Juggling Motherhood & Entrepreneurship with Joanne Homestead

Welcome to the Real Life Momz podcast. It is time to take a break from all our to-dos and carve out this time to focus on ourselves. I'm Lisa Foster, your host, and today I'm here with fellow mom Joanne Homestead, and she is an email copywriter, a holistic copy coach, and she's a passionate storyteller.

And today we are talking about pressures and high expectations that we place on ourselves. So thank you, Joanne, for coming on the show. Yeah. Thank you Lisa, for having me here. I'm really excited to be able to talk. , I love talking all things mom and entrepreneurship. And I love that you're a storyteller because you do it in a way that people actually wanna listen.

So that's amazing. And I know that's the backbone of your brand, your own business. So I'm gonna use your expertise and say maybe you can tell us your story about launching your own business and kind of those bumps in the road. Oh yes, the bumps. And the [00:01:00] potholes and the stop signs and.

All that stuff. Yes. , I'd love to, to share that. So I was a teacher for 15 years. My whole background and career is, is teaching so I actually tried leaving teaching a few different times because of the pressure and the expectations and.

Everything was just causing me to have just, I don't sleep very well, just working a lot. It was very stressful, but I kept , going back to teaching so I found out about the online business world. It was a month before the lockdown in 2020.

20, right? 2020. Yeah. Yeah. And , I remember I found out about it actually from an email. His subject line said, calling all teachers. I remember it was like all in caps and I saw that and I was like, I'm a teacher. I need to open this email. Let's sit [00:02:00] inside. And he was speaking at a free online summit. Hosted by a former teacher, and she was interviewing, I think 15 to 20 former teachers.

Their stories of why they left teaching and all the reasons that I heard were like, check, check, check, check, check for me, like yes. , and then what online business that they started. And I, I literally had to listen to every single one of those interviews. I remember I was drive, I would drive to school, which was about like a 35 minute commute for me.

I would listen to an interview going to school, and I would listen to an interview coming back. And at, I think it was at the end of two weeks, like the light bulb finally went off and I said, okay, I can leave teaching. I know what I can do. And I think at this time, like two weeks later, the lockdown happened and I told my husband, I was like, this is it.

This is the sign. This is my, this is my exit strategy. Um, and then from there I did start my, my online business, , first as a virtual assistant and [00:03:00] so from from there I got hooked into the email marketing got hooked into the copywriting. I mean, I did not even know what a copywriter was when I started my business.

No idea. I don't even know if I know. So you'll have to tell us too, like I'm like, what is an email copywriter? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I mean, someone asked me that recently, like, what is a copywriter? So as a copywriting, it's basically using the written word to persuade someone to take an action. How I got hooked into copywriting is because that's what I was passionate about doing as a teacher. It's the same thing.

. Not necessarily through the written word, but through teaching, through curriculum, through lessons, through storytelling. I mean, everything, everything in the classroom is infused with how do I hook? All these kids in, how do I engage them? How do I help them? Like how do I, how do I [00:04:00] inform them so that they understand that, oh, this is relevant to me and I wanna take this action.

I wanna own this action. Not just be forced by someone, like a teacher to do something. Mm-hmm. But I actually wanna do this thing 'cause I really understand why I need to do this thing. So taking the action. So really I felt like, oh, I've just been doing this for 15 years. and now I've just pivoted into doing it more in like written word.

. Well, it's interesting though because I feel like I, I've gotten those emails like, , healthcare professionals , take your healthcare profession online. I'm like, yes. And then all of a sudden it's like, how do I do that? Like, yeah, I'm a man, so I love that you. Kind of figured away.

'cause it's not, it sounds easy. It sounded easy. Like I've been teaching, I'm doing all this stuff already. But now you're doing it very differently online and helping people with a specific piece that you really enjoy. But that's a hard. [00:05:00] Thing to figure out what am I going to do?

Mm-hmm. To use the knowledge I already have and be able to share it with people in a different format online. Right? Mm-hmm. So how did you navigate that? Because I'm sure there's like, like that That would be my stop sign, right? Like, oh, this sounds exciting, I'm so excited, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something online.

