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This week we are celebrating Jeanette Stein’s success story!
She had been in the online world for 4-5 years selling one-off products along with a one-time course never being able to make more than a couple dollars a month she joined the Flip Your Life Community in June of 2015 in the hopes of being able to stay at home with 4 of her 6 children.
Jeanette learned to have ONE direct focus online after joining the Flip Your Life Community and within 4 weeks of starting a membership website she had 55 members and as the membership site continued to grow decided shortly after that to quit her full-time job.
We discuss why she decided to attend the Live Event in Tampa Bay, FL last October with other Flip Your Life Community Members and how it was extremely helpful for her even though she had only been in the community for a few months.
Jeanette shares with us the top three things she did to keep her membership site moving forward and how her life has changed on a daily basis after leaving her full-time teaching job.
The transition it took from working 40+ hours to being grateful for the daily moments she wouldn’t be able to get with her kids if she was still teaching out of the home.
You will learn
- Importance of taking action.
- Learn ways to be more successful online.
- Why having other like minded people around you is important.
- How staying focused will help grow your online business.
- Do at least ONE thing every day to keep your business moving forward.
Links and resources mentioned in today’s show
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
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Can’t Miss Moments
Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.
Being able to walk down to the bus stop at 3pm when Isaac gets home from school whether it’s a good day or bad day being able to greet him when he gets off the bus makes it worth it.
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thank you for listening!
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If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!
JOCELYN: Hey ya’ll! On today’s podcast, we celebrate Jeanette’s successful membership site and talk about how she quit her job.
SHANE: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let’s get started.
SHANE: What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. Great to be back with you again this week and super excited because this week we are celebrating a success story from our Flip Your Life community. We have a member on today who successfully launched her membership site, got a ton of members and was able to quit her full-time job. We are welcoming back today from episode 55 Jeanette Stein. Jeanette welcome back to the show.
JEANETTE: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. What a fun podcast.
SHANE: I know right.
JOCELYN: This is my favorite kind of podcast for sure. I just love the success stories. I love bringing people back on and talking about where they have gone since the last time we talked to them so we are super excited to talk to you today.
JEANETTE: Thank you. I’m very excited. It’s always fun to talk about the fun stuff.
JOCELYN: Of course yes. Let’s start out by just reminding everyone about your background and where you were sort of then.
JEANETTE: Sure. I have a website that I have created about five years ago now. It’s about four years ago the last time that supplied lesson plans and helped for alternative teachers and I wasn’t getting very far before I joined the community last June. I also have six children, four still at home and so they are with me.
SHANE: That always blow my mind when you say that. I didn’t mean to interrupt you but every time you say that I am like, oh my god I have no excuse not to do anything every day.
JEANETTE: Well, that make sense but also totally motivated me because I wanted the freedom and you know like last night my little guy, my youngest got sick and it was no big deal. You know what so how about we just sleep in and we snuggled and I didn’t have to worry about calling in and write lesson plans. But, last year this time it would have been really hard. So I was teaching full time up ‘til last June and I really wanted to break free of that and be able to be around more for my kiddos. This has been fabulous.
SHANE: So before you started with, I know you discovered us around June and you joined the Flip Your Life community, you said you have been online for a long time what did it look like before that? You have been doing the blog for a long time trying to sell some things, were you making any money or were you selling one off products? Just remind the listeners what you were doing before Flip Your Life.
JEANETTE: Yes sure. I was selling one off products. I was mostly—I didn’t have any sort of pay on my site so I was using teachers pay teachers and then I have one course that I had put out there and I had made a little bit of money from that but it was just a one-time thing.
SHANE: What happened then like after? What was the biggest difference then after? You have been in it for a long time. We hear a lot of people come and in and they were like I have got this product, I have been doing this forever, there is probably a lot of people listening like they can really relate to that. You know you are doing what the experts say to do. You are writing these blogposts. You are selling something. What was the big change do you think like after you joined the community? What did you do differently that allowed you to create an income that you can quit your job with?
JEANETTE: Oh it was so easy. It was direct focus. Focusing in one direction. So that was the biggest change because I was reading about Twitter followers and Facebook likes and how to do this and I’d be swayed by I should work over here or I should do this. I was just so directed in so many places that nothing got done. So once I put on started using the action forums that changed everything and kind of cracks people up because I have got this huge thread of what I am doing every day. I want to print it off like with my book, my action plan. But, it keep me focus. It keeps me so focused and if I get off track, you and Jocelyn are always in there cheering me on and you both are just like this is the way got to go and this is what you should expect and keep moving. So if something didn’t work out exactly right, it’s not like I feel it is just a waste of time, it probably just needed a response tweak. But, by myself I didn’t know that. And so I would just be going and I will just completely switch directions and just lose all the momentum. So now, all the momentum is going in one direction and it is just fabulous.
