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Instagram is really pushing its shopping features these days – and you should capitalize on that! The less clicks it takes to learn about and buy one of your products, the more likely someone is to buy it. Let’s dive into how to sell digital products on Instagram!

How to Sell Digital Products on Instagram

Step 1: Connect your Instagram and Facebook Accounts

Like most things these days, Facebook and Instagram are connected. You need to have a business Facebook page connected to your Instagram account to set up and manage your shop. Here are some quick instructions on how to make that happen!

Step 2: Navigate to Your Shop on Facebook

Full disclosure – the Hey Jessica team went through this process about two weeks ago, and the Facebook page manager interface has totally updated since then and could anytime in the future. This walkthrough shows how to manage a shop as of July 13, 2022 and it should be similar regardless of what your page looks like!

Like I mentioned, you’ll need to complete this process over on Facebook. Navigate to your page manager and then to the “shop” tab. If you haven’t set up a shop before, there will be a button that says “create your shop.” You can find more details about how to do that from scratch right here.

Once you’re on the shop tab, click the three buttons in the top right corner and select “manage shop.”

From there, select the “Items” tab and then click the blue “Add Items” button in the top right corner. Select “add multiple items” and get ready for the good stuff!

Step 3: Add Items to Your Catalog

At this step, select the “data feed” option.

This is where the magic happens and you choose which products get added to your shop! The easiest way to keep everything up-to-date is by using a data feed. You compile all of the products you want people to shop on your Instagram into a spreadsheet. Then, Facebook pulls all of that data and formats it into your shop!

Facebook is great about walking you through this entire process. At this step, select the “No, I need a feed template” option and Facebook will give you a template to download to input your data! You’ll want to download the standard template. I prefer to upload it to Google Sheets and edit it from there because it’s super easy to add to Facebook.

Here’s what it looks like with the sample product from Facebook:

You’ll want to go through and complete all of the categories labeled “Required.” You’ll give each product a unique SKU number (which you can totally make up if you don’t track your products this way!), a title, a price, and a description.

Then, you’ll be asked to provide a link to the product and a link to the product image. If you’re selling a course or digital product, you can link to your sales page here! The product image that you use MUST be visible on the sales page or else it won’t show up in the listing.

Tip: You can right click on any image on your sales page and click “copy image address” to grab the link for the spreadsheet!

We found that most of the optional categories weren’t relevant to our digital products or courses, so we left them blank. We did add a Google product category – you can find those options right here!

Now you’re ready to upload.

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Step 4: Upload Your Data Source

Now to complete the process, you can upload your data source. Google Sheets is the best way to manage your products because you can just insert a link to your spreadsheet! This also allows for Facebook to automatically update your shop when you edit the spreadsheet. If you’re using a different software, you’ll want to save the file in the .CSV format and then upload.

Facebook will prompt you to select an update schedule. This will determine how often Facebook looks at your spreadsheet and make updates to your shop. You can choose a timeline that makes the most sense for your products and their availability.

Now you've done the hard part! Facebook will take a few minutes to comb through your data and make the magic happen.

Step 5: Format your Shop and Enjoy!

You can edit the order or look of your shop by heading over to the “shop” tab and making any changes you'd like. Facebook and Instagram will automatically optimize which products are shown first to which people based on their shopping habits, which is super helpful!

Here's what your shop could look like now…

It’s really that simple! If you weren’t sure how to sell courses and digital products on Instagram, now you can sit back, relax, and let your followers shop!

The post How to Sell Digital Products on Instagram appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

How to Set AND HIT Your Goals | Have Your Best Year Ever!

Want to listen to the podcast version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

So I typically “hibernate” during the holiday season, but I just HAD to record this episode! Goal setting and actually hitting your goals is crucial when you’re running a business, not to mention in life. I’m sharing my four-step proven method on how to set and hit your goals in 2022. Plus, I’m breaking down some goals that I have for this year!

Step 1: Set SMART Goals

The first thing you need to do to set and hit your goals is to set SMART goals. I don’t mean the word “smart;” I mean the acronym!

The SMART in SMART goals stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

Specific

Be specific! Don’t say, “I want more subscribers on YouTube.” Express exactly how many new subscribers you want so you can actually measure that goal. “I want to exercise more” might become “I want to work out three times per week.”

Measurable

Setting measurable goals go hand-in-hand with setting specific goals. You want to be able to measure the progress toward hitting your goal. Make sure you’re setting a goal that is tangible and specific! “More engagement on Instagram” is really hard to measure. A measurable and specific goal for Instagram might be “I want 30% of my audience to see my Instagram stories.”

