This week, I’m chatting with my client and Better Collective member, Jessica Hottle! In this episode, we talked about her journey in business and the importance of starting and growing slow.
Connect with Jessica: jessicahottle.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Jessica Freeman
Welcome to the work your wellness biz podcast, a podcast for nutrition and fitness professionals. I’m your host, Jess Freeman here to help you save time and look good online. Welcome back to another episode. This is another spotlight episode where I’m highlighting one of my better collective members. And I am so excited because Jessica is one of my OG clients we work together for, I don’t know, a few years, I don’t even know it’s been like, finally,
Jessica Hottle
it’s been about four or years. Yeah, cuz my second book was a worthy wife. And that’s when you came in and created the cover.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah. So it’s been we’ve known each other for a while and work together. And so I’m just excited to, to highlight you and have everyone know about you. So let’s start off with what your businesses and what you do.
Jessica Hottle
Yeah, well, thanks for having me, just like, like you said, we have known each other for a long time. And usually, whatever you have, I’m like, Okay, tell me more about it. Because you make things so doable. And I say that, you know, cuz I always tell you that I’m like, you just make it sound so simple. But for me, I love helping women get emotionally and physically healthy while keeping God at the center.
But there’s also this two part of me where I have a ministry that isn’t based on fitness, and I have a fitness ministry that I that I also do there started more than 10 years ago. So there’s like these two parts of me, but they kind of all fall under the umbrella of helping women step out of emotional fragility, I help women step out of emotional fragility and into emotional stability God’s way.
And that’s kind of where we really started at the base of helping women get a hold of their emotions, basically, because I was a girl that was on the emotional rollercoaster for a long time. So both businesses, both sides of what I do is based on that,
Jessica Freeman
I love it. And you really are a great example of someone who has like these two businesses that are separate, but do overlap. And so I just I know, there are a lot of people who like are multi passionate, like you and have different ideas.
And sometimes they don’t overlap. Like some things are just not meant to overlap. They just are not related. But then sometimes they can. And I just think yours is so nicely woven together.
And it just, I love it. I think you’ve done a really great job with doing that. So in like, I mean, does it feel like it’s on your end? Does it feel like it’s woven together nicely? Are you like, yeah, this all makes sense. Are you like, um, I don’t know if this all goes together or not? Like, does it feel scattered? Or does it feel like, This all makes sense. And this all like, fits together?
Jessica Hottle
It feels like it all fits together. For me, since I have two. I have two Instagrams. And that’s where basically my brain is separated into all the time. Because the one Instagram Jessica Hottle, I don’t post any fitness like at all. And my living free living healthy is where, like workouts and food and all of that is, that’s the only thing that’s hard for me sometimes is some of the content overlaps as far as experience.
So body healing, emotional healing, physical healing, of where do I put what, where, and making sure that I’m giving people on each audience of what they are there for. And you know, people are Jessica huddle or not for fitness for there. And so it’s that’s the only thing where I’m like, I just wish these two could be together. But they can’t be together. They’re just like sisters. And that that’s the only thing is I have to toggle.
And that’s a lot of stories. If you have one Instagram account, you know what it’s like to have to do stories. And so I have two Instagram accounts to manage two different stories. And that’s where it’s been a little rough for me.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah, I can understand that. And that’s, that is honestly one of the things I hear the most when people have two different businesses or two different things are doing they’re like, could I just do this under one Instagram? And I’m like, probably not. Probably not.
And they’re like doing it. Yeah, he still tried to do it anyways. And I’m like, it’s just you’re gonna confuse your audience, because then people don’t know what to expect when I pull up your Instagram. They never know. Like, are you gonna be posting about this? Or posting about that? I don’t know. Yeah, it’s true. It just makes it easier to split it up, even though then the posting and the story is kind of double the work. But
Jessica Hottle
yeah, instead of five posts a week. 10 Yeah. So I think that that is truly one of the hardest so I do a lot of repurposing of content because it’s kind of the same and that helps me a lot. Yeah, but yeah, I think for me, I used to run Jessica huddle back in the day with fitness and everything, but it was hard to again, I noticed when you just focus on fitness in that area. It’s really it’s A little bit easier to build that brand around that specific niche.
