Kabrina Budwell never thought that she’d be a business owner—she wanted to be the first female and youngest CEO of Disney, and that’s where her focus was.
Soon after she landed a job at Disney in a perfect position to chase her dreams, life happened. This mom of 5 flipped the switch, more than once, and is now the founder of her own consulting firm serving 6+ figure entrepreneurs and business owners. From planning to be in the corporate world to having five beautiful children and starting her own business, she’s doing the thing and rocking it.
Kabrina’s website: https://kabrinabudwell.com
Jessmyn:
All right. Hi everybody and welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories Podcast. I am your host, Jessmyn Solana. Really excited to be with you guys as always. With me today, I have Kabrina Budwell, which actually is one of our certified consultants. So I’m really excited about this one because we’re going to dive deeper into a little bit about who you are and if anybody has ever seen you on our website now they’ll get a chance to get to know you a little bit better.
But just to give you a little bit of a background on Kabrina, she has her own consulting business, Kabrina Budwell Consulting, and she helps her clients create, capture, and nurture subscribers into paying clients. And of course, since you are working with Interact a little bit, you do specialize in lead magnets and other lead magnets as well besides Quiz’s, but also Quiz’s and then the subscriber journey in order to create automation and scaling opportunities and the business that you work with.
So I thought this was pretty cool. I know I’m reading off of your bio, but before you started your consulting business, you trained cast members at Disney. And I’ll let you talk a little bit more about that, but it was based around technology to make it more accessible, is that right?
Kabrina:
So people who were deaf, hard of hearing, as well as children with autism specifically.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I am actually going back to Disneyland for the first time in June so-
Kabrina:
I know, it’s been a long time coming.
Jessmyn:
I know, I know, but I think that’s awesome. I think that’s awesome. And then also super cool, you are actually, and this is something that I want to talk about in this episode so this is why I’m mentioning it, but you’re a mom of five and you have your own business, grew it, and you’re doing the thing.
Kabrina:
Well, and we have a fun, unique take on all of it because I get to be the one who’s working full-time and my husband is actually the stay at home parent. So we totally flipped the script on how businesses tend to be run just due to the pandemic and how we were making the most money. So we had to sit down and say, “What can we do long-term that’s going to be good for our family?” And the business is where we discovered was the lucrative place, instead of trying to go out and find another job for my husband, which was more comfortable and familiar. So it was a scary jump for us, but it also was the jump and the push that we needed in order to see the business work like it is now.
Jessmyn:
I love that. So kind of tell us a little bit more about your business, more specifically about what you do, I know I gave an overview. And then from there, kind of just take us back to the beginning and I will get into that like what all of that felt like, how you guys came to that decision, but just start us off.
Kabrina:
So what we do with Kabrina Budwell Consulting is we primarily focus on your email marketing and your systems. Because what we found with most entrepreneurs and business owners is that they are chained to their computer because they’re to do everything themselves. And so our mission is really to get you away from your computer so that you can be doing the thing that you love and what you started your business for in the first place, which was not to be sending out emails, putting together your social media and how do you actually create content that is repurposed in a way that you can actually walk away from it and it still is doing just as well as if you were there creating new content every single second.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I think that’s also just the huge basis of everyone kind of moving their business online, right? So you have more time and more freedom to do all of that stuff.
Kabrina:
Exactly. Well, and most people find that they don’t have any freedom once they start a business because there’s more to it than start a business, put a product together and people will come. And some of that is true and some of it is not. And there’s a strategy and pieces that need to fit together like a well put together puzzle versus something that you just kind of stuck the pieces together and hope that it would work.
Jessmyn:
Exactly. You don’t know how many times my sister has been like, “I want to do this online, just help me.” And I was like, “Oh, there’s so many moving pieces to actually doing something, some kind of a business online.” Props to everybody who actually gets it up and running.
Kabrina:
Exactly. And it overwhelms people and then they get stuck and they just freeze. And that’s why a lot of businesses fail in that first 18 month period, is because they get to the point where they can’t do anymore and they’re not making enough revenue to either hire somebody on or to figure out what needs to be done. So they get stuck. So it’s saying, “Hey, we’re in this spot where we have enough revenue, let’s go ahead and learn how to do this.”
And then teaching entrepreneurs how to do that earlier on than when they’ve been in business for four years as most of our clients come to us and they’re like, “I don’t have an email list. I’m not exactly sure how my lead generation works and my word of mouth is starting to filter down.” And I was like, “Okay. So how do we make this easier for people and not so technical and scary?”
Jessmyn:
I love that. So take us back to the beginning. How did you get started in this and how did it take you to where you are now?
