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Rachelle Deem is an automation and integration specialist from Australia who specializes in helping female entrepreneurs put some of the more mundane or manual tasks of their day-to-day work on autopilot in order to free up more time to scale their business. She's very well versed in many of the course creation all-in-one portals as she helps clients as they transfer from one to another and integrate different pieces together. In this episode, Rachelle shares how she was able to very gradually switch over from her desk job of 25 years to working from home as a virtual assistant on her own schedule after she had her sixth child. She's moved her home office around to different parts of her house and has also moved into more of a consulting role as she is building a team to help as she scales her own business. She divides her week into two parts, three days where she's working in her business, like an employee, and two days where she's focusing on her own self care as well as working on more of the big picture aspects of her business as the CEO.
April and Rachelle met in a networking portion of an online conference, and April met with Rachelle virtually a few weeks later for a "tech breakthrough session" where they were able to talk about which products and services April was interested in working with after deliberating over the choices for several months. They settled on using a lesser known site called Simplero for hosting her website and some of the other projects, courses, and membership options for Yes, I Work From Home that are coming soon. The conversation focuses a lot on some different ways female entrepreneurs and small business owners in general can work to avoid getting to the point of overwhelm through things like automating scheduling and some email responders and such by freeing up more time for other tasks or time for self care or family.
Rachelle Deem: https://www.rachelledeem.com/
You can check out her free resources such as the Ultimate Automation Tools Guide here:
https://www.rachelledeem.com/ultimate_automation_tools_guide
If anyone would like to check out Simplero, the site that both Rachelle and April use, here's April's referral code: https://smpl.ro/al/OKVv9v_e/19136
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Transcript
April Malone 0:10
Hello, hello, my name is April Malone, and I'm with Yes, I Work From Home, and this is the podcast. Today I have Rachelle Deem with me from Australia. Rachelle, tell us who you are and what you do.
Rachelle Deem 0:21
Hi, I'm Rachelle, and I am a tech and automations expert and assists women with their online courses as well, and I work from home, and I'm a mom of 6.
April Malone 0:34
Yes, so Rachelle and I actually met at a conference for entrepreneurial women, I think it was in May of last year with, The Grace Lever--with The Grace Lever, she would probably like to know that we refer to her that way.
Rachelle Deem 0:48
Yeah.
April Malone 0:50
She's kind of an entrepreneurial guru for not only Australia but also the U.S. and worldwide famous at this point. So we met in a networking session; we were randomized for 5 minutes, and every 5 minutes it was kind of like speed dating. And Rachelle comes in and I'm like, "Okay, what do you do?" Like we were all--I was practicing my elevator pitch for the first time, like trying to formulate, because we hadn't even started the Yes, I Work From Home yet at all; I was just kind of in the thinking stage of it still, and she's like, "I help people develop a tech stack." And I was like, "What is that? I think I need that."
Rachelle Deem 1:29
Yeah.
April Malone 1:30
What does that mean?
Rachelle Deem 1:33
Well, it can be confusing because sometimes when people use the word tech, they're actually referring to like the physical assets, like the monitor and the phone, and while that comes into play, actually when I say tech, I'm referring to the platforms that underpin your business, so like the ClickFunnels and LeadPages and Acuity Scheduling and Gmail/email platforms, that sort of thing. So when it comes to creating a tech stack, I'm talking about all the platforms that layer together to get a business running as much on autopilot as possible but to have all of those tasks of your business operating and integrated and speaking to each other. Yeah, so that's what I mean by tech stack.
April Malone 2:22
And when she said that, I was like, "Oh my goodness, I am trying to start a new thing." You know, I had been working for a company for 17 years, and I was working as an independent contractor for a company that already had the platform. And when I'm like, "I want to start a thing, but I don't know, you know, what email provider do I want to use, or what website should I use?" And I was literally paralyzed with decision. You know, that decision overloaded, overwhelmed, and taking 4 months and like researching and researching and researching...
Rachelle Deem 2:50
Yeah.
April Malone 2:51
...trying to like, even the podcasting is like, "I want to do a podcast but how?" You know, and every single time it came to a different thing, I didn't know, you know, there'd be 40 choices, and so Rachelle was kind enough to share her information with me, and we kind of kept in touch and I did end up booking--what do we call that? A technology breakthrough session or something like that?
Rachelle Deem 3:13
Yeah, it was a tech breakthrough session.
April Malone 3:16
It was 45 minutes of gold, and it just helped me. I was able to say, "Here's what I know. Here's what I think I want. Help me. Help me decide." And she was able to tell me about a website that I hadn't even heard of yet called Simplero, and that's actually what I'm hosting my website on now because it not only can host like a regular landing page or funnel or like your web stuff but also a course, similar to Kajabi. And I was trying to decide between the ClickFunnels and the Kajabi and the...
Rachelle Deem 3:47
Yes, you were. Yeah.
April Malone 3:49
...all of the choices, and there's so many, and I was reading all of the comparisons, like you know, ClickFunnels versus Kajabi versus, you know, Thinkific, or whatever they're all called and--what is it called?
Rachelle Deem 4:01
Yeah, I remember that. Thinkific.
April Malone 4:03
Thinkific, yeah. I was just like, yeah, completely overwhelmed, so I'm assuming that you deal with that a lot?
Rachelle Deem 4:10
I do. You were very, very researched though, and I don't necessarily work with a lot of women that have delved as deeply into the tech as you did because you were definitely like this versus this, and this does this, and this doesn't do that. So, yeah, you definitely took it to a level that not as many women that I work with do. They do look at surface things, and it tends to be "What are the main features?" and "What is the price?" Those are the 2 comparative points that most people come to me on, and things like all-in-ones, the subscriber limit before the price point changes. That's another one that stops people in their tracks, but it's confusing because there are so many choices, and you're also thinking, if you're not familiar with any of them really, you're thinking, "What's going to work for me now versus what's going to work for me in 5 years' time? Am I going to be changing really soon? Because it's not going to grow with my business." So it's overwhelming.
April Malone 5:13
Or it's something that's so loaded like, I think that I was being recommended something; it was Infusionsoft.
Rachelle Deem 5:20
Yes.
April Malone 5:21
And that is so big and so expensive, and I wasn't really ready for it now or probably not anytime in the near future, and then you have to decide, "Am I willing to make that switch if I need to upgrade?"
Rachelle Deem 5:34
Yeah and because it is very expensive, like it is pretty much one of the most expensive email marketing automation platforms that you can get. And I mean, it's got the nickname "Confusionsoft" for a reason because it's not simple. Unless you're super techie, it's not just to sit down and navigate your way through creating a campaign within an hour; like you will have to sit there for quite a few hours to even work out how to connect a webform with a landing page, let alone build out a campaign and you decision diamonds and all of the ins and outs of the program.
April Malone 6:16
And it doesn't do everything, so you still have to pay for other elements.
Rachelle Deem 6:20
Yeah. Well, it does have landing pages, but the landing pages are not great. I mean, some people love them, but really they're not high converting; they're not really optimized aesthetically. They're very basic landing pages. So yeah, and you do need other pieces, other platforms to make everything run together smoothly, so I never really recommend Infusionsoft for anybody unless they've come to me already with Infusionsoft as one of their tech pieces. If they've already paid for a year or they're paying, like they've got everything on that, yeah, I'll just say "Stay there for now."
April Malone 6:58
Yep.
