The Remote CEO Podcast

S307: Work SMARTER Not Harder With a 4 Hour Work Day, with Anne Ryan

• Sophie Biggerstaff • Season 3 • Episode 7

Share episode

This week, I’m joined by Anne Ryan, a multi seven-figure business owner and mentor who specializes in helping service-based entrepreneurs scale their businesses SIMPLY, allowing them to work smarter, not harder, and achieve the ultimate goal - a 4-hour workday.

Anne shares her journey from the construction industry to online coaching, emphasizing the power of simplicity, commitment, and focus in achieving her multi-seven-figure business success. 

We discussed the risks she took in starting her business, the importance of having a clear offer, the myths of overnight success, the differences between high and low-ticket offers, and the perception of value in pricing. 

Anne's insights on personal time, simplifying business models, and nurturing client relationships provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs seeking sustainable growth.

#SimpleBusiness #OpeningBusiness #SimpleBusinessIdeas #SimpleBusinessPlans #Overcomplicating #BusinessesThatSolveProblems #BusinessMentorship #FemaleEntrepreneurs #Simplicity #FinancialIndependence #RiskTaking #Commitment #Focus #MarketingStrategy #Empowerment #Coaching #AudienceSize #Ego #Distractions #OvernightSuccess #HighTicketOffers #LowTicketOffers #PerceptionOfValue #Accessibility #BusinessModels #Scaling #MakeMoneyOnline #DigitalNomad #WorkLifeBalance #SelfImprovement #Bookkeeping #Minimalism #PayrollAndBookkeeping #TimeManagement #Productivity #Accounting #WorkLess #RemoteWork #Business #PersonalDevelopment #GoalSetting #Entrepreneurship #Automation #Payroll #Efficiency #BusinessSimplification

About The Remote CEO Podcast:

This podcast is for freedom-seeking online entrepreneurs, offering practical, actionable advice to help you step up into your new role as CEO by building an online business that works for you - not one you work for.

Hosted by Sophie Biggerstaff, an online business mentor, e-commerce founder, mental health advocate, and full-time digital nomad. 🙋‍♀️

👆Want to start an online business? Take my quiz to help you get started

👆 Want to achieve more freedom in your life? Find out how you can make it happen in my free masterclass.

👆Need online business advice? Get my best business tips directly in your inbox by signing up to my newsletter

👍 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share to hear more conversations about starting and growing an online business.

🔗 Stay Connected:

📸 Follow me on Instagram

🎥 Follow me on TikTok

🗣️ Connect on LinkedIn

...

Sophie (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to the remote CEO podcast. am super excited about my conversation today because I am joined by a guest who is Anne Ryan. Anne is a business mentor who specializes in helping service-based female entrepreneurs scale to multiple six and seven figures using simple high impact business models. She has built her own multi seven figure business in construction and scaled an online coaching business to 500 K plus a year. Working less than four hours most days, which is my ultimate goal.

going to be talking about that and her approach is actually really rooted in simplicity, no fluff, no unnecessary complexity, just strategies that create sustainable growth without burnout. So I'm talking to her today to see how we can replicate some of these things in our business, ultimately achieve the goal of working four-hour days because I know that that's a goal for so many people. So welcome Anne, thanks for joining me. Do you want to share a little bit more about you and your background?

Anne Ryan (00:58)
Sure, yeah. Firstly, thank you, Sophie. Thank you for inviting me to be here. So my name is Anne Ryan. I have an offline business in the construction industry and online, I'm a business mentor and a money mindset coach. And I really work with women in business. My mission is to really empower women to kind of own their worth and you know,

Sophie (01:04)
You're so welcome.

Anne Ryan (01:25)
ditch their money blocks and just kind of really become financially independent and live a life without having to sacrifice or without having limitations that, you know, as women, we often take on multiple roles. you know, even though men also take on multiple roles, somehow they are able to kind of really focus on

the roles that bring in the finances, whereas women tend to have the mothering role and so many other identities that they carry as well. online, I'm really, really passionate about showing my clients how to leverage their time so they can have it all. It's often through high ticket offers. So I help them to create those offers.

And then, you know, about how they position themselves online and how to accelerate their authority online. So they are seen as leaders and, you know, they sort of step into that kind of CEO identity and all that kind of thing. So, yes, I do teach my clients how to do business simply and in just a few hours. And it's by really...

through mastery, right? And doing less, but doing things better and through refinement and not feeling the need to follow every new shiny object and do too many things. yeah, there's a lot of mindset and a bit of strategy.

Sophie (03:09)
Amazing.

It sounds like we're very aligned in how we approach business, which is amazing. And that's essentially what this podcast is all about is helping people live, live their life as well as make money. But for me, like my life is more important than anything else. And like my wellbeing is more important than anything else. And I really want to through this podcast, like share that. So it sounds like you really embody that and like teach your clients that as well. And obviously with the four hour kind of work day and trying to

to get it to be more streamlined and simple as possible. It is all about, I guess, working a bit smarter rather than harder. And that's definitely something that I try to embody as much as I possibly can. So I know you've built a few different things online and offline. I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about your journey with business. Where did you start? Where did your career come from? And then tell us a bit more about your business that you built offline in the construction industry and then how that transitioned into online.