Kabrina:
So I actually never thought that I would own my own business. My goal in life was to be the first female and youngest CEO of Disney, so that’s what I was focusing on. So working at Disney, I was in a perfect spot and moved back to get married and seven months later found out we were pregnant with our first baby, which was not on my radar at all. I thought that I would be married to my career and that would be my baby versus having a bunch of babies.
But then when she came and they put her on top of me at the hospital, I was like, “Oh my gosh, where have you been all my life?” And it changed everything because all of the hormones and crazy stuff that goes along with being pregnant and having a baby. But then I was like, “How do I take care of this little human that has been entrusted to me and still have this life that I want?” Because as women we’re put into this box of you have to be skinny and have a job and raise your kids and be at every activity.
And there’s so many expectations on us that it’s literally impossible for us to meet all of those expectations. And anybody who says, “You can have it all,” is lying to you because you’re going to have to… there’s give and takes everywhere. You can’t be a full-time executive and a full-time mom and be at every event, you’re asking for burnout and being so disappointed in yourself as a human being, and that’s where I found myself, is how do I do all of this?
So I was like, “Okay, I’m going to teach sign language at libraries,” and that’s what I was accredited in for a long time, as well as help children with apraxia which is a speech development issue and just really walk through that process. And then when my second came along not too long after, I wasn’t able to do that anymore because I had one kid running away.
So I had to try and reign in everybody and was also a photographer at the time. So I was doing photo shoots for families in fresh 48 on the weekends and at night, and then working during the day whenever I could, and my husband was working full-time as well. So I was basically doing the whole side hustle thing, make it work and then I discovered the online world.
I was like, “A blog would be really fun. I could talk about a lot of different things.” I kind of got into the mommy blogging idea at first and I was like, “Okay, this is not for me. I don’t want to talk just about my kids all the time.” I have all the other passions and ideas and technology that I ended up finding a job at ConvertKit doing their migrations and tech support.
And people started asking me as I would give little informations about marketing and business, which is my background and they would say, “Oh, hey, can you come and do consulting for us?” And I was like, “Oh, well, I had never considered doing this. I always wanted to do corporate turnarounds, but never considered working with smaller businesses.” So as I started working with people, basically pro bono at first because I wasn’t sure what I was doing and then they started seeing results and wanted to hire me on longer in all of this, I was like, “Oh, this might actually work.”
And I had that business background from running a photography business as well as teaching sign language. So I dropped all of the sign language and photography and the course that I had created that had totally flopped on the sign language side, and started just consulting. And as we went along, we just started to grow and I was like, “I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I’m just going to keep doing the next right thing as I figure out what business looks like and what this consulting world looks like.” And you get into this and you’re like, “Oh, there’re all these coaches and all these different businesses that normal everyday people in a 9:00 to 5:00 don’t even know exists.”
Jessmyn:
I will say this was a whole new world to me too, when I first started at Interact and I saw this whole online world and I was like, “Wow, that is awesome.” And also kind of, there’s just so much power in people being able to jumpstart their own business, I say it all the time, I could never do it myself. But something that kind of stuck out to me is it seemed like there was a lot of surprises.
Because I don’t want to say uncertainty because that has a negative connotation, but it seemed really surprising to you that it was growing, even though you were still actually just kind of figuring it out as you were going along, what was that like? And for other people who are in that same spot, they might be thinking like, “Yeah, I kind of don’t know if I know what I’m doing, but it’s something happening.”
Kabrina:
And honestly, it was really scary. I wasn’t sure what tomorrow would bring. And so it was very comforting to have my husband working and this was kind of just a side thing and everybody was like, “Oh, that’s really cute. You work online.” Because I didn’t understand what this world looked like. And then as I started looking at our finances one year, I was like, “Oh, I’m making significantly more than my husband is.”
That’s an interesting just like realization because when you’re in the day-to-day doing everything yourself, you kind of forget to go back and say, “Oh, this is a milestone that I hit. Oh, this is the ROI that I’m trying to get to.” Because you honestly are just doing… you’re pulling on clients to make money. And a lot of this is the side hustle mentality is, “Oh, this is so we can pay off an extra bill, buy a house, go on vacation.”
And so I had goals, but they were so stuck within my family and how that worked out of buying our first house and all of that that I wasn’t paying attention to the business side. And when I finally did, I was like, “Oh, one, I’m doing something right and two, how can I figure out what those right things are so that I can do more of them?” And I had to change my mindset from I’m working like an employee to working like a CEO and how do I start pulling myself out of the business so that I can have that time to structure it so that I can grow it more?
Because you get to this point where you’re totally burned out and just running [inaudible 00:11:59], getting client work done, pulling on clients, doing the sales, doing the invoicing. And just in the last two years, I’ve been able to pull myself out [inaudible 00:12:10] and start hiring people on to do some of those things that I’m not as good at or that I don’t enjoy as much.
