The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.

This episode was supported by findcourses.co.uk learn more about their online courses and tech tutorials and training here.

Charlotte O'Hara is a web designer/developer, Squarespace SEO expert, product maker, and online educator.

Her goal is to show her community that anyone can build and grow an amazing website that supports their business online, no matter what kind of technical knowledge or design background they have!

She loves collaborating with small-to-medium sized businesses and creative entrepreneurs to build custom Squarespace websites that are easy to navigate, convert and drive sales. Her focus is on crisp, clean designs and she believes that all websites should be functional and fun.

Charlotte’s free email course called Launch Your Best Site where you can sign up to learn how to design, build and launch Squarespace websites - link HERE.

Here's a link to Charlotte’s Youtube channel where she has lots of video tutorials, mostly about web design & development, Squarespace, SEO and online business.

Connect with Charlotte here:

Website | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | Youtube

Living and Working in Bali

Podcast Transcription

Hey guys, welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast, thank you so much for tuning in. 

I hope you guys are all doing really well. I am really excited to share this interview that I did with Charlotte O'Hara. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you know, I love learning from people who approach and think about things differently than the masses. And I really love people who have the guts to live life and do things on their own terms, which is why I begged Charlotte O'Hare to be on the podcast. 

So she's an entrepreneur who is killing it, she's lived in Bali for the past couple of years and that's where she's grown her business from. How cool is that living in Bali? So she is living that dream if you're unfamiliar with Bali, I believe it's a providence in Indonesia. So it is beautiful Google if you're unfamiliar with it, it is absolutely incredible. 

So she's originally from Canada, but she moved to Bali to live the dream and she's doing it. So she's technically a specialist at building custom Squarespace websites and she does a lot of Squarespace SEO auditing and consulting but she's awesome. 

And a lot of people I have on the podcast, they ask me if they can come on the podcast and a lot of time, most of the time I tell people I'm not looking for people, but occasionally I begged people to come on and she was not looking to be on the podcast I totally sought her out because I joined her email list like six months ago, and her email game is so tight that I wanted to learn more about it. 

So I figured, hey, I'll have her on the podcast maybe I can pick her brain. And that's exactly what I did, so we talked about exactly that, like how she got so good at writing emails to her email list, how she, like, plans that out and then we talk a lot about her move into Bali. What's that? What is that like? 

And she has some awesome resources, though, she has a free resource for you guys it's called Launch Your Best Site, and that's where you can sign up to learn how to design, build and launch a Squarespace website for free. So I'll include that link in the show notes if you're interested, and then also I'll share her other like social sites on there. 

But she's hilarious man and she talks in the interview about how entrepreneurs are too focused a lot of times on social media and they need to have, have a website and actually be selling stuff and she is spot on, in my opinion, there. So enjoy my here's my interview with Charlotte O'Hare, I hope you guys love this one and enjoy it. Let me know if you guys need anything bye-bye. 

Matt Welcome to the goal achievement podcast, Charlotte, thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing? 

Charlotte Oh, thanks so much for having me, Matt. I'm doing really well, and I'm so glad that we're able to connect and chat today. 

Matt Yes, so I am so excited to connect with you, I know you're, you I, I pursued you, I wanted to have you on the podcast because you are a specialist at building custom Squarespace websites and you do a lot of Squarespace SEO audit and consulting. I have three square Squarespace sites, so I'm interested in picking your brain on all of that. But I actually initially hunted you down because you are so good at writing emails to your email list, I'm like... I'm so bad at it and you're so good at it, I'm super jealous. 

Charlotte Thank you. 

Matt Yeah, it was one of those emails that inspired me to ask you to be on the podcast. So I'm going to kind of remind you what it was. And I'd love to kind of chat through, chat through that. 

Charlotte Let me know which one was it? I mean, I got some... some pretty crazy emails that are sent out. We can talk about that a bit more, but let's hear which one. 

Matt Yeah, it was probably maybe a month or two ago. And you were in like a cafe and you overheard a conversation with two guys and one of the guys was convincing the other guy who was about to start a like a restaurant...

Charlotte A business or something.

Matt But he did not, he just needed Instagram and he did not need any other Web presence, like no website. And you like we're like, that is the worst advice ever? 

Charlotte I was dying. 

Matt Yes and you were like for you know, people don't realize how cheap it can be to get a really pretty solid, you know Web presence up. And you made the point like for twelve bucks a month like you could have a beautiful website and so I just love that take... 

Charlotte Thank you. 

Matt And I thought it was spot on yeah, I thought it was spot on and that's what inspired me... I got to have this girl on the podcast, she's like, I like... I think the same thing, I'm like, it's so possible to, you know, I do it coaching. And people are like, well, I want to start this business... 

Charlotte And do it you need a website like Instagram is not enough, no, no, no, no, no. 

