Learn to build an UNCAGED LIFE (and work just a few hours a week)
The true grit of entrepreneurship isn't found in a flawless logo or a sleek website—it's in the learning curve of taking action, the resilience to focus on what works, and the wisdom to outsource effectively.
Rebecca started The Uncaged Life in 2011 as a way to be able to work from anywhere. After 12 years of experimenting with what works and what she enjoys doing, she's found one offer for her business she's gone ALL IN on. Now? She employs a virtual team and works only a few hours a week (#goals).
Key Takeaways:
Resources:
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
Learn to build an UNCAGED LIFE (and work just a few hours a week)
The true grit of entrepreneurship isn't found in a flawless logo or a sleek website—it's in the learning curve of taking action, the resilience to focus on what works, and the wisdom to outsource effectively.
Rebecca started The Uncaged Life in 2011 as a way to be able to work from anywhere. After 12 years of experimenting with what works and what she enjoys doing, she's found one offer for her business she's gone ALL IN on. Now? She employs a virtual team and works only a few hours a week (#goals).
Key Takeaways:
Resources:
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
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Speaker 1:You're listening to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast, where I share relatable stories from everyday people who found a way to leverage flexible work arrangements to design their dream life, and today's guest, rebecca Tracy, has been designing her dream life now for 12 years. She started her business, the Uncaged Life, back in 2011, all in an effort for her to be able to work from anywhere in the world. It actually starts when her and her boyfriend at the time decided to quit their job, buy a van and go rock climbing for an entire year, she figured, hey, if I'm gonna be in a van having low expenses for an entire year, why don't I use this as an opportunity to also build a business that I can then lean on after this year is up? She now employs a virtual team and she truly has the financial freedom to take on whatever life's challenge that she wants to take on. Right now she's going through the process of family planning and she talks really openly about how her business is supporting that phase of her life that she's now in.
Speaker 1:But before we hop into today's episode, I need to tell you about this week's sponsor, fiverr, the world's largest marketplace for freelance services, and by now you already know I'm a freelancer on Fiverr. It's actually become my talk channel for attracting new clients, but I bet you didn't know that I'm also a Fiverr client myself. In fact, whenever I have a project or an idea in my business, I go to Fiverr first to find other freelancers who have services that can bring my project to life. Whether I want to speak with somebody about growing my YouTube channel or get help creating graphics for the launch of a new ebook or digital download I'm releasing, or maybe I want some music to create for my new podcast season. I challenge you head to Fiverrcom next time you have a project but you don't have the time to execute it.
Speaker 1:I have been so pleased by how much space and freedom this creates for me, and if you're new to Fiverr, you can use the link in the show notes for 10% off your very first order. I think you're gonna love this conversation. You're gonna learn a lot, so on that note, meet Rebecca. Rebecca, welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast. How's your day going so far?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm so excited to finally talk with you.
Speaker 1:I know we've been internet friends for a couple of years now, but finally I'm hearing your voice, actually talking to you properly it's great.
Speaker 2:Maybe next we'll meet in person, since we do live in the same town, literally. Yeah, my world is so funny for that. I like there's so many people who I live close to, but like we only talk through the internet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was gonna be one of my first questions that I ask all my guests when in the world are you taking this call? If you weren't in an interview with me, what would you be doing?
Speaker 2:I'm in Squamish, squamish BC. If I wasn't on this interview, I I don't know might be taking my dog out for a rainy dog walk, probably, or on this time of day, it depends on if it's raining out or not. So it's currently not raining, so I'd probably be walking my dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said in the form that you have a lot more free time. How many hours would you say you're working a day? Is there like a set schedule? Wow?
Speaker 2:Which day, which day. Some days I don't work at all. Some days, you know, if I'm going into a launch or there's a heavy work period coming up, five hours would be like a long time for me to be sitting and working. I would say Some days I'll do an hour in the morning, chat with my team and then I'm kind of out and about running errands and then sometimes I'll hop on on a Saturday and write some launch emails. So I always struggle when people are like how many hours a week do you work? I'm like what week? Sometimes zero, sometimes like I don't know how I don't have a good max, whatever be over 30,.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and that's just a testament to how you've built out your business, which I know we're gonna dive into today, but I'm guessing it's a mix of active, a mix of passive, some outsourcing. How would you describe your business? If someone says what do you do, Rebecca? How do you answer that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I run a business where we sell a course, so it's kind of a course coaching hybrid model. I teach marketing to new business owners basically, and it's a program that's open all year round so people can always sign up for it. I coach in the program twice a month. I have some other coaches in there and then I have a team that works with me as well, a couple full-time employees, and so there's lots of kind of behind the scenes work, chatting with them and then a couple other little things here and there that we sell throughout the year. But primarily I've been very laser focused on growing one program and putting everything into that, versus trying to muck around with too many shiny objects, too many other programs. Been there, done that. I've been doing this for 12 years now, and so I'm just so focused on what I know I wanna sell and I'm past the shiny object phase, which I can say I'm very happy about.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. I think that's where so many of us wanna get. But you know, first couple years in business. So much of it is experimentation Planting seeds, figuring out what has product market fit, figuring out what you like to offer, figuring out what you can scale, what has evergreen power. How long have you been offering this course that you now are all in on?
Speaker 2:Since 2013. So 10 years it's just changed. I wouldn't say it's changed entirely. It's definitely changed and evolved and grown and gotten better over the years. But, yeah, 10 years of running Uncaged your Business, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. Yeah, I feel like that's rare to hear.
