Today's interview is a sit-down with an amazing entrepreneur named Breana Puente. Teaching herself skills that everyone can learn, she was able to replace her full-time salary and now generates over six figures doing something she truly enjoys.
This interview will leave you with some amazing value and hopefully help inspire you on your own journey as you continue on your caffeinated hustle.
Grab your drink and get ready. This is the caffeinated hustle, the best place to learn about entrepreneurs and FTS and life expert advice and guest interviews to launch your business and NFT journey further than you ever imagined. Now, here's your host, entrepreneur, coffee fanatic, and founder of the NFT project, caffeinated creatures, Ben Carson. Welcome back to the caffeinated hustle. I'm your host, Ben Carson. thanks for stopping by, let's go ahead and drop some value on your day. So team today, I've got a very special guest for you to meet. Brianna Plantae is an online entrepreneur who quit her nine to five in 2017. To start a digital marketing agency, she's built a six figure business while traveling the world, and now teaches other people how to do the same thing with skills they already have. Brandon, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Well, I mean, Brian, if it sounds too good to be true, it sounds like you're selling snake oil. Yeah, I mean, it definitely if you would have asked me six years ago, if this was possible, it would have been a glimmer in my eye. And I would have probably told you that it works for other people. But I didn't really believe that it was possible for the average person. But five years in, I can tell you that my life has absolutely changed. By just the little steps that I took to start building an online income, I was able to, you know, first of all, learn the skill sets that I did, in six months, give or take, it took me six months to learn a skill set that enabled me to quit my nine to five, and take on clients for myself and start a freelancing business. And from there, once I had replaced my income, quit my nine to five and started to kind of grow my business, it was another couple of years before I was able to hit my you know, that coveted $10,000 month goal. And once I was there, I realized that it was just a drop in the bucket and Sam site built out this agency model and started to offload a lot of the day to day work. So instead of you know, being the the doer on a day to day basis, I was the the manager of the client relationship. And and I've maintained that model over the last couple of years and then kind of branched out into coaching from there. But through all of this, I have been able to travel the world spend months abroad, I lived in Panama for two years, my husband, I bought a property there and I'd spent, you know, days and weekends on the beach when the average person is you know, was was hustling and focusing on on climbing the corporate ladder. So does it sound like snake oil if you haven't done it 100% But I've done it, and I'm here to tell you that it's possible and I'm no, I'm no special person, I am literally just somebody that stuck with it long enough to make it work. There's so much value there. I mean, we could chop that up in probably five tic TOCs right there and just be done with this entire podcast. Because I mean, that's the biggest thing is you got to be gritty and entrepreneur has to stick with it. Because you said little wins. You know, it's like a you got to be willing just to take your little victory and then your next defeat is just well, you just had a win. It's okay. You can you can lose now, because you won then and just keep winning. Slow and steady. It's not something that happens overnight. So did you not quit your nine to five until you made enough money to to offset? Was it basically the same amount? And then you felt comfortable leave? So I'll tell you. Yes, it I did want to offset my nine to five income before I quit that job and went full time on my own. But I did it with my first client. So the very first client that I and I wasn't making a lot of money, let's get this straight. Okay, so I was making $45,000 a year in my nine to five. And of course, there was you know, options. I had benefits and I had options for you know, commission incentives. So there was the ability to make more money over time, but my monthly take home was after taxes 2500 bucks a month. And so what I did is I told myself when I make that money, I'll quit and my very first client which was a social media management client, I knew how to do social media management. And let's let's back this up a little bit because I didn't just wake up one day and say I'm gonna learn how to do digital marketing and quit my job. I had tried out three different business models before I ever happened upon this one. I was a yoga teacher. I made jewelry and sold it at pop up shops on the weekends. And I also started an E commerce dropshipping business so I had been trying and failing with a little bit of success at this entrepreneurship game for a couple of years before I finally kind of hit on something that worked for me. And when I did hit on that thing that works, and that was digital marketing, social media management, I told myself that when I was able to replace my nine to five income, that is when I was going to quit my job and do this thing full time. And it was my very first client, they paid me 2500 bucks a month, I worked with them for nine months. And once I've done with them for a couple of months, and I knew it was going to be something that was long term. And I could pick up additional clients because I was only working a couple of hours, like maybe 10 hours a week to do what they had hired me for. I just, it was