Attainable

This is where I see SO MANY people go wrong! I want you to set big goals, but I also want you to set goals that you can meet. If you have 100 subscribers on Youtube right now, setting a goal to get to 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year isn’t the most attainable in that time frame.

You can figure out what goals might be attainable for you based on past behavior. If you don’t have any past behavior to base your goals on, look at other people who have hit a similar goal to see what might be attainable for you.

Realistic

If you want to learn how to set and hit your goals, you’ve got to make sure you’re setting realistic goals. Let’s say you want to lose weight, and you say you want to lose 100 lbs this year. It is safe to lose 2 lbs per week, but that means it would take you 50 perfect weeks to lose 100 lbs. That might be theoretically attainable, but not realistic when you account for life! Maybe you back that number down to 80 lbs in a year to make it more realistic.

Time-Bound

Give yourself a time limit! Deadlines are crucial in goal-setting. Give yourself a deadline of December 31 to hit 100,000 YouTube subscribers, for example. That way, the goal isn’t open-ended and you have motivation to hit it on a certain date.

Step 2: Add a Why to your SMART Goals

Instead of SMART goals, they’re “SMARTY” goals. Get it?

Why do you want to hit this goal? Your why is personal, special and more important than some frivolous number.

If you want to make $100,000 this year, that’s great! But why? It can’t just be “because I do.” Give yourself the reason!

Let’s say my goal is to make $1,000,000 this year. If all of my SMART goals check out but I don’t have a reason, I’m probably not going to try as hard and be as motivated to hit that goal. My why could be that I want to buy a second home somewhere, add new team members, or expand my business. When you hit the root of your “why,” you can make progress much more easily!

Let’s talk about weight loss. After I had my second son, I lost a LOT of weight – around 75 or 80 lbs in one year. It was a SMART goal, but the real reason I did it was because of my WHY. We were going to Hawaii, and I was absolutely going to wear a bikini and look great. And since then, I’ve yet to find another “why” that drives me to that level of passion.

Most people in the world need a reason behind their goals to hit them, even if they set a SMART goal. So set SMARTY goals instead!

Step 3: Reverse-Engineer your goals (this is the KEY to actually hitting your goals!)

So, you’ve set up a great SMARTY goal… Now what? We’re talking about how to set AND HIT your goals, and this is the KEY to actually hitting that goal.

Reverse-engineer your goals.

Let’s say you want to make $100,000. Setting a SMARTY goal is great, but if you carry on about your normal business, you aren’t going to hit it! You have to think through what steps you need to take to meet that goal.

Maybe you’re planning for a launch in June that you know will bring in $50,000. Now, you need to figure out how to make $50,000 for the rest of the year! I need to make more than $4,445 per month the rest of the year to meet that goal. Now, figure out HOW to do that. Does that mean bringing on more clients or launching a new digital product? Set the steps you need to take each quarter, month, week, and day to get there!

Step 4: Do Check-Ins with Yourself!

In reverse-engineering your goals, you’re breaking down the income you want to make, weight you want to lose, or whatever else into monthly increments. So do monthly check-ins with yourself to see your progress toward that goal!

How much money did I earn this month? What did I do to get there? What could I do better next month?

If you want to hit 5,000 new subscribers per month, check in at the end of each month and see where you’re at with that goal. Where did these subscribers come from? Which videos did best, and can I make more of those? Don’t just check in on progress – be strategic about reflecting and figuring out the best next steps.

Sharing some of my goals for 2022!

My income goal this year, which I won’t share specifically, is rooted in that SMARTY framework. I want to be able to sustain my lifestyle, pay my team, give myself and my team a raise. I also want to substantially contribute to paying off our debt and buying a second home that we can use as a short-term rental. 

Like every year, I have “lose weight” on my goal list. I want to lose about 40 lbs, so I have broken that down into smaller goals. By March, I want to lose a certain amount of weight because I'm going to speak at Social Media Marketing World and I want to look and feel my best!

I want to hit 300,000 YouTube subscribers this year! You may look at my channel and say “woah, but you only have 120,000 subscribers and haven’t grown much this past year.” Both of those things are true! That’s a super big goal, but it is based in realism. I just have to break it down into smaller goals. I’m going to produce more videos this year and listen to what my audience really wants. And if this goal doesn’t work out, I have the ability to adjust it.

This year, I want to read 15 books. Which might sound silly if you’re the kind of person who wants to read a book per week, but this is a goal for me! I listen to audiobooks, and I used to hit that goal easily because I’d listen to books while I was traveling. Since COVID hit, it’s been harder for me to do that. So that goal isn’t pushing myself a ton, but it is a goal that I have!

I want to be on 25 podcasts this year! I haven’t focused on being a guest on other podcasts, and I’m excited to push myself here. Being a guest on another podcast grows my audience, which will help grow my income – that’s my big WHY!