Matt And it's so possible and yeah so that's that is definitely why I wanted to, to connect because of your passion around Squarespace and around like there's just it's there's never been a better time to be able to build a, build a website for cheap and it be, you know, really be beautiful. 

Charlotte Yes I agree 100 percent yeah, so in that case, like this is something that I was sitting there minding my own business at that cafe and these two guys were talking about how one of them was opening a business and I joked in my email, I was like, oh, it's the hype man. Being like, yeah, yeah, you can do it. Yeah. And I was like, yes you can, you can. 

But then the topic of a website came up and then the friend, the hype man, as I called him, was just like, no problem. Like all you need is Instagram, it's totally fine and stuff and I was like, what? No terrible advice, because if you think about it, like you own your website, you own the domain, you're like in charge of everything. Whereas if you just have your presence online on social media, like you're completely at the mercy of that platform. 

So as we hear people kind of complaining and commiserating all the time about, oh, the algorithm, the algorithm and I just want to say, like, look, if you have the website and you're directing people to your website, at least you own that, you can control the experience a lot more than if you're just, you know, you have to pay to play basically, at this point when it comes to social media. 

So that is like a firm point that I believe in, like 100 percent. So whether someone has like a services-based business, they sell products, they're kind of a small solopreneur operation or if you're a bigger company, you need a website. And yeah, my job as a web designer, developer, and like an expert is I make sure that people not only have a website, but it actually looks good and functions and does what you want it to do. So that's kind of how we got connected and I love that that was your first story. You're like, oh my God, this guy. 

Matt Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. And I mean, not to mention, like, you know, so much of like what Google's pulling is going to be somewhat like website based I mean, it's hard for the index like a social site, so it's, yeah I mean, it's so important and I think the example was and I could be wrong, you tell me you're the one that wrote it, but I think it was the guy was starting a restaurant and like I know I love, you know, Rachel and I, my wife, we go out to eat all the time and I love to take it like a peek at the menu prior to and, you know, that's so much easier to do, like through the right through a website. So anyway... you make it make a great point though about it being important for, for you owning it, for you, owning that content is huge, no doubt about that. 

Charlotte Exactly because you know, you think about even in just some of the other social media platforms people can build these big presences on it and then like one day it just goes away because, like, the platform dies out, right? and then what are you going to do? 

You can't really, like, transport those people quite the same way, whereas if you're using social media or other like other platforms like that, in addition to your website, then you have infinitely more control and like much more of like a long-lasting relationship with your audience. So, you know, whether they're coming by once or twice or they're following you for years on end, if you're always like, oh, you know, like get the merch on my website, check out this thing on my website, blah, blah, blah. Like it's so much better. 

Matt Sure and you obviously approach email the same way because you focus so much on your email list. I mean, is that your thing? 

Charlotte Exactly, so I am not I am not very active on social media. I mean, like I use it like kind of personally, but it's not part of my... my own business, which is, you know, like web design, development, and SEO. But for me, my bread and butter is email marketing so when someone comes to my website, my big goal is to get them to join in on my email list I offer different freebies to get them to come in and stuff, and then from there I usually send out like my weekly email is kind of what I'm famous for and, you know, on those weekly emails, we talk about things from like Web design, development, Squarespace SEO, online business, like anything like that and they're fun because those emails, it's you know, obviously it's offering value, but I really wanted to kind of write in a way that feels like fun and casual and stuff. 

So it's not just me being like, here's the latest blog post or something it's like I usually write one story and then somehow tie it back into whatever it is that I'm offering or promoting or something. So there's even though there's usually a sales pitch in the emails, like the... the content is funny and engaging enough that like people are down to stick around. 

So email is huge to me because it's how I book out all of my services, it's how I sell my digital products, it's all through email marketing and stuff. So yeah, it's definitely something I've had to kind of learn by trial and error, but I was thinking what kind of emails would I want to read? Like how can I do it? It's not just annoying, boring like filler in my inbox and then I started writing it and it's been like an honest and unreal response, I think it's a little different, it stands out. So, yeah thank you so much for appreciating enjoying them. 

Matt So is anybody like is there any inspiration to you that, like, you follow someone's email like and all year like on their lists and you're just like, oh my God, this person is so good I want to try to emulate them to a certain degree or is it... 

Charlotte No, It's... it's mostly just for me. But you know what I do? It's I find various like on the email service providers, they have like, you know, whether it's a Converter or Infusionsoft or like other things, they have a lot of templates or guides on their website. So, for example, I just wrote a, I just did a flash sale for my birthday for one of my digital products and I was like, I don't know how to actually run an email marketing campaign for a flash sale so I found a bunch of like guides and resources that are like, here's the information you should have, here is a rough timeline or schedule to send out and so I use that from there. 

But then when in terms of covering the actual content, like the written part, I just straight upright from free flow it basically. So I'm not using someone’s yeah... Like there's I don't know, I don't really use anyone for inspiration, but I do rely very heavily on kind of the guides and templates and then I completely customize it for myself and what I think my audience will like. 

