Time Saving Systems & How to Use Them to Get More Done in Less Time | Leah Remillet

LEAH REMILLET [0:00]

We need to train people to open our emails. I need to find a more eloquent way of saying that because I feel like that sounds a little bit not on the up and up, but essentially, the truth is we are either training people to ignore us or to listen to us. And we all know it because think about how there’s just a very, very small, small handful of people where you actually click on their emails that you’re like, I want to see what it says. They have trained you to open it to believe that there’s something worthwhile for you in there.

[MUSIC]

CAMILLE WALKER [0:35]

So, you want to make an impact. You’re thinking about starting a business sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We’ll listen each week as dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO.

[MUSIC]

Hey, everyone. You are in for an amazing treat because today, we’re going to talk about productivity and how to get more done with Leah Remillet, who is the podcast host of Balancing Busy. I know you’re going to love her. Grab a paper and pen because we talk about specific time-saving hacks that are going to save you a ton of time.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Call Me CEO. And as always, I am thrilled that you are here. Thank you for spending the time because we have someone really special today. It’s Leah Remillet, who is a productivity queen who helps you get more done in less hours than what you can do on your own. And listen, I know every single one of you that have reached out to me and those of you who haven’t, this is a struggle we all have. So, I’m so excited to dig into this topic with you today, Leah. Thank you so much for being here today.

LEAH [1:47]

Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited.

CAMILLE [1:50]

Yeah. So, I want to get everyone introduced to you a little bit more. Tell us about your family, your background, what gave you this path of finding a passion for this work specifically.

LEAH [2:02]

So, I love entrepreneurship. It’s just in my bones. I think a lot of us can relate to that. You would think back and you’re like, even as a kid, I was trying to figure out how I could make money and how I could do these different things.

And that is me. I have always, always loved entrepreneurship. And when I started my family and was having kids, I thought, this is who I am. I’m a stay-at-home mom. That’s what I’m going to do. And I love stay-at-home moms and I have so much respect for stay-at-home moms. And I am in a sense a stay-at-home mom. I’ve always stayed home with my kids while running a company.

And I found myself when they were very, very little, I had a 3-year-old, a 2-year-old and a 3-4-month-old, I would write these little blogs. This was back when blogging was cool and it was just starting and it was this new thing. And we were in Hawaii doing grad. And so, I would update the family, everyone was far away, on what’s going on with us.

And I want to admit this because in case anyone can relate, I would write down whatever I’m doing. I’m like, the hubby did great on his finals and this one’s riding a bicycle with training wheels and that one is walking and this one tried solid foods. And I just remember feeling like I’m never going to have my own accomplishments.

That wasn’t true, but I believed it. I felt like anything that I ever have to share is going to be that I aided them. And that is beautiful. It just turns out I am not quite saintly or selfless enough to be okay with that. So, I really wanted to find something that could be my outlet, that could be my thing.

And I did what about a billion other women chose to do during those early 2010s, I thought, I’m going to become a professional photographer because that would allow me to be home and do a little bit of work and have this outlet and all these good things. So, I started that photography business and it grew really quickly. I hit 6 figures within the first year. And I didn’t really realize how amazing that was.

And simultaneously, I started this blog that was called Go for Pro because I was literally going for pro. Also, GoPros had not been created yet. And so, I had this blog and I would share these things. And one day, I said something in passing, because I didn’t really share any of my own stuff, I shared what I found from other people because they were the experts, not me.

And one day, in passing, I shared something about a sale or something like that and the comment section blew up. Everyone was like, “Wait, I’m sorry. How big was your sale and how do you do this?” And so, I started teaching and sharing that. And I found that I chose photography not because I had any skill, okay. No one ever said like, “You’re really artistic.” In fact, that was the opposite of what anyone ever said to me.

I chose photography to be the vehicle for entrepreneurship when I started teaching, when I started sharing like, “Here’s the system I used. Here’s what I plugged in. Here’s what I put in place. Here’s how I’m getting these sales and all of these different things.” That’s when I really lit up and realized what my true, true passion was.

And so, I’ve been teaching entrepreneurs ever since in one way or another. Now, somewhere a few years later, I completely burned out because I was that hustle harder mantra, grinding myself to the bone. And when I burnt out, I was like, I got to find a better way. This is not okay for my kids. It’s not okay for my marriage. It’s not okay for my health. I ended up collapsing, blacking out, having to get taken away in an ambulance because I thought it was smart to stop sleeping.

And I had to change everything. And so, it was in 2011, 2012 where I just burnt out. I was doing horrible. It was like, yes, I’m seeing all this financial success, but I’m feeling I don’t feel success at all. I feel my marriage, my family, I feel deterioration, I feel exhaustion all the time. And so, I knew I had to change it. I’m going to be honest. It literally took me collapsing, being taken away in an ambulance, I needed the hit on the upside of the head version of making a change, but I realized and I was like, okay, I have to find a better way because I’m either going to walk away completely from my business which I love or I’m going to find a better way, but I cannot do this. This cannot continue.

And so, I became obsessed with productivity, automation, systems, outsourcing, time management, time blocking and just figuring out, can I do less but better? And then, the more I found out, at first, I kept it to myself because I was ashamed if I’m being honest, I didn’t want people to know what a hot mess I was.

And then, I was speaking at this conference and all the women were together in the evening. You know how at night, everyone gets together, they’re all chatting and talking? And I’m in one of those and everybody’s talking. And one person starts to admit that they’re drowning and they start to break down. And then, all these others start to be like, “Me too, me too.” And here I was sitting there going, “I figured out a better way. I’ve been holding on to this better way because I didn’t want to admit how bad it had been and I didn’t want people to judge me.”