almost like my mind expanded. And that in that time, and so I quit my job, I put in my notice, and I just kind of hit the ground running at that point. That is amazing. So so in a couple months time you're making in 40 hours a month, the same that you were making in 160 hours a month at your old job, plus you're doing it where you want to do at coffee shops, or house or wherever you feel like working that day, once you get it started. Because, you know, I feel like it's probably one of those jobs, it takes a lot of upfront. But once you get it started, how many hours? Were you doing it ongoing? Was it 10 Every month? Or do you get less and less and less because you built the systems and it gets easier and easier. Less and less, always less and less right now I work, I work when I want to to be honest with you. I don't I don't ever the only thing I really need to show up for is is sales calls, you know, stuff like this, I need to post on social media every day, I've got to create tick tock, you know, videos, content creation is what takes up the majority of my time now. But as far as like the day to day goes, I have account managers that handle client accounts, I handled the client relationship. And over the years, I have been able to really set very clear and important boundaries in place that allow me to separate myself from my work, right. So I manage the client relationship. I love working with my clients, I love working with my students, but there are very specific times and days that I show up. And aside from that, I'm pretty well free to focus on content creation. So yeah, over time, you know, there there are always there are always going to be weeks when you put in a ton of time and energy. And then there's going to be months sometimes where you just take off completely measures that manage the day to day kind of like hands on work, and I manage the client relationship. And so were in the beginning, I was doing all of the work. On a day to day basis, I was scheduling social media posts, I was you know, showing up kind of for everything. Overtime, I built systems, and those systems have allowed me to so I created SOPs, right standard operating procedures for my business. And I have employees that do the day to day work. So the only thing that I'm really showing up to manage is the client relationship, you know, if anybody is is looking to get into this type of business, it is very important to have your, your standard working hours in place. And to have very clear boundaries in place with your clients. So they're not reaching out to you on the weekends or not reaching out to you after hours, you have set times that you are meeting with them on a weekly or bi weekly or monthly basis. So putting all of those protocols in place has really helped me to, to define my role inside of my business and and give myself a lot of free time and energy to focus on other things. That's awesome. And it makes you look like a real business and not a little side hustle, the fact that you can only get a hold of them like you can on anyone else. So I want to take a few steps back just for someone starting out. What's the best way to get your first pain client? Start there? That's a great question. So I'll tell you how I did it. There are a lot of ways to go about it. And I know people who have started out you know, in many different approaches in terms of prospecting, but how I did it and how I recommend somebody who's looking to offer a digital service, which is how I started out you learn the service do the service for yourself, do it for a friend do it for a clients at a you know lower intro price and learn on the job create your portfolio. So the way that I did it, I was my own first client. I mentioned I had a couple of businesses that I started before I started freelancing And for those businesses, I learned social media, I learned how to grow an Instagram account, I learned how to schedule posts, I learned marketing, in general. And so I took the skill sets that I had learned for these other businesses that I had started. And I applied those to basically create client packages. And my first package that I sold was a social media management package, I found my first client on Upwork. And I made my first probably $100,000, through that platform, your clients that I found on the platform, and that is what I recommend, it's a great place to start, it's a great place to get your feet wet. And to do research on other people who are already doing what you want to do. You can look at their profiles, you can look at their service offerings, you can look at their packages, you can look at their client reviews, and really kind of reverse engineer what they're doing. And this is exactly what I did, I knew how to do social media management, I didn't know how to put together a package, I didn't know how to charge for my services. And so I basically just kind of did a deep dive into my niche into my service offering in Upwork, I created my profile, I created my service offering my package, and the first you know, a couple of sales calls, totally bombed them. I submitted 10 proposals a day until I got you know, a sales call or two. And the one that finally stuck is the one where I was really honest with thee, like brutally honest with the company, they were a startup that had seed funding. And they were, you know, starting an online app and online fitness app, which was a really cool project to have a chance to work on. But they didn't know what they were doing. And I told them like, Listen, this is what I know, this is how I know it. Here's my portfolio, these are all my own projects. And I'm willing to learn with you and work with you. And here's what I need on a monthly basis to really