Episode 70: Jennifer Morilla on Why You Need to Slow Down to Grow Your Business Sustainably
Transcript Episode 70
Stephanie Skryzowski: Welcome to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. The show for purpose-driven entrepreneurs who want to get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone, expand into your purpose and grow your business in a big way.
You’ll hear from entrepreneurs and leaders that have shifted their mindsets, learned life-changing lessons and built profitable businesses that fuel their lives and their hearts. And you’ll hear from me, Stephanie Skryzowski. My mission as a chief financial officer is to empower you to better understand your numbers, to grow your impact and your income. Let’s dive in!
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. I’m Stephanie, I’m super excited to have you here today because I am talking to Jennifer Morilla.
Jennifer started her business as the Social Girl Traveler back in February of 2015 when she traveled the world as an impact travel blogger. After experiencing over 44 countries and carrying clean water filters to developing countries, Jen discovered her passion for teaching others to grow profitable and impactful businesses with a real purpose online with her new brand, Jennifer Morilla in 2018. Since then she’s built a successful six-figure mentoring business, and she’s worked with brands like Microsoft, Skype, Google, Aruba Tourism, and Waves for Water.
She’s also been featured in some pretty epic publications, such as Forbes, Huffington post, CNBC, Oprah magazine, and Thrive Global. Through her courses and coaching programs, she’s helped hundreds of women and counting start their own businesses while teaching them how to build a business that supports their desired lifestyle while creating the results they dream of too. Her clients vary from coaches and creative entrepreneurs, to service providers who skyrocket from 60K to over a hundred thousand dollars a year, and take many people from four figure to five figure months and even $50,000 launches.
Jen has now scaled her online coaching business to a multi six-figure online business and continues to impact the online space with her business building expertise. Jen is fabulous. She’s a client of ours and she has an amazing story that I am so excited for you all to hear and learn from. So without further ado, let’s dive in.
Hey everybody, welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship. I am super excited to be here today with Jen Morilla. Jen, welcome!
Jennifer Morilla: Hello, so happy to be here. Thank you for having me here, Steph!
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yes. Okay. Tell us about your business. What do you do? Who do you help and how did you get here? Basically.
Jennifer Morilla: That’s okay, let me start with the, how did I get here? Cause I’ve been doing this for seven years. And I started out as a travel blogger. I started carrying clean water filters to developing countries in 2015.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Like physically carrying or like taking them from the US to developing countries?
Jennifer Morilla: From the US to developing countries.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Okay, got it.
Jennifer Morilla: Yeah, but I put them on my suit so it’s not as complex as you think it is. So I would carry, I mean, there were a little bit bigger than this chopstick. But they were like I would say the size of a mouse actually. The size of a mouse. So they were the size of a mouse. And I would carry them.
They were $50 and it was just like a round filter and it came with a kit that basically you would take a bucket, drill a hole at the bottom of the bucket, connect a hose and the filter, and then put in dirty water and then clean water would come out of that filter. And it was like crazy cause I went to some really developing countries.
I was in India for awhile, I did some work in the slums of New Delhi and things like that. I was in Indonesia and I worked with a surf organization. And so I did a lot of like purposeful, intentional work. I did that for about three and a half years. I worked with some pretty epic brands and I did some pretty cool stuff.
I worked at Microsoft and Skype and Google, a lot of tourism boards. I was very niche focused. So for them it was sustainability and purpose. And that was what I traveled for. I did that for three and a half years. And then I got tired of living out of a suitcase and I was doing decent.
I was able to make money, but it wasn’t to the amount of money that right now. And you know, being that I’m in New York, like just expensive here, man.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Morilla: Yeah. So the cost of living is not what it would cost in like, you know, the middle of nowhere. So yeah, I would come back here and I’d be like, okay, this is great, but I can’t really do this on my own here.
Anyways, long story short, after three and a half years, I quickly decided that I wanted to pivot. But I don’t want to say quickly because it wasn’t that natural and I think that’s important to highlight. I think in the grand scheme of things, it took me awhile to pivot because I had such an attachment towards being this travel blogger.
And in my eyes, I hadn’t been successful yet. But I had to define the definition of success because I had been on Forbes and I’ve been on stages and I’ve traveled the world and all these things, but what was starting to happen was that people were actually asking me to get on stages to talk about personal branding and social media and content and things like that.
And that’s when I really began to pivot because I was like, well, that’s interesting that people see me that way, and I’m still stuck in the “I suck”, you know. And so that’s my weekend to pivot my business. I began to teach people how to build online businesses and brands.
That was in September of 2018. And I launched my very first course and I had an $11,000 launch. I remember being like, “oh, this is what they were talking about.” And I did that in a month. And so that was the biggest one that I ever had. So I began to pivot my business slowly, relaunched my YouTube channel.
