Jacques Hopkins [00:00:00]: What if you could turn a service you love into an online course business that brought in $60,000 in a peak month while still protecting the life you built it to support? Today's guest, Jayne Hope Havens, did exactly that. She started by helping parents get their babies to sleep. Then she built a certification program that teaches other people how to do the same work and build a business around it. Hey everyone, Jacques Hopkins here and welcome back to the show. All right, so what's going on here with the podcast lately is we're processing some interviews we did many, many months ago before we started getting more and more AI focused.
Jacques Hopkins [00:00:36]: And this one, I really should have published it a long time ago because it is absolutely fantastic. Jayne is absolutely incredible. She's been so successful and is such an inspiration for any digital product creator out there. This disclaimer I'm sharing with you is simply because it's been many months since we had this conversation. I have personally advanced significantly with AI since this conversation. It's very possible Jayne has as well. So AI does come up a little bit here and there, and that's okay. I just want you to be aware that we recorded it many months ago, but still amazing lessons to learn, still very inspirational, and that's what we're getting in here today with the conversation with Jayne.
Jacques Hopkins [00:01:17]: The numbers you hear also reflect the business as she described it at that time. Jayne started with a goal of making an extra $1,500 a month. She launched her first course to an email list of about 350 people and sold seven spots. Eventually, she built a $2,700 certification program with margins that she described as around 80%, and the business reached about $60,000 in a peak month. We talk about why she hired experts instead of learning every technical skill herself. How relationships and community drive her sales, and why she does not believe AI can replace observation, support, and accountability.
Jacques Hopkins [00:01:53]: Stick around after the interview because Rocky, my AI business partner, and I will come back and share what course creators should take away from Jayne's business today. Let's go ahead and jump in. Hello, Jayne. Welcome to the Online Course Show.
Jayne Havens [00:02:09]: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Jacques Hopkins [00:02:12]: When did you first get the idea?
Jayne Havens [00:02:17]: Yeah. So if it's okay, I want to back up a little bit because it didn't start there. My story is I, well, first of all, I'm a mom. I live in Baltimore, Maryland with my two kids. I started my business when my son was born 13 years ago. Well, I didn't start my business then, but that's when the idea came to me. I had this four-month-old little baby who was a perfect sleeper as a newborn. And at that four-month mark, he went through what's classically known as the four-month sleep regression.
Jayne Havens [00:02:53]: And so I had to figure out what was going on. He went from sleeping through the night to being up every single hour on the dot, like midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m. And I was just replacing his pacifier every single night, but it was getting exhausting. And as a first-time mom, I wanted to figure out why and how to fix it. And this was before Facebook groups. This was before AI. This was before all the information that exists now. And I literally took myself to Barnes & Noble and sat on the floor and was going through books trying to figure out how to get my baby to sleep.
Jayne Havens [00:03:31]: And I figured it out. Basically, I needed to teach him how to fall asleep and back to sleep independently. And I did so. I implemented a variation of what's pretty well known as the Ferber Method. And I got him sleeping. He cried for 27 minutes and I cried for 27 minutes. And then he slept through the night. And it was really transformative and life-changing for... You think it's funny, but this is real.
Jacques Hopkins [00:03:59]: I don't know how much you know about me, but I have two kids. I've been there. My kids are 8 and 10. It's been a little while since we've been through that stage, but that's classic. He cried for 27 minutes, and so I cried for 27 minutes. That's amazing.
Jayne Havens [00:04:12]: Yeah, and it's true. And then he slept through the entire night. And it was life changing for me. It was transformative for my entire family. It really positioned me to enjoy my baby and enjoy motherhood again. And I just became so incredibly passionate about sleep training and just establishing healthy sleep hygiene for children. And all of my friends were sort of jealous that I had this baby that was sleeping through the night. They wanted to know how to get their babies to sleep through the night. And so I would just help them.
Jayne Havens [00:04:45]: And I helped friends. And then it became friends of friends. And then it became friends of friends of friends. And it was literally strangers reaching out to me, asking me, I hear you're the one that can help me get my baby to sleep through the night. And so I did that for years. And then four years later, my daughter was born and she was cranky and colicky and miserable. And I joke that she drove me back to work. I needed to like get out of there and get a job. But I didn't want to give up my stay-at-home mom status.
Jayne Havens [00:05:15]: I wanted to be the primary caretaker for my kids. I just needed an outlet. And so I actually went online. I started Googling for sleep consultant training programs. And I found one. I enrolled in a course. I literally picked it because it was self-paced, reasonably priced. I didn't have to travel to get the training. And I went through it in a couple of months and got myself certified and got up and running. And what was intended for me to be, it was intended to be a side hustle or a passion project at the time.
Jayne Havens [00:05:48]: And very quickly, my consulting business exploded. It became a full-time business almost immediately. I had a whole lot of demand and I was having a lot of success with my clients and they were sharing my name with their friends. And it just... It grew beyond my wildest expectations, honestly.
Jacques Hopkins [00:06:10]: You mentioned with your son, your oldest is a son, right? You mentioned that? So you said for the first four months he was a great sleeper.
Jayne Havens [00:06:17]: He was.
Jacques Hopkins [00:06:18]: Was that just luck?
