In this episode of the Rooted Business Podcast, Rachel and Jess get real about the evolution of their marketing—from “baby entrepreneur” days of throwing spaghetti at the wall to building a simplified, intentional strategy that actually attracts aligned clients.

We’re also calling out the pipe dreams and manipulative marketing practices that dominate the online space—especially the “make a post and hit six figures” narratives that can pull new business owners off track.

You’ll hear:

1. How we got our first clients (Upwork, Fiverr, referrals, Facebook groups, and networking)
2. Why scrappy marketing is normal in the beginning—and what no one tells you about it
3. The biggest early mistakes we made (charging too little, no boundaries, launching digital products too soon)
4. How to invest smarter as a new entrepreneur (skills first, strategy second)
5. Why client experience and referrals can be a powerful growth engine
6. What our marketing looks like now: authority-building, selective retainers, email marketing, SEO, newsletters, and more

If you’re building an online business and feeling overwhelmed by conflicting advice, this episode will help you simplify your marketing, stay grounded, and choose strategies that fit your actual stage of business.

🎙️ Subscribe for more conversations on intentional marketing, sustainable operations, and rooted entrepreneurship—without the burnout.

Welcome.

Welcome, everyone, to another exciting episode of the Rooted Business Podcast.

I'm Rachel.

And I'm Jess.

And today we're going to be diving into a topic that I'm pretty sure most entrepreneurs can relate to.

The evolution of our marketing strategies from baby entrepreneurs just pretty much throwing spaghetti on the wall to a way of marketing that is simplified and has intention behind it.

And we're going to be diving into some kind of hot topic conversations about the pipe dreams being sold in the online space.

We've all been there, we've all invested a lot of money into programs that, you know, promised us a million dollars by the end of the year when, you know, we'll go through how, you know, starting fresh on social with no clients, burning desire to make our businesses thrive and really like how to get started from the ground up, because we all had to do it.

Yeah.

And so from those humble beginnings to where we are now, when we talked about this episode topic, we talked about creating a simplified and magnetic was the word I used strategy to attract the clients.

And I also can't wait to talk about some of the pipe dreams that we found ourselves pulled into when we first got started and kind of how that pulled us off course with the intention of hopefully helping others just be a little more discerning.

I think it's so easy when you're first starting out to kind of get pulled into it because it's everywhere.

Yeah, there's a lot of bad practices out there that are very manipulative, but we'll get into that.

Let's dive into our first clients and how we got them.

See, it's kind of fascinating to look at the clients that we support now compared to our first clients.

I know mine are radically different.

So let's go in.

Let's go in on it.

So tell me about your first client.

So my first client ever was from upwork.

He was a lawyer, and all he wanted me to do was set up Zoom for him.

He was doing some continuing education for other lawyers, and he just needed me to set up his Zoom meetings and be there in case there were any technical issues.

And that's really how I got my first, I guess, online business client, which is so funny.

And I quickly realized after him, I'm like, okay, you're made for a little bit more than this, like, virtual assistant setting up one Zoom meeting.

So after that, I got another client who's actually working as her social media manager, and she was from Upwork as well.

But really, those first foundational clients helped me quickly Learn like what I to do, what I didn't like to do, and like how to set boundaries with clients.

Yeah, I'm actually interested to hear about your first clients.

Cause I don't think you've ever shared that with me before.

No.

So one of my first clients, I think kind of very similar path.

I got them off of Fiverr, kind of same similar bucket as upwork.

You don't really have any set like structure of offer or anything like that.

But mine was a.

She was an online coach, so kind of in the same bucket that my existing clients are in, but it was chaos.

And when I tell you it was me doing things for like, I think my weekly rate was like $150 and it was setting up epic click funnels and writing endless emails.

And I had no boundaries.

But I was over here like, oh, 150 times 4.

If I do this on a weekly basis, I. I can make, you know, X amount of money.

And I lost all.

I had no boundaries in that situation.

And it's kind of funny because I actually just got an email about six months ago from that client, was like, hey, hoping you're still doing this.

I need somebody that needs a click funnel set up.

And I'm like, we're going to just pretend we never saw that because I could never.

Yeah, that's so funny.

I think my first client, I was working as our social media manager and I charged her $300 a month.

I started doing the work and then figuring out how many clients I would need to get that to be able to replace my.