And then for my ministry, it’s more my speaking my, like just kind of sharing a little bit more life and things like that. And my speaking in my writing.
Jessica Freeman
Nice, nice. So you were one of my founding members, my OG members for the better collective. I would love to hear why you decided to join the membership whenever I opened it.
Jessica Hottle
Well, let’s just be honest, I’m not. I’ve always been, I’m not tech girl, I think every problem that I have I email you with on my chest, I can’t do this button, how do I do this? How do I do this? And you’re like, just do this? And I’m like, No, can you give me three steps to your one. And for me, I just knew it wasn’t, it was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss out on because in business, especially the things that you were talking about, and you still do talk about, you know, SEO, just how to market you know.
I just got to listening to the one with Heidi about creating an intake form, just the things that are not sexy in the business. And I know a lot of people don’t want to hear that. But those were areas I was actually missing opportunity. I never did SEO didn’t. Don’t even like it still gives me headaches, to be honest. But at least I have green bubbles now on my website. Yes, things are slowly getting there.
And for me, I wanted my website to really work for me, because I always used to look at my website is just being kind of a staging area versus somewhat like a shop, I guess you can say. And for me, I say shop as in where it actually people were organically finding me like that’s my ultimate goal is to get the organic search up making sure SEO so that i i want to take more time off, so to speak, my website can run that for me and have funnels in place and stuff.
And I feel like your community talks a lot about that stuff that’s not sexy, that needs to be done. That’s highly beneficial when done in that that’s why I joined because I didn’t want to miss the opportunities in my business. But I knew I was missing out on.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah, maybe I should rename it to the not sexy parts of business membership.
Jessica Hottle
We’re probably like, yeah, I get it. Great. Fun, is like, a lot of the work that we do inside of the better collective is stuff that people don’t see, they don’t see SEO, they don’t see, you know, like learning stuff about well, if you save a photo, make sure it’s saved as SEO. So when you upload it to your website, like who knows that, like I didn’t know that.
And I learned that by reading one of the posts inside of the community, right to make sure that you name your photo before you upload it to your website, which I’ve been doing wrong for some things. So it’s like, it’s just those things that nobody sees, but that can create the most impact in your business long term.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah. And I think part of it is also sometimes it’s just knowing like, oh, okay, so like, I’m not the only one who’s not doing all the things on this checklist. And that’s okay. And like in a workshop, earlier this week, I was going through some SEO stuff. And then I showed a report from my own website. And I was like, see, look, I’m not perfect either. Like I still have some things that are missing are things that need fix, like broken links, and whatever.
And I literally could see on the looks of the people that were there live that were like, refreshing, like, I like I don’t, I don’t have to be perfect. I’m like, Yeah, like we’re not doing perfection here. We’re just trying to like, make it better. So we still all around your website’s better. SEO is better, all that kind of stuff.
Jessica Hottle
And I love that too, that you always you always have links, you always have quick hacks, thank goodness, because for me, I like try to save all the links we need leave that and like a document like here’s your Quick Links to like, here’s your check your broken links.
Here’s the check your there’s like another couple other things like broken links, where your where else you’re in other people’s website, is that another link? Yep. Yeah, we needed all that in a document because I would reference that like crazy. I need to do like every quarter.
Jessica Freeman
Note to self, notice document of quick links. Yeah. Perfect. I can do that. Um, yes. So kind of along those same lines, what would you say is one of your biggest takeaways that you’ve had from the community
Jessica Hottle
that things aren’t as hard as they always they seem to be until you when you break them down. I’m a very visual person. And if I have pictures or a video, like it’s so it’s really easy for me. So when you send looms, which is a screen recording service, or when there’s pictures right of things that weren’t supposed to look like I realized that it’s not as hard and if I just like slow my roll for a minute, I can figure it out for the most part.