Anne Ryan (04:09)
Okay, all right. going way back, and I won't spend too much time on way back, I did graduate as a construction engineer. So I worked in the construction industry in London, and you know, as a 22 year old or something, and you know, a woman of color as well. And this was back in the 90s. I'm a little bit older than you, Sophie.

So, you know, the world was a different place, right? And it wasn't a very pleasant place for women to be on building sites. So I left that career well and truly behind me. I went traveling. I ended up in Australia, married and worked in corporate and worked across many different industries. And I kept finding myself working around that sort of project management and business strategy. And so when I had kids,

I was kind of earning more than my husband, quite honestly. And so it kind of made sense for us financially that I would return to my corporate career and he actually stayed home with the kids. So that was the start of our first unconventional kind of approach to life. And then, know, we sort of decided that we wanted to start our own business and we had a two-year-old and a four-year-old at home.

and we started a business in the construction industry. We borrowed $300,000 against our home on a really high interest rate too, because we were already like 80 % mortgaged. So to borrow more than that meant a very high interest rate. And we had two little kids, two year old, four year old at home. So it was kind of a pretty major risk, but it also, look, we both felt like it

we were employable, right? So we had the backup that we could always get back and find work. So it didn't feel as big a risk back then. It felt like it's exactly what we wanted to do. And we turned the business into a million dollars in the first year. Yeah. So, yeah, not all profit, but in revenue, we brought in a million dollars in the first year. You know, we have...

Sophie (06:21)
Wow, wow, amazing.

Yeah, incredible.

Anne Ryan (06:30)
Um,

yeah, when you're back up, back is up against the wall. You make it happen. Yeah. And that was about 16 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, that business is doing amazing. We've just had our fifth million dollar quarter in a row. And yeah, and it's running, you know, it's really well established. We've got a great reputation.

Sophie (06:35)
You make it happen.

Wow. Incredible.

Anne Ryan (06:59)
And so that's going well. And then about six years, I started online and it was more of a passion project, you could say, you know, because I felt this strong desire to work with women and to kind of empower women. And it was hard. It was different. It was completely different to working offline.

when I came online, I was the face of the brand. You know, it was me, I was selling myself, whereas we were selling, you know, a very niche area of construction, but yeah, we were selling kind of a different service. wasn't me. So it was hard. Yeah.

Sophie (07:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I can imagine. I think there's so many things to unpack there. I'm going to start with the investing 300k from your house into your business. And you've said, obviously, you knew that that was a risk, but it doesn't feel to me that you were scared about that. You were fully in belief that that was the right decision to make. How did you come to that decision? where were you spending that money to be so sure that it was going to come back to you?

Anne Ryan (07:50)
What?

Yeah.

It all went into the business to create cash flow to pay because we had to employ staff and to make sure that we had enough for wages and we had to buy materials up front. you know, so it was a cost of doing business. We needed that sort of capital to get started. So it wasn't like we were able to pay ourselves. You know, we had to make the money and

really, there were some really tough times, you know, in the early days. And like I said, even though we turned over a million dollars in our first year, it wasn't like profit, you know, I think we barely made any profit. We did pay ourselves a little wage, but yeah, look, we knew it was a risk, but we knew also that it was a risk worth taking, you know, I think we were in our sort of mid thirties at that.

point and it was like, if not now, when? You know, when do you take these risks? But I've sort of always been a bit of a risk taker.

Sophie (09:15)
Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel yeah, me

too. But I think it's interesting to speak to somebody else that is also really open to taking risks because I also am open to taking risks. think financial risks I've always struggled a little bit with like more so because there is that scarcity mindset sometimes like which comes from obviously like conditioning over a period of time. But I feel like this part of like risk taking is obviously part of entrepreneurship and if you want to start a business there are naturally some risks some more

calculated than others that are involved in that. But one I think that I see consistently from a lot of people that I've personally worked with over the past five years of running my own business is that a lot of people look at investing in their business with their personal money as a cost rather than an investment. Was there any of mindset shifts that you had to do personally or that you do with your clients to help them overcome that barrier?

of looking at it as like you are going to hopefully get this back at some point if you are putting in the right strategy and the right work.

Anne Ryan (10:28)
you get an ROI on your investment, on your investment, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So firstly, we've still not paid off that risk, paid off that debt, right? To date, we could have, we could have paid it off 10 times over by now, but we haven't because it's a tax deduction, right? The interest that we pay is a tax deduction. So our accountant is like, don't pay it off, you know, just, just keep it as a liability against the business. So there's that.

Sophie (10:30)
Yeah.

Is that clear?

Yeah.

Love it.

Anne Ryan (10:58)
that aspect of it, right? When you're borrowing for your business. And yeah, absolutely. I mean, you want to see an ROI, right? And if you're investing, especially in sort of the coaching industry and in mentorship and learning something that you haven't fully kind of mastered, then you are investing yourself in your own education. You know, it's like,

It's no different to, suppose, paying to go to university except it's probably a lot more practical. And, you know, and if it is something that you are really invested in, like you have to really want it, you know, whether it's a university degree or any other business investment, you have to be really committed to what it is that you want. And you've just got to go for it.

