How Samantha Jaras used organic marketing to start and skyrocket her business – even through her maternity leave!
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I’m here with Samantha Jaras, who is a productivity and mindset coach for six-figure CEOs. She probably has a better title for that, but that’s how I think of her in my head. I’ve known her for almost three years now.
She was a client of mine, and then I was a client of hers, and now we’re colleagues and refer people to each other.
I’m really excited to share her story with you, because she started with absolutely nothing and then did $7,500 in sales her first month, after a pivot, with organic marketing and no existing audience. And then, she’s had as high as a $10,000 week, I believe.
Introducing: Samantha Jaras, Productivity Mindset Coach
Thank you for having me. This is always super, super fun, and I appreciate you. It’s been really fun working together. We’ve known each other a long time!
So, I’m Sam. For those of you that don’t know me, you can follow me on Instagram, @purposelyproductive. I help businesses that provide services just keep things really, really simple and systemize and automate their business. Whether it’s your client experience or your time management, doing ClickUp, Dubsado, CRMs, all of the things, we just try and keep it simple and really help you organize yourself and automate as much as you can so that you’re out of the weeds and actually focused on the impact that you want to have.
So that’s me, in a nutshell. I’m a mama, I have two kiddos. One is five and one’s five months old. Just living life and it’s been super fun – getting better every day.
Curious about getting a business coach for female entrepreneurs? Check out this post.
How Samantha Started Her Business
Back when we met, you had a job that was half service based, half sales based. So you had some experience with entrepreneurship, but what was making you want to leave that to do your own thing full-time?
Entrepreneurship literally runs in my blood.
My mom says that I can sell shit to a farmer. And she was always like, “Oh, you’re going to be in sales for sure.” And I have been in sales and marketing, and things like that, for the better part of almost 10 years now.
I started with MLMs and network marketing straight out of high school and throughout college. And then ended up in a direct sales job where I was basically a concierge or clothier, selling custom suits and clothing and things like that.
I would hang out with a lot of really, really awesome CEOs and other great people. What I loved about the job was the people and the relationships. But, what was challenging about it for me is that I really wanted to be able to work remotely, and be able to stop in the middle of my day if I wanted to just hang out with my kids and watch an episode on the couch of whatever favorite show I was into at the time.
I knew it was possible, but had no idea how.
I didn’t want that lifestyle from the company that I was at. So it’s not that anything I wanted wasn’t possible there, it was just that I envisioned something a little bit more casual.
That was all right about the time of the pandemic; 2020 happens, major life happenings are going on. And I started a really, really deep inner journey that also led me to a myriad of other decisions that were really awesome that year.
But as soon as the pandemic hit, they all sent us home so that we could work from home. And I loved that! But then my birthday, which is in June, hit and they called us all back in. And I was like, “Nope, it’s not for me.”
So it was the right amount of incentive I think.
Super proud of you for that.
Utilizing Organic Marketing
Next questions: how did you get started with organic marketing and getting clients then versus how you do it now? How did you get those first clients? And $7,500 of sales in your first month with no previous audience to speak of, what the hell did you do?
Well, I had come freshly out of a corporate job that involved making a ton of phone calls – 100 calls a day. I was booking appointments with clients, and showing up places where I maybe didn’t belong to see if I could connect and meet people, get introduced and make things happen.
So, I had a lot of that masculine energy, a lot of that drive still coming into what I ended up doing. I wanted to focus more on the systems and the backend piece of getting sales and making things happen. What I ended up starting out as is a tech VA/OVM type thing, and really just helping people get started with their business. So I was building websites. I was setting up sales funnels, lead magnet in opt-ins, email automations, all of that stuff.
A lot of it, I had learned in starting my own blog. That’s how you and I originally got connected.
When I started out, I just had a clean slate. I was like, “I just want to serve people; just want to see how I can help these people and make an impact in their business.”
Tip: What is organic marketing?
