Welcome to the first episode of our brand new show The Launch Lounge Podcast.
In this episode, Salome shares what’s happened since the last episode of The Shine Show and why she rebranded her business to The Launch Lounge.
When you listen, you’ll learn what you can expect from The Launch Lounge Podcast from now.
Salome spills the beans on what’s to come on topics like:
- How to use ads without wasting money
- How to build large warm audiences, fast
- How to master marketing so you can build a profitable business sooner
- How to use your business to make a bigger impact in the world
- How your business can become your Freedom Epire!
Tune in and let’s catch up like old friends!
XXX
Salome
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Episode Transcript
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:48:46
Salome Schillack
Welcome to episode number 176 of officially the Launch Lounge Podcast. We are back. And I'm so delighted to introduce you to our brand new brand, our brand new look. And we are now called the Launch Lounge Podcast. My dream, my hope is that you will leave this episode feeling incredibly excited about what you'll experience and learn, and how we're going to connect here on the Launch Lounge Podcast so that you can take your knowledge and turn it into a profitable online courses business that gives you complete freedom.
00:00:48:51 – 00:01:25:24
Salome Schillack
And today, I am going to share a little bit with you about what you've missed while we've been away and what you can expect from the Launch Lounge Podcast from here on out. And I have to confess something to you. I have been procrastinating on hitting record for this episode for the longest time. In fact, this is the third time I am recording this episode and I decided that however it comes out on this third go is.
00:01:25:25 – 00:01:56:14
Salome Schillack
This is what I'm going to share with you. And I will tell you that, in my journey of procrastination, I think there has been some fear because I haven't recorded podcasts in two years, almost two years. So there's a little bit of a fitness that goes out the door. and B, just because this is a big new thing and I want you to know that if you're doing big new things, I am with you.
00:01:56:19 – 00:02:37:58
Salome Schillack
I'm also scared. I have watched many episodes of Bridgerton, and rather than sitting down and recording this episode, I have told myself every time. “All right, just one more episode of Bridgerton and then we're going to hit record”. So here I am, and I still don't know what that Colin boy is going to do, but I'm here hitting a record. So I want to take you back a little bit in history and give you some context for where we've come from, so that if you're new to the Launch Lounge Podcast or if you're new to who I am,
00:02:38:03 – 00:02:58:52
Salome Schillack
my name is Salome Schillack and you will hear a bit about my story today, and you'll hear a bit about the Shine Show Podcast, that had its last episode in September of 2022 and why I said, we're going to take a break. What's happened since we've taken a break and what you can expect from here on out.
00:02:58:52 – 00:03:36:13
Salome Schillack
So I want to share with you that in a few days, it will be my ten year anniversary of being an entrepreneur. here in Australia, where I live, our tax years run from the 1st of July to the 30th of June every year, 30th, 31st hump day since June. Half anyway, so it's July to June. And so, I chose the first day of the new financial year, in 2022, in 2014, to start, officially start my first business.
00:03:36:13 – 00:04:20:07
Salome Schillack
So officially I'll have been an entrepreneur for ten years next week. It took me three years to figure out how to become profitable, but at the end of 2017, I quit my job and I went all in on being an ads manager for other course creators. It was after I had successfully launched my own course, and of course, a long three year journey of buying other people's courses to learn everything I needed to learn in order to build an audience, in order to know how to make an offer, in order to know how to run a webinar, in order to know how to build my list, I racked up $40,000 in debt in those
00:04:20:07 – 00:04:27:33
Salome Schillack
three years. just trying to figure out how to do this thing, but Shine and Succeed
00:04:27:33 – 00:04:55:34
Salome Schillack
was born somewhere in that process, originally as a video blog that was just designed to get me creating content and adding value to people and sharing what I was learning. And it wasn't until I quit my job at the end of 2017, and I went all in on running ads for course creators that Shine and Succeed, became an ad agency.
00:04:55:39 – 00:05:16:22
Salome Schillack
After I quit my job, and I went all in on the ad agency in 20, at the end of 2017, I experienced massive growth 2018 I had 4 team members. Covid has been or was at that point very kind to me as an ads manager.
00:05:16:22 – 00:05:26:47
Salome Schillack
We had a lot of fear going into Covid, but in hindsight, I can say that Covid was probably a really good thing that happened to my business.
00:05:26:52 – 00:05:58:01
Salome Schillack
because a lot of people suddenly, wanted ads managers and wanted to launch their courses and get their courses out and scale their businesses. So by August 2021, I had 18 clients, four team members and four student groups. and 2020, I launched my own course, A-lister that teaches new ads, manage or ads, new new course creators, how to run ads to build the list.
