Amanda 0:10
Hello, and welcome back to season I don't know of the Slumber Party podcast, where we record a lot. And then we take big breaks because our life has happening. So I don't actually know what season this is. But we're back. It's new. It's fresh. And I'm here today with my co host, Liza. Hello, Liza.
Liza 0:30
Hello.
Amanda 0:31
How are you? Season
Liza 0:32
Four? Actually,
Amanda 0:34
I think it's, I think it's more than that. Okay. Maybe they think it's more. I think that last year, we're like, we're gonna do it every week. But I think that's impossible. And even my favorite podcast takes breaks so until like, I'm not in school. And until this podcast, like, delivers a dump truck of money to my house. There'll be breaks, right? Yeah.
Liza 0:57
I'll be on every episode.
Amanda 1:00
Yeah. Oh, our hoses. I mean, our collective. Imagine if it was like, No, it's just my money. And then when we came to record it just counting money, physically,
Liza 1:12
your share?
Amanda 1:13
I am sure I must share. Today, I'm super excited to have former client slash current certification member. You're not really a student. You're what a member,
Phoebe 1:32
a graduate,
Amanda 1:33
graduate. Thank you. There we go. PHOEBE Hi, TV. How are you?
Phoebe 1:39
Hi, I'm good. Thank you. I am so excited to be here.
Amanda 1:43
I am so excited that you were here. Because Phoebe is like, the first person to do anything. So Phoebe was a client? Like, what? 2020 2020 21
Phoebe 1:55
When Jasper my son was six months old, like, Yeah, six months?
Amanda 2:01
Yes, that's right. That's crazy. And I just remember us having these like, so Jasper took to everything like super well. And then the remaining portions of our, like calls that we had scheduled. We just talk about life. How are you? And I remember you being like, Oh, I'm so interested in this. And I have this program in my pocket like brewing for a while. And I remember when I kind of put it out there for like my beta testing thing. You were the first person to sign up. Hold on, I'm
Phoebe 2:41
just gonna pause this.
Amanda 2:43
Okay, so basically, I'm on Instagram, and I put out, you know, who wants to train because this is the thing. I started the program because everyone kept asking me where he trained, where I trained, where I trained. Well, how do you do it? How do you do it? And I was like, Oh, I feel like I could do this really well. And then so I put it out. And you were the first person to be like, Hi, me. Hi. And then you're the first person to sign up for the program. You have never missed a live session ever. And you were the first person to sign up for the conference, the first conference now that we have a whole bunch of people like you're you're like, you're like thank you for choosing me. And like you're the you're the person I thought um, yeah, exactly.
Liza 3:29
You're the you're the target audience,
Phoebe 3:33
or something, I just commit to it and do it and go for it.
Amanda 3:36
Agreed. Agreed. So I guess you know, and we were kind of just talking about this before we were recording. The reason why I wanted to do this is this is now a big part of babies best sleep. People are thinking about doing this work, or adding to their own qualifications, like people, you know, the typical applicant right now seems to be someone who's already working in childcare. Maybe in the childcare setting or their nanny, we have mental health support workers who want to add this to their current practice. And then we have people who are just obsessed with sleep like I was and want to want to keep doing it. And when we get into the conversation, like when we're having our interview and going through the application process, they always sort of say, you know, well, like how are your graduates doing? And truth be told, like we're just coming up to a year now, of my first group, we've we're working on our third group now, I want to kind of, I don't want to speak for you I'd like someone who did the program to kind of talk about it. So then I can be like, Hey, listen to this podcast with this person. And and I'm not paying you and I'm I didn't tell you what to say. In fact, we've talked about the lack of preparation for today. You're like, what are you gonna say? I'm like, oh, I should have sent you that. Tell me a little bit about why you applied. And how's it going?
Phoebe 5:15
Sure. I applied. It was kind of spur of the moment, I just when I had worked with you, you had changed my and my family's life so quickly. And to be honest, it it kind of blew us away, we were so unbelievably tired. And my son started sleeping amazingly, in three nights after having not slept literally for the whole six months of his life up until that point. So it was just such a life changing experience. And I have a high needs daughter, who really requires a lot of support. So my job in marketing where I had worked for the past, you know, decade just wasn't really reasonable anymore, because I needed to be able to, you know, visit appointments and take her to therapies and do all these things. And I needed a really, really flexible lifestyle. So when you announced that you were putting on this certification program, it was like a light bulb went off in my head, and I was like, Wait, this is what I'm supposed to do. And I, I think we even talked about it before us. You were doing this when when I was your client, and I was asked, I
Amanda 6:28
didn't want to see that. Because I was like, is our Phoebe's like past employers listening to this, but he were like, I'm not going back to my job. Oh, okay.
