to a workshop or an e-book or, you know, a prerecorded class. And I would say to everyone listening, like that's where the magic is, back to the thing you and I were talking about, about online being all about trust building. The last thing people want to see online is you immediately asking for the sale. But if you take them through a journey, right? If you give them this opportunity to over time learn from you, to see you show up consistently, that's also part of me showing up every day is I'm like Oprah to them, right? Now, I'm not like Oprah to many people, but to like a million people or maybe a hundred thousand, they know they can count on me. Like I'm showing up like that trust is not like me showing up every day is not just about feeding the algorithm. It's building trust. So you're like, this girl serious, like she keeps telling me what to do in my garden, you know, like they can trust that if they open their phone on a Thursday, there's going to be a message from me. So that builds trust. And then on the other side, when you give that resource, that begins to build trust. And then from there, you earn the right to ask for the sale, right? And you basically say, if you like this, you're going to love going deeper with me. So yeah, that's our, we probably record one to two, one day a week, I would say. And then what I see you do too, like I just this morning, I went out to my garden to make a kale smoothie and I just put my phone on a tripod, pressed record and filmed myself go out there, get the kale and come back in. And I'm not making a video with that right now, but I will have it, you know, as footage, I could make a hundred videos with that little clip. So we don't have to always be in recording mode. We don't have to be doing these highly produced things. Mostly all of us just need to turn on our phone when we're doing our everyday life. Yes. Okay, let's be real. Why are we still overpaying for wireless? I know I've been guilty of it, but Mint Mobile is here to change the game. For just $15 a month on a three month premium plan, you can get unlimited talk, text and high speed data on the nation's largest 5G network. That's right. 15 bucks. You can even bring your own phone, keep your number and all of your contacts. The switch is super easy and there's no need to start from scratch. You get to keep everything the same and just pay less. Like way less. If you've been searching for a smarter, cheaper way to manage your phone bill, this is the sign you've been waiting for. No hidden fees, no surprises, just a great deal on wireless. To get this new customer offer and your new three month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/goldicker. That's mintmobile.com/goldicker. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/goldicker. $45 up front payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only, speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees and restrictions. I love that so much. Sometimes it feels so like narcissistic of like, I'm recording myself making coffee. At the same point too, you said this earlier, it's like people want real and they want to be invited into your actual life. And so I think gone are the days where you have your hair and makeup perfect. You're like sitting in a perfect place hitting record. It's like you're taking people on the walk with the dog or you're, you know, you're quick getting the kids out to school and you're recording a quick video and it feels so much more personal. And I always think of too is like, even you and I voice memo each other and things like that. So you are inviting me into your life and I'm doing the same. And that's why you feel so connected. And so it's almost like the veil has been removed in a beautiful way where it makes it so much more approachable for anyone to hit record whether you're curling your hair or recording a podcast episode or even typing out an email. That is your life that you're inviting people into and then you get to choose how you use it, which makes it so much more approachable and so much less complicated than we're making it out to be. Absolutely. And if you, if we all just remember, like, we could all just put a post it up of like trust. Yeah. Like we're like, this isn't about impressing people. It's about helping them trust you. And I try to remind myself of that like, you know, I don't have to look perfect. I don't have to, to impress. I just need to be real and to be trusted. And that really is the, the currency. So yeah, I feel the same way and my kids will literally, I'll be like in the kitchen, you know, making breakfast in the morning, like, mom, are you recording yourself? And I'm like, yeah, and like, post is going to get me a hundred new subscribers. Thank you. I'm like, what I'm doing right now is paying for the food that you're eating. So just be quiet. Yes. Oh my goodness. Okay. My final question is this. Is what advice would you give to someone who is serving a specific audience or maybe they're in a career where they find themselves, like you and I did in a service based business where the only way to scale is to work more and that's simply not an option. Yeah. What would you tell them to do in order to stay an entrepreneur, but maybe shift the business? Yeah. So, processing things. So I did this, I was in this exact place in that 2017 time. And I was, I was watching you and learning from Amy and Marie and figuring out my own version of this. And what I would do is, first of all, actually what we're just talking about, I've done documenting yourself. Yeah. So the first step is literally grab your phone or, you know, record on your computer, whatever it is you're doing, document that. So what happens when we document, it's just like if we track our calories or track our time, right? We're kind of opening our brain to go, oh, this is like, there's a process to this. It's the same with the garden, right? Like, there are things I do in the garden that are very just like, they're so innate now. Maybe you have all these things you do with the camera, you know, or with your business, where you just kind of flick of a wrist and it's magic, right? And then a person who's never done that, right? A person who's never pruned a tomato, they're like, whoa, how, like, what, but what does the sucker even look like? And so all of us have in our brains, we have these folders full of all these details that have just kind of compressed inside of our brain so that we can go on with real everyday life and not have to, you know, obsess over the details. And so the first step is actually to like open that folder back up and start to pull out the details, right? To start to