I hope that this was helpful in learning how to set and hit your goals! I encourage you to go back and look at the goals you’ve already set to see how they fit into this framework.

The post How to Set AND HIT Your Goals appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Pivoting Your Business

Want to listen to the podcast version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

Pivoting your business is NORMAL

First, let’s get the stigma out of the way – pivoting your business is NORMAL! Your business can change. Our needs change, our customer’s needs change, what we like changes – and our businesses can respond to those changes. If you are feeling afraid to pivot, this is your permission slip!

One caveat here: if you are CONSTANTLY pivoting your business 180 degrees, then you won’t be able to grow in the same way. Keep that in mind.

If you have an audience, it will be harder to pivot

An audience makes it more difficult to pivot. It’s especially difficult if the place you are now and the place you want to be are pretty far apart.

There are more people watching with an audience, and more people there for what you CURRENTLY do already. So a pivot with an audience can throw you off your axis.

If you have an audience, you should pivot your business MUCH slower. Still totally possible, but slower!

Without an audience, there’s no harm in a sharp pivot. Go from basket weaver to photographer super quickly.

Pivoting your business will likely cause a dip in income

Whenever you start pivoting your business, it will cause a dip in income (unless you aren’t currently making any money).

That is especially true if you’ve built an audience who expects and buys one thing from you, and you want to offer another. That is totally okay and you can make it work! But I want you to be prepared for it.

If all of the 1,000 people on your email list came to you because of your current business and you’re pivoting to a different customer, only a small percentage of those people will probably still fit that mold. So be prepared for that when pivoting your business.

Pivots that you might want to make

• Pivot from a SERVICE to an EDUCATION model (selling courses or products)
• Pivot from a PRODUCT-BASED business to a SUBSCRIPTION BOX model
• Pivot from one SERVICE to ANOTHER SERVICE (like basket weaving to photography)

How to know pivoting is right for you

1. You will feel the need to pivot – whether you’re burned out currently or really excited about something else
2. Your audience (if you have one) will tell you that they want you to pivot

How fast should I pivot?

If you’re feeling PULLED to pivot and either don’t have an audience or aren’t making a ton of money, pivoting your business will be pretty easy for you. You can totally go ahead and do it!

If you do have an audience and are making money from your business, you can still pivot! You just need to take baby steps.

For example, if you are a copywriter and have an audience who follows you for that, but you want to become a fashion influencer… that’s a massive pivot. If you just make that all in one go, you’re going to lose so much money and so many followers!

Think about the bigger picture here – you want to pivot from copywriting to more of an influencer position. Start producing more content that leans into the influencer side of things. Influencers share links to things they love, curating favorites lists, and doing sponsorships. Start leaning into that business model with your current business to slowly start that transition! That can be a really organic transition if you start with an 80/20 shift and then lower the gap between the business stuff and influencer stuff from there.

In my experience, when you start leaning into the influencer role, people respond to it and ask you for links and other things that they want. Slowly start moving your content that direction and you will retain SO MUCH MORE of your audience and income than you would have with a fast 180.

Remember that pivoting might be a challenge!

If you have been in your old business model for a while, remember that pivoting might be a challenge for you.

I’m speaking from personal experience here – I really want to incorporate more vlog-style videos on my YouTube channel, but vlogging is hard for me! I’ve done YouTube the same way for years, and changing up the style of content is learning a new trick. Give yourself time and grace to figure it out, because you totally will. That’s another reason to do it slowly.

So – pivoting your business is normal and it’s okay! As long as you aren’t doing is constantly and take your time with it if you have an audience, it’ll all work out for you.

The post Pivoting Your Business appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Planoly vs Later | Instagram Scheduling Tools

Full disclosure: the Hey Jessica team uses Planoly to schedule our Instagram posts. I’m most familiar with both app’s Instagram posting capabilities, so that’s where this review will focus!

Functions

Planoly is an app and website that allows you to schedule content to Instagram and Pinterest.

Later, on the other hand, allows you to schedule content to Instagram, Facebook TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. It also has an app and website.

Both Planoly and Later allow you to schedule Instagram posts. However, those features are limited. In Planoly, you can only schedule single image posts to auto-post IF you have authenticated your business account via Facebook. In Later, you have to have a business Instagram account to auto-post. Otherwise, the schedule feature will send a push notification to your phone via the app that reminds you to post.

Stories are also not eligible for auto-posting. You can schedule a reminder to be sent to your phone just like a post.

Integrations

Planoly integrates directly with Canva (which is one of the best features ever)! You can connect your Canva account and add graphics straight to Planoly that way.