Because I was still working at my corporate job at the time as well too.

To replace that.

I was like, okay, something has got to change.

Yeah, I think that's so funny.

Like, well, I'm glad I'm not the only one that started out charging way low.

So I want.

Tell me a little bit more about your initial marketing strategy.

I know for, for me, when we first talked about this, I was like, I don't have a marketing strategy.

People just show up.

But I did my due diligence and went back through and like listed every single client and where I got them from.

And I discovered I actually do have a marketing strategy.

You're a little more intentional, like from the marketing perspective.

So I'd love to hear how you got your first clients, your first real clients.

So I started the social media route, which is kind of funny because, you know, as a person who solely does email marketing as like my.

My own business.

Right.

I did all the social media things.

I Started my own Instagram account, had.

I was in all these Facebook groups doing the follow for follow just to get eyeballs on my content.

I started sharing some.

Some email statistics.

I remember those were like.

I was like, cranking out those posts.

I was like, oh, people are going to love this.

400% ROI, da da da da da.

And using hashtags.

I remember one of my very first clients who stayed with me for about a year and a half after they signed was she actually was like, I found you through a hashtag.

And I was like, oh, I didn't know that worked, but okay.

So I would say the prime.

My primary marketing efforts and strategy, where I put the majority of my time was in that audience growth and just social side of things.

And I was really just hoping that people would find me.

And then I quickly transitioned to referrals.

So I got that one client, then she referred me to the other client and then another client.

And so then I was like, okay, set.

And what was beautiful about, like, my first, like, four clients is that they all stayed with me for a pretty long time.

So it took a lot of the pressure off of having to find new ones over and over and over.

And it's not like I was making a lot.

I think I had transitioned from like, maybe $500 to $1,000 a month per client.

And then was like, okay, I'm sitting at four clients, I have $4,000.

But that's when everybody was like, 5K, 5K months, you know, that type of thing.

But we won't get into that just yet.

But I know that was my initial strategy, was like, really leaning hard into the referrals.

But it's not a sustainable business model, I would say.

Yeah, yeah.

So I went personal referrals, like, right out the gate.

I think I saw some advice online.

It was like, email everyone in your network.

Which I feel like this is funny because it kind of aligns with my, like, human design, my 4:1 manifesting generator.

So giving people something to respond to is a better strategy for me than just putting myself out there.

And then also, A4 relies heavily on their internal network.

So one of the first things I did right after I got laid off, freaked out for a day, was email everyone in my personal network and let them know this is what.

I didn't really have an offer.

I was just.

I'm working as like, an.

You know, y' all know what I do.

I'm really tech savvy.

Let me help you out.

The problem was it was Covid.

So all My friends that had businesses and studios, like, they had shut down.

So that email didn't pay off directly.

I think I got one client where I helped, like, them set up, like, a mobile order for their juice bar, a system for that.

It didn't pay off directly, but like, a year or two later, I got some referrals from that email, which was kind of fun.

Oh, I love that.

Which was kind of funny.

And then all the rest of mine were through networking online.

So my next really big client was from.

I had joined a coaching program and met someone who needed a hybrid obm.

I started working for her.

The next big client that I got was a referral from my personal network, and then that person referred somebody else.

So definitely referrals are how I started to kind of grow my business.

And similar to you, I was working with clients on really high retainers and for a while.

So it took a lot of the pressure off for me to learn more about the business while I was getting paid for it.

So, yeah, that was really, really great.

It wasn't probably until about, like, the second.

Maybe it was second year of my business, Second year of my business when I started really doing what I would say, like, consistent marketing, and that was through Facebook groups.

So one.

One in particular was just finding a.

You know, I worked as, like, a Kajabi specialist for a little bit.

So finding that Kajabi Facebook group and just adding value, adding value, adding value, answering questions for free.

And eventually people would just start reaching out for me to, like, help them with stuff.

And that's how I kind of built that up even more.

I think there's an interesting level of transparency of what we just said that I don't think I see anywhere in the online space, which is, like, how scrappy you have to be when you're finding your first clients, when you're, like, trying to build your client roster, especially when you're, like, just starting out, when you don't have that, like, online presence, when you don't have a lot of testimonials, like, you do need to get kind of, like, super, super scrappy.

And I think the online space makes it seem like, oh, just make a post or just do this.

