Jen Hansard: Oh, kale yeah!

John Lee Dumas: Yes! Jen is the co-founder of SimpleGreenSmoothies.com, the No. 1 online resource for the green smoothie lifestyle. She hosts the wildly popular and free 30-Day Green Smoothie Challenge where more than 1 million people have embraced their simple and healthy habit.

Jen, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Jen Hansard: Sure. So, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. I thought I would be living this life, so for any of you out there who are still trying to figure out if this is for you or not for you, just know that I didn’t feel born or wake up early on and realize that I was going to be running my own business. It kind of happened out of necessity and almost like a chain reaction of events that happened over time. It started from, I worked in a corporate job doing art directing in Los Angeles, and then I got pregnant and had my first son. I just decided then that I wasn’t ready to go back to work fulltime, but I still wanted to do something else besides just being home as a mom; which was great, but I wanted more.

So that’s when I made that first change to start my own business which was an online design studio. That was my first little glimmer into being an entrepreneur, and I ran that in my pajamas during that time and bedtime. That’s actually when one of my clients happened to be Jadah Sellner, and her and I were friends from a mom’s group, and we connected through that. I would be posting on Facebook some of the web designs I was doing for clients and new brand stuff, and just sharing it with my family and friends and how proud I was of my little startup design studio.

Jadah saw that and reached out and asked me if I could work with her on a project which, over time, ended up turning into a fulltime parenting blog that we co-partnered on. Then, eventually, it led to Simple Green Smoothies. So you never know where your journey’s gonna start or where it’s gonna lead, but as long as you enjoy the adventure and say “yes” to it, I feel like amazing things happen.

John Lee Dumas: I love the message that you’ve already shared here, Jen, is that you weren’t born an entrepreneur. And I think that’s so key, Fire Nation, for you to really absorb. And something that I actually probably don’t say enough: I wasn’t born an entrepreneur. And actually, when people like Gary Vaynerchuk – whom I love, by the way – but you know, is talking about how at eight years old he was making a $1,000.00 a week and selling baseball cards, and he was always an entrepreneur. I’m like, you know, good for him.

But for me, the first 32 years of my life, I was not an entrepreneur, so you don’t have to be born an entrepreneur. I was actually, let me just mow one lawn in high school for 20 bucks a week, because that’s all I need. I don’t wanna mow two lawns; I don’t need $40.00 a week. I was Bare Minimum JLD. But then, hey, I made the shift at 32. You might be making the shift at 62, at 22, whenever it’s right for you. But you don’t have to born an entrepreneur.

Now, Fire Nation, if you’re recognizing Jen’s voice, she did join us back on Episode 1062. And her great partner in crime, Jadah, was actually recently on 1193 during our little Freedom Journal rant that we had for 33 straight days during the Freedom Journal campaign, because Jadah and Jen have really built a life of freedom, and that’s why I wanted to bring Jadah and Jen on the show. Unfortunately, Jen couldn’t make it, but Jadah crushed the mic about the freedom lifestyle that you, Jen, have now really made a reality.

So let’s talk numbers for a second because viable businesses generate revenue. How do you generate revenue as an entrepreneur?

Jen Hansard: We definitely have a lot of ways that we bring in revenue at this point, but the one thing that has really given us this freedom lifestyle and has really brought in the most amount for us is our gorgeous digital products. Those are our e-books, our mobile recipe cards that we do and we sell through our shop which is on Simple Green Smoothies; and we also have a 21-day cleanse. These digital products that we sell straight online, it’s all automated at this point where you can go to our website, click on a product, purchase it with your credit card, and have it delivered to your inbox within a matter of five minutes.

This is how our business mainly runs and makes money, and it’s also a way for Jadah and I to step back and not have to be hands-on for each transaction for money to flow through us. So it’s been an incredible realization for me that digital products can truly create a freedom business.

John Lee Dumas: You didn’t mention multiple streams. We don’t have to get into all of them for sure, but digital products is the major one, as you’re saying. What are just a couple of others that do work for you?

Jen Hansard: We also were affiliates for certain blenders that we truly believe in. So there’s Vitamix and Blendtec which we get a pretty good percentage of sales from. And also Amazon Affiliates, which is great to help supplement income. And then we also, this last year in 2015, we got a book advance. We published our first book and, with that, came an advance which has been great for income-wise. Then, once the book sells a certain amount, then we’re going to start getting book royalties which will be included in our revenue.

