In this episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast, I chat with Lisa Johnson—global business strategist and Sunday Times bestselling author. Lisa opens up about how she bounced back from online hate and went on to have multi-million dollar launches. We talk about how every business journey is different and why cookie-cutter strategies don’t really work. We also get into the real stuff—like dealing with trolls, what it’s really like to run a successful business, and how the online space is constantly changing. Lisa shares tips on growing your email list, running affiliate launches, and how her idea of success has shifted over time. If you’re a coach, course creator, or membership site owner looking to grow, this episode is packed with honest advice and practical strategies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Your path is your own – There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for success. Lisa’s journey proves that doing things your own way can lead to massive results.
- Resilience is key – Facing online backlash didn’t stop Lisa—it fueled her growth. Learning to handle criticism is part of building a strong, sustainable business.
- Strategy + honesty wins – From list-building to affiliate launches, Lisa shares real strategies that work—no fluff, just what’s actually helped her scale her business.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Lisa Johnson on Website, Instagram, Facebook
Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook
Transcript
Do you ever wish you could lift the curtain behind a very successful business where they are making millions and find out what it’s really like to earn that money and to run a business of that size? Well, today that is exactly what my guest is talking about. Lisa Johnson is an online business og, and her latest launches bring in millions.
However, Lisa has had her fair share of online backlash that she has had to deal with, including 16 pages of negativity on the Mom’s net platform. How on earth do you deal with that? In today’s very honest, very vulnerable, and. Quite frankly, amazing episode. This is what Lisa and I talk about.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. Now today’s episode is an interview and with all the interviews that I do, I go back if it was like a little while, even if it was like a few days ago, unless I’m doing this. Immediately after the interview, I go back and [00:02:00] just scan through the interview and I went to scan through the interview and I ended up watching the whole thing, which is really weird when it’s your own podcast because obviously I was part of it.
But that should give you an indication as to how good. I think this episode is today I’m interviewing Lisa Johnson. For those of you who don’t know Lisa, she’s a global business strategist and a Sunday Times bestselling author who makes 90% of her money through passive income streams. She’s very much in the online space that would sum that up.
She passionately believes that every business owner’s journey is unique and. The one size fits all approach that dominates the online coaching and mentoring world is fundamentally flawed, inspiring her to take a stand at the forefront of ethical and integrity driven business. Strategic advice, obviously, you know, I’m reading this and I hate reading bios and I’m rubbish at it.
Lisa’s been featured on numerous TV shows and has appeared in national papers, magazines like Telegraph, psychologies Magazine, the [00:03:00] Guardian, the Fast Company, and has had a Forbes article that’s gained over a quarter of a million views in a week. Her podcast, making money online has been downloaded over 420,000 times and has reached number one in the business Podcast charts.
In one launch alone during the pandemic, she made 3.8 million in a week earning 1.5 million in her first hour of sales. So she is an online business OG and is a UK online business og. And I’m a little bit annoyed with myself that I’ve never. Had her on before now, and I actually say that on the interview to her.
This interview was awesome, really, really good. Like I said, I went to watch it to make notes to what I could say in this introduction, and I ended up watching the entire thing. And we talk about, so mainly we talk about a few different things. We talk about how the industry’s changed because she’s been in it as long as I have.
We talk [00:04:00] about. Online trolls because if you know Lisa, you will know she has had her fair share of people saying stuff about her online. I’d say fair share. I’d say probably the lion’s share of it. We have a super honest conversation about what that must feel like, what it’s like to handle how she feels about it now, we then have an honest conversation about. Does that mean or is that one of the reasons she’s more successful than me? Because more people know who she is and she gives an ex amazing, unbelievable figure of how much money she earned based off someone being controlled and saying horrible stuff about it.
So it was, it was really fascinating. We then go on to talk about launching and affiliate launching. She’s just had a very successful launch, but she again, tells us very honestly what it’s like to have affiliates on her do her launch with her and what went wrong and what went right. It was just. It was just super, super honest.
It was [00:05:00] really honest, really refreshing, and it really does give you an insight to when you see people’s businesses online and you see how hugely successful they are from a financial point of view, what is it like to actually live in that business and be in that business? What does she worry about? What does she struggle with?
And honestly. I really enjoyed this conversation. I thought it was awesome. I thought she was great, and I think you’re gonna get so much out of it. And you’re also gonna find out that it’s not just about the money, and that was so reassuring and helpful to hear. So I hope you’re gonna really enjoy this episode.
I really would love you to, as always, show us what you think. Tag me in, tag Lisa in, go and find us on Instagram. Please, please do go and let us know what you think. But. I thought this was a great episode. So without further ado, here is Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for inviting me. [00:06:00] I am very excited about this episode and about the conversations we’re gonna have, and it’s almost like, I don’t know where to start or what things I wanna talk about.
I think where I want to start is. Now we don’t do intros. I’ve already done an intro on who you are, but you’ve been in this industry a fair chunk of time and you are successful in this industry. How has it changed and how has it changed you?
Lisa: It’s changed loads and, and it’s really weird because I remember for ages feeling like a newbie in this industry. And now there has been a sudden switch, I think like, ’cause it’s over eight years, there’s this sudden switch of people going, you’ve been in in this industry. And one of the longest people, I’m like, I was new. How am I now suddenly one of the longest. But I think it’s ’cause so many people come in and disappear.
And I have been here all along. The changes have been immense, like. The changes in launching, you know, it’s completely changed how we do things, the changes in our audiences and how smart they are. Like they’re [00:07:00] really clued up these days. You can’t pull the wool over their eyes, which is a brilliant thing.
That nobody’s really being taken in anymore by any kind of pyramid scheme or anything like that. And I used to talk about these things a lot, and then I realized recently I don’t need to, everyone gets it now. Like everyone’s clued up on all of it. Even all the kind of. Dodgy tactics out there. They, everyone gets it now.