Where now I drop weekly videos on how to grow an online business for service providers, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, creatives. And yeah! So that’s what I do now. Is I work with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, creatives, and I teach them how to build and grow online businesses.
Well, I would say grow in scale at this point. I run my business on two programs. I have a mastermind and a course. The course is more of like a group program. And I teach people how to stop serving one-to-one and start serving one-to-many. So create a little bit more passive income. And then in my mastermind, which is actually open for enrollment now is available for people who are looking to scale, who are trying to get that 10K mark and beyond that.
And what that looks like in terms of systems, management, who they need to hire, all those things, and then obviously their products, their messaging, and just amplify.
Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s awesome. I love that you pointed out that it took a while for you to actually pivot. Because I feel like this word pivot is definitely like a buzzword in the sort of online business entrepreneurial space.
Oh, you just pivot like, oh, what is that like to make a 90 degree turn and then like, okay, you’re on that direction. So what were some of the things that you did, or some of the mindset shifts that you had to make during that pivoting phase?
Because I feel like a lot of times people, you know, we just, we get stuck in our lane and we know we need to make a shift and it seems so easy for everybody else. But there’s a lot of like trash going on in your head that you need to work through.
So what was some of that stuff that you had to get through in that pivoting journey?
Jennifer Morilla: Okay. So as always, I’m always super transparent. I’ll call it as it is. But it took me a lot of crying sessions. A lot of crying sessions. And I always say this, I’ve had my most pivotal life changing life moments, rock bottom moments in the bathroom.
Every single experience that I’ve had where I’ve been like, holy sh-, Jennifer, what the f- moments have been in the bathroom? When I quit my job at corporate, right before I quit my job, I was in the stall, bawling like a baby, and literally walked out of the stall, looked at myself in the mirror.
And I was like, you can do this as I’m hysterically crying. And then I just kept crying and just walked into my boss’s office. He’s like, what happened? Like, are you okay? So all of my moments, so a lot of crying sessions. But ultimately what it came down to was that I was in $33,000 of debt and I was barely breathing.
I had one VA and I was slamming her with work -support angel. And I wasn’t making that consistent income and I was spending more than I was making. And while travel, you know, the truth is that when you, as an influencer, in order for you to be really successful, you have to have one of two things. One, a lot of overhead.
So I mean a lot of money to start off with, right? You have to have a huge investment. Whether it’s like you’re taking $20,000 or $40,000. And then you’re taking that, and then building off of that to make more money. So you have to have a business, you have to have a structure, like that business model has to be already done before you’re like, I’m going to take $20,000 of savings and I’m going to try and make this work.
So here I am at 25, taking, I only have $14,000. And I took that $14,000. And for what it’s worth. Because I was 25, because I was hungry, because I was like, screw it, I’m going to figure this out. I made it work. My first year of business, I made $20,000 essentially. My first year of business with sponsorships.
It’s sponsorships and social media and things like that. And I got to travel the world. Like I literally traveled that year all over. I started in Europe, I finished in Australia. And it wasn’t until I was like, my home base was Australia. When I came to Australia and I was in Australia for nine months.
And in those nine months, I started to make money because I was complacent. I had a routine. There was a structure to my business and in Australia, the majority of my money was coming in from, I would say, 50% say 40% sponsorships and 60% social media management. But I got to a point in 2018 where I was like, I can’t continue to do this.
I can’t sustain myself. Like that’s a bottom line. At some point I’m going to have to ask for a loan or I’m going to have to ask my parents and I didn’t want to do that. So I had to put on my big girl pants that moment. And for me, I danced with the idea of going back to corporate for like a hot second.
And then I was like, f- that. But you need two things in order to be an influencer and make it successful. You need a lot of money to start off and you have to be really f-ing good at it. Like the quality of the video, the quality of the content and its consistency on steroids. And so, and then that’s the truth, especially as a travel blogger, right?
Because it’s expensive to travel or it can be expensive to travel. No matter how you cut costs, right? A flight from New York to Thailand is still going to cost you $600 and that’s like the cheapest. I mean, you could practically sit in like the luggage, like the bottom of the plane, that’s what it’s gonna cost you, you know?
So I think that you have to have a come to Jesus moment. And that’s what I had. I kind of had that moment where I was like, I don’t want to continue like this. I had so much anxiety about money and my family didn’t know anything too, I had this persona, like I got it all figured out, everything’s fine. But here I am cutting corners and not being able to afford a Starbucks cup of coffee. And that’s where I was like, okay, this isn’t the way to live. Like I’m not going to get excited over a $4,000 brand deal when I’m $33,000 in debt. And let me say this too, like cleaning up my money story, right.
Was huge and pivotal because I got crystal clear on that debt. And that was a big thing that was holding me back, was that we have such, I think society builds such a pressure on debt and the truth is like, you need debt and you know this more than anything, Steph. Like you need debt in order to make money and like be as substantial citizen in society.
