While Liz Wilcox was competing on Survivor, her business made six figures!

She shows small businesses people like you listening right now how to build online relationships , package up their magic and turn it into emails that people will want to read and , most importantly , purchase , from which I love that last part . So this , hi , Liz .

And so this is before we hit record , because all those cool people that I've interviewed in the past and now you , it's like we had good conversations to get to know each other , right , so like we could make a good podcast episode and like not have it be awkward , like just talking with a stranger that's a guest expert , and then I realized the audience needs

to hear these conversations because we're more than just . I'm an online business owner and this is what I do , and I only have like one facet to my personality , which is my online business .

It's like we have like dreams and hopes and aspirations and fears and cool backstories and you know things we like and dislike and families and like partners , and and we got to like talk about all this .

So that's why we're having this segment and you , the listener , right now , if you look in the show notes below on the podcast , you can click to the next episode , where Liz will be a guest a second time and she'll be talking about some really good email things , things that I know you're going to want to hear .

Like she says you should only be spending 20 minutes a week writing emails , and I know for me , let's just call me like the written word . I have difficulties with the written word , so I'm like , how can I achieve only 20 minutes ? I would love it , cause , truth be told , I'm just not doing any minutes right now Cause it's so intense . It's true . It's true .

I've tried many things , like trying to have my team write the emails and then me look at them and I'm just email adverse . So I'm willing to . I can't wait to hear that from you on the next episode and the listener will also enjoy .

Like , how can we better connect with our audience via emails and what we're doing wrong in our email welcome sequences so that we can improve conversion rates ? So that's coming up in her guest expert episode in a moment after we get to know each other . A couple other housekeeping things is , if you don't know who I am , hi , I'm Quajo .

I'm the new host of the Art of Online Business , but it's already been a moment though Five months , so if my voice is new to you , I don't think you live , it's great .

But anyway , Kwejo was about to say his awesome spiel about the art of online business and how he's taken it by storm in the last five months .

And if you want to know where he's at and what project he's working on it's a really cool ai project and the link to that episode where he explains this is in the show notes below . And if you're like like Kwejo , who the heck are you ?

Well , there's another episode linked up in the show notes below where Rick was interviewing me and he shares why he chose me to be the new host . And if you don't listen to those episodes , know that the podcast remains largely the same Tips and tricks and strategies and , behind the scenes , peaks and , of course , facebook ads .

Goodness , to help you , an online course creator , scale your business up from low six figures to high six figures . And with that , liz , I like your golf claps . You would do well on the side of a golf course . Yeah , I do .

They bought the business . It was an RV travel blog and they still do the live show today . So when I got hooked up with the art of online business and Quay Joe , I was like , oh my gosh , this is so cool , like something is living on , like that's .

I feel like that is true entrepreneurship when you can , when you're like buying and selling , when you create something and it lives on and it has this new identity and this new life , and so I have been loving the new identity of our online business . So , yes , golf , clap all day for the new host .

He was quite public about his struggles with burning out and then wanting to pivot but not disguising a failure with the word pivot like so many of us do , right , but actually his previous business going just fine .

I mean that's , I was working as a coach inside of his accelerator that coached like high earning , established online course creators and his interests just were beginning to lie elsewhere . And so , like when we had the chat , he was saying that like he was just going to end the podcast and I was like , well , why don't I take it over ?

And he was like there's no one else that he would trust with the audience but me , you know , and I was honored when he told me that . And after work , I mean we worked together for like three years .

So , as far as the consulting slash , coaching in the online space , like he taught me most of what I know now , you know , minus some books that I read and other courses I took . So like I'm still deeply indebted to him . Like his spirit lives on in the art of online business .

And also , like you , coming from the community , like literally from the inside , the call is coming from the inside of the house , Like I think that's so awesome because that's who I sold my business to .

It was someone that had been on my email list , had been in my community for almost three years and , yeah , it was that same , like I don't know , it was just an easy transfer of not only the business but like of energy .

Like I knew that the thing that I envisioned you know it was going to be different , but it was going to live on and it was going to have that same like mission and vision .

I mean I've had , you know , like I mean real job , like I've worked at my last job was at a gas station Like I've worked at any and every pizza place you could ever think of , but I never had like a real , like suit and tie , have to report to an actual professional .

And so I'm talking to these people and they're like oh , we're talking to our lawyer and you know what , what about this ? And that the whole process felt intimidating to me . But it was one of those things that I knew like , oh , this is going to help me grow .

This is like just , you know , I don't know , like shedding my old layer to , you know , grow into something bigger . So yeah , it was scary .

You know , like you're friends , but you have to outline all these possible scenarios and things in the contract , like that way , like the friendship and the relationship is preserved and you just have to codify it . It's like if this happens , well then this will happen . If this happens , you agree that this will happen .