Organic marketing is a strategy that generates traffic to your business over time rather than using paid methods. This includes blog posts, case studies, guest posts, unpaid tweets, and Facebook updates. Organic marketing uses SEO, social media, and a variety of other channels to increase brand awareness.(Source)
In Sam’s case, organic marketing refers to how she acquires clients using organic social media methods, without any paid traffic or paid social methods.
And to this day, that is truly my core mission: how can I help you?
What can I do to help you get to your goals that much easier? I know we joke all the time doing the basics better, but that’s really what it comes down to.
Tangibly, that just looked like getting connected into a couple of Facebook groups that I was having active conversations with people that were in there. I was posting and really just starting a conversation and bringing it into the DMs, which then led to sales calls, which then led to, oh yeah, I need help with us.
Then we would figure out a custom package and put it together and roll with it. That was the entire first year and a half of my business. It was a lot of fun, but there were ups and downs. $7,500 in a month is awesome, and it was pretty consistent after that for month to month, but there were some ups and downs.
It basically just came down to relationship building and just starting to talk to people. As dumb as that sounds, so simple, that’s what it was.
Organic Marketing Strategy in Facebook Groups
For organic marketing, how do you leverage Facebook groups and posting content, and getting in the DMs in a way that is authentic, that feels easeful for you and aligned, without just feeling like you’re skimming somebody else’s customers? And how do you get into the DMs in a way that doesn’t feel gross?
Really good question. I get this a lot actually, even to this day, people ask, “How are you selling so much?” And I’m like, “I’m just helping people guys, that’s it.”
But when it comes down to it, the reason that I was in the Facebook groups to begin with wasn’t to make sales, it was because there was something inside of that group that I either wanted to learn, or there were people in there that I genuinely wanted to connect with and understand a little bit more about what they did, who they were, things like that.
Oftentimes, these groups were mom business groups or entrepreneur groups for online entrepreneurs.
I’m from Cleveland y’all, there’s not a lot of digital entrepreneurs that hang out in coffee shops around here.
They’re just not, we’re really busy and we all have children and lots of things to do.
So it really started out as a way for me to build community.
From there, when you’re inside of these Facebook groups, people are helping people constantly. If you’ve not seen this, go jump inside of a Facebook group and just read some of the posts, genuinely engage with it if it resonates with you: “hey man, this was a really great post.”
Or, if somebody asked a question about email stuff and I happened to know the answer. I would throw the answer in there because I want to help them solve the problem. I wasn’t there to sell them into my offers or sell them into my services, I genuinely just wanted to help them along their journey.
If they wanted to come to me for additional support, awesome sauce, I’m more than happy to help.
Part of the reason things can feel sleazy in the sales realm of things has a lot to do with the inner work of how you feel about your own services, and how you feel about what you do. That was probably one of the biggest shifts in working with you.
From there, I mean, once you’re in the comments, it’s hey, if you have any question shoot me a DM. Feel free to reach out. Being available for and supporting other people in a way that feels good to you.
If that doesn’t feel good to you, I don’t recommend doing it.
To be honest, I wanted to be really awesome at Instagram and do this exact same thing on Instagram, and for me, it just isn’t aligned right now, so I don’t do it. Do I have people reach out to me on Instagram? Sure. But I’ve also built a brand name for myself. I’ve laid the foundation of being able to know what I do, know what it’s worth, and know why people want it. I think that’s probably the other piece in the organic marketing side of things and getting clients: why would your clients want to work with you? Genuinely. If you can answer that question for yourself, then you’re off to a really, really good start, if that makes sense.
How to Get Consistent Sales Online with Organic Marketing
I love that. Now, obviously, we learn these different tools, and then you have to systemize it for yourself somehow. What’s your process today for getting consistent sales and leads in the door?
It’s actually the exact same process, with the addition of the foundation that I’ve built for myself. I’ve also niched a little bit and gotten really specific about who I do and don’t work with. A lot of that was trial and error. You can’t think your way to understanding exactly what you want.
Yes! Louder for the people in the back.
You can’t think your way to figuring it out, guys. You can’t. It literally took me two and a half years to understand what I do now and who I serve on a very, very deep level.