Rachelle Deem 6:59
But it's never--it's not in my top 5 recommendations for what to use for simplicity.
April Malone 7:05
You recommended a thing that you use personally but no one else has really heard of, so it was a little bit of a learning curve just to try to like find information, but so far, we're happy.
Rachelle Deem 7:16
Yeah. Yep, I love it, and I still recommend it above anything else, so I spruik Simplero all the time. So yeah.
April Malone 7:27
Do you consider yourself like, what kind of title have you given yourself? Like, when you say, "I am a..." Like, are you kind of like a VA in helping all these people with their tech, or are you more of a consultant, or what do you call yourself?
Rachelle Deem 7:38
Yeah, it's definitely it's consulting. So I have varied levels of services. So consulting is more of that done-with-you sort of area, and I do have done-for-you services for people that are looking for migrations or a course creation or a funnel build. I have the done-for-you services, but as far as like working...
April Malone 8:03
Like a "one and done."
Rachelle Deem 8:04
Yeah, that's it. So as far as people trying to work out what works for their business, how they can automate their business, that is a done-with-you service and very much a consulting sort of space.
April Malone 8:17
Let's talk about how you got into this. Is this what you aspired to be, or how did you get to this point?
Rachelle Deem 8:25
Definitely had no aspirations of doing this. It wasn't in my goals at all, really. I started working from home when I'd had my sixth child. So just to give some context, I had my first five children very quickly, one after the other, so I had five under 7, and then I had a 12-year gap, and then we have our little 3-1/2-year-old now. So I had been home for the first five when they're all small; I was home, I wasn't even working. I was just a stay-at-home mom--not "just" a stay-at-home mom, I was a stay-at-home mom.
April Malone 9:02
Very busy, a very busy mom.
Rachelle Deem 9:06
Yeah, yeah, so definitely not "just." I was a stay-at-home mom, and I went back to work when my youngest son at that point (my fifth) he was 3-1/2, so I went back to work at that point. So when we had Noah, I really wasn't keen to go back to full-time work and to have him in care, and I didn't want to miss those opportunities to be with him, but by the same token, when you've got 6 kids, we needed two incomes coming into the house. And also, I'm not just--I can't just sit there and be like--I like to be challenged and stimulated in some regard. And I'm kind of a perpetual student, and I was like, "What can I do?" And one of my close friends had mentioned something about virtual assistants; her auntie works for the Queensland Conservatorium, and they were hiring VAs to do some work. I was like, "Oh, I could do that." So I kind of did a little bit of research and thought, "Yep, I could could definitely start this," and just kind of got into some like social media marketing and letting people know that I--what my skill set was. And I mean, I had been working corporate for 25 years.
April Malone 10:23
Okay.
Rachelle Deem 10:24
And at the time I was home with the kids and very large skill set and definitely around systems and processes and platform integrations and IT finance. So I had like quite a large skill set; I knew that I had lots to offer. So yeah, that's how I got into it. Initially, it was just doing some VA work.
April Malone 10:47
What did you originally go to school for?
Rachelle Deem 10:50
Psychology. Yeah. I just--I do like to have little bits and pieces of things that don't tie together for anybody else, but in my mind, they all work. So yeah, psychology was my degree, has nothing to do with what I do now.
April Malone 11:11
I have those too; I have two of those degrees.
Rachelle Deem 11:13
Yeah.
April Malone 11:14
Well technically, my music degree isn't really serving me very well right now, but the adult education component definitely is.
Rachelle Deem 11:20
Yes, yes that would. Yeah.
April Malone 11:22
And I'm sure psychology...
Rachelle Deem 11:23
It's nice to have in the background.
April Malone 11:25
...comes in handy too with all the decision making and like understanding why people struggle with things that they do.
Rachelle Deem 11:31
Yes, yeah. So that's how it's all kind of come into play. And then I never intended to stick with the VA sort of thing for any period of time, and I really did only sit in that space for about 6 months. And I outgrew it very quickly, which I knew that I would, but it was just a foot in the door from working from home, and it gave me an opportunity to build a client base, and then I was able to transition most of those clients from VA to kind of a, not consulting, but more of a high-end service at that point and bring a VA in to do those tasks that I had previously been doing.
April Malone 12:11
So you hired a VA to work for you and do those things?
Rachelle Deem 12:15
Yes, yeah. Well, my clients hired a VA that reported to me, or some did and some didn't. Some of them, I mean, some of them have stuck--I'm still working with some of them now in a much different space than initially, and some have just transitioned on, but it was good because I really haven't had to go crazy marketing my business; word of mouth has been probably 80% to 90% of my client base is from referrals from other clients. So yeah.
April Malone 12:54
And things like the networking space where I met you and like that group of women who were entreprenurs.
Rachelle Deem 13:01
Yep. That's huge. And being in that space as I work with one person, they will see somebody question something that I could help with, and they'll tag me in a post, and then I'll speak to that person.
April Malone 13:11
I think I've done that for you.
Rachelle Deem 13:14
You have, yes. So yeah, it's that referral and word of mouth and those networking connections that has delivered the client base that I have. But I do need to lift my marketing game because you can't rely on word of mouth referrals if you really want to scale. So
April Malone 13:33
Right, right. So you're kind of known as an automation queen. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Rachelle Deem 13:39
Yes. So automation is just about simple level, taking you out of the day to day and having all of those platforms that you've decided you want to have in your business talking to each other and doing the bits and pieces that you don't need to be doing. So simple things like--and I use this as my primary example of automation all the time--bringing leads into your business through a lead magnet of some description and having that automatically shoot that email with that attachment to the person when they give you their email address and then putting them into an email automation based on the actions that they take. So if they purchase a tripwire, then you can nurture them towards your core offer. If they don't purchase a tripwire, you might nurture them towards a discovery call, and that will all happen without you needing to be checking "Suzie wants this" and "Tom wants that." It's all happening in the background of your platform, even things like--
April Malone 14:43
I'm sorry, can you explain what a tripwire is for the people who are not the entrepreneurs in this group? We have work-from-home people in the employee, you know, category as well as entrepreneurs, so they might not all know that terminology.
Rachelle Deem 14:55
Yeah, so tripwire--if you're looking at all of your offerings across the scope of your business, you have a free offering at the very beginning, and then you have your high point offering at the end and it's kind of a ladder--a tripwire is that small product somewhere between maybe $9 and $49 mark, that--and I don't really like the term "tripwire" because it kind of makes me feel like people are like tripping over something so it's kind of just that--
April Malone 15:26
Or being tricked.
Rachelle Deem 15:27
Yeah, yeah. I kind of like to think more of it as that's their first baby step that they've taken towards opening their wallet with you.
April Malone 15:35
Okay.
Rachelle Deem 15:35
So it's kind of like that small investment that they're willing to make to get to know you more. So they've downloaded your freebie, and you're offering something that's just often to take a little step towards you. There's not a big commitment; they're going to be able to digest what it is that you've sold to them quite easily, and there is no extra burden on you, as the entrepreneur, to provide something. So it wouldn't be something like a paid call with you or access to like--those little products are really, they're very automated. They're running in the background--a passive income. Yep.
April Malone 16:16
Also automated.