And that was the moment where I was like, I don’t care if I’m judged now. I’m going to share and I’m going to talk about it. And so that I would say for the last, gosh, 6 or 7 years, I want the money, I want the success, but I want it to be in balance. And so, that’s why I love teaching. How do we build the systems to get more done, make more money, less hours, full-time income, part-time hours? That’s what I just geek out over.

CAMILLE [7:53]

I love it so much. And that’s so relatable for so many because when you’re first starting a business, I feel like you have to play all the roles, you have to wear all the hats. And a lot of times, you’re so excited about it. It doesn’t matter. And so, you get to that point like, I’ll do all the things, but then, eventually there comes a place where you break down and you’re like this is a speed I can’t maintain.

And I know many, many who have been through this process. So, I’m so thrilled to hear that you are going to share formula with us today. And I’m curious when you were in that point in your photography business, how many years for you was that that you were like, “I’ve got to figure out a better way?”

LEAH [8:33]

It was 3 years and it was me running the photography business, also teaching. I had created a course that taught photographers how to reach 6 figures. And so, it was not setting healthy boundaries, feeling like I wanted to hold on to all of it. I wasn’t emotionally ready to let go of any part of it.

Eventually, it took a while. It was not until 2015 that I finally emotionally honestly came to a place where I could say, I’m not a photographer anymore. I kept trying to hold onto it. I kept trying to hold onto it because it had been my first identity and I had built some of my worth into that, I guess. And I finally in 2015 was like, I’m not a photographer. I am a strategist. I am a coach. I help entrepreneurs. I’m a teacher. That’s what I do.

But it was a process. So, I started my business in 2009 with a 3-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 4-month-old. I got it up to 6 figures within that year, 2010-ish. 2012 and 2011, absolute burnout, wasn’t even sleeping. I would work until 3-5 in the morning until I literally crashed, dragged myself to bed, woke up at 7 because my kids were super little. That’s when they woke up, and then do it again. I was like, I can do this 3 to 4 days, and then I have to get 1 normal 6 hours of sleep, and then I’ll do it again. I really thought, look at me hacking the system. It was a bad idea.

And then, I started pulling back, building up all these different systems and I did. I pulled back from just being on 24/7, you’re just always available to really working 3.5 days a week-ish, but still it’s interesting to look back and go, even then, I still couldn’t fully let go of everything. It wasn’t until 2015 that I finally said, okay. I brought it to where I’m like, I’m only doing 1 shoot a month. I’m only doing 1 shoot every two months, but I couldn’t get myself to just let go and I finally had to acknowledge this isn’t serving me. It’s this weight that even if it’s not taking time, it's taking mental energy, and then, finally let go, and then really made that shift.

CAMILLE [11:02]

Yeah. That’s so powerful. Let’s dive into these tools. What would you say is the best place to start? I think acknowledging that you’re at a place of burnout would be the first place I would think to start, but what would you suggest?

LEAH [11:16]

I love that. I think the first place is acknowledging, and maybe it’s not even an acknowledgement, it’s an assessment. What do I like and what do I don’t like? What feels good right now and what honestly feels crappy, it does not feel good?

And we actually have a resource. I have a productivity quiz that I’ve made. So, if people go to www.leahremillet.com/quiz, they answer questions and I identify how much you’re probably actually losing a week. And then, depending on which category you fall in, is it a ton or is it not too bad? Then based on that, I share what I believe your number one productivity power point is to start with. So, it depends on where you are.

Now, I’m just going to say if you are at the highest level of burnout, exhaustion, overwhelm, and I say, “Hey, carve out some time to build some systems and some automations,” that person is going to be like, “Are you kidding? I don’t have time to sleep, let alone make some time to make some time.”

So, to them, I’m going to say, “Honestly, the first thing you need to do is outsource, whether that means someone comes in and watches your kids for a while, so you can start build those systems or that means you hire someone to help you or whatever that’s going to mean.” The very first thing you’re going to need to do is just outsource even if it’s temporary to get some time back so that you can make some shifts.

For someone who’s more in between, they’re somewhere in the other areas, it’s probably going to start with some acknowledgement of what are all the things that I’m doing, first of all? And I love to just do a brain dump. Grab a paper, pen, notepad, just brain dump. Here’s all the roles I’m playing. Here’s all the things I’m in charge of, all the things that I’m doing.

And Camille, I love how you said, at the beginning, we wear all the hats. We do everything. And we love it. We’re not even sad about it. We’re like, yes, I will learn how to code today and I will learn how to produce a podcast tomorrow. We just do all the things. And that’s what we need to do for a lot of us. And so, that’s great, but when we take a moment and we start writing it all out and we say, okay, what are all the things that I am doing? And then, I like to circle and square.

So, I circle the ones that are these are non-negotiable. I’m not letting go of these. These have to be me. And then, I square. And this is funny, but I literally think, I’m like these are the pointy edges of my life that feel pointy and uncomfortable for me. I square the ones that really, I don’t like. They drain me. They’re frustrating. They’re not my genius zone. They’re exhausting. And so, taking that list, I can now start to ask myself some of those tough questions of can I let go of some of this? Do I even have to be doing these things? Could I put a pin in it? I love to say pin it for a minute. You don’t have to pin it forever, but pin it for a minute. Can we just hold tight on this for a moment to create some space for you, so you can breathe again?

