Anna speaks to Anna Konchar in the latest episode in her interview series.
Anna Konchar launched her side hustle running Facebook and Instagram ads for small and local businesses alongside her corporate job. Today, she is an online business mentor with plenty of free time for her husband, two daughters, and her vegetable garden.
*Resources mentioned during the episode*
The Outsiders Business Academy – A self-paced course for you to work through in your own time, to learn – and implement – the foundations of building a profitable business that lets you escape the 9 to 5. onestepoutside.com/course
Anna’s Website – https://www.annakonchar.com/
Anna’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/annakonchar/
Anna’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/annakonchar/
Anna’s YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/AnnaKoncharOfficial
Anna’s Podcast show – https://yourmilliondollarsidehustle.com/
Digital marketing side hustle
Anna Lundberg
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this month escaping the nine to five interview on the Reimagining Success podcast. And I’m here with Anna Konchar. And Anna, why don’t you dive straight in and tell us what were you doing before? And what are you doing now?
Anna Konchar
Sure. Well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to chat today. So my story is actually very similar to yours, Anna, and that is that I worked in marketing. And I worked on the agency side, I started that right after college. And after working for a few years, I decided that my entire life goal was to be a CPG brand manager.
And in order to do that, I needed to go back to school. So I went back to school, I got my MBA, I was like, on the
fast track to getting that CPG brand manager job. I had an an internship during my MBA program with a CPG brand. within like three weeks, I was like, This is not what I want. I went to school, this, I thought this is what I wanted. And I realized I hated the corporate world. Like it was meeting after meeting, I was one of you know, 10,000 employees, it was just not what I was thinking it was not as sexy as it looks in the movies, right. And also, during that internship, I, my dad passed away unexpectedly in the middle of that summer. And these two things really made me kind of take a step back and ask myself what I really wanted. Because I think whenever you have someone close to you die, or you have something unexpected happen in your life, it really is a time of reflection and figuring out, you know, what is it that you want, instead of being on kind of autopilot, which I think a lot of us are, we’re just doing the same thing every day. And we’re, you know, we’re just like, This is what’s comfortable. So I went back to my grad school program, I had no idea what I was going to do when I graduated. I just knew I wanted to not sell crap to people, you know, I didn’t want to be selling toilet paper as my life goal. And I ended up going into politics actually, um, which is very interesting. I was literally working 24/7. During the 2016 election, I worked on over 50 different, like gubernatorial races, lots of different, lots of different races, which was interesting. And it was a great learning experience, because it gave me my first look into digital advertising. So that is where I learned Facebook and Instagram ads, Google search ads, YouTube ads, email marketing, lead generation, all these things. And it was amazing from a learning experience. But I realized also that I like marketing. I don’t love politics, right. And also politics, it doesn’t matter which side you’re on or whatever side you choose, it’s all a bunch of BS. So I don’t feel like I was actually contributing that much value, like I thought I would be when I started. So realizing this, also, at this time, realizing that I didn’t want to work 6070 hour weeks forever, because at this point, my husband and I had been married, you know, five, six ish years. And I couldn’t imagine doing that and also having a family. So I decided that I was going to start a side hustle. And it was mainly in the beginning to pay off student loans. So my husband went to law school, I got my MBA, combined all together, we had over $200,000 in student loan debt. And there was no way I was going to be able to make a change unless we were able to get rid of some of that debt. So I started a side hustle running Facebook and Instagram ads for small and local businesses. And within less than two years, I was able to scale that to six figures on the side. I ended up going all in in my business in 2018. But at the same time, I realized that I didn’t want to build an agency which are a consulting firm because that’s what I was trying to leave. So I I needed to figure out a way to scale without having to have a giant team or take on lots and lots of clients and work all the time. And that’s kind of when I was introduced to this whole idea of online courses, memberships and coaching. So in 2018, I launched my first successful course called advisor Insider’s Pro, which basically teaches other people how to run Facebook and Instagram ads for small and local businesses. Because what I was finding is when I was working with these businesses, they needed help, and they saw the benefit of it. But they didn’t have the time to learn it themselves. And it was a very high in demand skill. And even now, today, even more than 2018. So I said, this side hustle was able to change my life. Why don’t I teach other people how to do this, instead of having to do things like an MLM, or start a blog or become an influencer? It was like a legitimate side business. So I’ve been running that program for over four years, I’ve helped over 2000 people launch their own side hustles. And now I am at home with I have two little girls now, I work two days a week, I have a small team of contractors. And I have made over seven figures every year for the last four years. So I basically replaced my one on one clients with courses and memberships. And then in the past year, we launched my powered by passive Academy program, which is a membership model to teach others how to do what I did, which was take your skills, and build it into an online course membership or group coaching program. So you can have the same flexibility freedom that I have.