Rachelle Deem 16:16
So very passive. Yes, absolutely. So you may decide that once someone downloads a freebie and you've offered them this paid product, if they don't take you up on that, you have their email address because they've put it into that first page that they've seen about your freebie, you may decide that you really want to speak directly to them about an offer that you've got coming up based on what they've downloaded. And your platforms will be able to hold all that information and allow you to send relevant emails to that person based on the fact that they've just downloaded your freebie, but they haven't taken you up on that small step after that. So that would be a different sort of email sequence that you would send to them versus somebody that has purchased that small step because they are warmer; they know more about you; they've already seen what you can deliver, and they're more likely to want to purchase from you after that because they've already seen something in action. So you would nurture them differently as well. So there's always some work with setting up automation because you really need to think about what your client's journey is going to be from the time that they meet you to what the end goal of that is, and all of the steps and streets and pathways you want to take them on through that journey. But once you've set it up, it's done, and there is no fuss, and there is no concern and thought--there's full thought there. You've done the hard work, and then you can just sit back, and you don't have to worry about that going forward.
April Malone 17:50
You have to write the original content of those emails, and you have to write the content of the lead magnet or the freebie and also that next low-ticket offer I think is what I've ususally heard it called.
Rachelle Deem 18:05
Yeah.
April Malone 18:06
Which those are all things that are still coming from me and my business. So far, I have the podcast, and we're starting here to try to like build the community, but I am, you know, involving those steps as well. You just don't want to be sleazy and slimy about it, and that's the thing; you just want your heart to come through as like I genuinely want to help people, and that's where I get kind of hung up sometimes. Again, I think that decision-making stuff can also be kind of a form of procrastination. I just need to keep learning and deciding and thinking and writing and not actually doing it.
Rachelle Deem 18:37
Yeah, I think it's hard too when there's so many people, so many offering templates for like templates for your email nurture and templates for this and that, because none of this really is a one size fits all. And I suppose that's how I approach things is that why I take the time to have the sessions with people to talk about what works best for them because I think Grace is fantastic, but I don't ascribe to the "You should use this, and you should use this, and you should write this and you should.." So I'm more about "Let's look at what the flow should be of a landing page or the flow should be of an email, but write the copy that is actually communicating your message to your audience."
April Malone 19:20
Or the format, like the general structure of this email is really working well, but obviously whatever I'm, you know, working with is very different from what you're working with. And so the words can't match; they can't be the same.
Rachelle Deem 19:31
No, no. So yeah, I think if you get too hung up on making what you have look like somebody else's and you become bogged down in uncertainty and that competition mode, and yeah, you're really just conflicted, and I just don't recommend that.
April Malone 19:52
Or people who have been around the block and have, you know, been marketed to by multiple people, and then you see all the--like I've attented quite a few webinars, and then I was like, "Oh, they are all following the exact same script. Oh, they're gonna first say," you know, this and this and this, "and the reason you can trust me is because of this." And then I had this moment where, you know, it all came together. And then, you know, it's like literally they're following a script, and they just change the names. And as soon as I could hear that script, I just would be like, "Eh, no thank you." Be original.
Rachelle Deem 20:26
Yeah, that's the thing. It's not authentic, and it's not resonating the way that you want it to because, I mean, if you're really targeting your audience, you know what their pain points are, you know what their struggles are, you know how they're feeling right before they're about to buy a product from you. And most of the time we are, or have been in the past, our ideal audience; particularly for me, like, my ideal audience is women in business that are struggling with the manualness of their business and the confusion around what they should use in the business or how to build a sales funnel that's going to deliver or how to build an online course that's going to get students into it. So I've been there, and I know how I felt before I found the solutions, so that's what I speak to. And if I'm going to use a copy or like a cut-and-paste template from somebody else, it's not telling my story. It's not--it's not meeting the target of my audience; it's not saying, "I understand that you're here," because that person hasn't got my story. So yeah, flows and lack of framework is good but definitely not a copy-and-paste attitude when it comes to business in general, in my opinion.
April Malone 21:41
Mhmm. How long have you been doing this consulting and automation done-for-you/done-with-you business?
Rachelle Deem 21:51
It's 2-1/2 years now. So I did 6 months--actually closer to 9 months--of straight, just VA work, and then I did 3- to 4-month transition across, and then for, yeah, the last 2 years, I've been very much in the space of consulting and the done-for-you work, which I really enjoy, but I mean, there isn't a huge amount of scalability with that because it requires me to be in there doing it. Yeah, I really, I do love setting tech up and helping businesses.
April Malone 22:33
Do you have a few VA's working under you, helping you with that too now?
Rachelle Deem 22:38
I have one at the moment, and I'm literally just in recruitment of my second.
April Malone 22:43
Oh!
Rachelle Deem 22:44
I have been this week, so yeah. So I have a friend who's a VA for a number of my clients that helps with blogging and social media and things like that. She doesn't do anything in my business. So that's--yeah, I'm recruiting a VA to assist me in my business and predominantly in kind of being my sidekick for Simplero. Because I bring so many people across to Simplero, I really want somebody on board that's going to be able to jump in and do those emails, sequences, and tweak a landing page, stuff that I don't really have the time to be doing.
April Malone 23:22
Ah, you know, when we've talked in the past, you've mentioned a few times that you have certain days that you work "in" your business and a few days that you work "on" your business. Do you want to talk about?
Rachelle Deem 23:32
Yeah, yes, so this has been kind of a journey for me to get to this point. When I first started my VA business, I actually only worked 2 days as a VA and 3 days in my 9-to-5 because I went back to work after my maternity leave finished with Noah; I went back to work for 4 months as I built my VA business up. So I worked 2 days as a VA and 3 days in my quality assurance position that I was in. So I gradually started to drop a day in my 9-to-5 grind and pick up a day in my VA business until I got to the point that I was working--I'm sorry--5 days a week in my VA business and not in my corporate, and that took me about 6 months to get to that point. After I did that, I had some systems in place I wanted to kind of reverse that framework and move it down to where I wasn't working 5 days a week "in" my business and not working "on" my business for growth. So I gradually reduced it down to working 3 days a week "in" my business--so working for clients--and 2 days that I work on strategy for my business, on my own growth strategies and working with, I've got a partner--kind of an accountability buddy-- and we meet up on Thursdays to talk about different products that we're releasing and kind of keep each other on track as far as our timeframes and deadlines, so yeah.
April Malone 25:08
Do you do that in person?
Rachelle Deem 25:10
No because she's in another state, so we do it via Zoom, and it's usually about 90 minutes; we just really brainstorm, and we're kind of building things parallel to each other. So yeah, and she is a client of mine, so I do all of her tech work. So I'm very much in the mix of what she's got happening because I know that whatever she decides that she wants to release, I'm going to build that for her.
April Malone 25:37
You have a say in there, yeah.
Rachelle Deem 25:41
So there's a lot of strategy in that, so we build parallel to each other. And also--so I work for clients Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Friday are the days that I work on my business; they're also my self-care days. So I take time to go horse riding once a week, and I do that on Thursdays. I might go and have a massage. I might go and sit in the salt caves with a book or just go for a walk or go and have a coffee, that sort of thing. So it's really just kind of what do I feel like doing today?
April Malone 26:12
Did you just say salt cave?
Rachelle Deem 26:13
Salt cave. Yeah, it's actually--
April Malone 26:15
Tell us again where you are--I just said Australia; tell us where you are in Australia.