So, you start looking at those things, and then where you have the non-negotiables, where you have the things that you’re like, these have to happen, within those things, are there some areas where we could implement some simple systems, just some simple systems that are going to make this a little bit easier? If you do the same thing over and over and over, can we create a system here so that you don’t have to sit down and start from scratch every single time?

That could be as easy as you send a weekly newsletter instead of trying to brainstorm out some new genius thought for every newsletter that has a completely different flow every time. What if they all followed the exact same formula? I’m going to share one blog post. I’m going to share one Instagram reel that I did. I’m going to share one book that I’ve been reading and loving lately. And I’m going to share, I don’t know, my favorite recipe I found. I don’t know.

It would need to be relevant to your niche, of course. But we could find something where it’s like, I can just pop in and make this a little easier for myself every time. There are emails that I know I have to write all the time. They’re saved as auto signatures. I have a bazillion auto signatures, each one with a name that triggers for me to realize, this is when I’m saying, “I’m sorry. No, we will not be changing a blog post from 2009 that has nothing to do with what I teach right now.” And instead of me having to write that email over and over and over, I just pop in the auto signature, send, and it’s done.

So, looking for where could I put some simple systems, and then can you start stacking systems? And that’s when it gets powerful. When we start stacking these different systems, it gets good. I like to say let’s look for needle movers. We have this tendency to look for that big flashy easy button, that big thing that it’s like, “It’s going to save you everything. It’s going to take care of all your problems.”

Here’s the truth. Those are pretty much never true. But when we look for these tiny needle movers, when we look for something that saves you 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes and you start stacking those one with another, with another, with another, all of a sudden, those equal to be hours that you are getting back.

CAMILLE [16:46]

I love that so much. Tell me more about the email signatures. I think that this is brilliant.

LEAH [16:51]

Thank you. Okay, so there’s a lot of emails that you have to write. So, for example, in one of my coaching calls, I have a group coaching membership and they can ask any question that they want and we have these calls one or two times a month.

And so, somebody was saying, “Hey, I’m starting to start an affiliate and I’m going to be reaching out to hundreds of people to try to get a few yeses. What’s the easiest way for me to do this?” And so, we talked through what it needs to look like and to feel like to get more people to open it. But ultimately, she came up with that she has a plan to have a four-email system or sequence. It’s in the sense of she knows they’re probably not going to respond to email one, by the way, everyone should know that, no one ever responds to email one, just plan to follow up. It’s nothing against you. It’s all them.

So, we were talking about, okay, she’s going to have four emails. Email one, then when they haven’t followed up, email two, when they haven’t followed up, email three. So, I said, “Okay. I want you to craft that one time. I want you to sit down. I want you to write a really incredible email that just is concise. It gets the information across and it’s going to be really good.”

We came up with some ideas. She’s going to create a Loom so that she can get more information and a quick little video, but it won’t look long. And she’s going to create an auto signature that says, affiliate invite one, affiliate invite two, affiliate invite three, affiliate invite four. Then when she starts sitting down, she’s just going to simply pop up the email, put in their email address, pop in auto signature one, put the subject line in, which will be the same for everyone and hit send.

So, now instead of trying to write an email over and over, another thing I’m such a fan of is batching, so she can sit down and say, okay, I’m taking a 45-minute block and see how many emails I can send out in 45 minutes.

I don’t know why this is about me, but I love to gamify things. I love to give myself treats and rewards. If I can get this many done, then I get to have chocolate or whatever it is, some reward for myself. I think about if we were in corporate America, there would be some bonus structure for us. You could win the corporate trip maybe or you could win a bonus. And so, I’m like, why don’t we do that for ourselves? So, I absolutely do.

And some of those things where it maybe be hard to justify or I would be like, that’s such an indulgent purchase, I’m like those are the things that are my bonuses. So, when I reach certain things, I’m like, and I get a Louis Vuitton or whatever it might be.

So, going back to this batching idea, she can then say, okay, every single day, I am going to time block 45 minutes or however much time she wants to get and I’m going to see how many emails I can get. And I‘m just going to share this one, in particular. So, she’s going to send all those emails, and then she’s going into her calendar and she’s going to say however much time she wants to wait until she follows up, maybe 3 days. She’s going to block in another 45 minutes for her follow-up email for that batch, so she can say, okay, emails one through fifty reply back on Thursday. Now, here’s a 1-hour block and now, she’s just start inputting emails. So, that’s a more intense way to do it, but all these emails that I know I end up sending a lot, I craft it one time and I set it as an auto signature.

CAMILLE [20:22]

I love that. So, are you suggesting that people set up an email system flow within an email program, say like Flodesk or Mailchimp or something like that or this is something that you’re setting up a system just within your own calendar of write to 50, and then send the next batch to the 50, so it’s like you’re doing that manually?

LEAH [20:41]

So, in this particular case, you would have to do it manually. And she was hoping there would be another option. I’m like, I wish there was, but there wasn’t. Number one because her conversion rate would dramatically go down if it comes through something like your email provider because now, you’re going to see at the bottom that unsubscribe thing and now they know it’s not just for them. It went to everybody. And as soon as they know that, now it becomes a psychological thing where they feel no guilt about not responding to you and ignoring you forever because it’s not a personal email anymore. And in her case, I was like, it’s going to have to be a personal email, which I know stinks.

She also wanted to be able to modify. She wanted to be able to say something personal in each of these. And I do that all the time. So, when I write my auto signature, that first time when I’m writing the email, I write it and I make little brackets to myself to know like put in their name, put in something personal about them because I don’t want it to feel like this canned response. I want them to feel like, no, I’m writing this to you.