Jessmyn:
So what were some of the things… or I guess, how did you figure out what were the right things or the right next steps to continue moving on? Was it more of a trial and error or did you come up with a plan and you’re like, “I’m just going to go for it and we’ll see what happens.” How did that work out?
Kabrina:
Well, from a strategy perspective, because we build the strategy for so many other people, I had to basically be… there’s this idea that the bigger children ever eat. And so that’s what happened within my business, is that I was so focused on growing other people’s business and getting them the results that they needed, which was great for testimonials, but then my business got put on the back burner and I wasn’t doing the same things for it.
So I had to backtrack and treat my own business as if it was one of my clients and say, “What social media do I need? What systems do I need in place? What foundations do I need that is helping my clients grow and get to…” Like one of our clients has passive income of $10,000 a month just because it’s launching automatically for all of her courses every month. And I was like, “How am I doing this…”
And it makes you feel like a fraud because I’m like, “How am I doing this for other people, but not for myself?” And so I had to step back and say, “Okay, what does this look like?” Because I can’t keep putting this on the back burner and hoping that this is going to grow because it really became one client to the next and you get into that mentality of almost living paycheck to paycheck in a regular job.
Jessmyn:
Wow. I imagine that’s just… I mean, that’s super difficult I think in any part of your life where you have to take a step back and pause what you’re doing in order to kind of grow from the spot that you’re at, right? You could keep going at the rate that you’re going and like you said, pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and your business is going and you’re going, but it’s not where you want it to be, you can’t actually advance from that. But you had to actually stop what you were doing to take a look at your own stuff and that was what helped you actually advance.
Kabrina:
Well, and it wasn’t until we started planting all of our flowers that I was like, “Oh, this is like my physical representation.” Because you have to do something called deadheading, which is basically pulling off the flowers that have bloomed that are starting to die because they’re taking away resources from the rest of the plant growing. And so as started doing this to some of our flowers, I was like, “Oh, this is what I’m doing to my own business.”
Because not every freebie that I created at the very beginning is the same freebie that I want to give away now. Not every program that I was running and every offer that I was doing at the very beginning of this business four years ago fits where we are now and where our clients are now. Because as you grow, your clients grow with you. So we started with entrepreneurs and people just starting out their business, which is a demographic that I love, but we also moved into more corporate training. And how do we get people to use email correctly to grow their business as they become bigger and more of that mid-size to large business?
Jessmyn:
So what I guess in your own business, what did that growth look like? Where did you start and you were like, “Okay, this is not working for me so I do need to take a step back.” And then from that point, how much did you grow from there?
Kabrina:
Yes. So I think when you get to this growth point, it happens all of a sudden and it happens very quickly. So what I found is the first two years was that idea of the struggle bus, of trial and error, figure it out, get clients, have clients not pay on time, really altering your system of how are you bringing people on and how are they off boarding as clients just in general and what that looks like as you charge more and things like that.
Because we all start under, we all under charge at first. I haven’t met anybody who overcharges when they first start. But then once you get your pricing on point and you start getting those dream clients, then all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, okay, now I have too many people that I’m servicing,” and I’m working… I was working 16 to 18 hours a day just to get client work done, much less do anything on my own business. So it was really easy to push it to that back burner.
And when the pandemic started and my husband lost his job, I was like, “Okay, my kids are home full-time right now.” And at the time there was just the four of them, we had just had my youngest who was on oxygen and so we were really freaked out about respiratory things. And I had to sit back and say, “How am I going to do this and not have a mental breakdown?” And that was really the breaking point for me as a business owner of one, this dream idea of being a solopreneur and doing it all yourself is not realistic.
It’s not something that’s sustainable if you want to have a business that’s making lots of money at some point and to where you could step away because there’s nobody to take over for you. So for example, we had my last one in January of 2020, and six hours after she was born, I was on client call. And so I didn’t have any time or ability to step away because my husband didn’t have a job and somebody had to pay the bills and I felt like the weight of the world was on top of me.
And so in between panic attacks and client calls, I was literally trying to figure out how am I going to structure this so that I can walk away from the business and still have it running without me being there and have people that I can trust within that, that are taking care of all these clients that I love dearly and I want to see be successful.
Jessmyn:
Wow, that’s wild.
Kabrina:
Yeah, it was definitely a crazy ride.
Jessmyn:
That is kind of crazy. Just because I mean, one it’s one thing, right? When the pandemic started, it’s like, “Hey, everybody’s at home.” And then things started to trickle down where it’s like, “Oh, okay, we’re in this crisis. We’re not really sure.” And then people are losing their jobs and it’s like, “Okay, wait, we still have to also make money.” And then kids are also home running around and they don’t know what they’re doing with school yet and just sounds so chaotic, but wow, that’s wild.
