Leonie Dawson chats Marketing without Social Media
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When I think of women absolutely winning in business, Leonie Dawson is one of the first people that comes to mind!
Leonie is a marketing specialist and self-made multi-millionaire. Not only is she a best-selling author of the Goal Getter workbooks, sheβs also an artist, blogger (since 2004!) and creator of a heap of amazing business courses.
Did I mention sheβs built a 7-figure business working just 10 hours a week?
Pretty amazing, huh?
Today Iβm sharing an interview with Leonie where we chat about running a business, being yourself and having fun online, marketing without social media and a whole lot more!
Hit play below to hear all the juicy bits!
If you prefer to read, you can skip to the word-for-word show notes here.
Get more Leonie goodness below:
Free Sh*t page (donβt forget to grab her 100 Ways to Market your Business Freebie while youβre there!)
Leonieβs Courses* (my faves are below!)
Other resources mentioned:
Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
Squarespace* (Sign up for a free trial and use the code JHD10 for 10% off your first year)
My most searched blog post, The Best Coaching Websites on Squarespace
Read the word-for-word show notes
Being yourself and having fun (1:15)
00:00 Jessica - Hey everyone, I'm here with the lovely Leonie Dawson, who is one of my absolute business idols, and weβre going to have a bit of a chat today about how you can actually market your business without social media and some of the advantages of it. Leonie is absolutely amazing. She's the author of the Goal Getter Workbook and planners and has an awesome following there and has some of the most amazing courses I've done, and she's just an amazing person. I'll let Leonie introduce herself, so go ahead, Leonie!
00:35 Leonie - Oh, youβre a babe. Thanks Jess, itβs lovely to be here! Hi everyone. I'm Leonie. I'm delighted to make your acquaintance. I hope this will be the beginning of a fun and lifelong journey together of learning and experiencing all kinds of life and business stuff. I'm a multi passionate entrepreneur, I've been blogging since 2004. I brought in over $11 million online through my programs and my books, and I just talk shit on the internet. When people say, what do you do for a living, I say I talk shit on the internet, that's what I do. And it's the best job in the world.
01:15 Jessica - I love that! And sometimes, that's the fun way to do it. Like we all take business so seriously, sometimes, and when you could just do your own thing and make it yours, it really comes across in a good way, I think.
01:30 Leonie - And it's so much more fun to do for yourself as well, like you could do it like in a very boring and stayed way and try and be professional, blah, blah, blah. Or you could just delight yourself, and you know, really embrace your creativity and fly that freak flag of yours and have a rip-roaring time as you do. And people will either like be completely attracted to that or totally repulsed. Either way, it's great. You'll find your people that really resonate with you.
Dream clients (2:01)
02:01 Jessica - And you'll end up with the best clients from that because they resonate with you. Youβll scare off all the people that would be a bore to work with and everything.
02:09 Leonie - Yeah, that's it. Like the shit clients, like I just don't have shit clients because they are repulsed by me.
02:17 Jessica - Definitely one way to do it. I think it's good. Like, I just think that connection goes so much deeper when you have those good clients and you can help people on a better level when you have that connection.
02:29 Leonie - This is true. And also like, I don't have to, you know, I don't have to serve everyone, I can just serve the people who I'm a really good fit for and I can share and teach in the way that makes most sense for me and for those people. It's not going to be the perfect fit for everybody and it doesn't need to be. Nobody's ever going to be the perfect fit for everyone.
02:52 Jessica - That's true. And that's something I sometimes have to remind clients are when I'm working with them around, like it's okay for your copy and the way you show up online to turn people off. When you think about how many clients you want to work with over the course of the year, you don't need to serve every single person in the world. It's okay to find those right people you want to be serving.
03:14 Leonie - Yeah, this is this is it. Michael Port wrote a great book called Book Yourself Solid. It's been out for a billion years now, but one of the things he talks about is having a red velvet rope in your in your business where you only allow certain clients in and you say no to others who aren't going to be the right fit for you. It seems counterproductive that to have a fully booked client base, you need to start firing clients, or, you know, saying no to some clients, but it really is the only way that you can open up your energy and get those brilliant results is by being more selective.
03:56 Jessica - Definitely, I found the same thing. And when you connect with someone, it's easy, it's fun, it feels good, everyone's happier, you get better results, there's just so many benefits to not working with the clients that drain your life from you.