Later integrates with Unsplash to bring you a collection of stock photos directly in their app that you can schedule too! So if you have a business account and like those aesthetic desk photos, it can be an easy one-step process.

Both apps let you upload straight from Google Drive and DropBox.

Feed Planning Tools

Planoly and Later both let you preview your feed visually during the scheduling process.

Planoly has the option to “add placeholders,” which I use all the time. You can pick a colored square and drag it around in your feed to help position your content before you have 3 images ready to upload.

Later and Planoly both offer the ability to see your scheduled content on a calendar view.

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Analytics

Both tools offer you the ability to see the analytics of your account and most recent posts on Instagram.

Later has more robust features in the analytics category, including being able to schedule your first comment.

Hashtag Management

Both Planoly and Later allow you to create unlimited hashtag banks! This can be really useful if you have multiple content pillars that you publish on Instagram for different audiences.

Price

Planoly offers a free plan for one user, limited to 30 uploads per month. You can check out the rest of the pricing plan details below. One of my favorite Planoly pricing features is the ability to price out a custom plan that suits your needs.

Later offers a free plan as well, and the pricing goes up from there. Their free plan allows only 10 uploads per month.

Overall Verdict

If you’re looking for an Instagram scheduling tool and are considering Planoly vs Later, the truth is that they are very similar in terms of features! The biggest differences are price and the interface. Both apps have free trials that will let you see which one feels better for you! 

The post Planoly vs Later appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

How to Manage Your Time Better

Want to listen to the podcast version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

Full disclosure – I’m NOT a naturally organized or productive person. But as I’ve come to understand myself better, I’ve figured out how to organize my daily schedule so that I can be more productive! And as I share these tips, you might see that you need to take the time to understand your natural inclinations better so that you can organize your schedule to work best for you. I still think that these tips will be helpful for you!

My time management journey

I have two kids, and up until 2015 I had no childcare and no set work hours. That usually meant I would work when the kids were asleep for naps or after bedtime. I didn’t have a lot of flexibility then to manage my time, and I still managed it horribly. If I was able to work from 8 PM until 12 AM one day, I would spend it doing things that didn’t really matter, like redesigning my website for the 17th time.

In 2015, it became super important that I manage my time well. My business was growing, and I started my first podcast with a co-host and guests. So I had to streamline my process even with a toddler at home. I am a fast worker and I make quick decisions, but I was implementing strategies that made it possible for me to get more done.

More time DOES NOT MEAN Getting more things done

This sounds obvious, but it’s actually an important aspect of productivity. If you have no idea what you’re going to work on, but have time to work from 12 PM to 2 PM, you probably won’t be very productive.

If you have to spend time every day figuring out what to work on, then you’re wasting time. So you need to know what you’re going to work on each time you have availability to work.

Working on the wrong things can leave you feeling unproductive

We only have a set number of hours to work each day. If you spend that time working on things that don’t actually move your business forward, it will leave you feeling unproductive.

If you ever finish up a work session and have no idea what you even did, then you have probably experienced this phenomenon before.

Understand what you SHOULD be working on

To learn how to manage your time better, you first need to understand what you should be working on. And to know what you should be working on, you need to understand your goals.

What are your goals for the next quarter or the next year? When you have decided those, how can you break them down into what needs to happen each month, each week, and each day to accomplish them?

Then, add any work that you have to do to that list. If you have client work or content creation that needs to happen, make sure that’s noted.

ANY work that is not pushing you toward your goals needs to go away. I see a lot of people messing up here, and I was this person, too. AKA, me rebuilding my website 17 times instead of actually making money.

Have a daily to-do list of 3-4 items

I preach something called “Core 4,” which I have a whole podcast episode about that you can check out here.

Your Core 4 is 4 things that you need to accomplish TODAY (you can also use it monthly or annually). It doesn’t have to include 4 business-related things. You could absolutely add a workout to that Core 4 because you aren’t feeling motivated. 

Don’t make a list of four things that you absolutely can’t get done in a day, or you’re going to set yourself up to be disappointed. But having that Core 4 will help you understand what you need to be working on each day.

I DON’T want you to determine your Core 4 at the beginning of each day, because then you’re wasting some productivity time. I like to sit down on Sunday evening and write out my Core 4 goals for each day that week. Then, I can sit down when I’m ready to work and get moving instead of planning.

Calendar Blocking

I use a more expanded version of this tactic that I call calendar blocking or time blocking. So every Sunday, I sit down, write down EVERYTHING that I need to get done that week, and then look at my calendar. I schedule out “work blocks” around the personal things that need to happen, and then figure out which tasks I’ll accomplish during which work block. I plan all of that out using ClickUp and my Google Calendar.