Speaker 2:I have no desire to like throw it all away and start something new. I'm like why would I ever do that? Like I have a money maker, I have something I like doing. It gets such good results now because we've been doing it for so long, and so I don't understand. When people like blow up their business, I'm like no, no, no like go all in, amazing, and so this product.
Speaker 1:You said it also helps business owners with marketing, but I know a big part of your mission and your vision is to help people create their own uncaged life. So I thought we would try to get into your story about what does being uncaged even mean for you, by starting with what did Caged Rebecca look like?
Speaker 2:You know I wish I like before I can say that I've only been caged in like traditional nine to five job for like six months of my life, so like I've gotten off pretty well. That was actually when I first moved to Vancouver and I had just graduated from university and did a whole bunch of traveling and then moved to Vancouver and was like I guess it's time to get a real job. And then I did it for six months and I was like F this and then I got out. So then for the many, many years after that I was mostly working in service jobs bartending, serving at restaurants, anything where I could. The more I worked, the more money I make. I've always liked that model.
Speaker 2:And then where I could take a lot of time off, where there's flexibility to switch around shifts and go away and then come back and even like quit my job and just get another one when I got home, and so it's. Even though it's not very caged, there was still an element to it where I found number one like I was making good money but it could have stood to make more and I was getting in a lot of trouble for taking so much time off. It sounds like bosses didn't enjoy that as much as I enjoyed it. So it got to the point where I was like I need to do something where I can take as much time off as I want, because I was like literally getting fired from jobs for taking too much time off. So that felt caged to me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it was ultimately about you didn't feel like the way you wanted to live was sustainable in terms of a career. How did you make the connection from that into having your own business? Was that role modeled to you by anyone in your life?
Speaker 2:No, definitely not. I had always thought I want to have a business, but I was like I have no idea what I could do, and so I went back to school a couple of times. I went back and did a nutrition program at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition in Toronto. I did a life coaching program. I was working very part-time for this kind of online wellness company at the time and they were like making me do all this online business stuff that I literally knew nothing about. They were like go and do contests on Twitter, and it was my first time being on Twitter. I was like doing all of this online business stuff, getting paid minimum wage, and so I was kind of learning that piece and I thought that the business was actually going to be nutrition. And I actually started my business as a health coach and winding roads as they do to me somewhere else.
Speaker 2:But I think the health coaching piece was like I need a skill that I can sell. Basically, I was like it's not going to be a product. I'm not crafty, I'm not going to start an Etsy shop or anything like that. So to me it was like a service. It always felt like a service would give me the most flexibility. And so I was like, what skill can I go and learn that I can then go and sell? And so I kind of went in through the health coaching slash life coaching route at the beginning.
Speaker 1:And then how quickly did you move on from okay, I'm offering this as a one-on-one service to realizing that this wasn't scalable, because you said you like to, the more you work, the more money you make, and that technically, would be that type of business, but bringing the line and turning it into a product is ultimately what you ended up doing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that was many, many years. Because first there was like what is this? Is it health coaching? Is it life coaching? All the people that I was practicing my life coaching skills on because I was doing a training at the time with the Coaches Training Institute were all my other nutrition buddies and my other life coach friends, and so I was like just practicing coaching on them and the thing that they all wanted was to like start their own business. But they didn't know what they were gonna do, and so I was kind of coming at that from a life coaching angle. And then I was also being like I work for this online marketing company and like here's the things I'm learning, and so I was teaching them these things. So then I was like trying to.
Speaker 2:It took a while of figuring out like what actually is this business, and I had to eventually cut some things and I realized it wasn't clear, and so it was probably a year of like kind of trying out different things before I dropped the nutrition altogether. And then I was really focusing on coaching and I would never call myself a business coach or market or anything. That probably took like three years to get to that. So I was doing a lot of one-on-one and kind of mucking around as you do. Once I really figured that out, I niched in and I was more confident with the things that I was teaching people.
Speaker 2:Then I tried everything. I tried doing like VIP days, I tried selling an online course which nobody bought. I tried doing small group programs and so I kind of I tried doing retreats and I kind of threw everything into the mix to just see what worked, what I liked, what was marketable at the beginning, and then I made decisions from that place. But that is still a few years. There was a couple of years, for sure, of just figuring out like what is this.
Speaker 2:What am I?
Speaker 1:actually selling and so much of your story and journey has been learning on the go, experimenting, seeing how the market responds. Is that how you teach? Like if I came to you and I said, rebecca, I'm Caged, you want to start to have a business. In hindsight, could you have cut the line, do you think, and got to where you are now and done research ahead of time? Or do you think this is part of the process?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm sure I should have could have short cut some time with like some good coaching. It's part of the process, like you just can't sit back and plan it on paper and then go out and launch it. It doesn't work that way, and so the way that you get to that clarity is trying things out. I always say to my students I'm like I want you to be like 50% clear, like once you're like I kind of know. Then I'm like great, go and work with five people and like see how it goes, cause it's part of the process and of course, all kinds of some mindset stuff comes in when you go out to try to do something and you don't even really know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:But I definitely think that you have to start putting stuff into action to see, cause I have seen I'm sure you've seen this too people sit behind the scenes and have journals full of notes about the business and fancy taglines and they're looking at brand colors and they've like planned the whole thing. And sometimes they go out and do it and they're like oh, I actually don't, really don't like this. So it's been all this planning behind the scenes and it doesn't guarantee that it's going to be successful. So the faster you can get to doing it, I think, the faster that clarity is going to come and the more you're going to find the thing that you do want to do, even if it's not the initial thing that you set out to do.
