Welcome to visionaries where we explore stories, strategies and insights from the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs, brands and creators. Were on a mission to help visionaries like you stand out and monetize their knowledge, influence and message online. Exploring topics like business, marketing, creativity, and personal development. Let's build your vision for a happier more meaningful life, business and community together.
Today, Gillian Perkins joins visionaries. Gillian is the founder of startup society and the host of the work less earn more podcast. She also hosts a popular entrepreneurship focused YouTube channel that has received over 25 million views to date. Gillian teaches people how to start and build a profitable online businesses that allow them to earn passive income, and live a flexible lifestyle. She runs her company with a primarily remote team, enabling her to travel with her family and homeschool her four young children. Jillian, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, yeah.
So this is the visionaries podcast. And we definitely have to explore what makes your vision come alive, and what you get excited about and your business and how it supports your lifestyle. But to provide some context for those listening or watching. Tell us a little bit more about your yourself and your story and what business you're building.
Yeah, well, I started working for myself over 10 years ago now. And at first, I was just, you know, trying different things out, I didn't really know what I wanted to do long term at all. But that process of trying to figure out what I wanted to do was such an educational process for me, where I learned so much about business and about entrepreneurship and starting different businesses and marketing different businesses. And after I'd been doing that, for five or six years or so, I discovered that I had such a love of marketing. And so I ended up starting a small digital marketing agency where I was helping other business owners and providing marketing services. But I quickly realized that services were not really where my heart was, and it didn't really fit my working style or my personality. And so I started creating content to teach other people how to market their own businesses, and how to start and grow their own online businesses. Because that was something that I discovered, I found really fascinating. And I just loved diving into really the science of entrepreneurship. And so that started now about four years ago. And one of the first things I did there was I started a YouTube channel where I started educating people on that platform. And that took off really quickly. It wasn't my first foray into YouTube, I had a little bit of experience under my belt before that, that really helped out. So that took off really quickly. And I reached my first 100,000 subscribers there in about 15 months. And that, again, was such a learning experience, I learned so much there, and was excited to teach other people how to have YouTube work for them, too. And so my business has just continued to grow. And today, we run a business where we primarily are teaching people how to start and grow online businesses. But YouTube is a huge component of that. And so we also offer some programs where we work with people specifically on that platform.
Yeah, I love it. So what's interesting is you find a lot of people who educate on YouTube, and you'd like you have done you know, you use YouTube as one of the main sources of education and tools, meaning like you teach people how to do YouTube. But one thing that I love that you're up to is that it transcends YouTube, you have the startup society as your business, I guess you can say, one of maybe a few businesses, right, that you do, and and helping people start up their business. What would you say when people are new to the online business space? What is one one of the biggest problems or struggles that they have that keep them from starting and then growing their business?
Oh, well, I can speak to a few from firsthand experience, one would be overwhelmed with too many ideas to where you're not really sure, which is the best one, you're distracted by all these different ones, you don't really know which one to pick, definitely been there done that for literally years of my life, I still struggle with it, you know, it's to some degree to this day. But I think that the more you just take initiative, take action, and you pick an idea and you move forward. And you see that you don't have to choose the perfect idea. But just choosing some idea and moving forward with it, just how far that gets you. It gives you a lot more confidence and faith, I think that things will work out and that can help you to relax a little bit about choosing the perfect decision. And then I think the other big thing that holds a lot of people back would be fear of you know, fear of failure, essentially, maybe this isn't going to work. out even if they only have one idea that they're interested in pursuing, what if this doesn't work out? What if I waste a whole bunch of my time? What if I make myself look like a fool? And that's certainly something I've struggled with to some degree. Although I think pretty quickly, early on, I realized that I was going to get much further by trying because maybe I would succeed, maybe I would fail. But if I did fail, I could just try something different. Whereas if I didn't try it all, then clearly it was essentially like I had failed, and I had no new information. So those were a couple of things that I see hold people back the very most.
Yeah, and what what do you feel like is a remedy? You know, when they come in, they're like, Oh, I'm at this, I met this point. And I can't take that next step. I need your help.
Yeah. Oh, so I mean, first of all, I think you have to own the fact that this decision is yours. And that if you're sitting around waiting for something to change, then you will be waiting forever. And that things will only change if you make that choice. And if you start taking action, and so I think once you get clarity about that fact that the only person who's going to change your life is you, then after a few I'll say minutes, you know, this might be weeks, this might be months of sitting with that reality, then you kind of just have to decide that you are going to move forward with it. And then second, if you are struggling with perhaps too many ideas, I would just say just choose one and think of it as more like a dating relationship, instead of a marriage relationship. You're not proposing to this idea and promising to stick with it forever. You're just deciding to give it a try and feel it out and see how it goes.