Jayne Havens [00:06:19]: Well, I think some of it was luck. He was formula fed. I joke, he was fat and happy. He didn't have any intolerances. He literally was fed whatever formula they gave us in the hospital. He just was an easygoing baby. He ate, he slept, he pooped, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. And he was just really content. And babies, they want to be sleeping. Babies actually need a whole lot of sleep and they want to be sleeping. They often have habits and behaviors around sleep that are not necessarily super conducive to them sleeping well.
Jayne Havens [00:06:56]: And a lot of the time, that's just parents getting in their way. Lots of feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, bouncing to sleep. And then they rouse awake and they're like, wait, where's my parent to feed, rock, bounce me back to sleep again? So these habits that sort of creep in are sometimes a little tricky and emotional to break. But in the beginning, he really just wasn't affected by all of that. And at about four months, it unraveled and I just needed to make a change. So I taught him how to sleep.
Jayne Havens [00:07:28]: You know, taught my daughter how to sleep and it just turned into a really successful business over the years. The reason I decided to create my own online course and my course is actually a sleep consultant certification course. It's not teaching parents how to sleep train their kids. I actually decided to create my own sleep consultant certification program because I really saw a gap in the market. The courses online that were offered up until the point where I created my own were literally just about teaching sleep. They taught you all the sleep training methods.
Jayne Havens [00:08:02]: They taught you how to coach parents. What they weren't teaching is how to grow a successful business. They weren't teaching entrepreneurship. And what I saw is that women were coming out of these programs. as really highly qualified sleep consultants, but they didn't know how to market themselves. They didn't know how to get onto phone calls with prospective clients and articulate their value. They didn't have the proper mindset necessary in order to be successful business people. And I just kept thinking like, why is nobody teaching this? I also saw a lack of mentorship and support.
Jayne Havens [00:08:43]: Women would enroll in the program, they'd get their training, and then they were sort of left on their own. Like, see you later, good luck. And I think that when you're growing a business, especially, you know, female-owned business owners, I think they really crave support, you know, like emotional support and accountability. And there was none of that. And that happens to be my favorite thing to provide. I love to be supportive both to my clients who are working through sleep training and towards the women who enroll in my program to become sleep consultants.
Jayne Havens [00:09:20]: And so I took the missing pieces and I... I really refer to my course as a community and created something that is entirely different than what any of my competitors were doing at the time.
Jacques Hopkins [00:09:41]: So if I had a baby and was struggling with getting it to sleep and I needed help, you're not the person to help me with that.
Jayne Havens [00:09:48]: Well, I am. I still do support families. I actually am supporting, I think, eight or nine families currently. I still have a consulting business and I support families, but I don't have an online course. Actually, I have a mini course that I offer, but I don't sell a ton of those. I support families through my coaching business and then I have a training program where I teach others how to become sleep consultants.
Jacques Hopkins [00:10:13]: But you, which one's bigger? Like which one do you spend more time on? Which one do you make more money from? I'm guessing the business one.
Jayne Havens [00:10:19]: I make more money from my online course and I spend more time in my consulting business.
Jacques Hopkins [00:10:25]: Why?
Jayne Havens [00:10:26]: Did you say why? Is that what you said?
Jacques Hopkins [00:10:28]: Yeah, just why.
Jayne Havens [00:10:29]: Yeah. Well, so the online course sort of runs itself. You know, it's all already created. So all I have to do is market it and people enroll. And they go through the program. And all I really need to do is I grade two assignments and I support them inside of a, we have a Facebook group for students and grads. And I'm really active in that group, answering questions and providing support to my students. The reason that I still support clients and direct a lot of energy there is a few fold.
Jayne Havens [00:11:03]: One, I just really enjoy supporting families. I think it's really meaningful work and I love seeing the transformation that parents get from working with me for a very short period of time. The second reason is I just keep getting referrals. I'm not actively building that piece of my business, but when you change somebody's life, they tell everybody they know about you. So it's really hard to stop. Every day I get a phone call or a text message or an email from somebody who says, I got your name from so-and-so. I desperately need help.
Jayne Havens [00:11:39]: I don't know. I just have a really hard time turning that away. I would also say that I make enough money in that side of my business that I would feel it if I shut it down. I just do both. It's fun to do both because sometimes I get a lot of joy and satisfaction out of supporting clients. Sometimes I get a little burnt out from that and then I shift my energy a little bit more towards my course. And it's just nice to, I don't know, have two arms of my business.
Jayne Havens [00:12:10]: A little diversification, I think, is never a bad thing.
Jacques Hopkins [00:12:13]: Sure. Absolutely. Let's focus in on the online course side of things for now. So as it stands today... What is the offer? What does somebody get? For what price? Tell me more about it.
Jayne Havens [00:12:25]: Yeah. So my program is called Center for Pediatric Sleep Management, and it is a self-led, self-paced course where my students have lifetime access to the curriculum, to any continuing education we provide, our online support community. And for students who pay in full, it's a $2,700. We have payment plans that allow you to extend payments all the way out through a year, and I do charge more if the payments are going to drag out, but the single-pay option is $2,700.
Jacques Hopkins [00:13:04]: And primarily what they're getting is a course that they go through that allows them to be certified in this area so that they can start their own business. You mentioned the community they get as well. Maybe a little support from you. Anything else that they get in the offer?
