The Art of Online Business

Abagail Pumphrey's Journey Turning a Layoff Into A Seven-Figure Success

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 857

Share episode

Abagail Pumphrey is the powerhouse behind the Boss Project and she shares her journey from a layoff to building a seven-figure home business, focusing on digital products and strategies that convert. 

You'll learn how to pick the right digital product that sets you up for the next sale, and she'll spotlight a common mistake to avoid. 


Watch the episode ‘Leveraging A Digital Product That Pays You To Bring In Qualified Leads With Abagail Pumphrey’ (releases October 2nd).



Please click here to give an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes! Thanks for your support!



Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:




Abagail’s Links:

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Art of Online Business. My guest today is Abigail Pumphrey. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Boss Project and she's been a driving force in the creative entrepreneur industry since 2015. She's built a huge business, she's an expert in online sales and she's a data-driven strategist. She today you'll get to hear a lot more of this, but she's turned a layoff into a seven-figure work-from-home business. And this is the first of two episodes. In the second episode, she's going to share about leveraging a digital product to get paid to bring in qualified leads. This is something that you've heard me talk about and she's an expert in it. She'll also talk about picking the right idea so that your product is aligned with the next purchase down the line in your funnel, so that people will go on to purchase more from you, and she'll share the number one mistake that people make when choosing a digital product to create. Abigail, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to dig in and share more of my story and also give you guys actionable takeaways that you can implement in your own business.

Speaker 1:

Sweet, I'm looking further down your bio here and you've been featured in Forbes, marie Claire Inc. And CNBC.

Speaker 2:

Yep, all things are true.

Speaker 1:

Nice. Before I ask you a very important question, I'll give you a random fact. Okay, when I was working in Paris, long, long ago, back in college, I used to read Marie Claire in French a lot out loud to help my foreign language skills.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's so funny because the Marie Claire we happened to be featured in was actually the European version, it wasn't the United States version.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right. Yeah, just a random tidbit. I love learning foreign languages, and usually in magazines like that, the topics are pretty related to real life, and thus the frequency of vocabulary that you can use every day is pretty high.

Speaker 2:

So that's a fun way to learn a foreign language Fun.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes it is, but I want to talk about you and your journey, because you started from a layoff, but on your website I saw that right at the beginning of your journey building this business, you had an accident that, in my opinion, could have completely derailed the genesis of this business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it really changed the trajectory of my life. I was, you know, I started my business in March of 2015. It was definitely a whirlwind. I was brand new to a startup. I had been there less than three months. They had recruited me out of a very stable job that I actually quite enjoyed, and then they brought me in and then they proceeded to lay off the entire department all at the same time. The drama was high, but I was really frustrated. I enjoyed the work I was doing but really felt like my career was at the whims of everyone else and I was ready to be in the driver's seat and so I sat down, my spouse, and talked about a plan to build a business and really just take the professional experience I had to date to start something up quickly, and I did. I was able to replace my salary in the first 30 days. I went on to make my first 100,008 months later and we hit 200k by the end of that year. But fast forward, you know we're. That was all of 2015,. Basically, and if we go into 2016, things were really chugging along. Things were going well. We had transitioned.

Speaker 2:

At that point I had started the business, running it more as a marketing agency.

Speaker 2:

My background is in graphic design, so we were doing branding projects and website projects, mostly for local business projects mostly for local business but simultaneously I had started a blog and was sharing my journey of running an online business and how I was finding clients and how I was using technology, and that started to build an audience of people that wanted to learn more about business, and there was definitely a craving from this community of readers and, ultimately, a community I built back then way on Facebook, of people who wanted to learn more, and so we had actually transitioned away from agency work and we're doing predominantly education at this point.

Speaker 2:

So we were teaching courses and we had recently launched one of our first digital products, and so things felt like they were going in the right direction. By a very normal day in November it wasn't even bad weather, like it was just kind of your average work day in 2016. And I went to go grab lunch and I was in a five car collision, and that day completely changed everything about my life and about my business and how I would build from there.

Speaker 1:

Five car collision. I can't imagine. I remember when I was looking at your website. I can't imagine. I remember when I was looking at your website it's like, oh, she was in an accident too. Because just the trauma I experienced from a much lesser accident, just a bike crash, where I like kind of smashed my face in and they had to do surgery. I was out for a month but I was way.