dedicate myself to this task. I dropped the price. And they said yes. And I celebrated. I couldn't believe that somebody is going to pay me $2,500 a month to do this. And I'll be honest, every time I raise my prices, or put together a new package, and somebody pays me for it, I'm always like, floored a new because I know what it's worth. But for somebody to look at you and say yes, you are worth that, to me, this service is worth that, to me, it's something else it truly is, I totally get that I've spent just for anyone listening, there's no shame in working through Fiverr Upwork, I've probably spent 50 to $100,000 my own businesses through there. I mean, it's a real, legit place to find legit people. And so it's not something where everyone's charging 10 bucks an hour, there's real people there that you'll spend 1000s of dollars on, like Brandon, it's not a bad place to go to start out. Because I will say from my perspective, because I'm from the ecommerce side, print on demand. And I will say I wish in the future, I probably will launch one just so people can understand how it happens. I truly understand that a service business is so much better when you're doing b2b Because when your business to business, your clients are just trying to make sales, it's so easy to it's so much easier to get them on board than trying to convince a customer to buy your product. Because if I have a budget of $1,000, and I'm a customer, I can spend it on my business, and that's just all gonna go to the business. If I have $1,000 for a personal, I'm gonna spend it on 10,000 things, my ones will always overpower my money. And so I can't buy everything. It's a lot easier, in my opinion, doing this track and hearing your track. I feel like business to business is a much better way to sell, you're going to have a lot an easier path to get in the front door, especially starting out and then you're just going to scale it like you didn't just crush it. That's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. It took me I mean, don't get me wrong, it took me years to figure out how to productize my service offerings, how to create systems for my business how to charge appropriately because the truth is the $2,500 that I charged, you know, per month that I charged my first client, I should have been charging double or triple that for the work that I was putting in for them. Because you're not charging when you when you start a service based business. Yes, you're learning a lot on the job. But you've already done your research and you know more than your client does. And what really matters is the result that you're able to provide them at the end of the day. So if you can make their life easier by solving their problem, they should be paying you for it. And they should be paying you as time goes on you you're you know you get more confident with raising your prices and charging a premium. But if I could give you a piece of advice to somebody just starting out, I talked to so many early entrepreneurs who are charging $250 A month $500 A month for a service that I know has taken them hundreds of hours to learn. And just understand that when somebody starts paying you for your knowledge to perform a service for them, or to teach them something, they're not paying you it's not it's not a time based transaction, it's a knowledge based transaction. And if you can provide a solution to somebody's problem with your skill set or knowledge base, you need to be charging a premium for that. So that's one thing that it took me a long time to learn. But don't be scared to to really demand what you're worth, when, when it comes to the knowledge that you have acquired through your hard work and dedication. That's a great point, because I'm sure a lot of people starting out, are coming from nine to five world corporate world where you're paid an hourly rate, a salary rate, and you're like, Well, I was making, you know, 40 bucks an hour, and I can charge 100, I can't charge more than that. I'm already making two and a half times more than I made in my last job, like I'm just taking advantage of them. No, you're not you're solving the problems, people will pay a lot of money to solve problems. That's, that's a phenomenal point. So we talked about portfolio at the start, you feel three clients, three Junior projects at a very deep discount, just trying to get your foot out there, your your your name out there, what do you feel is a minimum amount you need for portfolio to take off? One? Wow, okay, just one of them. And I'll tell you the reason why I'm on tick tock now, and I've been on tick tock for about seven months, and I've grown a decent following thus far, and have gotten a really good handle on the platform. When I first started offering tic toc management as a service, I have never gone below 3000. So my packages are 3000 to 5000, a month and a minimum of three months that the you know, client has to sign on with me. And the first client that I signed on, I based my my pitch was listen, I've been doing this for four months. And these are the numbers that I've been able to get to and these are the results I've been able to get to with my own personal profile. I have never managed a client profile before. But this is what I've done. And this is literally like my portfolio is my profile. And that solds until I you know picked up some additional case studies and examples from clients that sold me that sold every every sales call that I had. So you don't need the only thing you need is is proof of concept, you need to show that you know what you're doing. And it can be for I teach this I've got a little course that I created for freelancers. And inside of the course, it was the first course that I put together. And