AP 1146: Where Are They Now: Jane Hamill from JaneHamill.com

AP 1046: Where are they Now: Jane Hamill from JaneHamill.com

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1146 of AskPat 2.0. You're listening to a special ... I guess you could call it a series of episodes from the end of the year here for Where Are They Now? We are going to be re-interviewing or getting back with some who have been on the show before, who had been coached, who had been given advice, who then had some time to implement or maybe not implement, and we're going to check in to see how they are doing.

Today we're speaking with Jane Hamill from episode 1030 ... What was it, 1036. This was over two years ago. She was struggling because she had a couple of businesses that could have been overlapped. They could have been combined and we discussed, "Well, what do we do here? There's two separate things, but how do we manage this? Should I keep them separated? Should I bring them together?"

You'll hear right at the beginning of this conversation how she took the advice that was offered and what we learned from that, and then what she applied and how things are working out now. So these are my favorite episodes to do. We always do them at the end of the year here. We're thinking of doing them more next year, even just sprinkled throughout, maybe even once a month, just because they're so fun to go back to.

I think step one is to step up and to ask for advice and to get help. Step two is to implement, and step three is always to go back and reassess and learn from what did work, what didn't work, and then keep going. It's all about iteration. Right? So here she is, this is Jane Hamill from JaneHamill.com.

Jane, welcome back to AskPat 2.0. Thanks again for coming by.

Jane Hamill:
Awesome to be here, thanks, Pat.

Pat:
I'm excited to catch up with you, and I'm going to point everybody to the previous episode that we did together. But you had some branding-positioning questions the last time, trying to figure out how to navigate the new things you were doing versus the old things. I just want to catch up and see, based on what we talked about last time, what has happened since then? So why don't you give us a little rundown of what's been going on?

Jane:
Yeah. A lot has changed and a lot is super positive. It's amazing how you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. So even last time, that was a little over two years ago, you were able to be like, "But wait, this makes obvious sense. You don't have to have these whole two separate businesses. They can match all the things." Since then my family life has been a little cray. I have two kids and they've just needed a lot of extra stuff. So I was just starting my membership site and I ran it for over two years, and I started a second one because I loved it so much.

Pat:
Because you're crazy like all of us.

Jane:
I I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted to narrow my focus a little bit. So then you gave me, in my brain, the permission to focus on what I wanted to focus on new and still keep what I was currently doing and not be in conflict with them, so that was huge. I just couldn't get over that hump until we had that meeting. It was great.

Pat:
Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned that word "permission." That's something that comes up here all the time. A lot of times, we know what we should do, but we just aren't sure. I think I just helped you make sure that yeah, this could work out. So what did you do since then?

Jane:
So I launched the membership right after we talked. I had just launched it, actually, and I did that and I did that for just about two and a half years. Then in July ... So COVID happened. Obviously, the pandemic is crazy, and then the homeschooling. My kids are not gentle little girls who go read in the corner. Right? So I'm like, "I got to get these kids through high school. I don't even know-"

Pat:
How old are they, if you don't mind me asking?

Jane:
Well, now they just both had birthdays. So they're 14 and 17. So eighth grade and junior year. Yeah. But in my situation, they need extra management and things, and they have learning challenges. So I was like, "Okay, this is going to be interesting, because it was pretty insane in the spring when they were all, of a sudden, at home and like, "I'm working. Why are you guys here?" Right? "I work from home, you guys." I do have—

Pat:
Yeah, this is my space. You're supposed to be ...

Jane:
I was like, "What the heck are you people doing in here in this room, in this house?" So it's been really challenging. Business has been pretty good. COVID was tricky and I did give a lot of allotments for all the things going on, but we personally struggled with some financial things as well in my life. So in the end I decided, "Okay, I have to be bold. This is the biggest, most amazing gift I could've ever had, even though it seems like a total S show at the time."

I was like, "Wait a minute, this is going to force me ..." and it did ... "force me to be really tight. What do I do? What's the one thing I want to be known for? How can I fit it into, tops, seven hour days, three days a week, because the rest of it's got to be kid management and pod learning all the things." Then I was like, "This is ..." Once I started doing it, it was super scary, Pat, because again, I was narrowing my niche. I was narrowing my niche the last time I talked to you, and that was scary. Or I don't know narrowing ... but changing. Then this time I did it again.

So I started a new membership called List Builders. I wanted it to be what I really just love talking about all day, which is email marketing, content marketing, and mindset, and how to get over your crazy, beautiful, entrepreneurial brain that's going to mess you up every day.