Sophie (11:50)
100%. If you don't have that kind of drive and commitment towards something, I always think like it's very going to be very hard. It's going to be like trudging through mud for you to be able to get there because you're just going to be resentful of the journey because you're not there yet. Like you're constantly going to be thinking about that goal because you're on a path towards it and you're not getting there like super quickly. It's always going to feel difficult. So I feel like, you have to absolutely have like that goal.

in mind to be able to work towards something and really have a deep desire to make it work. So makes perfect sense.

Anne Ryan (12:24)
Absolutely.

Yeah, trying is not enough. It's going to be an absolute commitment, you know, and even like even the transition from my offline business to my online business, I was still for the first four years of online, I was still very involved in my offline business. And my online business didn't grow at the same rate, because I had that as my safety net. You know, I kind of didn't

Sophie (12:30)
No, I completely agree.

Yeah.

Anne Ryan (12:54)
fully commit to my online business because it was like I was a little bit half in half out because I had that as a safety net. The moment I made the commitment and I said, right, we are going to employ someone to replace me, you know, so I can actually walk away. I can no longer use that as an excuse for why I can't fully commit to my coaching business. Like immediately I saw a shift, like within three months I started hitting 50K months.

and then went on to make 100k months and so on. It really is about just making that full commitment, no backup plan.

Sophie (13:24)
Yeah.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Definitely, I think it's the full commitment part and also a matter of focus, right? Because like what I've learned, particularly as a hard lesson over the past year, because I've just started a second business, is that as soon as you step back from something and put your attention on something else, obviously, naturally, the first thing starts to dwindle off. And that's normal, obviously. But it's about where you focus that energy on like the thing that you want to most achieve. And yeah, like I completely agree.

Anne Ryan (13:55)
Yeah.

Sophie (14:06)
everything you said there, you have to be all in to something to really see the results for it.

Anne Ryan (14:11)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. And I think there are certain, I think women generally are able to multitask better than most people. But even amongst women, I'm not sure if you want, if you're into human design and that kind of thing. So like, you know, there are the manifesting generators and they're able to even take that multi passion, you know, to the, to the next level. And then there are others who really

Sophie (14:26)
absolutely am, yep.

Yeah.

Anne Ryan (14:43)
will do so much better by just staying focused, you know, and just going all in on the one thing. but I also think, I mean, we won't go into human design too much in this, but people also use that as an excuse. Yeah, I know. But it can also be used as an excuse, you know. it's my human design. Well, yes, you are making

Sophie (14:55)
haven't talked about it for hours, but I know that not everyone is not everyone's thing.

Yeah, true, true. So that's same as like astrology.

it's my star sign that's happening because I'm a Pisces or whatever. Yeah, definitely. What are you? Out of interest because I'm genuinely interested. What are you?

Anne Ryan (15:13)
Yeah, right.

I'm

a 4-6 generator. Yeah.

Sophie (15:22)
Okay, I can't

remember my numbers, but I'm a manifesting generator. I cannot remember, I can never remember the numbers, but it's, yeah, it's all kind of, I have to really lead with my intuition, essentially, is what comes out of it. Yeah.

Anne Ryan (15:26)
again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And whereas

I'm actually better with responding. So I'm great in this interview kind of scenario. I'm better than if I had to just initiate something and come and talk, you know, and end the speech. Yeah.

Sophie (15:42)
Interesting. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm fascinated in it. Like, I'm really

fascinated and stuff like that. So I love I love that we've just gone had a little side conversation about that. That's super cool. And like, yeah, like, absolutely. I think we all have to just fill into how we kind of generate our work, right, like and how we focus what we focus on.

And I guess like that transition from like offline to online for you, like you said, you had to shift into being the face of the business. But what I also picked up on from what you said at the beginning was obviously you've come from like the construction background, which I'm going to make an assumption here and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's probably very heavily male dominated. And then you've kind of moved into this world of like working more with women. Like how was that transition as well?

Anne Ryan (16:40)
yeah, that's, that's a really, really good point. because I did have to really be aware of that as well. And even today, I probably have sort of some masculine energy that I bring into the way I do business and the way I work and how I'm able to be really productive and effective and just get shit done and, and get on with the rest, you know, rather than

fluff around and look at 5,000 different things, I sort of know what my non-negotiables are. And even though I quite publicly talk about scaling a business in under four hours a day, quite honestly, there are days when I just work 30 minutes, you know, and I can get everything done because my business is simple. And, you know, and that's the thing. and the thing is, it was through necessity, right?

Sophie (17:31)
Yeah.

you

Anne Ryan (17:38)
It became my strategy. It became my selling point. It became part of my messaging, but it actually started off through absolute necessity because I had an offline business. had an online business. had kids at home and I had elderly parents, right? And they'd migrated from the UK to Australia and

things kind of went a bit sideways with their health and I was it. They had no other family to fall back on or rely on. And so I took on that responsibility as well. So my life was full, you know, and I literally couldn't work more than that. And so through having to simplify, kind of, you know, I realised

this can be super effective if people, you know, people have too much time on their hands. That's why they go looking around at, you know, scrolling through social media and looking around at all the other solutions, thinking what they're doing isn't working. It's because they have too much time.

