Professional Babe by Peta Serras

It’s the curse of the service provider who knows selling their services for $$$ is a fast track to make money… only to then burn out because their formula to make money relies on them working more.

Sure, you can up your prices, but this can also mean needing to reposition yourself in the market as you may price yourself out of working with your current client.

For this reason, have a scalable product — a passive product or group program.

I am a huge fan of having a product that works so you don’t have to — I had one back in 2012 with a Pilates dvd. I stocked online and had retailers.

These days it looks like GGE which is structured passively with participants doing the program in a self-paced format and being nurtured with monthly calls + a community.

Something fun to think about is — if I were to double revenue (sales) and keep my expenses the same and hours I work the same, how would my business look? What would need to shift?

So many of us keep s**t in the tank and don’t ever harness our full potential or use all the resources we have available to us when in the pursuit of achieving our goals.

It’s like not pushing yourself in your Pilates class and stopping when you feel the ab burn in the slightest and wondering why you’re not as strong as people who started well after you.

Because the results are in the last reps. The results are in doing two more than your instructor tells you. The results are in breathing and doing because you have probably 15 more reps in you—at least—but your brain keeps talking you out of it. And you are itching to get away from the discomfort of GROWTH.

So if you read this and it’s resonating or you can feel yourself holding stuff back for the swim back because going that next level is scary AF sometimes, I think this is your sign.

Every bad investment I have ever made has always been from my desire to make a quick buck and not with LONGEVITY in mind.

But it seems a lot of us can fall into the trap of thinking this way.

What comes to mind is someone asking me ‘how good my lunch and learn was if I didn’t make any sales from it’ and highlighting a really narrow way of thinking — a cash way of thinking.

As here is something I know to be true — investing in assets will always deliver more money in the long run than making a quick buck-style of decision to get a quick return.

This is why I will always invest in branding, mentors, my mindset, and anything to help with the longevity of my brand and it growing into this level of bigness my brain knows it’s capable of achieving.

My advice? Think more longterm than an instant cash ROI. As if you’re in it for the long game, you should be making longterm decisions 😏

Are you coming along? I'm running a free event on TIMELESS content creation.

It's time to flick off fast fashion content as it ain't going to create the relationship you want on socials. What will is creating a body of content that is TIMELESS.

You coming?

https://view.flodesk.com/pages/62ba8b7dbed963e901bc6dde

TIMELESS. Fast fashion content isn’t going to create the relationship you want on social. What will is creating a body of content that is TIMELESS.

Business owners! Feel like adding a new offer before EOFY or fluffing up an existing offer (beefing it up, adding a price increase etc) to bring cash into your business in June?

I’m running a two-week bootcamp for business owners — Create S**t Hot Offers Bootcamp.

This bootcamp isn’t like your stock-standard training you’ll find online. The muscle group we’re targeting? Massive action. The results for you? Better than a dump-truck derrière in the latest Lululemon — you’ll create the framework, map it out, and price your next profitable AF offering.

And the tools you’ll learn will be able to be rinsed and repeated for any future offering created within your business.

Pay in full: https://www.professionalbabecourses.com/offers/EDzF8e3r/checkout
Part payment: https://www.professionalbabecourses.com/offers/qWMvqfFB

If you're keen to grow your email list, check out this masterclass I'm running on Thursday. The focus? Getting in front of people that are ready to buy.

Emphasis on ready — because there’s a difference between a tyre-kicking-freebie-hunter that’s stuffing up your email deliverability.

We’re talking quality people on your list who are hot on you. People who would print your entire business out and sit on it—sans knickers—if they could.

https://bit.ly/jampackyourlistfullofleads

JAM PACK YOUR LIST FULL OF JUICY LEADS What’s hotter than a list jam-packed full of juicy leads ready to stuff their face with your goods? Jon Hamm doesn’t even come close (and that’s saying something...)

Case study: I fo**led Carolyn's emails and she had a 540% increase in her open rates.

You've probably heard me talk about how big lists are the big dick metric of the business world. Everyone is so quick to flop theirs on the table and compare sizes... but not the part of how they actually use it and the satisfaction of the receivers.

Ask most people — if you want more sales, the usual choice is increasing your list size and nothing is mentioned about boosting the actual metrics up. Surely that is a cheaper option given that lead gen can be costly/time-consuming... no?