Speaker 1:Totally, especially with service-based businesses. I find so often people will be like well, should this be the name for my business? Where do you think I should buy my website domain? Do you think I should get business cards?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, you're like who cares, and with that I'm like literally go see if someone will pay you to do the service. That's going to happen so much quicker than any of this other stuff. That can all happen and I definitely have all of those brand elements now, but when I was beginning it was open Gmail. Who do I know, who do I think could use my service and start a conversation? Yeah, I agree, you mentioned mindset blockers is something that you're finding your clients having to overcome with you. Is there any type of advice that you find yourself giving over and over again or things that just are common themes that trip up early stage entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean because so I work with service businesses, so a big piece of what we do is like niching and trying to figure out who am I going to work with. And there's so much pressure that I think new business owners put on finding that thing and figuring out the niche, and so I really try to encourage them to think of it as a niche for now. Or you're creating one offer for one person and you're going to go sell it to five people and you're going to see how that goes and so kind of taking the pressure off of this being the forever thing. And I think, if you think about it in the reverse so unlike what you were saying, which is like I need to get my domain and my business card and my website, all of that stuff is for when you worked with 20 clients you don't need any of that to actually get clients. And so if you think of it as like, OK, I'm just testing it out, I'm playing around, I'm seeing, like you said, who's going to pay me for what, it just takes the pressure off.
Speaker 2:There's a whole perfectionism piece that comes in. I think people think that if they can squeeze it so tightly behind the scenes and get the brand colors and have it feel, look professional and sound professional, then it's going to help them feel more confident. And it doesn't. Sometimes it's worse, actually, because then I've seen people publish a website and everything looks nice and it looks like they know what they're doing and inside they're like I have no idea what it is. If somebody were to hire me, I have no idea what to do with them. I've definitely seen that. So I think you build the confidence as you start to actually do things and just notice if you're like squeezing too much behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you touched on a really good point about sometimes we're hiding behind all these flashy things in order to gain the confidence to go out and do the thing. But the confidence really has to come from within.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you can't like brand your way to confidence, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you attribute your confidence or your courage to do this yourself to?
Speaker 2:I started my coaching actually with practice clients, which I totally recommend. I recommend whatever you're doing, if it's a service, do it for free, to get confident, because it's going to feel so much better. When someone finally gave me money, yes, I was still scared, but I'd already done the thing enough times and I was like, ok, somebody's given me money but I can do this, whereas if somebody had just given me money right off the bat and I had never actually practiced this with a bunch of different practice beta clients, I would have been freaking out. I would have been so scared. So you don't want to be scared when someone's giving you money. Right, you want to be like, yes, I've got this, even if it's a little nerve-wracking because now there's a money exchange. But, yeah, I think I just practiced.
Speaker 2:I let the first clients that I had know that I was practicing. I just took the pressure off the table. I was like I'm practicing, it's free in exchange for you telling me honestly how it's going. Looking at the results, if you love it, you can give me a testimonial. If you don't, no problem. And so I just took the pressure off. At the beginning I was still nervous and I didn't have a lot of confidence, but it helped me actually get into action more than if I'd been trying to put on this picture, as if I knew exactly what I was doing and I was so confident we were going to get you there. I didn't know.
Speaker 1:You mentioned taking the pressure off. Something I often tell entrepreneurs is try to take the pressure off of this needing to pay all of your bills and this new business paying all of your bills. My sweet spot is have some type of part-time, flexible income source that covers your basic needs so that you can actually have your business move at the pace that it naturally should move at. So it's enjoyable throughout the whole process because people can sense if you're desperate for that and you like really needed and that's not a powerful energy. So how are you able to do that for yourself? Because you went on your business all in or did you have a revenue stream? You kept.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So actually the one thing we didn't talk about but funny, the first year my business was, I decided I was going to go for it and I was like, okay, I'm starting this thing, it's happening. And at the time my boyfriend at the time and I were talking about doing a year long rock climbing trip. We bought this like old Chevy 81 camper van and we were going to go like tour the US and Canada for a year and I was like I don't want to wait. I was 30 at the time.
Speaker 3:I was like I don't want to wait another year to do this, and so I was like I'm just going to do it on the road, I'm just going to start my business living in a van.
Speaker 2:The great part about it is your expenses are really low. You don't have. You know, I was living in Toronto, so I didn't have my Toronto rent. We were just cooking meals in the van. We were rock climbing, which is free, and so it was really actually easy to be quite cheap. So I didn't need a lot of money coming in, and so that was my first year and I don't recommend it.
Speaker 2:It was hard to balance, like when do I go a whole up in a Starbucks and work and when do I actually just go enjoy rock climbing? And anytime I was doing one I felt like I should be doing the other one. So that was a tough balance, but it afforded me time to play around and build up some online content, start to build relationships in like a way that I just didn't have this financial pressure. And then, when we got back from that trip, I went and got a job and I had sworn when I quit the job. Before that I was like I am never working at a restaurant again. I am done, I'm going all in on the thing and like quickly realize that you need more than just a year before you're going to be replacing your full time income.
