[0:00] If you are in my world, you have probably heard me banging on about Kajabi at some point or another. This is what I use to power my online business. And I'm recording this episode to share a bit more about how my business has developed over the years and how I've been able to use Kajabi to innovate and host all the different things that I now offer. So even if you're not in the the market right now for a new website. Hopefully this will give you some insight into what might be possible for you and the things that you need to be thinking about. You're listening to the Life Friendly Business Podcast, where we lift the lid on the reality of running a business around family life and shine a light on the mindset gremlins which may well be stopping you from stepping into your zone of genius. I'm Erin, the Life Friendly Business Mentor, and I'm here to empower you to succeed through personalized support, strategic business training, and ongoing mentorship. Let's work together to champion your goals and ignite your potential so that you can create your very own life-friendly business.
[1:21] Kajabi is pitched as an all-in-one business platform. So you have your website on there, landing pages, marketing automations, email marketing, and you can streamline your payments there. And it's designed for digital creators. So a digital creator is someone who is producing and publishing content online. So that could be writing or video. So if you're hosting online courses or memberships, then you're effectively a digital creator. And that's the people that Kajabi have designed this platform for. I recommend Kajabi to my clients all the time because I absolutely love it. And it has been game changing for my business.
[2:07] But I understand that if you're just starting out, it can feel like a massive investment to make. But I'm going to share with you the journey that I've taken to get to where I am now. And also the fact that it actually saved me money to move to Kajabi.
[2:22] My first website for this business, Life Friendly Business, which back then was launched as Making Mumpreneurs, was hosted on Wix, wix.com. This is, you're able to make a free website or a low-cost website with Wix. And I'd started using Wix way back when I was co-founding Ealing Mums in Business with my business partner, Shelley. And then when I had another business, Pitter Pat at the Hub for Boves, I also created the website from Wix. So I was completely self-taught. I think that's one thing I want to make really clear is that now I would call myself pretty tech savvy, but I have not had any formal training in this. I have completely taught myself over the years. So I started off with Wix, which is like a template drag and drop type website software.
[3:16] And that did me okay to start off with. So I did all my own branding. I think I did pay Fiverr, Fiverr.com to do my first ever logo for Making Mumpreneurs. And I basically cobbled it together. So I can't remember how long it was. It was probably like two years into the business when I'd already launched my membership, which was kind of glued together on Wix. Because if you're running a membership, you need to have a login area so that all of the paid content cannot be accessed by anyone else.
[3:55] And so I'd got this going on on Wix, but obviously I hadn't worked with a designer. It was all kind of, you know, done myself. And I had a mentoring Entering session with the Dorset Growth Hub, a lovely Sarah who basically said to me, you are an e-commerce business now and your website needs to evoke trust in people. And it does not. She gave me the hard line. She was like, look, you know, you really need to come across as more professional because people are not going to pay money over your website. If your website looks like it's cobbled together and you don't really know what you're doing, you know in the nicest possible way but she she really did give me a reality check so I asked her opinion of what I should be doing and I got some recommendations from her of local web designers.
[4:51] So I was meeting I met a few of these different web designers and I felt like oh my goodness this is like big girl pants now I didn't know what the hell I was doing I was just running this small business. And there I was speaking to website developers. And I'll never forget my husband, who was a marketing director in corporate companies. He said to me, so have you done a brief? And I said, sorry, a what now? And he was like, have you designed a brief to take to your meeting to let them know what you want? And I was like, well, what is that? I don't even know what that was. And so this was like a massive learning curve. And this is now what I say to people, But when people say, oh, where should I host my website? What should I know? What should I create? It's like, but what functionality do you need? Because this is the most important thing. What do you want to be able to hold on your website? And how do you want people to be able to access your website? This is all stuff that I had no idea of. So my second website for the business was on Joomla. And I had a lovely company build it for me.
[5:57] The downside to this was that I could not really do anything on my own. I had to pay for monthly hosting. If I wanted changes made, I had to email them and wait for them to do it and then email me back and say it was done. I couldn't easily get in there on my own. It was a bit too complicated. Also, I had the videos hosted on Vimeo and that was, you know, that worked fine with with the private links so that they were hidden. And then we embedded those onto the website. That worked well for a while, but obviously because with the membership, I was adding new content all the time. I was clocking up the video hours. And one day I got a nice email from Vimeo saying that actually from now on, your fee has tripled because of the amount of videos you now And it was a real hard pill to swallow. And so I think I'd had this website for about two years and I was just getting really frustrated. It was really slowing me down. I didn't like having to rely on someone else to do changes, especially after I'd used Wix before where I was able to do it myself.
[7:07] And I had heard stuff about Kajabi because I really immersed myself in the kind of digital creator world and I'm learning new stuff all the time. And I'd heard about Kajabi and I started looking into it. And like I said, one of the things that puts people off often when I speak to them about Kajabi is the cost of it. So at the time of recording this podcast, so I have been with Kajabi for like over four years, I think. I pay an annual fee and it is roughly ÂŁ1,300, ÂŁ1,400 a year. So what's that like?