Pat:
So important. Thank you.

Jane:
Yeah. So I was like, "Okay, I'm doing this." I gathered up my courage and I was like, "What I really want to do is work for people, any creative entrepreneur, whatever niche, whatever they sell," which is what talked about last time too, but also putting the mindset stuff in there, which I had not had the courage to really do.

Something about ... I have no choice, I have to deal with these kids, and my husband's not going to be able to do it. I'm going to have to be the point person to get them showing up to class. So I started the list builders program, and it's only covering those topics. I have been able to expand past just physical products, which... Not that there's not enough business in physical products, there's plenty, but I've been doing that so long I love the idea when someone has a mission, like a life coach or a mindset coach or a wellness coach.

Sometimes it's so gratifying to work with these people and see their businesses grow because they're making major changes in people's lives. And selling dresses is causing people a little bit better day. It really is. I really do think there's value with lots of products, but it's more obvious when it's a mission-driven focus. So I'm digging it. So I have authors and I have a person who sells flooring in there. It's a lower price membership. It's 49 bucks a month. So the pressure, it just feels easier. So I combined the two programs in the past two weeks and I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm not going to go broke.

Pat:
Well, what's cool is I'm noticing that although you "niched down" to these very specific challenges and problems that entrepreneurs have, you've, in a way, also opened up to different groups of people who would benefit from those specific things. I think you're doing it in the right way, because now when you share what it is that you do, your super power, people either know it's exactly for them or it's not for them. I think it's just much more clear, and the mindset stuff is so important, honestly, probably more important.

Without that, no strategies or tactics are really going to work. So I love that you're injecting that in there, and especially during COVID and the pandemic. That's what people need the most help with right now. So I really love the repositioning and the boldness of that. It likely is going to be easier for you to help people now that you have this more narrow focus, I would imagine.

Jane:
So far so good. I have to say I had a lot of brain work to do, because there's some major ... I'm like, "Okay, really, Amy Porterfield teaches list-building. She's really good at it. Right?" Why would somebody buy from me when they could join her course? Then I was like, "You know what? Everybody likes pizza. We don't all like the same kind of pizza." So I really had to be like, "Okay. I'm in the bigger leagues now, just by choosing to cover a topic that really famous, cool people that I like cover." There's not that many people teaching fashion business, but email marketing, it's like, "Okay, you could go to HubSpot or I'll talk to you about it." You know?

Pat:
True. There are different personalities, different people, and like you said, not everybody wants to learn from just the one person. First of all, some people like to learn from multiple people, and the more the merrier. I come from a place of abundance, and I hope that you do the same. I'm sure this is what you teach your students, in fact. It's interesting because this is a very common theme here as well on AskPat, is people will come in and they'll talk about how they help others, but then they don't follow their own advice sometimes, right? So I don't know if you shared with other people who you've helped with their businesses, with their competition, and it's like now you have "competition" and now you have to figure out what makes you special and unique. You're doing that.

The other thing is people love different personalities. There are people who are way better at other things than I am, but people gravitate toward me for certain reasons, just like people are going to gravitate toward you. I think this is where, when we start to inject a little bit of our personality into our brands, is when we start to stand out and be different. Because although Amy's great, she is in her own area of life and shares things in certain ways and attracts a certain crowd. You're going to do the same. I'm going to do the same. There's plenty for everybody, I think. That's how I approach it, at least.

Jane:
There so is, and I know that's true for other people. Then when I'm doing it, I remember, I had to be like, "Look, just because I love Amy Porterfield and I would take the class from Amy Porterfield, my people are different. They're much more artsy and they're this and that. I have a different take on it. That's it. It's fine. It's awesome."

Yeah. So I'm really happy, but it has been super scary to be ... If you go to my website, it's a work in progress, as always. I don't have website shame, but it's not as up-to-date with what I'm focusing on now. I swear I do my buyer persona every three months. I re-do it. There's two things you can buy. So I went from having a bunch of different courses and options to being like, "If you want to join, here's the thing. We're closed right now. You have to wait for enrollment." Which is really weird, because I'm used to selling something every day, and now I'm not even trying to sell every day. It makes me very anxious until I really have to remind myself like, "That is the plan, dude. That's the whole point."