Like, I think I just made a TikTok that was like, the pipe dream of, oh, you want to make $100,000, just get 20 clients that'll pay you.

What did I say?

I don't even know.

Don't make me do math here.

But hang on.

$5,000.

That should have been a lot easier in My brain.

But it's not.

But I was.

I think when you see these content pieces that are like, oh, just get 20 clients, that doesn't seem like a lot that are going to pay you $5,000.

I don't know about you.

Well, actually I lied because when I first started I gave $5,000 to a lot of wrong people.

I should not have given the money away that I did when I first started my business.

But that's a whole nother podcast episode.

But I just think that, you know, it says it sounds easier what easier said than done.

But ultimately there needs to be a little bit of hustle, a little bit of like, kind of like you know, grittiness to get the first couple of clients and then really expand that way.

Especially when you're first starting because oof, it's not as easy as posting and the clients flood in.

That's not reality.

Yeah, you can't just create an offer and they will come.

It's takes a little bit more than that.

And I think one of the things that I brought over from my corporate career that really helped me out here is just serve your existing clients so well because number one, if you get a referral from them, you are able to, one, you're probably going to really drive and vibe with that person if you're already vibing with your current client.

Two, there's trust built in.

I think Rachel and I both really started with working with clients on pretty high retainers which that allowed us to not get a lot of clients but, but still jump into the freelance world.

I was kind of surprised when I pulled up and calculated how many clients I had my first year.

So my first year I had four clients my second year and that's when I left my full time job because I had replaced 75% of my salary.

That's what I was aiming for.

I only had five clients that whole first year and they were all based on referrals.

But it's really hard to get that high dollar retainer if there's not trust built in.

So I think really from the get go like serving those clients really well so that they can you refer you to other clients that are, you know, in a similar space as them is a key marketing strategy for me at least because I'm at that point I wasn't doing a lot of attraction marketing.

Yeah.

That client experience is everything.

And then you're also going to learn so much about like what you want when you have that relationship with your clients.

I think it's.

I learned oh, what I'm praised for as far as like what they actually wanted compared to my corporate brain, where my corporate brain was like, oh, let me give you this date, like this data dashboard and let me give you all of these reports that you're probably never going to look at.

But that was like exactly what people asked of me in corporate.

But business owners have a different kind of like experience and nurturing and care that they need is they need a partner.

They need someone that's going to, you know, have the same kind of goal driven mentality.

And you know, client experience is literally everything.

No matter if you're just starting or if you're making multiple six figures or whatever that is, like it's everything.

So yeah, so we talked about what worked.

I feel like for the most part.

So what are some of the mistakes or where did you get pushed off course a little bit within like those first years of marketing?

I would say the me, the, the baby business, Rachel, trying to sell digital products like year one with no social audience and not a lot of like major traction as far as like top of funnel.

It's laughable to me, right, because I'm sitting here and I'm like, yikes.

I put so much effort and energy and I like tied a lot of like my goals, financial goals to this thing, which is like passive.

And you don't realize that when you're starting out, you really need to get a good audience in your space.

You need to get authority built.

And I think I wasted days, hours, weeks literally just trying to move faster than what I actually was like ready for in that business.

So I think that's one of the things that I would do, be, I would give myself way more grace, like be so kind to myself.

Because I think we were doing it all and I don't know, I was so impatient.

I was like, oh my gosh, I launched this.

I, I went into coaching.

Oh, I launched this.

Oh, it didn't work out.

And like if you just flip your perspective on that and just say like, hey, that's okay, instead of thinking of it as a failure, what did we like out of it?

What did we learn from it?

And I think that was one of the first things is I was so rigid, so rigid.

And like, this is the tactic, this is how I'm going to execute.

And then when it didn't happen, I was so bummed.

But yeah, I mean, I would say that's probably one thing I would do a little different.

Yeah, I think I tried to launch a couple of digital Products way too early.

Probably two, just because, one, that's what you saw everyone else doing in the online space without the contacts that they had probably been in this air, this space for a little bit longer than us and had, you know, the following to support smaller.

You have to have a big audience to make money off of a $22 product to make, you know, money.

So I feel like now I know that, but I got.

I kind of got pulled a little bit off course.

And when I was reflecting back on the timeline, I was also reflecting on the type of support I was getting at that time.