it was kind of like a passion project. And inside of the course I teach that at the very beginning. You don't need actual clients, you literally just need projects to show that you know what you're doing. My initial projects were just things that I had created. I had this dropshipping business, I had a jewelry making business, I had a yoga business, and I had built all of these Instagram profiles for these different businesses and websites and landing pages. So it was knowledge that I absolutely had. But it wasn't anything that anybody had paid me for. But that was my that was my initial portfolio, I put, I put it together with a platform called carbon made. And it was free at the time. And I literally just created it was the cheapest looking portfolio, but I just created it. And I put the pictures together on there. And I shared that link with potential clients. And that's how I landed my first jobs. I mean, I'm sure the entire community listening is loving that because that they can start tomorrow now they can just start learning. Alright, so portfolios handled, I think we should move on a little bit to what you're doing now. But one last thing, where did you learn how to do social media? It was just trial and error pretty much through your own projects. Was there any sort of class you took anything free on YouTube, or literally just trial and error and just grind it out? So trial and error? And I will say, say here that yes, I paid for courses. And the early days later on, I paid for high ticket coaching and that that I got a return on that investment in spades. But in the early days, I get paid for courses. The only reason I paid for courses was because I wanted to reverse engineer what they were doing. And so for example, Rachel Peterson, phenomenal Social Media Manager coach and like don't don't buy my stuff if you want to learn how to how to become a social media manager go to her socially tells us another one on on tick tock that has a great membership program. So what I did is I would I would join you know, courses programs like These and just kind of versus learning from them, I would reverse engineer what they were doing for their communities for the content that they were putting out. And I did a ton of research, I would go home from my nine to five every single day, I brought my company laptop home under the guise that I was working in the evenings. And I sat there, I open up my laptop when my husband was watching TV, I would sit next to him. And I would just research I researched forums I researched, you know, I read blogs, I watched YouTube videos, and basically devoured everything that I possibly could when it came to Reddit forums subreddits, about digital nomads who had, you know, that's how I learned how to put together my first package, I remember I read a post on the subreddit about somebody who had spent a couple of years traveling and working as a social media manager. And they said that they were charging $500 per platform that they were managing. That is how I came up with a $2,500 for my first client. So don't discount the free information that's out there, because that's how I started my entire business. You don't need to pay to get the knowledge or guidance to start this thing you literally just need to start. Yeah, I love that. And by the way, you're very humble, but I kind of feel like personally I would much rather have someone like you in my corner than someone is selling a massive course because you're still in the trenches and I can I can almost guarantee they're kind of they're just selling courses now they're they're not doing anymore they're not active in it there's a reason you get to too high of a level and and you don't get the value you're expecting because it's kind of their different business model now, but I do appreciate the humbleness alright, that's that's phenomenal. We got to move on a little bit get past this because you're not only are you doing this, and it's amazing. Now you're doing something on tick tock that's really helping a lot of people, I don't want to take too much of it. I just want you to explain it for the listener. So just tell us what you do now. Okay, so tick tock, I love tick tock by like everything lights up when I talk about it, because I started out in Instagram, right. And when I started out with Instagram, it was 2016 2017. And it was in the kind of like, infancy of the platform. It had been around for a while. But it was it was the time when businesses were starting to take it seriously. And you could create serious revenue on with just one one profile, right? So in the early days of Instagram, you could get a massive organic traction where with Instagram and Facebook in the year since it has been largely paid to play. And so as advertisers have been working as marketers, digital marketers, digital nomads, we've been working in this, this social media sphere, that's very difficult to gain traction in unless you're spending a ton of time on the platforms, or you're spending money, right. And you know that from a pod perspective, you know that when you feed the machine like that's when you get sales. And I've worked with E commerce companies extensively, I've spent a lot of money on Facebook and various, you know, paid platforms. And you get to the point where with these social media platforms up until the last year or two years give or take with tick tock, it was paid to play. And it didn't matter what platform you were working off of you had to add in a paid element. Or you had to spend a ton of time creating content for these platforms to consume to build up an audience with tick tock in the first month. I think I had 90,000 followers in three months, it was higher than that. And then in