A level of debt. But we have such negative connotations towards it. And the truth is the debt wasn’t on Chanel bags and sh, I wish. I would look cute and broke, but it was all my business. I was in busting in masterminds, I was in dusting in corsets and all the things in teams and systems and yeah.
So I had my come to Jesus moment several times, but the ultimate truth came down to the fact that I had come back from a trip to Nepal and I did a trek in the Himalayas. And this was one of the most amazing trips I’ve ever done. So I summited 17,500 feet and the entire time I was on that trip, I didn’t have, I think I had like $400 in my bank account.
I was waiting for three sponsorship checks to come through, which were a total of like five grand. But they hadn’t come through and they weren’t going to come through until after this trip. And this entire trip was sponsored, which was beautiful. So I didn’t really have to pay for anything. But I had planned to travel after this trip cause I was in Nepal.
So I was going to head over to Australia and visit my best friend. And I got to the hotel room and I realized the checks hadn’t come through yet and I need to edit all these photos and I need to pitch and I need to sleep and I need to eat and I’m exhausted. I was like, okay, I don’t want to do this anymore.
And I spent that $500 on a ticket back to New York. And I sat in my room for a week and I cried on my bed. Then I was like, okay, I have a few speaking gigs lined up that I got paid for, which was awesome. And if the sponsorship checks came through. Then I was like, I’m going to start to create a course on how to do what I do and how to do it more successfully basically.
And yeah, and I did that in September and I sold my very first course. It was how to create content. That’s what it came down to. I’ll never forget it, I was like the happiest girl ever. Literally two people bought my course.
It was $500 and I made a thousand dollars in 45 minutes. And the minute that money came through, it was through PayPal. And I was bawling, I literally, like I got off the challenge was like a lot of challenge and I got off and I just was hysterically crying because I was like, oh my God, they literally just bought.
Then an hour later, somebody else bought, somebody else bought, somebody else bought. And it just started to have that moment. And that was it. It just changed the game for me, but I was so grateful and I remember I couldn’t stop crying right after I got off that live. I was like, oh my God, they bought it. I was like, do they know? Do they know?
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, did feelings of imposter syndrome kick in? I feel like I’ve had that before, where I’ve signed a client that I was really excited about. And then I was like, oh my God, like, what did I just do?
Jennifer Morilla: Oh my God, totally. The first thing I thought was like, do they know that I don’t know what I’m doing.
I know that like, I don’t really know what to doing, you know? Yeah. And it was beautiful because those people like it. It’s interesting. I don’t, we don’t give ourselves enough credit. Those clients ended up not only, this course no longer exists, but not only did they buy from me that time they bought from me consecutively. I built other courses, programs one-on-ones and they just continued to be part of my world and they have businesses now it was very successful businesses. But I didn’t give myself credit. And yeah, I mean, that’s a huge mindset shift that needs to happen.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. It’s really interesting that the pivot was out of necessity, really. It wasn’t like, you know, necessity in terms of money, in terms of just like lifestyle and burnout. Yeah, and survival. And I think that’s okay. It feels kind of horrible when you’re in it, but sometimes the most beautiful things come out of our darkest, most difficult moments.
And I just, I love that for you. So the people that bought that first course where you basically like leveraging the audience that you had built as a travel blogger and an influencer. And showing those people that obviously we’re very interested in what you’re doing, showing them kind of how to do that for themselves.
So you’re leveraging that same audience.
Jennifer Morilla: Absolutely. It was more of like personal branding. So it wasn’t specifically for, I honestly looking back at it now I’d probably be more successful if I would’ve just done, like how to build a travel blog. But it was still really successful, but it was for personal branding because that was the one thing that people came to me for consistently.
Like I was speaking on stages about creating content as a personal brand. How do you show up? How do you break through? I think it’s because I just naturally give off confidence. But it wasn’t always like that. Like if I were to show you my first YouTube video, you would roll on the floor in tears.
Versus like what I look when I get on a YouTube video today, right. Practice makes perfect, dude. It is what it is. It’s not I didn’t come out of the womb holding a camera. I don’t know if your kids use, my nieces and my nephew know how to use a phone.
Like I’m pretty sure they came out of the womb and they were like, Youtube! You know what I mean? And our generation didn’t come out like that. It’s a practice. So that’s what the majority of what I was teaching. Was like how to build a brand, how to build an online presence, what did that look like? And then how to monetize that.
Stephanie Skryzowski: So you have this course and you make $11,000 and all these people are buying and you’re like crying happy tears, also feeling the imposter syndrome. What were the next steps? What did that next sort of like, that was your beginning. What did the sort of messy middle look like before you got to where you are right now? What was the journey, what was the path?