You do you, boo. Me? I'm going to boost the metrics up and create a solid plan before we do ANY lead gen

Meet my client, Carolyn —

Carolyn has a natural health business and an established list. Carolyn was frustrated that her work wasn't getting seen by enough people (enough opens) and wanted to boost her metrics up (opens, clicks, and conversions).

Implementing an onboarding sequence designed by me had 90% open rates compared to her average open rate of 14%.

That’s a 540% increase!

Before I continue, I do want to acknowledge that your welcome sequence open rates will be higher than your average comms with your list. But a 540% increase, what the fuq. This is sheer automation magic. Let’s unpack it so you can see my process.

Explain to me this 'automation magic' —

This sequence was something I originally created for my business and sold the templates for. Note: I normally hate templates, but this was for the same product in the same industry. It's almost like passing it on from franchise to franchise.

The sequence was designed out of sheer frustration because I was so sick of repeating myself to customers. Everyone had the same questions at the same time and I found myself spending the day putting out fires and not actually growing my business.

So I designed a six-part email sequence that mapped out the perfect customer journey, answered all of their questions, and taught them everything I needed them to know. It was drip-fed over email over five weeks. And it converted so well for me I sold the templates and had over 250 satisfied customers.

What it featured —

I can't stress this enough, before diving into creating this, I got very clear on the customer — what are their desires, why did they purchase, what’s important to them. I also got very clear on what I wanted them to do — log into their account, use the products they’ve purchased, and communicate why ordering regularly is financially better for them. This is part is so important and I feel like people only scratch the surface of this.

How I did it —

Building on the above, I mapped out the sequence in a way where it followed the questions I normally received. I knew after a week that people would be receiving their product and would forget all about what the products did. Then a week later they were loving them and keen to experiment and find out more uses. By week 2-3, they already had a list of the next products they wanted.

The sequence merely mapped that journey, met their questions, but made sure it was designed in a way that met my goal too. The sequence not only was important for the customer, but it was the engine of my business — it kept it running. Aka, it was the perfect onboarding sequence.

What these stats mean —

What I love about email is the engagement surpasses social media that we normally froth on. Most peeps on social sit around 1-5% engagement rate on Instagram, but with email, a 90% open rate is a 90% engagement rate. WTF, right! We spend most of our time trying to boost engagement instead of nurturing the engaged peeps with email.

When I see high open rates in a sequence it means the content is hitting the right spot. They're finding value in the emails as if they weren't, they'd stop opening them. It’s giving amazing data. We can look at the lower clicks and see if the email had a call to action (these were editable templates so I'm unsure how this would look or what the CTA was when Carolyn edited it).

Keen for some email magic —

You have two options — I can nut out a strategy for you (four-figure investment) or you can purchase your pass to Give Good Email. We specifically cover the customer journey mapping which I did with the sequence and creating automation that converts, as well as automation. But know that is just the tip of what is in Give Good Email.

https://www.professionalbabecourses.com/give-good-email

GIDDY UP FACEBOOK — it's time to give good email.

Start rhythmically tapping your fingers on the desk as I lead with this announcement — the cart is officially open for our course, Give Good Email.

Dripping with strategy, Give Good Email is designed to help you grow and scale a business business with email. It will help you automate processes you spend hours on, plug the profit holes, onboard your customers, and use email to work as a top-notch VA who always shows up and never needs sleep.

So if you’re only using email for newsletters, it’s like buying a treadmill as a clothesline — it does a lot more than just being the place you hang your knickers to dry.

This is how most people approach email, and this is where I come in. I’m going to help you save time, automate your processes, make you money, and build up a database you own.

This is an open/close cart kind of scenario and the BEST EOFY year investment.

https://www.professionalbabecourses.com/give-good-email

I thought about this when I was crafting my memes and how quick I can throw together copy. All from my writing days and choosing gifs from the articles. That time in my life? Challenging. Didn’t come together how I would have liked but the experience I gained has paid off tremendously with what I’m doing now ❤️✨

Start now.
Start where you are.
Start with fear.
Start with pain.
Start with doubt.
Start with hands shaking.
Start with voice trembling but start.
Start and don’t stop.
Start where you are, with what you have.
Just... start.

— Ijeoma Umebinyuo.

Via the Pinterest (which FYI my metrics on there are so broken. Has this happened to anyone else?!)

Stop blaming your software 😉

I’m in a lot of biz FB groups and I see so many peeps blaming their software for all their problems. I’ll be honest, yep, it totally can fuq things up... but there are also so many other factors to consider when sending inbox-friendly emails.