I mean, granted, there’s still a lot of tech stuff that I don’t understand. I’m just a completely overwhelmed And shuts me down literally like my brain will go from high energy to zero energy as soon as I switch over to tech. But I’ve learned that if I watch a training or something like that, I can just do what I can do. And then I make a list for you. I literally go through the trainings, and I do everything that I can do.
And then I make a list for you. And I say, Jess, I tried everything I possibly could, how do you do this? And and she’s like, Well, you know, you just started I’m like, okay, I didn’t know that. It wasn’t even looking in that area. And that’s just kind of our system that it is.
Jessica Freeman
I love it, though. I love it. I like this little workflow, do what I can and then just talk Jess about the rest. Yeah. And then I’m like, How much? Is it gonna cost me? Okay, you can do it. Just go fix all the rest of the things, please. Thank you. Yeah,
Jessica Hottle
yeah, that’s really but it really that is something that was huge for me was I can learn about SEO, I can learn how to understand Google Analytics. I still don’t understand half of it. But it’s always an area of how can I outsource something that I don’t know. And that you know, if you’re a new entrepreneur or something like that, that’s huge. Like you really should know the basics and understanding of it before you outsource it. can’t recommend that enough.
Because how will know if somebody is ripping you off or not doing the right things if you haven’t done those first yourself, or watch trainings on them. So for me, if I hire somebody for SEO, I don’t know all the things, but I can at least have an idea of you know, if there’s a bunch of red bubbles or you know, things aren’t readable or whatever I know, well, they’re not doing what SEO is required.
Jessica Freeman
Right? Also, if you guys are wondering what the bubbles are that she’s talking about these these green bubbles greenbone people like she’s green bubbles on our website, what it says the bubbles that she is referring to you is Yoast, the Yoast WordPress plug in, it’ll give you like a little green.if you like you’ve optimized everything you basically it’s like a thumbs up or like you got an A on your SEO for that page or that post and read is like, this is not optimized. What are you doing? Like, this is awful.
Jessica Hottle
And now I can’t even have like an orange and orange. Just kind of like you’re almost there. Keep going. Yeah, orange now.
Jessica Freeman
Okay.
Jessica Hottle
Yeah, like, how do I get the green show me how to get green cuz now I can’t do anything but green. And if there’s red, we’re definitely not publishing. So we’re gonna figure out how to change it until we get it until we get to Greenstone.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah, so I, you know, part of the reason that I want to highlight you guys as members is because you guys do a lot of amazing stuff as well. So I’d love for you to just share a chip that you have for other business owners who are listening.
Jessica Hottle
For me, it’s be willing to start slow and grow slow. I wish I would have taken that advice. 10, more than 10 years ago, when I started my business, you know, I’m I’m 33 at the time this recording, and I started when I was 22. And I was just popping money wherever I made it, I just spent it. And you have to do that to a degree, right. But I wasn’t wise, I was doing this mastermind doing this training, you know, I wasn’t what what do I need now, you know, am I willing to grow slow.
And in the end, some of that has hurt me. You know, some people look at my audience size and think that it equals off all themes and success, right. But I built so much of that early on when I didn’t know what I was doing. And so if we aren’t willing to start slow and grow slow, which is sustainable growth, then it’s easy for us to get ahead of probably what we’re supposed to be doing in that season.
And that’s where comparison comes in. That’s where frustration to high levels come in. I think that’s where we see so many quote unquote, influencers taking so many breaks, because they’re just trying to live up to an expectation of, Oh, I gotta make this million dollars, because I made it last year. I’m just giving examples. It’s just we live up to a standard, but we can’t often live up to the standard because we grow it so fast.
And we’re not willing to say put all the people into place, put all the, you know, maybe the extra income or I’m trying to think of like services that are really necessary to protect your website and things like that, that in the long run aren’t sexy, we’re gonna just keep saying that, but that do help your business long term. So for me, that was huge. Just Hey, listen, you only have 100 followers. Great. I would I look for more now.