you know, seven months, and I'm at like 54,000 followers, I don't say that to try to flex on follower count, because that's nothing. But I say that because along with this organic traction, I've also been able to repurpose content to make money on other platforms like Facebook, where I'm pulling in like eight grand a month, just repurposing my tic tock videos to their reels and getting views there and getting paid for the views there. I'm able to fill out coaching programs, I have been able to build email lists and sell digital products and take on Tiktok management clients. Everything that I just mentioned has been organic. I have literally just had to show up and create content that is nothing nothing different from what I'm talking about right here. I show up and I create videos about the things that I know and that I'm passionate about, which is marketing and online business and entrepreneurship. And that content has allowed me to grow have an audience grow my email list and grow my revenue in the short amount of time that I've been on the platform. So when I say that, all you need to do is show up and put in the work with tick tock, like literally just show up every day and figure it out as you go, that is all that you need to do to build an entire business on the platform. Wow, that's, that's amazing. Because zero to 50,000. I mean, like you said, there's people that have a lot more but you're monetizing yours along the way where that's a real important differentiator. So what are you doing then? Because I took a look at your Tiktok. It's, it's very insightful, I really recommend the listeners go check it out. We'll throw the link in the show notes. But you say you're helping people create a digital product with skills and services they already have. So what does that mean? Exactly? Yeah. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. And it has been my own kind of evolution as a as an entrepreneur. Because when I first started out, I mentioned that I created this, you know, Freelancer course, because that's where I've made the bulk of my money over the last five years is offering digital services to businesses. But last year, I kind of branched out into coaching, and I launched this Freelancer course. And then I saw that I was gaining traction there, and that people wanted to pay me for coaching. And so I took what I knew, and I built out more courses, more digital products. And I still offer my services as well, you know, within my marketing agency, but I've realized in partnering with other entrepreneurs as a coach, and in building out the community that I've built out, I work with so many different types of entrepreneurs. And the one element that we all have in common is that we are coming into this platform to build our audience organically without putting money into the machine, right. And it doesn't matter if you have a digital product or a service or just an idea, you can create an income online. So what I do with my students, for example, and with the content that I create for Tik Tok, is I just take the knowledge that I have, and I turn it into I use Tiktok, my videos there to turn that knowledge, basically use it as a vehicle to deliver the knowledge. And it doesn't matter what your skill set is, I was talking to one of my students the other day, who she's got just just that expertise in so many different areas because life, right. And she was telling me that she feels like she's this, you know, jack of all trades, master of none. And what I what I told her is that, you know, I understand it may feel like that, but you have this specific expertise, and this expertise, and this one that you can talk about for hours on end. And that's kind of where you start, you start with a passion, right. And I've heard so many people say that you can't create a business based on your passion, you shouldn't monetize your passion. And I firmly disagree. Like you can make money without it, you you know, be passionate about the thing that you're selling, absolutely, I've done it. But you can also take the knowledge that you have, whether it is I don't know how to get your infant to breastfeed or how to create an Etsy shop that you can scale to six figures or how to run Facebook ads, you can take the knowledge that you already have, whether it is from life experience, or from a corporate job or from working in restaurants for 20 years. And you can productize that knowledge, you can sell a guide you can sell a course you can sell a coaching program, you can sell a product like a print on demand, you know, merchandise setup, but what it really starts with is with this platform specifically is your knowledge base, because that is what your you're bringing to this this platform to tick tock you're you're bringing your knowledge, you're bringing your expertise, what ever that may be you can monetize it. So what would you say to people who are listening who have a skill who are considering this but they're not wanting to come across as you know, salesman, he or you know, basically like I've seen comments on tick tock of you know, you're just giving me this because you're gonna try and sell me something later. I've seen lots of pushback there. You know, I just like to hear what you think about that. Yeah, so it's a great question and I get the I get the naysayers as well. Of course once you build any type of traction on tick tock, you're going to get the trolls you're gonna get the scammers and you're gonna get people that that doubt what you're telling and specifically that doubt that you are there for, you know, for anything, but to sell them something. And I say two things to that, number one, if I'm giving you free information, take it and run, like, just just take