[7:42] ÂŁ120 a month. And actually, when you work out everything that it includes and what it enables you to do, it's an absolute bargain in my opinion. But obviously, it depends what you're going to be selling. And we're going to be talking about that later on.
[7:57] But I joined Kajabi. I have never looked back. I can't imagine ever leaving Kajabi. So just to explain kind of how it works. So obviously, I have got my front facing website on Kajabi. They have all these different templates that you can use. You can, you know, completely adapt it to your own branding. Now, over the years, I have invested in a lovely designer, Jill Pryor, who is one of my founding members in the cocoon. I've been working with her for a couple of years now to really take my branding to the next level. So when you look at my website, you might see nice infographics and things like that and lovely little touches and they're all via Jill. But obviously I didn't start off in that place. I started off trying to do it all myself and make it look as good as I could. And you can make it look really great and really slick and professional and trustworthy, like Sarah had told me all those years ago. Like if you are expecting people to hand over a credit card through your website, you need to be professional. So.
[9:08] Kajabi hosts my website, but also I have a membership and also online courses. So people can, when they purchase something, it's all tagged and automated. So they automatically get an email saying, thanks for buying. They get a tag saying they've joined the cocoon and then it triggers a sequence for them to get an email, a whole onboarding sequence saying, welcome to the cocoon so all of these things are automated and then they can log in and access all of the content so that's you know what I absolutely love and that's what I needed and you don't have any limit on the videos that you can have in there so the cocoon library is huge now and that's all okay because I'm not paying for a certain number of videos okay so the other things that I do on Kajabi is I have landing pages. So a landing page is like, has a specific aim. So obviously, the Cocoon membership has its own sales page. This is a single landing page. But then for every different program, so you know, visibility program, Evolve Mastermind, they all have separate pages, and they're all called landing pages. And they basically knit together with your website. So So your website is, according to Kajabi, is like your homepage, your about, your blog, your contact us, and then the landing pages link to it.
[10:33] So I love the fact that I can very quickly create a landing page using the templates. It can look fantastic. Literally, I can do this within an hour. So I can also create opt-in pages for any freebies that I've got or low ticket offers. I can also use the funnels.
[10:53] The funnels are great if you want to have that nice slick appearance of, for example, giving an e-book or a PDF download or hosting a webinar on a particular date. And it actually kind of formulates the rough emails that you need to send in that sequence, as well as gives you a guide to the landing page for people to opt in and then also the thank you page. They have got amazing AI functionality now, which even helps you with the copy and all those kind of things. So I know I'm getting very technical here and I don't want to get too in the weeds in case this is a bit overwhelming. But the fact is, is that I can personally, and I do all of my website stuff on my own, I can just go in and make changes whenever I want to within minutes. And that's so important to me. And it means that as a small business owner, I can be really, really dynamic in the way that I work as well. And I love the fact that Kajabi are constantly innovating and bringing in new things. So since I joined, they've now got the podcast feature so I can have my podcast on there. Also, they've got the new community feature, which they're still developing all the time. And this is something actually that I launched my visibility program with that new Kajabi community, but it was still having a few teething problems. But now a year later, I'm looking at moving back to that community.
[12:19] There are also functions that I haven't used yet. Like you can host a coaching program on there and actually do the live coaching calls in Kajabi as well rather than on Zoom.
[12:31] So I said to you before that, you know, obviously, I appreciate that for some people, the cost just feels too high. So before I was, I had my website on Joomla. So I was paying for a company, I paid a lot of money, thousands to have the website designed in the first place. And then I was paying a monthly amount, I want to say it was around 200 pounds a month, I'm not sure, for hosting and for management as well. And then on top of that, I was paying for Vimeo, which was going up to like 900 and something a year. And also email marketing software, through MailChimp, I think it was at the time. So I had all these different costs. So actually, when I joined Kajabi, I was actually saving money. So I think it's really important that we consider all the different areas that we're spending money on that we might not have taken into account. And the fact that we can bring all of that in one place. And, you know, it is such a benefit to be able to, as a new customer comes into your world, to be able to tag them and know exactly what opt-in form they've come in through, you know, what they've bought from you, which emails they've opened, how much money they've spent from you, what their personal contact details are. That is all there in Kajabi.
[13:51] Also, one thing I love is the sales dashboard. So it has a running total of how much money you've made since you joined Kajabi. But also then you can look at your sales analytics every month or every day. And I really love seeing that figure. I find it really, really satisfying. And one thing that Kajabi are so good at, one of the many things, but one great thing is swag. So they have this kind of Kajabi heroes program where you really do feel like you're part of the the Kajabi community. They've got a great Facebook group where you can literally ask any question. And there are loads of experts in there as well. And people who are just using Kajabi and have done for years. There are people in there who are making millions of pounds through Kajabi. But there are also people like who are just kind of starting out and trying to find their feet. But the swag. So when I joined, you got swag at I think it was 10k, 25k, 50k, 100k. And then there's a big leap up to 250. I haven't reached that one yet. But I've had some lovely packages through the posts like of lovely thermos coffee mugs and t-shirts and socks and hats and the story brand book by Donald Miller. So like those kind of touches really help you feel like someone's got your back. And that's what we all need as a small business owner, isn't it? You.