like almost take the video and put it on slow-mo and go, oh, I do this. And then I do that. And then that's step four. So the first step I would say is document your days, document your tasks and the things that you do. And then start to put them into like outlines, like this is the first step. This is the second step. I would do this so I would work my day as a garden consultant, you know, feed my kids dinner and then I would take them to soccer practice. And I would literally walk the soccer field at night with my phone and I would do voice notes of my day. Like first I loaded my car and then I did this and then I did that because I eventually I created a consultancy training where I train consultants to do the same work that I do. And so I started just documenting what I had done that day and that turned into my digital products that I just literally took the process that I had slowed down and put the magnifying glass on. And then I was like, okay, this is the first step. This is how you load your car. This is how you set things up at the client's house. This is how you order your supplies. And so yeah, I would say like keep doing what you're doing, but put the magnifying glass on all those little steps and start to get them into processes and documentation. You're like, the minute you do that, you are literally prepped and ready. Like if you've basically written the thesis for your book, right? You've now got like the outline, you've got your teaching materials. And then I would say, teach it, don't wait. Like literally if you have to do this in front of a mirror tonight, I would say, I would say that the main thing I see that people do is they wait, they're waiting and waiting and waiting. Like I would get in front of a mirror, like literally while I'm getting ready and I'd be like, all right, Jenna, I want to tell you how to set up your garden first. We're going to look, you know, because I would be so scared to walk into your backyard, you know? And so if the first time I'm ever having the conversation with you about your garden is when I'm actually with you, I'm having a freak out moment. Right. So I've had that conversation 10 times before to my phone in my mirror while I'm driving. When I get in the garden with you, I'm like, Oh, I've been here before, like this is not my first time. And so everyone listening, I would say the minute you finish this podcast, pick up your phone and teach yourself something, right? Like put it on selfie mode and teach yourself the lesson because like it's just like everything else. The only way we get better at anything is practice. And so, you know, find, you know, ask your spouse, ask your child. Like, Hey, honey, can I teach you how to do this? And you tell me after five minutes, if you understand it, you know, like there's, you know, pay somebody to listen to you, teach them, and then get their feedback. But none of us have an excuse anymore, honestly. Like we can all start right where we are, document the things that we're doing and then start finding people who will sit still long enough to listen to you, do it for free at first, then do it at a discount, then charge full price, and then turn it into a system you can sell online. It really is. Yeah. It's a step-by-step. It's amazing. And even as you're saying that, I'm like, when you start pulling apart what you're doing and how you do it, you can make a playbook that you could pass to an assistant someday. Yeah. You're creating an online course that you can teach to other people and you're starting to uncover your own unconscious genius that is living within the things you do and the way you do it, that you probably don't even realize are special. So take Nicole's advice and get to work on it because there is only good on the other side of it. And I love it. There is no excuse anymore. Like everyone knows something that can help somebody else. Yeah. And our friend Rory Vaidano says, like, you are most perfectly positioned to help the person you once were. There was a time where you didn't know how to do what you're doing. And so uncovering that is so powerful. Nicole, where can everybody find out more about you? Learn from you, plant their garden, give us all the places and things. Yes. So my marketing side, if you want to learn how we do marketing and how to grow your business on Instagram, especially, we have resources at haynickelberg.com/instagram. So there's a download there where you can get a ton of five second video ideas and learn my strategy that you could, you all could literally start applying right now. So that's haynickelberg.com/instagram. If you want to garden with me and Jenna, then that's at gardenary.com. So we have a whole library, a blog post, we have our course, kitchen garden academy. And if you want to follow along with us on Instagram, we are there three to five times a day at a gardenary code. So G-A-R-D-E-N-A-R-Y-C-O, the idea of gardenary is that gardening is ordinary because that's my dream. I love you. I won't start crying again, but you have so changed my life. Having a garden is like now my personality trait. I am obsessed. It has been so amazing. I'm literally looking out my window at my garden right now. And it's just so exciting because it is just something that I am so excited my kids get to experience and see and pass on. And it feels so special. So thank you for being my phone a friend throughout the entire process here. Thank you for doing it. I know that so many more people, when I saw you were going to start a garden, I was like, oh, get ready because yeah, I mean, you know what, you don't realize, I think we underestimate the power of our influence in all things, right? And so yeah, I'm really, I'm so thankful for you going for it. And I'm just glad I got to be a part of it. It honestly felt so special to be able to thank Nicole in person for how she's changed our lives. Her showing up and showing what she does and the way that she does it has influenced us in a massive way. And I feel like it has just shifted so many things for us as a family like gardening is amazing. If you have never had a garden, start small, you will be blown away by the experience. I've never been more excited by a tomato in my life. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Gold Digger Podcast. It is such an honor to show up in your earbuds and to be able to host conversations just like this one. And of course, until next time, keep on digging your biggest goals. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger Podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more. And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, Gold Diggers! [music] (upbeat music)