Rachelle Deem 26:21
I'm in Queensland, but the salt caves is actually like it's a simulated salt cave, so you go into this--it's like a therapeutic business--so you go in there, and it's all set up like a salt cave, and it's got the benefits of--I don't know all the mechanics of how it works or the chemical reactions it's beautiful. So it's like dim lighting but enough that you can read; you can have a message in there. So that's that sort of thing, but I just take the time for myself because it's just life is so busy. It doesn't matter if you've got 6 kids or 1 child; if you've got work and competing priorities, it's just crazy busy, so if you don't take the time for self-care, start looking after yourself, or you can't look after anybody or anything else. So yeah, I really do, and I got to the point that I prioritized that time for myself, and I don't compromise on that. That's just a line in the sand for me, and I've made that very clear to clients. And it has been a process; I still have some clients that reach out to me on Thursdays and Fridays in a panic about things, and I very gracefully say, "I'm sorry, I can't assist you with that today; I will come back to you on Monday when I'm back at my desk." If you really needed attended to today, maybe you can contact somebody else, like give them some examples of who because I just have to keep that line very firm for myself, just for my own benefit, my own well-being. So yeah.
April Malone 27:57
So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you're almost a little bit like an employee, like just doing the job, and Thursday and Friday, you're like thinking big picture. This is where I'm going to grow next, and this is how I--and then also complementing that with some of your self-care. So how many hours do you--
Rachelle Deem 28:17
Yes, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I am the employee, and Thursday and Friday, I'm the CEO.
April Malone 28:22
I got it. Yes. Got it.
Rachelle Deem 28:24
Yeah.
April Malone 28:25
So how many hours a week are you working?
Rachelle Deem 28:29
About 21.
April Malone 28:30
Not too many.
Rachelle Deem 28:31
Yeah.
April Malone 28:32
Not very many at all. And so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--how many hours are you working on those days?
Rachelle Deem 28:39
About 6 hours of work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday, yeah I don't do a huge amount of work. And I don't even really consider it to be work. So if I actually looked at all of the aspects of what I'm doing, it could be more than that. It might be 25-26. I mean, there's some aspects of things that I do that I actually love and would do it even if I wasn't working, like even if it wasn't part of my business, so those perpetual student things like teaching myself how to create digital planners and that sort of thing; like I love that sort of stuff. So yeah.
April Malone 29:15
So your hobby and your work kind of melded.
Rachelle Deem 29:18
Yeah, yeah and I suppose my brain is always kind of flicking over potential scenarios of things that could happen bits I could increase like areas I could increase my growth in revenue in my business all the time. But yeah, the time that I actually put into action...yeah, there's not a lot of time that I have to do that.
April Malone 29:43
Got it. Let's talk a little bit about your transition from that job where you were doing you said quality assurance, I think, to the VA. Did you have to have a conversation with them to be like, "Hey, I want to cut back my hours." Like, how did that go? I know a lot of people are making the switch, maybe unexpectedly, and you did this very intentionally. How did that work?
Rachelle Deem 30:08
Yes, yeah. So I suppose I was in a really fortunate position that my supervisor, she and I had formed a really good friendship over time, and she's actually one of my two best friends now--not at the time she employed me, we didn't know each other--but she was actually one of the two people that I had the conversation with about--so my other best friend was one that said, "Oh, my auntie has a VA," and she also worked for the same company, so the three of us were very close. And so I said to Jess, who was my boss, "Okay, I'm going to become a VA." And she's like, "You can't just say that you're going to become a VA." This is over copy. I said, "Yeah, I am, and I'm not coming back to work for very long." So I had the ability just to have that very casual conversation with her, and then I went to her and said, "Look, I only want to work 3 days a week; I'm not interested in full-time work anymore." So she did accommodate that. I know, there's lots of people that don't have the benefit of that, that they don't have that flexibility with their employers, and I have worked with people that have been in the same situation. So they're trying to build their business on Saturdays and Sundays because they're working corporate Monday through Friday, or they're up like from 11pm to 3am doing the work to grow their business. And I really feel for them because even working the 3 days for somebody else and the 2 days for myself, it never feels like there's enough time, and you can never switch one off from the other; like you're always thinking about your business, your own business, when you're trying to grow it, and that startup phase is so overwhelming. And then you've still got to make sure that you're diligent and on board and like on point for your employer as well. So...
April Malone 31:55
Plus your family, if you have a family like to not be a crab all the time.
Rachelle Deem 31:58
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's still hard to fit all of those competing priorities in all the time, even just working for yourself with a family or working for an employer with family that's just some days crazy, crazy work. So yeah, adding that second stream of income in and trying to build a business. So I just kind of was just very open with Jess, and then she actually ended up going on maternity leave herself not long after I came back from maternity leave, and someone else came in and took over for her while she was on maternity leave. And it was during that period of time that there was a new person in there that I actually left altogether, but I just decreased my time through a negotiation period. It was like, "Can I cut back to 2-1/2 days a week here? Then can I cut back to 2 days a week?" And once I had worked my way down to I was there for 1 day a week, I really had to weigh out, "Why am I still there like one day a week? I'm really not getting anything done. I may as well be using that one day a week at home in my own business." So it just got to the point that I was like, "Well, I really appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate how flexible you've been with me, but I'm actually going to go to my own business and commit myself to that full-time."
April Malone 33:20
Wow. I know a lot of people hang onto a job because of the benefits that they may get, and I don't know very much about the benefits system in Australia compared to how we do it in the U.S. When I was working a part-time job, I was doing a 50:50 one time for 5 years with a job-share partner, and so we were both working they'd say 50% or 0.5 full-time equivalents.
Rachelle Deem 33:45
Full-time equivalents?
April Malone 33:46
Yeah FTE.
Rachelle Deem 33:47
FTE?
April Malone 33:47
Yeah.
Rachelle Deem 33:48
Yes.
April Malone 33:49
Goodness gracious. And eventually, I was able to bump that back up, once I started doing the transcription, to I think it was 0.73; I think I needed to have like over 70% in order to qualify for full-time benefits. I might have even had to be like 7 point...I want to say 7--sorry--73%, something like that.
Rachelle Deem 34:12
Yeah.
April Malone 34:13
I was gonna work essentially 33 hours a week, whatever that would equate to.
Rachelle Deem 34:17
Yeah.
April Malone 34:19
Man, I am struggling with words. So I'd have to work about--
Rachelle Deem 34:21
That's okay.
April Malone 34:22
--33 hours a week to be able to qualify for the full-time benefits.
Rachelle Deem 34:28
We don't--I know you guys have medical and dental or something sometimes with your employers. Is that right?
April Malone 34:34
Yeah.
Rachelle Deem 34:35
We don't do that. We don't have that here. I mean, I suppose maybe there is some places that give their employees access to private health care coverage for things, but as a general rule, we don't do that.
April Malone 34:45
That's not part of the package.
Rachelle Deem 34:46
We have our leave entitlement--no--we have our leave entitlements. So if you're a part-time or full-time employee, you have the benefit of accruing annual and personal leave.
April Malone 34:57
Right.
Rachelle Deem 34:58
If you're a casual employee, you don't get those benefits, but you're actually paid a higher hourly rate, which is inclusive of those hours, so you get an extra 17.5% on your hourly rate as a casual employee, and that's supposed to combat the fact that you're not getting paid annual leave or personal leave.
April Malone 35:18
So when you take a vacation, it's just unpaid.
Rachelle Deem 35:22
Yes, yeah, it is. So they're pretty much on--we have our superannuation which--is it 410k? What's your super called, your--
April Malone 35:35
401k.