Anna Lundberg
Well, goodness, first of all, let’s stop there and celebrate because that’s incredible. So congratulations, of course, I do hear other stories that aren’t so successful. So it’s always really great to hear the positive stories. And it’s interesting to hear the different reflections and, and sort of not really pivots as such, but at least kind of reminding yourself of what’s important and making sure you’re intentionally building what you wanted to build. So obviously, going back to your studies, I’m very sorry about your father that personal events can have an impact and an important one. And you know, it’s so banal, almost, but life is short, and is so precious. And something like that can can really help to remind you of that in a very, unfortunately tragic way. It’s interesting that you studied well, I studied politics and then went into marketing. So very similar territory, I tend to not really go into that. And it’s, you know, it’s interesting, because I always think because I Euro selling perfume. So for us, it was like smelly water. It’s not a very useful product. 300 products were being launched a year, and I had that I’m not sure if I’m really contributing to like making the world a better place. And no judgement because lots of people and I still admire the people who are doing incredibly well. And like career path, I’m so passionate about it, there’s so much more talented than I ever was at those things. And it’s just finding the thing that that feels meaningful to you, right. And then of course, works with your lifestyle, and all these other things. But it is interesting, because you can look on at politics and think, wow, it’s such a great way to make an impact. And then as you said, once you get inside, how the recipes are made on the inside of the restaurant, it’s not quite as, as tempting as it was before, I suppose if you kind of danced around it, but you know, definition of success is something I talked about. And you sort of jokingly said that, you know, it’s being a brand manager in CPG. But I think there is a truth to there is a certain career paths certainly for us. It’s not so much the case. Now with Gen Z and everyone coming up, they actually have a very different view, I think even from us, and we’re not even that older, we, you know, really thinking of, okay, of course, I’m gonna go to college, and I’m going to then go and do an MBA, and I’m going to have this career and I’m going to be in there the rest of my life, or at least in the same industry. And actually, I think they say now you’re going to have four or five careers, not just jobs, but But you know, careers. And even better, and I’m on the same page as you you know, working for yourself. Having your own business is such a fantastic solution, I guess. How would you define success today, and you don’t need to have a perfect pithy sentence. I’m sure you can say it very articulately. But you know, what does that look like for you? There’s lots of things that you’ve mentioned that sound hugely successful, but what does it really mean to you personally?
Anna Konchar
Yeah. So I think going back to the beginning and why I got my MBA was because that is what kind of I felt like I was sold that dream of like, you get a job. You move up the corporate ladder, and then that’s what success is right? A stable job that provides, you know, kind of the safe suburbian middle class lifestyle that that you we were sold as kids and our parents were sold I think too, and that’s what my parents had. My mom was an executive. She worked all the time. him, my dad actually stayed home and freelanced. So I kind of saw both of those worlds. But that so that’s what I thought it was. And honestly, I went and got my MBA because I wanted to make six figures. By the time I was 30. That was my, my version of success, right. And I thought that that was the easiest path for me to do it, and also do it in something that I was interested in, which was marketing. Now, success, to me looks totally different. I could care less about what someone’s job title is who they work for. Anything like that. The thing that is successful for me is that number one, my time like that is I’ve been very strategic since I started my business, that the number one thing that it had to be about was lifestyle. So it wasn’t about money. Or even, you know, the making the biggest impact in the entire world, it was truly about, like, what is the lifestyle that I want to have, because life is too short. And so for me, it’s owning my time. And now that I have kids really spending as much time as I can with them that I like to be with them. But also doing something that I’m really excited and interested in like, I love going to work, which my work is my office in my house, right? Like I get excited. Even though I do spend the majority of my time with my family, I get excited when I get to sit down and talk with other people and brainstorm and come up with new ideas and test those ideas. And it’s really the fact that I get to be creative in my work, right? Like when you’re in the kind of traditional nine to five corporate job, there’s so much red tape, you