Yeah. You don’t need to. It’s lovely. So that’s all changed. I think that the way people buy has changed completely. Like people don’t care as much about a bonus or if the price is going up from 1, 1, 1 to 2, 2, 2 the next day, like no one cares. Yeah. They know. It’s just a tactic. And I think what’s changed is how.
There’s two things, two bad things that have changed. I think the first is entitlements changed, but we can’t moan about it because we made it by giving away so much free stuff. Now there’s like loads of entitlement and people just expecting you to do everything all the time. If you don’t get back to them within.
Five [00:08:00] minutes, then you’re going to get like killed on the internet and be told you’re bad. So entitlement has happened, but I don’t blame the people for being entitled ’cause I feel like we bought it on ourselves. And I think the second thing that has happened that is not so good is that there are so many more people that believe that.
That you can’t debate with anymore. You can’t have conversations with or have different opinions with online because it can only be their way. And yeah, things have changed in that arena. Like if you say something that people don’t agree with, they can’t just say they don’t agree with you anymore. You’re like, literally.
They’re trying to cancel you within five seconds. And I think that’s a real shame about the changes that would happen because one of the things that I loved about social media was seeing different people’s opinions and debating those opinions and seeing if I could learn from them and seeing if they could learn from me.
That doesn’t happen anymore,
Teresa: Do you think? And such good points. And actually the phrase being canceled is literally like in the last few years and when I interviewed the last time I interviewed Amy Port [00:09:00] Field. I said, what? What, what are you fearful of now? Because obviously when you get to a certain point, everyone thinks that all your worries and your fears go and hers was being canceled, that she might say something or do something accidentally because no one, I don’t think purposely tries to get canceled. But it wasn’t even a thing like that was never even a saying. Whereas now it very much is,
Lisa: and I think that, I think people do try and get canceled. Tate tries to get canceled because I think that if you, if in, if there’s enough talk on you, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s to be canceled or not. You are always gonna get more people looking at you if you say something stupid
Teresa: and I guess the world is so divisive and so divided that actually for every one person that wants to cancel you, there’ll be just as many who go. Love what you do.
Lisa: Because of that divide. And it’s such a shame that there’s that black and white divide of like, you are wrong. I’m right. This is the [00:10:00] right answer. This is the wrong view, because that’s not real life. There’s gray in everything. Everything. Yeah. And yet we’ve, we’ve lost the ability to see the gray and to see that we’re all seeing things through our own lens.
So of course, we’re all gonna have these different truths and these different opinions that’s gone. And that’s a shame because the gray area is where the interesting nuances are. But we don’t talk about them anymore because like, let’s take. What’s like a hot topic at the moment that everyone’s arguing about, let’s take immigration as a topic.
Yeah, so if you talk about immigration, there are people that say that we, we shouldn’t have drawn the lines anywhere. They’re just lines that have been drawn on a map. Yeah. And actually everyone should be allowed in everywhere. And then there are the people that say, no one should be allowed in. It’s our country.
You know, like, let’s draw a line. Don’t let anybody in because it’s not fair on our resources. Neither of those points are true. There is gray in the middle of that. There are good points on either side that you can come to somewhere in the middle. That makes complete sense, but you’re not [00:11:00] allowed to say that because if you even veer away from one point by a tiny bit.
You are bad and you’re put into the other category. And so no one dares say what they really think anymore because they’re scared that people will then see them as far right or far left or whatever. And actually there’s nuance in the middle that we could talk about if we were open to it, but no one’s open to it.
Teresa: No, you’re right. And you, and one of the things we’ve got chatting to before you hit record was you have. Had your fair share of people having very strong opinions about you and, and from an outward looking in, it feels that you are very strong to stand up to that and you don’t mind batting that like or meeting it. Was that always the case and
Lisa: no
Teresa: is that still the case? Like
Lisa: it is still the case, but it wasn’t always the case. So if you think about when I first came in. I, when I first came online, I’d been badly bullied as a kid. My biggest fear was this, you know, being canceled or being bullied, or [00:12:00] people saying mean things about me online.
But I’ve grown a thick skin because I, it came to a point probably in about year two or year three of being online where every, if I wanted to say an opinion about something or if I wanted to put out, an idea or a thought that wasn’t the norm because sometimes my ideas aren’t, I would get so much backlash, bullying, like everyone would be offended by everything I said and it, it got to a point where it didn’t matter what it was.
So like, I’ll then test things. So one of my friends, Dan Meredith, put out a post in about year three. That I thought if I put that post out, I’d get killed for it. How is he allowed to put that post out with his opinion on it? So he said, no, wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, like you are right. People would agree with you or disagree with you.
I copied the post and put it out and got slaughtered. I was like, okay. So it’s not actually about [00:13:00] what I’m writing. It’s me as a person. People are trying to find a reason that I,
Teresa: isn’t that even harder?
Lisa: No. I get that I get it. I’ve been that person that looks up at people that are successful and I’m trying really hard and I’m not going anywhere and thinking like, why is she able to do this?
And like that envy turned into not a nice feeling for me when I used to look at people like that. And it was only through a friend, Emily Williams. She said to me, when you feel that, like envy in that, oh, it’s all right for her. Realize that it’s just showing you what you want. That’s what MV is. It’s just showing you what you want in life.
And so thank her because that’s shown her that you can have that too, because she’s got it. And that changed my whole perception. And so then I didn’t think about people in that way anymore. But I know how it feels too. And so when people look at me and they wanna find a reason that I must be bad. Like I must be, you don’t make over 20 million in seven years without doing something bad, right. ’cause that’s what we’ve been taught. Which people are bad people. It’s in every Disney movie. We’ve seen it. Yeah. And so I know what they’re looking [00:14:00] for. And so of course they’re gonna try and find any little thing and blow it up to be a bad thing. And the reason why it’s okay that I’m not her.
It’s all right. I don’t need to be like, like Lisa and have all that money because. The reason she’s got there is she’s done bad things that I wouldn’t do, and they’re trying to find that because it makes them feel better about the fact they’re not where they want to be. And I totally get it. I get it.
It’s psychology and so I don’t really dislike it when people do it. I understand it.