Speaker 2:And so I got back to Toronto and I sucked at my pride and I was like going back to my restaurant job, but this time I felt like it was with intention, where I I could see that now every shift I was taking was like funding my business. So I was like great, I need $1,000 to go build this basic website. And so I pick up some extra bartending shifts. And so work became more fun and more intentional, and I knew that it was temporary and so I didn't mind doing it, because I knew that it was going to be funding the business and I eventually was able to, you know, drop down to two shifts a week and focus more on the business. And then I eventually got to a place where I could quit altogether.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having a direct application for that money and seeing how it's funding a bigger dream directly can help us suck up. You know the shitty things I remember. First one out on my own. I was trying to figure out what are my monetizable skills and the first gig I got was copywriting and it was for like 10 cents a word or something like that Her word 2017. Such a bad model Right.
Speaker 1:And it was great because it was my friend who hired me, who had a business, who just wanted to support me and figure out how to use me. But I hated it. I hated every word, literally, that I wrote, but I was able to suck it up and do it with as much of a smile as possible because there was something so much bigger that I was building, which, for me, was the ability to work from anywhere, the ability to go visit my boyfriend, who was in San Francisco when I was in Toronto and go to work. I was in Toronto and couldn't get a work visa there and I had that really strong why you mentioned you had a Y of like okay, well, this isn't sustainable. But what are some more aspects of what was driving you in terms of the lifestyle you wanted to be living?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, so a big piece of it was time freedom, like just being able to go when I wanted, to go where I wanted, and I was in a luxury and I. It's just something that I that I knew was important to me. You know, there was also the piece of just doing work that I liked doing like I had never found a career path that felt like it was something that I would actually enjoy or want to stay in, and so I kind of resorted to going back to bartending and just doing those jobs to fill in. I just tried different things and I just didn't. Nothing felt good and I just assumed that I would never have a career that I like loved. You know, I was like, well, maybe that's just not going to be what it is.
Speaker 1:And did you know anyone around you that had careers they loved or what were your friends kind of doing? What was around you?
Speaker 2:What were they doing? It was interesting because I traveled so much that a lot of the people that I met were like also kind of vagabonding around and didn't have real jobs. Maybe it was part of it was I was conflating the work I was doing with like the lifestyle that it was forcing me into, which was like going to an office every day and like not controlling my time, and so it might have been that piece that I was like. I'm just not down with this. I'm not someone who thinks the work you're doing has to be like the thing you're most passionate about and the be all and all I'm like. I just think you have to like it enough to keep doing it and get paid well and take time off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so many people put pressure on themselves to find their work purpose and that perfect mix of making an impact, having fun, making the money, all of those things. I'm just like what kind of lifestyle do you want to live? Like, how do you spend each day, each month, each year and can you create a work opportunity that supports that, whether it's remote work, having your own business, freelance, but I mean great. Whenever I come across an entrepreneur, that's also like I'm changing the world as well. I'm like, wow, I continue to want to do more and more of that and I'm really continue trying to think about how to make an impact. But for the most part, it's like what kind of life do you want to live? And just try to focus on being happy, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and finding work that lines up with that. So, like if I hated coaching, the cool thing is I'm helping other people start businesses that let them have this kind of freedom, so I am passionate about that. If I hated coaching and hated talking to people, sure I wouldn't choose this business model. I would choose something else where I'm like hands off and don't actually have to deal with people. But I found a lot of fulfillment in running my own business, building a team, helping people that I just never thought I would have.
Speaker 2:I like you know I like it. There's days I hate it. There's good things, there's bad things. I don't think you're ever going to love every aspect of your own business, because there's just shit work that you have to do that you know you don't want to do and that you can't outsource sometimes. But I think I have found fulfillment in this path that I totally didn't expect. I just kind of thought, well, if I can have a lot of time off, like that's all I need, and it's been so much more rewarding than that, obviously.
Speaker 1:You put in the form that location freedom was a big driver for you, that you wanted to be able to be anywhere, work from anywhere. Do you remember, before you had this life, like having to say no to things Like? Is there anything that sticks out? Well, never forget not being able to be where I wanted to be, and I was thinking that I would.
Speaker 2:So I remember leaving jobs so that I could go on the trips and do the things. So like the thing I would say no to was the work where I was like, well, like I'm my boyfriend and I want to go travel in Guatemala and Nicaragua for two months and I have this job, and like I would just quit the job and go do the thing and then come back and find another job. So I never let that side win. I always chose the location, freedom. And to me I've always just had an attitude of like money comes, money goes.
Speaker 2:I didn't grow up with a lot of money, coming from a privileged place, like I didn't grow up with, you know, oodles of money and parents just giving me money. But I kind of just was like you know, I can just work and find another job, I find need money and then I'll go spend the money and then let's come back and make more money. And so I always kind of had that attitude and I, you know, when I traveled I was going to very cheap places where we were not spending very much money at all. It wasn't luxury travel by any means. I was in my twenties, it was like backpacking around Nicaragua, you know that kind of thing, but I always chose the location, freedom, over the, whatever job I was in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was my initial motivator as well, and it was so exciting when I first realized I could have a business, that I could run from anywhere and I would try to go to as many countries as possible, collect the passport stamps, the world, my oyster. And seven years in, I'm in my mid thirties. Now I it has lost a little bit of its appeal a little bit. I'm not saying I want to be in Squamish all year it's November and it's raining every day and there's definitely some times I want to get away. But I would say my definition of freedom has really evolved with me. How would you say yours has evolved with you in terms of where you're at?
