Behind the Scenes of an Online Business Owner: Frequently Asked Questions
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I think many people just see me posting on Instagram but don’t really know or understand what goes on behind the scenes….and let me tell you, there is A LOT. I’m running an entire business!
So today, I want to dive into this topic with you. It’s one that I NEVER talk about, but it’s also a topic I am beyond passionate about. Plus, I’ve recently gotten quite a few questions about my online business, how it started, and my best advice, and that’s why I thought I would answer them in this podcast episode for you!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. A podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in and let's go.
Hello. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real Podcast. I'm really excited about today's episode. I think many people just see me and other people posting on Instagram. You may follow some of your favorites or you hear us posting episodes on the podcast or YouTube, and you don't really understand kind of what goes on behind the scenes or how they got there. And let me tell you, it's a lot. I'm running an entire business, multiple businesses actually, with different products and services. And I think it's very easy in the day and age that we live in to kind of follow somebody on social and walk in on their chapter 15, and almost assume that it's always been like that. Or assume that there hasn't been any hardships because you're currently watching them in their chapter 15, 16, or 17, and you didn't see how it started.
And it can almost feel discouraging for people, especially if they have a dream, but they just don't even know where to start or they feel like I'm so far from where I need to be. And that's just not the case. There is so much that has gone into this business. And if there's anything that you can get out of this podcast episode, I just hope that you get out, that you can do truly whatever you put your mind and heart to. And I believe that it's a God given potential that we have on this Earth. And there are so many people out there that love what they do, and they are not starting an online business and they're not entrepreneurs. And I think that that's beautiful. And I think that they are so needed in this world and then there's other people that have an idea and they pursue it. And then there's other people that have an idea, but they're too scared to pursue it.
And so I just want to encourage you, if you have an idea brewing or if you're just interested at all in kind of like the behind the scenes, tune in today's episode, I have gotten quite a few questions from you ladies on Instagram, just regarding my online business. So I thought that I would dive into a podcast episode for you with some of the most frequently asked questions. But before I do, I wanted to share this super sweet review. It comes from Bella Blue.
She says, "Thank you for having the courage. I think about food all the time and about if other people are noticing, if I look skinnier or that I need to be skinnier in order to be loved or liked. And there has not been one other podcast that I've listened to, that I can relate more on. I'm so grateful for you that you've had the courage to start this podcast and share your story because it's so similar to the way that I think, and it's helping me actually live my life and be happier and authentic. Because knowing that you've gone through what I'm going through, it makes it feel possible for me to love myself as I am too. And doing things now, because I hate my body, but because I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You have no idea how liberating and free I feel knowing that you have had similar thoughts to me and that you can love yourself now. Thank you. Also thank you for including God in your podcast and bringing people to Christ. You will definitely be blessed for that."
I loved this so much because I feel like this is just a perfect example of when you are doing what you feel passionate about, what you feel is a God given gift and potential, which I'll share a little bit about my story later in this episode. It's amazing what God can do and how you can help people just by sharing your story. And I think oftentimes that's where we even get stuck. We don't think that our story is worthy. We think who are we to be able to share this? Like, who are we to want to change something or create a product or a service or whatever it is that we have a dream of doing. And I just want to encourage you and empower you and remind you that you are here on this Earth to live out your God given potential.
And some of you might know exactly what that is. And some of you might not know that yet, but I want you to continue to pursue it and know that you will have a time in your life where you feel like, okay, this is actually what I'm supposed to be doing. And I also want to share not every single person is called to be an entrepreneur. Not every single person is called to be passionate about business. And so if that's you, this podcast might just be entertainment for you, to learn something new that maybe you didn't see before, you don't really see on the surface of Instagram or other carefully curated podcasts episodes. Or maybe you're on the flip side and maybe you are super passionate about business and you do want to learn more. Either way, I hope that this podcast serves you and I'm excited to share a little bit more. So I'm going to go into some frequently asked questions.
Question number one. How did you get started with your online business? Oh my goodness. So crazy. I get this question a lot and basically how it started is when I first started dating Josh, who was my boyfriend at the time, now husband, I had just graduated college and I was working in a salon. So it was a hair salon primarily in Fort Collins, Colorado as a manager. And I had actually just opened up the second location of that salon. At the time, Joshua had asked me to quit my job and work full time with him on a new business that he was starting. I basically told him that he was crazy. And then there's no way that that's going to work because he was just my boyfriend. And there's just no way that I was going to quit my full time career outside of school.