Phoebe 6:43
But yeah, so we were talking about it then. And I was so interested because it was such a truly life changing experience for me. And I was like, Wow, can I do this for other people. And turns out I can. It was kind of a leap of faith, I joined the certification program, went through the program, it was great. I felt like I learned absolutely everything I needed to know in order to do this myself. But then once it was over, I needed to continue putting in the work and kind of hustle a little bit, and myself out there. Because, you know, I can slap a website up online, and I can open an Instagram account and hope that people are going to find it and hope that people are just going to go onto my website and, and that book calls but that's not really the way it works. Right? So
Amanda 7:33
I wish I can imagine, that would be so wonderful. And I feel like Lisa, you're on the other side of this link.
Liza 7:43
Well, how wonderful would be to like, match up like a personality, you know, like, it's like, oh, I think like Phoebe, here's her Instagram account. Like there needs to be like, you know, a better way to find people but there really isn't so yeah, the hustle is real. Yeah,
Amanda 7:59
well, and I think this is everyone like if, again, I'm thinking you know, what does the average applicant want to know? On the other side, or even just like people who are curious right like I had someone I do this like anonymous question by the way. Oh my god,
Liza 8:18
I share all the juicy questions I get asked people ask
Amanda 8:23
such great questions. So I try not to do the question box anymore because people know that I can see who sends them but when people don't know they asked like good questions like juicy questions about themselves that are kind of late that we get from everyone right? So someone sent me an okay so I'm showing you on the screen when this program this program will send you questions sometimes like it'll say send with love from this. So you know, it's from the program right? Admins, someone said this. There's no, there's nothing there. You see it. Someone's groped me. I find you incredibly sexy. This is not a question. I just want you to know. Aye. Aye, aye. Don't know what to say. It was me. Wasn't you? I was like, for sure. For sure. Anyway. No, I don't care. Like don't if it was you, thank you so much. This woman needed that little pap. Why are you bringing this up is because people are so free to speak. As for this message, this woman or someone wrote me? Thanks for all the like, rah rah. Like girl boss bullshit, but like, How can I just like work for you? It was like, first of all, I've never used the term Girlboss literally ever. Thank you. But it It's one, I think people hope that they can kind of like just slip into maybe another company, which can happen. But if you're doing that there are generally other things to consider. But I also think that like, what people really want to know is like, Okay, anyone can complete a certification, like I got my teaching degree, anyone can go get that degree, are you going to get a job after? And I think that, like when I'm on my, my calls and interviews with my folks, I'm so honest with them, like, I don't know, like, I'm going to mentor you. And I'm going to tell you every single thing I think that you can be doing and should be doing. And if you want to workshop something with me, if you want to go through anything with me, I'll do that. But in the end, all of those things come back to you. Like if I think about my teaching degree, who was I talking to about this? Recently, I was talking to another teacher. Oh, I know. It's one of our certification members, who's also a teacher. And we were kind of talking about, at the time that we became teachers and Liza, you'll remember this, there is no jobs, there is nothing there is like, I remember buying a printer with a fax machine capability. Because there was a day that if you wanted a job, he had to fax your resume to all have the schools directly. And then you sat waiting for a call. And they will call you that day. And so I had someone call me that day for an interview. I was in the middle of the nanny job. I'm like, I'm nannying. And they're like, then the job's not yours. It was like that hardcore. And that I ended up getting a job. But I couldn't have got the job if I didn't sit on my floor, faxing out stuff, and, and getting the work done. So there's a lot that I can do. But I love why I wanted you on here specifically, is because you were someone who shows up to our live mentoring session. So we have these monthly meetings where we all get together, and we talk about what's going well, and we learned something about baby's sleep. And Phoebe always shows up with her like, this is the weird shit I did this month to like get myself noticed. And I love that. And I want you to kind of like talk about that experience a little bit.