Speaker 1:

I was already a year into like my business like this iteration of it, but you started so early. So what happened after the accident? I was way, I was already a year into like my business, like this iteration of it, but you started so early. So what happened after the accident?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, initially I was in denial about how sick I really was. Within a few weeks of the accident I put myself on an airplane and they had to take me in a wheelchair to and from my gate and I spoke on a stage and pretended life was okay. And life was most definitely not okay. I got home and I just proceeded to get more and more sick. Yeah, I was dealing with like post-concussive syndrome because I had an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and so I was not doing the proper protocols to effectively heal my brain and so fighting against that was just making me sick and I didn't necessarily know why I was getting sick or why I was feeling worse. And it took six weeks post accident before I was officially diagnosed with a TBI and it took five years after that to, what I would say, fully recover from that accident.

Speaker 1:

You really were sick then like an injured.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was. It was very significant. I went and was essentially in survival mode and trying to figure out how do I keep a business running, because it is financially supporting my family, while giving myself time and space to heal. While giving myself time and space to heal, and given the nature of the accident and the severity of the things that ensued, we ultimately were litigating. So we sued multiple drivers and the insurance company, mostly because we weren't sure what medical bills would look like then and into the future and because of the severity of the TBI, I'm at greater risk for early onset dementia and Alzheimer's at a later basis in my lifetime. And so, because we were litigating the car accident, I wasn't legally allowed to share anything about what was happening, so I was completely silent about what I had been through, how it was affecting my ability to work, affecting my ability to show up, and had to appear like life was normal.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't say anything about it for almost two years.

Speaker 1:

So this five-car pileup happened. You had a brain injury and you're I'm not sure how to describe it pushing through what you thought was maybe just brain fog.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I thought I just was having, you know, a couple rough weeks and a tough time and thought you know, ultimately, that what I was going through was going to be super temporary and it was definitely not figure business, but you had already gone over $200,000 in revenue, right, and so you're keeping this running.

Speaker 1:

And then, because of litigation, you find out that you can't talk publicly about what you're going through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was also terrified to talk publicly about what I was going through because in my mind who would hire a coach that had a brain injury Like I? Was terrified that my business would disappear, that people wouldn't trust my advice or that they wouldn't think I was capable of helping them when I was struggling to take care of myself.

Speaker 1:

Terrified.

Speaker 2:

Terrified.

Speaker 1:

Sounds like a super difficult situation. Terrified. Sounds like a super difficult like situation. How did you, how did you get support in a situation where you couldn't have the support that we're used to now, where other business you know besties couldn't come alongside you.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I was lucky enough to be able to surround myself privately with, you know, close friends and family and a couple people in the business world that I trusted with what was truly going on.

Speaker 2:

But even that, like, the only person who actually knows the severity of what everything was happening is my spouse.

Speaker 2:

Everyone else had a version of the story that made sense for our relationship and made sense for you know. It was like on a needs to know basis, basically, but I was in a mode of how do I figure out what I can do now that is going to help me through the days that I'm not doing as well, because, like any recovery, you know, everybody's story is different. Every other way something affects you is different. I've never met a single person who's been through a TBI that has the same version of the story. There's definitely lots of commonalities and various therapies that may have worked or drugs that may have helped, but everybody's story is unique. The only way, the only similarity, though, that seems to be rather consistent, is you're going to have days that are really good and days that are terrible, and it's not linear. The growth, the recovery, is not a linear process, and so you can strategically take advantage of the days you're feeling better to carry you through the days you're not.

Speaker 1:

I think what you've just shared makes me feel really humbled, that you could run your business, going through the kind of recovery that was necessary for you at the time, without being able to share the people who you were serving or people on people on your team, even what was happening on maybe bad days where you weren't able to show up like you expected yeah, so shout out to your husband my husband deserves a medal, an award raised.

Speaker 2:

I like so much he's. He was really a rock through all of it and a huge part of why I'm where I am today.

Speaker 1:

And you said you were just celebrating his birthday.

Speaker 2:

This past weekend yeah.

Speaker 1:

Cool.

Speaker 2:

He just turned 36.

Speaker 1:

Cool 36. You started this business super young then.