You know , and you talk these things out so that there's , and then write them in the contract so that there's no misunderstanding . And at least that's the way it was explained to me to encourage me to just keep going . Because , man , when we were working on the contract , that was just a beast of a process .

It's kind of like by the end I was like , oh , this feels like less intimidating and more like a security blanket . I know exactly what's going to happen in just about every scenario and so now it's less intimidating . There's , you know , usually it's the fear of the unknown right , and so , okay , I know everything now , so I can , I can kind of release it .

And so it's airing on television and that feels really big . But even now , like seeing myself on TV this morning , I woke up and I'm starting to get these , like they call them , fan cams , and so it's where somebody makes like a personal video of like clips from the show of you and so like that feels exciting .

But , honestly , the most exciting part still is that I was able to take 90 days off of work like I don't know anyone else who has ever done that like and this is not a oh I'm bragging or anything , but like I'm a single mom .

I support three households , with my one little , liz wilcoxcom business okay and for for me to be able to take off 90 days like and the bills are paid . The the emails are emailing , you know . Like the automations are automating .

Like for everything to work and for me to not only go out in the jungle and play some silly like competition reality show but , when I came back I was able to take two months off of work to like recover mentally and physically because y'all that game is real . I know a lot of reality shows are really like twisted , not what you see .

Like I'm still 10 pounds lighter than I was when I started the game . Like it is very real . But for me to be able to take that much time off , that's the most exciting part , like sure , getting on TV . To be honest , it was honestly pretty easy to get on the show .

He was like this before we hit record , stuff is about like , who you are outside of your online business and y'all speaking of Survivor , that's something that I found out there . I was like , wow , all of these people I'm meeting have hobbies , have , you know , lots of friends , have , you know , lifelong relationships .

And I was like , oh my gosh , I'm having a bit of an identity crisis . All I've done the last seven years is build my business and I don't feel shame around that .

I had to do that , like I mentioned , like I'm a single mom , I support a lot of people , but I was like , now that I've set my business up in a way that I can take time off , what am I going to do with that time off ?

And that's another exciting thing that I've spent , you know , the last year trying to figure out of , like , what does Liz like outside of making money ?

I mean reality , reality show pro , like there's some other good ones you could hop on you know , maybe you know , survivor is the only one I've ever wanted to be on , like what ? And it wasn't even about being on tv . I wanted to play survivor like I'm a I'm a survivor geek and I , I really I was like I know I could be on that show .

I know that I could do really well . I I probably know I could win . Like , just give me a shot , jeff . So as far as like other shows , like I mean , if somebody called I have a big ego , I probably wouldn't say no , but Survivor is really the only show I ever wanted to be on because I love the game .

What does no mean how many okay , how many can you speak fluently and feel like you can have an intelligent conversation with someone like this ?

We can't edit it out , but my wife is blending her health drink I , I didn't hear it shout out to the wife right being healthy getting right she's way healthier than I am hey , babe , you're doing it big .

Which is good because , like that means , our kids are way healthier because she is with our kids while I get the luxury of being up here in my office and staring at three monitors .

So the language thing , like after speaking to a three-year-old and a four-year-old for so long it's like my language has just gone down the toilet , not that like he has a potty mouth . I feel like all these puns . You know I should be from britain or I'm just a dad with bad dad jokes , but it's .

It's just so simple , the language we say and it's so repetitive . You know , like the basic kid routine how old are you kids or is your child ?

But when you pull yourself either out of the environment where the language is spoken or the manufactured environment that you've created to grow your language , you know , like a mix of TV shows and daily practices and tutors and college classes maybe , and all this , let's call it input then , the tree starts to die and it always

dies . Like trees in real life , the leaves go first like , or , if you think about like a tree when fall time comes , this would be whatever . The opposite of the deciduous tree is the leaf bearing trees , the . It's the .

The little leaves fall off first , right , right , they turn color and then they fall off , and that represents , like the very , the fine vocabulary that you have , the adjective that you really only use once in a while .

You know those start to go first and then , if a tree is dying , it's the branches that fall off next or that rot , and then finally the bigger branches and then it's the trunk , right , and so , like the trunk represents the easiest things , the things in a language that you use the most often .

And so , like , my mandarin has been dying , but I can still use it pretty well . I mean , I was speaking it there for like 12 years . So how many languages do I know ? Just two English and Mandarin .

I'm pretty good , like upper intermediate , with Spanish , and that just means I can't like get in a fight and I probably anytime like my brain would get stressed . My language still deteriorates if it's Spanish . I'm not going to take care of pipes , flooding or God forbid , the house is on fire and I have to call the fire department .