Matt So do you consider yourself more of like a digital marketer, a designer, an SEO specialist, or like what bucket do you go into? 

Charlotte Yeah, I would say like if someone says, what do you do? I just say I build websites, I do design and development, but then I also do a lot of consulting around SEO, mostly for Squarespace Web sites. So those are kind of the two like original foundations of my business, there's like the web design and development and then discourse-based SEO site consulting. 

But then earlier this year, I also started selling digital products on my website, and you know some of that is I have kind of like a DIY online course where people can take it and learn all about SEO, that's a big one. I have some other kind of other digital products and so those ones, when it comes to selling those, I guess it's more online marketing, right? Because you have to do that. 

And so online marketing is something that I didn't know anything about beforehand so I had to completely learn how online marketing works and straight out, that's been a lot of trial and error, but also kind of fun to learn and experiment with something, something new. Yeah, so that's what I would say the main thing of my business is, and how I would self-identify. Build websites and then from there, if they ask another question, I'll be like, OK, well let me tell you. 

Matt And when you're at this point when you are building a website, are you always doing it on Squarespace, or do you still do other platforms or what? 

Charlotte No, at this point I only built Squarespace websites and there's a few reasons for that but one of the best ones is that I don't really offer a lot of ongoing like maintenance after the projects, it's kind of just like, you know, I do it and hand over the reins to the client and they either self maintain or they have someone on their team doing it. So it needed, I needed to be working with a platform that was easy for people to use and with afterward. So that was kind of one of the reasons why I picked Squarespace because it's so user-friendly. 

And then the second reason, too, is that it's just given the type of websites that I am building, Squarespace makes it really fast to do it and so I found that I was able to do a website in less time, but still charge the same amount of money because it's still a wonderful end result and finished product for the person. So from like a cost point of view, it was always so much faster for me to build on Squarespace than it would be to use a different platform like WordPress in particular. 

Matt And you mentioned you have somewhat transitioned to more like recently offering some digital products as opposed to just services. What drove that decision or is driving that transition? 

Charlotte Yeah, so part of it is the you know, the idea that everyone wants to be able to kind of like make money while you sleep and... And I was like, OK, I know that probably won't happen, but the good thing about digital products is that if you put them up online, like sales come fairly possibly, right? 

It's not like I have to find a brand new client each time, it's like I do the work upfront, put it for sale on my website, and then people can just buy it at their convenience pretty much. And so that was like a big thing, too, because I wanted to diversify and you know try a different form of business that maybe would be a bit more passive, I guess. 

And so from there I was thinking, OK, what do I already use or know really well, like how am I already positioned as an expert in something and you know what do I have experience with? And from that, it was kind of how I was able to create my digital products or leverage content that I already had and package it up in a way that like worked for me, but then also worked for anyone who was buying it, too. 

Matt So just curious, with your digital products, do you find it's mostly like past clients who are actually buying this or like-new customers you've never heard of them and...  

Charlotte Yup, new people for sure, so often. So, for example, with my, I guess the online course, it's all about Squarespace SEO it's people that just want to do it like DIY style. It's more cost-effective for the people to buy the course than it would be to consulting with me and you know they have if you think about it like the consulting is about an hour and a half versus they have the course content, which is I think like over six hours of video content, plus like all these other lessons. 

So for them you know, they're like, OK, I can get a bit like, yes, it's not personalized, but they get more information from it, and then they can take that to work on their own website, which is great whereas if we do consulting often it's just we talk about a lot during the hour and a half, but then they have to go back and do it anyways. So yeah, that course has been really neat because it's, it's just straight up like people that probably follow me on my email list and are getting prompted to buy it through the email marketing that I do but it's usually not past clients. 

Matt What do you think's the biggest mistake you see Squarespace users make with their SEO? Do you have anything that, like, pops to mind? 

Charlotte Well, it's the mistake is usually that they're just not doing anything in the first place, which is the crazy part. So, you know, usually, they will have built up well, sometimes people they build up decent content on the website. But you know so the Web page, if we're talking about it, you know, they're doing things like a title, headers, you know images maybe have a name like that's good, but then with Squarespace on each page on a Squarespace website, you can fill out the SEO title and description fields, and that is basically just Squarespace packaging it up, giving you is a little gift, saying, here, fill this out and that will help you with your SEO. 

And the biggest thing I see is people just don't even do that in the first place. And, you know, they're not filling out the site-wide SEO description or anything like that either. So that would be the biggest one. It's like these are like giving props to you that people are just completely not touching at all. And then from there, I mean, of course, you know there are other more like advanced SEO strategies that a lot of people are getting into, like they're not building backlinks to their website or you know other like they're not really building backlinks, which is a big one, too. But I would say the biggest thing is that they're just not even filling out these basic SEO fields. 