00:05:58:06 – 00:06:20:40
Salome Schillack
and I added The Launch Lounge Membership to that, and by by August 2021, I had four groups of students. And I remember so well. My birthday is on the 29th of August. I remember my birthday in August of 2021. My family and I had booked a little long weekend break away in Noosa. Beautiful Noosa here in Queensland.
00:06:20:43 – 00:06:41:04
Salome Schillack
One of my favorite places if you can ever get to new so please do so. It's lovely and I remember lying poolside, which for us in August is nice because it's winter down here. So to be able to lie poolside in the middle of winter and, soak up some sun is a very, very big treat for me.
00:06:41:09 – 00:07:15:41
Salome Schillack
So I was lying poolside in August 2021. And maybe you've felt this too. But you know, when you lie. I was lying poolside and I was going, “Relax, damn it, relax. Just relax”. And you use so much energy just to try to stop your brain from running crazy. And, thinking back on it now, I actually remember at that point, even at that point, starting to feel like.
00:07:15:46 – 00:07:38:15
Salome Schillack
Like my head is shouting at me, it's not just that my head isn't shutting down. It's not. My head is shouting like it is driving me crazy. And, for some of you, you might know my story, or if you don't know, then, I will tell you, a month later, September 2021, I had a panic attack.
00:07:38:19 – 00:08:04:28
Salome Schillack
It was again Sunday morning, and I was trying to “Relax, dammit. Just relax”. I was lying on the couch, trying to watch TV to relax and not think about work and resist the temptation to grab my laptop and start working on those 18 clients work. And the 4 team members I was managing at the time, but my heart started racing uncontrollably.
00:08:04:33 – 00:08:38:18
Salome Schillack
I just I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and my heart beat uncontrollably. my throat felt like it was closing, and I felt like there isn't enough oxygen on this planet for me to get enough air in. And my husband says I have to see a doctor. And the next day I did see my lovely GP, who has been on a journey with me since then, and that really kick started a journey for me.
00:08:38:23 – 00:09:19:08
Salome Schillack
I was diagnosed with ADHD, which has been something to get used to. also, you know, when you realize you're 42 years old and a lot of the ways that you thought everybody thinks that way, where everybody feels that way, where everybody has these struggles to then realize they don't, leaves you often feeling confused and angry, and all sorts of things that I went on a journey to sort out and figure out alongside my therapist, whom I love dearly and have now been working with for two years.
00:09:19:13 – 00:09:51:21
Salome Schillack
I went on anti-anxiety medication at the time and I, and then a few months later when I was diagnosed with ADHD, went on ADHD medication. I have since come off of the anti-anxiety medication and I'm glad that I did. because I do find that I can manage my anxiety with meditation, and I can manage my anxiety with discipline, knowing when to switch off, knowing when, long hours in front of the computer is going to result in an inability to switch off.
00:09:51:21 – 00:10:33:23
Salome Schillack
So there's some discipline there and a massively increasing exercise and healthy eating, of course. so in by September 2022. So now we're talking a year after this panic attack, I stopped podcasting, and I was still trying to find the right balance for me to be able to continue to manage the growth of my business, continued to manage the growth of my team, and continued to manage the growth of our membership and our courses, whilst also taking care of my mental health, taking care of my physical health.
00:10:33:28 – 00:11:27:28
Salome Schillack
and completely re learning how to be a boss or learning it, maybe learning it for the first time, completely relearning how to be available to clients without, sacrificing my boundaries. Learning how to set emotional boundaries with, people where, where certain behaviors then I used to internalize, I just drew lines in the sand, and, and I let a few clients go, at that point, I let a few clients go who, I felt we had a mismatch in how we communicate with one another, in ways that would be by my definition, respectful and kind.
00:11:27:33 – 00:11:51:25
Salome Schillack
and so I was doing a lot of things by September 22nd to just regain a bit of the control and a bit of, maybe normalcy and a bit of balance. But once things tip so far out of balance, it can be quite challenging to bring it back into balance while you're still doing all the things.
00:11:51:30 – 00:12:10:22
Salome Schillack
So I started hiring more people and, and at one point I had a team of eight, but I wasn't really able to juggle handing over to my team very well. So I was still being the face of the business. so the clients wants to meet with me. and clients were usually in different time zones for me.
00:12:10:22 – 00:12:36:59
Salome Schillack
So that means early mornings, late evenings, trying to juggle priorities so that you can fit in, you know, 18 people who want to meet with you every month, sometimes twice a month. so that became quite challenging. But being the face of the business, continued to be something that I felt was expected of me. and, and and it was hard.