Inbox-friendly emails? Yep. They’re a thing. The software is only the vehicle but what really matters is if you actually know how to drive the vehicle.

If your current mode of transport is a 2000 model Kia Rio, it doesn’t matter if you get a 2021 Audi if you don’t know how to drive it. Getting a better vehicle doesn’t change this. Getting the best software does not mean you’re going to know how to send inbox-friendly emails.

Yep, there are a few things you can do to ensure your emails are getting delivered, but this is quite a complex subject (thus why it’s a whole unit in GGE).

Have a read of what I wrote back in response to someone in a FB group, and FYI, that site is mail-tester.com

What can be emailified? More than you think 🤔

In this little find-a-word, you’ll see some popular automations, but these are just scratching the surface on everything in your business you can automate.

The reasons I’ve got the basics listed in this fun little puzzle, is because quite often, we don’t have one set up OR it’s so damn old and probably needs a bit of a grease an old change to make sure it’s up to date and running smoothly.

So tell me, what automation did you find and what are you fixing up (or creating) next week 😉✨

*statements we won’t admit to muttering under our breath 🤣*

Unsubscribes are a normal part of email marketing, and with every email we send, there’s a chance our subscribers could break up with us. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s them, but know that it’s okay either way.

I know! You almost fell off your chair. But it’s okay for everyone not to like us. Just like when you open a dating app, you’d never swipe right to everyone (or maybe you do and we should probs chat about that) but we just want to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand...

We cover unsubscribes in a seven-page guide in Give Good Email, but to give you some tasty morsels of why they could be unsubscribing —

💅🏻 Peeps have opted in for the initial benefit which they’ve received and they’re no longer interested
💅🏻 Segmenting needs to happen. If people are receiving content that’s not relevant to them, they’ll want to opt-out
💅🏻 You’re emailing a cold list
💅🏻 Your subscribers have forgotten who you are
💅🏻 You’re emailing people who never consented to receive emails from you
💅🏻 Your content may have gone into constant dick flopping territory and you need to focus on more value
💅🏻 They’re using a different email address and they’ve unsubscribed to clean things up
💅🏻 They follow you on social media and you post the same thing across which they see whenever they open the ‘gram

Email marketing humour we love via

If you want success with email—and you do—this part is imperative... having an email marketing plan 😉

If you don’t have a plan? Well, it’s probably going to turn out very similar to your fourth-grade talent comp —

You chose the song in your lunch break and are attempting to do the robot with badly timed jazz hands. Everyone is looking around because they’re not sure what’s going on. Fuq, you’re not even sure what’s going on. Everyone is confused except your mamma who responds to everything with “love this, love you.”

Needless to say you didn’t win the competition and you’re a bit worried about giving it another go because you’re convinced it’s not for you. And it’s no surprise!

There’s a nice little crossover of talent comps and bad marketing — chances are the only person who is going to notice and be excited is your Mum, so I created a Venn diagram to show you.

Your plan could be as simple as the following —
💅🏻 gathering your goals
💅🏻 getting clear on the kinds of emails you want to send (newsletters, welcome sequences, birthday emails etc)
💅🏻 segments you’ll be targeting
💅🏻 alongside your goals, get clear on the tactics you’ll do to achieve them. Then jot down how you’ll know you’ve achieved your goal and how you’ll be tracking this
💅🏻 then schedule it in.

If you’re feeling a little lost and want a helping hand, Give Good Email features a 13-page marketing plan to help you... and 60,000 words of email-related content (obvs) to help you smash it out of the park. Are you on the waitlist? 🙋🏻‍♀️

It takes the brave ones to sign up for daily uncertainty. It’s why business owners will always be my role models. I loved this post by and I had to share ❤️✨

We’re changing up the services menu at PB HQ ✨💅🏻

I’m great at a lot of things 😉 but I shine when it comes to strategy. That shiny place you want to get to in your biz? The roadmap has already appeared in my head. Unsure how email fits into your biz but you’ve got a bucketload of conversion problems? Yep, I got chu 😉

Stay tuned to the services menu, they’re about to get an upgrade 💁🏻‍♀️ So if you’ve been sitting on the fence wondering if you want to book a once-off strategy session, your last chance is approaching!