And I don’t know about you just but I don’t look at the number size anymore. I look at how engaged are there people? Yes, that’s huge for me. And the algorithms like my reach right now is so down. It’s like, it’s like, you know, 20 people like my posts, you know, and I have like, 12,000 followers, and I’m like, this is it’s just not normal for me, right? And if we hinge our works based off of an algorithm or engagement, then we’re going to miss the point every time. Mm hmm.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah. Think that reminder of growing slow is so important. I see so many people who are like, but I want to hit six figures in my like first year, or my second year or like it. You want the long game? Like, yep. I mean, yes, obviously, who’s going to turn down six figures in your first year. But it’s that long game, like you want to be here. In the next, like, 10 years from now? Yeah, you don’t want to just be here next year, like I, you know, like on the Facebook memories, or like timehop, it’ll like show pictures and all that.
And there are, I think it’s only like two different pictures that pop up with entrepreneurs, like in my area from like, six, seven years ago. And I’m the only one that’s still in business. And I don’t mean that to like brag, but like in some of them have like intentionally closed their business not like like they like, didn’t want to do it anymore, or whatever. But it’s like, I don’t have I don’t make millions. I’m not, you know, 10s of yet. yet.
She says, I don’t have 10s and 1000s of followers. But I’m like I what I want is a sustainable business. I don’t want to flashy fancy business. And I think that’s what we have to remember is like, do you want to be like, instant famous? Or do you want a sustainable business that’s going to help support you and your family for years to come? That’s what we need to focus on.
Jessica Hottle
So yeah, I think when we go for Insta famous, we’re doing it for us. I mean, you know, I was I’m a believer, and I love Jesus. And when I try to make myself Insta famous, that’s when I just fall on my face, say and that’s when I present my business, my family life. I don’t do anything fun. I mean, that’s that when people asked me when I first started my business, like, Hey, what do you do for fun, I’m like, work, because I was working three jobs.
I was I was building, you know, my side business. And just another encouragement is, for me, again, audience size and like, I look at podcast downloads, and people are like, Oh, my second year, I have 500 million downloads or whatever. And I’m like, you can’t lose if you stay in it for the long haul. Because no matter what, like if you just stay in it and keep going, you always win.
Yep, you always make new connections, your you know, your podcast, or your business or whatever is always growing, if you’re just willing to show up over and over again, despite I mean, it took me forever this year to get to 10,000 downloads on my podcast, and I just felt like man, did he want me and then the discouragement comes in, like, people don’t care what I have to say, why am I doing this?
Right? And it was I mean, my podcast is based on lies. So it’s not really like SEO, it’s not really like popular, you know, per se. But that can be really discouraging. And I just feel like no, like, you just you have to keep going. You just have to keep showing you have to keep growing, you know, willing to grow. And yeah, that’s what I got.
Jessica Freeman
That’s that is one of the most common things that I tell people when they’re like, you’ve been in business for nine years, like what’s your best advice or like 2020 was my best year of business ever. And people are like, how, like in the middle of a pandemic? And I’m like, I kept showing up. Yeah, that that’s my magic secret kept showing up. Like, I didn’t really change anything in my business. There was no big shift. Like, I didn’t run a sale or like anything. It was like I just kept showing up. Yeah. And then that’s it.
Jessica Hottle
Here’s the thing, too, you have to understand is you had this business pretty solid before the pandemic hit. Right and not it’s not taking away you have what I’m trying to say is that’s actually good, is what I’m saying it was fertile ground. And a lot of people what I keep telling people now, especially women is like, just like you’re calling your business doesn’t know it’s a pandemic, right. But the seeds that you plant right now will be your harvest in the future.
So you planted seeds many months before this ever happened. And so you were still planting the seeds that created that harvest for this year. And that’s what’s so important. It doesn’t like I said doesn’t know a pandemic, it doesn’t know sickness, it doesn’t know a virus. It just knows when you show up and when you don’t. And I think that’s that’s important. So if you’re like, well, I’m just gonna wait until the pandemics over Guess what?