And so, these are all going to be something. For me, it’s in my iMail. I just go into my preferences settings account, and then write these signatures, and then drop it. I have several email addresses that are attached to my iMail, then I drop it into the one I want. And then, when I need to send it, I just go into my auto signature and there’s my normal auto signature, which is like, “Here’s my website and my social handles,” but the majority of my auto signatures are big long emails that I don’t want to have to write more than once.

CAMILLE [22:11]

I love that. I want to peek at your iMail. That sounds really cool. So, I love that hack for the email situation because all of us have emails. Do you have hacks that you like to do for social? I know that that’s a huge strain for a lot of people is social media and DMs and all of that. How do you feel about a way to save time in that regard?

LEAH [22:36]

It is such a huge strain. So, within social media, I really do think that again having a bit of a formula. The way I was talking about with a newsletter like, I’m going to do this, this, and this. Having to sit down and try to come up with, “I need to post something, what do I say right now on this spot?” is really, really hard.

So, instead, coming up with a little bit of a formula for yourself. I know that I have a podcast that’s going to live every week. So, I know I’m going to make two reels off of each podcast. Now, that’s two reels of content. Then, I’m going to make one reel that’s going to be just really, really simple. I have to admit there was one that was just trending that was like, “Instagram doesn’t want photos anymore.” And I was like, I can jump on that bandwagon. That’s a really, really easy reel to create.

So, I’m going to make something like that, and then I have some other things that I know in my head that I create. So, for example, I really believe in, okay, this concept of doing less but better. We’re balancing the busyness. We’re balancing trying to do a lot of different things, but I still really want to be fun mom.

So, something that I started doing when my kids were really little is I would go and find those random holidays like National Chocolate Day, it’s Cheeseburger Day, it’s whatever. I would find those holidays and I would pop them into my calendar. And then, I could be super fun mom, but on the spot. I look at my calendar and it says that it’s National Chocolate Day and I’m picking them up from school. And I’m like, “Guess what? We’re all going to go pick out chocolate because it’s Chocolate Day.” And I seem like, “This is so fun, yay!” But I didn’t have to plan. I didn’t have to do anything. I hit up all those, Donut Day, Ice Cream Day, Chocolate Day, Pancake Day, you name it. And I’m like, yup, we will go ahead and do that, lots of sweets, but it works great.

And so, one of my reels at least once a month is going to be, “Here all the holidays for the month.” So, we go and find them and people can screenshot them and add them into their calendar. So, I have a little bit of that where it’s like, okay, I know one post a month for sure is going to be the fun crazy holidays for that month. That obviously will be at the very beginning of the month. I know two reels a week are going to be the podcast. I know one reel I’m going to literally just look for something super simple.

And I do that in a batch format. So, I sit down once a week. I have a 2-hour block and my whole job is to just sit down and see how many reels I can create in that block, and then I’m going to save them as drafts so I have them there and they’re ready.

So, just a few things like that, but I will admit wholeheartedly and say I don’t love social media at all. And I work way, way harder to build my email list than I do social media. So, it’s funny because you’ll look at my social media numbers and they’re fine, they’re not amazing. And they’re nothing compared to my email list numbers because that is really the place that I focus because my feeling is I do not want to invest too much into something and I don’t own the land of Facebook or Instagram.

They can change the rules and algorithm and anything they want and I have no say. And so, when only 3%, if that, of my followers are even going to hopefully see what I posted. But if I send an email, yeah, there’s the potential it could go to junk, but it’s pretty much hitting every inbox. And even if they don’t open it, they saw my name for a second. Even if I was like, instant trash, okay. They saw my name for a second and I was remembered where if I’m posting on Instagram or Facebook or any of those places, they may not have ever seen my name. They don’t even remember I exist because it’s been so long since the algorithm wanted to show them that I’m alive.

CAMILLE [26:31]

Yeah. I totally agree with that and I think with the land where we can get so pulled like this urgency where we have to create on social media, I totally agree with you that email is really where it’s at and I lose sight of that a lot. So, I would love to hear what your tips are for growing your email list.

LEAH [26:49]

I would love to, okay. So, I would encourage everybody start with just one super amazing opt-in. Build out from there, but you do not need to start with a ton of them. I’m now at 14 years of being in business I have an insane amount of opt-ins.

Literally, over 14 years of opt-ins, I have so many things that I have created that we ended up, one of the things that we have is Leah’s Library where it’s literally, you get to just scroll through all the freebies that I have. It’s like pick a topic. Do you want organization? Do you want family? Do you want cute holiday printables? We’ve made everything at some point.

And so, people can just scroll and download anything they want. But then, I have my primary opt-ins. And so, what you want to do is you want to say, okay, what is the main problem that my person, that that person that I’m trying to help, what is she struggling with? How could I give her a quick win?

And the reason I really like to encourage people to aim for a quick win is because this is their introduction to you. And if we make it too hard, they’re probably not going to do it, and then they’re not going to associate you with the win and we want them to associate you with the win. They want to say, “Oh my gosh, that Camille, she is amazing because she helped me.” And so, what is something very simple that they could implement that they could do where they instantly see just a little dopamine drip, a little result that they think is great?

So, ours happens to be a desktop organizer. People can go on the website. It’s the number one thing we promote and it is this simple system I’ve been using for 10+ years and it creates these little squares. And then, you have your folders all organized by project. And then, you have a place for everything. In fact, just this last year, we updated and created a vision board desktop organizer because that’s what I’ve been using since the beginning of the year, just for myself and I finally shared it. And so, it’s this desktop organizer.