04:11 Leonie - It's true, it's true.
Showing up and mental health (4:15)
04:15 Jessica - And have you always been this comfortable, like showing up as yourself and being completely authentically you in how you write and show up online?
04:24 Leonie - You know, I think so, and I think it's also a muscle that you build over time. You're like βOoohhh, what if I say this?β How is that gonna go? You know, maybe you feel a bit scared, but I've noticed that every time I feel vulnerable about sharing something, enormous blessings come from it anyway, you know. So like, when I went through postnatal depression and anxiety with my first daughter, I remember someone saying to me, βOh, you know, one day you'll write about thisβ and I was like, βNo, I will never, ever tell anyone that I am going through thisβ. And a year later, I was in a much different place, in a better place, and I knew it was time to share that journey. The messages that I received back was so beautiful, and people still felt so held and understood and it also just enormously healed me as well to write about it and share about it. So I definitely share a lot more stuff especially like mental health stuff and the difficult times because I know what a gift it can be to me and to others.
05:38 Jessica - I love that and I've had a similar experience. It's only now four years after having my son that I feel like I can talk about the mental side of it, and the fact that I struggled with becoming a mum. I thought it would be so much easier than it was, but having postnatal anxiety and traumatic birth experience and everything. It's hard in the moment. But once you have that perspective, things shift.
06:00 Leonie - Yeah. And it's so important to know, we're not alone in it. That our story is a part of, you know, a cannon of women and people who give birth and their stories. It's enormous.
06:16 Jessica - Yep, definitely, and especially around traumatic experiences and things like depression and anxiety and mental health, those kinds of taboo topics, and everything. I'm seeing more people open up about it and it feels much better being able to talk about it and not feel so alone
06:38 Leonie - It's important. It's just so important. And it feels so much better in here (the heart) to know that there's no shame attached to what it is. Like, this is what happened and this is why and it's completely legitimate and important reasons why my body and mind reacted in those ways, and that's okay.
06:58 Jessica - I love that, and I love that you talk about so many different types of topics. Mental health is one part of it, and you've also spoken a lot about your recent diagnosis with autism and things like that. You don't hold back from the harder topics and I really love that. Because especially working in an office, I've struggled with finding my voice and everything, but I really appreciate that you share so much of your life and make it feel like it's okay to be ourselves online. Sometimes it can be so scary, but yeah, I love that transparency you have and how open you are.
Neurodivergence (7:38)
07:38 Leonie - Well, the only reason I discovered that I have autism and ADHD is because, you know, I had friends who had written in their blogs about getting their diagnosis, and how it presents differently in women and their experience. For me, I'd never ever considered that I had autism and it was only in reading their stories and when friends did disclose that they had autism diagnosis and I was like, βHuh, this doesn't look like what I thought autism was supposed to beβ because our understanding of autism culturally is how men present as with autism, not females and itβs very different. And so the only way that I found out that I was autistic, was because of other people's bravery, so the least I could do was pay that forward, and I know a lot of people have received a later in life diagnosis because of me. And it's really important to receive those diagnosis because it feels like everything begins to make sense.
08:51 Jessica - Yeah, I can definitely understand that. We're going through some challenges with my little one and that's when I started to realize a lot of the traits that the daycare says are autistic traits in children are things Iβve gone through and now I'm wondering if I have it. And following along with you, I've become a lot more okay with it. Like I did struggle with it a bit, and everything, but I'm pretty certain I have ADHD as well and that had never ever occurred to me at all in my life. That's only something I've realized in the last couple of weeks. I'm like, I have like so many traits from it, but it's interesting. I feel so much better even without a diagnosis, just understanding that my brain works differently sometimes and itβs okay. A lot of it has become my strengths as I've gotten older and everything, so yeah, itβs been really interesting.