And then I'm like, I don't know what to do. Stop. You know, like gonna go back on to the office and do what I normally do, right? Yeah. So how did you navigate that? , to me it felt. It felt very natural to me, but that's only because I, I honed the skill I felt like for 15 years, and what I mean is that I, I was just, that was what I was passionate about in teaching and so I, I loved to hone that skill over on like 15 years.

Every year having different students, different audience, needing to engage with them differently and how to get them to take an action. [00:06:00] And so when I first started out as a virtual assistant, I wrote, email newsletters for a few different clients at the time, and they all said the same thing.

People are respo, like they're responding. They're actually taking the time to respond because it's res, it's resonating with them. The message is resonating. The stories are resonating, and it's creating an emotional connection. And the emotional connection drives them to wanna take the action. But it's like in a manipulative way, not in a pushy way, not with like magic pills or FOMO or anything.

It's really just an emotional connection. And that's the storytelling piece, too. . And so I think. For me, like it was, it just seemed so natural that I had to go back.

And so I really had to break down like, what, what, what, how am I even doing this? And, and what's working? How does that work? And so that was the piece where I really, it was a little, that part was a little more challenging to me 'cause I had [00:07:00] to kind of like pull myself out. Zoom out. Mm-hmm. And see what it is I was doing.

And I did, also take a couple, copywriting trainings and email marketing trainings from some of the women entrepreneurs up there in the online world , Laura Bel Gray, she's a really big one, and Tarzan K. And so those also helped me to figure out like the framework, what was exactly the framework that I was using.

. So what were some speed bumps that you actually hit? What things did you find that you needed to overcome in launching this new business? Yes. The, the bumps and the problems and, and all that. I didn't realize how much trauma I was bringing in from teaching. I brought it into my business and I didn't even realize I was, I was doing that.

I wasn't, I wasn't aware because I was on autopilot as a teacher [00:08:00] and burning out every year. It's just normal. It's just normal to burn out you take something that's just normal or hap it's just happening every year to be normal, but it's not. It's normal. But I didn't know. I didn't know at the time it was not normal . And so I brought that into my business and that was actually a really big piece of, learning for me in my business. I was the person who was just like, go, go, go. You know, high achieving. I'm gonna give it my all. I'm giving it everything I have. And not considering like, how am I taking care of myself in this, in this time?

And actually what was like the transformative moment for me was after having my second son, and he was a newborn at the time. . I was running my business and I, I basically did a full leap. I fully resigned from teaching, went fully into my business, [00:09:00] and I'm the sole income maker for our family.

Very big leap of faith and just feeling like I have to keep going. I keep growing this business. , I gotta provide fantasy for my family. After he was born, the first month I got on my first podcast, guest speaking,

I was so nervous and I don't know why I booked it after he was just born a month. That was just how I was running at the time. When he was two months old, I booked a, training that I was gonna do for a coach in her group.

And it was really after that training,, she asked me like, how are you feeling? Are you like, how are you really feeling? And I broke down crying, why you exhausted? I think I got three hours of sleep last night. The baby hasn't been sleeping well. I'm trying to run this business.

I'm trying to provide for my family, , and I, it kind of brings tears to my eyes right now because that was the first time I realized I was in a very deep hole like a [00:10:00] pit. And I did not realize I was in, even in that pit until she asked me and it all came out. What I was thinking is it's all, it's all external. That are causing me all this like pressure and having to do all these things and work, work, work and go, go, go. And that was the first time I realized

actually, there's a part of it in me too. Obviously there are external systems and situations, but I was kind of blaming it all on that and didn't realize, actually there was not a lot internally, like the internal work for me to help me realize, oh,, how much of this pressure actually is actually just coming from me?

Just about a hundred percent was internal pressure for myself. And so , that was one of the biggest things for me in my business. And since then, like working with a coach and doing the internal work. I feel like I'm, I'm in such a better place. I'm able [00:11:00] to work in my business in a way that just feels more calm.