Phoebe 12:30
Sure. So like, if I just want to caveat this by saying if I can do this, truly anyone can do it. There's nothing special about me. The only thing I can say that I'm doing consistently is putting myself out there. So Amanda, I think you'll, you'll remember we talked about this, right when I launched slumber and shine. And I was like, okay, at least once a week, I want to do something that makes me very uncomfortable. So whether that be hosting free workshops, going to networking events, where I know, not one single person showing up at baby groups and just talking about myself, going on social media, social media, I find quite stressful putting myself out there talking to the camera, like I don't know when I'm ever going to feel comfortable doing that. But I just told myself, you know what, you're just going to do it. And the only way it's going to get comfortable is if you just continue doing it. And that is literally the only difference in in my strategy. And it's worked because yes, I have a real live full time
Amanda 13:41
business in less than a year. Less. Like six
Phoebe 13:45
months. Yeah. Six months, seven months. Yeah.
Amanda 13:50
It's wild. And like, Phoebe is sorry, Lisa.
Phoebe 13:55
So with two kids, a two year old girls. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer at 5am. Like, yeah,
Liza 14:06
that's so interesting. You know, like the concept of just doing the uncomfortable thing is just such a great thing to get comfortable with. Like I tell that to my kids. I told myself that, you know, I let you in on a little secret that I despite how gorgeous I look all the time today was my very first time working out in a long time. And it's just like, just do the thing. Do the thing that you don't want to do do the uncomfortable thing. Yeah.
Phoebe 14:33
And I think also doing the thing for a while before you see the results because I think when you're building a business, it takes time. So especially at the beginning, I had to put myself out there many times before seeing the results of putting myself out there but it did come it just wasn't you know, it's not like I went to one networking event. then the next day had a full client load, right?
Amanda 15:03
I remember going, so I totally identify with that. And actually, I think your start is actually a lot more like, shiny and fabulous than mine, like mine was like, I finished my training in May. And it was like May, June, July, I think I was so dead. And I was hustling. And I was like, Oh, my God, all I want to do. My goal was like, let's just see what happens. I just want to pay off my tuition. That's it. Like, if I come out even from this, then I'll be happy. I had a bigger goal than that. I wanted to have my tuition paid by the time I started school in September. And it wasn't looking like that. Like, we're in July. And I was like, I'm having these discovery calls and people like, Okay, thanks. I like, raise my prices, I lowered my prices, I like gave discounts. I'm doing everything and nothing is working. I'm calling people. And it just like, it felt really hard. And knowing on the other side, though, like, especially speaking with other people who has started businesses, it takes a while, like it really does. And I think that's the thing. I'm really honest with people that I didn't really make this a full time thing for two years, it took me two years, it's not going going to just happen. But when you're going through that, it can be really hard to keep going because there is a level of kind of rejection, there's a rejection on your discovery calls when your client doesn't hire you. There's a rejection in your, in your like, I call this I remember I called all of these, like baby stores. And it was like this, I had a lead at this one store. And they're like, oh, you know what, we ended up going with someone who like came into the store to chat with us. And I was like, fuck, I should have done that. And there's just a lot of stuff that can really bring you down. But you have to keep going. Because it doesn't like no one's gonna show up at your house to give you a business. No, no exam unless you're maybe like, a Hilton. Or, I don't know, something. Roger's family I don't know. Like, then someone will show up at your house. Give you the
Liza 17:27
business. There's.
Amanda 17:30
Um, yeah, so. And then the other part too, I think that is always scary, is I have a I have like a very successful group of friends and in the corporate world who don't jump on social media every day, right? And who aren't always like, hey, and then I am now all of a sudden being like, hi, hi. Hi. Hi. And then you are at first like kind of marketing to your friends. Like not MLM II. It's just like, who's following you? It's like, your friends are like, oh, good for you. I'll follow you. And then they're like, Oh, my God. All this bitch talks about his baby sleep. And you're like, Yeah, this is kind of what this is. Sorry. year that is kind of embarrassing and uncomfortable.