Jennifer Morilla: Oh, my God. Nobody ever asked that question. I’m hesitant to say it. Cause I was like, oh, okay. Now this is where I learned how to f- sh- up.
Stephanie Skryzowski: But we all have like, you have to mess it up before you can fix it and you know, the right way. So
Jennifer Morilla: I’ve been doing this for seven years and I know where I’m going to go wrong in something, or when, based on the events that happened past. So quickly after I launched that course, what started to happen is these people wanted so much more of me. I started to funnel them into a one-on-one. And if you were a one-on-one coach and you are listening, or you have one-on-one clients and you are burning out, number one, reach out to me.
Number two, like I’m shamelessly, throwing out there. But number two, you will quickly realize that it is a recipe. If you don’t have boundaries, it is a recipe for disaster. And so at one point I had 12 or 13 one-on-one clients.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Wow, what was that like? What was your week like when you had 13 one-on-one clients? Were you just like on calls constantly?
Jennifer Morilla: I was on calls all the time? I couldn’t release content that I was on calls all the time. And I was still slowly pivoting. So I’m still getting sponsorships, but I had to do the work. So quickly realized that that wasn’t gonna work. And then I created a mastermind called the two weeks notice mastermind, which no longer exist.
But my two weeks notice mastermind was pivoted or focused, targeted towards women who were going to quit their nine to five. Get it two weeks notice mastermind. We’ll give you two.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Got it. Yup.
Jennifer Morilla: And I ran that for about two years. That program, I mean, that was really well, cause it was a group coaching program.
And there were definitely a lot of learning curves when you teach a group of people and like methods and systems that you need to process and all the things. But when I launched that, that really changed the game, because one, I had way more consistent income. I had people that were being funneled from there to one-on-one and I was very, very specific about who I worked with one-on-one.
So I no longer do one-on-one. Yeah, I only have one one-on-one client. And when you sign with me, it’s fine for a whole year, that’s it. But you are at a very different stage in your business like you’ve already had the six figures and you’re trying to hit the multiple six figures kind of thing.
And that’s where I take my clients to. But so yeah, so it was very messy in between because I started to grow really fast. Like it was the end of 2018 to 2019 rolls around and that year I relaunched my YouTube channel. I created two more courses and I launched a master, I was on fire in 2019. I remember Christina and I every year, for those of you who are listening and don’t know Christina, Christina is like one of my best friends, Christina Galbato, she’s also in the industry. She is like a multimillionaire. She’s just so f-ing good at what she does. And I learned a lot from her and her and I are really good friends. Every year we do like an excuse for us to like get away for the weekend.
And we do a planning session for the year. On there, I forgot we were in like a planning session. And the city and she looks at me and she goes, you were on a fire in 2019. Let’s not do that in 2020.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Like on fire as not a good thing, like more on fire, like literally burning.
Jennifer Morilla: Yeah. Like I was literally, I just had so much going on. I mean, I made money in 2019. I had 90,000 in revenue. And that was like the most I’d ever done so I was so happy. And then in 2020, I hit my first six figures and then that’s it. 2021, we hit the multiple. So yeah. It’s but it was the funniest thing ever. She was right, like I had launched like three courses, like I was literally on fire.
And I had a team and I was, and that was the big thing is I was spending way too much money. And it was called-
Stephanie Skryzowski: What were you spending money on?
Jennifer Morilla: The team.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Just team, yeah.
Jennifer Morilla: My overhead was way too expensive and things weren’t getting done. So it was the quality of the team wasn’t right there. And the systems weren’t in place. So basically my profit margins were way too high and the cost of the courses to run these courses and create these courses were way too high.
Than what I was actually bringing in, so yeah, I had to close down and I had to get rid of courses. I had to pivot, I had to slow down. I had to do the thing. And then on top of that, like 2019, I spoke on a lot of stages. It’s one of my favorite things to do. So between traveling and creating courses and running a business, like yeah.
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Stephanie Skryzowski: So there’s basically like another pivot. So 2019 was like, amazing year. You made a lot of money, but you spent a lot of money. And so then you pivoted again and what did that look like? What was like the next iteration of your business?
Jennifer Morilla: In 2022, I mean in 2020, I really got focused on the courses. So I got rid of a lot of courses.
I got like instead of having six different courses, I just had one very specific course. And I continued with the mastermind and one-on-one. Instead of getting 12 one-on-ones I had looked six and that was a lot. As I do invest my energy into my clients and I am very in it with them. Which is why now I only have one one-on-one client you signed for like a whole year. Like you don’t, I don’t do the whole six month, three month thing.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah.
Jennifer Morilla: But yeah. So for me, the biggest expenses have always been my overhead expenses. Also fun fact, in 2019, yeah, it took me nine months to pay off $32,000 debt. So like, I was very intentional.