The reason that it works so well is it solves a very simple quick problem, my desktop is a mess. I can’t find anything and I’m wasting time because I can’t find it. It’s very, very easy in that they download something, they can pick one that they want to use, instantly set it as desktop. And now, it wins, we have a 5-minute video to show them how to use it. And that particular one has the results. Of that one, it has performed better than any other one I’ve ever done.

And honestly, I just was like, this would be fun. I’m going to try it. And then, it did incredible. So, that’s our primary opt-in. I have other ones obviously, but I would suggest just start with one. Pick one great thing. Then create a sequence where it’s going to be really engaging. Keep it short. Keep it simple. All of us are busy. We don’t have a lot of time. So, you don’t have to overcomplicate it by making it this big long huge thing and just give them wins, just keep giving them little wins where they’re associating you with, “You just made my life a little bit better. You just helped me a little bit more,” and create that.

Now, the way our number one strategy to get it out there is Pinterest. So, it has its own page, and then it’s also connected to the sidebar on my blog and it’s connected into blog posts. And we create pins for it and we push it out to Pinterest. And 98% of all my traffic that comes from my site is directly from Pinterest. And the top, we look at, okay, what pins are performing the best? And out of 15, probably 12 of them are different pins around that desktop organizer. So, really, really, I try to push other things all the time because I’m like, I created this awesome thing and this awesome thing, but it’s that stinking desktop organizer that everybody loves.

CAMILLE [30:36]

That’s amazing. I think Pinterest especially with longevity, it’s oftentimes my oldest pins from 2013 that are still giving me the best traffic. So, I feel sad for people who don’t have that longevity because I feel like that still generates so much traffic if they’re older, which I don’t know why. I think Pinterest is like everything else. They’re always changing things and it’s a complicated mess, but I love that you talked about quick wins because I feel like that association of solving a problem, especially where it’s visual like that seems like it’s so tangible. You don’t have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to get it. It’s like, I want that, let me download it. That is brilliant. Are there other ways that you’ve shared your email opt-ins as well aside from Pinterest that you’ve had success with?

LEAH [31:27]

So, I definitely would really encourage people to have a sidebar on your blog. Let’s say you have a podcast, anything, you’re sharing a blog post and they come in. And they’re like, that was helpful, but especially if we’re talking about Pinterest, okay, you click on something and you come into almost always a single blog post. So, you’ve got some really amazing real estate on the side to make a sidebar that shows, “You love this? You should take our quiz. You should get this awesome freebie. You should try this.”

So, I would absolutely encourage everyone to put a sidebar on your blog. The only thing you’re promoting is yourself and by promoting yourself, you’re just promoting free value like, “Here all these different cool resources I have dropped in your email.” So, that would be one.

Another one that I would suggest is definitely in your links, in your social media, if you’re not using Linktree or your own private page, I create my own page like if people want to see what this looks like, if you go to my Instagram, you’re going to see something that says, click me, and it’s my own website page. I love that because then, I’m getting the traffic. Google is seeing that I’m getting the clicks not Linktree, and then I can update it all the time as I want to, obviously, but how it’s done is on my own website.

And then, within that, I have 3 of our top freebies listed in there. So, then in my social media content as I’m talking or even in my stories, I’m like, “By the way, I have this really cool free resource. Go click my bio link,” and it’s going to be in there. So, that’s another place.

And I think people forget to talk about their freebies on their social media over and over and over. Don’t worry. People are not going to be annoyed, “I already heard that. Why are you saying that again?” That’s awesome. That means you actually have a true follower. Keep going. Most of the people didn’t hear it. So, that would be another place.

And then, let’s see. I’m trying to think if I can think of anywhere else. And then, within your actual blog post itself, if you can have just a code in or add in a section at the very bottom that is just a standard opt-in that’s always going to be there.

So, every blog post maybe has an opt-in at the bottom, and then you have your side bar, have an opt-in in your footer, have an opt-in pop up that comes up when people get to your site, mention it on your social media channels, go share it on LinkedIn, share it on Pinterest, just really remember you’re creating something that’s valuable and it’s free. So, don’t be afraid to share it everywhere.

CAMILLE [34:03]

I love it. Tell me about what you do for people when they’re in a place where maybe they want to have a sale for something or the best way to utilize the email list. What are some shortcuts or systems for utilizing your email list and creating revenue or income from your business using the email list?

LEAH [34:22]

So, I think it comes down to and I would guess that you probably encourage and share the same thing is that 80/20 principle. We need to train people to open our emails. I need to find a more eloquent way of saying that because I feel like that sounds a little bit like not on the up and up, but essentially, the truth is we are either training people to ignore us or to listen to us and we all know it. Because think about you know how there’s just a very, very small, small handful of people where you actually click on their emails that you’re like, “I want to see what it says?” They have trained you to open it to believe that there's something worthwhile for you in there.

Then there’s a whole lot of people, the vast majority who have trained us to just we select the next 7, delete, clearing out our inbox. So, it really starts way before you ever want to sell something. It starts early on when it’s like you need to train them to believe that your emails are worth opening.

And that is 100% around value and where does the value come from? How can I help my person, my ideal customer, how can I help them solve a problem? And as long as you work to keep solving problems for them, making their life easier, being a little ray of sunshine, whatever that is, they’re going to open your emails. Then, when it is time to sell something, you can. And I’m going to say probably less and less, we don’t need to do as much of the like, “Open this email, very last chance.”