Speaker 2:now it has definitely changed. Like for sure, being able to move to somewhere, like Squamish, leaving a big city like Toronto where I felt like when I lived in Toronto I was always leaving. I was like, okay, I'll come and I'll do my launch and hustle and then I'm going to go and climb for two months in Colorado or go somewhere. So I was always like just working a lot so that I could leave Toronto and so being able to move to a place and this is pre-COVID. I know now with COVID lots of people have remote jobs, but pre-COVID it was so great to be able to move to a place that I actually wanted to live in. Like I don't feel like I need to escape as much because I live in a place that I just am so obsessed with. But even outside of that I think I barely travel internationally anymore it feels exhausting to me.
Speaker 2:Now it's like not something that I'm not interested in, but more recently, location freedom is getting won over, I think, by time freedom. So just having the flexibility in my schedule to be able to go to appointments in the middle of the day or work my schedule in a way that works for me, even if I'm just like hunkering down at home. So I've been doing IVF all summer. So my partner and I are old and we were like let's try and have a baby.
Speaker 2:Even just going through that process, I was so grateful I'm in all these IVF Facebook groups and the egg retrieval process is a big one and people feel terrible afterwards and people are all discussing like how much time off work do you have to take? And it was just so grateful to not have to even worry about that. I was like I can take as much time as I need, I can go to all these appointments. I can feel terrible and like it doesn't matter, it's not impacting my business or my work, I'm not having to answer to some boss or show up when I'm all hormonal because I'm full of all these drugs. And that was, I think, a huge realization that I'm just so grateful to have built that for myself, that, even if it's not this fun exotic travel, the time freedom has been so valuable.
Speaker 1:Totally. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I can relate to that in so many ways of just saying yes to things without worrying about a repercussion, of having to be back at Monday morning 9 am in an office, just ready to just be stimulated and just put on the pressure. I see people doing that. I see people saying no to fun experiences because just even the thought of having to be back at work on Monday is daunting to them. And, yeah, having a business that can work with your energy and move at your pace is it's so incredible and it's why we try to help other people have this right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I remember when I started thinking like I don't need that much money, like I could live off 50K a year pretty easily. Whatever I was used to being a broke student and then just like a broke bartender. Now obviously it's a decade later. My business has grown a lot. I do have that financial freedom and even that through the IVF process. Again, people are talking about how they have to go get part-time jobs at Starbucks because Starbucks covers it. I live in BC. There's no coverage here, and so how do you pay for 35 grand in Like who just has an extra 35K sitting around? And even that I was like I'm so grateful that I've built something where I can make more money when I need to. It's easy for me to pick up more clients, run another promotion Like. I have an asset that I can generate more money from when I need to, and when I don't need to I take more chill time, and that again, that's huge.
Speaker 1:I love that, so you literally feel like you can just turn on your business a little bit If you're like, ok, I have an unexpected cost this year just means I'm going to work a little bit harder and I have that buffer because I'm barely working 30 hours a week, you can turn it on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's not as easy as just like that, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes I'm like I'll just do this quick launch and I'm like, oh, it's never as easy as I think, but the capacity is for sure there. I've been doing this for 12 years, so I've built it over that time. But you've got to start somewhere and the sooner you start, the sooner you get to this place, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I sell one-on-one consult calls on a website called Fiverr and they're pretty lucrative. At any time someone can just buy a call with me and I know that if I reduce my rate a little bit on the marketplace, all of a sudden I can have like three calls booked.
Speaker 2:I don't think I knew that you were doing that on Fiverr.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do find some clients on Fiverr and I keep it at a high rate because I don't want to be doing more than a couple of weeks. But my example of that is a couple of weeks ago I really wanted to buy the Dyson Airwrap and it was like this $800 premium, luxurious, not necessary product that I just really wanted. And I felt like you know what I'll just do.
Speaker 1:a couple extra Fiverr calls reduce the rate $10 an hour. It plays with the algorithm. I get more clients and that's kind of how I turn it on. What would that look like for you in your business model if you wanted to make some extra money?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So now it's like we have the ways we normally make money. I could open up one-on-one spots. I don't do a lot of one-on-one these days, but I could easily open up one-on-one slots because I don't do them and I have a large audience. They'd be pretty easy to fill. I'm always weighing though, like is it worth doing 10 one-on-ones or can I sell one more spot on my program? I could do a flash sale.
Speaker 2:We have a couple of kind of smaller digital courses and digital products that some of them are kind of behind the scenes. Some of them are stuff we are selling but we're just not putting any active energy into. So we can often do a little flash sale, something like that. We just did an affiliate promotion for one of my friends' courses, who sells a course on networking, and so she came in, did a webinar for my audience and then sold it on the back end and so that we sold.
Speaker 2:I can't remember how many sold. I think I made about $8,000 from that. So I'm not getting $8,000 of every dollar that comes in, you know, but just in terms of growing the gross revenue in the company, there's lots of little ways like that throughout the year that we can kind of fill in those gaps if we need an extra little boost and I'm sure there's more I could do I'm just always weighing the energy it would take me to create a new offer or create a new thing versus do we put just a bit more marketing into what we're already selling. So that's kind of more the strategic thinking of it. But there's lots I could do.
Speaker 1:Amazing. You mentioned outsourcing. You said, I think, earlier there's just some things you can't outsource. I'm curious what does your team look like and what are the things that you feel you just can't outsource? And they just got to be Rebecca.