Sophie (18:53)
Yeah, no, it's true. And like if you have to make something work with the time that you've got, that's what you've got to do, right? And you're right. Like people do have too much time on their hands. And actually, we look at like, if I look at myself back in my corporate career, I worked as a buyer for about 11 years before I started my own business. And my set hours for eight hours a day, obviously, as it normally is, but often worked later than that. If I look at how I filled my time in that eight hours of the day, was I working every second of that? Absolutely not. Like I would be out having a chat, like the vending machine.

or like, I'm like, let me just check the news today or like something just random things. And it's like, we can fill our time doing things that are.

completely irrelevant, but actually if we can really stay focused on the thing that we wanna do, and we've got that end goal in mind, and we've got the drive to be achieving that end goal, we can get shit done, basically, in the time that you've got for sure. And I have a massive problem with focus. It's been a big thing for me, and I'm working with a coach to try and help me channel my focus in the right places. Especially where I have come away from, I was a corporate,

Anne Ryan (19:44)
Yeah exactly.

Sophie (20:02)
girl, right? Like I went from corporate world into my own business. I was living in London and London's a million miles an hour. So I was kind of still living at that pace, but then decided to up my life and travel and be nomadic. Obviously in this lifestyle that I'm living right now, there's a million and one distractions. I can go to the beach, I can go out for brunch, I can go work at a coffee shop that there's so many things that I've got distracting me all the time. So it's a big goal of mine this year to kind of...

really honing on my focus, like I'm staying put in one place and trying to simplify absolutely everything I'm doing to basically be able to achieve exactly what you're saying because I also don't work like sit here and work eight hours down my business. Like I work around my lifestyle at the moment. So it's like, okay, if I want to go to yoga in the morning, that means I need to work in the afternoon kind of thing. But it might only be like three hours a day. And in that three hours, I want to be as productive as I possibly can.

So I'd be really interested to hear, obviously we talk about the word simplify, simplicity. Like what does that actually mean to you in your business? What does simplicity look like?

Anne Ryan (21:10)
Um, so I think you can scale to a million dollars with one offer. You know, and that's the thing when you are focused on one thing, like some people might go, Oh my God, that is so, that's, can't think of anything worse. I would get bored. Now that's a whole different conversation, right? That's kind of like, well, that's, you can do what you want, but if you want to keep

business simple, one, maybe two offers, right? And then it's just a matter of really kind of getting your marketing so super dialed in that, you know, you're often just, so people just know exactly what it is that you're selling. You know, so you're not kind of, when you, when people have multiple offers, it's like,

What is she selling this week? What is she actually an expert in? There's so many things that we need to consider when we're multiple things. And I think with a huge audience, yeah, sure, go for it. You can. But if you do have a small audience, then I think really

positioning yourself as an expert in one thing and going all in and selling that same thing over and over and over again, you can literally get away with marketing. I mean, I recommend doing something every day, but even marketing three to four times a week. And then it's a matter of...

Sophie (22:38)
Yeah.

Anne Ryan (22:40)
sales fulfillment and you know because I'm in the service-based industry it's the actual delivery of the services right and if you leverage your time and you do have something that's more kind of group focused then again you know in two to three hours a week you could actually deliver the service as well let alone per day you know.

Sophie (23:07)
Yeah.

No, I'm with you. I agree. it's taken me a long time. I think it's taken me the five years I've been in business to understand that, right? But because I think when you first start, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just dabbling my hands in so many different things and trying to understand what is my purpose? What is my niche? Where is my expertise the most needed and wanted? So you do tend to overcomplicate things and dabble in multiple different things because also I'm multi-passionate about

lots of different things. So I kind of wanted to incorporate a lot of them. And I would definitely describe myself as like a jack of all trades, but a master of absolutely none. Like I've got a lot of different skill sets and holistically they all work together, but am I excellent in one of those? No, probably not. But like I know enough about enough to be able to give that as value. And I feel like...

Anne Ryan (23:49)
Yeah.

Sophie (24:04)
I have learned the hard way because I've gone around all of the houses and again, Manifest and Generator, I have a million and one ideas of the things that I want to do. I've had to really learn how to bring myself back in and say, hang on a minute, so if like...

If you want to get to this, right now you're speaking to five different subjects, five different offers. It's so confusing. Looking at it from a customer's perspective, it's really confusing. I think right now with my personal business, I'm pivoting to try and really focus on just channeling all of my attention into one specific thing and keep speaking about that. Also, obviously, when it comes to marketing, and even marketing to a small audience, which is something that you talk to, somebody needs

to understand, like see your message like over 30 times to be able to then say right this is the decision that I'm making to buy from you. So if you're then giving them 10 different messages in that 30 touch points

they're going to be like, what the hell does this girl do? And how is she going to help me? So I feel like, yeah, that is the key to simplicity really, isn't it? Like it starts with your offer and then from there, obviously you can simplify other areas of the business, like streamline your backup house, simplify your marketing, and really then you'll get a bigger impact.

Anne Ryan (25:25)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Simplicity doesn't necessarily equal easy, right? It's just not complicated, you know, and it requires mastery, requires refinement, it requires, you know, fine tuning things to keep getting that extra 1%, extra 1%, extra 1%. It is a lot easier to just be busy and create and create and create new things, right?

instead of going, I have this one thing, how can I make it sound even better? How can I position it differently? How can I, you know, so you're, you're, get creative with your marketing, not so much with creating new offers. Yeah. And so, and just through repetition, just through people hearing you talking about the same thing all the time, you know, you're seen as an expert.

