Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon, ex-corporate person and mother turned successful artist entrepreneur. It wasn't that long ago though that I lacked the confidence, vision, and support network to focus on growing my dream business. Fast forward past many life curve balls, waves of self-doubt, and so many lessons learned. And you'll see Ignite my thriving online coloured pencil artist community, a community that changes members' lives for the better,
and gives me freedom to live abundantly whilst doing what I love and spending quality time with my beloved family and dogs, all whilst creating my best artwork with coloured pencils and mentoring others to do the same. But this life wasn't always how it was for me. It used to only exist in my imagination. I've created the, It's A Bonny Old Life podcast to help increase people's confidence,
share mine and my community's experience, and hope through fascinating personal stories, champion the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community, and create another channel through which I can support others to realize their dreams. If you're a passionate coloured pencil artist or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work and a joyful life you love, you are in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking.
One of the best things about being a podcast host is the people that I meet, and usually people who I've met very briefly on social media or had some kind of an interaction with this week. I actually, I'm speaking to a fabulous woman. I saw she was having a conversation in a Facebook group I was in about podcasts,
and she sounded like someone I'd love to speak to. So, so I just asked her, will it be on mine? And she said, yes. Thank goodness. Kate is my kind of girl, originally from the uk but now in Australia, she describes herself as a bit scruffy and that absolutely sold it for me. We talk digital marketing, working in Australia, our Dogs and SEO. Enjoy.
Hello? Oh, you're on muted. Oh, you're on mute. Oh, what professional I am. Hello, Kate. How lovely to meet you. You too. What a nice little environment you have there. I still got your little, your dog and your dog pictures and God, all my dogs, honestly, and I'm trying to shush them and I'm like,
I'm doing a podcast. Will he play his big one? No. Do they not understand? Do not. My dog is somewhere, so he may launch himself through my door. And also, I'm gonna be really only honest, Bonnie, I'm in my pajamas. Oh. And they're dog pajamas, so, you know. Oh, do you know,
do you know, I, I have been ever since I sort of, you, you sort of popped up, I think you were talking to somebody else and there was, I was one some of your, one of your random people I know. And I was like, oh, I, I'd really like you to be on my podcast, and then I've got all of your stuff through and I'm like,
oh my God, this woman sounds amazing. I'm not the bit where you've got in your bio, I'm a little bit scruffy. I was like, she is my kind of woman. Yes. And I think tonight is a testament to that. I did just brush my hair before we started talking, but my fringe is all over the shop. Oh,
you, you've got fringe as well. They're challenging sometimes fringes, Aren't they? Well, mine kind of goes, it's fine, but then if I start stuff, I get a bit hot and sweaty and then it goes over to one side or it comes over to the front and then I look completely bald on the side. Excellent. Well, you know,
I, I dunno what's going on with mine. I might even put it back. You use, you're using the video? Yeah. Oh, oh, no, no. Not using the video, but we're, oh God, I'll use this. Oh, no, no, No. But like, it's not going on YouTube or anything? No,
No, no, no. Oh, thank God. No, no, you can, you don't have to put your hair up. Okay, good. I can be a scruffy cow. Fantastic. So where are you, Bonnie? That sounds like a northern accent. Yeah, so I am in North Yorkshire. Oh, lovely. I went to uni at Le in Leeds.
Oh. So I'm about 40 minutes away from Leeds. Oh, nice, nice. My mom and dad are Jordy's and I grew up in Cheshire. Oh Yeah. But you're in Australia now? I am. I I bet you were hoping for an Aussie. I'm so sorry. Well, as you know, when I, when, so I was,
I was reading your bio and I'm thinking, you sure she's from the uk? Just by reading your I know, right? And your, this is Where we speak, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And then I've just watched a couple of, I've sat in the garden with a cup of tea with a cat, and I was just going through some of your videos and I'm like,
No, doesn't sound Australian proper English. I came Out here when I was about 24 as a backpacker, and then I went back again for a bit and then I came back out. So I came back, I came here in 1999, and then I came here for good in 2005 and had my son. But you don't lose the accent, really?
And the more I talk to you, the more northern I'm gonna get by the end. You're Gonna be like really broad. Really incomprehensible. E he laughed. E god dear. Oh, well it's so, so, so nice. And thank you so much for coming on because Oh, I'm obviously, what, what I really have taken from, from the very,
very tiny bit of research I've done is that you are completely normal. Yeah. You know, you, you're somebody, no, but you know, you're somebody that you can kind of look at and go, oh gosh, well if she's done all of these amazing things Yes. Then, then there's a possibility for me to be able to do that as well.
Yes. Coming On and being like this big glamor person, you know? Oh, I mean, I Clearly, Bonnie, I am a glamor person, clearly, but I try and hide it to make people feel better. You know? I must, I must just describe your pajama top. Yeah. It's got a, it's got a Corgi bottom.
Yes. It's gorgeous. Have you got a, is your dog a Corgi? No, he's a po. He's a kind of Pomeranian cross, breeded bear lump dog. But this is the closest you can get, so Oh, brilliant. Bless him. He fluffy. He's fluffy. He's fluffy. He is called Pommel moose. And he's very old now.
I have to transport him around in an old pram cuz his legs don't work anymore. But yeah, he's, he's, he's the love of my life, if I'm perfectly honest. Oh, well, I mean I've, I've got, I've got four four dogs. Oh, Four Cat. Yeah. Yeah. They're all in here're. All just kinda laid out.
Well, there's like a rug I can't distinguish between rug and dog. Yes. Well, there's a brat. You Moved the rug is the rug is the dog or one of the dogs. Yeah. I've had animals all my life. Yeah. Always been surrounded with animals and it's, I couldn't do without my animals. No, I know. I'm,
I'm getting to that point where pom Paul's getting quite old and I'm like, Ooh. But yeah, I, I need, I need my creatures. Yeah. Creatures are better than humans most of the time, aren't they? Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I, I do get a bit, but one of, one of my,
my middle dogs, Nellie, she's three, she keeps on going in the cat litter, even dry cat litter doesn't have, doesn't even have to have little cat snacks in them. No. It's just any kind and she just eats it and it's just, it's just Oh, I know. Well, yes. Oh dear. So you are, I'm gonna read this out now.