Those aren’t a bad thing and I do think that the majority of people are afraid to sell and they’re holding back, they’re not sharing enough times. I can tell you in a launch, if I look at my launch, there’s a whole bunch of signups at the beginning, it goes completely dead in the middle, and you’re like, “Come on, people.” And then, the very end, it goes super, super heavy again. Why is that? It comes back to psychology.

At the beginning, you have all the people who they were ready. They were like, “I’ve been waiting for this to come. I knew I needed this. Here it is. Snap, I’m grabbing it.” Then at the very end, you have a completely different mindset. This is, “Oh my gosh, it’s going to be gone. It’s going to be gone. Maybe I do need it. I’m going to grab it.” And it’s that scarcity mindset that has triggered for them.

And so, that last people are really afraid to be a pain in the butt at that point, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve already emailed so many times.” But I’m telling you that last date, it really should be three emails because it’s going to be where the majority of the sales are going to come in.

However, I think we can do all of that in just a really talking like it’s a real person like, “Hey, I just really want to tell you why I think this would be so amazing for you and why I believe I can help you. I can solve this problem for you and I can do it in a way that’s going to feel good, it’s going to be easier. It’s not going to be too hard. I believe in you. Let me show you. Let’s do this, whatever.”

So, I don’t know if that was super helpful, but just this idea of coming back to share value over and over and know who your person is that you’re talking to, and then everything you sit down to write, whether it’s a blog post, a newsletter, or the caption for your social media, write to one person. Write to, I’m just going to assume her, but write to her because that is going to feel so much more authentic and real and she can connect to that versus writing to the masses.

CAMILLE [37:45]

Yup. I believe that completely. Would you say as far as time saving goes with the programs that you have and the emails and the clients and everything else, what has helped you to create clear boundaries for business and family?

LEAH [38:00]

There are so many things, but one of the things that has been is that I set hours. I didn’t used to have hours. You just fit in where you can. And certainly, when you have really little littles, you’re trying to squeeze in between nap time and once they go to bed and there are a lot of things like that. But even then, I set hours.

So, I have all teenagers now and they started as babies. So, I’ve had every stage. I can relate. I understand whether you have infants who don’t even sleep through the night all the way to teenagers where I’m like, “Hang out with me, please.” So, I’ve had it all.

And when they were little, what that looked like, what ours looked like, I remember sitting down and saying, “Hey, I need to know when my next block of work comes.” This idea that I’m always trying to squeeze it in and figure it out and I don’t really know. And so, you’re trying to hold on to every minute and you’re working longer than you should because you’re scared that you don’t know when the next one’s going to come and you have a deadline and you have to get this done and all of those feelings that come.

So, I sat down with him and I just said, “I’ve got to know when I’m going to be able to work.” So, what we came up with in addition to some other blocks of time was that two or three nights a week, it varied depending on the season, he was in charge of bed time routine. So, as soon as we were done with dinner, I went into my office and I knew that I had until 10 PM. 6 PM-10 PM, if you’re a mom who’s used to trying to get 30 minutes here and there, a 4-hour block is hallelujah, what am I going to do with myself? This is incredible.

And so, all of a sudden, I had two or three of those. And then, I would have, okay, I know for the 2-hour window of preschool, I can get work done. So, it was more sporadic. It was a little weirder looking because I had to make it work, but I had those. As time has gone on, I’ve been able to shift and adjust that.

So, I have my office hours. I post them on my door at the beginning of the week so everybody can see them and know. It really, really helps with the interruptions because they don’t have to have this fear of like, but when is she going to come out? Because look, they’re like, “Mom is going to be out at noon. Okay, I can wait until noon. I won’t bug her until noon. She says she’s going to come out then.”

And I let them hold me accountable. And that’s something that I know can be a little tricky, but if I said I’m going to be done by 2 PM that day and I’m not out, they get to come get me because I want them to know that I do what I say what I’m going to do, that I hold to my commitments, that they can trust that.

So, setting those hours honestly has been a huge gamechanger. And for anyone who’s family is starting to resent their business, it probably has to do with the fact that they’re feeling second to your business a lot. It’s a combination of either that or that at the beginning of your business, you had all this excitement and this joy and you would share all the hope that you had and now you’ve accidentally made a shift and you’re sharing all the negative. This is going wrong and this is hard. And so, it’s really hard for them to get excited because it seems awful. They’re like, “This seems horrible. Why are you doing this?” And you’re like, “No, I love it. It’s just I’m venting to you.”

And so, those are usually the two reasons and something that can really evolve. There are two things that fix that. One is starting to set those hours and create boundaries that they can trust and believe in and that you’re going to follow and two is starting to talk more positive about your business.

But in setting those boundaries, that is scary because sometimes, I didn’t schedule it right. The honest truth is I time blocked it. I thought, okay, I’m going get all these done by 2 PM and I didn’t. And that can be really, really hard at the beginning to say, am I really going to walk away even though the work’s not done?

And ultimately, it comes down to, I know what I say is most important. Am I living it? And sometimes, that means maybe I don’t get to be on the deadline that I thought I was going to be on and I’m the flipping CEO, so you know what? I can adjust. I don’t know why that was so hard for me to figure out at the beginning.

And you get better and better. The more time that you do this, that you practice time blocking, which I think is so, so helpful that you really look at all the things and say, do I need to be doing that? The more that you do that, the more you’re going to get better and better at guesstimating how much time things are going to take.

But at the beginning or when something’s new, you wouldn’t know. It is a guess. You’re just hoping that you’re right and you might not be and that’s okay. But you have to make that decision quick and early of like, but when that happens, what am I going to do?