Stephanie Skryzowski: I was going to say that’s not very long. That’s like, you must’ve been super focused on that. Cause that doesn’t seem like a very long time.
Jennifer Morilla: And I was like, no, absolutely not. It was from, it was either nine or 10 months. It was less than a year. I had a one-on-one client. I had a few one-on-one clients that ended up paying me in full and at the time my one-on-one container for six months, I believe was 13.
Yeah, or no, I’m lying, it was 10. And then I had one client at the end of the year. I literally had something like $7,000 of debt left by the end of October, November. And I had this angel fall from the sky, I was just getting this woman, you never know, the hustle never stops. There’s a level of hustle that needs to happen. And Stephanie you know this at this point in your business. When you’re first starting out, you got to hustle.
Do I think that you need to hustle till you can’t sleep? No, I disagree with that a hundred percent. I believe that that’s what allowed me to f- up in my business because I wasn’t taking care of myself mentally and physically. If I took the time to slow down, even though I was not making money. I would have made smarter decisions.
If I had that mentorship, if I had that person that was like, slow down, like let’s rewind, let’s check and see what’s working, what’s not working instead of you just throwing spaghetti at the wall. Spaghetti being your credit cards. So that for me was the biggest thing.
And one thing I will pride myself on is that I’m very good at networking and communicating and connecting people. So I am very much like you need this person, you need this person I’m going to connect you. Or I go out to a networking event and I introduce myself, whatever. And so I had met somebody on a flight from Australia.
And this guy was in corporate. He was in financial corporate and he was looking for personal branding. So he hired me for three months, paid me 10 grand. We worked on his branding. That was great. He then got me on a stage, which then also paid me about $3-4,000, which was very low at the time now that I look back at it. But it got me money, nonetheless.
Then from there, I got three clients. And one of those clients ended up being someone who took, who paid me $13,000 in full, and that eliminated the debt. And it was in November of 2019. I remember paying my last credit card and just being like, and I think that’s when I called you. I think I started working with you at 2020.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. I love that, yeah. I think it’s so interesting. Cause I feel like when we think about financial goals, whether it’s a certain amount of money we want to make, or this debt that you want to pay off, or a certain amount of cash that you want to have in the bank, it feels so hard and so insurmountable.
And I’m sure you felt like that at some point with your debt, but when you had your sort of like tunnel vision, I’m paying this sh- off. Like, I’m done. Look how fast you were able to do that. And I think about that, it just like so many areas we help obviously, help a lot of our clients to build up their cash reserves.
So making sure you’ve got a certain amount of money in the bank and yeah. If you’re like, okay, I want to have three months of expenses in the bank that feels really hard until you’re solely focused on it and you’re able to do it way faster. And I just feel like, I love the saying that what we focus on expands and so, or where your attention flows, the energy goes, right?
So like you’re focusing on something, it’s going to happen. And I love that you made that happen for yourself so quickly. I would love to talk about like, okay, as you’re growing, you’re scaling, you’ve made lots of different mistakes, you’ve broken things, you fix them. Talk about some of the hires that you have made in your business that have been a catalyst for growth. Like you talked to it. So we started working together in 2020. I’m sure there are others, but yeah. Talk about some of the decisions that you’ve made have been really, really good decisions that have helped you grow to where you are now.
Jennifer Morilla: So I think the biggest thing that you have to recognize as an entrepreneur is that what makes a successful entrepreneur is your creativity or what makes any entrepreneur is your creativity, right?
Your ability to think big and dream big. No successful entrepreneur thinks small. Like Steve jobs wasn’t sitting in his garage, playing with his thumbs, like, Ooh, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna make this computer like, no, he was thinking beyond our generations. Albert Einstein, all of them, every single inventor, every single entrepreneur, like you’re thinking big.
And it’s a blessing and a curse. And so I recognized my weaknesses and my strengths. So one of my strengths is that I dream big and I have wonderful ideas and I’m super creative and I’m very innovative and I like to go with the times like be with the head of people. Weaknesses, a lot of the time is that I don’t know how to manage those processes.
I’m really good at creating a timeline, like saying I can do X by X if I have an actual flow, but in terms of the actual system, that was a weakness of mine. And then at that point in my business, my biggest weakness was my mind. Like I was holding myself back, no one else. There were so many things I wanted to do.
And there were so many self-sabotaging behaviors that were coming into place. I struggled a lot with anxiety and depression, so that was like through the roof. You’re trying to pay off debt and make money and grow at the same time. And you’re the first person in your surrounding area that’s doing that.
I think the biggest thing as well, when you’re at that stage surrounding yourself with people who are there or better than you is key. Because you actually see what’s possible. Versus when you’re doing it all alone, it’s a scary road. And you don’t actually see what’s possible. And the way I learn is by seeing.
