For Episode 127 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Sarah St John. Sarah is an entrepreneur, podcaster, online course creator, and author. She has created several startups throughout her entrepreneurial career of over a decade. Through her books and podcast,“Frugalpreneur: Building a Business on a Bootstrapped Budget”, Sarah’s goal is to show you how to launch and manage an online business on a budget.
For Episode 127 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Sarah St John. Sarah is an entrepreneur, podcaster, online course creator, and author. She has created several startups throughout her entrepreneurial career of over a decade.
Through her books and podcast,“Frugalpreneur: Building a Business on a Bootstrapped Budget”, Sarah’s goal is to show you how to launch and manage an online business on a budget.
Think you can’t afford to launch an online business? Become a frugalpreneur!
In this episode, Rennie and Sarah cover:
02:05 Sarah’s journey to becoming a Frugalpreneur and how sharing that knowledge led to her podcast success.
04:04 Some favorite charities that Sarah supports including DFW Pug Rescue, which is dear to her heart and how she sponsors a child with Compassion International.
05:12 The target markets that Sarah can help with her Frugalpreneur book and podcast and also those interested in starting a podcast.
06:12 Sarah overcame shiny object syndrome and used her research from launching her own business on a budget to help others.
07:41 How Sarah helps others by noticing where her research could help save others some money.
09:24 Sarah shares a couple of recommendations of software for you to consider for your online business (see the links below)
10:59 How to get in touch with Sarah and learn more about her and the work she does at thesarahstjohn.com
“I decided to go into an online business model but wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So, I tried everything that I could think of blogging, affiliate marketing, drop shipping... It was in that process that I discovered, all these free or affordable tools, resources, and software that people can use to run an online business on a budget. So, I got the idea to write a book called Frugalpreneur, kind of talking about the different types of online business models and how to run them on a budget. And then I got the idea to launch a podcast, also called Frugalpreneur to coincide with the book.” - Sarah St John
A few resources Sarah mentioned during the podcast.
SendFox https://sendfox.com/ for email marketing
System.io https://systemio.com for landing pages and sales funnels
To listen to Sarah’s podcast “The Frugalpreneuer” visit https://www.frugal.show/
To learn more about Sarah visit her website https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/ or https://podseam.com
To order one of her books visit her Amazon Author Page at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sarah-St-John/author/B07R8RGP3W
If you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is visit wealthonanyincome.com/tedx. You'll hear Rennie's TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money.
AND if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart. Please check out our affordable program ‘Wealth with Purpose’.
Rennie’s Books and Programs
https://wealthonanyincome.com/books/
Wealth with Purpose:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/wealthwithpurpose
Rennie’s 9 Days to Financial Freedom program:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/programs
Connect with Rennie
Websites:
WealthOnAnyIncome.com
RennieGabriel.com
Email: Rennie@WealthOnAnyIncome.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renniegabriel/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WealthOnAnyIncome/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RennieGabriel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdIkYMOuvzHQqVXe4e_L8Pg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthonanyincome/
Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi folks, welcome to episode 127 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 to 10 seconds, what determines how close you are to Complete Financial Choice®, and how to run your business without being in your business. And last week, we had Fred Diamond, who has a focus on elevating women sales professionals in large corporations. He has an award-winning podcast on sales, and wrote a book to help the family members of someone who is suffering from Lyme disease as his wife is. Today, we have as our guest, Sarah St John. Sarah is an entrepreneur, podcaster also, online course creator and author. She has created several startups throughout her entrepreneurial career of over a decade. She currently owns a podcast production agency called PodSeam. She's also the podcast host of Frugalpreneur, building a business on a bootstrapped budget, which is what I thought would be a great fit for the show. It aims to show people how to launch and manage an online business on a budget. Sarah, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
Sarah St John 01:48
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Rennie Gabriel 01:52
Terrific. Well, let's get right to it with some questions. And the first one is, okay, got an idea of what you're doing. But tell me more about maybe why you do what you do.