So I think my question from there is really just what could you say to maybe other entrepreneurs out there who have families where they’re… everybody was in a similar spot, right? Especially if they had kids. And how can you take care of yourself, but also take care of your business? What steps did you take to make sure, okay, I need to take a second and here’s what I’m going to do, one, two, three, and this will get me to where I need to go?
Kabrina:
Yes. So the first thing that I did was I opened up a spreadsheet and there’s two ways to do it depending on what kind of person you are, is in a spreadsheet or sticky notes, and literally write down everything that you have within your own business and just put the blinders on as far as it goes of who your clients are, what courses you’re creating, what your demographic is and don’t think about that.
Because if you don’t have your own things in order within your business, it is impossible to get past a certain point because you’re always going to come back to that chaos of, “Oh, I’m not promoting myself.” It’s like a cyclical cycle of I get clients, or I get people to buy my course during a launch and then they go through that and it’s great and I have them and I service them and then they off board and then you’re in the phase three of, “Oh my gosh, hair on fire. I have to do it all again.”
And so we’re trying to get rid of phase three altogether to where within your systems, your business and how everything runs, you always have leads coming. You always have either people buying your course on evergreen, or you have clients that are on your wait list ready to get onboarded as you off-board other clients so that you’re never trying to figure out what that cycle looks like.
And a lot of even bigger businesses, so don’t feel bad if you’re in this cycle, even bigger businesses that are making a million to 2 million a year still find themselves in this cycle constantly going, “Oh my gosh, we need to hurry up and sell and put a bunch of ads out there.” But if you can figure out that system within yourself to where it’s simple and easy to use and you don’t have 500 things out there in the atmosphere, it’s going to make your ecosystem a lot easier for you in the long run and as you build and bring on people.
So think about it from the perspective of when you hire somebody. If you’re handing it to them and it’s literally papers on fire, that they have to figure out, probably not the best system set up. And how would you want it handed to you? Because then it’s easier to say, “Well, if I hired on somebody to do this task for me, they would need to know X, Y, and Z.” And that was how I was able to go backwards and not be totally overwhelmed by the mess I had made over four years.
Jessmyn:
What are some of the things that… I guess, well, kind of walk me through that time, did you maybe consider just going back to looking for a corporate job rather than trying to continue on with your business or build it? And if so, how did you work through that and what kind of encouraged you to not go that route?
Kabrina:
Yes. I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself that question. Because literally I could drop everything that I’m doing and get a job at any email marketing service company making $200,000 a year with benefits and time off. And there were moments, especially when my last was born, I was not getting to do maternity leave and her first words being daddy and me missing all of these moments that I was like, “Why am I doing this? Why do I want a business so badly? What is it about this potential freedom that I don’t even have that I want so badly?”
And I realized that when I worked through it, is I want a business because I can see where it can take me and I can see that there’s potential for future growth beyond where I could be at a job right now. So I was trading immediate comfort and income for longer, bigger things. And so now that I can look back and say, “Okay, we’ve made it to some of those bigger things.” I’m like, “Okay, now it’s worth it.”
But I had to get through some of those really hard points of pushing the rock up the hill before it started down more easily down the other side. And it’s in those moments when you’re pushing the rock and it’d be so easy to let it go and just roll down and go back to a 9:00 to 5:00 that you have to just keep going and you’re going to still get back into it because I feel like people that have that entrepreneurial spirit and want to have a business, they’re always going to come back to it.
Jessmyn:
That makes a lot of sense. And I think too, it’s really interesting because I feel like there is a weird appeal about just no one likes 9:00 to 5:00s, but there is this weird appeal about it because it just feels like I don’t have to think about all the things that you have to think about when you own your own business like what taxes that I have to pay, how to even do my own taxes for my own business and should I hire somebody, should I not hire somebody?
And if I have somebody hired on, do I need to pay them? How much should I pay them? Do I give them… All of that stuff I think is just what makes it, I think a little bit harder to continue on, but there is this weird appeal about just getting a 9:00 to 5:00. And I say that if you have this kind of ambition and this vision, it is worth it to keep going because like you said, it can take you somewhere and if you don’t actually go for it, you’re never going to see where it goes.
Kabrina:
Well, and I’ve been on both sides where I’ve had an amazing 9:00 to 5:00 working at Disney, which I would never trade for the world and having a business. And both of them have really great benefits and really great… and they have all these great ideas moving forward, but they’re also both have drawbacks. So I have to be on the business side a lot more conscious of what does my retirement look like, what does all of the taxes and all of these things look like, and who do I hire that knows that so that I don’t have to know that?