Yeah. You know, there's something you said that really stuck out to me. And it's the phrase waiting forever. And I was like, this can be a name of like an album? Or this can maybe mbna I know you're into music to write. Yeah. And do you love movies? Do you watch a lot of movies?
No, I don't actually, I'm not much of a movie person. Tell me your movie things?
Well, yeah, well, like what I was gonna say is like, it could also be a movie, like, there's this movie with Mel Gibson. It's like 30 years old. It's called Forever Young. And it's where he basically gets I don't know if you've seen it, but it's basically where he gets frozen. And he wakes up like years later. And but but I just I kind of think of that, though, it's like, it's like you're putting your ideas in ice, hoping that there's a time in the future, you know, you're waiting forever, that the business idea will be perfect. And sometimes that business idea may have a shelf life that you've got to do it now or never, you know, and it may become less relevant. So I love that you speak to that, because there are a lot of budding entrepreneurs and people who have incredible ideas that getting off the ground, in the execution of it is definitely one of the hardest parts.
For sure. Yeah. And I can totally see that as the name of a movie waiting forever. And then if you imagine yourself as like the character in that movies, then it's like, is this movie gonna be like a drama that, you know, maybe it's even like a rom com or something? Yeah, really well, right? happily ever after in the end, what do you have to do to make that happen? versus the other option for an ending of that movie would be that it's a tragedy, they wait forever? And they die in regret? Yeah. Yeah. What do you have to do as the main character to get that positive outcome?
Yes, yeah. And when that's such a great question, too, because you've we've all seen those movies or read those books, where, you know, the guy and the girl, they get together, there's that potential getting together, but one or the other doesn't take that action. And, and so yeah, like, they end up maybe they get together because they waited forever when they're old and gray. But man, there's so many ways you know, this, maybe they will develop this as a movie or a novel later on. And people love it. It's it's romantic. To be
one of those, like, choose your own adventure movies. Yes.
Yeah. Click here for to know what happens next. If Henry does not commit or something. So anyways, I'm digressing on this topic. I just I really held to that, because I feel like it's a real problem. I know so many people who have not taken action, because deep down they are in the zone of waiting for forever. And so in getting this point, right, and you know, you help all these entrepreneurs, do their startups and start moving forward. What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to scale a business beyond just themselves? You know, they've gotten to a certain point, they're like, hey, like, I want more time back. Maybe it's like the passive income route. Maybe it's like, I want to just work less but yet earn more. What does that look like?
Yeah, so I've seen this big kind of movement shift over the past couple years here in The online space especially where a lot of people are saying, they're kind of rejecting hustle culture. And they're saying, I don't necessarily want to build a huge business, I don't necessarily even want to be, quote the CEO, I, because that sounds hard, basically, right. And I don't want to ruin my personal life over having a great work life or being successful with my business. But I really see this as kind of a false dichotomy where you're thinking, I either have to, you know, have this business where it's just me, I'm just a freelancer, I'm doing everything myself, I'm a solopreneur. And, quote, life is easy, because I don't have a team that's complicating things, I don't have a huge audience, I don't have a huge business, or else I have to be like, Gary Vaynerchuk, or something. And I don't think that these are your two options at all. In fact, I have found that the more my business has grown, and the more my team has grown, and the more passive income we've developed, the easier my business has been to write. Now, of course, there are still plenty of challenges, there are different challenges than I was facing when I was doing everything myself and other more communication oriented challenges, rather than the challenge of trying to cram every single thing into my schedule. But when you're thinking about how to grow your business, how to scale your business, how to take your business to the next level, perhaps you know, using some passive income, so like, like you said, you can work less and earn more, which is one of the major tenants of my brand, then I really think that a lot of that starts with your marketing strategy, and also your strategy of what products you are selling. So you have to have products that can scale in that way, right. These might be digital products, or they might be some sort of product or service that your team can fulfill for you. So that you don't have to be physically doing all the work. But then somehow you have to bring those products to the masses, so that you don't have to be working for each individual sale, and then fulfilling those sales one to one. And that's where I think YouTube comes in. And YouTube is so powerful, because it really is a tool that you can use to reach the masses. And like you said earlier on, a lot of people teach YouTube strategy. But a lot of the time, the end goal with the YouTube strategy is so that you can have a really big YouTube channel And be a famous YouTuber. But that really is not my end goal with YouTube at all. Sure, that is a fun side benefit. And I love that aspect of it. But my end goal is to have a business that allows me to work less and earn more a business that provides some fulfillment, and more importantly, provides some financial stability for my family, right and pays bills. And at the same time gives me plenty of time to spend with my kids and homeschool my kids and to be able to just take off and travel whenever we like, those are the things that are really important to me. And I see YouTube as a tool to turn my business into the vehicle that does that for me.