Sophie (26:24)
Yeah, absolutely. that's why you want to, especially if you're a service business, you want to position yourself as the leader, right? You want to position yourself as the go-to person in that field. And a lot of people don't do that. And I think this has been a problem for me as well, where it's like you're, yeah, you're just speaking about too many things and then it's just not even known as to what you're actually supposed to be the expert in.

Anne Ryan (26:26)
They associate. Exactly.

Yeah, look, and again, it's not so much a right or wrong, but it's a choice, right? You get to choose. for me, you know, I've built my business to fit around my life. You know, my life comes first, but I'm still making money. I'm still having an impact, you know? And so I've kind of got the best of both worlds. And in order to achieve that,

I had to keep it simple. So it's a choice.

Sophie (27:25)
Yeah, no,

I agree. Definitely. is a choice. And I think a lot of people get sucked in by what we see on social media, which is like, you know, you have to have a million followers and you have to have a million offers and you have there's so much noise. There's so much noise. And it's obviously really hard, especially if you're new in business, to know which advice to follow and which advice not to follow. Why do you think so many people rely so heavily on building this like big, audience, these big offers and like creating a million and one

different things. What do you think is the core of that that people need to address?

Anne Ryan (28:03)
A couple of things, I think when it comes to audience size, you know, there's the ego, there's the ego of working with more people and doing more. And then when it comes to this constant creation, look, there's a genuine case of it's what.

lights you up you know I get that and I respect that and also it's that shiny object you know because if you had something that sold every single freaking day without you having to think about it you wouldn't be thinking about creating 101 other things you know so rather than going right how am I going to get this even better how am I you know and really achieving mastery in that one thing

Sophie (28:41)
Yeah.

Anne Ryan (28:51)
it is easier to jump around and to try something new and try something new and try something new. So it's a little bit of a...

Sophie (28:59)
Yeah, think it's probably comes,

it definitely goes back to what you said about ego though, I think, because if you can see something isn't working for you, or you've been trying at it for a period of time, instead of saying, oh, let me change direction, let me pivot this, because a lot of people don't understand that that's even an option, or how to pivot something.

it's easier to quit that and move on to the next thing, right? And like, again, what you say, shiny object syndrome, we're just constantly chasing the next thing that's potentially gonna get us the results. But actually, if we really focus on the first thing and like, it's like a garden, we nurture it, we grow it, we let it grow, like we can really see the results of that, like the before and the after, whereas if we're...

trying to tap into so many different things, it's very hard to see what actually is working versus what could you have done differently to get the first thing to work in the first place.

Anne Ryan (29:55)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, that's in a nutshell it, right? It's the, our attention span and just kind of, and all the distractions, you know, the TikToks and the reels and the constant options. There are so many options, which is amazing, which is awesome that we have so much choice, but it also creates a lot of confusion. You know, it's kind of like, maybe that'll be easier. You know?

Sophie (30:00)
Yeah.

Anne Ryan (30:23)
whether it's, I don't know, some affiliate thing or a new product or a new service or a new something else or a new promise, right? Because people are selling all the time and sometimes when, yeah, when what you've got doesn't seem to be working, the easiest thing is to just jump ship.

Sophie (30:23)
Yeah.

Definitely, we're very fickle sometimes as human beings and we can, grass is always greener right, it's kind of, especially where we do live in such an online.

Anne Ryan (30:50)
Thank

Sophie (30:57)
focused world now, which in some ways, obviously amazing, wouldn't be living here in Thailand right now if I didn't have an online business. But in other ways, I find it really detrimental. Like I hate that I have, I get so distracted by things online. I hate that there's so much conflict in information, a lot of like incorrect information. And it also isn't good. Also, like I've had a mental health business as a second business and it's not good for mental health either. Like to be, to have all of this stuff going on, it's really detrimental. So we have to be really careful.

like what we focus on, what we pursue and which information sources we listen to and trust because a lot of it, particularly around business on Instagram and TikTok is just a load of rubbish, honestly. So yeah, I think there's a lot to say for really choosing your sources of reliable information and going, tuning in to what feels right for you as well.

Anne Ryan (31:56)
Yeah, yeah, you know, and that's the thing about marketing as well, right? I'm a marketer as well, so I know what I, you know, how marketing works, because you don't, you you don't, you portray everything in a particular way. And so, you know, and it's true, I've had a lot of success. It's true, I've had many clients who've had a lot of success. But

will absolutely everyone achieve that level of success? Well, it's possible, but you also, you know, it's not guaranteed. And so sometimes people kind of fall for the marketing, this kind of overnight success concept. My overnight success took about 15 years, but you know what I mean? It's just like, there is no such thing, but it's positioned that way, right? And so that's why I often talk about four hours, because I think it is achievable in four hours, but.

With mastery, it's achievable in a lot less, but not everyone can get there immediately.

Sophie (32:59)
No, and like you say, there is no such thing as overnight success. Rome was not built in a day and you shouldn't need to get there immediately. Like when I first started my business, I was working 12 hour days and was I probably fluffing some of that and like trying to figure out like what I was doing in that meantime? Absolutely. But now I definitely try to like.

Anne Ryan (33:03)
Yeah.