09:47 Leonie - Absolutely. it is an enormous blessing to be neurodivergent. It always makes me laugh when anti-vaxxers are like βYou know, you could get autismβ and I was like βYou wish you could get autism from it. Itβs fucking awesomeβ. To be autistic is fucking awesome. If I was given the option to be neurotypical, I'd be like, βHell no, no thank youβ. I like this brain! I like this existence! Sure, there are certain challenges of living in a neurotypical world, but guess what, the neurotypical people arenβt having a great time of it either. I so appreciate the gifts that this has given me and the different insights that it gives me and I feel very blessed. I knew that I was autistic maybe six years before I got formally diagnosed and self-evaluation is a really critical and important part of the tool because it's very difficult for females to get diagnosed. The literature is just not at that point and diagnosing psychiatrist still don't have access to the latest information about female autism and ADHD. And also, I should say that if you have autism, you almost certainly have ADHD, there's a 75% co morbidity, so if youβve got one, youβve probably got the other. And what's more, there's more research is coming out that says they may potentially be the same thing, it's just the present differently to the outside world.
11:37 Jessica - That makes sense to me to be honest.
11:39 Leonie - Right? Right? It blows my mind!
11:42 Jessica - But we need neurodivent people because we need that diversity and creativity in the world. Our brains work differently, we think of different solutions, we explore things from a different angle. The world needs that! I've come from a banking background where everyone's pretty similar in the workforce and sometimes you need those different ideas to come in and spice things up and make life more interesting with all the creative solutions that others miss. So it's definitely a strength.
12:16 Leonie - It really is! When you look at all the really well known entrepreneurs and people whoβve made significant contributions to society, the vast majority of them are neurodivergent, like the vast, vast majority are neurodivergent, so itβs not just a nice to have, itβs actually critical.
12:40 Jessica - Yeah, and so did a lot of the best artists and inventors and everything did as well, so it goes way back!
12:48 Leonie - Yeah, Richard Branson's very open about him having ADHD, and there's more and more who was sharing about it, and I'm just so grateful.
12:58 Jessica - Yeah, I agree. I think it's nice to see it coming out in the open and people being able to celebrate the differences from it. That's a good thing.
13:09 Leonie - We're the lucky once! Woop woop! It's that kind of Ferrari brain. I say it's like a Ferrari Instead of a Camry brain. Sorry, if youβre neurotypical and youβre like βThis is so offensive, she thinks neurodivergents are betterβ, and Iβm not saying that, but you do get to live in a world that says your brain is the right way to do it and we donβt, so I really want to uplift the Ferrari brains that are ours.
Getting started with blogging (13:35)
13:35 Jessica - Love that, so awesome. That's one of the things I've seen you sharing on blog in the past and I know you've blogged for a very long time, you said from 2004. I'd love to hear a bit about how and why you got started with that?
13:47 Leonie - Sure. It kind of has its origins from back when I was 16 and I sent myself to boarding school because I didn't feel like the state school that I was at was the right fit for me. So I told my parents like I'm either gonna go overseas for a year as an exchange student, or I'm going to boarding school, and they said βWell, weβd prefer if you sent yourself to boarding school. You know you, so you sort it out and choose what you want to go to. We canβt afford it so youβre gonna need some scholarshipsβ.
Anyway, so that all got organised. I went to boarding school. It was awesome. I had a great time and Iβm so grateful that I went. I lived in a dorm with 20 other girls and I had an amazing art teacher who gave everyone art journals, like thick, A4 art journals. And he was like βThis has to be the place that you explore, you play with all your ideas, like this is your new homeβ. I took that very much to heart and I still use the exact same art journals that he used to give out. I'm very addicted to it now.
Anyway, so when I would like do some work on my art journal, I would send it around the dorm. And I would sing out βWho's got my diary?β and someone would say βItβs over here! This is great!β and it never occurred to me to make it secret. I was always just like βFuck yeah, share the lot!β. Iβm a very open kind of person, I will share my art journal. It also excited me when I see other people start doing their art journal because then Iβd get to read it. It was so inspiring, I just loved it!
So when I found out about blogs, I was like βOh my god, this is like the same thing, except instead of me sending my art journal around the dorm and having to find that when I want to use it again, I can post shit online and people can read it and itβs just like my diary. So I thought it was the greatest invention that ever happened and very rapidly fell in love. Itβs nearly 20 years later and itβs still one of my favourite hobbies and itβs kind of what Iβve build my business on in a lot of ways.
16:05 Jessica - I love that and I can see where your style with your websites come from based on that. You have a very artistic and beautiful website with all your doodling and everything on there. I love it, itβs just really unique and now I understand why the art journal side of things is there, and even with your planners, it all ties in so beautifully.