It doesn't mean that I don't feel that pressure. Sometimes , it, it happens, but then I'm, I'm aware of it. Mm-hmm. I'm able to notice it, and if I don't notice it, I have accountability partners. I have my support network to help, help me notice something because it's hard to see what. They always say like, it's hard to see the label from the inside of a bottle.

And so I have this, I have the support networks in place to say like, oh, Joanne, like where, you know, how are you? What's going on? Okay. And then helping bring that awareness around, okay, are we still, are we, am I still working from a place of like being, is what I'm saying? Yeah. And from the place of being, I can do right.

And I from such a different place than trying to just do everything. So same story to so many entrepreneurs out there. Especially [00:12:00] I think moms who, do and take on everything. And I think when you have a business. Especially if you're a solopreneur, right?

Where you are the business and you have the expectation that your business actually has to bring in the income to support your family, there's a lot of pressure. And listening to your story. But it's funny 'cause you, you talked about burnout, right? And you were kinda trained that that was normal, which was not normal.

Yet in your own business, you were starting. To kind of feel that as well, right? That burnout. Yeah, that burnout. And I think at the end of the day, we have to also remind ourselves that we don't always have to have a reaction or an answer or a completion of something in a certain timeframe, especially when it's your own business, right?

Like you can choose. What that timeframe is, you can choose to pause [00:13:00] before you respond. Like that's the bonus of not having a boss over you. Right? You are your boss, so you get to make the rules, and I know it does feel like, oh my God, a client's calling. It's a Saturday morning, I have to answer it. But it's a Saturday morning.

And if that's not part of your routine, your, way of how you wanna run your business, then that call can wait till Monday. It can, yeah. Yeah. Right. And setting those boundaries. Yeah. I'm, that's same. I feel like the same way about, uh, whenever I realize I have that thought of I'm be, I'm behind, I'm so behind.

And then I'm thinking, is that true? I'm trying to get into this automatic asking of myself when I have a thought I go, is that, is that actually true? No, I'm actually not behind because I, I set my, my deadline so I can exactly like behind who is what I wanna [00:14:00] charge yourself. Me, me.

Still me. Some the me in front too, right? Yeah, exactly. Like I'm, I'm so, and as entrepreneurs and as moms, our to-do list is endless. It, it is literally endless. There is no end to it. And so you can get into that energy of like, oh my God, it's so behind. I have so much to do on my list. But realizing like, wait a minute, I can control my, my schedule.

Yes, the to-do list is always going to be there, and it's always gonna be endless, and that's okay. You need to take the time to figure out , what do you wanna prioritize? What's the most important thing to do? And I like the analogy, a couple coaches have told me this before of the juggling balls.

, you have the rubber balls and the glass balls. And so if you're juggling all those balls. , you have to keep the glass ball juggling because if those fall, they're gonna break.

But the rubber [00:15:00] balls, if they drop, that's okay. They're just gonna bounce and it's fine. You can pick them up, back up later if you want. So when you're looking at the to-do list and you're feeling, I'm so behind, so behind, like just thinking what are the glass balls that I need to keep juggling?

The rest can fall, it's fine. They're gonna bounce. It's okay. I can pick it up later. What I used to like saying is you're juggling like an elephant, three cats, 10 ping pong balls. There's a chainsaw, a live chainsaw going on in there. You have to decide like, okay, what do I need to put down? What, what can I really juggle here? And go back to like, does this align with my, my goal, my business goal? Does this align with my values? Does this align with the way that I want to be running my business? ,

I've been doing my own business for a while now. And what I realized too is like we do all this, multitasking. As parents. And what I am finding is when I do that, I do multiple things, not well, [00:16:00] is what I'm doing Right. I don't feel good about it. I'm not in the space. It doesn't really get done like ideally.

Mm-hmm. And I used to laugh at my husband, like, oh, you can't multitask like I can. Like it used to be a badge of honor that I wore. Yeah. Like, 'cause I was so good at it. Mm-hmm. And then I realized I'm not good at it at all. And what he's been doing all along is probably the best thing. And so now what I try to do for myself is when I prioritize, I like to, in fact, my new planner has like three things, like three spaces for our priorities for that week.