And then on the 9:00 to 5:00 side, you have benefits and paid time off and being able to go into an office with other people and not be, previous to the pandemic, always digital, but the drawbacks are you can’t grow anything, you don’t get to necessarily create something that’s yours. And so I think it’s deciding where you want to be. And either spot is totally fine because my husband would never want to start a business, it’s just not his personality.
But for me, the idea of not having a business now at this point is kind of weird and scary in the same way that it was when I started the business in the first place of like, what would that look like to just be at a 9:00 to 5:00? And both of them are… there’s no guarantees. A 9:00 to 5:00 could let you go and your business could fail. So when you look at it from that perspective, you’re not losing anything if you go with either route, it’s just where are you at right now? And that might mean being in a 9:00 to 5:00 right now and then moving into a business or having a business right now, and then later moving into a 9:00 to 5:00.
Jessmyn:
That makes a lot of sense. Something that I just thought of was earlier you had mentioned how you had dreams of being the CEO of Disney and you had a baby and you’re like, “Oh, no.” I don’t know if that makes sense anymore, but I do love that you still ended up being the CEO of your own business and owning something and making it yours. So I think that’s really cool, but I guess, did you always see it going that way or did it really just kind of happen?
Kabrina:
Honestly, I hate to say the one hit wonder just happened one day and that’s how it feels looking back, but it’s almost like that same ambition was there. And so I was still headed towards the same idea, it just wasn’t the exact idea that I thought it was. And so I jokingly say on a lot of conversations like this, is that it’s still totally possible that Disney could be like, “Hey, we could still pick you up.” So it’s not that necessarily that dream is totally gone because I would love to work at Disney again, it is so fun. If you ever get the chance to, absolutely do it.
Jessmyn:
I’m sure it’s awesome.
Kabrina:
But at the same time, I don’t necessarily ever want to sell my business either. I want it to be something that’s so self-sustaining with the systems that we create that if I’m gone for six months, it’s still running itself and I’m still being able to employ other people that don’t want to have their own business.
Jessmyn:
What are some of the I guess, internal feelings that you went through? I mean, not that it’s not exciting to have your own business, but I guess kind of looking back on that dream of, “Oh, I thought I was going to be in this place, but I’m not.”
Kabrina:
It was definitely a lot harder earlier on. And when you go through the really hard things like crunching numbers and you’re just barely making it by and you think back but where could I have been if this happened? And I had to start pushing that out of my mind of the what ifs, because I don’t know what would’ve happened. And looking with everything that has happened in 2020, I could have been in a great position at Disney and I was specifically in Disneyland, which was closed for over a year. And I could have lost my job completely.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, that’s right.
Kabrina:
So there’s the what ifs on both sides. And I think for me, it was figuring out who I was as a person and what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be known for.
Jessmyn:
Means a lot.
Kabrina:
Because what happened, I had a baby and I went from being this single person who could do whatever I want to go or whatever, take whatever job or internship and just move to, now I have a husband and a baby that depend on me, I have to be a more responsible human being, I can’t just fly wherever the wind takes me. And that was a very difficult switch for me because I was ready to just go after whatever next opportunity came my way.
And I had to be very specific about what opportunities those were. And some of the things that we took on were not what I necessarily wanted, but in retrospect, I can look back and say, this is what I learned from this terrible client that didn’t pay us that we had to send to collections, and this idea of… I started my coaching business charging $150 a month, and which is just totally crazy.
Jessmyn:
I feel like that’s pretty low, right?
Kabrina:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
I’m like, “Wait, I feel like I’ve seen much higher.”
Kabrina:
And so being able to look back at that and say, “Okay. That’s what my first client started at and now what we’re charging now is several thousand dollars a month and people are more than willing to pay that.” So seeing that it’s not just about who you… your business actually helps you grow as a person. It makes you the best version of yourself, maybe on purpose, maybe on accident, I can’t really tell you, either way, but you have to refine who you are and really discover who you are as a person deep down and not just what all of these other people have said you are.
I’m not just a mom, I’m not just a woman. I can go and do whatever I want just as well as anybody else, whether I have one child or five children. And this time around having this fifth baby, we’re actually going to get to take maternity leave. But it was only because I didn’t take it for the first four times. So I had to learn my lessons as I went along and now I can look back and say, “Oh, how do I help other people get to that same place so that they’re not making all the mistakes that I did?”
Jessmyn:
That’s really interesting actually. I feel like we, even in some of our earlier calls I know we worked a lot together last year, we talked a lot about maternity leave, having babies while you have your own business. And it’s not something that I thought about mostly because I’ve always been at a 9:00 to 5:00. So that was always something that was just assumed, right? Like, “Oh, at some point, if I do have a kid, that’s something that will come about.”