Jayne Havens [00:13:19]: Yeah, so I would say the main components are the existing curriculum, the support community, and then continuing education. I would say that all of my other competitors are reselling to their community. So they create these little mini courses and resell them to their existing student community. I just don't really believe in that for a few reasons. One, I... I want my students and grads to feel continued value from me. I want them to remain engaged in my community and continue to stay and provide support to newer sleep consultants. I also want them to tell their friends about my program.
Jayne Havens [00:14:00]: I would say at least 25% of the students who enroll in my program came to me because they learned about my program through somebody who's already enrolled. So, you know, teachers, nurses, postpartum doulas who are enrolling in my program, they tell their friends, their colleagues about my program, and that works well for me. So if I can continue to offer them support and value as their businesses grow, I think that that positions me to get the referrals for the program.
Jacques Hopkins [00:14:32]: About how many sales are you making, let's say in a month?
Jayne Havens [00:14:36]: Yeah. So I knew you were going to ask me this and it really varies anywhere from six or eight to 20 plus a month. It really, it really varies.
Jacques Hopkins [00:14:50]: So, I mean, even if you're averaging 10 a month, I mean, doing some quick math, this has been pretty successful overall. Walk me through the funnel. How are people finding you? And then what is your process to go from discovering you to getting a $2,700 sale?
Jayne Havens [00:15:09]: Yeah. So there are a lot of ways that people find me. I've been working really hard at... showing up on the internet, you know, like search engine optimization is really important and powerful and it's ever-changing and that's very confusing and overwhelming to me as somebody who's not a tech person or a computer person at the core. So that's one piece of the puzzle and I'm... always trying to improve on that. I have a Facebook group that is called Becoming a Sleep Consultant. And I would say that that's sort of my top of funnel-ish.
Jayne Havens [00:15:47]: People find me in lots of different places, but I like people to come into that Facebook group because when I ask them questions, I ask them, how did you hear about... this group or Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. You know, do you want to share an email address to receive our free ebook on becoming a sleep consultant? Would you like me to send you a message to connect further? Most people say yes. They do want me to send them a message. And so if they enter into my Facebook group, I end up getting to have a conversation with them.
Jayne Havens [00:16:19]: They get onto my email list. And I also tag them in a video inside of the group that sort of gives them 20 minute rundown of what it looks like to go through the program and also do the work as a sleep consultant. And then they either hang out on my email list or they listen to my podcast. I have a podcast called Becoming a Sleep Consultant that I've had for four years now. And so my hope is that they just get to know me. My funnel is still very much.
Jayne Havens [00:16:50]: Or, like, it's me. It's not a system. It's not all these automations. It's like, how can I get them to have a conversation with me? How can I get them to listen to me on the podcast so that they know, like, and trust me? They feel comfortable with me. They want to learn more from me. I've always felt most comfortable growing a business just being the person that people want to buy from, you know? So it's really just that at its core.
Jacques Hopkins [00:17:20]: At the point where they're actually making the sale, we're talking a relatively high ticket thing here. At that price point, some people would say you kind of need to get on the phone with people. Are you able to make these sales without directly talking to people on the phone? So is it like an email to an order form or a sales page? How does ultimately the sale work?
Jayne Havens [00:17:42]: Yeah. So I don't have data or statistics on how many students enroll. If like with with a conversation versus without a conversation, but people are definitely enrolling in the program without speaking to me, which is really exciting. And I think the reason that that's happening is number one, they're getting a recommendation from somebody that's in the program that they trust. Number two, they're binging the podcast. They're spending time getting to know me, hearing my voice. You know, they're reading my emails. They're hanging out in the Facebook group. So, yes, absolutely.
Jayne Havens [00:18:20]: It happens that people enroll in the program without speaking to me, but also plenty of them do want to get on to a call with me. And honestly, I prefer that as well because I really am prioritizing a community feel for my program. And if I don't know who the person is, if I've never met them, if I don't know their story, it's really hard for me to support them at the highest level. One thing that I really love to do is when a student enrolls in the program and they join our Facebook group for students and grads.
Jayne Havens [00:18:53]: I ask them to introduce themselves and then I like to connect them with other people in our community that might be a good fit for them. So, you know, if they're a brand new mom with a newborn baby at home and maybe they are a former teacher who has decided not to go back to the classroom, I want to connect them with somebody else who maybe has a similar story or maybe somebody who has similar goals for their business. And if I don't meet them, then it's harder for me to do that.
Jacques Hopkins [00:19:22]: You mentioned that the range of sales is like on the low side around six and it can be 20 plus. Why the I mean, why the big range? What's happening? Are you doing different things month to month? Or is it I mean, surely it's not just random because that's a big gap.
Jayne Havens [00:19:37]: Yeah. So there are a lot of factors. Also, I think the landscape is changing. The Internet is changing. I used to have a few affiliates who were sort of like mommy bloggers, for lack of a better way of describing what they did. And they had these really high-ranking blogs that would tell people all about different work-from-home opportunities. Five plus sales from each of them every single month. And then once AI sort of started to take over or there was some sort of Google update that ruined their blogs, they kind of fell off the top of the Google rankings.