Matt Interesting and then the other thing I wanted to, like, really touch on with you is kind of how you you're like, I don't know, lifestyle of traveling and how, you know, your business is very virtual and not location dependent. Would you mind chatting through that a little bit like where you are in the world right now? 

Charlotte Yeah, well, as we are recording this right now, I am in Bali, in Indonesia. So I have been living in Bali for almost two years now, be two years at basically in new years, so coming up quite soon. And I am Canadian originally, so from Vancouver on the West Coast. And I was... 

I built my... I started my business a few years ago and at the time I was living and working in Canada, everything was going really well and then I decided that I wanted to go and meet up with a friend who was working in Bali, but she was working as a marine biologist. But she told me that there are these things called coworking spaces and the Internet is good and you'll love the warm weather and all of this kind of stuff. 

So I came over thinking I'd be here for two, maybe three months, and if we're being totally honest, I thought it would be almost more of like a vacation than an opportunity to truly work and bring my business with me, and I kind of went in at the end, like, OK, I have some projects that I want to do that if it all just crashes and burns, it's not the end of the world, so if I get it done, great. It's not like that's OK, my business will survive. 

Because I didn't think that I would be able to actually like live and work abroad because I just, I didn't know anyone that had ever done it right? I knew people that had worked at a company abroad, been living more like a traditional ex-pat, but I didn't know anyone that did the whole like work online or sometimes you hear it referred to as a digital nomad, I didn't know anyone that did that. 

So, yes, I came to Bali about two years ago thinking I'd be here for two or three months, and then I completely fell in love with it and I just kept, oh, extend my stay, extend my stay a little bit longer. And then finally I decided, you know what, like this is working and it's working really well, and given the type of business that I have, so much of the client work that I do is, the projects that I'm working on, it doesn't require, it doesn't require at all any face to face stuff like every now and then I'll do like a Zoom or Skype meeting or a phone call or something like that, but it doesn't require in face work, and most of my clients were not in Vancouver anyways where I was from, so that wasn't different. 

And yeah like we do a lot of communication through either a project management tool or email anyways so it doesn't affect my clients where I am at all as long as the work gets done, then they're happy with it and I would say that sometimes it does mean that I wake up a little bit early or stay up a little late to make sure that a meeting time works. But again, we call that the ex-pat tax and it's not really a huge deal at all, it's like a small price to pay to get to live this experience. 

But yeah, now I've done the work and traveled around and I think I've done it in like six countries now, but Bali is my base, which is pretty cool, and I've even done it actually in Cambodia, I've spent a couple of weeks working in Cambodia and that blew me away because I didn't know what to expect because the last time I've been to Cambodia, I was just like a straight-up, like Southeast Asia backpacker wearing the olive green pants and everything and then here I am actually working and running my business out of a coworking space in Phnom Penh and I'm like, if you had told me five years ago, I would never, ever, ever have believed it. 

So it's been a pretty cool experience and, yeah, I love that when you're over here, like, you know, I'm recording this right now I mentioned to you before we hopped on the recording that I am recording it from my coworking space and at your coworking space, there's many of them in town and you just meet people that are all running their businesses, but it just happens to be here in Bali and I think that's so cool and one of the neatest things about the way that work is moving in, the way that people are getting so creative and resourceful is that you know, you have these opportunities, you can make them for yourself and just dove right in and not only will you stay afloat, but you'll actually be really successful, too. So it's been a super cool experience. 

Matt It's awesome, so did you... Do you foresee yourself sticking around Bali for a while? 

Charlotte Yes now, at this point, it feels very much like home. I even have kind of a routine like on Tuesdays I go to the same yoga class or so I, it feels like home now for sure. I will definitely, definitely, definitely be here until kind of like next summer, probably go back to Canada for a little bit in the summer. And then after that, though, I wouldn't be surprised if I come back most of my friends here are long-term they've all been living here for five or six years kind of thing. So I'm more of the newbie at only two years and so as much as you can find people that are more tourists like transient, there's also a really solid group of people here that are like long term and I have friends that are local as well who are just like the loveliest people. So, yeah, sticking around definitely for a while, that's for sure. 

Matt That's awesome. What has been the, like, your favorite part of running your own business? 

Charlotte Just the creativity that it offers, I would say that's the biggest one. Like if you have a project or an idea that you want to try out, you can just do it, right? Like you don't have to check in with the like a boss, you don't have to do a proposal, you don't have to like, you know, necessarily like prove the value or market research. It's just if something sparks your interest, you just go for it and get started. 

And that, I think, has been the neatest thing about doing business, like, you know, I was thinking, oh, I want to do more than just build websites, I want to do consulting, and so I started offering that as a service and promoting it. And then you know, would you know it like people actually start booking it and, you know, you can grow it from there, your authority, or then two when I was thinking about, oh, I want to try building some digital products like you just try it like, oh, if something is interesting to you, like create the product and see what happens. And if it doesn't work out, then that's fine, you're only down like a little bit of time. 