And now, I can talk to those people because I understand them. I have been there, I have gone through the pieces, and also I’ve done the work. So what I do now is very specific. I help my clients implement Dubsado and ClickUp and various tools in tech to help support them in their service based business, scaling and growth.
That is the simplest way that I could iterate it. And so in getting specific, my groups have shifted a little bit. I get really keyword specific. When I go into a Facebook group, I generally just keyword search whatever it is I’m going in there for.
For example, Dubsado is a tool that I use, that I love and that I build for clients. So I’ll go into a group and I will keyword search Dubsado and see what comments come up. If there’s a relevant post about it and somebody’s raving about it or has a question or something like that, I will put my two cents in as an expert because I know the platform, I execute it, I implement it.
As I started implementing systems for myself, I was able to understand my own client process more and more.
Then, I started identifying the things I was doing on a repeat basis. My mind is constantly thinking about systems for everything. And so I started seeing patterns with all of my clients, and I started putting together processes and things like that. So if you were to ask me, what’s my process, well, first we simplify the heck out of what it is you’re doing and how you’re spending your time.
Because if you’re in the weeds, you cannot even begin to grow. If you don’t create space for yourself and simplify that, then how can you possibly think about any new and exciting, awesome things that you want to be doing? And that’s a lot of the feminine energy, the balance to the masculine side.
But once we’ve simplified your sales process or your client onboarding, or your technology stack, now we can start from there and start piecing together a simpler way for it all to work together smoothly.
So, that begins the construction phase of building the solutions in order to make it simple. And then the third and final phase, which is probably the most important one, is integrating it and educating you on how to use it and how to get your team involved with it.
Being Genuine in Groups
There’s a lot of Facebook groups that are not so great. You really have to join a shit ton of them. And then you can leave the ones that don’t serve you. If you’re not interested in the group then don’t try to use it, it needs to be a genuine experience. So, do you do this every day, where you’re looking in groups?
No. I am one of the laziest people when it comes to taking action to get clients, because I just know that the right clients will resonate.
A lot of times my clients come from referrals, too. But when you’re just getting started, it can be really, really challenging because you don’t have that foundation kind of squad that’ll say, “she’s a total boss and you need to work with her.”
When I first started out with an organic marketing strategy, I would do it a couple times a week for sure.
My best recommendation, though, is to be consistent about it and do it every day.
Nowadays, I just go in and I set aside a set timeframe: give yourself 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. Do your keyword search, respond to some things and then let the Facebook notifications guide you as to what your next steps are after that.
If you answer your notifications while you’re doing your keyword search and things like that, and you start bouncing around, you’re going to lose track of what you were doing. You’re going to forget where things were; it’s just going to be super messy, and you’re going to get lost in the Facebook squirrel hole, for real.
Honestly, that’s where I was losing a lot of time doing organic marketing. So even to this day, I’ve backed away from doing that as often as I used to, which is okay. Because I have a foundation now to help me nurture some of that and bring some things and share what I do without me having to word vomit it all the time.
It’s very much a machine you have to build from the ground up, and then it gets less task oriented as you go.
I’m curious where your monthly income is now, six month average.
On average, I’m hitting over five figure months, which is super awesome, considering that I had a baby in September and my sales have not dipped.
I’ve been consistently at that five figure mark since I had her; that was the first time that I had a five figure cash month and then kept going. The momentum hasn’t stopped, which is awesome. I’m really excited about that.
But, it didn’t always used to be that way. It started out mid low fours and then it would creep up and then it would yo-yo.
Can you talk about your mindset struggles?
And then, what’s helping you to stay more consistent as opposed to tons of money, no money, tons of money, no money. It’s always nice to make tons of money, but then making no money the following month is the problem.
I’ve got two really, really clear examples of this exact scenario, and both of them have led to momentous growth.
The first one: last year, in the beginning of the year, I very transparently was not making money. Literally, I had two back to back, $2000-$3,000 months. That may not sound too bad, but I’m the breadwinner of the family. Our expenses are much higher. I am living on my own; – my bills have to be paid.