Pat:
Right. Right. It's really hard doing a new thing like that, especially when you're used to selling things all the time. It's like, "Hey, my cart's not open. I can't make money right now." But what you're doing is you essentially have a dam that's filling up water, more and more water—people. Then all of a sudden, the flood gates are going to open when everybody's ready and you're excited. That's the analogy I like to think about.

What you're doing as this dam is built, holding people back, is you're building relationships. You're providing value. You're showing proof. All these things that are essential before a person can get confident in the purchase with you. So this is cool because now you are stacking that together. You're building relationships. You're sharing expertise, advice, providing value right now.

Then all that's going to happen and transition when you have a launch. Of course the launch, the live launch, when you go, "Okay, at this time of the year, this is—it's all in right now." It's a lot of effort, but it's so rewarding. I promise you it's going to be ... just the flood gates are going to open and you're going to see all these beautiful students come in.

What's really cool is when you have groups like that, people often purchase during that time, not just because, well, it's finally open, but also because it's going to close and this is the time to act now. If it's always open, it's like, "Oh, well, I can get it next week," or, "I can get it next month." Now there's incentive, plus you have the cohort of people. That's something that's worked for me, is when I launch my programs live like that and then they close, I often promote it in a way where I'm like, "Oh, you benefit from having other students in the exact same situation as you're in right now, that you're going to have access to. I'm going to be focused on people just like you right now, versus if it's always open, some people are ahead, some people are behind," and it's harder to promote that part of it, the community part of it.

Jane:
Yeah. It's interesting, because it's different for me, as well as I've been a workhorse. I started my first business when I was 25 years old, and I've worked for myself ever since. So to be like, "These two days of the week, I'm re-doing my junior year of high school with these kids." Right? Wait a minute. So to not toggle back and forth is so great, and to not toggle back and forth between serving the members and selling and serving and selling. It's really great. I love it, but it's weird. It's been an adjustment.

Pat:
The cool thing about the niche of list building and things like that is that you can ... It feels a little easier to sell, right? Because there's a specific ROI that can actually be calculated, in a sense, from that. When I started selling my exam guide for architecture, it was very clear. It was like, "You pass this exam, you can get a promotion or a raise or it helps your resume." It was a very clear, "Oh yeah, I'll spend money for that because I know I'm going to get that money back in one way, shape or form."

In some cases, other things ... like I've sold a number of workshops this past year. This was our answer for filling in a lot of gaps for other things we were going to do because of COVID. So we've sold these $99 workshops and we've done seven of them. The ones that perform best are the ones that have a clear ROI on the other end. People can imagine, "Okay, I'll spend money to learn that so I can get this money back." For example, our traffic -booster workshop has worked really well. Our workshops on promotions and pricing have worked really well. The ones that had the least success were the ones that were just productivity, like our productivity workshop, which I think is, in fact, the most valuable. It's harder to tie in, "Oh, if I become more productive, then these things will come out the other end," versus just, "Oh, then I'll have a clear to-do list."

So the list building aspect and the numbers that can come with that, the clear results that you can get for people, whether it's 2x-ing, 10x-ing their list, open rates, as well as click-through rates, all these things are numbers that entrepreneurs want to gain traction on and do equate to dollar amounts on the other end.

Jane:
In my other membership, I made the classic mistake of just giving them too much. They got overwhelmed. There was so much content in there. They were like, "Oh, it's wonderful, but where am I supposed to be? I can't get to it," and I'm-

Pat:
A little overwhelming.

Jane:
Yeah. I'm showing constraint with how much content is in there, and they'll ask me questions about other things. I'm like, "Oh, we are list building. We are not going to be covering that." It's a relief, honestly.

Pat:
Yeah. If people want that, they could get that elsewhere, or you have other content or other supplemental stuff, but you're also providing them a service by saying, "No, we're not doing that here. This is what you got. This is the transformation I'm promising, and this is what it's going to be. Let's all focus together."

I love that. So I want to just first commend you for making these tough decisions. It's a hard decision to narrow it down in this way, but by narrowing down, you're going to be that much more the go-to resource for this. Like you said earlier, "What do I want to become known for?" I love this positioning. Absolutely. Where can people find more info about this and what you have?

Jane:
They can go to my site, which is JaneHamill.com. If they go to JaneHamill.com/hello, you can get on the list and we send weekly marketing and sales tips. I have a podcast. I'm going to print out what you said. Once I listen to the recording, I'm going to print out ... It's so ... I teach it to other people, but then when you're on it yourself, you're like, "Oh yeah. Being known for one thing. That's the key. That's it." So I just was not practicing what I was preaching. You know?