At that point I would just You'd probably start speaking Mandarin . I can do that in Mandarin .

It's like some of those like plants and animals that can freeze and then they come back to life , like , instead of like a tree . It's like you know something , like you know bears go into hibernation and their whole system slows down .

I don't consider myself a Spanish speaker at all , but I did learn Spanish in first , second and third grade , which I think is why my accent isn't terrible , like it's not the best , but it isn't terrible . People can usually understand me .

And then I spoke it in , you know , in in America you have to take , you know , a foreign language in school , so I took it there again and then it just laid dormant . I ask you , because this is my greatest regret in life , is not speaking another language fluently ?

I feel like it makes me feel very ignorant , and so I know I'm not , but ignorant as in , like unknowing and limited , not ignorant as in stupid . And I I fostered a girl from Guatemala and , having her in my house and having to speak with her dad , I was like , wow , I know a lot more Spanish or I can learn it a lot faster than I thought I would .

And I think it's because those you know , those roots are deep , you know , maybe back of brain stuff , and it was just frozen , and and the tree , if we're going to use Quajo's example , like , is coming back to life much faster than if it had hadn't been planted at all .

So I think you're good boo , I think you know , give you 48 hours , you , you know , in a city that only speaks mandarin , and you'd be , you'd be fine .

So you know Semana Santa , which is like Holy Week , but in Spanish , because Semana is week and Santa is holy , right , mexico being like at least historically , like a Catholic country , and so Holy Week is a big thing here , just like it is in the Philippines .

My team just got back from their vacation and my wife and I were joking that what we're gonna do is get santa hats and put them on and then hand them out to like mexicans and just see what would happen if , like , we're like happy simanda santa , and we would say it with our gringo foreigner accent oh my gosh funny like people would get upset or if people

would like laugh and think it looks funny . And so we were telling this to our friend who is a mexican , and we're like , yeah , we're gonna , like you know , speak with our gringo accents . And she's like , just speak with your normal gringo accents . I was like , how dare you ? I don't have a gringo accent . I've been working hard on this thing .

He had taken some classes beforehand and I had been practicing and you know I'm like every day like trying to perfect my accent and we were , we were with this guy who was hosting our Airbnb and you know he was another American , but he said it like hurt me , I couldn't sleep at night .

He said oh , I think I think your friend here has a better accent than you , because in my head my friend sounded like an idiot , like like so bad , like hola , como estas . You know , me gusta . You know , like very like it , just the accent was not accenting and so I was like , oh my gosh , you think he sounds better than me . What do I sound like ?

I was having a crisis because my whole life I was like , you know , I don't know a lot of Spanish , but dang it , when I speak it I sound all right . And he was like no , this guy sounds way better than you Like . It was like a crisis of identity , but you're totally right .

You know , having an accent is like showing how brave you are , because it is really scary to . You know , feel like you're going to sound stupid or ignorant or limited , right yeah it truly is .

I would love to one day , and I even live in a neighborhood that is prominently Latin and , like I go out , I hear more Spanish where I live than English . It's not unless I go to Disney or outside of my neighborhood . Both of my neighbors I don't , I like I'm not even sure that they speak English . So it's a very Latin neighborhood .

I go to the supermarket . Everything's in Spanish . You know the signs , the name , you know Um , and so I I'm trying to be as immersive as possible for still living in America .

She's trying to learn , you know , our language , be immersed in our culture so I think they're incredibly welcoming and you know , don't listen to the media y'all like florida is actually incredibly diverse and like there's some really amazing cultures and people here . I love living here .

I had to join , like there's this app that people in China use called WeChat , and so I was on the app and I looked for a group that was here in the city I live in central Mexico called Querétaro , and I found a group of Chinese folks and jumped in and started sending like messages like hey , would somebody be a tutor for my kid , you know , like in their

free time .

And so that's how I found a language tutor for my son Not that he needed it initially , but just to provide more exposure to mandarin chinese and like I bet , if it makes economic sense for you , there's somebody you know who could just speak spanish with your daughter come with you go through some material , like you know , like that's , it's , yeah , yeah I love ,

I love that idea because she actually goes to a bilingual school , which is why we moved here .

But I think that they were having difficulties they . They said they used to be immersion , but when the kids got to middle school , because they had never like learned in English , they were really struggling and the public schools didn't like that or whatever , I don't know .

But anyway , I I've been looking for someone outside of her school , just an extra hour a day to you know , converse , so wechat , I'm writing that down , right oh well , we chat , we chat , so is that ? just for asia . It's just , I've heard of that before . Wechat is this social media ?

But you know what I'm saying like , just take a book and provide conversation around that or any other extracurricular materials you have . Yeah , could be a good move .