But the potential for you know both to have a creative outlet, but then also to be able to monetize your business that way is really, really cool, and same thing too you know you can like if I... If I want to say, oh, I want to run a video training or I want to do like a free workshop or something, just on a subject that interests me, you know whether or not it's directly related to the main services I offer, like, you know, I can do it like it's really, really fun that way. So I love that aspect about running a business. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but that for sure sticks out to me as one of the top drivers. 

Matt So what's maybe one of the biggest challenges? 

Charlotte Like accounting 100 percent for me like I can say this, like I'm not the most organized person and then I end up having to be like, oh no, like mad scramble to get everything organized and yeah, I would say the admin and accounting side of business is for sure my biggest like weakness and it all gets done, it all gets taken care of, but like for some reason I just I don't know, I'd rather do almost anything than like track the expenses and all of that, like OK, I double-check all you know the payments or the use this month, log them in like that for sure is my least favorite and the part that I let slip more often than not. 

Matt Do you think you'll always be a business owner or you could see yourself working for somebody? 

Charlotte At this point, I, I think like I've been self-employed for, gosh, at least four years or something. And I really like, I really like being self-employed and working for myself. I do miss having kind of a team and colleagues and stuff, so I think that the only real way to get that would be if I decided to kind of grow my business into more of like a you know, like an agency size or something like that, which I don't know which right now is not something I'm interested in at all. 

So I don't know, but like yeah I don't... at this point, I don't think that I would go back to working for someone. But I mean, you never know. Right? Like, if it was just an incredible opportunity and the price was right, then maybe. But that's another big thing, too, is that now, you know, often if you, if you work for yourself, the sky's the limit for how much money you can earn right? And like for sure, I am earning more now than I would be if I just had kind of like a regular job, so then I would take a pay cut if I got a regular job and that's not something I'm interested in either. So I don't know yeah, never say never, but unlikely. 

Matt Right, right, right. Do you use any VA's or everything you do like everything within your business yourself? 

Charlotte So I do most things, I do work with contractors on occasion for sure, so I guess more like a VA setting. That's one of my big goals actually and the thing that I'm working within the next couple of months is handing a lot more over to a regular VA, not just kind of people that I bring on as I need it. Instead, I'd like to have an ongoing relationship with someone that is like a big thing that I'm working towards. 

It's interesting that it came up and it's been front of mind for me lately because for a while I was one hundred percent that business owner that was like, no one can do it better than me, I need to do everything and now I'm like, wait, no, I don't need to do it. Like, do I really want to set up, like, a funnel? Do I really want to do all of the kind of just the basic admin stuff? No, I'm not interested in it and it's not like my what do they call it, the zone of genius or something is that it? 

And so I know what I'm good at and I want to spend more time doing those things that I am good at and that I enjoy and less time on the other. So that's a big learning curve for me is to move away from just like short project-based contractors and onto more of like having someone like a building a little bit of a team. 

Matt Awesome. So what are you excited about within your business for the upcoming year? 

Charlotte Oh, well, I'm excited for so one of the things that I'm excited for is that I'm going to be relaunching my course, which is Top Squarespace SEO. So the way that I have set up the course is that it's not evergreen, which means that it's not available for purchase all of the time. And instead, people like they can join the course during like launch periods that happen at certain points of the year, and that's just the way that I've made it available for purchase. You know, some people have it always up on their website, but for me, I'm like, no, it opens and closes. 

So in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be relaunching that, which is really fun because it involves like a lot of moving parts, but there's an email marketing campaign that I go through, but then I also do a lot of free live video trainings with it, which is really kind of nerve-wracking, but also really fun because it's live video, right? Like if you are doing live video, you can interact with everyone that's watching and asking questions and go through things and really like engage with people. So that's something that I'm looking forward to as well. 

And what else? Oh, I have a photography shoot set up like a brand like what does it get you branded photos for my website, which is coming up soon as well, which is pushing me majorly out of my comfort zone. But I'm looking forward to I'm not looking forward to doing it, but I'm looking forward to the final results. 

Matt So does that will you be kind of rebranding your site with that, too? 

Charlotte Yeah, so I'm keeping a lot of stuff similar, but yeah like with getting all these new photos and stuff taken, you know especially photos that are showcasing some of the digital products and everything like that, then being able to include those photos on the website will... will require some updates as well. But just kind of streamlining it, getting like nice clean photos that I can use around and but like I said, it pushes me out of my comfort zone like I am not you know like the thought of preparing and running for a full photoshoot like that is is a little daunting, but I know I'll be happy with the results. So it's something that I've been pushing off for a couple of months, but now I'm like, oh, Charlotte, rip off the Band-Aid, get it done. It'll be worth it. 

Matt Right, that's awesome. So I mentioned how much I admire your email writing, I'm curious, how do you plan that content out? Do you... Is it like every week it's a new like you gotta figure it out OK we chat through that, I'm just really interested in this. 