16:25 Leonie - Yeah, itβs gotta feel handmade. I donβt want it to feel too polished. Itβs still got to have that essence of someone with some glue and some scissors and some paint just whacking some shit together because itβs fun!
Illustrations and creating a stand-out website (16:42)
16:42 Jessica - I love that about your courses as well. You have a lot of illustrations and things like that throughout, and its fun to follow along. It's not your usual slides that most people have, it's just really beautiful to look at and colourful and bright and happy!
17:00 Leonie - Thank you. Sometimes Iβm like βThis was an idiot idea to hand illustrate and hand draw 130 slides for a courseβ, but then Iβm also like βBut itβs also very fun!β. Itβs a lot more work for me, but itβs also a lot more fun so I donβt care. I like the handmade part of it and that it looks kinda wonky and unique and that youβre not going to get other courses that look the same.
17:26 Jessica - Or other websites that look the same as well. You're going to stand out from everyone else because it's so beautiful and unique.
17:33 Leonie - Oh bless. Thank you. And this is the thing, I sometimes feel like other websites all start looking the same at a certain point and I didnβt want it to look like the #GirlBoss website with the gold glitter and the carefully styled white desk with minimalist objects. I am very maximalist, I have shit everywhere, I like a lot of colour. I just donβt like monochrome stuff, so I would like more colour, more things, more out there!
18:08 Jessica - Thatβs awesome! I love it! I think more of us need to stand out with our websites as well. Our website should reflect us, and sometimes if you donβt have beautiful branding and photos and everything that is yours, it is easy to blend in when youβre using stock photos and things like that. Everything becomes a bit the same. I know I have stock photos on my website, so Iβm guilty of that too.
18:34 Leonie - But we all do, like how can you incorporate more of your universe into it. Itβs beautiful like it's based, you know
Using your website to grow your business (18:45)
18:45 Jessica - That's what people connect with when it's really you on the other end. Your website's a big part of how you market your business, so I'd love to hear a bit more about how you use your website for that side of things and how it's helped you grow your business over time?
18:59 Leonie - Sure. So for me, a lot of people now just think if I have an Instagram profile or a Facebook profile or whatever, that itβs whatβs going to build my business and thatβs where Iβll set up my home on the internet. And thatβs a fucking terrible place to set up your online business. If you are going to run a business online, you need a damn website and you need one yesterday. And even when you're starting out like you don't necessarily need to do like the full design. Sure youβll probably go through the redesign processes later with a design professional, but even if you just start off with Squarespace or whatever, something to begin with, and then you can build out from there. You need to have something where people can find your contact details, find out who you are, what you sell, and then you can start building that know, like and trust factor with people and you might include a blog on that. Blogs are really useful because they become like a central depository for everything you create, so even if you're using social media marketing, making sure that you put that content onto your website as well so that you can attract the search engine traffic and that you also have a place that's yours to keep because social media companies will die. Weβve all seen so many go the way of the dodo now. You need to have that place that is yours and that you can get people on your mailing list, take them through that customer journey and get them buying your shit.
20:38 Jessica - Yeah, I agree and I've known so many people who have had their Facebook and Instagram hacked and I've only ever heard of one person that has been successful getting their account back and if you only have your followers on Instagram or on Facebook and you lose your account, there goes your business. Youβre basically starting from scratch. We put so much time and effort into that content for Facebook and Instagram, yet it disappears in a couple of hours when the algorithms stop showing it, whereas if itβs on your website, I have a blog post I wrote two years ago now and I still got the majority of my traffic from that. It has a much longer lifespan on your website. Iβm of the opposite opinion to every social media person I know β I think start with your content on your website and if you want to use social media, repurpose it out from there but have your pillar piece on your website.
21:30 Leonie - Absolutely, absolutely agree. Like it's not just when you get accounts hacked, but they can also just change that algorithm, or you can get locked out of your account, or they can decide that you've posted too much, or whatever the heck, like I have known people's businesses who've just blown up overnight, because they've been locked out of their access to social media. It's not your place. You don't own it. They donβt give a fuck about you. Social media companies donβt give a fuck about you. They donβt give a shit about how it blows up peopleβs businesses
22:05 Jessica - They just want the money at the end of the day.