Speaker 2:So I have two full-time employees. One is I don't know what you call her project manager, business manager person, kind of overseeing all the other employees and contractors, and then a full-time marketing person. And then a part-time contractor who is a virtual assistant who does a lot of the admin tech tasks, and then we outsource to a Facebook Ads agency contractor, and then the odd copywriter here and there if we're writing something new. And then the stuff that I I'm doing so coaching in my program, which I could outsource, but I like being in there, so I'm in there doing that, all the sales that we do, so when we don't do sales calls but we do have an application process, and so there's a lot of back and forth through emails or like DM, voice messages on Instagram when someone's enrolling, and so I do those.
Speaker 2:I've tried to outsource that and it hasn't worked as well as I would like and I personally am kind of picky and I want to make sure that we have the right people in the program. So I feel better if I've actually had conversations with like everyone who's in there. And then content writing We've tried to outsource to copywriters and content writers. They did an okay job, but I feel like, that's still something that I just do better in my business, and so if I'm writing a new blog post that's then getting turned into whatever other content that it's gonna be syndicated to, I'm always the one doing like the initial writing of the piece. But I'd say, though, and then chatting with the team, but I'd say that those are the biggest things that I spend my time doing.
Speaker 1:So talent acquisition and finding talent and the right people to grow your business is a challenge for so many people. I know I've felt plateaued so many times. I feel like I'm in a plateau right now because I don't have the right person to help me and there's such an opportunity cost. Like you said, I could work 10 more hours every single week and I could do it, but I'm gonna Costa Rica in a few weeks and I'm invested being in there, like I want to have that full experience and so I'm happy to hire someone to do it, but I find it challenging to actually find the right person. Anything you can share or speak to the entrepreneur who feels that way in terms of how you did that and how you found the right team, it's hard and it's definitely something I still struggle with, especially at the beginning.
Speaker 2:I think the hardest part of it is at the beginning, hiring your first few people, because, especially if you were a solopreneur and you've been doing everything yourself and you have control issues, like me then it's very hard to give away pieces of your business and trust that other people can do them, especially you know, I've gotten burned a few times.
Speaker 2:That's just real shit contractors which then made me want even more control.
Speaker 2:And so I think starting really small and finding pieces that like it's not life or death I mean, nothing is but pieces that you're like if they don't get it in 100%, it's fine and starting to just give away that control and, as you build more trust, giving more and more you don't have to go and hire someone to take over a huge piece of your business right at the beginning and just getting really clear about the pieces that you're actually still okay doing.
Speaker 2:The circles that I run in it's a lot of online coaches who are kind of always delegate everything and you should only be doing the high task, like there was just kind of a lot of this, like you shouldn't even be in your business anymore, you know, and I just say I've tried that I was like all on board with that and it didn't work and it didn't feel good and it wasn't how I wanted to be spending my time or not spending my time, and so I think trying to give stuff away. But if it feels like something that you just need to own and you're happy owning it and you want to own it, then keep it. You don't have to outsource everything and then getting really intentional about what you are outsourcing and what you're keeping for yourself and you only learn that through really trying. I've tried to outsource everything in the past and some has worked really well and some hasn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, especially if you said your niche is really service-based entrepreneurs, people who wanna build an uncaged lifestyle for themselves. These are often entrepreneurs where the business is around them and working with them and their differentiator and what makes them special and their uniqueness, and people wanna do business with them. So I also feel like sometimes that can be a slight trap in a way, because I've now built this business around me but then I also want to outsource and I also wanna scale. Can you relate to that? I see you nodding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I mean, even with the one program that I've been selling for 10 years, I have thought about, like how can I bring in other coaches and I haven't replaced myself in it yet? I just can't see a world where I'm not coaching in it, except when I have a baby and I need to take myself out for a few months. But other than that, long-term, I just don't see it happening. But even then I do have some other program coaches who are in there. They're in the Facebook group, they're answering questions, they're giving feedback. They're amazing. They've taken the program. They give sometimes better feedback than I do.
Speaker 2:But I had a lot of mindset issues about bringing them in. I was like are my people aren't gonna wanna sign up because they just want me? And like there's a lot of ego around it. Yeah, sometimes it's true, yeah, but I think if I wanted to pull myself out of it I would have to just rebrand the business into something else, because I've signed up for programs where the person is marketing it and you never, ever see them in the program and it's fine.
Speaker 2:The coaches that they hired are great, but I still it wasn't quite congruent, like what I thought I was signing up for was not what I was getting, and so for me personally, like if I wanted to take myself out of it, I would need to take myself out of my marketing and really position it as something else, but I don't want to, so I haven't had to go there yet, but it definitely is. I think I don't know if you run in the same some of the same online business circles, but that sort of was the path for a while was just like get yourself up here and get yourself out of the business, and I just don't think that's the right move for every business.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, even this push to create passive business models and passive revenue channels and passive courses. I feel like that was so. Of course that's attractive. I wake up and there's money in my inbox and money in my account and I create a course and all of a sudden I do nothing. But, like you said, you created a course and it didn't sell. And the same thing happened to me when I first created my course. I had a lot more trouble selling it than when I added also like a multi-touch experience. So it was take the course, but then you would also have regular conversations and coaching with me. Is that kind of what you're seeing and is that a similar path that you're recommending your clients? Go on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. And we have a couple of smaller courses that we have on our website and they're super niche, like one is all about how to run retreats, if you are a coach and wanting to kind of expand to doing retreats, and then the other one is how to create your first group program If you're a one-on-one coach and you're wanting to scale to group programs, and so they're super niche. You would think they would just fly on the shelves Anytime I do a webinar, I always go on a bit of a rant about passive income because I'm like listen, we have a big audience. We have a moderate audience, but you know, to someone who's just starting, our audience is big. I'd say we've got, I don't know, 20,000 people on our email list. Wow, 20,000 people in our Facebook group Amazing, 20,000 people on our Facebook page. So, like there's people.
