Why I said no to everything this year
Interview with Julia Jones
Founding director and lead educator, Julia Jones, steps into the spotlight as the guest of her own podcast! This special episode is hosted by Dusk Liney, a Newborn Mothers educator, who invites Julia to reflect on a year filled with transformation and resilience. Together, they explore how the economic downturn shifted Julia's business goals and sparked some fresh insights. Step behind the scenes as we reflect on 2024 and learn how Julia recalibrated business timelines and strategies to navigate unexpected hurdles. At the heart of this discussion lies Julia’s commitment to creating a sustainable business that prioritizes rest, generosity, and community care.
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About Julia
Julia is the founding director and lead educator at Newborn Mothers, a global postpartum education business. She has worked in postpartum care for fifteen years, trained thousands of postpartum professionals worldwide and written a bestselling book called Newborn Mothers: When a Baby is Born, So is a Mother.
Reach out to Julia here: https://newbornmothers.com/
We explore the following questions:
How do you feel reflecting on your business over the past year?
What challenges did you face during the economic downturn, and how did they impact your business?
How did you use data to guide decisions during difficult times?
What strategies did you implement to adjust to the financial challenges faced by your students and business?
Why did you decide to offer partial scholarships instead of full-fee scholarships, and how has this change been beneficial?
How do you balance ambition and maintaining a joyful, calm life?
What lessons have you learned from scaling back and finding ease in your business?
How do you recognize the signs of burnout or "brownout," and how do you respond to them?
What are the long-term goals for your business, and how do you stay anchored to them during challenging times?
How has the economic downturn reshaped your priorities, both personally and professionally?
What advice do you have for women navigating both entrepreneurship and personal challenges?
How can women lead their businesses authentically while maintaining balance and avoiding burnout?
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Transcript
Dusk Liney:
Hi everyone and welcome to the Newborn Mothers podcast. My name is Dusk. My pronouns are she/her, and I am guest interviewing Julia today. Welcome, Julia.
Julia Jones:
We did this a year ago, and I was really nervous last time, but I'm not this time, so that's good.
Dusk Liney:
How are you feeling as you have the spotlight turned onto you and we look at your business over the last year?
Julia Jones:
Oh, it's funny because I'm actually having a really great week. I took last week off work and walked the Cape to Cape Track with my daughter, which is 135 kilometres along the coast of Margaret River, and now I'm back at my desk feeling so great. So I'm up for anything.
Dusk Liney:
Well, it has been a massive year, so let's start with where you were this time last year in Newborn Mothers.
Julia Jones:
Last time we did this interview, my business in the world was in such a different place. I should have listened to the podcast to remember, but I think probably at that time, what we talked about was the next steps to my business being turning the course into a diploma, which is still a goal, but we've had to change a lot of timelines due to the current economic situation. And that's been a really hard year. But I think now that I've come to peace with that, I feel pretty fine about it. I've always been someone who's chosen the path of ease and least resistance. I'm not like a hustle, push-harder kind of business owner. So it's obviously disappointing when you kind of have to change your plans, but also once my plans and goals are aligned with what's possible and where the economy's at and where my energy level's at and all of that kind of thing, where my budget's at, it feels ease-ful again. So it is been a big year of ups and downs, but I'm in a good place again.
Dusk Liney:
Amazing. Well, we'll get to the ups, but maybe start with when things started going downhill.
Julia Jones:
It happened really suddenly I think, and probably a lot of families have experienced this year and definitely a lot of business owners have experienced this year. So being 2024, the end of 2023 was great. We had a great year financially, no real changes and even though interest rates were going up and inflation was a problem, it hadn't really impacted my bottom line personally or in my business. And I think still a lot of people were feeling like that then. And then I feel like when it really hit Australia, and maybe our timelines have been a little bit different to other countries. I know WA has been a little bit later, even than the rest of Australia, for the impact of this to really be felt, but our February launch was low, and it's just been downhill ever since. I mean, it's really challenging as a business owner, but I know this is happening across the board to hairdressers, to hospitality businesses…
Julia Jones:
I mean anything that's an optional spend right now, families are delaying and that includes study. And sadly, women following their dreams is often one of the first things to leave the family budget when money is a little bit tight, particularly because of the lack of belief that it's going to be financially worth it. So people, when they're really counting their pennies, are just thinking, do I need to spend this right now? Can I delay it? Is it going to bring an income immediately? So it's been a tough year. There's been a lot of people who are like, I'd love to do this, but now it's not the time. So that changed very quickly around, well, probably like February, March onwards. And we've changed a few things about the business. We've increased and improved our marketing strategies. We've also added longer payment plans and set up a few other things that have made it a little bit more accessible during this financially difficult moment. And that's improved things a little bit, but still, there's only so much you can do if people don't have the money right now, they don't have the money right now. And so coming to a place of accepting that by the end of the year has been nice.