Pat:
You got this, Jane. I feel like you've allowed yourself to let go of so much to be able to go deeper into this and should feel like a weight lifted off your shoulder, instead of ... What's probably happening is you're ... you know how when you rest on a bed of nails, it's like all that weight is distributed, so it feels comfortable? But now, you have just a few nails that you can focus on, but it feels like more pressure because there's just less now to distribute. But now you can focus in on that energy. Like one of those nails, you can dig in a little bit deeper because there's less stuff around you. I don't know if that analogy works out or not, I just thought about that.

Jane:
You know, I can pound those suckers right down. But I couldn't pound a whole bed of nails, like showing constraint. Honestly, showing constraint. This is what I teach. This is the people. This is how, if you like it, let's go.

Pat:
You'll have to create an episode of you talking to yourself. You're coaching on one side and then you're actually answering your own questions. I don't know if you should actually do that. But just sometimes we need to have conversations with ourself. In fact, I do this all the time. I don't talk to myself and look this way then I look this way and I'm having this full-blown conversation.

Jane:
That would be weird.

Pat:
But I do internalize these things to better understand, because you said it perfectly yourself: It's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame. It's hard to read the label when you're inside the bottle, which is why stepping out of that can be good. But also—and I don't know if you have access to this—but either a mastermind group or other colleagues or friends who are also in the same world as you who can see things, which is again, why I'm glad we're connecting here, because I can see some things. I'm sure you could find other people who could connect with you more often to see things, too.

Jane:
Yeah. I have a coach and I'm also in a ... Not a mastermind per se, but a group.

Pat:
Cool, cool.

Jane:
They're both useful.

Pat:
Good. Yeah. Don't be afraid to ask for help or feedback or anything like that in those groups, because sometimes it's hard to see. But Jane, this was great. I love the repositioning, and I'm excited to see where we go from here. COVID and the pandemic has challenged so many people. I think you've definitely stepped up to the challenge. You're making bold decisions, and you have to do that, because those bold decisions, which feel a little bit risky, they feel a little bit nervewracking, that's outside the comfort zone. We all know the growth happens outside the comfort zone. So you're placing yourself there, and I want to just commend you for that and being a great example for those of us who are listening here today.

Jane:
Yeah, dude. I'm glad I've done it. It is not easy, but I really appreciate the gift of the pandemic in this situation, forcing me to do things differently.

Pat:
For sure. It's done that for a lot of people. Obviously, the pandemic is terrible, but it is helping people slow down, think a little bit more deeply about our direction moving forward and this is a beautiful example of that. So, Jane, one more time, is it JaneHamill.com?

Jane:
You got it. That's exactly it. Yep.

Pat:
Cool. Awesome. I appreciate you and keep up the good work.

Jane:
So glad to be here. I really want to thank you a ton for connecting. Take care.

Pat:
Thank you, Jane. Appreciate you.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that reunion, I guess, if you want to call it that, with Jane Hamill from JaneHamill.com. Jane, well done. Way to take action, super proud of just putting yourself out there and making it work and trying new things and experimenting. Of course this is continuous. We're at a new baseline now, and we're going to move forward and try some more stuff. So looking forward to catching up with you again, Jane, and I hope all of you are, as we come into the end of the year here, thinking about the things that you have accomplished.

Maybe you didn't accomplish all the things that you wanted to, but I'm a hundred percent sure there are things that you are or can be proud of. A lot of times we love to focus on what's left on our to-do list versus the things that we have already checked off. Even though we don't complete the to-do list, it's still worth going back and seeing what we did in fact do and the things that we did accomplish. I just want you to take some time, even after this episode, before listening to the next one, to just reflect on what you've done and hopefully be grateful for not just the opportunity, but hopefully some effort that you put behind it.

If not, of course, let's learn from it. Let's get into 2021 with some energy behind it. I'm here to help you with that. Of course, the show and my team and everybody else here in the AskPat and SPI community is here to help you too.

Appreciate you so much listening to the show. Please subscribe, because we have some more Where Are They Now episodes coming out next week and into the end of the year here. I look forward to inspiring you even more. So thanks so much. Hit that subscribe button, and thanks in advance for all the amazing reviews that have been coming in this year. I read them all. I'm so grateful for them, and I'm grateful for you, too. So cheers, thanks so much, take care, and, as always, Team Flynn for the win. Peace out.