Sarah St John 02:05
Hmm. So basically, I had had six different jobs back in 2008, not at the same time, but throughout the course of the year, and realized that I wanted to work for myself. And so I started with a photography business. But it was getting expensive to maintain equipment and all that stuff. So I decided to go into an online business model, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So I tried everything that I could think of - blogging, affiliate marketing, drop shipping. And it was in that process that I discovered, like all these free or affordable tools, resources and software that people can use to run an online business on a budget. So I got the idea to write a book called Frugalpreneur, kind of talking about the different types of online business models and how to run them on a budget. And then I got the idea to launch a podcast, also called Frugalpreneur to coincide with the book. It was just supposed to be an extra marketing avenue, basically. But I was getting more leverage and traction with the podcast. So I've kept that going and almost four years now, almost 200 episodes. Now I'm all in on podcasting, helping people launch, manage and market their podcast. But yeah, it took over a decade of kind of trying a whole bunch of things to get to that point.
Rennie Gabriel 03:26
Yeah, that makes sense. Almost all of the people I talk to are entrepreneurs for some reason or another, got into the business they're in because of their own personal experience with something. And it doesn't matter if it's a health issue or a business issue, you know, or a financial issue. Like for me, that's how I've seen it working. Well, let me ask you this, because you're probably aware I donate 100% of the profits from the work I do, the books, the courses and stuff to various animal and veteran charities. Tell me about a cause that it's important to you that you support.
Sarah St John 04:04
Oh, I think those are very good ones. I definitely support any kind of animal one. One here locally is called - I'm in the Dallas area - it's called DFW Pug Rescue. I've had a couple of pugs. And so that's as far as animals go. Really anything that has to do with like, disaster relief as well or like . . .
Rennie Gabriel 04:26
You also mentioned when we first connected about sponsoring a child with a thing called Compassion International.
Sarah St John 04:33
Oh, that's true. Yes, yeah. So, Compassion International, there's another one called World Vision and a few others where it's like you pay, I think it's only like 30 or 5 or 40 bucks a month, and it basically pays for them to go to school. There's supplies, sometimes even clothing and food in you know, third world countries, basically.
Rennie Gabriel 04:54
Yeah, educating women who are the backbone of most, who are the backbone of every family.
Sarah St John 05:01
Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Rennie Gabriel 05:04
All right, well tell me who your target market folks are, who you are primarily wanting to be working with.
Sarah St John 05:12
So it's kind of two things. As far as my podcast goes with Frugalpreneur, it's basically anyone who is either thinking about or has launched an online business and, you know, has a tight budget, and they're trying to bootstrap it, and just helping them figure out what tools and resources and software to use to make that happen. And then on the other side would be anything on the podcasting side as far as helping people launch, manage, market, monetize their podcasts. So two different areas there.
Rennie Gabriel 05:45
Yeah, and I was going to say about a podcast, monetizing it is a very important aspect. And well, okay, getting back to what was going on in 2008, tell me what your biggest failure was, and it could be business or personal, and what insight you gained from that? And I think I've heard that from the standpoint of, 'Oh, I found all these free tools' - but go ahead.
Sarah St John 06:12
Yeah, I guess a couple of things. One, was the shiny object syndrome and trying everything. And then another was, yeah, just try and figure out how to do it on a budget. So I was always researching different resources and software. And I usually would go with something that's free up to a certain point, and then you know, only upgrade when and if I have to. So I guess that was, I didn't find that as much of a challenge, because I was able to, like, figure out the different software platforms to use to run my business. But I think it's probably a challenge for a lot of people. So I'm kind of like doing all the work for them and like researching these different software, so they don't have to spend the time and money figuring it out. But yeah, the shiny object syndrome, I think is a big one for all entrepreneurs.
Rennie Gabriel 07:07
Absolutely.