22:08 Leonie - Youβre right. And you are one of 7 billion, you know, nobody cares. So you need to build your castle on land that you own and that is your website.
22:17 Jessica - Yeah, I love that. It's definitely something. I've got sucked into the social media world over the last few years and I have to say, I'm feeling burnt out from it because it's like you have to constantly be showing up to be noticed at all. Itβs burnout central, I have to say.
Doubling down on what gets you sales (22:37)
22:37 Leonie - I think you need to be very clear about where your actual sales are coming from. Are you actually getting clients from here? Or are you getting them from one blog post that you wrote two years ago?
22:47 Jessica - Yeah. For me, it's one blog post for two years ago or one particular membership I'm in that has a Facebook component and that's all referrals through that. If I know they're my two sources, so why am I bothering showing up when I hate the Facebook groups and everything like that? When you know where it's coming from, you can double down on that.
23:07 Leonie - I've got a friend who, after I looked at the statistics of where my sales are coming through and decide to shut down social media because it just isn't worth my time and money, she had a look and discovered that for a big part of her business, all of her sales came from search engine optimisation, it was just people googling a specific topic about her industry, and they would all hire her from there. Not one of them came from her social media and yet she would spend maybe six hours a day on social media. This is bullshit, it is so stupid!
23:43 Jessica - It's crazy when you realize that, isn't it? My traffic from social media is so low compared to from Google as well, so your website can really work when you put the effort in. And if you spend even a fraction of that time from social media (Facebook and Instagram) on content for your website, it's amazing the difference that would make!
24:09 Leonie - An enormous amount of difference and just to continue to remind yourself there's thousands of ways to market your business. Social media is one of them, all of them are optional, and there are ways that are more powerful and potent than social media, I just think social media is just such an enormous scam on our time in a lot of ways.
Quitting social media and marketing without social media (24:25)
24:25 Jessica - I know what you mean! And you quit social media around seven or eight months ago now. Would that be right?
24:34 Leonie - Yeah, it was February, I think. My business continuing to grow beautifully. I feel so much more sane in my brain, like my brain is healing without it. I just I don't see myself going back honestly. Why would I? It feels like there's no net gain out of going back but all of the benefit from staying off.
25:00 Jessica - I love that. It makes a lot of sense to me. After you quit, you created the Marketing without Social Media workshop and I frickin love going through that. Iβve being going through it lately and itβs amazing the amount of time and effort youβve put into researching it. You have so many awesome resources in there and the tips around moving away makes it feel so much more doable and possible. Iβm hearing a lot from people that I speak to that weβre all feeling burnt out from Facebook and Instagram. Itβs like a hamster wheel of trying to get stuff out there and engaging and itβs amazing youβve created this resource for people.
25:42 Leonie - Cheers! It was just one of those ones where I just asked people what they wanted to know and the response was βWe all want to know THAT!β because I think there is this general consensus that people are realising βActually, I think this is costing more than itβs actually giving meβ, so redefining your relationships, even if you DO decide to stay on social media, I give a lot of tips on how to use it in a way that takes MUCH less time and earns you MUCH more money because you need to be strategic about it. You need to really analyse what the core parts that I need to do and what am I going to do to stop myself from getting roped into endless loop, because thatβs the shithole part.
26:28 Jessica - Definitely, and I think thatβs the part that has a big impact on your mental health, too.
26:33 Leonie - Yes, it is. Even if you just start by deleting the apps off your phone. And you can go into your phone and change the websites that you donβt want to give yourself access to or you can get apps that do that. It means that you just canβt do that infinite scroll anymore, and if you do decide to use it, sure, go use it on a browser but set a timer so youβre like βOk, Iβve got 5 minutes. I want to do this, this and this in this timeβ and then get off and go enjoy your life and build your business in other ways.
27:12 Jessica - I love that. It's so true, though, the infinite scroll. I call it the scroll hole, because it's like a black hole. You go in there to do one thing, and chances are youβll forget what you went on there to do if youβre not intentional about it, then 20 minutes after you finish, youβll be like βOh crap, I didnβt do itβ and have to go back in. Itβs horrible!