Phoebe 18:22
Yeah, totally. The social media. I'm not gonna lie, like, I mean, it's Instagram is going okay, it's going pretty well. I've gotten lots of clients, just from like, DMS on Instagram. But it is without a doubt, like really putting yourself out there. It really it is. I had a little bit of a, like, a bad moment. The other day. I did this. I try and like, I'm trying to show parts of it. You know, I have two young kids. I'm trying to like show like, show my family like I'm a mom with little kids too. And I did a story about my daughter going on the school bus at the beginning of JK, she just started JK, and she was wearing like a harness in the picture. Yeah. And I got so many DMS about it. So I just went on my story. And I was like, yep, you know, she's autistic. She's wearing a harness. So when she's on the school bus, she's like, it's like a car seat for the school. But she's three years old, right? Yeah, I had dozens and dozens and dozens of people unfollowed me that day. And it like, hurt my soul. Like I cried. So that's, that's a little sad story. But it's hard. It's hard putting years I think sometimes when I do this, too, was you forget that the people behind especially when you're talking about small businesses, those people are real people. Right? So
Amanda 19:50
here's the thing, and I will by the way, if you're listening to this, we're gonna go follow Phoebe right now to your Instagram.
Phoebe 20:01
slumber and Chai
Amanda 20:03
at slumber in China finder right now, I'm gonna go and activate my old personal account just to give it a little follow. But I think that this is a I'm coming on the other side of this because I came up at a time on Instagram where it was it was kind of like when it wasn't the same as Tik Tok, it wasn't as new as Tik Tok. But there was possibilities for growth on Instagram that were that could be organically based. And then Instagram really changed spotted by Facebook, I think in the first year that I was on Instagram, as a business, and then it was really pay to play. It's very much like, collaborative. And it's very, you know, it's a business. It's its own business, and we are the products. So it's hard to like, bitch about Instagram. So I even when people are on the phone with me about this are like, do I have to be an influencer? And I'm like, I wouldn't actually put all your eggs in that basket. I mean, it's a tool, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. And I think that what I've learned over time, is people want to, people don't want to be there for you, or like the the average follower doesn't want to be there for you when you're winning. And they don't want to be there for when you're losing. And there's this like, weird thing about that, like people don't want to see people do well, which is a very surprising thing for me. I'm spitting all over myself. But it's a weird like, I'm not talking about you were I am talking about the average person. If I am celebrating a win, actually, I lose the most followers on days where I have my most popular posts. Interesting. Isn't that interesting? And it's because number one, probably what happened? This is what I'm guessing what happened. Instagram does not show you to all of your followers all the time, you're you're probably shown to what however, like a certain percentage of your followers, I think it's like five or 10% consistently. Then you posted this thing where a lot of people wrote back to you to say, hey, so now Instagram says, Oh, she just posted something that's really interesting. Yeah. And so we're gonna show this to all of these people. So now your audience went from 10% to let's say, 30, or even 40%? Then all of those people who have kind of forgotten about you are like, Oh, why am I following her? And then they unfollowed? Like, that's what I really think that happens. Yeah. And
Phoebe 22:43
I and I also know, like, it's just Instagram, if they don't want to follow me, like, I don't want to follow them. I don't want them to follow me. You know what I mean?
Liza 22:53
It's just that you do it. Easier said than done.
Phoebe 22:57
When your moments where you're like, Okay, I'm putting myself out here is like, is there a reason? And then I've had so many, like, I honestly have had some excellent connections via Instagram. You know, I've like some of some great clients from there just other connections with other business owners and things like that. So there's a lots of positives, but there's always going to be, you know, negatives towards constantly putting yourself out there.
Amanda 23:24
100 person? So, okay, you're getting out there, you're hustling. You're getting clients. If you were someone who sort of, if you were to give your past self advisor, a new person advice, advice on what's the best way, or what's the most consistent way for you that you found that gets you clients and sort of like, get yourself out there? So
Phoebe 23:49
the number one thing for clients is what doing a great job for your current clients. Give you to their friends, I thought of
Amanda 24:06
this, people always say, oh, there's so much compat competition, there's so much do you know how much competition there was five years ago, there was a ton there were like, I can't think of off the top of my head that I knew of five really high profile consultants in the GTA. And I always say the only reason that I am where I am is because it was really fucking intentional and doing a really good job. And I truly believe that if you are good at this, and you are making client connections, you don't have to work a day in your life in your marketing because everyone around you will work for you. Yeah, we'll talk about you. And it doesn't matter like you know, there are providers who have their entire fees covered because they're a mental health provider or a health care worker. But I wouldn't hire them. If I didn't, if I heard that they were should, I would pay out of my own pocket to make sure that my kid is sleeping. There is not anything when a parent is tired and exhausted. If a referral is strong, they will have an earth to make it happen. I am not covered. I am expensive. And I am booked out for eight weeks right now. Yeah, like it's because I care. You're so
Phoebe 25:29
right. And that's why I found getting the first like 10 or 20 clients was the hardest. But now the majority of my clients are their friends. Yes, right. Yeah. So yes. So you just need to do a good job.