Rachelle Deem 35:36
Yeah that's it. Yeah, so we just have that; I think it's at 9.5% is put into our super fund. Yeah, so it is different; if you're sticking around Australia, it's not going to be for any major benefits unless you're with a massive company like a huge brand here in Australia that may give you access to a gym or access to some private healthcare, but as a general rule, we don't. Benefits are you get paid to do your job, and you get some annual leave and sick leave if you're part-time or full-time.
April Malone 36:13
Right. Yeah, that's a big deal breaker for a lot of people. I was planning on keeping my job for forever because I was the one that was carrying the health benefits for our family. And when my husband actually was offered his full-time position at his company that he's at now, he got benefits, and his are a little bit more expensive than mine were, but then they ended up shutting down most of my department. And so a lot of us left, and in the process, I had to work more hours to kind of compensate for that money that I lost. But I a more--
Rachelle Deem 36:44
Yeah.
April Malone 36:44
My new job was more fun. It all panned out.
Rachelle Deem 36:47
Yeah, we definitely--I mean, we've got Medicare over here, which I don't know what the equivalent is over there--
April Malone 36:54
We have one called that here too.
Rachelle Deem 36:55
Do you even have an equivalent?
April Malone 36:56
Yeah.
Rachelle Deem 36:57
Okay. Yes, so you either, if you don't have private health, you use your Medicare to cover the costs of health, kids, surgery, that sort of thing, and you pay a small gap, or you pay a premium for private health, and everything's covered depending on your policy.
April Malone 37:15
So it wasn't going to be a big change for you, whether or not you were working for yourself or for someone else.
Rachelle Deem 37:22
Not at all, no. So the only change was really the income stability.
April Malone 37:28
Okay.
Rachelle Deem 37:29
I mean, you know, if you're in a salarized position, you're getting X amount of dollars every week.
April Malone 37:34
Mhmm.
Rachelle Deem 37:34
When you're working for yourself, it really depends on bringing those leads in and converting them to clients and how long can you keep somebody on board for in your business, so they may commit to 3 months, but then they may leave after 3 months. So you've always got that fluctuation in income coming in versus expenses going out which is different, I suppose, to the consistency of the salarized position.
April Malone 37:56
You mentioned that you had stayed home while your first 5 were little, little and...
Rachelle Deem 38:01
Yeah.
April Malone 38:02
I'm assuming you were like a one-income family during those years?
Rachelle Deem 38:06
Yeah, yeah which was hard, but I suppose my husband and I were so young when we had the first 5, and we really just didn't live above our means or--I'm not saying we do now either--but we just, it was very casual, and they were little. And I mean this is going back, I mean, my eldest is just about to turn 22, so it is actually like quite a while back that this is; this is before every child was basically born with a device in their hands.
April Malone 38:38
Yes.
Rachelle Deem 38:38
There was no need to have like all these iPads and iPhones and xboxes and all of that stuff that they all seem to come with now in the bag.
April Malone 38:48
I'm one of 10 kids, so I did not grow up with many luxuries.
Rachelle Deem 38:54
Yeah. Well, I'm one of two, and neither did I--a completely different time so...
April Malone 38:57
Yeah.
Rachelle Deem 38:58
I think it was more simple back then, and, as they got older, and there was school fees associated with the cost of living, and yeah. The electricity is more expensive, because there's more people using things over time, so as they've gotten older, the cost of living has increased--and the cost of living has increased anyway just from where we are in society right now. So it got to the point that I needed to work to have just a little bit more disposable income so that we weren't living so tightly like paycheck to paycheck every week, which is what we were doing with a family of 7 on one income.
April Malone 39:43
When you were doing your quality assurance, was that like on site like in a building in the office?
Rachelle Deem 39:49
Quality assurance as far as--so not product quality assurance--like system governance quality assurance, so I did the policies and procedures and governance for not-for-profit organizations to help them get accreditation and auditing.
April Malone 40:06
Oh okay.
Rachelle Deem 40:06
So yeah, on site there, left within--the job that I left was actually for a not-for-profit legal and advocacy firm. So they had two different streams of income, the funding streams, and so I just made sure that they were always compliant with all the expectations of their funding. So that was, yeah, in the office.
April Malone 40:25
So talk about how you built your home office.
Rachelle Deem 40:31
Initially, it was literally just one little desk and one iMac, like an older style iMac, and that was all I had. So an internet connection, an iMac, and a desk and a chair in the rumpus room of our house here, and there was really no space anywhere else for me to be which, I mean, there still isn't which is why I'm in my bedroom.
April Malone 40:59
You said "rumpus room," right? Does that mean like--
Rachelle Deem 41:02
Yeah.
April Malone 41:02
the high-traffic like family area where everyone comes all day long?
Rachelle Deem 41:06
Well, it was kind of like that, but I think before I started my business, no one seemed to use that space.
April Malone 41:17
Until you needed it.
Rachelle Deem 41:17
And so I said "Perfect." It's actually a really big room, and I was like, "Well, I'm just going to take one little corner of it." But as soon as I started my business and I was there, it kind of became the congregation section for everybody in the house that would be down there. So then I moved to another area of the house off the side to our like main lounge room because no one was there anymore; they were all in the rumpus room, and then once I moved up there, they all came up there. So I was like, "I've moved into the bedroom so I can lock the door."
April Malone 41:46
And that's where you are now, right?
Rachelle Deem 41:48
Yeah, so I do have quite a different setup now, but when I first kicked off, it was literally just the desk and iMac and a chair. Yeah.
April Malone 41:56
Are you sitting in that chair for the majority of those 21-25 hours a week?
Rachelle Deem 42:02
Yeah.
April Malone 42:02
Is it a good chair?
Rachelle Deem 42:05
It is a good chair, I don't always sit here. I do sometimes lie on the bed, and I always have some noise happening. And I just--other people don't understand how I'm able to do that, but I think because I have so many kids and there's always so much noise that I'm overwhelmed by silence. I'm actually not productive when it's quiet; I need noise happening, so the one that I'm on at the moment is my main iMac, and I have another one to my right-hand side, and that typically has streaming services going on it so Netflix is playing or Stan or something.
April Malone 42:42
I cannot do that.
Rachelle Deem 42:44
So it's always like happening. Or if I'm lying on the bed, on the TV up on the wall I will have something going on, or I'll have a podcast or music or something like that. But sometimes I'll take my laptop, and I'll go and sit out in like the breakfast bar and work out there, or I'll go and sit out on the verandah and work or I'll head down to a park.
April Malone 43:05
Okay.
Rachelle Deem 43:06
But predominantly, I'm in this chair most of the time.
April Malone 43:09
But you can take your laptop and everything that you need is there, and you can go if you need to.
Rachelle Deem 43:14
Yeah, yeah, so I'm a major Mac fan, like I literally have Mac everything, Apple everything, and so the beauty of that is that everything talks to each other.
April Malone 43:24
Isn't it wonderful?
Rachelle Deem 43:25
So if I take my iPad, it's got everything there, or if I pick up my MacBook, I'm just picking up like I just clicked from the iMac screen to my MacBook, and I've got what I'm working on comes across. So yeah, it just means that I can move where I am. I do go away quite a bit; like my best friends live about an hour and a half away, and I might go away for a couple of days to visit them, and I'll just take my stuff with me. Or I'll shoot down to New South Wales to visit my sister, and I take my stuff with me. Yeah, so definitely that's one of the huge benefits of automating your business is that you can be very nomadic with your business; you're not like pinned down to having to use a platform on a particular device at a particular time. You can just work from wherever, whenever. It really gives you so much more freedom and versatility with how you operate your business.