Speaker 2:

I did. I was a baby, I was like I'd have to, I was like I'd have to look at, I'd have to figure, I'd have to do some backwards math, that I was, maybe you don't need to do backwards math 2015 23, somewhere between 23 and 25, somewhere around there okay.

Speaker 1:

So before you continue forward in your journey to what now is a seven-figure business, I'm curious because I just figured out the math. Actually, you went from it sounds like then connect the dots for me but you graduated from university and went straight into a high-paying job and then into a startup and then started your business. That's like success, success, success, success. Whereas most people are kind of figuring it out still and floundering right after university. What was different for you?

Speaker 2:

Well, my background is pretty unique. I grew up with two parents on permanent disability and they couldn't necessarily support me financially when I went into university and so I picked a state college. It felt like the most financially responsible option and I took every class imaginable as quickly as possible and I graduated in three years because I was taking 21 hours a semester and taking classes all summer long. So I got through school as quickly as humanly possible because I couldn't afford to be there. I you know, by the time I was done with school like I was really really struggling financially and the layoff that we talked about in 2015 was actually my second layoff. So I had quite a few different jobs because I started.

Speaker 2:

I started my career really young I was 21 maybe and I started off in an agency, was laid off from that job, ultimately ended up working for the university I went to school at and I was in their marketing department for several years before I came to Kansas City and was working in-house in a financial firm and then transitioned in the startup before I started my business. So I hopped around a lot, but a lot of it was just because I felt like I had to grow up. Lot, but you know, a lot of it was just because I felt like I had to grow up, that I had to make things financially work and it was just putting one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right, you started a podcast. Yeah, how did that affect your business? Yeah, how did that affect your business growth? Because I'm looking and I'm seeing that you debuted in the top 10 in one of Apple's charts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that was a whirlwind. I think a big part of the reason the podcast had so much initial success was people thought we already had a podcast. So we started a podcast during a time period where you know pretty much it was like the equivalent of having like an Instagram Like it was just like if you have a business, you know pretty much it was like the equivalent of having like an Instagram, like it was just like if you have a business, you have a podcast. That was just kind of the like chatter at the time. I don't know if that was just the bubble I was in, I couldn't tell you, but I actually had gone to speak at a conference and at the conference everyone was like at a conference and at the conference, everyone was like what's the name of your podcast?

Speaker 1:

And we're like well, you don't have one but thanks for asking and so you know.

Speaker 2:

I think it was on the plane ride home that we talked about launching our podcast, and three or four months later we launched it in January, at the beginning of a new year, and made a really big deal about it, and clearly that was an effective strategy. So a lot of the ways, at least back then. I couldn't necessarily tell you how the algorithm works now, but at least in the beginning it was based on new subscribers in a 24 hour time period, and so if you hit the market right and you get everyone to download it at once, you can chart, and so we did. We were in the top 10 in all business podcasts in the entire world.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay, I think it's still something similar. I was at a podcast conference last fall called the podcast movement, and I attended a talk where they're explaining how the rankings inside of Apple podcasts aren't just based on who has the largest podcast, but they also largely focus on an element of growth, and I believe that's what you were just sharing.

Speaker 2:

Yep. And so you know, with some of these bigger podcasts, the reason they fall in rankings is not necessarily because they're falling in popularity, it's because they're not necessarily getting new listeners all the time. But, obviously charting is going to attract new listeners. It's a huge part of what was successful early on. But the Apple Podcast app has gone through many redesigns since I started my podcast and I don't necessarily think charting is nearly as important as it used to be.

Speaker 1:

Personally, Agreed, agreed. Hopefully you guys weren't hurt too bad by this Apple Podcast download. Reckoning that happened.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, it was terrible, it was terrible, so bad.

Speaker 1:

It was terrible for us Like I think we saw about two thirds like downloads chopped by at least reported downloads chopped by about two thirds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's. I haven't necessarily heard other podcasters talk about it publicly, but it it was absolutely terrible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was it terrible. Yeah, it happened.

Speaker 2:

It happened?