know, you have this idea, and you want to share it with your team or your clients or whoever. And by the time it gets through everyone, it’s like not even the idea that you came up with. And it’s six months later, when you finally get the go ahead to try it. So I love that I get to be creative. So really Success to me is owning my own time, being able to be creative, and really enjoy the work that I’m doing. Also being able to pivot so that when my you know what I enjoy changes, or when I’m interested changes, because I own my own business, I can change the business, it’s not like I’m stuck in this one way, right. And then of course money. So like, I don’t want to have to worry about money, right? Like, it’s a big thing. I think we’ve all seen it in our lives, I’ve done a lot of reflection on kind of the money mindset that I was brought up with, and really wanting to not have that to be a stressor in my life. And then really just the impact and seeing what I can actually do, like I love pushing myself to be able to go further. Try something new. And that’s really what success is, for me is all of those things combined. And it’s I know that it’s different for everyone. And that’s one of the things that I really like to talk with people who I coach with, is that, my what I look like and what I’ve built in my business is great for me, but you need to build it the way it’s going to work for you. Yes, and
Anna Lundberg
this is just speaking my language because of course a lot of people say you’ve got to do a course you’ve got to do webinar format, you have to follow. And of course, that’s not the case at all. Having said that, I do think the sort of the freedom, autonomy, creative, freedom, flexibility, managing rain time, doing interesting work. And so one is absolutely common, certainly to all the people I work with, and I’m sure all the people you work with, I do think there are people who have other ambitions and higher financial goals that put maybe that before lifestyle, and so on. But I think as you said, putting lifestyle first is really still quite new. And unfortunately, I think sometimes when you do that you assume speaking of money mindset that you have to compromise on financials, and oh, yes, I’m just gonna have my little coaching business here. And I love doing it. But you know, oh, I’ll just have to accept that I’ll not be able to make money. So I think what’s really powerful is to hear a success story like this, where you can absolutely have those things, you know, the sort of hard work and you’re ambitious and you’re making a big impact. But you’re also able to now work two days a week and manage it alongside your kids and so on. I mean, it sounds like you’ve navigated this very confidently and seamlessly and so on. But I imagine I almost hope but that’s the end sounds a bit mean that there are some challenges along the way. So you know what, what difficulties have you had and how have you overcome those I suppose to get to where You are along the way.
Anna Konchar
Yeah, absolutely. There have been lots of challenge you. Yes, it has not been all easy breezy, I will say. So the biggest challenge for me was when I first got started, obviously learning how to find my own clients, because I had come from an agency world, a consulting world, where we just had clients. And that’s my work done, right. So figuring out, even just how to attract my own clients, and how to market my own business, which made me deal with a lot of imposter syndrome, because my entire profession was advertising and marketing. And here, I felt like I had no idea how to market and advertise my own business and attract my own clients. So that was a really big mindset hurdle. And then once I was able to kind of get beyond that, and feel really confident in my ability to land clients, and you know, I put together all the processes of proposals and packaging and all of that kind of stuff. Then my next big challenge was figuring out how to scale that, because like I said, I did not want to have a big agency, I didn’t want to hire a bunch of people. But I also didn’t want to what I call like, ride the revenue roller coaster, right, which is like you land a client, you lose a client land two clients, you lose three clients, and it’s just like, not stable, which is really any business if you’re not constantly generating new leads. But I didn’t want to just do one on one services. So that was when I went into kind of the courses, membership coaching, and trying to figure that out. And I probably spent a year listening to literally every piece of free content out there, taking literally every free webinar from all the big names, and I’m talking about this is like 2015 2016, because again, I was convinced like I’m a marketer, I can figure this out, we’ll just read verse engineer what they’re doing. And then I launched my first membership, and two people bought it. That was like, so embarrassed, so embarrassed, mostly because I thought like, this was gonna be a huge success the very first time which I think a lot of us do, because we see all the big flashing numbers on the internet. And I actually refunded those two