John Lee Dumas: So, not wanting to get too in the weeds here, but let’s talk for a couple of minutes, maybe just a minute, about your sponsorships or just the affiliate revenue that you get from Blendtec and Vitamix. I think there’s a lot of people out there that are craving content around a specific topic, industry, niche, whatever that might be. And I’m just kind of curious, how does that work? Like, how did that work? Did they approach you? Did you approach them? What did it look like when you actually signed the deal? How does that operate?

Jen Hansard: Well, how we do it, we only work with companies that we truly believe in, that we use personally. So, to even pick affiliates for Simple Green Smoothies, it really has to align with our core values and reflect what we’re using as families too. For me, that was Vitamix, that’s the blender of my choice, but Jadah loves Blendtec. So both of these companies, they did let us know that they would prefer if we just picked one.

John Lee Dumas: Exclusive, of course.

Jen Hansard: Exclusive, yeah, so that it would just look better from their point of view. And a lot of times, that can be appealing, and there was some benefits and perks to it that kind of made us think maybe we should just go with one, and part of it was a cookbook exclusivity with them. But really, we just put our feet on the ground and got grounded and realized, you know what? That’s not what we’re about. We’re about sharing the truth, and both of these blenders are incredible. And even if our partnership isn’t as strong because of that, in the end, our community, and our business, and our brand is gonna be stronger. So when we pick affiliates, we do not do exclusivity, we make sure that it’s very clear that we love you, blender, whichever one, but we’re also gonna promote other ones because we believe in them as well.

John Lee Dumas: I love that for a lot of reasons. You don’t need, Fire Nation, to quote-unquote “chain” yourself to just one thing. Not to say they’re going to abuse that power, but then, in some ways, they do now have all the power because you’re exclusive with them. But when there’s competition, it’s healthy for everybody involved.

So now, Jen and Jadah have a nice little competition between Vitamix and Blendtec. And you know, maybe one of them starts a bidding war and says, hey, we wanna become exclusive, or we’re willing to do this for more exposure, or the first picture on the About Me page instead of the second picture. There’s a lot of things that can go into that.

Now, did they reach out to you, or did you guys reach out to them?

Jen Hansard: In the beginning, we reached out to them because we were still small.

John Lee Dumas: How did you find who to reach out to, and then what do those first few correspondences look like?

Jen Hansard: Sure. Well, we definitely made sure that our website was strong enough to be pitched as a legit business, so making sure that what you’re showing on your website is something that is going to interest them. So for us, because we are a green smoothie website, we just made sure everything was really about that. So when we went to Vitamix or went to Blendtec, saying, hey, we would love to share your products with our community and this is why: xxx, they can see there’s a direct relationship and why what we’re doing would benefit them; so it’s very clear. As far as find someone, we just googled it. Google “Vitamix affiliate”, “Blendtec affiliate”, and start that way.

But as you do get approved for your affiliate account and get your links and start doing sales, it’s really important to start working on that relationship with an affiliate manager for each of these companies so that you’re not just another number to them, that you actually become something that they recognize you and see you for more than just that. And that’s helped us grow that relationship and be able to reach out to them and say, you know what, we’re doing a 30-Day Challenge coming up, we would love if you would donate a blender for us to give away. And then it’s an easy win, an easy conversation we have with them, and we pretty much always have a blender to give away for our 30-Day Green Smoothie Challenges.

John Lee Dumas: Oh, I love it. I mean, I can remember clearly, when my contact at 99designs left, I was legitimately sad. I’m like, no, don’t go, because we had such a good relationship, and she understood my brand and the business and the value that we brought, etc. So it’s such a valuable thing.

Now, what I’ve found with the bigger companies – and Vitamix and Blendtec are bigger companies – they usually have some form of contracts that are pretty kind of standard, but they kind of control that end of it. Is that the same with you or did you go in-house and kind of make it the other way around?

Jen Hansard: No, we just went with their standard contract. We’re, honestly, Jadah and I are not great at reviewing contracts.

John Lee Dumas: Wait, what? How are you not great at reviewing contracts? Didn’t you go to five years of law school?

Jen Hansard: Oh my gosh. So, just to be real and vulnerable, I don’t even know what we signed back then in the year 2013.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, you’re just like, I just want the money.

Jen Hansard: Yeah, so far it’s working. We haven’t done anything wrong, and they’re happy with us.

John Lee Dumas: So Jen, let’s shift now to a story that you would consider you’re worst entrepreneurial moment. And I’m gonna kind of challenge you here because, again, you were on the show back in Episode 1062, so almost a year ago to the day we were talking to Fire Nation and having a great conversation. So let’s kind of narrow it down to the last year. And again, it doesn’t have to be this devastating moment, because life maybe has been pretty good. But of course, just like there’s always a best, there’s always a worst. So what’s been the biggest struggle, the worst thing that you’ve experienced in the past year with your business?