Teresa: It must, does it not upset you? Are you?
Lisa: Never
Teresa: like, ’cause I just think I would sob.
Lisa: I used to, like in year three, I’m Teflon now. Like nothing gets through. Like I’m fine and my, my husband isn’t, my friends are, my team aren’t, they’re little sobbing in the corner about something that someone said about me, but I’m like, let’s look at it logically.
Like their opinions aren’t gonna have an effect on my business. Because I think we worry about that, don’t we? Like when if people say bad things about us and we get a bad reputation, it will affect our [00:15:00] business and we won’t make as much money. Yeah. I have found that to be not the case. Yeah. So much so that I found it to be, I went viral on mom’s net like a year ago.
A year or so ago. Badly. Not in a very negative way. Because I paid too much money in a launch, and therefore I must be a con artist. And so that there were 52 pages all talking about me as a con artist.
Teresa: Oh my God. I doubt
Lisa: and well, I, at first I tried to do, I did a very stupid thing and I tried to, oh, I thought that reasonable people, oh, go on and have a chat to them about why they think this, and I’ll tell them why they’re wrong. Never play with the trolls. What a stupid thing to do. So don’t ever do that. Just ignore it.
Teresa: Because like, you know, having that conversation to me feels like a good thing. Like, well, let me explain.
Lisa: Yeah. I explain why I’m wroong, yeah right. And why actually I call out the con artist, but it didn’t work. It just made that they loved it. So I didn’t do that again. But what happened was we made about 43,000 pounds extra just from people that had seen [00:16:00] that come over to find this wicked witch. And liked me and bought my stuff. So then I realized, alright, so actually if it’s not gonna affect my business. It’s not gonna affect my life ’cause my real friends know who I am.
It’s not gonna affect the clients I wanna work with. ’cause clients that I wanna work with would never just take somebody else’s word for something on the internet. They would go and find out what they thought of a person themselves. Therefore, why do I care? And so it doesn’t really hurt me at all anymore because I know that it’s nothing really to do with me.
Teresa: And you’re right. It isn’t. I, and I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but I dunno whether you know, but I got sober a couple of years back and prior to getting sober, I obviously was not in a great place. And I looked at everyone and not publicly. I would’ve done it very privately to myself and my family and my friends, and gone, oh my God, look at them.
They’ve done it like this. And because I come from marketing, I took that as some air of superiority that I knew better than other people. And I [00:17:00] literally privately would. Slag off what other people were doing. And I was like, oh, I can’t believe they’re launched like that. And I can’t believe they used those tactics and I can’t believe da da.
And then I got sober and obviously that, you know, I didn’t ever put those two and two things together. And then about 12 months after getting sober, I was like, uh. Yeah, that was everything to do with me. And nothing to do with the people. Now, luckily I didn’t feel the need to take to the internet and tell ’em how I felt. Which lots of people do. But it was totally about me and it was ’cause I felt so shit about myself. And you are right. I will look at other people and I could look at you. So you and I have been in the industry a similar amount of time. You have a considerably more successful business than I do.
Lisa: Only if we’re talking about finances. And that’s not what success is.
Teresa: No, it’s not. It’s not. But from a money point of view, you have a way bigger business than me. You are much more well known as me than me. And I could look at you and maybe back in the day when I was doing that about everybody, I could go, well, [00:18:00] and like you said, that’s pure envy.
That’s pure me going, well why? Why has Lisa got that? And I’ve not.
Lisa: It’s understandable, isn’t it? Because we are people that are really always acting as five yearold us. Yeah. So we have like these protector parts of us that need to make ourselves feel good. It’s just part of our w it’s part of our subconscious.
And so if we see somebody doing better, we have to find a reason why we have to, because otherwise it makes us feel insecure and it totally makes sense that our subconscious would do this and take us back down to. You know, make 5-year-old Lisa who didn’t feel very good about herself right now, feel better.
So find the things be mean to the person or make you feel okay for about five seconds. It is understandable. And so when, when you realize it’s understandable, it’s really good because it means, I, I for a long time. Really didn’t like these people that were being mean to me online. I was like, they were my enemy.
Like I didn’t like them at all. I wanted them to suffer [00:19:00] as they’d made me. All these kind of things. Now, you know that forgiving, not forgiving someone is like eating rat poisoning, expecting the other person to die. And so what was that doing to me? My, my health was all over the place. So many things It affected , until I realized this. This, which is they, they aren’t just trying to make themselves feel bad. Like who are we to stop them doing that? Yeah. Who are we to say it’s not right for them to make 5-year-old them feel better? And now I don’t dislike them. I don’t hate or any of those things. I feel pity, you know, I’m disappointed that we do these kind of things, but I’ve done it myself. So. Yeah, but I’m not judging.
Teresa: And like you said, you know, there’s a version between everyone does it. It’s whether they take it online, and say it publicly is another matter.
Lisa: Yeah. And definitely you can’t go legal. Like I’ve had people do it to such an extent, like lying about things that I’ve had to go legal and I’ve won defamation cases and we’ve won damages and those kind of things.
No, I don’t do [00:20:00] that all the time. Now. People say something about me online. I’ll look at it and I’ll go, is this gonna affect me in any real way? And if it’s not, just move on. Like it doesn’t matter. Let them get it out their system. But if it is, then yeah, you go legal and you, you do something in the right way about it.
Not how I used to do things, which is, well, I’ll go online and I’ll just fight it online. Like people will get out their popcorn. Like, no, not the way.
Teresa: Yeah. And that’s the truth. Like most people are voyeurs and they’ll just sit and watch this thing. I you’ve got a small percentage of these people who are, you know, actually saying stuff and then you’ve got all the people who are, like you said, behind the scenes going, oh my God, like this is crazy.
Where, you know I’m just happy to kind of keep my head down and keep out of it. But so that, but this is such an interesting point ’cause we talked about, before we got on, I said that Steven Bartlett talked about don’t be vanilla. And he’s definitely not vanilla. And I almost wanna go, like if you were to look at Lisa and I’s journey and look at our businesses, and don’t get me wrong, there are so many [00:21:00] nuances like that make up why some business goes like this and some business goes like that.