If you want to see a more detailed explanation of how that works, I have a video about it right here!

Now, you have every single task that you need to do this week scheduled out! So you can wake up, get going, and manage your time super well.

Learning how to manage your time better is really learning what needs to be done in what time period… Which is a skill that takes time, but that you can totally accomplish.

So – you need to know what you’re working on each day before the work comes, AND decide what you actually need to be working on to advance your goals! I hope this was super helpful!

The post How to Manage Your Time Better appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

How to Use Canva

The setup

The Canva editor is broken up into two sections: the workspace where you actually design something, and then the toolbar to the left that features a ton of elements to add to your design. There are a ton of free elements and images you can incorporate into your work, and more options become available if you join Canva Pro.

Choosing your canvas size

Canva has a metric TON of different canvas sizes. There’s a canvas for pretty much every social media graphic you’ll need to create, and different options for posters, fliers, business cards, and more. Once you log in, you can search for a canvas size or scroll through suggested options using the search bar.

It’s as easy as drag-and-drop

Canva is a drag-and-drop editing system at its core. That’s what makes it super easy to use and versatile. Whenever you want to add an element to your workspace, you can just click on it in the toolbar and then drag it to where you’d like it on your page!

If you’re using any of Canva’s shape elements, you can resize them using the small bars that show up on each side, or the circles that appear in each corner. You can also change the color of any element – just click on that element and then click on the small colored square that appears in the top left of the workspace.

That drag and drop feature works for every element in Canva, including text, images, and even GIFs.

Text Options

If you’re a font-obsessed person like me, you’ll be happy to know that Canva comes with a lot of different fonts to use for free. In the Pro version, you gain access to even more fonts and the ability to upload your own! (Yay for consistent branding!)

You can change font size, color, paragraph spacing and kerning. You can also add fun text effects! Some of our favorites are the curve, splice, and hollow text effect options.

Templates

Canva’s templates make it a no-brainer. Need to make an Instagram story about an upcoming sale but just can’t think of an idea? Canva DEFINITELY has a template for that. You can search all of the templates for your canvas size right in the editor. Click on any of them to apply them to your current page. The templates are also fully customizable, so you make them fit your branding!

Exporting

So, you're done creating and now you need to save your design. Click on the down arrow in the top right corner of the Canva window to get your download options! The top drop-down menu will let you choose the file type you want to use to save the image. The bottom drop-down menu will let you choose which pages you want to export. If you only want to save one page of a multi-page document, you just select one page to download.

And there you have it – a quick intro into how to use Canva. It’s one of my favorite design tools, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

The post How to Use Canva appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

ClickUp vs Trello

Full disclosure – the Hey Jessica team uses ClickUp and LOVES IT. But I know that project management systems aren’t one size fits all! I have used Trello in the past and really enjoyed it, too. This comparison is to help you decide which one works best for you when it comes to ClickUp vs Trello.

Ease of Use

Trello is super easy to pick up and start using right away. It’s a very straightforward system! Trello consists of boards and cards that represent tasks. Boards are separated into different sections, and then each section can house tasks. So you could have sections like “to start, in progress, in review, completed” and move tasks within each. Inside of each task, you can add checklists, images, and information, but that’s about as far as it goes.

ClickUp is a much more intricate program and it does have a bit of a learning curve. But I think that learning it is TOTALLY worth it for all of its amazing features! And if you need a jump start, I actually have a $27 course dedicated to teaching you all the things about ClickUp.

ClickUp lets you organize your projects into overarching spaces, and then into a ton of different views. You can stick to a board view like you’d see on Trello, a list view like on Asana, a calendar view (my personal fave), mind maps, and more. You can add images, links, checklists, and a ton of other things into each task.

Features

ClickUp definitely beats Trello in the features category. But Trello has some great features, too!

Trello allows you to add checklists to each task. You can also set up recurring tasks if you know a certain task needs to happen on a revolving basis. You can also add a due date and assignee to each individual item in a checklist, which is a great way to help manage a team!

For me, ClickUp’s automations are the feature that blows Trello out of the water. Trello does allow certain automations using the external Butler feature, but ClickUp’s automations knock that out of the water.

For example, using automations in ClickUp, you can automatically add a checklist to a task when it’s added to a certain list. Or, automatically assign a task to a person when it’s added to a certain space. You can also set up automatic due dates, which I love!

ClickUp also allows you the ability to see an EVERYTHING view. Whereas Trello limits you to seeing everything on a certain board, ClickUp gives you a birds-eye view of EVERYTHING in every single one of your spaces. And you can choose to see only everything that’s assigned to you on a calendar view if you’re looking to make a schedule for your week!