Dusk Liney:
What really strikes me with this is that you didn't go “well, I'm doing something wrong. What I've built people don't like.” So often I think when we have a financial downturn in business, we immediately kind of turn inwards and blame ourselves for that. But what I noticed with you was you researched what was happening economically across the world. You made all those changes to improve things that you could change, and it was a very external process for you. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Julia Jones:
I talk about this all the time. I was just talking to my students about pricing and I was saying pricing is actually really easy. It's just a maths equation. Anyone can do it. What is hard is the emotions, and absolutely I've had self-doubt and sleepless nights, and it's been a difficult year. However, every time I get really emotional or overwhelmed or just caught up in that energy, I always come back to the data. So I've got so many spreadsheets this year. I'm not even a spreadsheet person, but I've been just absolutely diving into the numbers. And what I can easily see is the moment the money left, the room and the conversion rates were down, we were getting the same number interested in our course, but they were unable to buy.
Julia Jones:
And then I would look at other people's businesses, and I started checking in with business owners that I know and they're all saying the same thing. And it was exactly the same. They were like, the end of last year was feeling all right, and then the beginning of this year it just crashed. It wasn't a slow change for a lot of businesses. The taps turned off. And so, knowing that, I could see that happening in my business. It helps that I've got a lot of experience. I've been selling this course for probably just over 10 years now. So it helps that I've got a lot of data to go like, okay, people do like it, thousands of people have bought it. So when they stop buying it, I'm not going to take it as personally because I've already got that evidence. But also then talking to other businesses and going, okay, it's not just me. I'm not doing anything wrong. I think I'm just such a big believer in looking at the data. I talk about it all the time, look at the numbers, look at the numbers, don't get too caught up in the emotions.
Dusk Liney:
So when you say look at the data, what do you mean?
Julia Jones:
So it is different for every business, but in my business, it's conversion rates. How many people have looked at my sales page, how many people have joined my email list? And then compared to how many people have bought my product, how long it takes 'em to buy my product, whether they've chosen a payment plan or whether they can afford to pay upfront. And so when you start to look at those numbers, then it starts to tell a little bit of a story that you can understand what's happening.
Dusk Liney:
So then when you had looked at the data, you could begin to understand that story. What were some of the decisions that you needed to make in response?
Julia Jones:
Well, we had to cut our budget massively. That was probably one of the most difficult and disappointing things, was having to really just look at every dollar that we spend in the business and thinking, do I need to spend this? Could I not spend this? Could I spend less? We've gone through every subscription, our insurance, our staffing, every aspect of the business has been really, really shaved as much as it can be, which is always hard because it means it's harder to do our jobs. The team's changing. There's been so many things we've had to change. But then the other thing is then you also, so you're looking at cutting your costs, but you're also looking at how can I increase my revenue? How can I meet my students where they're at?
The main change for that has been extended payment plans. I'm generally not a huge fan of extended payment plans. They are a lot of work, a lot of people default on them. It's a lot of energy chasing money, which I really don't like. However, at this moment in time, that's what people need. They need extended payment plans. So again, we've had to set up not only the extended payment plans, but we've also had to set up the admin processes to be able to actually, what do we do when someone defaults? How many times do we check in with them?
So all of that stuff's been weekly work, but it's been required because I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but the vast majority of my students are not choosing to pay upfront right now, which usually they do until last year, I think it was something like 60% would pay upfront. The rest of them want a three-month payment plan. And now the majority of our students are on 12 month payment plans, which is really hard for cashflow, a lot of admin and accounting and just lots of work, but it means that people can still do the course. It's probably the two big changes we've had to make.
Dusk Liney:
And you also brought in a new way of doing scholarships. Do you want to speak to that a little bit?
Julia Jones:
I've always given scholarships in my business since I've been online, so for 10 years or more. But we took a little break from doing scholarships last year only because we were, scholarships take a lot of time, and I don't think people always realise that, but the time it takes to decide how are you going to do it fairly and what are you going to prioritise and what's the purpose of it and what can you afford to offer and that kind of thing. So last year, we gave it a break because we were working on building the new course and we just didn't have a lot of capacity in the team to address it. So we sort of paused it for a minute. And then, when we reopened the scholarships this year, which I was really keen to do, partly took a little break from scholarships, but also partly because I could just see the need was so great.