people their money, because I was so embarrassed, I kind of was like, Nope, I’m not going to do this. This isn’t for me, I’m done. I’m just going to stick with my one on one services. But then about a year later, I decided no, this is I really want to make this work like this is the key to having the lifestyle that I want the income that I want, the flexibility that I want. And the impact because I kept on seeing the same things coming up with my one on one clients, that it was like, I just need to put this in a program so that I can teach hundreds and 1000s of people this instead of just helping these five clients that I have. So that’s when I relaunched the course advisory insiders Pro that I’ve been running for four years now. And I had five people buy it, which this time I was ecstatic. Because I’d also worked one with one on one clients who were course creators and coaches. So I kind of knew I just knew a lot more about what to expect how to make it better. So that’s been that’s probably the biggest challenge is like those failures and then being like, Okay, let’s try this again. And, you know, now I’m even doing that, again, where we’ve had this very successful program. It’s amazing, but I want to help people in another way too, which is learning all of these things that I’ve learned over the last five years growing, you know, a multimillion dollar online business and doing it also in a way again, that is that kind of lifestyle first because I think we do see so much hustle and constant you know, content creation like you feel like you have to be on Instagram every day and you need it. You know, a YouTube channel and a podcast and Tik Tok now and whatever the newest latest greatest thing is, which doesn’t really work if you want the lifestyle of it. So that’s where I you know, I believe that everything in business costs time or money. And in the beginning, you have time typically. And then you have to get to this point where are you going to spend time or money and I choose to spend money so I run face spokesman Instagram ads all the time for my business attracting people to our programs so that I don’t have to rely on beating the algorithm or what is the latest trending audio on reels or whatever. Because that’s just not what I’m into. So, yeah, I think I’ve just had to figure out how to do it my way, because there are so many people with different opinions. And yeah,
Anna Lundberg
yes. And I think we’ve all done that thing. And I’m sure many listeners have to have listened to all the free stuff. And there’s so much available. And in some ways, you don’t even really need to pay anyone because there’s all the stuff is there all the knowledge and answers are there, what you don’t get is the tailored support, the sounding board, the guidance, the feedback, the coaching, the mentoring, etc, right. That’s what we’re missing from there. But I think that’s that’s such a great thing in terms of democratizing, I suppose, but it can also be confusing, I’m reminded of following all sorts of gurus and the beginning when I got very confused and didn’t really know what I wanted. But I did want to pick up on before we segue into the business model, which you kind of danced around already. But the this idea of, as you said, getting those two clients because I say this, and again, this is an important message to everyone listening, it happened to me too, I did a live workshop foolishly because I had no audience, it was literally when I was just starting out. And of course, nobody would show up to that. One person signed up. And I, in the end had to say, Oh, it’s a white lie here. But oh, it’s fully booked. Now, I’m afraid, but I will have really turned it into a one to one coaching session for you. So I which gave her more value, in fact, and after that, I launched my group program, which absolutely only had a handful of people. But I think it’s in a way, in being so sort of in a way selfish and embarrassed ourselves, we forget that these are people who’ve chosen to show up trust to you invest in you. And whether you help that, you know, treat that one person as if they’re the most important person, they’ll go around, and there’ll be an ambassador for life and support you and tell other people and then next time, you might have five people and then next time 10 people and then before you know multimillion dollar business, right. So I think it is just debunking that idea that you’re supposed to get it right the first time. And as you said, if you’re used to the big corporate machine, we used to have sales teams and marketing teams and all this stuff behind you finance. And as you said, the clients were there. Now suddenly, you’re having to create everything, which which is a whole different ballgame. And unfortunately, especially like you I came from a marketing background thinking, I can do this, I certainly don’t need to ask for advice. And I shouldn’t admit that I’m struggling. And those kinds of a little bit of ego kind of gets in the way, doesn’t it? But but so just remind us you’ve talked about a little bit. So the business model now is you’ve got the tell us what the pieces of the puzzle are?