Okay. Well, An award-winning business mentor and digital marketing coach. I am, yes. That makes me sound dead good, doesn't it? But how did you get into that? Cause you were saying that you, you came, you came to Australia as a backpacker in 1999, which I, I want to talk to you about. Cause my son's off.
He was born in 1999 and he's off to Australia in September for a, for a year. But I'm, I'm thinking he might not come back. I'll give, I'll give you some tips on that, some advance. Yeah. So in the uk I, I worked a little bit for digital marketing agencies. I built the Marks and Spencer's e-commerce site back in the day.
That's my little claim to fame. Not on my own, well, not really, I say that, but like, there were loads of us that worked on it. And so when I came out to Australia, I, I looked, I sort of came across as quite qualified, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Because Australia was a little bit behind the times in terms of digital marketing back then.
So I got a job, job, a jog. I jogged into Ogilvy and got a job there. And then over the next sort of 10 or so years, worked in various agencies. But then in about 2009 I got up the duff, which was a delight cuz I didn't think I was gonna be able to, and that's when I decided to go out on my own.
So I was five months pregnant when I started my own thing. And I started off as a copywriter and then I moved into sort of seo, search engine optimization. And then I moved into passive income. I'm doing air Fingers about six years after that. So about 2016, I, I, I started making courses and resources and memberships and the rest is history really.
It's all just grown from there. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. So with your, with your son then, you were saying that you didn't think you could, was that something that you sort of battled with for quite a long time or, Yeah, I mean we'd, you know, you know, it wasn't, it didn't happen easily and we were thinking about I V F but my partner wasn't mad keen cause he wasn't mad keen on kids in general.
And we thought we'd be one of those couples that had a white sofa and, you know, had holidays and stuff. And deep down I was, you know, sort of sobbing about it. So when it happened, we got my dog Pommel Moose, who I believe is a fertility dog because several other couples who have looked after him have become with child.
So we got him and, and then three months later I got pregnant. And, you know, I I, you know, that's kind of the subject of the book really is that, you know, I, no judgment, but I really felt like it was a sign from the Gods that if I was gonna have this child, I actually wanted to be able to look after them.
And unfortunately, childcare and working in advertising do not go well together. It's a very demanding cortisol, high stress job. And so, you know, I didn't have any choice. I had, I wasn't a full-time employee. I had no maternity leave or anything and no savings and was living in Australia with no family or anything. So I had to kind of get something happening pretty damn quick.
It's amazing what you can do when the, you know, the walls are at your back sort of thing. So, yeah. Yeah. It was an interesting first year I put it that way. And this is your six figures in school hours? Yes. Yes. The, the viewers, the, the listeners, the listeners can't see, but I've got a massive big picture of myself holding my book behind me.
Which, and then can you see what's over here by the way, Bonnie? Just a back how weirdo pencil? No, it's a, there's a pencil but there's also a giant cardboard cutout of Benedict's Cumberbatch. Oh, I can't see that. I can now. And you may ask why. And there was no good answer To that question. Do you love him?
I don't really, I got him for a conference cause he was the only literary figure I could find. He dressed as Sherlock Holmes. And yes, we had a fancy dress party for literary figures. And then I thought at the end of the conference, someone's gonna take him home, but no one did. So I took him home. Amazing. I know.
Yeah. I love, I love come, I I love Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumber Flash. Got my, my daughter has hysters every time she shows me the clip where he's, I think he's doing something about Pen Penguin being an otter and he calls them pengu wings. And he, so that's quite funny. It's Also a really good one when people, people compare his face to the face of an otter that's really worth watching as well.
Oh, I Think it was on Graham Graham Norton or something like that. Check it out to take that. How funny. So, so you, you had your baby and then you, you were just right, I need to, I need to get some money. Yeah. And so I started, I'd worked in advertising, which sounds like wow,
well then you sorted, but not really, because you know what it's like running your own business. You have to be a marketer, an accountant, a salesperson, a customer service rep, the product maker, everything. And so, while I knew a little bit about writing and a bit about, you know, websites, I didn't really know how to market myself.
So yeah, I started off doing everything. I, I was designing people's logos in PowerPoint, which is embarrassing. Oh, I built a few websites for people. Yeah. So I focused mainly on copywriting and kind of built that up. And then I niched back then into search engine optimization, which was relatively new thing back then. And there weren't many people doing it and there weren't very many women doing it.
It's a very male dominated space. So that really got me a lot of kind of put through. And then from there I thought I, I've kind of maxed out how much I could earn as a copywriter and I thought it'd be nice to be able to earn a bit more and work a bit less. And so that's why I started exploring the whole passive income thing,
you know, and that's, that's really what I do now. Now I don't have any clients, I haven't any copyright clients for many years, but I have a lot of customers. Right. Yeah, right. So you are just creating the digital product or whatever and then people are just buying it, which is amazing cuz that's like one to many,
isn't it? Yeah, I Was just about to say. Yeah. So I wanted to move from one-to-one to one to many because you know, I was like, oh clients, they're so annoying. But now I just have lots of customers and similar, different challenges, you know. But yeah, it was that idea of you tend to find, you're saying the same things to the same people and then why not just make one thing and sell it to multiple people?