Julia Jones:
I mean, we are getting weekly emails from people asking for scholarships. So I was like, all right, we've got to get back onto this and figure it out. And the main change we've made is offering a range of partial scholarships. So we don't offer any full-fee scholarships, which we used to do, but that, again, makes it a little bit more sustainable for the business. But it also means that the person getting the scholarship has a little bit of skin in the game. They're a bit more committed because they have committed some money to enrol, and it's made it more accessible to people who live in countries where the exchange rate is not great for Australia. So it means we've been able to get people to join from continents like Africa where the exchange rate would just be so prohibitive otherwise.
We didn't want our scholarship rounds to be the trauma Olympics where people are just talking about “I've had this challenge and life's so hard,” but we wanted to really focus on a sort of strengths-based and diversity approach. So we identified what kind of demographics are missing from the doula industry and making sure that we're offering spots to people who are neurodivergent and to people who are queer and people who are black and so on, so that we can make sure that the scholarships are really making sure that the industry is more well-rounded, and we know that when we have more diverse voices in our industry, it will make us all stronger. We'll all be better doulas for that.
It has been really a win-win process, and I've really loved that. I think we've given away, off the top of my head, I think it's probably 60 or even 70 scholarships this year, which has been a real joy. And some of those students have just been such a delight to work with as well. So yeah, such a pleasure for everyone involved.
Dusk Liney:
I think it's such a good example of meeting the challenge of the economic downturn but looking at how can we find solutions that serve the business but also serve the community? And the partial scholarships are such a great example of that.
Julia Jones:
It's been such a great shift because I used to have a lot more cash flow in my business, and I used to just be able to donate a lot to charity, and give a lot of free spots away, but this feels so much more sustainable and win-win to be able to have students who are contributing what they can, but also to have some revenue for the business and be really making contribution to the industry, not only to the individual, but to be really thinking about it from a bigger perspective as well. So it's been a really, really great change and process. And it's probably been one of the biggest things I'm proud of for the year, actually. I'm glad you brought it up.
Dusk Liney:
I'm conscious too that in amongst finding those pockets of growth within the challenge, one of the biggest shifts was having to accept that your growth trajectory was going to stall for a little bit.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, it is sad because I probably mentioned this on the last podcast, but I have this little note on my desk that I wanted to earn a million dollars of business revenue in one year by the time I turned 40. And I'm 41. That's not happening anytime soon. And I know there'd probably be people listening to this at home who are business coaches, they're probably going to email me now and “you just need to join my mastermind.” No. That’s not what this is about, but I'll absolutely meet my revenue goals. But I'll also meet my bigger industry goals as well of creating the diploma. We want to set up a professional association, and ultimately the ten-year plan is to have public funding for postpartum care. Those things are all still very present dreams. When I'm thinking about my business and what my next steps are, I always have that as my anchor.
But having to know that's not going to happen this year because all of those things would cost tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours to do, and I just don't have the revenue or the capacity in my team to be able to start big projects like that right now. It's been very disappointing, but also I think once I've accepted that and just gone, oh, well, let's try again in 2026, then that feels fine.
And honestly, it's the story of my business, because I started my business just before my first baby was born. Actually, I've had three children in that time and I've taken six months off to go travelling. My business has always had to fit around my life, and it's never been a push hard at all costs kind of a business plan. However, that doesn't mean that I can't have these million dollar revenue goals and these change the world kind of goals as well. It just means that you have to be a little bit more patient about it.
Dusk Liney:
Yes. Did it take long to step into that acceptance? Was there a wrestle there or do you feel like having been in business for so long, you can see a bigger picture?
Julia Jones:
Definitely took a few months. I mean, I'd say from about March, what are we, November, March? I'd say there was probably five months. That was definitely three months for ticking my brain over constantly staying up at night, going, is it me? What could I change? Who can I talk to? What can I do? You don't want these things to happen, but it's happening to everyone in the world right now. So I think it did take me still a few months to get to that point of grace and just going, okay, this is what it is, and it's out of my control. But it definitely wasn't easy. If you'd been interviewing me a few months ago, I probably would've said, no, let's not do a podcast right now. I generally in my business try to talk about things that I've learned retrospectively, and when I'm talking, it doesn't mean that I don't talk about it at the time, but I'll talk about it with people who are kind of mentors or can guide me. But when I'm talking more publicly or with my students, I generally talk about it after I've learned the lesson. So here we are.