Depending on the way your brain works, you might not need all of those features! As a solopreneur, I definitely didn’t. But ClickUp still wins in the feature category, hands down.

Style Options

Each project management system has its own style, and you might gravitate more to one than another.

Trello is set up in a Kanban system. It has columns and sections and you move things across the board – it’s very visual, so if you think that way, it’s great! However, you can’t switch it from that Kanban view.

ClickUp, on the other hand, allows you to change and customize your view on every single list. So you can keep that traditional board Kanban system, or swap it out for a  list, a mind map, a table, or even a Ganntt chart. My favorite view is the calendar view, which is GREAT for planning out my content.

I really like the option to change the view in each space because everyone’s  brain works differently. I may have team members whose brain functions better looking at things in a list, while I prefer the visual board view. In my YouTube space, for example, I want to see which video is going live on which date. My editor may very well want to view the YouTube process in list form and only see which things are assigned to her. We can both do both things! You don’t need the same view for different spaces across your team.

As far as the winner goes in style options, it’s going to depend on what you love – but I think ClickUp kicks everybody’s butt in this category because you have so many different view options and can pick the best one for each space and team member.

Cost

Trello charges per user within the system. There is a free option, so if you don’t need a team or some of its additional features, then it might not cost you at all! There is a business class level that costs $9.99 per user per month. You can check out all of their pricing options here.

ClickUp has a free forever plan that allows you unlimited users, unlimited tasks, and a certain amount of storage. You won’t have access to some of their more advanced features and views, but you can have a team! They have an unlimited plan that costs $5 per user per month, and a business plan for $9 per user per month, which is my choice.

I hope that helps shed some light on ClickUp vs Trello and how each might work for your business! If you decide to try out ClickUp and want a jump start, check out my course here!

The post ClickUp vs Trello appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

ConvertKit | A Complete Guide

Dashboard Overview

When you first log in to ConvertKit, you’ll find a dashboard that shows the overview of your account. From here, you can see how many new subscribers you have, your email open and click rates, and the total emails you’ve sent. It’s a great place to take a quick peek at how many email list subscribers you have and your growth trajectory!

In the top toolbar on the dashboard, you’ll see 5 different sections – “Grow,” “Send,” “Automate,” “Learn,” and “Earn.” Let’s break down what each of those sections include.

Grow

The “Grow” section of the toolbar features the two most prominent elements of growth – your actual subscribers, and your landing pages and forms. 

Subscribers

The subscribers tab gives you more in-depth information about your subscriber numbers. You can see which days people subscribe and unsubscribe. Don’t worry – when you send an email, people will totally unsubscribe! That’s just how it goes. It doesn’t mean you did something wrong, but it can be a good indicator of what content is the best for your audience when you look at it over time.

Tags

The subscribers page also allows you to search all of your subscribers and see all of the tags that exist in your ConvertKit. Tags are a great way to section off your subscriber list to do more targeted email marketing. You can create tags to discern which product someone has purchased from you, which freebie they opted-in for, or even their demographics.

To create a new tag, scroll to the bottom of the “tags” column on the right-hand side of the screen and click “+ Create A Tag.” Then you’ll see a pop-up to label the tag.

You can add subscribers to a tag manually, or use automations to make this happen. We’ll talk about automations in a bit!

Landing Pages and Forms

Landing pages and forms are another element of growth because they collect information for new email subscribers. You all know that freebies are a GREAT lead magnet to get more people on your email list. If you want to create a freebie to give away in a blog post and attract new email list subscribers, this is the place to do it! (The freebie in this blog post is a form that I made on ConvertKit.)

ConvertKit allows you to create entire landing pages, or forms. Landing pages will have a URL that you can direct people to for sign-ups, and forms can be embedded on an existing website to collect that information. Both can be very useful!

Send

The “send” tab features access to your email broadcasts, templates, sequences, and snippets. For the purposes of our ConvertKit | A Complete Guide, we’re mostly focusing on the broadcasts and templates.

Broadcasts

This is, unsurprisingly, where you will create and send out your emails! You can create an email just like you would in a typical email system. Then, once you’re ready to send it, you have the option to choose who you do and do not want to send the email to, as well as the time it goes out. This is where tags can come in handy!

We use this feature a lot when we’re advertising a course launch. We want to make sure the email goes to everyone who attended the webinar where Jessica advertised the launch, but not to anyone who has already purchased the course.

Templates

The templates section is where you can design the style of your emails. You can format the color and size of your headings, bullets, etc. Make it your own!

Automate

The automate tab houses some of the most impressive features of ConvertKit – the automations! For the purposes of our ConvertKit | A Complete Guide post, I’m going to stick to the Visual Automations tab. You can also find Rules, Integrations, and RSS info in this section.