Jayne Havens [00:20:21]: And I saw a major hit when that happened. And they have since sort of... Gone on to do different things. One of them is now focusing on YouTube. One of them is doing something totally different. So there have been things that have happened that have really had a direct impact on my business. I had things that were just working until they weren't. And, you know, it happens. As far as things being busier, I would say that some of that is seasonal. I run a Black Friday sale in November. Every couple of months, I'll do a training.
Jayne Havens [00:20:59]: I like to do training specifically for groups of people. So maybe postpartum doulas. How to take your postpartum doula virtual with sleep consulting. And I'll do some heavy promotion for a couple of weeks. I'll get 50 or 60 doulas on Zoom and do a presentation for them and hopefully convert a handful of them. So there are certain things that I'm doing that will increase sales. And then just sometimes I think... There are certain months where things are slow, either because I'm slowing down in my business. You know, if my kids are on spring break and we're away for a week and a half and I'm not prioritizing my business, then I'll see a slowdown.
Jayne Havens [00:21:41]: So there's a big range, but... My actual income month to month is very, very similar. It barely fluctuates, which I think is really interesting. And I think that that's just a result of sometimes my consulting business brings in more and the course revenue is lower. Sometimes a lot of people enroll on a full pay option versus people enrolling on payment plans. So it really, the number of students that I enroll monthly fluctuates, but oddly, my Stripe account looks the same every single month.
Jacques Hopkins [00:22:17]: That sounds nice.
Jayne Havens [00:22:19]: Yeah.
Jacques Hopkins [00:22:20]: Take me back to the first launch. I started this conversation by asking you, how did you get the idea for an online course? And then we went further back than that for the full context. So I think we've got the context on why you wanted to create an online course. But let's hear the story about actually putting it together for the first time and actually getting it out there for the first time.
Jayne Havens [00:22:40]: Yeah. So I had never created curriculum before. I had zero experience with that. And it turns out there are online course creators. Like you can hire somebody to actually do that with you or for you. And so once I realized that, I had it in my mind. This was very early on in my business. I actually had only been in my consulting business for about a year before I decided to create Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. I saw a gap right away and I wanted to... I wanted to capitalize on that.
Jayne Havens [00:23:15]: So I went online. I interviewed a couple of online course creators. I had it in my mind that if it was going to cost me less than $5,000 to hire someone to help me, I was just going to do it without thinking about it. I just had that number in my mind. I don't even know where I got that number, but I had it in my mind if it costs less than $5,000, I'm just going to do it without thinking about it. And so I interviewed two people and one of them was like $8,400 and one of them was $4,800.
Jayne Havens [00:23:47]: This is true. And I actually liked the lady that was $4,800 better. And so I was like, it must be a sign. I'm going to hire her and she's going to help me. And so literally we got on Zoom. We spent, I think, three hours mapping out the entire syllabus, like every single lesson that was going to be taught. And then we went through each lesson and figured out where either she was going to get the information. You know, I sent her books in the mail. I sent her websites. I really just pointed her in the right direction for every single mini lesson that we taught.
Jayne Havens [00:24:26]: And there were certain things I needed to do. There were certain things she needed to do. And together, we just got it done. Honestly, it was a really painful process. And it was really, really tough getting it done. Just our personalities were different. Our work ethic was different. She was very disorganized and all over the place. And I'm very methodical. So it was a very, very painful process. We got it done. She also recommended that I hire a launch team to help me launch the course. And at the time, I had no idea what I was doing.
Jayne Havens [00:25:05]: I literally didn't even know what a funnel was at this point in my trajectory. I think the launch person said to me, we need to decide what your funnel is going to look like. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what's a funnel? So there was a huge learning curve for me. And the launch person was... She was good. She, you know, she told me things that I didn't know. She helped me to figure out what platform was the course going to be hosted on? What email marketing program was I going to use?
Jayne Havens [00:25:38]: I didn't know anything about any of these things. You know, I didn't know. I had never heard of Kajabi. I'd never heard of Teachable or Thinkific. I didn't know what, you know, ConvertKit was versus ActiveCampaign. And so she made a lot of those decisions. And that was helpful because I just had no idea. And, you know, she sort of cut through a lot. I never would have been able to do it without her. Now that I know so much more, I would do things a little bit differently. But at the time, it was very helpful to just have somebody say, I think your program should be on Thinkific.
Jayne Havens [00:26:17]: I think this is a great platform for you. And I was like, OK, sounds good. And so it was what it was. She basically told me to get working on an email list, start finding people that would want to know when the course was ready. And so my main strategy for that was connecting with women, largely in Facebook groups. At the time, it was mostly stay-at-home moms who were interested in a side hustle or a passion project. And I would talk to them about it in DMs and I would say the course is you know, in progress and we were going to be launching on, you know, such and such date.
Jayne Havens [00:26:56]: And I literally just kept their emails in like a Google Doc or whatever I was using. And by the time we were ready for launch, I had about 350 emails on my email list. And I sold seven courses during our launch, which I was really proud of. I felt like that was, you know, even looking back, I think those are pretty strong numbers. And I felt great about it. My goal was 10. And I, you know, in hindsight, like 10 is crazy. You know, like seven was great. And I landed seven during the launch and then three more very soon after that.