But what do you think that. You know, and part of me wants to go, what’s the secret sauce, Lisa? Which you and I both know, there is no secret sauce. How and why do you think your business has grown to that level? Do you think that there was an element of not just being vanilla, but it’s gotta be more than that? Surely?
Lisa: Yeah. I don’t think it’s just that. I think it’s a few things, but let’s not pretend that isn’t a part of it. Like we all know, if you think about the people you know online. Do they keep the head down? You know what I mean? Like, or do they say, I think that people that stand behind something mm-hmm.
A belief, whether it’s, whether you think it’s a right or wrong belief. Anyone that stands behind something and is very vocal about that will get their fans and they will get their haters. And that’s always what’s gonna happen. But it does. Get people seeing you for you, because we always say, right, people buy from people.
And actually believe that’s [00:22:00] true. I think people buy from people that they like and agree with and they don’t. People would say they don’t wanna be that. No, we don’t want an echo chamber. We wanna hear from It’s a lie. They want an echo chamber. Of course they do. They want their subconscious to, to be like approved.
Yes. And so they will, they will buy from people that agree with them. Now they can’t buy from you. If they agree with you, if they don’t know what they’re agreeing with. And yet most people won’t talk about the things they really believe because they’ve been told, don’t talk about religion, politics, anything like that.
But actually as soon as you do talk about things like, you know, I talk about integrity in the industry and how there isn’t much topic. I talk about anti-bullying. I talk about. How actually there is a bit of hustle that has to come with work. We can pretend there isn’t, but there is. We can talk self-care.
We do have to do a load of work. And because I talk about those things, the people that kind of like, yeah, she’s, at least she’s being honest about it. People that are attracted to honesty. Whether they agree with me or not. Sometimes like I’m not very spiritual. I have a ton of spiritual clients ’cause they [00:23:00] are drawn to honesty.
And so it works in that way that you stand behind something you get behind. What you really believe. But let’s make no mistake, it’s not easy doing that because you are gonna have to then cope with all of the negatives of that, which is the backlash, which is the people talking bad about you and all of that.
So you have to. You can only really do this when you are in a place of Teflon. Which it takes a while to get to.
Teresa: And I was gonna say, and that’s the other thing, I don’t think anyone can go, okay, I’ve teflon up. I’m ready for it. Because I think the whole, the only thing that gets you ready for it is going through it. And, and having that and then going, okay. Right. I’ve dealt with that. Let’s go for the next one.
Lisa: There’s been loads of times when I’ve said to the team, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m gonna just like be really, I’m not gonna talk about anything that matters. I’m not gonna talk about any of my opinions.
Yeah, it’s just gonna like give value and value and then within like a month I’m like, I’m really angry about this and I wanna talk about it. And then, no, I’ll never be that person. I have this massive innate sense of [00:24:00] justice and it’s why I became a lawyer. I, I care so much about,
Teresa: I didn’t know you were a lawyer.
Lisa: I trained as a lawyer.
Teresa: That’s crazy.
Lisa: Yeah. Hence that I don’t mind going to court and doing declaration cases in me, but because I trained a lawyer, I know I did that because of this sense of fairness. And I don’t think everyone has that. I think some people can just kind of let things go. I find that very difficult when I see somebody that’s been like either picked on or is an underdog.
I, there is a part of me that has to talk about it and that brings with it bad and that it also brings Good, and that’s okay.
Teresa: Yeah. So let’s talk about like the strategies that you did to grow, because one of the things that I am very passionate about is, and I talk a lot about in the online space, is the fact of when someone does a launch, it’s very easy to look at, like, so I saw parts of your launch that you [00:25:00] shared online, and it looks, and it was from my eyes, hugely successful.
But what they’re not seeing is. Behind the scenes in terms of numbers. Right. So what happens is people see someone’s launch and they go, that’s what I want. But what they don’t realize is they’re sat on an email list of a thousand people and you are sat on an email list of God knows how much, or you’re doing affiliate stuff or whatever.
And it’s not that. There really isn’t a secret right yet. There are strategies and there are really good strategies that work and some that don’t. It’s not that it’s the size of your audience. Your percentages are probably very similar to someone’s.
Lisa: That’s probably the only secret, to be honest. Like if, if there is a secret in business. The secret is time. Because the more time you have, the more you can grow your audience. I didn’t have an email list in the first year. If I had have done that, I’d be way further ahead of where I am now. Like I’m so understand that now. But once I knew that, once I saw this trajectory of the more people on my email list, the more money I make, that’s all I concentrated [00:26:00] on. 80% of what I do on a day-to-day basis is how do I get more people on my list? That’s it. Because once they’re on the list, they, the 20% is just delivery. So that’s all that matters. I don’t care about social media. My social media has grown without us trying. I’m not bothered about social media. It’s f fall.
It doesn’t mean anything to me. The only thing I care about is that email list, because everyone on that email list has the same chance to open my emails. We have a really good rate. It’s usually over 60% of an open rate. If they have the same chance to open it, then I’m not. I don’t care about algorithm.
Like people constantly say, have you beat the algorithm? I haven’t. Like sometimes my stuff gets seen by 300 people and sometimes 30,000. I can’t tell why and I don’t really care. The email list is, is where it’s really been at for me. And we call our email list, and that’s another kind of secret if you like.
Yes, probably I could have had an email list of 200,000. My email list is 25,000. It’s relatively small because we [00:27:00] cut it every three months.
Teresa: Surprisingly small, given the, what I see from a launch perspective like that means that percentage is quite big then, because normally it’s between one and 3% of your email list that we’ll buy.
Lisa: Yeah. So we have a 14% average buy. But remember, I use affiliates as well. This isn’t all just my email list.
Teresa: Yes. So. This is where I get into tactics and this is where I’m like, I wanna pick all your brain. So let’s start just quickly with the email list. What have you done? Because there are a ton of ways to try and grow your list, and a lot of them are hard.