But it has its own challenges as you know, because you've gotta get so many more people to make the same amount of money. So I don't necessarily think it's better. Yes, there's potential to make a lot more money, but with that comes a lot of other stuff, you know, having to put yourself out there and, and do the things you know,
that some people aren't entirely comfortable with. I mean, you know, this Bonny, with with with your stuff, you know, you have to do the Instagram and be on the Google and do the things and sometimes it's like, oh gosh, I wish I just had two customer, two clients. It would be a lot easier, you know? Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Do you know, and I think an awful lot of people feel very uncomfortable, particularly in the last sort of like, kind of year I think. I mean it's always been there, but there's so many flipping scams and people asking for weird stuff. And for, for somebody who's a little bit more well seasoned on social media, you kind of spot the stuff and you're just like,
oh, it's another one and just pass it on and delete it and block it and whatever. But for people who are new, it's really offputting and it is quite worrying. My sort of members tend to be a little bit old, my sort of age and a little bit older. I have younger people as well, but they tend to be a little bit older and get really,
really upset and worried by all of this stuff. Oh gosh. Oh, I know. And it's all very well saying, oh, just delete it or just ignore it. But it goes deeper than that and people get really, really, really upset by it. Is it, it, I don't know whether you, It's crazy. I mean it's weird.
I got, I got an email the other day and I won't go into too much detail cause I don't want to be graphic, but it accu it said that they'd had me webcam and they'd seen that I'd been on a site that wasn't ideal. And they'd watched me watching this site. I'm sure you can read between the lines, Bonnie. And even though I'd not been on the site,
and I most definitely had not been doing the things they were accusing me of, there was a minute of me going, oh no, what, what? Cuz they were threatening to release pictures of me onto the, and I hadn't even done the thing, but it gave me anxiety and you know, so someone saying, we've got all your photos or we've accessed all your details.
If you are not savvy and you don't realize that they just send those out to as many people as possible and hope someone bites, then it is quite terrifying. You know, my, my mum started following a lot of Russian pop stars on Facebook and my dad was like, oh, Don, don't follow the Russians. You know, it's like Good grief,
you know, as if they're gonna see you through Facebook and whatever you, but it can be terrifying. And then the flip side of that is, if you do try and put yourself out there and sell your wares, whether it's your art or whatever you're selling that some people are just gonna be horrible to you online. They're gonna make nasty comments, they're gonna troll you.
And that can be really challenging as well, can't it? It can, it really, really can. You know, and, and even if you are quite resilient, I'm quite a resilient person and luckily I also have regular coaching sessions. Yes. So I can bring up stuff that, you know, I find like a little bit upsetting or, you know,
this has been a challenge or that's been a challenge. And even then, you know, I've, I'm putting, I've got all of the stuff around me, I'm building the boundaries. Even then when you get some somebody saying something, it just hits sometimes It does, it doesn't. I mean it really, I must submit. It doesn't for me anymore.
I remember about four years ago sent someone sent me an email saying, you are too ugly to send me emails. Which I just thought was just so brilliantly and pointlessly cruel. But these days all I do is screen grab the nasty comments and then use them for content on social media. It saves me having come up to the post. But like you,
I've got someone I can talk to. My partner is very level-headed and very good. And I can go, I'm really worrying about this and I've been worrying about it for days and he will just put me. Right. Yeah. And then the other fear, I think, so you've got scams trolls and then the other one is getting cancelled. It feels these days that it's so easy to say the wrong thing to demonstrate your privilege to try and talk about diversity but get it wrong.
And that can put people off trying to say anything, you know? Yeah. And I think that's another fear that people have about social media. I think it's kind of, I think we're kind of eeking out at the moment a little bit now. You know, I don't listen to the news. I purposefully don't listen to the news. Me either.
I get, I get all my news stories off TikTok, so I Get them off memes. I try and decipher the world of politics through memes. It's very Confusing. But you're absolutely right. You know, and I don't bring, I'm not particularly political anyway, I purposefully don't bring any of my thoughts around that sort of stuff in social media. And I try to,
and whether this is right or not, and actually it's probably not right. I try just to sort of slot in, in that sort of middle area. Yeah. So I'm very non Yeah, no, I know what you mean. You're kinda innocuous. You're not offensive. You know, and the thing is, it is challenging because what I found is that I tried to do that for a little bit and then people were calling me out and saying,
Hey, you know, what is your opinion of Black Lives Matter? This is not a political issue. This is a human rights issue. What do you think of that? What do you think of that? And I think as well in this, in Australia, we're going through an economic crisis and you know, people aren't buying as much as they used to,
but they are still buying. And who are they buying from? They're buying from people who they feel have values that are similar to their own. You know, you don't wanna buy from someone and then find out they're a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you know? Right. Yeah. Or maybe that's not gonna make you buy something if you're a massive Ku Klux Klan person.
I'm being facetious. But I've actually found that by sharing a little bit more of my views, not, not, not didly, not relentlessly, but saying, Hey, you know, like for example, I'm a vegetarian, I'm an animal. I, I, I can't even say it. I'm an animal of a, I'm scruffy, I'm this,
I, you know, I support Black Lives Matter, whatever it might be. So it's actually, it is divisive and you will lose some followers. But did you really want those followers anyway? You know? Yeah. Good marketing is as much as about people disliking you as it is about liking you. And unfortunately it has become a lot more personal than some of us are comfortable with.
It's a challenge. Mm. It, I mean, it really has. It really has. But, but the thing is, if you put yourself out there, you're, you're putting yourself out there to get followers. Yeah. You can't sadly just choose the lovely people. You can't. Such a good point. And people Said that to Me. You can't have all the popularity and followers and all the good days without occasionally having a bad day.
And, you know, I always like that Raymond, I can't remember his second name. We are Kipling poem and it's like handle both success and failure. Both the same. That's terrible. Paraphrasing. So I try not to get too lifted up by the positive stuff because if I did then I'm gonna really be brought to, to ground by the negative stuff.
I just try and keep it happy. Medium. I put my stuff out on social media by email. That's my job done. I interact where I feel I can. But other than that, what people think of me is none on my business. And I try to maintain that. Yeah. Some days better than others. Yeah. I mean I I I do share the authentic me.
Yeah. On social media, you know, I shared a picture of me having my hair done a couple of weeks ago and I was in foils and I literally looked like something off Doctor who, you know, one of those, remember what they're called now, the potato head paper. Oh yeah. I remember the, so, so had people, we always look at our worst at the hairdressers.