Yeah, that is so powerful. You know, and and i believe like for all those visionaries, watching or listening to this, take heart and take note on what Galen just said, right? Like, what you're talking about gillean is this idea that we don't have to be chained to our business, we don't have to be the chief everything officer and trying to handle and do everything ourselves. And that we can show up and have more of that autonomy that really I feel like is promised to those who go to start up a business to own and run a business. And in something that that I personally resonate with is this idea of having more time to spend with family and travel, you know, you've got four kids now, right? Three homeschooled, I've got two boys at home. And when you work from home, yeah, you see them maybe all throughout the day. But when you're always working at all hours a day just to fulfill on say, a service based business or to deliver on what's promised in a product. It can demand a lot of your time and attention that takes you away from other priorities in your life. And to me like that speaks to I feel like a bigger movement of people, like you said, the anti hustle culture of those who want more out of just like having your whole life dedicated to the next win in your business, or that next massively profitable launch. And and so I think it's kind of reframing how we look at business to be a vehicle also for us to feel like we have a more meaningful life. That is in addition, and, and one thing that's interesting, too, I was talking to this a while back, I was talking to another guest and she mentioned how he's like, Oh, you know, I was working on my business. And then, you know, I ended up reading some like fantasy novel in the evening. And it's like, how many business owners can say that, like, oftentimes we jumped on the audiobook or the podcast, the next hot thing and to give ourselves the education versus the sometimes the detachment and I think giving ourselves permission to do that, as you mentioned, and what's one thing that's interesting is In your bio, it says you're the founder of Northwest School of Music. Tell me a little bit more about that. And, and why why is it in your bio? I guess, what was your business?
So I started that company back over 12 years ago, and I was the very, very first business that I started. And it was honestly an accident, I wasn't trying to start a business at all. People just started asking me to teach the music lessons. And it blossomed via word of mouth into a full on business, I ended up hiring a team of about a dozen or so teachers who were working under me, and opening up a studio downtown, and I ran the business for nearly 10 years, right about 10 years. Yeah, so and I've been not running it now for three years, I guess actually started it 13 years ago. Um, I ran it for 10 years. And then I ended up selling it to one of the teachers who worked there. Because even though I do love music, it really wasn't my passion, long term, I discovered just how much more passionate I was about entrepreneurship and marketing and helping others to start their own businesses. And specifically, not just start those businesses, but grow them to a point where they are able to go full time as the owners of their companies. And that really became my life's work, at least when it comes to my career. And so I knew that I needed to step away from Northwest School of Music, but at the same time, I didn't want to just close it down because it was serving hundreds of students. And it was, you know, quite successful in its own right. So I chose to sell it. I include that in my bio, because I think it's it's a call back to that first entrepreneurial venture that I went down. And one of my most successful entrepreneurial ventures today, because I did have a successful exit there. And it's, I guess, it's just mostly a fond memory.
Yeah, well, and I saw it there. And I was thinking like, it's either you're like, Wonder Woman, right, where you've got four kids, you're homeschooling three of them, you're traveling, you've got this successful online business, and I was like, Wow, she's founded and, you know, maybe you're running this still. So it's, it's incredible. And like, it's just part of your your story still, you know, a success, a relatively short
period of time where I was running something like four or five separate businesses at the same time, none of them terribly well. And it was definitely not sustainable. So after a short, I don't know, year or two that came to the end, and I closed some of them and sold the one and focused in on the thing that was really the most important to me. And I found that to be so much more fulfilling than trying to do all the things or trying to fulfill all my suppose passions, it's so much more fulfilling to actually limit myself and to do one thing really well. And then just dabble a little bit in some other hobbies and some other fun things rather than trying to fully execute all my ideas.
Yes, yeah. When you said that early on, right? Like one of the struggles of many entrepreneurs or, you know, future founders? is this idea that there's too many ideas, and we want to do all of them? Well, I mean, I guess it leads to natural question like, how can one filter so many ideas? And to figure out how to focus on the one that would light them up? light them up? light them up the most?