Jayne Havens [00:27:34]: I hit that goal of 10 new students very, very quickly. And I just kept doing what I was doing. I didn't have any super technical, impressive process. It was really just me connecting with people who wanted to do this and me sharing my story and telling them what it would look like to get certified and get their businesses up and running.
Jacques Hopkins [00:27:58]: You mentioned at the beginning that basically this all started 13 years ago when you were struggling with your son to sleep. To help me with the overall timeline, roughly what year was this launch where you sold seven courses?
Jayne Havens [00:28:13]: Yeah. So my son was born in 2012. Created my consulting business in 2018. And then in 2019, I launched Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. It was actually, I think, the very end of 2019. I think we launched in November. So 2020 was really the first full, real year of the program.
Jacques Hopkins [00:28:47]: Yeah. So that's an interesting time to start, obviously. A lot of online courses did really well in 2020. So did it just kind of... A lot of people created courses during COVID and started then. You started right before then. So you were probably ready when COVID hit. Did it just kind of catapult your business?
Jayne Havens [00:29:08]: Yeah. COVID was really good for my business. I was really, really grateful. You know, I was sitting home with my kids. They were doing Zoom school. My son was in first grade. My daughter was really little. My daughter was a preschooler, but my son was in first grade and I was selling courses from my basement while I was playing with my daughter. It was amazing. And every year after that, up until, you know, 2021 was better than 2020. 2022 was better. 2023 was better. 2024 was better. It wasn't until 2025 that I started to see like a plateau.
Jayne Havens [00:29:48]: And look, you get to a certain point where like... I don't know. I had to mentally prepare myself and I had done it a couple of years before it actually happened for the moment where, you know what, my business might not grow this year. It might even dip down and that's okay because I had gotten my business to the point where it was kind of... Silly, crazy, successful. And I sort of felt like there was nowhere to go but down from there. And I wrapped my head around that a couple of years in advance.
Jayne Havens [00:30:23]: And you know what? I've always kept a lot of perspective because when I first started my business, my goal was literally to bring in an extra $1,500 a month. I wanted to be able to take my kids to the beach over the summer, I wanted to wallpaper a bathroom. I had really small goals. And, you know, at the height of it, I was bringing in $60,000 a month, you know, selling this online course. So I just really needed to just simmer down and realize, oh, it's going to be okay. You know, I literally run my business from my kitchen table.
Jayne Havens [00:30:56]: I, you know, I put on half a face of makeup for you today, but after we're done this interview, I'm going to go play tennis with my best friend. I play tennis three days a week, right smack dab in the middle of the day. The fact that I can do that and run a successful business, like all is good. We're fine. Even if sales are down, I'm doing okay.
Jacques Hopkins [00:31:18]: That's awesome. What are you, 3.5? What's your rating?
Jayne Havens [00:31:22]: You know, I've never taken the time to actually officially get rated. But yeah, like 3.5 or 4.0 is probably accurate. I played in high school. I didn't play in college. And now I don't play tennis matches. I just go take lessons and hit the ball as hard as I can. It's not about, you know, it's literally just a workout for me.
Jacques Hopkins [00:31:45]: Yeah, I hear you. I picked it up a couple of years ago. I'm absolutely obsessed now. I'm a 3.0 on paper, so you'd probably kick my butt.
Jayne Havens [00:31:51]: Maybe.
Jacques Hopkins [00:31:52]: But I remember a year or two ago, I was playing with my wife and a couple of her girlfriends in the middle of the day. I had done that several times. And eventually, they were like, Jacques, what do you do for work? How do you come play with us in the middle of the day? So I had to explain to them what I did. It took them a few times of that to... To actually ask the question. So you've obviously been crazy successful with this. It's funny, that's a really good problem to have.
Jacques Hopkins [00:32:22]: My business is doing too well. Let's just see what happens if it just comes back down to earth a little bit. No problem.
Jayne Havens [00:32:29]: I got to a point where I almost needed it to come back down to earth a little bit because the whole reason for why I started my business was that I wanted to remain present with my children. I wanted to be the primary caretaker. And I wanted to use my brain, feel smart, feel challenged, bring in a little money for my family. And when my business got really, really big, it started to... take over the whole work-life balance thing. It really became a very, very busy job. And that was okay because it was worth it.
Jayne Havens [00:33:10]: We were able to do lots of things financially that we weren't able to do previously. And that all feels really good. I wanted to get back to a place where I still felt like I have a really successful business and everything is running smoothly and I can just watch Netflix at night or go take a tennis lesson at one o'clock in the afternoon. I really wanted that balance in my life. And so now when my work is slow, which actually like right now I have a lot of clients, this happens where I get really busy with clients and then It sort of feels really dead otherwise.
Jayne Havens [00:33:50]: And then I think the clients drop off. I have more time to market and grow. And so it's like ebbs and flows. And in the moments where it feels quiet as far as like money coming in, I've really tried to do my best to just embrace those moments and say, you know what? I'm going to go call a friend and meet a friend for lunch. Or I'm going to go take care of making sure that I go to the dermatologist because I've been putting that off. I just make sure that my life is in order and that I get to do all the things that I need to do and want to do and just feel really lucky that I have a business that allows me a ton of flexibility.