Yeah. Like, so what have you done that’s worked really well to help accelerate that list?
Lisa: Yeah. So what, what? I’ve got my freebie. There. And that’s bit’s done. And I used the same freebie for two and a half years. So I didn’t like try and put loads out there. I just have this one freebie and I was like, okay, now I’ve got this URL link.
All I care about, and I still say this now, is getting that URL link to as many people as possible to get ’em on my email list. But then I realized that social media wasn’t really doing that for me, and it [00:28:00] does for some people. But it wasn’t for me. So I was like, what you really need here is a multi-layered visibility strategy.
You need to choose three different layers of visibility. Do them for three months, then see what’s working. Because what people don’t do is analyze what’s working. And if you do, then you can do things faster. So like let’s say you go and speak in other people’s audiences, you go on podcasts and you go on stages, and that’s all you’re gonna do.
Three months, just those things. So you pitch and you do it, and then at the end you’re like, okay, well, I can see now from my list that actually 90% of people came from going on other people’s podcasts. Scrap one of the others that isn’t doing it. Well double up on the podcast and get double the amount of people in.
And I, everything I do is thought of in metrics and data. I’m not,
Teresa: which, I don’t think people are doing enough by any steps.
Lisa: No, they’re not. I’m a, I’m a logical person and data really helps me with that because I might feel that, you know, you know when you do a launch and you’re like, oh, it didn’t work and we’ve all had launches that don’t work.
And so it is like, okay. Why didn’t it work? Well, I [00:29:00] feel like it didn’t work because I didn’t shout about enough, or I feel like the market is down at the moment. These are all feelings. They mean absolutely nothing in business. What we need to do is just look at the data and as soon as I’ve done that with my launches, I can see, so I can go.
Okay, well. I got 2000 people into a challenge, but only 500 people came into the Facebook group to take part in the challenge. Already there’s, there’s a problem, so, okay, well we fix that problem, then we’ll get more people in by sending them WhatsApp messages or whatever to remind them to come in.
Okay. Well now they’re in. Great. Are they taking part in the challenge? Yes. So we know that bit’s. Okay, but did they come to the masterclass at the end? Well, only half did. Why? You didn’t mention the masterclass enough. They’re the fit. You can see by the metrics. Alright. And during the masterclass, when you put the sales page up.
Did they all go and look at the sales page? No. Only 40% did. Then you didn’t talk about the sales page enough and why it was really important they go and look at it or, well, 90% looked at the sales page, but nobody bought. [00:30:00] There’s a problem with the sales page. The, the data tells us the problem, and I think that I went to see Alex and Lila Hormo.
The week before last. One of the biggest things that he said to me was, we, as CEOs try and fix all of these problems all of the time. That’s what CEOs generally do, but actually the thing that will make us move forward the quickest is by finding the right problem to fix. And I think that metrics allow us to do that.
Like we could look at all of those things. That can go wrong in the launch or we could go, where’s the biggest issue here for most people? Let’s be honest about it. For most people, the biggest issue is they don’t have enough audience to begin with. So when they start trying to launch, there’s not enough of a percentage to get into a group to make it worthwhile.
Because you look at any kind of launch, it is funnel shaped. It starts off big at the top, and it’s very small at the bottom when people come through. So if we fix that problem first. Let us get the audience [00:31:00] grown. You can sell one-to-one or whatever you like as we go along, but to get the money in, let’s grow the audience and spend all of our time on that rather than looking at how fancy we can make the videos and like what the offered be like.
And then the next problem, you can tell what you need to fix. Biometrics. So we just did a launch and I can tell that the biggest problem, like when I look at that funnel was that not enough people. We had 15,000 people sign up, 8,000 people in the Facebook group. That’s a massive chunk to lose. So that’s my right. How do I fix that for next time? That’s my only problem to fix because I can double the amount I make just by fixing one problem.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Because you’ve got the numbers there. They’re just not getting in. And I think this is the thing as well, because when someone’s looking at a smaller launch, they don’t have those numbers to play with, and therefore you can’t like.
You can’t see that massive nuance in actually, here’s the percentage difference because you just haven’t got the numbers in the first place. It’s not to say that they [00:32:00] shouldn’t launch a small numbers, ’cause you can still have really successful launches and in your, if you are looking at Lisa’s launch going.
Why am I not getting that? This kind of gives you an idea as to why that might not be the case. So let’s talk about, and you’ve been really honest, like I am a numbers them, so I freaking love that you’re sharing numbers. Let’s talk about, ’cause one of the things that you do now, I have heard rumors about your affiliate launches, right?
Like that. Some of the prizes you give are flipping insane, right? Yeah. And some of the people that do these launches with you are like, they like, it’s not just, oh, you, you’re gonna send an email. It’s like they are going all in on a launch.
Lisa: It’s their launch for a month.
Teresa: Yeah. So. Why? Well, I dunno. I dunno where my question is going, but like, what made you do that? Because you can’t just start with that, like can’t offer someone something really expensive.
Lisa: I did just start with that stupidly, but I was over in America and I was. I decided to become an affiliate for Selina Sue. This was like in [00:33:00] 2018. And I’d never been an affiliate before and I didn’t know anything about it. And I was an affiliate for her, and I became her number one affiliate for three years in a row. And the way I did that was by making her launch as important, if not more important than my own launch for that month. All I did was go all in and no one was getting close to me.
And there were people in that launch that were. James Wedmore, Amy Port, you know, these were big,
Teresa: massive audiences.
Lisa: Yeah. And I was winning Boss er in there, Laura Belgrade. And I was like, Hmm, this is weird. What I, why? My list at that time was probably 2000 people
Teresa: minuscule in comparison to this.