00:12:37:04 – 00:13:00:04
Salome Schillack
I was maintaining three student groups at that time, and I was the main content creator. So creating content for the podcast, creating the social media content. so there was still a lot of things that I was juggling even a year after this, initial panic attack. there were a lot of other reasons I learned or a lot of other lessons I learned in there.
00:13:00:04 – 00:13:21:12
Salome Schillack
And, I know we'll unpack it right here on future episodes. so I don't want to share too much of that with you today. It's not exactly what this is about, but, I do want to tell you that since I. When I stopped the podcast in September 22nd, that was a way for me to just go.
00:13:21:12 – 00:13:50:13
Salome Schillack
I just need to do less things, and I need to do the things that are the most important, which to me at that stage was taking care of my clients and taking care of my team. And so content creation and audience building and those sorts of things kind of went a little bit out the door, at the time, which I do not regret, I'm deeply, grateful that I had the, audience that I had that I was able to continue working with my clients.
00:13:50:18 – 00:14:31:48
Salome Schillack
But where I'm at today, I only work with a handful of my absolute ideal clients. Every single person that I work for is a complete values match for me. Every person I work for their business in is in the complete, completely in the perfect place for my team and I to do our best, best work. and even if someone else's communication style is just their communication style, but their style is triggering to me, in any way.
00:14:31:53 – 00:15:00:12
Salome Schillack
Because, you know, sometimes people just say things in emails in certain ways, and I might be reading something into it. But I have learned not to put myself in a position where I, in a client, service provider relationship with people who do not understand how to communicate the way that I expect them to communicate. So today, I only work with a handful of clients in our agency.
00:15:00:17 – 00:15:17:01
Salome Schillack
I have reduced my team back to only two people. There are only two people currently working with me, and that is, Caroline and Hannah. Shout out to Caroline and Hannah, who have been working with me from the beginning and who take incredibly good care of my clients with me.
00:15:17:01 – 00:15:38:36
Salome Schillack
So I think you can hear that between September 22nd, when our last episode of The Shane Show dropped and today a really an incredibly, an incredible amount of things have changed. And and primarily I want to share with you what's new and what you can expect from The Launch Lounge from here on out.
00:15:38:36 – 00:15:42:36
Salome Schillack
So the rebrand, why did we do the rebrand?
00:15:42:36 – 00:16:07:48
Salome Schillack
Why The Launch Lounge instead of Shine and Succeed? Shine and Succeed, became well known. I know the alliteration with the S's and with my name, Salome Schillack, I'm only now seeing what a strong brand that was and and how strong we built that up to be. But I think, to be honest, I think there's an ADHD thing in there.
00:16:07:48 – 00:16:35:35
Salome Schillack
I needed something new. I wanted the name to represent something that my ideal customers can relate to. I felt Shine and Succeed was a very broad, very wide kind of life-coachy, which is what I was at the time when I started, when I came up with Shine and Succeed. But I wanted something more specific. The launch lounge to me represent a safe place where you can come to learn.
00:16:35:40 – 00:17:02:17
Salome Schillack
It's a place where you finally can master the marketing skills that you need to launch your business. It. To me, it represents a cozy room, a cozy room on the internet that can often feel really competitive and can often feel, unsafe when you're starting out. And all you see is people success and you don't hear about the struggles.
00:17:02:22 – 00:17:25:53
Salome Schillack
My desire is really to create something in The Launch Lounge that is safe and cozy, and where you can come and hang out, when you're on your way to the next phase of your business. And this business is a business that you built around something that you have to share with the world, a message, knowledge, specialist skill, and experience.
00:17:25:53 – 00:17:54:44
Salome Schillack
Whatever it is that you build your business around that comes out of your brain. it's such a privilege and such a unique opportunity that we have to build businesses from basically from our imagination and any skill or any experience that we have that we can help someone else with. We can turn into a profitable business. And that is a ginormous privilege.
00:17:54:44 – 00:18:13:26
Salome Schillack
And I just think we're so lucky to live in this time where we have access to these tools that we carry around in our pockets, that connects us with people all over the world, and that we can use to build businesses.
00:18:13:26 – 00:18:23:02
Salome Schillack
As I share more as we go along, and I create more episodes for you here on The Launch Lounge Podcast, I'll share more lessons
00:18:23:02 – 00:18:43:56
Salome Schillack
I learned about completely overhauling a brand, that already had some traction. And and I certainly made a lot of mistakes along the way. that I will share with you in other episodes as well. But I also want to say I love the new branding. I love the new website. I love everything about The Launch Lounge. I love the new look.
00:18:44:00 – 00:18:48:22
Salome Schillack
I love the feel. I love that it matches where the business is today
00:18:48:22 – 00:18:56:33
Salome Schillack
and that it is so much more than it was when I created Shine and Succeed back in 2014.