[15:20] One thing I wanted to talk to you about, about offsetting the cost of Kajabi is their amazing affiliate program. So if you haven't heard of affiliates before, it means that, for example, if I want to refer someone to Kajabi, I can create a bespoke link and share that link with the person and that is trackable. So if they join Kajabi through my link, I get $300. But the great thing is, it's not just $300 once, it's then every year that they are still with Kajabi.
[15:54] So I'm really, I mean, this is, I don't talk about money very often, but I have nearly made $18,000 from the affiliate program with Kajabi. And that is me genuinely championing this platform because I love it myself. So it's, you know, I've done affiliate stuff before where I'm basically like sharing links to things that I haven't done myself and I'm not really sure that's that's how I started off you know eight years ago thinking that that would be the model and actually it is so much better when you're only really selling the stuff that you use and that you can really recommend so I've made a lot of money through the affiliate program and it is more than covered the amount that I've invested in having Kajabi for my own business so do think about that and And, you know, when you're looking at the cost, you need to be thinking about how many sales you would need to be making in order to cover the price of Kajabi. Say if it's 120, 150 a month, you know what you need to be selling, because obviously you do need to make sure that it's viable for your business. But like I say, just keep your eyes open. If you are hosting your website somewhere else, what those costs are actually adding up to so that you do have a clear picture.
[17:09] I mentioned before about Kajabi constantly innovating, and this is one of the things that I feel really excited about and why I can't imagine leaving Kajabi because they're just constantly making improvements that help us with what we're offering and the customer service we can offer, but then also how much money we can make. And just the other month, I attended the first ever Kajabi event in London, and the CEO of Kajabi and a few other members of the team came over. And it was so brilliant to be in this room. I think there's a maximum of 100 people. So it felt quite intimate, really. And all these people that are using Kajabi and actually meeting the some of the team behind it as well. Kajabi is like a huge, huge tech company now. But the CEO was amazing. He was so dynamic. And you know, was really listening to what everyone was saying. And he wanted to get feedback from people.
[18:07] And one of the new things that they've introduced are Kajabi payments. So I can now take payment through Apple Pay and Google Pay, but also I can do the buy now, pay later through Klarna and ClearPay, which is an amazing thing to be able to offer. So people can literally say, I really want to buy a mentoring session with you, and I need it now because of X, Y, Z, but I know my money's not coming in for 30 days. I can still take that sale from them and they so the way it works is that Klarna gives me the money up front so I don't lose out but then they have an agreement with Klarna where they pay that within 30 days or they can pay it over three months so it's a really amazing way to you know to help people with their cash flow as well and if they need something urgently now they can get that support and then have that financial agreement with Klarna and I'll have the money up front so there's no risk to me. So it's just things like this. I really appreciate the fact that all that work is going on in the background and that I know that, you know, over the years that there'll be more and more available to me in order to improve
[19:22] the way that I'm running my business.
[19:24] So I hope that's been interesting. I know it might, you know, for some of you it might just feel like gobbledygook. But like I say, I am completely self-taught in tech, but I am now able to completely single-handedly run my online business through Kajabi. And I've got a membership with 100 people. I've got masterminds with like at the moment, 10 people in one, five people in the the other. I've got mentoring clients. I host my podcasts. I host a blog. I've got online courses. So there's all these things that I am able to, as one person, run effectively through this software.
[20:09] So, you know, it's it's been huge for me and it really has transformed the way that I'm able to run my business. And, you know, I I totally understand that it's a big decision trying to work
[20:23] out where to host your website. And I would not recommend having three different websites like I did. But we need to go through this journey of trying out different things. And, you know, a website is never done as well. Well, I think that's the big thing that I realized with the Joomla experience and paying someone a lot of money to create this website because it is never done and we need to be adapting it and refreshing it and evolving it all the time. And so having the ability to do that by yourself is really invaluable to me.
[20:57] So I really hope this has been useful. If you are interested in trying out Kajabi, I do, of course, have an affiliate link to a free 30-day trial and I will put that in the link and if you go through that link you will get an email offering you a free 30-minute call with me where you can pick my brains or you can ask me advice on whether it might work for you whatever you want but I genuinely love Kajabi and you know I think that it is an amazing tool for small business owners so I would love to speak to you if you're interested. And yeah, I hope that's been insightful. I'll see you next week.
[21:39] Honestly, it can feel like there is a lot you need to learn when building a thriving business. And it's easy to feel like you'll never know everything you need to be successful. But it is possible just so long as you stay focused on building the right knowledge and skills. When When you join the Cocoon VIP membership, you'll have the opportunity to book a one-to-one orientation call with me, and I'll help you to prioritize the activities that will have the biggest impact on your business and direct you to the materials in the library that you need. There's no need to learn it all. We'll just focus on the things that will make the biggest difference to you. We have everything you need to build a life-friendly business. So check out the Cocoon now at lifefriendlybusiness.com forward slash Cocoon. Thank you.