JOCELYN: I usually don’t like a super long thread in a forum but I actually really like yours.
SHANE: Yours is hilarious. It’s awesome. It’s like a year of madness like it was–
JOCELYN: It’s such an awesome journey. The other day I was commenting on it and I went back through some of the older posts and I am like wow, she is really come a long way, this is awesome. It’s really inspiring.
SHANE: We can definitely point back in our journey as well and know that the biggest thing that probably made us successful was we would go and be with other people, they would help us determine that direction and we would just like you said we would get on the railroad tracks and go straight at full speed ahead because if you don’t do that, you can do a lot of things bad, or you can do one thing really, really good so it’s really important to have that direction and motivation. What was the direction though? You said you really latched in to something and you focused on it and you went forward and you just built your business around that, what allowed you to have that fan of success? What was the thing that you did grab on to and focused on attacking after joining the community?
JEANETTE: When I joined the community, I kept thinking, I am going to create this, I’m going to create this, I am going to sell this and then within like a week, you and Jocelyn pretty much just set me straight and said no, put it all in one spot that’s good, membership and let’s get everybody paying you monthly so you have a recurrent income and let’s move this forward. So within four weeks I had almost 50 member and the thing was rocking and rolling and so it was just overwhelming. It was so wonderful. So that is kind of where we were at the first time I get in the podcast.
JOCELYN: The first time we talked to you, you had about 55 members which to do that to create that membership site in four weeks and have 55 members I mean I can think of probably thousands of people out there who are listening to this that are like whoa.
SHANE: How did she do that?
JOCELYN: That is amazing.
SHANE: I will tell you exactly how she did it because she is an action taker. It was like the energizer bunny rolled up in the Flip Your Life community and just everything we said to you, you were like I did that. I am like, I thought that was going to take a week and you were like no I just stayed up all night. I got it about 4 AM, I knocked it out. I crushed it so what’s next. That was awesome.
JEANETTE: Yeah, I mean you can get up at 4 Am, three hours before any of your children move that is the best way to work.
SHANE: That is the best time?
JEANETTE: If you are trying to do this with a plethora of children. That I the best way to do it. Because by the end of the day your brain tried. I could get five times more done between four and seven that I can ever do in the evening. But that was huge for me and then just being able to take that momentum and go with it. It felt like once things started slowing down then the next big push came because we were headed to Tampa. The timing of all of these things been perfect for myself.
SHANE: What Jeanette is talking about is, Jeanette joined the community around June and we had a live event in Tampa in October. So had you quit your job before that? Before you came to Tampa?
JEANETTE: Yes.
SHANE: So let’s back up before we get to Tampa. This is fascinating. I remember you sending us messages going hey so how did you guys quit your job and I am like what?! What is she doing? We had a big discussion about it and I didn’t know if you are going to do it and I didn’t know if you are going to do it or not because you are kind of like on the fence.
JOCELYN: We never really gave an opinion yes or no. we just talked about our experiences.
SHANE: No because we didn’t know all the circumstances. What made you draw the line in the sand and quit your job? What made you think to do that? Because it was still a little early in your journey. You had a membership but it wasn’t total like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, what made you make that call to just go for it?
JEANETTE: Well the first time I did the podcast that was in the middle of July, by the end of July, I was I think less than 80 dollars, less than 10,000 in that July for my launch. In Michigan cost of living is not the same as a lot of the country, I think ours is pretty similar in Kentucky and Michigan, like I am not in the city. Our cost of living is pretty low and it was growing and it was growing quickly and then I did almost the same in August. So it was really overwhelming to just go from making I think $1.70 from teachers pay teachers to doubling my salary. My husband and I kind of thought, we got to take a hit and you may not make as much as you did last year but for the kids and for our sanity we got to do it. We kept sitting on the fence though for a while and then all summer just like, you just have to jump sometimes. You just have to have faith. You know we are Christians, we have faith and we prayed on it and jumped. We have landed on our feet, we are okay. We have been able to match our income this year. I think that’s a pretty darn good first year.