April Malone 44:21
What kind of challenges do you run into though with that, like Internet Connect versus like having to schedule meetings? Are you trying to like schedule meetings with people in other time zones and stuff? Like, what are some of the things that are frustrating in your business?
Rachelle Deem 44:35
Internet is always an issue because it's different depending on who your provider is and where about in the country you are and how close to a tower you are and what the weather is like, so that can be a problem. And also it's a problem just in the house because kids come home from school at 3 p.m., and the bandwidth just shrinks because there's so many people on the internet doing stuff. But everybody experiences that sort of thing. As far as scheduling time--
I make my kids watch old DVDs; like right now we're streaming, so I'd say, "You can't watch Netflix right now; you need to watch DVDs," and they know.
Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, I wish my kids would do that, and it's not that they're watching TV; they're on like Xbox or something like that.
April Malone 45:18
Right or doing homework maybe.
Rachelle Deem 45:21
Oh, occasionally. I wish that was the reason why it was low. As far as scheduling times with people outside of Australia, it is a problem because I do have quite a few clients that are in the UK and in the States, but I made a conscious decision when I started automating my business that I was scheduling my time, and if people wanted to work with me, they would have to find a time in my time because I didn't want to be negotiating my boundaries with other people. And it's been like, "I can meet with you between these times; here's my scheduling tool, grab a time that suits. If you can't find a time that suits, feel free to email me, and I'll come back to you with responses that way." But they're kind of--I have to make hard lines in order for me to function in my business, and the only time that I have been flexible really around that has been when I've been dealing with Simplero, so if I'm using concierge hours inside of Simplero, I have to meet their scheduling times. So that's always fun because it's like 3:30 or 4:30 in the morning for me that I'm--
April Malone 46:39
Oh, oh dear.
Rachelle Deem 46:40
--talking to them.
April Malone 46:41
I still have a few consierge hours I can use with Simplero. So basically, do you want to just describe what that means? What what are concierge hours?
Rachelle Deem 46:48
So if you purchase an annual plan with Simplero, either the middle tier or on the top tier, you get some concierge hours (so 5 hours for the middle tier, 10 hours for the top tier), and those concierge hours can essentially be used for anything. And what they are is the Simplero team is actually doing stuff for you inside of your Simplero. So you could say, "I need a landing page built," and they will jump in and build that landing page for you. Or "I need a product set up," and they'll jump in and set that up or an email sequence or something like that. So you are getting THE people working on your business for you as an extra little benefit of paying for an annual membership, which you're getting discounted anyway; it's actually cheaper to pay for an annual membership than it is to pay for a monthly, but sometimes people just don't have the funds to outlay the whole 12 months in advance.
April Malone 47:47
I did do that, and I still have a few left, and we were able to, like, conserve them. Like we were like--I have a virtual assistant too--and so I was like, "We're gonna try to figure out as much as we can using their tutorials and their how-to's, you know, and everything, and then as soon as we get stuck, then we're going to schedule something." And when we did, it was wonderful. Like that 2 hours was gold.
Rachelle Deem 48:06
Yeah.
April Malone 48:07
But we still have 8 more, and so they will expire in about 2 or 3 weeks, so I better use them quickly.
Rachelle Deem 48:15
Yeah.
April Malone 48:16
There are certain things that they can do for you. Like they can build a quiz funnel for you, except for that takes 10 hours, and so you have to be like, well either you can pay, you know, individually per hour after that or I can pay Rachelle.
Rachelle Deem 48:27
Yeah, or you can pay me. So I do a lot of work with, I work very closely with concierge now, and I think it's--I actually had a call with the CEO of Simplero last week--so I think it's the fact that I've had a lot of dealings with different people within the organization that have kind of brought my name up quite regularly that he reached out to have a chat with me. Well, he actually did talk to me about whether or not I would be interested in working with them to rebrand and to do training.
April Malone 49:02
Oh.
Rachelle Deem 49:03
Like training for the community, if I would record videos and teach people in the community.
April Malone 49:07
Wonderful.
Rachelle Deem 49:07
I was like, "Yeah, that works for me." Hint, hint: pay me some money.
April Malone 49:11
Three o'clock in the morning--not so much?
Rachelle Deem 49:14
Yeah, actually it was a 4:30 meeting, so it was pretty early. Yeah so if I have a client that is migrating to Simplero, and they decide to pay annually and get the benefit of the concierge hours, I quote a migration cost so all of the different components that need to be done to bring somebody from one platform to another or to set them up fresh on Simplero if they're not coming from anywhere, if they're in a startup mode. And then I liaise with concierge, and I liaise with my client on how best to use those concierge hours towards that migration, whether or not they want to have some in reserves for training down the track or they want to just use those 10 hours or 5 hours up in the migration process, and then I do the rest. It works really well, so I have meetings with concierge, and I'm the one that's in people's base camp talking to concierge about what needs to be done and deadlines and things like that. Yeah, they don't really talk to concierge, and I do all the talking for them.
April Malone 50:16
Wow, that's wonderful. So I know that you generally work with female entrepreneurs--or all entrepreneurs?
Rachelle Deem 50:23
Female, yes. I do have a couple of males that have come into my business by one of my funnels, and it's always interesting to me because I think my messaging is quite feminine. Like, my messaging definitely resonates with females more than it does males. But if someone--like I've had a couple of men that have come to me to have their courses created because it was actually the process that they resonated with, not necessarily the graphics or the aesthetics of my class or my pages. So I have recently just readjusted my branding so it's kind of not as feminine; it's kind of got different colors now. It's not as, yeah, not as pink as it was before. So yeah, but my target audience is female coaches and consultants, and typically, they seem to come to me inside of a health and wellness space. I mean, I don't go out to market for that space, and I am quite broad as far as a female coach and consultant. I work with female coaches and consultants, but I do find that I have a lot that are in some health, wellness, like a therapeutic counseling, yoga, yeah in those sorts of spaces.
April Malone 51:41
Gravitated toward you?
Rachelle Deem 51:44
Yeah, they do. Yeah and because, like I said earlier, a lot of it is word of mouth. So I might work with an energetic healer, and she like works with 3 or 4 other people in her community, and she refers them to me. So I think that's how I built my client base in that area is because--
April Malone 52:02
Right.
Rachelle Deem 52:02
--so many people have bought other people to me, but I do a lot of work with women like business coaches and like in that very firm business growth area, helping other people grow their businesses. So yeah.
April Malone 52:18
So as far as my audience, I think that we're going to be pretty much evenly split between the people who are employees and the people who are, you know, on their own (entrepreneurs, freelancers, independent contractors) and stuff. Do you have any things that you offer that might be applicable to both sides?
Rachelle Deem 52:36
Yes, so it depends on where people are in their business journey. So if they're just at a startup phase, so they're ready to work from home, and they're wanting to know what platforms they should use, then my strategy sessions work really well in that space. But it also crosses over quite well to people that are in established businesses because they may not be using the best tech or the best platforms to support their business in the long term, so I can speak to people about--sorry?
April Malone 53:10
The decision makers, though? Like when I was in the healthcare setting, I didn't get to choose.