Lisa: Minuscule. So I was like, why is this working? And I realized it was working because when some people think about being an affiliate, they send a few emails, there’s no. Soul going, there’s no storytelling, there’s no . Care. It’s just I’ll send out your email. Whereas what I was doing was going, this is how Selena has helped me. And this is what it’s done to my life. And this is how like she could help you the same. It was much bigger for me than just sending out [00:34:00] some emails. I was having conversations and so I thought, okay. Well, I’d like to do an affiliate launch then and see if it works for me. Now, we were already making around 350,000 on our launches for one to many at that point, without affiliates.
So it’s not like we were new at that point. We’d, we probably had an audience of six thousand, seven thousand by then, by the time I was making 350,000. And so I was like, okay, and you’re doing a free launch and, and I’m gonna plan it for April. April, 2020. I had no idea what was about to happen . We planned this affiliate launch.
We had a hundred affiliates on board, and then on the day that we were supposed to get them ready, COVID hit and everybody was saying, don’t launch anything. Like this isn’t the time, no one’s gonna buy anything. People are being laid off and all these things. And I was like, bugger, what do I do? Like I’ve planned this.
And so I was like, I’m gonna do it and if it doesn’t work, I’m gonna blame Covid. And actually it kind of gets me off it [00:35:00] like, oh, that really didn’t work. But it wasn’t ’cause of me, it was because of the pandemic. It so was like, it gives me an excuse, so I’m just gonna go all in and do it. And we did it and it was our first kind of 2 million pound launch, and it just jumped from 250 to 2 million.
But how I did it was I didn’t. Have any affiliates that had big lists, because I didn’t think I could see that wasn’t the way. Instead, I wanted affiliates that had done the program or done a program with me that had. You know, they’d loved it. They’d, it changed something in their life. However small.
I wanted those people ’cause I know they’d care more. And some of these people had never launched anything themselves. So, and some had really low, like, I think Charlie Day at the time had like 500 or 600 people in the audience. Like there was no, they were just starting and, but they were gonna go all in and we trained them. So we always train their people in our affiliate launches to that.
Teresa: That’s a good important step. ’cause I think people don’t, so when you say train ’em, what do you do to train them?
Lisa: We teach them [00:36:00] if they have a small list, how they can get the most out of it. Even if they’ve got a small list. Like personal outreach kind of stuff?
Yeah. We talk about mindset. We get their mindset in the right place. Or have a mindset coach come in and train them on how to get their mindset in the right place because. Launching these days that messes with your mind. Not everybody comes in on the first day anymore. They all come in on the last day and by then my energy’s gone hard work.
It’s hard. And then we train them on all sorts of things like the strategy behind launching and, and what all the steps are gonna be. And then we tell them what to do as we’re doing it. So I’m doing my launch. I’m teaching them how to do their launch at the same time. How to have a great bonus. All of those kind of things.
And that really worked for us. The per, like Charlie got the most in that launch. He was like my biggest affiliate. She made six figures from my launch. With a tiny list. And I realized that that’s what works. Like the personal, the personal touch of, well, this is what worked for me. I’m gonna tell you my story of working [00:37:00] with Lisa.
Yeah. Rather than just sending an email out, worked and. In fact, the next year we had one of the biggest names in our launch with a massive, massive list who came first. But she used ads and she made less money, quite a lot less money than the person that came second who had a list of a thousand. So it showed me, I was on the right map.
Teresa: That’s super interesting as well around, you know, yes. You know, and I’m almost contradicting myself because both things can be true at once. Yes, you do need the audience and you do need that list. But also you can make money with a small list.
Lisa: You can, ’cause she sent out one email, whereas all the others, they went all in. You just need to put more effort in if you put a small list. That’s all.
Teresa: So, so I don’t know what part of me is struggling with this. There’s obviously something deep down, but the thing with affiliate L launches is you are giving away a chunk of money.
Lisa: Not only, let’s look at the money. , let’s look at the actual money because you do give away a lot.
Teresa: [00:38:00] Okay. . And they are not little prizes.
Lisa: What’s the private jet? So we go on a private jet to Monte Carlo next month with the top affiliates. So that’s one of the prizes. Now we do a thing where people get all the prizes. So if you make one sale, you get a prize. If you make three, you get prize one and three.
If you make five, you get one, three, and five. So it mounts up to, you know, Philip protect watches and like crazy things at the top, plus these top five prizes. Of things like a private jet. So when we worked out the profit, so if we look at last year’s, ’cause we’re still working out the profit of this year’s.
Last year we made 2.7 million. In in the lower, yeah. Revenue only.
Teresa: So times the number of people who bought, that’s what we made.
Lisa: That’s what we made the profit on. That was 1.8 million. That’s not bad.
Teresa: That is, I mean, I take it. Yeah. If you’re offering it, I’ll take it.
Lisa: That’s all the prizes. That’s with giving them half of the profit, the affiliate’s, half of the profit. We pay them 600 pounds per per sale, so we take off the bat and that’s half the [00:39:00] profit. You know, we’re still doing well with it. And that’s why people often say like, you can’t make money with an affiliate launch we make. We always have. I think it’s just about being clever about the prizes. Like if somebody is making you six figures.
And, you know, they’ve, they’ve put all that effort in, then the prices need to be worth them taking off a whole month of their business and only concentrating on laws. Now, I’m gonna caveat this with, I’m never doing, she says never. We’ll see, I can’t see me ever doing an affiliate launch in the UK again.
Teresa: Why?
Lisa: This year changed things.
Teresa: Okay. What was different?
Lisa: The in the market made some of my affiliates act against my brand. It’s never worth. Brand reputation.
Teresa: Okay. Because I guess this is the other thing, and this is the same reason I am as cautious about being an affiliate for someone as having, who would affiliate for me is because you, there is a disconnect. So if they [00:40:00] behave in a way that is not in line with you, there’s not. A whole lot you could do at the time about that.
Lisa: No, there isn’t. And it’s never happened before. So we’ve always, one of the teachings we give is about integrity and about client First. You do what’s right for the client. You don’t do what’s right for you and your pocket.
And that’s always worked, but I think because of how hard the market is right now. It changed how some people were selling. And we had several issues and it’s not worth my reputation now. I think I would, I’m gonna do one in the US and Canada. Mainly because they’re used to launching.