Jen Hansard: The situation I was gonna bring up actually happened about six months ago.

John Lee Dumas: Perfect.
Jen Hansard: So it totally fits within your guidelines, thank goodness. But it was in October, and Jadah and I had just signed up to have a business coach for our business to help us work through as far as our goals, our relationship, and just kind of where we wanted to take the business in the next couple of years. So I hopped on a flight from Tampa to New York City, and as soon as I’m up in the air, that’s when my brain kind of shuts off from all my daily to-do’s and everything with work, or my kids, or church, and stuff like that. I really focus on where am I right now in my life and how are things going.

And it was up there, 10,000 feet in the air, whatever, that I realized that I was seriously a hot mess. Like, I was so overcommitted, I was so exhausted, I was burnt out on the business. And I just was emotional, and I was on edge all the time, and when Jadah would say something, I’d get really defensive. So I just stopped right there and took a minute to try to figure out what just happened. How did I get here when I’ve been building this business that is supposed to be what I love, and to fill my life and allow me to have this freedom within everything I do. When the reality was, I felt like it had just pretty much put a ball and chain on my foot.

I looked back and realized, this past year was when we were working on the book. And writing a book is such a big deal, it’s like having a baby; it’s my third baby, I like to say. So I have to write this book, I ended up designing it too, but we also had to run our business at the same time, so it was just adding more and more to my plate. And I didn’t know how to say no to things, I didn’t know how to put things off, so I was always saying yes. And I got to this place where I wasn’t even seeing my kids anymore. I remember they would always ask me, “Mommy, when’s the book gonna be done?” And I realized, that was really code for, “Mom, when are you coming back to us?”

Because I had been so spaced out and so in this high-level, constantly running, constantly focusing on the business, that I realized, all my energy was devoted to Simple Green Smoothies, and not to my family or to myself. So that was my big, crazy moment where I realized I had truly screwed up the entrepreneurial dream because I had just pretty much sabotaged myself to get to this next level. And that’s not – I wasn’t okay with that. That’s not who I wanted to be, that’s not the life I wanted to live.

So it was right then that I decided I needed to take steps to change this. So that week in New York, I really just put it out there, and Jadah and I talked about it. And I said, “I am completely overwhelmed, I need your help.” And so, just acknowledging it out loud to her and to our coach was a huge step for me instead of suppressing it or saying it’s gonna be okay, you’ll get through this, just work harder and then you’ll get a break. But I actually stopped and said, no, it’s not okay, I’m not okay, and just was very vulnerable with myself in front of other people was a huge step to start the process.

Then, the next thing I did from that place was I started to set boundaries. So I learned that the best time for me to work was from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. I know those are the exact same hours my kids are in school, and so none of that mommy guilt was there anymore because, in the morning when they’d get up, and I’d pack their lunches and get to spend time with them, I was actually present because those weren’t my work hours anymore. And then when they’d get home at 4:00, I was there as well because I had already shut down my laptop, and it was time for me to be with them. So setting those boundaries as far as the hours I worked during the day was really helpful.

And then on the weekends, I unplug, and that’s something I’ve been really good at doing now. So as soon as Friday afternoon hits, I turn off my laptop, I do not check my email, I really step off the court until Monday. This has given me that needed break and to have more energy to play with my family, and it’s also given me the space to just breath again and dream and reset my body.

By doing this, I can’t even tell you how many incredible things have just come out of that moment for me and how I’ve handled that situation. I’ve found time in my life to actually train and run a marathon, I’m currently learning to fly an airplane, and I’m still able to do all this with still running my business, still having time for myself, and still having weekends off.

John Lee Dumas: Now, Fire Nation, you’re seeing how Jen’s worst moment in the past year, about six months ago, led to this string of “Aha!” moments. And that’s why these worst moments, these, you know, when we hit these lows, there’s silver linings there if we only keep our eyes open to see them. And she saw this string of “Aha!” moments she’s now implemented into her life that’s making so much time for her to spend time with her family, on hobbies, on all these adventures that she’s now going on.

There’s a number of things that I want to dive in on, but I’m just gonna pick a couple out of the hat because there’s so much that you just said there, Jen.