Rachelle Deem 53:17
Yeah, I have done some consults with business owners of I suppose small businesses (they maybe have 15 to 20 staff) looking at the all-in-one platforms or ways to build their courses, like their internal training for their staff and platforms to use for that. But I very much work with people that are either like solopreneurs or they may have two or three maximum staff that they're working with, sso they are the decision makers in that space, not so much the employees within somebody else's business because yeah you really don't get a lot of say. You can make suggestions, but yeah.
April Malone 54:05
So I know that you are getting ready to launch some stuff. Do you want to tell the audience what that is or what you're doing?
Rachelle Deem 54:09
I'm in launch for two things at once, and they kind of are working together because one feeds into the other. So I'm launching a membership, which is called the Automation Success Lab, and essentially, it's monthly automation training so really detailed implementation because I find that that's where so many people come unstuck. They've got the strategy; they know what they need to do, but they have no idea how to do it. So if someone says to you, "You need to build a webinar funnel," or you need to build a quiz funnel as a great lead generation tool, the concept is brilliant, but how do I implement it? What tech do I need? What are the steps? What needs to integrate? How do I test it? So the membership is really going to have a project every month of something that I know can be applied across multiple platforms, something that I know is an injection of profit or injection of time, things that are going to push the needle very quickly in your business. So those are the sorts of things that I'm delivering on a month-to-month basis. There will be live trainings and Q&A's where people can say, "How do I apply that concept in the platforms that I'm using myself?" And there's also a resource library of tutorials on different platforms. So how to integrate Stripe with ClickFunnels or with Simplero or with Kajabi. "How do I build a landing page? How do I connect Active Campaign to ClickFunnels or Active Campaign to lead pages?" That sort of thing, so just simple, really quick tech videos to show you how to do A, B, and C. And I'm also in the process of creating a course around creating courses because that's something that so many women want--and probably men as well because I have a couple of men that have come in--want to create an online course as a means of passive income in their business, which has become so relevant during COVID when people have had to really pivot their business from that face-to-face touchpoint to delivering something online and not hitting the ceiling. Only so many hours in a week, and yeah, you're limited with that. So that's my course.
April Malone 56:27
Are you gonna be teaching it specifically for like your preferred platform of Simplero, or that would be applicable across whatever platform people choose to buy."
Rachelle Deem 56:38
It will be applicable across. So the concepts of how to build a course are the same regardless of the platform you're using, and the actual implementation is fairly similar across platforms. I mean, obviously, I can't cover how to do everything inside of one platform versus something else, but things like outlining your course and creating your modules and creating your lessons and dripping that content, there is a similarity in most platforms that I've dealt with, and I have dealt with a lot of platforms, so yeah.
April Malone 57:09
So if someone needed help, they could come to you for that help.
Rachelle Deem 57:14
Absolutely, yeah. So I do have done-for-you course creation services, and I have strategy sessions where you can talk about "How do I create content in Thinkific? How do I create a landing page in Thinkific or checkout option in Thinkific." I use Thinkific because a lot of people have actually come to me with problems with Thinkific because there are some really good aspects of it, but some other parts of it just seem really limited. So yeah, and I mean, there's limitations with every platform.
April Malone 57:46
And you're pretty familiar with most of the major, like the big hitters, right?
Rachelle Deem 57:50
Yes.
April Malone 57:50
Yeah, Kajabi...
Rachelle Deem 57:51
Yes, definitely.
April Malone 57:52
Thinkific, the ClickFunnels and all those...
Rachelle Deem 57:55
Teachable, ClickFunnels, Infusionsoft. Yeah, Simplero.
April Malone 58:00
Right.
Rachelle Deem 58:00
Simplero, always Simplero.
April Malone 58:04
Well, what do you want to share with people as far as like final words, advice, something that you've learned that might be helpful to people who are just getting started in working from home or thinking about starting a new business?
Rachelle Deem 58:18
I constantly hear this myth that unless you're making lots of money and unless you have a client base that it's too early to automate, and I want to say emphatically, that is not the case at all. You should start automating your business when you start your business. So there's no point spending time back and forth scheduling appointments with people or sending out a lead magnet manually or emailing people about an offer manually. You absolutely shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be posting in social media manually all the time or sending out mass emails manually all the time. So the time to start automating is when you have chosen the platforms that you're going to use or you want to choose the platforms that you're going to use, you want to see what will work to get your automations started. As soon as you have some money to do that, and there's always an investment when you start your business, and you want to go for the option that's going to give you the best return of investment, which is why I advocate so heavily for Simplero because it's priced so well, and it does everything you need to do. You don't need web hosting. You don't need email marketing separately. You don't need a platform for your online courses and membership sites. It does everything.
April Malone 59:37
I set up most of it by myself. If I could set it up, most people could.
Rachelle Deem 59:43
Yeah, absolutely, and it is easy to navigate, and if you have problems with navigating that platform, there are so many resources available to you, like there's so much there. They have a great community on Facebook. They've got great tutorial videos. You can reach out to put a support ticket in, and even if you don't have concierge hours, they will give you excellent response even if you don't have that bank of time up, they will tell you how to send an email or how to change a setting in your system, so the customer service is unparalleled, in my opinion.
April Malone 1:00:15
Or they will at least help direct you to the free resources that they have as far as like all the Simplero videos and things or if they're outdated...
Rachelle Deem 1:00:23
Yeah, absolutely.
April Malone 1:00:23
...they have a place that you can, you know, submit all of your recommendations for upgrades, and they take it seriously.
Rachelle Deem 1:00:29
Yeah, very seriously, and they're always making improvements. I mean--you would probably say this too--more often when you log in than not, there is something that has come up, and they're letting you know what they've improved. And yeah, I love to read all of those things like, "This has been added." And it's because they're really listening to their community. And when I spoke to Calvin last week, he really made a point of saying we want our customers to drive this business forward, and they are listening. So ask the questions, make the recommendations, and they're listening to that and building from that.
April Malone 1:01:01
I think the team is, as far as I can tell, they're all remote too; like I think that Calvin makes his videos in his living room, and all the people that I've talked to or done video calls or Zooms or whatever with, they are all like in their homes.
Rachelle Deem 1:01:15
Yep, they are; they're all remote.
April Malone 1:01:17
I think that's just how it is. They've got the guy down in...
Rachelle Deem 1:01:19
Yeah.
April Malone 1:01:20
Oh my goodness, in South America, everywhere.
Rachelle Deem 1:01:23
Yeah, there's a girl here in Australia that looks after the Australian based inquiries, so you're getting responses at times that suit Australian timezone. They have obviously quite a heavy Dutch audience because there's a lot of bases over there, so they have people that are over there. They are, I mean, Calvin started that business out as just a tiny payment processing center and added things to it as people wanted and asked for things. He added email marketing to it; he added landing pages to it. So as people have said, "Oh, you should do this. You should think about adding this because this is what the big players are doing." He's done it gradually, but he's done it with not sleazy, slimy, salesy which is what I love about it. When you compare it against some of the big players that are all spammy sales all the time like, "You should do this," and "You should do that," and "This is the only way you're gonna make 6 figures," and I don't love that; it sets unrealistic expectations for people and yeah. Sometimes I find that the businesses that are a little bit quieter, getting the attention with a whisper rather than a roar, those are the ones that I move towards more because I'm kind of like that. Like I don't love being in front of people, like I'm not a stand-up-on-stage sort of person. This sort of thing is pushing my comfort zone because I don't like to be in front of people.