But if you have your own business, you have to kind of carve that time out for yourself. And that goes, I guess, for also vacations and just kind of taking that time off. Would you say that that kind of created somewhat of a burnout in your first four, I don’t know how to say it, newborns? Do you know what I mean? Like having to think about, “Okay, I’m still running a business, I still have clients, but I just literally built and created a human inside of my body.”
Kabrina:
Yeah, exactly. Well, and people that don’t necessarily… they haven’t had kids in a long time or they don’t have kids at all, it’s hard to explain the idea of having a baby and then coming home. And it’s not as easy mentally and physically to just pop back on and be a hundred percent who you were right before that happened. And what I found myself as I was putting on basically that what people will recall like a Sunday face just to keep going for each of those kids.
And there was a lot of mom guilt of, I’m not giving you what you need as a person, but I’m not giving my business what it needs and I need to still pay the bills so that I can feed you. So it was a give and take constantly. So what I found myself doing was running at a hundred percent, 20 hours a day and then sleeping for four and then doing it again the next day and the next day and the next day until I’d finally make myself sick and still be on client calls, still getting up in the middle of the night with kids.
And that was when I started to get into that, something has to change. Granted it wasn’t until the pandemic happened, and I had to really change quickly that it started to all stick, but it was all those little moments along the way that made that big change a lot easier. But I think as parents and as women specifically who own businesses, we have to make that space and we have to have those boundaries with clients of you can’t just call me whenever.
If you send an email, this is how long it takes for me to get to that email. And if it’s an emergency and you need me right the second, here’s the extra charge that comes with that. And being okay with not running ourselves ragged and giving and giving and giving until there’s nothing left. Because I think we forget that there’s only so much we can give before there’s nothing else, until you get to that point where there literally is nothing left. And I got to that point and I was like, “How did I get here? How did this happen?” And we were-
Jessmyn:
It always works like that, right?
Kabrina:
Exactly. And I was like, “Oh, here’s all these little pieces.” And I swear if you are not in counseling of owning a business, you need to be because you just need somebody else outside of yourself who can be like, “You’re being crazy.” Who’s not a business coach, who’s not trying to tell you the next strategy or tell you the next thing to do or try this, who just listens and lets you vent and cry and talk about how you hate people and all of that.
Jessmyn:
Didn’t even know that was a thing. I had no idea that existed actually until right now.
Kabrina:
So I mean, literally counseling is what saved me because you really need both. You need a counselor so you can bounce ideas off of, and I talked about my business 90% of the time, but it also shows me all of those personal things that I’m working through in order to make my business better but also me is just a human and then a business coach to come in and say, “Oh yeah, that’s fantastic. I’m glad you had that realization, now how do we push that into the business and make it something that’s better?”
Jessmyn:
Interesting. Oh yeah, I didn’t know that was the thing. Would you say that this is something you could have implemented early on in your business or only now because you’ve already had some kind of growth?
Kabrina:
I wish I would have known all of these things earlier on because I feel like if I would have one, hired on a business coach earlier and not been so afraid to make the investment but also been willing to look at myself and not say I really came from the perspective of business and life are very separate pieces working in corporate. And so I tried very hard to keep my business and my life separate. But when you’re working from home, which I’ve done the whole entire time, is it’s very difficult to say, “Oh, these are my business hours. This is my life and none of it intertwines with each other.” It also makes you a very boring brand. So if I would have integrated them a lot earlier, I would probably would be a lot farther in-
Jessmyn:
Oh, interesting.
Kabrina:
… growth and branding and all of that. But at the same time, I probably wouldn’t have learned all of these same lessons along the way.
Jessmyn:
That’s true. Yeah, you have to experience it, know what it’s like, and then you know exactly what not to do kind of a thing.
Kabrina:
Exactly. Well, and there were so many things that I found myself going, “Oh, this is how marketing was done when I was in school and this is what I was taught.” And there’s all of these ideas that even some people are pushing now that don’t necessarily work anymore. So a lot of people are thinking that if they do this strategy, if they implement this one thing that they’re going to be successful, and that’s not necessarily true because if it was, we’d all just implement that one thing and be successful.
Jessmyn:
It is really interesting. I remember when I was a marketing major and so when we would learn about different types of marketing, I think I only really learned about advertisement, which was strictly at the time it was like commercials. I don’t think… I mean, online ads were a thing, but it wasn’t a thing if that makes sense. It was kind of still in that almost there space, not like it is now.