it and learn what you can from it. And thank me if you want, you know, if not, that's fine. But number two, what are we all here for? You know, why would you expect something for free. And this is this goes back to really, really putting a value on your knowledge and on your life experience and your education. Listen, if you have something that you know, solves somebody else's problem, because oftentimes, the reason that you learned it is you had a problem that nobody else could solve, you should be asking for a sale for that solution. You shouldn't be offering it for free. And so when it comes to organic selling on any social media platform, or or in general, yes, you need to give away a ton of free information. But there comes a point when you also have to ask for the sale and you have to be comfortable with that. But if you're doing it right, and this is the way that I run my business, you will have people coming to you asking for begging for the solution that you're offering, because that is their problem, and they're willing to pay for it. So they booked your calendar, they I mean, there's a lot of people that aren't going to there's going to be a lot of naysayers. There's going to be you know, people that unfollow you, who cares how much time you really have on this earth. You know, if you have something to share with people, then share it, share it and and share the wealth. And, you know, I struggle, I still struggle with impostor syndrome, and every entrepreneur will but you know what I've also figured out if Mia from five years ago looked at me today, she would be wildly jealous of the license person for myself. So I have been able to figure out my you know, my my dream situation, and now I have bigger dreams. So do not discount what you have to bring to the table and do not be afraid to ask for the sale provide an insane amount of value. But there has to be a time when you ask for the sale. And at that point, if you're doing it right, they're begging you to sell them your solution, whatever it may be. I'm so glad you said that because I firmly believe what you believe but I wanted to hear because there's gonna be some naysayers but you know, my favorite saying regarding something like this is if you want to make everyone happy, sell ice cream, if you're not selling ice cream, you're gonna piss some people off. And that's just part of the job. You're not trying anyone that's trying to cater to everyone will cater to know what you have to be willing to lose some followers to get some hate mail to get some troll comments. That's part of the process. You want to be making more money than you're making. Now. You got to be willing to get yourself in the uncomfortable areas of life. And that's how you improve. So Brian, I really appreciate your time where can people find you get to know more about you or reach out to you something like that? Yeah, of course. And thank you so much. It's I love these types of opportunities because you know, it gets lonely, right as an entrepreneur. And that's another thing too. If you are just stepping into this world, build your tribe and build your community build it on tick tock because listen, I have got some amazing people in my corner that I've never met in real life that I just connected with via tick tock so if you're just starting this, make sure to build your tribe because it does get lonely and it does get frustrating. So I absolutely appreciate opportunities like this to vibe with like minded entrepreneurs. But all that being said, if you would like to find me connect with me, follow me you know, access any of my free or paid resources. It's Brianna doc Wednesday on tick tock, I have a backup account. And if you can find that one, it's just free until Wednesday that is all of my Facebook real stuff. So it's totally different content. So make sure it's brand adopt Wednesday for the for the business accounts. And you can find me there and connect with me there I have a discord channel. If you go to the link in my bio, you'll find a free guide you'll find applications by membership, you'll find my Discord which is totally free. And I've got about 400 people in there. Entrepreneurs, digital creators, like amazing people that just add value every single day. So I would absolutely love to see you in there and learn within from you. That is amazing. I mean, the entire point of this podcast is to connect with people like yourself to really add value to everyone's day. The entire point of our project caffeinated creatures is to build tribes for people because we're not going to meet a lot of people we interact with these days. The post COVID world is just it's different and it allows a lot more opportunities that didn't exist before. So we have to take into manage that and very well said you have to connect with other people you will get very bored, very lonely. And it's gonna be a death spiral if you don't get out there somehow. So make sure you find someone in your, in your corner in your circle. But Brian, I really appreciate this. We close out every interview with this question. So I got to ask you what is your favorite caffeinated beverage? Oh god coffee on pay every day. Coffee, nothing wrong with that it gets through the day gets us what we're doing here. So I really appreciate your time and we'll talk soon. Thank you so much, Ben. I appreciate your time. Thanks for listening to the caffeinated hustle. Sponsored by caffeinated labs LLC. For more information or to connect with Ben, check us out online at caffeinated labs got IO or email us at support at caffeinated labs.io. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Or give us a follow on social media by checking the links in the description. We'll see you next time.