Yeah, so I think that one problem people run into when they're trying to filter their ideas is that they're using multiple different criteria to filter their ideas. And each of these different criteria kind of gives them a different answer. So they asked themselves, like, which 1am? I most excited about right now. Okay, that's one answer. Right? Then they ask themselves, which one do I think will be the most excited about long term? That's a different answer. Which one would be the most popular on the market? Right? Now, that's a different answer, which one would be the easiest to bring to market, that's a different answer. And so then they just get themselves into this mess of not been able to figure out which one is really the best. And so I think you have to first make a decision about which of those aspects is really most important to you. And I always recommend doing a little bit of initial research, kind of just checking out the markets for each of your ideas that you're seriously considering, you know, it's always helpful to limit the list as much as you can. So if you have a list of every different idea you do, there's probably a handful that are really standing out to you. So do a little bit of research there, look into kind of the size of those markets, the different competitors in those markets, those sources and just get a feel for it. And if there does seem to be demand, and that's the biggest thing to look for, really is the demand and pay much less attention to like, Is this too competitive, right? If you are niched down enough, if your product is specific enough, then you really don't need to worry about that because the combination of a specific product and then your unique messaging is going to set you apart from the competition. So it's more about having a specific enough product and then if you just say that there's enough demand, Okay, the next question I would ask is just Which one are you the most excited about right now? And has that excitement lasted a little while. It's not just like today De I had this idea, but over the weekend excited about it for a little while, yeah. And so I would just choose the idea that you have been the most excited about for the longest period of time. And then test drive that idea. So I like to call this the validation process, we were in a program that's called validate where we guide people through this, but people can also do it on their own, of course, and basically you are doing some initial market research coming up with some messaging for your product, how are you going to tell people about this product? How are you going to describe it to them effectively, so that they really understand what it is and why they would want it. And then you're going to go out there and try to sell it, even though it's scary, even though you're not sure if it's fully ready. If it's something like an online course, you might be selling ads before it is even created, you might be pre selling it, you might be saying it's coming soon, you might be selling it as a live program instead, something like that, or maybe you're selling a prototype of your product, but you need to get out there and you need to try selling it. And I always encourage people to try to get their first 10 sales as quickly as possible. And if they can't get past those first 10 sales, then that is a key indicator that they're either really missing something in their marketing department essentially, that they need to learn more about business in order to be able to be successful with this, or else they have simply discovered that there's not enough demand for that product. And that could be an indicator that they should try out one of their other business ideas.
Yeah, that is incredible. There's so much value to unpack in there. But I think one of the best ways to unpack it is actually for those listening or watching to go check out what more of gillean has to offer with startup society and your programs? Where can people learn more about those,
they can head to gillean perkins.com, I'm sure you can include a link and then also YouTube, I publish videos on YouTube every single week. And we tried to give away as much for free as absolutely possible. So for example, the process I was just talking about there about how to test your business idea and how important that is a few several months ago now I guess probably later last year, we did a series that was busy, small business 101. And one of the first videos of that free series is about how to test your business idea. And I go through the process I just talked about in a bit more detail with a bit more step by step. So if you want to get started with that process and just learn a little bit more about it, that would be a great place to go.
Amazing. Well, Jillian, thank you so much for the value. And definitely we'll include those links down below for people to learn more, and to dig deep into your content. And thanks so much for your time. Is there any? In fact, I want to end with one final note? What would you invite someone to do? Who is starting up their business, starting create the content, but looking to get more that confidence and that ability to stand out? Like what is the one piece of advice, you'd send someone start
writing really start writing, I find that the more you create, the more creative you will be the more ideas you will have, the more confident you will be as a creator. And of all the different ways you can create the some people find it easier to speak. But for a lot of people, including myself writing is where you're actually going to iterate new ideas. So the way I think of it is that when I'm speaking out loud, I can really only say the things that I've already thought and ideas I've already had, because I can't very well think well, I'm talking sure there are people out there who are more talented than me. But when I write a write a sentence or a few words, and then I'll pause, and I'll think. And through that process, I'm actually generating new ideas and having new thoughts I haven't had before. And so pick a medium, whether this is you're going to write some blog posts, whether this is you're going to write some Instagram posts, maybe you're going to write some scripts for some videos, maybe you're just going to write some emails either to your audience, or even to your team about what you're going to do. And as some sort of schedule. So this might be once a week, or it might be once a day, I would recommend at least once a week though, they don't have to be long pieces that you're writing, they really could be quite short. But start getting your ideas onto paper, your ideas about how you're helping your customers, ideas about what you're teaching ideas about how your product is going to change the world, whatever it is that you want to have more ideas around, start writing down the ideas that you have. Because not only is this going to kind of unlock that creative process, but it's also going to help you to progress to your next idea. As long as you have not written down the ideas, the same ideas will be just swimming around in your head on repeat, you're gonna keep thinking those same thoughts over and over. But once you have them down on paper, you give yourself the permission to be able to move on to thinking new ideas because you know, you're not going to forget those old ideas. So there's a lot more that could get unpacked there. But I find that more than anything else, having a regular writing habit will help you to both get away from the potential fear that is there with creating and with sharing and also unlock new creativity.
I love I love that answer. Well, I love it. just said like ooh, like, oh, like that's I wasn't expecting that as an answer. And so it's it's new insight. And it's something that not everyone would think. And so I love that perspective
to make this really meta here. Yeah, reason that that answer was on the tip of my tongue was because I wrote that just a couple days ago. And that's a thought I've had before plenty of times, but I wrote it down and so I remember it better. Well, at the same time, I'm able to move on to new ideas, but I flesh that idea out and so now I'm able to communicate effectively.
Yeah, Agreed. Agreed. Well, hey, again, this has been so amazing. And thank you so much for your time, Elaine.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