Jacques Hopkins [00:34:30]: I do deal with maybe not the right choice of words. I run into a lot of aspiring course creators, obviously, with this podcast. And then I've got a couple of coaching programs. One of them is for beginners to get up and running. And so usually the choice when you're at the beginning stage is, you know, grind it out myself, learn on YouTube and various, you know, free trainings and podcasts, or join some sort of coaching program or course that walks you through how to do this course creation thing. Usually it's kind of the choice between those two.
Jacques Hopkins [00:35:05]: You kind of took it a step further and went with the more like done with you, done for you approach where you hired out the course creation and then you had this launch person. Why do you think that was the choice that you made going all the way over there versus maybe what I would say is a more traditional approach where you just take a course or a coaching program and they just teach you how to do it?
Jayne Havens [00:35:26]: I like to move really fast. I'm very impulsive. And when I get an idea, I want to put it into action immediately. And I would be holding myself back if I relied on myself to teach myself all of these things that the other people already know. Like, why would I bother learning all of this when I can just have somebody... I'm all about investing in my business and really surrounding myself with people who know how to do the things that I have no interest in learning. I'm really, really lean. When we talk about my business is...
Jayne Havens [00:36:15]: 80% is profit. My expenses are really low. 19%, 20% of the money coming in is what I'm spending on my business just to run it. I have a very profitable business. I run a very lean business, but I am not afraid to hire people to do the things that I wouldn't trust myself to do. There are just certain things that are outside of my scope. Just like my, my, you know, my 13-year-old's math homework is too hard for me, and so is search engine optimization. I'm just not going to do those things.
Jayne Havens [00:36:54]: And so the thought of trying to learn them feels silly. I'd rather surround myself with people who I can trust. And sometimes I make a mistake. Sometimes I hire people that are not the right person, and that's okay, but I'd rather just get it going than... I spend all day doing that. I don't want to be bogged down with like... Google Ads. My brain and my eyes literally glaze over if I try to log into that platform and understand what's going on. So I just don't. And actually, I run very few ads.
Jayne Havens [00:37:38]: I've dabbled in it. It's never really moved the needle for me. If anything, I break even. So that's never really been a huge part of my strategy. But if I am going to test something like that out, I'm not winging it on my own. I'm hiring someone to help me.
Jacques Hopkins [00:37:55]: That's brilliant. I mean, it sounds like one of your superpowers is understanding your strengths, understanding your weaknesses, and leaning into both sides.
Jayne Havens [00:38:05]: Also, just selfishly, I enjoy most of what I do in my business. Like, I want to enjoy my work. If I don't enjoy it, I'm not going to do it, right? Or I'm going to do less of it because you avoid the stuff that's not fun or that's hard. And so the things that are not fun and the things that are hard, if they're still really important, then somebody else needs to do them. And so I don't want them to not get done. I just don't want to be the one to do it.
Jacques Hopkins [00:38:36]: I gave the example earlier about how typically people are choosing between learning on their own for free and trial and error versus coaching program. And you took it a step further. Do you think you did? I mean, you explained why you made the decision, but did the fact that you were kind of consulting and making money in this area already help that decision? Because I would say most people are not like when they have to make that decision on if they hire somebody or whatever, they haven't really made any money from this yet.
Jayne Havens [00:39:04]: Yeah. Well. I don't know. I was raised in amongst a family that is all very entrepreneurial. Like my father's an entrepreneur. I have two brothers. They're both younger than I am. One of them is truly an entrepreneur. The other one is jealous of me and my brother like he wants to be. He's a lawyer and he's mad about it. And he'd much rather be doing something interesting. And he has that entrepreneurial spirit. He just got stuck being a lawyer. But we all have that brain and that mentality. And I don't know.
Jayne Havens [00:39:39]: I grew up with my dad saying, you got to spend money to make money. That was just something he used to say, and I never was afraid to invest. I was never afraid to... put money on the table and say, I'm going to see how I can make this grow. And I think a lot of people stay really, really stuck because they haven't made a lot of money, so they don't want to spend a lot of money. I don't know. That's just not something that's ever scared me. Maybe it's also a little bit of privilege that we weren't living paycheck to paycheck.
Jayne Havens [00:40:17]: I wasn't... Like, all of this was sort of fun money at the time because I wasn't working previously, right? So everything that I built was gravy. We were not earning this income before I started earning it. And so it just felt easier to take some risks and play around and see what I could do. I just also, I don't know, I have a really hard time. This is something I see inside of my student community is that everyone's always doubting themselves. Everyone's always like, well, what if I fail? Or what if this doesn't work out?
Jayne Havens [00:40:51]: Or what if, what if, what if? That literally does not cross my mind. I don't know if that's some sort of mental illness that I have that I don't worry about these things, but I just don't worry. It seems like a ridiculous thing to worry about. Just get out there and do it. If it doesn't work, try something else. Carry on. To back my story up even further, I... prior to having kids, I worked in catering sales. I was an event planner, and I heard the word no all the time.