But No. 1, I can guarantee you, Jen – and Fire Nation, this is absolutely a reality – when you say, hey, I’m gonna work from 10:00 to 2:00, or from 11:00 to 3:00, and you give yourself a three or four hour block of time to work, and you have motivation to sit down and work during that time because you just had a great morning with your kids, and you sent them off to school, and life is good there, and they’re coming back home at 4:00, you know that’s a hard stop no matter what, you’re gonna get more done in those three to four hours with that mindset, with that focus, than you’ll get if you just lock yourself in the room and just have 15 hours to the day.

It’s legitimate; it’s called the Pomodoro Method. I implement it because I don’t have kids that I feel like I need to really block time off for at this point. So I could just be sitting here in my living room all day long, getting not a lot done because it’s infinite, it’s just infinite. And I just love that Pareto’s Principle that tasks will expand to the time allotted. So Jen, you’re allotting three to four hours a day to accomplish tasks. Guess what? You accomplished those tasks.

The Pomodoro Method, Fire Nation. I set a 53-minute timer where I sit down, when that timer goes off, I have to get up for seven minutes, and I can’t touch anything. Maybe I do some pull-ups or go on the balcony, take a deep breath, hang out, no work, and then I come back and then focus. So there’s a lot of things there.

The last thing I want to touch upon, Jen, is, when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else, Fire Nation. And that’s what Jen did. She said yes to this book, and therefore, she was saying no to everything else that she could’ve said yes to while she’s having to work on this book. Now, she made the best-case scenario with her “Aha!” moments of being very specific with her timeframe, and that’s the takeaways that I want you to have, Fire Nation.

Now, Jen, a lot of people might be like, well, does Jen now have it all figured out? And the answer is no, you still have weaknesses. Give us your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur.

Jen Hansard: Well, it definitely has to do with this. My weakness is that I just really like to get my hands dirty with my team, and so I’m always in the mud with them doing things, working hard side by side. But by doing that, it really is causing me to miss out on getting that aerial view and stepping out of the day-to-day to really see the bigger picture of where the business is going, where am I leading it, where am I taking it.

John Lee Dumas: What’s your biggest strength?

Jen Hansard: I’m a maximizer, so when I see anything, I see that it could be done better. And that’s really how we got a Green Smoothie website to a level that no one else had gotten to yet and why it’s so beautiful.

John Lee Dumas: Was that a StrengthsFinder 2.0 comment?

Jen Hansard: Maybe, I don’t know!

John Lee Dumas: So, I just took StrengthsFinder and there’s 39 different archetypes, and one of them, which is actually my fourth, is Maximizer, so it’s a legitimate archetype of the 39 for StrengthsFinder. So it’s a legit archetype. When you’re a Maximizer, baby, all or nothing. I’m all in or I’m all out.

So, Jen, you have a lot of things going on right now in your world, but what’s the one thing that has you most fired up today?

Jen Hansard: I am so excited because I’m getting ready – right now I’m in the planning stages – but of a trip to Guatemala this summer; of all places, John.

John Lee Dumas: Are you gonna be able to visit Panajachel?

Jen Hansard: I don’t know.

John Lee Dumas: I hope you put that on your list. It’s Lago de Atitlan; it’s up in the mountains. It’s actually a string of volcanos that are circling a volcanic lake that’s massive. I’m talking the size of a Great Lake, it feels like, it’s so huge, and it’s a gorgeous place. I lived there for four months back in 2007. The biggest town that you come into is called Panajachel, and there’s 13 towns that surround the entire lake, and the lake is called Lago de Atitlan.

Jen Hansard: Well, we were there last summer, and we stayed around the lake. We were in one of the small places. I can’t remember what it was called. It was like Saint something, I think.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, there’s a lot of Saint names around there.

Jen Hansard: Yeah. So we’re going this summer. And last year, I actually brought a Blendtec blender and donated it to an afterschool kid’s program that does lunches and meals for kids and also helps them with their homework. So I’m going back to give them more Green Smoothie recipes and just hang out and play with these kids. And I cannot wait because a piece of my heart is in that community for sure.

John Lee Dumas: You know, a lot of cool things started there. When I went there in 2007, I was so impassioned. There was a lot of American expats there, and we built a couple of schools there, and put some roofs on houses, and built these really special fireplaces and stoves so when there’s smoke inside the house, there’s actually a chimney so the smoke will get outside of the house. We did a lot of this kind of work while I was there for four months.

And then I think it was two years later, Adam Braun was in the same town, Panajachel, and that’s where he was inspired for Pencils of Promise. That’s where the idea for Pencils of Promise started, in Panajachel, Guatemala. That’s now become an international phenomenon with over 350 schools that have been built, etc., etc. It’s a really special place.