And then it was billboards, magazine ads, that type of stuff and then public relations. And that’s pretty much all I remember off of it and then data was at the time just like up and coming. And so all my classes were like the importance of data and how important this is and knowing people, which I think is an important thing, but it wasn’t until I actually got into actually working that I realized, “Oh, there are more types of marketing out there.”
And even when I started at Interact, I didn’t even know that partner marketing was a thing, I didn’t know that there was a relationship marketing. I didn’t know that you could generate leads online. I didn’t even know what that meant. So it is really, really interesting how all of this stuff plays a part, but you have to find it, you have to put it in the right mix that works for you and your business for it to actually work, and it just kind of takes time to figure that out.
Kabrina:
Exactly. It’s just like all these people that create all the recipes. I have no idea how they get to this point where it’s like, this is the best coffee cake, or this is the best sugar cookie. And you try all of them and then you have to decide for you what’s the best one and then that’s the one that you use. And you might decide to take pieces of each thing and then following one person and saying, “This is going to be the exact thing that works for us.”
It’s just not realistic because your business is different, how you run is different. If you have just the kid piece, if you have no children, it’s a lot easier to run a lot faster and do a lot more versus I want to be done at 3:00 o’clock so that when my kids get home at 3:30 I’m ready for them to be here because they’re going to be here anyways, trust me.
Jessmyn:
They will be there, I believe that. So what are some ways that you differ from your own, I guess we’ll call it recipe? Because I love that analogy, right? Your own recipe for your own business and how you approach some of your clients who are probably in the same space where they’re like, “Hey, it’s awesome you consult for growing my business and I want to do that.” Where do you kind of implement some of the stuff that you do, but also, or I guess I should say, or are you like actually you need something totally different and here’s what I think?
Kabrina:
So that’s a great question. And I love the fact, this is why I’ll never stop consulting for other businesses because it keeps me on my toes of one, what kinds of businesses are out there? Because it’s always changing. There’s always something new and there’s always different strategies to put into place. There are some very basic building blocks like having your email list, having a way for leads to come in, fill a form on your website, having a website in general and not allowing social media to be that shiny object that the only place that you want to live.
And those are the basic things that everybody across the board needs. But then there’s other things like maybe evergreen is not perfect for your business, but it might be depending on your personality and how you want your business to run. Maybe doing live launches is how you want to live your life or if you want to do challenges. And each business has a different piece of that and you have to decide which one you’re going to have and which one you’re going to stick with.
Because that’s honestly the biggest situation when people come to us is, “Well, I’ve tried a quiz, I tried a live launch, I tried a webinar, I tried a challenge. And I all of these ones and they all failed.” And it’s because literally going back to your data thing, we did it once, we didn’t know what we were doing so obviously we didn’t do it well.
And now we’re trying to start over again, rewrite all of our emails and redo our system every single time instead of saying, “Okay, we really like the idea and we can see ourselves doing, for example, challenges every six months,” and trying it again and again until you get it right and seeing what works and what doesn’t, and then repurposing the content that you’ve already created, social posts, emails, all of the above and making it better.
So you get a better click rate, you get a better open rate, you change the quiz questions just to see which ones are resonating better, where you’re getting more information and using it again and again until you’ve made it a fine tuned machine and stop pretending like your business is your baby because a baby [inaudible 00:43:51] and it never doesn’t need you. A machine is something you can set, forget and walk away from. You’re never going to walk away from your kid.
Jessmyn:
I love that analogy. I never thought of it that way. We use it so often, right? Where it’s like, “Oh, this is my baby.”
Kabrina:
And then we get attached to it in this weird way of like, “Oh, I need to name it a certain thing and it has these certain colors and this is how I dress it.” And all these things, which are beautiful and fantastic but at the end of the day, it’s a business and you need to be like, how do I want my life to look in the big spectrum of things versus am I going to dedicate my whole entire life to this? Because if that’s the case, then a 9:00 to 5:00 is going to be way less stressful on you.
Jessmyn:
Right? Yeah, no, I love that analogy. I think that’s very clever. I never thought of it that way. And I think especially now, I don’t know, especially after last year, I guess I should say, even before I think I felt this way, but after last year, I think there’s a lot of just self-reflection on what am I actually doing with my time and what am I doing with the time that I have here? Do I want to spend it working all day, getting burnt out and then trying to recover for however long, could be weeks, could be months, could be years or do I want to refine it and make it what it can be, but also still live my life? Right? And enjoy it?
Kabrina:
And you don’t want to be going to the beach and having your computer sat on your knees so you’re not getting sand in it. You want to be going so that you can actually enjoy it. Because that’s where I found myself. I was missing all these big chunks of life. And if I didn’t have kids, I probably wouldn’t have even realized it, I would’ve just kept missing big chunks and been like, “It’s fine. I’ll have friends at some point, I’ll go clubbing at some point. I’ll do all these things someday.”