So I kind of just want to share a little bit backstory on how I even got into the salon. So you'll learn later in this episode that I did go to college. I got my business degree. I got a concentration in marketing from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, but I didn't always know that I wanted to go into business in particular. Social media wasn't really even a thing at that time. So when I went into college, I at first was just going to get my associates degree because I've always had this kind of passion to be in the beauty industry. So I really wanted to be a hairstylist. I don't know what it was, but something about it just attracted me. And so I was getting an associates degree.
And then I sat down with my dad who is in the corporate world. Nobody in my family are entrepreneurs really, like I come from a very corporate background type of family that works high up in healthcare. So anyways, I talked to my dad and he just suggested, okay, well, if you want to get your associates, at least get it for transfer because if you decide to go to hair school and not like it, or you decide you're about to go to hair school and then you kind of back out, at least you'll have something that will easily be able to transfer if you want to finish your last two years.
So I ended up doing that and my second year of college, so my sophomore year as I was getting my associates degree, I decided I'm just going to finish out the last two years. But at that time I was working three jobs and I was going to college full time. So I was working as a cashier at Panera Bread. I was waitressing at Texas Roadhouse, shout out Texas Roadhouse. That company is amazing. They're just amazing to their employees. It was an incredible job. It was fun. It was a really fun job. So I was waitressing. And then I also was like, okay, well maybe I should like dabble into the salon world first because I had never worked in a salon before. So I was like, maybe I should just work at a salon first to see if I even like it.
So I saw that there was like this front desk position open at one of the most popular salons at the time in Fort Collins. I decided to drop off my application in person so I dropped it off. It was like right before my shift, I think I was even in my Texas Roadhouse shirt, but anyways, and on the back of that shirt, it says, I love my job. So I'm like going into apply for this salon job. But at the same time as I'm walking out and they're probably looking at the back of my shirt, it says, I love my job. It was very contradictory. But anyways, I dropped off my application and followed up. I think I followed up like two or three times on a phone call, like following up to see if they wanted to interview me. Didn't get anything, got crickets you guys, like crickets for a complete seven months. You guys, it was nuts.
And then finally I got a phone call and I got an interview and immediately I got hired. And then from there I actually quit my Panera job. And then I was just working Texas Roadhouse, going to school and working at the salon. Eventually quit my Texas Roadhouse job, worked at the salon full time and went to college, finished out my last two years. At the time of that salon job, they were kind of exploding. So when I came on, I think they maybe had like 35 stylists. It was definitely a bigger salon in one location. And then I had opened up the second location on the other side of town for them and I was managing. So I had moved up to kind of like the salon manager at the second location. I loved that job. But in that time I found that I wasn't exactly passionate about hair. I was more so passionate about the business side of things.
So I thought for the trajectory of my life, I was going to franchise salons. I thought that I was going to literally open up salons across the country. And that's like what I thought that I wanted to do just because that was the role that I was playing in the business. I was managing the stylists, but I was also like in the business side of the salon. And I was really enjoying that. However, when I met Josh, so this is kind of where Josh comes in. So Josh had started Ledbetter and he was coaching people online. So this was back in 2012. And during that time, I had just started getting into fitness. I previously, like you guys know, had an eating and body image disorder, really struggled. If you've heard any of our story, Josh was kind of the first person that came to me and said, he asked me on our first date, do you have an eating disorder?
And so with his knowledge in health and exercise science and sports nutrition, he was really able to help coach me through this process of learning how to properly fuel my body and not be scared of weights. And so I had started getting into fitness. The idea of competing was kind of thrown around a little bit, but at the time I was wearing these headbands. So I had started posting on Instagram, but Instagram was still kind of like you used Instagram as a filter to download the picture and then upload it to Facebook. I don't know if you guys, OGs remember that, but that's what I was using Instagram for, but I was still posting stuff. And people started asking me about the headbands that I was wearing.
So I kind of was talking to Josh and I was like, what do we do? Like people are asking me about these headbands that I'm working out in and I want to create one that I really love. Like I was finding these headbands, but I wasn't loving every single one of them. So we decided to create a headband that I absolutely loved. And eventually I think we ordered our first 250 headbands. So at the time I had opened up the second location, but I was kind of doing a side gig thing that I was selling these headbands. It was really through Ledbetter, but I wasn't working through Ledbetter yet. And so that's kind of why Josh was like, hey, do you want to come on full time with Ledbetter? And you can kind of head up the apparel, I'll do the training. I was like, you're crazy. A part of me wanted to, but a part of me was also like torn because I had loved the business of kind of the beauty industry.