00:18:56:33 – 00:19:10:57
Salome Schillack
So what is going to come up right here in The Launch Lounge Podcast in the future. What can you expect. What are you going to learn? First and foremost, I want you to know that The Launch Lounge is a Membership.
00:19:10:57 – 00:19:41:48
Salome Schillack
It is a Membership that I created in 2020, after I took my first group of students through the first round of my ads course. I launched A-Lister in March 2020 when the whole world was shutting down and I managed to get the greatest group of online course creators into that group. And then after our, I think it was six weeks or eight weeks of support ended, we all wanted more.
00:19:41:53 – 00:20:12:55
Salome Schillack
And so The Launch Lounge as a membership was born. I had an amazing time coaching these students, and it just really lights me up. Seeing any student implement what I teach and seeing literally watching their lives change in the course of a few months as they learn to master some basic marketing principles that nobody ever covers. In the 7000 courses we have to buy just to get our businesses off the ground.
00:20:13:00 – 00:20:51:32
Salome Schillack
The Launch Lounge is that resource. It's the resource I wished I had back in 2020. back in 2014 when I started and when I hopped from one course to the next, to the next, to the next, each one making incredible promises for results with step by step processes and, all the good stuff in there. But each course I bought only gave me one piece of the puzzle, and I kept feeling like, can somebody just give me the box?
00:20:51:36 – 00:21:37:32
Salome Schillack
Can someone just show me the picture that's on the box of this puzzle? Because I keep buying puzzle pieces and every puzzle piece is great and it teaches me something new. But I never understand how these things fit together. I can never understand what the big picture is. and I can never understand what the principles are behind these step by step, you know, paint by numbers implementation plans and so that I can become independent so that I can become an educator and empowered marketer who can see why something's worked and why other things didn't work, and can see that when I implement certain strategies that it's going to work for me, just like
00:21:37:32 – 00:22:04:50
Salome Schillack
it did for other people, or it's not going to work for me because of certain reasons. And I can see those things. This podcast, The Launch Lounge Podcast, is that for you. This is where I share with you all the lessons that I have learned, lessons in how I have to change my own thinking so that I focus on my wins more than my losses.
00:22:04:50 – 00:22:46:05
Salome Schillack
Lessons on how I get up after losses and how I have built the resilience I needed to be in this business for ten years. Lessons I learned from my clients, from seeing the best of the best. Implement launches that make millions of dollars and create headlines in our industry, and lessons from what I see small, quiet brands do that we never see or hear about, but how they consistently do the right thing and quietly succeed in a place you'll never hear about them because they're not doing it for the recognition.
00:22:46:10 – 00:23:19:16
Salome Schillack
Yes, there will be ads. We will talk about Facebook and Instagram ads. Most of you have let me know that this is what you want, because this is why you came here in the first place. So I will be talking about ads and you will be learning exactly how to use ads. The right way to skyrocket your results, and never, ever waste money on ads or donate your hard earned cash to Mr. Zuckerberg ever again.
00:23:19:21 – 00:23:54:11
Salome Schillack
But know that I will never tell you that Ads is going to make you money unless I also share with you the marketing principles that underlie successful ad campaigns. Because an ad by itself is just a firehose, and your ad is always going to amplify the funnel that it drives traffic to. So if you have winning, marketing your ad will make you more money because it's going to amplify your winning marketing.
00:23:54:16 – 00:24:23:21
Salome Schillack
But if your marketing isn't there yet, that's what your ads are going to amplify. It's going to amplify that you're not there yet. And I want to help you see why, and I want to help you see how to fix it. So I hope you'll tune in regularly. Maybe one day you'll join us inside The Launch Lounge Membership, which I'm going to tell you more about in later episodes.
00:24:23:26 – 00:24:47:08
Salome Schillack
But I do want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here with me. It is not lost on me that you can be anywhere else doing anything else right now, and you're choosing to listen to me. So thank you. And for the next month, I'm going to be here every weekday and after that I'll be releasing episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
00:24:47:13 – 00:25:19:12
Salome Schillack
Tomorrow we're going to talk about why ads are cool and marketing is even cooler. And I'll share with you the key difference between ad campaigns that leaves you feeling like you're playing. Relate with your money and ad campaigns that leaves you with an audience full of hot leads and a profitable launch. Please subscribe to the show and share it with a friend who is also on a journey to build a business that will give them more freedom.
00:25:19:17 – 00:25:50:07
Salome Schillack
When you subscribe and you share the show, we get to impact more people and help more people build better online courses so that in the end, the world benefits when we're all making an impact together. Thank you so much for joining me for this first episode of The Launch Lounge Podcast. I appreciate you being here, and I can't wait to go on this journey with you again.