Charlotte Of course yeah OK, so my weekly... So I mentioned that every week on Wednesday I send out a newsletter right? And that newsletter is usually like I, I would say it's kind of like a story-based. So I start off and I like tell a story or explain something and then I look it back around to one of the services usually that I'm promoting. So that's kind of the structure of the Wednesday weekly emails and those ones I always write it within like a couple of days in advance you know and so those ones are all kind of like, you know, a treat it like it's almost like a journal or something, right, it's a way to talk to people, bring up something that's on my mind I can talk about, like an experience that just happened at the current event, whatever I'm feeling. 

So people are reading it and they can be like, wow, I did see it on Instagram that you were in this place and now you're writing a story about it. That's cool, right? So that's what goes on with the weekly emails, they're all written within a couple of days before the before it's sent out on Wednesdays, but then in addition to that, I have email marketing campaigns that I do, so I mentioned earlier in this podcast about how I had just run a birthday flash sale, right? Or, you know, when I'm getting ready to launch my online relaunch my online course in a couple of weeks like those, those are much more like extensive email campaigns that I have pre-written out in advance. 

Right? So those ones I'm sitting there with, like a Google doc writing out like 12 or 13 emails in the sequence that are going to be sent out to everyone and so those ones to me, those emails that are part of more of the like the campaigns, I would say? Those ones, I actually reuse them a lot, too, so once I've written it and I have them as my base, then let's say the next time I go to launch my course, like three or four months later, I actually just reuse the same emails like, yes, I might tweak them a little bit and update it, but mostly the foundation remains the same. 

Matt And what platform do you distribute your emails through? 

Charlotte I use Mailer Lite.  

Matt Oh really? I don't even... I've never heard of that 

Charlotte I feel like everyone in their path uses Convert Kit and I'm like, no, sorry, I'm still set up on Mailer Lite randomly, but it works for me and at this point, like, you know, to reset up all of the automations and all the categories and stuff into a different platform would be quite a big task. I mean, maybe if I get that VA and they can do it for me, but it works out well for me right now, so I'm not I don't really have a reason to switch. 

Matt And what about... Have you worked with any of your clients that have used the Squarespace like native email that they've put in? 

Charlotte Yes, I do. So I think that it is actually a really, really great feature that so many small businesses, in particular, can use because if you think about it if it's like a mom and pop store or like a small, small company or something, they might not have someone on their team who's really good at marketing and the easier you can make it for the for the person like the manager or whatever to do, then I am one hundred percent for it. So most of my clients do not use it I only had maybe like I'm thinking two or maybe three that actually use Squarespace's built-in one, but personally I love that that functionality is there because it kind of it gets rid of the barrier to entry, right? 

Like now there's no excuse to not start an email list and not do not be building that up, send out newsletters to promote your business, your offerings, the content, whether you're like a blogger or something, whatever it is like I love that, that functionality is in there. And even in the last couple of months that a feature has been live, I've already seen them making a lot of product tweaks to it and improvements. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of it, I don't use it myself, my clients don't really use it either, but I love that is there. 

Matt That's cool and I mean, it hasn't been around that long so it's not like... 

Charlotte Oh, it's quite new yeah. 

Matt So like the email service you're using. Did you say it's email lite? Is that what you said? 

Charlotte Mailer Lite. 

Matt Mailer Lite, so is that, does it have integration with Squarespace to get your sign-ups in like automatically. 

Charlotte Um, well you do integrate it with Squarespace, yeah, you use mostly like float blocks. So let's say I'm using Mailer Lite and I create a form there and then for each form that I make, I just grab the code like the HTML the code or something and then in Squarespace on a page or a blog post, whatever, you insert a content block and you just do the code content block, like your text image, space or whatever, you just do the code block and then the form goes in that way. So it's super, super easy to do, yeah and you can customize it you can make whatever styling you want on it. So yeah, Malier Lite has been good for me. 

Matt I got you, interesting, very cool! 

Well, it's been so much fun chatting with you, I loved our conversation, your like energy is amazing. What should I ask you that I didn't ask you? Like you're like when you're preparing you're like... We should tell people like I don't ever share my questions prior? So this was all blind, so what should've I asked or what did you expect me to ask that I didn't, what did I miss on? 

Charlotte Oh, one thing maybe I was thinking was like, have you had any flops in your business or any fails or anything that you tried that didn't work? That could be kind of a neat point, too, because I think we can often talk all about the good and we paint this amazing picture. But sometimes you're like, oh, no, real life is like it isn't without its hiccups I guess so that could be kind of a good question. 

Matt So what is what would be your biggest flop?

Charlotte My biggest flop is, well, what would be my biggest flop, actually. This is an interesting thing I was... My biggest flop probably is, I have created a few digital products purely based on my own interest and without doing any market research and I spend a few hours or maybe a couple of days making them and then it just wasn't right for my audience, it wasn't right for what people were asking, they didn't really need it. 