Anna Konchar
Sure. So the business model now is really we have two core offerings. So I basically faded out my one on one, Facebook and Instagram ads and sales funnels services once I’d had kids. Because, you know, as a nursing mom, you have no idea when your kids are going to nurse or nap and trying to do client meetings was very difficult. And also, both of my kids were pretty much during the pandemic when everything was shut down. And so that has phased out, I no longer do one on one services. Now I just do courses and memberships. So I have that course that I’ve talked about a few times advisory insiders Pro, which is a six week program. That is a course that teaches you
how to basically build your own Facebook and Instagram ads management business. So and we do it in a way that you can do it on the side, whether it’s you’re in a corporate job, or your student, or you’re a parent who stays at home and you want something to do during nap time. That’s that what that is all about. So it’s a six week course. And then after that if you want to continue to have support, we have an alumni program that is a monthly membership model. That course is a little less than $4,000. And then we have a 50% off offer that we give a few times a year. So the typical price is about $2,000 for that program. Then we have the other program which we launched this year called powered by passive Academy. This is a monthly membership program specifically to help you turn whatever skills and passions you have into an online course membership or group coaching program. So very similar to what I did, right? Like, how do you go from this skill that you have to actually creating something where you can make some passive income from it. And that monthly membership is $297 a month as the basic membership and then we also have a VIP membership which really is more kind of the like, one on one consulting so we’re looking we’re revealing all of your emails where or reviewing your sales pages, your webinar, everything that goes into really selling your offer. But what makes that program very unique is i There are lots of people on the internet, teaching you how to build a course or a membership or coaching program, right? The problem is, is that the majority of them are telling you to ask your audience what they want or validate your offer from your audience. And most of us don’t have audiences, like you said, when you started, you know, you had this workshop that no one signed up for I had two people join my program. And it’s because you have no one to sell to. So when you look at the big names in this industry, or kind of in the online knowledge based business space, you can’t copy what they’re doing, because they have hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of people on their, you know, podcast, listening to their podcasts on their email lists, following them on social that they can literally turn around and sell to like that. And so what our program is really about is like using Facebook ads, to test your ideas in front of 1000s of people very similar to like what we used to do with focus groups, right? Like you instead of you asked five people what they thought, well, instead of asking five people, let’s ask 5000, what they think of this, and then using that data and information, to build out a product that people actually want, and value, and then learning how to sell it in an automated way. So that’s really what we focus on is validating the offer with cold audiences, people who’ve never heard of you before and learning how to sell to them. Because if you’re an average entrepreneur, you don’t have that big giant audience to sell to. When it comes to, you know, of course membership or coaching.
Anna Lundberg
That’s interesting, it’s always good to hear the different setup, I love the course Plus membership kind of model that that always works well. And then the kind of program plus VIP is another great option. Really interesting point about, again, the big gurus with the massive platforms because I see people try to emulate them posting generic inspirational quotes and then thinking they’re going to get 1000s of people into their courses and say, Whoa, and and you’re right, unfortunately, they’re too far ahead. Now they I’ve worked with someone, they just don’t think they remember what it was like to be right at the beginning. So they say, Oh, just do this. And then the you’ve obviously got 1000s of people, but you don’t even have 1000s of people to begin with. So I think that’s really interesting. And it’s very different, actually, although consistent, but but different. I don’t do a lot of the paid stuff at all. So I guess, thinking of now the personal brand, because of course you’re here speaking to me, is that something that you have been doing or something that you’re looking to do more now, but become more known as the expert behind the business?
Anna Konchar
Yes. So I will 100% say that. Prior to this year, I was kind of like, I’m just gonna stay over here and hide behind the ads, and let them do the work for me. And, you know, I, I have that down, like, I know how to run ads. And I’m 100% confident and I’ve navigated all the changes in Facebook and Instagram and YouTube for the last you know, since basically 2012. So I got fully competent in that. But, you know, I think that, again, kind of we all start with one we either start with organic, or we can we start with paid. And I’m realizing that if I want to have the impact that I want to have, I have to you know, build my brand as a person too. And everything that I heard from, you know, my students would be like Anna, we love getting on coaching calls with you, which that’s my favorite thing to do in my business is get to work with, you know, actually having conversations. So yeah, so that is definitely something we’re working on now. So I went to my first live conference coaching event this past summer, and it was amazing. And it definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. Like I got up in front of 100 people and got coached which you would think I know I was like I’m a pretty confident person. I was sweating, right? But it really was kind of like okay, if you want to continue to grow if you want to take the business to the next level, you need to start doing things other than just paid ads. So like we the minute I got back I was wrote down okay, what