Dusk Liney:
So then, what would you say the lessons are that you've learned this year?
Julia Jones:
Well, the interesting thing is I've got a much more lean and efficient business model now, and much more clarity around how much I need to spend to get my revenue to where I want it to be in the future. And I know that's actually one of the benefits of economic downturn, and this is probably happening in a lot of household budgets right now too, that you realise, oh, I had five streaming subscriptions. I really didn't need many. So you can cut that back and you realise, I don't even miss it. That's like a hundred dollars a month that I really just was forgetful about because we've had a little bit of cream, then you get a little bit wasteful. So I think it's really one of the important lessons of an economic downturn for everyone is just to build in a little bit more care and thoughtfulness and efficiency into how we do things. So that's been a big lesson.
Julia Jones:
And another one has been, I've always had really strong boundaries around my working hours. I love to travel. It's a huge priority for me, and I've got three kids, and I volunteer a lot as well in my community. So my work just cannot take up a lot of my time. And so I've never really worked more than 20 hours a week in my business until last year when I was making the course, because we had this big goal, we had this big team. And so for that year, I probably was working full time and it was so burnt out, it was so hard for me. And I think it's probably hard for nearly all mothers to work full time. I mean, there's very few people, unless you have a lot of support who can do that because there's just still so many responsibilities at home. But what's been a real blessing of a downturn is actually it's invited me to work less again, because I'm like, well, why am I working all these hours? No one's buying my stuff. If my business isn't earning heaps of revenue, instead of spinning the wheels and not getting anywhere, why not just go back to working five or 10 hours a week? And that's been a great joy.
Dusk Liney:
That's amazing. And I think that speaks to a question I asked you last year, which I'll ask again is how do you hold that tension between ambition and the life of calm and joy that you want to live?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, because I still plan to have a diploma and all of this big plan to end up with public funding for postnatal care, but I still never want to work more than 10 or 20 hours a week. I think it's really about that efficiency. And that's kind of the good thing about the economic downturn is now I realise, oh, you can actually get quite a lot of done in 10 hours a week if you're just like, you just realise how much time you spend when you're burnt out of not actually getting anything done. You're just staring at the computer and you realise you've been sitting there for half an hour and you keep procrastinating. It's just a fake idea about productivity from the industrial age, the idea that you turn up at nine and you finish at five. You're not a robot. What really happens is your productivity comes in sparks, and you might be walking on the beach and you have the most important idea of your life. So it is kind of just realising that you can do a lot in 10 hours a week if you are really much more focused and you have better boundaries and all of that kind of thing. I still plan to do all of this, and I still plan to only ever work part-time.
Dusk Liney:
Love it so much. And I like what you've said about burnout, because so often when we're in it, we just keep going. But how did you recognise that you needed to slow down and that actually tend to that part of you that had worked so hard for the last year?
Julia Jones:
And I will clarify, I wasn't really fully burnt out. You have a word for it, don't you?
Dusk Liney:
Brownout is a word for it.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I definitely got it early. So full disclosure, I wasn't full in bed burnt out, but I definitely noticed those early warning symptoms that I was having a bit of trouble sleeping. I didn't have a lot of energy for socialising. I just wasn't finding a lot of joy in things. Things just felt hard. So once I started noticing those kind of early warning signs, I always knew that when I created that course I was going to have a big year. And I always knew that at the end of it, I wanted to deliberately close that stage off in my business. But then because it was followed by this time of economic uncertainty, it made it very hard to draw that line and go, alright, now we are moving back to a slower pace.
So that was really a tough sort of thing that happened, but that's life. There's always something that's going to come along and ruin your plans. I think then actually it was the mindset shift of switching that economic uncertainty to being an invitation to work less rather than, I have to push harder, I have to try more. I've got to hustle, hustle, hustle instead. Seeing that as the opposite, as an opportunity to go, you know what, if you're not earning much money, why don't you just stop working many hours? And that was the real change, I think.
Dusk Liney:
And how do you feel having made that change in your body?