What is it? I always have an existential crisis at the hairdressers. I always look like, I always put makeup on before I go to the hairdressers. Makes no difference. I always put makeup on. I sit there and I think, oh God, what do I look? I know I just look like a potato with makeup on. I'm the same.
It's the same thing. Oh dear. I've actually found a really fabulous hairdresser. I love him. He's Australian actually. He's called Joseph. Joseph Ferrari. And he is the most wonderful man. And I've always, I've always struggled with my hair. I've, I've had long hair before and I've never known what to do with it. And it's quite thin and it's just gone or it's gone like really awful.
And I had it cut a couple of years ago and, and he's created me this style where it literally, cause I swim as well, so I literally, when it's wet, it literally just dries. Exactly. It just looks good. Bonny, you Are so my people, she's so this woman is, so my people we've only just met and we've got the same accent.
She's wearing similar glasses. We've both got sort of limp hair. We both swim, we're both obsessed with dogs. I think we should get married, Bonny. Yes. Let's do that. So you swim? I do. I try to, I'm, I'm really, one of the things that I'm striving for now I'm a bit older, is to,
you know, my son is now 14, so this whole six figures in school hours thing, school hours don't mean quite as much as they used to. Cuz I'm not dropping off and picking up. He's coming home on his own. So I have all this time that I didn't have and I'm determined not to give it all to my business. So I do try and go swimming.
I do try and go to the gym, have long walks just to try and get a bit of balance. Cuz I've had periods of my business where I've gone really hard, almost to the point of burnout. And I just don't wanna do that again. You know, it's just not good for me. Yeah. So the, your going back to your book then,
cause I've digressed in all sorts of different places. I love it. Brilliant. Going back to your book, six figures in, in School Hours, what, what did you do to start? Cause I know you've been in advertising and oh you, you said that you started doing your copywriting and everything. Yeah. But you know, what was it that was that sort of like that clincher,
that thing that was like, oh my goodness, this is gonna work. I think it didn't really hit me until about three years in. I think, you know, the first, I mean there's a story I say in the book that, you know, I'm, I remember the first year I was sat in a cafe having a coffee and my son just sort of screaming.
And you know, someone came over to me and I thought, oh, they're gonna tell me off room screaming. And they just bent over me and said, you know what? The first year is just, and they said a, a rude word, crap I'll say. So you don't get canceled. And the relief of someone saying to me, that was amazing.
So the first year I was just blind panic, make money where I could, no structure, no processes, no marketing. You know, Instagram didn't even exist. So I don't think Facebook had just started. Second year I started to kinda get my processes in place a little bit, get my website done, start to do a bit of social media.
Third year I started to get repeat clients, recurring clients. And that felt like, hmm, this is a thing and my money got better. And I think it was by year three I felt like I can do this. I will not have to go back and work for the man. And that was a real shift for me. But really things didn't take off in a big way until,
as I said about 2015, 16. And that's when my son went to school. And it's not that I had any more time, I think just the mental load lifted substantially. You're not worried about nappies and white and bottoms and you know, they're at school for a certain period. They can put their own clothes on, they can get themselves a snack.
It just lifted a bit. And that allowed me some and you know, I was sleeping, remember sleep, you know, and I think that just allowed me to sort of take a step back from my business and go, Hmm, maybe there's a better way of doing this. And that's when I moved from the clients to the courses. Mm. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and you, do you create new courses all of the time? Or have you just got some sort of ones that work really well and you just kind of just remarket? It's a funny one. I mean like you, I'm a creative person. I'm a frustrated creative person. I should show you my art, you'd laugh. So I love the process of making the thing.
I don't quite as much love the process of selling the thing and you know, supporting the thing. I've got one big course, which is an SEO course, which I'm actually launching today. And it's the 25th launch of that, which is a lot. So I've had nearly 1400 people through that course and it's changed. I've updated and whatever. But it's essentially the same course cuz I have a,
I had a period where I just started making new things. It was getting more and more diverse and confusing to be honest. You know, I could just because you could make a course on how to make muffins doesn't mean I should because it, people come to me and go, I thought you were the SEO person. What, what's with the muffins?
You know? Yeah. So I'm actually trying now to narrow down my offering. I've got three main things. I've got school for copywriters with courses, resources, templates, and a membership and a conference. I've got the SEO stuff and then I've got my own membership on the Kate Toon brand, which is just generalized digital marketing advice. So I've got three babies kind of,
and they get attention at different times. Like I'm all about recipe at the moment, but in a week's time I'll move my eye back to Kate Toon and then back. It's, it's a lot. But that keeps me interested. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. The SEO one because just yesterday, in fact, it's one of the things that I've put in my,
we, I've got my weekly team meeting this morning and one of the things is SEO. Yeah. We've kind of touched on it a little bit, but not really. I haven't had anybody go through my website or look at, you know, you've gotta bring SEO into everything now, haven't you? You Do really Into everything, look at those keywords.
So I might just have a look at that. Yeah. But I've got some free courses. I've got one called SEO Nibbles, not Nipples Nibbles. And that's a free introductory course. And I think, you know, my goal with SEO is to make it palatable to normal humans. Yeah. And so I, you know, I work very hard to explain it,
you know, people like, what is seo? And I say, well it's the art of making Google fall in love with your website. Which I think is a much better way of describing it than, well, it's integrating your PHP with your blah blah blah. You know, it's like, oh Yes, no, no, no. And is it,
SEO is a popularity contest at the end of the day and it's just about making Google like you more than everybody else, you know? Yeah. And is it, is it as important as people, I mean obviously you know, it's important for you cuz you teach it. Is it really important and, and if you have your website optimized, will it work?