But with kids, it’s so obvious of, “Oh my gosh, how did you get so big? Oh my gosh, how are we going to the kindergarten graduation in a couple of weeks?” Like how did we get here? And it’s a blessing that I was able to see that earlier on because had I not had children early, I would have just worked and worked and worked and been like, “Oh, okay. Now it’s my time to have kids,” which a lot of people do and then you’re like, “Well, I’m never prepared.”
It’s like starting a business. You’re never ready, you’re never prepared, you never have enough money to buy the house or have a baby, or do any of these things. You never feel ready no matter how ready you are. Not to say that you shouldn’t somewhat prepare for these things, but at the same time, realize that you’re never going to feel like you’re at that point-
Jessmyn:
Exactly.
Kabrina:
To where it makes it easy to make the jump of like, “Oh yeah, okay. I have this much money in the bank, I have this kind of house, I have the picket fence. And now it’s time to have the kids or go to college or start that business.” It’s just jump in and do it. And if it works fantastic and if this is where your heart is, do it. But if it’s not, then it’s okay to find something else.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I love that advice. I think everyone always talks about, oh, it needs to go exactly in this order. Once I get to this happens, once XYZ happens, then my life will be amazing and I’m ready to do the next thing, and it just doesn’t work that way.
Kabrina:
It’s like you have to take the leap of faith and then that whole analogy of building the ladder on the way down or building your parachute on the way down, it sounds so stupid and silly, especially to an A personality high achiever like myself. But at the same time, that’s the only way that this stuff happens. Or we sit there and we’re waiting to jump off the cliff and never actually do it.
Jessmyn:
Love that. That’s awesome. Well, that’s all pretty much I had. I do have a couple of last questions just to wrap it up. But before I do wrap it up and one of my questions is what are just three things that most people don’t know about you?
Kabrina:
Oh, that’s a good question. Well, three things. I love music, so that’s one thing that I don’t really put out there a lot. I have never gotten to learn a musical instrument, so that’s kind of on my bucket list of next things, the ukulele, the piano, all of those things. I used to model pretty regularly when I was in high school and college and that was really fun and it was a very different kind of world. So I got to learn a lot of things there. And then Another random fact, I am a crafter. So there’s parts of me that kind of want to start a crafting blog and be out all about Pinterest and then there’s other parts of me that are like, “What am I going to do with all of it once I make it?”
Jessmyn:
Right. Oh my gosh, I actually, I just bought a Cricut machine. This is non-sponsored, but I’m just joking. But I did buy a Cricut machine last year and I love it. Oh my God, it’s so much fun to just put things together. And yeah, I’m in that spot where I’m like, “I bought this whole thing and I don’t know what to do with it.” Because I don’t actually have anything that I need to make and then what do I do with all of that after?
Kabrina:
And my six year old is really wanting to have her own YouTube channel like Blippi. And so she’s always making stuff and all these things and I’m like, “These are beautiful and I don’t want to get rid of them, but what do I do with it now?”
Jessmyn:
[crosstalk 00:50:07].
Kabrina:
It’s like I really want to be a minimalist, but I also kind of want to be that eclectic person where you walk into their house and you’re like, “Wow, this is really pretty.”
Jessmyn:
But you just need one room, one area or one corner where it’s all-
Kabrina:
All the eclectic things.
Jessmyn:
Yeah. I love that. So to wrap it up, what is one single piece of advice that you would give to yourself at the start of it all?
Kabrina:
Hire earlier.
Jessmyn:
Ooh, I love that.
Kabrina:
I thought that when I started I could do it all myself and I can be like all these big names that you don’t realize have these giant teams behind them. And I was like, “Oh yeah, I can be just like Pat Flynn or Amy Porterfield or all these different people.” And then I realized that they all have 30 or 40 people behind them helping them and doing the things so that they can be in their genius zone and be out there doing what I want to be doing eventually, which is just public speaking and coming into businesses and helping them on a one-on-one basis.
Jessmyn:
Ooh, I love that. That’s an interesting perspective. We may have to talk about that again, right? Well Kabrina, thank you so much for being on with me today. I loved having you here.
Kabrina:
It’s been great talking with you and it’s always great to talk from the marketing perspective. And then if anybody wants to find me, you can find me at kabrinabudwell.com or on Instagram at emailmarketingguru.
Jessmyn:
Awesome, yes. And we will also link this for you guys so you can find it if you can’t do it based off of hearing because I know I can’t, but at least you have that. Well, thank you so much. And guys, thank you for listening. If you have any feedback ever, please feel free to reach out to Interact and let us know. And thanks again for joining us on Creator Stories. Bye.