But eventually I ended up quitting my job at the salon and I dove into entrepreneurship full time. I was fully selling those headbands through Ledbetter's store. And they were like the fitness headbands and they started blowing up. So we ended up selling out the 250, like right away. So when I launched the 250 headbands, I was actually still working at the salon. And so I had put in my second order of headbands. And during that time, while I was waiting for the second order to come, that's when I quit my job, because I really found out that I really couldn't juggle both jobs. And I just felt like it wasn't in the salon's best interest and it wasn't in my best interest. Like I didn't want them paying me when I was not fully focused.
I just knew that my passion kind of veered to a different direction and it was time. So it was really scary honestly. I had just graduated college. I had a secure job and I felt like I had a future in franchising salons and managing salons. My family was a little bit confused. They've always been super supportive, but like I said before, we don't really have a history in our family of entrepreneurship. So it was really odd to quit a position that was secure and good right out of college. But I did, and I can hands down say that eight years later, it has been the best decision, one of the best decisions of my life, but also one of the hardest things I've ever done. Ledbetter is our online business that Joshua, like I said, initially started and it's grown into so much more than we could have ever imagined.
Joshua's whole story of starting Ledbetter is a whole other podcast episode I feel like I could do. In short, Josh had graduated from college completely certified and had so much experience and knowledge and expertise and passion, but he could not find a job. He was discriminated against. For those of you who don't know, my husband was born 100% deaf. And so he was discriminated against every time he went into an interview, there was no interpreter set up and it just led him to this frustration where he said, I'm going to take matters into my own hands. And I'm going to figure out how I can serve people the way that I can serve them, which is through the internet. And at the time in 2011, 2012, when he did that, that was like kind of unheard of. But he is so passionate and he's so driven and he will research any and everything to make sure that he knows the ins and outs. And so he actually was the one that started Ledbetter. And then I kind of came on and broke off into selling headbands through Ledbetter's store.
But it has been incredible to see where we've gone in these last eight years. Kind of long story short, that's how we got our online business started. And like I said, it's morphed into something way bigger than we could have ever imagined, but we're so grateful that we are here. And I'm so grateful that I took that leap. I remember being so scared to quit that job. I remember just sitting down with my boss and saying like, I can't do this. And I was so terrified because I just graduated college and was in a very financially secure job, but I knew that I had to take the risk. And I'm so grateful I did.
Question number two. What is one of the most important lessons you've learned owning an online business? So one of the most important lessons I've ever learned in business is people over profit. And I know that sounds really easy, but it's a lot harder to do, especially as you get more and more into the business world. It's very easy and very tempting to do certain things that may essentially put profit over people. But I think I've learned how important it is to consistently and constantly prioritize and reprioritize that in our business to ensure that we are always serving our people first and our customers to the best of our ability, not just looking at how we can make as much profit as possible. And I think that this is also something that I value so much, just because as God calls us to serve people. If you read about Jesus in the Bible, he served people, he was on this Earth to serve people. And so I just feel that we're called to do the same.
I've also really learned that it's so important to believe in yourself and dream big. Putting yourself out there is extremely hard. And especially in business, it can feel very scary building your business from the ground up. It can feel intimidating. And I remember like the first few years of owning a business online, I was so timid to put myself out there and share my story transparently because it opens yourself up to criticism, especially having it out there in the public. It can feel invading and embarrassing at times. But the most important thing that I believe you need is confidence and assurance of who you are and whose you are as an entrepreneur. And I say that because there's been so many times that we've put ourselves out there and believed in something and then failed. And it's easy to just look at your failure and want to give up.
But I've learned in this pursuit of business, that failure is inevitable, especially on the way and in the journey of success, it's especially important to learn from your failure. And I can tell you that of all the things that I've learned over the last eight or nine years, I've learned the most from failure, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Learning from failure is hard, especially hard on your ego. It can feel frustrating. It can feel defeating, but it's so important to remind yourself of that. And that goes for anything in life, whether it's health and fitness, whether it's relationships, whether it's business or finances or whatever, choose to learn from failure. Because failure can truly be the biggest opportunity if you can see it with eyes of growth and asking yourself, okay, how is this working for me? And what do I need to learn and take as I move forward?
Another lesson that I've learned is to invest in yourself as an entrepreneur and learn from people that have been in the same shoes, because it's going to help you lessen the time of failure. So like I was just talking about failure is inevitable, and I believe it's important for us to fail, but you can also prevent certain failures from happening if you surround yourself with people that know what they're doing and have been in your same shoes to give you good wisdom and advice for what you should do. We really though didn't start investing in ourselves as entrepreneurs until a few years ago. And I can't tell you how big of a difference it truly makes when you are around dreamers, and doers and big thinkers.