And I put my three things, only, three things that I'm gonna focus on for that week. And next week it'll be different. But when I'm at work, I'm at work. I am a hundred percent there. I'm a hundred percent with my clients. But when I come home, I'm done with work and I'm a hundred percent with my kid. I'm a hundred percent at dinner.

That's what I wanna do because that's where I am the best, and that's where I can actually [00:17:00] enjoy myself and not get burnt out. So like this. Thought of needing all these things, like listening to you, I'm like, oh my God, the cat, the, you know what? The dog will have my attention when I'm feeding her or taking her for a walk.

Those are hard times, but you know what? I hardly even know she's there when I'm. Watching a show with my husband, because that's where I am at that moment. And that feels, honestly, it's, it feels good. It feels less strung out. I feel like I can actually enjoy what I'm doing,

. Being present. I felt like that was, that was something I struggled a lot with in my business. I felt like when I was at work, I was thinking about my family. When I was with my family, I was thinking about work. I couldn't, I couldn't be in just the one place and focus on the one, the one thing.

Being present was definitely something that I really had to like dig into, like, what's going on [00:18:00] there? Why do I feel like I have to be thinking about work with when I'm, when I'm my family? And then vice versa. Is that serving me? No, no, not at all.

And it's not easy.

I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying we don't fall back, right? Yeah, yeah. But at least when you can catch yourself. And if I feel like I need to do something during the day, , and I'm at work, then I'll block the time for it. I'm not gonna think about it until, nine o'clock and from nine to nine 30, I'll take care of this.

That has a family thing. Maybe I have to make a doctor's appointment. Maybe I have to follow up on something, but I'm not doing it while trying to do something else. Absolutely. Like we are, we're not perfect. And I definitely have had times again where I just, my mind is wandering and it is really just like having that awareness and just building on it, that's the important part.

Now, what do you wish someone told you as you were transitioning, starting this new journey? What if you had a piece [00:19:00] of advice, what would you have wished to have heard? Think what it would've been is start building your, your network. You don't have to do it all on your own.

Yes. Oh my God, that's such a good one. And honestly, I learned that so late in the game. . It took me a while to figure that one out too. Like, wait a minute, I don't need to be. Alone in this. Well, and I think what happens in like business is we always think there's like a competition, , oh, I can't ask for help because then they'll be giving me their secrets of business or something.

Or , what if my clients go there instead? She's so much better. You know, there's like this like feeling, but. It's actually a total opposite of that, right? It doesn't even matter if you're doing the same thing when you're networking. It's all about helping each other and your clients because maybe you don't have a piece that you can refer over to somebody else.

Maybe they've learned how to [00:20:00] do something easy and. What I found, and I'm sure you find this too, is people want to share, people wanna share their information because I love, like if something's working really well for them, they wanna tell everybody, right? Yeah. And so, yay. Let's, let's do that.

Oh, I know. I mean, I think for me, what it was specifically about like being alone in the journey was, uh, the thought like, I ha I have to prove myself. I don't know if this is for you or any of the listeners out there. This is for me, I have to prove myself, so therefore I have to do this on my own to prove that I can do this thing that I'm capable, that , I have what it takes, and realizing that.

What am I, what am I proving to? What am I proving to myself? What's the purpose of that? And realizing that I don't need to prove myself. I'm, I'm just, I'm here, I'm on this journey and I want to, it's goes [00:21:00] back to what you said, like, I wanna help people.

So if I wanna help people, then. Like just, yeah, go start building a network and ask, ask people for advice, suggestions, most people are willing and if not, that's okay too. Everyone has their boundaries. But I would say for the most part, every people are just, yeah, they wanna help, they want to share, they want to, be able to uplift.

Yeah. And I think as moms, right, one thing we have a hard time doing is asking for help. For help, , and people wanna help, right? Like, don't you love helping someone with, with something you're good at? Like, don't get me wrong, like, I don't wanna, I hate making meals like that is not my thing. Yes, if you need food, I will probably purchase something and bring it to you.