Speaker 1:

I don't think I asked you to introduce your podcast, but since the listener is probably interested and going to want to go down to the show notes below and click over to listen to you, tell me about your podcast, the Strategy Hour podcast.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the Strategy Hour. When we got started, I really was seeing a hole in the market, and then a lot of the other podcasts, especially early on, we're very focused on. It's ironic, but we're telling my story because that's the format of what so many business podcasts were. How did you get it started? How did you build your business? What made you successful? And we really wanted to differentiate ourselves and you know, like, get to the meat and potatoes and focus on the strategy. And so we had guests every other episode, but we always focused on a topic that had some element of something they could implement.

Speaker 2:

Now it's been 800 and something episodes since the beginning and so we've we've definitely played with format over time. Right now I do solo episodes every other episode and then we have guests on and, you know, sometimes we're digging into their story because I think their story is fascinating, like the other day I had a guest who had previously worked at the Muppets. You best believe I had questions about working for the.

Speaker 1:

Muppets yes we're talking Kermit yeah.

Speaker 2:

Kermit the Frog was his boss. No, I'm just kidding. No, he worked on the Muppets and and had a series of other really interesting jobs. So I was personally curious. Now I feel like I'm at the stage where I can kind of vet my own questions because I want to know the answer, whether it's super relevant to the audience all the time. I think people like hearing.

Speaker 2:

There's been a transition. I guess let's put it that way If you're in the podcasting realm. Back in the day it went from like story, story, story to action, action, action. And I feel like we're at this new transition point where people are craving being entertained and not learning all the time. And so, well, I want people to be able to take something away. I'm less worried about them having to go implement something right now. They have plenty of ideas, they have a lot on their plate. I want them to feel inspired and motivated to do their job and if they get some ideas that they can work on in the future, fantastic. But that's not necessarily priority one but that's not necessarily priority one.

Speaker 1:

Okay, sounds good. I am curious what was the high after you started your podcast? Like, say, heading into, you can pick what high you want to share from your business. But now you you explained that you went through five-year recovery. So, like, take me up through 2019, because you're coming up on the end of your recovery. Then you have your podcast that debuted successfully and clearly only grew and grew and grew, like what's, what's, what's the high, high moment from?

Speaker 2:

2019? Well, you know, we went through a lot of iterations. So, like any small business, you kind of have two choices. You can continue down the same path where, like, you pick your offer suite and you commit to your offer suite and you promote that on a cycle, whatever your cycle ends up being, whether it's live launching or open all the time or whatever. We can talk about different business models but you could commit and, like this is the topic you talk about now and forever. Or you can really fall into one of two categories One, where you're super focused on your personal lifestyle and you adjust your business based on what your life and personal needs are. And two, in a similar vein, adjust the business to kind of meet the demands of the market and adjust your offers to kind of meet the demands of what people are expecting from the online space. And so you know, I know our business could be five to 10 X what it is right now if I had married my offers early on. But this business was here to support me through recovery. This business was here to support me financially and set me up long-term for success. And while, yes, I absolutely want to help so many small business owners reach their own financial success.

Speaker 2:

This, ultimately, was built as a lifestyle business and so you know, we've had different iterations. We've we started off doing courses and small digital products. We went through a phase where we were doing online summits. There was one year we did four online summits. We had tens of thousands of attendees, we had hundreds of speakers organizing that was and then you know, we dialed back and we did a high end course and then we probably the craziest transition was when we kind of went from low end to deciding we were going to serve someone who was a little further along in their journey and someone who was a bit further into business. And in 2021, I believe it was we made a transition, decided to offer a high ticket group program and we doubled our business in six weeks and it was absolutely insane. We had severe growing pains after that and figuring out staffing and all of that was really crazy.

Speaker 2:

But you know, since then have kind of transitioned away from that, and not because I don't care about that audience.

Speaker 2:

I love working with advanced small business owners who are, you know, past the half a million dollar mark and continuing to grow and scale and all of those things. But that represents less than 5% of my audience and I felt like I was doing a disservice to the people who were at the beginning. I have tens of thousands of followers who haven't even started their business yet, or they're just getting that first client, or they're excited to build a new product or offer and over the last few years have been focused on how can I create an environment that I can create products that are accessible to people that are earlier on in their journey but then still have opportunities to work with me in a more private capacity, in a more coaching type setting, to get the one-on-one advice people are looking for. So it's a little bit of a hybrid, but I would definitely say from an outward perspective it looks like we're serving the people who are early on in their journey, but behind the scenes we're working with people privately as well.