27:30 Leonie - And itβs not the fault of your brain, they have intentionally designed it that way to create that atmosphere. They hire people who do the same in poker machine halls and stuff like that, so you lose all sense of time and just keep on looking for the lights, basically becoming hypnotised. They absolutely hire people to work out brain hacks to ensure you get sucked in, so itβs not worth your time and itβs not worth your life.
28:07 Jessica - Yeah, I totally agree. I am conscious of time, and I just wanted to throw out one last question if you're okay with that?
28:15 Leonie - Yeah, let's do it!
Tips for blogging (28:16)
28:16 Jessica - I wanted to know if you had any tips around using your website and your blog as a marketing tool, like getting started with it or creating a successful blog?
25:26 Leonie - Think about your ideal clients and what questions they usually have, or what issues they usually come up against, and also whatβs the process of working with you like, because usually even though you know they answer, people have a lot of questions. For example, with website design, they will have a lot of questions about what does website design look like? How long does it take? What tools do you use to approve things? All the behind-the-scenes stuff that seems so basic to you, but itβs completely novel and new information. You might want to share some handy tips on how to choose a graphic designer, what you should be looking for and what are the pros and what are the cons, what are the red flags, and you can have really useful templates and resources. What youβre doing it making it so easy for people to make that decision about hiring a graphic designer and what that process is going to look like. And of course, theyβre going to build that know, like and trust factor with you along the way and be like βI think weβre going to go with Jess, thank youβ
29:37 Jessica - Yeah, I love that. And I agree, if youβre getting asked that question from one or two people, there are other people that are going to be going to Google and typing it in, so I find I constantly remind people that if youβre getting that question, people are typing it into Google so itβs highly searchable. Write that content and start getting traffic from Google for it to make the most of it.
29:57 Leonie - It's awesome. This is the thing with all this chat about social media and stuff, people donβt realise search engine optimisation doesnβt work on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Theyβre all hidden platforms. The amount of people that are using Google to search for specific things to fix a specific problem and they want to give you money for it, get it on fucking Google!
30:23 Jessica - Yeah, totally. And it's still like 60 or 70% of interactions with businesses start from a Google search. It's still on crazy high amounts, so when you think about that, itβs very minimal from Facebook and Instagram. Weβre generally not going to Facebook looking for something like that. Weβre going to Google and asking the questions we have.
30:47 Leonie - Absolutely. I know when Iβve gone to look up a business, Iβve never gone to Facebook first, I always go to Google first, and Iβm always going to look for people who have websites over social media presences because websites are professional, social media is not.
31:00 Jessica - Yep, and anyone can start on social media, but if youβre putting in the effort to create a kick ass website, you instantly look a cut above the rest because you have that presence there to support what you are doing. It looks so much more professional and itβs easier for people to find the info they need. Like trying searching Instagram for information about someoneβs packages and youβll be there for days!
31:26 Leonie - True, and then youβre looking through their Linktree and my God, your website needs to be that repository to answer all the questions that people have, you know.
31:39 Jessica - Yep, I agree. It makes a huge difference.
31:41 Leonie - It does, enormous! And it seems unsexy to talk about website design compared to social media marketing, but it can get us much more results than social media. Social media is such a friggin scam!
31:59 Jessica - Yes, I know what you mean! Well thank you so much, that was really awesome! Iβd love for you to share where everyone can go check you out online, especially since youβre not on Facebook and Instagram.
32:13 Leonie - My website is the place to be, www.leoniedawson.com. I have a free shit page with all the free shit under the sunβ¦ Colouring in pages to resources to help you grow your business. And then I also have newsletters as well so you can hear from me once a week or whatever with new free shit that Iβve brought out for you.
32:35 Jessica - I love your emails. I have to say that the roundup ones you do are awesome! One of the freebies I love on your website is the one about different ways you can market your business as well. I refer heaps of people there because itβs so helpful. It doesnβt just need to be Facebook or Instagram, thereβs hundreds of ways you can do it!
32:55 Leonie - It's just so fun. There's so many ways and they can be potent and powerful and enjoyable and you don't have to hate your life. You don't have to hate your business.
33:07 Jessica - Yes! That's such an awesome way to finish up.
33:12 Leonie - Thank you so much, Jessica. You're a champion.
33:13 Jessica - Thank you so much for taking the time to come on here today. I really enjoyed chatting with you.
33:17 Leonie - Oh, I'm so grateful. many blessings to you.