Like that is just not my thing. But. If you want advice, if you want like something that I've done before, oh my God. Like I wanna help, like people wanna help with the things they enjoy doing. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, we just need to ask, asking is huge and definitely [00:22:00] something that all moms need to do,

yes. Yeah, definitely. So I'm gonna ask you, because you are an expert in this email marketing and I.

Tell us a little bit about email marketing, like why people, people might not know why it's so important. I think a lot of people in business don't use emails enough, so tell us a little bit why it's important and then maybe we're gonna ask you to share some of your secrets that can really change.

The results that maybe people can respond, buy what we want to offer, things like that? Yes. Okay. I could talk about email marketing for days and days and days. So email marketing for me, first of all, like why I meant email marketing, because for some people they're like, email, well, why? Because this is how I, this is how I imagine it.

When solo printers, business owners, mom, business owners, when they think marketing, they immediately are thinking social media marketing. That's the most [00:23:00] like front facing in your face. Is there, you use it. A lot of people use it personally, in their personal life as well. So it's just more familiar as well in that sense too, because you're like, oh, I always say I have a personal account.

The social media marketing to me is kind of like, you're at the beach and it's the volleyball party, uh, on the beach. Everyone's having fun, loud music. They're, they're, out there giving high fives. That's social media marketing. There's nothing wrong with it. It's, that's fine. And then I feel like email marketing is like, you've got the beach house, okay.

And you're inviting people to a dinner party. So it just feels more intimate, more personal, more intentional. You're inviting them in and you have an, you're creating an experience around it from them knocking on the door. All the way to like stepping in to, getting to know other people at the dinner party, [00:24:00] having the dinner and then at the end saying like, Hey, that was fun.

You wanna go grab a coffee? You wouldn't say something like, for a new friend, like, Hey, do you wanna go on a two week Amazon Rainforest trip? Like maybe too much. Like something like, , let's go grab a coffee. I really enjoyed it. That's how I, that's how I like to describe email marketing. And it's important because as you can see with all the social media drama happening right now with TikTok, with even Facebook and Instagram right now, um, people are starting to like, hop off of it.

Like all these social media platforms, you don't own your following. So if something ever does happen, like TikTok is like gone. You can't use it for 24 hours. That's it. You can't contact anyone. same thing for all the other social media platforms is that, that's the thing with social media is like, it is a great place for visibility.

It's a great place to connect, but just know [00:25:00] that. If anything does happen, they close your account for some reason, which has happened to a few entrepreneurs, either through like tech glitches or there's something that happened that they close it down. You're not able to access your community that you built there.

Whereas in email marketing, this is why a lot of people say like, build your email list. I like to call it your email community. Grow your email community because you have their email addresses and that way. When you do, let's say you migrate to a different email platform, they all come with you. They come along with the ride, um, and you're able to contact them.

If for some reason the platforms go down, you're still able to have direct communication with them through email. So this is why email is so important, and this is I think where the biggest pieces for people is that they may hear like. You need to have an email list. As a business, you need to have an email list.

So they create one, but, but they [00:26:00] aren't sure what to do with it. They're inconsistent or they're writing, but it's not really doing much. It's because they haven't set their North Star. They have it, but they don't know what the purpose of their email list is. Obviously a, a big one for businesses is getting clients through email, but there's a lot of different other purposes to an email list that you can really think about that will help you then get those clients through emails.

Like, are you wanting to use, to build brand awareness, , for them to get to know you, , do you wanna use it to direct into your other. Social media platforms to your podcast, what, how does the email gear, I like to call it a gear fit into all the other gears in your marketing, and then , do you want to be directing to other content?

What other content do you have? Is it blogs? Is it videos? Is a podcast? Whatever that is, you just, you just kind of need, like, you don't need to do all of it. You just need to focus on the, on the ones that bring out your strengths [00:27:00] and use that in there so we're not reinventing the wheel. So I would definitely say like, one of the biggest thing is setting the vision for your email marketing. What is it you want your emails to do for you specifically? Then set your goals, realistic goals. We tend to overshoot and that's okay. We can always brain dump it out and then see, okay, what's actually realistic?