And so I worked on a couple of products that I created, put up on my website, sent out some emails about it, and then I really didn't get any significant sales from it. You know, maybe a couple, but not, not enough to even justify my hourly rate on the project, so that would be a flop, and it was purely in those cases just because I was like, oh, I feel like building this and then you realize like, oh, wait, no one actually wants it. 

Matt Yeah, that's a bummer, but obviously, it didn't... 

Charlotte So you don't owe anything really. 

Matt Yeah, I mean, so let's talk about that. So then you've obviously your reaction wasn't OK, no more digital products because you're still building them. So what was your shift? What did you think like, OK, next time I'm going to do this. 

Charlotte Yeah. So then I started thinking about like, OK, just because I felt like building this and I wanted to really set you know, you have to think instead about what do people want and what are they, what are they asking for right? So that's when you actually like step back and do a bit more market research and be like, oh, if I talked about something, people ask any follow-up questions or, you know, in the case of my online course, All About Squarespace SEO people, like my email is blowing up about that you know, so I know that there's demand for that topic. 

So it's... I think in that case, it's a lot more about listening to people and actually yeah, focusing on your audience. What do they want? What are they interested in? What would they buy? And not just like what can I create just for the sake of it? 

Matt Sure, it's awesome. 

Charlotte And also a big point about that, too, is that in this case, like if you offer a service or if you are making a product or something and it doesn't sell, it's not like really it's not a big failure, all things considering right? Because you know if it doesn't work and you think, OK, maybe I don't need to sell this anymore, all you do is just take it off your website and don't sell it anymore. Or if the service no one's buying it, you're like, OK, I stop offering that service or I rebrand it or I find another way to market it or something right? So I think being resilient and not letting the like fail aspect take over is a really, really you know good point that I'm always reminding myself, every day you put your highs and your lows. 

Matt Yeah, no, that's great and if you're thinking about, you know, I'm thinking a lot and, you know, most people in our situation where you know each of us are both running a business, it's both, you know I'd say for me, I know the majority of my revenue is all service-based, but it's going to be transitioning over to digital products. 

Once you've kind of made that decision for scalability reasons and for automation reasons for like you mentioned, for just financially having products versus service-based products. Once you know, you're going that route, you are still learning stuff as you're building those products that can be applied to future products. It's not like it's all lost time if you're learning how to you know, if you're using, you know, like a course build or something and, you know, half that time was learning how to use the course builder. So the next time, next time you build a different course, you might actually know what you're doing, since now you know how to use the application that you built the course on. So it's, it's hard, it's difficult to justify like, well, was that a total loss or did I... are there skills that I'm going to be able to apply? That I make my, make my little shift here, make my adjustment to my next product so yeah. 

Charlotte Exactly or how can you repurpose that content? Like maybe it didn't work well in the way that you packaged it up as a product, but instead, it could be a topic for a blog post, and, you know, you just kind of copy and paste a lot of it, reframe it or something or you can go out and if you do like blogs or, you know, I don't know anything else like that, how can you use the content in a different way that might make more of an impact? 

Matt OK, here's a question for you. So you're in Bali, there are entrepreneurs that are working virtually and they're starting their business. Have you seen any that have come and they're like trying to live this like you know kind of digital nomad lifestyle and they show up and like, you know, like they're not going to cut it as like like they're not going to cut it. What like what did they not do that maybe they should have been doing? Like, how were you able to spot them? Like, Oh, no, this is a fraud, they're not this is this isn't going to work. 

Charlotte Yeah, so the biggest thing is that they're actually just spending all their time on social media and no time on sales, without a doubt, without a doubt. 

Matt That's awesome. 

Charlotte You know, what are you doing? You're just spending literally like hours a day on Instagram, you're storing all this stuff that but you're never asking anyone to buy your product, you're never saying, here's the service I sell, you're not leaving anything and you're just creating content, but for no reason you know, like, you know, there's no point. 

Like, let's say if you are trying to do digital marketing or something and then you just spend all your time on Instagram, like Instagram and cafes or something, I'm like, you're not trying to work with the cafe and get them to pay you to promote the cafe. So what like what are you doing here that's not actually serving you or it's not serving your business? So that's the thing. 

I'm like, you're not asking for a sale ever, you're not sharing your services or your products, you're just sitting on social media all day long. That's one hundred, I see it, I see it, oh, my God Matt all the time here. It's unbelievable like there's certain cafes here that are just like insta famous, you know, it's what they call it and you'll see all these people and they are like: " Yo, yo, yo rise and shine today is gonna be the best day hustle get it, get it, get it" and I'm like quiet. 

Matt That's great, that's hilarious. Oh, man awesome. OK, so what would be the best three pieces of advice you'd give to somebody like yourself five years ago if you were about to go on the adventure that you're that you've gone on like for somebody that's like, oh my God, this sounds amazing what Charlotte's done I wonder if I could do this.