Like if I wasn't teaching facebook ads or being a facebook ad manager , it probably would be start a youtube channel about learning foreign language and , just you know , get sponsorships that way and try to get people to learn more of whatever foreign language they're passionate about , cause it's , you know , communicating with people like re redoing our brains to like

peer through , like the cultural window and see like the world as it's been set up and like the minds of people who come from like a completely different culture than ours . It's such a gift and like such an amazing experience and challenging , but it's , it's addicting , like it just would do it over and , over and over again that's awesome .

A lot of new people will meet me in all sorts of cultures and I just I just love that stuff . I geek out on it as well .

so . But my life has never been in a place where I could take time off of work , right , I've always supported my family . I've always been the you know , the sort of like stable matriarch , even when I was a kid and I , a few years ago , I started watching Survivor with my daughter .

When we got out of the RV , I said , oh my gosh , we have cable , we can watch Survivor . And we started watching it together . And you know the host . His name's Jeff Probst . He comes on and he says is this your dream ? I think you could do well , apply now .

And probably for the millionth time I said , oh gosh , I really think I could do well on that show . And my daughter she was seven at the time . She turned to me and she said well , mom , are you going to talk about it ? Are you going to do it ?

Oh well , it was funny because I said I'm going to do it at 9 am and my daughter said yeah , well , I'll believe it when I see you on the TV .

I was like , ok , I'm about to be on the show , and so I started prepping my business . You know , I I met with Jeff Probst , the host , a couple of weeks after applying . I met with , you know , a medical team , a psych , you know a psychiatry team , all of this .

That's when I was like , ok , this is definitely going to happen and it's going to happen in about five months . And so I applied in November . In January I hired an operations manager , and this is before I've even gotten on the show . But I just know , you know , I've just got a feeling . Sometimes you just have that gut feeling .

You know this is the direction that you were meant to go and all doors are opening . And so I hired her to get everything out of my brain . And you know , put it into . You know something else , like , put it into I think we use Notion now and so that whole process . Honestly , it took about three months for us to create all the operations .

You know the standard procedures , you know to map out what was going to happen in those , because it was only a five-week commitment , but I knew I wanted to take at least 60 days off . I knew I wasn't going to be able to come back and just get right back into work . If you've ever seen Survivor , it's a very cutthroat game .

It's incredibly manipulative and a lot and I'd heard stories of a lot of people not being able to come back to real life for a long time because it's an immersive experience where you're literally like lying and cheating and deceiving to win a million dollars .

And so I knew I wanted to plan for 60 days I'm a little extra if you can't tell and so I actually mapped out 90 days where I wouldn't have to come back to work . I worked my butt off from about April to May to write everything and automate it and you know , have my assistant feel really good about me leaving and yeah , I was gone for 90 days .

It's $9 a month and , you know , at this point in the game I think it was over two years old at the time and I just , you know , created the content to go in for the next three months and I just trusted the team because we're really small . You know we're talking very . You know , all the time , lots of one-on-one to make sure everything goes well .

And how confident was I ? I'd say 99.9% . Again , I run . I run a really simple business . I'm not running Facebook ads that might break . I didn't schedule any partnerships that had to happen while I was away .

It was literally just emails being sent out , and most of them I had swiped from myself , emails that I had written three years prior that I already knew were performing , and so we just kept a lot of things like bare bones .

We told the audience hey , liz is going away for the summer , she's not going to be here at all , and so , like we have to lean on each other and you know , pointing people to a Facebook group making sure .

You know , I actually gave my sister a raise and when she was able to quit her other job to work for me full time so that she was in the business and so I think , being on Survivor again , I was gone five weeks and this is five weeks without a cell phone .

So I have no right and so and they told our friends and family you know , only call if it's an actual emergency , because if you call and we connect with your person , if we , you know , connect with liz , liz will be pulled from the game and no longer eligible to play .

And so it was like unless my child is about to die like if she breaks an arm , don't call me . If she breaks a leg , don't call me . If she suddenly has leukemia , call me . And so it was five weeks without any contact with the outside world and I think I thought about my business and what was happening one time in those five weeks .

But now I gotta like insert this new thing that I would love for you to talk about , which is how are you generating leads while you slept or while you dominated ? So I guess we don't know . If you want survivor , you probably can't tell us , because there's I can't tell you .

And you were bringing in new leads too , or your system was bringing in new leads while you were on Survivor .

Yeah , okay , cool , because I'm going to ask you some questions about how I can change my email welcome sequence , or I should say the sequence that goes out after somebody downloads my lead magnet , because it's a lackluster , and so are the conversion rates . But until then , we're going to talk soon . Thanks for listening , thanks for watching .

Until you see me or hear from me in the next episode , be blessed and take care .