JOCELYN: For sure. That’s why I really love working with you so much though it’s because you actually remind me a lot of us because we did a lot of the same things. People looked at us and basically said we were crazy for wanting to do this but like when we decided to go all in, we went all in and like we were going to make it work but there were no two ways about it, like it was going to work.
SHANE: I can remember like talking about the thread where you were talking about quitting your job, we don’t ever tell anyone to quit because we don’t know all the As, you know A plus B equals C. but, I can remember I laid their cons and their pros and the risks and the rewards, I can remember like talking about how if you have done this with your part-time income, what can you do with your full-time if you are doing this all the time? Sometimes there is a time where you just got to say I got to edge, I got to jump and see what happens. It’s ever going to be as bad as you think like it’s scary but you can always go back. You can always do something else. It was amazing watching you to take that leap of faith and saying three months ago, I made a $1.70 on my online business but now I’m not so I am going to try to push this to the next level.
JEANETTE: It has been a fantastic ride. I loved every minute.
SHANE: Let’s go on to jump up to the live event in Tampa because that’s where to me like—well I can say you’re the energizer bunny. You’re always going. You’re always taking action, it’s just incredible to watch. You just inspire us but like what was the thing about the live event in Tampa that was like the next gasoline in the fire. We’ve got the spark, we’ve got the fire, what took you to the next level?
JOCELYN: What made you decide to do the live event? Because I know at that time, you just quit your job. It might have been a little questionable, because it’s not cheap to go to live events. But, what pushed you over the edge and made you decide to do that?
JEANETTE: There are a couple of things there, first you announced it at the end of July or early August. Because it was right around my husband and I ten-year anniversary so we were travelling when you announced I and he said you got to go. These people have helped you grow your business. He basically would ask me everyday what did Shane and Jocelyn tell you to do today.
SHANE: That’s hilarious.
JEANETTE: It is. He said you got to go. At the point we hadn’t really decided I was quitting yet. We were thinking about it and praying about it but it wasn’t decided. He said, either way even if you have to use all your personal days or call in sick or whatever you got to go. The other thing I wanted to be surrounded. I wanted to be in that environment. I wanted to be able to hug you and say thank you. All those things are super important to me. But just being around everybody. It helped me more than even thought. I remember calling my husband at lunch and I had a little cold and he was worried that I wouldn’t—I said my money has already bene made up. I think that was the last one to go or the second to the last to go during the mastermind that day. I am like this money has already been made.
SHANE: Because you are already so much from everybody else too.
JEANETTE: Just to be able to hang out and talk business with people who understand the fear and successes and celebrate with you, it’s just amazing. It was the perfect timing because all the summer sales for teachers are kind of slowing down and things are slowing down a little bit. I was getting a little bit of panic. At least I got this but I am human.
SHANE: The entrepreneurial keep we experience about three times a week.
JEANETTE: Yes I was really in that a little bit in October and so the timing was just perfect and so I came back and I was just on fire and it took off after that.
SHANE: That’s when you came back and took action on everything we talked about. I think you gave yourself a bulleted list, here is the other 19 people stains, I’m going to do those too and I’m going to do the thing they told me so by January you are just ready to just rock out the back to school after Christmas break and stuff.
JEANETTE: January was phenomenal too for me.
SHANE: that’s just an amazing story. I love live events because we do them for the same reason. Like we go to live events because number one, you have some pressure when you show up at a live event. Because you don’t want to be the one there that is like I have not done anything in six weeks and I am just floating here. You take massive action before the live event to get to a point where you can ask a question or figure out what to do next. But then, if you come out of a live event it really is like skydiving. That what it feels like, the high, the excitement, the energy that you have. I remember, we went to one in Asia and we literally sat on an airplane for 12 straight hours–
JOCELYN: Because there was no internet.
SHANE: Because there was no internet and we had a notebook and pencil and we just wrote plans, the whole 12 hours because we are so fired up and I’m sure you probably felt the same way because you are from Michigan. I mean you flew all the way to Tampa.
JOCELYN: You actually hit everything at a really good time. You’re talking about timing because on that plane ride home, we decided to change all of our businesses to memberships and that was like in May of ’15.
SHANE: If we had not went to our own hot level live event you wouldn’t have gotten what you’ve got at that hot level live. So it’s all worked full circle. That’s awesome.
JEANETTE: Yeah I’m very grateful. Thank you for going to Asia.