So the number one thing that I invested first within my business is I hired just like, somebody for like a 200 mentor call.

She was an online business manager, and that call was really, really in getting me the kind of support I needed right there.

Like, she was like, this is the proposal you send.

This is what you offer.

Where I got pushed off course is like, my next investment was a court, was a.

Was a coach who was trying to, like, break out of your box.

Like, I really aligned with a lot of her messaging.

It's like, don't do things like everybody else does.

Do this, do this, do this.

But at that point, like baby business, Jess needed mentorship support.

She needed a course.

She needed somebody to tell her exactly what she could do so she could put down her roots and her foundation.

Instead of, like, someone to help me break through blocks.

Because it wasn't the block, my mental blocks that were blocking me at that point.

It was.

I literally didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, and I just needed somebody to tell me what.

What I was supposed to be doing.

And so I think about when I was back in corporate, they would make us go through this thing called situational leadership.

Love that.

Yes, yes.

And it's all about adapting your leadership style to the developmental level that you're at.

So now when I'm looking to make investments in my business, I kind of look at through it for a situational leadership perspective.

Like, where am I on that developmental journey?

And do.

And finding a, you know, someone to help me that will match where I'm at as far as leadership style.

So do I need a mentor?

Do I need a course?

Do I need a coach, which would be like, I'm at a higher developmental level and I just need someone to help me break through, or do I need someone more like a consultant that's going to guide me and tell me exactly what to do?

So that's really.

I feel like now that I'VE realized that helped me make much smarter investments in my business where I'm not getting pulled off course because I'm being coached to do something.

And that coach was great.

I would definitely hire her again when I need coaching, but that wasn't the support I needed.

I ended up doing a certification later on down the line, which that gave me the foundational skills and knowledge to really start building my business business.

I think that is so like, so crucial for beginning businesses that that initial investment of where you spend your money can truly one teach you.

In my case, I learned a very valuable lesson of oh, not everybody on the online space just because they're loud and high energy and maybe have pink hair.

Are they the right person to coach you?

Because I saw that with so many people, they had the, their messaging down, they had their, you know, audience engagement and I was like, oh, equivalent to expertise and knowledge.

But that's not the case.

There are a lot of people who are very good at marketing but aren't very good at like, they're good at marketing their business, but they're not very good at like the client experience, the delivery, the actual transformation you're going to get.

And I think that that's like to me, if I would have had one, your knowledge in the sense of like, what is it that I need right now to that assessment to be like, let's take a, take a step back.

Are we needing someone to coach us on how to make money or are we needing somebody that's actually going to coach us on how to have a proper offer suite, identify ideal clients, launch a product, like completely different areas of support and, and that foundational stuff, you can't just skip it.

You can't just say like, well, I'm an expert in, or not even an expert.

I just know this, I'm going to make six figures with it.

Because I think that that's kind of the message that's still happening in the online space is like, I'm going to teach you how to make money.

And it's like, well, cool, thanks.

Here, give me, let me give you all my money.

And I think that was my.

If we're going to talk about first clients, I think that was my first investment that I would probably do a lot differently.

Yeah, yeah.

I think now looking back, it's like invest in the skills first.

Even if you have transferable skills from, if you're coming from like a corporate situation, it's invest in the skills on how to deliver that in an online setting first.

Get really, really good at like delivering that.

And then you can hire the marketing coach and the, you know, all of the other things.

But it's first, if you're going to invest in something, invest in skills.

And I feel like it a lot of times that's not what happens.

And then people are just out there like trying to sell things without the proper foundation.

So yeah, definitely.

All right, current situation of our marketing strategy, what are you working on right now?

Oh, gosh.

So, I mean, I have had this.

I've been very lucky in my business.

I don't know if I want to call it luck, but I've been, I've worked very hard to build my retainers and my offer suites to be super relevant.

And I've always been pretty much booked out.

Like, I think since I kind of got traction, I've never had much of a lull or I've always had at least people to fill spots.

And I'm getting into this point now where I want to take a lot of my time back.

So I am embracing digital products again.

But this is after I have established like authority in the space space.

I have, I am, I mean, not to like toot my own horn horn or whatever, but I feel like a lot of people come to me for my marketing expertise and they, you know, put me into their communities and that's not something that was happening when I first started my business.