Well, I think it depends. You know, it's, it's, I think at the end of the day, it depends how people are searching for you. So the first goal with SEO is always to be found for your name. And you've got quite a, a unique name and quite a unique product. So if someone's seen your social or heard you,
they're gonna Google Bonny Snowdon. And I'm pretty certain I haven't done it, but you'll probably rank pretty well. So that's branded seo, which is easier to achieve cuz there's not that many Bonny Snowdons at the end of the day, the harder thing is, you know, Kate Toon SEO course quite easy for me to rank, but someone typing in, how do I learn seo?
Well then suddenly I'm thrown into a bigger gladiatorial ring with lots of other SEO courses. And that's when it gets harder in terms of how important it is. They say online that something like 70% of all transactions, that's e-commerce business, whatever, start with a Google search. So what that means is when someone's ready to buy something, they don't sit on Instagram hoping a picture of an art class comes up,
you know, oh, I just, and then go, oh, I buy it. I mean, there is impulse purchase, but if you want something, what do you do? You go to Google, you type something, and if you don't get the result you want straight away, you add more and more words, you qualify and qualify until you find what you want.
So those are the people with their credit cards in their hands. And that's the difference between social media and SEO is that it's, they, the stat that I have is SEO is 10 times more powerful than social media when it comes to making sales. So yes, you may get likes and engagement and stuff on, in, on Instagram, but is it translating into money in your pocket?
And that's sometimes where there's a bit of a gap. People be, people can be quite busy fools on social media, they're putting the stuff out, but they're not really measuring whether it's working or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See I run, I, we do run a lot of ads on Facebook and they do convert pretty well. And I have a creative company,
there's a creative company I use, they're called Scaling David's who do, I wouldn't even attempt to get into Facebook ads. Oh no. Hideous. Oh, I mean, I do Facebook ads too, but the problem with Facebook ads is, yes, you pay your money, you get your click, but sometimes the amount you have to pay per click is very high.
Mm. It's getting more and more competitive and more, and I think Facebook ads are getting harder and harder to win on. I'm certainly finding that I'm having to spend more and more money. And I guess the thing with SEO is you don't have to pay to play. I mean, you do because you have to pay with time. You know, you have to learn how to do it and then you have to implement it so you pay with your time.
But the other thing with SEO is once you do it, it lasts the test of time. So, you know, with Facebook ads, you turn them off, that's the end of your clicks. Yeah. With SEO it lasts for years. I've got posts on my site that I wrote in 2009 that still rank number one in Google for terms and still deliver traffic and conversion.
So it's harder to learn, it's a slower curve, but once you've achieved it, it's quite easy to stay in that bobbing top area, you know? Yeah, Yeah. I, I need to, I need to look, definitely look into more of that. I know we've got, you know, we've kind of touched on it, but dabbled.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and actually it is really, really important, you know, and the Facebook ads, I think, I know people just run a Facebook ad, but there's so much more to it than just running a Facebook so much. You have to do all of the testing, you have to trust this, you have to test this,
you do Engagement ads, then upsell ads, and then sales a I'm doing ads now for the, for the SEO course. And you know, three or four weeks ago we started doing like just engagement ads where we just wanted people to comment and then we remarket to that list with a smaller course, then we remarket again. And the Facebook ads in interface changes every five minutes and it's expensive,
you know? Yeah. I mean, Oh gosh. Yeah. People talk about row as, you know, return on spend and you know, sometimes it can be great. I mean, I think mine's pretty much, you know, I, I, I spend, I spend a dollar and I'll make $2 or something like that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
So every dollar I put in, I make $2. Yeah. I wish every dollar I put in, I made $20. But that's not the way it works these days. It's getting harder and harder to compete. So it's challenging. I think with digital marketing in general, it is so noisy. There is so much going on. There's so many channels,
you know, you've got your wheels, you've got your TikTok, you've got your LinkedIn live. There's so many places you could be that sometimes it's like, it's so overwhelming that you just think I'm not gonna do anything. You know? Yeah. I can't, I can't win. And so generally I focus on the bottom of the funnel. Once I've got someone,
I work really, really hard to keep them and to sell that one person more things rather than trying to lure in new people. I try and keep the person I've got, yeah. Happy and fed and That, that works quite well. That leaky bucket analogy, isn't it? Yes. You know, you've got the bucket with the holes in and the more people you,
you know, you push in at the top, the more they kind of, you know, that's that salesy type stuff, isn't it? Yeah, No, totally. Yeah. You know, you're absolutely right. Nurturing, looking after, making sure that, you know, you're giving them the best, you know, the best possible service and everything and That's it.
Yeah. That's It. Great customer service, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And of course there's always gonna be people who, who don't fit, which is, that's it. Which is fine. Yeah. And that's why I think it's important. We talked at the beginning about being yourself, someone who comes on my SEO course, I want them to have seen all my stuff,
you know, and listen to my podcast. You know, some people say, I've been listening to your podcasts for three years. You know, at the end of that, you're either gonna love me or hate me. And if you hate me, great. Don't buy my course. Because otherwise you'll get in. You'll realize I am a bit scruffy.
I talk with the northern accent and I have think I've got a great sense of humour. I probably don't, but you're not gonna like me and then you're gonna wanna refund. So one of the main reasons that I do a lot of social media is so that people get used to who I am and they make a purchase decision way before they make a purchase decision.
Yeah. Cause you know what, it's like we're on social media and sometimes you're like, oh, I just don't like them. And someone says, why? And you're like, actually, I don't know. I can't put my finger on what it is. Maybe one of their nostrils is bigger than the other. And for some reason that gives me the icks.
It's so weird. Yeah. And I think the thing to remember as well, when you, when you think about that, it's that we all worry that social media is a popularity contest, but we can't be liked by everybody. We don't like everybody. So why would we expect everybody to like us? And that's really hard lesson. It's been very hard for me to learn because I'm very,
I'm very sensitive and I'm a people Pleaser. I of Course. So when I don't, when I don't please people, I do get very up upset by it. But you can't be in business without having people not like you. And that's a horrible lesson to learn. I Know. It's weird, isn't it? And, and you know, something,
something very minor will happen. And I'm not a big worrier, but something minor will happen and then I let it take over my whole month. Oh gosh, oh my God. Oh, should I have done this? Oh, should I have done that? And I had a session with, with Susie last week, my, my coach last week.