Amanda 25:46
Sometimes I want to be clear. Hi, Henrik. It's okay. This is a family friendly podcast. He's like dying. Oh, he
Liza 25:57
says,
oh, that's what you get with an almost 13 year old
Amanda 26:05
minute. While I was like, Lisa had kids at like, 2526. Right. I feel like I was just drunk. And I could have been investing. So tired. I was I was I was in Australia living like my life. And you were having kids investing into your now? Because no one's bringing me breakfast.
Liza 26:34
Yeah, no, I'm drunk all the time again.
Amanda 26:40
The way life is. totally believe that. I totally believe that with all my heart. And I think that you need to put in like a big thing that we focus on in this program. I call it the R factor. And it's a set of like, when I was doing this program, the person who helped me kind of design it, like put all my insane thoughts into something that makes sense. She asked me like, what's your differentiator, and I was like, Oh, I think that there are like five, and they all started with an R. And so it's respecting your client, having a good referral base, making sure that you have reviews, being responsible, right? Like these are things that every time a client hires you, they are saying, I trust you. And I really take that seriously, because they could go with anyone else, they could do anything with anyone else. And I every time like I, I am five years into this, I've worked with 1000s of people, I'm still so tickled when someone picks me and I really take it seriously. And I feel like that is that is it's like the heart of your business will always be there. Right? Like, if you are not if you're on the phone, with a consultant or any provider for that matter, and you're not totally in love with them. I wouldn't like even if they're referral, then I feel like you gotta like, Get out of there. Like, and I think that's, that's so oh my god, I love that you said that. Because I always say that. It's just being good at your job. Yeah.
Phoebe 28:18
Carry people are trusting you with their families sleep. Like there's not many things that are more important or more like personal than that. Yes.
Amanda 28:27
And their babies, their little babies. I know. I think
Liza 28:32
there's so much misinformation and just like polarizing opinions about helping your children sleep and you know, having a routine that way. So I feel like, you know, the trust that they placed in you. I know for sure with Amanda like how seriously she takes that and and you're there to ease all those worries, right? And it's exactly what you're saying. It's that service that you provide that it just changes people's. Really. I mean, look at me, I always say this, like Amanda helped me with may 3 Even though I thought she was like, just so perfect. And she's left and then all of a sudden she's like,
now
Amanda 29:17
I feel that every child, every child has that story where they're like, I'm great. Like my my youngest, I was just telling someone, this, I was kind of giving the example of we think that our children are kind of static, right? They will act the same and like great. They sleep through the night. This is it forever. It's like well, no, they're going to change. They're going to grow and they're going to develop and I was talking about my youngest was this sweet, little chunk, chunky little thing that just slept in eaten. And then literally she turned three and she's like we're all like, Oh my god. Oh my god. Our nanny at the time was like, Yeah, this is this is three this says when it's gonna be in we're like, Oh, okay. All right. No problem. Okay. We're coming to the end of this half hour. And I mean, this is that crap naptime. Oh, we're 30 minutes in now. Oh my god, Phoebe if people want to hire you, where can they find you?
Phoebe 30:20
Oh, they can find me on my website slumber and shine.ca You can send me a message there or book a discovery call or you can just follow me send me a DM on Instagram. My handle is also slumber and Chai.
Amanda 30:34
Yay. And you can find PBS website we have a list of all of our graduates on our approved programs list on the baby's Besley website so you can find her there. Phoebe thank you so much. This is wonderful.
Phoebe 30:50
Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
Amanda 30:53
Yay. Got the Instagram hater.
Liza 30:58
They're just like that
bad friend. You need to like you need to use those you know like, oh, wait, yeah,
where are you here in
Amanda 31:07
person and they were like, unfollow. It's like yeah, unfollow. Yeah, please
Liza 31:12
do. Yeah, I love I love it. I
love it when people ask people to unfollow them after a controversial post. I'm always like, Yeah, you tell them don't follow you. Just unfollow. If
Amanda 31:23
you don't know how many things I'm just like, done. It's it's good. We don't have to talk about it. Okay, have a good one.
Unknown Speaker 31:31
Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