I think for many years, we didn't really look at it as an investment. We were looking at more like, how can we invest in our business to grow? And that was like products and services and things like that. But we weren't looking at ourselves as like the biggest thing to invest in because we are the people that get our business out there if that makes sense. And so it's really, really important to invest in yourself. And this is why I'm a firm believer to have a coach in any area of your life, whether it's therapy, whether it's your health and fitness, whether it's financial or it's business related. It's so important to have a mentor or a coach or someone that can kind of help you, I don't want to say create shortcuts, but they can help you, like I said, alleviate that time of failure simply because they've been there and they know what they're doing.
And when you do invest in yourself, it empowers you to dream bigger and take more risks. And you can also develop such a stronger sense of just being an entrepreneur that can make a bigger impact both in your life, but more importantly, in the lives of others. So I always ask myself like, how can I make the biggest impact in people's lives? Because I know when I'm making an impact in people's lives, I feel like I am so much more fulfilled rather than trying to seek out what I want on a human level, we're wired to serve people. When we're able to serve people, it in turn allows us to feel more fulfilled than we could've ever dreamed of.
Question number three that I get a lot is do you need a degree to start an online business? And if you were to ask me this question back in middle school or even high school, I would have said 100% yes. The only way that you can own a business is if you are educated beyond high school. And I think that either A, I was very naive because like I said, I didn't really come from an entrepreneurial family. Or B, social media wasn't really a thing. I'm a nineties kid. Like we did not grow up with social media. I remember my first flip phone in eighth grade, I think. And it was like the black and white screen. But I think I got Facebook, like when I was in high school, maybe junior, senior year of high school. And that was really when Facebook was only for college people. I think I might've lied to get a profile. I don't even remember how I got a profile. I don't even know, but Instagram wasn't really a thing.
Social media itself was not really a thing. YouTube, I don't even really remember YouTube until like 2008, 2009. And I graduated high school in 2008. So it wasn't really a thing. So if you asked me back then, I would've said no, but now 100% not. You do not need a degree to own a business. I truly believe that sometimes people go to college simply because they want to make their parents happy. And if you don't know what you want to do, and you're taking out college loans simply because you're trying to get those four years so that you can figure yourself out only to have graduated college with 40,000 or 50,000 or $100,000 in college debt. I just don't think it's worth it. And I know that this might be a controversial topic. This is totally my opinion. I do think that there is some degrees and some professions of course, that you have to go to college for. Nurses, doctors, there's so many different degrees that you obviously have to pursue education past high school.
But for those of you who want to own an online business, or you want to own a specific business and you don't really know what you want to do, and you are going to go into college and you will have college debt, I personally don't think that it's worth it because you can learn any and everything about anything that you ever want on YouTube. YouTube, Google. It is a literal university and you will be able to learn it and you'll be able to cultivate it and you'll be able to practice it and experience it 10 times faster than going to college. That's my 2 cents. With that being said, I did go to college. But I don't believe that you have to have a degree to start a business.
Question number four. Did you always know that you wanted to be online working in this industry? Like I had mentioned previously in this episode, not at all. Like I said, got my degree in marketing, but I was super passionate about the beauty industry. Like I had talked about. However, I do remember when I was 14 years old, I was sitting in a Women of Faith conference and I was sitting all the way up in the nosebleed section. At this time in my life at 14 years old in high school, I believe I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, severely struggling with my eating and body image disorder severely. I was not confident. I hated my body. I was starving myself. I felt like God spoke to me at that time that he was going to use my story of struggling with an eating and body image disorder and to just trust him. And I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that was going to look like.
But I remember clearly journaling as I was sitting in the nosebleed section, listening to Natalie Grant at this Women of Faith conference. She was talking about her eating and body image disorder and how she was skipping meals and doing endless amounts of cardio. I remember God speaking to me, like I'm going to use your story in a similar way and trust me. And in that moment, of course, I was like, okay, like God, what? Like I am sitting here and I am in the pit of my eating disorder, but what's so incredible is to see now almost, I don't want to say 20 years. It's what? 16 years later, I am almost doing exactly that.
I have shared my story of my eating and body and it's just order. And I connect with women on a daily basis talking about embracing your real and building confidence and living an authentic life, and honoring your body with movement, and honoring your body with nutrition. I could have never imagined it, but yet I still remember those words and I'm going to have to go back and read it so that I can see word for word what it said. It's pretty cool to see that I'm doing that now 16 years later.