She is amazing that she had me write down, you need to be like a, a ninja warrior when it comes to should, you just need to be bashing off. You know? And just anything that that comes up that is, you know, upsetting or whatever, you just need to be able to go, it doesn't matter. It's not a,
I don't care, you know? Yeah. See, We do care's wastes so much time. We do. We waste so much. I mean, I think, you know, if you, if you are to blame, if you've done something wrong and you really want to examine, you know, okay, well actually I'll take pause. You know,
someone in the room is an idiot, someone in the room is wrong. Sometimes it is you and sometimes you need to take pause, but, you know, 95% of the time it probably isn't you. You know, sometimes you'll get like an angry customer emailing you and if you are able not to respond, you can really look at it and go,
I wonder what kind of day they had before they sent that email. I wonder what's going wrong in their life. And I'm just an easy target and I can rise to it and probably make the situation work. Or I can accept that they're just having a bad day and feel a bit sorry for them and, and have some empathy Yeah. And reply in a way that makes them feel heard.
And then you can move on. But it's hard sometimes to have that distance between me, myself, and I, you know? Yeah. It, it really is. And I think being able to reflect is a superpower. I mean, that is a superpower because there are so many people who do not, who don't see how they're coming across and they don't reflect.
And if they do reflect, it's always somebody else who's, who's in the wrong. Yeah. If something happens, I always look at it internally and go, is this me? Have I done this? Yeah. If I have, how can I put it? Right. And I've learned to not just shoot off an email straight away cuz that, you Know,
it's so hard, isn't it? Oh gosh. You know, and I have a tendency and it's, and I, it comes naturally and I hate it, but I have a tendency to be passive aggressive. Alright. I have a tendency to just be aggressive. I'm very sarcastic and I can be a bit snide. So I really had to work on that.
But I had a little post-it on my computer, it's fallen off. I dunno where it's gone. But it said, no one is a villain in their own story. And that to me just really stops and gives me pause when someone's done something. I mean, apart from the idiot who sent me an email saying, you're too ugly. Send me emails.
They're, they are a villain in their own story. Yeah. But you know, no one, even when people do things that really astound you and you're like, how can you possibly think that that's an okay thing to do? Somewhere in their world, they have justified it for one reason or another. You know, the, the person that cancels you at the last minute,
on the one side, that's not great. But on the other side there's all these memes saying, if you are not coping, sod everybody else. Focus on yourself. And so which one is it? Do we consider it? You know, it's hard, isn't it? And so you've just gotta take that step back. And I think the longer you are in business,
the user, it gets the person I am today after 15 years of doing this is not the person I was when I started. It's such a personal development course. Having your own business more so I think than having a job, I really do because of the job. You can always blame the boss, but when it's just you, you are the boss.
Yeah. And so you have to work it out between you and yourself. Yeah. You've got, you've got a small team that work with you, haven't you? I do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I, I didn't for a long time, but now I've got about 15 people, which sounds really lavish, but some of them do like an hour a week,
some of them do more. But yeah, I couldn't have got to the level that I have without a team, you know, especially, I've got one person, Leanne, who's like my right hand woman, and she sounds like you're Susie. She's not my coach. She's actually a kind of a business manager. But just having her to talk to about things,
she's super rational and calm and she's talked me down off many a cliff edge, you know? So it's not just the physical work I do, it's feeling like you're supported. That really, really helps. Yeah. How did it feel then when, when you suddenly sort of, I dunno what it was, whether you woke up one day and went,
I I just need somebody to help me. Was it a really difficult transition in getting some, cause obviously this was your, you'd had a baby and this was your baby, your, your business was your baby. And then kind of sharing that with somebody and letting somebody take over some of the bits. How was that Horrific? I don't think, I don't think I handled it well.
I found it very hard to trust someone now. And also with Leanne, she's like, she was a va, she's now more sort of an O B M or business manager, but she has other clients who are similar to me. And so I was a bit like, this is like a polyamorous relationship. I want you to be my person. You know what if I'm doing something and you are telling your other clients about it.
So it took me a long time to trust her and a long time to let go of tasks. And over the years I've tried different formulas where I take a step back and I'm kind of like the creative director in my business and someone else comes in and does the day today. But one thing you realize as a business owner is even if you find the absolute best people in the world,
they will never care about your business the way you do. And they'll probably never be as good at your business as you are. Because if you weren't dead good, you wouldn't get to the point where you could afford to hire someone. Yeah. So these days, you know, I, I don't have unrealistic exploitations that I can just turn up for an hour a day and waf a bow.
I still work pretty hard. I enjoy it. I don't work long, I don't work many hours, but when I'm working I'm very intense and you know, I go the extra mile and if I'm honest, I enjoy it. So That's all right. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And are they all remote all of your team? Or do they work Most Yeah,
they're all remote. I try, I did try. I've got, I'm sitting in my little cave, my little tomb cave, which is like a shed in my back garden. I did employ someone and have them here. But the problem was Bonny, they constantly wanted to talk to me. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'll talk to you first thing,
but I'm not talked to you again. I'm busy. Don't talk to me. All, you know, trying to have conversations about the day. And I'm like, what you doing? So I think I've realized that I, I do really enjoy working alone and being able to switch everybody off and switch them on again. A as I please. So,
yeah, I don't get lonely ever. I love, I love, I'm here with my dog and we have a good time, Isn't it? I, you know, I've been on my own, well, saying on my own. I've got my three children here, but it's six years ago at the end of July that my husband walked out on us and basically,
yeah. Just handed all responsibility of our children to me. Awesome. Literally, and actually it was awesome because it was, yeah, it's Actually quite freeing as well, isn't it? Well, I'm, I'm separated from my partner and, and it's a relief to be honest, but, you know. Yeah. Well I, I can remember it being a com a a complete relief as well as being so incredibly terrifying and sad at the same time,
Angelo as well. And sad for your kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. You know. Yeah. But I've never been happier. I have never been happier. I've been with somebody since I was 17. Yeah, gosh. Just a completely different person. Yeah. As 17 to now. And I do think as well, I mean,
I dunno how old you are, Bonny, but I'm, I'm 49 and I do just think that you do get to the point at this age where you give less Fs. You know, like you don't, you can't be bothered to put up with things that you would've put up with when you were younger. You get your priorities a bit more sorted.