I used to dance and I could read directions, but if you show me how to do a process or how to do the step, I can do that. Like if I physically see something. So the two biggest things for me were getting crystal clear on my finances, like knowing what was coming in, what was going out and what I needed to pay off and then having a system in place and then getting a mentor. A coach that was going to literally pull my head off my own a-.
Like call me on my sh- and be able to tell me like, Hey, let’s reframe this thought. These are the tools that you need, et cetera, et cetera. And that really changed the game for me in 2020. Being able to have a clear vision of this is how much money’s coming in. This is what I need to do to make more.
And this is how I’m gonna start paying off whatever I need to pay off. Yeah. And then having someone to bounce these ideas, and then the moments that I feel like I can’t accomplish something or like the imposter syndrome hits or whatever. The imposter syndrome never goes away. Like I still create stuff and get on stages and all the things and I still have imposter syndrome. However, it’s not as bad as it was before. Like I handled it so much quicker instead of like me being in a hotel room crying cause I about to be on the stage. I have like 10 seconds of it, of like a nervous breakdown in the bathroom and I’m like, okay.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Get it together, girl, let’s go.
Jennifer Morilla: Yeah, we got this. You know what I mean? So like, yes.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, I think it was interesting. So I divided what you said it to two different categories. There’s like the mindset stuff that you have to work on and your limiting beliefs. And I complete, I mean, I think probably everyone listening to this totally understands.
I mean, I told myself that I could only get to a certain revenue level and then I just have to stop growing because I just couldn’t do more than that. And I have a coach as well, who is like, well, wait, why, why can’t you grow beyond that? And I had this whole list of excuses in my head. She was like, no, and we’ve already grown beyond that.
And like way faster than I thought. And it was just like removing that block out of my head. So we all have that. And some of the other things you mentioned are all like, really, it sounds like strategic investments that you have made in your business. So it’s still spending money. Like you have to pay for a coach, you have to pay for like the money help, but it sounds like, yeah, these investments that you made have been really smart and have had a really strong ROI behind them that maybe in the past, when you’ve been spending money, you haven’t had, you know, they haven’t had the ROI. So has there been a process where you’ve been able to sort of evaluate like, okay, does this particular business investment makes sense?
How am I going to get a return out of it? Or is it been more of like gut? Like, okay, now I’m just smarter. I just know more, I’ve just been doing this longer. So I just know what makes more sense.
Jennifer Morilla: I’ve actually just hired a new coach and the question that I, first of all, the reason I hire new coaches, because I recognized where I was stagnant, like my weakness.
So I think that’s the first thing, it’s like, what’s the weakness? Can you fix it? Because there’s certain things you can do. So like, for example, if you’re like, I want to wake up early and you’re waking up late everyday day, go to bed early, like cut the sh-. There’s no other way around, you know what I mean?
That’s something, right. But if this is something that you’re like, you don’t see and you’ll get to a level of your business where you’re like, okay, I’m making 40K a month. And I want to get to that, I want to get to that hundred K. Like I haven’t gotten there yet, that’s where I want to get.
And it’s like, how do I do that? What am I not seeing? And when I recognize that I’m not seeing something because I’m so in it, I was okay, now I need to start looking for someone. So like, let’s look at it very basic, right? Like if you’re shopping for a pair of jeans, some people are the kind of shoppers that have to go to seven different stores, try them all on.
And then they’re like, okay, this is the best one I’m going to go back. And then they’re loyal to that specific pair of jeans. Then there are shoppers that are like, Hey, I know exactly what I need. I’ve done my research behind the scenes. It’s this brand like, I’m going to go try it on if they look good.
If not, I have number two. That’s it, right. But you’ve done the research and then there’s people that just buy, like just buy and spend the money. And so usually those people are very beginning stage. So they’ll buy like the $20 pair of jeans or like the $10 pair of jeans or whatever, like forever 21 or whatever. And we’re doing it very basic, right?
So for somebody that’s going to spend $70 or $120 on a pair of jeans, like you’re going to want to do your work a little bit. And that’s kind of where it was, but I knew at the level of business I needed, I needed somebody that was going to cost money and I wasn’t just going to invest into anyone.
So I watched people, sounds really scary, but I basically watched my coaches and the people that I was looking for. And the biggest thing for me is, and I say this to my client. There’s two questions. You have to ask yourself when you’re investing and you’re making smart investments. Is this person or this system or this thing going to get me to that next level? Do I believe that they can accomplish that?
Have they done it? If those answers are yes. The second question you have to ask yourself is, are you prepared to show up for that? Are you making space for your life? Are you mentally ready to do the work? So with my coach, it was a $10,000 investment, right? For a six week investment and the return has already come back tenfold.
And it’s only been two weeks, you know what I mean? So that gives you, I know. That already gives you the idea of like, okay, I know this investment is going to be, I don’t, you don’t know what you don’t know is what I’m trying to say. So those are the three things that I look at when I’m investing.