Speaker 2:You know I've been doing this for 10 years and I have a good reputation and people know, so I had people guess how many of these courses do you think I sell? So I was like there's some blog post content. We're constantly like pinning stuff on Pinterest about them. They sit on our website. You know there's funnels that lead to them If you sign up. If you read a blog post, you sign up for the checklist, whatever the whole thing, all the systems, and I'm like how many do you think I'm selling? And people are like 25 a month, 400 a month? The answer is zero a month. I think in six months we sold like eight of the retreat course.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's passive. We're not doing anything new. The content is just out there on our blog, on Pinterest, whatever. We're not putting anything active into it and people are shocked to hear that. It's not shocking. We're not.
Speaker 2:You know, you have to market things. If we were to do a push for it and start putting out new blog content and pointing people to it, we would sell a whole lot more. But I'm so focused on the one thing that we sell being on Gage, your Business and All Roads Point there. I don't want to put the time and energy that it takes to sell these other things, and so we're actually retiring one of those courses soon because I'm like you know what?
Speaker 2:The course is great, but it's not where our energy is going and I'm all about focus and simplicity, and so we're kind of taking them off the shelves. But I think people are shocked to hear that things don't just sell magically when you put them online, and the other thing, too, is that you then become a full-time marketer. You have to then be all roads point to your course and all you just have to constantly be marketing it. And if you're going into business to like do a scale or offer a service, you're going to be doing like 10% of that and like 90% marketing 100% and I really appreciate you being honest about that.
Speaker 1:I actually have a great large community and a successful business but, to be honest, I sell zero of these, and it's been it's only eight.
Speaker 1:I've been like six months, yeah, you know, and I really admire that because there's a lot of the opposite language online of I do all this stuff. It's all passive and I'm having a similar experience. I've found some success with selling my courses on marketplaces, but again, this isn't life changing amount of money. You know, my course is available on Fiverr Learn, it's available on Skillshare, it's available on Udemy. I actually have a call this afternoon with entrepreneur now who wants to put on the call. Oh cool.
Speaker 1:And, like you know, that is completely passive. That's every quarter. Now we sold X amount. Look forward to your wire transfer coming this month. But other than that, you're right, you have to just completely market. And then it's like do I want to spend all my time marketing a $100 horse or whatever the price is, or do I want to try to sell three, five $10,000 programs and just focused on really going after that one customer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so much marketing. The cheaper it is, the more marketing you have to put in and people think it's gonna be cheap, so it's gonna be easy to sell it.
Speaker 1:It's totally the opposite, which is so ironic. Yeah, as we're nearing the end of this conversation, I want to bring it back to the lifestyle of Rebecca, of this uncaged entrepreneur from Squamish, 12 years in, to really understand, you know, what has been the impact of all of this. What are some misconceptions that you think people have about you and the way you're living your life that you're often correcting?
Speaker 2:This one's interesting, so I'll have to explain it. But I feel like there's maybe a misconception that, like I just never work, which, like I don't work as much as many people who have to go and sit at a desk all day and like, do the physical work and you'll totally get this, and anyone else listening who has a business will get this. It's like I'm always working. It is always my business is always on me, like not in a bad way, but it's even if I'm totally off, slack's always on my phone. I'm always, you know, just checking in on my Facebook group. I'm always thinking about like, oh, what's the next thing we could do here? It's just always on the brain and that work is often more important, especially like I'll be on a dog walk and be like oh, I had an idea and joining it down in my phone, you know, is, I think, more valuable than me sitting at a desk banging out eight hour days doing whatever. So I think this yeah, the people are right that I don't work often, but I'm always working.
Speaker 1:And are you okay with that? Do you find that taxing to always?
Speaker 2:be on oh, they're always working or the people's opinion? I guess both. Yeah, I get offended. I get offended Sometimes.
Speaker 2:I get in this fight with my husband, where he's a contractor but he gets paid hourly. He's an environmental engineer and he works a lot, and so our work is very different, how we spend our time is very different, and he'll sometimes say things like about me, like not working much, and I get, I do find I get defensive because I'm like I have spent 12 years building a company where I don't have to sit in my desk eight hours a day, like let's celebrate that instead of shame it. He's not shaming it, if he heard this he'd be mad, but that I do find I get defensive about it because I'm like this is a good thing, like I have built a great thing, yeah, and I do work and I am working and I have the legal responsibility, the financial responsibility, the emotional responsibility. All of that is solely on me. I employ people, you know, like that is just heavy stuff, that's always there, and so even if I'm not sitting here banging out hours a day of work, it's still there.
Speaker 1:That's what some people will say. I love having a nine to five. I close my laptop, I leave the office and my work stays there and I get to go home and I get to just be myself on the weekends and the evenings and I have nothing to think about, and for them, they thrive in that Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think having a team helps because now I have people who do a lot of the things that I just don't have to worry about. When I was a solopreneur and I was doing everything, it was like, oh my God, the website's broken. Okay, let me just stay up till 4 am Like trying to fumble my way through this thing, like I don't have to do that stuff anymore, which is great, so I don't have the same kind of pressure that I used to, but now it just feels normal. If I didn't have my business, there'd be so much free time that I don't know how I would feel. You know? Yeah, I'm like what do people do on a Friday night? If you know, I can only watch so much Netflix before. I'm like, oh, I had an idea, I'm gonna go like write that down.