Teresa: They’re very different over there.
Lisa: Very different. And how they launch when they’re an affiliate over there. They just look at their own clients. They bring their own leads in. They sell to their own leads and that is it. Yeah. In the UK what I’ve found is people bring in their clients and then sell to their clients, plus any other people’s [00:41:00] clients that they can find. That’s where problems occur.
Teresa: Yeah. That’s not on, is it like
Lisa: the UK thing? That just seems to be how we have done things here and it’s not the way and. You can’t stop it now because people bonus shop, so they know, know that one too many has lots of affiliates. So they bonus who’s got the best one and then people feel really let down ’cause they’ve brought someone in and they’ve gone with someone else and all those kind of things.
And we tried to fix that by, we give some of the money to the person that bought them in and some of the money to the person that they go with in the end. But it still hasn’t really fixed the problem. And in the US. We’ve never had that problem, they just wouldn’t even think to look at anybody else’s. And so we’re gonna do an affiliate launch in the US in October just to see the difference.
Teresa: And I think, I think that is such a good mirror of the industries and the locations because one thing that blows me away about the states is they are all so supportive of each other, right? They, they know together, they are [00:42:00] stronger together.
They can bring, like when you see. Uh, Brendan Bouchard’s, like when he does a, uh, a mastermind and it literally is like a who’s who of the online space. It’s ridiculous. But none of them are like, oh, hang on. You, you all are taking a piece of my pie and I need to get that. Whereas I think in the UK that is what this industry’s like.
Lisa: I over the part, especially the women, I think men are a bit better. If you look at the men in this industry, I was talking about this to a friend the other day, who’s kind of at the level that I’m at in the uk and she said. The men take the pie, they share the pie around and they shout others to come and share the pie, who are also men.
The women take one piece of the pie because they feel that’s all they’re allowed to do, and then they scrap over that piece of the pie with all the other women in the industry. Yeah, and it’s why the men move forward so much quicker than us, and I know it started from the patriarchy because we had to fight over a piece of the pie, but we’re now doing it to ourselves.
Arguing with each other instead of supporting each other and putting, you know, like [00:43:00] we have a lack mentality in the uk that comes from the culture of not talking about money. We can’t talk about it’s vulgar. You don’t see that in the us. Yep. If I stand on a stage in the UK and I do the exact same speech and I say I’ve made over 20 million in the past eight years, started off with 35,000 in debt and you know, I was a struggling parent with, with twins.
I will get the odd clap, but mostly an eye roll. If I do that exact same thing in the US, people will stand up and applaud and then come to me afterwards and go, can you tell me how you did it? ’cause I wanna do that. We just don’t do that here. And I don’t really know why, but I think we’re brought up with a culture of thinking money is is bad in some way, and bad people are the ones with money.
Like we, oh, that was the term Fat Cats, when I was about seven.
Teresa: Yeah. That was what I was brought up with. You know, they’re not nice people. People have money and not nice people. And, and it is a shame because it’s funny. So Joe Simpson, who we both know, yeah, I’ve [00:44:00] recently, I say recently, about six months have got into her world and I got into her world because I, I’m terrible with money.
I am one of these people who sees money in their account and goes, oh, I can buy this thing and does not think about cash flow and forward thinking and that sort of stuff. But when I get to my accounts at the end of the year, my accountant goes, you made this much. I go, where? Where’s that? Sorry. ’cause I don’t know where that is.
So I thought to myself, I’m gonna go into Joe’s world because she’s the money person, right? Yeah. Right now I knew Joe was connected in the online space and one of the things that I, and which was another reason why I thought she’s perfect because she understands the online space. And when I got into Joe’s world, she’s like, lovely.
And she’s like, you’re ace. And you’re an og, why don’t, why are you not around in the UK more? And I’m like, dunno. Because I just do stuff in the States and, and I like the states and, and she’s like, you need to be more known here. Like what are you doing? And it’s funny ’cause like I have done no one’s program in the uk.
I’ve not been in anybody’s thing other than now Joe’s. And I think that is, you know, and I’m almost a little bit ashamed to say it ’cause I feel a bit like [00:45:00]
Lisa: disloyal to Yeah. And just, I get it. Just like, why would I, but why not to? Because when we do stuff in the uk I’ve been in programs in the uk, it’s never worked out that well for me.
Teresa: No. Yeah. And that is, there’s something wrong with that. Like there’s something wrong that we’ve gotta go to the states to feel welcomed and celebrated and, you know, and like you said, that you can have that conversation because the, the thing is like, you have a really different business as well. Like, so you don’t have a massive team, do you?
Lisa: No, I’ve got eight,
Teresa: which really is not that big for a company this size,
Lisa: and they’re all family and friends.
Teresa: Which is amazing by the way. I don’t think I could do that, but like, you know, it’s not even saying we all want the same things, but if I’m honest, if you could literally give me that money tomorrow, I take the money tomorrow now I dunno that I would, I dunno that I would want to like necessarily be. As seen online as you are. Because that comes with the crap. Yeah. That’s why. And I’m not sure I want [00:46:00] that.
Lisa: And actually things have changed for me, even because the money was important to me at certain points. It’s less important to me now. Um,
Teresa: what is important to you now?
Lisa: I want to make change. So I’m starting a, Joe’s helping me actually to start a charity this year. Because that’s, there’s changes I wanna make to this world and to this country. I want more people to talk about money, but I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse there. Like it, people have a go at me for talking about money online.
It’s like, my actual job is money. Why wouldn’t I talk about online? Like I’m the wealth expert for the Daily Mail. So when I talk about wealth in there. I’m a female talking about money. Like the comments are not good comments. Like underneath. It can. And it shouldn’t be this way.
And so it makes me wanna change it more because Martin Lewis can say the exact same thing as me and get applauded. But I can’t, ’cause I’m a woman and so that makes me wanna do it more. But then half of me is coming to an age. I think it’s an age thing where I’m like, can I be bothered? Like I, I crave [00:47:00] peace.