Visual Automations

The visual automations in ConvertKit are literally AMAZING. Basically, an email automation means that you can tell ConvertKit to send certain emails to people in a certain order based on a tag or form that they complete. Here’s an example:

That’s an automation for the Hustle & Grit Guide freebie. There are two ways to hop into that funnel: filling out your information on a landing page, or filling out your information on a form embedded into the website. Once you fill out your information, ConvertKit knows to send you the Hustle & Grit Guide.

Then, the automation branches off. If someone already on the email list signs up, they won’t get another email. But if a new email list subscribers signs up, then they will be added into my nurture sequence! That’s basically an email sequence to say hello and help the subscriber learn more about Jessica.

Since these automations are created visually, it’s super easy to think through how they will work!

Earn

The “earn” tab features a products section, a tip jar, and a payout. If you’re an affiliate for ConvertKit, then the payout section is where you can see those numbers!

The Hey Jessica team doesn’t use the other two sections, but I’ll give you a brief intro. The Tip Jar is literally that – you can let your audience send you tips for creating your email content!

The products section allows you to sell digital products to your audience straight in ConvertKit. We use a combination of other services to make this happen, but if you want an all-in-one solution, you can take advantage of this.

Learn

The Learn section is there to help you learn more about ConvertKit. Their support is already AMAZING, but the addition of detailed tutorials and community forum means you won’t go long with a question unanswered.

Whew, there you have it! ConvertKit | A Complete Guide. This will help you get started with what I think is THE best email marketing software out there! And if you want to give ConvertKit a try, you can click here.

*Note: some of the links included in this post are affiliate links. They help support me at no extra cost to you!*

The post ConvertKit | A Complete Guide appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Hiring Help in Your Business

Want to listen to the podcast version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

I will be talking about contractors and employees in this post. Preface: I am for SURE not a lawyer or an accountant. I’m going to share what I know about hiring help in your business, but please do not take my legal or financial information for Bible! Definitely reach out to a lawyer or a CPA.

But actually knowing what to hire out, I’m very good at! That’s what I’m hoping to share with you. 

Be CLEAR on what you’re hiring out

Hiring out isn’t as scary as it might sound because of some different options. But to begin with, you NEED to be clear on exactly what you’re hiring out. And to add on to that, you have to hire out what you MOST need help with in your business.

I think that a lot of people hire for the wrong part of their business. You need to hire for things first that:

• Take up the most of your time
• You HATE
• You aren’t the person that has to do them

I want you to make three lists.

1. All of the tasks you currently do that take the MOST time
2. Things you HATE doing
3. All the things that happen in your business that CAN be done by someone else

I want you to be very honest with yourself on all of these lists. You might think you’re the only one who can do your style of video editing, but you could absolutely train someone else to do that.

Now, go through your lists and see which tasks are on ALL THREE of your lists.

My first thing? Customer service and emails. I hated doing it, it took up a lot of my time, and I’m definitely not the only one who can manage my inbox. That’s what I hired out first, and it is the thing I would NEVER go without.

The crossovers on those lists are the things you need to hire for first.

My First Time Hiring Help in My Business

Flashback to baby entrepreneur Jessica in 2015. I was co-hosting the All Up In Your Lady Business podcast with my friend Jaclyn Mellone, and we both owned and contributed to it equally.

I edited the podcast because of my technical knowledge, and it took over my LIFE. My time was dictated by editing podcast. Jaclyn was TOTALLY pulling her weight, but the editing was more responsibility than I anticipated.

Me mutually agreed that, as soon as we started making money, we would hire out editing the podcast. So, we did. And I ended up hiring that person to take over customer service in my business in 2016 when I was not making REMOTELY the money I am now.

Contractors vs. Employees

Again – do NOT take my legal advice. I just want to share my understanding with you.

Contractor

A contractor can be two different things. They can be a person who either has their own business doing the thing you need help with and will do it for you with their own processes and invoice you. Or, they can be someone who is doing those tasks for you as a freelancer, and you can send them pay based on the hours they work.

You do not pay taxes on contractors – they are responsible for that themselves. If you spend more than $500 on them, you do need to fill out a 1099, but generally they manage their own taxes.

Contractors are fairly easy to find and are the easiest way to get started with hiring help in your business because they require way less commitment.

You can’t dictate when a contractor works. So, if you’re hiring a contractor for 10 hours per week, they can work whenever they want.

Employee

You do pay taxes out for employees – state, federal, all the things that are needed.  But you don’t have to pay out health insurance for them or give them a 401k. That’s something I definitely want to grow into as my team continues to grow.