In February or March, I had borrowed money from my mom a couple of times just to pay rent because the invoices were hitting weird. I was just trying to keep food on the table, but I felt this pressure to do more. I wanted to expand and grow.
So first off it’s a want, not a need. Yes, I needed to put food on the table, but I wanted to make it happen in this way.
So that’s probably one of the biggest mindset shift/tangible things: start shifting your language around what it is you actually want and start going after what you want and not what you feel like you should do, or you need to do.
So, I didn’t have much money to my name. I had an invoice come in, and I had two programs that I was looking at investing in. And I ended up investing in both and they had payment plans and I was shitting bricks, I was so nervous.
One of them was a really, really close, intimate mastermind. It was just a handful of women and it was much more like feminine energy, fluid type of construct. And the other one was very tangibly a program designed to help you get more clients, give you some more structure around building a community, and nurturing a Facebook group in order to get clients on the back end.
Well, the month that I joined both of those programs, I ended up closing three clients that amounted to more than enough to cover the one full program. Which blew my mind, but it also showed me that when you trust yourself and you do what you actually desire to do, you are way more powerful than you can ever possibly imagine.
I learned that this could look like whatever I want, and I could still make money doing it.
So, right before my maternity leave was supposed to start, literally the month before, I had a $500 month. That’s all I made. $500! And I was like, “Are you kidding me?? I’m about to have a baby! Thank you, universe. Goodness, gracious.”
I literally was about to have a baby and take a month off. A team member was helping me; there were clients that I was supporting, and clients on either end of this maternity leave. I had some clients and projects, though, that ended up going in a different direction and just didn’t need my support. That was a blessing, because it helped me create space for myself.
So: I started taking care of myself better.
And, I started with: “What do I want this to look like?” instead of, “What do I need in order to pay the bills?”
In this maternity leave and leading up to it, I created way more space inside of my day, and way more space inside of my body. I started really getting deep and in tune with myself, journaling more and doing the inner work that I had been avoiding in order to expand and just see what it was I wanted to do.
It starts with curiosity, and then it just kind of unravels from there.
After that, when I had my daughter, I knew that she’s counting on me to love myself first and foremost. And I realized that there were some things that needed to shift in my business.
I got really specific.
I started simplifying what I was doing so that I could communicate it better, which always leads to more clients, doing deposits for projects and then changing my payment plan structure so that I could get paid better. And then in January of this year, I shifted it to pay in full or 50/50 payments, and that’s it. I’m not taking a $500 deposit to hold the project date. That’s just not what I felt good about. Sometimes, you just have to recognize where you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Prior to me having my daughter, too, I was just not charging enough money for my services.
I wasn’t doing it in a way that felt good to me. One of the things I’ve moved away from is hourly work and gotten into project based work.
So really, just playing around with the idea of what it could look like, just doing some reimagining is probably where it all started for me.
Maternity Leave
So you had a $500 month right before your baby was born. And then you did $10,000 the month your baby was born?
The month of my maternity leave, I had some recurring payments come in. I also had a client that I booked that month.
So, when I say I wasn’t working, what I mean is that I wasn’t doing anything I didn’t want to do. If I was on Facebook, it’s because I wanted to be there. If I was hanging out in the DMs, it was because I wanted to be there.
But yes, the $10,000 month happened in November and it’s been pretty steady since.
It helps that since September or October, I’ve had recurring revenue in addition to new clients coming on every single month. That is really awesome, because you’re not starting a month at zero, you’re starting it at wherever you’re at. Super helpful.
Being Safe Figuring it Out
That’s funny that you talk about the payment plans because I’ve been working on balancing pay in full with payment plans. My monthly recurring isn’t up to where I want it yet; I’m about 25% of the way there. I really want the monthly recurring to cover all of my base expenses, period. So yeah, the income stacking for the win.
Yep. That’s exactly where I’m headed to. I’m about halfway there – to covering all of my base expenses, which is challenging to feel safe in that.
And I think that’s really what’s come up most recently for me – being safe.
You have to remember that, first of all, so far you’ve got a 100% rate of figuring it out.