Our strategy sessions will be replaced with a girthier offering and therefore, you’ll be looking in the four figs region for this investment. TBC on the name, but we’ll come together to talk about your goals, I’ll create your bespoke marketing and email roadmap for you — like an architect crafting the juiciest plans for you — and then be there as your optional project manager whilst you build this bad boi 🥵🔥

Boldly declaring that we have the BEST clients. Check out this recommendation that popped up on LinkedIn by my rad client, Sarah Cutts from 😉✨

Sarah is the director of Newcastle’s favourite boutique digital marketing and social media agency — The Social Haus — that helps small businesses shake things up on social. The Social Haus team are powerhouses at what they do AND they’re legends who love a good marg🍹needless to say, our favourite kind of client 😂

When this recommendation came through today, I had to share it. As let’s be honest, I know I don’t sell the s**t out of what I do and I should!

At Professional Babe, we’re more than just email, and we’re more than business coaching — what we do is dripping with strategy. We focus on bespoke roadmaps focussed on business growth and with memorable marketing strategies to get you there.

Take this result — our client tripling their revenue in under 12 months 💁🏻‍♀️💦

If you’re a business owner who desires growth and you’ve got girthy goals for the 21/22 financial year, get in touch via the DMs and let’s talk business strategy 💁🏻‍♀️✨

“I need a serious business name that accurately represents what I do”

*selects business name that started as a joke*

Sounds about right. Do I love my business name? Yup. And why did I opt for it over my actual name? Couple of reasons —

✨ It’s memorable
✨ It’s easy to spell and easier to spell than my name — Peta Serras
✨ Endless branding and merch ideas
✨ A term and identity my clients and readers can adopt. ‘Cause we’re all a right 😉
✨ And it’s sellable. My actual name? Not so much. It makes my think of Halston on Netflix at the moment. It was a quote about careless with his name. I didn’t want that to be me.

So tell me, how’d you come up with your business name?

Pinterest is my favourite. I only wish they had a paid version to get rid of the ads as they never seem to target me correctly. I pin this and I get ads for sports bras 😂 anyway, I’m trawling through my boards compiling a PB branding board. It’s time we get it professionally done with some new photos that reflect the vision I have in my mind.

Nothing about what is in my head screams ‘traditional professional business’ though and I LOVE it. I grew up reading Vogue from age 13. I was obsessed with photography, clothing, and design. And I can see how parts of that have permeated into my business today. Take for instance what I wore to work on Friday — “where are you going?” *me dressed in some fabulous 1970s backless floral number* “work, why?” 😂

Anyway, does anyone else love Pinterest and what’s your handle?

PSA: the marketing you do today is probs going to be ‘old school’ in a couple years time.

Another little gem of my bin fire marketing popped up on FB today. Check the comments!

The well-meaning person was still so into traditional marketing you’d expect back in 2009 — newspapers, flyers, radio, TVC (fun fact, I actually have a television commercial somewhere 😂 should I find it!?)

People thought I had a screw loose because I was marketing on a blog, MySpace, and Facebook. But it was the reason we became so success.

The thing is... this is happening now 🙃 TikTok is about to become part of the PB strategy and I even feel like I am so late to the party there.

I say this because I always see biz owners who want to wait. They want to master things and figure stuff out before they dive in and wait until it’s SO safe. So what is the piece of marketing you’d love to do for your business but have convinced yourself it’s a ‘fark no’ until more people dive in? For me, it’s TikTok. And imma start that in June 😉

As a side note, my past self is proud of me choosing a new way to market, but also has regrets... like I had a Pilates FB page and back then FB merged business friend accounts into groups... imagine where that page would have been if I had a free Pilates group funnelling them to my paid programs?!

Live and learn (and sometimes regret) 😂

Dealing with haters 🤦🏻‍♀️

I feel like a veteran at dealing with haters and trolls in the online space. Remember, I used to be a s*x and dating writer and would make my opinions (and standards) publicly known — yah, I’ve dealt with a lot 🙃

It used to be a daily occurrence that would break my stride and fuq me up for weeks. I’d hold myself back and want to shrink myself to avoid being seen by my haters.

It took me years to realise that people who create fake profiles just to troll you are unhappy people. If you don’t have my phone number, you’re not a paying client, and you’re in the arena... do I want your feedback and opinion anyway? 💁🏻‍♀️

Take it from me, happy people don’t spew hate. They don’t trawl Instagram and spend their day searching for others to bring down.

For those in the online space, it’s important to realise that as we grow our business and shine brighter, that we’re unfortunately going to get hate.

The best advice I can give is to remember the following:
- Happy people don’t create fake profiles to spew hate
- Surround yourself with people who have your back and remind you that you’re a badass when the haters come knocking
- You can always create content out of it (lol. I do this)
- Don’t let one piece of feedback or a comment derail your day or your mission.