Julia Jones:
Oh, like a different person. It's been a few months now, but at the beginning we went to Uluru for the school holidays and that was a really beautiful time. And when I got back from that and I got back to my desk, I had that feeling of like, oh, I don't want to be at work. And I never feel that in my business. I love my work. And that was again, a real sign that something's going to have to change. So I basically just said no. I had a few projects planned for this term, and I just said, no date on that. We'll come back to that when we are ready. We had a few invitations from people to do summits and participate in things, collaborate on things, and I just got my assistant to say just no to everything. I was like, I don't even want to see it. The answer's no. And so that was really healing to just go like, no, nothing at all.
So now we're kind of getting prepared for our February class and we are doing a little bit of content work, writing some nice blog posts and recording some podcasts. But ease is the priority right now. Nothing new, nothing big, nothing with a huge deadline. And that's been really great.
Dusk Liney:
It sounds like the ease that you've been longing for, you've finally been able to allow yourself to soften into.
Julia Jones:
I think so. And it's hard to have that busy year that I did want to intentionally close off, but then that ran into some economic times when I had to make some really big and hard decisions and changes. And that took quite a while for that, just to go through all of that. But it feels good to be on the other side.
Dusk Liney:
Amazing. And as you look ahead to next year, what do you hope that it holds for you and the business?
Julia Jones:
Look, I mean, I don't have that high hopes. I mean, I think it'll be another fairly low revenue year, but I've got sort of a smaller team and smaller expenses and just hope it just keeps ticking along at 10 hours a week of enjoyable work until I've got the energy and the stars aligned for the next big goal.
Dusk Liney:
And what does it look like outside of those 10 hours?
Julia Jones:
We're hoping to do some more travel next year. I've still got a lot of volunteering that I do in my local community. My husband's just taken on a new job, so that's going to be interesting. I've been the breadwinner for the last few years, and then he's just been offered his absolute dream job. So he's going to be travelling more for work and doing a few extra hours. So I'll be stepping into the home a little bit more, which I'm actually really happy about. It's always just nice to change things up. So that's my plan.
Dusk Liney:
Sounds very beautiful. So coming back to this year, I think as a way to close, I'd like to ask, what are you most proud of, and what are you most thankful for in your business?
Julia Jones:
I'm just really thankful for my team, and I would include you in that, Dusk, as well. But I just work with such beautiful people, my students as well. It's always a joy. I had a couple of calls with students yesterday and I'm so lucky to have a job that I love so much, and this is why I advocate so much for women starting businesses as well, because I really, really love my work and people are surprised when I say that because so many people don't love their job. But I love my team and I love the people I get to spend every day with.
And what am I proud of? I mean, I did say the scholarships, but I think actually what I'm the most proud of is just being able to make some really hard decisions this year. But I feel like now that I'm through it, I know that I've made the right decisions because, like you were saying, how do I feel in my body? It feels really good. I feel like I'm in the right place.
So no one would choose this year. Everyone's struggling financially this year. Everyone's got so much housing uncertainty and grocery prices. It's just everything. And I really feel so much for families all over the world at the moment. But at the same time, I think the more we can do to just look for that ease and joy in our daily lives. I mean, that's kind of what keeps the wheels turning. So yeah, just focusing on those little things.
Dusk Liney:
Incredible. And I've been really honoured to watch you in the thick of those challenges and come to this place where you are fully at ease and feeling joy in your every day. And I think it's such a testament to what's possible when women lead their businesses in a way that's authentic to who we are.
Julia Jones:
And thank you for being part of that, Dusk.
Dusk Liney:
It was an absolute joy to be part of it. Well, thank you so much for reflecting on your year. Is there anything else that you want to add?
Julia Jones:
I think the one more thing that I'll say is I listened to a really great Leonie Dawson. I've heard her tell this story a few times on different podcasts and webinars and things. But one thing she says, and I really hold this closely, is she said she often thinks of her grandmothers and what they've been through. And whenever we are going through something hard in our lives, that's something that I really hold onto. I'm like, yes, groceries are expensive. Yes, my mortgage is really expensive. Yes, things are tight, and sometimes I'm juggling so many things, but then I think of what my grandma has been through and how strong women are, and I think, you know what? I'm going to be all right. We can do this. So I really love that gift from Leonie to think of that as a part of the bigger ancestral lineage of strong women.
Dusk Liney:
Amazing. Thank you. That's such a beautiful thing for us to hold onto as we go from here. Thank you so much for sharing so openly and honestly, and I hope that people really take away encouragement from how honestly you've shared today. So thank you.
Julia Jones:
And thank you for interviewing me, Dusk.
Dusk Liney:
Love it. Anytime.
Julia Jones:
Awesome. Bye.