Now, whether it’s a system, a team, a hire, a coach, whatever, those are all the things. And then, especially with team, I take a lot of time. I’m very much like hire slow fire quick. And I know that sounds brutal by no means am I like cutting someone off? But what I’m saying is that there is definitely like things that I look for.
There’s KPIs, I asked for them, there’s trial periods. We really go through a flow of what I look for in my hirees before I’m committed to them, because the truth is that at this stage, in my business, somebody is not with me for like a day or a month. People are usually with me for years.
My OBM has been working with me for over a year already. My content manager did me for seven months. Like it’s not. You know, you guys.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. Well, exactly. And if you, yeah, if you make the wrong investment in your hires that could make or break your business and your happiness and your life, and yeah, it’s definitely important to move slow for sure.
I think the other thing, at least that I’ve experienced and one of the biggest investments that I’ve made in my business is basically paying to get myself in the room with the right people. And in the form of sort of like coaching group programs, masterminds. That’s like, I can trace, I did this one time because I’m a giant nerd, but I thought about this mastermind that I was in.
And then I traced all of the revenue that was generated by either people in that mastermind or people that I was introduced to that then introduced me to other things. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years by this like $20,000 investment that I made in this mastermind. So it paid for itself for sure.
And so that’s kind of like what you do, right? Like you’re also providing in the work that you do. You’re providing a container for people to be connected inside your mastermind and your group program. And so you’re providing that to other people and I would love to hear about your experience with both the work that you do, but like, have you paid to basically get yourself in the room with the right people?
Jennifer Morilla: Totally. I mean, like I said, I think that your network is worth more than your net worth, right? Who you know, when you know and where you know them. My very first publication over print in Forbes was from a mentor that I used to work for. I used to work for an agency, I used to work corporate, right. I used to work for an agency in New York city and my mentor was in Forbes and she connected me to the girl that wrote the article for her and Forbes.
And she was like, you need to interview her like, look at what she’s doing in the world. And my very first article was through that. So I didn’t have to pay for it, none of that. It was all through my network. And that came back tenfold and it still comes back 10 fold. Like I still get people that reach out to me.
It’s like, I found your article, like amazing, like would love to chat with you for whatever. But I have paid money to be in rooms to go to conferences, to meet people, to have conversations with certain people. I think that’s so important to people devalue that. I also think that because of 2020, it kind of put a break on a lot of people.
And so getting back on that wagon has been tough. And I would say, I would even say for me personally, just from a place of like, you know, in 2021, when I started to get invited to events and things, I was like, do I want to go? Like do we need to wear a mask? It was definitely something that’s happening in my brain that I never recognized before.
But yeah, no, I think that it is one of the most valuable things that you can do, especially as an entrepreneur. I always tell people like the only thing you should be doing in your business, when you get to that growing stage is making money. You need to hire the team and putting the systems into place so that all you need to do is you’re making money. And making money looks like getting on sales calls, creating quality content and networking.
And if you’re not like going to events, if you’re not having the cup of coffee and I’m old school. Like, I love taking that time to getting to know someone because it’s come back so much for me.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. A hundred percent.
Jennifer Morilla: And so it’s just like it’s yeah. And I think people devalue that so very much.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Well, I loved that the connection, the sort of like chain of events that you shared with the guy that you’re talking to on the plane, and then you were his clients and then you spoke and then you got clients from there and then that person paid you for your coach. I mean, that’s like several degrees of separation there, but if you had just like pop your headphones in on the plane, like I do and have the face, like do not talk to me. None of that would have happened.
So I love the value that you placed on that. Cause I do think it’s so important. So tell me about the group program mastermind that you run right now. What does that look like, what does that container look like? What kind of people are in there? And I’m sure that you foster lots of community and whatnot within that, but yeah. What is your program?
Jennifer Morilla: So my mastermind is a six-month container and it’s called the Simplify to Amplify Mastermind. And we take women through the growing and scaling process. So we look at your entire business model.
What are your products look like? Focusing on creating that signature product and then putting in the systems and functions into place. So, having that streamlined so it’s so much easier for you creating that passive income. And then the last thing is amplifying it. Amplifying it in terms of how are we getting eyeballs on your content?
Are you interviewing for podcasts? Like, are you getting on publications? Like how do we get you out there even more? And how do we amplify that vision for you and your brand? And so we do that inside this container. I mean it’s six months. We have like coworking sessions. We have newly implemented mastermind Mondays or mindset Mondays.
It’s basically like a 30 minute hype call on a Monday morning. And I’m like, okay guys, or what our intentions for the week? Like, how are we going to get things done? And just basically hype up the week and the room for the people. What else did we throw in there? Like we have expert coaches, we have supporting coaches.