CAMILLE [42:48]

That’s really good advice. Is there a piece that you would give of advice for someone who’s wanting to outsource but is afraid to? This is something that I help people with all the time, so I’m curious about what your approach is with that.

LEAH [43:01]

Some tough love. So, a lot of times, it comes down to people either believe no one can do it as well as I can. There are a few things where that is true, but sister, guess what? You are not the first one to ever create this. There are people who can do this really, really well and pretty stinking close to as good as you can and maybe even a whole lot better, so that needs to get let go of.

The second thing is I’m not worthy. I don’t deserve it. I don’t have the money. All those feelings of guilt, I should be able to do all this. So, one of the things that I did for myself because I felt bad too when I was first trying to outsource, I was our sole breadwinner. My husband was in graduate school. There was no income coming from him. I’m our entire income and I’m also trying to be stay-at-home mom and volunteering in the classrooms and do all the things and not scream and yell at everybody all the time because I’m so flipping exhausted. That was me. I will raise my hand and admit that.

And as I was thinking, oh my gosh, I want to outsource, I also was thinking, but then you’re going to give up some of that money, all these different things. The very first thing I ever outsourced was cleaning. And I don’t necessarily always suggest that. But for me, the frustration that I felt when I would walk out of my office and the house was just a mess and it just would weigh on me all the time of, I would just feel so good if I could at least walk out and it would be clean. It wouldn’t be one more thing that I’m not doing well enough.

And so, I went to my husband and I said, “I want to hire a house cleaner. And I know that that seems crazy to even add that into the budget, but I really feel like this is going to help me.” And I told him, I said, “Can we just try it for a month?”

So, that’s one thing that’s a principle of this that I want people to take out. Nothing is forever. Just try it. You have to commit to doing this indefinitely. You can say like, “Hey, I’m doing a 3-day trial. If you can help me save enough time that I can make more money, I can keep you on. If you can’t, I can’t.” It could be whatever. But I said, “I’d like to try this for 30 days and I think you are going to see such a happier wife, then you are going to like the results of that happier wife if you will never want me to not have a house cleaner.” And then, I made sure, all the mommas get what I’m saying, that he was like, “I love that she has a house cleaner. She is so much happier and energetic at night.” And guess what? He would never, ever, ever ask me to not have our house cleaner.

So, that was my first thing because I was having so much frustration and guilt and shame around the way our house felt and looked. But a lot of times, what I’ll encourage people to do is what is one thing that you could outsource that if you outsource this, it would free up time where you could make more money? And I actually did do that with this.

So, in the early stages, I took the time when she was cleaning and my very first house cleaner was a high school student, I was not paying her almost anything. You can start small. Was she perfect? No. Could I have done a better job? Yes. But did I have to? No, so it’s fine. So, I started with her and the 3 hours she was there a week, I only allowed myself to do income-producing work while she was there, so that helped me to justify it because now, I could work on things that actually made more money, which then allowed me to be able to pay her. It made it easier.

So, a lot of times, I will suggest that if you’re trying to start with outsourcing and you’re really having a hard time and you’ve got some mental blocks, outsource something that either could make you more money or during that time when they’re going to be doing the thing that you would have had to have done, you do something that is an incoming-producing result so that it makes it easier for you to then justify.

Now, over time, I got more comfortable and I was like, no, you know what? I just deserve the house cleaner and I don’t need to do a thing. And so, I shifted that and I took those 3 hours all the while my kids were in elementary school that while the house cleaner was there, I would go to the school and I would volunteer in each of the rooms for 1 hour. So, that was how I spent that time and I loved it.

I would leave the house and the house would be ugh, and then I would come home and it would be sparkly and smell clean and I felt amazing because I felt like that was the best way I could’ve spent that time. I was with my kids being present and involved and someone else did the stuff that, yeah, I can do, but it’s better to let someone else do. So, that’s my take on getting started.

CAMILLE [47:43]

I love that. I think that’s a really interesting perspective too because then it really finetunes, how am I spending my time and what is actually moving the needle and producing income rather than getting lost in the busy work of, I have to do this or I should do this where it maybe doesn’t really make much of a difference? So, I think that opportunity to look at it from that perspective is really good.

LEAH [48:08]

Yeah. I’ve asked people. Now, this is hard. It’s completely not fun. So, I get that a lot of people won’t do this, but there are 168 hours in a week. And what I will challenge people to do if they’re considering outsourcing is I’m like, track what you do for the entire week.

What’s crazy is I’ve done this at mastermind retreats I’ve hosted. When they all get there, I say, “Okay, here’s a form. I want you to write down what you did for the last week, hour by hour.” Of course, no one can do it. Everyone’s like, “I think, ugh.” And I set that point of, if we are not careful, week becomes month becomes year of us not being intentional and not knowing where our time is going. And time is the most precious commodity we have. It is not money. It is time. You can always get more money. Money is in abundance. Time is limited. That is the only thing that is truly limited.

So, that shift in and of itself can really change and help us to start prioritizing better. So, then I encourage, okay, track for a whole week everything you’re doing. You’re going to see some of the stuff where you’re like, that’s a big time waster. I probably don’t need to be doing that. You’re also going to see things that you start realizing I could probably batch these together and get these going faster. And you’re also going to find some things and recognize some things that you’re like, I hate doing this.

I joke. I’m like, there are certain things that I loathe. I’m like, I loathe going to the grocery store. I loathe laundry. I loathe cleaning my house. So, I outsource them. I’m like, I can have it delivered. I can have someone do the laundry for me. I can have the house cleaned and I am a better version of me when those are done. My kids like wearing clean clothes. We like when their socks don’t stink.