SHANE: So what are the most important steps that you think? That’s what people love. Success stories are awesome but people want their success story. They want their journey to end up like yours, like ours, like other people’s what do you think maybe three of the most important tips you have you can just throw out there? Things you did, steps along the way that can help people who are out there hustling and trying to make this work be more successful like online.
JEANETTE: Yeah I think definitely find a community, like your community. If I am not around, I’ve had people email me. You know email me, like Jen you haven’t been posting. Your Going for the Profit thing has been dead for a little bit—get on there. You know and call me out. I have had two or three different people do that which I love, I mean thank you. You need a community. You need to be around people you can celebrate with. I love your success forums, you need to celebrate and I would tell everybody no matter what community you’re in or you have or you find, celebrate your wins, especially when you are firs starting because you need the small wins to build up.
SHANE: The thing that gets me in that forum too is like I might not have a win. I have days where I am like man, nothing is going right but I go in there, I am like I see those other people having wins and I am like okay back on track. This is just a bad day and I know tomorrow is going to be my day to post in the forums and inspire somebody else. Awesome. So community. What would be another tip that you can give people of what to do?
JEANETTE: Consistent focus. I keep a list of what I am working on and I don’t go to the next thing to the top when it’s done because I find my split focus just keeps me from getting anywhere. I put the bullet sin my forum in the membership every day, every couple of days from top to the bottom. I don’t deviate from that because you have to have focus and you have time to concentrate on one thing at a time and have that success.
SHANE: That’s a big problem. Some people listen so many podcasts and so many things and so many webinars. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
JEANETTE: I have stopped doing it because it is just too much. I mean they have all great ideas—a lot of them anyway since they are all are but there is a lot of great things you can do to grow your business but if you are doing them all you are not going anywhere. You’re just going in circles. So the focus is really then huge. Just one thing at a time.
SHANE: What would be the third thing that you think you did Jeanette? Just one more tip. Just something actionable that anyone can do to kind of move their business forward like on a daily basis.
JEANETTE: I did something every single day. So even if I sick, no matter what, I did something for my business every single day. I made a plan ahead of time and then on top of that I make sure I had fun every day. So it’s easy to get all work. I think when you’re all work, you’re not as productive. You need that down time because your brain will figure it out in that downtime so go for a walk, have fun with your kids, go to the park. Enjoy life and the moments too because that to me—actually when I started dipping a little bit, I always find myself just wanting to it in the computer all the time and work all the time. Well, I wasn’t as productive, I wasn’t happy, my kids weren’t happy. So I had to really learn that one in a hard way but enjoying life makes you—then when you do sit down, you have got two hours to get it done, you get it done in two hours, or you get it done in six hours.
SHANE: That’s why we always put the moments in our calendar first even when we were building our business, we made that non-negotiable time because if you work so much even in the beginning, when everybody is telling you to hustle and run and work 90 hours, if you do that you’re going to forget why you’re doing it. If you forget why you’re going to fail, so you can’t do that.
JEANETTE: If I can go back, I would tell anybody to do that, especially, lie everybody thinks, as soon as I quit I’m going to be so happy and I remember going to Tampa and you’re like how are you doing, are you adjusting? I am like, my head is spinning, no not yet. You are so used to work in that 40, 50, 60 hours a week that you almost feel guilty if you’re not sitting in front of the computer from that and I had to really break away and be really purposeful with that but then I was so much more productive.
SHANE: I remember sending you as message one time, I think it was right after Tampa. I remember telling you like, I don’t want to see you for three days. I remember saying something like, quit, stop, you’ve done great, go out of town, I’ll see you on Monday because you are just like, what’s next, what’s next seven days a week, and I am like you quit your job, there is a reason. Do you know what I mean? Start taking over your life.
JEANETTE: Yes, I am much better now and I don’t think I am less productive. I think I get just as much done in half the time and it’s wonderful.
JOCELYN: We always—we are getting close to our time being up here. Before we do that in like as we wind down a little bit, we want to talk to you about some of your can’t-miss-moments, like what are your favorite ones the last–?
SHANE: What is life like now? You don’t hear a lot of people say. Everybody is trying to say beach in Bali and all that stuff, but what is real life look like on the other side of quitting the 9 to 5 for you?
JEANETTE: It means that doctor’s appointments aren’t every evening and I am making dinner and we are healthier. It means that when my cousin has a wedding and my daughter is chosen to be the flower girl, I can leave on Thursday or Wednesday night even. I think I text you actually that day and said I am out of here.