Jen Hansard: Well, I can’t wait to go back.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, don’t you go anywhere because we are about to enter and crush the Lightning Round. But we’re gonna take a quick minute and thank our sponsors.

Jen, are you prepared for the Lightning Round?

Jen Hansard: Yes!

John Lee Dumas: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Jen Hansard: Fear of just the instability around work and money. And then, also, the fact that all of the responsibility would come down to me because it was my business at that point.

John Lee Dumas: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Jen Hansard: Something that I’ve been holding onto lately a lot is from my coach, Kristin. And she said that, in life, you have two kinds of marbles: you have glass and you have rubber. The glass marbles are the things that are more precious and sacred to you. Those are the things that you want to protect at all costs, which is your family, your friends, integrity, respect, your health.

And then there’s the rubber marbles which are like rubber balls, and they’re more fixable, and they’re flexible, and once you drop them, they’re gonna bounce right back; or if they don’t, you can fix them so that they can. And these are things like your career, money, your house. These are things that you should go out with no fear because you can fix them over time. And so this has just helped me really kind of see my life, and what are the things I need to protect, and what are the things I need to let go and play with harder.

John Lee Dumas: What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Jen Hansard: A daily green smoothie.

John Lee Dumas: Kale yeah! Can you share an internet resource, like Evernote, with Fire Nation?

Jen Hansard: Yeah, Slack is the thing. It’s saved our community, saved our team so much. It’s replaced texting and email, so definitely get on Slack.

John Lee Dumas: If you could recommend one book for our listeners, what would it be and why?

Jen Hansard: Essentialism. I say it every time and to everyone, Essentialism is the best book for me. For those people who get overcommitted and overwhelmed, which is myself included, this book always helps me just get grounded again, and it gives me permission to really figure out how to clear my schedule and just fill it with really important stuff.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, I know you love audio, so I teamed up with Audible. And if you haven’t already, you can get an amazing audiobook for free at EOFireBook.com, and they rock Essentialism in the audio world, so check it out.

And Jen, this is the last question of the Lightning Round, but it is a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world that’s identical to Earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter is taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Jen Hansard: I would head straight to the absolute cutest café that I could find that has free Wi-Fi, and they have to have amazing coffee because I love my coffee. So I would just kind of set up shop there for that first day, get cozy, go online. I would look into a meet-up group or something where I could figure out where there’s a local running club, or rock climbing, or Habitat For Humanity. It’s just, for me, it has to be something that’s outdoors and active. And then I would make it a point to get over there and start getting to know these people and connecting with them.

Because, I feel like when I’m doing something active with other people, that’s really where my relationships grow and conversations come out of nowhere that I totally don’t expect. So my goal would be to create friends from that. And then, as we get to know each other over a couple of days, I would be totally vulnerable with them, and just let them know my situation, and keep it real, and be like, “Look, I’ve only got $500.00 and my laptop. I need some help.” And just ask them, what needs do they see in their community? Do they have any ideas or something that they wanted to start.

Because, for me, when I allow other people to share things that are on their hearts or that they’re dreaming about, I believe that together we can make them have it. So I’m not about being a solo entrepreneur. I’ve never wanted to do this on my own, I don’t like that journey. I believe in doing it with other people and bringing in a community to do it together with.

John Lee Dumas: Jen, let’s end today on fire with a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Jen Hansard: A parting piece of guidance. I would say, take that leap. So, wherever you are right now in your life, whatever ledge you’re sitting on – because I know a lot of us are, and we’re scared – I just encourage you to jump, take it, go with it. It’s like a rubber ball, let it bounce, go for it.

And then, you can find me over at SimpleGreenSmoothies.com. Right now, we are in the middle of our 30-Day Challenge. We do four a year, so the next one’s coming up in July. We would love to rock out with you and help you fall in love with spinach and kale.

John Lee Dumas: Well, that’s coming right up because this interview’s going live at the end of May, so Fire Nation, you can get ready for this upcoming July launch. And I just want to say this: You’re the average, Fire Nation, of the five people you spend the most time with, and you’ve been hanging out with JH and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Just type “Jen” in the search bar, her show notes will pop up along with her last episode, and Jadah’s episode will pop up, and they’re just amazing people, so check it out.

And of course, head over to SimpleGreenSmoothies.com, check out their free 30-Day Challenge. And again, this coming July, maybe you want to get into that little bikini or mankini weather shape, whatever that might be, and this could be the way to do it.

So I want to thank you, Jen, for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Jen Hansard: All right, bye.