So, you know, I, I'm making my sound myself sound mature. I'm not mature. I'm still idiotic most of the time. But yeah, we, you know, a lot of what we've talked about today is boundaries and Yeah. You know, handling things online and not worrying and all of that. And I just think that comes a lot with age to be honest and experience.
Definitely. Definitely. And I'll be 53 this year Yeah. In a couple of weeks. And to be honest, age doesn't really mean anything to me. I am, I'm exactly the same person. I think, well I feel like the same person I was when I was 17. Yeah. I'm just, I, I'm so happy with, with my life.
My, my children are amazing. I mean, they're not really children anymore. My youngest is 18 and my eldest is, yeah, They're adults now. Three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and they're all, they all work. And, and then my eldest is off to Australia in September. Yeah. So we Were, we're gonna talk about this.
Would you want some top tips? Yes. Where are they going? Are they doing like, packing around? So, so he's going to, they're going to Thailand first. Great. That's what I did. And then he's got his work visa and they head off to Melbourne. Great. And he hasn't got any plans further from that. Good on him.
Well, I did exactly the same. Went to Thailand. Very safe, friendly country in my opinion. And Australia's, you know, pretty chill place. As long as he doesn't go off into the outback in a, in a van on his own. He should be pretty good. And Melbourne's great. Sydney's probably a bit more fun and sunny Brisbane is gorgeous.
I mean, it, it's just gonna have the time. It's like, what a great country to pick, to travel in, you know, it's like England with sunshine really, you know, so there's a lot of similarities and a lot of, a lot of nice differences. There's a lot I miss about home. I was just in England a month ago and there's a lot I missed,
but I I I would never move back. I think it's a much more gentle lifestyle over here. Yeah. Well he's, you know, he, he is an amazing, they're all amazing. He's very down to earth. He's incredibly hardworking. He's got a f fabulous job now. He trained as a, an apprentice. He's a heating engineer. So he puts People I'll find work.
There's so much tradie work. Bonnie, after this podcast, I'm gonna send you a link to a couple of the best job groups in Australia or on Facebook. Oh. Cause that's where everyone posts for, for work. And there's loads of work, you know, whether it's fruit pricking or whatever. But if he's, if he's got a trade Yeah.
Then he's supported. Cuz we are, they're desperate for tradies over here in Australia. We don't even know. Yeah. Oh gosh. Well I'm just, we might end up staying and then you'll get to visits. You'll to visit. I know, I know. I'm, I'm so excited for him. Cause it's never been something that I have wanted to do.
I'm now starting to want to do more in people, in-person events. Yes. But I've gone from, I was doing workshop back it up to sort of like the beginning of 2020 and then everything obviously was shut down. Yeah. Took everything online. I've got my online membership and I'm wanting to do more in-person events, but I don't wanna do the little workshopy things that I was at.
Little workshopy things. They were amazing. But I want to do something totally different because I'm a different person now. I love to, this sounds really weird, but I have, I've had this vision of me, well it makes me sound really like I've got visions of RDA and everything, but I rea I have had these visions for quite a while.
I was like, I really need to see if I can do this and if it would work of me almost on a stage. Well, I've done lots of speaking, But, but that kinda thing. Great. Yeah, totally. So, you know, in, in about 2018 I decided I had that same moment and I was like, I wanna be a speaker.
I spoke at 37 events in one year. Everything from little local meetups, the big stages. I went and spoke in New York and Amsterdam and just completely eradicate my fear of speaking. I also set up my own conference, which has been a huge, huge thing. It's been amazing. Done it for about five years now. I'm not sure I'm gonna do it again after this year cause it's a,
a lot of effort. But I love speaking and it can be a super powerful way of bringing new people into your world. And it's good fun, isn't it? Going after some, I just was in Amsterdam at a big conference, flew me over with my son and you meet all these amazing people and you know, you're in Amsterdam and then we went to Paris and you know,
so it can open up the world to you. So Bonnie do it, it's a thing This, so, you know, I want to take, I want to take my draw. So I want to do sort of like, almost like a, an evening or an afternoon or a day Yeah. With me, which sounds like, I'm like, oh,
everybody wants to, No, it doesn't sound like anything. And then we do and we draw and we all draw together. That Sounds fine. And Then we have like a, you know, lunch And Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so this is what I'm planning at the moment, which I'm really excited about. Maybe a retreat,
well I'll off of a separate talk about this. I'm, I did a retreat, which was really nice where I went away for three days and stayed in a really nice cottage and there was like eight people and we had people come in and talk as well. And we had dinners and it was brilliant. Really good. I've got, I've got something like that happening next year.
Fantastic. There you go. So, and this is the sort of thing that I want, you know, I want to, I want to be able to just really enjoy what I'm doing, you know? Yeah, That's the point, isn't it? Yeah. You know, after a while, you know, I talk again in the book about your why and my why started off as time flexibility.
I wanted to spend time with my son and then it became money, flexibility. I wanted to make as much money. And then it, and now really it's, it's a little bit of creative autonomy. I wanna decide what I wanna do every day and I kind of get to do that. But sometimes I kind of get sidetracked by peer pressure and comparisonitis.