Sophie (33:19)
like we both live our lives first, right? And our business kind of comes alongside that. But I try to, with the time that I do invest in my business now, focus on like the things that actually are going to drive these impacts. And like you've just mentioned around, like, even if you have a small audience, obviously it's possible to market to them. Tell us a little bit about that part that you speak to around, you don't need this big audience to sell. Like, how do you utilize marketing?

to not need the big audience. Yeah.

Anne Ryan (33:53)
Yeah,

so really it's because it's a high value product that you're selling, right? So you don't need the volume, you don't need the quantity of sales that you would, you know, to achieve. Let's say you wanted to make $10,000 in a month. Yeah, if you had 100 products, you would need to make 100 sales. So to make 100 sales, you would need to have

I don't know, thousand people in your audience, let's just say, that's assuming, you know, that you've got a decent conversion rate. But if you want to make one $10,000 sale, you could probably do it with an audience of 100. You could probably do it with an audience of 50. Yeah.

Because yes, it's a high value product, but as long as you can demonstrate the value is there, then you don't need as many people to purchase. So if it's a $5,000 product, you need two sales, that kind of thing, right? And so it's just, it's numbers game, ultimately. So...

The lower the value of your offer, the bigger the audience needs to be in order for you to make more and more sales and achieve that same goal. Yeah.

Sophie (35:24)
Yeah, for sure.

for sure. And a lot of people, think myself included over a period of time, have had money blocks around selling like super high ticket. And it's not for, I don't think it's for everybody. Like for me to sell like super high ticket, I feel like doesn't fully align with what I want to achieve. Because one of my values as a founder is to make things as accessible as possible. Because I know that there's a lot of people that can't afford that. But equally, I need to make money, I need to utilize my time in the right way. So like, I feel like that for me personally,

there's a balance between the two, but there are people that are really, what's the word, stuck and can't accept that they are able to charge X amount for their services or their products because there's just this money mindset block. And I know you work a lot with money mindsets. Did you have to do any of that work? When you were saying, right, I'm gonna do a high ticket offer, is that where you started or was that a gradual progression into that?

Anne Ryan (36:27)
It was sort of semi-high ticket. I think I started off around that two and a half, $3,000 for three months work, you know, of working with me. And yeah, so that's where I started.

So there's a couple of things that I want to address. I totally get this, you know, wanting your work to be accessible. And there are so many ways that we can make our work accessible. I do a lot of free stuff, right? Genuine, high value, free masterclasses trainings. It's part of my strategy. Quite honestly, I lead with generosity. I...

deliver incredibly high valuable trainings. The only difference between what I teach for free and what I teach to my paying clients is we have a very specific conversation that's relevant to them. The information is exactly the same. Like truly, I will tell my clients

go watch the free training and let's take the conversation deeper. And then I can obviously give them feedback. can obviously, we can have very specific conversations, whether it's around messaging or sales or whatever it is, offer creation or whatever it is that I've done my free training in. So that's really the only difference between, so I feel like I'm still having.

impact and helping thousands and thousands of people with my free trainings. But then those who, some people are able to make high ticket sales just from watching my free trainings, but those who want to commit, I didn't have money to start my first business. I borrowed 300,000 to start my first business, you know? So it's kind of like, you need to have skin in the game. You will take it so much more when you're

back is up against the wall, you are going to show up in such a different way for your investment. Yeah. If you paid someone $50 to get advice and you paid someone else $5,000 to get advice and they told you slightly different things, who would you listen to?

Sophie (38:58)
Yeah, I'd listen to the $500, yeah, $5,000, sorry. Yeah.

Anne Ryan (39:02)
Yeah,

so that's the thing, you know, and there's so much research that's been done that shows that there's this perception of value that people get when they pay for something. You know, there's been these tests that have been done with red wine, right? And clear skin, red wine, exactly the same wine in three bottles, three different labels, three different price points, but it's exactly the same wine inside the bottle.

everyone perceived the more expensive wine to be the best. It's just a value perception thing that people have, you know, and so similarly, you know, when people, there are so many courses out there that never get completed. Me included. I've bought stuff for $97 and I haven't even opened the email. It seemed like a really good idea because it was a Black Friday's.

Sophie (39:43)
special.

Yeah.

Anne Ryan (40:01)
sale or whatever and I never looked at it. Now if I paid $9,700 for it you can bet your ass that I will be opening that email, I'll be sitting down, I'll be turning off all distractions and I will be making sure that I get my return on investment.

Sophie (40:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Thanks.

Absolutely, yeah.

Anne Ryan (40:24)
You know, so

it's kind of, and it's, think the moment, sorry, it sounds like I'm getting opinionated here, and I am. The moment we decide for someone else that they can't afford us, we disempower them.

Sophie (40:36)
No, not at all, like please.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Definitely.

Anne Ryan (40:51)
It's not my business,

you know, whether someone can afford me or not. It's not my business to decide whether they can afford me or not. It's not my business to... Yeah, it's...

But I get it though, Sophie, do get it. There are people in this world who can't afford things at a particular level. I get that.

Sophie (41:12)
Yeah, definitely.

guess it's all about like who you want to...

call in, right? Like who you want to attract into your business, like what type of people you want to work with. And I think, like you just said, like people that are paying a higher value are naturally going to invest, do the work, like put the, put the energy and time and particularly if we're talking specifically to like coaching or mentoring, for example, online courses, people that are paying that high value, like they've invested, like they've taken a bit more of a risk than the person that paid the $97 that doesn't really matter if the course gets done or not.