Question number five. If I want to start my online business, what are the first steps that I need to take? I love this question. I love, love, love this question. I first want to remind you that you can truly achieve anything that you put your mind to. So I want you to think about the things that you're passionate about, and that could be a list of 5 to 10 things. So write down 5 to 10 things that you're passionate about. And then I want you to ask yourself, like what are you super passionate about? What can you talk about? Like, what do you already talk about to your friends and family? Or what you already find yourself doing like regularly without getting compensated for it? It's just like a super big passion of yours. And once you kind of narrow that down to two or three, then I want you to confirm that there's something out there already that people are doing.
So it could be a course, it could be a product, it could be a service, something that is already being sold kind of in that industry related to that passion, to see if it's something that is actually, people are needing it. To see if it's a need that people are wanting to have, or that they need in their life. And then from there, I think then you need to kind of niche down into, okay, so I'm passionate about this, but then I'm going to narrow it down and specifically talk about this niche within that passion. And then I just encourage you to start sharing. I think sometimes people put this pressure on themselves to like have to build out a whole website and have to be so aesthetically pleasing on their Instagram.
And the fact of the matter is people just want you to be real. People just want you to be you. And when you put value first, and when you continue to give value to people, it will eventually come back around to you and people will start asking you about whatever it is that you are talking about. Or if it's a product, like maybe take a small investment like we did with our headbands and get a product created. We took the leap. I remember I had like maybe 20 people and some of them that I would say maybe half of those people at the time were people that were friends and family. But I took the leap and Josh actually was our first ... Like Josh gave the first investment to our headbands and I was so scared to sell even than 250 you guys. Like I was so terrified, but once we actually put our money where our mouth was, we created the product, we marketed it. I looked back at my marketing and I'm like, it was so bad. It was so bad, but I was so passionate about these headbands.
And so eventually we ended up selling out of those and then we ordered the next batch. So I just want to encourage you to be brave, take the first step and know that you can truly do anything that you put your mind to. And that you are capable of whatever it is that you have a passion, you are capable, start putting yourself out there, kind of see where it goes. And nowadays you don't even need to have a real website. Like once you create something and people start asking you about, can I be coached by you? Or do you have X, Y, and Z? If you have an email address, you have social media, you have direct message, you have a PayPal account, you can literally start making money that way. And then eventually you'll want to structure it into an LLC or an S-corp or whatever.
But I don't want you to get hung up on that. And I think so many people get hung up on that first. They think they need to have a blog. They think they need to have a website. Start with just making videos, start with just posting on Instagram, whatever it is that you're passionate about. Start there and just see what comes from it. Be hungry to learn. YouTube everything. There's so many people out there guaranteed that have been in your own shoes. And that's the beautiful thing. Even when I say like, invest in yourself, I'm yes, talking about monetary. Sometimes when you invest in yourself financially, it actually helps you put your money where your mouth is and put it into action just because of the sacrifice that you are making in terms of giving that money to a coach or a program or whatever it is that's going to teach you.
But I also think that investment in yourself can look like spending 30 minutes a day watching a YouTube video that's instructing you on something or educating you on something. And you can really learn from a plethora of mentors on the internet without ever having to meet them face to face.
So those are some of the most frequently asked questions in my online business. I know that this episode is a little bit longer, but I hope that this was either entertaining for you, maybe encouraging for you or inspiring for you. I just want to remind you that we all start somewhere. We all start at the bottom. We all start out as beginners. And it's so important that you just number one, believe in yourself and two, don't give up.
There have been so many times in my business that we've gone through offering different products and services. And there's been so many times where I've thought this is it. And yet here we are today because we've never given up. We have always pursued what we're passionate about. And we have just kept going. And we've said like giving up is not an option. It's not an option. We can evolve. We can grow. We can change directions. But giving up is not an option. So if you ever have questions, feel free to either DM me. Or if you have a longer question, you can always email me. I will do my direct email. It's hello@juliealedbetter.com. I always do my best to respond to each of you guys. But if you have a specific business related question that maybe you want to get answered, or just have advice on, you can shoot me over an email, hello@juliealedbetter.com. I am so excited to hear your aha moments. I'm so excited to hear what came from this episode.
If you're not already following the podcast on Instagram, I want you to open up the Instagram app right now, type in embrace your real, click that follow button on that account. I post quotes and real talk for you daily to keep you in the right mindset. So be sure to go to the embrace your real account on Instagram. You can also screenshot this episode, post it up on your story. Tag me, I would love to hear your aha moments. You are so incredible. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right sister that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, Julie A Ledbetter. Yes. It's with an A in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.
The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface so go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.