are the things that need to happen for us to go to the next place in our business and but also still do it in a way that aligns with that lifestyle? Right because that’s my biggest thing. My biggest thing is I want to grow but I want to continue to only work two days a week. So I you know, we hired a we have a PR manager now. I’ve never worked with him PR manager ever. And but I would rather someone go out and say, Hey Anna, we need to get your name out there. And this is how we’re going to do it and they do it. But also we’ve done things like, we restarted our podcast, we’re turning our podcasts into a YouTube channel. These are all things that to me our long term plays, right? They’re not things that we’re going to see ROI from. Immediately. We’re like, if I turn on ads, I can tell you in five days, I’m gonna get sales. But I also know from a longevity standpoint, from the business, for me, as a personal brand, like these are things that I need to practice and get comfortable with. And also just start putting myself out there more. So it’s definitely evolving, which that’s what I’ve also learned about business is, I think, when I started, I thought there was going to be like this endpoint where I was just like, everything is perfect. I don’t have to, we’re not changing anything. And what I’ve learned is, that is not the truth at all. It’s constantly evolving, because we constantly evolve as people, right? And that’s also what makes it fun. Because then you get to be creative and try new things. So
Anna Lundberg
that’s exhausting, right and overwhelming, because you think because you say I’m gonna find the one right business model, and then that’s it, tada, I’m successful, but the world evolves, you evolve. So that’s exciting. But it’s also a bit, ah, I can’t just sit in sort of ride the wave, or at least not for very long. But it’s interesting, as you said, with the business that you need to, we don’t need you, but you’re choosing to, I guess, add a different dimension to it. And I’m a big believer in that personal brand, giving you the longevity above and beyond the business as as an expert who could then if you decide not to do the Facebook or Instagram or different kinds, of course, you would still bring your credibility with you from that, right. That’s so interesting. And I love the language as well of the comfort zone in a way because even in the success that you have now, after all these years in the industry, but also then as an entrepreneur, and so one, there are still things that are outside of your comfort zone. And so yeah, being coached on stage, maybe speaking more during the piano, you know, the fact that you now have the income, of course, means that you can invest in getting the right support for that. You can’t do all the things all the time. From the beginning, we have, as you said, time or money generally. And you’re in the fortunate position now and you’re choosing to invest the money. But I think that’s a really interesting one. Again, we think there are, yes, I just need to do this one thing, or now I’m going to build it around this thing that’s comfortable. But that comfort zone changes and evolves. And you will probably need to then look at the next thing, right? But we can take it step by step and layer those things on rather than have to go to do the podcast and the speaking and the ads and everything in one day that can be impossible will be impossible, in fact.
Anna Konchar
Yeah. I mean, we’re almost I mean, I’ve been in business for six years now. And we’re just now evolving into this. So and everyone’s journey looks different. Yeah, I’m
Anna Lundberg
just coming around. Because I know you said you had two little girls, and they assimilate to mine. So I very much appreciate chaos around you. I mean, how does that look? So you work two days a week? Are they the same days? Every week? How does that look like for us just
Anna Konchar
so i When my so I have a three year old and an 18 month old, two daughters. And the when the three year old was born, we were just kind of like, we’ll figure it out. And I kind of mostly did the naptime hustle thing, which worked out really well until she went down to one nap a day. And I was like, okay, can’t work for only two hours, and not always consistently. So we now have a nanny who comes in two days a week. And I work Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are my days to work. And actually the earlier this year, my husband also left corporate life. So he is now staying at home and with the girls and helping and kind of figuring out what he wants to do next too. But it’s really good to have for me personally to have a schedule, right? Like I Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days. We’re recording this on a Monday. The only reason why I’m working on a Monday today is because Thanksgiving is coming up. We have a holiday right? So this Thursday, I won’t be working so I’m working today instead but most every week, Tuesdays and Thursdays that that’s that’s it unless something you know, pops up on the calendar and thankfully since now my husband is at home, we have the flexibility to do that too. I really do try to sit down eight to five, Tuesdays and Thursdays
Anna Lundberg
nice and then again yeah, the fact that you can talk we always forget about Thanksgiving saris because we just don’t have that we just go straight from Halloween to Christmas, unfortunately. So yeah, straight through. But I think that’s interesting because I work Mondays Wednesdays and Thursdays. So I’m glad that I didn’t interfere with your schedule. But you know, sometimes it’s hard to get it if everyone’s doing their own little schedule. Yes, quite hard to make things right. But then the flexibility of it, you can make a choice. So I have those days as a sacred, no meetings. Usually I’m working on I book or a course or something, you know, the business development piece or whatever. But of course, sometimes if it’s a, an important client and you need to get a call in or something like that, then you can have the opportunity to choose intentionally to make that happen. But it’s that I love that the two days a week and Tuesday and Thursday feels good, because it’s not not too long or break anytime I suppose you get quite a long weekend at you from Friday through to Monday. But since you’ve got a team around you, I imagine that you still manage that.