It’s gonna take you months probably to get that momentum after because you made it no seeds in that time. It’s just you got to just show up, just show up. do research. That’s a seat. You know, if you were like, I don’t know how to start podcasts. Oh, great. Watch your training, you know, read, do research. Like all of that is seeds that’s planting for your harvest in the future.
Jessica Freeman
Everything you can find on Google, you can google everything. Like Yeah, there. You can start that research on Google. And yes, there are paid resources and whatnot. But like, you can at least start the process just by googling And start figuring it out. Yeah. So Well speaking of tools like Google, what is your favorite tool or app or whatever you want to call it that you love to recommend?
Jessica Hottle
Well, I think for me too, would be Boomerang for Gmail. If you’re doing podcast pitching or you need to do a lot of follow ups, that’s perfect because then I don’t have to think about it as much I can just have it come back to me in seven days. That’s really what Okay, so if you don’t know what Boomerang Gmail is, that’s really the word describes itself, you can send an email to come back to you if they don’t respond in however many days or you can schedule an email to go out whenever you’d like because it’s really cool. So basically, the email you send out if they don’t respond literally comes back to you like a boomerang.
And since I’m a writer, and I do a lot of content creation, I use Grammarly all the time because I am really bad at it like poor My poor husband, my poor editors. I always tell I’m like listen, I’m trying I’m trying to try just helps me read through a little bit more try to get rid of wordiness you know and really helps me focus so those are two my two main if you do a lot of content creation, you can’t hire an editor but you can you know, do Grammarly for like 150 for the year whatever. That really just helps kind of fine tune you a little bit and give you some suggestions and stuff like that.
Jessica Freeman
My husband recently installed the Grammarly Chrome extension. Yeah, I think or maybe it was just a gmail extension. I think it’s Chrome.
Jessica Hottle
I think it’s chrome because it shows up everywhere. Yeah.
Jessica Freeman
And he was like cuz he is very bad about like leaving out words. Yeah, like can be like Hi my name is Aaron. But then he types hi Aaron. Or like, Hi my Aaron. They’ll be like one word. He doesn’t even in text to me. And I love him but he does and he knows he does it and he I mean literally like five minutes after he installed that he was like Grammarly is awesome I know I’m aware. Yes, like welcome welcome. Yeah, I don’t use Boomerang but I use it’s not a plugin it’s just like an extension in Gmail called mail max that
Jessica Hottle
never heard that one. I think that’s what now that I say that it’s something like that.
Jessica Freeman
Basically, it lets me track emails. So like
Jessica Hottle
when you when you get the little checkmarks I’m like oh no, she does read this Yes. Yeah, cuz I’ll read it and then mark it as as on read like two days later I’ll respond whenever I sit down to do that. I’m like I’ll think to myself I’m like she already knows I read this but it’s fine.
Jessica Freeman
No, it’s okay like see like that stuff? I’m like Oh, they read it like she’ll get back to me or whatever. Yeah, but it’s when I don’t see the checkmark and I’m like to they go to spam Yeah, they’re just not read it yet. Yeah, like whatever. But it is it’s kind of like sometimes I feel like it’s creepy.
But I find it mostly helpful but I literally get like a little pop up in the corner of my computer that’s like Jessica Harlow has opened re website updates or whatever. Exactly. Helen said no. So that’s my little that’s that I have I think I used to use Boomerang and then for some reason stopped but that’s another good one.
Jessica Hottle
It’s free is now max free yet mail fax or mail max. min max. Okay. Yeah, boomerangs free too.
Jessica Freeman
Yeah, it’s free. It just puts a little thing at the bottom of your email that’s like sent with me Linux. Yeah. Like, you know, it’s fine. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. You’re free to use it. Yeah. Well, this is really fun. I think we you shared some really good nuggets. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I would love for you to share where people can connect with you online.
Jessica Hottle
Well, you can hang out with me on one of my two Instagram accounts, whether you know which one you prefer or relate to the most. Jessica Hottle living through living healthy. And since you’re on a podcast now you can always come hang out with me on my podcast. It’s called what’s the truth? Those are my main places that I hang out at.
Jessica Freeman
I will put those links in the show notes. But thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me.