We have a sales and funnels coach and a content coach, an operations coach as well. So we have about four support, three supporting coaches and myself. Yeah. And the point of that community was to create a community.
When I was, when it was 2019, if I had found this community, this community would have been my community because it would have helped me stop making the mistakes that I would have made that year, because I could’ve made more.
And I could’ve made it faster if I just like, got into my own way. And so having the support system. Everyone’s on the same boat, just the different parts of boat. Some people are at the heads, some people at the backseats at the bottom, at the top, whatever. But at the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat. We’re doing it together.
And it’s beautiful because women walk away from that mastermind and they’re like friends, their accountability buddies. They hang out together. Like I get a little jealous, I get these.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, like why wasn’t I invited?
Jennifer Morilla: Right. Like what, I’m not doing enough for you guys? And you know, it’s just, I love it. It’s honestly it lights me up. And it’s my favorite part of my business. It’s just being able to watch these women start from where they started and get to where they are. Yeah.
One of the women inside the last round of the mastermind within the six months of us working together, she made $112,000 and she rejoined the next round of the mastermind and we were sitting down and I was like, looking at your stuff. I’m like, Hey, how do we multiply this? And she was like, I don’t know, how do we multiply this? And I was like, easy. I’m just watching her face. And I was like, Hey, we want to do this. You want to do this? And she was like, Oh, my God, Jen. I was like, yeah, yes.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Isn’t that the best moment seeing your people’s results? It’s like, oh my gosh, this is why, this is why we were brought together.
Jennifer Morilla: Yup, yup. It’s so good.
Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s awesome. Okay. So you said that the mastermind is open for enrollment right now. When does the next session start? When can people like what’s the deal? How do people find you? How do people apply?
Jennifer Morilla: It depends when this podcast goes live. They can either get on the wait list or just reach out to me privately. We actually closed the mastermind enrollment the 1st of June. So that’ll be done, but the program that you can join before that would be the Profit Launch Academy, my PLA.
And so my PLA is for creating your signature program. So stop serving one-to-one and start serving one-to-many. And a lot of students go from the PLA to my mastermind just because they’ve now created that product and that container. And then they’re looking how do we scale this? Like how do we sell it and how do we sell it more?
And that’s what we do inside the mastermind.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Got it. Is having an audience like a large, like you have a pretty big audience on Instagram. Is that part of, is that like a prerequisite, is that something that people need to have?
Jennifer Morilla: I always laugh when the people ask me that. Absolutely not. I have worked with women who have over a hundred thousand followers and can’t make more than 5,000 a month.
And then I have worked with women who have less than 5,000 followers and make multiple six figures. So I genuinely think it comes down to your uniqueness and your business, like being able to understand business and how it works. Some people just don’t understand the business. And that’s when at that point, know your weakness, right?
Do the course, hire the mentor, join the mastermind, whatever works for you. But I don’t. That has nothing to do with anything.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Got it.
Jennifer Morilla: Yeah.
Stephanie Skryzowski: It’s very easy to, I mean, cause that is one number that’s public right. We can go see how many followers. And so we just automatically, and I know too, like I’m behind the scenes in a many, many, many businesses and I follow our clients on Instagram and then I see how much money they make and you’re right, there is no correlation at all. But I even tell myself that. Like I’ve wanted to launch different courses or different sort of smaller ticket offers. I’m like, I only have like, whatever, thousands of followers on Instagram, I can’t do it. So I fall into the same trap. It’s just, yeah, that’s interesting.
Jennifer Morilla: I think it’s all about the value that you provide. And just the, obviously the more eyeballs you get, the more chances you have of serving more people. But I don’t necessarily mean that it’s going to make you less or more successful if you have a smaller or bigger audience. But it really comes down to the value that you have.
Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s super encouraging for people like me that do not have a big social following. Okay. So I feel like we could definitely keep talking forever and ever, but we should probably wrap it up. Thank you so much for sharing all of the behind the scenes of your journey. I feel like it’s just so encouraging for people that feel like they’re in that sort of like the low of the rollercoaster before things shoot up again, and it just can feel hard and hopeless, and I just really appreciate you sharing your story and all of your helpful tips along the way. Where can our listeners find you?
Jennifer Morilla: They find me on Instagram Jen Morilla. Well, it’s jennifer.morilla or you can go to jenmorilla.com but I’m redoing my website. So hit me up on Instagram.
That’s where I’ll be hanging out. On YouTube, same name doesn’t matter.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Cool. Awesome. All right, Jen, thank you so much. It was great to chat with you today.
Jennifer Morilla: Thanks, Steph.
Stephanie Skryzowski: Thanks for listening to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. To access our show notes and bonus content. Visit 100degreesconsulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on Instagram @stephanie.skry and I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here, friends. And I’ll see you next time.