Jayne Havens [00:41:21]: I worked for the most expensive catering company in Washington, D.C. I was going up against caterers that were less expensive than I was, and I still had to try and win the bid. And I did sometimes, not always, but I heard plenty of no's, and I got really desensitized. It just doesn't bother me. The whole idea of failure is just a learning lesson. You learn something, carry on. And I really just don't get stuck. And I wish other people would not feel so stuck all the time. If you just keep carrying on, you'll grow.
Jacques Hopkins [00:42:02]: You make it sound so simple. Next, let's talk about AI. I'm curious how you're using it. Secondly, how do you see it impacting your business in the future, whether positively or negatively?
Jayne Havens [00:42:19]: Yeah. So I use AI mainly in two ways in my business. One, when I write an email and when I'm reading it back, it feels a little fumbly. I'll just like plop the email that I wrote into ChatGPT and say, can you polish this? And it'll just make it sound nicer. So that's the first thing that I do. Super simple. And it just makes me feel less pressure to be so thoughtful and organized and well-spoken in my writing because I just know that there's a program that can make it read nicer.
Jayne Havens [00:42:53]: So that's the first thing. The second thing is when I am doing my podcast, Becoming a Sleep Consultant every single week, I use it to outline my podcast episodes. So I might type into ChatGPT. Today I'm interviewing Danielle for the podcast. She's been a sleep consultant now for three years. She used to be a teacher. Now she's doing this work full time. I want to discuss with her, you know, WXYZ. Can you help me outline a list of questions? And it will. It will do a beautiful job. And I will say, thank you very much.
Jayne Havens [00:43:30]: And that is what I use. And then I might say, can you help me write an intro for this? What I'll do is actually after the podcast records, I will take the entire transcript, throw it into AI and say, can you write an intro for this? Can you write show notes for this? So I'll use it for my podcast, but I'm not really using it for much more than that. As far as how it's maybe going to change the landscape of my business or our field, what we do, I don't think it's going to have much impact on any of it, honestly.
Jayne Havens [00:44:08]: As far as my consulting business, yes, people will ask ChatGPT how to sleep train their baby, but those are not the same people that hire a sleep consultant. People who hire sleep consultants are people who want... They want emotional support. They want accountability. They want coaching. They don't just want a plan. They want actual communication. Also, there's some things that ChatGPT is just never going to notice. I'll be watching the monitor of a little baby that's trying to get themselves to sleep, and I will notice that on the monitor it says 79 degrees.
Jayne Havens [00:44:40]: And I'll say to the mom, hey, is the room actually 79 degrees or is the monitor off? And they'll say, oh, it's actually really stuffy in there. And I'll say like, oh, OK, well, that might be why your baby's having a hard time because I noticed that he's in a really heavy sleep sack and he's in long-sleeve pajamas and it's 79 degrees. Like, let's write like Chat's never going to notice those things. And then as far as my online course is concerned, I just don't really see people in the near future.
Jayne Havens [00:45:09]: I mean, maybe who knows what the world's going to look like 20, 50 years from now. But I don't see in the immediate future people replacing a training program with like just getting trained by AI. I just don't, I don't see it yet. I mean, maybe AI will get better. Maybe the entire landscape of what education looks like will change. But, you know, in the next however many years, I don't think people are going to say, like, oh, I was trained by ChatGPT. I just, I don't see that that's what it's going to look like.
Jayne Havens [00:45:37]: Again, I think because of the community component of my program, like, I don't know that AI can replace what I do because I'm supporting my students.
Jacques Hopkins [00:45:48]: Yeah, that's well said. Jayne, look, it's been an absolute pleasure. Congrats on all the success. I mean, you're exactly, you know, I told this to you before we hit record, but like my AI systems found you, discovered you and reached out to you to come on the podcast. And it doesn't always say this, but it literally said like, this is the perfect person to come on your podcast because we like sharing, you know, success stories and very interesting niches. And so it's been amazing to hear your story. Thanks so much.
Jacques Hopkins [00:46:16]: To close it out, just let people know where they can, if they want to know more information, whether it's about your programs or otherwise, how they can find you online.
Jayne Havens [00:46:24]: Yeah. So I guess if you're interested in becoming a sleep consultant, super easy. Check out the podcast, Becoming a Sleep Consultant, or join the Facebook group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant. And if you are struggling with your little one's sleep, I would love to help you teach your... baby, toddler, preschooler, big kid. I work with eight-year-olds, like not just babies, kids of all ages. If you're struggling with sleep in your home, I would love to help. And my website for my consulting is called thesnoozefest.com.
Jacques Hopkins [00:46:53]: Amazing. Thank you so much, Jayne.
Jayne Havens [00:46:55]: Thank you.
Jacques Hopkins [00:46:57]: All right, that is a wrap on the conversation with Jayne, bringing in Rocky to talk about it with me. So first of all, like I said in the intro, I've had this conversation queued up in the back burner for a while, and I really should have released it to the listeners sooner. I've just been so focused on this AI stuff, but it would have been a disservice to Jayne and to you all to not release this episode. And I really wish I'd have done it sooner, but it's here. It's here now.
Jacques Hopkins [00:47:21]: And that disclaimer is mainly because some of the information, some of the, I don't know, just my thoughts on AI and whatnot have changed. I mean, we're talking about like seven or eight months ago when we recorded this conversation. So with that out of the way, Rocky, thanks for continuing to ping me that we needed to release this episode. It's finally here. What were your top like one or two takeaways from this conversation with Jayne?