So yeah, I totally agree with you. think that there's a lot of value in the higher ticket courses and coaching packages.

that comes for both sides because for example, for me, like, I don't want to work with people that don't take the action, right? Because then they're going to come to me at some point and say, well, I didn't get the results and that's not necessarily on me. I can't take the actions for people. So it's on them, but you're more likely to have somebody that is paying that lower fee to not take the action because they're not taking it as seriously. So I completely agree with your perspective on that for sure. I think it's a...

Anne Ryan (42:09)
Exactly.

Sophie (42:31)
It's definitely a mindset shift that I'm still working through for sure. I think I'm like 70 % through it and kind of get into a position where I feel more comfortable.

Often like not in a way of like, I don't want to overcomplicate my offer package structure, for example, but I definitely want to have something that accommodates for that accessibility, but then also know that I need to have that like higher ticket to really work truly with the people that I would like to work with and be able to offer the value that I would like to be able to offer. So I feel like, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out like my positioning with moving towards like that high ticket, but it's really interesting to hear your perspective and I completely get kind of where you're.

coming from with that it's a really good viewpoint to have like in terms of like the people that are actually going to take do the work essentially.

Anne Ryan (43:21)
Yeah, yeah. Look, and

there's that strategy of having something low ticket. Some people have something low ticket, mid ticket and high ticket, you know, and that's fine. That's completely that's okay. Right. It works. I just do free and high. You know, because

Sophie (43:37)
which I also really

like that approach. think that's really nice because it actually, when you, if we look at what I just said about accessibility, that's the most accessible you could possibly get, right? So it makes perfect sense.

Anne Ryan (43:47)
Exactly.

Yeah and truly you know with the I'll preface this by saying I was like saying nothing's held back but I'll preface it by saying there's only so much you can share in a 30 minute or one hour masterclass right whereas in a coaching container if I'm working with someone for 12 months then obviously the depth keeps

going right because we just keep building on things and what we talked about in the first week becomes you know we go even deeper so that aside the information truly the foundation is exactly the same you know what I teach for free and and high and and to me it feels simple it feels like a really simple business model but to other people you know like I look at other people's business models and and to me it feels

complicated, but then it's simple. And if it is, then, you know, that that's okay too.

Sophie (44:48)
Yeah, I guess there's no right or wrong answer here, is there? It's that kind of like what's working for you and going back to what we were talking about, like we built business around the lifestyle we want to live. As long as that's kind of matching up for you and you're not feeling resentful for your business for taking too much of your time or not making the right amount of money, whatever your goal is, I think as long as it's working for you, good, great. Like keep going with it kind of thing. Yeah.

Anne Ryan (44:54)
Exactly.

Exactly.

Sophie (45:17)
Definitely. I would be really interested to know, like obviously you talk about kind of working anything from between 30 minutes to four hours a day. What are you doing with the rest of your time? Like obviously you put your life first, like how are you spending that time in your life that you're not spending in your business?

Anne Ryan (45:33)
It does, it does vary. At the moment it's kind of sorting out stuff. sadly my dad passed about four weeks ago. So for about, thank you, for about, sorry, the 12 months prior to him passing, he had a rough year. You know, he was in and out of hospital. He had a lot going on. So.

Sophie (45:49)
I'm so sorry to hear that.

Anne Ryan (46:01)
you know, so I was actually quite busy taking him to appointments and just really kind of making sure that he kind of became the priority because my kids are now 18 and 20, you know, so they're actually, they're adults, they're pretty capable, they both drive, so they need me less. But earlier on in this journey,

it was them, know, it was the school pickups, school drop-offs, taking them to activities, you know, there was always something that needed to be done as a mum, right? And so, so what I do with my time has sort of shifted and changed a bit. I also, I actually have a passion for real estate. I really love, you know, buying and selling homes and, and, and

renovations and you know and it's actually separate to our construction business. It's more of a personal you know investment thing that we do and so sometimes I have a project like that on the go you know so I've just got stuff. We're going to India for the whole month of April. You know last year we went to Japan for a whole month.

So it's kind of travel, know, there's always staff. And I want to be able to, I'm a workaholic, quite honestly, like deep down inside of me, I love business, I love working, you know. So if I have the time and I want to work, I'll work, but I don't have to work. That's the beauty of...

the way my business has been built, you know, I really don't have to work. And even in our offline business, we've sort of now got a general manager in place. So both my husband and I could take off and the business still continues. We have staff that do it, you know, do all the staff. And so, yeah.

Yeah, and in my online business, I only got a VA after I hit about 50K months. And, but she, you know, I can rely on her to manage things. Well, because we've been working together now for a couple of years. She knows me, I know her, we're totally in rhythm. My business is simple. So, you know, she can do a lot of stuff. So, yeah, yeah.

Sophie (48:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely.

No, I like that a lot. it really sounds like you're where you are. I know it's taking your time to get there, but like where you're at right now is obviously where a lot of people would like to be. So it's been very inspirational kind of hearing your story and the journey that you've kind of gone on to get there. And I love talking to people that also value their life themselves, their health, their mental health, prioritizing over business because at the end of the day, without those, without us,

without me as a person my business doesn't exist so it's I think it's refreshing to hear that perspective but still have so much kind of like drive and ambition and want to want to do the things so yeah it's really been nice to hear your story. Can you tell us a little bit more about like the office that you've got available and like where people could find you for your services?