Speaker 1:Especially in Squamish. No movie theater.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's nothing. No, literally nothing to do on a Friday night.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about the impact on your relationship? So you mentioned your partner and I think that's really interesting that you shared that. And when you were talking a little bit about potentially getting ready to have a family or pursuing that process, I would think having the type of business that you've built where you don't have to be working all the time, would make me feel more confident that I could take on an additional responsibility of having kids. Sometimes I feel my partner and I are so busy that I can't imagine adding those additional responsibilities, but I can see a future where a business could, like totally help me thrive in that dance Like. Is that how you feel, like you're at, and are any of the timing coincidental in terms of being ready now?
Speaker 2:I mean, I definitely feel grateful for what we both do.
Speaker 2:Even though he works a lot, we both do mostly control our own schedules, and so I do feel like we're in a much better place than somebody who's gonna have to like I'm not gonna get a maternity leave, so that's one part of it, but there's so much time freedom there.
Speaker 2:But then, on the other hand, I'm like, oh my God, I have so much free time right now and I'm just like giving that all up. I have a baby, so that scares me, but it does feel better. Even talking to people in town about how impossible it is to get into daycare, I'm like it's not as urgent because, like I don't have to go to work. So it definitely is helpful in terms of just feeling like we're in a really good place to be able to do this. And even without having a maternity leave, I'm like I'm just working a lot this year trying to make as much money in the company, so like I can still pay myself. My goal would be to just pay myself my regular salary next year, even if I'm not working, so it's nice to be able to do that too.
Speaker 1:And I've had so many friends who've just realized now how little money you actually get maternity leave. Oh, my God really we're basically chasing this security and getting a job and getting the benefits and getting the maternity leave and being like what this?
Speaker 2:is how much money. You can even pay rent and Squamish with your maternity leave. I don't think.
Speaker 1:And I'm like to be honest, and we're so privileged because we've been in this for a while I could easily make more than that in by creating one product in a business. But it's just like that guaranteed safety net that we're kind of taught and instilled in us throughout society as, like this is what you get. And then you actually get it and you're like this is barely enough to live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, whereas I've been, I have savings in my company and every month when money comes in, I put a certain amount aside into savings, and so there's money there, and so some of it's in investments and different things within the company structure, but some of it's there to use, and so my goal would be that I could pay myself way more than like that. There won't be any change in actually what I would pay myself, even if I'm not working for a year. I can't imagine not Even that, where I'm like, oh, I'll be on maternity, I won't be working, but like I can't see a world where I'm 100% disconnected from talking to the team about anything.
Speaker 1:Or even just showing up online. You have a great social media presence and have such a value forward brand. I would be shocked if you're just like I'm done being valuable. I'm done sharing any diet that I have with the world. I'm now keeping it all for myself for a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I'm gonna need things that aren't just baby and I'm gonna be like what's happening in my Facebook group, like what are other people doing, baby, baby's drinking, and let me just get on my phone and I don't know how babies work, so I have no idea how that will actually happen, to be honest. But I know I have some friends with newborns and they're like always online. They're just like I don't have babies sleeping on me and I'm just like scrolling my phone.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally. Yeah, I can't speak from experience either, but I do think having a flexible business where finances are taken care of and your schedule is taken care of has got to be the easier way of doing it and taking on an additional responsibility. So very excited to see where that journey takes you and your partner.
Speaker 1:Is there anything you'd like to share with the audience, the community who've gotten this far and this conversation? They're loving you, they're vibing with your story. How can they work with you or learn more from you? What can we share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I know your people are in all different industries trying to find this freedom. So for the coach, service-based type people, our Facebook group is a great place. I started the Facebook group in like again, I think it was in 2013. Same as when I started the big program and it was a wave. I was working with all these one-on-one clients and I was like they all need to know each other, like everyone's doing this in a vacuum and like they need to be friends, and so I put them all in this Facebook group and now I think it's 15 or 20,000 people and it's a great place to just go and, if you're getting started with this, to just ask questions, and everyone in there is super supportive, and all at different stages too. We don't let any selling, so there's not that bullshit in there, it's just a really helpful support of communities. So that's a great place if you're selling services and trying to get into that world. Yeah, you can go.
Speaker 2:Follow me on Instagram. Our Uncaged Life Instagram is at the Uncaged Life, and then I have a personal one where it's mostly just me and dogs and mountains. Some people like to snoop on the personal stuff. So and that's just my name Rebecca Tracy. I love your personal account.
Speaker 1:I feel like it shows the lifestyle that you can have when you have this style of business, and I know, for me, my niche helping people launch podcasts. Sometimes I'll ask you know, why did you wanna work with me? And they'll say, like I just love the life that you're living, I love that you've been able to have this outcome based on this, so I just wanna be around that. So I think it's great what you share on your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's kind of why I post there, Like I probably honestly wouldn't if I didn't have this business and I used to use it for business. So I have more followers there than I would if I was just me and my friends, you know. But yeah, kind of the same.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah this might as well just give people. I like to see the behind the scenes of like people that I follow online and people I wanna hire because I'm just like nosy like that. So yeah, so I like posting that stuff, but not a lot happening right now. It's probably just gonna be dog videos for the next few months.
Speaker 1:Perfect, we're here for it. So I'll include links to all of that. Thank you so much, rebecca, for coming on the show and being generous with your time. I know we went over, but there was just so much to get into, so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, so great to connect.