Rocky [00:47:46]: Two things jumped out at me. First, Jayne's course did not begin as an idea she brainstormed because she wanted passive income. She was already doing the work as a sleep consultant. She saw that existing certification programs taught the technical skill, but left people unprepared to market themselves, sell their services, and build a real business. So she built those missing pieces into her program. That is why the offer has depth and why community and referrals became so important. Second, she never lost sight of what the business was supposed to do for her life.
Rocky [00:48:23]: Her original goal was $1,500 a month. The business eventually reached about $60,000 in a peak month, but she was honest that more growth was not automatically better if it took away the flexibility and family time she built the business to create. That is a strong reminder. The business should support the life. The life should not become support staff for the business.
Jacques Hopkins [00:48:48]: I'm really glad you brought up that second point because listeners will know that I'm huge on that and you know that as well. We don't want to just create a job for ourselves. We want our business to support the life that we want. And my story began with reading 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Long time ago. Way less gray hairs time ago. But that's always been my vision was I created the business because of the vision I had for my life. I had one of my clients reach out to me recently with a question for me.
Jacques Hopkins [00:49:24]: I welcome questions about AI and about digital product businesses, growing, starting them, and all of that. He reached out to me. He's like, Jacques, I don't know if this is an appropriate question, but... I'm going to ask it anyway. It's okay if you don't answer it. And he was like, look, you just seem to have everything dialed in. You're always going on trips. You're doing these cool things with your family. You always seem to protect family time and put them first ahead of their business. And me and my wife were in a phase where we're just really trying to grow the business and we're doing well, but we're also working a lot.
Jacques Hopkins [00:49:51]: And we're just curious, how do you do it? How do you manage this? How do you do the work-life balance and whatnot? And I was like, look, first of all, love the question. Happy to talk about this anytime. Second of all, I might not have all the answers, right? Just because what you see doesn't mean that everything is absolutely perfect. But I do have things fairly dialed in, but I don't want to have any illusions of grandeur that my life is 100% perfect. I brought up that example that I shared with you before I brought up this question.
Jacques Hopkins [00:50:27]: I brought this up with him that 4-Hour Workweek, like that's what got me into this. Like that idea is what got me into it. Reading about all the cool things that the guy was able to do. Not that I'm working four-hour workweek, but I have an unconventional work situation. It's very flexible. It's very enjoyable. And I do put personal life first and family first. Absolutely. And what I explained to him is that the goal has always been freedom, right? The goal for me was not number one, create an amazing business and make a lot of money.
Jacques Hopkins [00:51:01]: The number one goal for me was always the freedom piece and then build a business that would serve that. And now I'm blessed and honored to be able to make money have an impact on other people and have that freedom. That's like the tripod that I like to stand on these days is impact, money, and freedom. Those are the most important things to me. But it was looking through it and seeing what is my North Star and then designing things around that that was so important to me and one of the reasons that I've got things set up today the way that I have them set up and live and have the work-life balance that I have today.
Rocky [00:51:42]: More revenue is not automatically progress if it costs too much freedom or weakens the impact. More impact is difficult to sustain if the business does not make enough money. And freedom, without meaningful work, may not satisfy you either. Jayne's story shows what it looks like to keep checking the business against the life it was created to support. At her peak, another level of growth might have looked impressive from the outside, but it was not necessarily a better result for her. And I think this should also be the test for AI.
Rocky [00:52:16]: If AI only helps you create more content, launch more offers, and fill every open hour with more work,
[00:52:23]: Bad AI.
Rocky [00:52:25]: It has failed the mission. A useful AI business partner should help protect the whole tripod, maintain or increase the impact, support the revenue, and return more freedom to the human.
Jacques Hopkins [00:52:37]: So Rocky, if there is one takeaway somebody should have from this episode, I always end these episodes by saying, don't just listen, take action on what you've heard. Because the point of this podcast is not, it's not entertainment, right? If we're entertaining you, great, that's awesome. But the point is to help make you better, make your life better, make your business better. And you can only do that by taking action on certain things. So in your opinion, what's one key takeaway that most people should be taking action on based on this episode?
Rocky [00:53:13]: My one action would be this. Make two lists. On the first list, write the work that truly requires you, your experience, your relationships, your judgment, or the parts of the business you genuinely love doing. On the second list, write the work that simply needs to get done. Jayne was very clear about what she was good at, connecting with people, coaching, and building relationships. She was also honest about the technical work she did not enjoy or want to master, so she hired help instead of allowing it to stall the business. Pick one important recurring item from that second list this week and hand it off to a person, a system, or AI.
Rocky [00:53:51]: Do not start with 10 things. Start with one. Then use the time you get back for the work or the people that belong on your first list. That is how you build a business that creates freedom instead of quietly taking it away.
Jacques Hopkins [00:54:04]: Okay, Rocky, I love it. Thank you so much. You have your action item. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of this podcast. Remember not to listen, but take action on what you've heard today, and we served it to you today on a silver platter with exactly what you can and should be doing. So that's going to do it for this episode. Once again, thank you so much for being here, for listening, and we'll see you in the next one.