Speaker 1:

That's not an easy. Let's call it line of messaging to walk and stay on then.

Speaker 2:

No, I mean, we're talking about pretty massive pivots in terms of messaging offers, price and messaging offers, price points, all of those things. But, like I mentioned, it was the. It wasn't always about business growth, like a lot of the time, it was about the life and lifestyle. And so, for instance, transitioning to high ticket, that was simultaneous to when we started full-time caregiving for my my husband's grandmother, and so I didn't have the capacity to work with hundreds or thousands of people. I needed to be focused on a handful of people and serve those people really well, and we did that.

Speaker 2:

And then she, she passed last year, and so I have more capacity now than I've had. Honestly, right now I'm at the point where I'm like back to the amount of time and space that I had when I started my business, and that hasn't happened in a decade. So I'm not quite sure what to do with myself some days, because I'm like I can do anything, and when you can do anything, you really have to hone yourself in and figure out what makes sense that's a hard spot to be in, also because, especially like as entrepreneurs, you know those ideas just are going through your brain and it sounds like you've gone the whole spectrum of offers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you must have some wonderfully delighting, delightful ideas, but also like ones that could take your business in a different direction totally, totally, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. We've sold more than a million dollars in every like pretty much every category, so services, courses, membership and digital products. So it's a wild journey. They all have their own pros and cons, they all have their own benefits to your business and your lifestyle and you just kind of have to pick what makes sense for you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, last question. I'm sure the listener is like, wow, you've grown your business and pursued all these different routes and you've mentioned your business could be 5X what it is now if you had stuck and like doubled down on the original products that you have. But then you also said that you decided, like you started the business as a lifestyle business and so many of the shifts that you've made have been to support changes in your lifestyle. What are you saying to the person who's at like mid five figures you just passed, say, $6,000 a month in revenue who's curious about what's like a dependable way that they could go forward to grow their online course business?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I mean, if we're looking at online courses, I think online courses specifically have one of the biggest opportunities to trade the least amount of time for the most amount of money at that point is marketing, like your job is driving traffic. So if you don't like marketing like it's probably, you're probably going to be pretty unhappy. But in terms of return on time, courses and digital products, like you, have so much room for upward mobility assuming your market is large enough to support that and you know markets keep growing. So I think we're at the beginning of a new shift for all of those things, which is an exciting time, I you know.

Speaker 2:

I think people yeah, we you know people were, I think, used to be looking for like the end-all, be-all coach that would like teach them everything they need to know about every part of their business. And I think we're circling back to a time when people want quick results, quick wins, and they really are looking to solve really small problems a little bit at a time because you know they got a lot on their plate and they're busy.

Speaker 1:

Um, so we're seeing, in terms of conversions, higher conversions for more specific problems, rather than a bigger all-encompassing signature course that covers everything all right, all right, we're gonna stop here the listener, just so you know you can head down to the show notes right now and pick up where we're leaving off here in the next episode, where Abigail is going to talk about leveraging a digital product to get paid to bring in qualified leads. Did I even say that right, leveraging a digital product so you get paid to bring in qualified leads, which I just posted an Instagram reel about, but that is the ultimate.

Speaker 2:

It is.

Speaker 1:

It is I can say so from being on the ads management side of clients who have that successful SLO self-liquidating offer funnel set up. But what a great way when somebody can start their first interaction with your business and it's a purchase interaction and it's with a product that does get them a nice, valuable win. That's the best kind of lead to grow your email list with.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Highest value lead for sure.

Speaker 1:

Highest value lead. There you go, and I'm looking forward to you talking about the one mistake that people make when choosing a digital product to create.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I look forward to it.

Speaker 1:

Right on, right on. Well, thank you for being here, Abigail.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me and definitely go check out my podcast, the Strategy Hour. Would love to have new subscribers and you can always DM me over on Instagram and say hello. You can find my personal profile If you go to boss project on Instagram at Abigail says is linked in the profile. Come say hi. Tell me your biggest takeaway or what inspired you today.

Speaker 1:

Those links, by the way that Abigail just shared, will be in the show notes below. And until the next time we see each other, take care and be blessed. Bye, bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie

Host