And my favourite piece of advice? Swipe through to see a quote by my favourite badass, Brené Brown.

Email marketing and s*x are quite similar.

It can be really fuqing mindblowing or really bloody bad depending on the giver.

If I’m the giver? You’ll be satisfied and your mind will be blown. I’ve got moves you’ve never seen, and once my hands have had a fo**le of your goods and I teach you my ways, you...r business won’t be the same 😉

After many satisfied business owners, I decided to package my expertise in my program, Give Good Email.

I noticed email marketing is where so many business owners were falling short or still relying heavy on building platforms they didn’t even own—social media—without any back up — their list.

Email was an afterthought in their marketing plan and quite often their campaigns were carbon copies of social media posts. Automations? Basic. Sales funnels? Non-existent. Processes that could be emailified? A manual and time-consuming process.

This is where I come and teach you my GGE method.

My method that automates processes you spend hours on, plugs profit holes, onboard your customers and works as a top-notch VA that always shows up and never needs sleep.

Give Good Email is unlike any program out there, and it’s the only program you need to level up (or begin!) your email marketing and automation.

Are you on the waitlist? When you opt-in you’ll receive some training whilst you wait on list cleaning, lead magnet writing, and a quickie email marketing plan you can nut out in 20 minutes.

https://www.professionalbabecourses.com/give-good-email

Back in 2017 I handed my clients a letter telling them I was selling the studio. One of my clients read the letter asking if it was a joke and then they started crying. It was 9am on a Monday morning and I had to personally tell 140 people that I wasn’t going to be there next term.

A similar thing happened on the phone with a client on Friday. She kept asking if I were joking. It wasn’t. She asked when the end would be and I said next month.

Both times I had the same ‘I think my guts are going to fall out of my ass’ feeling, wondering if I am making the right choice. Both times were so incredibly challenging, but deep down, I knew it was the absolute right choice to make.

We hype up that growth and moving towards what you should be doing is an easy transition. Not always, I’m afraid 😉

But as the saying goes...

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

I’m cancelling our most popular offering 😦

The letter in the carousel (well, part of the letter) went out to our members on Friday about a decision I’ve been making over the course of three months.

Let me tell you, the last time I had to make a decision this tough it was deciding to sell my business and walk away.

I’m sharing this with you for a few reasons —

1. We think the right decision is the easy decision. Not always.

2. We assume ‘passive income’ or a subscription type offering means we’re set. Not always.

3. We assume we will only have to cut off the ‘dead’ offerings and archive the ones that are selling. The membership is technically profitable, but I can see how it’s bottlenecking growth.

4. Because this is a business page and I consult on business growth strategy. Archiving offers and making tough decisions is all part of the bigger picture and growing towards your vision.

So what does this mean if we’re archiving everyone’s favourite membership?

💅🏻 I will be turning all the membership content into The PB Start-Up Bundle. We’ll promote this as a great foundational offering for those starting a business or who need the tools and training to help them grow. This will be a self-paced once-off purchase. This will be available for purchase July 15th.

💅🏻 From July 15th, our FB group will turn into a community for everyone who has purchased a paid offer from me — PB Bundle, Give Good Email, PB Business Immersion. We’ll have quarterly community calls and in-house training via the group when I feel it’s needed (no structure or expectation!)

💅🏻 Moving into the next stage of our growth, it looks like really diving into Give Good Email and Business Growth/Marketing Strategy which is my biz zone of genius. I’ll be releasing a high-level Business Immersion in July for 10 established business owners that will go for five months. It is called The PB Business Immersion.

Closing thoughts in the comments ✍🏻

Let your start be s**t, but just make sure you start.

Look at this bin fire marketing material that went out to the seven people I had on Facebook back in the day.

I was blasting these updates on MySpace and Facebook, and building my little data base with ZERO CLUE to what I was doing.

Every day I would post something with a vague call to action and litter it with so many exclamation points

But I was doing something right — I was actually fuqing doing it. I was showing up and marketing my business. Badly, but I was still doing it.

These crappy posts were the foundation of a successful business. You’re witnessing my OG marketing that lead to a mighty successful Pilates brand.

So, how can you start today! Take inspiration from me!!! Allow it it to be crap! Join my mailing list!!!!

Soz, couldn’t help it 😂 Also, props to past Peta for recognising the importance of building a list 😂