Anne Ryan (49:30)
thank you. Yeah. So my website is [www.anryanstrategist.com](http://www.anryanstrategist.com/). Anryanstrategist is my, I suppose, part of my URL for all the different places, whether it's YouTube, Instagram.

Facebook, we just repurpose content, you know, so I'm really, I really leverage Facebook for business. Again, simplicity, one platform, I went all in with Facebook. It's only more recently because, you know, Facebook is a little bit hit and miss at times. And so just to have bit of a backup is why we're on Instagram and YouTube. Yeah, and in terms of offers, it's simple.

I have a mastermind, which is kind of my main leveraged offer. There are actually two tiers in the mastermind. So that's the thing. You can create two touch points, mind you, it's still sort of that higher ticket price point. So one tier has more one-to-one and one tier is group only, but it's still one big container. So I'm...

It's very, very, my time is very leveraged and I also take one-to-one clients, but very few. And it depends on my own, you know, personal life and what's going on. And, you know, so right now I may take someone for the month of March.

but I won't be taking a three month client at this point because I know I'm taking the whole of April to go traveling. I will still connect with my mastermind clients, but that's literally going to be, you know, an hour and 90 minutes a week. You know, so while I'm traveling, I can still continue to do that, but I don't have much else that I have to do.

Sophie (51:28)
Yeah.

Amazing, that's the beauty of online business and simple online business. that's amazing. Was there anything else you wanted to share today regarding the topics that we've spoken about?

Anne Ryan (51:35)
Yeah.

No, thank you. I really appreciate you inviting me and it's been so fun to kind of have this conversation too. I apologize. I've got a bit of a cough which I've tried to suppress. yeah, it's been lovely to catch up and to just sort of chat about my simple business.

Sophie (51:53)
Not at all. Not at all.

No, I love

it. love it. I like all of the concepts that we've spoken about. And there's just so much power, I think, in what you're saying around simplicity. It doesn't have to be over complicated. don't need the big audience. I think everyone just gets, like we said, in by all of the messages out there and overcomplicates things. it's actually really straightforward if we just...

focus on the right things, it can be really easy. We make it hard for ourselves. And I know I can speak for experience from this. And it's something that I my whole focus this year. My whole goal is to strip back, simplify, stop overcomplicating and stay focused on the right things. So this has been even for me, a very interesting conversation to kind of hear your perspectives on it. Just before we close, do you have one bit of advice for any entrepreneurs who are currently in that?

scale phase of online business. How can somebody scale their online business without working all hours of the day?

Anne Ryan (53:04)
That's a good question and I did want to touch on one other thing as well about

Sophie (53:08)
Yes, please

do.

Anne Ryan (53:11)
Feeling like we are enough, you know, that's a bit of a mindset thing. But often we overcomplicate things and we feel the need to do more when we don't feel like we're enough, you know? We need to talk more, we need to do more, we need to create more, we need to be more, we need to be more visible. You know, we have, because the concept of less is more, is...

actually doesn't, people don't feel safe because they feel safer when they're doing more, you know, because again, it's old conditioning. We've been told the harder you work, you know, you've got to work harder and all of those things, right? And so it actually doesn't feel safe for most people to do things simply and to do less. Yeah. And so

I just want you to touch on that. In terms of scaling, in line with the whole sort of conversation that we've had, it really is about, you know, I sort of look at your offer. If you have a scalable offer,

I'd recommend high ticket, but you know, mid high ticket offer that's scalable. That's really good. If you really work on your packaging, positioning, messaging of that offer and, know, and build an audience. thing is we need like, whilst I say we don't need a big audience and I stand by that a thousand percent, we still need to continue to build an audience because you know, we can't sell to the same hundred people when you have one offer, right? Whereas

When you do bring in 500 different little offers, yeah, potentially you can sell multiple things to the one person, but that's something you have to consider. You have to continue to build your audience. And then it's marketing, you know, really to grab attention because social media is noisy, online space is noisy, having a website isn't enough.

No one knows you'll exist unless you do the things to promote yourself and market yourself. yeah, and with high ticket, connection is important. Low ticket, you don't need to connect with people. People will click and buy from a link. But with high ticket, it really is about building that relationship with people. And it doesn't mean having sales calls and long-winded conversations one-to-one. It just means, you know,

nurturing people through your content, through email, through whatever platform you're leveraging to really build that know, like and trust.

Sophie (56:03)
Definitely that that part is

is key like the no like trust like I think a lot of people forget about that part like the customer journey piece That's involved around the sales Which is obviously still part of marketing, but actually they're two separate pieces So yeah, I that's that's really powerful way to end and thank you I really want to I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all of this in your experience with us It's been super insightful for me, and I'm sure for anybody listening also very inspirational

Anne Ryan (56:14)
Yeah.

Sophie (56:33)
as well. So thank you so much for joining and it was lovely to chat to you.

Anne Ryan (56:38)
Thank

you. Thank you so, much for having me. And yeah, I enjoy chatting to you too.

Sophie (56:44)
Okay.