But YOU are in charge of all the things for your employees. Taxes, a W2, getting them their paycheck, etc. You can control the hours that they work and how that works for the company.

Most people will start out with a contractor. But you can totally have a part-time employee instead of a contractor if you’re able to pay taxes on them (that’s the biggest difference).

Different states do have some different requirements – like I can’t have employees in North Carolina if I don’t have some sort of workman’s comp plan, even though they’re working from their own homes.

If you’re new to hiring help in your business…

When I was just getting started with hiring help in my business, I found it really beneficial to look for people who WANTED to start their own businesses to hire as contractors.

I would put out a call on my personal Facebook page describing the job, the hours, and the pay – which is generally much lower than typical contractor pay. I specifically said I was looking for someone interested in building a business with those skills, because in exchange for you working for me for a lower rate, I am willing to show you all the things you need to know to get started.

I’ve done that MULTIPLE times and it’s worked out super wonderfully! It helps me because I don’t have to spend as much on contractors, and it helps the contractor because they learn a ton of skills to go out and start the business they want to start.

The Benefits of Employees

Employees can SOMETIMES be cheaper than contractors. And they’re likely going to be more dedicated to your vision.

It is WAY cheaper for me to give Laura, who is already on my payroll, my videos to edit than to hire it out. Even with hiring someone else for customer service (which we have done). It probably costs me half or even a quarter of what it would have to hire a video editor.

Employees can also be safer in terms of competition. You could get them to sign a non-compete clause that protects you and your business information. But they do require more work on the back end.

Accounting Tip

If you’re going the employee route, you’ll have payroll to think about. I use QuickBooks for my accounting and to manage payroll. It automatically sends out my paychecks and walks me through the forms I need from my employees.

My First Full-Time Employee

As I grew, I needed more than just someone to manage my customer service and inbox. I really needed someone to help me manage my business as a whole in addition to those things.

I went through THREE OBM’s (Organizational Business Managers), who are contractors that take on the role of managing a business. To be honest, I had bad experiences all three times with my OBM’s.

It became way more valuable for me to invest in an employee rather than try again with a contractor. I got way more dedication and way more hours for a similar amount of money each month.

The Hiring Process

I’m not an expert on hiring either, but I have done it a few times! I prefer to hire locally – not so I can meet up with these people, but because I’m passionate about giving local people good jobs.

I have created a makeshift application on Typeform, shared it locally, and hired in that way.

The biggest part of hiring in my opinion is getting REALLY clear on the expectations that you have for this new hire before you even start to hire them. Knowing the expectations you have is crucial to finding the right person. And you need to be able to communicate those expectations with your employee or contractor, too.

I hope this helped you understand more about hiring help in your business!

The post Hiring Help in Your Business appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

ThriveCart vs SamCart

I initially purchased a lifetime subscription to SamCart, and ended up canceling it because it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. In walked ThriveCart, and my life was changed! Here’s a breakdown of ThriveCart vs SamCart.

Checkout Customization

I’m big on making my checkouts match my branding where possible. ThriveCart makes customizing checkout pages way easy! You can change the color of every element on the page, from the background to the text to the color of each button when you select or deselect it. You can also drag and drop elements to build the page exactly how you’d like to build it.

SamCart has much more limited design features. You can still customize the layout of pages, but the granular customization is not on the same level as ThriveCart. SamCart does have a variety of sales page templates to choose from, so that’s always a great option if customization isn’t your top priority.

Integrations

ThriveCart integrates SUPER well with Teachable and ConvertKit, which are my course-hosting platform and email marketing platform of choice. ThriveCart allows you to fulfill a purchase through ThriveCart natively, and “set a behavior” to add a tag to a subscriber on ConvertKit.

SamCart will totally integrate with Teachable and ConvertKit too, but it requires the use of Zapier which is an additional cost.

Affiliates

Both ThriveCart and SamCart have the option to add affiliates to your products. So if you have an online course and want to have people promote it for you and make affiliate income, both checkout softwares have that option!

Sales Funnels

ThriveCart and SamCart both allow you to customize sales funnels. You can create an order bump and upsells to attach to different products. One of the cool things about funnels on ThriveCart is that you can also add downsells to your funnel, if that suits your fancy.

Payment Integrations

Both platforms integrate with PayPal and Stripe easily. However, ThriveCart also integrates with Apple Pay and Google Pay which is pretty nice!

Price

ThriveCart is available for a lifetime fee of $495. SamCart has a monthly subscription fee, coming in at $39 per month for their cheapest plan and $159 per month for their most expensive.

And there you have it – a general breakdown of ThriveCart vs SamCart. I hope it helps you decide which checkout software works best for your business!

The post ThriveCart vs SamCart appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.