Right? You’ve figured it out up until here, and you’re going to keep figuring it out, because it’s part of who you are.
And second, feeling safe knowing that the actions you are putting out are always going to come back to you. More is always coming. It’s always on its way, and it’s always going to work out. I think that’s probably the other biggest mindset shift that’s happened, that has helped me to feel more sense of calm and peace in my own body.
I love what you just said so much, both of those things. The whole idea of feeling safe reaching for bigger, feeling safe investing, feeling safe having and keeping.
One of the things I’ve been doing is to ask myself:
- where is it in my body that I’m feeling this?
- where is it coming from?
- what is actually the worst thing that could happen?
- why am I feeling like this right now?
And that’s just being really, really mindful. I mean, you’re all about mindful marketing. It’s kind of the core of it.
Well, I love your story so much. I’m inspired by you and I can’t wait to see what’s next. And for you to hit your multiple six figure year, maybe even this year. Do you have any advice or number one thing you wish you knew?
Sure: don’t listen to the people that don’t know what you’re feeling.
Maybe that’s a poor way to word it. But one of the things that always gets me into trouble is that I have a tendency to want to give, and give, and give, and please, and please, and please, and not know how to ask for what I need or want in return. There’s constantly people that are giving me advice about things ; I have to be mindful of who am I listening to and what am I taking in on a regular basis. What am I pouring back into myself?
Am I:
- reading good books or am I just watching a bunch of TV?
- listening to podcasts?
- conscious of the people that I’m listening to on social media?
Also, if you’re going to seek out advice, tell the whole story. Get really, really clear with yourself and how you feel, and then communicate that so that you can get a soundboard that is objective instead of subjective.
Pay attention to your energy, because you can’t get that back just like you can’t get time back.
And when you follow that and you follow what feels good and what energetically makes sense for you, you’re going to be so much happier in the long haul, regardless of what you’re doing. That’s just in life.
It All Works
And your organic marketing strategy works well for you, and it feels easy – and I’ve had other clients use that and be like, “Yeah, I’m never going to message anybody ever, period. I’m just not.” And that has worked for them because they’re the people who force themselves into saying it doesn’t feel good.
At the end of the day, and this is another lesson that I’ve learned that you’ll probably learn too, it all works.
Exactly. A blog works, social media organic marketing works, a YouTube channel works, a podcast works. It all works. It’s just, what do you want to stick with? What feels fun for you? What do you want to do every day?
And it’s okay if that changes season to season and month to month too. The best part about any and all of that is as I’ve developed this process and the system that I take my clients to, now I have the ability to communicate it, which means that I can now transfer that to any platform I desire or any type of content or anything like that.
I can come on podcasts like this one and chat about all of the things that I know and love and then people can go check out my Instagram and know exactly what I’m all about. Having that landing place where, if somebody’s about to knock at your door and walk into your party, are they in the right party place.
That’s where blogs and podcasts and YouTube and all of that stuff for me is, that’s what excites me about that is because it’s just there, it lives on forever, which is dope.
So we can find you at purposefullyproductive.com, and on Instagram @purposefullyproductive. Did you have any free gifts, op-ins or anything else you want to promote?
Well, I’m getting some new blog content out. So if you want to learn anything about systems, Dubsado, ClickUp, how to manage your time inside of your service based business, or even some of the things that you’re really losing time doing, check it out on my website.
About Samantha Jaras
I’m a systems and tech solutions expert for 6 & 7 figure entrepreneurs who are looking to simplify their operations and their service based businesses – I keep it simple. CRM, Email Automation & Project Management are my JAM and keeping everyone in your boat moving in the same direction gets me giddy. I’m a mama, margarita & coffee lover, and a voracious reader and I’m here just to help people simplify the F*** out of how they do business and make their impact.
I specialize in marrying Dubsado + ClickUp, and making your client experience INCREDIBLE and feeling LUSH for your people – because you deserve to have raving fans too 🙂
www.purposefullyproductive.com
@purposefullyproductive on Instagram
Samantha Jaras on Linkedin 🙂
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