And it's again, that confidence in yourself to say, if I wanna set up an event and have a hundred people there to spend a day with Bonnie, god damn, I'm gonna do it. You know, and, and that's, that's, you know, that's brave and exciting. Well, exactly. You know, and there are all, there's always gonna be people who have got something to say and Yes.
And those that, And then they just won't get a ticket. They don't get to come. So, you know, there you go. Oh dear. I dunno, the subject of of money just came up. So we've got sort of like five, five minutes left if that's, well I've got round enough minutes left if that's okay. Unless you're rushing off somewhere.
No, I've just Gotta go make tea from a 14 year old. But otherwise I'm good. You know, when you were sort of talking then about, oh, first of all it was this priority then it was that priority making money. It seems to be like a real, in some people's minds, it's, it is amazing and they want to hear about it.
And you see there's been a, a bit of a, a sort of a thing on, on social media just recently where people have been going, oh this is how much I've made this month. Yeah. And so people have found it disgusting and other people have gone, you know what, that is so useful because I never, I never used to think I could make that much money as blah blah blah.
How do you feel about money? Cuz obviously you've built your business, you've got a, a team, quite a big team and It's a bit of a journey. Yeah, so again, I've got a whole chapter about this, about money mindset and you know, I did sit down and think about, you know, a lot of my money attitudes are influenced by my parents who are working class.
And they were very much never borrower, never borrow money, no credit, you know, work for your money, you know, and if you work hard you can have money but that you have to do the working hard bit. So I did do a lot of examining of that and I know that when I've never been well off and then all of a sudden my business started to do well.
Like I had my course and I remember one day the course sold out in a day and I think, you know, to talk about it, I made $150,000 in one day and my brain just couldn't even process that. I mean, that didn't mean that money was mine. That money had to last for three months. It had to pay tax and,
and, and v a t as we g s t we call it had to pay. My staff had to pay for advertising. So it wasn't my money but it was still a substantial amount of money and I felt awkward about that. You know, do I tell people? So I think, you know, if you are teaching people how to make money,
then I think it's interesting to share how much money you are making because you could be a charlatan, you know, you could be making $5 and you're sort of saying, Hey, I can teach you how to make six figures. You know, if you are in that arena and talking about those things, I think it's not in bad taste. Some people will put off,
but I think then you have to think about why is it making, why is it giving you the s you know, is it because you feel that you could not make that? Is it because you don't care and you don't wanna make that much money cuz you're satisfied with what you've got? There's all these different reasons and as long as you're comfortable with it,
like, I was all about the money, about three or four, the money, money, money. I wanna make this much, I wanna do this. And then you make the money. And it wasn't really attached to any goal. There was nothing I wanted to do with that. I'm not a particularly materialistic person. And so I kind of like had a whole year of going,
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a bit lost now I've made money and I dunno what to do with it. And now I am kind of thinking about my, my future and my security and, and trying to maybe help my son get a better start in life than I had. It's a funny one. I don't necessarily share what I earn in my social media,
but I do share it in my membership. Yeah. Because I'm teaching those people how to create a digital empire and I wanna show them, well this is how much I make from products and this is how much I make from courses and this is how much I spend on ads and I want them to know the reality of it. So in that arena I think it's fine.
But I wouldn't just be like standing doing my Kim Kardashian, you know, throwing money at the screen, you know, that's not me. No, no. It is just, it is just, you know, it's, it's really interesting because my, my relationship is with money is very strange in that I always felt that I was rubbish with money and I still feel that I'm rubbish with money.
So I have people who help good accounts. Oh, totally. All of that kinda stuff. And actually I, I'm, I'm not really, I'm quite, I'm quite sort of careful. It's the story you tell yourself, isn't it? Yes. And you tell yourself your financial, I'm a creative person, I can't be good with money cause I'm creative.
Yeah. And you know, I've just called my book Six Figures in School Hours, you know, why did I pick six figures? A it's dead good title. It sounds good. But what does six figures mean for most people? That could be your salary, it could be after tax, it could be before tax, it could be your gross profit or your net profit.
It could be your revenue. You know, do you earn six figures over a year or six figures over five years? It's all a bit of a mooch. I do talk about that in the book. Yeah. You know, someone saying, oh, I'm a six figure entrepreneur. Right? But you've been doing this for 10 years, so if you,
you've earned like 80 grand a year, it's actually not that impressive. Do you know? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So You've gotta kinda Take it all with a pinch of salt. And for me it's like what's my priorities for me and what do I wanna achieve? And, and really it's no one else's business, You know, As far as I'm concerned.
Yeah. Oh goodness. Oh, do you know, I could, I could just sit and chat to you all day, but I we'll Have to do this again, Bonny. I'm definitely gonna send you a copy of me book cuz I think it's, I think you're gonna, you're gonna nod your way through it and and enjoy it. But it's been,
love's been amazing. You're like a sister from another mister has Oh, honestly, friend. Really love talking to you. And do send me that link about the, the the Nibbles Australia? Yes. Oh and that. Oh, and the groups. The group. Oh, I'm gonna, you just send me everything. Massive big email with all the stuff.
For sure. I will. Thank you Kate. It is been a what a lovely start to my morning. Oh, there you go. Well, I'm, I'm off to make my dinner and go to bed over here in Australia, so have a brilliant day. Thanks. Thanks so much. Thanks Kate. Bye Bye.
I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my, It's A Bonny Old Life podcast. If you did, I'd be so grateful to you for emailing me or texting a link to the show or sharing it on social media with those you know, who might like it too. My mission with this podcast is all about sharing mine and my community's experience and hope by telling your fascinating personal stories, championing the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community. And to create another channel through which I can support you to realize your coloured pencil and life dreams. If you haven't done so yet, please help me on my mission to spread positivity and joy throughout the Coloured pencil world by following me on my socials at Bonny Snowdon Academy or by getting on my list at bonnysnowdonacademy.com. And remember, I truly believe if I can live the life of my dreams doing what I love, then you can too. We just need to keep championing and supporting each other along the way in order to make it happen. Till next time,