April Malone 1:02:56
Thank you for coming today.
Rachelle Deem 1:02:59
Okay, so I just naturally gravitate towards people that have a similar mindset to me. Like things can be done without having to wave a flag and be in front of people's faces all the time.
April Malone 1:03:09
Right. One thing that I noticed with Simplero, and especially like Calvin the owner or the founder, they're very interested in mindset and being intentional.
Rachelle Deem 1:03:18
Yes.
April Malone 1:03:18
And being, you know, heart-centered with people and things like that, and I do--you feel that come through. Every person you talk to is very empathetic and caring and...
Rachelle Deem 1:03:27
And that's Calvin's background.
April Malone 1:03:29
Yeah?
Rachelle Deem 1:03:29
So he's actually--his background is around, like, very spirituality based and like mindset function, and every course or program that he runs, he has a mindset module at the beginning, like how to ground yourself which is the reason why on their support tickets sometimes they have a meditation attached to their support ticket, so like, "While you're waiting for our response, listen to this meditation." So for people that are very heart centered or soul driven sort of entrepreneurs that are working really from that heart space, Simplero just fits the bill because that's where they're coming--that's the basis of their business, so they're coming from that place.
April Malone 1:04:11
Well, this is all coming from the lady who's tried it all.
Rachelle Deem 1:04:14
Yeah.
April Malone 1:04:16
It's where you've settled.
Rachelle Deem 1:04:19
Yeah, and I never recommend something that I don't love and that I don't use or haven't used in the past, and I still recommend things that I don't use. So I recommend ActiveCampaign; if someone asked me for a standalone email platform, I'll recommend ActiveCampaign. I don't use it myself anymore, but I know it's great, and when I was using all of the different standalone platforms and integrating them together, ActiveCampaign is what I used, so I do recommend that. And I do recommend ClickFunnels; if you're looking for a landing page builder that's a standalone and you can afford it, I do recommend it. But I won't back a platform that I don't love, that I know isn't giving people the best bang for their buck. I mean, there's some big-name platforms that a lot of people are using that I just do not enjoy using at all--we won't mention names, but...
April Malone 1:05:12
You kind of talked me down--
Rachelle Deem 1:05:13
Yeah.
April Malone 1:05:14
--from the one I was... I mean, it's like it's their marketing, or you know, there's another big guru who's like really pushing this really, really heavily.
Rachelle Deem 1:05:21
That's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing, and it is the gurus of the world, the Amy Porterfields and the Jenna Kutchers and depending on what space you're in; they're using these platforms, and so--well, they're seemingly using these platforms because, let me tell you, that's not always the case.
April Malone 1:05:38
It's definitely customized.
Rachelle Deem 1:05:40
Yes. Yes, built from the ground up. That it's getting people across the line, but the functionality is just not there, or they're having to layer this platform, this all-in-one platform with something else to make it function the way it needs to function, or they have to pay for an advanced automations module, which essentially is just out-of-the-box automations for all the other all-in-one platforms.
April Malone 1:06:07
Okay.
Rachelle Deem 1:06:07
So you've got to look into the what's being delivered to you for the price that you're paying versus another platform that might be a little bit more, but you're actually getting more--
April Malone 1:06:22
Right.
Rachelle Deem 1:06:22
--for just a smidge difference.
April Malone 1:06:25
Well, if someone wanted to have a conversation with you and kind of talk through all of these things like I did with that breakthrough session--tech breakthrough I think it was?
Rachelle Deem 1:06:33
Yeah, tech break.
April Malone 1:06:34
How can people find you? Is there like a freebie that you send people to, and then they can get your information, or how do you do that?
Rachelle Deem 1:06:41
Yeah, I have a couple of freebies, but the one that would be best for people if they're looking to automate their businesses, I have an ultimate guide, ultimate automation tools guide, so it's just kind of a wrap-up of my top five tools for automation. Spoiler alert: Simplero is in there. But it goes over like which is my recommended tool for landing pages and scheduling and email marketing and social media because those are the big four that I find that people are challenged by when they first start, and those are the aspects of their business that they want to take control of first. So the things that are making the money. So from there, you can book in for a tech breakthrough session or a strategy session to discuss what you've got, if it's working for you, should you change, want someone to set it up for you--do you want someone to partly set it up for you. So yeah, and that's on my website; I think it's right at the top of my website. I've only just rebuilt my website, so yeah, I think it's towards the top of my website.
April Malone 1:07:50
Rachelle Deem. R-A-C-H-E-L-L-E-D-E-E-M --I'm trying to..
Rachelle Deem 1:07:57
Dot com.
April Malone 1:07:57
Dot com. Okay. Thank you. My mouse has been like intermittently working, so right when I needed it...
Rachelle Deem 1:08:03
Oh has it?
April Malone 1:08:04
Yeah, just now.
Rachelle Deem 1:08:07
I can send you the link anyway, and you can drop it below--
April Malone 1:08:10
And you're the one that--
Rachelle Deem 1:08:10
--in your podcast notes.
April Malone 1:08:12
--I think you turned me on to Acuity Scheduling, and I've really liked that.
Rachelle Deem 1:08:15
Yes.
April Malone 1:08:15
We'll put the links for things. There are some partnerships or referral-type things in there, so whether or not you work with Rachelle or if you get that link from me, someone's probably gonna enjoy the benefit of telling you about it, but I really apprecitae knowing that you have tried them all; like that really means a lot, you know, getting advice from someone who literally has worked and continues to work in the other platforms.
Rachelle Deem 1:08:40
Yeah, and I do note other platforms in my guide, but if there's an affiliate link in there, it's only because the fact that I stand behind the platform.
April Malone 1:08:48
Yeah.
Rachelle Deem 1:08:49
So if I've noted something and there's no affiliate link, it's not because that platform doesn't have an affiliate program; it's just because I don't back it confidently enough to refer people to it.
April Malone 1:09:04
Got it.
Rachelle Deem 1:09:04
So yeah, affiliate marketing has its place, but I am definitely all about being authentic, and I'm only going to refer you to something if I know that it works, and it has to function the way it says; it has to be priced really well; and the customer service has to meet a standard for me. They have to be responsive; they have to be willing to help and go over and above and beyond what you expect in order for me to give it a star rating, and yeah. So if there's a referral link, it's because I think the platform is brilliant. Even if it's not Simplero, there are some great platforms out there that are standalone. Yeah.
April Malone 1:09:45
Wow, we are well over an hour, so we should probably say "goodbye." But thank you for taking the time with me, and--
Rachelle Deem 1:09:54
My pleasure.
April Malone 1:09:54
Like, I know you're not really like into the spotlight, but I appreciate this because this can be really helpful information for people who especially are just getting started, especially on their own business.
Rachelle Deem 1:10:03
Yes.
April Malone 1:10:03
And I don't want other people to feel like they are paralyzed with that decision overwhelm, like I was for four months or whatever. It's not a good place to be in.
Rachelle Deem 1:10:15
Yeah.
April Malone 1:10:16
All right. Well, thank you so much, Rachelle. I'm gonna say--
Rachelle Deem 1:10:19
My pleasure.
April Malone 1:10:20
This is April with Yes, I Work From Home, and we'll see you next time. Goodbye.
Rachelle Deem 1:10:24
Bye.