So I think now is the point where I think being more selective of who I'm taking on as my, my retainer clients and then kind of still being able to serve so many people with my digital products.

So I think that's going to be the next phase of my business and it's unfolding right now.

I'm still kind of putting together my offers are my digital products.

I'm still combing through and going through the foundational things that I should have done before, but I'm doing it now with my digital side of things.

So it's exciting.

I'm really thrilled.

What about you?

Where are you at in your business right now?

Yeah, I feel like I'm in a big pivot moment as well.

Maybe a little bit.

I don't say behind you, but like I took a little bit different track.

So I wasn't.

I really haven't embraced social media at all in my business.

I've completely run my business on referrals and just networking and Facebook and I do a lot of like blog posting stuff to drive SEO.

But that takes a little bit and I'm currently looking to, I'VE been booked out.

I had six retainer clients, which is way too many people to rely on me as much as they rely on their online business manager.

And so I kind of got a little crispy.

So right now I'm in the process of offboarding a couple of those clients and launching a new service that's a smaller container where I can still offer support, but maybe it's just for a client that's a little bit more in the next level down in their business so that I can make some more time and space to be able to make time for marketing.

Hop on.

I've been getting on TikTok and social media and trying to do reels, you know, a little more consistently than I done and getting my newsletter started again, which I know Rachel is super excited to see because she's all about emailing your list.

But that is all in the preparation is my long game is that I do want to have.

I mean, I have digital products already.

They're not selling because I don't have a wide enough audience.

So now I'm.

It's the manifesting generator in me to do it backwards.

I built it and now I need to go back and build up the audience to be able to share all of those fun notion templates that I've got.

I love that.

I literally think that that's so funny because I, as a manifester, I feel like I'm always going backwards and you know a little bit more about human design than I do.

But I'm always told, at least from the manifester side, that I am going to.

I don't know if rub people the wrong way is the right way to say it, but I'm always a little ahead of what people are ready for.

And I have to kind of go against the friction in order to set that new kind of.

I don't even know what that proper word is, that new tone for things.

I don't know.

Is that accurate?

Because you're good.

Yeah, no, I think it's.

It's right.

Manifester energy definitely has like a.

Either you're either like get it or you don't.

And you tell people about you.

Like, you get on it.

Get.

Get on your Instagram and you tell people what you're gonna do and they're either like super on board or they're not.

So it's just about finding the people that are vibing with you.

For me, as a manifesting generator, which if you're not into, we'll link some human design stuff in the show.

Notes if you're not into this and you want to know about it.

But for me, I'm in this phase right now where it's like I go on these like crazy creation sprees but don't really finish a lot of things.

Cause I'll get sidetracked with new ideas.

So I'm in a loop closing phase.

So I'm going through and revamping my website, making sure that everything's like tightened up, making sure my offers are done and then I'll be able to sprint off again into the next thing.

But my main focus.

I'm really excited about this podcast and that we manifested this because I think it's going to be a way to just get our voices out into the world.

Yeah.

And share our thoughts.

Yeah, I think, I think we're going to.

Once, you know, we're.

Once we're kind of done setting the groundwork here, I think it's going to be really fun to dive into some really deep topics on the operations side or on the marketing side.

And I don't know how I can't, even though I can't remember what, how in depth we went from our understanding of our kind of zones of genius.

But like, even from the email marketing side, there is so much that you can do and like the marketing strategy side and like how to be intentional and how to really build it into your business so that it works for you instead of it being just kind of a. I always tell people, like, it doesn't need to be a another to do on your list.

It needs to be something that is working as an employee in your business.

I know for people that are listening, they didn't see me do like air quotes, air quote, employee in your business.

But from the operations side too, like, there's so much of that mentality that, oh, I need an onboarding flow and people will just kind of go through the motions of it.

So I think it's going to be really exciting in these next couple of episodes to hear just how.

How wide of a range our knowledge goes in these topics with the understanding and the energy alignment of.

It's done intentionally, you know.

So hopefully it's helpful to people who are never maybe don't have any systems in their business or people have systems and then like, they're just literally like just kind of going through it.

So I'm excited.

I am super excited about this too.

And we are three thrilled to have you guys along with us on this journey.

Make sure to subscribe and tune in to our next episode topic tbd because we're still working.

All right, Bye.

Bye.