But this way, these things happen and it happens in a way that I can put my time into those things that are my genius zone that do allow me to be either more present for my family or producing more results or income or whatever or just taking care of myself, getting your workout in or getting enough sleep or whatever we need for ourselves too.

CAMILLE [50:14]

I love that so much good advice here because I think for years and years, there’s been this idea that we as women and mothers and wives have to do it all. And now that more than ever, women are working inside and outside of the home, I think that we need ti be reminded that it’s okay to outsource and look for opportunities to spread the wealth because honestly, when you’re hiring someone, you’re allowing other people to be a part of your business, it is better for everyone.

And it really helps you tap into your genius, their genius and everyone’s happier. And for years, houses were run with multiple people running the show. So, I don’t know why we give ourselves so much guilt over needing help because that’s the way it’s meant to be, in my opinion.

LEAH [51:02]

I love that. I like to remind myself. I said this to myself once at the very, very beginning when I was trying to figure this all out and where I was really struggling was, I don’t know what else to give up. A lot of times, what people used to say and try to tell you is like, if you’re overwhelmed, look for what you can give up. Look for what you don’t need to do.

And I remember thinking about the plate that I was holding. And I’m like, there’s nothing left that I can give up. I can’t stop feeding them. I can’t stop taking care of our home. I can’t stop taking care of my clients. I’ve already stripped everything. I stripped sleep. I stripped any fun for myself. I stripped the things that were filling me up. I stripped exercise out. I stripped everything. And I still didn’t have enough.

And I ended up having this moment where I realized, I can be it all, but I cannot do it all. And so, when I say that, what I mean is I want to be a really great mom. I want to be a great mom. I love that I have this incredible relationship with my teenagers. I love that every night, I have to beg them to let me go to sleep because they want to keep talking to me. Even though I do love sleep, I love that. It means the world to me.

I love that as my daughter’s planning her senior trip, she’s like, “Mom, you’re going to come, right?” I’m like, “You want me? Oh my gosh, I have won. It's working.” I love that. I also love that I have a great marriage. And I love spending time with my spouse. I love being a CEO. I love having my company. I love being a great friend and having girls’ nights and I’m going to go out to lunch with three of my girlfriends and I love that.

I want to be all these things, but I can’t do everything. So, I started saying, okay, what am I going to let go of? What are the things I’m not going to do? I love having a clean house. But I don’t have to be the one to do it.

I love having family dinner, but I don’t have to plan the whole dinner and do everything. We do meal kits. The kids each have a night of the week that’s their night to cook based on what meal they chose out of the meal kits. And they’re learning to cook. They’re cooking three of the nights, takeout’s going to be one night, pizza’s going to be another night. I will probably cook on Sunday. That is the one that you can get from me. But we still get to have dinner.

So, I started looking at what are the things that I want? I want to have dinner as a family, but that doesn’t mean I have to cook every dinner. And it was like, okay, what could this look like? I love feeling healthy and exercising and all that, but that doesn’t mean that I have to have a 1.5-2-hour crazy workout at a gym every day. I can do a 30-minute version and that could work for me. So, just this looking at what are all the things I want to be, but if I can’t do it all, how is that going to look?

CAMILLE [53:44]

Yeah. Oh my goodness. We have been so well-fed. I’m thinking I’ve got to listen back to this and write down some extra notes. I’m sure people who are listening have been doing that as well. And if you haven’t been, grab that paper. Listen back again because this has been so great. Thank you so much for sharing all of these time-saving hacks with us and your approach to life. It’s just very clear that you love being and doing and I love that so much, that concept of “and” not having to be an “or.” So, please tell our audience where they can find you.

LEAH [54:16]

Absolutely, okay. So, go to www.leahremillet.com. I know Remillet’s not the easiest, so you can text yourself really quick, it’s L-E-A-H R-E-M-I-L-L-E-T dot com. If you do forward slash quiz, you’re going to get to that productivity quiz and you’re going to learn what your specific power move is to get more time back.

We also have a free training. It’s less than 45 minutes and my promise is to get you 6 to 8 hours a week back. So, you give me less than 45 minutes, I’m going to give you 6 to 8 hours a week. I feel like that’s a pretty good trade. And as I shared, go to my blog. There’s going to be a sidebar. You can find all kinds of resources there. And then, of course, on Instagram, also @leahremillet and I would love to know what stood out to people in this episode. So, if you would share like, “I found you from Camille,” we can both talk about how amazing she is. And you can send me a DM and tell me something that you’re going to try or that you have done that maybe I need to try. I would love that too.

CAMILLE [55:15]

Awesome. Thank you so much. We’ll make sure to link to all of those links below and we will see you next week. Thank you so much for being here.

LEAH [55:23]

Thank you.

[MUSIC]

CAMILLE [55:27]

Hey, if you’re listening to this episode right now and thinking, “I am so overwhelmed, I need help, I need to start outsourcing,” please reach out to me. That is what I help people do. @camillewalker.co, you can DM me and get a match up for a virtual assistant who will be a great fit for you. I have the 60 Days to VA program where I vet every single student and they are trained to be incredible teammates for you. This is an awesome opportunity whether you’re looking to build a business as a virtual assistant or you need some help with the overwhelm, you need to outsource, reach out to me. Let’s make it happen. It doesn’t have to be hard.

Hey, CEOs. Thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment and a 5-star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram @callmeceopodcast. And remember, you are the boss.

[56:25]