Sarah St John 07:08
And, yeah, and then if you're focusing on 10% of your time and money on 10 different things, versus 100% on one thing, it's just, yeah, I learned the hard way on that one.
Rennie Gabriel 07:22
Yeah, that makes a big difference. But well, so give me an example, or a case study of someone who's come to you, whatever their situation was, what you provided for them, and what the outcome was for that business owner or entrepreneur.
Sarah St John 07:41
Yeah, so a lot of times, and it's not even necessarily someone coming directly to me, it's more like I noticed something on maybe someone's website, or someone's social media or something and I notice that they're using the most expensive software they could use on a particular thing, whether it's an email marketing platform, whatever it is, sales funnels, software, whatever. And just basically letting them know like, what alternatives there are that are either free or much cheaper. So just helping people like save money, because like, the more money you save, the less money you have to make, if that makes sense. It's like, you're not . . .
Rennie Gabriel 08:22
It makes complete sense.
Sarah St John 08:24
Not that you should want to make less money, but you get my point like, yeah, so . . .
Rennie Gabriel 08:29
If you spend less you have more.
Sarah St John 08:32
Exactly. Yep.
Rennie Gabriel 08:33
Yeah. Is there something I should have asked you that I didn't ask you that would give some great value to my listeners?
Sarah St John 08:45
Oh, let's see, are a lot of your listeners like thinking about starting an online business or a side hustle?
Rennie Gabriel 08:52
They're already in an online business. They're entrepreneurs. They're business people. They're professionals. As an example, you know, I'm one of the people who used Infusionsoft, also known as confusionsoft, which was like using a shotgun to kill a fly. And anyway, the point being, I've learned some of those lessons, and it certainly would have been better for me to have spoken to you early on, but I didn't know you then.
Sarah St John 09:24
Yeah, so I mean, I have a few recommendations on different software that's either free or affordable, that might be helpful. Like for email marketing, I use SendFox, which especially for someone who's like a podcaster, or YouTuber or a blogger, this, first of all, it's free up to I think 1000 subscribers, but you could also connect your RSS feed or your YouTube channel, and it'll automatically create newsletters and send them out with your latest blog, podcast, YouTube video. So that's what I use for that. As far as like, you know, sales funnels and landing pages and all that there's a lot of big names out there that are expensive, but I use systeme.io systeme.io. And they have a free plan. And then the next plan is only like 27 bucks. I started on the free plan, now I'm on the 27 bucks a month. It's one of the few things I pay for. But it creates, you can create landing pages, sales funnels, courses, memberships, community, all kinds of stuff. I'm trying to think, what else - website.
Rennie Gabriel 10:34
That's good, tell you what, let's do two things. If people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to do it and to learn more about the kind of work that you do? And if you email to me a couple of those things, I'll be sure to put them in the show notes so people can just click on those links. And they have that information besides being able to get back to you.
Sarah St John 10:59
Yeah, exactly. So my main website is thesarahstjohn.com. That Sarah with an H and then s t j o h n. And then I'm on social media everywhere at thesarahstjohn. The podcast, the direct link to the podcast is frugal.show. And you can contact me through there as well. And then my company which I'm actually in the middle of changing the name and the domain for, but I'm going to have a redirect for it. So you can go to podseam.com, if you're looking to start a podcast.
Rennie Gabriel 11:36
Perfect. Okay. Well, Sarah, I want to thank you for being on the show and contributing value to my listeners.
Sarah St John 11:46
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Rennie Gabriel 11:48
You're welcome. If anyone listening would like to know how books, movies and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 9-Step Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and Philanthropy, and an explanation of each of those steps, plus a weekly email with tips, techniques or inspiration around your business, or your money. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth, and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose, on the Wealth On Any Income website. Next week, we're going to have Dov Gordon, the creative leader of the best mastermind group I've ever participated in. You'll not want to miss that episode. To my listeners, thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform, and please rate, review and subscribe. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.