Set the goals and then set the action steps to achieve those goals.

Awesome. Awesome. . So, where can the listeners find you, what you have to offer yes, so you can find me, learn more about me on my website, , desk plant creatives.com.

Uh, you can also find me on LinkedIn if you search my name, Joanne Homestead, or Joanne Homestead Copywriter. I am the only Joanne Homestead on LinkedIn. Stand on Google, so it'll be pretty easy to find me, um, there as well. And then I am on [00:28:00] Instagram at desk plant creatives with a.in between the words. I'm not actively posting on there, but I am active in the, the messaging there.

And then of course my email community. I would absolutely love for you to join me there and in my email community Flourish, I talk about copywriting tips, email sequence strategy, and I talk a lot about mindset too, because that's the thing they don't ever talk about in email marketing trainings. Or copywriting programs.

They may touch upon the mindset a little bit, but that's actually one of the biggest pieces of having successful email marketing strategy is what are all the thoughts that are coming up. And so if you'd like to join me there, I do have a free gift. It's my email storytelling guide and you can grab that from my website.

And I absolutely encourage you to get that because it comes with 25 story prompts specifically [00:29:00] for entrepreneurs in wellness, wellbeing, and mindset, and then it has seven types of hooks. And 15 plus segues. So how to segue from the storytelling to your marketing content.

It's an easy plug and play. You just pick one of those segues and you put it in. You don't even have to think about it anymore. It just makes it so much easier. So it's a really great reference guy for when you're writing your emails and you're not quite sure how to segue from the story into your marketing contents.

Oh, that is awesome. I'm gonna have to do that and I'll put that in the show notes as well so people can just click on it and start segueing all their, all the way to their email segue all the way to the segue all the way to their email. Yeah, I love it. So, okay, before we go, what is one thing you want the listeners to start doing today?

I always like to say, start collecting your stories. That is a easy, easy way. I'm [00:30:00] not even saying like, share your stories. I'm just saying start collecting your stories and what you can do to do that.

It's, you just start noticing things. I call them everyday stories. Just look for everyday stories that you can relate back to your, what you do in your business. So for example, I wrestle with the bedsheet on the mattress, and that is most frustrating thing. I don't know what happens, but I get one corner of the bedsheet on and the other corner opposite end pops off and I cannot get it right.

And that is an everyday story. People can relate to it. Is this something that just happened? It's just like it. Such a normal thing that might, people, that might say, like, I don't have any stories to tell. I'm boring, I have nothing, nothing happens to me in my life. Um, but I know as moms we have so many stories we could tell just the mattress sheet going onto, onto the, onto the bed

that's a story. And then I can connect it to what I like to talk about [00:31:00] is, okay, so. You put one corner on it pops the other corner off and you're just like, wrestling and sweating. And this is what it's like when you don't have a vision for your email community. That's how it feels.

'cause you write one email and this, this other end pops off and you're trying to write this sequence, it's just frustrating 'cause it's just not working the way you want it to. That's just how you connect it. So collect your everyday stories, just those little stories of going to the coffee shop or having a conversation with a friend or a colleague that can turn into a an email.

Oh, I love that. And yes, that happens to me too. I end up laying across the whole bed, which is no good. No good, by the way. 'cause then it, you really can't stretch it over there. But that's what I end up doing. So, totally relatable and I love how you put that together. So that's such a great idea. Again, it comes back to the emotional connection. You're really connecting emotionally and that's what's building the trust there. Besides [00:32:00] just educating, you are building the, the, the emotional connections.

Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your expertise and your journey and your stories with us today. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on, Lisa.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you are walking away with prioritizing yourself, putting yourself on your to-do list, and really, I love that analogy of juggling those balls. And you know what the rubber ones can bounce and those glass ones we might need to tackle now. But know that there is space and time and we don't have to do everything all at once. If you wanna learn more about Joanne and take advantage of some of her offerings click on the link in the show notes and start exploring all that she has to offer

And until next week, keep carving out time for yourself and keep putting yourself on top of your to-do list.