What three pieces of advice would you give them? 

Charlotte The first piece of advice is that... Just do it one hundred percent, like you can figure out a way someone has done it before you any problem that you have is fixable for sure, just do it, don't let the fear stop you, that would be the first piece of advice. 

The second is to always, like, have a good attitude with whether it's your work or your personal life or whatever is going on, mindset is so important because especially when it comes to running a business or being an entrepreneur, there's going to be highs and lows or I like to say it like the rose in the thorn and like you can't have one without the other. So keeping a positive attitude is going to help you like whether those ups and downs. 

And then the third one, the third one I guess like... 

Matt Make sure you're selling something to make a little money. 

Charlotte Yeah, I was going to say like if you have a business you have to ask for a sale you know because there's what do they say people need to hear it like seven times before they actually check out your offer. So you know hit people up on different platforms, whether that's on your website or on email or on social media or like in person at a networking event, like whatever it is, you have to be just shameless in the fact that you're like, I have a great product, I have an amazing service like check it out, let's work together, buy it. 

You know, you have to use that like direct language and just don't be afraid because they might say no, but you need a bunch of no's in order to get a Yes. It's straight-up, when I started thinking about it as a numbers game, it like changed everything for me, I stopped taking rejection so personally as well and just being like, OK, well, you know, if I average ten no's, but then I get a yes like great. 

Matt Yeah. No, that's awesome, that's really good advice. 

Charlotte Focus on sales, focus on sales. 

Matt Yeah. I was really lucky when I made my transition because I was in kind of a startup environment, the company grew to be a pretty good-sized company, but I was always involved in sales within that, it was a software technology-based software and I was always involved in sales. But like my numbers, like we always were crunching numbers on like just how bad we could be and still make a ton of money like our success rate had to be like point zero zero two percent. And like we could still make a ton of money. And like, when you start to figure that out where you're like, oh, like I don't need fifty percent of people to say yes, just like a few would go a long way. So yeah it's yeah, and backing into your numbers is huge. 

Charlotte Yeah. If people can think about that then you know each No stops being so scary because you're like all right I know that like on average I need to get X number of no's in order to get a yes but all those Yes' are what you need to make good money, then you're like, oh that's fine. Whatever, like you don't mind doing the outreach, you don't mind doing the like pitching or whatever it is because, you know, it's straight-up just like it's not a matter of if someone will say yes, it's a matter of when. 

Matt Yes, it's awesome, great advice, I love this. So it was so much fun connecting with you. Where can listeners hunt you down? Is that best to just go to your website or... 

Charlotte That spot to go is my website, which is charlotteohara.ca and from my website you know, you can join my email list, which is really good, like you know Matt and I are just talking it up for no reason it's pretty fun for an email. You can join my email list and I'll show up in your inbox every Wednesday for a good email, I also have a pretty active YouTube channel as well that is all like tech tutorials and trainings and stuff like that, so don't be looking for any entrepreneur travel blogs, but if you want to learn real practical skills and you can check out the videos on YouTube channel and yeah, that's the best place to go by my website charlotteohara.ca and then you know play around from there. 

Matt OK, and I'm just going to ask you this real quick before we go. What would you say, what would be your suggestion or pep talk to somebody that's like they want to start their own business and they, they're not doing it because they're worried about the expense and like their knowledge of website development, like what would you say to encourage them to like "Dude you can do it" like you can? Totally, yeah what would you say? 

Charlotte You can do it oh, my gosh. Well, the biggest thing I would say is that the number is actually not that big like the cost we're talking about, you can get started for as low as what, like fifteen dollars a month or something if you use up from Squarespace and lucky for you, I have a free email course that literally tells you everything you need to know about building a website from scratch. 

Matt Can I put that link? I'll put that link in the show notes, I'd be awesome, 

Charlotte Definitely, we’ll put that in the show notes. It's called Launch Your Best Site, and it's a free email course that people can take that literally it's like, here's what you do: step one, step two, step three, step four, like do this, this, this and like resources and stuff. So if you're kind of like, oh, you've maybe, that's what's holding you back, that's not really a true excuse. Like get started, make a free trial, take my free course, build something, and then you can always improve it in the future. 

Matt I love it, thank you so much, Charlotte, this was so much fun. I am so glad that we were able to connect.

Charlotte Me too, this has been a real pleasure, thank you for having me and I loved this conversation today. 

Matt You got it, let's stay in touch. 

Charlotte Good, see you. 

Matt Hey guys, it's Matt again, hope you guys love that episode with Charlotte, she was killing it. I will link in the show notes to her Launch Your Best Website free course, which is awesome so you can learn how to design, build and launch your own Squarespace website. And that's it, thanks for listening and if you guys need anything, hit me up, bye-bye. 

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