Anna Konchar
Yeah, we have a I have an amazing team. We have four core people who, they’re all contractors, but they have worked with me all of them for almost at least two years or more. So, you know, we’ve definitely figured out kind of our who’s covering what and we’re have our lanes that we stick into a trust each other. We’re very good at communicating, we have one team meeting for an hour, once a week. That’s it. So yeah, we try to be as efficient as possible. And that’s
Anna Lundberg
a curiosity, because it’s a question that comes up. What was your approach to hire those people? Do you go by an agency? Have you chosen local people? What’s been your approach?
Anna Konchar
Great question. So no one is local, I started kind of like everyone, the very first hire was a VA. And I even hired her when I was still at my nine to five job. And I think when I first hired her, it was for like five hours a month, like something very, extremely small, but it would dip my toes, right. And she was the only a contractor that I worked with for probably about two or three years. And then we kind of went through kind of a phase of like, we had a copywriter that worked with us. And then right before my first was born, I had a OBM or an online business manager reached out to me. And it was really interesting, because we I’ve been talking about I need a project manager, like I need to not be the one to make sure that everything is getting done. And she cold emailed me, which if you don’t believe in cold emails, I’m just gonna say you need to do it. I mean, I believe like, number one, if you’re needing something, and you really want it like the universe, God, whoever you believe in is totally going to bring it to you. And that’s honestly how the majority of our hires have happened. But I had been thinking about, I need a project manager, especially once our oldest is born, you know, I was pregnant at the time. And she called email me and she’s like, Hey, Anna, my name is Carolyn, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know, we’re in the middle of a launch, let’s talk next month, we got on one zoom call, and I was like, this girl is it like, we I need her on my team. And Carolyn, was, I can’t, she was transitioning from her nine to five to her business, I was her very first client, and in the online business space. And now she’s been with me for over three years, she literally runs my entire business basically, on the back end. And you know, we again, went from like, a few hours a month to where she is today. And then beyond that, she’s helped with a lot of hiring too. So either most, a lot of it is through networking, and word of mouth. You know, once you get into this space, you really realize how small it is. So people she’s worked with, or I’ve worked with, but it’s never really been job postings or anything like that, you know, we’ve found some people through Instagram, but it is there’s no like one specific way that we’ve done it. It’s been kind of a variety of just figuring out who we need and the skill sets that they bring.
Anna Lundberg
Nice. That’s very helpful. It’s interesting, I was a bit reluctant there to it to blanket except the efficiency of cold emails. And I think such a bad rap from the awful like 99% of emails to me are just like, they have no idea who I am. They’re completely irrelevant. Spelling mistakes is awful. What I love in that story is again, as inspiration for the audience, if they’re just starting out, that person came across to you, as someone very compelling it came at the right time, you had a color there, clearly, she was competent, she convinced you that she was the right person, and yet, you will have first clients. So in terms of, you know, hustling, I guess a little bit and so on, if you can write something compelling, if you believe you have the expertise and you can walk the talk and then deliver, don’t hold back just because you don’t have the experience yet or you haven’t yet. You know, that’s that’s an amazing example, I think so it’s a warning to those who are just kind of, hey, hello, I can get you on the first page of Google. That’s not the right approach, but they’re tailored, you know, actually having looked at your business, Oh, wow. She’s at the kind of point in our business where she’s successful, but she probably needs you know, the support and She obviously read that really well. And Anna contracts been such a pleasure to hear about your business and and the lifestyle first approach which I say value so many common themes and such inspiring stories there as well. Where can we find you? Where is your podcast? What’s your website? What’s the best place to to find out about you?
Anna Konchar
Yeah, absolutely. So my website is Anna con char, that’s k onchar.com. You combine all the things there from the podcast to the programs and things that I offer. My podcast is called your million dollar side hustle where you can find it wherever you listen. So and of course, I’m on Instagram, you know, and the millennial female over that only one staying out on Instagram. I feel like I still haven’t dipped my toes in Tik Tok because I just can’t go there yet. But
Anna Lundberg
I have fostered the app to upload some videos now and then which is not an effective strategy. So I’m very foolishly trying to dip my toes without having any results of course, but you know, it’s good to stay on top of these things, just in case but a strategic priority for now.
Anna Konchar
Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Anna Concha
Anna Lundberg
Mesa and we’ll put the details so we’ll have the spelling and everything but that’s fine but lovely to speak to fellow Anna really great to hear your story and congratulations on your success and here’s to the next phase into building your personal brand and excited to hear and stay in touch with what’s next for you. Thank you so much.
Anna Konchar
Thank you, Anna.
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