And I do crave that now. And I haven’t had that for a long time, quite rightly, because I’ve, I am. Opinionated, and I say things online, but I do crave more peace. And so we were thinking about like what we’re sitting as a family, like what do we want our life to be like? And actually we’ve done all these things, you know, we’ve bought the multimillion pound house with the Paul, we’ve, we’ve gone on the holidays that are amazing.
We’ve done, we’ve, I buy a lot of designing. I’ve done all the things and I was like, what’s making me happy? Not any of those things. And so we’re like, okay, well what is making me happy then? Spending time with friends and family travel does make me happy. That’s one of the things it does. And so we were like, well, let’s just get rid of all the rest then.
And so we put the house on the market. I don’t want it. I don’t want something to be a status symbol of who I am. That’s, that’s not who I am. I’m the same person I was eight years ago when I had absolutely nothing. So why am I trying to show that I’m a different person? I’m proud that I’m the same person as I was before, and so [00:48:00] things have changed in what I want and what matters, and I get that money matters when you don’t have it. Like, I’m not saying you could never go for money. I needed to do that to, to prove that I could do it, but also ’cause I needed to feel secure. But when it. I think what the problem that people do with money is they make money and then they get addicted to that. . And so then it all becomes about making the money to the detriment of their relationships, their health, all the other things that really matter because, oh, I just need one more hit, dopamine hit of making another couple of million. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m not, I just refuse, like I’m not going to be a cycle in a wheel.
And so. It’s kind of changing everything and we’ve, our money figure for this year that we wanna make is near enough half of last years because I don’t, I don’t need to make that much money. I, I would rather have the time and I would rather have the peace and, I don’t wanna be a performing monkey and it feels a bit like [00:49:00] I am at the minute.
Teresa: Can I ask how old you are, Lisa?
Lisa: 47.
Teresa: So I’ve just turned 46 and I feel exactly the same from a, I just want peace, like, you know, and I talk about it sometimes online. The fact that I grow my vegetables, I always laugh when I say I feel like such a geek, but like I love being in the garden, being in nature, like, and I want a business that can.
I would love a business where I can retire. My husband’s, that is not, we are not in that position. My husband’s also very cautious, so I would really have to have a lot stored away for him to feel comfortable. And he’s got a good job now and he is got, you know, so it would have to be a lot. But I’m not in that position, so I’d love to be in a position where I could do that for him.
Because mainly when we, we are hopefully moving to a house of land, I’ve got a lot of work for him to do. So he can’t, he hasn’t got time to do a job. Yeah. And he’ll love that. So that’s what I would love. And then to have that balance so that I can travel when we want. ’cause we also love travel. I. [00:50:00] But I am not working 24 7, and I can go and sit in my garden and tend to my vegetables and do the things I wanna do.
Lisa: And actually, I think you’re kind of there. Like when I look at businesses like yours, I aspire to them like you have. The balance. You are not online having to fight people all the time because you have an opinion. You know? You have got that kind of balance of, of peace and making what I think you’ve done well and what lots of people don’t do, including me, is having enough number.
I didn’t know what my enough number was or I just carried on, and actually I think it’s really important to have enough number so that you feel you’ve achieved something, but also so that you can live the rest of your life. It can’t just be about work. So, yeah, I think you’re kind of, you’re kind of there. Like I,
Teresa: I just need the money now, Lisa.
Lisa: Yeah. But that’s the easy bit. I think that’s the easiest bit of it, but I think that we said at the beginning you said, you know how you look and you perceive me to be more successful. I don’t agree. I think that success. For [00:51:00] people who want money is money, but that isn’t the only measure of success.
No. Success is peace. Success is health. Success is, yeah. You know, balance. It is all of those different things and my level of success has come at a price. It gave the price of health. It came at a price of. You know, having to deal with trolls and negativity online, which my nervous system two years ago was short.
I had to do so much work on my nervous system to be able to deal with that. But it, it’s come at prices of things and still does, you know, like I’m hustling all the time and like even at the, I used to have this lovely life where I worked 30 hours a month and I made about a million. And I think back, that was my best years. Yeah. I had a couple of years like that, but then I was like. Well, if I can make fifth, you know, 1,000,030 hours a month, let’s do 60 hours a month and make, and then you get to this point where actually I work quite hard at the moment. Not as hard as a lot of people. Yeah. But I’m working more hours than I [00:52:00] have before.
The market’s very different at the moment. We need to, but also I have the pressure of I am the only breadwinner. In my family also, I am the person who is. Paying the mortgages of most of my family and friends right now who are members of staff,
Teresa: which that is terrifying.
Lisa: There is pressure to it. So when people say to me, oh my God, it must be lovely that you make 300,000 month, that’s not my money, and I’ve never seen it as my money. That’s the business’s money of which I take wage and so do lots of other people. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, like I think success is. I’m getting nearer to my version of success this year than I have before, but I’ve had to streamline, cut whole businesses, cut whole partnerships to get there.
Teresa: Lisa, this has been excellent. This has been really good and I’ve really enjoyed genuinely the conversation that we’ve had. And I’m annoyed that I didn’t get you on sooner than [00:53:00] a no, because this has been really, really awesome and I’ve really appreciated everything you said. I’ve loved how honest you’ve been.
I’ve loved that you’ve shared, you know, really what it’s like to have that business and really what it’s like to have, you know it. To be a human in this space, which is not always easy.
Lisa: It’s hard sometimes.
Teresa: Yeah, really hard. Now I’m going to say the question I always say, which seems ridiculous with you, but where can people come and find you, Lisa, if they wanna find you.
Lisa: The easiest way to find me and the place that you’ll get me. ’cause my team answers a lot of things, but it’s all me on Instagram. So at Lisa Johnson, strategist, if you say hi on there, it will be me talking back to you.
Teresa: Perfect. Thank you so much, Lisa. It’s been a pleasure to have you on.
Lisa: No worries. Thanks for having me.