SHANE: You did, I remember that. It was awesome.
JEANETTE: It was so fun just to spoil my daughter and we went out for pedicures. Before it would have been such a hassle to leave work and sub plans and I would have been worried. There was none of that going on. It was fabulous. We went and got pedicures. My daughter’s eight. You know she is at that fun age where I am just try and soak her all up. We went and got a hotel for a couple of days and just really enjoyed that time without any of the stress. So it was just fabulous. But that is just the biggest thing, I love being able to take off. I spent some time with my mom last week for Mother’s Day and took off on a Thursday and came back Friday. No big deal, took her out to dinner. We did the whole shopping thing. It’s the freedom. I am not locked in, I am not ripping my kids out of bed at 6:30 or 6:00 to be at daycare by 6:30. They sleep until 7:45 and then I get them up. That means we have quality time as a family in the evenings because they are not exhausted. And they are not as sick because they are not as exhausted.
SHANE: What do your kids thin know that mom’s at home and got her business? Are they commenting on that any? Have they noticed that? I know Isaac and Anna do, you know what I mean?
JEANETTE: Oh yeah they totally noticed. My 15-year old, loves to call me from school, “Mom, I forgot my flute today. Can you please–?”
SHANE: And you can take it if you have to, right?
JEANETTE: Yes, she knows has bent in first hour so she forgets it and she is out of luck and she gets a natural consequences and maybe I do enable them a little bit but I have not ever been able to do that for my children. So just to be able to do those little things for my kiddos even though when they are sick they call, even my 18-year old called not too long ago. “I’m not feeling well, can you can come and get me?” Absolutely. Where from school, that would have been such a hassle. My eight-year old think I stay home just so they can ride the bus in the morning. Remember when you had to go to work and we had to take the milestones bus but now you’re home so that—that’s what she said to me just this morning so that we can ride the bus in the morning.
SHANE: You’re there when they get home too. That’s amazing. That’s my favorite thing on earth is walking down to the bus stop at three. Like that’s just. Isaac gets so happy. Anna Jo gets out a little bit earlier from preschool but Isaac gets off the bus and he is just, I see him in the window, looking out as he is driving up to the bus stop and he just gets his big smile and I was like you know what, good day, bad day, I don’t care. This is totally worth it.
JEANETTE: It’s all good now. Conner gets off the bus and same age as—I think they will have so much fun.
SHANE: That’s awesome. We are going out to Michigan and let them play. That is just going to happen. Live event in Michigan and after party at Jeanette’s backyard. That’s’ what we are going to do.
JEANETTE: The farm, you got barn and the trampoline. The guitar.
SHANE: There you go, that’s all we need. Well listen we are totally proud of you so much. We are out of time. We got to wrap this up. I wish we can talk for hours but it’s just amazing. You are the example that we point to. We don’t like to point to ourselves, we don’t want to do that. it’s easy for people who teach online business to do that but when we see people like you and Evan Burst or like Brad Barrett—all these people in our community are doing just amazing things and have quit their jobs and lives are changed and kid’s future are changed. It just makes us really emotional because it’s just awesome really watching people listen and take action because that’s really what it is. It’s not even our plan. It’s not anyone else’s plan, it’s just pick a plan and do it until it works and that’s what you did and we are just really grateful that our paths crossed and that we met you and that you did this. You do inspire us so much every day. Like any day I don’t feel like working on something I am just like, I bet Jeanette’s working, I am going to get to work.
JOCELYN: Yeah I mean even today like we had not have the greatest day for a variety of reasons.
SHANE: And nothing has worked today, technology hassle so.
JOCELYN: This has really changed my outlook on the day. So thank you or just being here and taking action and making things happen and more importantly making your life better and your family’s life better. That’s why we are here.
JEANETTE: Well, thank you so much. It means the world to me. It changed our lives. It’s fabulous.
SHANE: Thanks Jeanette.
JEANETTE: Thank you so much.
SHANE: Alright guys, that wraps up another call with one of our Flip Your Life community member. If you’d like to become a member of our Flip Your Life community, head over to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and we can help you with your online business as well. Before we go today, we’d like to close every show with a verse from the bible. Today’s bible verse comes from First Thessalonians, Chapter five verse 16 – 19. The bible says, be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstance. This is the will of God for your life. That’s all the time we have for this week. As always guys thanks for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast and until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life. We’ll see you then.
JOCELYN: Bye.
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